misc jottings

I’m in the middle of rewatching Giant Robo (which I watched for the first time  a LONG time ago… it’s a pretty old OVA series.) It does stand up well on the rewatch, even after I’ve watched a ton more anime after seeing it. In some ways, you could say it’s kind of a mash-up and kind of nonsensical, but in a totally over the top comic book superhero way? Yes, actually, that makes sense, because it’s kind of a mix of science-fiction technology (especially the titular, creatively-named Giant Robo), people with magical or psionic powers, organizations which openly state their goal as “taking over the world,” etc. There’s a ton of fighting robot action, superpowered battles, and unabashed drama:  it’s pretty plot driven and filler-free, with all the battles moving the story forward. The wikipedia page is actually pretty good and doesn’t have too many spoilers (I advise you not to spoil yourself, BTW). 

I have only read one of Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s manga in full (Xiang Yu and Liu Bang) but I definitely would like to get around to reading more sometime. I’d also like to try and read the original Giant Robo manga and the Giant Robo:  the day the earth burned manga.

I went and marathoned the last eps, which was pretty satisfying. I think they added onto a lot of the later parts, especially with the backstory of Lisa Lisa and Cars? (Or is that just my perception because I forgot a lot?) Anyway if I am correct, it does enhance the story, though, which proceeds at a breakneck pace. This is especially true about the origin of the “Pillar Men.” Anyway yep, I plan to marathon part 3 when it’s done. (Part 2 ends with the very beginning of part 3).

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I just finished watching up to ep 18 of the first season of Jojo, which brings me up to around halfway through Battle Tendency (part 2). TBH this entry is going to assume that you have already read the entirety of the Jojo manga series and so will hint at spoilers and is mostly just a bunch of asides and notes.

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I just finished watching the Phantom Blood anime, which is nine episodes long, and man, I have forgotten a lot of what happened in the first part of Jojo. Maybe that’s to be expected, since like most people, I consider it to be the weakest part of the series (honestly, I feel that you should start there in the manga anyway, as it’s only 5 vols, but I think where I differ from most people is that I find it more easy to pound through something written/drawn than animated/filmed, but YMMV). In any case the anime is still good (I like the conciseness of Part 1, really, as well as the unconventional ending:  it’s like a movie whereas a lot of shounen is more like a sitcom series, with punching instead of today’s misunderstanding), but do also really wish I could see parts 4-7 animated as well.

One of the things I enjoyed about the anime is that they go into more detail and flesh out some things that I recall weren’t covered in as much depth in the manga, especially for future reference, and a lot of the emotional scenes were lengthened (IIRC).
(more rambling follows)

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Recently I finished watching the Big O, and I strongly recommend it (if you care). I feel it’s even the sort of series you want to rewatch, and I rarely rewatch things. SPOILERS for the Big O are kind of incidentally discussed (although I’m considering making a separate post where I talk about individual episodes later).

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P. has gotten me to watch some older anime series (if I promise to watch/read something, generally I will, it’ll just take me awhile), so I started. So anyway, in the future, humans have colonized Mars, but Mars and Earth are at odds. The protagonist, James Links, is a 49 year old ex-military cargo ship pilot, widowed, and estranged from his two children. One day, he finds he is transporting an extremely powerful Orbital Frame (basically a high class mecha), and then finds himself the object of a manhunt…

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Cut for spoilers:

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The rest of this post contains spoilers for the Kara no Kyoukai series. This is really not a review, also.

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Deceptively long OVA series, given that the last two eps are the equivalent, in length, of about six. (Am not going to summarize, given that this is a pretty old series so you should be able to find summaries elsewhere; however near the end the show does have a few twists, so you should avoid spoilers IMHO. The show is not THAT predictable, although it does follow some science fiction robot/espers tropes)

Probably the greatest strength of the show (it’s def. not the visuals or the music) is the storytelling, although that is marred by the extensive infodumping near the ending parts. IMHO this kind of thing is actually worse in movies than in written media, because at least you can read faster, whereas you can’t watch faster. By the final two eps, you are grateful for the visit of the exposition fairy, but upon further reflection, I wished they had done a bit more front-loading with the info. The story doesn’t exactly spoon-feed you at the beginning, and it does start with a good amount of mystery, so you do want to keep watching to see what’s revealed.

Key deliberately lacks personality (as she is a robot, after all), but this isn’t much of a problem, given the plot-centric nature of the show and since there are other viewpoin characters. There’s a lot of characters, some of whom interact little with each other, and a fair amount of threads, so there’s a lot of cross-cutting, which aids the suspense.

Other notes:  If Key said in these times (rather back in 1994) that she wanted to assemble 30K friends, they would have just told her to get on Facebook and start friending people.

DO NOT. DO NOT. DO NOT. read this post unless you have seen the end of Gilgamesh.

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P. and Y. got me to watch this series. I would say it’s a fairly solid sci-fi series, of the sort that focuses on espers (seems to be a fairly large subgenre in Japanese SF?) and mysterious and dangerous science, alien artifacts and the metaphysical fate of the world, etc. You can probably google to find more information about this anime, but I actually suggest that you do not do so, because you might find spoilers, and you don’t want to be spoilered. Unlike a lot of anime these days, which are full of obviousness and moe-characters, this one feels more novelistic, and it isn’t clear where it’s going. I suggest that you simply start and see where it’s going, because the reveal is slow, but doesn’t drag. The way the scenes are set up, the shots, the way the story is told, despite the superficial content (team of psychically powered kids fight a group who claims they’ll blow up the world to reset things, I know, I know) makes it feel very different. Part of it is the background music and the muted color palette, part of it is the focus on the emotional relationships, part of it is the focus on Kiyoko, who doesn’t possess such powers and feels disinclined to participate in anyone’s schemes, either to save the world or destroy it (if such claims can be believed).

The ending is going to be something that divides viewers. A lot of people are going to hate it, I think, but while I was dissatisfied with aspects of it, it felt unconventional, and perhaps even deconstructive (that horribly overused word), if you were thinking (although probably you wouldn’t be?) that this would go along with shounen narrative conventions. Nah, this is a different genre. Probably seinen SF. However, I feel so strongly that no one should be spoiled that I find it necessary to write a second post solely to discuss the ending.