The weekend was completely nonproductive. Due to weather, exhaustion and psychological trauma inflicted by an online quiz, I contracted a passing case of hikikomoriism and pretty much did not accomplish any of my yardwork and watched more anime in 2 days than I have in 2 months.


Fluff follows....
Days of Midori....a long time ago, Pulpjunkie recommended this series. Given the premise, my reaction was essentially...
..NO FREAKKING WAI GTFO!

"What is the premise?" you ask?

Schoolyard bully wakes up one morning with his right hand replaced with the miniature torso of a young girl. Unsurprisingly, he finds this to be awkward... ...but not nearly as awkward as for the introverted young debutante who went to bed a princess and woke up an appendage.
Hilarity ensues.

Yeah..."eww"...

Pulpjunkie insisted that the show had an appreciation for the utter wrongness of the concept, and popped it in...I watched it...could not stop..watched the whole thing, thoroughly enjoyed it and bought the DVD.  A few months ago I loaned the DVD with a few others to my friend Allan. As Allan is a good person, his initial reaction was NO FREAKKING WAI GTFO!
Fast forward to Saturday and I headed over to Allan's house. I called on the way over to get an idea of where/what we were going to be doing.

Allan: Oh hi...I'm watching the first DVD in that set you loaned me...the one about Midori.
Brickmuppet: Oh cool...Do you like it?
Allan: Yeah..This is really, really GOOD! I'm coming to the end of the first disc now.
Brickmuppet: Cool. So, what did you want to do tonight?
Allan: Watch the other 2 discs...

So we sat and watched the rest of it.

I had forgotten how good it was. The show is a remarkably engaging, character driven story. It is far, FAR better than it ought to be.
_{(It is also merciless in its condemnation of the hand-doll fetish demographic)}.

Midori Days is a show I could pretty much  recommend to anybody....but generally don't because you just can't present that premise and not have people back away slowly....unless you want them to.



Gurren Lagan has already been mentioned below, but I had at that time only seen the first 4. Sunday morning I watched the rest of the set.

Episode 5 was jarringly depressing and dark.

Kamina is not just overcompensating for his lack of a father. He is not just a Quixotic idiot. He is a rude, narcissistic, cruel, thoughtless, boor.
In episode 5, I began to actively loathe the character.

After the terrible bit of dystopia that was episode 5 the series gave me whiplash. The show is proving to be a bit bi-polar, much like Van Dread and it seems that, like that show, is on balance able to remain quite satisfying and fun.

Yoko is still the best realized and most likable character in the show . Simon is taking a while to get his act together and is still in some ways more pitiable than likable. Nevertheless Episode 8 provided the 9 episode set with a thoroughly satisfying climax...and episode 9 indicates that the show is going to be interesting if nothing else.


Bleach: I still like Bleach. Despite the slow pace of the last few DVD's the engaging protagonists (some of the best around) save it. Although I have felt for some time that it would have been better served with a 15 minute format to tighten the individual episodes, the story is a good one and the plot is progressing.
In volume 10, which I watched some time ago, it is apparent that much of the previous random bits of info and what seemed to be various deus ex machina are in fact pulling together into the larger story and it is picking up its pace quickly.
(God, these people are in over their heads.)
Over the last few weeks I also watched 2 later episodes (69 a while back & 72 last night) on Cartoon Network.It is apparent that the show regains its quirkieness as well as its pacing. #72 was actually fairly scary.
Despite the "power-up Ichijo" story arc, this is not (thankfully) a fighting show. It is a superhero show and, unlike so many, its protagonists are HEROES as well as super.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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