bingerama

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6200

Last night I watched another episode of Saiunkoku Monogatari Season 2 after a long break (I’ve been saving them since I’m close to running out), and was reminded of how much I adore every bit of this anime.

Because my immense adoration of this anime cannot be easily contained within one entry (along with the immense number of screenshots I would like to put up), today I will content myself with talking about a small part of it - the audio.

The cast is pretty star-studded, or what I would consider to be pretty star-studded anyway, in that it features a lot of prominent characters from the 20+ anime I’m currently watching. =p The thing is, somehow every actor manages to sound better in this show than in any other role I’ve seen them in. Take for example Kouyuu and Ensei, who share the same voices as Ikkaku and Renji respectively. They sound almost exactly the same in both roles, except that they’re oh so endearing in SM, and are pretty much morons in Bleach. A lot of it probably has to do with the script. All the dialogue is very calm and intelligent sounding, with very little panicked or angry yelling (no, for example, BANKAIIIIIs). Which also has a lot to do with how the story is presented and what the characters are like, but I’ll have to get into those another day…

The soundtrack is another thing I really like. The pieces are pretty varied, and the Chinese orchestra ones fit the mood of the show really well, especially compared to some of the other pseudo-Chinese animes I’ve seen. My favourite tracks are Ryuuki, Nukumori and Namida no Pavane; coincidentally (or not) they’re played during my 3 favourite scenes in Season 1, which I still tear up when watching even though I’ve already re-watched them 91423555 times (free lunch if you guess what they are!) I’m a huge sucker for sad quiet piano pieces, and these hit just the spot.

I started on this anime a few months back, when I hadn’t really immersed myself in uberotaku-ness yet, so I thought I was impressionable and that there were plenty of other shows out there of similar quality. Having sampled a lot more anime now, it still feels like everything else I’ve seen so far seems to fall short somehow. I know a lot of people are wary of Saiunkoku cos it seems totally girlish, but it’s really not what it looks like. More convincing arguments will follow, but in the meantime, give it a shot if you haven’t! O.o-b

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6733

My eyes get really puffy after I cry, so it was a really bad idea to watch this movie the night before I had to conduct internship interviews. Thankfully these college kids will never guess that under my professional exterior lies a total sucker for sappy anime, hah.

I’m generally very wary of stories that deal with time travel, because it’s so easy to screw up. It’s practically impossible to come up with a completely logical plot, unless you make an assumption that some kind of theory (like parallel universes) holds. Plus these things always end up dealing with the same issues (see The Butterfly Effect). This one held up fairly well however, because it kept things simple, so it was pretty much acceptable if you didn’t try to be too anal about it.

I really enjoyed the characters. The relationships didn’t exactly pan out like I expected, and I liked that. The main character, Makoto, was pretty endearing at some points, and whenever her heart was in something I felt like mine was too. The sense of regret was very convincingly conveyed, there’s just something about the way her face looks when she’s sad that’s so heartbreaking. She does sound pretty weird when she cries; but then again, I was too busy crying myself to really care.

I did think the ending was a bit unrealistically optimistic. If you watch it you’ll know what I mean, it kinda defies logic just to be a bit happier. But that’s ok. After bawling my eyes out a little gratification is nice. The soundtrack is also really really pretty. I particularly liked the insert song (Kawaranai Mono by Oku Hanako), but then again they did play it at the best part of the movie so I might be a bit biased.

Man I just went through some scenes to take screenshots for this entry, and I totally cried all over again. Oh how easily my emotions are subject to animated manipulation. I love it!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6466

Honoka is a bandana sporting, sword wielding person-for-hire (I don’t know what else you’d call her) who travels around the desert with her AI-controlled tank, fighting giant insects and the occasional robot. One day she meets what appears to be an alien person, who goes by the appropriately alien name of Iks, and whose intentions are completely obscure, evidenced by the fact that he has done absolutely nothing since he appeared in the show 6 episodes ago, except get chased down by evil robots. Honoka develops an unexplainable crush on Iks so that girls will watch the show.

The story has been pretty shruggorific so far, but I have some hopes that it’ll improve. At least the main character is somewhat cute. The most annoying thing about this anime is the completely extraneous narrator they have that has to make a comment on every little event in the series. Any moments that might have been suitably poignant and touching are shattered by his need to over-explain. Byebye subtlety.

On the bright side, Koyasu Takehito reprises his role as the unemotional character with mysterious intents (a role which he alternates with that of the strangely feminine character with mysterious intents). I guess he just has that kinda voice. Not that I’m complaining /swoon!

This was another of Ian’s recommendations, so I had really high hopes for it. Pretty bleah so far but we’ll see. My favourite parts are when the characters try to say ‘The Third’ - ‘Za Sado’. … So fail. (See previous post about consonants.)