Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 2010
Feb. 17th, 2023 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerGetting to 2010 brings me to the end of my previous effort to “sample a little bit of anime from each year I had some from.” (Back then I was marking a merely personal anniversary connected to joining my university’s anime club by setting up a “club show” of several titles, or indeed a movie every so often, every few weeks. The shows stretched into the first months of 2011, at which point I realised I hadn’t managed to watch a single series from the previous year yet in those days just preceding widespread legitimate streaming. I wound up picking Squid Girl for my sample, and pushed on into the rest of that uncomplicated but amusing comedy series.) That does, though, also bring me to the beginning of some “personal standout titles of the past decade” retrospectives when it sort of snuck up on me (if, perhaps, in an effort to find something other than widespread fears to dwell on) that I’d actually enjoyed a good bit of anime from the ten years then ending. I’d wound up watching Sound of the Sky again afterwards; now, I’m sampling a different series.
Princess Jellyfish, in avoiding a certain number of expectations about anime, might even come close to claims for respectability. That, though, might then lead to mutterings about not getting enough other things like it. A small explanation could have cropped up when, after seeing where its story went through Akiko Higashimura’s original manga, I picked up another series by her only to notice a certain number of endword comments about Tokyo Tarareba Girls getting a live-action adaptation. That ties into all the uncertainties I feel about being rather more interested in anime and manga than in live action from Japan. On the other hand, I can also admit to idle daydreams about how the peculiar obsessions of the female characters in Princess Jellyfish might be modified for an “American adaptation.” (The opening credits of the anime do reference some major American movies; this time around, though, I took particular note of the first episode referencing Heidi.) Tsukimi’s interest in jellyfish might have to change to some other sort of wildlife (mushrooms leap into my mind so quickly I keep wondering if it’s quite correct), although Jiji’s interest in “older men” seems like it would work in a universal way. Banba’s interest in commuter rail wouldn’t have quite as much to work with in America but might yet scrape by. Substituting for Chieko’s interest in traditional Japanese clothing and dolls is harder for me (in fact, she was the character I couldn’t remember coming back to the series), but Mayaya’s interest in the Chinese “Three Kingdoms” era keeps me thinking about going back not anywhere as far to “Civil War buff.”
Princess Jellyfish, in avoiding a certain number of expectations about anime, might even come close to claims for respectability. That, though, might then lead to mutterings about not getting enough other things like it. A small explanation could have cropped up when, after seeing where its story went through Akiko Higashimura’s original manga, I picked up another series by her only to notice a certain number of endword comments about Tokyo Tarareba Girls getting a live-action adaptation. That ties into all the uncertainties I feel about being rather more interested in anime and manga than in live action from Japan. On the other hand, I can also admit to idle daydreams about how the peculiar obsessions of the female characters in Princess Jellyfish might be modified for an “American adaptation.” (The opening credits of the anime do reference some major American movies; this time around, though, I took particular note of the first episode referencing Heidi.) Tsukimi’s interest in jellyfish might have to change to some other sort of wildlife (mushrooms leap into my mind so quickly I keep wondering if it’s quite correct), although Jiji’s interest in “older men” seems like it would work in a universal way. Banba’s interest in commuter rail wouldn’t have quite as much to work with in America but might yet scrape by. Substituting for Chieko’s interest in traditional Japanese clothing and dolls is harder for me (in fact, she was the character I couldn’t remember coming back to the series), but Mayaya’s interest in the Chinese “Three Kingdoms” era keeps me thinking about going back not anywhere as far to “Civil War buff.”