blah blah bleh
1. Picked up the two most recent chapters of Fairy Tail because I heard Big Things Happened.
Pieced together the gist of what I missed... still meh. As I said in my "I quit" post -- this was one of the most fascinating series mysteries for me, and I'm just... not impressed by the answer. (It doesn't help that I find Natsu an insanely boring hero. Great premise, but the execution is soooooooooooo flat.)
To be fair, parts of the concept are really interesting. But, as with Natsu... execution = zzzz.
(Still better than fucking Bleach.)
2. Legend of Korra -- extremely belatedly.... ooooooooooh I can't believe they actually went there! (wrt shipping) I managed to keep far away enough from spoilers to have not realized that until someone mentioned it in a Fairy Tail thread somewhere.
I approve! (I still hate season 2, which basically ruined the franchise for me!) Still not sure I care enough to pick up the final two seasons, though I read through synopses and see that at least some of the things I was annoyed about in s2 were addressed. I'm just not at all happy with the way the worldbuilding turned out overall (copoutcopoutcopoutcopout RAGE) -- in particular am never going to forgive them for their cheesy take on power and "spirituality" -- and I just KNOW the political plot* would drive me nuts. Though I think it's super fab what they did with the Beifong family, and spotted some really nice character designs on the villain sides.
* As I suspected... the plot really does take a lot of cues from revolutionary China (really not the best choice for a kid's show, even one with more mature themes), but mixes it up with very American influences (which totally worked in AtLA imo, but here... ehhh).
That said, much of what they've done with the franchise is a huge step forward, so yay.
3. Saw the first ep of Magic Kaitou 1412 -- production values are shockingly good. O_O (>>>> Detective Conan, but that makes sense.) Considering how slapstick the original manga was at times.... I wonder how they adapted some of the goofier stories and how they're planning to reconcile some of the early crack with later retcons (I notice from the wiki listing that they're even including some of the crossover cases with Conan). Looks like they're just skipping some of the crack (but including other bits like Akako's witchery, oh Akako).
I will probably end up watching most of this because my parents love Aoyama Gosho.
4. Saw the first ep of ASSCLASS. Liked it (nice OST!), not sure I'm gonna follow it loyally. Probably will just try to catch the animated versions of my favorite scenes. :3
5. Vaguely thinking about checking out Death Parade only because it's the first original/non-light novel Madhouse series I remember seeing in a fucking long time. In fact I think I'm gonna do that now while I'm in the mood.
6. Rolling Girls looks pretty but dumb. It's the kind of show I would have taken a chance on three years ago. No patience now.
- - -
Hey it's GINKO.
(There is a bartender character. Presumably the protagonist. Looks like an expy of Mushishi's protagonist.)
Aww.... this OP is really charming...
Hmmm. There's a very "Persona" vibe to this. Just the atmosphere, not the premise.
Oh holy pewp wow. That startled me -- though it was obvious where this was heading, I don't think I was expecting anything so explicit!
Holy this is creepy! XD
DAMN this is sadistic. :3
HAHAHHAHA WTF WAS THAT. That was the most sadistic shit I have watched in I don't know how many years.
It very very much reminds me of Mushishi and Mononoke (the latter in particular, though the current "protagonist"??? is a Ginko expy) -- except WAY MORE SADISTIC.
AWESOME.
(I loved it, unironically, in case you can't tell from the very short liveblog. Despite assuming it would be a cliched take on a predictable premise, I was totally hooked!)
It's yet another "bet on your afterlife in purgatory" sort of setup.
But what makes it interesting is that the choices apparently AREN'T actually heaven and hell in a Christian sense -- but more in a pseudo-Buddhist sense. (There are Actual Heavens and Hells in Buddhism too. There's argument among different schools about "what they really are" though.)
In fact, the post-ED snippet of a scene identifies the "white mask" as reincarnation (another chance to live, yes, but also a continuation of the cycle), and the "demon mask" as "the void" (an end to the cycle of suffering).
The wife won the game -- meaning, I believe, in some sense, she got to choose.
(Ginko's supernatural cousin was clearly surprised by her choice, I think -- though it's ambiguous whether he's surprised about her "reveal", the truth of which is left equally ambiguous, or if he's surprised about her [unshown] decision, or if he's surprised about something else.)
Several interpretations immediately come to mind.
1. Wife was telling the truth; final reveal was a lie.
a. She lied out of love to give her husband closure/peace of mind by "confirming" what he already believed.
b. She lied out of disillusionment. Having seen his "true" self, she decided she would have rather gone along with his version of the truth than remained stupidly loyal to a man who didn't even trust her.
2. Final reveal was the truth.
a. She regretted cheating. (In the brief flash of her in bed with the other man [it's not clear it IS another man, for the record], she's hiding her face as if already regretting it. Checking someone's screenshot, she's also wearing a ring in this image, i.e. must be AFTER marriage.) Similar to 1a., she confessed out of love/guilt.
b. She was already ambivalent about the relationship, hence the cheating. Her final outburst resulted from her husband's nastiness (his self-serving actions, his complete breakdown) clearly confirming her actual doubts and the reason she cheated on him in the first place. (The fact that the cheating scene is "after" marriage could be seen as evidence in support of this; maybe she didn't have doubts until he started acting weird post wedding day!)
...
I think whether or not she was really pregnant (IMO she was, though the real father, who knows) doesn't matter as much. In fact I assume it's true since we see so much evidence of her being pregnant in the flashbacks; only the flashback of her final confession seems like it could be a "doctored" memory.
(That said, no matter which interpretation you pick, I think we are DEFINITELY supposed to be sympathizing with the wife here; because dang dude, way to handle a relationship/make stupid decisions....)
It's interesting to me that they came and left in the same elevators (but the masks switched sides). What that means, no idea yet. Need more examples to compare.
Definitely the husband getting stringed up at the end was a Blinking Neon Sign that he still has a ton of earthly attachments (and suffering to go through) from a Buddhist perspective.
So great though, really. It was an especially nice touch to have them start out all supportive and acting like normal reasonable people would if caught in a situation like this before everything goes to hell. Heh.
....
Looking at some discussions, there are folks who think the wife got the worse ending (and deserved it). I think they're getting distracted by the masks. Hers is this; these people play up the "jealous female demon" thing but uh do they not realize hannya = prajna = wisdom?
And I think it fits -- the wife is tormented at the end, but she made an attempt at a wiser choice. (If there's one thing for certain, it's that she did NOT confess out of spite.)
White one is this: http://www.glopad.org/jparc/?q=en/node/21857 -- key takeaway is the weight of experience (i.e. Buddhist "suffering")
Also "the void" in Buddhism (as you may know, I am Buddhist, not a very active one though) does not generally have negative associations in my experience.... IDK where the interpretation that "void = no more chances" is coming from. This actually really pisses me off -- "void" is a MAJOR concept in Buddhism, at least Mahayana Buddhism.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akasagarbha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29#The_text_of_the_Mu-koan (I include this last link for completion's sake, but it is too late to dig up a better dissection of "wu" than wiki. Sunyata is the more relevant link ["kong" or "xu kong"]). Actually, about.com has a decent Buddhism 101 explanation (more of a Zen explanation [Western Zen drives me nuts sorry to say] but in context of the series I suppose that's appropriate) -- http://buddhism.about.com/od/chanandzenbuddhism/a/What-Is-Mu.htm
And since when was reincarnation a "good" thing in Buddhism? JFC. Like so many other things, it's NEITHER; no value judgment should be placed on it.
And to the commenter muttering about how it's inaccurate to take a Buddhist interpretation of this because Japan is mostly Shinto --
Have you not heard the common truism "Born Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist"?
This is a show about death and the afterlife. Shinto doesn't really give two shits about the afterlife (actually not totally true but). Death is invariably associated with Buddhism in Japan. ~_~
/grumble
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
Pieced together the gist of what I missed... still meh. As I said in my "I quit" post -- this was one of the most fascinating series mysteries for me, and I'm just... not impressed by the answer. (It doesn't help that I find Natsu an insanely boring hero. Great premise, but the execution is soooooooooooo flat.)
To be fair, parts of the concept are really interesting. But, as with Natsu... execution = zzzz.
(Still better than fucking Bleach.)
2. Legend of Korra -- extremely belatedly.... ooooooooooh I can't believe they actually went there! (wrt shipping) I managed to keep far away enough from spoilers to have not realized that until someone mentioned it in a Fairy Tail thread somewhere.
I approve! (I still hate season 2, which basically ruined the franchise for me!) Still not sure I care enough to pick up the final two seasons, though I read through synopses and see that at least some of the things I was annoyed about in s2 were addressed. I'm just not at all happy with the way the worldbuilding turned out overall (copoutcopoutcopoutcopout RAGE) -- in particular am never going to forgive them for their cheesy take on power and "spirituality" -- and I just KNOW the political plot* would drive me nuts. Though I think it's super fab what they did with the Beifong family, and spotted some really nice character designs on the villain sides.
* As I suspected... the plot really does take a lot of cues from revolutionary China (really not the best choice for a kid's show, even one with more mature themes), but mixes it up with very American influences (which totally worked in AtLA imo, but here... ehhh).
That said, much of what they've done with the franchise is a huge step forward, so yay.
3. Saw the first ep of Magic Kaitou 1412 -- production values are shockingly good. O_O (>>>> Detective Conan, but that makes sense.) Considering how slapstick the original manga was at times.... I wonder how they adapted some of the goofier stories and how they're planning to reconcile some of the early crack with later retcons (I notice from the wiki listing that they're even including some of the crossover cases with Conan). Looks like they're just skipping some of the crack (but including other bits like Akako's witchery, oh Akako).
I will probably end up watching most of this because my parents love Aoyama Gosho.
4. Saw the first ep of ASSCLASS. Liked it (nice OST!), not sure I'm gonna follow it loyally. Probably will just try to catch the animated versions of my favorite scenes. :3
5. Vaguely thinking about checking out Death Parade only because it's the first original/non-light novel Madhouse series I remember seeing in a fucking long time. In fact I think I'm gonna do that now while I'm in the mood.
6. Rolling Girls looks pretty but dumb. It's the kind of show I would have taken a chance on three years ago. No patience now.
- - -
Hey it's GINKO.
(There is a bartender character. Presumably the protagonist. Looks like an expy of Mushishi's protagonist.)
Aww.... this OP is really charming...
Hmmm. There's a very "Persona" vibe to this. Just the atmosphere, not the premise.
Oh holy pewp wow. That startled me -- though it was obvious where this was heading, I don't think I was expecting anything so explicit!
Holy this is creepy! XD
DAMN this is sadistic. :3
HAHAHHAHA WTF WAS THAT. That was the most sadistic shit I have watched in I don't know how many years.
It very very much reminds me of Mushishi and Mononoke (the latter in particular, though the current "protagonist"??? is a Ginko expy) -- except WAY MORE SADISTIC.
AWESOME.
(I loved it, unironically, in case you can't tell from the very short liveblog. Despite assuming it would be a cliched take on a predictable premise, I was totally hooked!)
It's yet another "bet on your afterlife in purgatory" sort of setup.
But what makes it interesting is that the choices apparently AREN'T actually heaven and hell in a Christian sense -- but more in a pseudo-Buddhist sense. (There are Actual Heavens and Hells in Buddhism too. There's argument among different schools about "what they really are" though.)
In fact, the post-ED snippet of a scene identifies the "white mask" as reincarnation (another chance to live, yes, but also a continuation of the cycle), and the "demon mask" as "the void" (an end to the cycle of suffering).
The wife won the game -- meaning, I believe, in some sense, she got to choose.
(Ginko's supernatural cousin was clearly surprised by her choice, I think -- though it's ambiguous whether he's surprised about her "reveal", the truth of which is left equally ambiguous, or if he's surprised about her [unshown] decision, or if he's surprised about something else.)
Several interpretations immediately come to mind.
1. Wife was telling the truth; final reveal was a lie.
a. She lied out of love to give her husband closure/peace of mind by "confirming" what he already believed.
b. She lied out of disillusionment. Having seen his "true" self, she decided she would have rather gone along with his version of the truth than remained stupidly loyal to a man who didn't even trust her.
2. Final reveal was the truth.
a. She regretted cheating. (In the brief flash of her in bed with the other man [it's not clear it IS another man, for the record], she's hiding her face as if already regretting it. Checking someone's screenshot, she's also wearing a ring in this image, i.e. must be AFTER marriage.) Similar to 1a., she confessed out of love/guilt.
b. She was already ambivalent about the relationship, hence the cheating. Her final outburst resulted from her husband's nastiness (his self-serving actions, his complete breakdown) clearly confirming her actual doubts and the reason she cheated on him in the first place. (The fact that the cheating scene is "after" marriage could be seen as evidence in support of this; maybe she didn't have doubts until he started acting weird post wedding day!)
...
I think whether or not she was really pregnant (IMO she was, though the real father, who knows) doesn't matter as much. In fact I assume it's true since we see so much evidence of her being pregnant in the flashbacks; only the flashback of her final confession seems like it could be a "doctored" memory.
(That said, no matter which interpretation you pick, I think we are DEFINITELY supposed to be sympathizing with the wife here; because dang dude, way to handle a relationship/make stupid decisions....)
It's interesting to me that they came and left in the same elevators (but the masks switched sides). What that means, no idea yet. Need more examples to compare.
Definitely the husband getting stringed up at the end was a Blinking Neon Sign that he still has a ton of earthly attachments (and suffering to go through) from a Buddhist perspective.
So great though, really. It was an especially nice touch to have them start out all supportive and acting like normal reasonable people would if caught in a situation like this before everything goes to hell. Heh.
....
Looking at some discussions, there are folks who think the wife got the worse ending (and deserved it). I think they're getting distracted by the masks. Hers is this; these people play up the "jealous female demon" thing but uh do they not realize hannya = prajna = wisdom?
And I think it fits -- the wife is tormented at the end, but she made an attempt at a wiser choice. (If there's one thing for certain, it's that she did NOT confess out of spite.)
White one is this: http://www.glopad.org/jparc/?q=en/node/21857 -- key takeaway is the weight of experience (i.e. Buddhist "suffering")
Also "the void" in Buddhism (as you may know, I am Buddhist, not a very active one though) does not generally have negative associations in my experience.... IDK where the interpretation that "void = no more chances" is coming from. This actually really pisses me off -- "void" is a MAJOR concept in Buddhism, at least Mahayana Buddhism.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akasagarbha, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29#The_text_of_the_Mu-koan (I include this last link for completion's sake, but it is too late to dig up a better dissection of "wu" than wiki. Sunyata is the more relevant link ["kong" or "xu kong"]). Actually, about.com has a decent Buddhism 101 explanation (more of a Zen explanation [Western Zen drives me nuts sorry to say] but in context of the series I suppose that's appropriate) -- http://buddhism.about.com/od/chanandzenbuddhism/a/What-Is-Mu.htm
And since when was reincarnation a "good" thing in Buddhism? JFC. Like so many other things, it's NEITHER; no value judgment should be placed on it.
And to the commenter muttering about how it's inaccurate to take a Buddhist interpretation of this because Japan is mostly Shinto --
Have you not heard the common truism "Born Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist"?
This is a show about death and the afterlife. Shinto doesn't really give two shits about the afterlife (actually not totally true but). Death is invariably associated with Buddhism in Japan. ~_~
/grumble
comments at the original Dreamwidth post