#11: Golgo 13

I picked this show because my boyfriend was sitting on the couch next to me and it seemed like something he might like. It had guys in suits and naked chicks and guns.

Definite win, right.

Right?

Not exactly.

Because apparently the guns were not realistic enough for him. The bad guys had bad aim because they weren't utilizing the "collapsible stock on the Uzi properly" and the scope on the sniper rifle that the main character used was "much too small to see two kilometers away with."

Yep, the boyfriend was nit-picking.

He said the Japanese are always so "super anal about getting the exact details of their guns correct" that he wasn't going to accept an anime where the guns weren't .... perfect.

He was so nit-picking.

I'll nit-pick about things, but usually they are details in the plot or the voices of the characters or, you know .... something that seems important.

Not the details of the guns, or the details of the way the characters are using the guns.

It was kind of irritating really.

I didn't much enjoy the episode. It may have been because the boyfriend didn't like it and was picking at it. It may have been because it was just guys and guns and naked chicks and that isn't usually my bag.

I'll try another episode to make my final decision.

But I won't be doing it while the boyfriend is around to nit-pick.

#10: Corpse Princess

(I actually watched this last night but got into a marathon game of Tetris right after so never got around to blogging it. Damn you, Tetris, with your evil, addictive ways! I wish I could quit you!)

It never ceases to amaze me that some anime series can have such dark concepts, and such icky scenes, and then also have characters who act completely silly.

It seems like that shouldn't work. The dark stuff and the silly stuff should cancel each other out.

But they don't. Take Corpse Princess for example. Here you have dead people/demon things known as shikabane running around killing people, and a dead person/demon thing girly girl in a sailor suit running around killing them. And at the same time you have a boy with silly hair arguing with a monk about nekked girl magazines.

Two very different plot elements, thrown together and shaken up.

They should slide against each other like oil and water.

Instead they melt into a large glob of intense bizarreness that actually works.

This show is GOOD. Surprisingly so. The dubbing on the Funimation version isn't always great (a running problem with Funimation releases, I've noticed) but the story is solid and the characters are fascinating.

Just one episode in and I'm already hooked.

I shouldn't be, but I am.

Strange.

A Brief Update...

Just a little update to report what I've finished watching of the shows I started watching for this blog (that makes sense, right?):

Venture Brothers, Season 4-Volume 2. Watched all episodes the night I got the DVD. Couldn't help myself. Love it so much. I wanna take it behind the school building and get it pregnant.* Seriously, everyone should be watching and loving Venture Brothers as much as I do. I can't wait for the next season. Might have to suck it up and get cable back just to watch it in first run.

Hetalia-Axis Powers, Season 1. This show is insane but adorable, ADD but highly-watchable, intelligent but downright ridiculous. I want to cosplay as Italy now. I spent part of the weekend trying to find a costume place that could make me the outfit by Sakuracon. It looks like a no go this year unless I want to piece something together that probably won't look exactly right. But next year definitely. I just need someone to play Germany for me and its on.


*Joke courtesy of Tracy Jordan and 30 Rock.

#9: Popotan

Remember when I said Hetalia wasn't at all like I expected?

Well I didn't have the same experience with Popotan. It was, in fact, exactly what I expected.

It was crazy girls with big boobs and puffy-thing obsessions. It was sudden nudity and embarrassed boys with bright red cheeks. It was robots in maid outfits and cute ambiguous animal companions. It was brightly colored and cutely voiced and hyperactive and adorable.

It also had random moments of seriousness that were unexpected and more profound than they might have been otherwise, but still wrapped up in a candy colored package of sweetness and popotan (dandelions).

I'm not sure I understood what the point was, or saw any direction in the story line, but I'm not sure it matters.

There were rainbows, and sparkly things, and flower petals, and Xmas trees, and giant breasts, and a DDR style theme song, and puffy cheeks, and a girl in love with a cow udder and myriad other things to distract me from the lack of a real plot.

And sometimes that is all you really need in an anime.

Nothing New to See Here

Its the weekend and I'm feeling lazy. I'm in the mood to watch more episodes of anime series I've already started instead of starting entirely new ones.

I'm still watching anime every day, just not anything completely new.

Instead I'm catching up on Season 1 of Hetalia. That show remains bizarre and crazy but awesome and fun. If I was going to cosplay a character it would probably be Italy. I think I could be that annoying. I just need to get the boyfriend to agree to go as Germany.

I'm also catching up on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, 2nd Gig. I need to work on my Kusanagi personality, as I AM cosplaying her at Sakuracon this year. Well, if my costume ever shows up that is.

A little Gunslinger Girl and Baccano are rounding out my viewing sessions. Boyfriend loves Gunslinger Girl because of how accurate they are with the guns. I love Baccano because Isaac and Miria are hilarious and cute. Its a win-win for both of us, I guess.

Haven't decided if I'll watch anything else yet, as I'm currently addicted to the BBC series Coupling so am devoting some of TV time to that. And I downloaded Super Mario Kart and Tetris Party to the Wii and I'm pretty sure Tetris is the most addictive thing in the universe.

#8: Venture Brothers

Venture Brothers Season 4 was released onto DVD in two volumes.

Volume 1 was released months and months ago. We bought it, watched it, loved it, watched some episodes again, and watched Seasons 1-3 in our Venture Brothers fervor.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited for Volume 2 to come out.

My boyfriend handled the waiting better than I did. He has patience when it comes to these kinds of things.

I really don't. But I managed to survive until Volume 2 release day with my sanity basically in tact.

And then I went out in all my Venture Brothers buying excitement to finally own those last episodes of Season 4 and I couldn't find it.

I. COULDN'T. FIND. IT.

I went to Fred Meyer and no luck. I tried Best Buy and came up empty handed. I scoured the shelves at Borders and found nothing.

This was about the point in the day when I started to go a little crazy. I had waited months - MONTHS - for this DVD to come out and now it couldn't be found. I wanted it, NEEDED IT, and it was a no show.

That was unacceptable. I was going to find it and watch it and love it DAMMIT and no lack of purchasing apptitude by retail outlets was going to deny me that.

So at midnight I made my way into Wal-Mart and marched to the DVD section and demanded of the first employee that I saw to locate my cartoon for me. And he found it!

YES!!!

It was mine! Mine! MINE!!!

Finally finally I was able to take home those last awesome episodes of Season 4 and the boyfriend and I watched them all back-to-back in one sitting. We were amused, we were shocked, we were amazed. It was awesome.

And then it was over. All of that waiting. All of that searching and hunting and failing and finally finding. And it was over.

It was worth the headache and heartache. Totally worth it.

But still .... my life feels kind of empty now.

#7: Gunslinger Girl

There is something incredibly disturbing and creepy about little girls shooting giant guns.

Little girls should be playing with dolls and eating sweets and talking about how they'll talk about boys one day.

They should not be whipping giant machine guns out of guitar cases and annihilating rooms full of fully grown men. They should not be assassinating people with expressionless faces and a lack of guilt.

Even if they are some kind of cyborgs trained as ultimate killing tools, it is still wrong.

Disturbing.

Creepy.

Not okay.

Which is probably why the basic plot of Gunslinger Girl includes just that: little girls in cute little girl outfits shooting giant guns and blowing people's heads off.

Because the idea is creepy but also fascinating. And it is presented well. This anime is drawn in a much more realistic fashion than most of the other shows I've been watching lately. There aren't bizarre hairdos or giant boobs or super powered shape-shifting dragon girls. There are just little girls with cute faces and sad pasts who kill people with big guns.

Its so so wrong, but .... also somehow right.