Shameful Otaku Secret!

A couple months without a night or weekend off, then a week of some insane (probably non-swine) flu, a new TV season is here and nary a word. Blah, blah, work, vomit, excuses. What’s next? For me, Fall 2009 is like a ghost town in a western movie, sequel and spinoff tumbleweeds slowly rolling across my field of vision as some Morricone ripoff tunes play and bloggers get all bent out of shape about underage lesbianism that’ll never pay off. The logic to a flagging anime industry is sound: instead of producing a 50-episode series, produce a few 12-or-24-episode series, continue the ones that do well as “sequels.” That’s fine, but if you didn’t catch it the first time around, there’s not a lot of value in finding out what Haruka’s dirty little secret is (she cosplays as Shana? That’s more shameful than my own supposed secret…).

Darker Than Black

However, there is Darker than Black, and my illness conveniently laid me up in bed to finish the original series. Have to say, it was, uh, “better than it should be.” Light chuckle here because, putting the ridiculousness of that statement aside, it was just about as good as it should be. Tensai Okamura and Bones created something that is, in a way, very typically Bones — think RahXephon,  Eureka Seven and its red-headed stepsister Xam’d — in the way that the story was put together. The method: Create a compelling but mysterious world, and don’t reveal too much about its nature until near the climax. In some ways, it’s a cheap way of keeping the viewer hooked, but I can’t say I don’t prefer it to A Certain Expositional Infodump that a large amount of anime is guilty of to some degree.

It’s not typically Bones in that its characters are distant, sort of unknowable. The warmth you can feel in Xamdou’s most aloof character Nakiami, for example, is far stronger than what I got from DtB’s Hei or even the human Misaki. I suppose part of it comes from the fact that Contractors aren’t supposed to feel emotion (though Hei’s case is a little more complicated). This makes them distant from anyone, so the viewer should be no different. All in all, I liked the story, I liked the action, I liked almost all of the characters, and the “cool” factor was in place. I’m skeptical of the new season, with its lack of Yoko Kanno, but I enjoyed the first enough to make this a no-brainer.

Cowboy Bebop

Speaking of Yoko Kanno and Fonz Factor, I also spent some time re-watching Cowboy Bebop. It’s been a lot of years since I saw it, and my subsequent re-education in anime allowed me to view it with new eyes — which is what second and third viewings are all about. It hasn’t diminished in my eyes; if anything I have even more respect, plus I watched it in Japanese for the first time and was delighted to hear Coach Emperor Wakamoto as Vicious. I’m not going to go on about Cowboy Bebop too much, you could fill a library with what’s already been said. It did get me thinking about something Zaitcev mused a while back about Honey & Clover: “What is particularly ‘anime’ about this anime?” In the case of H&C, I disagree, there’s plenty there to keep it in the realm, but with Bebop, I’m less certain.

For one, romantic drama is kept to a minimum. A mixed-gender spaceship in most anime, at the least, would create some sexual tension or maybe a Naked Misunderstanding or two. But for the crew of the Bebop, romance is a thing that happened in the past. Each of the three majors gets a “past coming back to haunt them” episode chronicling their turbulent experience with the opposite sex, most notably Spike. The present is a time for work — dangerous work with no room for such distractions. There’s only one “baka” from Faye that really carries the typical meaning, and it’s very late in the series.

Secondly… everything else. Really. Why break that out into bullets? Cowboy Bebop skips over almost everything. Teenage characters: One, briefly. Something to protect: Sorry, not really, unless you count cash. Tsunderes, seifukus, people crying a lot, techno-babble, mecha, evocation of moe, forget them all.

What it does have, of course, is an obsession with music and an amazing soundtrack to match. Both the anime and its Kanno music seem overflowing with ideas and hooks, a feeling that’s rare in something as polished and tightly executed as this. But that’s another tired subject when it comes to Bebop. If the series has a significant fault, it’s that we’re asked to take the story’s word on a great deal of things that happened in the past, rather than made to feel their significance. And that can lessen the impact of the otherwise astounding end.

At any rate, if for some bizarre reason you’ve never seen it, you’re missing out on one great example of what happens when some talented people get together and treat anime as a medium rather than a genre.

Planetes

I’ve watched 4 episodes of Goro Taniguchi’s space-junk saga so far, and the jury’s still out, but it’s an interesting take on near-ish future Sci-Fi. I wouldn’t exactly call it “hard” SF but the notion of space garbage getting in the way of progress is a realistic-sounding one anyway, and a lot of attention is given to the technological details and the mechanics of zero-G. A future where astronauts are skilled but un-amazing laborers and the whole of space is mired in bureaucracy, politics, and nepotism is a depressing future, but of course our idealistic naïve lead shoujo is here to brighten the picture.

Oddly, I see parallels to a more recent series, Production IG’s Library War: Cute, short-haired underachiever joins an exotic but ultimately unglamorous job that isn’t quite what she thought it would be, is beset by a tsun-tsun coworker, and tries to foist her wide-eyed idealism onto the world. I’m sure the comparison will pretty much end there, but it’s the kind of story that’s not hard to get behind, even if Ai can be a little shrill at time.

That about covers my recent viewing, aside from Utena and the various things I occasionally watch but will never finish, like Harlock and Legend of the Galactic Large Amount of Episodes. You should expect to see more on that soon as well. As of Fall ‘09 week 2, do you agree with my “alternative” choices or is there anything this season I’m missing?

So… what’s on?

Lots of people do it, I suppose, but when I first started doing the “What’s on” posts, was I subconsciously copying Kabitzin? Probably, but then he went and got married just to copy me, so I hope we’re even. I haven’t seen a standout episode worth blogging in a while, so… what’s on at my house? (organized by how current I am, since that’s a pretty good gauge of my interest)

Caught up

Code Geass. It’s a sea change for Zero. Now that Lulu has pretty much lost everything, I’m anxious to see where the story goes. Maybe Goro and Sunrise aren’t even sure, who knows. I’ve been thinking for a while that LeDouche would end up founding a new group, consisting of Kallen, Orange, C.C. (for whatever that’s worth these days), and probably Suzaku, but I’m not sure what exactly I think this crew will actually do. What I am sure of is that Suzaku losing his marbles is pretty awesome.

Soul Eater. This one’s hitting its stride with action after some really funny non-fighting episodes. It’s getting dangerously close to the standard shounen series that it parodies, but there’s still enough style and humor to set it apart. Incidentally, I watched the Excalibur episode a couple times, making it Soul Eater’s first repeat for me in a while. America!

The Return of Maid Guy. I hope public outcry has brought those fansubbers back on for the duration (two more episodes), because the ridiculous Miko episode was gold. In fact, it was so brilliant, it was a fanservice show about fanservice. Meta.

Real Drive. When you take a step back, RD is just a series of portraits of this future world that Shirow has created, with Nyamo serving as a window for the viewer to look through. Still not a lot of people watching this one, but I’m glad to see that they’re all very vocal about how much they love it.

Macross F. Sheryl went through a nice period of “Who’s moe now, bitch?” but it looks like Ranka’s getting a little taste of pain just as she realizes how smitten she is with Alto, for whom shoujo bubbles were seemingly invented. Hopefully Alto won’t be fighting his next battle in a nice boat instead of a variable fighter. The self-shipping/everyone’s-on-a-date episode was dumb to me. And by the way… triangles, we get it. Worse than the freaking pineapple dessert. Anyway, I’m watching, still up to date… but for some reason I’m not doing a lot of caring. Oh yeah, the animation is dog shit. See above, Sinbad.

Daughter of 20 Faces. Chiko’s aunt has yet to learn that her niece is immune to soup-based attacks, but Tome has thankfully put those to a stop with a little blackmail. Akechi’s starting to look formidable, and though he seems nice enough, I don’t think he’s looking for Twenty Faces so he can make friends. It seems like the series is getting a tad sloppy lately, but I’m still on board and ready to find out what the hell TF did to himself in the lab to get so un-killable.

Behind

Bonin’ knows, am dough. aka, Xam’d: Lost Memories, aka Bonen No Xamdou aka Bounen No Zamned aka 亡念のザムド aka bleeeeearararagh. You could bullet list the similarities to Eureka Seven: motley ship crew (mailmen rather than surfers), organic mecha things, familial issues, grumpy captain. But as OGT mentioned, Xam’d opted to start with a bang instead of Eureka’s gradual ramp-up. Like Soul Eater’s first couple episodes, Xam’d grabs you with its action, energetic mood, and typically awesome Bones style. Don’t expect too many more episodes of 20 Faces with great animation though, since the Xam’d crew is currently wallpapering their cubicles with approximately Lichenstein’s annual defense budget. Even though I’m behind, this one is high on my list.

Blassreiter. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but when the series took a brighter turn toward action and away from everyone dying, my interest level dropped. There’s just not enough dark stuff going on in my anime lately. Still, Amanda is one of my favorite characters currently, and who doesn’t want to see Wolf get his just desserts deserts desserts whatever.

Nabari No Ou. Still watching. Still gay. It got pretty cool for a while, with Miharu playing both sides and everyone stepping up their game. I’m pretty far behind on this one, but the big make-out session is inevitable, right?

Itazura Na Kiss. I really love the fact that a romantic anime has the balls to go past the wedding. Unfortunately, Kotoko still hasn’t grown as a character much, and the gender role issues that are coming to the fore make a somewhat progressive Yankee like me uncomfortable. But it’s cute, and the humor is still spot-on much of the time.

Kind of stopped caring.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. I still push play with excited abandon, but for a few episodes now I’ve been met with disappointment. The American-accented teacher was a riot, but what is this thing they’ve introduced? … oh god, it’s a plot.

Koihime Musou. I tried. I’m not sure why, but I tried. KM has a good heart, and piles of fanservice, but really, it’s dumb. As you can see, I am watching a lot of anime right now and I just don’t have room for Samurai Girl-on-Girl Pantyshot Showdown, fun as that sounds.

Golgo 13. I watch it whenever I’m bored and have no backlog, which is rarely. But the episodic format makes it great for just that. I can pick up Duke whenever I want and not worry that I won’t know what’s going on.

Special Rapey Bonus

Detroit Metal City. Go watch this thing. It’s fucking hilarious. It doesn’t have anything to do with Detroit (trust me, I lived there), but it has a lot to do with pig-bitch-rape, patricide, and sensitive artists. There’s not a big time commitment — it flies by at about ten rapes a second — and it packs a lot of laughs into a short, unique period.

So… there’s my schedule of watching (and generally not blogging) about cartoons. I don’t know how it happened, I just looked up one day and I was watching a lot of shit. Anyone else have this kind of anime load right now?