Love, and Life. Hello, and Goodbye. It’s all an Everlasting Train.
Woke up to go to the washroom and get a drink.
It’s 5:30 on Monday morning, can’t sleep coz my throat and head feel fuzzy, and it’s a long week ahead.
Then I go back to bed and see your sleeping face, and suddenly I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
Okay, I haven’t posted in a long time, but a lot has happened in the last few weeks.
You see, sometime in February, someone from my old workplace contacted me and asked if I was interested in joining a startup by Production IG and this other venture company. The startup had two projects, an anime community Clappa!, and a character driven blog service Decoblog. I’d be heading up the management and financials of the company, plus giving support directly to Clappa; Decoblog would be run by the guy who started the startup.
Up to this point, I had intended to kinda give up and go home, maybe. But then again, my (non-existent) love-life looked like it might have a faint gasp or two, and then there’s this absolutely incomparable offer to 1) put my MBA skills (hah) to some use, and 2) work close to the anime company I most appreciated.
So, to make a long story short, I’m know in two heaven-and-hell situations. The first being work, where I’m doing a headache of a firefighting job on a total mess of an operation, while having these great conversations about anime and the anime world. It’s sooo awesome to finally talk to people who relate, and they like Noir to boot! The second being my new housing situation, which is a two room apartment a 10 min bike ride from work, shared with the object of my romantic aspirations. Sadly, it’s only an aspiration at the moment. The other thing that sucks is that my new place has no net access yet! Dammit! This is perhaps even more annoying than the non-advancement of my love-life.
Anyway, from now on, watching anime is pretty much part of my job. I have a lot of catching up to do. The candidates are:
- Red Garden (manga was interesting and my bro likes it, so it has to be pretty good)
- El Cazador (dude, Bee Train x Kajiura Yuki is back! None of the Tsubasa crap, give us subtext-filled girls with guns any day!)
- Wellber no Monogatari
- Lucky Star (KyoAni, but I’m willing to give it a try coz Star Crossed Anime says it’s good, and he loved Simoun)
- Claymore (same reason as above)
- Murder Princess (coz Star Crossed says it has rockin’ music)
- Nanoha StrikerS (um, coz Yuribou says it’s good :P)
And maybe some other new stuff that Clappa is covering.
Beware them spoilers, for they lurk aplenty.
English
I think it was Jeff Lawson’s and Kurogane’s and one other blog which I can’t remember, saying that this was one of the best anime of 2006, that made me consider giving Simoun another try. Of course, it took a really bad cold and 2 days of down time to make it reality :D
http://anime.jefflawson.net/index.php?tag=simoun
http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/category/anime/simoun/
http://hashihime.blogspot.com/2006/10/simoun-one-of-greatest-anime-ever-made_14.html
http://pinkubentobox.com/blog/index.php/categories/anime/simoun/
http://psgels.blogsome.com/category/finished-series/simoun/
http://wavering-entity.livejournal.com/tag/simoun
http://omo.serenana.info/archives/franchises/simoun/
http://wrexgrafix.com/anime/blog/?cat=9
Japanese
For another interpretation? Most of the revelations or opinions are mirrored on the English blogs, but I think it’s nice to see how the Japanese took to the ending and the themes presented overall.
http://nanashi.blog59.fc2.com/blog-category-6.html
http://kazus.blog66.fc2.com/blog-entry-1026.html
http://blog.livedoor.jp/tamazo009/archives/50852074.html
It’s a real shame that Simoun is a commercial flop, because it’s the sort of anime they really should make more of. It’s not plot-driven (there is, however, passage of time and events, set in the background) but rather tells a story of a group of girls and how they react to being part of a war. While not wholly realistic, there’s something very humanistic about their fears and insecurities and hopes and wants and petty fights and time-spanning dreams.
Unfortunately, you get none of that from the first episode. Some people have labeled the first episode of Simoun as one of the worst first episodes in anime. Well, if you consider where the anime went from there, I’m inclined to agree.
I’ll admit, like most other people who checked it out when it first came out, raw, no less, I did so because it was billed as the new yuri anime of the season. The problem was that 1) even knowing Japanese, I had no freakin’ idea what was happening, 2) the kissing was over the top, 3) too many characters, and 4) no like chara designs!
Well, the last is a matter of personal taste, but I think, rewatching this on DVD, overall this episode suffered from being just too radical. For instance, it begins with huge mechanistic airships in stormy weather, bringing to mind Miyazaki anime like Laputa. It opens with a narrative by a female voice, telling us of the dissatisfaction a country has against the Holy Land which holds magical Simoun that they refuse to give up the secrets of. The voice is actually a he, a soldier who is part of a massive invasion force to the Holy Land, so that they may take the secrets of Simoun for the betterment of their country.
Then you switch to the Holy Land, a beautiful clean country where girls are priestesses who fly magical chariots of God. We are introduced to a bunch of girls who are ostensibly the main characters of the show. There are also a bunch of old men and women, all who speak in female voices. An explanation is given of Ri Maajon, which is the act of drawing lines in the sky with Simoun as prayers to Tempus Spatium (God). Our Simoun troupe see the invasion force, and use their Ri Maajon with destructive effectiveness against the hundreds of enemy fliers. But the numbers are too much, and so Neviril and Amuria perform the greatest of all, and as yet untested, Ri Maajon – the Emerald Ri Maajon. They seem to succeed, until Neviril sees an enemy soldier right in front of her and loses her nerve. There is a massive explosion, and while Neviril and her Simoun limp out of the hole in the sky, Amuria’s cockpit is a wrangled mess.
Then we learn that the fight has caused several other losses, and two surviving priestesses have decided to “head to the spring” and choose their sex. Two new characters arrive, and one is to be the main character for the series, judging from the opening. But by this time, you’re already lost…
I think the idea of having half the episode narrated from the point of view of the enemy soldier a very interesting idea. I think this failed because it didn’t give the episode much room to establish who you, the viewer, were supposed to watch. Then, the whole female voice thing just threw me for a total loop – very disconcerting. Then you had characters being introduced, and then characters dying off just as quickly. Unfortunately, you are not explicitly told that Amuria died, just that Neviril had lost her Pal (partner), and so much of the distress is a mystery. Oh yes, and before I forget, you get about 50 million new bits of vocab thrown at us, not to mention a very complicated setting for the political and social setup of this world. Plus the bizarre physiology involved. And then more characters on top. All in 25 mins.
I know the production team tried really hard, but this was a perfect example of too much, too fast.
On the other hand, if you watch the entire series then go back and see this ep, it’s quite amazing how well thought out the world is. They put a lot of work in to developing a completely different reality, and while much of it was never explicitly revealed in the course of the show, the thoroughness shows through.
So, basically a very good show that is killed by its own too-ambitious debut. Ah well.
BTW, did I mention that the music is weird too? It’s absolutely great stuff, but I for one had not even dreamt of using a waltz for an aerial dogfight before seeing this, and that threw me too.
What can I say… I’m just really glad they made this anime. One Simoun for every 10 ero-game adaptations… that’d be a nice balance.
Found a whole boxload of Simoun pics.
Some are rather questionable… but the relationship chart rocks! Some nice screens caps too, if you can dig through all the hentai fanart. Although, some of the more squicky loli stuff actually comes from the (female) character designer. I feel shades of Takada Akemi…
Finished Simoun this morning. Bittersweet. Been running through the AnimeSuki forums and various blogs, and I feel emotionally exhausted. Feel cheated because a lot was left unexplained, feel sad because it’s the end, feel a bit like crying because the final scene of the Arcus Prima was just so ephemeral. Overall, the anime had its flaws, but it was still really good and a big emotional connector. Seishun…
I can’t imagine how the director must’ve felt at the end. This anime really tried to pull together themes of hanging on to childhood, accepting life, the reality of change and the human desire to never change. It sounds like Peter Pan but balance with hope. But, we will always have the memories…
God, remembering Paraietta’s sketch makes me feel like crying again. This was a good show.
I was listening to the Simoun soundtrack (which, incidentally, is frickin’ awesome), and on my iTunes after Simoun comes Singing Heart^2… and the first song is “Dance in the sweet memories”. Which got me all teary-eyed for the old days in Ann Arbor watching KOR with the gang. God, has it been 10 years already?
I don’t know why, but something about this song just gets me so nostalgic and emotional for Madoka. It’s the last arc of the series, and she’s finally admitting her attraction to Kyousuke, and it’s tearing her apart… kind of dramatic sort of thingy. I love this ending.
Stuck in a pre-order for the KOR DVD box set. Figured I owed ‘em something. And the 25% Amazon discount was too good to pass up.
God, it really has been 10 years. Hmm, could be just about time to panic about life and shit.
Or maybe I’ll sit back and watch more Simoun :D
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a good anime, aside from Ghost in the Shell SAC. I think the last time I tried something new and liked it enough to post, it was Strawberry Panic. Which, with the lifting of the veil of insanity, is kinda like enjoying garbage scraps because you happen to be sitting in the alleyway. Well, scratch that travesty off the list.
Simoun is another yuri anime, but that can be considered a pity because it’s actually not about yuri, even though it technically has (romantic or platonic emotional) female-female relationships. It’s more about a group of characters and their interactions, based in quite a creative fantasy world, the premise of which is that all humans are born female and are considered children until the age of 17, at which point they go to a sacred spring to choose the sex they wish to be for the rest of their lives and hence become adults. The story follows a group of priestesses, children who have not yet gone to the spring, who have traditionally taken the roles of worship to their God by singing to sacred “chariots” – the flying machines known as Simoun – and offering prayers by tracing lines in the sky.
However, war has broken out as the surrounding countries covet the mysterious technology of the Holy Land. The Simoun are now used as a fighting force and the lines they draw wreak destruction on thousands of enemy targets. Oh, and there’s some political plotting and hidden agendas too, otherwise it wouldn’t be a Bandai Visual anime.
Seriously however, Simoun sounds kinda bleh, but it looks really nice. The production values are very high, the art is generally of high quality (you couldn’t do this in OVA even 8 years ago, much less a 26 ep TV series), and the music is really good while being really weird (orchestra and tango, anyone?). I don’t mind the CG; it seems to add to the ethereal quality of the world. The only thing that really bugged me at the beginning, and still does now sometimes, is the voice-acting of some of the characters. Very flat and dissonant from the images on screen, which leads me to wonder if they took the take first then did the animation after.
I basically mini-marathoned Simoun, hitting about 7 eps in one night, 2 the next, 5 the next, and 1 this morning when I woke up. I discovered last night that eps 24-26 are not yet out, UGH!! And so I try to exercise some restraint.
I’d seen this series when it first came out, and dropped it after the first ep. I guess I watched because it was supposed to be yuri, but I didn’t like the character designs, the story was really weird, and I really didn’t like the yuri fanservice at all. Pointless kissing, bleh. The reason I decided to give it another try was because some blogs had called it the best series of the year (and in a good, story-centric, well-executed etc etc kind of way, not in the ZOMG!! Shizuka pwns Nagisa!! kind of way). Also, I was seriously sick with a cold. :P
Well, now that I’ve seen 15 eps, I thought I’d try to put down what I find so addictive about this show. I think it’s the characters. 12 characters was pretty overwhelming at the beginning, but they’ve each got their little bit, I’d assume. Some have their backgrounds covered, others are fascinating because of how they are depicted in their reactions to the current situation. I have to say I really like Paraetta, not because she is likeable, but because she is so flawed and insecure and painfully inadequate – just a child even though she looks the oldest. The two “main characters” Aeru and Nevriril, I’m not too sympathetic about, but they are the focus for Paraetta’s helplessness and a fulcrum for the cohesion of the team, and hence they become relevant too. The others aren’t terribly interesting in their own right, you just want to know what happens, you just want to see all the complex human dynamic unfold and crisscross and tear through.
There’s not much about the outside world, as most of the focus is on Simoun girls, so it’s a rather narrow focused view of the progression of the war from their point of view. With all that angsting going on, usually I’d drop this like a hot potato, but this time it’s not annoying and whiney. Overdramatic, perhaps, but I never detest a character, just feel pity. Some of the dialog is actually really good too. It’s like Gundam, done the right way. Perhaps if Amuro Rei had been a girl I might have been more accepting. Or maybe not.
In ep 2 or 3, when Nevriril goes to the Spring with her friend. The aftermath was one of the most emotionally shocking and memorable scenes I’d seen in anime. I think this was when I decided whoever was writing this thing had something down right.
Ugh, it’s the morning after the tour final for Eternal Circle, and I feel like a combination of colossal hangover and getting hit by a truck. And I haven’t been drinking. Or experiencing traffic accidents :P
Haven’t been this, um, active for a Hekiru concert since, oh, 4 or 5 years ago maybe? Or perhaps it’s age. Then again, you try jumping for those 4 cymbal crashes during “WONDER RIDER” and see how well you move the next day.
Ahh, it was far too short. This was a great concert with great music, and dang it it really needed 2 more performances or so for Hekiru and Band to get their sea legs. “September RAIN” rocked, dude.
That’s what a line in a story said. Kinda stuck with me, coz I always figured, you know, if two people had loved each other so long and so much and were willing to die to save the other, that when they finally did get together, they’d be happy.
But I guess, there’s always the shit of the real life and family and all that to contend with.
Bleh, I get the feeling I’m becoming an emotional cripple. I talk to people and I’m generally open, but I haven’t had the experience of revealing significant parts of myself to any one person. And, no one has done the same for me. I’m genuinely worried I can’t connect with people anymore. This is why I talk to my blog, but even then I’m obscure. *sigh*
Yesterday, I attended the 4179*LOVE FC event. For the first time, I won something at the quiz, and went up on stage to receive a prize (along with about 10 others). Was 2nd last in line, I think. And as it got closer to my turn, was hella nervous. When it finally got to me, she turned to look at me, and her eyes brightened in surprise. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You won!” I managed a nod. She’s much smaller, more fragile-looking, than I remembered, definitely far smaller than she appears to be when performing. She hands me my prize, and I shake her (tiny) outstretched hand. She smiles. “Thank you for sending me letters. I read them all.” I think I stammer a thank you, and as I try to think of something profound and encouraging to say, she adds, “Sounds like you’ve been working hard.” After that, I don’t really remember. Just nodded or mumbled, and shuffled away, probably rudely, in my desperation to not linger too long on stage, as brought about by a fear that I would get lynched for such presumptuous behaviour as *gasp* talking to her. My legs were wobbly as I made my way back to my seat.
The conversation in Japanese, just because I want to burn it in my mind forever, never let go.
へ：「あ、当たりましたね！」
私：「うん」
へ：「手紙を書いてくれてありがとう。全部読んでいますよ！」
私：「ありがとうございます」
へ：「最近、すごい頑張っているようですね」
Because after all the high has worn off and you come back down to earth, you realize, that’s all you’ve got.
Just another memory.
This is pretty messed up dude. I can read this…!
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Bleh, and now I know exactly why it feels like so much of a pain to read Japanese text. Because I have to read, as opposed to Jedi Mind Trick it.
Quit on 11/30
Started new project on 12/1
Not quite sure where I’m going, but dang it, I’m gonna have a social life.
So there.
My boss asked me want I wanted to do, after.
I couldn’t really tell him. Heck, I had a hard time, saying it myself. Guess my decision boiled down to a cross between sheer panic about what I could see looming over me for the near future, work-wise, and a deep disatisfaction with what I hadn’t achieved in my year and a half here.
Basically, I seriously, honestly wanted to get the hell out of this rut I had, before I realized it, found myself trapped in. You know, all work, no social life, no real job satisfaction, a feeling of isolation so deep I panicked one night, lying in bed before sleep. That’s when I started to get scared.
So, what’s it all mean? Hope for something better, take care of the stuff I’ve neglected, grow and learn, that kinda high-faluting stuff.
Then I read a blog. It said, “Hey, we all want to change our lives: stop smoking, lose weight, quit drinking, fall in love.”
And I realized, shit, yeah, I knew I wanted to change my life. Hated it as it was, hated me as it was. But in the end, the above comes pretty close. Except I don’t smoke, so that’s three things I really wanted to accomplish, by jumping ship.
But maybe I’ll just settle for finding love, and the rest will take care of itself.
Things are already looking up, I just need to last like another three weeks. Three weeks! God help me. And god help the poor guy who’s left behind to pick up my mess. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, except it’s that or self-destruction.
I remember when we were kids, my brother and I would huddle under the blankets at night, shivering but not willing to turn off the aircon, singing, “November, cold and freezy nights”. Now, this is only interesting because it was to the tune of the Transformers opening. Kids…
Now it’s November in Tokyo, and the nights are pretty cold but the days are still up to 20C, and the sun is shining. Shitty day to be stuck at work.
Well, I was stuck in a black hole for the last few months, but I’m glad to say I’ve finally made some proactive efforts to rejig my life back under control. My course of action could be considered a little drastic, perhaps cowardly or simply overkill. I prefer to call it strategic retreat under overwhelming fire (since I’m low on ammo, have no tactics or planning officer, and don’t really care much for taking more casualties against a target I’m no longer interested in, anyway). My friends just say, “Dude, get the hell outta there, NOW!”
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/10.html
Maybe next time around, I can try this.
I think… I have wasted two years of my life. I think, I was meant to find something more. ‘What is most important to you.’ Or, I intended to, by coming to Japan. Instead, I met many people, had fun, perhaps fell in love, just a little… but not what I came to Japan to find.
I wanted to find what I needed most. Instead, I found something which ate me and didn’t let me go. Fool I am.
I’ve turned 30. What do I have?! At 25 I was brilliant. At 30, I have regressed. I would cry, if only tears were enough. But they are not, so I wallow in dry self-pity. Fool.
Why why why?! I don’t understand. But that is the way it is.
I should have paid more attention to Negotiation 101. Seems I never get what I really want.
Fool.
