Mono no aware

I found myself staring dumbly at a blank screen for quite some time before being able to type a single word about this film. My feelings mirrored the closing phrase of Takami’s Battle Royale, “…but of course they’re part of you now.” I followed the characters through thick and thin; I felt stunned, drained and somewhat overwhelmed. Rewatching the series in its entirety didn’t lead me to believe this instalment is flawless but I was able to view it as the final(?) component part of the greater whole.

Not many of the scenes were brightly-lit enough to give decent screencaps

I believe it’s unfair to judge the Kara no Kyoukai adaptations against the other Type Moon productions when its source material pre-dates them all, but the fact remains that in terms of storytelling, presentation and character dynamics it’s a classic in the making. I’m not using that term lightly either: I’m choosing my words carefully here, even though I’m using so bloody many.

There’s still a lot to be said for the good old-fashioned medium of words stamped onto slices of dead trees. I honestly believe certain stories work better in one medium than another; Haruhi Suzumiya is I think a case in point. The TV show’s shuffled broadcast order never significantly improved the experience because I’ve yet to hear a convincing explanation for it. The translation of the light novel on the other hand seems to keep an ordered chronology as nature, and Nagaru Tanigawa, intended and is more satisfying for that.

The prose reads smoothly and I’m pretty impressed with the presentation too (my only regret is not getting the hardback version. I’m anal about such things). What makes an even bigger difference than its adherence to the timeline, or the fact that it retains Noizi Ito’s original illustrations, is the first-person narrative approach that the novel takes. Unlike the TV broadcast order, which came across as little more than a cool gimmick, this detail makes the world of difference.

A long time ago I saw a single-page scan of what looked like a one-off doujin Death Note parody where a kid made it his mission to masturbate daily in a girls’ toilet at school. His triumphant “Just as planned!” was amusing enough but I assumed it was a throwaway piece of toilet humour so after forgetting what blog I saw the pic on I thought nothing more of it. That was until the community word-of-mouth thing featuring Ghostlightning, David and Samshiel among others jogged my memory. The doujin in question was Onani Master Kurosawa and it proved to be more than just dirty jokes and a parody or two. A hell of a lot more.

Click for the full size version

Make no mistake: this is a story with strong language and shows events and behaviour that are liable to offend some. It has some wonderful bits of humour though, including neat jabs at not only Death Note but Haruhi Suzumiya and Code Geass, but what makes this something I’d recommend so strongly is the fact that the superficial lulz accompany something more memorable and moving. If you excuse the pun, I never saw it coming.

I always find the “How did you get into anime?” discussions fascinating. Way before my first proper anime experience I watched an obscure animated feature film that gave me great memories. I mentally filed it under Something I’ll Never See Again and almost fooled myself into thinking I’d forgotten about it, so it was quite something when I spotted a familiar-looking image on the front of a DVD case over a decade later and bought the thing on the spot. The DVD in question was Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which I later bought again on Japanese import because that was the edition that contained the older English language dub I remembered so held the real nostalgia value.

I wonder if the quoted value of 5cm per second for sakura petals is altitude-dependent

While I normally blog from the point of view of the cynical 27-year-old I am today the reason why my opinion of it is the way it is stems from experiencing it through a child’s eyes; it is after all a kids’ adventure story so that tack makes more sense to me. I’ve done a very simplified run-down of my favourite bits from my original viewing, with numbered annotations to include the benefits of hindsight. It’s an unusual approach for me, so I hope it works here.

It’s funny watching the “Where’s my Haruhi sequel?!”  dorama unfold from a distance and not really being fussed one way or the other. If my finances were a little healthier I’d have bought the DVDs of the first season already but since 1. I still think Mushishi is more awesome* and 2. my Tokyo trip is my priority at the moment they’ll have to wait. While I’m not as affected by the absence of Haruhi’s second appearance as most people I did begin to take a passing interest in the chibi-fied, ONA incarnation, Suzumiya-chan Haruhi no Yuutsu. Eventually.

I honestly believe there’s a lot of potential in ONAs: not just the fifteen minute slabs of win that make up Eve no Jikan and the idea of Crunchyroll ‘going straight’ but the general freedom of expression and distribution that the format offers. I can’t comment on CR’s integrity in the past, though, and truthfully the ONA issue would warrant a post of its own. In any case the launch of the Haruhi spin-off that I’m guessing is supposed to stop the fans lynching the studio staff fill the gap before the second season bypassed all that and went straight to Youtube; even in the current climate I was pleasantly surprised at that.

Sorry, no V-day post for you. The timestamp is purely coincidental; I just got caught in Draft Rewrite Hell yesterday. But this is a pretty romantic show though, right?

You may remember that I have a turbulent relationship with Clannad. I was frustrated by its tendency to drift into overt sentimentality and sit uncomfortably between fantasy and reality; it offered a principle story thread to follow, only to divert its attention to side-stories; then the said side-stories proved to be sometimes more enjoyable than the main plot thread. It’s a strange feeling when an alternate-universe retelling, reduced to one episode tagged on the end, was my favourite moment of them all and proved to be almost as memorable as the rest of the first season combined.

I guess it’s unfair to criticise it for the fact that it’s a product of a lucrative franchise produced by a commercially successful studio and is adapted from a visual novel since, well, I can hardly criticise the VN medium at all now, can I? Similarly the most superficial aspect of all, the cutesy moe-fied aesthetic, shouldn’t be an issue but let’s face it, often it is. Ultimately though Clannad frustrates me because one moment it’s ‘just another fan-aware high school romance show’ with all the plot devices and tropes that go along with it, and the next it’s flooring me with heartfelt emotion and genuinely well-executed storytelling.