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timepiececlock1. Tell me one thing you love about me.
2. Tell me two things you love about yourself.
3. Look through the comments ~ when you see someone you know, tell them three things you love about them.
4. Do this in your journal so I can tell you what I love about YOU - and if you've already done it, tell me so, so that I can go back and give you some love. (Optional, of course.)
2. Tell me two things you love about yourself.
3. Look through the comments ~ when you see someone you know, tell them three things you love about them.
4. Do this in your journal so I can tell you what I love about YOU - and if you've already done it, tell me so, so that I can go back and give you some love. (Optional, of course.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 09:28 pm (UTC)Oh, and it's funny you bring the anime up cause the other day I was thinking I should tell you to watch Macross Plus. It's a 4-episode OAV (although there's also the abridged movie version, but it's cut down), and it's fantastic: beautifully animated, well acted by the English cast (I've only seen the dub), and with score by Teh Goddess of Anime Music.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 09:36 pm (UTC)1. My ability to discover some of the most obscure bands/singers in the world.
2. My loyalty to people, etc. That's a positive.
I can't believe how hard it is for me to think of two small things I love about myself.
I've been meaning to ask if you've seen any of this Read Or Die anime? Being a person who aspires the go into the library system, an anime with a bookworm as the heroine sounds intriguing.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 09:48 pm (UTC)If the tv series is like the OAV, I highly reccomend it. The Paper (the hero's codename) is the exact kind of agent I would probably be if I had superpowers and worked for the British government. It's so geeky, yet so cool.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 10:05 pm (UTC)I went to Amazon to check out the OAV (which I ended up buying) and the review on the TV series was less than stellar:
Although based on the same manga, the broadcast series of Read or Die is very different in tone from the original OVA. Novelist Nenene Sumiregawa hasn't written anything in four years--since her friend Yomiko Readman (the heroine of the OVA) disappeared. When terrorists attack Nenene at a signing in Hong Kong, her publisher hires the King Sisters--Michele, Maggie, and Anita--as bodyguards. Like Yomiko, they're "paper masters," using magic to forge powerful weapons out ordinary foolscap. None of the characters is particularly likable: Nenene fusses, Michele is a ditz, Maggie rarely says anything, and Anita is a loudmouth brat. Aside from brief action sequences in episodes 1 and 4, the characters spend most of their time lying around, which makes for dull viewing. R.O.D. the TV ranks among the odder anime series of recent years.
They must be showing the OAV on Adult Swim because the two people I know who watched the first episode mentioned the Yomiko character.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 10:38 pm (UTC)How disappointing. Damn. I really liked Yomiko Readman. She was adorable and charming and fun and I totally get her need to rescue books.
SPOILERS for "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Revolutionary Girl" finales beow!
Date: 2004-10-25 10:15 pm (UTC)And your mention of RGU reminds me: how far did you get into the "Utena" TV series before you gave up because of the pink
and missed the shiny fucked-upped-ness? Because the only other one of my friends who's seen the whole thing hasn't watched past episode 24 of "Fullmetal Alchemist" yet, and I need someone to squeak at and do the giddy-flappy-hand thing over how much the RGU/FMA finales mirror each other, thematically and visually. (The shot of Dante inside the opening-credits-elevator, for instance--STRAIGHT FROM "UTENA".)Sorry for the triple-post, but I forgot to put spoiler-warnings!
Re: SPOILERS for "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Revolutionary Girl" finales beow!
Date: 2004-10-25 10:29 pm (UTC)Me too. I totally understand loving a book that much. Loving any book that much.
As for Utena... I'm sad to say that I quit out rather early, just after the recap episode-- the first one, in case there's more. At least, I think so. It's been a long time-- 9th or 10th grade. But I never liked it to begin with so I congratulate myself on getting even that far.
About the only thing I liked was the fucked up egg speech. But even that got boring once the repetitive absurdity lost its amusement factor. The rest-- pretty much every thing else about that series put me off in some way. I mark it as one of the worst anime series I've ever seen for the episodes that I watched, both for my personal distaste and for just being so bad that I couldn't watch any more of it. I'd list the reasons, but... you probably don't want to hear them, given that you enjoyed it. I know some other people that enjoyed it too, but I just... I don't even want to say "I didn't enjoy it" because that makes it sound like it's worth enjoying and just didn't fit my tastes-- I really think it's the other way around: it's not worth enjoying despite the fact that it has many aspects that normally appeal to my tastes. It just... ARGGH!
I'm gonna stop talking now.
Re: SPOILERS for "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Revolutionary Girl" finales below!
Date: 2004-10-25 11:10 pm (UTC)And I am on the opposite space again: I really think "Utena" is ultimately enjoyable despite the fact that it has many (so very, very many) aspects that normally do not attract me at all. Everything that you could/will probably list as a frustrating flaw in it, I would probably agree with you.
I have a really odd relationship with "Revolutionary Girl Utena": I watched over several months at a rate of about a disc week, it was not to my tastes at all for almost the first half of the series, and I had to make myself watch it because I promised
And then I watched through the series finale, and loved it and was satisfied with it and whatever questions instead of answers it left. And I allowed myself to love the series at that point. Which is soooo fucked up.
I have an incredibly difficult time recommending "Utena" to people. It is hard even describing it to people, as a plot summary describes pretty much jack what it's about. My recommendation to people? Would be worded something like, "Find a convenient three-day weekend and a ruthless friend, then have the friend tie you to an armchair in front of a DVD player and make you watch the entire series in two days & not let you go, no matter how much you whine." Which is not going to make a lot of people skip out to find it, which I can't blame them for, because anyone who watches the entire series and then doesn't love the finale as much as I did is going to be MONSTROUSLY disappointed.
Now, as an English major and a media whore, I ask myself what is the value and significance of a fictional property that I had to force myself to partake of? Is that like being forced to read works of literature in school, and is that method ultimately damaging? What does it mean that I had to watch the entire series before deciding for sure if it were good or not? And what does it change that I ended up loving it? It is very interesting to me, and I'm not quite sure how to answer.
I don't mean this to be as pretentious as it accidentally sounds, but: "Utena" reminds me of Shakespeare, in the storytelling style, and on a personal level, in the way that Shakespeare bored me painfully and often until I read "Macbeth" and a giant blinding flashing lightbulb flicked on in my head. And now I'm in my third Shakespeare class in college.
I do now have to do a post tracking the two FMA/Utena finales side-by-side. Maybe this weekend. I don't think you'll ever like Utena any better, and I don't blame you, but I do think you'll find the parallels between the finales interesting.
Re: SPOILERS for "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Revolutionary Girl" finales below!
Date: 2004-10-26 01:10 am (UTC)Your description of Utena sounds a lot like my reaction to Cowboy Bebop-- only I didn't force myself to watch CB (it was quite a bit more enjoyable than Utena), just that I was rather indifferent to the show as a whole for 90% of the time that I watched it. And then I watched the finale, and I went from thinking it was just ok to loving it retroactively.
I'll look forward to your FMA comparison. Did you read my FMA essay about father/mother figures and symbols earlier today? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about that.
I got a fairly rough run-down of how the series ends and the whole black rose arc from a conversation sometime within a year of what parts I did watch of it, closer or further I don't know.
I've forgotten most of the details, but I consider myself fairly spoiled for the whole thing. That alone should tell you how I feel about it-- if I, Rashaka The SpoilerPhobe Of New And Unmatched Levels Of Extreme Paranoia And Resistance, am willing to be spoiled for 2/3 of a series then I don't put much stock in it.