Impressions

Code Geass took me a while to get through, partly because Crunchyroll has the first season but not the second, but I finished it. This turned out to be one of those shows that I should’ve watched sooner, because, despite a few problems, it had a lot of things I enjoy - a grand scale, a battle of wits, moral ambiguity, a mix of angst and humour, pizza, and a little sister character, among other things. To start, I liked the character designs, which were done by CLAMP. Every character felt unique, and the main characters developed believably over the course of the series. Some of the side characters were one-dimensional, but nonetheless they did have a part to play so they didn’t feel tacked on. The art used a vibrant colour palette, perhaps too much so for some of the darker moments, and the animation was fluid throughout. The OP and ED themes consistently disappointed me, though the animation and artwork used during those segments partly made up for that. The soundtrack itself supported the show well, and I wouldn’t mind owning it on CD.

Tadano Nobuaki’s 7 Billion Needles starts off right, with an extremely introverted girl walking by the sea and noticing what at first looks like a shooting star, but which then turns towards her and incinerates her.

Awesome.

She gets better, though, and also gets drafted into helping to hunt down an extraterrestrial menace which threatens all life on Earth.

Clearly, Tadano’s story, based on Hal Clement’s Needle, jumps right into the action. For good reason, too - the whole series is only four relatively short volumes, and Tadano keeps up a brisk pace throughout. On one hand, this means that there’s never a dull moment, no need to pad out the story to make it longer, nor any sense of rushing to finish too quickly. On the downside, there’s not a lot of depth here, and a couple fairly major changes in characters’ personalities come too abruptly (for those who’ve read it already, I’m thinking especially of the change in the relationship between Horizon and Maelstrom). Overall, though, the comic is as close to a perfect length for this story as one can reasonably expect.

As one of the brave ones willing to shell out $370 for shiny discs, yesterday I finished rewatching Fate/Zero on glorious blu-ray. Since it’s a limited edition I don’t know how much longer it’ll be available, or if it is even now. For those curious, though, I figured I’d share my thoughts on how it turned out. I won’t say much about the content of the show, except, “Go watch it.” It’s an excellent series, and I’m looking forward to the second season, which starts in a couple weeks.

Yesterday, I watched Jurassic Park for the first time in a solid twelve years or so. It was a favourite film of mine as a child, and also one of my family’s the most memorable theatre moments, at least for my parents. Little five-year-old me was apparently so terrified I almost crawled over the back of the seat, but I still got my parents to take me to see it multiple times after that (they’d learned their lesson, though, and we sat in the back row on future visits). On VHS, I watched the film constantly, bought lots of the toys, and overall it was a defining film for my childhood.

I’ve been pretty busy lately, forcing me to slow down a bit on my reading schedule. However, I’ve continued to find time for a few things, so I thought I’d share a couple highlights.

The comic that’s most commanded my attention lately has been Akira, by Otomo Katsuhiro. I re-watched the film adaptation for the first time in years a couple months back, and liked it far more than I remembered, and since I’ve also read and enjoyed another of his works, Domu, I figured I’d try out the graphic novel. The first two volumes have not disappointed me.

Lately, I’ve been wanting to re-read some of my old CLAMP comics, and coincidentally while shopping around this weekend I came across their latest work, Gate 7.

I have mixed feelings so far. The first volume has a lot of talking, but I never felt like it was progressing very much. The protagonist, Chikahito, is a high school student (of course!) who loves history and Kyoto, can cook well, is a bit awkward and loud at times, and - actually, he’s basically Watanuki from xxxHolic, also by CLAMP. It’s only the first volume, but the more I think about it, yeah, it’s the same character. I like Watanuki just fine, but he’s not so great that he merits creating a clone here. Here’s hoping he at least develops along different lines later on.

Fully four years after ADV published volume six of Gunslinger Girl, I finally hold in my hands volumes seven and eight in omnibus, thanks to Seven Seas. The mere fact that this series, one of my top-five all-time favourites, is actually available in a form I can understand makes me giddy. I’d tried to fill in the gap between releases by buying some of the Japanese volumes, but the technical jargon and lack of furigana mostly rendered the books a reminder of my lousy literacy. There’s also the excellent first season of the anime adaptation, on glorious blu-ray, no less, but even that’s soured by the second season, which had a first episode so badly animated that I couldn’t bring myself to watch the rest.

Damn it, Gainax.

That’s the three-word version of my review of The Mystic Archives of Dantalian. To expand a bit, I did actually enjoy the anime, though that makes the disappointment of the last episode worse. To start with the good, though, the art was well-done, the animation fluid (a few static scenes excepted), and the music was excellent. I really liked the opening and ending sequences. Others have described the show’s atmosphere as its strongest point, and I agree. Edgar Allan Poe would probably approve. Really, all I wanted going in was Gosick with a better plot, and that’s what the first episode or two seemed to promise. A similar atmosphere but with an adult, competent protagonist in Hugh Anthony Disward and a more tolerable tsundere (or whatever word you want to use) in Dalian. Add an interesting premise with the phantom books, and as long as the writers come up with a competent plot, we have an excellent series.

Got back from a week-long trip to London a few days ago, and I celebrated my return with a whole bunch of new comics.

I started off with volume two of A Certain Scientific Railgun, which has one of the most convoluted origins I’ve ever encountered. Railgun is illustrated by Fuyukawa Motoi, and is a spin-off of a light novel series, A Certain Magical Index, written by Kamachi Kazuma (Index also has its own, separate comic adaptation). Seven Seas publishes Railgun in North America, but not Index (comic or novel version). I’ve heard they released the spin-off first because they expected Funimation to have released the anime adaptation, but in typical Funi style they have the license but now, months later, still no actual release, but Seven Seas decided to just go ahead with their own Railgun release schedule anyway.

I’m currently creating a fansite for Kumeta Koji’s comic, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. For now, it’ll be a fairly simple affair, with reviews and reference information about each volume. Since one can find most basic information about the series from Wikipedia and fanart on any of a number of fanart sites (e.g., Danbooru or Safebooru), I’ll focus on my own impressions of the series, and some more detailed information than what one finds on more general sites, like when different memes or characters are introduced, or how the different translators have dealt with the source material.