Between banging out old tunes on the dulcimer and fixing my bike, I did find time to watch a few odds and ends this week.
Because of Pete’s advocacy, I watched the first two episodes of Manabi Straight again. Maybe I will view the rest, after all. The girls still look way too young, but you become inured to that, and while they act younger than high school students should, so do most high school students. I don’t know that I will like the show as much as Pete does, but I can say that it is more genuinely funny than Lucky Star.
I came across a subtitled “screener” of Paprika. I hope it gets a proper theatrical release in America, because this is one movie you definitely want to see on the big screen if at all possible. It’s a spectacular trip. How good it is, I haven’t decided. My snap judgment is that it’s very good, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Some of those parts are amazing, though, and Paprika is never less than entertaining at any time.
Both Paprika and Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo are based on stories by Yasutaka Tsutsui. I’m curious about him, so my most recent Amazon.com order included Salmonella Men on Planet Porno. It will give me something to read while I’m waiting for the movies. (Nick will be pleased to learn that I also ordered The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow.)
There was a theory that Seioh is a special school for 10-year old progenies.
http://bugfox.net/fun/2007/03/05/does-manabi-straight-make-sense/
But perhaps it’s a chibifying disease after all, because (small spoiler) the principal had a massive head when she, in her turn, attended Seioh in 2005.
Jokes aside, I think your observation is very pertinent. In ep.8, Manabi sticks out her tongue in a situation where I would use a more appropriate gesture (sorry for the small spoiler again). I was shocked, because I completely stopped thinking about her as an 11-year old by that time. But then I saw my own 18-year old doing the same. O tempora, o mores. If young adults do this in 2007, I shudder to think what they’ll do in 2035…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zaitcev/466752202/
Heh, hope you enjoy the Twelve Kingdoms novel. I find that it is a pretty quick read, and the lead is a much more sympathetic character than she was in the anime.