Archive for January, 2005
January 11, 2005 – 2:12 pm
S P O I L E R S !
Okay, finally finished watching Madlax today. I really chewed through a ton of eps yesterday, like from eps 10 to 20 or so, before I regained sanity and realized that I didn’t have ep 26!! And the way the series was going, with layer upon layer of mystery piled on and promises of huge reversals and revelations to smack your already defragged mind at the end, I think I would have died if I had to be left hanging.
But anyway, I managed after much digging to snag that coveted last ep, and watched ep 24 and 25 this morning (separated by a nap).
Um, okay, how should I say this… First of all, I really liked this series, up until ep 20 perhaps. After a slow start and much headscratching, it began to make sense, in a convoluted sort of way. It was original, and I liked the surreal direction style, even if there were a few (okay, make that quite a few) over the top elements. For example, one only takes so much of Madlax twirling around and shooting 20 soldiers with her eyes closed. All in all, though, the overall feel was of a good serious anime where the director wasn’t pandering to cheesecake. I like that – just cool anime of cool female characters. So aesthetically this show appealed to me.
However! The last 5 eps dragged. Big time. I started to get impatient, and honestly I thought it would have been great as 21 eps instead of 26. I already guessed the Big Truth way beforehand (it’s not like they weren’t giving us a ton of clues, from Madlax’s faint memory of her father to the angle of the shooting) and it was painful waiting and waiting for it to unfurl. Too much filler at the end, as if they had a story that they couldn’t tell in 13 eps but had to fight hard to stuff 26 eps with. That’s really too bad, because I thought the pacing in the first 18 or so was excellent. Dammit! See what happens when you get locked into a format!
However, even if you take that away, the ending had some pretty significant flaws. First, too much senseless death; I felt that they killed off characters just because they didn’t want to be too conventional and happy. Sometimes a character’s death serves to generate enough angst to power up the “finally get a spine and do something!” factor in a reluctant hero or heroine, but in this case… I dunno. I thought it was too plot devicey. Couldn’t the writers have come up with a better way to work out the ending? I understand that the final confrontation has to be concentrated on Margaret and Madlax and Reticia finding the truth and somehow sticking a wrench into Evil Villain’s plans, but hey, after all the wonderfully built up sense of mystery and subtlety before, this was like taking a sledgehammer to whack off the last inches on a sculpture that had been, until now, painstakingly carved out with a delicate chisel.
So, dropped the ball there. Next pet peeve, really stupid annoying final baddy. I’m sorry, the Friday Monday insanity thing got really old. Too cliche, too shallow, and a blatant disregard to good storytelling by using “because he’s psychotic” as an excuse not to come up with any explanations of motivations or background. Not to mention the age old plot device of villain using brainwashed main character to his nefarious ends. Sorry, I’ve seen too much anime to be satisfied with that.
Third, surrealism and warping of reality taken too far. Too many people getting shot many many times and not dying. I don’t know if the storywriters and director actually had the “physics” of the whole thing in their heads and just neglected to explain it properly, or if they just bent it all to their convenience. Madlax, yeah I could see and pick up right away. Friday Monday, his headquarters, the alternate reality of Margaret wandering around, eh…? Whatever.
Last, the resolution. Actually I have to say that I liked how Margaret made Reticia her sister. Or rather, I did not expect Margaret to split herself again, and that was good because Madlax deserves to be her own self. I was afraid that Margaret was going to do a Reset on the world, because that would have been natural given all the deaths and the power of her wish, and for me that would have been a terribly disappointing cop-out. Luckily that did not happen. Yet, it was still dissatisfying. Not because things didn’t wind up hunky dory or because people died and didn’t come back… just that I enjoyed the rest of it too much to live with an ending with a sorry ass of a villain.
But, in the end, I didn’t feel that Madlax was a waste of time at all. There was enough that I liked about it – the character ofMadlax, the unfurling of mystery (although to be honest it wasn’t that intellectual or sophisticated, but then again not everything needs to be), the high level of art and animation, and the music – that I can simply sigh and say sometimes you gotta accept that few anime can truly be considered masterpieces from start to finish. I think Madlax just aimed a little high and stumbled on the final execution.
Posted in ANIME, Madlax | No Comments »
January 10, 2005 – 5:02 pm
Madlax is a 26 episode series that just finished running this last fall in Japan. By the creators of Noir, at first it feels like a clone of that series. The opening features a young girl wielding a gun with practiced ease, military and civil war are the themes of the first episode. Madlax is an agent for hire (assassin, bodyguard, you-name-it) in a country gone to the dogs after 12 years of civil war. The other piece of the puzzle comes in the form of Margaret Burton, another strange young girl living a sheltered life in a far away country. The villain in all this seems to be a underground organization that moves the chess pieces of countries’ political landscapes.
However, just when you think it’s another show about a killing machine with a mysterious past meeting another girl with no memories, the show throws you a complete curve ball in the form of what appears to be magic or sorcery. Certainly there is nothing normal in chants that cause people to commit murder, books with mysterious writing covered in blood, and natives with supernatural powers.
Although I was going, “What the heck?!” after three episodes, I have to admit that the incredible weirdness and the unexplained mysterious really hooked me into watching more, just to find out what the deal was behind all that sorcery, and what the connections were between Madlax and Margaret and the other characters that show up. So far, I’m quite impressed at how they have pulled it off. A lesser director would have stumbled on the sheer complexity of the plot – it’s a feat to unravel all the strands and pull it together without revealing too much while at the same time not losing your audience. Although I do have the advantage that I am watching this all in rapid succession and stuff is still fresh in my mind.
At Ep 5 or so, I was starting to get a bit skeptical as the story didn’t quite seem to progress, just more and more layers being added, but I am glad that I stuck with it. I’m not so much fascinated with the characters as I am just hooked by the desire to know the story. However, the characters are not pushovers either. They are unique, but understated and restrained. There is no shoving it in your face as is so common in anime of yore. I guess you could say that Madlax is an example of anime direction which has finally grown up.
The music, by Kujiura Yuki (who also did Noir and My-HIme, a personal favourite) is a bit too European for my taste, except for one Eastern track with vocals that plays when something dramatic is about to happen. Good, but a bit repetitive.
The art in this show is excellent for a TV series. CG has really started to come into its own now, mainly by allowing studios to lower the cost of normal animation (and not, as some tried at the beginnng, by allowing funky animation effects previously unachievable by hand). That means consistently higher quality overall (anyone remember the travesty that was the Nadia island episodes? *shudder*). I think what I most appreciate, personally, is that characters now look far more consistent. So you don’t get that age old problem where a different storyboardist would result in one of those dreaded crap episodes where the faces are so distorted you almost wish they hadn’t made it at all.
So anyway, the designs are generic but pleasant. There is some impressive stuff going on, like this electrical fan that was rotating. I wouldn’t mind collecting some pics of Madlax, who does look kinda cool.
Dunno if I’ll be happy with the show in the end. It really depends how they pull it off. But in the meantime, I’ll keep watching.
Posted in ANIME, Madlax | No Comments »
January 8, 2005 – 9:07 pm
In about 10 days I chewed through a ton of anime. None really grabbed me utterly by the scruff of the neck and demanded I worship them, but they weren’t bad. Below are the more memorable (I’ll write separate entries later).
Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito (Yami, Hat and the Travellers of the Books)
Based on an H game, it’s not that great overall but scored points with me on dint of originality of execution. Character designs were so-so, I hated the small mouths but hey I can’t argue with a cool girl with long dark hair and a katana, who kicks ass in a fight. I enjoyed all the weird stories plus the idea that all the separate characters are connected by their search for Eve. The last episode sucked though.
Maria-sama ga Miteru
Total shoujo anime about school girls and their relationships and human dynamics at an all-girls Catholic school. Whacked in the sense that the school is some fantasy bubble of shoujo earnesty and innocence (kinda). But I tell you, after INSEAD, a lot of those insecurities and worrying and misunderstanding etc were ringing way too damn true.
Kannaduki no Miko
Good anime? Uh, no. Mish mash of all anime elements, and not terribly well executed. Corny. Clueless heroine. Three way love triangle. Redeeming factor was underdog hero who was not a wuss or bastard but an actual good decent dude. Well, honestly, this show had only one gimmick going for it – it was a girl and a guy fighting for the main character :P Plus the most impressive no-holds-barred confession of love and lust in anime I’ve ever seen…
My-HIme
Ah, Sunrise’s new production. This show is cool, but didn’t really grab me, except that it has AMAZING music. It’s the first I’ve heard of Kujiura’s work, but I’m definitely going after the rest. Oh yeah, one of the girls has a really big sword which blows of impressive sparks when she drags it on the ground for a swing. Another girl has long dark hair. Oh well, 1/2 + 1/2 < 1.
Posted in ANIME, Misc anime | No Comments »
January 8, 2005 – 8:42 pm
I’m in New York, and I’m a bit upset. You see, I am now computerless. No, it didn’t get stolen (although other things did). Nope, I just happened to stick it in a bag with a bottle of water which leaked. Badly. Now, my display is dead. I am terribly upset, because that T40 has been my best friend for the better part of a year. However, looking on the bright side, it could have been a lot worse. The laptop could have been completely flooded and dead, but here it’s just the display and therefore still theoretically salvageable.
Aside from the laptop though, I also had my phone stolen. Went to a friend’s birthday party yesterday at a club/restaurant called Lotus. I left my phone in a bag which was checked. Okay, yeah, that was stupid, especially considering it was a Handspring Treo. But hey, you don’t think a chic club would have that kinda stuff happen, right? Huh… Anyway losing the phone was shitty, but even worse was said birthday friend whose camera also went mysteriously disappearing, and from behind her head no less.
Man, losing a brand new cool ass camera sucks anything, but on your birthday it really really sucks. She was pretty upset and left early. Just utter bad luck.
But bad luck and itchy fingers not withstanding, I am enjoying my time in New York. I walked all around Midtown (was staying in Pennsylvania Hotel first two nights) and then went to Central Park and the Museum of Natural History. I didn’t get to see all of the Museum, but I was actually quite overwhelmed with the dinosaur exhibit.
I’ve never really liked natural history as much as science, and I have little interest in dinosaurs. I could never quite understand why people are so fascinated with these creatures. But when I stepped into that first exhibit all and saw the sketelons of the massive tyrannosaurus and brontosaurus and raptors… suddenly I was dumbstruck in awe at the sheer scale, the size and power and unbelievable vitality of animals which stood higher than buildings and lived for millions of year across open plains, fighting and dying and conquering. And I was also moved by the loving care and devotion of the people who excavated these fossils and tried so hard to solve mysteries that no-one will ever know the answers to. There’s something tragic and touching about the whole thing.
For some reason, monster mammals didn’t make me feel the same way though. It’s hard to feel a trembling in your chest and the roaring of blood in a your head over a giant sloth. No matter how nasty their claws may be.
PS, we had dinner at this Vegan restaurant called Gobo, and the food was amazing. I have to say that, along with Original Sin, this stuff was far tastier than all the “great” food places we ate in Whistler and Vegas.
Posted in MISC. RAMBLINGS | No Comments »
January 5, 2005 – 9:40 pm
Sometimes I wonder why I like the stuff I like. Why do I enjoy heavy metal, what is it that makes me feel so drawn to Hekiru, why do I love anime as an entertainment and art form while I have never felt the same rush from movies? (I will admit to a great fondness for “Misfits of Science” and “Something is out there” though…)
As I mentioned before, I somehow got back into anime. I’d more or less quit after 1998, still loving the old stuff of course but with no desire to see anything new, and yet suddenly after Christmas in 2004, a little over a week ago, *bam* suddenly I was acquisitioning series like no tomorrow and watching anime throughout the day.
Perhaps it had been building up. I had never really left anime completely, despite my lack of interest in new material; I was still reading fanfiction like mad, so I was still immersed in those worlds, albeit not of those from the original anime creators. For my last two Periods at INSEAD, I had devised a business plan to sell anime merchandise to the US. Even then I did not believe! I had spent seven years breaking free from anime otakudom, mainly because I thought the new stuff was crap and there was nothing that appealed to my tastes. I believed that I had outgrown anime, which by itself had degenerated into childish commercialized drivel, far removed from those revolutionary classics from the days of yore, the late 80s and early 90s. Vampire Princess Miyu, Please Save My Earth, Gunbuster, Escaflowne, Kimagure Orange Road, and countless others.
But when I decided to give it a try with Zipang, a serious show about a Japanese warship thrown into the past and Ghost in the Shell 2 (forget Full Metal Alchemist, Love Hina, or any harem anime crap!) …. well, that was the start of the descent! Soon I was watching My HIme, Maria-sama ga miteru, a smattering of Bleach, Azumanga Daioh, Genshiken, Macross Zero and School Rumble (which incidentally did not appeal at all) and before I knew it, I was chewing through Kannaduki no Miko and Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, moving on to Noir and Madlax… And dudes, this is all in less than 10 days.
Guess you never really stop being an otaku, eh? Yeah, but anyway, I do wonder why I love anime so much. I like it because it moves me, it affects me. It’s not just mindless entertainment, but the ones I like the most are (usually) the ones which hit me emotionally on some level. Be it the Lake episode from Bakuretsu Hunter, which had Carrot befriending a Lake spirit who went from child to old woman in one day, or the grandeur of the great tree on Laputa, or just recently Himeko and Chikane completely overwrought yet still moving declarations of undying love for each other, dammit! I had tears in my eyes. And I’m usually a cold heartless bastard when it comes to sappy romance movies.
So, whassup? I dunno, I think it’s because I’m really an old school romantic. Yeah, there’s just something about love and romance the Japanese way, what with all the misunderstandings and unrequited love and the duality between the weight and unfairness of fate and the most powerful feelings one could have, of longing and selflessness and a strange innocence in it all. It echoes inside me. I’m pretty cynical about real life love, and that’s probably because deep down I’m a real idealist.
Of course, I also have a thing for kickass girls with long dark hair and swords :P Hey, it’s still mostly visual and coolness, okay? Long live anime girls! :D
Posted in MISC. RAMBLINGS | No Comments »
January 4, 2005 – 10:32 pm
Did I mention that I dropped out of anime fandom like 7 years ago? Yeah, went to Japan, got into Hekiru, and pffft went all other interests. Besides, the new anime them was pretty crappy, and also I was so busy with work and Hekiru that I didn’t have time to waste in front of a TV.
Well, that was then, this is now. I just graduated from INSEAD on 16th Dec 2004, and armed with a freshly minted, highly expensive MBA, went to spent Christmas with my family in Whistler and Las Vegas.
The snow sucked in Whistler, and I don’t gamble.
Is it surprising that I spent most of my time online? No? Hmm… let me add that for some strange, bizarre, unfathomable reason, could have been boredom perhaps, or the recent furor in the news, I decided to try out Bittorrent. Yeah, that evil evil filesharing program. You know, it’s ridiculously easy to set up and use, which is why it’s so feared. Anyway, I discovered that Bitttorrent is still quite alive and kicking even after all that shutting down in the news. And, I discovered that Bittorrent is THE fansubber’s dream distribution medium.
Back in the old days fans swapped tapes. They went on USENET, contacted subbing groups, mailed stuff out, waited for stuff to come in, collected a bunch, gather together in a dark seedy room with powered video/audio splitters and the best commercial VCRs and shielded cables money could buy, and ran those suckers. BTW, “real fans” never traded licensed anime, in case you were wondering :P
But now, nowadays, it’s all digital. After seeing it in action, I can understand why all copyright holders are terrified. It’s ridiculously easy, it’s incredibly pervasive. If it was this easy to buy stuff, they’d be singing all the way to the bank. Instead, it’s (almost) perfect piracy.
Hmm, I was going to talk about how I managed to rediscover anime, but it looks like it’s turned into a rambling. Ah well, in the interest of adding something intelligent to the topic, I’d say that I’m more impressed than ever at the implications of the Internet on human creativity. When it becomes possible for anyone to publish their (original!) creations and have the ability, in theory, to reach the entire world, that’s when each person has a chance of reaching their true potential and power. Before, you need money, a champion, or political power, that sort of thing, to make yourself heard. Now you can do it on your own (sort of… there’s too much junk on the Internet now to believe you could be heard unless you’re pretty unique or niche or have tons of money or some way to generate news).
Plus, the fact that anyone can access the Internet means also that everyone has the potential to know a huge amount. I don’t know if you can say this make you smarter, or better, or an expert. But, it has removed limitations on the information a person can access. And that means that one person, on their own, should be able to accomplish a lot more in a lot less time.
Think about it. Nowadays, it’s not what you know, it’s how well you can go about finding out what you need to know. People, and the power of the machine.
So better pray that the accuracy and purity of information is somehow preserved. It would suck to lose this resource.
Posted in MISC. RAMBLINGS | No Comments »
