Tuesday, June 8, 2004

   katanas and wire-rimmed glasses
well, it's official. my new favorite character design of late is Jin from Samurai Champloo. we know him as the badass swordfighter with the long hair (ponytailed, of course, so his hair doesn't interfere with him killing corrupt government lackeys). Jin is the only samurai character i've come across with little wire-rimmed glasses, which, really, is just awesome. and his nemesis(?) adopts a breakdance-type of fighting style. hmmmmmm....breakdancing and feudal japan...brilliant in its oddity. ok you folks in japan, hurry up and release the remaining episodes already!!
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Sunday, May 30, 2004

kids + guns = great anime.
ah, gunslinger girl...what do i have to say about it? succinctly put, it's amazing. the series revolved around a bunch of small girls (approx. 8-12 years old) who are trained to be assassins. interestingly enough, it's set in italy, and quite true to its setting in terms of detail. the characters have italian names, and i could swear that i saw one of the girls eating linguini with clam sauce. also, the music is wonderfully sad. if you like slow violin music, then this one's for you. and the best part?? NO FANSERVICE, which is excellent. i was worried that there might be some, given that little girl assassins are the main characters. but there was none, and i'm really happy about that. so no fanservice means a story-heavy anime with nothing gratuitous in between. and i feel that's anime the way it should be. gunslinger girl is highly recommended.
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Friday, May 21, 2004

   ...sigh.
ok, so i've been trying to broaden the horizons of some of my fellow co-workers (i.e., trying to spread the joy of good anime). last week i gave one of the therapists i work with the first 13 episodes of texhnolyze, thinking that he would appreciate thought-provoking anime. (we'd talked a few times before about akira kurosawa films, so i thought he was a good candidate.)

when i saw him today, i was of course eager to see what he thought about it. when I asked him, he sort of looked at me, visibly blanched, and was like, "um...i haven't really gotten it yet. it's not like anything i;ve ever seen before." (!?!??) this was after he had watched 2 episodes. wait a sec, who made up this rule that everything has to "click" immediately? maybe the best part about intelligent anime is that you may not even begin to wrap your neurons around it until some time later. i feel that some of the best anime out there is that which lingers in your mind for a while without really making sense in the conventional way. i feel it's an error to attempt to understand things merely in terms of what we already know. the point of innovation is to break the mold, not to pattern yourself after something else that has already been established. sheesh.
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