Gen X Otaku 1971: the OG blog

Finished Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya; Vol 4.

Finished the Fourth and Final volume of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Upon further review of the definition of Melancholy, I suppose it does actually fit Haruhi.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Vol. 4

This series really just gets going and suddenly it is over.  The action is really good and interesting in this final volume. The cover art stems from a massive multiplayer space-battle computer game with which the Computer Club challenges the SOS Brigade to a duel.  Haruhi immediately accepts; Lucky for them Yuki is on their side, figures out the Computer Club is cheating, then disables their cheat and makes the game an even match, in which the SOS Brigade is able to prevail.

We also so Haruhi jump up and become the lead singer in a rock band at the School festival...she had been a brief member of the Rock club at the beginning of the school year, and when two of the girls in the girl band can't play due to injury and illness, Haruhi jumps in, and brings Yuki along (who is instantly able to learn lead guitar, while Haruhi is able to do rhythm guitar and vocals).  They play their hearts out and win a standing ovation.  Haruhi feels awkward afterward receiving praise for her performance from "ordinary" classmates.

The nicest part of the volume is the final episode; Haruhi sends Kyon out in the cold and eventually the rain to go pick up a free space heater from the local appliance store...down the hill and two train stops away.  While Kyon is away, Haruhi reverts to her favorite pastime of sexually harassing Mikuru, forcing her to pose for pictures in various costumes, then filming her in the gym trying to twirl a baton, etc.  Yuki stays and reads, as usual.  Kyon finally makes it back to campus with the heavy piece of equipment, sets up the space heater and turns it on and promptly takes a nap on the club table.  When he wakes, he finds Haruhi still waiting for him patiently.  She asks for her sweater back, which she has put around Kyon's shoulders while sleeping.  The other sweater around his neck clearly belongs to Yuki; she must have put it on him before leaving the room.  But only Haruhi stayed behind for Kyon.  Haruhi tells Kyon to walk her home and hands him an umbrella to share...they walk down the hill together, chatting, sometimes bickering, but we can tell Haruhi has developed genuine affection for Kyon; even by the time of the school festival she's become quite possessive of him, with Kyon dryly noting that if a certain someone (Haruhi) caught him hitting on other girls, it would "not be good at all".  It was a sweet ending, and it's nice to see that Kyon and Haruhi are destined to be a couple before they eventually graduate.

But like I said, the series seems only to have just gotten started, and has room to grow and expand the story line.  Evidently this has already been done in Japan, and the series has gone from 14 to 26 episodes, but so far only the first 14 episodes are dubbed into English; It remains to be seen when the remaining episodes will be dubbed in English and available on the US market.  This show definitely needs a 2nd season to explore more backstory and it definitely deserves a more dramatic finale.  We leave season 1 feeling like only just the surface has been scratched in the case of Miss Haruhi Suzumiya (and Mikuru Asahina, for that matter--the least developed of the supporting characters).  I guess it was this feeling of incompleteness that led me to go ahead and watch the School Rumble OVA  which I recently ordered and received via Barnes and Noble booksellers:

School Rumble: Extra Class OVA

It was certainly nice to meet these characters again, hear the familiar intro and closing songs, etc.  The School Rumble OVA is basically filler material that takes place some time between the End of Season 1 and the Beginning of Season 2.  It is only 2 regular-length School Rumble episodes long.  The first episode is set in the present and revolves around a trip to a hot spring, and also a sub-plot with Tenma's younger sister.  Harima accidentally flashes Eri; she's disturbed enough to see Harima evidently spying on them while they are naked in the hot spring pool...when his towel accidentally drops from his waist, exposing himself, Eri's eyebrow starts to twitch, having seen way more than she wanted to.  Harima quietly lowers the loose section of wall between the men's side and women's side and Eri doesn't mention the intrusion to the other girls...just their private...and akward...moment.  Say what you like, Eri still has feelings for Harima after he (accidentally) declared his love for her (thinking she was Tenma).  She can't make up her mind and does not here, either, but it adds to the humor of the series.  

The second and final episode of the School Rumble OVA is one of their "fantasy" settings in prehistoric times.  The cast is set up as a prehistoric tribe of early humans.  Lara helps vanquish a charging woolly mammoth with her rival Karen Ichijou (一条 かれん Ichijō Karen^?); Harima assists but isn't recognized by anyone but Tenma, who rushes up and hugs him.  He records the moment in stone, etching an image of Tenma with arms outstretched, ready to hug him.  Lara (voiced hilariously by Monica Rial, who really gets on her hispanidad with this character) gets a lot of screen time in the OVA, including a cute scene with a puppy dog....Ay! Perrito! 

Just now reviewing Wikipedia, it seems a 2nd OVA has been released in Japan and is awaiting translation and release in the USA; it will be evidently another 2-episode long OVA which, according to Wikipedia, includes "The Final Episode" as the 2nd and final episode of the 2nd OVA.  Of course, I will have to buy/rent this as well, assuming FUNimation gets it and is able to release it.  I really am continuing to cheer for Harima, especially now that Tenma's sister Yakumo has caught on that Harima likes Tenma.  As I've said before, both are lovable idiots and well deserved for each other.  Gotta feel bad for Hannai, though, since I don't think Yakumo will ever be interested in returning his affections.  Eri may have to wait until college to find true love, like some of the other girls.

Finished Vol.2 of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Finished Volume 2 of the Weltschmerz Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Volume 2 (Limited Edition)

The cover art features the supporting character Mikuru Asahina (朝比奈 みくる Asahina Mikuru^?) 

The buxom, beautiful and shy upperclassman that Haruhi shanghai'ed into joining the SOS Brigade and exploited the hell out of her good looks in a failed attempt at publicity.  SPOILERS FOLLOW so I've you've not seen Vol.2 stop reading this now.

This volume is interesting because Haruhi begins to show actual signs of interest and slight affection for Kyon beyond normal platonic friendship.  She smiles more around him.  Kyon learns from ESPer Koizumi it is actually rather important--for the fate of the world, actually--to keep Haruhi happy and engaged.  Poor Harhui wants to experience weird and unusual phenomenon, but Kyon is the one who actually does (but doesn't want to).  Yuki Nagato has to intervene to save Kyon's life when he is targeted for assassination by Nagato's wayward assistant who becomes overwhelmed by boredom.  In the process she damages and loses her glasses but doesn't seem to actually need them to see, they were merely cosmetic.  Not surprising for a cyborg robot girl.  Kyon tells her she looks cuter without the glasses anyway, and I agree.  After the epic battle, Kyon is cradling the wounded Yuki in his arms and gets walked in on by a male classmate, who interprets the situation romantically and walks away embarrassed.

There's also a sign that time-traveling Mikuru Asahina has a future history with Kyon of her own, but that it also causes a great deal of upset and hurt to Haruhi.  Even in the present Haruhi is beginning to show signs of jealousy when she catches Kyon and Mikuru together.  A future 20-something version of Kyon pays him a visit to warn him that in the near future he will be in grave danger but he should remember the story of Snow White.  Later Yuki Nagato texts him to remember the story of Sleeping Beauty.  Both stories involve the young prince kissing the princess to awaken her from a cursed sleep.

One night, Kyon has a shared nightmare with Haruhi...both are trapped in a "dead zone" of Haruhi's unwitting own creation.  Things go rapidly from bad to worse as monsters (products of Haruhi's own rage and frustration) begin to smash the school where Kyon and Haruhi are taking refuge.  Haruhi is excited, but Kyon wants to go back to the real world and convinces Haruhi to come back with him.  To seal the deal, he grabs her by the shoulders; she looks at him with longing, and he kisses her, restoring the world back to normal...or creating an identical new one.  It's hard to tell.

In mid-kiss, Kyon wakes up and falls out of bed.  Meeting Haruhi at school the next morning she is cranky because of lack of sleep...she says she had a nightmare but doesn't elaborate on the details.  Later in the afternoon, Haruhi gets the crazy notion to enter the SOS Brigade in the local baseball tournament.  Their first team is champion team from the year before, looking for a repeat victory.  With a little supernatural intervention, the SOS Brigade wins a very improbable victory then defaults and drops out of the competition because one member is called away to deal with an emergency.  Flush with victory, Haruhi suggest they try either Soccer or American Football next...which Kyon protests  is crazy, especially the American Football idea.  End of Volume 2.

The action definitely picks up with this volume, and the emotional/romantic elements begin to rise to a low boil.  The sexual tensions multiply.  Kyon's and Haruhi's first kiss is very emotionally satisfying and feels right.  Mikuru's nervous  flirtation with Kyon hints at complications to come.  The present day Mikuru and the future Mikuru both warn Kyon not to get involved with her, though its obvious her emotions are at odds with this and that she clearly wants to on some level, which makes for an interesting love triangle.  The younger Mikuru is still easily embarrassed and joyfully humiliated sexually by Haruhi, who still seems vaguely bisexual, flirting with Mikuru and sticking her tongue in her ear, for example and a fondness for grabbing Mikuru's ample breasts from behind.  Hearing Mikuru's cries seem almost a perverse turn on to Haruhi.  Haruhi is definitely the Alpha Female of the group and completely dominates Mikuru whenever they're together, even though Mikuru is technically Haruhi's senpai.

Since the only other guy, Itsuki Koizumi (古泉 一樹 Koizumi Itsuki^?) shows no interest in Mikuru or Yuki, and since his interest in Haruhi is strictly professional, this has become almost a mini-harem Anime, with Kyon as the focus.  This formula has worked before, too...I'm thinking of the three romantic interests in Maburaho!, for example.  The sweet busty girl, the brash popular girl, and the reserved girl.  Ok, Haruhi isn't conventionally popular; she's popular but doesn't seek it out or relish it and is largely indifferent.  Anyway, Yuki parallels Rin of Maburaho! as the quiet, reserved girl.  Kyon finds her cute, plus by the end of the volume, he owes her his life, since without Yuki's intervention he would surely be dead.  Even though Yuki is nearly completely unemotional and cold, Vulcan-like, one of her text messages betrays a curious fondness for Kyon in this volume that raised my eyebrow.  So even Yuki has developed a slight emotional attachment to Kyon.

The series continues to delight, as do the voice performances of Wendee Lee (Haruhi) and Crispin Freeman (Kyon) and Johnny Yong Bosch (Koizumi), Stephanie Sheh (Mikuru) and Michelle Ruff (Yuki).  Each episode has a prologue before the main opening credits, with smart-ass credits done by Haruhi in the name of the SOS Brigade.

Finished Final Vol. of Fruits Basket

Finished the Final Volume of Fruits Basket, with episodes 20-26:

Fruits Basket Series Box Set (2004)

So by this point I've watched all of volume 1 (episodes 1-6) and episodes 20-26.  Now I need to go back and fill in the gaps.  Although actually I'm sure the same formula established in Vol.1 and also found in the final volume is present throughout the series.  Namely, kindly Tohru Honda meets other members of the Zodiac with problems, and through her inherent kindness of spirit knows just the right, healing words to say, everyone gets to explore their emotions and come to a deeper understanding of themselves and each other, yada yada yada.

Very much a chick's anime since it's all about feelings and emotions and sharing of one's feelings and emotions, etc.  There's very little action and very little romance either.  The whole series is about Tohru's positive effects on all of the other characters.  You could rename this series "Everyone Loves Tohru" and not be misleading.

It's a decent series, and I may get around to watching episodes 7-19, but I'm in no particular hurry and would like to get back to finishing the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya before I finish the rest of Fruits Basket.

Finished Project Blue Earth SOS!

Finally finished Vol.3, Episode 6 of Project Blue Earth SOS!

Project Blue Earth SOS: Complete Box Set

This Anime features a lot of newer English voice talents at FUNimation....It is a slightly cheesy but fun homage to classic 1950s Sci Fi epics in an alternate reality where Earth is much more technologically advanced (but in some ways oddly retro--they still listen to radio dramas); Earth faces attack and potential conquest by hostile aliens.  Earth's last hope lies with child prodigies Penny Carter (someone please tell the Japanese that Penny is a *girl's* name...) and Billy Kimura, and the esteemed but mysterious Dr. Briest, whose daughter Lotta serves as comic relief and also future love interest for Billy.

In the first volume, the Aliens try to launch a major attack on the most technologically advanced city on Earth, built by Dr. Briest, known as Metropolitan X, which is the new capital of Earth's unified world government.  When you look at the invasion map, Metropolitan X occupies the precise location of Houston, Texas, which I found very amusing but also  awesome, since I live in the Houston area.

I don't want to go into a lot of the plot elements; just suffice it to say the story offers plenty of action, with enjoyable, sympathetic characters and breathtakingly beautiful artwork.  This is an anime where it's best not to think too hard about how some plot complications get resolved, it will just piss you off and make your head hurt.  They have plot holes you could drive a Mac truck through, factual errors, and just dumb reasoning on the part of the characters.

One of the characters, Margaret, is badly wounded by flying glass and looses a lot of blood and could be going into shock.  They bind her wounds and lay her on a couch; she reacts as if she has a fever.  They stupidly let her slip into unconsciousness, and then get all worried and insistent about bringing a doctor to have a look at her..."She needs to see a doctor!  We need to find a doctor" they agree.  No, SHE needs to go to a HOSPITAL.  Not the same thing.  You bring a doctor to this badly  injured girl's bedside and the doctor will say "um, take her to a hospital so I can do x-rays and labs and check for internal injuries and prep her for surgery if I have to, and clean her wounds and start her on antibiotics to ward off an infection..."  Doctors don't have magical healing powers, and without the infrastructure of a hospital to support them can only do so much to help "in the field".

They also don't clarify how our heroes at the end escape the alien planet and wind up back on Earth.  Also, yo, script writers!  If you have a character named ?? that you've kept mysterious the whole way through the series, you're kind of jerking your audience around if you don't do a dramatic reveal of this character's identity and backstory in the final episode--just sayin'.  It's like you got lazy or something and didn't feel like elaborating that point of the plot.  This dude was a total Darth Maul.  Really cool looking, but terse as hell, and gets killed off.

The ending reminded me a little of War of the Worlds; Not an exact match, but a close analogue.  It's also best not to think about the physics, etc, described in the show if you know anything about real physics...I don't know much, but I know enough that it hurt my brain to hear some of the jaw-droppingly stupid lines in this anime...especially their attempted explication of time-dilation for near-light-speed travel, etc. which wasn't even close to known theory.  They don't even invoke wormholes, which would at least fix some of the gaping PLOT holes...

I don't mean to nit-pick, I did enjoy this anime, especially at an emotional level, but you have to keep remembering the MST3K motto..."Just repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax..."

The series is surprisingly short, only two 45 minute episodes per volume.  It's a good show, definitely worth watching.

It's probably not for everyone, but I for one very much enjoyed the retro 1950s sci fi elements; the trailer for this show on other DVDs I have watched definitely shot this series to the top of my Netflix queue.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Vol.1

Just started volume 1 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Volume 1

Miss Suzumiya pictured above, with her friend and involuntary sidekick, Kyon (voiced by Crispin Freeman, in a characterization not unlike his mild-mannered character in Chobits).  Haruhi has a fevered imagination, is bored with everyday life and disdains "ordinary humans".  She's drop dead beautiful, never says no to guys who ask her on a date, but always dumps them in short order.  She's rude, impatient, pushy, impulsive...she's athletic but doesn't like team sports, gets good grades but is conscientious about her personal fashion, changing her hairstyle every single day of the week, at least at the start of the school year.

Strangely, mild-mannered Kyon is the only guy that manages to get Haruhi to speak to him at any length, mostly because he actually listens to her (but she doesn't return the favor).  Kyon's classmates are amazed by this and appoint him their ambassador to Miss Suzumiya.  Haruhi tries literally ALL of the school clubs but in the end doesn't join ANY and decides in a flash of brilliance to create her own.  One of the club's first projects is actually the opening pilot episode, a cheesy low-budget student film shot with a handheld camera and narrated by Kyon with obviously bad stilted acting and lame special effects and transitions, which Kyon does not hesitate to point out while narrating.  The film ends in a screening room at the school.  Haruhi is flushed with joy about the finished film and is eager to show it to all her classmates; The rest of the club is considerably less enthusiastic, since they can easily see how bad it is.

As hilariously bad as the "student film project" is, it's important to pay attention to the film-within-a-film's character's backstories, etc, as they end up being important to the main plot of the series.  Yuki really IS an alien, upperclassman Mikuru really is from the future, and Itsuki really does have ESP.  All of which Kyon gradually learns, also learning that for some reason Haruhi is vitally important to the future of the world, and that Kyon is vitally important to Haruhi, because he is her "chosen one".

In a way, think of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza only change Don Quixote into an impulsive, headstrong, beautiful Japanese High School girl and Sancho Panza as Kyon, the everyman hero of many a Japanese High School anime, and you've got the crux of this story.

The humor in the story derives from Haruhi's crazy ideas and her irrepressible nature, as well as Kyon's hilarious reactions; a good deal of fun is had at buxom Mikuru's expense as well, who gets fairly traumatized by Haruhi on a regular basis, mostly due to sexual humiliation of one kind or other.  Mikuru at one point looks pathetically at Kyon and asks if he will marry her someday if Haruhi's antics cause her to be unable to marry anyone else out of all the shame.  Kyon can only stutter "uh..." and stare on in bewildered, uncomprehending silence.  If push came to shove (into Mikuru's ample bust line, say), I think Kyon is kind hearted enough that he would, just sayin'.  He reminds me a lot of Freeman's character in Chobits in that respect.

Haruhi is very European in her nonchalant attitudes towards sexuality.  She doesn't hesitate to whip off her shirt and change clothes even if men are around.  She just doesn't care.  She also seems vaguely bisexual, and moreover doesn't hesitate to forcibly remove Mikuru's school clothes and force her into one or other sexy cosplay outfit, most often a bunny girl but also a 'battle waitress'.  

I'm not sure if Melancholy is the proper emotion to describe Haruhi's usual mental state.  World-weary, perhaps.  Haruhi is almost manic-depressive or bipolar...she's either flush with enthusiasm or perpetually pissed off and pouty.  Her pretty face is usually scowling and pouty; she only smiles when she's moved to action by her next bizarre idea.  The classmates mistakenly believe that Kyon and Haruhi are dating, but it's strictly platonic.  They next come to believe that Kyon and Mikuru are an item, but while less implausible, this is also not true.  Mikuru states she cannot let herself get involved with people from timelines outside of her own.

Yuki plays the "straight man" to Haruhi's comedy.  Calm, cool, unemotional Yuki is a biomechanoid alien interface designed to serve as a communications medium between humans and a vast alien intelligence.  Externally, she's just an extremely bookish nerd who wears glasses most of the time.

Haruhi reminds me a lot of Tomo from Azumanga Daioh! only more self-confident and a few degrees more obnoxious and selfish and psychotic than Tomo.  They would probably hate each other if they attended the same school.  

Anyway, I have high hopes for this series and have heard good things about it.  Looking forward to Vol.2 in my Netflix queue...

Just starting Fruits Basket

I'm late to the party as usual, but I just began watching this (classic?) anime series, aimed at female audiences;

The much acclaimed Fruits Basket:

Fruits Basket, Volume 1: A Great Transformation? (Episodes 1-6)

So far I've only seen Volume one, and the first episode of the final volume.  Houston Public Library has *some* but not all of the series on DVD, so I guess I'll have to add the rest to my Netflix queue to fill in the gaps.  If I recall correctly, the lead, Tohru Honda (yes, like the car manufacturer) is voiced here by Laura Bailey.  I should note in passing that if you only watched Anime to understand Japan, you'd believe that one in ten children are orphans whose parents die in some horrible fashion in their tweens/early teens.  Orphans are depressingly common in Anime, and manage to live on their own with no visible means of support.  Young Tohru lives in a tent in the woods when we first meet her.  Actually Tohru has a surviving kindly grandfather, along with perfectly horrible and evil aunts and uncles who resent and detest kind Tohru.  Grandfather remodels his home and goes away while the work is being done; he asks Tohru if she has friends she can stay with, and Tohru says she does, but in fact her closest friends have living arrangements that can't easily accommodate her so she packs up to live in the woods for a few weeks.  Her living condition is soon revealed to the neighboring Sohma family, a band of all-male cousins living in the same house, who insist that Tohru can stay and work as their housekeeper for room and board.  Tohru reluctantly agrees.  Things aren't quite as they seem around the Sohma household, and these attractive young men turn out to be hiding a dark family curse that has humorous consequences...namely, if embraced by the opposite sex, they turn into a specific animal of the Chinese Zodiac.

The plot centers on the interrelationships of the main characters, and how Tohru touches their lives and tries to make peace between all the sibling rivalries.  When Tohru's grandfather finishes remodeling his home, he invites Tohru back to live with him again.  But it's not long before we see Tohru is being made miserable there by her vindictive and mean-spirited aunts and uncles.  The grandfather rebukes his other children and advises Tohru he is o.k. with her returning to live with the Sohma family if that will make her happy.  As if on cue, the Somha men show up to take Tohru home; they realized quickly how they just can't live without her and need her in their household.  Tohru's best friends from school find out about all this and want to make sure the Sohma's are o.k. and that it's really o.k. for Tohru to live there.  After some hilarious hijinks involving the curse, Tohru's friends judge the Sohma's to be suitable for their dear friend and look forward to their next visit.

This Anime is sort of a reverse-harem Anime.  Instead of a nerdy guy living with a bunch of hot young ladies, we have a shy, very kind girl living with a bunch of handsome, rock-star beautiful men.  It is aimed at girls and the "action" (i.e. fighting, magic, etc) takes back seat to the emotional drama and comedy, which are foregrounded.  A lot of the action takes place inside the characters' heads, sometimes told in flashback.  The emphasis is on relationships and being true to one's feelings, etc., which is an appeal to female viewers, though I tend to like that aspect of anime shows as well, actually.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, even if I have to watch some of it out of sequence, like I had to do for Girls Bravo! and Read-or-Die the TV Series.

The name "Fruits Basket" supposedly comes from a children's game that Tohru played as a child; She was told she could be "Rice Ball", but as she later learned, a Rice Ball doesn't belong in a Fruits Basket (Tohru was being cruelly excluded from the game).

Finished Vexille

Rented this full-CGI animated film from Japan; English version dubbed by FUNimation, with some of their biggest names: Colleen Clinkenbeard as the title character, Chris R. Sabat as Zack, Christine Auten as Maria:

Vexille - Movie

Made by the same creative minds behind the Appleseed CGI re-make.  I like films like this every now and then, though when a film uses CGI, I generally prefer it used with restraint, and mixed in with traditional animation to add only highlights, as with SkyCrawlers and with Le Chevalier d'Eon...the animation here was very good, very detailed, and the Japanese characters actually looked Japanese...but sometimes the animated characters looked rather puppet-like, almost like marionettes.  

The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, so it's best not to think too much about it;  Usually technological stagnation is the result of a strict isolationist policy, not rapid advance, since among other things it impedes the flow to scientific and technological information among scholars needed to advance research; it hinders peer review, prevents easy duplication and verification of research results, etc.

**Spoilers** Anyway, the basic story is that Japan is more or less taken over by one giant Megacorporation called "DAIWA", which specializes in advanced robotics.  When the UN tries to pass conventions banning cyborg and android research, Japan (at the prodding of Daiwa) completely withdraws from the UN and seals its borders (turning back the metaphorical clock in some ways to a pre-Commodore Perry closed Japan).  The Japanese relentlessly keep pushing research in this area with reckless abandon.  The rest of the world is pretty technologically advanced, with the United States in second place after Japan.  The story's protagonists are a bunch of US Navy SEALS who are members of a covert organization named S.W.O.R.D. (the acronym is never explained in the film); their mission is to 1) infiltrate Japan and send out a tight data-burst to a U.S. spy satellite so that it can break through Japan's electronic warfare jamming shield.  2) continue to gather as much human intelligence with boots on the ground, being ready for extraction some 72 hours later.

As with many military operations, the battle plan rarely survives the first contact with the enemy.  This operation is no exception.  And it turns out the Japanese have been doing a little infiltration into America themselves with the use of lifelike androids who are externally indistinguishable from humans (think BSG cylon "skin jobs" here); You realize later the Daiwa corporation was probably tipped off about this operation before it began.

One Navy officer, Vexille, actually survives the initial ambush, along with her compatriot (and lover) Leon.  Leon is captured, Vexille escpaes by diving into the ocean.  Evidently she washes ashore on the coastal outskirts near Tokyo, and is recovered by an Japanese-American U.S. ex-pat living in Tokyo named Maria.  Maria seems to be ex-military, possibly CIA.  She lives in a simple house in what remains of Tokyo, with a young Japanese boy as her butler.  Her boyfriend (?) is a local Japanese man affiliated with the local underground anti-government (and anti-Daiwa) resistance.  We learn in flashback that Maria was Leon's original girlfriend and lover when he was stationed in Japan.  She tried leaving with him but was denied an exit visa and forced to remain in Tokyo.

S.W.O.R.D. is able to break through the DAIWA jamming long enough to determine that LtCDR Vexille is alive; indeed  initial scans show that Vexille is the only biosign showing up in all of Japan.  Not a single human soul registers in the rest of the country, despite all the obvious people walking around Tokyo.  Maria explains that the whole of the country was injected with nanobots that transformed the population into androids from the inside out.  They invade the body like a virus, eventually assimilating the brain and turning them into mindless servants of the Daiwa corporation.  Central   Tokyo is the last "human" settlement in all of Japan.  The rest of the island is a vast desert wasteland ravaged by giant sand worms (think DUNE here) which are sentient whirlwinds of scrap metal...they're pretty terrifying.  The only thing that keeps them out is a giant concrete wall surrounding Tokyo on all sides.  Daiwa is "done" with Japan and looking to export its technological conquest to the United States of America.  The only ones who can stop them are LtCDR Vexille and Maria and her underground militia...and it's a race against time.

Very enjoyable movie with lots of action and rarely a dull moment.  Great voice acting from FUNimation regulars.

Not sure why the title was chosen, but it's pretty cool, too, I guess.  Sort of an amalgamation of "vex" and "exile".  Japan is vexing the world community with its mysterious exile.  Or something like that.  And why they gave such a name to a single character is also a mystery to me.  Maybe I should read the Manga, assuming there is one.

Finished Gunslinger Girl 2: OVA

Received via Netflix the Gunslinger Girl 2: OVA...

Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino: OVA

Only approximately 45 minutes long, two short episodes; the action picks up where Season 2 leaves off.

 

The main action of these stories is the psychological drama of the characters.  The girls, yes, but also their handlers and the demons of their pasts.  The first episode of the OVA does have a shootout while the final episode is a break from the usual Gunslinger Girl gunplay action.  Special focus is paid to Henrietta and Rico, with a lesser focus on Triela, still partly recovering from her injuries sustained in Milan.  Jean and Rico bond closer than they ever have before, which is a welcome change.  Actually all during Season 2, Jean was less of a dick to Rico than he had been in Season 1.

 

Henrietta and Jose remain utterly devoted to each other.  Jose lets Henrietta wear his dead sister's clothes, which sort of freaks Jean out (they are brothers, after all).  Henrietta feels awkward around Jean but tries to be friendly, and Jean is friendly back.

 

Triela remains haunted by her final battle with Pino, and surprised she doesn't feel better despite having won the fight.  Even cyborgs get PTSD and Depression, it seems.

 

Angelica still takes her meds, but is able to perform when Marco calls on her.

 

Claes offers some words of wisdom to Triela, who is able to laugh.

 

 

Finished Millennium Actress

I rented this from Blockbuster earlier this week;

Millennium Actress

I didn't notice that the audio was Japanese only with English subtitles.  I normally don't rent Anime DVDs that don't have an English audio track, but since I'd used my Coke Rewards points to get this for free, I decided I might as well watch it.

Since this is a quintessentially Japanese story, I didn't mind it as much.  It has elements of magical realism, which cause the lines between fact and fiction to blur.  **SPOILER**  The story is at bottom a love story on two levels.  The love of a young girl for an aspiring artist she meet as a teen; she became an actress so she could travel to Manchuria to be closer to him.  It is also the story of a love of cinema by a middle aged studio executive who rose up through the ranks and fell in love with the actress' movies as a young man coming of age.

It is a visual feast, from the same Japanese talents that produced _Perfect Blue_ which I've yet to see but very much want to.

Definitely worth watching and renting.