Most of the recurring and prominent members of Fairy Tail. (From left to right: Mirajane, Elfman, Plue, Makarov, Gray, Lucy, Happy, Natsu, Loke and Cana) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Just a brief note in passing to affirm that I've resumed watching Fairy Tail on FUNimation's Roku channel, for which I have a subscription. I just concluded Episode 61, the aerial battle between Natsu and Cobra, the Poison Dragon Slayer. Fairy Tail still has all the right melodrama and related feels, and the Celtic rock soundtrack continues to give me a boner. I was watching Fairy Tail on Netflix, but reached the end of what was on offer in that venue. It's possible there are newer episodes up now, but I'm just as happy to keep watching via my Roku player. I still need to drop back and resume watching the 2nd season of Aquarion EVOL, and I'd like to go back and finish the last few episodes of Heroic Age, though I'm fuzzy in my memory of where to pick back up...I think I'm on the episode after the Dark Nodos episode, where Age basically goes full beserker mode and threatens foe and friend alike, but recovers from that state thanks to the peaceful thoughts of the Princess, who calms the savage beast, and one of the Silver tribe Nodos (voiced by Greg Ayres) flips over to Age's side, with the Princess and the rest of humanity, aka the Bronze tribe. I only have a few more episodes to go on that classic series then I can mark it off as "completed" on my Anime list.
I notice the price for Haganai Next (season 2) has come down considerably, but it's still not available for streaming on FUNimation's Roku channel. I am considering buying it, but not just yet. In the meantime, I'm eagerly awaiting Kill La Kill Volume 2 of the dub from Aniplex, as well as my long delayed copy of Eva 3.33 on Blu-Ray. So glad I got to see Eva 3.0 in theaters with the English dub when I did this past summer.
Also just received Flowers of Evil, Volume 4 of the original manga (in English, from Vertical), thanks to Interlibrary Loan. I'm eager to see where the manga goes from here, since the conclusion of volume 3 was VERY close to where Season 1 of the Anime finishes up, with that dramatic confrontation between Nakamura, Saeki, and the male protagonist in the pouring rain on the mountain road, then the long, silent, awkward ride back to town in the back of the police cruiser. I'm anticipating that Volume 4 will not only finish where Season 1 of the Anime does, it will push slightly beyond it. There are several volumes yet to go, too, so I'm eager to see how the story develops beyond where the anime leaves off. Shuzo Oshimi has very interesting end notes at the conclusion of each chapter, reflecting on how the manga came to be, sources of artistic inspiration that are meaningful to him in a more general sense, and the overall message he's been trying to convey through the medium of this manga, namely the end of adolescence.
This struck me in particular as interesting, since I feel like I'm mentally stuck in adolescence myself sometimes, even in my early 40s. This I chalk up to my Asperger's rather than a willful disposition on my part. But I am curious to see what counsel Oshimi has on how people should ultimately overcome an adolescent mindset, etc. Nakamura continues to fascinate me, and her face graces the cover of Volume 4. The conclusion of Volume 3 is almost as emotionally impactful as the scene was when recreated in Anime form. The rotoscoped actress did a respectable job showing Nakamura herself breaking away a false layer of pretense...I think the screenplay words it better in the Anime (if the subtitles can be trusted)..."Stop tearing my soul apart", and the actress has a pained expression on her face that betrays that Nakamura actually has feelings of her own for the main protagonist. She's a "real life" tsundere and is more subtle and complex than most typical Anime tsundere stock characters. In the manga she says something more like "stop clouding my soul, you shitbug", BUT, though the line falls kinda flat, the very next cell, where her expression changes...I think that cell beautifully captures that pained expression even more concisely than the live action rotoscoped actress does...you can see the tears welling in the corners of her eyes, and her face is beautiful despite being wracked by rage, passion, love, and dispondency, all at once. But "stop tearing my soul apart" conveys in the Anime the same punch as that image; a trigger that makes the viewer say "aha, she DOES have feelings for him." Though of course, another tip off is when Nakamura violently tears Takao's clothes off his body--AGAIN, forcing him to stand naked in front of Saeki with his dong explicitly in view. Nakamura is so often so violently sexual in this way.
The final episode of the Anime is more of a "flash forward" preview of the story yet to come than an actual coherent narrative. It does look interesting, but sadly I'll only be able to enjoy this part of the story in manga form, as it seems unlikely any more of the story will be adapated into Anime form, not least because Japanese viewers & consumers reacted negatively to the rotoscoping format and sales figures were exceedingly low. It's very lucky to have received a North American release at all.
I'm glad Sentai picked it up and I hope it did well enough that they don't get punished financially for sticking their necks out for this show.
I still think back to Cody Baier's savaging "review" of this show and how pigheaded ignorant it was. Then again, this is the same numbskull who dismisses Miyazaki as an "Arty Michael Bay". I think Cody focuses exclusively on "Manime", stuff like Fist of the North Star or Madbull 34 or what have you. If it doesn't fit into those parameters, he has no time for it. I will admit, Cody could make me laugh, though it was often that kind of guilty laughter I get from listening to shows like I Just Had A Terrible Thought. Both thrive on shock value. But when Cody started spilling over into not so subtle misogyny, I bailed on him for good. Kyle is a weirdo and a freak, but Cody crossed the line for me. Kyle on the other hand actually likes some of the same kind of anime that I like and was recently a guest host with Sean Ryan on Method To Madness. I really loved that episode of MTM and hope Kyle comes back as a guest host on future episodes.
Sadly I think the jokey "podwar" between MTM and Fightbait has ended in a stalemate, with J.P. looking increasingly likely to "podfade" once again, real life intruding in too much to sustain the production of his show. Which is too bad, because Fightbait was one of those rare Anime podcasts that, like 2Lazy2Botaku, actually covered shows I'm actually watching in English dub at or around the same time. J.P.'s last episode was a bit of a downer, as he was relating the death of an acquaintence whom he was fast becoming friends with, so the loss hit him unexpectedly hard. I totally respect if J.P. needs to step away from the show for awhile to deal with real life and not come back until he has both sufficient time (boredom) and motivation (boredom relief through anime) to do the show properly. Shaft+ seems to have podfaded for now, which is unfortunate. I still haven't finished their most recent episode because they cover one of my emails bitching about Neon Alley's change of services and note how longwinded I am. I was acutely embarassed and hit the pause button and still haven't gone back to "face the music", so to speak. I just wanna say "ah, forget I said anything and go on to discussing other Anime news, please."; I guess the Shaft+ guys will get back to podcasting eventually. Otaku Into It is mildly amusing, and every so often I listen to Banzai Beat. Then of course there's my usual pattern of AAA and ANNCast. AWO has gone back to stealth mode. GME has branched off with a sister show covering anime that I enjoy. I'm looking forward to their review of Princess Jellyfish, which is coming soon.
As regards the Anime screenings at Alamo Drafthouse, pretty much all I have to look forward to is the new release of The Devil is a Part-Timer from FUNimation. It is running on Netflix and though I haven't checked, I bet for now it's sub-only, since I don't think the DVDs have "streeted" yet. Probably handling it the same way they put up a sub-only stream of Attack on Titan on Netflix before the home video release of that show. I'll have to pass on the screening for Sunday Without God, as I'll be entertaining relatives from out of town. I doubt very much that my female cousin will be interested in watching Anime with me in Katy, Texas after being on the road all day. I won't even ask, since it'd make me look like a huge dork, and I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm kind of a weirdo already anyway.
