What I watched in Spring 2013: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

b House of Five Leaves: The most laid back period show about ronin samurai ever.  There is some action and a certain amount of suspense and intrigue (and a wildly anachronistic soundtrack heavy on Italian/Mediterranean accordion music).  The main character is a seriously timid samurai who has severe social anxiety issues.  He's not actually bad with a sword; he just can't really use it when lots of people are watching him in a real-life situation.  He ends up catching the eye of a mysterious criminal who drags him into his kidnapping business.  As time passes, this criminal's past starts catching up to him.  I think I prefer the manga because the ending is very different and feels more consistent and because there are more interesting sub-plots and more character development.  The anime is sleeker, trimming away the extra plot threads (mostly) and turning on different circumstances and choices.  The art in both is, well, very Natsume Ono, which means it's distinctive, startling, and sometimes hard to get used to.  Even though no one really leaves, there's a relaxed, road trip vibe.  It's a good time, and the character interaction is entertaining.

b Ristorante Paradiso:  Another Natsume Ono story, this one takes place in modern-ish Italy.  It follows a young lady (whose mother abandoned her in order to marry a man who didn't want a woman with a child) as she plots her revenge on the mother she doesn't know.  Except then she meets her mother, and her planned revenge just sort of falls apart as she falls in love with the restaurant her mother's husband runs which has a staff made of up middle-aged men with glasses.  She also starts to fall for one of said middle-aged wait staff and ends up helping out as a kitchen assistant.  This series is also very laid back as it meanders around the lives of folks involved with the restaurant.  If you are looking for resolution or something to really happen, just don't.  Enjoy the ride and try to control the food cravings.

b Steins;Gate: WHOA.  It has bits of gosh-wow fantastic science-fiction increasingly crushed by that pesky time paradox/morality problem.  It has some moments of ridiculous otaku fanservice and episodes of unrelentingly dark moral quandries.  It has murder, mystery, romance, and a main character who has adopted a personna to annoy people around him.  I cannot really explain what makes this show great, but I was hanging on by my fingertips most of the way, and I found the ending to be incredibly well-done.  Excellent voice acting and sometime excellent plotting (it twists, it turns, you NEVER thought it would go there, holy cow).  I suspect it might be a good show to marathon because lots of details MATTER in a way that they don't in most other shows, but some of the characters are reeeeally awkward and might get on one's nerves in larger doses.  Good stuff.

What I watched in Spring 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

b Bunny Drop:  This series is touching and adorable, which is unexpected given how it starts with a funeral.  After the funeral, a 30-something bachelor ends up taking guardianship of his recently deceased grandfather's surprise  5-year-old love child, mostly because he can't stand the way his relatives are being mean where she can hear them.  Of course, his whole life changes as he switches his focus from himself only to a dependent little stranger.  Dwaaaaaw.  (For those who have read the series, the anime version only covers the parts where Rin is little.)  I want to see the live-action version (Usagi Drop), as well, partly because Kenichi Matsuyama plays Daikichi, and I am familiar with his TOTALLY DIFFERENT work in Detroit Metal City, DeathNote, and Nana and want to see how seamlessly he creates and disappears into this role.  It's legally viewable on Crunchyroll and released physically by NIS America.

b Chihayafuru: I believe this story was originally published in a josei magazine, but the anime is like the best kind of sports series, which it is.  The sport?  Karuta.  It's a competitive card game involving poetry and lightning fast reflexes.  (Probably only in Japan would such a thing exist.)  I cannot tell you how much fun I had with this series.  It starts with Chihaya, a lovely young woman who is abnormally obsessed with Karuta.  She is determined to start a club at her high school, so they can compete as a team in tournaments, so she can someday meet up again with the kid who introduced her to the game years ago and lit the fire in her to become the best karuta player in the world.  She gathers her team (sometimes by bullying and force), pulling her childhood friend back into the competitive world and causing all kinds of trouble along the way.  You seriously have to see people playing this game.  It's amazing.  It's legally viewable on Crunchyroll and well worth a watch.

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

b Seikai Ichi Hatsukoi (World's Greatest First Love):  The main character disengaged from the world back in high school when the boy he loved laughed at him after they slept together.  I don't think I've ever seen an anime where this disengagement was quite so clearly and realistically shown.  He uses super-ultra polite language all the time to push people away.  No one is allowed to get close to him.  It's intriguing. 

Anyway, he's been like that for years.  Recently, he left his job at his father's publishing company where he was an editor with a string of hit books.  He wanted to work at a company where he would get some respect for his hard work instead of having to deal with all the snide comments about nepotism getting him the good authors.  He's surprised when instead of getting hired in the literary department, he ends up in the shojo manga division.  And his boss is . . . that guy who broke his heart a decade ago.  The thing is, his memory of the event and the actual event might not be very similar. 

I like the idea explored here of the way our emotional baggage can really cause us problems.  Each of the two boys saw the situation and its aftermath completely differently.  At its heart, it was a communication problem, and since it was never resolved, it left them both wounded.  Anyway, there was less creepiness in this series than in the author's other series I've read part of (Junjo Romantica), although the anime was a very cleaned up version of the manga there.  The consistent device of having a couple of minor stories running at the same time drives me somewhat crazy in this author's work because when the main story is moving, I don't want a stupid side episode about people I don't care about.   

Watching the two main characters try to cope with and define their relationship in the present as they try to figure out what happened in the past is an awkward good time.  Watching one character learn the ins and outs of editing shojo manga is kind of a hoot, too.

What I watched in MAY 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

b Hare + Guu: This show is delightfully, darkly wacky.  Hare's young mom is a carefree, cheerful, alcoholic slob, and he's a bit stressed from having to be the adult.  Sometimes he thinks his life is pretty bad.  Then he meets Guu, and she proceeds to show him that he had no idea what stress is.  There is lots of hilarious ranting as Hare tries to keep Guu from eating his friends and family and tries to deal with the consequences of her deadpan shenanigans.  Oh, the hyper drama.  Some of these voice performances are amazing. : )

b Pumpkin Scissors: A military drama set in a post-war world where a young and idealistic but strong officer and a somewhat motley crew of enlisted men try to stamp out old corruption left over from the war and new corruption springing up in the economic depression it left in its wake.  There are a lot of conflicts including military factions, class issues, and information control.  The main source of conflict comes from a hulking soldier who was used in experiments during the war and struggles with his abilities as a fearless/brainless killer and his desire to contribute positively to peace time.  Another anime based on a light novel series that I really want to read, this one has a semi-decent conclusion for an ongoing series, but mostly it just leaves intriguing threads dangling.  There are some very good performances on the English dub. 

"The Lieutenant is not the be-all, end-all, damn it!"
---
"I'm a noble, so I always have to be alone."

What I watched in APRIL 2013: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

b From Up on Poppy Hill: A lovely, enjoyable, slice-of-life sort of movie.  Gorgeous on the big screen with its hills and coastline.  This is a studio Ghibli film, directed by the famous Miyazaki's son (and apparently much better than his last one).  The dub was great, too.

b Magic Users' Club: This mostly light-hearted and goofy fantasy series starts with one of the most ridiculously-shaped alien invasion ever and continues in general ridiculous, over-the-topness, and sometimes realistically awkward romantic geometric shapes.  I really enjoyed it and found it a fun thing to play in the background as I assembled and organized a massive amount of medical records into a PHR.  (You really need something funny when you are doing this.)  The dub suffers from sounds-like-they-recorded-this-in-a-tiled-bathroom syndrome but is generally pretty serviceable and sometimes a total hoot.

b Strawberry Marshmallow 1: Bwahahaha.  So cute.  Makes me happy.  I really enjoyed it and found it a fun thing to play in the background as I assembled and organized a massive number of medical records into a coherent PHR.  (You really need something funny when you are doing this.)

b Zatch Bell!, 10: Oh, big brother Kanchome.  And Folgore.  And everything.  What a fun, ridiculous show.  I really enjoyed it and found it a fun thing to play in the background as I assembled and organized a massive number of medical records into a coherent PHR.  (You really need something funny when you are doing this.)

What I watched in APRIL 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

b Ghost Slayers Ayakashi: Finally managed to track down a cheap copy of Part 2.  This is a quirky series, consciously starring a middle-aged protagonist and a weird cast of characters.  The dub has some really shining moments (a great and unusual performance from Crispin Freeman is a delightful highlight), the plot is episodic with an overarching story that ends tragically in some OVAs (not tragic on the level of, say, Wolf's Rain, but still a bummer), and there is some really weird stuff in here.  It mixes history with fantasy and mythology, and I like it.

b Pandora Hearts: It started in giggles and ended in tears. Even if it didn't get to end like the graphic novels will, it still managed to get that part right.  Pandora Hearts is the story of a boy named Oz, who, on the day of his ceremony to become an adult, ends up attacked by mysterious cloaked figures who say his very existence is a sin and send him to the Abyss, where he meets a girl called Alice who makes a contract with him, so they can both escape.  When they get back to the real world, 10 years have passed there, and they band together with some shady characters from an organization named Pandora to track down Alice's memories and figure out who the cloaked people were and exactly what Oz's sin is supposed to be . . .  Towards the end, it veers off pretty sharply from the ongoing manga series, but it managed a somewhat decent ending, so kudos to it.

What I watched in MARCH 2013: Digest Version

b Shonen Onmyouji: Okay, there was this period when Geneon USA was circling the toilet when they started doing these horrifically, ruinously bad offshore dubs.  This is one of those dubs.  Unfortunately, when I was watching this show, I was busy gathering medical records and stuff, so I didn't have the time to watch it in Japanese with English subtitles while not gathering  medical records.  So I think the show is better than my English-dub impression of it.  It must be or everyone would hate it instead of just 50% of the people.  It's the story of a boy and his dog-like spirit companion.  This boy is the grandson of a famous spiritualist, but he's notorious mostly for having no spiritual powers AT ALL.  Then he meets up with this critter, and his life changes, and he discovers his real powers and meets a girl and has all these weird adventures involving the mythology of the Japanese spiritual world.  Did I mention the dub is really bad?

"What good is love if the fireflies aren't real?"

b Taisho Baseball Girls: This cute little series about junior high girls who form a baseball team for various reasons is short and sweet.  The team interactions are fun and cute for the most part, and you respect their grit and determination and the troubles they face.  It's also a fun glimpse at an interesting time in Japanese history as East and West collide and traditional views of womanhood seem on the verge of changing.

b You're Beautiful: So, I had a certain amount of expectation built up for this show.  It more and less met these expectations.  There were some surprises in the end, but it was a good experience over all.  One of the most interesting parts was actually the extras.  Some of these folks are really quite good at acting.  In real life some of them are very different.  The female lead and the happy-chipper dude (Blondie in Sarah's review that started it all) are SO DIFFERENT, I was floored.  The DVD box set seems somewhat impossibly priced out of print, but you can watch it legally streaming at Amazon.

What I watched in FEBRUARY 2013: Digest Version, part 2 of 2

b Ronin Warriors OVA: Yep, the Ronin Warriors in New York City in the 80s.  SO 80S!  The dub?  AWESOME!!!  "The pain will be unbearable.  I suggest you lose consciousness." - a villain  SO MUCH AWESOME CHEESINESS THE MIND BOGGLES.  The other set is full of wonky ethnic stereotypes and semi-hilarious mysticism.

b The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye: Two thumbs enthusiastically up.  Excellent dub!  I liked that actress' work in Piano as a secondary character, so I'm glad to see she got a leading role and really nailed it.  And there was more of a finished story there than your average based-on-a-light-novel anime adaptation.  I'll definitely be watching it again.

b Tweeny Witches: This show is a pretty great one to listen to in the background as you do other things.  Don't get me wrong; the visuals are weird and creepy and interesting and well worth watching, but the English dub is pretty fun and lets you follow the story well enough.  Arisu is a normal girl who believes in magic, and then she gets sucked into a magical world, and she turns it on its ear through the power of positive thinking.  Kind of.  It gets pretty dark sometimes, but it's ultimately hopeful.

b Xam'd: So it sort of falls apart in the end, but you almost don't care because of the trippy journey it takes to get there.  I think maybe if I watch it 2 more times, I will get it.  Maybe.  I wish it had been a 39 episode show.  I think it might have been able to be more complete in all its varied storylines and thus been a tad more coherent.  They did a decent job with Eureka7, but that one fell apart a bit in the end, as well.  They both sort of choked on their own mysterious mythology.  But were awesome just the same.  And that opening sequence for the DVDs: holy cow is that catchy despite being totally nonsense Engrish.  I listened to it every single time and still liked it.  (Some fun resources.)

What I watched in FEBRUARY 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 2

I don't know why, but I love reading reviews where reviewers get the details wrong.  I mean, I understand that they usually have a lot on their plates and can't go back and fact check, but, wow.  Sometimes they're just really wrong enough to make me wonder if we watched the same thing . . .

b Antique Bakery: I like the manga better for all that it leaves in.  The big-busted news ladies and the things they contributed to the actual plot, for one example.  The fact that Tachibana can't really open up and have a relationship with anyone, for another.  But something of the essential nature of Fumi Yoshinaga's characters is really brought to life here, and that makes it somewhat worthwhile.  The over-the-topness is often pretty funny.

b Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom:  Good English dub.  Lots of unfamiliar voices that are really good.  Shades of Darker than Black, Black Lagoon, and Leon (The Professional).  Apparently made by the same people who created Noir, Madlax, etc.  The difference is that this one has one boy and one girl instead of two girls.

Dark, dark stuff.  A generally good example of tragedy.  Made me think (in both good and bad ways) and did a good job with the melancholy tone.  Some lovely/appropriate music and a good reiteration about the motto: "Live by the sword, die by the sword." 

For a good synopsis, check out Serdar Yegulalp's piece.  "There’s an astonishing amount of plot in Requiem; I’ve barely described half the story in the above synopsis, and I’m still leaving out a lot of details . . ."     

"If you want to live, you have to be reborn.  You are now only allowed to exist for the purpose of killing people."
---
"I'm too young to be this broken."
--- 
"You're just doing the job someone else would do."
--- 
"You live bearing the pain of what you've done.  You don't make mistakes.  You're careful."
--- 
"Once you kill, everything in the world changes."
--- 
"That's it.  I wanted to go back."
"No.  Let me go back to the world you live in."
--- 
"Before I met you, I was a dead man wearing the skin of the living."
--- 
"There's more to being in love than being with each other."

What I watched in JANUARY 2013: Digest Version

b The Betrayal Knows My Name:  Well, that was depressing.  The sticky-sweet, tacked-on ending was a bit unsatisfactory, as well.  I guess it got the mood right, but I feel it could have been a lot better if it had done some slicing and dicing to rearrange things logically and pick up the pace, a bit.  Of course, then it might have caught up to the manga and surpassed it after the 6th episode, and that would have been problematic.  Not that I hated it.  I mean, it wallowed in the angst and sadness and depressing nature of the whole set-up, and that wasn't terrible.  Sometimes it was a bit harder to swallow than the manga because no matter how good your voice actors are, there are some lines they just can't deliver in a way that appeals to anyone outside the rabid fanbase.

b La Corda d'Oro: Well, that was . . . nice.  Kind of pleasant.  Definitely not the worst reverse-harem series I've seen.  And it had WAAAAAY better music than most because they play real classical pieces and have some fun trivia about the pieces and composers.  And, honestly, there is more realism in this series than in most of its kind.  The main character has a real, believable crisis.  Kind of.  Not the crisis I would have had, but still, you know, a crisis.  And though most of the boys are pretty cardboard, some of them had more depth and backstory than your average cardboard cutout. 

b Lunar Legend Tsukihime: I love you for your music.  Your music is worth the price of admission.  Your story is sad and tragic (and sometimes well-nigh incomprehensible, to be honest, but tragically so).  Your music is so sad, too.  It captures that feeling of sadness and longing and sort of half-hopeless attempts at atonement that characterize the show and all its sad and broken, dysfunctional relationships.  And, you know, horror and suspense.  Good stuff.

b Zatch Bell 6: I love Zatch Bell.  It's totally ridiculous and unrepentantly goofy and full of dramatic shonen goodness.  Also, I adore Ponygon (particularly his total hatred of Kiyo and his horsey inability to speak). 

What I watched in DECEMBER 2013: Digest Version, part 3 of 3

b Nichijou (My Everyday Life):  So very wacky and random.  I loved it.  It was just a weird series of short vignettes, and unexpected things were always happening.  Plenty of non-sequiter humor.  For those who don't mind being totally lost and still sometimes laughing at the punch-lines.  It's like Azumanga Daioh on uppers.  You can watch it on Crunchyroll.  It is an excellent pick-me-up when life has made you tired.

b Princess Jellyfish: The touching (?) story of a bunch of misfit nerds and some fashionable people and how they all collide with, hurt, and help out each other all while being their totally unique selves.  Lots of  laughs at and with various people who don't know how to interact with each other but still (sometimes) try to connect (and sometimes even succeed).  Painful and funny.  And frustratingly unfinished, like so many short anime based on longer light novels.  Yen Press?  Maybe a little help here?

b Ray: Um, so have you heard of Black Jack?  Ray was just spare parts, kept stashed away with other kids who shared the same fate.  She'd already lost her eyes when she was saved and given new, special, x-ray eyes by a mysterious, rogue surgeon.  She grew up to be a much more attractive rogue surgeon always on the lookout for the other kids and with a desire to bring to justice the evil scum who used the kids.  In very little clothing.  I first came across this story in the few volumes of manga published by ADV. (Remember that frustrating experience?)  This adaptation goes much further than what was published, but it's also pretty different. It has a decent conclusion, and there's some fun along the way.

b Yu Yu Hakusho ssn 3 and 4:  Guess what?  There is so much fighting in this show.  Surprise!  With all the drama and bombast, it also surprised me that sometimes this show wasn't loud enough to drown out the perpetually crying child next door.  Sigh.  But the good guys sort of win in the end through the power of fighting.   And I sort of forgot that Hiei had such a romantic ending to his story.  Well, romantic for Hiei, anyway.

What I watched in DECEMBER 2013: Digest Version, part 2 of 3

b Bamboo Blade: The story of a kendo prodigy who ends up joining her high school team (sort of against her will) and her wacky teammates and loser coach.  It's good fun (though the loser coach/teacher is really kind of a terrible human being, as many of his students don't hesitate to point out).

b NeoAngelique Abyss:  The adventures of Egg Girl, MonocleMan, PantsMan, RobotMan, and ScienceMan as they whomp on totally unfrightening baddies from another dimension and try to save their world from the forces of MildlyScary.  Yeah.  The best part was watching this with ST and the many soulful, why-are-they-torturing-me-like-this looks she cast my way.  I'm told the original (Angelique) was pretty awesome.  I would like to see it.  I would have liked to have seen it instead of this.

b Kurenai: Another series that sort of suffers from being an adaptation of one part of a longer series of novels, Kurenai is pretty intriguing and sometimes annoying.  It might have been better had I known that the little girl was only the main character of this series/novel because I ended up pretty baffled at the end when things seemed to be coming to a conclusion when I thought this was a beginning.

What I watched in DECEMBER 2013: Digest Version, part 1 of 3

b Dennou Coil: I love this show so much.  I really, really want to own it, so I can watch it and make all my friends watch it, too.  It's like Miyazaki meets Ghost in the Shell in the best combo possible.  It's the nearish future, and the coolest current tech toy is basically a really advanced and much cheaper version of Google Glasses, which turn the world into a big game.  When you're wearing your glasses, you can see all sorts of things that don't really exist. 

But it's not all fun and games.  There's an urban legend about how the glasses world can cause death and injury in the real world.  And there are various mysteries and realistic portrayals of differently broken kids and their trials in the real world and the glasses world.  Love, love, love this show.  Suspense, sci-fi, kids, adventure, mystery, friendship!  What is not to love?

b Kids on the Slope: Great music, lovely art.  Like a lot of adaptations, it suffers from that Cliff's Notes feeling.  The loving care taken with the music scenes is kind of stunning.  (The animation.  Matches.  The music.) The story of kids in a different era and how they relate through music (and how sometimes music isn't enough to keep you together when time keeps marching on) is painful and touching.  There is the feeling that things are missing because there just wasn't enough time to get them in (and sometimes these are important things).  I wish they'd had enough time to tell the whole story because I think it's a really good story.  And the music.  Oh, the music.  And the cultural history.  Oh, it was really lovely.  I may purchase this in blu-ray, so I can listen to this on someone's nice surround-sound system.

Great music, lovely art.  Like a lot of adaptations, it suffers from that Cliff's Notes feeling.  Some things feel rushed while others are, well, sometimes they're explained about later.  In KotS, some things are lovingly depicted (the animation actually matches the music) and others, it seems like you're just supposed to get them.  Maybe this is a case of me not being Japanese enough?  Or maybe I was just slow on the uptake at the end.  I look forward to more viewings in case they clear things up.  Anyway, I was pleased with how much happened in such a brief series, even if I do want to read the full version some day.

What I watched in NOVEMBER 2013: Digest Version

Not much happened in November with anime because I was participating in National Novel Writers Month.  Trying to write 50,000 words in a month sort of sucks up your free time.  : )

b Hamataro:  Little hamsters, big adventures.  Super cute adventures about friendship and niceness and hamsters (that talk).

b xxxHOLiC movie: Hmmm.  It was pretty.  The English voice actor for Watanuki is still hilariously high strung.

Princess Tutu again because I like it that much

For those who think a stylized, dark fairy tale where ballet is battle and the nature of story, free will, and love are acted out to a varied and excellent classical soundtrack is a great idea, Princess Tutu is for you.  Probably.  Lots of folks who would not have admitted interest in most of those things liked it when I watched it with a group, and some folks interested in a lot of those things really didn't get into it at all.  Your mileage will vary.

My mileage was awesome.  It's like they made this show for me.  That brief obsession with ballet when I worked as a page in the children's section at the library let me recognize many of the allusions and musical cues on my own, which enriched the stories a bit.  It's very clever.  Frankly, I don't understand how people could like this show without that background, but they do, and I love that.

I watched the second half this time.  I stopped collecting at the first half because it had something closer to what I would consider a happy ending, but this sale was really too good to pass up.  I was sucked in again, and I just need someone to make a playlist of all the songs and what they're from, so I can figure out more of the buried allusions and also add them to my own playlist.  What a smorgasbord of lovely music.  Sigh.

What I watched in October 2012

b Angelic Layer: Sometimes you just want some goofy, shonen goodness as only CLAMP can provide.  It's a tournament show about fighting dolls and the people (mostly girls) who play with them.  Seriously.  It's about grit and determination and odd family dynamics and wiggly, wiggly I-chan.

o Baccano:I was going to sit down and watch anime instead of having it on while I did other things.  Then the first couple minutes happened.  They were not kidding about the graphic violence.  And so I found this anime better "viewed" 25% with my eyes and 75% with my ears.  Defying laws of physics everywhere all the time!  Netflix apparently doesn't have the last volume, and I don't actually care.  I don't think my stomach can take the conclusion . . .

"Mercy and Compassion are virtues only the strong can possess.  And I am strong."

b DanDoh: Dandoh's dad is a loser!  What a total jerk!  I don't care why.  Where are the adults and the monitors and stuff?!  WTH!!!!!  If there's this much cheating in golf, it's a much more interesting game than I thought. Yuka, you are my hero.  You talked to the adults and explained what happened.  How novel!  The best voice acting comes from the golf announcers.  Nice.

"That's it!  I'm not going to lose to someone who can't even count!" 

"If adults teach them everything, then the kids will never get to explore and learn things on their own."

"Your ball hasn't given up this match yet!"

"He is a man who killed his talents with his own hands."

"That is SO RIDICULOUS!!!!" - me (so many times)

b Strawberry Marshmallow: Adorable warm fuzzy goodness and some amazing English voice acting.  Mio, in particular, is endearingly 100% obnoxious.  (I'm still not very fond of Anna, but she's the only exception.)  The group dynamics are a hoot and somehow realistic while still being firmly in comedy territory.  A neat trick.  This show is a real pick-me-up and pretty much always leaves me grinning for days. 

b Viewtiful Joe:Another great pick-me-up show, Viewtiful Joe makes me happy.  Its good natured, dudical goofiness and relentlessly positive slacker hero are just the ticket when you're feeling down.  And Joe's English voice is outstanding, as are several of the other characters.  It's an all-around good time.

"There's a kind of heroism in staying behind sometimes, I figure."

"What's cool now is to pretend you're too smart for hope.  That hope is for those too frightened to face life as it really is."

What I watched in September: Digest Version

b DMC (Detroit Metal City) live-action movie: Not as gleefully profane as frequently as the manga, but that's to be expected because movie audiences usually prefer something that more directly resembles a linear plot.  Some of the good early moments of the series are in here, but sometimes it feels a bit like a Cliff's Notes version.  On the whole, it's coherent and frequently hilarious, especially when you remind yourself that this is the guy who played L in DeathNote and Shin in Nana and that guy in Gantz . . .  What can I say?  This guy can disappear into a role.

And what a weird role this is.  Soichi Negishi is a 20-something, pop-music-loving schmuk who secretly fronts a Glam Rock metal band to pay the bills.  There's a pop-loving girl he likes, crazy fans, trendy pop-singers, psycho band-mates, and a manager from hell (considerably cleaned up from the manga but still plenty horrifying).  There is profanity, vulgarity, and all manner of Very Wrong Things.  And some nice lessons couched in those Very Wrong Things.  Japanese live-action movies and dramas can be a weird experience because of the over-acting, and the manga it's based on is already so far over the top that this could have been a train wreck.  Somehow it wasn't.  Go to DMC, indeed.

b Heroic Age: Things blow up!  There is frantic instrumental music!  Laws of physics are totally mocked!  Earnest monologues are delivered sincerely!  It's all very epic and confusing, but once upon a time there was this super advanced race called the gold tribe, and then there may have been a war and for some reason the gold tribe left and gave some special creatures behind to let them duke it out to determine which tribe will dominate.  I think.  Anyway, there's lots of fighting and tragic backstories and unrequited love geometries and good and evil and betrayal and weirdoes.  It's not as bad as it could have been, but sometimes it was dialed up to 14 on a scale of 10, and the unintentional hilarity was too much.  Other times, despite that, it was really sad or touching.  Maybe it would have been more coherent if I hadn't watched it stretched across a couple months.

"That's . . . kind of creepy." (re: Age's painting)

"Don't eat my aircraft!"

"If Age gets lost, you bring him back."
"The path that leads to more peace is worth fighting for."

b Moon Phase: Really decent dub for this slightly oddball show.  There is a high lolicon ick factor that is sometimes impossible to ignore, but there is also this weird stage-yness.  It's kind of like breaking the 4th wall (which happens sometimes, too), and the effect is quite odd in an anime but not horrible.  It's jarring but not terminally so.  I give it extra kudos for totally not showing any of the climactic showdown battle AT ALL!  Bwahahah.  Well played.  : )  This isn't really an action show, after all, so why blow your budget when everyone knows how things will play out anyway?  It makes me want to read the whole manga to see if the same thing happens there.  It's a mostly happy, slightly confused ending and a weird ride, but I enjoyed it.

"One thing I know how to do is honor the heck out of an obligation."

"It's just the fruit of my daily training."
"Well, then, meet the fruit juicer!"

Too Japanese for Me: when the truth doesn't matter because no one tells it

So I'm watching shojo anime La Cordo de Oro when it happens again. I find myself saying, "Not again!  Are you kidding me?!" as the heroine, betrayed by a jealous and shrewish lying liar of a comrade, refuses to tell the truth to those in authority, preferring to take the unfair reputation hit herself for some (probably obvious to Japanese) reason.

My next thought is something along the lines of "This is why I am not a shojo heroine because if I was, I would tell the truth and let justice be done, and then later on when I needed to be helped/saved, there would be no people I had graciously helped to assist me."  (That sort of thing where justice is served and the villain is redeemed to come back and save the hero seems to happen in shonen manga and usually involves fists as a definition for justice.  [Dengeki Daisy is an exception in this case, but DD is, well, an exception-al shojo manga in so many ways.])

It happens again a little later.  [SPOILER] One of the reverse harem members misses a performance because a jealous enemy locks him in a closet.[/SPOILER]  At first, when it could have made a difference, the kids don't explain, but later it sounds like they tell the authorities, not that it makes any difference for some (most likely obvious to Japanese) reason.

I just don't get this.  Is it simply a shojo manga trope, or is it really a reflection of some inherently Japanese cultural mindset/characteristic?  If so, which one?  I find myself very curious. 

Super Awesome Studio Ghibli Marathon, Part 4

Oh, the crazy.  Not only did I tackle National Novel Writing Month, but then I discovered that a local theater was playing a chunk of Studio Ghibli movies (each for only a couple days), and how often does that happen?   So I made it work.  Somehow.

b Whisper of the Heart: Oh, Country Roads.  I love it when someone just gets obsessed with a song and uses it in some other medium.  This one is STs favorite, I think, and I really loved it, too.  It was nice to see it all in it's inspiring, romantic, and awkward glory.  I like how it's kind of open-ended.  I mean, you hope they'll keep their promise and stuff, but you don't really know.  I like how the kids inspire each other.  And the Baron is pretty great, as was that clock.  I like how there's always a family in the background and some normal family troubles to ground the fantasy elements.  I got kind of choked up.

b Only Yesterday: This one had some odd animation.  There was something off about the main character's face when she smiled; it was just a little creepy.  I had some trouble following the time jumps, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the flashback family was the older girl's past.  It was late, and that probably made things seem more confusing.  Anyway, what an odd duck this film was.  It was one of the most Japanese Ghibli films, I think, grounded with almost ruthless firmness in history and nature.  Maybe this is why Disney never released it here?  I can't tell you how much I wanted to slap those horrible, petty, spiteful older sisters when they spiked her chance to finally do something she was good at.  Dividing fractions.  Sigh.  I learned quite a bit about all sorts of things that will never help me win on Jeopardy. : )

Super Awesome Studio Ghibli Marathon, Part 3

Oh, the crazy.  Not only did I tackle National Novel Writing Month, but then I discovered that a local theater was playing a chunk of Studio Ghibli movies (each for only a couple days), and how often does that happen?   So I made it work.  Somehow.

b Kiki's Delivery Service: This was another one I had seen and forgotten most of the details of. It has been a long time since I saw this one.  I found it more confusing this time, but that may have been the exhaustion catching up to me.  I liked the nice couple she stayed with a lot, and I loved the warm feeling of the movie overall.  This didn't make the dangerous bits any less heart-pounding, which is for the good, I think.

b The Cat Returns: This one was in English for some strange reason.  And they played it before Whisper of the Heart (it's a sort of "sequal" to Whisper" but not really.)  This one was pretty trippy, so I suspect it's supposed to be for the younger kids.  But even Totoro had Japanese showings, so I'm baffled about that.  There's this girl, and she saves a cat, but he's a prince of the cat world, so the cat king tries to reward her, and things just get very strange.  It's okay because the baron (and I like his character design much better in this version) saves the day, true love conquers some, physics are mocked wonderfully, and everybody lives happily ever after, including the disagreeable, surly bouncer cat.