2010: My First Quarter in Anime
Apr. 2nd, 2010 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWith another three months gone by, once again I'm looking back at the anime I watched during them. It may be that by the end of those three months, I wasn't getting through quite as much in an average day off as I'd managed at the start of them having got used to shift work again, but I still seem to be watching a fair deal. It may be, though, that in the last little while I've wondered a bit about how I can see a list of DVDs announced for release a few months in the future and, with the discussion surrounding the announcement seeming to amount to the first time I've really heard about the titles mentioned, think I'm not really that tempted to buy any of them. Somehow, my thoughts can drift to those unfortunate types who keep complaining they've been abandoned by the anime industry in general, even if they can't seem to find anything better to do than complain... Still, things may not be quite that simple in an unpleasant way for me yet; there does seem a distinction between what gets licensed for release on DVD over here versus everything airing in Japan. Even I manage to pick up on enough message-board buzz to keep thinking particular titles sound interesting, and some of them I wouldn't have to wade into the murky waters of "fansubs" for, as they're being shown through official online streaming... but in either case, my time already seems occupied with watching my way through all the shows that have already taken places in queue, even if just through my having put DVDs of them on my shelf a while (or more) back. As well, when an announcement was made that the Dirty Pair television anime had been licensed, I was interested in that... even if it did still remind me of those complaining about how much better anime "used to be." Of that, though, I may be able to say a little more later...
I started off the year delving into something I'd long thought would be interesting if only the chance would arise, and then spent a while just waiting until time for it could open up, in watching the Japanese language version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series. (In the process of watching it, the English language version I hadn't bought years before because the Japanese language track wasn't included was officially streamed, which put me that much further in the murk...) Beyond at least being able to imagine how it would have seemed precedent-shattering back in its day, it remained interesting in its own right... although having taken it in its original thirty-minute doses at last, I'm wondering about finding the time to watch the movies made from it again. At the same time I was starting into the original Mobile Suit Gundam, I was also finishing off the first half of Gundam 00, and seemed quite capable of going from the old to the new and back. (Of course, I can imagine certain people grudgingly excusing that and then moving on to get in another knock on their favourite recent targets...) As well, I was finishing off Azumanga Daioh. I had heard comments before who seemed outright sad to say goodbye to its characters, and as risky as this might be to say I could sort of understand that feeling at the end of the series... although I have started into a big omnibus volume of the four-panel manga the anime was made from, and it's pleasant in its own way. (However, that volume happens to be the second release of the manga I've bought. After managing to get the original release of the anime from ADV Films with its extras removed from later releases, I also got a collected manga volume from their manga arm after I saw grudging comments certain dark allusions to the translation being too "localized" weren't quite so bad this time around. I told myself I would crack the covers once I'd seen the anime... but before I could do that, with ADV's manga arm long since dried up and blown away, Yen Press licensed the manga again to provide a new translation.)
Opening up something new, I started into the third set of Maria Watches Over Us, some extended-length OVAs. There were some moments where the feelings in the junior-senior mentoring relationships didn't seem quite sublimated any more, but all in all the anime seems to remain about as far from a sensationalist tale of "Catholic schoolgirls gone wild" (or even them thinking in the slightest there's something "forbidden" about the feelings that always seem to develop) as possible, and the anime seems all the more distinctive in its low-key way for that.
I moved on to two series from a sort of netherworld of not being old enough to be declared "classics" by those who declare they can declare such things, but which aren't recent either, having been released some years ago (and yet, I was around to hear about them back then...) Noir seemed talked about, but perhaps there was enough "yes, but..." in what was said that I didn't get around to getting it until quite recently, when a collection of it was on sale and I needed to pad out an order to the free international shipping threshold. As I began watching it, though, I did become interested in it. In the well-developed anime tradition of "girls with guns," it involves a Corsican independent hit woman based in a recognisable Paris happening to meet up with a Japanese teenager (or so she seems at first) just as deft with a handgun, and the two of them manage to get very mixed up with a secret society. I kept thinking there was something "stylish" about the series, and yet I could also wonder if that tipped over into "pretentiousness," only to then think I could enjoy that in its own way... that feeling (of wondering, not of being able to enjoy the possibility) faded somewhat over time. As well, I did wonder a little about there hardly ever being a drop of blood in the series despite all the gunplay (and later, knife-throwing), and then wonder if it was somehow managing to turn a broadcast standards dictate into another "stylistic choice." Jubei-Chan was rather less complicated to deal with. I'd actually managed to see the first few episodes of this series years ago back at my university's anime club, and eventually did manage to pick up a collection, and then open it that much later. It was still a lively, funny show sort of mixing swordplay with some elements of "magical girls," with more variety in how the characters looked and more self-awareness about it being "animated" than a lot of anime seems to show. I suppose I could say that as the series progressed and got more "serious," that seemed to take some getting used to, but I had just about (or even more than) managed that by its end.
When the North American anime licensing company Media Blasters announced that not only were they going to release Voltron on DVD, but also the original anime series that had been turned into it, it got my attention. I watched Voltron back when I watched Robotech, back when they were just two more cartoons from the nebulous place all cartoons came from, and yet with Voltron, perhaps even more or less from the start, a certain awareness of how many "robot ships" and "robot soldiers" the dialogue kept saying were being blown up did begin to tell on me. (With that said, of course, it may amount to a comment similar to the ones about Robotech I keep suspecting the negativity of which is more "inherited" than come by in an honest way...) I got Golion and watched it, and yet while I was doing that I kept hoping the company would continue on to releasing the anime series that got turned into the other Voltron, the one where the "mighty robot" was made by stacking up fifteen cars, planes, and unidentifiable flying bricks; through some accident, I had perhaps seen more of it, and something about its story did sort of stick with me. However, ever since they delayed the second half of GaoGaiGar and wound up releasing it as a subtitled-only collection, I've thought of Media Blasters as careful enough with its bottom line to stay in business even if it means inconveniencing the few. In the end, though, the first part of Dairugger XV was solicited and released... As the conventional wisdom seems to have it, having fifteen pilots may spread the characterisation pretty thin for some of them. Perhaps, though, this lends some slight emphasis to the commanders on either side, dealing with two great powers exploring space (for what seem different reasons) only to run into each other. As with other anime series from its period, there seems more complexity to things than the cartoons that featured "the good guys versus the bad guys" and that still seem to provide my standard of comparison; with that said, of course, as with those other anime series there are still some more or less unreasonable antagonists mixed in with the more thoughtful characters. There were a few small yet unexpected surprises from how I was sort of expecting things to be; one of them was that the commander who, in Voltron, was voiced by Peter Cullen (and "the voice of Optimus Prime" would seem to make thoughts of him being in charge almost automatic) actually started out as the executive officer of the Earth ship, and the commander who I'd always thought came in later to just sort of help out was his superior to begin with. Things were shifting to more the way I remembered by the end of the DVDs, though; now, I just have to wait (and, perhaps, still hope a little) for the others. Right towards the end of the three months, I opened up another series I'd been waiting to open for a while, with the perhaps peculiar-over-here title of Kiddy Grade. It does seem similar to Dirty Pair in having a pair of female troubleshooters tackling problems in a science fiction universe, but isn't quite as chaotic (although Dirty Pair's "chaos" was certainly entertaining). It's sort of interesting that the duo of Eclair (from "lightning," not the pastry) and Lumiere have more distinct "roles," and that there seem to be other pairs in their organization; at the same time, they seemed for me almost troublingly overpowered for what they faced in the first few episodes. I'm just starting to hope that things might yet change that way.
I'm still keeping up with the official streaming of the new Fullmetal Alchemist series; it seems that it'll run a bit longer than the more-or-less-a-year I had been expecting it to. Things do seem to be bending towards a conclusion now, though, and have come quite a ways from where they diverged from the previous anime series. (However, I can at least imagine myself heading back to all of that previous series for another trip through it.) I managed to see the last episode "fansubbed" of Cross Game right before the end of these three months, a pretty satisfying conclusion to its baseball and other threads alike, in some ways different but in many ways similar to how I'd found satisfying the older baseball anime Touch, based on a manga by the same artist. When it was announced that Dirty Pair had been licensed, I countered thoughts of some slight concern that my surprised pleasure really meant I was turning into one of "those" people who can only enjoy anime decades old with thinking that, should somebody take the perhaps even steeper risk on a "sports anime" and license Cross Game, I would be just as surprised and pleased... and not that long after, I heard that the manga the anime had been made from had been licensed. Although not quite the same thing, I can at least hope everything works out and I'll find it interesting too.
I started off the year delving into something I'd long thought would be interesting if only the chance would arise, and then spent a while just waiting until time for it could open up, in watching the Japanese language version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series. (In the process of watching it, the English language version I hadn't bought years before because the Japanese language track wasn't included was officially streamed, which put me that much further in the murk...) Beyond at least being able to imagine how it would have seemed precedent-shattering back in its day, it remained interesting in its own right... although having taken it in its original thirty-minute doses at last, I'm wondering about finding the time to watch the movies made from it again. At the same time I was starting into the original Mobile Suit Gundam, I was also finishing off the first half of Gundam 00, and seemed quite capable of going from the old to the new and back. (Of course, I can imagine certain people grudgingly excusing that and then moving on to get in another knock on their favourite recent targets...) As well, I was finishing off Azumanga Daioh. I had heard comments before who seemed outright sad to say goodbye to its characters, and as risky as this might be to say I could sort of understand that feeling at the end of the series... although I have started into a big omnibus volume of the four-panel manga the anime was made from, and it's pleasant in its own way. (However, that volume happens to be the second release of the manga I've bought. After managing to get the original release of the anime from ADV Films with its extras removed from later releases, I also got a collected manga volume from their manga arm after I saw grudging comments certain dark allusions to the translation being too "localized" weren't quite so bad this time around. I told myself I would crack the covers once I'd seen the anime... but before I could do that, with ADV's manga arm long since dried up and blown away, Yen Press licensed the manga again to provide a new translation.)
Opening up something new, I started into the third set of Maria Watches Over Us, some extended-length OVAs. There were some moments where the feelings in the junior-senior mentoring relationships didn't seem quite sublimated any more, but all in all the anime seems to remain about as far from a sensationalist tale of "Catholic schoolgirls gone wild" (or even them thinking in the slightest there's something "forbidden" about the feelings that always seem to develop) as possible, and the anime seems all the more distinctive in its low-key way for that.
I moved on to two series from a sort of netherworld of not being old enough to be declared "classics" by those who declare they can declare such things, but which aren't recent either, having been released some years ago (and yet, I was around to hear about them back then...) Noir seemed talked about, but perhaps there was enough "yes, but..." in what was said that I didn't get around to getting it until quite recently, when a collection of it was on sale and I needed to pad out an order to the free international shipping threshold. As I began watching it, though, I did become interested in it. In the well-developed anime tradition of "girls with guns," it involves a Corsican independent hit woman based in a recognisable Paris happening to meet up with a Japanese teenager (or so she seems at first) just as deft with a handgun, and the two of them manage to get very mixed up with a secret society. I kept thinking there was something "stylish" about the series, and yet I could also wonder if that tipped over into "pretentiousness," only to then think I could enjoy that in its own way... that feeling (of wondering, not of being able to enjoy the possibility) faded somewhat over time. As well, I did wonder a little about there hardly ever being a drop of blood in the series despite all the gunplay (and later, knife-throwing), and then wonder if it was somehow managing to turn a broadcast standards dictate into another "stylistic choice." Jubei-Chan was rather less complicated to deal with. I'd actually managed to see the first few episodes of this series years ago back at my university's anime club, and eventually did manage to pick up a collection, and then open it that much later. It was still a lively, funny show sort of mixing swordplay with some elements of "magical girls," with more variety in how the characters looked and more self-awareness about it being "animated" than a lot of anime seems to show. I suppose I could say that as the series progressed and got more "serious," that seemed to take some getting used to, but I had just about (or even more than) managed that by its end.
When the North American anime licensing company Media Blasters announced that not only were they going to release Voltron on DVD, but also the original anime series that had been turned into it, it got my attention. I watched Voltron back when I watched Robotech, back when they were just two more cartoons from the nebulous place all cartoons came from, and yet with Voltron, perhaps even more or less from the start, a certain awareness of how many "robot ships" and "robot soldiers" the dialogue kept saying were being blown up did begin to tell on me. (With that said, of course, it may amount to a comment similar to the ones about Robotech I keep suspecting the negativity of which is more "inherited" than come by in an honest way...) I got Golion and watched it, and yet while I was doing that I kept hoping the company would continue on to releasing the anime series that got turned into the other Voltron, the one where the "mighty robot" was made by stacking up fifteen cars, planes, and unidentifiable flying bricks; through some accident, I had perhaps seen more of it, and something about its story did sort of stick with me. However, ever since they delayed the second half of GaoGaiGar and wound up releasing it as a subtitled-only collection, I've thought of Media Blasters as careful enough with its bottom line to stay in business even if it means inconveniencing the few. In the end, though, the first part of Dairugger XV was solicited and released... As the conventional wisdom seems to have it, having fifteen pilots may spread the characterisation pretty thin for some of them. Perhaps, though, this lends some slight emphasis to the commanders on either side, dealing with two great powers exploring space (for what seem different reasons) only to run into each other. As with other anime series from its period, there seems more complexity to things than the cartoons that featured "the good guys versus the bad guys" and that still seem to provide my standard of comparison; with that said, of course, as with those other anime series there are still some more or less unreasonable antagonists mixed in with the more thoughtful characters. There were a few small yet unexpected surprises from how I was sort of expecting things to be; one of them was that the commander who, in Voltron, was voiced by Peter Cullen (and "the voice of Optimus Prime" would seem to make thoughts of him being in charge almost automatic) actually started out as the executive officer of the Earth ship, and the commander who I'd always thought came in later to just sort of help out was his superior to begin with. Things were shifting to more the way I remembered by the end of the DVDs, though; now, I just have to wait (and, perhaps, still hope a little) for the others. Right towards the end of the three months, I opened up another series I'd been waiting to open for a while, with the perhaps peculiar-over-here title of Kiddy Grade. It does seem similar to Dirty Pair in having a pair of female troubleshooters tackling problems in a science fiction universe, but isn't quite as chaotic (although Dirty Pair's "chaos" was certainly entertaining). It's sort of interesting that the duo of Eclair (from "lightning," not the pastry) and Lumiere have more distinct "roles," and that there seem to be other pairs in their organization; at the same time, they seemed for me almost troublingly overpowered for what they faced in the first few episodes. I'm just starting to hope that things might yet change that way.
I'm still keeping up with the official streaming of the new Fullmetal Alchemist series; it seems that it'll run a bit longer than the more-or-less-a-year I had been expecting it to. Things do seem to be bending towards a conclusion now, though, and have come quite a ways from where they diverged from the previous anime series. (However, I can at least imagine myself heading back to all of that previous series for another trip through it.) I managed to see the last episode "fansubbed" of Cross Game right before the end of these three months, a pretty satisfying conclusion to its baseball and other threads alike, in some ways different but in many ways similar to how I'd found satisfying the older baseball anime Touch, based on a manga by the same artist. When it was announced that Dirty Pair had been licensed, I countered thoughts of some slight concern that my surprised pleasure really meant I was turning into one of "those" people who can only enjoy anime decades old with thinking that, should somebody take the perhaps even steeper risk on a "sports anime" and license Cross Game, I would be just as surprised and pleased... and not that long after, I heard that the manga the anime had been made from had been licensed. Although not quite the same thing, I can at least hope everything works out and I'll find it interesting too.