The Anime Instrumentality Podcast – Episode 01

qwerqcvWhile zzeroparticle has appeared on Desu ex Machina’s podcast just last week and I’ve been on a podcast myself, we’ve never had one up until now. Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s here at last: The Anime Instrumentality Podcast. It’s an idea we’ve been throwing around for years now, but we’re only just getting around to doing it because we finally have something to talk about, namely, the little throwdown we’re calling the Anime Music Tournament.

In this inaugural episode, zzeroparticle and I discuss the tournament in general, our opinions on what we think will win, what we want to win, personal grievances with how the tourney is progressing, and much more.

Enjoy the proceedings!

The Anime Instrumentality Podcast – Episode 01

[audio: pcastep1.mp3]

Length (28:00)
1. Animusic Tourney overview – (0:23)
2. The Cloud of Recency Bias – (0:53)
3. Predictions Market – (6:33)
4. Our Personal Favorites – (16:02)
5. Our Dark Horse Picks – (18:53)
6. Awkward Silence Up to the End – (24:15)

Aftershok

A huge jazz nerd and unabashed fan of alternative rock, I joined Anime Instrumentality in December 2010. I tend to get very passionate when it comes to music and try my best to understand how it works. An enormous fan of The Pillows, among my favorite anime composers include Ko Otani and Yoko Kanno. My tastes in anime vary wildly, but I try to be as thoughtful about my viewing as I am about my listening. I play the saxophone.

13 thoughts on “The Anime Instrumentality Podcast – Episode 01

  • August 2, 2013 at 3:03 pm
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    Current observations:
    – Song from recent show vs. non-recent show = recent show wins unless the non-recent show is very popular
    – Song from recent show vs. recent show = more popular of the two wins
    – Song from old unpopular show vs. old popular show = popular show wins

    I just tried these rules against the current polls and it was extremely accurate. It got two wrong which had a difference of less than 10 votes at the time of this post (in other words 52/48, 51/49). I bet those two will sort themselves out in favor of the above rules by time voting is closed.

    Reply
    • August 14, 2013 at 9:39 pm
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      Pretty much my take on it as well. I’m still shocked (appalled, really) at some of the results, but I really shouldn’t expect anything different.

      Reply
  • August 3, 2013 at 8:01 am
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    Outside of the top 30 or so songs, I don’t think the seeds are all the accurate, since the nominations method was so weighted towards the top of the ballot. Just 2 #1 votes could force a song into the tourney at a middle seed (see Boku ni Invitation) while another song could have been on a dozen ballots but seeded much lower because of the points. Basically, everything outside of the top seeds is a crapshoot and I predict those matchups will be decided on “musicality” and familiarity.

    Reply
    • August 14, 2013 at 9:50 pm
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      We were throwing around how to weight the nominations, and what we came up with is what was used in the seeding phase. I agree that the top was weighted too powerfully. We’ve noted this for the future, whatever it may hold. You might agree, though, that any entries below the first handful of seeding positions relied more on frequency of appearance rather than relative placement on nomination lists. As long as bottom-seeded tracks appeared more than 6 or 7 times, the track made it into the tourney, and was a fairly democratic process on this chunk of the curve. The “problem” was that the inverse of this frequency phenomenon appearing in the top of the seeding (ie tracks that were nominated highly in submitted lists but did not appear often) crowded out the smaller fish that were on the tail end, but I’m not a statistician, and I’m sleepy.

      Reply
  • August 3, 2013 at 7:25 pm
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    My assumption on (based on my own experience) is that those who were familiar with a large amount of animes and anime music assumed that a lot of songs were going to get in just because they knew they were iconic. The ones I mainly think of are

    Let me be with you
    Open your Mind
    Diamond Crevasse

    I certainly thought those 3 were going to get automatic byes. But then maybe that’s what a lot of people who are aware of them assumed.

    Little Busters plays at the end of episode 6 when Naota fights with Haruko.

    Top 4:
    Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari
    Forces
    Tsuki no Mayu
    Uninstall

    Forces is gonna win.
    #amancandream

    Did Zzero just say Lie-nard sky-nard? *sigh*

    I have a song I want to get really far: Fate from Break Blade
    (goes up against Ride on Shooting Star in round 1)

    Ai no Melody’s 2nd round against Duvet will be mad hard for it too.

    I hope the fucking joke songs gtfo of this competition. Everyone who voted for shit like that need to have all the songs on their ipod/mp3 player replaced with just those songs. Imagine when you go running and all you hear is “banana banana banana” or the curry song when you are riding on the bus EVERYTIME YOU RIDE THE BUS.
    My point is: those songs are novelty songs and the pieces included in this competition imo are songs you should want to listen to on a regular basis. I’ve had novelty songs like that on my computer for a long time until I eventually got fed up with hearing the Capitol Steps singing about Alan Fucking Greenspan. Novelty songs are ones you acknowledge exist, laugh at, and move on. They shouldn’t be legitimate entries on what people consider the best examples of anime music. I’m sorry but anyone who sincerely nominates them just comes off to me as someone who wants to be a troll or comedian. Yeah yeah competition is srs business, but personally I want to vote for the things I sincerely believe in.

    Reply
    • August 14, 2013 at 9:56 pm
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      Yeah, zzero did say “Lie-nerd Sky-nerd.” Sigh.

      Indeed, there were a number of songs that many assumed would be a shoe-in. We could only hope and be romantic idealists that people would actually submit lists that accurately reflected their opinions. Obviously, this didn’t always happen, and a lot of folks “played the game” with the ballots and weighted their submissions to artificially boost their niche darlings into the show. This resulted in the sad travesty before us.

      As for your last point, I agree. But that Curry Song for reals deserves to win, right?

      Reply
  • August 10, 2013 at 12:37 am
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    You guys missed an opportunity to put in elevator music in the background! (Instrumentals of the songs being talked about could work too.)

    Reply
    • August 14, 2013 at 9:57 pm
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      You’re now officially hired as this podcast’s executive producer. You can do all the editing, too, that took me like 2 hours, ugh.

      Reply
  • August 11, 2013 at 12:38 am
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    You have to be aware that people will not have seen every anime. If you have seen the anime and identify with it, you will link both the visual component and the emotive component with it.

    Versus something you have never seen, the “greatness” of that opponent music will really have to overcome a massive lead.

    A second factor is that people who listen to the streamed music may very well just like or dislike the first 20 seconds then vote according to it. These factors may influence the voting pattern.

    Reply
    • August 14, 2013 at 9:59 pm
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      You’re absolutely right. But as the tournament administrators, we can only put on our Idealist Hats and hope for the best.

      Reply
    • August 15, 2013 at 3:08 am
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      My favorite songs in this competition are from series I have not seen. I think if you have the ear for it and the discipline you can be at least somewhat impartial when you determine the quality of one song over the other. It just requires effort and active listening which I suspect many people either don’t have the time for or just aren’t interested in doing.

      Reply
    • August 19, 2013 at 5:46 pm
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      I’m actually ok with people voting after the first 20 seconds. At least they’ve listened to the opposing song rather than voting on solely pre-conceived ideas of the songs already. I try to listen to the whole song and vote on its technical merits. Of course, there will be some bias for shows I know, but I’m trying…

      Reply
  • August 23, 2013 at 11:51 pm
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    For future podcasts if you could include a direct download link that would be great, especially for people wanting to listen this on their iPhones (since no flash)

    Reply

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