Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

In keeping up with the “Cartoon Brew” web site, I noticed reports of two “Looney Tunes movies” that had been made only to become entangled in the run-down state of their studio. Coyote vs. Acme became a cause celebre, or at least one recent example of “people want what they cannot have.” Amid rumours of other companies trying to acquire the rights to it, though, the other movie did get to the point of being picked up. With the impression it was connected to “new Looney Tunes” shorts I’d heard about but never quite got around to tracking down, I did start thinking it might be interesting to see The Day the Earth Blew Up.
( More than a few surprises )

Advance reports of a new Gundam series did get my attention. It hadn’t been all that long since The Witch From Mercury; for all of the complaints from other fans feeding into my self-pitying thoughts that “mecha series don’t get a fair shake these days,” perhaps the temptation was to now think the franchise was actually doing all right. (In reflecting on the years between that series and Iron-Blooded Orphans, though, I did wind up reminding myself the “Build Divers” shows had appeared in between them.) The peculiar subtitle of the upcoming series “GQuuuuuuX” at least got my attention too, for all that I felt very tempted to anticipate knocking out the “u”s in private record-keeping of episodes watched. (While it’s not the exact same thing, I’ll admit to forever being tempted to think of “The 08th MS Team” as “Gundam MST08,” even if this didn’t extend to trying to cast that OVA’s characters in yet another “non-standard MSTing...”)
( At the very least, hints at a surprise given away )

At the beginning of October I’d worked out an anime viewing schedule fitted to what I was still thinking of as increased constraints on my time. It would mix some antique series seen via “fansubs,” some not quite as old shows on Blu-Ray discs, and just a few brand-new streaming titles. I’d only seen one episode apiece of the “Blu-Ray shows,” though, before winding up in the hospital with a broken hip. While I have to acknowledge the personal good fortune of having family who could head to where I live and take care of things for the first weeks of recovery, the additional people in my place did make watching Blu-Rays on my big TV feel a little awkward. I dropped back to what I could watch on my iPad, which amounted to the fansubs and streaming titles. The “Blu-Ray shows” were replaced with a few more newly streaming titles that had at least got my attention before but for which I’d tried to come up with reasons why they had to fall by the wayside. It wasn’t until I’d recovered to the point of going back to work and faced turning in earlier again that I happened to wonder if I could have worked back up to “two episodes a day every day” in my time off and raced through an extra catalog title or two. Still, in that time I had read through a manga series I’d already finished, perhaps even rarer for me than returning to an anime series, and got a good way through an old multi-part documentary. Even that small variety might well been more satisfying than uninterrupted anime.
( Back from the past: Anne of Green Gables )
( Scheduled streaming: Blue Box, Mecha-Ude, and Love Live Superstar )
( Streaming additions: Sengoku Youko and DAN DA DAN )
( Blu-Rays eventually: Riding Bean and Otaku no Video )
( Back to one future: Space Battleship Yamato )

To be brief, I’ve pared time spent with a web browser open well back. To fill that gap, I decided to return to some manga and read it again. Picking up The Promised Neverland, I pushed through twenty volumes and a special follow-up of one-shots also from author Kaiu Shirai and artist Posuka Demizu in four days. This was a considerable acceleration from my usual pace of courteous chapter-sized nibbles.
( The reason for my choice )

In keeping up with what shows up on Anime News Network, I did feel a bit surprised to see Big X, an anime series from 1964, appear on the front page. The article explained the studio that had made it would be streaming (via the uncomplicated means of YouTube) various sample episodes from its productions over the years, and while they weren’t starting with their very first series they would get around to an episode of it.

Having taken in some television anime from the 1960s out of some mixture of simple curiosity and feeble grandstanding, I’m at least intrigued by the thought of more people having the chance to do that (for all that for me Big X more “represented its year” than stood out on merit from its decade...) I’m also conscious that, lacking any fluency in Japanese, I pretty much depended on a single “fansubber” to see what sample episodes from then I’ve seen. Things were a bit better there when it came to movies.

At the start of this year I’d picked up on a few upcoming anime series that seemed interesting to me from their first descriptions and the comments of a few other people. More than that, I could find the time to properly begin watching all of them. Having only managed both those things during one quarter of last year, I did feel as if things were coming back together at last. Even so, I suppose a few familiar risks were returning too. The benefit of “watching anime as it streams” would seem to be augmenting the experience by joining discussions about it and picking up on the interest of others. That can skew into “my good taste is demonstrated by picking shows everyone else likes,” though, and then the problem becomes that if-and-when smirking shrugs about “Sturgeon’s Law” apply, watching everyone else sour on things, or even bumping into casual brushoff postmortems, can get pretty dispiriting. Even so, the wrinkle of not being as exposed to the comments of others as I once was aside, I did seek a certain solace in still getting around to a good number of “older” titles from previous seasons or decades.
( Once upon a time: Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger and Getter Robo )
( Manga preparation: Heavenly Delusion, Aria the Natural, and Frieren )
( Movies part one: Weathering With You and For Whom the Alchemist Exists )
( Streaming part one: Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki and Metallic Rouge )
( Streaming part two: Sengoku Youko and Bang Brave Bravern )
( Wrapping up and moving along: Soaring Sky Pretty Cure and Pretty Cure All Stars F )
( Movies part two: The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes and Blue Thermal )

Having kept watching anime for as long as I have sometimes still provokes trying to explain that, if only to myself. I’ve supposed not watching as many “new” series as I could might help evade becoming jaded and annoyed by “sameness,” although I’m not anywhere as selective and discerning as some people. As for also watching titles years or decades old, there are at least a few names out there I’ve let remain gaps in my knowledge.

As a result of that, one reaction following the first jolt at the news of the death of the manga artist Akira Toriyama was the awareness I’ve never taken more than the briefest of glances at his Dragon Ball manga or anime. I can’t be so grandiose as to claim I’m the only fan with that blind spot, but I was conscious of all of the people who’ve commented about Dragon Ball being a gateway title for them, and of comments the series is something more than just that, too. There’s at least the impression the anime showed up over here on the final borderline of “localizations becoming acceptable to many established fans,” but just perhaps that meant it not quite registering on me right away. I’m at least conscious that “lengthy shonen action series” are something I don’t dip into very often, but again some of the things I take in instead aren’t a sign of refined tastes. Aware Toriyama’s career encompassed more than Dragon Ball, I do wonder if other things he worked on have caught my attention a little more; at the same time, I’m aware they haven’t got to the point of trying to seek them out.

Three months ago I was back to normal (again) when it came to my access to anime. More than that, people were getting enthusiastic about upcoming series. While I still had intentions of watching an older title or two at a higher tempo than usual for me, I was ready to try a number of new shows. Things didn’t work out quite that way, though.
( The dominating force: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End )
( Old and newer: Galactic Gale Baxingar and Summer Time Rendering )
( Actual continuations: Spy x Family and The Ancient Magus’ Bride )
( Further elaborations: Soaring Sky Pretty Cure and Gundam Build Metaverse )
( Respectable to a fault: Pluto )
( Theatricalities: Cyborg 009, Gundam the Origin, and Love Live! )
( Does it count?: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off )

On the weekend, a trailer showed up for the movie promised to continue the Madoka Magica anime after more than a decade. It at least got my attention (alongside a lot of other anime fans, of course). I’d tried to put on my best face when first confronting the previous movie promised to continue the story. Even given how much other anime I never quite get back to with so much stuff I still haven’t seen, though, not getting back to Madoka Magica took on a different complexion over the years. What had been intriguing as a continuation became unsatisfying as “all we’re going to get,” and I suppose that meant my thoughts had included some unacknowledged measure of “surely things are going to be... corrected.”
( There are different magical girls out there )

There were times when my thoughts turned to Weathering With You that I just wound up thinking “at least The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t the last movie I saw in a theatre.” (As for that second film mentioned, though, I understand the three-screen movie theatre in my home town where I saw it for the sake of a gathering of old friends has now closed, and that is something to deal with given I was taken to a re-release of the original Star Wars: A New Hope at an early yet impressionable age back when the theatre had two screens...) When I heard Makoto Shinkai had completed another anime feature and it was going to be brought over here, however, the temptation crept up on me to make it “the movie I went back to theatres for.” It took a little while for local listings for Suzume to show up, and I wound up crossing the city line where Weathering With You had got into the multiplex closest to me. I was aware of the comments that “Makoto Shinkai only makes one movie over and over again,” but was willing to take my chances.

For all of the complaints that have been made about “irks at the movies” over the past decade or so, I have to admit that with the lights down I found myself, to use a familiar word, “immersed” in the experience. There’s a cable box clock in my line of sight when I watch something on my own TV, and that can get me thinking “well, it won’t be much longer.” With Suzume, though, I did find myself surprised time and again by new developments in the plot, then able to fit them into the story. That I was “surprised” so much does leave me in a familiar fix of feeling cautious about how much to say here, however. I perhaps found myself more involved with the characters and what they were doing than just “taking in the scenery,” and that might be a difference from previous Makoto Shinkai movies for all that I did find myself thinking back a bit further into his filmography than your name. The movie was satisfying to see in the moment, although a few days later the temptation to turn over plot elements and “try to make them make sense” might be unfortunate. I’m at least thinking right now it would be nice to see it again on Blu-Ray, though.