I think this is my general anime icon. Hm.
I go home tomorrow morning! By which I mean, I get home tomorrow evening except that is actually tomorrow afternoon because I will be traveling into the past. Or across a couple timezones. Whichever. In any case, classes are done and I haven't had much to do the past couple days anyway which is how I ended up watching the first sixteen episodes of xxxHolic. As one does. (To the anime-unsavvy, no, it isn't porn; I don't know why it's called that. I don't think anyone knows why it's called that. Possibly not even the creators.)
--anyway, I like it! Quite a bit! Possibly more than I should, or maybe I am just clinging to it because the only other option would be productivity. I'd already read the first volume, and liked it well enough; I hadn't planned to check out the anime until I'd read more, but then I ran across a review of the DVD over at some random section of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, which. Well. Was not the most positive review. But given that the review also declared the series to be a Harry Potter ripoff, I decided I had to watch it right away, because if the reviewer was that horribly wrong on one count, then she was probably horribly wrong on the others. And she was! (There is pretty much nothing about it that is like Harry Potter, unless "guy with glasses who is in the presence of magic" = Harry Potter, and that seems a bit of a stretch.) It is a thoroughly enjoyable series, assuming you can get past the spaghetti proportions. Which the reviewer couldn't, but I got used to it, even if it does look a bit alarming at times. (An example being here, though even that does not fully convey it. You could snap these people like a twig, yo.)
Again for the anime-unsavvy, xxxHolic is about a Japanese high schooler who constantly and unwillingly attracts spirits and ends up stumbling into the house of a weird lady who says she can stop that from being such a problem in exchange for unspecified compensation. He agrees to it, because it is not very fun being accosted by giant freaky smoke monsters no one else can see. Then it turns out the compensation entails being her bitch working for her until he pays off his (unspecified amount of) debt, which mostly involves cooking for her and doing errands, except the errands usually nearly get him killed, because spirits are still drawn to him, just not as much, and it is difficult to avoid this when you have to go near them in the first place. The lady runs a store of sorts that caters to people who didn't realize they needed to be catered to, specifically with supernatural problems, although a lot of the time it is really just psychological problems that are exacerbated by supernatural things. Or sometimes it is not supernatural at all! She fixes weird stuff, that is the point. And drinks a lot and is generally mysterious and kind of a demanding bitch sometimes, but in a fun way.
In the picture I linked a couple paragraphs up, the glasses guy is the high schooler (Watanuki), the lady is the, er, lady (Yuuko), and the other guy is Doumeki, Watanuki's classmate/perceived romantic rival/occasional partner/did I mention perceived romantic rival, because Watanuki is totally crushing on this girl named Himawari and Doumeki generally happens to be around whenever they're interacting. Not that Doumeki's actually shown any interest in Himawari, but Watanuki's prone to overreacting. It's just who he is. Anyway, Doumeki has the random ability to repel and weaken spirits, so Yuuko forces Watanuki to take him along a lot of the time, because having someone like that around when spirits think you're tasty is a pretty good idea. Yuuko also insists that Watanuki should get along with him better, and Himawari is convinced they're BFFs, and a fortune teller says their bond will deepen, and you know Doumeki really doesn't seem to mind Watanuki as much as he realistically should and why was he always hanging around Watanuki anyway--what I am saying is, the mangakas who created it have also done a straight-up (so to speak) if nonexplicit yaoi piece whose characters had a cameo in the Holic anime, so. So. That's what I'm saying. Indeed. This is perhaps slightly hampered by Watanuki being a flaily overreacting dork, but one of my favorite aspects of the series is seeing how he is when the chips are down and flailing won't help anything. Also Yuuko is a magnificent smug drunken witchy lady, and her vaguely abusive relationship with Watanuki is kind of adorable. And the music is pretty good, as is the general atmosphere of the show! So. I like it. Quite a bit. Yes.
--and now I am going to print out my flight itinerary and watch more, because seriously what the hell else do I have to do tonight, that is kind of awesome.
--anyway, I like it! Quite a bit! Possibly more than I should, or maybe I am just clinging to it because the only other option would be productivity. I'd already read the first volume, and liked it well enough; I hadn't planned to check out the anime until I'd read more, but then I ran across a review of the DVD over at some random section of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, which. Well. Was not the most positive review. But given that the review also declared the series to be a Harry Potter ripoff, I decided I had to watch it right away, because if the reviewer was that horribly wrong on one count, then she was probably horribly wrong on the others. And she was! (There is pretty much nothing about it that is like Harry Potter, unless "guy with glasses who is in the presence of magic" = Harry Potter, and that seems a bit of a stretch.) It is a thoroughly enjoyable series, assuming you can get past the spaghetti proportions. Which the reviewer couldn't, but I got used to it, even if it does look a bit alarming at times. (An example being here, though even that does not fully convey it. You could snap these people like a twig, yo.)
Again for the anime-unsavvy, xxxHolic is about a Japanese high schooler who constantly and unwillingly attracts spirits and ends up stumbling into the house of a weird lady who says she can stop that from being such a problem in exchange for unspecified compensation. He agrees to it, because it is not very fun being accosted by giant freaky smoke monsters no one else can see. Then it turns out the compensation entails being her bitch working for her until he pays off his (unspecified amount of) debt, which mostly involves cooking for her and doing errands, except the errands usually nearly get him killed, because spirits are still drawn to him, just not as much, and it is difficult to avoid this when you have to go near them in the first place. The lady runs a store of sorts that caters to people who didn't realize they needed to be catered to, specifically with supernatural problems, although a lot of the time it is really just psychological problems that are exacerbated by supernatural things. Or sometimes it is not supernatural at all! She fixes weird stuff, that is the point. And drinks a lot and is generally mysterious and kind of a demanding bitch sometimes, but in a fun way.
In the picture I linked a couple paragraphs up, the glasses guy is the high schooler (Watanuki), the lady is the, er, lady (Yuuko), and the other guy is Doumeki, Watanuki's classmate/perceived romantic rival/occasional partner/did I mention perceived romantic rival, because Watanuki is totally crushing on this girl named Himawari and Doumeki generally happens to be around whenever they're interacting. Not that Doumeki's actually shown any interest in Himawari, but Watanuki's prone to overreacting. It's just who he is. Anyway, Doumeki has the random ability to repel and weaken spirits, so Yuuko forces Watanuki to take him along a lot of the time, because having someone like that around when spirits think you're tasty is a pretty good idea. Yuuko also insists that Watanuki should get along with him better, and Himawari is convinced they're BFFs, and a fortune teller says their bond will deepen, and you know Doumeki really doesn't seem to mind Watanuki as much as he realistically should and why was he always hanging around Watanuki anyway--what I am saying is, the mangakas who created it have also done a straight-up (so to speak) if nonexplicit yaoi piece whose characters had a cameo in the Holic anime, so. So. That's what I'm saying. Indeed. This is perhaps slightly hampered by Watanuki being a flaily overreacting dork, but one of my favorite aspects of the series is seeing how he is when the chips are down and flailing won't help anything. Also Yuuko is a magnificent smug drunken witchy lady, and her vaguely abusive relationship with Watanuki is kind of adorable. And the music is pretty good, as is the general atmosphere of the show! So. I like it. Quite a bit. Yes.
--and now I am going to print out my flight itinerary and watch more, because seriously what the hell else do I have to do tonight, that is kind of awesome.