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Posts tagged “experimental”
Mouryou no Hako, a boxful of wonderfully hard-boiled madness
I started watching this back in ’08 but for a number of reasons I didn’t get around to finishing it. The subbing was sporadic, the plot derailed into a lengthy period of three blokes sitting around a table talking, other shows caught my interest, etc., etc.. Last week though I finally sat down and practically forced myself to finish the thing; the mid section was as tedious as I remember but pushing on to the finale was worth every minute.
This is an extremely unusual series, which is why I’m not surprised that it’s already virtually forgotten. It’s straight-faced and serious as hell, challenging the viewer from the outset by starting off very weird indeed. And it gets weirder. Even so, I found it to be a piece of sheer bloody genius with a multi-layered maze of a plot that starts off with bizarre yuri overtones, moves into hard-boiled detective fiction with serial killers and femmes fatales, dabbles in esoteric Japanese folklore and rounds it all off with a closing act that reaches Nasu-esque levels of twisted insanity.
Cat Shit One could be more than just rabbits with guns, but that’s fine for now
I’ve been hearing rumblings about this one for quite some time but since my brain makes connections in the most arcane and awkward ways I attached a bizarre preconception to it (something to do with it sounding similar to Cat Soup, which is a show I’ve considered watching for the Yuasa factor but never summoned the courage to try…go figure). It turns out to be nothing like whatever I expected, anyway. It’s all about rabbits with guns.
Cat Shit One is very, very different from pretty much everything else around right now, which is reason enough for me to recommend it on its own. The idea of anthropomorphised rabbits rescuing hostages from armed terrorist camels is indeed absurd but it was surprisingly easy for me to forget the sight of cottontails twitching prior to an all-out firefight because it was, with this quirk aside, hell of a lot of fun. So much so that I was able to accept the concept and simply enjoy the action.
Cossette revisited: Shinbo, Nasu and the Kajiura connection
Looks like I made it to the second round of the tourney thing, but I’m sadly short on topics for writing thanks to the fact that my laptop is the only working PC I have right now. It’s able to cope with DVD playback though so I can at least rewatch old favourites; I’ve had Le Portrait de Petite Cossette for instance on my shelf for a while but only came back to it last week…and I’m glad I did.
The first time I watched this I felt a bit overwhelmed by the visuals so didn’t really grasp what it was trying to say. I guess it was slightly wasted on me at the time but watching the three episodes again, across as many days, worked better for me so now I really feel I appreciate it more than I did then.
Categories: On screen
Tags: Akiyuki Shinbo, Anime, experimental, Kara no Kyoukai, Yuki Kajiura
5 Comments
Several girls galore (the alluring aroma of Perfume)
The PC’s on the blink again. It’ll be over a week before I can put right whatever’s wrong so in the meantime I’m working on the backup machine, my trusty four-year-old low-spec laptop. So here I am, running in the Aniblog Tourney with little to write about because I can’t watch much; I feel like I have an important call to make when my mobile phone’s in the pocket of My Other Jacket.
So I thought I might as well write about Perfume. Music dominates a lot of my spare time: I immerse myself in as much as possible, ignoring the usual boundaries of time, trends and genre in favour of my own so sometimes my tastes are a bit unpredictable. My fascination with Perfume is a guilty-pleasure kind of thing, but not completely so.
Chain Mail: Addicted To You
The idea of taking on an online persona to escape the pressures of Real Life is hardly a new one. I found the effects of teen angst in the Internet Age in All About Lily Chou-Chou to be both effective and deeply moving, despite cultural barriers between me and foreigners a decade younger than I am. Taking this angle and running with it, Hiroshi Ishizaki’s light novel Chain Mail examines how the isolation and pressure of adolescence draws four total strangers together with fascinating results.
If you’re reading this blog at all you ought to be able to understand where Chain Mail is coming from with this. After finding it tucked away virtually unseen in the manga section of my local Waterstone’s and buying on impulse, I suspect the only people I know who’d appreciate its innovative ‘multiple viewpoint’ storytelling as I did are those I converse with online. The ‘net and the artificial realities it provides attract us all for very personal reasons but the overall promises of diversion and communication are the same.
Kuchu Buranko (Trapeze), your weekly noitaminA shot
I like different. Different is good. It’s refreshing. Granted, a production that’s out of the ordinary for its own sake is probably past the point where it becomes pretentious but in Trapeze‘s case the love-it-or-hate-it approach works so well because the oddness has a clear sense of purpose. You can be forgiven for not digging its unique (I don’t use the term lightly) style but those of us who enjoy shows that do things their own way are in for a treat.
To be honest I’m not following many currently-airing shows, partly because putting my new PC together coincided with the beginning of the new season so I’m still playing catch-up. I’ve learned to pay close attention to the noitaminA schedule though because it seems to cater for the tastes of more ‘alternative’ and eclectic viewers. I’ve noticed some real favourites came from there; Trapeze (a.k.a. Kuchu Buranko) is another one of them.
Hitomi Kanehara’s Autofiction
[Moved from my soon-to-be defunct side-blog because 1. I still haven't had time to write anything new and 2. it's more Relevant To Your Interests on this one.]
Hitomi Kanehara is an interesting lady. As I always do when reviewing an author for the first time I make a point of reading the biography blurb at the beginning of the book to get a feel for his or her background; Kanehara’s is, to put it mildly, unconventional. Her status as a professional writer, although it was aided by the endorsement of well-known author Ryu Murakami whose edgy and controversial works bear quite a similarity, is still surprising given her early life and education. Considering how Autofiction is focused on a twenty-something female writer who also had a turbulent adolescence you can’t help but wonder where the inspiration for this striking novel came from.
This possiblility that the book’s title should be taken literally is dangled in front of the reader’s nose from the outset but whether it’s a clever bluff on Kanehara’s part is something I wouldn’t hazard a guess on. Anyhow, the character of Rin and the events of her life are a fascinating if somewhat unsettling read: the first few pages pick her story up soon after her wedding, then successive chapters take up the narrative at points earlier on in her life. Telling stories in reverse is nothing new of course (taken to extremes in the likes of Memento) but in this case the approach serves to dig into the troubled psyche of the protagonist, peeling away layer after layer of insecurity and paranoia as it goes.
Survive Style 5+: “What is your function?”
Or, “What is the function of cinema as an entertainment medium and expressive art form?” Or, more simply, “What the hell was that?”
I’m a little reluctant to endorse the marketing strategy of some distributors of Japanese cinema titles, beyond the fact that they bring the said titles to would-be viewers’ attention. Y’see, I don’t want originality and thoughtful film-making to be mistaken for some “Hey, look at those crazy Japanese people and their crazy movies!” sales pitch. The Happiness of the Katakuris was an artistically innovative demonstration of the importance of family (I’m not kidding) and if you watch Battle Royale purely for the shock value of sixteen-year olds killing each other, you’re missing the point of the exercise by a mile. I’m more interested in seeing what their film industry as a whole has to offer beyond this cultural stereotyping, but I digress.
Gen Sekiguchi is probably better-known as the director of the imaginative and offbeat Supercar music videos but here he makes his feature-length debut with some well-known names in Japanese media…along with a special appearance by British footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones. This movie is unlike any other I’ve seen and as such has ‘cult hit’ written all over it but my question to Survive Style 5+ is: What is your function?