Volume 9 of Kumeta Koji’s Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei just came out here in the US, and of course I bought it as soon as I could. It’s all standard SZS stuff, if you’ve read any of the last eight volumes you know what to expect. I love Mr. Kumeta’s fast-paced, satirical humour, and as a whole it’s one of the most quotable series I know.
I did notice that Kodansha has started publishing the series themselves, rather than licensing them through Del Rey.
The last Pokemon game I bought was Red back in 1998, which I played so thoroughly over the next year or so that the resulting burnout has lasted over ten years now. A few days ago, while at work, I felt a strong urge to play again. Who knows why? The next day, though, I bought a copy of the recently-released Pokemon: White Version (not Black, because I prefer to hang around Pokemon that look like me lulz).
I marathon’d Haruhi season two’s ‘Endless Eight’ arc yesterday with my sister. The first time I watched E8, it was through fansubs uploaded to Youtube, and the highlight was really just watching the comments get increasingly irate with every episode. Similarly, the highlight of watching the official DVD release was the commentary reel my sister and I provided.
Like many fans, I’m still not sure what to make of the whole endeavour.
I finished the anime Ghost Hound last night, which an acquaintance of mine recommended to me a while back. Apparently, some of the same staff who worked on serial experiments lain, which I loved, also worked on Ghost Hound, including writer Konaka Chiaki. The resemblance was obvious, too, since both tackle similar themes and share some stylistic touches (like extreme close-ups of people’s eyes or mouth).
Overall, it’s an excellent series.
I watched Last Exile the other day, after a couple years of seeing several people whose opinion I respect speak well of it. Very seldom am I led astray by those I trust, especially when the work in question gets near-universal praise as Last Exile does. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing someone who outright dislikes it.
Yet, I dropped it after just two episodes.
There were a few problems, but two factors especially turned me off right away.
A theatre about an hour’s drive away from me was showing the first two Evangelion Rebuild films, so after some deliberation I decided to go.
I had modest expectations, going as much to support the industry and encourage studios to release more animated films in theatres as I did to see these particular works. The original series has always struck me as decent, but highly overrated, Death and Rebirth is one of the worst films I’ve seen, and End of Evangelion, though gorgeous to look at, still seems like a disjointed mess.
I just finished watching Evangelion: Death and Rebirth, and have never felt so pissed off at a film. Yeah, I’d been warned by people I trust to just avoid this one, but like a cat curiosity got the better of me. After all, the main series was okay, and End of Evangelion may have hacked me off by trying too hard to integrate every philosophy it could think of, but at least it had high production values.
So, I didn’t flunk out of any classes on the first day, but I did encounter another unprecedented situation.
In my American Modernism class, my professor told us that if we have the time we ought to read The Sound and the Fury now, even though it’s not due until later, so that we will have time to re-read it. Figuring that Faulkner’s novel must be quite the beast to warrant such advice, I took the time to read it once through.
Warning: This review contains spoilers, so don’t read it if you haven’t seen Sweeney Todd and don’t want to know major plot points in advance.
I went to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, director Tim Burton’s new film, Saturday morning. It was definitely the first horror musical I’ve ever seen, and unfortunately one of the few musicals of any sort made since 1960 or so. (Note, though, that I have not seen the original stage musical the film is based on, so I can’t comment on it).