beyond the edge

Tudou has become very difficult to access as of late and so I haven't been getting onboard with Japanese dramas even though there's quite a few interesting-looking ones out. The sociopathic female surgeon one rated really well, and considering I'm starting my surgical term in 2 weeks I really want to be able to have a laugh at it.

Gintama
Every time Gintama resumes it picks a very clever place to do so. Last time was the crazy hiatus chapter where everyone (except poor ol' Shinpachi) changed their personalities or characteristics or jobs or...genders.

This time it picked the excellent Kintoki arc to start on. The only drawback is that the Shinsengumi doesn't appear for any of this arc. The comedy timing continues to be as hilarious as it's always been. I'm looking forward to the movie.

Zetsuen no Tempest
Written by the author who penned the deeply wistful Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna, this is a sci-fi affair full of interesting personalities and unexpected twists. And as I remember, the author is not afraid to kill people off. Though that in itself doesn't qualify for literary excellence (ahem Gantz), it makes for a suspenseful read when the author carefully builds up the character until the heart-rending end.

The original manga and the anime are littered with Shakespearean quotes. This prompted me to upend the room looking for my old Hamlet text and I'm sad to report I still can't find it. The story is set in a pseudo-future where magic and science co-exist, the magic granted by the "Tree of Beginnings" to a princess who has been stranded by her clan on an island to curb her magic powers. However, through a clever wooden doll, she was able to form a contract with an embittered teenager whose step-sister and parents were murdered in mysterious circumstances.

The anime is another high quality, glossy affair: pretty enough to pass as shoujo, but the action is fluid enough to be shounen, a perfect balance for its story. I highly recommend this anime, if only for the mindblowing revelation about a girl first introduced as...well, dead.

BTOOOM!
Ever since the disturbing Battle Royale made it famous, gruesome survival games have become a feature in popular media, from the gore-fest Gantz to the slightly more cerebral Hunger Games. Even Bakuman made a feature of it in one of its manga plots...or am I getting it mixed up with something else?

BTOOOM is a little too similar to the above-mentioned for a variety of reasons: a survival game set on an abandoned island where competitors try to kill each other with bombs. The ones who get thrown onto the island tend to be the scum of society, or nominated by those who spite them. The main character is a Freeta who escapes to the online gaming world to hide from his real life financial helplessness. His companions include a girl who ran away while her friend was raped and an abused boy who takes pleasure in killing.

The production value is not bad, but I was distracted through the whole of the first episode by Kanata's monologue. It's not that he's bad...but I'm just distracted by the fact it's him. Unfortunately with this anime preceded by the abovementioned franchises, it's hard not to feel like this is a retread that is precariously Gantz-like in its gratuitous sex and violence.

I have been out of anime and manga world for so long, but every now and then I go back to check if any of my favourites have finished (answer: NO), but just a few tidbits.

1. Sailor Moon is getting a reboot
This could be good or terrible, however I have high hopes for it as it promises to be "closer to the source material". Supposedly that's a good thing, but I haven't read the original manga either. Presumably any anime that tries to tell a story in 26 episodes will be more bearable than one told over 144 episodes.

2. Gintama anime resumes
After making it look like the Gintama anime is over for good, it comes back after barely 6 months off the block. Or something. That said, I appreciate the anime pausing for a season, every season, just for the manga to catch up instead of filling it up with endless fillers like...Sailor Moon, for example. Or Naruto. Or Bleach. Or Hunter X Hunter. Or any other manga that had the misfortune of not being complete when the anime is still going.

3. And oh, gets a(nother) movie
The script for the new movie will be penned by Sorachi-gorilla. I have no doubts it will be funny and bizarre, but early sketches are teasing a Gintoki origin story. Will we finally canonically know what happened during Gintoki's famous "Shiroyasha" years? Or Sorachi's having a go at us, again. And when will the Shinsengumi ever turn up in a Gintama movie?

4. Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden is still going
And amazingly, NO ONE IMPORTANT HAS DIED YET. What is going on. This is unacceptable.

5. Gakuen Alice is still going
After about 20 chapters of Natsume nearly dying...and then not dying...and then nearly dying...and then not dying...and then nearly dying, I'm going to sit this one out until she makes up her mind.

5. Ludwig Kakumei restarted
As much as Fairy Cube was refreshing, and Ningyou was sweet, Yuki Kaori really hasn't returned to her former epic-ness since Count Cain ended. She's like the Japanese version of Tim Burton, deriving her tales from well-established stories, and like Burton she's lost her touch. As much as I adored Ian, I don't think I've cared much about any of her characters, certainly not in the way I used to love them in the heyday of Angel Sanctuary or Count Cain.



Other things #1
Recently I tried to watch Timeslip Dr. Jin (aka the Korean version). I never managed to watch the Japanese version because as much as I find Ayase adorable I can't stand her acting.

One lesson to learn from the Korean version is...if you have bland, uninteresting main characters, do NOT make your secondary major character a tragic anti-hero who struggles with such profound issues as obligation and filial duty and integrity, because suddenly no one's interested in the main characters. And do NOT, then, make every tragedy imaginable happen to this sole character just to deepen the emotional impact, because suddenly no one gives a hoot about the main characters' own tragic love story. And next, do NOT cast someone who is ten times more eye-catching (that is not, actually to say, he is in any sense of the word a better actor or in fact suited to his role) than the main actor; because everyone's eyes glaze over when the girl opts for the bland guy for no apparent reason. And finally, DO NOT make the story's pivotal events eventuate because of the actions of this secondary character, because then everyone's kinda wondering, so what's the point of the main character?

Other things #2
Searching "Gintama" on Ebay is a very, very bad idea. It reminded me of those long ago high school days, when my young innocent eyes came upon Yuu Yuu Hakusho doujin's. O how I shudder to think of it.

Other things #3
Speaking of Yuu Yuu Hakusho, I drew this for my friend's birthday:


Maybe one day I'll finish it (I'll have to steal my parents' computer for the Photoshop). Does anyone still remember these 2 anime?

Other things #4
After drawing the above picture, I remembered these were some of my first favourite anime characters ever -


...Not to mention the craploads of long-haired guys in Bleach, Saiunkoku, anything by CLAMP or Yuki Kaori, or Kenshin, or Fujiwara Sai...

Suddenly it all made sense =0=;;;;;;;;;;;

(To be fair, only Nuriko acted like a girl despite having the non-girly superpower of superstrength...I'd never accuse Kurama or Inuyasha or Duo of being girly, possibly on the account they can incinerate me with a thumb)

I come, bearing horrible news (and the 3rd day of the meme).

This summer, for the first time ever, three dramas are coming to Japanese TV...

Three dramas, all about a girl crossdressing and a horde of supposed bishounen.

Three dramas that will bring ruin upon us all...well, at least upon themselves.

Three dramas that unfortunately take their roots from very popular source material.

WHY, JAPAN, WHY???!?!

Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (aka "HanaKimi")
Coinciding with Maeda Atsuko's (AKB48 front girl) solo debut. The original production team has been brought back to redo this drama, which simply does not make sense. The script for the series that screened, what, 4 years ago absolutely sucked, and that is one role I'm sure Oguri Shun wish he never did. That said, the stars for the original series (Maki, Shun and Toma) are still very current and famous, so remaking it almost seems like biting their thumb at these guys. Maeda's performance in Q10 was so atrocious that I can already foresee myself not being able to sit through the first episode. Besides, no one can take Toma's place, he alone made the original series watchable.

Ouran Koukou Host Club
YES, you read that clearly. YES, after years and years of fans concommittantly fantasising about and dreading this happening...it is happening. Tamaki is going to be Yamamoto Yusuke, who was the psychic guy in HanaKimi and I can't say I'm going to like him, although I can rather imagine him doing a cringeworthy representation of Tamaki's exuberant narcissism. Haruhi is not going to be Maki, thank god, but Kawaguchi Haruna, who for one thing is at least still in high school, and though she wasn't a good actress from the last two dramas I've seen with her, at least she tries to act. That said...she's not a good actress. Ugh.

You're Beautiful
People who watch Korean dramas would know what I'm talking about. YES. THAT ONE. This is going to be a Johnny's fare with two Kis-Mai-Ft 2 boys fronting the band and Yaotome Hikaru (HSJ) to round off the third, and supposedly with "cameos of real stars" (i.e. this is going to be Shounen Club). Presumably this is to coincide with KMF2's delayed CD release. I've never watched KMF2 performances but my friend assures me that they can't sing. On the other hand, while Hikaru isn't the best singer in HSJ I believe he can sing AND act (IMO he stole the show in Orthros no Inu), which might just even things out. Especially since the only thing I remember about Tamamori's appearance in Gokusen the Movie is that it is utterly immemorable, even though he was supposedly a major character. I have never heard of the girl, Takimoto Miori, but she looks kinda spunky.

So there you go...some crossdressing fun (or bad camp) to look forward to.

OMG What am I gonna do with my time for the next three months DDDDDD=

( Day 3 ~ Character you'd date )

After a long debate with self, I did sit down and watch that Uragiri nantoka (sorry, name is too long ==;)

It has every voice actor I liked/cared about! Hoshi (Kira)! Sakurai (Suzaku)! Fukuyama (Wataknuki/Lelouch)! Ishida (Athrun)! Miyano (Raito/Setsuna)! Miki (Lockon/many other people)! Ono Daisuke (Sebastian)! Koyasu (Mwu)!! Like, seriously @___@

But it is soooooooooooooooooooo slooooooooooooooooooooow. UGH. It is so slow I spent the entire 24 minutes marvelling at the ways they were saving money on animation by cutting to really random scenes when people are talking =_______________=;;;;;;;;;;; Also apart from a little bit in the beginning and a little bit in the end, it had NO music. Like......did you spend all your budget on the voice actors??

Also.....Hoshi Souichirou's voice-acting (or voice-non-acting) is annoying me Orz He has a grating voice usually, to be honest, but it works as a outgoing kid or someone awkward like Kira, but I don't know...I expected Yuki to sound...prettier Orz

Ishida's voice is pretty as usual, but he would randomly go high-pitched, presumably so he doesn't sound as monotonic as he does as Katsura but it sounds weird ==;;;;;;;; Sakurai's voice is so awesome...he would've made an awesome Sebastian XDD I'm pretty sure I heard Koyasu's voice but it was uncredited. Fukuyama made Tsukumo (I loved his name LOL) so....high-pitched and.....well, girly Orz Fukuyama can do really brash voices (e.g. Watanuki) as well as soft voices but...Tsukumo I imagined as cool/cold, not gentle T__T

It feels like it only covered a quarter of chapter one or something (I'm sure that's not true) but it's soooooo sloooooooow uggggh. At least get to an explosion by the end of the first episode T__T I don't think I can stand to keep watching *sigh*

I unburied my only volume of Rurouni Kenshin and...got very confused by different translations of different factions =0=;;;; And I'm still trying to figure out the whole 維新、親皇、親幕、維幕、倒幕、攘夷 alignments and which goes with which |||||Orz

But~ According to the freetalk, Shinomori Aoshi was based on Hijikata Toshizo and Seta Soujirou was based on Okita Souji~~~ They were my two favourite characters in RK~ I guess I'm destined to like them (no, you just end up liking the characters that authors have an obvious bias for, you idiot.)

Both the RK and Gintama mangaka confess to being Hijikata fans, which is probably why Sorachi originally considered setting Hijikata as main character =v=

So in memory of this discovery, I have changed my picture to the great Prince Mayoraa-sama from planet Mayoraa, mayo XDD (Don't blame unrelated people for your whims =0=) Voila~ 夢幻版土方 *被拖去切腹*

His charater design reminds me of Roy Mustang from Full Metal Alchemist...and I don't even watch that so I don't know why I know the guy's name =0=;

Watsuki (RK mangaka) said this about Aoshi:

...Once I decided to use my beloved Shinsengumi as blueprint, Aoshi naturally came to use Shinsengumi's vice captain "Hijikata Toshizo" as blueprint. But even so, in actuality, there are two "Hijikata" that exist within books or novels. (Shinsengumi fans should be well aware of this.)

One "Hijikata" is the "Burn, Sword" version, who indulged his natural warrior instincts until he fought to his death upon the battlefield, the obstinate version of Hijikata (Watsuki is a fan of this Hijikata). The other is a Hijikata who, for the sake of the Shinsengumi, was able to discard personal sentiments, who was cold on the outside, who would only shed tears in his heart, who in particular was able to perfectly conceal all human weaknesses. Aoshi was created upon the basis of the latter.

Ah, so Gintama Hijikata actually had some resemblance to other portrayals of him after all~ (Sorachi: What did you take me for?) Well, you made Okita a prince from planet Sadistic, so what can I say =0=

Gintama Hijikata seems to be more of the first kind, with some qualities of the second.

I nearly had a heart attack when I saw a bubble on my Shinsengumi Douran arc CD (Hijikata being possessed by Tosshi) but fortunately it still works. I'm surprised to discover that Itou actually did exist and did clash with Kondo et co! (Sorachi: ...dakara, what did you take me for!) The Shinsengumi were not such the good guys in the historical event, even though they did kill Itou because they heard that he was plotting Kondo's assassination...Still. It was an ambush and they killed Toudou Heisuke, who didn't appear in Gintama =( I wonder why Sorachi also dropped Yamanami (captain of Shinsengumi) from the story. It would have been good development for Okita.

I watched the Benizakura arc and wasn't half as impressed as I thought I should be >_>; I expected Katsura to be cooler T-T Come to think of it...his first appearance was his coolest and he's been getting steadily less awe-inspiring ever since, even though the short Ramen arc was nice Orz I wish he'd get a serious arc when we get to see him fight properly for a lot longer than 3 minutes...with some impressive Shinsengumi-type speeches, preferably =D

Went and caught up with Gintama episodes (not all of them, no!) I think I've just been systematically going through episodes in which the Shinsengumi appear. I can't bring myself to watch teh Tsusengumi episodes unfortunately...even though Hijikata pretending to be an otaku cracks me up.

I think I now like Hijikata more than Okita XDDDD But Okita's few rare serious moments are very memorable...and also very, very rare. In fact, I think there's only been two arcs so far when the situation overwhelmed his neverending quest to surreptitiously knock off Hijikata.

Watching episode 119 (citywide ban on smoking drove Hijikata on a intergalactic mission to get a smoke) made me sympathise with smokers for the first time ever in my life XDDDDDD I bet the exploding ash bin was installed by Okita. Maa, maa~ I'm sure Okita had vice captain's health in mind, and the best way to quit smoking is to go cold turkey =v= (as if)

I'm actually starting to like Gintoki as well because of the utter married-couple-like hilarity between him and Hijikata (*especially that episode where they got handcuffed to each other and waltzed down the streets in the name of "not raising notice"...yeaaaaaah good work). For some reason I've never managed to connect the two of them as similar in spite of what the anime extols. They're both idiots who will get worked up over some silly reason just as a matter of pride...just like 50 other characters in the show.

I don't think I'd like Hijikata nearly as much if he were in a different anime, and maybe that's why I took so long to warm to him...but he's so...serious. He's the embodiment of the whole Japanese "ganbatte" philosophy. Everything he does, he puts all of himself into it...whether it's arresting lawbreakers, or quelling terrorists, or defending the supremacy of mayonnaise, or becoming the king of otaku =0=; Anything that he settles himself down to, he will drive himself to the very end and to the very best. In an era of hedonism, in real life he would be one of those people mocked for his pretty ideals and big dreams, but he will keep to them until the world around him succumbs. By such people is history made =v=

And he's very alone in this - Kondo spends most of his time worrying about all the wrong things, Okita won't fight unless it interests him, Gintoki is equally lazy unless the script calls for a Main Character Moment™, even Katsura will choose running away when things don't work out. Hijikata alone charges on, keeping to his course and keeping to his word.

So you feel sorry for him, because in Gintama's world, he's like a true Shinsengumi stuck with a crowd of lazy asses. He's called the demon vice captain only because he's normal. He's feared by his own people, hated by criminals, harassed by Gintoki, hunted by Okita...and possessed by an otaku nut ==; You feel for him when he says "Every moment is a battle for me..." Poor guy ;_;

I'm sure it's intentional, but he doesn't seem to realise the charisma he has. He has all the skills and abilities, he practically runs the Shinsengumi, he's an utter cynic but inside he is full of romantics (hey, Vimes!), he binds himself with duties and rules in order for his heart to always be in the right place...but he would never ask to be Shinsengumi leader because he believes that the one who stands at the top has to be a bigger dreamer.

He's too sweet for this anime XD

I must have missed this anime in my sick-of-anime-ness brought on by the terrible Gundam 00.

I haven't actually watched the anime properly except to scan through the last two episodes (*cough cough*) and I probably won't because it doesn't seem to actually end in the anime.

The manga is published in Square Enix's Monthly G Fantasy, which is home to another recent and extremely popular anime, Kuroshitsuji, as well as older titles like E's and Nabari no Ou. This magazine is supposedly "shounen", but a discerning eye will tell you any of the series mentioned above is really shounen-ai dressed up as shounen...or shounen dressed up as shounen-ai, whichever way you'd like to have it =__=;

In that respect it reminds me a lot of Asuka, which published stuff like X/1999 and D.N.Angel and Kyou Kara Maou, many of which are fantasy epics full of interesting fight scenes but also laden with shounen-ai overtones, although these Asuka comics tended to be a lot stronger on the shounen-ai than Monthly G Fantasy.

None of this is really relevant of course, since, depending on the author, shounen-ai overtones can pop up even in the purest shoujo mangas as comic relief or subconsciously because the mangaka used to write doujinshi ==;

Except...except it gets creepy after a while, if the author doesn't take note. Guys starting to act like girls, sit like girls, look like girls, go all emotional wreckage on people like girls...it's...ick. Especially since I find most girls in manga rather...ick.

Pandora Hearts is an interesting manga, if only its plot wasn't so convoluted, which is the first of its problems. Most synopses online start off with something like: on his 15th birthday and coming-of-age ceremony, Oz Versalius got thrown into "the Abyss" for the sin of existing, and in order to escape there, he made an illegal contract with "a Chain" called Alice, also known as the Blood-stained Black Rabbit. In fact, it wouldn't be so confusing if it stopped giving weird names to everything. Even now I still don't know what the Abyss is except it's some dark place with horrible broken toys that people end up if they form an "illegal contract" with "a Chain". And a Chain is supposedly a monster from the Abyss.

What it really seems to be about is a bunch of emotionally screwed up people with crossing loyalties and gaping vulnerabilities, who try to make the world right by their own standards and end up making it even more screwed up than it was before, and now they're trying to fix it except no one really seems to know what is actually right.

Every now and then I like to read manga about emotionally screwed up people because it reminds me of the good ol' days of high school, when all these mangaka *cough* Kaori Yuki *cough* CLAMP wrote stories about how the world was going to end in 1999 and the way it did so was pivotal on the actions of a few really really screwed up people. Fortunately, the people in Pandora Hearts are very normal by their standards.

But somehow the people in Pandora Hearts fail to endear themselves to me, which confused me because I couldn't pin down what I disliked about them.

They all seem inconsistent. It's not that they're unlikeable - in fact, quite the opposite, they all seem to be rather charming - but maybe that's the problem. They're all charming, in mostly similar ways. Oz is mostly cute and smiley but he can be scary or angsty. Alice is mostly scary but she can be angsty or cute. Gilbert is mostly angsty but he can be cute or scary. Break is mostly smiling mysteriously but he can be cute or scary or angsty...........the list goes on.

I know in most series, most characters can hit most of these emotions.....But....the way the characters do it in this series seems extremely wilful.

Alice is a very strong female character and I like her. I would have liked Oz too if he didn't spend so much time being angsty while wearing an ingratiating smile on his face. I'm not sure what it is that irks me about Oz ="= Normally, he's the kind of character I like, but something about him is failing to click. I think this goes back to the shounen-ai comments...sometimes he acts exactly like a girl...up to making really really girly poses and giving pages of emotional wangstage =____= Sometimes he seems really pampered, other times he seems world-savvy, and at even other times he's just plain insecure. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HE'S MEANT TO BE ARR. It just seems he has random issues that make him one thing or another, instead of one well-defined problem, like his father complex.

I would have liked Break too if he didn't remind me so much of Narumi (Gakuen Alice)...and plus he has Naru's voice actor (Athrun =__=). Gilbert too reminds me too much of Riff (Count Cain), except he's extremely uselss.

The relationship between Gilbert and Oz, and similarly with Gilbert and Jack, if handled by someone like Yuki Kaori, would have been such a heartwrenching story...and yet =__=; In the same vein, a lot of its other relationships are built on tragic circumstances - Gilbert and his ostracised brother, Jack and the best friend he was forced to kill, Oz and his estranged father...etc. Somehow, none of them seem to wring the pity they deserve out of the audience.

I think this series has all the elements and all the potential...it just really needs to figure out a way to make them work.

The anime ended the story prematurely at about 30-odd chapters. Like Gakuen Alice, to make up for the plot it couldn't do, it sidetracked into an alternate climax, which seemed to culminate in a showdown between Oz and the father that despises him. Now, fathers that despise their kids is a staple with Yuki Kaori, so I'm perfectly fine with the angst, but at no point was this a focus in the manga ==;;;;;

The one interesting thing about the manga is that its timeline spans 100 years. There are people who re-emerged from the Abyss after 100 years, there were people who were killed back then and their hatred inherited, or people glorified because of what they did. It's really a story that crisscrosses back and forth in time, and linking it all together are characters whose resolves spanned the century.


Shall now go back to my essay on the graduated licensing system. Seriously. How is this medicine? =___=