Inevitably, plushies of Denno Coil creatures will soon be available in Japan. Owners of the Densuke doll will be one-up on Yasako, who doesn’t know what her cyberpet feels like. (But where are the mojos?)
*****
After some experimentation with ffmpegX, I managed to encode a watchable flash file of the opening to Animal Yokocho, which I’ve posted on the video weblog. Apparently, the quality of the playback is more a function of the computer it’s viewed on than of the size of the file. On my aging Mac at home with its antique video card, playback is annoyingly jumpy, but here at the office (it’s lunchtime) on my newer, faster machine, it’s acceptable. Though it’s hardly a classic, the AniYoko opening does its job quite well, with cheerful, energetic music and imagery that advertises that anything can happen. Animal Yokocho deserves more attention that it gets; it’s a kid’s show that adults can enjoy as much as their children. It’s a pity that it will probably never be licensed. (For more on the joys of working with Flash, see Astro’s account of his experiments.)
*****
The thirteenth episode of Seirei no Moribito was the first that disappointed me. It’s a good story, and the fight scenes were every bit as spectacular as those in the third episode, but the script was clumsy. The symbolism, not exactly subtle to begin with, was highlighted, then underlined, then explicitly explained as if the viewer were in a ninth-grade English class. The rampaging Balsa deserved better. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the first episode with an unequivocally evil character.
“Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the first episode with an unequivocally evil character.”
I think you hit the nail on the head, there. A lot of what makes the generally-low-key SnM work is how most of the characters have not merely “understandable motivations” (“Gee, he’s so evil, but I get where he’s coming from”) but rather actual protagonist-like viewpoints. Even though some parties are working at cross-purposes, none of the important regular characters have been portrayed as genuinely evil.
Bah. I watched this one a few days ago and forgot to post about it. Le sigh.
“Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the first episode with an unequivocally evil character.”
I think you hit the nail on the head, there. A lot of what makes the generally-low-key SnM work is how most of the characters have not merely “understandable motivations” (“Gee, he’s so evil, but I get where he’s coming from”) but rather actual protagonist-like viewpoints. Even though some parties are working at cross-purposes, none of the important regular characters have been portrayed as genuinely evil.
Bah. I watched this one a few days ago and forgot to post about it. Le sigh.