The Kawaii Menace

The Waragecha Five are back, and they have new uniforms:

Nice, but I prefer the old style.

A year after their first release, Epic Fansubs have reached episode six of Master of Epic. As a reward for my patience, the Waragecha Five, who were entirely missing from the previous installment, dominate the show this time, with a two-part skit that occupies half the episode. It’s a bit out of character for the show, since it introduces a giant robot into the fantasy universe, but the girls in the sentai team are still very much themselves, even with their science-fiction helmets. The rest of the show is mostly forgettable.

*****

Shigeru Mizuki’s Gegege no Kitaro has been the basis of a major franchise in Japan for fifty years. There have been numerous TV shows and movies based on the manga. I’ve seen the first episodes of both the 1968 and 2007 series (the former in black and white), and was not impressed. Like his ’60’s American counterparts in The Addams Family and The Munsters, Kitaro was fundamentally good-hearted in these versions, and the resulting shows were rather bland, despite the graveyards and the monsters.

Hakaba Kitaro, the most recent adaptation, apparently makes an effort to be true to the source. This Kitaro is genuinely creepy, and humans who meet him don’t necessarily benefit from the encounter. Unlike the Gegege no Kitaros, this is not suitable for kids. Although there is some humor, this is primarily a horror story, occasionally quite grotesque.

Visually, it’s one of the more distinctive shows I’ve seen. It looks more like an artsy graphic novel than a typical anime. I was not surprised to learn that some of the crew responsible for Mononoke worked on the opening, in which the artists recreated Mizuki’s style. It’s worth attention in its own right (you might want to turn the sound down unless you like monotonous dance music).

****

I’m four episodes into Magic Knight Rayearth. A lot of stuff happens; there sure is plenty of plot. Unfortunately, it comes largely at the expense of character development. None of the characters have much depth yet. After watching a few episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura, I felt like I’d known the characters for years and would recognize them anywhere. The most I can say for the characters in Rayearth is that some are quirky.

This is not to say that Rayearth is a bad series. It isn’t. I probably just came to it with my expectations too high. The story is potentially good, particularly since CLAMP will likely twist the formulae in unpredictable ways. But it does look like it will be one of the lesser CLAMP anime, despite its length.

Here’s a headline I spotted in today’s paper:

I was disappointed to find that the story was not about nekomimi, but people who have pet cats.

I wonder what the effects of having a pet catgirl would be….

It has nothing to do with anime or Japan, but it’s such a heart-warming image I couldn’t resist posting it.

(From here, via Lynn.)

Recently I’ve been investigating last.fm, hoping to find some new music worth listening to. I was surprised today to discover that there are not just one, but two pages there devoted to my music. (There are also three distinct bands named “McClane.”) Of course, someone has me confused with the guy who sang “American Pie,”¹ but I spotted some of my own tunes in the lists. I claimed one of the pages and uploaded some of my old tunes.² The curious and incautious can listen to them there, or you can click on the player at the botton of the sidebar. The tunes include a couple inspired by Haibane Renmei. In “Kana’s Toy,” I imagined that Kana finds and repairs an old music box, to which a couple of her nestmates dance. Haibane Suite is a portrait of one of the haibane that ABe doesn’t mention. The sections are “Dream;” “Off to Work;” “Saturday Evening at the Abandoned Factory;”³ “Reading by Halo-Light;” “Calm, Rational Discussion;” “Night.”

1. I was frequently told when I was younger that I looked just like John Lennon (as does Aziz), so I have the name of one singer and the face of another, neither of whom I particularly like. [↩]
2. There may be some new tunes soon; cross your fingers and keep the earplugs handy. [↩]
3. ”Washerwoman’s Bransle,” from Arbeau’s Orchesography [↩]

Steven has been impatiently waiting for my comments on Petite Princess Yucie. I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed, because I don’t have anything particularly deep or insightful to say about the show. It was good, I enjoyed it, and I can recommend it for all but the youngest audiences. My main two worries — that the ending would stink, and that Kikuko Inoue would release a deluge of tears — were unfounded, though if the series had ended with the 25th episode, I would have dispatched Mireille and Kirika to Gainax HQ.

I have a few reservations. There are some heavy-handed moments, notably the visions of Elmina’s father in the nineteenth episode. Beth is excessively abrasive, to the point that I was tempted to hit fast-forward whenever she appeared. Some of the episodes approach dangerously close to sentimentality. Yucie’s dilemma in the penultimate episode seems contrived, not naturally arising from the premises — it almost did have a Gainax ending.

Still, the virtues outweigh the faults. The main characters are mostly attractive and sympathetic, even Elmina once she warms up to the others. The writing throughout is interesting and often clever, and there are a lot of little touches that enliven the story.

I suppose I could analyze the different models of fatherhood illustrated by the series (only Jubei-chan: The Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch goes into greater depth on father/daughter relationships), or compare and contrast the ending of Yucie with that of the first season of Sailor Moon, or discuss whether the princess candidates form a “five-man band,” but I have other things to do — as Steven guessed, I do in fact “have a life” of sorts.

I’ve been studying yet another treatise on father-daughter dynamics, Petite Princess Yucie. Steven liked it and it sounded promising, so I ordered it last week, along with Magic Knight Rayearth TV (which Jonathan Tappan reviewed positively). I’ve watched four of the five discs in the thinpak and will probably finish tonight or tomorrow evening. It is pretty good — it already has the distinction of being the first Gainax series that I watched more than the first disc of — and if it ends well, it will be a show I can recommend to almost everyone.

The primary pleasure is in the characters and their interactions, but there is much else to enjoy, such as the utterly terrifying Demon world.

Update: Finished it: thumbs up. I may write more later, but I’m going to be away from the computer for a few days.

(Read on …)