Enthusiasms #2
More mini-reviews and side comments on two more series I've recently watched/am watching. Slight spoilers under the cut, if you're very picky about these things.
4) Gurren Lagann. Ahh, the might drills of yore!
I also have mixed feelings about Gurren Lagann. It’s not like my mixed feelings for Code Geass, which only failed me with its awful second season.
Visually, there was nothing to complain about... it's beautifully animated, of course. Even with low res video streaming, it was pretty. I liked the muted tones they use. And the Michael Bay explosions! BAYSPLOSIONS! I love bayplosions in anime.
Perhaps I just disliked Nia the Magical Princess. She got on my nerves, and all plot twists involving her just made me irritated. I liked the ambiguity of the first episodes, in which there’s a subtle love triangle between Yoko and the boys.
I feel that even with one character death, they could have still run with the love triangle subplot. I’m not asking them to be an anime version of “Wings of the Dove,” for Chrissakes, but in hindsight it certainly would have been more interesting. I’m just saying it’s lazy writing to introduce a new female character just to tie up the shipping loose ends.
So watch Gurren Lagann for the explosions, the half-naked Yoko, and the silly robot power-ups. The phallic imagery is pretty funny, too. Don’t watch it for anything other reasons than that.
Last aside: and heaven have mercy, please don’t let me EVER see a cosplayer in Simon’s final power-up outfit. (in Angry Video Game Nerd’s voice) WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?!
5) Cowboy Bebop. I’m not yet done with this yet, but I just have to mention that I regret not watching it when it came out in 1998. The only reason why I didn’t watch it was the (pirated) copy that was lent to me didn’t work on my VCD player so I gave up. (Yes, I had a VCD player back then.)
Anyway, right now I’m totally loving its soundtrack, its meandering vignettes and its overall style and intelligence. Faye Valentine seems to have walked off the pages of any Dashiell Hammett novel: brash, dangerous, sometimes sympathetic. She's not a woman you'd want to double-cross because she WILL put the rat poison in your soup, while cashing all your pension checks. She's that type of Hammett woman, except she's more scantily dressed than her 1930s counterparts.
Spike is a classic hard-boiled hero -- occasionally lazy, sometimes drunk and high, but always working according to his own moral code. The perennially bankrupt status of the Bebop coffers reminds me of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
ZOMG. Maybe Cowboy Bebop is just really HAMMETT IN SPACE?!
Adam doesn’t like Jet very much -- I don’t blame him -- and the less said about Ed, the better. But even if I find them a little flat, they do balance off Faye and Spike nicely.
For some random reason, watching this for the first time makes me want to re-watch Gunsmith Cats. Did anyone else watch that? It's even older than Cowboy Bebop. I remember being impressed with it years ago, because it had highly detailed scenes of Chicago, and I recognized a lot of places that made it into the anime. Also, I liked it because it had two girls who were fond of explosions. As I mentioned earlier, some days I can’t get enough of explosions. I doubt if it will be as good as I remember it, but if memory serves it also had a jazzy soundtrack.
Does it seem like a forerunner for this?
But not as good, though. *shrug* Oh well.
Anyway, I digress. What Cowboy Bebop is really inspiring me of doing -- it’s something foolhardy -- but I want to get a corgi. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe in a couple of years from now when I have my own place -- I will get a super intelligent corgi like Ein. Maybe I’ll get another dachshund too, so they have each other to play with while I’m at work.
And if they breed I will have dorgis and then life will be amazing, all unicorns and roses. SERIOUSLY. I am totally planning this out.
(I guess I just miss my dog.)
More ranting and random stuff this week, if I'm motivated enough and I don't get lazy.
4) Gurren Lagann. Ahh, the might drills of yore!
I also have mixed feelings about Gurren Lagann. It’s not like my mixed feelings for Code Geass, which only failed me with its awful second season.
Visually, there was nothing to complain about... it's beautifully animated, of course. Even with low res video streaming, it was pretty. I liked the muted tones they use. And the Michael Bay explosions! BAYSPLOSIONS! I love bayplosions in anime.
Perhaps I just disliked Nia the Magical Princess. She got on my nerves, and all plot twists involving her just made me irritated. I liked the ambiguity of the first episodes, in which there’s a subtle love triangle between Yoko and the boys.
I feel that even with one character death, they could have still run with the love triangle subplot. I’m not asking them to be an anime version of “Wings of the Dove,” for Chrissakes, but in hindsight it certainly would have been more interesting. I’m just saying it’s lazy writing to introduce a new female character just to tie up the shipping loose ends.
So watch Gurren Lagann for the explosions, the half-naked Yoko, and the silly robot power-ups. The phallic imagery is pretty funny, too. Don’t watch it for anything other reasons than that.
Last aside: and heaven have mercy, please don’t let me EVER see a cosplayer in Simon’s final power-up outfit. (in Angry Video Game Nerd’s voice) WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?!
5) Cowboy Bebop. I’m not yet done with this yet, but I just have to mention that I regret not watching it when it came out in 1998. The only reason why I didn’t watch it was the (pirated) copy that was lent to me didn’t work on my VCD player so I gave up. (Yes, I had a VCD player back then.)
Anyway, right now I’m totally loving its soundtrack, its meandering vignettes and its overall style and intelligence. Faye Valentine seems to have walked off the pages of any Dashiell Hammett novel: brash, dangerous, sometimes sympathetic. She's not a woman you'd want to double-cross because she WILL put the rat poison in your soup, while cashing all your pension checks. She's that type of Hammett woman, except she's more scantily dressed than her 1930s counterparts.
Spike is a classic hard-boiled hero -- occasionally lazy, sometimes drunk and high, but always working according to his own moral code. The perennially bankrupt status of the Bebop coffers reminds me of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
ZOMG. Maybe Cowboy Bebop is just really HAMMETT IN SPACE?!
Adam doesn’t like Jet very much -- I don’t blame him -- and the less said about Ed, the better. But even if I find them a little flat, they do balance off Faye and Spike nicely.
For some random reason, watching this for the first time makes me want to re-watch Gunsmith Cats. Did anyone else watch that? It's even older than Cowboy Bebop. I remember being impressed with it years ago, because it had highly detailed scenes of Chicago, and I recognized a lot of places that made it into the anime. Also, I liked it because it had two girls who were fond of explosions. As I mentioned earlier, some days I can’t get enough of explosions. I doubt if it will be as good as I remember it, but if memory serves it also had a jazzy soundtrack.
Click to viewDoes it seem like a forerunner for this?
But not as good, though. *shrug* Oh well.
Anyway, I digress. What Cowboy Bebop is really inspiring me of doing -- it’s something foolhardy -- but I want to get a corgi. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe in a couple of years from now when I have my own place -- I will get a super intelligent corgi like Ein. Maybe I’ll get another dachshund too, so they have each other to play with while I’m at work.
And if they breed I will have dorgis and then life will be amazing, all unicorns and roses. SERIOUSLY. I am totally planning this out.
(I guess I just miss my dog.)
More ranting and random stuff this week, if I'm motivated enough and I don't get lazy.