More Anime Reports
Sep. 12th, 2010 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsBefore anime, Sentai: Still progressing on MagiRanger, we just got the major upgrade with new costumes and stuff, so I'm waiting to see how this goes. Shinkenger is growing on me, though; as more is revealed about the characters, they're becoming more likable (even ShinkenBlue; I find his willingness to cross-dress for the cause endearing, I admit it).
Anyway, anime!
Twelve Kingdoms continues to be great. Since I fell in love with Fushigi Yuugi first (an affair that ended bitterly...), it's hard not to compare them, and to go into more detail than "FY but Good," 12K is like if you took FY, scrubbed the comedy and romance-obsession until you were left with a straight-up serious fantasy epic, and made it really well-written. Three discs in I finished the first story arc (what was confusing in early episodes makes perfect sense in hindsight), and am taking a little break to have Netflix send the live-action movie they made of Dororo, but doing so is testing my patience just a little... ^_~
One that just gets a drive-by: Sky Girls. I wanted to check that out mainly because Konami made MMS figures about it (although I got a couple of actual Busou Shinkis, so the rest seem kind of superfluous), and only got as far as sampling it. Firstly the opening theme was pretty annoying, what I saw of Episode 1 was just not that interesting, and when I tried a random episode (6 I think), we were blowing stuff up and having destined adolescent girl pilots like we were trying to be Evangelion or something, and one of our destined adolescent girls coming across a lost bra and thus fretting over everyone's relative boobs. I threw in the towel.
I also watched the first Kara no Kyoukai movie (first of seven), and it was better, but... Well, I had a literal-minded friend in college who found my use of this phrase absurd, but I still believe that if you watch enough anime, there will come a day when you realize that there is such a thing as an "animated special-effects movie", and I would file this one under that; it was made to look and sound wicked awesome, but underneath the surface of alluring flash (and in this case shock value), there's not much to speak of. It didn't go out of its way to make much sense, like the support structure to hold this story up wasn't so much bothered with (perhaps in the further movies it would be, though), and there seemed to be some supposedly-deep psychological moral, but it was more like a cookie-fortune printed on black paper than anything substantial. I also can't help remarking on one scene where the heroine has lost a prosthetic arm and eats ice cream, squirming a little to grip the carton between her thighs and digging into it with her one remaining hand; this is drawn in a full frontal view that superimposes the ice cream carton she's digging in over... well, one can question with a knowing laugh what that scene was really about. In the end, I wouldn't mind owning the soundtrack (it did sound wicked awesome) or even watching further, but I wouldn't call it great or anything.
And finally, today I finished Yokohama Shopping Diary, and after my comments on Kara no Kyoukai, the feel of this one is like completely opposite. It's not flashy at all, and you get the sense of something huge underneath this story that is never really explained or dwelt upon but that somehow feels very solid---even the titular shopping trip is not actually shown as part of the story and remains I-think-interestingly implicit. Some kind of apocalypse seems to have happened, but it's not treated with any drama, just peacefully appreciated in a way that gives it that solidity as we watch a slice of life from some time afterward unfold with quiet, understated charm. It came in two pairs of OVAs, and I like the first pair much better; the second pair almost comes across like an imitation of the first that didn't put as much effort into the art and didn't quite get the aesthetic; it becomes both more nonsensical and more dramatically conventional. Not the sort of thing that delivers thrills or inspires a "that's my favorite ever; I want more of that!" kind of reaction, but the first half tops this batch as far as watching it and saying to myself "y'know, that was good."
Anyway, anime!
Twelve Kingdoms continues to be great. Since I fell in love with Fushigi Yuugi first (an affair that ended bitterly...), it's hard not to compare them, and to go into more detail than "FY but Good," 12K is like if you took FY, scrubbed the comedy and romance-obsession until you were left with a straight-up serious fantasy epic, and made it really well-written. Three discs in I finished the first story arc (what was confusing in early episodes makes perfect sense in hindsight), and am taking a little break to have Netflix send the live-action movie they made of Dororo, but doing so is testing my patience just a little... ^_~
One that just gets a drive-by: Sky Girls. I wanted to check that out mainly because Konami made MMS figures about it (although I got a couple of actual Busou Shinkis, so the rest seem kind of superfluous), and only got as far as sampling it. Firstly the opening theme was pretty annoying, what I saw of Episode 1 was just not that interesting, and when I tried a random episode (6 I think), we were blowing stuff up and having destined adolescent girl pilots like we were trying to be Evangelion or something, and one of our destined adolescent girls coming across a lost bra and thus fretting over everyone's relative boobs. I threw in the towel.
I also watched the first Kara no Kyoukai movie (first of seven), and it was better, but... Well, I had a literal-minded friend in college who found my use of this phrase absurd, but I still believe that if you watch enough anime, there will come a day when you realize that there is such a thing as an "animated special-effects movie", and I would file this one under that; it was made to look and sound wicked awesome, but underneath the surface of alluring flash (and in this case shock value), there's not much to speak of. It didn't go out of its way to make much sense, like the support structure to hold this story up wasn't so much bothered with (perhaps in the further movies it would be, though), and there seemed to be some supposedly-deep psychological moral, but it was more like a cookie-fortune printed on black paper than anything substantial. I also can't help remarking on one scene where the heroine has lost a prosthetic arm and eats ice cream, squirming a little to grip the carton between her thighs and digging into it with her one remaining hand; this is drawn in a full frontal view that superimposes the ice cream carton she's digging in over... well, one can question with a knowing laugh what that scene was really about. In the end, I wouldn't mind owning the soundtrack (it did sound wicked awesome) or even watching further, but I wouldn't call it great or anything.
And finally, today I finished Yokohama Shopping Diary, and after my comments on Kara no Kyoukai, the feel of this one is like completely opposite. It's not flashy at all, and you get the sense of something huge underneath this story that is never really explained or dwelt upon but that somehow feels very solid---even the titular shopping trip is not actually shown as part of the story and remains I-think-interestingly implicit. Some kind of apocalypse seems to have happened, but it's not treated with any drama, just peacefully appreciated in a way that gives it that solidity as we watch a slice of life from some time afterward unfold with quiet, understated charm. It came in two pairs of OVAs, and I like the first pair much better; the second pair almost comes across like an imitation of the first that didn't put as much effort into the art and didn't quite get the aesthetic; it becomes both more nonsensical and more dramatically conventional. Not the sort of thing that delivers thrills or inspires a "that's my favorite ever; I want more of that!" kind of reaction, but the first half tops this batch as far as watching it and saying to myself "y'know, that was good."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 02:30 am (UTC)I forgot what email address you use, though. PM me on DW or LJ (where you know I'm really me) so I can send 'em. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 02:46 am (UTC)PM sent!