I think I hesitated to watch this [alpha] for so long because it had time-travel as a driving plot device — so many ways it could go wrong [bravo]. Maybe due to my initial hesitations, but at the very least I enjoyed the movie enough to post about it. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Tokey Cake Girl
Friday, December 25th, 2009Chobits
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Seirei no Moribito
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008An endearing show involving people from all walks of life, sewn together with superb story-telling. The greatest treat is that all the characters are written with intelligence, exuding a feeling of life and presence which can be quite refreshing. Production values are consistently exceptional throughout to boot.
Figure 1-1: Breathtaking.
With the premise being a disowned prince, possessed by a spirit, fleeing for his life while in the protection of a maverick bodyguard, there is the expected drama, mystery, and action – but interestingly there is also some aspects of slice of life. We are shown how the people live their lives, run their businesses, and endure.
Surprisingly, the character development is toned down quite a bit. While characters learn from their experiences, they were all driven to begin with, the writer instead uses events to flesh them out in greater detail.
One thing that really bothered me was the awkward “filler” episode (Balsa is a tiger! Roar!), it did not fit well with the rest of the series at all, so perhaps it was an anime only feature? Although the episode eludes to Balsa’s determination and inner conflicts, the resolution is weak and anti-climatic. One could probably skip it, they would miss nothing relevant in my opinion. Oh, I almost forgot… it does have a great fight scene (and a tiger! Roar!), I guess that would be worth watching at the very least.
While the slow pacing was hard to adapt to, especially at the beginning, it might have been due to my expectations of more fighting and greater involvement of the fantasy themes. The story revolves more around the lives of the characters, carefully fleshing them out despite the large cast. Realistically, even in exceptional vicissitudes, life continues – and by the end of the story everyone returns to their usual pattern of life.
Chobits 7-13
Saturday, December 13th, 2008This quarter kicks off with a bang and we get our first taste of things to come. When I first saw the “second Chii” I wasn’t really too sure what to make of it, maybe it’s a rather interesting (or bad) VM implementation. I was rather dismayed that Yumi got shafted by Hideki rushing out to save his precious persocom from a peeping show, but I too would be rather alarmed if someone abducted my computer and started fingering it.
Chobits 1-6
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008Chobits, sweet and tender or dark and perverted? I went into the series with that question in mind but got a bit lost along the way.
Anyways, I thought I’d throw down some of my thoughts and ideas into 4 or 5 parts throughout the series before attempting an answer, since doing it all in one go isn’t tractable. (It also gives me time to ruminate on it as a whole but still be able to write about it while things are still fresh.)
Dai Mahou Touge
Saturday, October 18th, 2008Dai Mahou Touge (Magical Witch Punie-chan in North America) is an action comedy which initially just comes off as a crude parody of the magical girl genre to those who have not watched it. (Un)fortunately it is also quite a bit more.
Eve no Jikan
Monday, August 4th, 2008
Eve no Jikan act01: AKIKO is the first in a six part series by Yasuhiro Yoshiura which seems to explore the implications of robots who look and behave exactly like humans – androids – becoming an integral part of society.
Very little can be said without spoiling too much, so I will limit myself to discussion on the execution here. The flow and pacing of the story was excellent. Every scene transitioned well and the characters themselves were full of life and expression. Yasuhiro Yoshiura truly loves his twists at the end, however this time it wasn’t too big a surprise but was exciting nonetheless (Rikuo’s expression was priceless).
Many thanks to pireze for ripping this show from Yahoo’s video stream service and subtitling it!
Major spoilers after the jump:
Pale Cocoon
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008In an artificial world colored in faded tones of grays and browns, the past has long been obscured – forgotten even.
Bite-Size Movie Reviews of the Month — May 08
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008Gonna take a while to get back to the old movie-watching habits. My goal is to have seen all the notable 07 films by next month.
For Shizz up the Spout – Three Movies that Just Aren’t “Totally Boss”
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008It is pretty much understood that most independent films, particularly ones made by first time directors and writers, will not gather much of an audience. They may bring it around the festival circuit, or they may get a few open-minded fans, and if they’re really lucky, they can find a good distributor, sell enough tickets to keep the producers happy, and gather enough credibility to finance their next project. But every once in a while, such a independent film (usually a comedy) comes along and makes it very, VERY big. I’m talking about hundreds of millions in box office revenue and a multitude of media attention. In 2006, there was Little Miss Sunshine; before that, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and most recently, it was Juno.
Good luck exploring the infinite abyss, Braff. (I’ll explain how this is relevant)
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