2010: My Third Quarter in Anime
Oct. 4th, 2010 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerThis look back at all the anime I've watched in the past three months may be one I've been thinking about in advance and even looking forward to a bit more than usual, and that's because I can also look back a lot further than three months. The first time I managed to write one of these posts (looking back at a whole year), I mentioned it had also been over ten years since I'd arrived at university and joined the anime club there to start watching it, completing a process of figuring out little by little that a memorable Saturday morning cartoon of the 1980s wasn't an isolated artifact. Now, it's been an even fifteen years since I spotted that first poster, still linked to by a club that's still around. (I still don't know who the character on the left side of the poster is, though.) One more recent orientation poster I've also managed to see seemed to promise a more social aspect than most of the time I was there, when people packed into one of the largest lecture halls on campus but just sat and watched in the dark; of course, back then it was harder to "just see" the stuff. That thought can provoke a melancholy feeling or two in turn, though: while I can now watch a lot more anime in one month than just one evening's worth and make up my own schedule, perhaps indeed broader in the kinds of shows I watch and enjoy than back then, I no longer have the sense that "fansubs" are something rare and mystic to be attained only through ingratiating yourself with those who know a lot more than you do, but something the almost effortless availability of which has created a new, barbarian generation many of who find excuses to not support any of the people who depend on it for a living and perhaps, in not valuing the stuff they watch, add to a sense that a lot of people don't really enjoy it anyway.
Despite that last comment, though, I've done my best over the years to avoid winding up like any number of online curmudgeons; however, sometimes my longevity as a fan now leaves me just sort of wondering. I'd like to think I just try to keep a broad, clear, positive perspective that doesn't make extreme demands, although I can imagine this could be turned back into a "no standards" accusation. I've wondered if starting to watch anime (known as such) in university (and not being that obsessed with "animated shock value") instead of high school (where I was running just on memories of "having seen" an interesting cartoon or two) has made a difference too, but I suppose that any hint of "maybe some people just grow out of anime (even if they haven't realised that yet themselves), and that's all right" has its own heavy bundle of ambiguities. In some ways, I've started to wonder if (many) anime series appeal to me not just through "overarching plot," but through striking a good balance between that and "not having to carry on season after season until the fans' desires have all diverged from the creators' intent and the ratings slide." At other times, I just have the simple and somehow satisfying thought "I like the way it looks," as quick as I would be to add that not all anime "looks alike." Beyond mere personal feelings, I'd also say that a factor in my longevity may have been the community of the long-lived "Anime on DVD" forum. It's not perfect, of course: a lot of people nitpick to extreme amounts releases of shows they actually discussed back as "fansubs" and a regular feature of the board seems to be people whose standards have risen to such an extent that they can no longer buy cheese-paring "R1" North American releases but instead make a big deal of spending lots of money to import "R2" Japanese discs, and at least as far as I'm concerned an unpleasant occasional note is people making nasty side references to Star Wars. Nevertheless, this seems more than outweighed by the simple fact that people generally seem to enjoy the stuff they watch, and even to offer counterarguments every so often to those who haven't liked any anime title made in the past twenty years.
With anniversary reflections complete, as for what I've seen in the past three months I started off watching more of Dairugger XV, seeing moments every so often I could think back decades to and remember from "the other Voltron," wondering perhaps a little more often how this moment or that might have been toned down in the dialogue or trimmed out altogether to turn the anime series into the syndicated cartoon. (I suppose I did also wonder if I was jumping to conclusions about Voltron, though, aware of how some people seem to me to exaggerate differences between Robotech and the anime series that got turned into it.) The developing storyline is knitting together those moments I do remember, but I do have to admit that with the company releasing it having suffered from a recent number of delayed releases, I'm in a sort of "waiting and hoping" mood that the concluding part of the series will come out on DVD as promised. I also watched the fourth season of Maria Watches Over Us, which begins to set up how the characters on the junior side of the mentoring relationships established at the start are having to think about finding their own younger students to mentor. By now, at times I didn't think at all about trying to make everything a "girls' love" double entendre, and that with some suggestive art in the end credits; I can wonder if that had to do with being able to follow along with a "series discussion" on the message board where some people seemed a little eager, or more than a little, to do just that. I also thought a bit about how the series now seemed to be grounding some of its melodrama on deeper reasons than the sometimes minor-in-retrospect incidents of previous seasons. As well, I was able to see the Pizza Hut promotions I had heard about and sort of smiled at the general idea of in an earlier time...
With the shows I'd been following through "fansubs" and online streaming all wrapped up almost at once, I did wonder a little about what I might watch in a similar way. At the same time, I was also thinking ahead to some possible "anniversary viewing," and the idea came to me that I could delve through my now rather large collection and, going by the years series were aired, find a notable show from each year and watch an episode or two of it. Looking to an online resource that seemed reliable, I started drawing up lists, but when it came all the way back to the 1970s I realised (along with a few gaps I just sort of accepted) there was one year that I had just one show from, and that a "fansubbed" show I hadn't watched yet. Even with the thought that this was a somehow roundabout way to make a decision, I started watching Combattler V, a somehow pure and uncomplicated "giant robot" show, made before "mecha" had complicated things... but easy enough to enjoy. I was able to see it as crossing the famous "five heroes" ("leader," "other guy," "big guy," "girl," and "little guy") Gatchaman had developed just a few years before into a "robot made by combining vehicles" context (Gatchaman's combining vehicles just amounted to a somewhat larger vehicle), and there were some sometimes sort of surreal qualities about the "monsters of the week" and the hostile aliens sending them against the Earth (to say nothing of the titular robot's "Super Electromagnetic Yo-Yo"). My interest didn't seem to flag too much throughout the more or less episodic show. Something about the completely anonymous subtitles did leave me wondering (with what seems no hard proof at all) if they were one hundred percent accurate, but I suppose I'm in no position to complain; there are other "giant robot" anime series from the 1970s that I've heard about and would be interested in seeing, but they haven't been fansubbed at all.
As I was starting into Combattler V, I was also watching a rather more modern mecha anime series in the first half of the second part of Gundam 00. I seemed able to make the shift back and forth well enough, but as this was the second time I was watching the series, having seen fansubs of it before, I'm not quite sure if I can say much new about it. Another "follow-up" series I started watching around the same time, though, was sort of a pleasant surprise. When I watched the first Genshiken anime series, I did post about it, but I suppose I have to admit it almost compared to the manga (which I'd read first, a situation I'm not in that often) as the "Charlie Brown specials" seem to compare to the Peanuts comic strip for me: it was interesting for the characters to be given voices and motion, but that didn't displace my attachment to the livelier original art and the little touches left out of the animation here and there. When Genshiken 2 was released, adapting more of the manga, I did buy it but wasn't quite sure what I would make of it... but this time around, something about it seemed more distinctive. The new series seemed better not just at expanding points from the manga, but in capturing the ribald edge of its particular take on fandom. I did realise near the end of the series that it wouldn't quite get to the end of the manga and the development of a major story line, but even so it still seemed to reach a satisfying final point. I reread the whole manga anyway once I was through the anime, and enjoyed it too.
When some Japanese companies took new steps to try and sell anime over here and seemed to get the details right, I did my own part to encourage them. One of the series, Toradora, while packaged in an impressive way happened to have defective encoding of its DVDs. NIS America took quick steps to offer replacement discs, and I filled out an application for them, but I haven't quite received them yet and thus haven't had a chance to watch the first part of that series. From Aniplex, though, I was able to watch the two Gurren Lagann compilation movies. They seem about as good as that particular form of anime can get (they both have new animation in their final battles), but I do have to admit that with things compressed together, I sort of notice the show's emphasis on "the odds are impossible, but we'll win anyway because we're determined!"
It was around then, though, with no brand-new arrivals pressing themselves on my attention, that I started to dip into my sizeable "backlog," but with the slight impression that I was picking not prize series but ones I might as well get around to at last. I had taken notice a while back of the surprise of some people that a show named Air had been licensed over here, but not watched it myself. It was only when the show was re-released yet again in a super-budget version (some time after its license had been handed from ADV to Funimation) that I decided to take a chance on it... for as you see, Air seems to get summed up as a "moe show." When that nebulous Japanese term is discussed over here, it very often seems to be as "moe: threat or menace?"... and yet, there are clarifying defences of it every so often too. The common simplification seems to be that a "moe show" has a particularly "cutesy" kind of young female character design, and the disapprobation attached seems to be that there's something "creepy" about that... but the counterargument seems to be that there's no such thing as a "moe genre," because "moe" is a feeling, a sort of sympathetic attachment. (For that matter too, I can remember back to when other common targets were accused of overshadowing the kind of anime their critics liked.) I suppose I can see how "creepiness" might be sensed when "parental" and "romantic" feelings blur (although just who's blurring them may be the question), and of course there's the question of whether it's good or "subtle" or not to deliberately try to generate even the best-intended feelings of sympathetic attachment... but I also suppose I wanted to try and form my own opinions at last. After all of that, though, it might even have been tricky to form those opinions; Air didn't seem an easy show to sum up in a few words. In its initial episodes, with just a shade of "magic" overlying at least a sort of "realism," I did think, "Ah, not every female character is peculiar and childlike," and then a bit later "it seems the male viewpoint character isn't there to 'save' everyone and pick a prize," but the conclusion seemed a "tragic" one (if not altogether without catharsis) as I'd heard. In any case, I didn't feel myself offended by a "moe show." I wouldn't want to watch nothing but them, but I know they aren't the only things out there (as some people seem to complain...) However, one thought did come to me. It seems that when a character becomes a convenient target of fandom, I sort of "take their side" in a "feeling sorry for them" way, as much as I'm aware this seems just as bizarre as disliking someone who doesn't actually exist... but the reason they're disliked always seems to be because they're "uncool" and therefore "pathetic," and that links to the thought that, if attempts are made to generate the "sympathy" that might amount to "moe" through overt, blatant means, I may have a unique susceptibility to it...
I also opened up a boxed set that had been in my backlog for quite a while. When I had bought Fafner, Geneon was still releasing DVDs over here, which now adds to that sense of time elapsed along with the standard-thickness cases... I had had some small familiarity with the series before, picking up a preview disc of its first episode at a convention and managing to rent the first volume from a local video store with a free rental coupon (although, not keeping track of how long I could keep the DVD out, I had to return it before watching all of the disc...) It is true, though, that when I bought it one of the more positive things said about the series was that it "got better" a good ways in, when the script writer changed. Nowadays, I can remember new suggestions and imagine it as part of Geneon's doomed attempt to make up for not having any big sellers by licensing everything it could. One reason I recall I did buy it, though, seems one of the more unusual if not outright sketchier ones I've had: its character designs were by the same person who had done that work for Gundam Seed, and right around when Fafner was coming out I kept seeing warnings in the strongest possible terms to avoid the actual sequel to Gundam Seed at all costs. It might have been, then, that I was somehow trying to find a "substitute," and can now wonder if just buying it somehow sufficed for that... but while Fafner was also a mecha series, it was from a different slice of the genre, described (and also sort of dismissed) as one more "Evangelion clone." When I did get around to starting into the full series, it was easy enough to look at the secret underground base and the elaborate launch procedures and the enigmatic invaders from beyond and the mytho-religious code names for everything (in this show Norse, a somewhat peculiar juxtaposition with Japanese people on a small, temperate island) and the somewhat embarrassing pilot suits and think there was something sort of familiar... although, in some ways, Fafner didn't seem as much a "direct response" to Evangelion as the way a more favourably regarded series, RahXephon, is sometimes termed. (However, I did sort of have the feeling that RahXephon somehow just had more "visual zing" to it than Fafner.) It seemed to have a sort of "ensemble cast" feeling to it, although I can admit to wondering a little if that was somehow a matter of just how the apparent main character was developed. Too, I wound up agreeing with the old comments about the series "getting better" but didn't quite have a sense of a sudden (and therefore obtrusive) shift, although what change did impress me wasn't an expansion of scale but a returning to the original scope with more character development for everyone. At the same time, though, I could wonder if it just wasn't so much a matter of explanations being withheld just to keep things mysterious as the explanations given not being quite clear (I had seen some criticism of the subtitles by people who didn't just dismiss all "official translations," and sort of agreed with them to the point of wondering what the dub, the only audio track on that old preview disc, would be like over the course of the series), and was perhaps watching just because of the characters. At the end, though, I did feel a mild sense of panic when my DVD player froze during the last episode... but I managed to skip over the glitched area and see just about everything. As for the character designs I had mentioned, a favourite attack on Gundam Seed has long been that "all its characters look the same," but in watching Fafner I was at least willing to resist that. I suppose they did look a little peculiar at first (another part of the attack), perhaps especially so for this series because everyone has some facial shading that makes them look like they've been scratched up below their eyes, but I seemed to get used to that, and that sort of lets me hope that one of these days, I'll be able to watch Gundam Seed itself again and shrug off at least one of its common criticisms.
As the three months wore towards their close, I started rewatching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It so happened that the expensive deluxe releases I hadn't bought when they'd come out wound up bundled together at a substantial discount at an online store around the end of last year, which dismayed some of the people who had bought them. On what might have been little more than whim, I bought the bundle anyway, but didn't get around to opening it until the now somewhat infamous "add-on episodes" were close to being released on DVD over here. As it turned out, I started watching the much sought-after special discs that had the original episodes in their "broadcast order"; it was easier than following a viewing order I'd written down and seemed to at once leave less uncertainty about whether I was really watching the "right" episode at any time but also tone down the sense of "this is the core story and this is an extension on it." However, I'm still not completely sure it's anything more than a clever but non-essential touch for me; having first watched the series rather late compared to many, I may have known a little too much to start with and already had a pretty fair idea of the whole the parts were supposed to add up to. In any case, rewatching it hasn't been a chore. I do suppose, though, that this may push off my watching the "extended" series (and seeing the episodes in "chronological order" at last) into the future.
Despite that last comment, though, I've done my best over the years to avoid winding up like any number of online curmudgeons; however, sometimes my longevity as a fan now leaves me just sort of wondering. I'd like to think I just try to keep a broad, clear, positive perspective that doesn't make extreme demands, although I can imagine this could be turned back into a "no standards" accusation. I've wondered if starting to watch anime (known as such) in university (and not being that obsessed with "animated shock value") instead of high school (where I was running just on memories of "having seen" an interesting cartoon or two) has made a difference too, but I suppose that any hint of "maybe some people just grow out of anime (even if they haven't realised that yet themselves), and that's all right" has its own heavy bundle of ambiguities. In some ways, I've started to wonder if (many) anime series appeal to me not just through "overarching plot," but through striking a good balance between that and "not having to carry on season after season until the fans' desires have all diverged from the creators' intent and the ratings slide." At other times, I just have the simple and somehow satisfying thought "I like the way it looks," as quick as I would be to add that not all anime "looks alike." Beyond mere personal feelings, I'd also say that a factor in my longevity may have been the community of the long-lived "Anime on DVD" forum. It's not perfect, of course: a lot of people nitpick to extreme amounts releases of shows they actually discussed back as "fansubs" and a regular feature of the board seems to be people whose standards have risen to such an extent that they can no longer buy cheese-paring "R1" North American releases but instead make a big deal of spending lots of money to import "R2" Japanese discs, and at least as far as I'm concerned an unpleasant occasional note is people making nasty side references to Star Wars. Nevertheless, this seems more than outweighed by the simple fact that people generally seem to enjoy the stuff they watch, and even to offer counterarguments every so often to those who haven't liked any anime title made in the past twenty years.
With anniversary reflections complete, as for what I've seen in the past three months I started off watching more of Dairugger XV, seeing moments every so often I could think back decades to and remember from "the other Voltron," wondering perhaps a little more often how this moment or that might have been toned down in the dialogue or trimmed out altogether to turn the anime series into the syndicated cartoon. (I suppose I did also wonder if I was jumping to conclusions about Voltron, though, aware of how some people seem to me to exaggerate differences between Robotech and the anime series that got turned into it.) The developing storyline is knitting together those moments I do remember, but I do have to admit that with the company releasing it having suffered from a recent number of delayed releases, I'm in a sort of "waiting and hoping" mood that the concluding part of the series will come out on DVD as promised. I also watched the fourth season of Maria Watches Over Us, which begins to set up how the characters on the junior side of the mentoring relationships established at the start are having to think about finding their own younger students to mentor. By now, at times I didn't think at all about trying to make everything a "girls' love" double entendre, and that with some suggestive art in the end credits; I can wonder if that had to do with being able to follow along with a "series discussion" on the message board where some people seemed a little eager, or more than a little, to do just that. I also thought a bit about how the series now seemed to be grounding some of its melodrama on deeper reasons than the sometimes minor-in-retrospect incidents of previous seasons. As well, I was able to see the Pizza Hut promotions I had heard about and sort of smiled at the general idea of in an earlier time...
With the shows I'd been following through "fansubs" and online streaming all wrapped up almost at once, I did wonder a little about what I might watch in a similar way. At the same time, I was also thinking ahead to some possible "anniversary viewing," and the idea came to me that I could delve through my now rather large collection and, going by the years series were aired, find a notable show from each year and watch an episode or two of it. Looking to an online resource that seemed reliable, I started drawing up lists, but when it came all the way back to the 1970s I realised (along with a few gaps I just sort of accepted) there was one year that I had just one show from, and that a "fansubbed" show I hadn't watched yet. Even with the thought that this was a somehow roundabout way to make a decision, I started watching Combattler V, a somehow pure and uncomplicated "giant robot" show, made before "mecha" had complicated things... but easy enough to enjoy. I was able to see it as crossing the famous "five heroes" ("leader," "other guy," "big guy," "girl," and "little guy") Gatchaman had developed just a few years before into a "robot made by combining vehicles" context (Gatchaman's combining vehicles just amounted to a somewhat larger vehicle), and there were some sometimes sort of surreal qualities about the "monsters of the week" and the hostile aliens sending them against the Earth (to say nothing of the titular robot's "Super Electromagnetic Yo-Yo"). My interest didn't seem to flag too much throughout the more or less episodic show. Something about the completely anonymous subtitles did leave me wondering (with what seems no hard proof at all) if they were one hundred percent accurate, but I suppose I'm in no position to complain; there are other "giant robot" anime series from the 1970s that I've heard about and would be interested in seeing, but they haven't been fansubbed at all.
As I was starting into Combattler V, I was also watching a rather more modern mecha anime series in the first half of the second part of Gundam 00. I seemed able to make the shift back and forth well enough, but as this was the second time I was watching the series, having seen fansubs of it before, I'm not quite sure if I can say much new about it. Another "follow-up" series I started watching around the same time, though, was sort of a pleasant surprise. When I watched the first Genshiken anime series, I did post about it, but I suppose I have to admit it almost compared to the manga (which I'd read first, a situation I'm not in that often) as the "Charlie Brown specials" seem to compare to the Peanuts comic strip for me: it was interesting for the characters to be given voices and motion, but that didn't displace my attachment to the livelier original art and the little touches left out of the animation here and there. When Genshiken 2 was released, adapting more of the manga, I did buy it but wasn't quite sure what I would make of it... but this time around, something about it seemed more distinctive. The new series seemed better not just at expanding points from the manga, but in capturing the ribald edge of its particular take on fandom. I did realise near the end of the series that it wouldn't quite get to the end of the manga and the development of a major story line, but even so it still seemed to reach a satisfying final point. I reread the whole manga anyway once I was through the anime, and enjoyed it too.
When some Japanese companies took new steps to try and sell anime over here and seemed to get the details right, I did my own part to encourage them. One of the series, Toradora, while packaged in an impressive way happened to have defective encoding of its DVDs. NIS America took quick steps to offer replacement discs, and I filled out an application for them, but I haven't quite received them yet and thus haven't had a chance to watch the first part of that series. From Aniplex, though, I was able to watch the two Gurren Lagann compilation movies. They seem about as good as that particular form of anime can get (they both have new animation in their final battles), but I do have to admit that with things compressed together, I sort of notice the show's emphasis on "the odds are impossible, but we'll win anyway because we're determined!"
It was around then, though, with no brand-new arrivals pressing themselves on my attention, that I started to dip into my sizeable "backlog," but with the slight impression that I was picking not prize series but ones I might as well get around to at last. I had taken notice a while back of the surprise of some people that a show named Air had been licensed over here, but not watched it myself. It was only when the show was re-released yet again in a super-budget version (some time after its license had been handed from ADV to Funimation) that I decided to take a chance on it... for as you see, Air seems to get summed up as a "moe show." When that nebulous Japanese term is discussed over here, it very often seems to be as "moe: threat or menace?"... and yet, there are clarifying defences of it every so often too. The common simplification seems to be that a "moe show" has a particularly "cutesy" kind of young female character design, and the disapprobation attached seems to be that there's something "creepy" about that... but the counterargument seems to be that there's no such thing as a "moe genre," because "moe" is a feeling, a sort of sympathetic attachment. (For that matter too, I can remember back to when other common targets were accused of overshadowing the kind of anime their critics liked.) I suppose I can see how "creepiness" might be sensed when "parental" and "romantic" feelings blur (although just who's blurring them may be the question), and of course there's the question of whether it's good or "subtle" or not to deliberately try to generate even the best-intended feelings of sympathetic attachment... but I also suppose I wanted to try and form my own opinions at last. After all of that, though, it might even have been tricky to form those opinions; Air didn't seem an easy show to sum up in a few words. In its initial episodes, with just a shade of "magic" overlying at least a sort of "realism," I did think, "Ah, not every female character is peculiar and childlike," and then a bit later "it seems the male viewpoint character isn't there to 'save' everyone and pick a prize," but the conclusion seemed a "tragic" one (if not altogether without catharsis) as I'd heard. In any case, I didn't feel myself offended by a "moe show." I wouldn't want to watch nothing but them, but I know they aren't the only things out there (as some people seem to complain...) However, one thought did come to me. It seems that when a character becomes a convenient target of fandom, I sort of "take their side" in a "feeling sorry for them" way, as much as I'm aware this seems just as bizarre as disliking someone who doesn't actually exist... but the reason they're disliked always seems to be because they're "uncool" and therefore "pathetic," and that links to the thought that, if attempts are made to generate the "sympathy" that might amount to "moe" through overt, blatant means, I may have a unique susceptibility to it...
I also opened up a boxed set that had been in my backlog for quite a while. When I had bought Fafner, Geneon was still releasing DVDs over here, which now adds to that sense of time elapsed along with the standard-thickness cases... I had had some small familiarity with the series before, picking up a preview disc of its first episode at a convention and managing to rent the first volume from a local video store with a free rental coupon (although, not keeping track of how long I could keep the DVD out, I had to return it before watching all of the disc...) It is true, though, that when I bought it one of the more positive things said about the series was that it "got better" a good ways in, when the script writer changed. Nowadays, I can remember new suggestions and imagine it as part of Geneon's doomed attempt to make up for not having any big sellers by licensing everything it could. One reason I recall I did buy it, though, seems one of the more unusual if not outright sketchier ones I've had: its character designs were by the same person who had done that work for Gundam Seed, and right around when Fafner was coming out I kept seeing warnings in the strongest possible terms to avoid the actual sequel to Gundam Seed at all costs. It might have been, then, that I was somehow trying to find a "substitute," and can now wonder if just buying it somehow sufficed for that... but while Fafner was also a mecha series, it was from a different slice of the genre, described (and also sort of dismissed) as one more "Evangelion clone." When I did get around to starting into the full series, it was easy enough to look at the secret underground base and the elaborate launch procedures and the enigmatic invaders from beyond and the mytho-religious code names for everything (in this show Norse, a somewhat peculiar juxtaposition with Japanese people on a small, temperate island) and the somewhat embarrassing pilot suits and think there was something sort of familiar... although, in some ways, Fafner didn't seem as much a "direct response" to Evangelion as the way a more favourably regarded series, RahXephon, is sometimes termed. (However, I did sort of have the feeling that RahXephon somehow just had more "visual zing" to it than Fafner.) It seemed to have a sort of "ensemble cast" feeling to it, although I can admit to wondering a little if that was somehow a matter of just how the apparent main character was developed. Too, I wound up agreeing with the old comments about the series "getting better" but didn't quite have a sense of a sudden (and therefore obtrusive) shift, although what change did impress me wasn't an expansion of scale but a returning to the original scope with more character development for everyone. At the same time, though, I could wonder if it just wasn't so much a matter of explanations being withheld just to keep things mysterious as the explanations given not being quite clear (I had seen some criticism of the subtitles by people who didn't just dismiss all "official translations," and sort of agreed with them to the point of wondering what the dub, the only audio track on that old preview disc, would be like over the course of the series), and was perhaps watching just because of the characters. At the end, though, I did feel a mild sense of panic when my DVD player froze during the last episode... but I managed to skip over the glitched area and see just about everything. As for the character designs I had mentioned, a favourite attack on Gundam Seed has long been that "all its characters look the same," but in watching Fafner I was at least willing to resist that. I suppose they did look a little peculiar at first (another part of the attack), perhaps especially so for this series because everyone has some facial shading that makes them look like they've been scratched up below their eyes, but I seemed to get used to that, and that sort of lets me hope that one of these days, I'll be able to watch Gundam Seed itself again and shrug off at least one of its common criticisms.
As the three months wore towards their close, I started rewatching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It so happened that the expensive deluxe releases I hadn't bought when they'd come out wound up bundled together at a substantial discount at an online store around the end of last year, which dismayed some of the people who had bought them. On what might have been little more than whim, I bought the bundle anyway, but didn't get around to opening it until the now somewhat infamous "add-on episodes" were close to being released on DVD over here. As it turned out, I started watching the much sought-after special discs that had the original episodes in their "broadcast order"; it was easier than following a viewing order I'd written down and seemed to at once leave less uncertainty about whether I was really watching the "right" episode at any time but also tone down the sense of "this is the core story and this is an extension on it." However, I'm still not completely sure it's anything more than a clever but non-essential touch for me; having first watched the series rather late compared to many, I may have known a little too much to start with and already had a pretty fair idea of the whole the parts were supposed to add up to. In any case, rewatching it hasn't been a chore. I do suppose, though, that this may push off my watching the "extended" series (and seeing the episodes in "chronological order" at last) into the future.