Why Ronja the Robber's Daughter makes me happier than the rest of my shows put together
I have mentioned before on Tumblr and Facebook how Sanzoku no musume Ronja AKA the anime version of Ronia the Robber's Daughter is the bright spot on my current TV schedule. But, well, it's worth mentioning again. It's beautifully faithful to the book and its characters, while addings its own little touches, and the robbers cooing over baby Ronia are adorable.
I'm a little worried, though, that the audience might tire of it. Some people have complained about the CGI, and there's nothing to be done about that; if that's a deal breaker they'll have already left. I'm more concerned with the pacing. The book is 18 chapters long. The miniseries is three hours or thereabout. The anime will be 26 episodes. The first three episodes covered just two chapters of the book, and that might be a little slow to many viewers. Especially if they're expecting it to be some kind of action adventure, because while there are action scenes in Ronia, it's primarily a tale about growing up and discovering that your parents are fallible.
Now, I'm not worried that I will tire of it. If it carries on like this, I'll hug every last episode. I'd just like to have some viewing company.
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It's a good thing SNMR did come out, because the rest of my viewing schedule is kind of meh at the moment. Sleepy Hollow continues to combine sparks of brilliant character moments with fairly uninteresting plots And I'm not sold on the new guy, even if I do realize that you can't just have the same people interacting with each other forever.
My biggest laugh in this latest episode was because an unforeseen cultural clash - like many Swedes of my generation, I immediately connect Bach's Air on a G String with Beppes Godnattstund, so hearing it play during a funeral was unintentionally hilarious. :-)
Haven is dragging out the arc this season, and with Mara/Audrey tied up so much (and Jennifer and Jordan dead) there's very little for women to do. All we have had for the most part is Gloria, and as much as I love her she's not a main character. And like I told roseveare, it didn't use to matter to me if a show was almost all guys, but now it does. I may still have a male favourite (hi Duke, love you), but I need women doing stuff. Stuff besides vague threats and pleading for help.
Once Upon a Time is even more mediocre this season. Or maybe the truth is that it's always the same level of mediocre and it's just less noticeable when they have people like Barbara Hershey and to some degree Robbie Kay around.
I'm not feeling the Frozen storyline. I liked Frozen just fine as a film, but having the characters on this show just doesn't feel real. It brings me back to the most cringeworthy portions of season 1.
Of course, this latest episode didn't help. It's bad enough that they based an episode on Hook wanting his hand back (why, hi, "my disability makes me romantically inadequate" trope previously seen on Dark Angel, Road to Avonlea, Quest for Camelot and practically everywhere else), but the way it was written...
1. When did Hook learn about the hand being there?
2. If he already knew about it, why hadn't he asked for it before?
3. If he didn't know it was in the shop, why was it suddenly so important for him to ask if it could be returned?
4. Why didn't Emma react AT ALL to the notion of Gold doing something out of the kindness of his heart, and for Hook of all people?
5. Why didn't Snow and David?
6. In conclusion, why didn't people act as actual people rather than as plot pawns?
And the answer, of course, is because this is an Andrew Chambliss episode and he has as of yet not written a single episode I liked.
Doctor Who has its ups and downs, and I do like Clara/Danny when she's not lying to him, but with the Doctor so harsh and joyless for the most part, it's hard to get my own enthusiasm own. It's not that Peter Capaldi isn't a good actor - he is - or that he isn't the Doctor, but so far, I can't feel that he's my Doctor. I'm starting to suspect that maybe Matt Smith was, because I've never had this reaction before.
Farscape is nice, but because I keep lagging behind, I still haven't reached the eps I haven't seen before, plus I get performance anxiety from not watching all the eps I should have...
And How to Get Away With Murder is fun enough to watch, but I can't claim that it's got my heart yet. Except Wes. But Alfie Enoch had my heart from the moment he grew up to be a browner, more beautiful version of his dad. (I tried writing a fic with him as Johnny Chess, canon tweaked as needed, but with my current lack of enthusiasm for Doctor Who I can't manage to get it done.)
So. Yeah. I'm very grateful for Ronja. This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/627982.html and has
comments there.