Anime
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Although anime isn't one of his most notable enthusiasms, Chris still enjoys those big-eyed cartoons from Japan. He's watched a lot of anime, bought plenty of anime through the PlayStation Network, and swiped as many ideas as he can get his head around from his favorite anime series.
Chris and anime
It's not clear when Chris first discovered Japanese cartoons, although it's safe to guess that Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z were the seeds. He was a serious Pokemon enthusiast by the late '90s, and by 2004 he had enough interest in anime generally to attend the Anime Mid-Atlantic convention in Richmond, Virginia.
Chris doesn't appear to be into anime as much as people think he is, though, even if he often gets slapped with the "weeaboo" tag. He returned to Anime Mid-Atlantic in 2005, but hasn't been back to a convention since then. In his posts on the Adult Swim forums, he didn't have much to say about the Japanese imports on the Adult Swim schedule, except to note that he didn't like the cartoonish male nudity in Crayon Shin-chan (big shock there) and he wanted to see more anime featuring "very-close-to-nude girls" (even bigger shock).
Chris still rips off characters and story concepts from anime left and right, however, and he still watches some newer anime series. His PSN account shows that he downloaded the entire "harem" comedy-drama Shuffle! in 2009; given that it stars a hapless twit who finds himself surrounded by willing women for no very good reason, Chris probably loved it. He also downloaded all of Gunslinger Girl in early 2010, doing plenty to undermine his contention that he isn't a pedofork.
Anime and Sonichu
Although Chris was interested in anime before he began drawing his Sonichu comics, he didn't start giving the characters in his comic an obviously anime-inspired look until the fifth issue of the series, which he completed in the spring of 2006. This was almost certainly the result of Megan Schroeder's influence — she was a big fan of Sailor Moon and other popular Japanese cartoons, and Chris was pursuing her especially fervently at the time. Practically speaking, this shift in style involved giving his characters huge, prismatic, saucer-like eyes, which make them look more stoned than animu, or "upside-down U" eyes.
Needless to say, despite the radical artwork style change in his comics, Chris still was cockblocked.
Since his relationship with Megan deteriorated (eventually blowing up in his face), anime hasn't been so obvious an influence on Chris’s artwork. He still goes overboard with the giant saucer eyes from time to time, though.
Anime Chris has ripped off
Like every other form of entertainment he enjoys, Chris views anime as a rich source of ideas that he can swipe and integrate into his own "original" works. These are some of the shows he’s abused.
- Cutey Honey
- Dragon Ball Z
- Excel Saga
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
- Inuyasha
- Fist of the North Star (indirectly)
- Macross Frontier (indirectly, and unknowingly)
- Naruto
- Pokémon
- Pretty Cure
- Sailor Moon
- Samurai Pizza Cats (name only)
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (indirectly)
- Urotsukidoji
- Yu-Gi-Oh
- YuYu Hakusho (Chris uses the protagonist's attack Reigan, calling it "Zap Cannon", in Issue 10)
End of Evangelion
Ivy got Chris to see End of Evangelion as inspiration for finishing the comic.[1]
Chris's summary: A generic tale of a boy's struggle for acceptance...a lot like him.
Chris thought he saw: Symbolism (IN MY EVA?), but he's too stupid to see what it symbolized.
Chris's favorite parts:
- The Misato and Kaji sex scene (where you saw only feet), because it made him feel that he was a big boy and that he was watching a no-kids cartoon.
- The Rei Angels that were kawaii and had boobs.
- The internal struggles of Shinji.
Chris didn't like:
- Everyone turns to orange tang juice
- Rei Angels getting turned on by stabbing themselves.
- The unhappy ending.
- Asuka freaking out (I don't wanna die).