Hyakko’s Tight Rope Act
Over the course of years I realized that voice acting can and sometimes does make or break a show.
Another thing is that despite all of my forceful indifference towards Aya Hirano, I think she did make Manabi Straight a more fulfilling experience. It’s not that I liked her acting in particular, but I realized she was able to convey honest emotions through her acting and that’s really the heart of acting. At the same time, both Marina and Hocchan were able to deliver a little bit more of the sublime between the gaps of what they don’t say, through those thoughtless “um”s or “etto”s. Perhaps it’s only fair to chalk all three of their acts to good writing and directing, too.
But will Hyakko, perhaps the immediate analog of Manabi Straight since, well, Manabi Straight, say much the same? I hope not. It is certainly not because I didn’t like what was expressed in Manabi Straight, but this is not something so simple that a writer can copy and generate the same or better effect. It is like hoping, praying and giving your own children guidance to what they want to become when they grow up. It may be troublesome if both of them seek to take over your estate, and it might be for the best if that black sheep ends up moving to a big city and make a (different) name for herself.
Still, with any ragged-tagged gang of mercenaries, dim-wits, rich busybodies and earnest adventurers, it takes time for that chemstry to jell. If heart-felt harmony (Azumanga Daioh?) and (r)evolutionary unity (Mikan Straight!) are what await us at the end of the journey, then Ayumi Nonomura’s ragged-tagged gang has a long(er) ways to go! Chemstry? What chemstry? How do you jam someone like Michiko Neya in there? I guess we’ll find out with Aya Hirano right in the center of it all.
And if Hyakko doesn’t take the oft-trod path (Strawberry Marshmellow) to do it, all the better.
Xam’d Episode 12 - The Throes of Angst, of Yaoi & Yuri, But No.
This was a rather emotional episode. But in a way, too, this episode is much like others where things are built up and set up yet not a whole lot happens.
Despite all of that mushy sentiments, when I took a look at the screen caps I had, I can’t help myself but to weave slashy fic-style narratives out of them. It’s begging to be lampooned. So I’ll give that a shot after I get the SRSBZNS over with.
NYAF 2008 Anime Blogging Panel
(By the way, this is the kind of blogging panel I want to see. Especially now that I’ve seen it done once, I can add my own improvements if I ever get a chance to run my own. Anyways, onward with the show. I know Anime Diet has a video of the panel, but an omo-style transcript does the job in a different way…)
Time: ~30 minutes past noon, September 27, 2008.
Place: The panel room all the way near the back (”Anime Fandom Panel Room”), NYAF 2008 at the Javits Center, NYC.
Panelists: Hinano, jpmeyer, DS
(My comments in italics, questions in bold.)
NYAF 2008 Yoshitaka Amano Panel
Time: 3pm, September 27, 2008.
Place: The first panel room on the right (”Manga Panel Room”), NYAF 2008 at the Javits Center, NYC.
Panelists: Yoshitaka Amano, Kevin Leahy (translating), NYAF guy whose name I forget as MC.
(My comments in italics, questions in bold.)
Code Geass Stops, Excited and Satisfied Kids Get Off the Rollercoaster
I’m not a big theme park person but I’ve been to a few of them. At one point in my life I used to go every year. In a way, big-budget mainstream anime are a bit like amusement park rides.
At least in the US, where land is plenty and people pay an arm and leg to go to them, theme parks attract goers through new and exciting advertisements of their new (well) attractions. They are aptly called attractions because when you see this single rail that goes up and down like a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in recent years, plus those loopy things, you get this feeling of excitement. No fancy ads or viral marketing necessary.
In a way that is basically the experience of Code Geass, I think.
The first season is a well-packaged, top-of-the-line Sunrise TV anime. I think the story made sense and people liked the sporadic moments of “JUST AS PLANNED” Lulu had. The heroics and scheming were entertaining, even if hollow by more sophisticated standards. And the CLAMP characters are always the rage. The gut-wrenching plot twists towards the end of the first season gives us a taste of what kind of an experience Code Geass was set out to deliver. The non-ending, and aptly announced sequel at the time was just the period (or better, semicolon?) that punctuates the point.
For the most part the second season started out without much issues, but at some point we realized something was different. Goro Taniguchi himself, supposedly, confessed regarding the reworking of the second season due to business constraints that lead to a lot of lost labor in working on the second season. I think the fans would take kindly to that position as Code Geass R2 does look somewhat derailed from the original ride.
But as a packaged experience, in a lot of ways R2 supersedes the first season as long as you don’t look too deep. And for experienced viewers, anime of this type is more of an experience than a work in itself so we’re trained to not poke where it doesn’t look like you should be poking. Looking too deeply just makes you hate it more. It isn’t to say you ought not to analyze Code Geass or shows like that, but that was one of the main ways how R2 fell apart from the expectations viewers had from the first season. It’s safe to say many of us have mixed feeling about Code Geass R2, even if it was highly entertaining.
I guess, to go back to the Goro Taniguchi thing, things are rushed. And it clearly shows.
Unlike the typical rushed production, however, it seemed Code Geass R2 actually has a destination in mind, and a destination that isn’t made of fail. The last episode delivered a reasonable conclusion that few anime of this kind of dynamic amplitude could even hope for. What’s more, it got away with the degree of open-endedness that characterizes the usual rush job, and a fair amount of both plot hole type things and thoughtful, canonical conclusions that will give all of its riders something to think about once they step back onto the platform and head out to the parking lot, elated.
And just for the record, I could care less if Lulu is dead or alive at the end. Color me in for the “Requiem of Nunnally” camp as the heart of the second season of Code Geass, although it seemed easily that Goro wrote the story for the C.C. “good” end. Like UBW or Fate. Maybe. Meanwhile curious minds can listen to the kids as they look up at the telecast replay of their best impression of the emoticon “\o/” while walking down the ramp from the ride and towards the exit.
