Well, looks like a prequel to Anne of Green Gables has come to Japanese television. It doesn't look quite as bad as 90% of the mass production anime out there with featureless buildings and cookie cutter character designs, but there's still the notable lack of attention to details of period architecture and dress--I expect that from most anime series, but what surprises me is the lack of enthusiasm for flora and fauna--the forests and mountains in the backgrounds of even some of the cheapest looking anime out there tend to be beautiful. This looks like late 1980s American plastic trees and shrubs along with eerily still forest animals--I mean, it's the theme song, this is where the animation's supposed to go all out. I can only imagine the show itself--it must be like a slide show.
On the other end of the anime spectrum, the new season of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei premiered yesterday. I hope someone fansubs it soon. Until then, there is the opening and ending on YouTube--the opening's not much to look at, and I wonder if it's temporary, like the plain openings for the first few episodes of the first two seasons. But I do kind of like the ending;
I did watch an Akiyuki Shinbo show to-day, though--the last three episodes of Natsu no Arashi were finally subbed. I'm guessing I'm one of the few people who was looking forward to it, since the comment on one of the raw, unsubtitled uploads was, "Seems like this is the end for this crappy show." Apparently someone hasn't seen Konnichiwa Anne. And anyway, I don't see how anyone can watch this opening and not grin;
My tweets from last night;
Thirteen minutes are similar to ten.
Fireworks never end when you expect.
The new shogun prefers women to men.
All peaceful plans to sack Edo are wrecked.
I have to admit I really don't understand fireworks. They're loud and kind of boring, really. But my sister was really keen on seeing them this year for some reason, so I walked with her and my mother. I didn't dare move my car all day, since this neighbourhood seems to be where half the county goes to watch fireworks.
I did talk my sister into watching 1776, which is so far the best Independence Day movie I've ever seen, but I can't seem to drum up enthusiasm for it from anyone else.
There've been a lot of lizards around here lately. I watched Snow chase down two in the backyard, ignoring me completely in the process. I just hope he eats one of them.
I was eating lunch at the time, and I had the television on The National Geographic Channel, which has depressingly taken to referring to itself as "Natgeo". Who the fuck's that for? History buffs with short attention spans?
Actually, the show I was watching had a definite yellow journalism quality, a kind of charmingly trashy special about the Codex Gigas that clearly wanted to give you the impression that experts are pretty sure it was written by Satan and that everyone who possessed the book was cursed--the show used a lot of blatantly selective reasoning, like mentioning the decline of Emperor Rudolf II after he'd acquired the codex, or the hard times a monastery faced years after acquiring it. Somehow I remember National Geographic being a reputable publication. I suppose I was given that impression when I was a kid. Still, it's sad. Though I couldn't help loving a ghost story told with such earnestness.
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