First, my list of anime I’m interested in has changed, drastically. There is a perfectly good reason for this, based on my bias, which I am going to explain for you! You see, it all pertains to my personal expectations, which, I suppose, is somewhat of a gimme. So lets back up through the shows that I reviewed before, tell you what expectations I had, and hence how their scores reflected that – and how the changes were affected by it as well.
Firstly, Fullmetal – I love FMA. The manga, the anime from before, everything – I’m a big fan. And I came to love the characters, the style, the animation, the off-beat humor. So when they come up with a show that’s going to follow the manga, I’m going to be raaather particular about things. Scene composition and pacing better be perfect. The animation wasn’t bad – but the way they drew the characters didn’t look right, like they weren’t drawn well even if the animation itself was fine. By episode five, though, it hit a level of competency I was happy with, and I can feel them starting to get into the pace of the show. So it rose from the 8.5 I had given it to a 9. Also, you have to remember those expectations from before – I EXPECT this show to be great. If it’s not great, it’s disappointing.
Compare that to, say, Pandora Hearts. PH is a fun distraction, with characters that interest me and a background I’m intrigued to find out. But my expectation for the anime is relatively low – I expect average to maybe slightly low levels of animation, composition and pacing that’s a little off, colors that are too bright. So when that happens, I shrug my shoulders and think to myself “eh, it’s not that bad. It could be worse.” Sometimes they even stick a shot or an exchange that makes me go “oh, nice!” This, of course, changes how I’m going to rate it later – overall, it’s not near as good as Fullmetal, but from the expectations I carried for it, it’s not far gone. So it’s score is higher. (FYI, my expectations for PH and for 07 Ghost hovered at about the same, so ditto for that show too).
Then we hit Basquash, a show that seemed, at first glance, to be an interesting mix of Eureka Seven meets the kind of bouncy energy that I got from Gurren Lagann. And overall, I still might not be far off – but my estimation of it has dropped drastically. And this is where I get to rant about ethics or morals that I keep. Mainly, the fact that I more or less like sane main characters. Damaged – sure. Depressed – sure. Mentally diseased…? Er, no thank you. Not unless it’s in a less…creepy way. If you’re still unsure of what I’m talking about, watch episode three. EW. Why does the one main character chick who plays basketball have to be a masochist? And I mean literal – she is shown, in awkward intensity, feeling…ecstatic about getting beaten. Couple her with a little girl princess who seems to have the senses and mindset of a samurai (huh?), a guy who goes psychotically homicidal crazy whenever he picks up a basketball, and a huge-breasted lunar basketball fanatic who falls in love with the main character’s playing and becomes his agent, and suddenly I’m feeling a but overwhelmed with crazy people. The things I loved about it – the music, the kind of off-beat energy, the style – just aren’t enough to keep me going when the plot is taking a nosedive into narcotics. So my highest-ranking show from before falls from its pedestal – from a 10 to a 6.
K-ON! has risen from its previous estimation. I still hate – and I do mean hate, with a passion – the way they portray Yui in the first episode. My synopsis of her from before stays the same – if episode one was all I watched. However, watch more of the show and you realize she’s more quirky than she showed before, and hence goes from stock annoying weak main character to amusing, flighty, but at least not stupidly I-want-to-wring-her-neck annoying. By episode five, I’d say the score ups from the 7.5 to a 9.
Really, the only show that has stayed the same from before is Cross Game, which appears uncertain whether I’ll get to watch (downloading over summer = impossible with dial-up connections and a computer that freezes after too long on any one task. I’ve been relying on Ensei to download, and she has limits herself). Otherwise my line-up is now, from top to bottom: Fullmetal Alchemist, Eden of the East, K-ON! (though those last two are a tie depending on my mood), 07 Ghost, Pandora Hearts, Cross Game (only because I may not get to watch it – otherwise bump it up to before 07 Ghost), and Basquash is officially dropped. (In case you were wondering, 07 Ghost is above PH, because they seem to be pacing better – PH took 3 eps to get out of the Abyss. Come ON. 07 Ghost took one ep to get out of the military station – and after that is going at a steady pace, though not incredibly fast.)
So that’s the shows, and what I think about them. On from there!
Comic status: I’ve got the Prologue to the next comic complete! Five pages. I need a title, though – story of my life. Also working on the next page of Elise’s story, The Twelfth Gate. Too generic for a title? Hm. We’ll see.
Shows I’m Watching Over Summer: The Flash! It’s amusing! In a campy, made-in-the-early-90’s kind of way. Sometimes they have good lines, but mostly have lines that make me go ‘they actually said that, didn’t they…’
Free time is spent reading X-Men comics from the very beginning. Oh, yeah, baby, drawn in the 60’s! I got a 40 Years of X-Men download at one point, so I got up to 2005. I’m in the 70’s now – Jean has finally ceased to be the weak girl who collapses from the strain half-way through the fight! She’s the Phoenix, now. Still the center of the love triangle, though. Scott and Jean (as always), and Logan, now. Warren’s…off somewhere. We haven’t seen him in a while, but I’m pretty sure he’s moved on, found other people to love. And this time it is Kurt, the loveable blue furry fellow, who keeps inviting people out on double dates, instead of Bobby.
I have to confess something else about myself: I get engrossed in movies very very easily. Why is this pertinent? It means scary movies actually are scary (typically, unless I’m mocking them, in which case they’re amusing/irritating), sad movies make me bawl, happy movies make me cry (no judging!), and other movies…I typically mock. But enjoy, too (like Transformers – I’ll get to that in a moment). For this reason, I don’t watch chick flicks – because nine times out of ten, there’s at least one sad moment, and I cry. I’m a happy person, lead a look-on-the-bright-side-of-life kind of existence, and besides, crying gives me a headache. And I don’t look good doing it. I get all red and blotchy and my nose runs. Not what I consider a sexy moment (so future dates: no chick flicks. Then again, not many guys want to take a girl to a chick flick anyway, so I’m probably safe. And if I’m not, I should probably worry about the guy…). And it’s embarrassing.
This all leads into the movie I just saw – Pixar’s Up. I have to hand it to Pixar – they are amazing to be able to, within 15 minutes, make you care enough about a character to cry for them. But I’m in a movie theater and now I feel stupid because there’s this guy sitting five chairs to the right across the aisle that keeps glancing my way whenever I so much as move (of course, that may be due to the fact that out of the whole theater, Brose and I were probably the loudest. Oops), so I’m positive he saw it.
But dang, Pixar’s good.
On the Transformers note, I liked it. Apparently it’s been getting a lot of bad hype, but to me, it was everything I expected and wanted it to be – dialogue that didn’t make my ears bleed (much – the annoying guy from the first movie was just as annoying in this movie), lots of explosions and action, and pretty animation. Sure, there were moments I didn’t like – the dogs humping, and the small robot doing the same later, was awkward, and the two robot twins were just stupid (and never even did anything – why were they there?), and the annoying new fellow who was acting as the military dick didn’t really do much either, given that he didn’t even slow down the good guys when they decided on what they had to do. Granted, at least that last one served a purpose – his existence in the movie was to show the audience how public (aka, government) opinion on the Autobots had changed since last movie. But he still felt…unnecessary.
But despite all of that, I enjoyed it. A lot. Probably more than the first. I will buy this one eventually (and the first, I suppose).
On another note, I wonder if the main character continues to know all that stuff from the Allspark? I mean, he remembered the stuff from the astronomy book, so does he remember the fourteenth dimension? (If you’re confused on that, it’s at the end of his almost-incomprehensible speech/breakdown in class). And does the matrix do more stuff, and is it still “his?” If so, he’s got interesting things in his life to come.
Well, that’s about all for now, folks! I’ll have pictures up next time.
