Niko

Theater: YAY! Avenue Q proves itself to be the irreverent-little-show-that-could. It scored (no pun intended) all three production-side musical Tony's: Best Book, Best Score, and Best Overall Musical.  My other favorite, Assassins, also took home some big awards, with wins for Best Revival, Best Director, and Best Featured Actor.  I've been thinking about trekking over to Chicago this Labor Day to see Michael Cerveris and Audra McDonald in Sunday in the Park with George...and they BOTH won Tony's last night, so now I really do have to. :)

Reading: Recently finished an older book (Door Into Fire by Diane Duane) that I read once when it was a little too old for me, so I didn't really remember much about it.  It turned out to be pretty good.  Now I gotta hunt up the other volumes, which I think are probably going to be out of print. :P  Currently reading another book that I similarly didn't-quite-get as a kid: Jo Clayton's Changer's Moon.  Too early yet to know if I'll enjoy it.

Anime: Continuing to catch up with Full Metal Panic, Descendants of Darkness, Fruits Basket, and Weiss Kreuz...I'm enjoying all these series very much, although Descendants and Weiss go quite over-the-top with their bad guys. (The eye-candy makes up for it, though.)  I also am very intrigued by Gasaraki. Volume 1 didn't get into things deep enough to be sure, but the political maneuvering going on in the series is very different and surprisingly "real world" for a mecha-show.  I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to mech-fans, even just based on one volume.  Finally, I'm drop-dead OBSESSED with Wolf's Rain airing on Cartoon Network.  What a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic series.  Nice, steady story development and a mix of characters that keeps me interested in everyone - not just the wolves.

Movies: Oh, forgot that I also went to see ...Azakaban on opening night. Some people have no brains when it comes to bringing children to the theater (If 9-year-old Billy *must* see the movie, find a sitter for 3-year-old Janie, for cryin' out loud!!). Besides those sorts of problems, I loved the movie. The kids have grown into their rolls so nicely, and this adaptation felt so much more *REAL*...the script allowed them to talk and interact like KIDS (entering teen-dom) which, combined with the chemistry they've developed, gave the movie a good core. The Harry/Lupin and Harry/Sirius chemistry were great, too. Looking forward to seeing those two actors again. I hope they find a time-freezing machine to allow them to use Daniel Radcliffe through Order of the Phoenix...he's come a long way since the first movie, and handles Harry's more mature moments in this movie really well.

Had another couple Greencine anime's come through, plus got myself caught up on a few DVD's I've had sitting around, so it's been quite an anime-fest in my house lately.

Voices of a Distant Star: Hmmmmm...I was talking about this one with Jon, and I like the analogy that came out of that.  Voices is a bit like a poem.  It's so short that, when I watched it from the viewpoint of longer works, I found it unsatisfying...too short and not enough meat to the story. But viewed on it's own terms - as a work that is SUPPOSED to be short and rely more on a single idea than any complicated plot - it is wonderful.  It treads ground that's been done before, but in an entirely new perspective.  Lovely.

Witch Hunter Robin:  I'm bummed that this has started on Cartoon network, because I've had the first two DVD's for a while, and I coulda save myself the money if I'd paid more attention to scheduling.  But oh well. I sat down and watched the first ten eps (of 26) in a big chunk.  Quite a slow-starting series.  By the end of ten eps, I gather the "real" story is only just starting to show itself.  Until then, there's lots of episodic content that is enjoyable enough, but feels a little "so what"-ish.  I do find that I REALLY care about the characters now, while at the 5-episode point I wasn't so sure, so I guess these starter-eps did their job.  Also very curious about where things go from here. And I've added another "minor character I think rocks" to my ever-growing list.  Absolutely adore Sakaki.

Full Metal Panic:  I finally got a chance to start watching this, and I was happy to find out that it was worth all the praise I've seen heaped on it.  My only familiarity with the story was a manga insert in Newtype or some other anime mag, and I hadn't been too thrilled by that.  Seeing a larger chunk of the story, though, I'm loving it.  The characters are so endearing, and there were a ton of laugh-out-loud moments that I wasn't expecting.  Seen the first two volumes so far, and the rest are at the top of my Greencine rental queue.  One of the first animes we've rented that Jon and I both love wholeheartedly.

Irresponsible Captain Tylor: An old favorite of mine that I rented to force myself to watch it again all the way through.  The first DVD came around this week, with the first SEVEN (!!) episodes.  It's not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as I remember it being, but it's still a classic, and a lot of fun.

Happy Lesson/Kino's Journey: Just had the first eps. of these on Newtype sampler discs.  Happy Lesson was funnier than I expected, but very "been there, done that".  If the women weren't such complete anime stereotypes, this one woulda had a chance with me.  As it is, I'll probably pass.  Kino's Journey seems intriguing.  It reminds me a lot of a little OVA series I downloaded called "Quiet Country Cafe",,,very melancholy and laid back.  A recent review at AoD, though, indicates that things get weirder.  I'll probably keep watching.

Get Backers: My harddrive died recently, and I'm SO glad I finished watching the first season of this series before all of my dl'd eps went bye-bye. I had much of the second season already dl'd, too, but I think I'll hold off on re-getting them. There's a lot of fun to be had in the series, but it got a bit too repetetive for me at times, and the huge cast seems to exist entirely to provide lots of different combinations for the fight sequences. So, while I'd love to spend more time with the main characters, I'm not thrilled about the rest of the baggage that goes along with it.

• I want a stuffed Suupi-kun! Kawaii!


• Most of the guys in this one are extremely hot. Shannon and his sort of stand-in, Fulle, are especially swoon-worthy


• Pacifica is, at times, a little too dense to be believed, but I guess that's her particular charm. Love her bath-obsession, though.


• I think Raquelle is my fave character - Of the three central characters, she has the least to do, but she really made an impact. She's so outwardly calm for most of the series, but you could still read her emotional state easily. Some good voice acting and animation there.


• I figured it was coming, but the events of the penultimate episode still had me completely shell-shocked. Quite a punch.