Looking around, I see I need to completely revamp this section of my site. I'm not particularly up to that task right now though, so for the time being, I'll just post a big sloppy update to this page, and worry about restructuring later.
For the last five years or so, I've watched more or less no anime. I haven't been going to anime cons, borrowing stuff from friends, catching stuff on TV, checking out fansubs, nothing. The last series I sat down and watched was Excel Saga. Beyond a few Miyazaki movies, I've been otherwise out of the loop. Recently, I was prodded back into the scene, I caught up on what little noteworthy stuff I'd missed, and I'm currently watching two brand new series the day the fansubs go out. Evidently the long creative dry spell that's been going on finally ended. So anyway, here's a couple mini-reviews.
First off, we have The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which is a Darn Good Show, and you should be watching it. The problem is, it's extremely hard to explain what it's about. Not because it's confusing, or incoherent, but because it's very deceptive about how it presents itself, and I don't want to ruin it for people. Instead, you'll have to settle for some incidental details.
The animation quality is astounding for a TV series. Movie quality. People's hair moves when they're talking quality.
The characters are all fairly interesting. The title character is both a hardcore iconoclast nerd, and a horrifying tyrant who treats everyone else as slaves or worse, but manages to be quite likable. Another character exists solely for the purpose of fan-service, within the context of the show... i.e. Haruhi is constantly forcing her to dress up in various fetish costumes and parade around to garner attention. She doesn't do any of this volluntarily though, and spends pretty much all the rest of her time curled up in a fetal position crying, which would be horrible in most contexts, but here it's just plain funny. Come to think of it, none of the characters are particularly nice to each other. Just about everyone is a charming jerk in some form or other.
The episodes aren't arranged chronologically. So far it's been... X, 1, 2, 7, 3, 9, 8, 10 (the clips from next episode numerate which episode is being aired next, and which episode it is chronologically to spare some headaches). There's reasons for this besides just being weird, and if nothing else, it's a much better way of letting you know how Interesting the show gets later on than, say, heavy foreshadowing. Of course, the tradeoff for this is some seriously ominous BACKshadowing of what goes on in episode 6 or so. Anyway, the point is it's an interesting way to do things... although the 9 8 10 bit was just plain mean.
Oh yes, and then of course there's what the show actually reveals itself to be about a few episodes in. Very interesting concept I can't really recall ever having been done before (well, maybe once). I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I'm sure someone else will if you take too long to track the show down for yourself.
Also, the first episode is just plain hilarious.
The other series I'm watching at the moment is Jyu Oh Sei (Planet of the Beast King). The first thing that needs to be said about this show is that if you squint, it looks like Escaflowne. Same character designer, same visual style, same content-seems-aimed-at-guys-but-presentation-at-girls vibe, same investment in the setting, etc. Sadly, it doesn't SOUND like Escaflowne. Instead of a wonderful Yoko Kanno epic orchestral soundtrack, we've got a mediocre op/ed and no real music to speak of in-show. The rest is nice though.
Anyway, moving on to the actual plot, thus far at least. We've got some really
interesting sci-fi backstory which I'm not expecting to be all that important to
the show as a whole. The really short form is, it's the future, a few planets have
been terraformed, but living on any of them is not particularly desirable, and they're
all governed by some sort of feudal system. Some noble or other has twin sons,
Dilandu Thor and Dilandu Rai. Said noble and his
wife are killed for political reasons, and the twins are unceremoniously dumped on
some nightmarish planet nobody seems to know exists. Presumably, it's a secret prison
world of sorts set up by whoever offed Mommy and Daddy.
The planet itself is pretty much just one massive jungle, where each of the many many different species of plants can instantly kill you in one or more fun and exciting ways. So, everyone who's stuck living on it is pretty much existing on a base survival level, with very little concern for each other's well being, and nobody so much as bats an eye if the person they're standing next to is suddenly killed. The other odd little aspect of their society is that men outnumber women 5 to 1 (this is one of the main sources of the shojo vibe, that and character designs), giving said women certain social rites, like being able to travel freely from clan to clan without fear of being killed on sight, and being able to pick who they want to have kids with.
Anyway, Thor and Rai are stranded here, being nearly killed every 5 minutes or so, and generally being treated like spoiled little babies who will be dead before nightfall (especially Rai, who in all fairness, is indeed a spoiled little baby). Thor manages to prove himself sufficiently cool (in that frell the local customs, frell basic safety concerns, I'm catching the next boat off this rock sorta way), to catch the attention of a girl from one tribe and a laid back but excessively manipulative guy from another (both of whom look quite a bit like Van), and more or less decide to help him take over the whole freaking planet, because it's the only way any of them have a chance of getting out of the giant death trap they all live in... which I'm guessing they pull off with surprising ease given the series is only an 11 episode run.
Oh, and I mean it about the deadly thing. So far, I'd say on average 2 or 3 significant characters are introduced per episode, and 2 or 3 significant characters die, with next to no acknowledgement of the fact. If they aren't in the intro, don't get attached is the rule of thumb I'm going by.
So far (5 eps in) I'm digging it, but I can't see them really having time to blow my mind with anything given that there's only 6 to go.
