Anime interim report
Feb. 19th, 2013 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsLong silence there... I am still working on the epic Natsume Yuujinchou fic (currently around 23,000 words) and have finally entered the home stretch of it but am battling the usual irrational sense that I'm going to pieces on it or it's going to pieces on me or something. Hopefully I'll have a finished draft soon so I can post it here and stop being neurotic about it all by myself. I am going to need an extra month to give myself the time it deserves to revise it --- ie, it'll be my fic for March, not February, and this month I'll put up the other Allison & Lillia epilogue.
Anyway, I just wanted to blabber a bit about the current anime I'm watching, now that we're about midway through the season.
The Unlimited is the dark horse of this season for me; I went in not even planning to watch it, then thinking it would just be flashy entertainment, but now it's really pulled me in. It seems to be playing the sympathy/antipathy tension of a Magneto-type character more self-awarely than most; every time you think Hyoubu is the bad guy, he rescues some helpless orphans while the normals make asses of themselves, and every time you think he's the good guy, he levels a city block and makes some remark about killing all the normals. The high point is that the protagonist/POV character Hinomiya is caught in this tension just as much as the viewer is and it's been nicely involving to watch his genuinely conflicted loyalties --- plus the half-hopeful half-threatening sense that Hyoubu sees right through him all the way. Fair warning, tho, when that comes to a head, they cut to a flashback, and we're still sitting on the cliffhanger.
Amnesia is the thing I'm still watching despite having no illusions that it's any good. The amnesiac heroine literally has no name and acts as just a passive blank through the whole thing (I think this is supposed to allow for self-insertion, but seriously, who wants to see themselves in a character who just stares blankly and wonders things breathily with occasional attacks of Dull Surprise?). As a result, when she keeps rebooting into alternate realities where each male character in turn is her boyfriend (makes a lot more sense having read a summary of the original game), it's impossible to have any chemistry with such an inert substance, and the romance just comes off as the guys talking to themselves. Today's episode was the best yet relationship-wise as the featured guy was really sweetly trying, although it gave her only one scant episode in that best-yet relationship and also made me want to apologize to everyone in every university Math department in the world ever (quicksilver_ink, I'm sorry for what these people did!). The show is kind of fun to watch for some reason, tho.
Shin Sekai Yori... Yeah, actually when I was skipping the weekly stuff during my Trigun marathon, I fell behind on SSY (last saw ep 17) and just haven't felt like catching up yet. Someone will have to tell me if it's become awesome and compelling, but I'm staring down the fact that it's come down to a war between a human community that's really hard to root for after all the baby-killing and the Monster Rats who are even harder to root for after all the episodes they've turned into barely-watchable piles of bewildering crap --- oh, and most of the characters you were supposed to give a shit about are gone at this point. I keep thinking I should catch up and keep expecting it to just be unpleasant and not doing it. It's sad; there's so much good stuff in this show. The first four episodes in particular were incredibly promising...
Yama no Susume (because I can't bring myself to say something as clunky as "Encouragement of Climb") is still this really sweet short series about friendship and coming out of one's shell --- and mountain climbing for beginners. Not much more to say about it.
Fridays are the high point of the week with Maoyu and Chihayafuru.
Maoyu I'm really enjoying. The story is so sweeping that it kind of feels like it's being told in outline, but that sweeping scope always has been balanced with a more domestic and personal focus that makes the way it's done feel appropriate. I also appreciate how good-hearted and cooperative most of the characters are; I was bracing myself for a lot more petty conflict between Demon King and Lady Knight, for example, and it's nice instead to see them be friends right off, Knight not freak out about the truth, and have the two of them and their own bond remain solid underneath the romantic rivalry.
Chihayafuru is still as awesome as ever and I'm not sure what else to say about it; I have huge attacks of squee at least once per episode (episode 2-04 was the biggest squee yet, and if you've seen it you can probably guess right where it happened). The new members have grown on me just as I expected they would --- and when I thought about it, I realized why I expected that. Chihaya and Arata are literally the only protagonists on this show who were impressive when we first met them; everyone else has grown into their awesome, but have they ever! (I also squeed not while watching the show but when I was tooling around some Japanese online store and ran across where they actually made some of the Daddy Bear and Snowmaru merch. XD)
And that's it for now!
Anyway, I just wanted to blabber a bit about the current anime I'm watching, now that we're about midway through the season.
The Unlimited is the dark horse of this season for me; I went in not even planning to watch it, then thinking it would just be flashy entertainment, but now it's really pulled me in. It seems to be playing the sympathy/antipathy tension of a Magneto-type character more self-awarely than most; every time you think Hyoubu is the bad guy, he rescues some helpless orphans while the normals make asses of themselves, and every time you think he's the good guy, he levels a city block and makes some remark about killing all the normals. The high point is that the protagonist/POV character Hinomiya is caught in this tension just as much as the viewer is and it's been nicely involving to watch his genuinely conflicted loyalties --- plus the half-hopeful half-threatening sense that Hyoubu sees right through him all the way. Fair warning, tho, when that comes to a head, they cut to a flashback, and we're still sitting on the cliffhanger.
Amnesia is the thing I'm still watching despite having no illusions that it's any good. The amnesiac heroine literally has no name and acts as just a passive blank through the whole thing (I think this is supposed to allow for self-insertion, but seriously, who wants to see themselves in a character who just stares blankly and wonders things breathily with occasional attacks of Dull Surprise?). As a result, when she keeps rebooting into alternate realities where each male character in turn is her boyfriend (makes a lot more sense having read a summary of the original game), it's impossible to have any chemistry with such an inert substance, and the romance just comes off as the guys talking to themselves. Today's episode was the best yet relationship-wise as the featured guy was really sweetly trying, although it gave her only one scant episode in that best-yet relationship and also made me want to apologize to everyone in every university Math department in the world ever (
quicksilver_ink, I'm sorry for what these people did!). The show is kind of fun to watch for some reason, tho.Shin Sekai Yori... Yeah, actually when I was skipping the weekly stuff during my Trigun marathon, I fell behind on SSY (last saw ep 17) and just haven't felt like catching up yet. Someone will have to tell me if it's become awesome and compelling, but I'm staring down the fact that it's come down to a war between a human community that's really hard to root for after all the baby-killing and the Monster Rats who are even harder to root for after all the episodes they've turned into barely-watchable piles of bewildering crap --- oh, and most of the characters you were supposed to give a shit about are gone at this point. I keep thinking I should catch up and keep expecting it to just be unpleasant and not doing it. It's sad; there's so much good stuff in this show. The first four episodes in particular were incredibly promising...
Yama no Susume (because I can't bring myself to say something as clunky as "Encouragement of Climb") is still this really sweet short series about friendship and coming out of one's shell --- and mountain climbing for beginners. Not much more to say about it.
Fridays are the high point of the week with Maoyu and Chihayafuru.
Maoyu I'm really enjoying. The story is so sweeping that it kind of feels like it's being told in outline, but that sweeping scope always has been balanced with a more domestic and personal focus that makes the way it's done feel appropriate. I also appreciate how good-hearted and cooperative most of the characters are; I was bracing myself for a lot more petty conflict between Demon King and Lady Knight, for example, and it's nice instead to see them be friends right off, Knight not freak out about the truth, and have the two of them and their own bond remain solid underneath the romantic rivalry.
Chihayafuru is still as awesome as ever and I'm not sure what else to say about it; I have huge attacks of squee at least once per episode (episode 2-04 was the biggest squee yet, and if you've seen it you can probably guess right where it happened). The new members have grown on me just as I expected they would --- and when I thought about it, I realized why I expected that. Chihaya and Arata are literally the only protagonists on this show who were impressive when we first met them; everyone else has grown into their awesome, but have they ever! (I also squeed not while watching the show but when I was tooling around some Japanese online store and ran across where they actually made some of the Daddy Bear and Snowmaru merch. XD)
And that's it for now!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-19 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-19 06:30 pm (UTC)What did you think of Zettai Karen Children, BTW? I admit, I haven't been tempted to watch it myself yet, but I'm curious.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-19 06:40 pm (UTC)