The Kawaii Menace

From episode one of Sola.

Here’s the view from my front porch this week:

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

(If the rain doesn’t stop soon, my hair is going to be green with moss and algae. This is supposed to be Kansas.)

So anime is more popular than sex? If you look at the 100 most popular search terms last April at Wikipedia, yes.

(Via (indirectly) Anime on My Mind.)

I’ve started yet another weblog. This one is exclusively for posting videos. YouTube is handy, but the quality is lousy. I’d like to show things I find interesting at larger sizes and higher resolution. So far, all that’s there is the opening of Denno Coil, which is one of the better examples from recent series.

For those interested in the technical stuff: The Flash player is WP-FLV, which is based on the JW FLV Player.

Update: Getting the quality I want is going to take some work. (Is it even possible to make a .flv file that isn’t jerky?) In the meantime, you can download a higher-quality Quicktime file here (12 megabyes).

Recently Astro counted down his picks for the best anime openings. Yesterday Steven discussed what an opening needs to do and surveys a number of examples, good and bad. Shingu may indeed have the worst opening ever, but I can think of a couple of alternative picks. NieA_7’s isn’t bad — if you have the sound off. (In compensation, the ending is charming.) Mushishi’s is nowhere near as obnoxious, but it’s dull, with an annoying song¹ and abstract, yet bland, imagery, and it tells you nothing about the show.

1. This may be excessively harsh, but I’ve heard far too many singer/guitarists with thin voices over the years. [↩]

I finished Shingu. The final episodes were spectacular and largely satisfying, but I want to think about them a bit before I declare the show a complete success. I will say that it is a superior series that I can recommend to anyone who likes imaginative, surprising stories.

As I expected, the story has gotten darker as it nears the climax, but Shingu is still a great deal of fun.

German cameras.¹ So they still shoot film in 2070?

Embarrassing music

Boy or girl?

Bonus link: Ubu on what didn’t happen.

1. There are two different brands alluded to here, Contax, obviously, but also the M-series Leica (though the latter were rangefinder cameras, not SLRs like Futaba’s camera). [↩]

Baseball as a martial art

Armed and dangerous little sisters

Dancing aliens in tuxes

*****

Sometimes I have got to know What Happens Next. This was the case with Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster trilogy, which I read in one (long) sitting, and with Misaki Chronicles, which I watched in one evening. Other times, I want to go slowly and savor every little bit. I spent a week on John Crowley’s Little, Big, and not because it was a thick book. I’ve got two discs left of Shingu left, and I’m not going to rush through them. I’m enjoying the series too much. There are still surprises in every episode, even though I’m past the half-way point and the characters are old friends now.

Earlier this year I wondered if I’ve seen all the first-rate anime that’s available. This month I watched Divergence Eve/Misaki Chronicles and I’m in the middle of Shingu. Denno Coil also has been excellent so far. My interest in anime will eventually diminish, but it won’t happen as soon as I expected.

While there is still first-rate anime to be found, anime criticism remains a scandalously inept guide. Reviews of the Misaki saga range from limp to stupid, and there are virtually no reviews of Shingu at all. If Steven hadn’t written about them, I would never have bothered with either.

Duck

Old-fashioned seifuku

Nebula

Shingu is the perfect show to recover with after Divergence Eve/Misaki Chronicles. The fate of the Earth, perhaps the entire galaxy, may hang in the balance, but six episodes in, the outstanding characteristic of the show is its playfulness.

Misaki Chronicles and Shingu just arrived. Don’t expect much posting here for a few days.

Update: Just finished Misaki Chronicles. A few quick notes:

1. Wow.

2. I want to let the story settle in my mind a day or two before I watch anything else. Shingu will have to wait.

3. Somebody please shoot the character designer and the jiggle choreographer.

4. Misaki and her colleagues are cute — from the neck up, anyway — but Lyar von Ertiana is the one I want to meet.

5. Much of the anime that I find memorable deals with grief and despair. Few series do so as directly as Misaki Chronicles.

6. Wow, again.

I’ve watched each of the first five episodes of Denno Coil at least twice so far. I have a few small reservations, but overall I’m very impressed. Iso and company have yet to stumble. If these five episodes are indicative, this is the best show I’ve seen on fansub yet and one of the best of any kind ever. I was initially concerned that there wouldn’t be enough material to stretch twenty-six episodes; now my concern that twenty-six will barely be enough to elucidate all the mysteries of Daikoku City and the connections between Yasako and Isako. Denno Coil is a pleasure to watch on every level. I don’t often write about quality of animation because I don’t have the background, but even I can tell that the work here is exceptional. Watching the different ways the various characters in the opening climb stairs is an education in the art of animation. Daikoku City may be a virtual world, but it’s one of the most believable I’ve ever visited.

Eleven episodes of Seirei no Moribito have been translated now. The last few have been surprisingly quiet (not that I mind; there are few things duller than non-stop action). It looks like the story might be as much about the education of the prince as about eluding assassins.

I’m watching Sugar, a Tiny Snow Fairy slowly, one episode a day. I watched the ninth today, which is the beginning of the “Bear Pianist” arc, my favorite part of the series. Overall, it’s as good as I remember it, but not all parts have aged equally well. The Elder’s infatuation with Ginger gets old fast, and after the fluid animation of Denno Coil, Sugar looks just a little wooden. The writing and acting generally are very good, though, and the music is better than I remembered. One recurring theme reminds me strongly of Metamora, and I keep expecting to hear Malcolm Dalglish’s dulcimer.

Addendum: Here’s some Denno Coil motivation.

Kashi, alias the invisible CapnFlynn, artist and animator, formerly the proprietress of Synonyms and Sugar (one of the ten best-named weblogs ever), has illustrated a book, The Voyage to Ruin, by H.L. Trombley. According to the website,

For the sinking of her ship and the death of her lover, pirate Captain Franceline Drake seeks revenge on Captain Acheron Zeal of Her Majesty’s Navy. For her most terrible crimes against the ships of Camembert, Zeal pursues Drake across the seas and skies of the Quadra Terrarum. And in the midst of the intrigue and mystery, the fate of a man named Flynn Freeborn will follow in their wake.

If you think you’d might enjoy a “pirate adventure fantasy,” check it out.

Here’s some more information on the book.

(Cross-posted on my other weblog.)

(Read on …)

I had planned to wait until after The Major Purchase before ordering any more DVDs, but I really want to know how the Divergence Eve saga ends. Then Steven has to go and find another damned four-star series, grrr. So I’ve got an order off for Misaki Chronicles and Shingu now.

I had already added Shingu to the “maybe” list, but I never saw much information about it. As Steven notes, the series received virtually no attention. I did a little browsing last night to see if anyone besides the not-utterly-reliable Chris Beveridge has reviewed it. There was a “B+” review of the first disc at Anime News Network, and that’s all I found at a half-dozen review sites. If Shingu is as good as Steven says it is (and he’s never been wrong on a four-star series), then The Right Stuf did a lousy job of marketing their edition, and reviewers did not do their job at all.

*****

Fledgling Otaku is moving house, from Texas to Wisconsin. The Google maps route passes near Wichita. I doubt that he’ll have time to stop, but if he takes that route, he can imagine me waving as he drives by.

*****

Discovered while looking at my site statistics:

Avatar, a frequent commenter in this corner of the otakusphere, has his own weblog now, The Ego’s Nest. There’s also a nikonian’s blog, featuring photography and anime as well as current events in Bangladesh. Finally, there’s StarShipSofa, with podcasts on science fiction writers. Search string of the week: “pachelbel dog the bounty hunter.”

*****

A couple of occidental movies might be worth trips to the cinema: Ratatouille and Surf’s Up.

Update: Here’s another review of Surf’s Up.

I’m down to three fansubs: two substantial stories, Denno Coil and Seirei no Moribito, and a cheesy entertainment, Murder Princess.¹ At this point, I think that DC and SnM are the two best shows of the year and better than anything from last year.² (I reserve the right to change my mind if either turns stupid, but I doubt that will happen.) I hesitate to write any more about the former lest I oversell it,³ but latter deserves some comment.

Seirei no Moribito, or Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, is set in a mythical Asian land. Balsa, an expert spearwoman, rescues the prince Chagum from drowning when the oxcart he is traveling in falls off a bridge. His mother subsequently asks Balsa to be his bodyguard. Chagum needs one; he contains within himself the egg of a water spirit, and for reasons connected with that, his father the emperor wants him dead. Thus far, Balsa and Chagum have evaded the assassins, and eleven-year-old Chagum is learning about life outside the palace.

Production values are high, but the appeal of Seirei no Moribito is in the characters and story. Balsa and Chagum are fully-realized three-dimensional, sympathetic characters. Chagum in particular is appealing, combining a deep sense of responsibiility with childish naiveté. It is easy to imagine him growing up to be emperor someday.

Seirei no Moribito is based on a series of novels by Nahoko Uehashi. The makers of the anime have enough confidence in the story that they don’t feel any need to make every episode action-packed. When there is fighting, it’s spectacular (here are excerpts from the third episode⁴ ), but it’s sparse. The eighth episode is particularly suspenseful, and it’s mostly just characters talking and telling stories.

One element worth noting is that, although Balsa and Chagum don’t lack enemies, none of the characters thus far are evil, not even the emperor who orders his son’s death. The imperial diviners have discovered ominous signs that may be connected with the water spirit, or demon, within the prince, and the emperor’s decision, tragically wrong though it may be, is understandable. (My hunch is that there is indeed a connection, but it’s not what they think, and Chagum’s death would be disastrous.)

I’m violating my usual policy in watching Seirei no Moribito. Hitherto, I have never downloaded a fansub of a show once a license was announced (it’s going to be a long time before I know how Death Note ends). My feeble excuse is that this is one of the best series I’ve seen in a long time, I’m impatient to see the rest, and there is as yet no mention of it under either title on the Geneon website. If you have the self-control, the ideal course of action is to emulate Wabi Sabi: wait until the entire series is available, and then marathon the show. Here in region 1, that could quite possibly involve a two-year wait.

1. I might add Oh! Edo Rocket to the list, depending on how good the second episode is. I hope to see more of the Waragetcha 5, but the translation of Master of Epic proceeds very slowly. I may resume watching Darker Than Black, Claymore and El Cazador, depending on what I read about further episodes. [↩]
2. I count Mushishi as a 2005 series. [↩]
3. Here’s the Denno Coil opening and trailer combined, which hints at the quality of the production and the tone. [↩]
4. This is mildly spoilerish, but you don’t really expect the central characters to be killed off that early, do you? [↩]

A: Pay close attention to every detail. Note the impossibilities, e.g., the helicopter flight in the first episode, and the implausibilities, e.g., damn near everything else. Chuckle at the absurdities.

B: Turn off your critical faculties and enjoy the series for what is: a bit of unpretentious low-budget science-fantasy fluff.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether the engineering fanservice and skintight spacesuits compensate for the ugly computer animation. I enjoyed the show. YMMV.

Update: See also the anonymous Author’s commentary.

An appreciation of Fantasia. I need to watch it again sometime — it must be 30 years since I last saw it — if only to have something to compare Robot Carnival with.

(Via Rightwing film geek.)

Posting will resume when I’m less frazzled by construction, bad weather and bad smells — remodeling and plumbing problems at work, roof destruction and replacement during unstable weather at home. Until then, here’s Yukari and Matsuri from Rocket Girls.

*****

Today’s word: “Waffo!” (Yes, the Right Stuf order arrived in less than a week.)