![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harukanaru made
14 Apr 2007 12:35 amLooks like I'll be postponing my god-bless-America-#whatever until after this rant...
With the departure of March, a whole bunch of anime has finished. I stopped watching Bakumatsu after about 10 episodes, but I still think it's one of the best animated series I've seen, in terms of, uh, animation. The motion was so fluid and dynamic, like the early episodes of Black Cat minus the drug-induced psychotic colours. It also has amazing music, or maybe I'm just addicted to that repetitive little tune for which I'm still trying to find the guitar or piano or harpsichord or whatever string instrument it was version.
Death Note I still download, but it's now onto the part where, uh, an important character has departed. Like, the most important character save one. I haven't been watching since the tennis match, to be honest. Haven't gone near D.Grayman again once I spotted a filler episode. A filler! This early in the season!
Just after I thought I was rid of Saiunkoku anime forever..........the second season started OTZ
Legolas and Little Red Riding Hood....*sniggers*
But the issue of my rant today (tonight - pun unintended) is this pretty thing:
Hanakanaru Toki no Naka de ~ Maihitoyo (In a distant time ~ Dance one night). Spot the girl! Hint: There's only one! Hint: It's not the one dressed in leopard print and brandishing a sword!
This thing is ridiculously popular, and I say so because anything that's spawned 12 manga volumes, 26 episodes of anime, 2 episodes of OAV and one movie lasting 104 minutes with a stellar cast, which came 60th on Japan's favourite anime list had better be pretty damn popular. (Then again, Sailor Moon came 30th. Explains everything.)
When this thing first came out years and years ago - it must have been right after Fruits Basket or something - I saw from a long distance away how much it resembled Fushigi Yuugi and kept my distance. Besides, the manga art was inconsistent, although admittedly much better than Fushigi Yuugi of its early days.
I only watched it because of its cast...and after watching it...it's only worth watching because of its cast, and what a cast! Kawakami Tomoko (Hikaru no Go's Hikaru/Fushigi Yuugi's Chiriko), Ishida Akira (Athrun), Hoshi Souichiro (Kira), Miki Shinichiro (Black Cat's Creed/Bleach's Urahara), Seki Tomokazu (Furuba Kyou/Saiunkoku Ryuuki/FMP Soujirou amongst many others), Inoue Kazuhiko (Furuba's Hatori, Naruto's Kakashi, and practically every other womaniser not played by Koyasu Takehito), Miyata Kouki (Kyou Kara Maou's Murata Ken), Nakahara Shigeru (Gundam Wing's Trowa) and not least, Sakurai Takahiro (Black Cat's Jenos/Code Geass Suzaku/D.Grayman Kanda Yuu/Kyou Kara Maou's Shibuya Yuri, and also as ZERO on Vampire Knight's Drama CD *squeee*)
It's a complete seiyuu fest, with the best in shoujo (and ahem, shounen-ai) all rolled up in one show.
But that's it.
Ishida Akira doing total injustice to both his voice and his legendary historical character (Abe Yasuaki with such a horrid constipated monotone?! Nooooooooo!!!!) aside, this is like Fushigi Yuugi but ten times more excruciating because there's no Nuriko and no Amiboshi and no Suboshi and no Hotohori and no character you'd give a rat's ass about.
I might be being unfair, seeing I've only watched one "episode" in their life, so to speak. Plot and depth is always too much to expect in reverse harem shows so if it fails on character then it fails hands down.
Akane, our main character, lies somewhere on the Shinji scale for whingeing. "I want to do something", "everyone is so protective of me", "everyone thinks of me as miko and not a person", whinge whinge whine whine.
I'm so sick of the whole "everyone around me is so good there's nothing I can do boohoohoo". If people are so bloody eager to do something for others, they'd find something, and it wouldn't be insensitive reckless adventures that does nothing but make everyone worried sleepless about them.
Akane swoons at her own pathetic attempt at exorcising demons and has to be carried back by her injured bodyguards, and the first thing she does when she wakes up is chuck a tantrum at the casualty because he insists that it was okay if he got hurt.
Riiiiight.
And then she starts moping because she chucked a fit at him.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I don't get what the standard of a good girl is in Japan, but if she's meant to be an inspirational female character, Japan must be a land of bitches.
And it pisses me off immensely that the "demon" she must "save" is a pretty boy who, even in his demonic form, is still a bloody pretty boy, but when the little kid that she tried to save earlier turned into some sort of horrific Gollum-like creature she had one of her underlings kill it without batting an eyelid, much less the torrent of tears dedicated to aforementioned pretty boy.
W.T.F.
I really shouldn't be flaying this anime when my expectations for it was so low, but it just embodied every bloody thing I hate about harem shows. One girl surrounded by a dozen pretty boys, all infatuated with her even though she's the most pathetic snitch a sadistic author can invent, whose greatest achievement is getting those around her hurt on her behalf, who has everyone admiring her strength when all she does is whine about her "fate", who is worshipped like some national treasure and has all the usefulness of a used tissue.
Mary Sue.
Fark this.
Someone give me Host Club or Gokusen or XXXHolic so I can cleanse my mind of this horror that pretends to be a worthy female character.
(And I don't know if it annoys me more or less when the anime obviously had the budget to go with very consistent and smooth animation, with some flashy and unnecessary 3D modelling effects. Even exceptional animation and acting can't save the mess that was the original set up.)
With the departure of March, a whole bunch of anime has finished. I stopped watching Bakumatsu after about 10 episodes, but I still think it's one of the best animated series I've seen, in terms of, uh, animation. The motion was so fluid and dynamic, like the early episodes of Black Cat minus the drug-induced psychotic colours. It also has amazing music, or maybe I'm just addicted to that repetitive little tune for which I'm still trying to find the guitar or piano or harpsichord or whatever string instrument it was version.
Death Note I still download, but it's now onto the part where, uh, an important character has departed. Like, the most important character save one. I haven't been watching since the tennis match, to be honest. Haven't gone near D.Grayman again once I spotted a filler episode. A filler! This early in the season!
Just after I thought I was rid of Saiunkoku anime forever..........the second season started OTZ
Legolas and Little Red Riding Hood....*sniggers*
But the issue of my rant today (tonight - pun unintended) is this pretty thing:
Hanakanaru Toki no Naka de ~ Maihitoyo (In a distant time ~ Dance one night). Spot the girl! Hint: There's only one! Hint: It's not the one dressed in leopard print and brandishing a sword!
This thing is ridiculously popular, and I say so because anything that's spawned 12 manga volumes, 26 episodes of anime, 2 episodes of OAV and one movie lasting 104 minutes with a stellar cast, which came 60th on Japan's favourite anime list had better be pretty damn popular. (Then again, Sailor Moon came 30th. Explains everything.)
When this thing first came out years and years ago - it must have been right after Fruits Basket or something - I saw from a long distance away how much it resembled Fushigi Yuugi and kept my distance. Besides, the manga art was inconsistent, although admittedly much better than Fushigi Yuugi of its early days.
I only watched it because of its cast...and after watching it...it's only worth watching because of its cast, and what a cast! Kawakami Tomoko (Hikaru no Go's Hikaru/Fushigi Yuugi's Chiriko), Ishida Akira (Athrun), Hoshi Souichiro (Kira), Miki Shinichiro (Black Cat's Creed/Bleach's Urahara), Seki Tomokazu (Furuba Kyou/Saiunkoku Ryuuki/FMP Soujirou amongst many others), Inoue Kazuhiko (Furuba's Hatori, Naruto's Kakashi, and practically every other womaniser not played by Koyasu Takehito), Miyata Kouki (Kyou Kara Maou's Murata Ken), Nakahara Shigeru (Gundam Wing's Trowa) and not least, Sakurai Takahiro (Black Cat's Jenos/Code Geass Suzaku/D.Grayman Kanda Yuu/Kyou Kara Maou's Shibuya Yuri, and also as ZERO on Vampire Knight's Drama CD *squeee*)
It's a complete seiyuu fest, with the best in shoujo (and ahem, shounen-ai) all rolled up in one show.
But that's it.
Ishida Akira doing total injustice to both his voice and his legendary historical character (Abe Yasuaki with such a horrid constipated monotone?! Nooooooooo!!!!) aside, this is like Fushigi Yuugi but ten times more excruciating because there's no Nuriko and no Amiboshi and no Suboshi and no Hotohori and no character you'd give a rat's ass about.
I might be being unfair, seeing I've only watched one "episode" in their life, so to speak. Plot and depth is always too much to expect in reverse harem shows so if it fails on character then it fails hands down.
Akane, our main character, lies somewhere on the Shinji scale for whingeing. "I want to do something", "everyone is so protective of me", "everyone thinks of me as miko and not a person", whinge whinge whine whine.
I'm so sick of the whole "everyone around me is so good there's nothing I can do boohoohoo". If people are so bloody eager to do something for others, they'd find something, and it wouldn't be insensitive reckless adventures that does nothing but make everyone worried sleepless about them.
Akane swoons at her own pathetic attempt at exorcising demons and has to be carried back by her injured bodyguards, and the first thing she does when she wakes up is chuck a tantrum at the casualty because he insists that it was okay if he got hurt.
Riiiiight.
And then she starts moping because she chucked a fit at him.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I don't get what the standard of a good girl is in Japan, but if she's meant to be an inspirational female character, Japan must be a land of bitches.
And it pisses me off immensely that the "demon" she must "save" is a pretty boy who, even in his demonic form, is still a bloody pretty boy, but when the little kid that she tried to save earlier turned into some sort of horrific Gollum-like creature she had one of her underlings kill it without batting an eyelid, much less the torrent of tears dedicated to aforementioned pretty boy.
W.T.F.
I really shouldn't be flaying this anime when my expectations for it was so low, but it just embodied every bloody thing I hate about harem shows. One girl surrounded by a dozen pretty boys, all infatuated with her even though she's the most pathetic snitch a sadistic author can invent, whose greatest achievement is getting those around her hurt on her behalf, who has everyone admiring her strength when all she does is whine about her "fate", who is worshipped like some national treasure and has all the usefulness of a used tissue.
Mary Sue.
Fark this.
Someone give me Host Club or Gokusen or XXXHolic so I can cleanse my mind of this horror that pretends to be a worthy female character.
(And I don't know if it annoys me more or less when the anime obviously had the budget to go with very consistent and smooth animation, with some flashy and unnecessary 3D modelling effects. Even exceptional animation and acting can't save the mess that was the original set up.)
