Ask anyone that knows me (good luck finding someone – they’re rarer than a leprechaun!) knows I’m not good at this regular blogging thing. Hell, I can’t even finish a short story I’ve been working on since last November. What it comes down to is I’m lazy and easily distracted.
I had started a post some time last week after watching Five Centimeters Per Second, but I never got farther than the introductory paragraph. For the most part, I was going to gush over the film and advise everyone to see it somehow, if not outright buy the damn thing. Unfortunately, it will become more difficult to purchase since ADV has discontinued it so soon after it’s release. I wonder if that’s yet another license they lost…
While I’m talking about anime films, I might as well mention Origin – Spirits of the Past. Good stuff. Add that to your “must-see” list. I might do a more in-depth write up in the near future, but don’t hold your breath.
I spent most of the day on the couch watching anime DVDs. Origin was merely one of many for the day (and the weekend). I gave Lost Universe and Desert Punk a try.
Lost Universe couldn’t hold me long enough to finish the rest of the disc. It looks too old for the CG elements it incorporates. The colors are muted and darkened, lending it an older, unrestored quality to it. Not that vintage anime is a bad thing. Imitating vintage, whether intentional or not, however, is criminal.
Making your lead character a lecherous, selfish prick makes him even more difficult to like and/or empathize with, and Desert Punk fails to do just that with it’s so-called protagonist, who cares more about sex and money than he does about his job (which is apparently doing whatever the tiny desert villages hire him to do from protecting them from water-stealing bandits or taking an eccentric rich woman’s giant beetle for a walk. Honestly, the best part of episodes 5-8 is when he mentally debates the importance of breast size versus shape.
The weekend’s watching wasn’t all bad. Vandread, Samurai 7, Gilgamesh, and Fullmetal Alchemist were all worth watching. So much so, that I ordered the Samurai 7 Viridian Collection from Amazon for a mere $26.49 (it’s lowest price yet)! And I plan to buy Collected Editions of both Vandread and Gilgamesh in future Rightstuf.com weekly specials. I have plenty of FMA in my backlog. I just need to figure out which volumes I’m missing. Oh, and there was also Yugo the Negotiator, which at the very least, convinced me to buy volume 2 so I can see how he escapes from the crazy Pakistani guerrillas.
