October
edition
By Eric Edvalson
I enjoy watching anime, especially slice-of-life, comedy, and romance series. One thing I really appreciate about anime and manga is the attention to detail the creators give to objects, brands, and locations. It is common for a series to be set in a real world location rather than a fictional one, and popular franchises are even clearly represented, often through parodized branding. For a great example of this, see Hazel’s video essay ‘Ranking Anime Denny’s’.
<< A personal favorite reference to the golden arches is “MacrossNalds” from the 80s mecha space opera romance Macross.
It is an interesting contrast to most of Western media. The way many Western shows handle these things is often fictional; there are cities that don’t exist in the real world (you can visit the filming location of Twin Peaks, but the town of Twin Peaks, WA doesn’t literally exist) and objects and brands are wholesale parodies of their reference (think of the PearPhone from iCarly playing off of Apple’s iPhone).
I don’t dislike how Western shows handle this stuff. Nickelodeon’s mid-90s cult classic The Adventures of Pete & Pete with its ‘Krebstar’ branded paraphernalia peppered throughout comes to mind. That said, I just love that most of the anime I watch models objects directly from real world items. In fact, the concept of this essay comes in part from a defunct Tumblr account Anime Consumerism - a Tumblr account which compares screenshots of products in various anime with the actual thing it is based on. Among these posts you will find headphones, speakers, cellphones, but of greatest interest to me is the cameras.
Photography has been one of my longstanding hobbies and part of that is an obsession with cameras. So without further adieu, I want to share with you some cameras in anime! I am definitely leaving out a ton, but these are just some that I’m personally interested in!
Fooly Cooly is a cult classic. It is strange and chaotic, and the original series is only a few episodes and even if you don’t like anime I suggest you check it out. In the series, Mamimi can be seen using both an Olympus OM-2 35mm SLR as well as an Olympus XA2 compact camera in a rare ‘urban white’ colorway (which is really more of a light grey).
FLCL aka Fooly Cooly (2000) - Olympus OM-2 and XA2
Eureka Seven (2005) - Nikon F3
If you are a fan of mecha anime. Eureka Seven mashes together giant robots, romance, rebellion, and a futuristic version of surfing/surf culture called ‘lifting’. A member of the rebel group Gekko State, the character Stoner photographs his compatriots with a camera that is clearly modeled on a Nikon F3. The F3 was a very popular camera among working press photographers in the 1980s
Lovely Complex (2007) - Contax TVS Digital
I’ll admit that I haven’t watched this full series and have mostly seen it as 60 sec excerpts on TikTok (iykyk) but I do plan to give this romcom an actual watch soon; the story centers on tall girl+short guy pair Risa and Otani (respectively). Risa can be seen using a Contax TVS Digital, a premium point and shoot camera related to the 35mm film T2 and TVS. The Contax T2 has been a bit of a hyped film camera among celebrities in recent years, but its digital cousin that Risa uses is a little cooler I think.
K-On! (2009) - Lomo LC-A
This is an adorable slice-of-life about four high school girls joining the ‘light music club’ and starting a band. It is one of my all time favorite series and if you need to watch something where nothing bad happens, then you will really enjoy the overall pleasantness. The bassist of the group, Mio, is sometimes seen capturing memories using a Lomo LC-A. The LC-A was a Soviet era clone of a different camera, the Cosina CX-2. The LC-A was popularized in the 90s and 00s by some Austrian college students and gave birth to the Lomography movement/company.
Tamayura (2010) - Rollei 35 S
Another tender slice-of-life, Tamayura is specifically photography focused (hehe). The lead character, Fu aka Potte, inherits a Rollei 35S from her late father and begins using it to capture the light she calls ‘tamayura’. The Rollei was one of the most compact 35mm cameras in its day, and in 2024 the Mint Camera company developed and released a new version, the Rollei 35AF.
A Silent Voice (2016) - Nikon D3300
If you haven’t seen this, this is a devastating and important film. It is beautifully animated and a must watch. The film deals with disability, bullying, depression, suicide, and friendship. The protective and tomboyish younger sister of the main character, Yuzuru, uses a Nikon D3300 throughout the film.
A Chit-Chat With Madeline Rupard
by Grace White
It seems only fitting that my interview with painter Madeline Rupard happened while she was stuck in traffic on a tuesday.
Madeline’s abstract comics have been a highlight of my inbox all year long. The way she brings a sense of poignancy to mundane suburbia’s day-to-day life really resonates with my personal practice and my soul in general. The comics are scrawled with handwritten poetry that meditate on light, life, and every cloud in-between. She also has tasted fame via her collaborative instagram with friend Anne Hart where they post dreamy 80’s/90’s malls. One of those accounts where even if you’re not following it, you’ve definitely seen one of their posts.
Rupard is on the precipice of releasing an artbook of these works with slowworm press. Pre-orders are closed, but follow them on instagram to hear when the books are available!
https://www.instagram.com/slowwormpress/
For our quick chat, we talked about 80’s malls, the ocean and crying over Stan Brakhage.
Grace: What's a hobby or interest you haven't yet invested the time to pursue but have always wanted to learn about?
Madeline: Totally anything water related. I would really, really love to have time and money to get scuba diving certified. I mean, being underwater and being in that kind of blue light is so beautiful and cool.
I love going to the aquarium, but that's because that's the extent to which I can invest in the underwater world. So I mean, I think if I were in another lifetime, I would have loved to work with the ocean in some way.
Whenever I go to a seaside town, I'm like, man, this is my other life.
Grace: Totally. I feel like it actually makes a lot of sense with your visuals too, the same kind of essence.
Madeline: Color
Grace: Fluidity
Madeline: Fluidity. Yeah.
selection from "Car Wash after Barthes"
G: So tell me about you and your friend doing the mall account together. Do the images kind of just come across your feed and you pull them out? Or do you go searching. And it sounds a little bit too, that you're less focused on it being identified as a specific place, and more so as the feeling, or like the spirit around the space.
https://www.instagram.com/luxurydeptstore/
M: It's less of an academic practice than it was just that both she and I were really interested in those spaces before there was this whole 80s Renaissance lately, after Stranger Things. We started it in like, 2018!
G: Yeah, you're like, I swear I was ahead of it!
M: I don't mind being part of a trend either. I just remember she and I both realized we were weirdos that really liked smooth jazz, and we liked all that stuff, and so we were putting Pinterest boards together. Like, should we just create an Instagram account? And we did that. And, honestly, it's like, it's, it's kind of annoying, because it's the most successful thing I've ever done.
I think sometimes having those play spaces, where just doing something for the pure joy of it, can really attract people, and then it kind of calls into question. Okay, like, so, what is this doing that my work isn't, and should my work be doing so this, or is this? Is this just a healthy divide because they have different purposes?
G: I get stuck on that so often because, if I show a friend something that I threw together in five seconds, it's not my favorite thing. It's always the thing that they love the most. And then, the other stuff, not so much. And it's always an interesting balance to think, do I cater towards that, or do I stand on my gut. That's always the journey.
M: I think that maybe, like, it's just like, different points on the spectrum of your work and ideally, you get to a place where you make something that is both very personal and universal. Right?
G: What's an interest from your childhood that stuck with you?
M: I think I just like shiny, sugary things, I always have. And I'm very moved by colors, and find that childlike impulse is something I always want to preserve, this kind of wonder at color.
And, I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of sparkly things in the 90s and early 2000s and lots of sparkly surfaces and holographic things, you know? And I think that those kind of things can sometimes be dismissed because they're found in a kind of chintzy or kitschy situation. And so we're like, oh, it looks cheap, or Taffy or whatever. But I really reject that.
Along that kind of thing, Robert Irwin, the light artist from California, said, “seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.” So, forget that it's a cheap, little paper plague with holographic material on it, and just see it as this kind of marvelous reflective surface of light, and just, kind of separate it for a moment from its origins, and just look at it like a child.
Because, honestly, wondering about color and light is just kind of like wondering about existence too, you know, it's just like we're alive and we have eyesight. We can perceive all these subtle vibrations. It's really cool and crazy. So color is the way that I feel like I wake up into the world.
selection from "Car Song#1"
G: Is there another art medium that you think you would do if you weren't doing acrylic painting, that you would be interested in using to capture this color, light and movement focus?
M: If I had all the time and money in the world, I'd probably make movies or installation art. I think movies like this one film guy, Stan Brakhage, Director, he makes lots of movies that are very kind of conceptual and interested in film itself. And he had this one that my friend, she's the same one who runs the mall account with me. And she knew I was having a tough week. She's like, well, you should just come over and watch this movie. Watch this movie I'm projecting tonight, because I really think you're gonna love it.
M: And I watched it, and it was just an hour of him filming beautiful light phenomenons that were held on the dashboard of his car and desk. It was just like an hour or an hour and a half of that, and it was funny, because it was just…it was just nothing, there's no plot. It was just light and color. And it was, very special how I feel the way that he put so much tender care into the way that this film was made, and it was just about light, yeah, like these, zoomed in moments of ordinary existence.
I kind of actually cried a little bit.
selection from "Psalm 23: 1-6"
It’s no secret that in order to keep a healthy and tidy garden, gardeners must sacrifice time and patience. That however, might be all for nothing if one hasn’t a clue about pests actively seeking to sabotage a gardener’s effort. This article serves as a glossary of known pests including tips on how to get rid of them, without damaging your garden’s ecosystem.
The Sound People also known as Seikilosians are a mischevous bunch. These critters are notorious for stealing unsuspecting DJ’s sound, directly from their sound systems, leading to poor sound performance and in many cases no sound at all. They can be found in moist urban gardens ,which contain a substantial amount of cement and red bricks, in which they hide during the day. A practical way to deter them from their mischief is by uttering the several slavic phrases that are too secret to be revealed in this glossary (for further information concerning the phrases, please contact your local pest control). It is said that these phrases originated in the urban area of the South Bohemian town of Budweis from a group of noble DJ’s, who set out to avenge their fellow fallen DJ’s. Legends say that they first appeared after the first complete song was found, called the epitaph of Seikilos. Although no official written record of these people exist, oral records date back the the 5th century A. D.
This special kind of carnivorous plant only blooms after midnight. Most time of the year, these plants wonderfully decorate the garden, but when those hot summer days come, sweet nectar on their flesh- eating body ferments - that’s when they become dangerous to the garden... oh god! Even though they look like sirens, they don’t sound like one. They could swallow you whole, tie you up with their roots. Gardeners must keep their eyes wide open. not even humming to yourself is safe when the heatwave comes, they are attracted to melody.
The Liquere Orcs water all the plants that still lack moisture after a sunny day. They gather at muddy troughs called “Pajzl” after sunset. You usually need to be a bit tough; otherwise, you won’t even get close to the trough. The Orcs are happy to provide you with plenty of fun liquid, though their mood isn’t always the friendliest! They love to just stare at you blankly, waiting for you to say what you’re after. They’re not very cool, but they’re tough. Beneath their rough skin, however, lies a soft creature, softened when you play them a set that reminds them of their youth.
To conclude, none of these creatures are undefeatable, each kind has a weakness which can be exploited as a means of garden protection.
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