… Bandai, for simplifying my winter viewing. As a matter of policy, I don’t download series once they’re licensed.¹ I don’t need to worry any more about Shigofumi or true tears. In fact, I probably will never see them at all, unless Bandai changes its insane pricing.

I may take a look at Hakaba Kitaro or watch a few more episodes of Spice and Wolf, but more likely I’m going to skip the current season entirely and view some of the DVDs I’ve bought that I haven’t yet watched. Or I might just listen to Bach. In any case, posting will continue to be spasmodic.

Update: Pete and Avatar comment.

1. I’ve only made one exception, Seirei no Moribito, and that was just as well, since it’s now in limbo with Geneon’s departure from Region 1. [↩]

Pythagoras Switch is a Japanese science show for small children. It’s very elementary and most of it is of little interest, but there are a couple of redeeming features. One is the “algorithm march,” a sequence of simple movements performed in canon, popular with inmates in the Philippines. The other are the many “Pythagoras Switches” that give the show its name. These are Rube Goldberg contraptions, designed to display the show’s logo in complicated ways. Some are fantastically elaborate; others are elegantly simple. All are imaginative constructions made with everyday objects: marbles, paper cups, books, clothes pins, tape measures, springs, scraps of wood, etc. I posted a brief excerpt featuring two of the devices on my video weblog. You can find more on YouTube.

There are a couple of “DVD books” out for region 2 that feature nothing but these devices. I’d be interested to see translations of the books, should they ever be made (not likely). The contents of the DVDs, however, don’t need translation, and the torrents are out there if you know where to look.

*****

Now for something completely different: Sally Cruikshank’s “Face Like a Frog.”

(Via AniPages Daily.)

*****

The swelling in my leg is diminishing, finally, and the nerves and muscles are waking up. The immediate consequence is that I get cramps in both legs now. It’s going to be a long ten weeks until I get rid of the splint. Bleah.

One of the charms of The Diary of Tortov Roddle is the music by Kenji Kondo. It’s hard to pigeon-hole. Sometimes it reminds me of Metamora, sometimes of Satie, sometimes of something else I can’t quite place. Here’s a sampling of the soundtrack:

Kondo, I discovered, is part of the Kuricorder Quartet (formerly the Kuricorder Pops Orchestra) and is one of the musicians featured on the Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&! albums. He also plays Mozart on the ukelele. Here’s a video with the Kuricorder Quartet. I think Kondo is the one on the bicycle.

Addendum: Here’s the picture Author mentions in his comment. It’s from the booklet accompanying the first Yotsuba&! CD.

I’m curious about Kunio Katou, the creator of Aru Tabibito no Nikki, or The Diary of Tortov Roddle, so I did a litle searching. Here are his web site — unfortunately, only in Japanese — and a brief curriculum vitae. I also found this note at AniPages Daily:

It’s easy to see why Kato’s films would have won so regularly at the festival, which Norstein presides over every year. Visually they’re incredibly refined and convincing works closer in their graphic richness and craftsmanship to Norstein than to the bulk of Japanese production. Although his Tabibito series was produced in Flash, you would hardly suppose so at first blush. His production method for the series was somewhat unique: he drew each drawing on paper, scanned it into the computer, and left the white space around the figure intact rather than cutting it off as one would normally expected him to have done, which accounts for the handmade look of the series.

*****

I finally watched the second half of Moyashimon. Good grief. There is a distinct shortage of microbes. Instead, we get a rather grim school festival, girls bathing (but no real fanservice), girls in leather clothes, aphrodisiacs (which don’t work), alcohol (more effective), fermented herring, expensive people, same-sex kisses and Sawaki’s buddy as a gothic lolita. Oh, and the Aspergillus fungi have dirty little minds. It is still a fun watch and there’s nothing quite like it, but I can’t give it an unreserved recommendation.

*****

I noticed that Shigofumi ~Stories of the Last Letter~ is directed by Tatsuo Sato. Sato’s directing credits range from Nadesico to Cat Soup, not to mention Shingu, which was his original creation and his script as well, so I figured I ought to check Shigofumi out. The premise — a mail carrier with a talkative staff delivers the last message of a recently deceased person — reminded me of Shinigami no Ballad, and I was afraid that Shigofumi would be mawkishly sentimental. I needn’t have worried. The first episode is grimly ironic; if Shinigami no Ballad is about life, Shigofumi is about death. I do have some problems with the first episode. In particular, I need more context for Ayase’s actions, and if the second episode isn’t a continuation of her story, I will be very annoyed.

*****

I saw the doctor Wednesday. It’s going to be eleven more weeks and another operation before I can walk again. Bleah. It my be fun to zoom down the halls at the office in my wheelchair, but otherwise this is a blasted nuisance.

Some time back Wabi Sabi mentioned The Diary of Tortov Roddle. I recently came across a torrent. It’s an odd little series, consisting of nine short episodes. Seven concern Tortov Roddle, an etiolated traveler with a stovepipe hat exploring the northern plains. These are brief, surrealistic stores told without dialogue. In the first episode, for instance, Roddle sees a town on a hill and hopes to find an inn there. However, it turns out that the town is on the back of a gigantic frog, which leaves the hill for a lake populated by other frogs with towns on their backs. The penultimate episode, “Fantasy,” is a collection of brief vignettes too slight to summarize. The last is “The Apple Incident,” in which giant apples fall from the sky.

Rather than try to explicate the imagery, I’ll just post some screen captures below the fold.

(more…)

I have to give Rosario to Vampire credit for one bit of realism: when you have skirts as short as Moka’s, you’ve going to see panties.¹ The vampire inspired J. Greely to coin a new word. Ubu thinks I should be “all over” R+V. Moka is indeed a candidate to replace Pyun and Potaru in the header art above, but I’m not sold on the series yet. The premise has some promise: nebbish winds up at a school for monsters and acquires a vampire glompire girlfriend. The cast features Kikuko Inoue in what looks to be a purely comic, non-weepy role as the nekomimi meganekko teacher; Takehito Koyasu is also listed. I’ll give it another episode and see what I think.

I’ll give Spice and Wolf another episde also to see what kind of story it’s going to be. The premise again has promise: wolf-girl and former agricultural deity in Medieval Europe hitches a ride with a travelling merchant intending to return to her homeland in the north. It could be an interesting travel story, or it could be nasty Christians oppressing nice pagans. The first episode suggests both possibilities. If it turns out to be the latter, the hell with it. Even if I decide to abandon the series, though, I will keep an eye out for the quasi-Renaissance soundtrack.

The second episode of Kaiketsu Zorori was on the same level as the first. Zorori and his boar sidekicks enter a haunted castle to rescue a sleeping princess. This time Zorori actually suceeds in his quest, but he is betrayed by his own impatience. It looks like Kaiketsu Zorori will be a good kid’s show that adults can also enjoy.

What I most enjoyed (re-)watching recently was the first disc of Kamichu! It’s a maddeningly erratic series, but the good episodes are very good indeed. I wish it was as easy to compile a custom video DVD as it is a custom music CD. A collection containing the first three episodes, the seventh and probably the ninth (I haven’t see it yet, but Steven says it’s excellent) would be a fine way to spend two hours.

1. Mireille’s outfits in Noir were just as short, but her underwear was never visible — the single most implausible element in that amazing show. [↩]

In the recent Kino no Tabi movie, The Land of Sickness — For You, Kino visits a country that seems mostly deserted. The traveler and motoradd eventually find a hermetically sealed city, where they are treated quite well. Kino is invited to tell travel stories to the ailing daughter of a hotelier. There is a disease in the land. The inhabitants desperately search for a cure and hope someday to reclaim the rest of the country outside the city, and they’ve made some progress. However, there’s a dark secret for Kino to discover.

I’m relieved to say that this movie (if you can call a 28-minute show a “movie”) is a vast improvement over the earlier movie, Life Goes On (recommended only for Kino completists). Ryutaro Nakamura is back at the helm and Chiaki J. Konaka wrote the script. It seems like an slightly extended version of a television episode, but that’s not such a bad thing when the show is Kino’s Journey.

*****

It looks like Kaiketsu Zorori may finally be fansubbed. The series concerns the adventures of the scapegrace fox Zorori, whose ambition is to be the king of mischief. In the first episode he plots to win the hand of a princess using a mechanical dragon, but things don’t go according to plan. If the first episode is representative, this could be a good series for children and tolerable for adults.

*****

I’ve now watched all of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, and I dunno. It started off well, but it peaked at the second episode by my reckoning. Once all the girls were introduced, it became hit-or-miss. Sometimes it was pleasantly absurd, but just as often it seemed the creators had only one joke and were mechanically working out every possible permutation to fill the time. It’s probably the year’s best black comedy, but I’m not really looking forward to the second season.

*****

For the heck of it, here’s my top ten for 2007 as it currently stands.

1. Denno Coil
2. Oh! Edo Rocket
3. Seirei no Moribito
4. Mononoke
5. Baccano!
6. Mokke

Yes, that’s only six. I haven’t seen everything and I’ve probably missed a few of the best. Perhaps I’ll eventually fit ef and Gurren-Lagann somewhere on the list, but I have to watch them first. Ditto Bokurano and Manabi Straight. Perhaps also Moyashimon. Or perhaps not, if the eighth episode is as horrifying as rumored.

*****

When I was at the hospital last week, I acquired not only a cast but also a virus of some sort. While I’m not quite sick enough to stay home from work (darn), I’m usually dead tired when I get home. Posting will continue to be spasmodic until I feel better.