Agh mahou shoujou agh

In some terrible lapse of judgment, I decided to check out Moetan and Nanatsuiro Drops. I hereby declare that I am of sound mind and body once again (mostly).

Moetan wasn't too bad at the beginning. I can forgive the unexplained-loli-in-high-school setup, and the excessive love interest fixation (I'm starting to think this is asian-culture gender-role-shaping in action), and the sorcerer duck fellow. But in the end, the deal-breaker is the loli factor. Can't stomach it. I couldn't handle Sumomo mo momo ... for the same reason. To the people who enjoy this stuff: you're sick, the lot of you.

Thankfully, Nanatsuiro Drops is free of the loli scourge, at least in the first episode. Rather, we get gobs of moe. The heroine is cute, but I can't help but see her as an amalgam of CLAMP's Sakura prototype and Kanon's Ayu. The setup, again, is unremarkably cliché: guy gets turned into talking stuffed animal. Guy gets girl to be all mahou and go collect mahou tidbits in order to call the dragon fellow turn him back to normal. The production quality is pretty good, and I like the OP. The main thing that irritates me is how things are presented in an utterly facile manner. The comical face distortions and such are each given their own moment in time, and this over-emphasis is quite grating. Overall, I don't want to watch this. But... there is one intriguing aspect, which is that of the weapon-wielding tsundere girl. That's good enough for me... However, I just watched the OP again, without the hypnotizing music, and can confidently state that I am quite disgusted at ever being slightly interested in this series.

On the other hand, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is, in a word, brilliant. I'm all for dark, cynical humor; and neurotic girls, provided I don't have to deal with them in real life. But really, this is a vehicle for director Akiyuki Shinbo's visual flights of fancy, and random scribbles on the blackboard.

The only other new series that I've touched is Doujin Work. I'm not sure what to think of it. The animation is low-budget, and so is the rest of the production, it seems. And the subject matter has been somehow worn to death, in my mind. The episodes are short, though, so it's less of a waste of time.

Still need to watch: Potemayo.

The onslaught of summer

So, everyone and everyone's mother has probably seen this picture, but here it is once again. Whoever makes these things is pretty darned clever.

The summer cour has begun, and there will much in the coming weeks to watch, or mock, as the case may be. I find myself disconcertingly interested in far too many shows, and I still have a major backlog in regards to this season, past seasons, past years ...

Anyhow, I'll vent at length on the spring cour someday soon. Right now what concerns me is this image of tiled images. Starting at top left and skipping the not-so-interesting:

- Code Geass 24 and 25. Of course. No idea how they'll wrap things up in two episodes.

- Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. It's Shinbo. Should be aesthetically intriguing.

- Higurashi S2. Haven't seen the first season, but people are big on this franchise, so I'll get around to checking it out.

- Zero no Tsukaima S2. The first season was pretty cliché, but consistent. The tsundere moments are the only reason I watch this stuff. Must get my tsundere fix, fufufu.

- Doujin Work. A cat is okay too? Notorious enough to catch my interest, though it's Yet Another 4koma Anime.

- Moetan. I'm interested in bizarre English, not lolis, honest.

- Nanatsuiro Drops. Guy turns into sheep, with mahou shoujou miscellany. Wait, why am I curious about this series? I must be losing it.

- School Days. Uh, I realized that I'm probably not interested in this one. All aboard the emo train. Er, train wreck.

- Shigurui. Kotonoha's working on the original manga, but I have yet to read it. Unless this anime is truly EPIC, I'll skip it.

- Baccano!. Retro could be bad or good.

- Mushi-uta. Mind-control bugs? Sounds horribly cliché, but The Bloggers Who Grok Moonspeak are giving it a chance.

- Tokyo Majin S2. More supernatural / Eastern mysticism. I approve.

So far, I've only watched the first few minutes of Zero no Tsukaima. Horribly cliché dream sequence followed by big tsundere moment.


Ufufufu.

Now I've lost it

If you've watched Darker than Black, you'll recognize the spoken lines that open the ... er ... OP. "Now I’ve lost it; I know I can kill; the Truth is [something] beyond the Gates." I'm not too familiar with the horror genre, so this may just be a classic horror-type voice, but the association I make goes to a completely different place.

The voice is awfully reminiscent of the first bit of "Sing Me A Song Of Songmy", a collaboration between Freddie Hubbard and İlhan Mimaroğlu that is one of the most insane things I have ever heard, if not the insanest. The first minute is a layered mishmash of spoken word, violin, and "tape"-type electronic music. The spoken word is delivered in a strangely intense, declamatory manner, and the phrases are both baffling and chilling:

"Give me love. Give me love so that I can ... kill."
"He made me feel that I could play the guitar."
"I feel like I can hold a knife."
"We am. I are."

There's a lot more, these are just a few. After that craziness, the work falls into a more straightforward jazz feel for a while, and then goes all over the place. Overall, it's an anti-war work, and thus probably has little to do with Darker than Black (though the story in episodes 5 and 6 hints at that direction), but I wonder if the people who made the OP had this work in mind.

colorless wind

The sola OP is made of win. From the perspective of someone who hates American pop music, and has a decent amount of classical training, anime openings are masterful creations that shamelessly utilize a variety of compositional techniques for maximum emotional impact. (OK, catchy melodies aren't really a compositional technique.)

Too bad sola seems to be a heaping mass of cliché so far. But I'll probably keep watching, due to the high production values. The zettai ryouiki is pretty powerful too.

More later.

Show/Hide

Clicky

This is pretty neat, though I couldn't get it to work from the head, as detailed here.

Well, here we go again.

I'm creating an anime blog, because I need a place to vent about anime, manga, and otaku culture. (In other words, a platform to troll and fanboy-ize.) Eventually I want to make 4koma, but I need to learn how to draw first.

Anyway, today's subject is Code Geass. I started watching it last night -- I am most impressed. It has that cohesive feel that is the hallmark of a great series. The CLAMP character designs have a pretty significant influence on the show: Suzaku's idealistic intensity, Lelouch's flamboyant anger, and that silly scientist guy's ... silliness.

There are some nitpicks I can make about the series: the excessively upbeat OP, while kinda CLAMP-ish, doesn't really mesh with the darkness of the story. Plus it sounds a lot like Eureka Seven's opening, which, well, is admittedly by the same band.

And the story -- wow. This is serious stuff. While I get hints of Gundam storylines, there's definitely echoes of WWII, not to mention current events. Lelouch's terrorists are obviously the heroes of this story, but do their means justify the ends? We're obviously invited to ponder the nature of insurgency, in light of current events, with some Japanese nationalism thrown in for good measure. It's a complicated brew of current events and fantasy.

What really hit me, though, was the direct allusion to the Holocaust. The Japanese are portrayed as living in ghettos. The language Clovis uses -- "clearing a ghetto" -- made me think back to something I'd read recently about authoritarianism (which, by the way, should be required reading). Specifically, chapter seven, which relates in passing the gradual acceptance of genocide by common soldiers who made up the German "Order Police" in WWII. Geass doesn't flinch at showing the wholesale murder of civilians. Quite frankly, I was shocked at how graphic it was. I suppose there's a collective horror about being on the Axis side of the War which is still being worked out.

I watched way too much Geass last night (through 8.5 ><). Hopefully I'll have more self-control tonight.