Author: Don
Briefly interrupting the silence
Yeah, it’s been quiet around here. I haven’t seen much anime lately, and what I have watched have been mostly old favorites, such as the first disc of Haibane Renmei last night. None of the current series have caught my interest the way Denno Coil and Oh! Edo Rocket did last year. (Shigofumi might have, but it’s out of reach now.) The only one I’m following at this time is Hakaba Kitaro.
I did order the first discs of a few older series I’m curious about, which should arrive in a week or two. Once I’ve figured out how I’m going to manage all my medical bills, I’ll probably finally purchase some of the series that have long been on my list. These include Fantastic Children, Witch Hunter Robin, The Twelve Kingdoms, PlanetES and the rest of Revolutionary Girl Utena.
What I’m most looking forward to is not anime, however, but books. The first volume of The Twelve Kingdoms is very good (better than the anime, I suspect), and the second is due out later this month. The second volume of Kino no Tabi is due out anytime, though none of the sources I’ve checked have listed a publication date, grrr. There are also two more installments of Crest of the Stars available.
Finally …
… a new picture.
Odds and ends
Can’t remember your dative endings? Brush up with The Latin Declension Song.
*****
This week’s quotes:
Want a more polite internet? Bring back dueling!
Kansas is a heroic land well deserving of a mountain or two.
*****
The McDonalds hamburger: death on a bun or balanced meal? (Via Steven.)
Recently viewed
The Waragecha Five are back, and they have new uniforms:
Nice, but I prefer the old style.
A year after their first release, Epic Fansubs have reached episode six of Master of Epic. As a reward for my patience, the Waragecha Five, who were entirely missing from the previous installment, dominate the show this time, with a two-part skit that occupies half the episode. It’s a bit out of character for the show, since it introduces a giant robot into the fantasy universe, but the girls in the sentai team are still very much themselves, even with their science-fiction helmets. The rest of the show is mostly forgettable.
*****
Shigeru Mizuki’s Gegege no Kitaro has been the basis of a major franchise in Japan for fifty years. There have been numerous TV shows and movies based on the manga. I’ve seen the first episodes of both the 1968 and 2007 series (the former in black and white), and was not impressed. Like his ’60’s American counterparts in The Addams Family and The Munsters, Kitaro was fundamentally good-hearted in these versions, and the resulting shows were rather bland, despite the graveyards and the monsters.
Hakaba Kitaro, the most recent adaptation, apparently makes an effort to be true to the source. This Kitaro is genuinely creepy, and humans who meet him don’t necessarily benefit from the encounter. Unlike the Gegege no Kitaros, this is not suitable for kids. Although there is some humor, this is primarily a horror story, occasionally quite grotesque.
Visually, it’s one of the more distinctive shows I’ve seen. It looks more like an artsy graphic novel than a typical anime. I was not surprised to learn that some of the crew responsible for Mononoke worked on the opening, in which the artists recreated Mizuki’s style. It’s worth attention in its own right (you might want to turn the sound down unless you like monotonous dance music).
****
I’m four episodes into Magic Knight Rayearth. A lot of stuff happens; there sure is plenty of plot. Unfortunately, it comes largely at the expense of character development. None of the characters have much depth yet. After watching a few episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura, I felt like I’d known the characters for years and would recognize them anywhere. The most I can say for the characters in Rayearth is that some are quirky.
This is not to say that Rayearth is a bad series. It isn’t. I probably just came to it with my expectations too high. The story is potentially good, particularly since CLAMP will likely twist the formulae in unpredictable ways. But it does look like it will be one of the lesser CLAMP anime, despite its length.
Health note
Here’s a headline I spotted in today’s paper:
I was disappointed to find that the story was not about nekomimi, but people who have pet cats.
I wonder what the effects of having a pet catgirl would be….
Bronze buddy
Ear protection recommended
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Recently I’ve been investigating last.fm, hoping to find some new music worth listening to. I was surprised today to discover that there are not just one, but two pages there devoted to my music. (There are also three distinct bands named “McClane.”) Of course, someone has me confused with the guy who sang “American Pie,” ((I was frequently told when I was younger that I looked just like John Lennon (as does Aziz), so I have the name of one singer and the face of another, neither of whom I particularly like.)) but I spotted some of my own tunes in the lists. I claimed one of the pages and uploaded some of my old tunes. ((There may be some new tunes soon; cross your fingers and keep the earplugs handy.)) The curious and incautious can listen to them there, or you can click on the player at the botton of the sidebar. The tunes include a couple inspired by Haibane Renmei. In “Kana’s Toy,” I imagined that Kana finds and repairs an old music box, to which a couple of her nestmates dance. Haibane Suite is a portrait of one of the haibane that ABe doesn’t mention. The sections are “Dream;” “Off to Work;” “Saturday Evening at the Abandoned Factory;” ((“Washerwoman’s Bransle,” from Arbeau’s Orchesography)) “Reading by Halo-Light;” “Calm, Rational Discussion;” “Night.”
On pointe
It’s probably going to be close to two months before I can photograph ballet again. (The doctor says the bones are healing “perfectly,” but bones and ligaments take time, lots of time.) If you miss the pictures of dancers, visit Bill Luse’s page.
Friends and memories
Steven has been impatiently waiting for my comments on Petite Princess Yucie. I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed, because I don’t have anything particularly deep or insightful to say about the show. It was good, I enjoyed it, and I can recommend it for all but the youngest audiences. My main two worries — that the ending would stink, and that Kikuko Inoue would release a deluge of tears — were unfounded, though if the series had ended with the 25th episode, I would have dispatched Mireille and Kirika to Gainax HQ.
I have a few reservations. There are some heavy-handed moments, notably the visions of Elmina’s father in the nineteenth episode. Beth is excessively abrasive, to the point that I was tempted to hit fast-forward whenever she appeared. Some of the episodes approach dangerously close to sentimentality. Yucie’s dilemma in the penultimate episode seems contrived, not naturally arising from the premises — it almost did have a Gainax ending.
Still, the virtues outweigh the faults. The main characters are mostly attractive and sympathetic, even Elmina once she warms up to the others. The writing throughout is interesting and often clever, and there are a lot of little touches that enliven the story.
I suppose I could analyze the different models of fatherhood illustrated by the series (only Jubei-chan: The Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch goes into greater depth on father/daughter relationships), or compare and contrast the ending of Yucie with that of the first season of Sailor Moon, or discuss whether the princess candidates form a “five-man band,” but I have other things to do — as Steven guessed, I do in fact “have a life” of sorts.
Mind if I don’t smoke?
Lunchtime with Groucho. From I’ll Say She Is:
And an old favorite:
Traditional/historical painting methods and cicadas
Tiepolo’s Cicadae, pastel 2007, Judith Baker Waller
Judith Baker Waller, an old friend of mine from Wichita State, is exhibiting some of her art at the University of Wisconsin now through March 21. If you are in the Menasha area, it’s worth a visit.
Notes
I’m going to be away from the computer for a few days, so things here will be even quieter than usual.
*****
It’s going to be about two months more and another operation before I have two working legs again. This is just a wee bit frustrating. I’d like to take more pictures, but until I can get down the front steps unaided, there’s no point to getting the camera out. I suppose I could do series of photos of my books, or my vinyl, or the unwashed dishes, or the junk mail an inch deep on the front room floor, but I don’t think there’s two months worth of interesting shots there. I’m considering renting or buying a folding wheelchair and bribing friends to take me out to the botanical garden (which will shortly become a very active site) and other interesting places, but even then that’s something I can’t do every day. It looks like Project 365 will stay on hold until April.
Princesses and knights
I’ve been studying yet another treatise on father-daughter dynamics, Petite Princess Yucie. Steven liked it and it sounded promising, so I ordered it last week, along with Magic Knight Rayearth TV (which Jonathan Tappan reviewed positively). I’ve watched four of the five discs in the thinpak and will probably finish tonight or tomorrow evening. It is pretty good — it already has the distinction of being the first Gainax series that I watched more than the first disc of — and if it ends well, it will be a show I can recommend to almost everyone.
The primary pleasure is in the characters and their interactions, but there is much else to enjoy, such as the utterly terrifying Demon world.
Update: Finished it: thumbs up. I may write more later, but I’m going to be away from the computer for a few days.
Dear State of Kansas Department of Revenue
You would like me to submit my tax return electronically. I would myself prefer to do my taxes online. Every year I visit your website and try to log on, and every year I end up yelling at the computer monitor. This time, I got this message after filling out several screens of forms:
You are not currently logged in. Please go to the WebFile Home page to login.
On the next screen, I get this:
You appear to be already logged in.
It’s been at least four years now, and you still can’t tell if I’m logged in. The hell with it. You’re getting a paper return yet again, and you will always get a paper return from me until you fix your !@#$ %^&* web site.
Thank you …
… Bandai, for simplifying my winter viewing. As a matter of policy, I don’t download series once they’re licensed. ((I’ve only made one exception, Seirei no Moribito, and that was just as well, since it’s now in limbo with Geneon’s departure from Region 1.)) I don’t need to worry any more about Shigofumi or true tears. In fact, I probably will never see them at all, unless Bandai changes its insane pricing.
I may take a look at Hakaba Kitaro or watch a few more episodes of Spice and Wolf, but more likely I’m going to skip the current season entirely and view some of the DVDs I’ve bought that I haven’t yet watched. Or I might just listen to Bach. In any case, posting will continue to be spasmodic.