Gen X Otaku 1971: the OG blog

Finished Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya

Finally had an opportunity to finish the new-ish
anime series Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ^?), which is a Type-Moon spinoff that re-imagines some of the female cast of both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero as "magical girls", and changes the warrior spirits into collectable magic cards that must be defeated in battle first.  It borrows visual elements from both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero, and it does help to have watched both of these series first before attempting to watch Fate/Kaleid Liner, because otherwise the viewer can't truly appreciate the significance of what she's looking at, in the same way I don't recommend watching Aquarion EVOL if you've not seen the original Aquarion.  The reason is you simply will miss the great significance of what you're watching.

Fate/Kaleid Liner is visually appealing but also has a number of LOL/WTF!? moments interspersed throughout.  The story focuses on Ilya von Einzbern; this iteration of Ilya is much sweeter and cuter than her realization in Fate/Stay Night (which does not end well for her, neither in the series nor in the recap movie).  But she's also quite a bit more pervy and yuri-curious, too.

The voice cast is completely new, but since this is a re-imagined series it isn't as jarring as you'd think it might be.  Rin Tohsaka, now voiced by Carli Mosier, sounds older and more mature, but since she's serving in a guardian kind of role, it actually fits.  Shelley Calene-Black really hams it up as Rin's rival, Luviagelita Edelfelt (ルヴィアゼリッタ・エーデルフェルト Ruviazeritta Ēderuferuto^?).

Illya lives with Shiro, who is described as her (adopted?) brother.  Illya's mother (who we met in Fate/Zero) makes a brief appearance near the end of this short series.  Illya herself is voiced by Cynthia Martinez, a veteran voice actress from the days of ADV Films.  Illya's magical girl partner is the initially unfriendly and awkward Miyu Edelfelt (美遊・エーデルフェルト Miyu Ēderuferuto^?), voiced by Caitlynn French.  Illya works for Rin Tohsaka and Miyu works for Luvia.  They were selected as magical girls because the sentient magic wands Magic Ruby and Magic Sapphire essentially grew tired of the bickering and infighting between Rin and Luvia and deemed them no longer worthy of being their masters.  They leave and pick Illya and Miyu as their new masters, and Rin and Luvia end up taking on more of a guardian and teacher role.  Miyu and Illya don't much like each other at first, but through hardship and adversity they learn to respect and even like and accept each other.  Miyu is very blunt to the point of rude and doens't seem to get other people's emotions.  She's extremely logical, almost Spock-like, but also emotionally stunted and rigid.  She overthinks things and chokes sometimes.  She seems to have many Asperger-y traits that make her charmingly eccentric and a little tsundere.  The heart of the series is the budding, difficult friendship between Illya and Miyu.

This entire series is really entertaining to already dedicated fans of the Type-Moon universe, and it pays off visually when you can decode what elements are borrowed from Fate/Zero and which are borrowed from Fate/Stay Night.  It has many epic battles with loud explosions and soaring musical scores.  It also has moe girl nonsense and mild fanservice.  The heaviest fanservices is of course the cameos of the warrior spirits.  The series concludes in a satisfying way but leaves the door open for more tales to come.  Those who make the mistake of watching this series first will probably find it entertaining but will not be able to decode the rich visual language of the series, which is the most important part.  You will definitely want to get this series on Blu-Ray for the best possible visual experience.

I definitely liked this series way more than I thought I would, but mainly because I am a fan of Fate/Stay Night in particular and Fate/Zero to a slightly lesser degree.  It's fun in the way the Evangelion spin-off mangas are fun.  Take familiar characters and tweak them just slightly and put them in new situations, etc.  I think this series rides on the coattails of a mini-renaissance of Magical Girl stories like Madoka Magica and the re-release of Sailor Moon and the new Sailor Moon Crystal.  In any case, it works, but only as a value-added bonus to the pre-existing Type-Moon shows.

Wakfu is worth a watch!

Wakfu (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although my favorite entertainment medium is Japanese anime, I'm also attracted to other animated shows that show a heavy influence of Japanese anime, from Teen Titans to RWBY to the recent French cartoon Wakfu, which is based upon a videogame franchise.  It's now streaming on Netflix (and was apparently on American television some time back) and has an English dub, and a Spanish dub (which I sometimes watch) besides the original French audio.  The characters have definitely grown on me, especially Evangeline, the coaxing blonde female elf that every male character goes gaga for, even more so than Princess Amalia herself, who's definitely pretty too but also a "prissy princess", personality wise, while Evangeline ("Eva" for short) is a no nonsense archer & bodyguard.  They are members of main character Yugo's traveling party, along with Az, Ruel, and Percedal.  Wakfu is basically the in-world term for "magical energy", sort of like the Star Wars "Force" of this fantasy realm.  It flows throughout the world and only those specially attuned can summon up and use Wakfu to create magical spells and manipulate matter and energy.  Not unlike the Anime Fairy Tail, this world emphasizes the outsized importance of specifically Dragon Magic.  Yugo is the Eliatrope brother of little dragon Adamai.  In fact, Yugo is the last Eliatrope still living as far as anyone knows.

They oppose the evil Xelor who calls himself "Nox", a being who builds terrifying clockwork automata that wreak havoc upon the countryside.  He has ambitions of capturing all the world's Wakfu and remaking the world anew.

 

It's definitely worth watching.  The characters are likeable and engaging.

Heck, I watch it mainly for the Evangeline & Amalia fanservice...no no, it's not THAT anime, e.g. no panty shots, jiggling boobs, etc.  It's just these characters are really easy on the eyes is all...

Log Horizon (Dub) -- Better than expected!

I just got back from a screening of the first 4 episodes of the new Anime series from Sentai Filmworks known as Log Horizon.
  It was actually MUCH better than I expected, and I must admit, having seen all of the original SAO and a bit of "Dot Hack", I walked into the theater a bit jaded and cynical, doubting that I'd like much of what I was about to see.  I have to admit I was wrong.  Log Horizon was good--really good.  The characters in particular were very likeable and memorable, and their chemistry together really hooks you and makes the show enjoyable to watch.  Some immediate differences between SAO and Log Horizon, Log Horizon drops the SAO pretense of "if you die in the game you die in real life"...the characters ARE indeed trapped in their favorite MMO after a new DLC upgrade.  But if they "die" (run out of hit points), they simply re-spawn in the temple of the territory where their character was originally created.  It's not the end of the world, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass.  The world of Log Horizon is said to be exactly 1/2 the size of planet Earth.  Towns that are 8 km apart in the real world are only 4 km apart in the world of Log Horizon.  There is eating & drinking in this MMO, but the food is bland and all tastes the same, regardless how it looks.  The story is very vague about how the characters came to be stuck in the new DLC version of their favorite MMO, or why they can't log out, or what's "really" happening to their bodies in the "real" world.  They don't seem--at first--to be the victims of any wider conspiracy, there's no all-powerful Dungeon Master who controls their fate, it's just more like an accidental glitch that's preventing everyone from logging out and nobody knows why or how they're supposed to leave the game.  Also, the "jump gates" of the former game world no longer function in this 3D VR version, so all transport must be done on foot or by beast of burden.  Horseback is fine, but eventually our heroes upgrade their ride to Griffins and stuff.  The game in this world of Log Horizon (ログ・ホライズン Rogu Horaizun^?) actually goes by the name of Elder Tale (エルダー・テイル Erudā Teiru^?).

The story focuses on main character and protagonist Shiroe (シロエ Shiroe^?) who is best known as "Shiroe the Strategist" or the "Villain in Glasses" (腹ぐろ眼鏡 Haraguro Megane^?) from the Elder Tale game. His real name is Kei Shirogane (城鐘 恵 Shirogane Kei^?).  After he finds himself in the upgraded version of the game and rather nonplussed as to how he got there or how to get out, he decides to check his friend list and at least hang out with someone he knows.  He meets up with Naotsugu (直継 Naotsugu^?), who is Shiroe's best friend and was also a member of the now disbanded Debauchery Tea Party group. His real world name is Naotsugu Hasegawa (葉瀬川 直継 Hasegawa Naotsugu^?).  He's a bit of a shameless horn dog and always lusting after the ladies.  Shiroe also adds to his burgeoning party Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki^?), a trained assasin whose skills he's very familiar with from past raids & alliances.  However all this time, he never realized that Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki^?) is actually a girl.  She asks Shiroe for a transformation potion and manages to use it to change her in-game avatar to be female and conform with her biological and mental gender.  Although her in-game avatar looks like the body of a young teen girl of perhaps middle school age, she's actually in her mid-to-late 20s, same age as Shiroe who is a graduate student in Engineering in the real world, on the verge of earning his Master's degree.

My favorite character by far in the first 4 episodes is the mysterious Nyanta.  Nyanta (にゃん太 Nyanta^?) is a werecat Swashbuckler and a bit of a ladies' man himself, though far more of a "smooth operator" than lumbering Naotsugu.  He's voiced by newcomer Jovan Jackson in the English dub and I was very happy to hear a black actor voicing this anime character...It's been a personal gripe of mine that there's not enough diversity in Anime voice acting.  Some of this is the fact that many Japanese anime stories do not include black people or other ethnicities.  Nyanta is a large "cat-man", so some artistic liberty was possible and I'm glad that they took the risk and cast a black actor for this role.  It basically makes Nyanta the bad-ass SHAFT of the show and I love it.  I remember getting into a bit of an argument with an anime voice actor who is also a casual friend, complaining about the production of Moonlight Mile where an obviously black character was voiced by an obviously white actor, yielding a performance that was downright cringe-worthy.  My friend's argument was along the lines of "dude, they try, but there's just not that many black VO actors out there.";  My contention was and is they don't try hard enough, so I salute this bold move from Sentai Filmworks and hope it is a sign of better things to come.  Many of the cast and crew were in attendance at this screening and Jovan Jackson was a crowd favorite generally, but especially among the black fans who were thrilled to hear his character, and I was thrilled for them.

Some white voice actors are able to pull off a black character voiceover...I'm thinking Chris Sabat as Garterbelt in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, say.  Or the voice of Dutch from Black Lagoon.  White men with deep enough voices and acting chops can pull it off.  But Jovan Jackson's Nyanta is on a whole nother level and it's fantastic.

While I'm probably not going to rush out and buy this anime as a new release, I do think I will be adding it to my collection eventually, maybe as a birthday present to myself next year, say, after the first or second price drop.  It really was a pleasant surprise and I look forward to continuing the story of these characters and learning more about the strange online world they're trapped in and how they cope and try to find their way back to reality.

Special advance screening: Bayonetta!

Mari Shimazaki tried to make the witch Bayonetta more appealing with longer limbs and adjusted proportions. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was expecting to write this post telling readers all about Episodes 1-4 of The Devil Is A Part Time, but instead our host Rommel S. pulled a switcheroo on us and treated us instead to an exclusive advanced screening of the new Bayonetta movie!!  While I was looking forward to The Devil Is A Part Timer, it is in fact screening WITH the English dub on Netflix as of this writing.  So I can watch it anytime, in fact.  Currently I'm back to watching Fairy Tail, and I'm also part-way through Psycho-Pass.  I was pleasantly surprised to get to watch Bayonetta this evening, having only just today heard it talked about on the most recent episode of ANNCast with Zac & Justin.  Apparently FUNimation was very flexible with this production and went out of their way to call back the original voice actors from the original SEGA video game, including sending the ADR Director to the UK to track down the English voice actor for Bayonetta and record her dialogue at a sound studio in England, conducted over the course of 12 days.  I was very impressed with the visuals of this movie, which is non-stop action, never a dull moment.  I have no experience with the video game or its fictional world, but the movie does a decent job of exposition via dialogue that I caught on fairly quickly who the principle players were, etc.  I never once felt confused or disoriented.  The "angels" of this world reminded me in passing of the menancing nature of the "angels" of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and to a lesser degree some of the visual motifs of RaXephon, as well.  I was unclear if Witch Jean was intended to be a nodding reference to Jean D'Arc (Joan of Arc) or if that nomenclature was merely coincidence.

This is a definite Blu-Ray collectors' item, if nothing else for the intense battle sequences alone, of which this movie delivers in spades.  Unlike the Blood C movie, which had serious pacing problems, the pacing in Bayonetta moves along at an even clip with no drag whatsoever.  It feels like watching a successful play-through of a medium sized video game.  The story is ostensibly set on earth, but the countries are fictional and it also takes place partly in certain terra incognitae astral realms outside of normal space-time.  The angels are invisible to ordinary humans but can wreak havoc on the physical world nonetheless.

It's difficult to really talk about this film without spoiling it; those that know the videogame already know the story.  I came into the theater a blank slate and was reasonably entertained by the spectacle.  It is rated TV-MA but mostly for the graphic violence and some of the heavy sexual overtones and fanservice, but there's very little in the way of overt nudity.  It's provocatively sexy but hardly "smutty".  Bayonetta as a character is larger than life and over the top.  She's an unruly demigod with a strong will of her own.  The entire movie is basically watching Bayonetta kick ass, over and over again.  My only criticism of the movie is that Bayonetta is basically female Superman who never has to confront any metaphorical "kryptonite".  She never suffers, never endures any defeats or setbacks.  She's perhaps a little too perfect as a cinematic hero.  I like to see my heroes and heroines suffer and struggle a little on the way to attaining their goal.  I suppose one could argue that in her past she knew defeat and suffering, but we only get that in glimpses and flashbacks.  Again, it's damn impressive in its visuals, and it's nearly enough to bamboozle the audience into overlooking Bayonetta's indestructability and lack of empathy for nearly any of the other characters.  The ADR script was witty, with plenty of amusing one-liners that provoked laughter in the audience tonight.  I would definitely re-watch this movie, and it piqued my interest in the videogame franchise as well.

My thanks to our host R.S. once more for securing this special advance screening for us at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in Katy, Texas.

Rosenmädchen Zurückspulen

Just got back from a screening of Episodes 1-4 of Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in Katy, Texas.  The last word in the title means "Rewind" in German, as in to rewind a videotape or reel-to-reel film or audio cassette.  Or more figuratively it signifies that this is a "reboot" of the original, basically.  I know I saw the original Rozen Maiden dub ages ago but it was so "meh" that it barely left much impression.  I think Johnny Yong Bosch was in that dub, and maybe it was a Bandai(?) release?  All I remember was it involved creepy dolls that talked that the main character was obsessed with, and he eventually went crazy, the end.  It was dark, and creepy, and I really don't remember much beyond that.  It was entirely forgettable.

Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen is by contrast at least a coherent narrative, where there's actual struggle, and stuff actually happens.  The plot seems to be going somewhere.  Sure, it's still creepy and Loli as fuck, but it's loads more entertaining than the original.  I wonder if if this was ever a dating sim back in Japan, as this anime adaptation separates the protagonist,  Jun Sakurada (桜田 ジュン Sakurada Jun^?), along two parallel fates in space-time.  One in which he chooses to activate the red doll named Shinku (真紅^?, Reiner Rubin, Crimson), while he is still in Elementary School and one in which he does not until much later, when he's first started college.  These lines of fate interweave and cross over, which is kind of interesting and lends an almost Steins;Gate feel to the series.  Shinku is voiced by the incomparable Luci Christian, and many of the Sentai Filmworks regulars round out the rest of the voices of the other dolls, including Hilary Haag (happy to see her still active in the biz), Brittney Karbowski, and Monica Rial, among others.

Rozen Maiden is actually faux German...proper German would be Rosenmädchen.  You wouldn't use the "Z" to get a "Zee" sound; the S makes that sound in that position in German.  The German word for Maiden is Madel (Maid) or diminuitive Mädchen (Girl).  Anyway, that's nit picking, I know.

I'd probably watch more of Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen as it definitely piqued my interest.  The animation is really nice, and the story is sufficiently engaging that I care about the main character(s).  Shinku is definitely a pint-sized Tsundere.  Saito, Jun's co-worker, is an aspiring young theater student and seems like a really sweet person who likes Jun.  Definite future girlfriend prospect, even Shinku can see that, even if Jun can't.

The original Rozen Maiden was just kind of a snooze fest; really, new viewers could just jump right in here and not miss a thing.  This is NOT the kind of show where a knowledge of the original show is strictly necessary.  It's not a priority purchase for me, but I'd definitely watch it for rental streaming on Netflix someday, or on rental DVD.

 

Random Netflix viewing of late

Deadman Wonderland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So not much to report insofar as completed shows, but I am impressed with some of the new(ish) anime that's been uploaded and added to Netflix lately, including the English dub of the acclaimed series Madoka Magica.  I also started in watching Deadman Wonderland on Netflix.  While I do own it on DVD, now I can watch episodes at lunch on my phone when the opportunity presents itself.  Of late I tend to watch an episode or two of Deadman Wonderland before I move on to watch another episode or two of Psycho-Pass.  They fit well together thematically and tonally.  I usually reach a good stopping point in each show then transition to watching something else, like continuing my re-watch of Knights of Sidonia in Spanish for the hell of it.  I also note that Season 2 of Samurai Jack is now on Netflix streaming, so I've resumed watching that as well.  Though I'm pretty sure I saw most of this show when it aired on TV, every now and then I stumble upon an episode that's new to me, but even when it's a re-watch, it's hardly a waste of time--it's still good to re-visit old episodes of this classic cartoon.  I've also been checking out the re-dub of the original Sailor Moon on Neon Alley.  I had thought it was Sailor Moon Crystal but evidently not.  I had known that VIZ/BangZoom! had re-dubbed the original Sailor Moon to re-release on DVD; the new dub is more faithful to the Japanese original and not censored for U.S. television, etc.  I recognize a lot of the BangZoom! voice talents in the cast, like Stephanie Sheh as Usagi/Sailor Moon and Michelle Ruff as the magical cat Luna.  Todd Haberkorn voices one of the bad guys, and I'm almost certain I've heard Johnny Yong Bosch at least once already.  I never watched the original Sailor Moon (I'm not in the target demographic), but the new dub on Neon Alley is mildly entertaining & amusing.  I'm not rushing to finish it, I only watch maybe one maybe two episodes in any one sitting.  Plus I have to sit through advertising, which is kind of a drag.

I've put on hiatus my two Crackle.com shows, Ruroni Kenshin and Viper's Creed because there's so much quality stuff back on Netflix now to watch instead.  Once I'm finished with Psycho-Pass and Deadman Wonderland, I intend to resume watching those Crackle.com shows and maybe get caught up on some of the Sentai Filmworks shows I can only watch on DVD that I still haven't started or finished, OR, I'll go back to some of the FUNimation shows on their Roku channel that I still need to finish up, like Aquarion EVOL Season 2, and Fairy Tail, to name just two.  I also need to finish up Season 2 of Baka & Test.

For the future, I really hope FUNimation will re-release the original Fullmetal Alchemist series on Blu-Ray someday.  I own Brotherhood on Blu-Ray and I love it, but I've also seen the original series and love it too, for different reasons.  The whole tone & flavor of the original anime is very different.  Not superior, just different.  I did pick up the Blu-Ray edition of Conqueror of Shamballa, which is tacked on to the *original* Continuity and not the Brotherhood continuity.   Also coming up  this week I get to attend a screening of the first four episodes of Tamako Market, new  from Sentai Filmworks.  Then on Thursday this week I'm going to be screening the first few episodes of Princess Jellyfish for a small circle of close friends.  I look forward to this very much.  I'm also trying to get caught up a little on Attack on Titan (part 2), and I need to get caught up on Space Dandy as well.  I need to do that also because I'm way behind on the Toonami Faithful Podcast as well.

In manga, I just finished up volume 2 of Flowers of Evil, which finishes up around where the pivotal Episode 7 leaves off in the anime.  I've already put in my Interlibrary Loan request for the next volume.  Ditto Knights of Sidonia, which I finished the 2nd volume of this weekend as well.  Both manga are published by Vertical. 

Speaking of manga, I'm very happy to see that Houston Public Library has enabled its users to now check out short-term loans of digital graphic novels and bona fide manga from VIZ Media, which is frigging amazing.  I played with a few volumes and they look great on my iPad.  I wish my own home county library district did the same, but alas we're not there yet.  I wish Yen Press would partner with this digital library program as well, but as yet they're not yet participating.  I can always hope.  It only makes sense and should help cut down on piracy of digital manga and give the publisher a revenue stream from library subscriptions and give end users a legitimate way to read their favorite manga digitally on their PC or mobile devices.  Kudos to HPL for forging ahead with this, and to VIZ Media for being willing to play ball. 

I'm still stuck on Vol.6 of the printed manga for Toradora!, featuring Aisaka Taiga's deadbeat father.  I'm also still not very far into Vol.1 of the Haganai manga.  I'll finish these eventually but for right now I prefer reading Flowers of Evil and Knights of Sidonia respectively.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately with respect to my anime viewing and my manga reading habits.  Not enough to podcast about, but worthy of a quick blog update, more or less.

Quick impression; FATE/KALEID LINER PRISMA ILLYA (TV-14), ep.1-4

So basically this Type-Moon Magical Girl show takes the existing Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night characters and re-imagines a lot of the female cast as stereotypical Anime "magical girls", while the ancient heroes like Lancer, Archer, Saber, et. al. are re-imagined as the embodiment of magical cards, sort of Cardcaptor Sakura style.  It's sort of a "meta" show that's very self-aware and pokes fun at the Magical Girl genre as it goes.

Unforunately, since this is a Sentai Filmworks property, it does mean that none of the original English dub cast from BangZoom! were called back to reprise their roles.  However, since this show is not really canonical and is a creative re-interpretation, the new voice cast is a concession I can accept.  Hell, the fact that if it means I can pay Sentai Filmworks prices for this release instead of goddamn ANIPLEX pricing, it's a concession I'm glad to make as a fan.  And I definitely feel as though I will be picking up this title, since, as I stated before, I'm a big fan of both the original Fate/Stay Night and (a bit grudgingly) the relatively new prequel Fate/Zero.  I don't actually own either Fate/Stay Night or Fate/Zero on physical media.  The former I watched on rental DVD, while the latter I managed to watch the entirety of on Neon Alley.  I do own Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks which is also a Sentai Filmworks release (though it utilizes much of the original BangZoom! cast).  I like it because it's a highly condensed retelling of the Fate/Stay Night series.  It's very action packed and gets straight to the point.  The original Fate/Stay Night is long out of print and would be expensive to acquire, and the Fate/Zero release from Aniplex was way out of my budget. 

It is therefore my hope that FATE/KALEID LINER PRISMA ILLYAwill also be within my budget for anime as well.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first four episodes and look forward to seeing how the story continues from there.  It has a lot of nice call backs to the original series...I don't know how enjoyable it would be to someone not already familiar with the Fate/whatever products of Type-Moon, but as someone already a fan, I heartily approve and really enjoy it.

The Sentai voice cast does justice to these characters and I have no complaints.  Cynthia Martinez makes Ilya just as adorable as Stephanie Sheh did. 

The show is kind of insular otaku-bait, I guess, insofar as it's very inside jokey and those who are new to anime might not get all the references or jokes or visual gags.  But I'm still glad it was dubbed.  Definitely check this series out if you're a fan.  If you're not yet a fan, maybe go watch Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks at a bare minimum before you try to watch this show.  My concern is the uninitiated fan would miss too much to fully appreciate this show.

My best Pre-order Blu-Ray ever; or, Finished Toradora! (spoilers!)

The main characters of Toradora! (from left to right): Ryūji, Yūsaku, Taiga, Minori, and Ami. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I just finished my Blu-Ray Deluxe edition of Toradora! last night, including the OVA.  Without a doubt, the best Blu-Ray Pre-order purchase of Anime I've ever made.  I thoroughly enjoyed that series from start to finish.

I know a lot of people complain about the ending, and yeah, it's kind of bullshit, but I wonder how many of the people complaining the loudest simply #ragequit at the credit scroll and stormed off?  Because if you want your happy ending you have to put yourself in Marvel Movie viewing mode and sit through all the credits through the end and f*cking pay attention.  In a perfect ending, Taiga should've broken the fourth wall and cursed the viewer out..."You think I'd give up on my man after all THAT?  DUMBASS!!"  Anyway, it was great, even if the midway point to the credit scroll of Ep.25 was kind of a big middle finger to the audience.   The true ending (post credits) redeems it.

As great as the main characters are, I think the one I feel most for is Minori Kushieda.  That pained expression on her face in the penultimate episode, where Ryuji is attempting to lie about having rescued Taiga in the snowstorm, it was so well rendered as to be simply heartbreaking.  The pain in her quivering eyes was palpable.  Her look of "...how fucking could you!" at Ryuji.  Minori just breaks and refuses to be a part of the farce any longer.  She blurts out the truth, that it was Ryuji who saved Taiga and not Kitamura.  She could've added for emphasis "I was f*cking there!! I started to go after you but HE (points) pulled me back to go after you himself.   Because he loves you dammit and you love him."---of course, the beauty of this anime is that all that extra dialogue is unnecessary, because Minori's face says ALL of it in that scene.

She's totally justified at blowing up at them both...She spends the latter half of the series in a deep depression...because she's in love with the same guy as her best friend whose life is way more effed up than her own and who desperately needs Ryuji to keep her world from falling apart...Minorin has to push aside her own feelings and suffer in silence while Ryuji and Taiga keep deceiving themselves about the nature of their relationship and their feelings for each other.  The series did a good job keeping me guessing at Minorin's true feelings right to the end.  I knew she was upset and in pain and putting on a brave face for several episodes, but her confession did genuinely surprise me a little.  Though I suppose in hindsight it was alluded to indirectly when Taiga forced the two of them together on the street and Minori had to grab Ryuji by the hand to keep him from wandering into traffic and immediately blushed with embarssment and muttered "Stupid Taiga Stupid Taiga Stupid Taiga" under her breath.  The show does a good job of keeping Minorin's feelings opaque and does dangle the possibility of her being an in-denial lesbian.  Minorin even says as much out loud, questioning herself.  Plus she's a jock and aggressive softball player, and a little weird generally.  Hell, she could actually be bi.  But it was oddly gratifying to learn she did have love for Ryuji after all, though that love also caused her enormous pain, too.  But you can't really help who you love...a lot of it's involuntary and it does sometimes hurt, especially when other considerations prevent you from acting on those feelings.  Minorin is the very best friend you could ever want.  She's loyal, quirky, cheerful, and willing to endure a great deal of emotional pain for the friends she loves and cherishes.

I had trouble relating to Ami Kawashima...one of my Twitter friends kept insisting Ami was "best girl" in the show, and I held back my judgement until I had finished, but I just don't see it.  I get that she has strong feelings for Ryuji and she's right to point out and criticize the almost creepy, quasi "(surrogate)father-daughter" dynamic at play in Ryuji and Taiga's day to day relationship...but Ami's such a passive-aggressive b*tch it's no wonder she only knows how to catch Ryuji's attention with her body, but instantly repulses him when she opens her mouth and starts talking.

Anyway, besides Toradora! I also recently watched and finished Flowers of Evil.  I know the rotoscoping is very off putting to a lot of viewers but I didn't mind it myself.  As you know, I generally don't go for sub-only shows but I made an exception for this one.  It was good, but its stock in trade is the emotion of dread, and the episodes themselves have such emotional intensity that I could only stand to watch 2 maybe 3 episodes back to back.  The "bad girl" chick, Nakamura, is actually kind of hot.  I joked on Twitter that I only later realized that she's essentially a gritty "real life" tsundere, insofar as she treats him like shit and curses him out and it takes a long time to figure out she actually has feelings and desires for the main character.  The main character idolizes the popular girl Saeki, but feels unworthy of her.  The whole arc of the show is learning that rough-and-tumble Nakamura is more closer to who he really is rather than what he merely wishes himself to be.  He can't actually handle angelic Saeki as a flesh-and-blood girl.  The real thing could never live up to his abstract ideal.  On the other hand, earthy, vulgar Nakamura represents the dark, untamed female sexuality he actually craves but is too chicken-shit to admit it to himself or acknowledge it.  She's his dark soulmate, every bit as misanthropic and nihilistic and self-loathing as he is.  I'm glad this was picked up by Sentai Filmworks and given a North American home video release (I bought it on Blu-Ray), but it was a commercial flop in Japan, so it's highly doubtful a Season 2 will be forthcoming, which is unfortunate, as the final episode contains a lot of "flash forward" style previews of what a Season 2 would've looked like, and it looks freaking awesome.  *Sigh*  So, like Roundpeg of 2Lazy2Botaku so often says, yet another case of "f*ck you, read the manga" (which I am doing and it is pretty awesome in its own right).

I also liked Knights of Sidonia.  In fact, I liked it so much, I'm rewatching it again on Netflix in Spanish this time for the sheer hell of it.

Other anime I'm futzing around with include the usual Toonami stuff (Space Dandy, Attack on Titan) and also a few selections from Crackle.com, such as old episodes of Ruroni Kenshin (aka Samurai X) and a mediocre sci-fi action series Viper's Creed that I'm mainly watching because it's dubbed in English and looks kind of cool.  I sometimes watch an episode before bed on my iPad, mostly.

Oh, and lastly I'm working my way through Psycho-Pass on Netflix as well, which is a damn fine anime in its own right. Dystopian sci-fi police drama and dark as hell.  Likeable main character, strong supporting male character, etc.

Finished Blu-Ray of The Flowers of Evil (惡の華 Aku no Hana?), Ep. 1-13

I finally finished all 13 episodes of the Sentai Filmworks Blu-Ray release of The Flowers of Evil (惡の華 Aku no Hana^?).  This was no easy task.  I also managed to acquire Volume 1 of the manga via Interlibrary loan and finish it as well, the contents of which cover the first several episodes of the anime adaptation.

The emotion that best describes the experience of watching this anime is one of pure dread, of not knowing where things will go next.  It is the sensation of feeling your own stomach twist in knots at trying to gauge just how screwed the main protagonist actually is at any given point.

It captures the claustrophobia of boring, small town life as a teenager experiences it...a constant bipolar switching between ennui and existential angst.

Disaffected, alienated teen boy Takao Kasuga (春日 高男 Kasuga Takao^?) reads highbrow foreign literature and despises his philistine classmates.  From afar, he admires seemingly untouchable Nanako Saeki (佐伯 奈々子 Saeki Nanako^?), who would surely never give a scumbag like himself the time of day.  Saeki is his muse, his guiding light, more a work of art and a divine presence than a flesh and blood teenage girl.

But Kasuga-kun is a normal heterosexual teen boy with certain lusts and desires.  On a crazy whim, he finds and steals Saeki's gym clothes, but is spotted by Sawa Nakamura (仲村 佐和 Nakamura Sawa^?), the resident "bad girl" of their class.  She's intrigued by Kasuga's brazen act and decides to blackmail him for her own amusement.  This sets up the central conflict of the show.

One day, after the class is already reeling from the scandal of Saeki's stolen gym clothes, another student reports her lunch money has been stolen.  Suspicion falls upon unpopular misanthrope weirdo Nakamura-san.  Nakamura intimidates everyone, even the faculty.  She's always sullen, angry, solitary.  She makes the perfect scapegoat for the busy-body class rep, who levels the acusation that of course Nakamura must've stolen the money.  Takao definantly stands up for Nakamura and the class backs down.  This act of social bravery actually catches the attention of Saeki, who finds Kasuga more attractive now for being willing to take a stand on behalf of Nakamura.  Kasuga can't believe his luck and impulsively asks Saeki on a date, to join him at the local bookstore.  To his great surprise, she accepts.  Unfortunately, Nakamura is just coming up the stairs and overhears everything.

While I guess looking back at the series, you could technically classify Nakamura as a "Tsundere", her personality and character are so much larger than this prefabricated Anime trope.  As we later learn, she's the child of divorce, growing up with a single parent (her befuddled dad) and a kindly grandmother.  While Saeki is definitely drop dead beautiful, rough-around-the-edges Nakamura is not without her charms.  She wears glasses and cuts her hair short, but there's a raw sexual energy and passion that exudes from Nakamura.  She actually has a pretty face and a nice body.

Saeki represents for Kasuga a Platonic Ideal.  He's quite unprepared to deal with Saeki as a flesh and blood ordinary girl.  He's wracked by inexplicable disappointment in what should be his greatest triumph.  Saeki could not be more loving or forgiving of all of Kasuga's flaws and trangressions....but one senses that Kasuga can't deny that Nakamura, despite her constant verbal and physical abuse, actually understands him better than naive Saeki ever could.  There's a certain magnetism that Nakamura exudes that draws Kasuga to her like a moth to a flame.  Nakamura is dangerous, uncontrollable female sexual desire personified.  She's wild, untameable.  She makes Kasuga feel more alive than he ever has in life.  Nakamura is flesh and blood femininity...and when Saeki offers to be the same for Kasuga, it tarnishes his ideal he once held for Saeki.  He can't reconcile his idea of Saeki with the actual frail girl before him.  But he also lacks the courage to push the boundaries past all limits with Nakamura.  He fails to be able to decide between the two girls and in the process (seemingly) loses them both.

This anime is very good, but it is hard to watch except in limited bursts, because it's just so emotionally intense and fills one with so much dread.

I'm a little surprised Nakamura didn't give Kasuga-kun a well deserved knee in the groin in the later episodes.  The last episode finishes on a dramatic climax, but then rolls what I can only assume are possible future scenes from a second season that is unlikely to ever be produced.  All that we will have to continue the story is the original manga, translated into English.  The scenes flash by so quickly it's hard to tell what's going on, but it seems Nakamura will probably wind up being Kasuga's first sexual partner.  But there's a disturbing scene also where Nakamura embraces a distraught Saeki who is apparently bleeding vaginally onto her own legs while wearing a school uniform skirt.  It's unclear if she miscarried or was raped and attempted to give herself an abortion or what.  There seems to be much violence and madness ahead, but alas, only manga readers will actually get to see how it plays out, most likely, since the original DVD/Blu-Ray was a commercial disaster in Japan.  I hope it does decently for Sentai Filmworks in North America, but that would not be enough to get a 2nd season continuation green lit back in Japan.

The manga's dialogue is a bit more explicit, and confirms Nakamura's intensely sexual yearnings and barely contained desires that the rotoscoped performances also convey vividly but much more wordlessly than the manga.  It's more inferred than explicitly stated in the anime adaptation.  Nakamura is bubbling over with sensuality and lust in ways that naive Saeki couldn't possibly compete with, and even attempting to compete on that level with Nakamura destroys her idealized pefect state that Kasuga always held her in his mind as embodying.

The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudillaire is all about unrequited longing, an indictment of modern French bourgeois society around him, and a longing after a perfect, therefore unrealizable artistic ideal.  Kasuga relates to this book of poems and feels similarly trapped and confined by village life in this small Japanese provincial town.  But even he professes not to fully understand Baudillaire's work.  Nakamura isn't as much interested in reading Baudillaire as living out his rebellious ideals and reveling in the condemnation of "normal" society.

When Kasuga speaks of being an "empty person", I also had a passing thought comparing Kasuga to the titlar protagonist of Robert Musil's great unfinished novel, Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften ("The Man without Qualities"), to whom Kasuga bears at least a superficial resemblance. 

Anway, this anime series is a complex work of art that I will probably revisit again someday, and I look forward to continuing the many volumes of this manga in future as well.

Watamote (dub premiere), Ep.1-4

So I took in the dub premiere of the WataMote anime series, Episodes 1-4, at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park earlier this week.  I really enjoyed it.  I had some concerns about Monica Rial doing the voice for this character, but these proved to be unfounded, as I think that Tomoko is such a batshit crazy character that now I have a hard time imaginging which other English language female voice actress in Texas would do the role justice and I keep landing back with Monica being the perfect fit.  Her range is indisputibly large, and she can voice Tomoko at her craziest (think Momoka from Sgt. Frog) 

...and also capture her at her most vulnerable and tender moments, and there are a few; for example...

That scene at the gazebo, where one of the boys buys Tomoko a replacement umbrella and leaves it next to her while she's sleeping...and she wakes up confused but decides to use the umbrella but says "I wish a boy would be nice to me for once"...that scene is just heartbreaking, in the manga as well as in the anime.  (Because, of course, a boy WAS just nice to her).  Tomoko is pretty messed up but the thing about her is apart from the seemingly permanent dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep from staying up too late playing videogames in poor lighting conditions, she's not a bad looking girl.  Little rough around the edges, maybe, with zero fashion sense, but not hopeless by any means.  She's genuinely cute, she just suffers from poor hygene, low self-esteem and crippling social anxiety and awkwardness.  She externalizes blame, avoids responsibility, and is genuinely creepy & inappropriate.  Tomoko makes me laugh, and I get laughs at her expense, but I never laugh at her in a mean-spirited way.  Both for the manga and the anime adaptation, I find myself ultimately sympathizing with Tomoko and even quietly cheering for her from the sidelines.

Tomoko is what a female anime/eroge otaku would look like depicted more realistically, verus, say, Konata Izumi of Lucky Star fame, who is the anime fantasy heroine, at least in her own mind.  Konata is otaku and proud.  She's confident, strangely athletic for being disinterested in sports, and she's 18 but looks 14.  She's approachable and not the least bit creepy or off-putting.

Tomoko reminds me of the main protagonist of Welcome to the NHK, only as a teen girl and lacking the heightened, full blown paranoia of that particular protagonist...but well on her way to NEET or Hikikomori status if she doesn't mend her ways.  Tomoko is literally paralyzed by her social anxiety...the only person she can have actual conversations with are her former BFF from her Middle School, and her brother, who finds her annoying.  Her social anxiety is even worse than NHK's protagonist.  I think Tomoko is also a more realistic anime/eroge otaku than, say, Kirino from Oreimo.

Anyway, I knew that I was going to want to watch all of this series, so I had already taken advantate of the Sentai Filmworks sale over on Right Stuf! awhile back, and WataMote was one of the Blu-Rays I bought during that sale.  Having seen the first four episodes on the big screen at Alamo Drafthouse, I'm eager to be able to finish it at home on Blu-Ray.  I'm looking forward to continuing the manga in English as well.