(no subject)

[timepiececlock]

I found an anime review website that I love. Why? BEcause with the exception of Tenchi Muyo (they say ok, I say embarassingly sucky), Spirited Away (they say pretty good, I say fantastic), and Gundam Wing (they hated it, I adored it), the reviews almost exactly fit my own ratings for many series.... Witch Hunter Robin, Trigun, Ranman 1/2, Sailor Moon, Macross Plus, Dragon Ball Z, Blue Seed, and especially Cowboy Bebop and Escaflowne. How can I not love an anime review site that rates The Vision of Escaflowne as tied for third place for best anime ever and says it "should very well be considered the best anime of the entire decade" ? And then goes on to describe exactly why the Escaflowne movie is such a wrecking ball of a disappointment. On another page basically rates DBZ as crap, while giving it its due consideration for being entertaining enough to suck you in against your better judgement, and keep you in for longer than it deserves? Or another page that perfectly, perfectly captures why I love Trigun so much. ... Or another review that explains exactly why I am justified in completley and utterly hating the movie X/1999. Which I did. Oh, did I hate that movie. I still consider that to be one of the most tragic and unfair losses of an hour of my lifespan that I would really, really like back please. I've read about 30+ of their reviews so far, and except for the 3 mentioned above I almost completely agree with their ratings.

While I don't agree with all their ratings, most of the reviews feel like they pulled my viewer opinion words right out of my brain, so it's leading me to take their reviews for that I I haven't seen yet at some value, or at least consideration. Anyway, the site is here:

http://www.animeacademy.com/library/esca/esca.html

((conveniently linke dot their Esca review. For the other anime reviews, look to the left under the "Library" header))

....

::takes a moment to reread entry, and reflect back on the number 30+::

Huh. You know, I've seen or been exposed to a lot of anime. I mean, there's so many more reviews I want to read for series I've seen, double that number above.

And yet, I always feel like every other otaku in the room has seen 5 times as much as me and I am seriously lagging behind.

Weird.

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EDIT WARNING: Comments below include evil bad murderous spoilers for Trigun.

Comments

Re:

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Vash can't rehabilitate Knives. Knives isn't someone who suddenly went bitter after a series of unfortunate events. Knives was irredeemably sociopathic from the beginning as we saw from the flashbacks.

I took the flashbacks different than you did...and the end of the show. Vash's last words are... "I'm going to save Knives." I think that means that he is able to be rehabilitated, though it will undoubtedly take centuries more. Also, I haven't watched the flashback episode in a while, but we know that both boys were physically abused and rejected by some members of the crew. Some people suffer abuse and survive to be mentally well-adjusted, like Vash is. Others suffer abuse and don't come out well at all. In this instance I think we had the potential for a psyhotic, but the abuse of his childhood and his very protective/obsessive twin relationship to Vash took what might have been and made it a certainty.

I want Wolfwood back, dammit. This is the Spike of CB pain all over again. It's not fair. WW was my other favorite character. I think Vash needs Wolfwood.

I adored Wolfwood, and he was my man!crush of Trigun. I adored Vash for his character, but it was Wolfwood that I crushed on. I want him back so, so badly. And I would take his revival as believable sooner than I'd take Spike's revival...but neither resurrections are very realistic within the confines of the show, at least as we've seen so far. Actually, Spike's wounds were not as severe as Wolfwood's (you can live longer with a stomach wound, though it's an awful way to die), so he'd probably have had a better chance to make it to a hospital. On the other hand, he clearly didn't and CBverse doesn't have the supernatural element that Trigunverse does.

Vash as Buffy comparison? I hadn't really considered it. Hmm... your points are good, but I think that it's not a comparison that holds a lot of weight, simply because the context of their situations is so different. But if you're counting amounts of pain and hours of angst, then the comparison definitely is there. Both are unhappy people who keep others at a distance and try to be strong for the people around them.

A little bit later, I was like, seriously, what is going on here?

::Laugh:: I know. Trigun took some getting used to for me as well... it's very strange and humorous in concept... and then the sci-fi elements begin to appear, and they are pretty original... whereas the cowboy future desert planet thing was very familiar to televison/film etc, the whole Plant/Seeds/Vash/Knives storyline and execution was unlike any story I've read/watched before. I was captivated. And then the angst hit, and it was a wild ride. Especially when it began to sink in that the angst wasn't there just as a fly-by thing that would give you Vahs insight, but that the angst was actually the whole point and that it would only get more angsty... by then I was totally hooked.

When I watched the first episode of Naruto, in my review on LJ I said that it "went from fun to tragic faster than a Trigun episode."