Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Before I made the trek back to the Anime North convention this year I repeated a step I’d tried years before and dropped in on the Uniqlo store in my city’s shopping mall. This time, though, I couldn’t find the “45th anniversary Gundam T-shirts” I’d somehow picked up on Uniqlo selling this year, and in the end I donned the very shirt I’d worn the first time I visited the convention.
( Looking ahead )

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 )

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 )

From the anime series that marked the fiftieth anniversary of Mighty Atom getting on TV, I picked out a title that at last let me acknowledge a different, not quite as old franchise. After deciding not to watch the first episode of the original Mobile Suit Gundam out of a mixture of “I want to keep acknowledging the 1970s were more than just ‘giant robots’” and “I did watch it back in 2010, and more than one single series can serve to represent a whole year” I did get to wondering what following title could stand in for it. At last, I settled on the opening of that only somewhat peculiar spinoff, Gundam Build Fighters.
( Plavsky particles dispersed )

When Denpa announced they would translate and release a manga presenting “the true (yet comedically skewed) story of the making of Gundam,” that got my attention. I have to admit part of the reason there was because I’d read a “scanlation” of that very manga a while ago. It had been interesting and amusing, but recollections of that fan translation having the stilted and awkward flavour I get from a good number of such far from upright versions had me as glad as ever to have the chance to make up some, but not all, of my karma. With the way volumes of Denpa’s “Inside Mari” release took a long time to become available for purchase, though, I also have to admit to certain thoughts there’d be no resting easy until a copy of what was now titled “The Men Who Created Gundam” was in my hands.
( The New Anime Century is declared )

So far as watching anime went, the last three months of this year rolled along much as the months before them had, so much so that I did have a bit of trouble thinking of something distinctive to say getting this introduction started. While I had wondered about not many “third quarter” titles sounding interesting enough as they were streaming to get around to watching with all of their episodes safely “in the can,” that’s not the first time that’s happened. I filled up my viewing time with shows a few years or a few decades old (along with the “Star Wars anime shorts” and a movie animated in France but adapting a manga).
( Super robot development: Voltes V )
( Not quite as old: Dear Brother and Major )
( Catching up to the future: Vivy - Fluorite Eye’s Song )
( Closing in: Love Live Superstar )
( The continuing gamble: 86 )
( Further continuations: Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure and Urusei Yatsura )
( Adaptation at last: Vinland Saga )
( Closing out with more action: City Hunter 2 and Gundam Breaker Battlogue )

The animation industry in Japan did seem to be rallying three months ago. Series that had come to a sudden halt just a few episodes in or been postponed altogether three months before that were starting up again. However, I have to admit to worrying about “wishful thinking” leading to everything grinding to a halt again and turning straight back to titles where I knew every bit of content was ready to hand. Never that plugged into “weekly reactions,” this was endurable, and there were things I was looking forward to.
( Starting off theatrically: Promare and Sound Euphonium A Brand New Day )
( A third return: Gundam X )
( A new block: BNA )
( Wrapping up and returning: Attack No. 1 and A Certain Scientific Railgun T )
( Blast from the past: City Hunter )
( Another new block: Japan Sinks 2020 )
( Old and almost new: Astroganger and Sakura Quest )
( Head for the hills: Heidi, Girl of the Alps )
( Three more movies: Ride Your Wave, Gulliver’s Space Travels, and Spirited Away )
( Wrapping up: Lost Song and a recreated first show )

It’s been more than possible for a good while now to be aware “these works of animation you’ve come to find the look of appealing, with the audio usually delivered in a language you still have next to no understanding of, aren’t that connected to reality.” In just the past unfortunate while, though, “escaping reality” might seem that much more of a taunt, diversion, and refuge. I haven’t yet increased my intake of anime in this time of enforced protective isolation any more than what it had been at the start of the year, but even so I did get through a lot of it.
( Starting off with force: G Gundam )
( A first return: Sound of the Sky )
( Starting to stream: Carole & Tuesday and Asteroid in Love )
( Varying enthusiasm: Magia Record and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! )
( Continuing further: Chihayafuru 3 and A Certain Scientific Railgun T )
( Older stuff: Attack No. 1, Urusei Yatsura, and Lupin the Third )
( One-shot features: Weathering With You, Kase-san and Morning Glories, and Girls und Panzer )

Looking at a list of anime series from 2015 didn’t provoke a lot of “yes, that was a good one” thoughts from me, and I couldn’t quite settle on a “best in show” choice from the shows that did catch my eye. Instead of “worrying in retrospect,” though, I did consider how I’d spent part of that year watching long series from past decades to commemorate personal ten, twenty, and even thirty years-since marks for me; that might have stuck in my memory better than many of the shows I did see streaming at the time.
( The lasting series )

If it hadn’t been for Mike Nelson and Conor Lastowka recording a comedically critical look at the novel Ready Player One, I would have just kept steering past the book, pushed away at first just by gloom at the thought of another lip-smacking anticipation of inescapable dystopian collapse but then by complete leeriness at the awareness that dark setting was just the wrapping for an obsessive, uncritical embrace of the pop culture surrounding the 1980s and now remembered just perhaps because people took it in when they were young. One thing that led to them taking on the book, though, was its impending adaptation into a Steven Spielberg movie. They did record a special episode about the movie, but I didn’t quite feel like taking that in “instead of” the movie; at the same time, I didn’t want to pay money to see it in a theatre or to buy a Blu-Ray. When I sorted out there were discs of it at the library to borrow, though, I finally decided to take a chance.

I’d understood from the trailers and a review or two the movie wasn’t quite the same as the novel, but to be honest the movie started giving me a sense something had gone right for once writing the script. “Unending study of movies, TV shows, and video games” didn’t show up very much, and the riddles that pointed through the treasure hunt seemed to have more to do with grasping the regrets of the deceased creator of the virtual reality world than just happening to hit on the right specific yet vaguely referenced property and then have it memorized. Perhaps, too, when things are on screen to be recognized or not instead of being listed as names it’s easier to just let them wash by. (However, there was a bit of a kick for me seeing the original Gundam still managed to be licensed...) I suppose it would still be easy enough to criticize the movie, and right now I’m not all that sure I want to hear whether Mike and Conor made efforts at that, but there is an odd satisfaction to finding enjoyment through lowered expectations.