I'm irritated by how they rearranged the story and what they cut out and how ist still managed to drag, but there were some moments when I was very glad this got animated at all. It made me want to read the manga again, which is not a bad thing.b Astro Boy: I really liked this one. A lot. I'm sad that I was a space cadet when it was actually in the theaters, because I would have loved to see it on the big screen. It was colorful, fun, heart-wrenching, and action-packed. It was not Disney. (FYI: I do like Disney, but I also like to see other creators' works, too.) It dealt with really important discussions of what it means to be human. What more could you ask from your kids movie?
b Girl Who Leapt Through Time: Saw this again with some friends. One of them said that she has never understood the jPop music in anime, which is fair. "It doesn't do for me what it must do for Japanese audiences," she said, and she's correct. It doesn't usually make us rush out to buy the single and shoot the song up in the Oricon charts. It's a lovely movie, another one I wish I had been able to see in theaters (darn you, unavoidable prior commitments!).
b Madoka Magica: Holy cow, this show is dark, cute, and twisted, and I love it. Along with being amazing, it adds to my belief that in modern anime, one should never trust the adorable mascot character. Ever.
b Midori no Hibi: Still funny and still not for people squeamish about full frontal boobity or the fact that guys have "packages" and aren't weirdly androgynously smooth in their nether parts. (Yeah, that only really comes up once in a bullying scene that makes me think of that poor girly-looking student council member in Maid-sama, only there was no stripping in Maid-sama because they thought he was a girl.) It's unabashedly shonen, genuinely sweet, and totally and utterly weird.
b Nabari No Ou:
Sometimes it got quite ridiculous (and if you aren't anticipating that in a title about ninja clans at war in the modern world, you are a silly person), but sometimes it tried to be too serious. I kind of hated the ending. And the ending after that, but I liked the opening theme song, and I enjoyed the show for the most part. Actually, I wanted to take all the characters and their assorted backstories and retell them in a better, more coherent fashion and with a different ending, but who has the time for that?b Palace: I don't watch much TV, so my TV drama rhythm is off, anyway, but these seem to be way longer than what I'm used to. I could blame it on the fact that I was watching these late at night when I was finished with the other things I needed to do, but it was sometimes really hard to make it all the way through an episode, and if I stopped in the middle my DVD player had some trouble getting started in the same place again. Yikes. There were some very funny moments, but it seems to drag, possibly because of that pesky episode length. I haven't given it a try again because I haven't had time to sit and watch sub-only stuff in months. Maybe the upcoming school break and holidays will allow for more chances. I don't think that will help with my main gripe, which is that they hamstrung one of the characters who was a jerk but one with whom I could have some sympathy and turned her into a watered-down version of herself. I really wonder why. Well, thanks to Yen, we still have the manga!
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