This, that, and the other thing…
Also means forgetting guest posts that you write up for other blogs.
By TheBigN
I wrote a guest post over at Listless Ink which notes more openly one of those “extra” areas that gets and keeps me interested in anime – my yuri goggles. Reminds me that I probably need to do posts like this more often. Or probably just more posts (guest and otherwise) in general. I thank Yi very much for letting me post on her blog, and I hope to do it again in the future. :3
by dm00
High above Not-Kyoto
I haven’t had so much fun since I first saw Noiseman Sound Insect. It’s like all the madness of FLCL compressed into one caffeine-maddened episode (no Pillows, though).
Poor Koto and her brothers seem to have been sucked into the world of gods and yokai, where they have special chaotic powers of their own. There’s a rabbit involved, and the episode begins with an extended quotation from Lewis Carroll, just in case you didn’t get the message. But this is no slavish adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
Apparently it’s a one-shot ONA, though the end holds out hope for more.
Continue reading ‘Kyousogiga — Chaos Capital Cartoon’
by dm00
If you have a multi-region DVD player, you, too, can seek the raven-haired beauty
For years British anime fans have been importing US anime DVDs. Now we in the US can return the favor.
When I ordered my copy from Amazon.co.uk they didn’t charge this gaibrit value-added-tax, so, even with shipping, it was a little cheaper than the £25.99 list price.
In last Friday’s ANNCast, Funimation representatives Marketing manager Adam Sheehan and Director of Corporate Strategy Lance Heiskell talked about the prospects of titles they’d streamed, and it didn’t sound to me as though there’s any hope of a home-video release in the US.
I will be terribly embarassed if this turns out to be a boot-leg. However, none of the tell-tale signs are there: it’s not a region-free disk, the episodes are on three disks and not crowded onto two (or one).
Continue reading ‘UK gets Tatami Galaxy on DVD’
by dm00
If Fate/Zero’s Castor is the kind of villain you like, have I got a manga for you. Remember those juvenile/loli assassin twins in Black Lagoon? Mardock Scramble‘s Balot took the advanced course.
Volume two picks up right where volume one left off, facing Boiled, Oefcocque’s former partner, Oefcocque’s nightmare.
Balot, using her powers (perhaps inadvertently), catches a glimpse of Oefcocque’s memories, and the fight with Boiled awaken something in Balot, giving her a reason to live, and a reason to surprise Boiled with her capabilities.
Balot decides to partner with Oefcocque.
The story is grim: Balot’s life, before Oefcocque and Easter rescued her, was not a happy one. Flashbacks in this volume tell us why she had no desire to survive in the preceding volume, but seem more humanizing than dehumanizing: with the help of Oefcocque, Balot is learning to be human again. We learn a bit more about the madness behind Shell’s method, and we see him unleash four horrors to track down Balot and kill her.
She’s prepared.
There’s some truly creepy stuff implied here. The art is reminiscent of Mohiro Kitoh’s (Narutaru, Bokurano),especially when she draws Balot. Her action scenes are dynamic without turning into a muddle of speed-lines. Some of the brutality is horrific, but fortunately not dwelled upon nor drenched in blood — a good deal of it is left to your imagination.
I have not read the novel. This manga version stands on its own, and is excellent story-telling, and excellent art. I look forward to the next volume. Fortunately, Kodansha is bringing the volumes out every two months, and the next one will be released in early December (this coming Tuesday, as it happens).
by dm00
Hard cover edition
I just finished The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya, a title that makes me think of Alexander the Great for some reason.
Book six of the Haruhi Suzumiya series is a collection of short stories. The first two stories, “Live alive” and “The adventures of Mikuru Asahina episode 00″, were among the highlights of the first animated season (which I think appeared shortly after this book was originally published in Japan).
In the new stories in this volume, Yuki is on the receiving end of a confession of love, Mikuru asks Kyon out on a Sunday afternoon (“The melancholy of Mikuru Asahina”), and the cat Shamisen is a key witness in the murder mystery that got derailed in “Snowy mountain syndrome”.
by dm00
…except I guess he wears pants.
by dm00
Hardback cover, paperback sticks with the single-color theme of past paperbacks
Volume five of the Suzumiya Haruhi novels, The rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, has been out for a while now, and I finally read it. It consists of a couple of short stories, and a novella. The paperback appears to be out of print, but the hardback is available for paperback prices.
The stories are Endless eight (which only takes us through the last iteration — which is all it can do, since that’s all our narrator, Kyon, could know about to write down in his memoirs), and Day of Sagittarius, the story of the game contest with the computer club.
The novella is Snowy mountain syndrome, about a ski trip gone terribly wrong. The book has lots for Yuki and Tsuruya fans. In addition, Haruhi has mellowed a great deal and actually shows some consideration for others. It’s an excellent puzzle story, somewhat reminiscent of a Heinlein or Asimov short (you know the sort of story — it reads like the author was inspired by a Scientific American article, and writes a story about a nifty idea). Tanigawa is definitely growing as a writer.
…And it’s a bloody wasted opportunity. It advances the plot and development of the world and the characters. But the “math is hard” Barbies at Kyoto Animation chose to demonstrate their craftsmanship on eight variations of Endless eight instead of rising to the challenge of animating a story in which the resolution requires Koizumi to use a carpet as a blackboard.
Shaft could have done it, and it would have been a miracle of typography. And fanservice — the resolution of the puzzle involves a series of nocturnal visits among the cast members. Oh, it could have been wonderful.
Anyway, this series, after bobbling a bit with The sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, just keeps getting better. I’m looking forward to the next volume.
Anyway, on to The wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya, which includes the story of “The adventures of Mikuru Asahina 00″, and has yet more for Yuki and Tsuruya fans….
by dm00
"No way!" the chameleon replies
Volume 3 of Yoshitoshi Abe’s Ryushika, Ryushika was released this week: more adventures of Yotsuba’s evil twin.
In this volume, Ryushika tries on her extremely near-sighted father’s glasses, and gets new ideas about the malleability of perception (a later chapter does much the same thing with her sense of smell, prompting the realization that rainclouds are cloths the gods use to wash the world). In the final chapter, her father asks her what happens to the hole as we eat the donut.
Along the way, Ryushika has nightmares about a creeper vine seeking revenge for being uprooted, and names her brother’s chameleon “Hamu” for the hamster she was expecting him to bring home, and more.
Almost all the dialogue is Ryushika musing, and misunderstanding, the world around her in the most energetic ways possible. Ryushika muses in simple sentences written in kana, so even someone with just a semester of Japanese can read it pretty easily (the adults around her do use kanji, some of which are moderately obscure, but clear from context, and with full furigana).
If you’re a fan of Yotsuba&!, especially if you’d like her more if she were a little brattier, and you have just a tiny bit of ability to read Japanese, the Ryushika, Ryushika volumes are certainly worth adding to your collection.
TheBigN
nomadotto
dm00
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