Shameful Otaku Secret!

A tale of melty-cheese.

I have to admit, there is only one series that must come on without fail as soon as possible after it finishes downloading. That is this one. It’s also the one series that turns me instantly into a massive cheeseball ready to whip out the stupidest pseudo-writerly nonsense my fingers can manage to type. I stare, riveted, allowing ef’s now tried-and-true methods to work on me: red herrings, surprise appearance of the OP, stained-glass visuals, and extreme melodrama that even Key can’t front on.

Random-ish thoughts

• Australia, lols.
• Nagi seems to have given up easily. While Kei took until the climax to admit that she wasn’t The One, Nagi really seemed to let it go. Is that because she’s just a bridge between series (as Hiro’s sister) or because she’s not really done yet? Would be a shame if the show came and went with her just being “Hiro’s naked sister.”
• Am I missing something? Did I not stare riveted enough? Who did all that raping and beating on Yuuko — was it Amamiya? She did call him her “brother,” didn’t she? What a monster scene, though.
• Mizuki-chan kinda sucks. She’s just a flighty little girl who’s as easily swayed toward crushing on Kei as she is “falling in love” with Kuze. Is this why Kuze sent her away? Or does he really believe that one or both of them will be irreparably damaged by his little about-to-die scenario?
• Blacking out of faces seems to be used for different purposes. When Yuuko is all black, I thought it was because her true self was hidden from Himura.

I think this is a big reason why I love ef. I can come up with this list (or a much bigger one; see TheBigN’s MAL blog) and have a discussion with people or even just a mental exercise with myself. Like a good novel or piece of experimental music, ef requires a little active participation.

If I’m obligated to say something critical, I have to mention that it’s almost too similar to the previous series. But ef: memories didn’t get by on whack-tastic visual effects alone; there was a gripping story there. The Anno-esque (thanks Martin) phone card scene would not have worked without a character like Miyako there to support it. Now that we’re fully embroiled in the current storylines — what a wild, guilt-filled ride last episode — I totally expect the impossibly tight drama to unfold. And hopefully ef delivers a second time.

And regardless of what I said about active participation, that doesn’t quite extend to predictions for me. I don’t like to speculate on where ef will go. I’d much rather soak it in. Because regardless of the story’s twists and turns, it’s about execution and characters for me. Watching the characters, enjoying the pretentious dialog, taking in the visuals and wondering whether this or that is symbolic or red herring. That’s the fun.

Report from the halfway point

Somehow, amidst all the fall anime I’ve started (some of it’s gonna get dropped like a shitty potato) and extra blog work I’ve taken on, I found time to watch some more cartoons. The time I’m able to watch anime comes in bursts, so I tend to take full advantage of it when I can.

I’m not sure what possessed me to go after Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha at this particular juncture. Maybe it was just… there. I didn’t even know this was an Akiyuki Shinbo thing until some of episode one’s strange angles and techniques made me wonder who the hell directed it enough to look that up.

Set up.

First off, Nanoha is not quite what I expected. Like I said, I didn’t expect some strange Shinbo shit to be going on, and I certainly didn’t expect fanservice, which to be honest is a little weird. But I knew enough to know that there would be some things I didn’t expect. I’d heard talk of things getting dark after a certain point, and I knew that later seasons focused on the characters as they aged beyond typical magical girl years.

To me, the very idea of what happens to a magical girl after she grows up is fascinating (as fascinating as anything in the genre could be), and I’m watching as much in anticipation of those later seasons as I am for the first series. But as a whole, I’ve found that even in season one there is a lot more in-depth exploration of the “realities” of the mahou shoujo life. If, indeed, a magical girl were real, it’s unlikely life would be a walk in the park for her. While others have delved into that a little bit, Nanoha gets (relatively) weighty at times. Granted, it’s no Citizen Kane, but it’s more serious than I expected.

That’s just the tip of the magic wand, though — Nanoha seems to approach almost every aspect of its story in a more “adult” way than you’d expect from a genre usually aimed at little girls. That can be both interesting, as with Shinbo’s Tourette’s-like explosions of visual craziness, or kind of icky, as with fanservice.

Random thoughts:

• Shinbo has marked his territory here, no matter what anyone says to the contrary. Fisheyes, fast clouds, silhouettes, and of course the ol’ off-center scene composition all make their way into Nanoha on a regular basis.
• Characterization is not so good. Instead of straight-up explaining the characters’ motivations, I’d like to see something less lazy.
• I can’t say that Nanoha is the first anime where I’ve seen a huge shock of hair migrate from one side of the head to the other, depending on which way a character faces. But I think it’s the first one I’ve seen from the 21st century.
• It’s a given that the transformation scene will be shoved in your face over and over again, so I always hope for cool but short. Nanoha’s has a couple neat little head-trips, but also some barbie-doll nudity, and it lasts a full minute and a half. You don’t always see the whole thing, but holy hell. Beats Sailor Moon, I guess, but that’s not saying a lot.
• Nanoha and Fate’s “magic” is actually sufficiently advanced technology, as in Arthur C. Clarke’s third law, which I didn’t expect to crop up in a magical girl cartoon.

Anyway

I’ll get back to it eventually, and watch the second half when I have some time again. So far, I can’t say I’m impressed with the basic Sakura-meets-Inuyasha plot or the lazy characterization, but it has some charm and the visuals are cool more often than not.