Arslan Senki
May. 26th, 2015 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsI've been wanting some expensive toys lately. I am desiring a graphics card (seeing cool-looking PC games and always concluding "Nope, can't run it" is getting old). I'm also wanting a copy of Anime Studio to play with --- and decided this just as a new version is coming out, like, literally tomorrow; I don't know if that's lucky or unlucky.
But anyway, anime! I'd been off of it for awhile and this season I felt like I could get back into simulcasts --- and picked up approximately one show. I haven't fully given up on the idea of watching Seraph of the End (I ran into the manga awhile back and found it breathtakingly formulaic but fun, which the reviews of the anime seem to bear out), but the only thing I actually have been watching is the new adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan.
I actually had seen the old OVA before, although I barely remembered it. While waiting between TV eps I went back and re-watched it, but even before that, I did remember coming out of it keenly aware that the story wasn't finished (heck, the books are at 14 volumes and I don't think *they're* finished even yet), so initially I went in hoping that we'd get to see more of the story. Well, I won't say that hope was dashed, but it took a different form than I expected.
See, here's the thing: the TV series just aired its 8th episode, and it has just now caught up with episode 1 of the OVA. So I have no illusions of getting further along in the story (in fact I have no illusions of more than one season, and few illusions that the TV anime will bother to resolve itself in any particular way because that seems to be how they roll these days). However, what it can't do in length, it's making up for in breadth, which is a good thing, as the OVA trips so hurriedly over the material that it verges on WTFery. The TV anime is taking a lot more time to dwell on its characters and themes and play the tension of its events, which is very nice to see. A lot of the major set-pieces are the same in both versions, but a lot of details are different, which makes me curious about the novels.
It's also really nice to see some of the characters given more dignity; I'm thinking particularly of Elam (who was pretty much a comic relief character in the OVA) and Etoile. There's something going on with Etoile that was treated as practically a non-issue in the OVA (and played right into the dignity thing), but the TV anime is really playing it up in a way that I find promising, and I hope that they're able to do something with it before the series wraps (or if not, I'll just have to follow Arakawa's manga). If you haven't seen the OVA, I don't want to spoil this, but... Let's just say that that fight scene between Etoile and Elam had a certain special irony to it. On the other hand, Farangiis' stripperiffic new outfit seems pretty uncalled for (it can't be comfortable to ride a horse dressed like that), but underneath it she's the same badass as always.
In general, while I'd say the old OVA is worth watching, I don't see the point of romanticizing it. Animation itself was done differently back then, and it had its own odd, janky habits, while the TV anime shows a lot of today's style of corner-cutting (they love panning over frozen reaction shots and such), but I'm willing to call that a wash. Here's a YouTube video that actually compares analogous scenes side-by-side (in Part 2 you can see a little of what I mean about Elam and a lot of what I mean about Farangiis if you watch for them). The character designs of the two versions are also a thing, and as I followed the ANN reviews, especially early on, well... I don't know when it became fashionable to hate on Hiromu Arakawa's artwork, which I personally quite like. She's very polished at depicting action (as expected from a shonen artist), I don't find her style particularly "simplified," and I think she's quite good at differentiating her characters. (Okay, so some of these people look kind of like some other people from Fullmetal Alchemist. I DON'T CARE! SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY! They did ease off on it after awhile, mercifully.) On the other hand, this is one of the places where people seem to romanticize the old OVA because: Yoshitaka Amano, the original illustrator of the novels. Now, this is probably an unpopular opinion but I actually got sick of Amano a long time ago. He's definitely got skills, at his best he draws bodies in a way that's wonderfully dynamic, spontaneous, and believable, but he is a HUNDRED times worse than Arakawa for making most of the cast look like copies of the same ethereal-yet-oddly-lumpy person and leaving me wondering just who (and occasionally what) in the ever-loving **** I'm looking at. Someone at least curbed this tendency for the anime, so it doesn't look bad, but I'd say there's a more generic high-fantasy quality to some of the secondary/tertiary characters in particular. For example, I think Guiscard's new look captures a more particular sense of the kind of character he is.
Of course the other familiar hand at work here is the original novelist, Yoshiki Tanaka, probably most famous in the States for Legend of the Galactic Heroes. That determined some of my expectations, too, like his fondness for grand historical themes and his outlook on them (the whole slavery issue is totally the kind of thing he's into). Also on the basis of LoGH I didn't expect anything particularly feminist-friendly, but there's nothing too egregious, either. The TV creators seem to be aware of the connection, too; unlike the OVA, they use LoGH's trick of just flat-out labeling people with their names and titles as they appear onscreen, which I find unintentionally humorous, but it is indeed useful in the kind of sprawling, densely-populated, politically complex plots Tanaka does. And, just as a little detail, Arslan reaching his hand toward the stars in the ED comes off as an LoGH reference and makes a nice touch.
So overall, I'm really enjoying this new adaptation, and I think it's a good introduction to a story that's something of a classic in Japan. If you want to get more into it after that, the old OVA is a fascinating contrast that will take you further along in the story, albeit in kind of a reckless rush.
But anyway, anime! I'd been off of it for awhile and this season I felt like I could get back into simulcasts --- and picked up approximately one show. I haven't fully given up on the idea of watching Seraph of the End (I ran into the manga awhile back and found it breathtakingly formulaic but fun, which the reviews of the anime seem to bear out), but the only thing I actually have been watching is the new adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan.
I actually had seen the old OVA before, although I barely remembered it. While waiting between TV eps I went back and re-watched it, but even before that, I did remember coming out of it keenly aware that the story wasn't finished (heck, the books are at 14 volumes and I don't think *they're* finished even yet), so initially I went in hoping that we'd get to see more of the story. Well, I won't say that hope was dashed, but it took a different form than I expected.
See, here's the thing: the TV series just aired its 8th episode, and it has just now caught up with episode 1 of the OVA. So I have no illusions of getting further along in the story (in fact I have no illusions of more than one season, and few illusions that the TV anime will bother to resolve itself in any particular way because that seems to be how they roll these days). However, what it can't do in length, it's making up for in breadth, which is a good thing, as the OVA trips so hurriedly over the material that it verges on WTFery. The TV anime is taking a lot more time to dwell on its characters and themes and play the tension of its events, which is very nice to see. A lot of the major set-pieces are the same in both versions, but a lot of details are different, which makes me curious about the novels.
It's also really nice to see some of the characters given more dignity; I'm thinking particularly of Elam (who was pretty much a comic relief character in the OVA) and Etoile. There's something going on with Etoile that was treated as practically a non-issue in the OVA (and played right into the dignity thing), but the TV anime is really playing it up in a way that I find promising, and I hope that they're able to do something with it before the series wraps (or if not, I'll just have to follow Arakawa's manga). If you haven't seen the OVA, I don't want to spoil this, but... Let's just say that that fight scene between Etoile and Elam had a certain special irony to it. On the other hand, Farangiis' stripperiffic new outfit seems pretty uncalled for (it can't be comfortable to ride a horse dressed like that), but underneath it she's the same badass as always.
In general, while I'd say the old OVA is worth watching, I don't see the point of romanticizing it. Animation itself was done differently back then, and it had its own odd, janky habits, while the TV anime shows a lot of today's style of corner-cutting (they love panning over frozen reaction shots and such), but I'm willing to call that a wash. Here's a YouTube video that actually compares analogous scenes side-by-side (in Part 2 you can see a little of what I mean about Elam and a lot of what I mean about Farangiis if you watch for them). The character designs of the two versions are also a thing, and as I followed the ANN reviews, especially early on, well... I don't know when it became fashionable to hate on Hiromu Arakawa's artwork, which I personally quite like. She's very polished at depicting action (as expected from a shonen artist), I don't find her style particularly "simplified," and I think she's quite good at differentiating her characters. (Okay, so some of these people look kind of like some other people from Fullmetal Alchemist. I DON'T CARE! SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY! They did ease off on it after awhile, mercifully.) On the other hand, this is one of the places where people seem to romanticize the old OVA because: Yoshitaka Amano, the original illustrator of the novels. Now, this is probably an unpopular opinion but I actually got sick of Amano a long time ago. He's definitely got skills, at his best he draws bodies in a way that's wonderfully dynamic, spontaneous, and believable, but he is a HUNDRED times worse than Arakawa for making most of the cast look like copies of the same ethereal-yet-oddly-lumpy person and leaving me wondering just who (and occasionally what) in the ever-loving **** I'm looking at. Someone at least curbed this tendency for the anime, so it doesn't look bad, but I'd say there's a more generic high-fantasy quality to some of the secondary/tertiary characters in particular. For example, I think Guiscard's new look captures a more particular sense of the kind of character he is.
Of course the other familiar hand at work here is the original novelist, Yoshiki Tanaka, probably most famous in the States for Legend of the Galactic Heroes. That determined some of my expectations, too, like his fondness for grand historical themes and his outlook on them (the whole slavery issue is totally the kind of thing he's into). Also on the basis of LoGH I didn't expect anything particularly feminist-friendly, but there's nothing too egregious, either. The TV creators seem to be aware of the connection, too; unlike the OVA, they use LoGH's trick of just flat-out labeling people with their names and titles as they appear onscreen, which I find unintentionally humorous, but it is indeed useful in the kind of sprawling, densely-populated, politically complex plots Tanaka does. And, just as a little detail, Arslan reaching his hand toward the stars in the ED comes off as an LoGH reference and makes a nice touch.
So overall, I'm really enjoying this new adaptation, and I think it's a good introduction to a story that's something of a classic in Japan. If you want to get more into it after that, the old OVA is a fascinating contrast that will take you further along in the story, albeit in kind of a reckless rush.
