Still Even More Quotes of Awesome July 2012

Michelle on Moon Child: "Early on, there are many comparisons to fish, along with visuals of the spacefishies returning to Earth, but at the time we didn’t know that this would also be their final journey. Though, I guess if I were really up on my ichthyology, I might’ve expected it."

Jason Thompson on Berserk: "Armor is useless against his sword; he can chop through stone and steel. In fact, he can chop through two armored men on horses, along with their horses, in one blow. He can impale four crocodiles in one thrust. And he can use it as a shield, to deflect blows, since it's apparently the only unbreakable piece of metal in the story. Actually, it looks like the weakest part of it is the hilt, and if it broke anywhere, it'd snap right above where he holds it, but that never happens. (Things like these make me wish there was a Japanese version of Mythbusters, so they could test the realism of things that happen in manga. They'd never run out of material.) "

Michelle on Drops of God: "Shizuku and his trusty sidekick Miyabi get up to various things, which usually involve tasting a whole bunch of wine and rhapsodizing about them, sometimes with unintentionally amusing visuals and dialogue."

Carl Kimlinger on FMA: Brotherhood: "This is what animation does best: bringing life to things that otherwise could only have existed in the imagination.. . .  That's a goodly part of what makes FMA:B great: it may be epic in scale, but it's always human in its consequences, and those consequences are rarely predictable. Especially here, as it draws to a close."

Melinda Beasi on Please Save My Earth: "[His] journey from annoying little rhythmic gymnast (what a funny little character note that was, I thought) to cold-hearted villain, and finally to romantic hero is one of the quirkiest character arcs I’ve seen, even in shoujo manga, yet it works surprisingly well."

Jason Thompson on Hoshin Engi: "Fujisaki sure is good at drawing weird-looking monsters. Some of them are positively abstract. His creatures look like the offspring of rogue Pokémon who had sex with Marchel Duchamp paintings."

What I watched in June: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

b Darker than Black season 1:  I do kind of wish they maybe hadn't rushed the last few episodes, and I sort of wish the bonus episode wasn't the last one I'd watched (though it is hilarious . . .).

What more do you have to take from me?
 ---
 "I made the stars fall tonight.  Lots of them . . ."  Heartbreaking when you consider the flashback about falling stars in their childhood before this all started.
 ---
Nothing but confusion awaits you if you choose both.
---
So you've chosen a third path, have you?

Some of the commentaries had their moments, too.  One of my favorites: "There are winners and losers in the naked teleportation game."

b Rurouni Kenshin, season 2: Well, the animation isn't great, and I totally forgot about the biting, but this is still some powerful stuff, even after all these years.  The internal struggle of a man trying to decide if his principles are worth clinging to if they prevent him from saving his country is compelling.

I find it is much harder to build a new era than to break one.
---
I am a wanderer.  I must begin wandering again.
---
Humans are work against the terror of violence.
---
You truly are a man who never shows any mercy.
---
That was a paper-thin margin, it was. That was . . . a thick piece of paper.

b Lucky Star: Hands down best part is the extra The Adventures of Minoru Shiraishi (and the random endings).  They are utterly ridiculous . . .  And the tourists in them!  Bwaha!  And the karate kid references . . .  And, well, the show is amusing in a low-key, allusion-filled way.  Those stupid caricature store clerks: their English VAs are having an awesome amount of fun with this . . .  Bwaha!  G Gundam reference?!  (Behold, the Eastern skies are burning red!)  And Lagoon Engine!?!  If you love these reference heavy comedies, you will probably get a kick out of Lucky Star.

I feel like I've lost if people can keep up. ---
Who was that?
A telemarketer?
Didn't you see the caller ID?
I was bored.
---
If you really love Gundam, you have a duty to watch it.
---
"I'm already two years older than Amuro.  And in two years, I'll be as old as Mr. Bright."

Not that I have ever found myself comparing my age to a fictional character's . . .

What I Watched in May: Gundam 00

b Gundam 00:  So I spent quite a lot of time listening to Gundam 00 and a significant time watching the second season (Since I'd already seen the first, I just played it through and listened while cleaning, organizing, and writing.)  Watching a lot of Gundam means:

• Thinking about war, peace, reasons to fight, duty, sacrifice
• Hearing too many cheesy lines and soliloquies
•     "Since the dawn of time . . ."
•     "Is this the power of . . ."
• Feeling sad about the brokenness of the world 
• Hoping information won't be controlled and manipulated like this - being glad we have those pesky people who publish truth on the internet somehow and being very glad for journalists willing to risk life and limb to bring back the truth from dangerous places
• Having to meditate on the terrible things one can do when one believes one's cause is just and the terrible things people do to further their own desires and agendas

I remember criticism was leveled at this show because it was less emotionally accessible than some other ones, and I guess I can see that because the characters are so very closed and damaged, but I still cried plenty.  I guess you could say that any show that tries to depict multiple sides of the conflict as sympathetic is going to take more work from the viewer.  (And punish the invested viewer more.)  With Gundam Seed, there were good guys on two sides; same with Gundam Wing.

With 00, well, there are about 7 sides.  And there are evil folks on many of them and good-ish folks and confused folks and ignorant folks and other manner of folks.  Where is the moral center?  Who's in the right?  It's not really obvious, so you as the viewer have to pick who you will root for.  And at some point whoever you picked probably does something you find very difficult to forgive.

Oh, Brad Swaile, what a great job you did in this one.  And oh, Bandai.  I miss all your technical and crew extras.  The episode 25 commentary of ssn 1 is just the guys being hilarious dorks.  Other commentaries are highly informative.

"Whether we fight or not, people will die.  Now you no longer have any place to run away to."
---
"If the time comes, I'll pull the trigger.  I don't mind if you hate me."
---
"You think because you avoid pulling the trigger you can avoid the guilt?"

This Gundam incarnation is not afraid to get theological, but it doesn't take the easy route and simply blame everything on religion.  People talk about a twistedness and crookedness in the world, a brokenness.  But they look for external causes that they can fix with force.  It's a doomed quest from the beginning.

All this because I talked to them?
You're the one who took their lives through your own foolish actions.
---
I'm a weapon, a tool for killing people.  I don't deserve happiness.

It's not like she's using her newly discovered powers for good and not evil; it's more like while using them for evil, she realizes they aren't inherently evil and starts using them for good.  Or like she realizes that she has powers at all and that she can use them for good.

We're fighting for the future, not the past.
---
Why are you crying?
Because you can't.
---
Save as many people as you can.  Then you can die.

I watch and am afraid.  Is this how information is manipulated now?  I think of Syria and how few journalists are there and how little interest the outside world has in the situation.  When my science fiction looks too much like my present instead of my future, it starts to really make me feel nervous and uncomfortable.

Gundam has always been good at making me nervous and uncomfortable.  And that's why I like Gundam.

More July Quotes of Awesome

Michelle on Moon Child: "Rimsky’s look and style are passed down to Artem, but his must-kill-love-interest-she-is-dangerous traits are passed to Art."

Michael Sinterniklaas on GaoGaiGar: "I like the idea that you can turn a 2% chance into a 150% chance if you have balls of steel. It’s a good life lesson, not necessarily a good math lesson. I loved doing it even though it hurts to scream that much, and I was really psyched about it. Like all good Sunrise shows it starts off one way and ends in tears and blood."

Erin Finnegan on Boogiepop Phantom: "That is to say, I understand the themes of Boogiepop Phantom without being able to follow the finer details of the plot. Watching the commentary track started to clear a few things up. I can't emphasize enough that Boogiepop is a show I trust completely even though it's confusing; there's an internal logic there that's done with an expert hand. I love it when the shows I watch are more clever than I am."

Michael Toole on Sailor Moon: "The franchise's importance to American anime fandom is obvious: its colorful depiction of a team of strong, friendly heroines opened anime up to North American female audiences in a way that no series prior had done. It's safe to say that, without it, our anime fandom would smaller, and would possibly have more beards."

Erin Finnegan on Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine: "If you're totally transfixed by Fujiko's nipples, you're going to miss some super sweet font choices in the opening credits."

Connie on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: "And more normal still when Cars turns his hand into a cannibalistic squirrel!. . . It only gets crazier from here. I didn’t think that was possible, but it does. Jojo casually hops into a plane to make a getaway (he’s 17 or something, and nothing suggests he is a pilot). He glances over in mid-flight, only to notice his shoulder is being devoured by a piranha.. . . Then, the plane explodes into octopus tentacles. There are good reasons for all of this.. . .  This. This is why I read manga."

What I watched in May: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

b Blassreiter second half:  Wow, also really still earning that MA rating.  I hate plot contrivances like the ones they kept having because they seem so obviously wrong and fake.  Of course the starved little kid didn't push the huge, heavy cart off the bridge.  The three, strapping young men who hate him did.  As soon as that guy regains consciousness, he'll set things straight.  If they didn't kill him.  I sincerely hoped she would kill the faux pope-dude, but I was denied. In fact, I wished death on a lot of characters and life on more, but the body count was high, earlier favoring the ones I wanted to live . . .

"If only I had strength, I could have protected you."   

"How can God watch this and not do a thing?!"   

"Violence is always directed at the weak."   

"Life is worth living.  No matter how cruel the world may be, life is worth living.  You can't take that away."  

"In that case, you can live in suffering."   

"Malek doesn't want that.  Your feelings of guilt are yours alone."

b Claymore: Earning its MA rating with more gore than you can shake a huge double-bladed sword at!  No, seriously, this was pretty violent, so it was good that I was only half watching it as I was writing things and cleaning up old email.  It veered off from the manga it's based on (wasn't finished yet), so I can be surprised when I read what happened in that version.  Lovely art direction, actually.  The colors were muted (made the blood very visceral), and there was a lot of attention to detail for each location, as the technical extras included really emphasized.

"Are these really the people we fight to protect?" 

"You listen to me.  You use your life however the hell you want."

b Darker than Black ssn 1:  Things I like: that two-episode structure (would have driven me crazy watching during original broadcast), the ambiguity (we are told things by people, and then we see things that make us doubt), and the fact that Jack smokes Death brand cigarettes.  Ha!  I still really like this series.  Lots of cleverness for those who pay attention and lots of awesome action for those who just want to watch people with weird powers fight each other.  A favorite moment:  Ep. 14 at around 8 minutes: when Li turns away from the kid, the change on his face to Hei is just painful.  Another favorite moment: when Li is ambushed by some religious proselytizers.  Bwaha.

"Contractors have no emotion; all their decisions are based on reason."
"There's no way contractor's dream."
"Dolls don't shed tears."
"Dolls don't have free will."

b First Gundam, second half:  And at the end you could really tell they were rushing to complete something after they got cancelled, but it's overall pretty solid stuff.  I do wonder what they could have done with that last chunk of 13 episodes.  Maybe they wouldn't have gone the way of Newtypes . . .

Quotes of Awesome for July

Melinda Beasi on Moon Child: "I would have loved for the sister to have been proven wrong for real. You know. Not just because her brother’s body got taken over by the soul of a vengeful alien mermaid. "

Katherine Dacey on X/1999: "Yet these moments of narrative clumsiness are overpowered by the sheer force of the imagery. The battle scenes are kinetic and violent, as characters leap across rooftops, level buildings, and plunge their swords into one another; few licensed shojo or shonen titles can match the gory zest with which CLAMP executes these moments of hand-to-hand combat. " . . . "I hesitate to suggest that X's body count is an achievement, but it is sharp and welcome rebuke to the idea that female readers strongly prefer conversation and character development to butt-kicking and carnage."

Connie on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: "It may or may not also contain the decapitated head of an Aztec master vampire loading itself onto a crossbow, bending the nigh unbendable strings with its hair, and then taking out, like, ten minion vampires by using its head as a bullet and a long unicorn horn it sprouted as a weapon."

Brian Hanson: "Note to self: call my dad and see if I still have that plastic Skull Gundam toy from the G-Gundam figures Bandai made for North America in a box with all the rest of my old toys. It was the ugliest, cheapest-looking thing and it always gave me pleasure to look at."

Shaenon K. Garrity on Ultimate Muscle: "The violence is more gruesome, too, with limbs and heads ripped off and blood spraying the ring willy-nilly.  The mix of slapstick comedy, cheerful tastelessness, melodrama, and graphic gore is jarring—unless you're a fan of pro wrestling, in which case it's comfortably familiar."

Jason Thompson on Berserk: "At first, in fact, it seems less like a fantasy manga than an ultraviolent manga like Fist of the North Star or Riki-Oh—a series about an angry tough guy who kills things really good."

What I read in May: Digest Version, part 4 of 4

So, so random.  Marimo Ragawa, author of Baby & Me, a sweet and touching slice of life series published in the US by VIZ (and winner of the Kodansha manga award?) has won the Manga Taisho award for her shonen manga Mashiro no Oto, which appears to be about a group of high school kids who play the shamisen?! 

b Seiho Boys High School 4-5: Every time I read this series, I am reminded for some reason of Fumi Yoshinaga, and it turns out I'm not the only one (see here) and here: "There’s a slight taste of Fumi Yoshinaga’s character observation and development skills, and that was what got me to stop hating it after the first chapter."  Sometimes it's a particular drawing or framing of an image, and sometimes it's a character observation or situation.  Anyway, it's a favorable comparison.  : )  So if you need at least a few good giggles check out this other take on what it's like in an isolated boys' high school . . .

b Stellar Six of Gingacho 1: Oh, this series is just delightful.  It's bursting with energy, and I'm a sucker for stories that have a bit of melancholy nostalgia.  Here's hoping they stay friends until long after that next meteor shower . . .  And, you know that someone rescues the license, so I can read about their further adventures.

b Sugar Sugar Rune 3-5: This slightly twisted magical girl story comes to you from the pen of Mayoco Anno, which shouldn't be a surprise.  I love the combination of sweet and creepy, and I really like the story as it's heading deeper into this idea of two magical races that have been at war and how they might be stopped.  I'm a little sad about all the deception and the willingness of people to believe the worst about each other, and it is overdramatized a bit, but not to the point of ridiculousness.  I do want there to be a happy ending, and I would like to be able to read it in English . . .

I wonder why we stopped being honest like we were when we were kids? 

Everyone's feelings for another person have a little drop of poison in them. 

"If you wish to eat whatever you want and never gain weight, it means your heart will never be fulfilled."

b Tsubasa: Those with Wings2-3:  "If you want to save the world, plow the fields and plant seeds."  So this one ended with a lot of twists and the kind of plotting that pushes it more firmly into the territory of fantasy even as it tries to convince that it's sci-fi.  Who cares.  Sometimes it was a bit of a slog, but I don't regret reading it.  I mean, it's rare to read a shojo where the hero is kind of a rogue and spends an inordinately large amount of time trying to get into the heroine's pants . . . Caution: if you're looking for Fruits Basket art or content, don't be fooled by the covers.

"Loving someone that much makes you feel strangely lonely inside, doesn't it?  That loneliness doesn't go away easily.  And it won't go away even if you were to learn all about me.  No matter how much you know about your partner, no matter how deep your love is for them, that little kernal of loneliness will still be there, and that kernal breeds the need to reaffirm your love over and over." 

---

"But having a dream, an ideal you can hold onto, can help you keep your chin up and look forward to the future!  It can give you courage to try, and to work hard at whatever you want to do!"

"I think I've just realized that I may be a tad jealous of you.. . . My deep interest in you may perhaps stem from the fact that I am--all unthinkingly and naturally--jealous of you for possessing something twisted people like myself do not.  Honesty, purity, integrity, those are things the cynical have little to do with."

---

"Why is it that when people try to make themselves happy, they always seem to feel the need to sacrifice other peoples' lives to do so?"

--- 

No matter how much you love the person, no matter how precious they are to you, sometimes you just don't get a happy ending.

b Utahime: A sad and lovely story about what people will sacrifice to protect the people they love and about the darkness of human nature and the triumph of quiet, dedicated love to bring salvation and freedom.  The art is really lovely, too.

"For once in your life, why don't you decide something for yourself?!  All of today, no, ever since I met you, you haven't made a single decision for yourself!  You even told me yourself that the reason you left home was so you wouldn't stand between your sister and this Thomas fellow.  You act like people and circumstances forced you to leave, but in reality, you just chose to leave because you felt uncomfortable there, didn't you?  Can't you do anything unless you have somebody to blame for your actions?. . .

"Just so you know, it's not that I'm speechless, I'm just thinking." 

"Do you even know how pathetically lame that excuse sounded?

b VB Rose 8: Frilly, girly, emotional giddiness that I adore.  Finally, a confession has taken place.  Things are awkward!  There is jealousy!  There is another confession!  Squee!

b Whistle! 5: Good, fun-loving teamwork goodness.  In this volume, we see the power of nice and teamwork versus the snotty, punk-a-rrific star player on an opposing team.  Who will win?!  Well, you'll have to wait for volume 6 . . .

What I watched in April: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

Yes, much delayed, mostly because I couldn't figure out how to properly rhapsodize about Mawaru Penguindrum.  I still can't.  Sorry.

b First Gundam, first half: Interestingly enough, when I watch it all the way through, Amuro is not nearly as obnoxious and unsympathetic as I remembered him.  We're not exactly talking Shinji Ikari level irritant, but I remembered Amuro as being more consistently immature instead of just, you know appropriately immature with small, understandable angst explosions.  I was surprised at how realistic this feels even 30 years after it was created.  It was an odd experience to see the whole things instead of random pieces here and there. I was also kind of surprised at how family friendly the level of violence was.

b Mawaru Penguindrum: I adore this series.  It will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I suspect that those who liked other works by these creators (Utena) will find much to love here.  Heartbreaking interpersonal relationships wrapped up in stage-y sets mixed in with art film camera angles, all crammed so full of symbolism that you can't look away for even a minute.  I suspect this will never in a million years be licensed, which is sad because I want to buy it and re-watch it.  Even though I knew there was no way for everyone to get a happy ending (for a while there I wasn't sure if anyone would), and even though it has its moments of nigh incomprehensibility, I really loved it even when it was breaking my heart.  "What will be left of you after you burn yourself to ashes for her a hundred times?"  Oh, I was afraid to find out, too . . .  Great, weird music, too.  Clever as all get out.
Here's a reference to a weird real-life inspiration for part of the show.  Here's a review of the first episode.  Here's an episode-by-episode breakdown of all the symbolism.  Don't you dare read it until after you've seen the whole show.  Of course, then you will want to see it again when you can use the pause button a lot . . .

b Redline:  This was MANime at its best, laden with adrenalin, testosterone, fanservice, and, er, romance?  Things blew up, laws of physics were mocked, cars went fast, and there was even some kissing.  This one begs to be seen on a large screen in high definition probably with good-natured friends in laid-back moods accompanied by popcorn and caffeinated beverages.  There are almost no words to describe how weird this one is, and it left me feeling sort of embarrassed and elated and like I should drive very slowly to compensate . . .  Caution, this movie has "significant objectionable content" as one site says.