Summer and Fall Season 2018

[rinkafushi]

How is it already mid-January? D: Time, time, and such. I'm slowly turning into a hybrid of Alice's dormouse and white rabbit. The lack of a summer wrap-up post is easily explained, though - in between a health relapse in May and August and an utterly meh anime season, I didn't end up watching a lot. (I started Mongol Invasion and Free!! but both just lost my interest faster than the temperature climbed to mind-frying heights.)

Fall Season, though!! The year bowed out with some treats, so let's do a quick roll call:

Cinema

• Black Butler - Book of the Atlantic

This time, in German! Everything I had to say about the movie upon seeing it subbed at Akiba Pass Festival back in the day still holds true - the CGI is still very noticeable, the flashback still more jarring in a movie than it was in the manga, I'm still just slightly bitter about some Snake scenes getting cut - but I was absolutely positively surprised by the German dub. I remember being decidedly meh about the German dub of the first season when I saw bits of it, and maybe it's me getting less snobby with age, or it's the actors settling into their roles, but it was actually really good! This Sebastian is less walking innuendo and more sophisticated smugness, which works for the better, really. Also, rewatching the movie now that we know more about what preceeds the summoning was... an experience. Still four zombies on the Titanic out of five!

• Lu Over The Wall

This year, too, I tried to catch at least some of the Kazé anime releases in cinema, but it was mostly franchise movies I didn't care about. This one is directed by Yuasa Masaaki, the guy who also did Devilman Crybaby, but was more commonly compared to Ponyo. It really did feel like someone took a Ghibli story and poured it through the lense of Yuasa's off-kilter style. And that's not a bad thing at all, really - only the story ended up being somewhat bland and not leaving any lasting impact on me. Also, I'm just not that much a passionate fan of animation that the clear nods to the earliest Disney impressed me much. Well, at least it wasn't Devilman :') Three dancing mermaids out of five.

• Ant-Man and the Wasp (OV)

Ant-Man was the only recent Marvel movie I didn't end up catching in theatres for whatever reason, and in retrospect, I regretted that choice - it's such a fun movie, even if it isn't anything groundbreaking. I felt similar about the sequel - there's little to nothing to the story that would floor me in any way, but the character dynamics just are so charming. I love on what good terms Scott is with his ex-wife and her cop husband in this, I really liked Cassie also who hit the right balance between precocious and cute, Luis was of course sublime, and Hank making gruff noises about his idiot son-in-law was amusing enough (even before the sudden romance angle threw a wrench in the proceedings). On a negative side... Could we not have had such extremely noticeable make-up on Michelle "just back from decades of subspace survival horror" Pfeiffer :') Also, how disjointed did that post-credit scene feel from the rest of the movie? I mean, I knew this was coming, but still!! Four ants playing Garage Band out of five.

• Sauerkrautkoma

Yet another of those Bavarian crime novel adaptations, seen in the outdoor cinema with my mother and her teacher friend. Not quite as funny as the previous ones, because the case was hardly the focus (or worth the merit at all) beyond all the other shenanigans. Also, I suppose it's still daring comedy to have the punchline in the credits be "but what if gay romance!!". The Munich bashing though was quality and balm to my soul. Anyway, two country potatoes out of five.

• Searching

Ardently recommended to me by Sensei, I had to wait a while for it to be released in Germany (which, fair, considering they had to translate every bit of text on screen!). By the time I could watch it, I had been spoiled about parts of the plot, but that still didn't keep it from just being an excellent watch overall! The plot is gripping, and just the unique way of presentation makes you sometimes feel as trapped and unable to progress as the character himself is. I do think that this type of presentation is a bit of a one-trick-pony, but in this first well-done instance, definitely worth seeing. Four nostalgic Windows XP boot up sounds out of five.

• The Favourite

Similar to Kay, I'm cheating here, because we watched it on January 1st, actually, but by the time I'm doing the next round-up, I might well have forgotten (I have the nagging feeling I am missing some things on this list already, tbh!). Normally, the part of the "this looks like an Oscar contender, so I have to see it and be part of the conversation" elitist in my family goes to my dearest Aniki, but in this case, I once was 3 Times Faster. The premise and story as well as the cast intriguiged me, and from the trailers, it looked like a dark comedy. It's mostly dark, with not much comedy - but there are fisheye lenses and waterboarding-levels of pizzicato torture (which allegedly forms a "soundtrack"). Some of the shots were gorgeous, and Oliva Colman deserves all the awards as per usual, but this movie did not really convince me I should watch less mainstream popcorn cinema and more arthouse. I'll leave that to Yamaken-nii-sama. One non-fired Chekov's gun out of five.

Anime

• Castlevania 2

I had, in all honesty, not that high expectations for the second season - I was hoping for some more amazing fight sequences of Trevor's (which I got! Although I miss his dramatic cape flourishes, and also liked his previous whip better /shrug emojis) and for Sypha to remain MVP/best girl (which she did! Her magic is so much fun to watch, even more so for how much fun she is having with it!) aaaaand that's it. I had the sinking feeling that the team dynamic wouldn't live up to what some people poured out onto the internet in fanworks, so I wasn't really let down by the show moving on from their shenanigans to introducing more characters, now that they have more episodes. I didn't mind Casa de Dracula as much, if not for the fact that the show's limited character animation really worked against itself here - some of the minions barely moved and didn't even get to talk, and Carmilla's appeal was buried under stiff movements and generic evilness. Overall, I'm more looking forward to where the show might move than I appreciated this season. I'd only rewatch a Trevor Belmont scene master cut, tbh. Three gentle "fuck you"s out of five.

• Thunderbolt Fantasy 2

Best anime of the year is a Taiwanese puppet show, and I'm not even joking. My late arrival to the fandom had the upside of me not having to wait for season two as long, and then I got to rewatch over half of it with my poor victim I mean trusty companion Kay right away, watching her make the same :') faces at Rin's fabulous gay disaster self as I had previously. I had anticipated the season to play out more like its predecessor - leaving the viewer in the dark for a long stretch as to who is on what side and who Shou can really trust, allegiances changing by the episode and the eternal question remaining "will this guy stab you in the back or not", but instead, our main (newly formed) trio remained fairly constant while everyone around them just went absolutely bonkers. Urobutcher is still clearly having the time of his life, and in between writing buddhism gone wrong, yandere swords, yandere swordsexuals, the worst public servant ever and Millenial Existential Crisis(tm), everything remained the exact right balance of ironic subersion and sincere love for the source material. I was fairly sure we'd get a hook for a sequel, but I didn't expect it to play out the way it did, but I shan't complain (Shan't!). Although I really do want that Shou Fu Kan Shounen no Bouken prequel to see just how The Best Man You'll Ever Meet became his amazing self ("Shou is the only character who deserves his harem. He doesn't want it, but he deserves it." indeed.) Five romantic fishing dates by the pond out of five.

• Golden Kamuy 2

Not quite a second season, but just finishing up the first one after a one-season break, I knew this one would also not have a concrete ending, considering the manga is still ongoing. However, the ending they left off on was strangely satisfying, even with all the tables turned again (but then again, that's a common occurence in this series). From what I saw people mention, the anime skipped a bunch of minor arcs and scenes in order to get there, which would explain the sometimes rushed pacing and makes me wonder if it couldn't have been done as a 3 cours series instead. We did get the iconic onsen shot and the sea otter stew scene, for whatever that's word (this is the most bara non-bara series I've ever seen. I mean. We have hetero sex on screen but it's still just. Noda-sensei really, really likes drawing Tanigaki.). The CGI still is no good, and the animation fairly simple, but the voice work and sheer insanity of the story do make it worth a watch for sure. Three mountain cats out of five.

• Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san

I've never worked in a bookstore, nor in comparable retail setting in general, but I guess there are just some truths universally acknowleged about customer service all across the world in all jobs dealing with this hassle, so yeah, Honda-san's struggles were very much relatable. Also, the confused but overall kind attitude he has towards weird folk (and weirder foreigner folk still) showing up with weird requests was genuinely charming. Considering it's all based on real people, shout-out to his fudanshi boss. And Okeeeee-san. And just everyone in general. Also, cutest ED of the season! Four special yaoi books out of five.

• Double Decker: Doug & Kirill

I was lured into watching this by the advertisement that it's done by the same people who did Tiger & Bunny and might even be tangentially related to that show, be it in a prequel/sidequel/spin-off kind of way, we'd see. In the end, it was a vague spiritual cousin more than anything - while Tiger & Bunny was a love letter to Silver Age US comic aesthetics, Double Dekker is the same to UK culture of the same time, in terms of fashion style and aesthetics (and yes, there is a double decker bus, because of course). It ditched the superpower plot in favour of a magical steroid drug squad focus, though, and chose a much more self-aware, parody based approach. This, however, lessened the impact many of the individual stories could have had - and they are strong at times! With most of the cast being girls, we had a large variety of cool female characters with very different designs, personalities and agendas, and our main protagonist is quite unusual as well. But since you always had to expect every emotional beat to be followed by a "PSYCH! Just kidding, this is actually not how it happened" by the narrator, I just ended up way less invested. It didn't help that the main plot was just utterly bonkers. In the end, I'll forget about the show soon, I think, but at least the ED was cool. Two nonbinary siblings out of five.

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Vento Aureo

I finally, finally caved in. Why? I can't even really say. I think in between the So This Is Basically run-down of the insanity that is this show and the Cheat Sheet by Mother's Basement, I decided I might as well give Part V a try, considering it's barely tied to the entire previous canon. Maybe it's also that Italian Mafia aesthetics call to me more than Japanese delinquents. But I honestly have no adequate explanation :') It's a wild ride as expected, and more of an enssemble piece so far. The whole "Bruno's gang has 6 brain cells and 5 of them are Giorno's" post wasn't wrong, really, but Giorno has style and manners enough to make up for it. I now can finally participate in #JoJoFriday and it's actualyl a fairly fun feeling. Is this what anime maturity feels like..? We're barely one fifth into the series, so I'm sure all kinds of insanity still await us. As it....stands, four stands out of five.

• That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime

I do not care for JRPGs, and I do not much care for the whole Isekai subgenre, the odd Tanya withstanding. And yet, I found myself utterly charmed by "40+ yo salaryman gets stabbed and his dying wishes end up having him transformed to a low level monster in a fantasy world, but with near unlimited growth potential and a lot of human warmth, and he decides to use his powers to be kind to people". (Ironically, he beginning of this is similar enough to Tanya, too, only that Rimuru was a good person before dying :'D) Rimuru is just a genuinely good dude who wants to help people fulfil their full potential, and most of his issues he solves via negotiating and being supportive. I'm slightly worried about how his utterly OP status will play into future encounters, but so far I'm just having a lot of fun with the series, which is still ongoing. So far, four kouhais complying with your dying wish and dumping your harddrive in cold water out of five.

Other Stuff

• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

I've never watched the old Sabrina sit-com, and I somehow still am managing to stay Riverdale-free, even with an IRL friend who's a fan, so I had no reason to pick this up other than me feeling eh over Halloween. There was also a huge poster campaign in WÜ for it, surprisingly. The series certainly tries its best to be very edgy and unique, from the feaux 70s aesthetics (there is one smartphone used once, which sticks out like a sore thumb) to the SJW token agenda list check with Sabrina's friends to the very dark and unsettling take on a happy witch coven. I was constantly wondering if the show wanted us to actually like or hate on the witches as such - while Sabrina's aunts are a bit of a special case now, they still are on board with all the Satanism and sacrifice and such. Will we eventually see witches outside this line of thought or not, that's the question. Sabrina herself has some... interesting acting going on, seeming too savvy to be naive, but also too naive to really seem like a player. Madame Satan had some gif-worthy faces at least? I'll still watch the second half of the first season, I guess, if just to see where all of this is going. Two edges out of five.

Daredevil 3

I can't believe. That I forgot. To put the show here that I watched Sabrina for to shorten the wait. Where is my brain :') I wasn't a fan of everything S2 that wasn't The People v Frank Castle arc, and I was mostly indifferent to the storyline Matt had in Defenders (I did enjoy seeing him as the most competent of the bunch, take that, pre-S2!Iron Fist!). So, I wasn't super invested in the new season - I didn't see a single trailer for it, and just decided to give it a go. I ended up binging the entire thing in one go, more or less, because it just was so good. Matt's cynicism did get somewhat tiresome at certain points, but his friends having none of it anymore was a nice change of pace. He deserved some more punches to his face, tbh. But the fight scenes were just such a treat after the more lackluster fights in Luke Cage, Iron Fist  and Jessica Jones, and his series just has my favourite New York aesthetic of the bunch. The one-shot prison escape of course being in a league of its own. I also enjoyed Karen's story line a lot - after so much teasers and hints, I wasn't really sure where it was going (and her whole "guns are fine though" stance in Punisher was a bit jarring to me), but it made a lot of sense with her actions in mind, and was just that mundane kind of heartbreak that not so much punches the air out of you as just remains a constant drag. She deserves better things (and less psychopathic love interests with a martry complex.) And finally, finally the season wrapped up in such a wonderful, positive way - only for cancellation news to hit. In some ways, I'm glad that this is where we'll cut the line, because things seem on the upswing for once. On the other.... it just plain sucks. Anyway, four catholic guilt complexes out of five.

• Tess Gerritsen :')

I got Audible last year, and spent a lot of my summer and early fall burning through all Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles books (in German). The first one I listened to was actually the newest book (look, it had some Catholicism murder and I was just at the height of CSI Vatican withdrawal, don't @ me), and then I decided to put my monthly tokens to use on the previous ones. Boy. Booooy. From third hand exposure, I know that the tv series (which is only loosely based on the books, similar to how it is with Bones) was very popular for the f/f ship with the main characters, so I was interested to see how it would be in the books. I swear, in all my life I have never read something as ridiculously hetero as this. (Okay, so maybe I was more sensitive to it going in, but still!) Every guy who enters the narrative gets the Attractiveness Scan(tm), multiple times either heroine is distracted/fooled by a guy just being too hot, aging is the worst thing ever that can happen to a woman because old women are unattractive spinsters who might as well just die, all blonde women are wrenches not to be trusted, and no, it's not in a denial kind of way. The main characters don't even really feel like friends - it's hammered home how different they are constantly, and they don't seem to do anything together outside work, but then it's all "MY FRIEND WHO I WOULD GO THROUGH HELL FOR" out of nowhere. Why did I still burn through 11 of these? Your guess is as good as mine :') I did enjoy Ice Cold/The Killing Place for the claustrophobic feel of it, but then they returned back to society and the entire "Oh no, how dare my priest lover insist he won't quit his position for me just because he signed up after the miracle healing of his sister" plot, and I zoned out. Also, I guess I liked the Chinese-American detective who gets away with murder because #heritage or something. I'll leave you with a (re-translated) quote to get why I'm so :') about all of this: "Bonny wore her crow's feet like battle scars". Two generic thrillers out of five.

• Overly Sarcastic Productions

I've been watching a lot of YouTube this past year (and tailend of 2017), but one very recent binge started with Kei linking me a video on H. P. Lovecraft. Red's spitfire delivery of classic literature summaries, peppered with delightfully dry humour and nods to TV Tropes instantly clicked with me, and I ended up watching pretty much every summary she ever did. I especially recommend Sir Arthur's Knights (new insta fave Dinadan!!) and The Journey to the West playlist. I haven't really ventured into Blue's History Summarised videos yet, apart from Pope Fights, but maybe another day!

• Our Fake Histories

I also started venturing into podcast realms beyond my beloved Aussies, and one of the first I took a liking to was Sebastian Major's Our Fake Histories, where he dissects common misconceptions, conspiracy theories or just historical anectodes. In between his ongoing struggle with names in any other language than English and French, fascination with whacky personalities and fairly non-judgemental viewpoint, it's been a lot of fun listening to the episodes, although I skipped all those not immediately gripping my interest.

• My Dad Wrote A Porno

Four years late with no Starbucks, but right on time for the third Christmas Special, I finally started listening to this gem of a podcast. I mentioned it in one of the last Troika posts, saying that it makes that prose look almost good, and I won't take that back. Just when the whole bad porn routine was starting to run stale, the books suddenly turned into a weird James Bond AU, and I have to admit that it did reel me back in. That, and the celebrity guest stars and James' utter ??? at everything female anatomy. And we got the best Bond theme since Skyfall!

• Heinrich der Kempter

Look, I'm not really a theater person, usually. I'll go if someone drags me along, but that's pretty much it. So when my mother told me that there was a modernised stage play adaptation of the medieval poem about Heinrich of my humble hometown (of "jumped out of a bathtub stark naked to defend the emperor's life despite having been exiled form court before" fame) that she really wanted to see but that had been sold out on its first run, I agreed to come along. So did my father and my brother's in-laws, and it was a fun evening before the play even started. Rather than focussing on the male characters of the poem, the entire play was a graveyard visit by the empress and Heinrich's widow, caught in a vitriolic master-servant relationship and 5ever hung up on their amazing husbands. The empress spoke in slightly abriged Swiss Middle German, but the most unique part about the play was that two members of a well-known local folk rock band were on stage as both fading in and out characters and musicians. And yes, one of them evenutally got out of the tub stark naked in a dream sequence, to the delight of some of this fans, I'm sure. It was a wild and funny watch, although I'll admit that the anarcho-liberal social commentary swooshed right by me. I did like the line of one of the songs, though, for its excellent play on words - "mit Kanonen auf Spatzen schießen, damit sie nicht mehr von den Dächern pfeiffen, was eh schon alle wissen". It was definitely something I'm glad to have seen, although I do wonder what it says about me that most plays I've seen so far had a guy full frontal at some point :')