Saturday Anime on AS - Paranoia Agent #1

[timepiececlock]

Trying to decide whether I want to watch the dub for Scryed. I could only stand about 8 or 9ish episodes of the sub before I quit in disgust and frustration. Hm... I might watch it just to see who the VAs are. Sort of sadistic curiosity.


Inuyasha

Ooooh. This ending theme song is really pretty. Anyone have it?

Is Jakotsu's VA the same as Envy? I was hoping for more of a guy's voice, based on what little I knew of the character.

Koga twisting that evil guy's head around was pretty cool though.

This is the first episode of IY that I've watched in a while, and I enjoyed it. Though I do feel like I missed out on everything with this Ayame character. Still, maybe it's time I started watching IY regularly again.


Samurai Champloo

What's up with giant animatronic crab on the building? Isn't this like the early 1800s or something?

Heh. Jin is *such* a bleeding heart. Love him.

The little boy's voice is older sounding than I expected.

The dub for this show is getting better with every episode. I'm enjoying the translation for Mugen's dialogue especially--- his diction is anachronistic but appropriate.

But there's a lot more to come that could be either very good or very bad. Like the rap. And the tagging. And the fake-Christians. And the ninja baseball. And the Engrish.

Jin is pretty. As a man and a woman. Though he shouldn't quit his day job (what day job?) to be any sort of musician.


Paranoia Agent

"You know, we're living in the 21st century. Let's investigate this scientifically. Let's bet if it's real or phony. Loser buys dinner."

Betting on a meal. How modern and scientific.

The younger cop oddly reminds me of Detective Bayliss from Homicide: Life On The Street.

This show is weird. Like Azumanga Daioh meets Serial Experiments Lain. The happy/pretty/bizarre opening and closing credits just add to the weirdness.

I think I've solved the mystery identity of Little Slugger: obviously he is Naota Nandaba, spiralling into a depressive cycle of violence and insanity after being dumped by PsychoAlienWoman Haruko at the end of FLCL. There. Problem solved. IRON OUT THE WRINKLES IN THE WORLD! AND THE WRINKLES ON YOUR BRAIN!

Scryed

Steven Blum *again*? Jeez. That's lame. Man needs a different acting job. Or a way to vary his voice acting a bit.

The only thing I liked about this show after a while was the Guy With The Jeep.

Ugh. Too bad Guy With The Jeep's voice kinda sucks in English.


FLCL
I never noticed it before, but in the first episode Naota's dad calls him "Naota-kun" at one point. That's cool. I don't think I've ever heard them use honorifics in dubs before. I wonder why I didn't notice it last time I watched? Maybe I'm just so used to hearing "-kun" pronounced in fansubs that my ears just absorb it without thinking.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

The younger cop oddly reminds me of Detective Bayliss from Homicide: Life On The Street.

Bayliss?

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I sorta thought the same thing, when I wasn't going, "WTF is going on here?"

Seriously, though, I've already noticed a few people mention FLCL in relation to it, but I hated that series. Even after watching it through 3 times, I still never warmed to it. Sure, PA has a few episodes that are completely and utterly random, yet they all click in the end, when you learn the "truth" behind L'il Slugger.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Well, having only seen one episode, it didn't really remind me of FLCL at all except in the character design of the kid. That *is* a really shallow analogy, based purely on looks and my sarcastic thought process.

Mostly it made me think of Serial Experiments Lain, Perfect Blue, the Animatrix episode with the girl and her cat, Akira (for the eerie talking toy) and oddly Azumanga Daioh, probably for the character design of the victim.


I adore FLCL. It's in my top 10. But I totally get why some people don't like it. I have the same reaction to Utena. I didn't like FLCL the first time I watched it (saw episode 5), and it's stuited to a very...specific niche of anime audience.

ooops. ignore previous reply.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Tim Bayliss. That's his name, right? The younger one who was sort of bisexual and is now Daddy Kane on Veronica Mars.

Maybe it's a shallow analogy; I haven't seen a lot of HLotS.

Re: ooops. ignore previous reply.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

::points to above reply::

:D

[bulletsofjackal.livejournal.com]

Inuyasha was always like bad crack to me. I know it's horrible, but I can't tear myself away from it. And Ayame is this wolf chick who had it going on for Koga because he saved her once when she was a kid and swore to marry her. And now he's all over Kagome and forgot ALL about that promise to Ayame and Ayame's jealous and very much dislikes Kagome, but Kagome is so obiviously Inuyasha's girl and...I need to stop. I'm scaring myself. *shakes head*

Samurai Champloo rocks it hardcore. I love Jin like whoa. He's awesome. And when a man can crossdress and not feel stupid, he must be worshipped, lol. He's so pretty.

As for Paranoia Agent. The opening theme is disturbing. The end theme was annoying on that game music level. And I whole-heartedly agree about the golden baseball bat kid. He had to compensate for the missing bass with a bat.

Oh, and I'm half-paying attention to S-CRY-ed right now. The kid with the reddish brown hair, his VA is the same as Spike's and Mugen's and Darcia's and just about every other male anime character on AS. No surprise really, but it's so not fitting.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

The opening theme is disturbing.

I need to repost the lyrics for it. It's about nuclear bombs dropping and that whole feeling of living in the nuclear age. Very fitting for the series.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Really? That's whacked. I'd love to see the lyrics.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

That's how I understood it, anyway. I'm not exactly known for successfully pinning down the meaning behind songs.

I'll hunt up the lyrics later on today. My head's about to explode - physically and mentally.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

FLCL was on CN again? I STILL haven't caught the entire series. Yay, maybe I can now.

I only have the first DVD of Paranoia Agent, and I enjoy it. It reminds me of Boogiepop Phantom (a horror series that at first seems to be a random jumble of stories, only for you to discover that they're tied together in the end). And for the person who said it reminds them of Perfect Blue - Satoshi Kon is director of both.

=^..^=

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Boogiepop Phantom at all. I found it off-putting, and boring.

Conversely, I liked the first episode of PA. It has a kind of David Fincher feel to it.

I hope you do get to finish FLCL. It's weird, but awesome. And once you've seen the whole thing it KINDA makes sense. Not a lot, but kind of. Thematically.

BTW, have I told you lately that I love your Jeff icon? I need to watch more coupling on BBC America...

[octopedingenue]

OH MY GOD THERE WAS NEW INUYASHA WITH JAKOTSU AND I MISSED IT?! *cries*

[octopedingenue]

Oh, and Ayame is an anime-canon Mary Sue romantic interest for Koga; she doesn't exist in the original manga. so therefore she doesn't exist la la la Ayame who?

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

She doesn't exist? Then I have a reason for not liking her. Cause I didn't really.

If they were gonna insert a female love interest for Koga, they should have given him someone like Shampoo, and less like another Kagome wannabe.

[octopedingenue]

I don't like Ayame either. I cheerfully accept most anime-canon-only "Inuyasha" stuff, but about Ayame I'm like "LA LA LA DIDN'T HAPPEN". She is SUCH an annoying Mary Sue (she has sooper sekrit powahs! she's best friends with everybody! she has a mystical romantic past connection with Koga!), and her backstory both tries to make Ayame look good by making Koga look bad (he made an offhand lighthearted comment to a little girl and years later he's suddenly a giant jerk for not wanting to marry her? WTF?), AND contradicts long-standing canon about powers--the only reason Koga can run as fast as he can and ride the whirlwinds is because he has the jewel shards in his legs, so Ayame shouldn't be able to do it, let alone shoot the stupid leaf-weapons (and learning to see jewel shards? MARY SUE GYAAH).

I don't know if I'd want the anime or Takahashi to insert another love interest for Koga at all; it doesn't do much good except to have someone to shove him off onto at the end of the series in an attempt to make the resolution of the Koga/Kagome/Inuyasha triangle less sad. (The K/K/I triangle and Koga's fate in the manga are going to break my heart in the end. It's going to be like "Maison Ikkoku", only worse, and it's going to break my heart.) I dunno...I ship Kagome/Inuyasha somethin' fierce, but I adore Koga too and I don't like it if you try to resolve that triangle by saying that Koga doesn't really love Kagome, or that he has this other/previous/better love interest than Kagome so he's totally fine and Kagome & Inuyasha can hook up, no problem. (This is why God & invented OT3s. Long live polyamory!)

Thankfully, Ayame doesn't show up much in the anime. Last week's might've been the last episode she's in, actually *crosses fingers hopefully*

There's another anime-only Mary Sue romantic interest character later in the anime series, for poor Sesshomaru this time; her name's Sara (such an ancient Japanese name, Sara!), she gets an entire hour of screentime in A Very Special "Inuyasha" Episode ("The Woman Who Loved Sesshomaru" Parts 1 & 2), and she's a giant horrifying amalgam of the worst of every Sesshomaru-lovin' Sue on FF.net. Remind me to go into detail about her sometime. I think she's even worse in retrospect, in light of the lovely stuff the manga is doing now about Sesshomaru's feelings for Kagura.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I think she's even worse in retrospect, in light of the lovely stuff the manga is doing now about Sesshomaru's feelings for Kagura.

...feelings for Kagura?

YES! HUZZAH! I knew I pegged her right for him like 30 eps ago!

Well, I dunno how many it was, but in the episode when Rin is kidnapped I became a Kagura/Sessh shipper. At the time there wasn't any real backing for it in my mind besides "Hey, wouldn't this be cool! Theirloveissoruthlessandself-focused." Also, I'd seen some fanfic with Kouga/Kagura, which I totally loathed for OOC Kouganess.


As far as Mary Sues... well, I read a really long Sesshoumaru fanfic with a somewhat Mary-Sue OC charater that I ended up liking a lot. I don't remember what it was called, except it had "mosters" in the title somewhere. She was a minor greek goddess, a nymph or something, and it was kind of a hot fic. She was so well-developed that eventually I stopped seeing her as an OC, and Sesshoumaru's development within the story was very well-done as well, playing off her character.



I wondered about the whirlwind leaf thing. I assumed it meant Ayame must have shards as well-- now I'm kind of irked that that's not it.

[octopedingenue]

I am incredibly impressed by Sesshomaru and Kagura as characters and as a pairing; they're both side-characters so all their interaction and character development has to be very subtle and in the margins and the sidestory, but it's turned out to be excellent. I think that Sesshomaru will be the breakout character for the series, if he isn't already, and deservedly so.

I can safely call Sesshomaru/Kagura a canon romantic pairing at this point. There is some very cool and squee-worthy stuff going on with Sesshy in recent months in the manga, quite a while after the anime ends, and it's all!about!Kagura! (well, a lot of it). This fairly recent manga spoiler just about says it all, without actually being very spoilery:

[MANGA SPOILER] One of Sesshomaru's fighting opponents insults Kagura and that pisses Sesshomaru off so much that he loses his cool and Inuyasha and Tenseiga have to haul off and save him. Let me repeat that: Sesshomaru, he of the two blank facial expressions, loses a fight because he gets so emotional over Kagura. [/SPOILER]

"Inuyasha" gets so bogged down sometimes in its own plot that it drives me crazy, but I tough it out because there's still interesting character development happening (amid the long looong loooooooong Inuyasha-powers-up-Tetsusaiga-AGAIN plotlines o' doom), and that still hooks me. The leeeength of Rumiko Takahashi's stories drive me nuts, but I still have faith in her, and I know the end of the story (if it ever comes) is going to be awesome--she does great endings.

Oh, "Inuyasha", first anime love, I'll follow you to the end of the world where the story's ending will break my heart into tiny pieces.

But if we could go from now until the end of the series (500 minimum chapters total? another year or so?) without Tetsusaiga getting another sword power-up, I would be a VERY HAPPY KAWY. (And if Sango and Miroku and Kagome could actually fight sometime that would be GREAT TOO.)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Dude, I *need* to get back to IY manga this summer. Okay, that's my new summer anime project. The idea of Kagura/Sesshoumaru has enough appeal to warrant ti.

What manga chapters are the beginning of the Jakotsu arc? Didn't you say that was the arc that gets really good? I could pick up from there and just blaze ahead.

Also... where do I find scantalations?

[octopedingenue]

Good luck on finding scanslations: I have the most recent chapters but nothing from earlier than about a year ago, and I have no idea where to find them with the series licensed. Maybe you could ask the unnamed community? Surely someone has some.

- Text transcripts of the entire manga series. Jakotsu shows up in volume 24/chapter 237; the Shichinintai Arc (arguably the best of the series) lasts through about volume 30 (and has the best Sango/Miroku stuff ever).

Did the anime dub call the guys the Shichinintai or did they translate the name? (It means something literally like "Seven-Man Group/Squad", which doesn't roll off the tongue with such menace. *g*)


- Scanslations of the newest manga chapters; scanslation/text transcript archive of the not-newest-but-still-recent-chapters. I love Ear-Tweak. The Sesshomaru/Kagura stuff has been building throughout the series, but it really starts to pick up around volume 36/chapter 350 through volume 38. It's reappearing in recent chapters (volume 41), so it's probably going to be A Point (like Inuyasha/Kikyo) through the rest of the series. I am not sad about this.

The story really drags in places in the gap between the Shichinintai arc and the Kagura arc (I can't stand Moryoumaru or Hakudoushi, though, and I am in the minority in this, butthe great emphasis on them throughout still makes me cry), but it works and is worth it for me, and some of the little moments of ship and squee and snark are glorious. It's up to you if you can make it through the draaaaaaggy bits for that.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Let me repeat that: Sesshomaru, he of the two blank facial expressions, loses a fight because he gets so emotional over Kagura.

Wow. That is... like... impossible in my mind. I definitely have to read that and the stuff leading up to it.

[octopedingenue]

It was a REALLY nasty insult, admittedly. The universe resounded with a great cry of "OH NO YOU DIDN'T BITCH!"

[octopedingenue]

Oh, and that goddess OC fic rings a bell--I can't remember if I read it or just saw it, but clodia_risa reads a ton of Sesshomaru fic and would probably know what it is.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

clodia_risa... that name sounds really familiar. Was she in Spuffy fandom?

[octopedingenue]

Yeah, she's into Spuffy, and we share a lot of the same fandoms (FMA, Fruits Basket, etc.)--she's a good RL friend of mine at college.