6 days and counting!
Oh, and the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi remains unlicensed. Developing…
Monthly Archive for September, 2006
I’ve been wanting to rewatch Canvas 2 for awhile now - even despite the fact it only wrapped up this past March. Rarely do I watch a show twice within the same year. But, for some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t get Canvas off my mind, and given the show’s Autumn motif, things just got worse once the leaves started changing.
So, I sat down last night to watch the first few episodes… and came up for air four hours later.
It’s actually been an interesting experience thus far. For example, given what I learned from the ending, I find I’m much more sympathetic toward Elis this time around. I can’t dismiss her as I did before. I’m also surprised by how effectively the show telegraphs future plot developments in the first episode. It’s staggering how many little details and plot cues I missed the first time around. I’m having my, “hand, meet forehead,” moment all over again.
I still think Hiroki should have ditched Elis at the airport and ran off with Kana, though. Perhaps that possibility will be covered in Canvas 3: Mayoi no Generation. Beware of the BAD END… I hear Kana succumbs to alcoholism and blows her brains out.
More Genshiken makes me happy, even if it’s just a short OAV series. Of what few “otaku” shows there are, Genshiken probably captures the flavor of fandom and its associated subculture best. Comic Party, on the other hand, basks in the warm glow of a slick, idealized version of fandom cooked up by some self-help guru. And NHK ni Youkoso! is just an absolute mess.
Then again, NHK ni Youkoso! isn’t really an “otaku” show - it just plays one on TV. So what is it? Is it social commentary? Character drama? Tragic comedy? Love story? A little bit of everything? Perhaps so. That’s why it’s an absolute mess.
To me, the show is an entertaining failure. Why? Because, as much as the show wants to be taken seriously, I just can’t do it. Satou is the crux, I think… he’s just a wildly inconsistent and unrealistic character. One minute, he’s a disturbed idiot. The next minute, he’s a capable and intelligent young man. In other words, he’s only what the story demands him to be at any given moment. Sometimes, he’s a sorry hikikomori. Other times, he’s a pretty normal guy, with goals, friends, and romantic interests.
You can’t have it both ways.
But perhaps that’s the point? Perhaps the only way to celebrate the life of a hikikomori is to present Satou as everything but? And perhaps the only way to maintain the integrity of this framework is to have Satou revert to his hikikomori ways the moment his life gets to be too normal? After all, every time Satou starts making progress, he just ends up huddling in his futon, talking to his appliances. Perhaps this “one step forward, two steps back” narrative is the point of the show… I don’t know.
I should point out, however, that this is more personal observation than critique of the show. Like I said, it’s an entertaining failure. As a comedy, NHK ni Youkoso! succeeds more often than it fails. As something more serious, however, the show rarely delivers. Unfortunately, it desires to be serious more than it desires to be funny. That may be its downfall.
Damn, I’m cold. It might snow tonight. Can you believe that?
Speaking of which, I finally bit the bullet this evening and watched the most recent episodes of Strawberry Panic. The snow was a nice touch. Although, I can’t help but notice that the animation director still hasn’t mastered the concept of four seasons. When trees change color in Autumn, they tend to drop their leaves… they don’t sprout new foliage just in time for Winter. Oh, and when it’s snowing outside, it tends to be cold. Would it be too much trouble to provide these girls some stylish winter threads? To hell with Amane’s amnesia… she’ll just have to withdrawal from the Etoile showdown anyway when Hikari dies from freakin’ hypothermia.
That’s the problem with Strawberry Panic, though. It’s too damn lazy. The show has had some great moments, no doubt, but when the going gets tough, it just throws up its hands, reaches in the big bag o’ cliches, and pulls out the first smelly thing it can find. It did it again and again. Delight, followed by disgust, followed by delight, followed by disgust. What a frustrating show.
And, with only one episode remaining, it annoys me how so many story threads have been left unexplored. Even despite the fact the show went careening off into soap opera territory in its second half, it continually bounced from one story to another, a little taste here, a little taste there… but never enough to satisfy.
I demand satisfaction!
Man cannot live by new anime alone.
I like to rewatch old shows. New shows take precedent in my viewing schedule, no doubt, but when there’s nothing new to watch, it’s nice to have an old standby available to fill time. Choosing what to watch can be difficult; it’s very dependent on mood. Sometimes, it’s an easy decision. Other times, I sit and stare at my DVD collection so long I go cross-eyed.
Recently, I chose Patlabor - one of my all-time favorites. Patlabor is pretty involved, consisting of two OAV series, a lengthy TV series, and three films. It fills time nicely, and Patlabor fanboy that I am, I’ll never be bored with the series. On the other hand, because it’s so involved, it’s never fun to finish. I always want more to watch, but, alas, there’s no more to be found. So, I go looking for something like Patlabor to fill the hole. Unfortunately, there’s not much to choose from. Patlabor’s very one of a kind.
So, back to staring at the DVD collection I go. No joy. How about the ol’ fansub binder? Generally, I don’t hold on to fansubs, but I keep a few favorites lest they go unlicensed for an eternity. Honey & Clover? Oh yeah… I meant to rewatch that before the second season began airing, but never found the time…
Honey & Clover it is! Or was, rather, seeing as I just wrapped things up last night. When Honey & Clover first aired, I ran off to Tokyo and got to be so busy with work that I couldn’t keep up with the show. I’d catch an episode on TV every now and then - I remember stumbling upon the show in a hotel room in Atami in the middle of a typhoon, for example - but I still managed to fall way, way behind. Still, Honey & Clover was always on my mind. I was jamming to Spitz and YUKI on the train every day. I stared at ferris wheels. I visited the Hachikuro Cafe in Odaiba and drank overpriced jasmine tea.
I managed to catch up with the show shortly before returning home - I watched the final few episodes somewhere over the Pacific Ocean - but I always felt like I had missed something in the process. The second act of the show was like a blur. What happened?
So, I’ve gotten a lot out of rewatching the show over the past week. I might as well have been watching it again for the first time. And, having recently finished the second season and thus completed the story, I see a lot of details from the first season in a different light. I better understand Hagu and Hanamoto-sensei. And Mayama. And Morita. Everyone, really. And I realize how much I identify with Takemoto - a thought that is, at the same time, both frightening and comforting.
Usually, rewatching an old show is all about going through the motions. It’s fun, yeah, and your opinion of the show might change the second (or third) time around, but, for the most part, it never has the same sort of impact as the first viewing.
Honey & Clover is the exception to the rule, I suppose.
The Kare Kano TV series has a fascinating history. For one, it was never finished. The show also hastened director Hideki Anno’s departure from GAINAX (or so the story goes). Following a disagreement with the original author of the Kare Kano manga (or so the story goes), Anno left the production, placing the remaining episodes in the capable hands of his protege, Tsurumaki Kazuya. Not until six years later would Anno return to the director’s chair; he did, however, contribute to the production of Mahoromatic and Petite Princess Yucie in the interim.
Given the staff change, it should come as no surprise that later episodes of Kare Kano differ in style and tone from those that come before. Even though Tsurumaki didn’t take full control of the show until Episode 19, the transition first becomes apparent at Episode 15 - which, for all basic purposes, is a pretty unusual episode in itself. Why? For one, even though it was the first regular episode to air following two weeks of recap (ugh!), it ignores all ongoing story arcs to instead tell the story of how Yukino’s parents first met and fell in love. What really makes it unique, however, is the fact it’s presented in the format of an old home movie, much like you might find collecting dust in some forgotten corner of your grandmother’s attic. The entire episode is presented in black and white, and, at times, has the appearance of having been shot on 8mm film.
To be honest, I absolutely adore this episode. Yukino’s mother and father are plenty interesting characters in their own right, yet never see much time in the spotlight. This episode clearly belongs to them, however. And, of course, it’s a fascinating episode from both a direction and storyboard standpoint - which, since we’re talking about Kare Kano here, means its a bright spot in an already blinding sea of brilliance. It’s really something.
And it was also the inspiration for my fourth music video…
Forever and Before (30 MB XviD AVI)
This video is essentially a retelling of Episode 15. I used from footage from no other episode. That proved to be quite a challenge in itself - producing a four minute video using 24 minutes of source footage is not as simple as it sounds. Sure, while I didn’t have to spend an eternity scrubbing through hours of source looking for specific cuts (that’s the real reason the average video project takes on the order of 30+ hours to complete), the lack of suitable footage meant I’d have to break one of those cardinal “rules” of AMV editing: I’d have to reuse footage.
Ah, to hell with rules. Hideki Anno blazed his own path when he directed the episode, after all.
All things considered, I still managed to keep the repeated footage to a minimum. Still, it’s there for a reason (which should be obvious once you’ve watched the video). It actually suits the narrative fairly well… which, of course, raises an interesting question: did I compose the narrative with those limitations in mind, or did the narrative simply take advantage of them? Honestly, I can’t answer that question. When working with existing footage, there’s only so much you can do - so many ideas you can realize - yet… well, that’s just AMV editing for you. As a photographer, I’m used to this sort of thing. Photography is, essentially, the art of subtraction, and while I can’t change the reality of a scene as I see it with my own two eyes, I have immense control over the reality of that scene as the camera sees it. Good photographers don’t simply record images. They make images.
To me, that’s what AMV editing is about. It’s about creating something original from that which already exists. You might be thinking, “Well, duh!”, but if you really stop to consider it for a moment, it’s an entirely different beast when compared to standard filmmaking. Creating something from scratch is easy enough as long as you have ideas and resources. Bending reality to your will, on the other hand, requires a lot of creativity. That, and ignorance of intellectual property law.
But I digress. Forever and Before was completed in a single weekend (it was a LONG weekend), and was later submitted for competition at that year’s AMV contest at Anime Central in Chicago. I had never been all that interested in running the con circuit, but the timing was right, so I figured, “Why not?” Much to my surprise, the video not only made the initial cut, but was also one of three finalists in the Drama category. In the end, it lost, but it did so to one of my favorite videos of all time, so I can’t complain.
Unfortunately, I let the success go to my head, and set out a year later to produce a new video for the sole purpose of submitting to the next Anime Central… only to have it cut from the contest completely. I’ll talk about that video next time…
21 days and counting!