2010: My Second Quarter in Anime
Jul. 1st, 2010 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Three months have gone by since the last time I did this, and once again I'm taking a look back at the anime I watched during them. Things seem steady enough with my viewing and my interest, although I did have the somewhat ambiguous feeling in these three months that the angst about anime companies scraping by when they aren't just shutting down in the face of "fansubs" has transferred to manga companies in the face of "scanlations." Once upon a time, there seemed a certain amount of confidence that manga readers wouldn't be as seduced by getting things off a computer screen as many anime viewers were (to say nothing of the confidence that since many manga series are what anime series are made from anyway, print might well just take over from animation), but the flux seems to have spread all the same. Even aware of how my potential interest in manga may have been misdirected for me by fear, uncertainty, and doubt over titles being edited, I suppose all I can do is keep on buying what manga I do buy, just as I buy what anime I do buy (and tell myself that one of these days, I'll even be able to watch it...)
Starting off, I kept watching my way through Kiddy Grade, and it did indeed manage to create a genuine challenge for its main characters. As well, by the end of the series I no longer seemed to be weighing it against Dirty Pair and its own (and earlier) take on "two female troubleshooters in a science fiction universe" (although a thought or two about Macross, if mechanics rather than characters, might have come to mind right at the end); one small thing I may have taken particular interest of with Kiddy Grade was the other troubleshooter teams featured alongside the main characters; they were idiosyncratic in their own ways. I then got around to the second half of Code Geass R2, very conscious of how I'd held off on opening the penultimate DVD set until I had the final one as well, just in case it left off at a point I would find disfavour with just as it seemed many others had... However, I seemed able to work through any uncertain thoughts I might have had about bits of the story leading up to the conclusion. Whether this means I was able to accept the story being told rather than coming to preliminary conclusions about "the story I wanted to be told," or whether I'm just too good at not being properly critical, may be the question. With the anime complete, I did get around to a short "alternative version" official manga, "Nightmare of Nunally"; I had heard (after starting to buy it) that the manga kept a few characters who met controversial fates in the anime intact (the manga's creator seemed a bit ambiguous about all of this in the closing notes), but I suppose one thing I did wonder about the manga was how it kept building up the role of a character who appeared only in it. It was never quite the same as the various "self-insertion" and "author avatar" fanfics I use to read MSTings of, but somehow the comparison kept coming to mind.
At the end of my last "quarterly summary," I was able to talk about reaching the conclusion of Cross Game. With that done, though, I immediately opened up my DVDs of another baseball anime, Big Windup, which I had bought thinking that the release ought to be supported to encourage similar titles being licensed in the future. Unfortunately, not enough other people did the same thing, which meant the only way to keep up with the continuation series starting up in Japan was to collect the fansubs even as I started into the original series... In any case, it was a different series from Cross Game but interesting in its own way, making a strong case for baseball as a thinker's game with both sides trying to anticipate the other instead of just "the pitcher tries to throw balls the hitter can't hit" (Big Windup particularly emphasises the catcher's role in calling the pitches). However, one note I noticed people making before starting into the anime was how it seemed popular in Japan because it appealed to female fans envisioning "slash" relationships among the characters... I suppose that with a quirky and twitchy pitcher following the calls of a catcher with his own, somewhat subtler baggage, I can at least see how people could think that way, but particular interpretations don't seem forced on me. As well, there were some interesting female characters in the series too. As for why I can watch so much baseball anime, I can wonder if it's a matter of just "getting" the idea of the sport, a matter of peculiar sympathy for one more easy target, or just a strange outgrowth of reading the Peanuts comic strip.
There was one series I was watching via fansubs that I had felt too awkward to mention before, but now that I've finished the first series of Sailor Moon I feel sort of compelled to mention it at last. Back when the series got on TV over here, right around when I was able to get into anime itself, I was basically too worried about being "caught" watching it to pick up very much about it, and the feeling that I'm in precisely the wrong demographic continues... and yet, watching it I seemed to understand exactly how it was popular. Some of that did seem to come from how bad a role model its main character seemed to be, to be sure, but that seemed a contrast of sorts with Cardcaptor Sakura, a different "magical girl" anime I did manage to buy when it was licensed.
I got around to Dairugger XV again, aware of how I have just a bit more in the way of memories of "the other Voltron" than of the one everyone else seems to remember, and perhaps amusing myself with thoughts of how what seemed an increasing number of gruesome moments might have been left out in Voltron (although I suppose that could be me jumping to the same contemptuous conclusions others seem to make with Robotech...) I've also been keeping up with the official streaming of the new Fullmetal Alchemist series, which is almost but not quite done, juggling a great number of characters with a good deal of success through an extended final battle. One additional thing I did manage to get around to in the past three months was watching not just the first new Evangelion movie (on an officially licensed DVD) but also the second (through a fansub). As before, I suppose there is that uncertain feeling that, as it gets reconfigured into "blockbuster movies," thoughts that one should just "cope" with Evangelion as it is keep sticking in my head. This feeling perhaps isn't helped by the fact that, just at the moment I was watching the movies, I was becoming particularly sensitized all over again about those old MSTings of "fix everything by main force (main force usually meaning a new character)" Evangelion fanfics. Still, thoughts about how at some point in the near future I could rewatch the original series do also mix with an old pondering of the question whether the series was a matter of characters being laid low by tragic flaws, or whether the things that brought them low were indeed happening on levels they weren't even aware of.
Starting off, I kept watching my way through Kiddy Grade, and it did indeed manage to create a genuine challenge for its main characters. As well, by the end of the series I no longer seemed to be weighing it against Dirty Pair and its own (and earlier) take on "two female troubleshooters in a science fiction universe" (although a thought or two about Macross, if mechanics rather than characters, might have come to mind right at the end); one small thing I may have taken particular interest of with Kiddy Grade was the other troubleshooter teams featured alongside the main characters; they were idiosyncratic in their own ways. I then got around to the second half of Code Geass R2, very conscious of how I'd held off on opening the penultimate DVD set until I had the final one as well, just in case it left off at a point I would find disfavour with just as it seemed many others had... However, I seemed able to work through any uncertain thoughts I might have had about bits of the story leading up to the conclusion. Whether this means I was able to accept the story being told rather than coming to preliminary conclusions about "the story I wanted to be told," or whether I'm just too good at not being properly critical, may be the question. With the anime complete, I did get around to a short "alternative version" official manga, "Nightmare of Nunally"; I had heard (after starting to buy it) that the manga kept a few characters who met controversial fates in the anime intact (the manga's creator seemed a bit ambiguous about all of this in the closing notes), but I suppose one thing I did wonder about the manga was how it kept building up the role of a character who appeared only in it. It was never quite the same as the various "self-insertion" and "author avatar" fanfics I use to read MSTings of, but somehow the comparison kept coming to mind.
At the end of my last "quarterly summary," I was able to talk about reaching the conclusion of Cross Game. With that done, though, I immediately opened up my DVDs of another baseball anime, Big Windup, which I had bought thinking that the release ought to be supported to encourage similar titles being licensed in the future. Unfortunately, not enough other people did the same thing, which meant the only way to keep up with the continuation series starting up in Japan was to collect the fansubs even as I started into the original series... In any case, it was a different series from Cross Game but interesting in its own way, making a strong case for baseball as a thinker's game with both sides trying to anticipate the other instead of just "the pitcher tries to throw balls the hitter can't hit" (Big Windup particularly emphasises the catcher's role in calling the pitches). However, one note I noticed people making before starting into the anime was how it seemed popular in Japan because it appealed to female fans envisioning "slash" relationships among the characters... I suppose that with a quirky and twitchy pitcher following the calls of a catcher with his own, somewhat subtler baggage, I can at least see how people could think that way, but particular interpretations don't seem forced on me. As well, there were some interesting female characters in the series too. As for why I can watch so much baseball anime, I can wonder if it's a matter of just "getting" the idea of the sport, a matter of peculiar sympathy for one more easy target, or just a strange outgrowth of reading the Peanuts comic strip.
There was one series I was watching via fansubs that I had felt too awkward to mention before, but now that I've finished the first series of Sailor Moon I feel sort of compelled to mention it at last. Back when the series got on TV over here, right around when I was able to get into anime itself, I was basically too worried about being "caught" watching it to pick up very much about it, and the feeling that I'm in precisely the wrong demographic continues... and yet, watching it I seemed to understand exactly how it was popular. Some of that did seem to come from how bad a role model its main character seemed to be, to be sure, but that seemed a contrast of sorts with Cardcaptor Sakura, a different "magical girl" anime I did manage to buy when it was licensed.
I got around to Dairugger XV again, aware of how I have just a bit more in the way of memories of "the other Voltron" than of the one everyone else seems to remember, and perhaps amusing myself with thoughts of how what seemed an increasing number of gruesome moments might have been left out in Voltron (although I suppose that could be me jumping to the same contemptuous conclusions others seem to make with Robotech...) I've also been keeping up with the official streaming of the new Fullmetal Alchemist series, which is almost but not quite done, juggling a great number of characters with a good deal of success through an extended final battle. One additional thing I did manage to get around to in the past three months was watching not just the first new Evangelion movie (on an officially licensed DVD) but also the second (through a fansub). As before, I suppose there is that uncertain feeling that, as it gets reconfigured into "blockbuster movies," thoughts that one should just "cope" with Evangelion as it is keep sticking in my head. This feeling perhaps isn't helped by the fact that, just at the moment I was watching the movies, I was becoming particularly sensitized all over again about those old MSTings of "fix everything by main force (main force usually meaning a new character)" Evangelion fanfics. Still, thoughts about how at some point in the near future I could rewatch the original series do also mix with an old pondering of the question whether the series was a matter of characters being laid low by tragic flaws, or whether the things that brought them low were indeed happening on levels they weren't even aware of.