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*Squee!*
I was just poking around the prompts for ![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
springkink and noticed that some unclaimed prompts of mine from the November round have been claimed for June. It was my first time prompting, and I didn't realize that they carried over! Can't wait to see what comes of it. :) At least one of them is a bit quirky, so I'm not sure what to expect.
I'm wishing now that I'd submitted a few new prompts this time. I've been playing Fallout 3 like a madwoman lately, and it would be an interesting fandom to toss out a prompt or two and see what came of it. My only complaint about the game is how useless the characters become after they've served their one plot purpose. They establish some cool characters, but as soon as you get to "mission accomplished" for their section of game, they become braindead automatons. It'd be nice to see fanfic remedy that. :)
And Unrelated:
I watched the anime series Generator Gawl the other day, and am deeply smitten. It's the first series in a while that has really pushed all my fangirl buttons at once - angst, hurt/comfort, unwaivering self-sacrifice to protect one's friends. Sooooo pretty. :) Yet another addition for the grand high list of awesome shows that no one else has ever thought to fic. :)
Jen
Logging some recent DVD-viewing from rentals and anime meetup.
I've had two straight months of Netflix/Greencine rentals go by where I didn't watch a *THING*. I need to get on the ball and quit wasting money. Should probably cancel Greencine altogether, but I have a few older series on my queue there that Netflix doesn't carry, and I'd really like to get through a few of those. *sigh*
I have been waiting for this series for I-can't-even-tell-you-how-long. Back in the days when AnimEigo had done their funky pre-order scheme to get people to commit to buy the entire Kimagure Orange Road tv series as a precondition of them releasing the whole thing (back in the laser-disc days), they also circulated some questions about which other series people would be willing to pony up for in that way.
I voted for Yawara! back then, and have been waiting impatiently ever since. :)
It's such a charming, fun series. Highly recommended! :)
Today's episode of Real Drive fucking ROCKS.
Souta Aoi is giving Ken Hidaka a serious run for his money in the "anime characters Jenny is most obsessed with" derby.
And shipping him with Holon? Made of awesome.
I'm not usually one to get all excited by "cool fight scenes", but the fights in this series are really interesting. Maybe it's just that they use a few more realistic-sounding thwacks and grunts or something, but there's an immediacy to them that's much more interesting than your usual stylized anime fight. I love it.
I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record, with all this anime yammering lately. It's better than not posting at all, I guess. :)
So far, Summer has much slimmer pickings than with Spring, but there are still a few that I'm excited for, and a few others that I'll at least check out:
June 21
Telepathy Shoujo Ran - Seems like a fairly good-natured, slice-of-life-ish sort of show with a paranormal twist. Will either be very boring or rather charming.
July 1
Ultraviolet: Code 044 - Not expecting this to be of long-term interest, but it has the novelty factor of being a twist on a western franchise.
July 3
Antique Bakery - Yay! YAYAYAYAYAYAY! Between this and the Greenwood live-action (see below), Summer 2008 makes me very, very happy. I just noticed that Miki Shinichiro is playing Ono, which is not a casting choice I would have expected, but I think it will work very well. Happy days. :)
July 5
Ryoko's Case Files - My third one I'm looking forward to, mainly for the character designs. Narumi Kakinouchi did the character designs for the novels/manga (?) of this series, and I have an artbook of her work for it. I quite liked the artbook, even though I knew nothing about the series, so I was pleased to see an anime for it on the schedule.
July 7
Natsume Yuujinchou - I'm not really keen on the whole spiritualist sort of tone, but the character designs are nice and it looks like it has some high production values, so it's worth a look.
World Destruction - Looks fantasy-ish, so it'll get a shot. :)
Unknown Dates
Here is Greenwood (live action) - Massive, ear-shattering squee! Check out the cast: http://www.greenwood-tv.com/ The guy playing Hasukawa is just about the most adorable thing *ever*. Greenwood is one of my favorite series and I've always been rather sad that the manga-ka never really did much else, as I think her comedic sense in Greenwood was absolutely *brilliant*. I've always gotten a little weepy in the pit of my stomach when I've thought about there being so little canon for these wonderful characters. So, it's a huge thrill to have it come back, even if I am a bit leery of live-action adaptations.
Chocolate Underground - A bit of a kooky premise (chocolate is outlawed, so some teens start a smuggling operation), which could be hit or miss (or both at once... see Library Wars). But the look of the show kinda puts me in mind of Bruno & Boots type school-days hijinx, which gives it a little extra appeal.
The season may be halfway over, but I've finally sampled all the series that caught my eye.
Spring '08 Mid-Season Rundown
Top 5
1. Kure-nai
2. Kaiba
3. Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief (The Daughter of 20 Faces)
4. RD Sennou Chosashitsu (Real Drive)
5. Macross Frontier
Worth Watching
1. Crystal Blaze
2. Tower of Druaga
3. Nabari no Ou
Mediocre, but Mildly Enjoyable
1. Toshokan Sensou (Library Wars)
2. Monochrome Factor
3. Neo-Angelique - Abyss
Disappointments
1. Allison to Lillia
2. Itazura na Kiss
3. Himitsu - The Revelation
4. Amatsuki
I'm not sure yet if I'll continue to watch the disappointments. I want to give Himitsu and Amatsuki a bit longer, as I've only seen 4 episodes of those, but once I get up into the 7 or 8 episode range, as I am with Allison and Kiss, it starts to feel a bit futile to continue with a show that's not making me happy.
I've been watching a few eps. of Monochrome Factor. It's still not going to win any prizes for originality, but it has a not-quite-as-tough best friend who's ready and willing to jump into the fight side-by-side with the superpowered hero, to hell with the danger. Loyal best friends are like my kryptonite.
One thing I find interesting is that the flashbacks in this series show Kengo and his sister as having dark hair when they were children. Both are blond in the present day. I am oddly charmed that the animators thought to make this little touch. I can't think of any other series where it's made explicitly clear that no, that very Japanese character's very un-Japanese (blue/pink/chartreuse-with-purple-polka-dots) hair color is not natural. I like it.
Still working through the spring anime this season. My list of shows to check out has gotten bigger as I've heard good things about some of the ones I'd dismissed, so I still have quite a backlog.
Here's the scorecard so far:
Well, my grand scheme to keep up with the new season in Japan is going kinda poorly, but I'm gradually working through the various DL's.
In the new anime season, I've only checked out Bus Gamer and The Tower of Druaga so far (and Blassreiter, but that one wasn't on my "planning to watch" list, and it didn't impress me much, so it doesn't count.
So, I see THIS come across ANN:
Providence Anime Conference: North America's only 21+ Anime Convention
[...]Some of the convention's features will include a keynote address instead of an opening ceremony, a costume fashion show, rather than a contest, and live-action programming based around professional and academic panels. [...]
Vendors looking to participate in the convention will be instructed to bring items that are not normally available at stores or online, while entries for PAC's cosplay skit exhibition will be pre-screened to ensure high quality.
( My Whining... )
Preview video for Toshokan Sensou / Library Wars:
http://www.toshokan-sensou.com/gallery_pv1.html
I'm really getting excited about this show. It still reminds me a lot of Planetes (probably because the main character has that same kinda tomboy look to her), which can only be a good thing, and the characters introduced in the preview all struck a nice chord with me. :) (Oh, and prickly main-character guy's kind of a hottie. ;-) )
Wish I knew if the narrator for the preview was Tomokazu Seki or the seiyuu for prickly-hottie-guy. He sounds a lot like Seki, but I don't see him on the cast list. If prickly-hottie-guy is voiced by someone who *sounds* like Seki, there will be much happiness and squee-ing as I get a new seiyuu to stalk auditorally (which is a word I just made up because I can't think of a proper one... unless that is the proper one. :) )
The upcoming Spring anime season in Japan has a more promising lineup than I've seen in a while, with quite a few shows that I'm really, *really* eager for, and several others that look quite promising. I'm going to try to make an effort to sample them all for at least a few episodes this year. This is just a quick, personal-reference post with the titles/dates I need to watch for.
March 14
Bus Gamer - A no-brainer. Minekura-sensei FTW! :)
April 3:
Allison to Lillia - This is from the same author as Kino, and given my Kino fixation, this is another no brainer.
Macross Frontier - It's Macross. Gotta at least give it a shot.
Kure-nai - "16-year-old Shintaro Kurenai, a specialist in settling squabbles between people, is approached by the daughter of a powerful plutocratic family asking him to be her bodyguard." Sounds like it has the possibility to be a little slow, but with a lot of heart. I like that.
April 4:
Amatsuki - Looks lightweight, but main character seems likeable. Worth a look, maybe.
The Tower of Druaga - I'm not really eager for this, but it seems like an old-school fantasy adventure, and those are often up my alley.
April 7:
Monochrome Factor - Premise sounds pretty ho-hum, and I'm not too sure about the character designs, but the title's grabbing me or something. I dunno.
April 8:
Himitsu - Top Secret - Another detective-y thing. I'm intrigued that this looks very shoujo, but not the traditional girly boy-dilemma shoujo. Also: Seki!! SQUEE!
Crystal Blaze - Mostly of interest because Miki Shin-ichiro is voicing the main character, but it's got a hard-boiled detective sort of vibe going for it that might be worthwhile. (Edit: Oh! Oh! Two seconds after posting this, I noticed a new item about this on ANN, billing it as a "hard-boiled buddy" show. It looks like a character I assumed was a girl is really a guy. Making this a "buddy" show just upped the excitement level about 120%. )
RD Sennou Chousashitsu - Kinda hot main character. Concept is surreal and cyberspacey enough to make me curious. (LOL. My first thought on reading the premise was that it sounded kinda "Ghost in the Shell"-ish. And I just noticed that it *is* based on a story from Masamune Shirou. Good eye, Jen. :)
April 10:
Toshokan Sensou - An anime about librarians in a war against an evil army of censorship. What's not to love? :) Something about the character designs reminds me of Planetes, which is another plus. I'm cautiously excited about this one.
April 12:
Nijuu Mensou no Musume - The kinda Gothic/European flare in the trailer is intriguing, and seems like it has potential to be a caper sort of anime to go with the two detective series. As long as it's not as cheezy as DNAngel or as pompous as Noir (the two series that sprang to mind when I watched the trailer and read the synopsis), it could have potential.
I was delighted to hear the news of an Antique Bakery anime coming up. And this follow-up is doubly squeeful:
In particular, the company emphasized that the titular bakery's head chef Ono [...] will maintain his
"demonically gay" charms. The 2001 live-action version turned the Ono character into a straight man.
There are also plans to depict the plot-crucial "incident" that occurred during the childhood of the
bakery's owner, Tachibana. The anime is set to premiere in July.
I couldn't believe it when I first heard that the live-action series made Ono straight. It was profoundly ridiculous. Ono without the demonically gay charm doesn't work on so many levels that it's practically a crime against humanity. ^_^
Also love the idea of getting into the "incident" they refer to with more specifics. One of my frustrations with the manga has to do with the fact that she left that incident hanging out there without closure. Tachibana may not have minded, but I did, dammit! :)
LOL! So, I'm doing some straightening today, and come across a stash of goodies that I apparently bought at a convention a few years ago and never bothered to unpack when I got home. A handful of doujinshi, a few pencil boards, a couple keychains... mostly stuff that it seems like I probably bought just because it was a con and I wanted to buy *something*.
Anyway, one of the items is a One Piece change purse sort of thing. Opening it, I find that it actually contains 5 clear plastic cards with *eyebrow stencils* cut out of them. One Piece eyebrow stencils, people. One for each of the first five mugiwara. How crack-tastic is that?
If I ever decide to try cosplaying, I can now rest easy in the knowledge that I will have the most accurate eyebrows ever. ^_^
We had an anime meetup this past weekend, and there's a new guy who seems like he'll become our first new regular attendee in a while. He seems to be pretty hardcore, and has been brining some excellent shows that I haven't seen yet, which is all *kinds* of love. :)
Recent anime viewing, from the meetups and a few of my own rentals:
- Mushishi Vol. 1 - I've watched the first episode of this series about four times, but never got around to watching more, despite buying the DVD's. I think my enjoyment was a little tainted by having read the first volume of manga already. With a direct manga-to-anime port like this, that's usually an issue for me. I do love the series concept, though. It's exactly my sort of thing, with these small, human-nature sort of stories... and the imagery is so *beautiful*. *happy sigh*
- Coyote Ragtime Show, Vol. 1 - Straight-up adventure/caper series with a very western approach to the storytelling. I was pretty impressed with the animation in this, especially during the bank-heist flashback. Also fangirling a bit over Katana and Bishop ;) . Not expecting the series to get particularly deep, but the energy and punch of it definitely make it a worthwhile series to stick with. Unlike, say...
- L/R (Licensed by Royalty) - I wanted to like this spy series, but it never really developed any momentum to keep you interested... Just this meandering string of lukewarm intrigue. My rental disk had a scratch that crashed the player halfway through the final episode, and I think it's very telling that, gotten that far into the series, I had absolutely no frustration about not getting to see the final climax. Just ho-hum.
- School Rumble Vol. 1-2 - Now *this* is made of pure, undiluted awesome. Anime Crack of the best kind. Characters this stupid should be irritating to watch, but their earnestness and goofiness are just too endearing for words, and bizarre situations that should seem over-the-top and freaky are completely buyable because it all just *fits*. It kinda reminds me of Fruits Basket with all the angsty-drama taken out, but that may just be because both heroines are extreme airheads. Either way, it's hilarious stuff.
- Excel Saga Vol. 1-2 - I'm sure this is heretical, but Excel Saga has not aged well at *all*, imo. I remember finding the first few episodes screamingly funny, but now that I've finally started to watch the whole thing, it's a real chore to slog through. I know it gets bonus points for being one of the earliest experiments in pure crack spoofiness, but it's been done so much better since then that the "comedy" in this barely registers. And if you don't find it funny, there's really not much point to watching at all.
- GITS: Innocence & GITS: Solid State Society - I really, really, *really* love Batou and Togusa. These were both pretty sweet in that regard. Innocence is a beautiful film... wish I'd had a chance to see it on the big screen. The visuals are lovely, and there's this wonderful poignancy that makes the usual GITS socio/psycho-babble less mind-numbing. Enjoyed Solid State Society more than 2nd Gig and less than 1st Gig.
- Sorcerer Hunters 1-2 - This is another series I remember liking the first few episodes, but that has clearly not aged well. Old-school comedy/adventure that was probably borrowing heavily from Slayers at the time it was made. It's enjoyable enough to have running in the background while doing other things, but it's a bit too episodic and un-funny to site down and actually *watch* it.
- Ayashi no Ceres 3-5 - Lord, save me from brooding heroes who magically get the girl because they're so deep and brooding and mysterious and brooding. I suppose if I were 13 years old, I might find the Aya/Tooya drama dreadfully romantic, but I've found that the series is only tolerable if I fast forward through 90% of that gunk. Once that shippy stuff is toned down and the emphasis on the rest of the cast is more balanced, this becomes a fairly decent series.
On the upside, I did read a really good book this week: The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein. More and more, I find that I enjoy this sort of shorter, perfectly told story more than the longer, epic works that fantasy is famous for. This was actually a reread from many years ago, and I'm thrilled to find out that she's actually written sequels since then. Can't wait for the Amazon shipment to arrive. :) The book itself is an Arthurian-inspired story that focuses on Mordred (Medraut, in the book) and his relationship with Arthur's younger, legitimate son, Lleu. Just like with Idylls of the Queen a while back, I love the more intimate story here. There are elements of the greater Arthurian mythos as a backdrop, but the focus is extremely narrow, giving you a detailed look at one or two characters, rather than trying to retell the whole legend. I think I'm developing a real Mordred-kink. His portrayal in these two books is so wonderfully conflicted noble and committed to rightness, but unable to escape the taint of his birth. It pulls at all my woobly little h/c strings, as well as making for a great story as this strong character is torn between his loyalties to Arthur and Morgawse.
Finished R.O.D. the TV, and am not terribly impressed, honestly. I'd heard such raves of this show, and I wonder if it's one of those things that appeals to guys more than girls for some reason. I found the series a bit of a slog throughout, but things really took a nosedive once two particular spoilerly characters arrived. You could tell that it was supposed to up the stakes and add new tension, but to me it just diffused the situation so that the plot got all meandery and trudging. I can't say I'm a fan.
One Piece dub: I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed. I have a tremendous love for Funimation's dubs, and this wasn't outright *bad*... but it's also not their best work, imo. In particular, Luffy was just way too generic. So much of the success of One Piece relies on Luffy's charisma. Sure, he's a doofus... but his boundless/clueless optimism and excitement is so infectious that you can't help but be drawn into his special brand of idiocy. It's important for his voice actor to sell that charisma, or the show becomes no better than any other shonen jump fare. I'm not wailing and gnashing my teeth over a one episode sample, or anything, and I'll be first in line for the uncut sets. But I do hope things improve for the sake of the franchise here in the U.S.
The Dark is Rising movie has apparently opened... or will be soon. Heard an interview on NPR with Susan Cooper earlier this week, and any excitement I had for the movie is pretty much dead. This is one of my beloved childhood series, and it sounds like they did a real hatchet job on it. *sigh*