mr mop

God, I need a haircut.

My hair's got to the really annoying stage where it just looks shit however I wash or comb it. It's also acting as a massive heat blanket, making me hot and sweaty when it's not actually that warm.

I should have had it cut one the last few weekends, but I've mentioned before that I find having it cut really unpleasant. Plus it seems to cost more each time I go.

I've been doing some scanning through the week. I've actually been trying to stay on top of telly this week (loads of stuff I've been following ends this week so I'm kinda prepping for a spare-time boost to... well, I'm not sure - maybe I'll get on top of the scanning or watch some DVDs?), so it's perhaps not been as much as I could have done, but some is better than none.

I've also been watching anime independently as well as what I've watched while scanning, so here are the low-downs:

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

Wow.

I'm not really sure how to expand on that.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is about an earthquake. Well, no, actually it's about people being impacted by a really big earthquake.

How can I put this? Where you might have expected all the money and effort to have gone into getting the earthquake right and animating it well, it's quite clear that just as much effort has gone into developing the characters and plot. The characters feel real - now admittedly they're not things you won't have seen done before, but they're done so well and portrayed so vividly they feel totally real.

Indeed, the realness is such that I almost found myself blubbing at a few points. Indeed, I'm struggling not to compare it to the masterworks of Miyazaki - there's a real flavour of what he manages to capture in films like Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

This is probably one of the best anime I've seen in ages.


Bakemonogatori

For some while now I've been bemoaning the current fad in anime to adapt "Light Novels".

My main issue with these light novels is that they seem to almost completely lack originality. I've tended to assume this was because of the nature of the beast - light novels are, as the name suggests "easy readers" and tend to rely on heavily worn ideas. To say they're quite a clichéd bunch is to hit the nail on the head.

However, Bakemonogatari - which is another of the same ilk if you hadn't guessed already - seems to be offering something a bit different. But there's a bit of a catch - it's being made by SHAFT and a lot of what makes Bakemonogatari interesting is the visual style and presentation.

Since Light Novels are textual in nature, it's hard to see how this is coming from the book and not the company making it. But that said, the plot seems fairly interesting from what I sampled. Well, I say the plot - it's a little difficult to be sure quite what the plot is if I'm honest. I'm sure it'd become clearer later, but at the moment I'm not really sure what's going on.

So I guess really it's the characters that carried my interest in what I sampled.


Canaan

Y'know, something odd sometimes happens when I run through fansubs like this.

For some reason, I tend to get runs of good and bad shows. Why this happens I don't know - I'm selecting what to watch on about as random a basis as I can, yet I'll still end up watching several rubbish shows in a row and then several good ones in a row.

The upshot of which is that this is the third good show in a row.

I have to admit, though, that I found Canaan nearly as confusing as Bakemonogatari. I say nearly because there's clearly a plot kicking about in Canaan, it's just they're hiding it away to give some mystery. Bakemonogatari I just wasn't really sure where it was going.

But also like Bakemonogatari, there's enough other good stuff to keep my interest despite the confusingness of the plot. For example, Canaan also seems to be packed full of interesting characters and, most surprisingly, humour. I really wasn't expecting it to have anything funny in it from what I've seen magazine wise, but it was actually quite funny in places.


Kuruneko

Well this is a bit of an oddity. Apparently it's an anime based on a blog - you don't get that every day!

As the title suggests - neko means cat - the blog is about cats. The anime is a series of very short episodes - maybe about 2mins each - which you'd expect from a blog and they're pretty much random, humorous anecdotes about cat ownership.

The animation is relatively crude, in a Rhubarb and Custard sort of way, and like that cartoon it has a lot of charm for it.

Overall it's sort of Chii-esque, but where that has a narrative because it's a fictional story, this is a bit more random (and a bit more 'realistic') and therefore didn't quite peak my interest in the same way. I guess if it was freely streamed somewhere it'd be worth a watch, especially as it's so short.


Umi Monogatari ~Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto~

Wasn't 100% sure about this one.

The first episode was kinda okay. Certainly the blonde underwater chick (I'm hesitating to use the word mermaid as it wasn't entirely clear that's what she was supposed to be) was totally hot and the land-dwelling girl was an interesting character. It was also quite funny and the story seemed to be okay.

But then in episode two things went spectacularly downhill.

First off, it suddenly became a magical girl show. This seemed to be a bit left-field to me. But worse than that, the story became a bit dodgy - both in terms of what it was and how it was being told.

The main crime was that a talking turtle appeared and proceeded to talk full advantage of his ability to talk in order to cram tonnes of relatively uninteresting exposition into our lugholes. To make it worse, he didn't seem to explain some stuff that then got used later in the story.

So I dunno - I'd probably keep watching, but I've a strong feeling the scales would slowly tip towards it not being a very good show.


Souten Kouro

I actually quite enjoyed this.

It's loosely inspired by the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (they love a bit of Three Kingdoms in Japan) and it's probably fair to say that it's a bit on the melodramatic side.

It's also probably fair to say that the animation is of a fairly poor standard. If I was being kinda I'd go for highly stylised, but it's also fairly clear they were a bit strapped for cash.

Oh and it's all in the bloody dark again. Partly, I think to cover up the nasty and nudey bits for broadcast reasons, but also to hide the animation a bit. Plus of course, darkness = drama. I'm actually kinda surprised in didn't rain rose petals (or real rain even) during my sample, but then that is a bit girly and this is more melodrama for men in tone.

But setting those aside, I actually kinda liked it. Although I think I'd have to absorb it in small doses - I imagine watching this much melodrama in a short period of time might have a negative affect on your opinion of it.


AIKa ZERO

Let's do a short one: Basically if you've seen and liked the recent AIKa R16 then AIKa ZERO won't disappoint.

If you've not seen it you may like it if any of the following tickly your fancy: excessive fan-service, panty shots, hot young girls, panty shots, chick fights or panty shots. Plus, oddly for this sort of show, the story is okay too.

Oh, and there are quite a lot of panty-shots.