Much Ado About Less Than Nothing and Other Entertainments
I still exist. My hiatus may or may not be over as I still haven't gotten rid of the incompletes on my class record for first semester, but as of now it is spring break. And it's not like I don't waste a ridiculous amount of time online anyway. Hi TV Tropes Wiki. We just finished with the winter play, which was Much Ado About Nothing, but highly abridged (Not So Much Ado About Nothing, or Much Ado About Less Than Nothing, because we're clever that way). I was Don Pedro, possibly because I'm so frequently cast as commanding types...Not sure how good I am at playing men, though. It was fun and I got a cool shirt out of it, in the end. I also had the cast party at my house, meaning I got to have thirty odd teenagers including two Spanish exchange students I'd never met before overnight. Chaos and hilarity ensued.
So about things I've read/watched:
I wanted to read more of Mizuki Hakase's manga since I like Kuruizaki no Hana, and I was lucky enough to find an omnibus edition of The Demon Ororon. I'm really glad I did, because it somehow managed to be unlike any other manga I've read. Sure, it has plenty of elements I see a lot in my preferred manga genre (the angel/devil forbidden bond, the promise to stay together, the crazy pretty boys fighting each other, an eyeball trick that managed to outdo all the ones I've seen CLAMP pull), but there was something about it that was futile and beautiful. It was a love story about people who you just knew were all wrong for each other no matter how much they tried, and the tragedy of person who kept going but in the end couldn't win, and sure it was epic and everything but then world just went on. I loved that about it.
(I also read and liked the short manga Ba_ku by Hakase. There was a character named Asura trying to eat the main character. I was amused.)
I've wanted to watch Utena for so long, and I found downloads and I did. And it is awesome. SO AWESOME. There are so many metaphorical levels and the story itself so great I could watch it over and over again just to keep seeing new things. I particularly love the broken-down archetypes angle, through Anthy and Dios/Akio (plus Utena, of course). I love mythology elements so much. There could be classes taught on this thing, seriously.
I have a strange addiction to the duel choruses. Best mind-bending background music ever. Like Virtual Star Embryology talking about the Aristotelian model of the cosmos, or the song for Wakaba's duel telling the story of Pyrrhus the same way as the player's monologue in Hamlet. It's so cool.
I can't resist a load messed up cast characters, so of course I loved the Utena cast (Nanami excepted - she never grew on me). I couldn't really choose a favorite (Anthy, maybe? Miki, Dios and Akio more as one than individually, Touga for just being that impressive a jerk...?), unless the car counts. The car transcends logic, time, and space into pure awesome.
I had read a few volumes of Yami no Matsuei before, but I quit because I was too repulsed by Muraki to continue reading. But it was tech week and I found another volume cheap, so I read some more and decided reading more about Hisoka was worth having to read more about Muraki. I seriously adore Hisoka. So I read the rest.
I'm pretty so-so on the series overall. Some of the plotlines I really like - the Queen Camellia and Devil's Trill plots are my favorites, and I like the Imaginary World arc - but at other times I found it incomprehensible (what was going on with that hotel? All I got was those two girls were clearly gay for each other). I really like some of the characters (Hisoka, case in point, as well as the Terazuma/Wakaba combo, the shikigami and various supporting characters), but I'm so-so on a lot of them (particularly Tsuzuki) and then there's Muraki. The artwork is pretty, but sometimes it's way too hard to tell the characters apart, and I almost never have that problem in manga. It was pretty fun though, and I've still been reading fic because...Hisoka. I may watch the anime series sometime.
After seeing so much fandom for Avatar around, I decided, what the heck, might as well try it. It is very fun, though it kind of throws me back to when I was 7 and watched Nickelodeon all the time. Particularly the way the romantic scenes make me cringe and wish the characters would stop embarrassing me by proxy (I'm glad I don't ship anything with a chance of happening thus far, because if I did and it did I don't think I could take it). That aside, the world of the show it really neat, the characters are cute, the art is nice, the plot (overall and in individual episodes) is good, and the kung-fu is awesome.
What's funny is that for the longest time when I was just hearing about the show through fandom, I thought that Zuko was the hero and Aang was the antagonist. This probably says something about the fandom. It also might say something about me that I am likewise thoroughly charmed by Zuko. He's so pathetic and determined and just wants his father not to think he's worthless, how do you not feel bad for him and want him to find some way to be happy? He's a character whose journey and growth I really want to follow, even when he's doing stupid things like resorting to petty crime and splitting from his uncle (as of the episodes I'm up to). Not that the main band of characters aren't good too - I like Aang and Sokka, though honestly I find Katara so bland I'm more indifferent to her than anything. They work better as protagonists than I think Zuko would.
I've heard Toph is really cool and she should show up soon, so I'm looking forward to watching more. ...I'm thinking I should stay away from the fandom, though. The ones with ship wars are scary that way.
So about things I've read/watched:
I wanted to read more of Mizuki Hakase's manga since I like Kuruizaki no Hana, and I was lucky enough to find an omnibus edition of The Demon Ororon. I'm really glad I did, because it somehow managed to be unlike any other manga I've read. Sure, it has plenty of elements I see a lot in my preferred manga genre (the angel/devil forbidden bond, the promise to stay together, the crazy pretty boys fighting each other, an eyeball trick that managed to outdo all the ones I've seen CLAMP pull), but there was something about it that was futile and beautiful. It was a love story about people who you just knew were all wrong for each other no matter how much they tried, and the tragedy of person who kept going but in the end couldn't win, and sure it was epic and everything but then world just went on. I loved that about it.
(I also read and liked the short manga Ba_ku by Hakase. There was a character named Asura trying to eat the main character. I was amused.)
I've wanted to watch Utena for so long, and I found downloads and I did. And it is awesome. SO AWESOME. There are so many metaphorical levels and the story itself so great I could watch it over and over again just to keep seeing new things. I particularly love the broken-down archetypes angle, through Anthy and Dios/Akio (plus Utena, of course). I love mythology elements so much. There could be classes taught on this thing, seriously.
I have a strange addiction to the duel choruses. Best mind-bending background music ever. Like Virtual Star Embryology talking about the Aristotelian model of the cosmos, or the song for Wakaba's duel telling the story of Pyrrhus the same way as the player's monologue in Hamlet. It's so cool.
I can't resist a load messed up cast characters, so of course I loved the Utena cast (Nanami excepted - she never grew on me). I couldn't really choose a favorite (Anthy, maybe? Miki, Dios and Akio more as one than individually, Touga for just being that impressive a jerk...?), unless the car counts. The car transcends logic, time, and space into pure awesome.
I had read a few volumes of Yami no Matsuei before, but I quit because I was too repulsed by Muraki to continue reading. But it was tech week and I found another volume cheap, so I read some more and decided reading more about Hisoka was worth having to read more about Muraki. I seriously adore Hisoka. So I read the rest.
I'm pretty so-so on the series overall. Some of the plotlines I really like - the Queen Camellia and Devil's Trill plots are my favorites, and I like the Imaginary World arc - but at other times I found it incomprehensible (what was going on with that hotel? All I got was those two girls were clearly gay for each other). I really like some of the characters (Hisoka, case in point, as well as the Terazuma/Wakaba combo, the shikigami and various supporting characters), but I'm so-so on a lot of them (particularly Tsuzuki) and then there's Muraki. The artwork is pretty, but sometimes it's way too hard to tell the characters apart, and I almost never have that problem in manga. It was pretty fun though, and I've still been reading fic because...Hisoka. I may watch the anime series sometime.
After seeing so much fandom for Avatar around, I decided, what the heck, might as well try it. It is very fun, though it kind of throws me back to when I was 7 and watched Nickelodeon all the time. Particularly the way the romantic scenes make me cringe and wish the characters would stop embarrassing me by proxy (I'm glad I don't ship anything with a chance of happening thus far, because if I did and it did I don't think I could take it). That aside, the world of the show it really neat, the characters are cute, the art is nice, the plot (overall and in individual episodes) is good, and the kung-fu is awesome.
What's funny is that for the longest time when I was just hearing about the show through fandom, I thought that Zuko was the hero and Aang was the antagonist. This probably says something about the fandom. It also might say something about me that I am likewise thoroughly charmed by Zuko. He's so pathetic and determined and just wants his father not to think he's worthless, how do you not feel bad for him and want him to find some way to be happy? He's a character whose journey and growth I really want to follow, even when he's doing stupid things like resorting to petty crime and splitting from his uncle (as of the episodes I'm up to). Not that the main band of characters aren't good too - I like Aang and Sokka, though honestly I find Katara so bland I'm more indifferent to her than anything. They work better as protagonists than I think Zuko would.
I've heard Toph is really cool and she should show up soon, so I'm looking forward to watching more. ...I'm thinking I should stay away from the fandom, though. The ones with ship wars are scary that way.