アニ・ノート

Steven began to watch Ranma 1/2 from the Season 2, and it sure looked like fun. Now he’s buying Season 1 and 3.

This reminds me how I started watching Naruto from ep.32: it was awesome out of this world. And the next episode was known as Sakura Blossoms in English.

Yesterday Avatar said on #animedvd that he started Nanoha in the middle too, and most likely would not become such a fan if he had to start from the beginning.

Only three examples, but I wonder. Perhaps it’s a good way to approach long-running franchizes.

This is not to say you have to like it. We watched an episode of Dennou Coil at TV in the hotel, and Ana-sempai said it was “pretty, but creepy”, which I thought was apt for an episode with a flashback to a talking Illegal. Don swore off Naruto because one of his friends saw an episode where Hinata was beaten up savagely (I’ll provide link when I get back to America). Random selection does not always work to the show’s advantage. But it might help the correct judgement.

UPDATE: Could not find the relevant link in time, but here it is now:

Or, if you’re like me and spoilers don’t ruin a show for you, you could actually watch an episode or two of A’s -first-. Total accident - downloaded the wrong episodes, started watching, said, “Hey, this show is throwing a lot of characters at me like I should know who they are…” “You’re watching A’s, stupid.” “Ohhhhh…” With many shows, this would be a major turn-off; with Nanoha, it was something of an advantage, because the start to A’s is VERY strong, especially compared with the first season. But a little confusing, so ideally you should watch it the right way around.

Yeah.

Early characters (via):

I can identify all of the above, but it’s easy. Many are missing, three teams are represented by one member each.

Lucky Shippuuden Star (via):

Since I don’t follow Shippuuden, I only recognize Sakura and Naruto.

Os clarifies his position. On the whole, I find it pretty sensible. He also challenges me to actually wear a headband in public… Which I of course not going to do.

I saw this at Don’s old server, which he promised to take down, but did not, thank goodness.

The other day G asked if he could watch Naruto, because his best friend J likes it. … So D and I watched an episode with him. It was *all* violence — the entire show was about a one-on-one battle in which one combatant essentially beats another practically to the point of death (that was unresolved at the end), in a training match with teachers observing. Lots of dramatic shots of blood dripping out of the corners of mouths. The nod to character development consisted of some flashbacks in which the loser thought about *other* training battles, and the observers’ reactions (including admiration for the loser’s perseverence mixed with criticism for her lack of ability). D and I couldn’t help but make a lot of snide comments about how this all would work in real life. At one point, when the winner chided the loser about her inability to hold up her family honor, D explained this was Japanese trash-talking. Even G seemed pretty ill by the end of it, after spending the first half strenuously (and then by degrees less strenuously) insisting that this must be a fluke, after all, J likes the show…

If I remember right, this is ep.43. It is just as terrible as they describe it, although at the time of the posting I unhappy with Don for the “swiftboating” of Naruto (swiftboating means bringing up inconvenient truth about a political candidate). I pondering posting a reply, but the problem is, you cannot argue with the truth.

I mentioned it briefly before, but I started watching from ep.31 or so, where Lee unleashes his ultimate move to protect Sakura. I think I’m just weak against this protection business, it’s too cute. Also, it was a dynamic battle. The following episodes were also great, with Sakura’s self-administered Dramatic Haircut (if I may borrow the expression from the dumb wiki). I got lucky with the starting point.

You’d think I would be desensitized to what Don’s friends experienced, but I am not. I still hate those parts of Naruto.

When I checked it last, there was no webserver in TiVo, or nobody wrote a client for their transfer protocol, or I my google-fu was weak, but I found it impossible to watch TiVo videos on Linux. Now it is possible.

I stopped watching broadcast TV somewhere around 2003, so I was curious what’s up there. But at first inspection the box had only a filler episode of Naruto recorded. Looks like ep.145, if I remember right. Hinata is captured, etc.

Ads were pretty horrible. I completely forgot what it was like. Suddenly paying $3 per episode of Strike Witches sounds like a great deal.

And in any case, I have the better part of Naruto on DVD. I always thought the move they gave to Hinata in the adaptation an eyesore.

Between these two factors, I do not expect giving my TiVo a heavy workout.

I’m still nursing that never-to-happen fanboy spiel about ep.22, but meanwhile I rewatched ep.64, one of the best single-episode battles. It involves secondary players, which nonetheless are often fan favourites. My word, the fanart I’ve seen to Temari… And it’s easy to see why.

The above random screencap, I think, is good to grace every top rotation. Outstanding model and competent animation in action, never letting it slip. I’ve seen feature movies with less detail. The motion is as amazing as anything KyotoAni does, and the way Studio Pierrot lets us read the characters is appreciated. Despite watching Shikamaru in the preliminaries, Temari still does not understand completely what she’s up against. But she’s going to stop smirking pretty soon.

Another accidential catch is the creature we thought never existed: Temari fanservice. I did not even see it in the heat of battle. One thing students of martial arts often have difficulty getting is just how important legs are. They may even know it with their reason, but as soon as a little fatigue sets in, I see people standing up, and their technique unravels. Temari’s proportions are result of correct training, but regardless these legs are a thing of beauty.

Her opponent is in many respects her opposite. Here’s Shikamaru engaging into cloud-gazing instead of, you know, battling. How typical.

But thereafter, you see the above. It’s an interesting approach by the creators to give a visual expression to an intellectual effort. Anime is a visual medium. BTW, Shikamaru’s shirt is not a fishnet.

It’s difficult for me to describe just how exciting the battle actually was without posting a frame-by-frame sequence, but there was more to the episode than just Temari’s legs. The anime is conscious of it, and gives us a shot of spectators getting caught in the suspense (the above is the moment when Temari dug the last line). But even that reaction is dynamic in case of Chouji eating more and more as climax approaches. I would say, just watch the darn thing. It must be on Veoh somewhere.

This blog is not going to be derailed by a second class character, but using Wikipedia and a biography at a fansite, I selected ep.31 to have quick peek at Temari after the timeskip. The result was somewhat disappointing, with the model clearly simplified, not to mention the conservative outfit.

Since there was no action, I really cannot tell much else. At least she’s still in the show (unlike poor Anko), and Ana-sempai informed me that Temari is now a Jounin. Also, I noticed that anime makes crude yet easy to deny references to her relationship with Shikamaru.

The Twitter was on fire today with Scott The Pundit and whoerver hangs off his feed (t1, t2); they even managed to wake Gia. For some reason though, I just cannot muster enough caring about Shippuuden near-simulcast and Crunchy getting into it too. Maybe I should… Omo did, after all. But I’m just linking it here in case someone cares.

While watching ep.11, a thought has occured to me that I have seen this exact design before: two generations of three.

I am explicitly not trying to build any equivalencies between specific characters, because obviously it’s futile (although, Aika is as stupid and hiperactive as Naruto, to the letter). But the overall layout clearly is isomorphic. I wonder why.

The young lady who was mean to Sasa has moved to a new domain, and posted something other than fantasies about rape. Namely, a reflection on Naruto (mostly Naruto the character). I suggest scrolling past all the weaksauce chatlogging, and read the real content. It’s well put indeed, if you subtract the unnecessary obscenities.

If I may add, the preservance of kindness in the brutal world that Naruto embodies is quite realistic and was found often in Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, Maoist China, Nazi Germany. Not sure how much the viewers of the anime can relate to it though.