In Media Res by any means necessary
Many years ago, friends told me I should watch a show called Farscape, and leant me some terrible-quality VHS tapes (I did say many years ago) of Season 1 episodes. I was entranced from the first episode: so much world-building, happening so quickly and elliptically. A whole set of plot and relationships being revealed woven through the quite interesting plot.
Then I found out that what I had thought was the premiere (you can't really call it the pilot when there's an important character called Pilot) was episode 7 (PK Tech Girl).
I mean, I still like the show. But that sense of breathless excitement I had watching that first ('first') episode promised things that were never quite fulfilled.
More recently, I got a book called Deathwish on spec for $2 from BookBub by an author I'd never heard of (Rob Thurman), and was immediately drawn in and agog for a couple chapters, until I followed up on a sneaking suspicion and found it was actually the fourth book in a series. (I read the whole series. I have many, many mixed feelings about it, but that is another story and will be gone into at another time.)
Tonight, I have realized that the reason why the opening sequence of the first episode of Naruto Shippuden is so breathtakingly bewildering, and the world-building with its jutsus and mysterious headbands and kazekagis and hokages slips by so fast and smooth isn't that it's being tantalizing and expecting its viewers to keep up, it's that this is actually the second Naruto series.
My bad. I could have known that. I blame my young client/informant, who assured me that I had to see all of Naruto Shippuden before I could watch Naruto Next Generation, but failed to mention that there might have been anything before either - but really, given the first 5-10 minutes of Naruto Shippuden, I should have guessed that anime aimed at oh, probably younger teens, wouldn't be quite so sneaky or demanding of its viewers. I /did/ finally stop and check, not because of the speed and slipperiness of the establishment of plot, world, characters, and relationships, but because of the sharp change of pace between those beginning sequences and what followed.
Mostly, I think, I don't catch it sooner when these things happen because I love the sensation of being dropped into a river midstream and expected to get my head pointing in the right direction and start moving with the current on my own. It's exciting and intriguing, and in all three cases, I wish I'd been right.
Alas, what is learned cannot be unlearned*, and so I am going to go back and at least poke at the first Naruto series.
(The art's not bad and there is, blessedly, no fan service (read, T&A) that I've seen yet, and the girl who is probably supposed to be the Healer Type also is wildly powerful and destructive. Unfortunately, Naruto follows the classic model of the brash, cheeky young hero, who does very little for me. We'll see. There are hints that he has backstory angst, which might help.)
* This is manifestly untrue, of course. There are probably more ways of forgetting things than there are of learning them in the first place, but a good aphorism doesn't have to rely on such paltry factors as accuracy.
Crossposted with Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment here or there , whichever you prefer.
Then I found out that what I had thought was the premiere (you can't really call it the pilot when there's an important character called Pilot) was episode 7 (PK Tech Girl).
I mean, I still like the show. But that sense of breathless excitement I had watching that first ('first') episode promised things that were never quite fulfilled.
More recently, I got a book called Deathwish on spec for $2 from BookBub by an author I'd never heard of (Rob Thurman), and was immediately drawn in and agog for a couple chapters, until I followed up on a sneaking suspicion and found it was actually the fourth book in a series. (I read the whole series. I have many, many mixed feelings about it, but that is another story and will be gone into at another time.)
Tonight, I have realized that the reason why the opening sequence of the first episode of Naruto Shippuden is so breathtakingly bewildering, and the world-building with its jutsus and mysterious headbands and kazekagis and hokages slips by so fast and smooth isn't that it's being tantalizing and expecting its viewers to keep up, it's that this is actually the second Naruto series.
My bad. I could have known that. I blame my young client/informant, who assured me that I had to see all of Naruto Shippuden before I could watch Naruto Next Generation, but failed to mention that there might have been anything before either - but really, given the first 5-10 minutes of Naruto Shippuden, I should have guessed that anime aimed at oh, probably younger teens, wouldn't be quite so sneaky or demanding of its viewers. I /did/ finally stop and check, not because of the speed and slipperiness of the establishment of plot, world, characters, and relationships, but because of the sharp change of pace between those beginning sequences and what followed.
Mostly, I think, I don't catch it sooner when these things happen because I love the sensation of being dropped into a river midstream and expected to get my head pointing in the right direction and start moving with the current on my own. It's exciting and intriguing, and in all three cases, I wish I'd been right.
Alas, what is learned cannot be unlearned*, and so I am going to go back and at least poke at the first Naruto series.
(The art's not bad and there is, blessedly, no fan service (read, T&A) that I've seen yet, and the girl who is probably supposed to be the Healer Type also is wildly powerful and destructive. Unfortunately, Naruto follows the classic model of the brash, cheeky young hero, who does very little for me. We'll see. There are hints that he has backstory angst, which might help.)
* This is manifestly untrue, of course. There are probably more ways of forgetting things than there are of learning them in the first place, but a good aphorism doesn't have to rely on such paltry factors as accuracy.
Crossposted with Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment here or there , whichever you prefer.