nearly good, but not quite

I actually watched some anime this weekend.

I think it's the first thing I've watched at the weekend since the star of the year. And it was on DVD and everything.

Before I get to excited I should perhaps say that it was only 2 episodes, but then to be fair the episodes each run about 50 minutes in length and it's a 6-episode series, so I'm a third of the way through.

The anime in question is Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne, which is a suitably odd title. As far as I can work out the daughters of Mnemosyne are the muses from ancient Greek mythology. The muses are kinda like figures that inspire art, I believe. To some extent the title does make a bit of sense with the anime, but that doesn't mean it's really about a Muse as such (well, that I know of so far).

I actually sampled Rin via fansub and enjoyed it so I bought it when it came out recently. I've actually been having a bit of a bad time with my sampling, as most of the stuff I've then gone on to watch hasn't been all that good.

I don't know if that's because I mentally hype them, or because the conditions of sampling affect the outcome. Generally speaking I've been watching the fansubs while I'm scanning, and that means I watch them in a very stop-start fashion. When you're scanning, you have to keep switching the pages, but each scan can take a couple of minutes, which is why fansubs are ideal. Unlike, say, a DVD fansubs stop and start instantly with no problems.

But does that make them a true sample? Is being broken up into bits helping some shows that are actually a bit dull seem more interesting?

I think the answer might be yes in some cases, but also I think, any sampling can be prone problems. I mean, I've encountered quite a few shows fansub-wise where I enjoyed the first ep and then further eps weren't so good, so if my sample stops and a similar thing happens, I've no way of knowing.

Plus a lot of it depends on mood - if you're catching a show when you're in the mood for that type of thing then you'll look on it more favourably than if you watch it when you're not in the mood.

Also, I've noticed quite a few shows I've sampled, liked and bought but not watched have gotten some good reviews, so I think ultimately the problem is more I happen to have picked the duffers to watch on DVD. In other words, the giant pile of anime contains plenty of gems, I just haven't hit any.

Well, until now - I really quite enjoyed the two eps of Rin I watched and I'd only watched the first one on fansub, so that's a really good sign.

I also made a special effort this weekend to watch the things I'd recorded and, more importantly, to prune out stuff from my recording schedule. I've actually managed to get it down to only about a dozen shows that I'm mainly watching as ongoing series. That bodes really well both for the week ahead and next weekend.

Plus I actually feel really in the mood for watching some anime, which if I'm honest I'm not sure I have for quite a while.