xxxHoLic GN 17 — the long goodbye

by dm00

Watanuki gets his pipe fixed this volume.

xxxHoLic manga volume 17 continues the sense of winding down the story. Watanuki’s encounters are so interesting that it buoys the story despite being weighed down by his sad-sack sense of fate. I think CLAMP are getting tired of this series. The art is getting simpler, with page-layouts and backgrounds becoming less crowded and the images less complex. Even though Watanuki may wear a lot of Yuuko’s kimonos, he doesn’t have her flair for fashion. Characters from the past are appearing, and only one new character this volume. The series is saying farewell, but it’s a long goodbye.

Wikipedia (and amazon.co.jp) tells me there are two volumes to go.

Not a whole lot happens. Himawari calls. A rabbit drops by the shop to fix Watanuki’s pipe. An old foe drops by to give Watanuki a commission (a disturbing one that involves a passive victim of abuse).

I’m looking forward to the end of this lovely, melancholy series, mostly because I want to put down the last volume only to pick up the first, and read it through from beginning to end all at once, without the four-month delays between volumes. There are so many threads from the past running through these volumes, that I feel the series would work better in a more concentrated reading.

I never got into Tsubasa chronicles (I might if I could get it on my e-reader), though I did pick up a few volumes late in that series where the crossover seems to really get significant to the xxxHoLic plot.

A Pleasant Surprise, Again: Beelzebub ED 3

Lack of time means in general means lack of time to watch anime, which makes catching up a little chore and generally ends up with me getting to things a little “later” than everyone else. Like with the second ending of Beelzebub, I come to the third ending several episodes behind, and it is at episode 24 where they switch openings and endings again. In this case, the song (“Nanairo Namida” by Tomato n’ Pine) is better than the second ED, but the ending animation wows me again (as it noticeably short-circuited ghostlightning months ago):

This time the direction was done from one Masashi Ishihama, and that name doesn’t quite ring a bell for me as much as Umetsu’s, despite actually speaking to him and getting an autograph (I think I did) from him at Otakon 2010. But on looking at some of the properties he’s worked on, he’s done animation and character design for a variety of works including the Read or Die works and Speed Grapher. But he’s also done a variety of recognizable OPs from other shows including Kamichu! and Welcome to the NHK! (Videos after jump) 

Mardock Scramble GN 1

by dm00

Don't completely judge this book by this cover

The first Mardock Scramble graphic novel arrived in the mail the other day, and I thought it was pretty good, save for the fact that Oeufcoque is a little over-powered — Superman syndrome robs the plot of a lot of its tension. Still, his charge has to survive long enough for the plot to actually get going, I suppose.

I haven’t read the real novel yet, nor seen the film. For those who have, GN1 takes us from Balot’s (I now know that as another egg reference in a book with characters “Shell”, “Oeufcoque”, “Boiled”, and “Easter”, thanks to Hanasaku Iroha) death to the first encounter with Boiled.

In an early flashback, we learn that Rune Balot is a homeless girl who is “rescued” from a freezing park by Shell, an obviously wealthy and powerful man. A few pages later, he kills her, destroying his car with a bomb to destroy the evidence.

All in the first ten pages of the book.

Balot awakens with a new body, a lot of despair, and the ability to manipulate electricity and matter. Her rescuers Oeufcoque and Easter offer to help her get a revenge she’s not interested in, or perhaps they’re asking her to help them apprehend Shell and put a stop to his murder-spree.

Balot uses her power to flee, but Oeufcoque pursues her.

As the book progresses, Oeufcoque, a shape-shifting artificial being, tries many interestingly psychological approaches to teaching Balot how to be human again. He’d make a good therapist, though his first challenge is getting his charge to want to be cured.

The art is great (the style inside is somewhat different from the cover — I’m not even sure it’s the same artist). Balot’s character design often reminds me of Mohiro Kitoh’s (Narutaru, Bokurano) work. At other times I find myself thinking of Battle Angel Alita. The artist handles action-scenes well: lots of dynamism, and one is never confused about what is happening.

Fans of the original Ghost in the Shell movie will take pleasure in the obvious reference to the end of the film as Balot awakens sitting in a chair, seen face-on from across the room.

A “Quick” Question

It feels like I talk about this sort of thing way too frequently, but there’s always something that keeps pulling me back to thinking about the adoption of the term “slice of life anime” (to the point of where I’m getting sick of seeing that to the point where he’s probably already at). In this case an article from a CNN blog focused on geek culture about anime that’s decently written, but glosses over some things and pokes my nerves again with using the term and defining it in a way that bothers me:

“slice of life anime”, in which characters didn’t really do anything, but spent a lot of time talking about nonsensical subjects and looking pretty. “Moe” characters – young, adorable girls on the cusp between puberty and adulthood – were a pervasive signature of these anime shows.

“Slice of life anime” marked a stark shift between darker themes and comedic themes, affecting the climate of anime on a major level.

In an article that uses various “turning points” to explain how anime has changed over time, this is one of those examples, and with my bias showing, I don’t feel like it’s used in a positive light.

I’m still at a loss as to why this definition (variations on “stuff not happening” tied into “moe” characters and whatnot) has become acceptable and mainstream enough that it gets thrown around frequently. And that’s because this usage often evokes a negative connotation in my head (as in “this is what’s wrong with anime today” doomsday-type of connotation) to the point where it feels like it’s becoming the new scapegoat in anime, incorporating the old scapegoat (moe) into something that’s more definable. A genre that shifts anime into places “we” don’t like.

As with issues of this nature, there’s few clear-cut examples where people actually say this sort of thing and mean it, so that what I’ve said with many grains of salt. That being said, what I want to know is how this definition has developed over the years to become a catch-all, as well as why people (in the west) are using it as an explanation of what anime has currently become. Does anyone have any suggestions or clues?