Woah! We're halfway there! Woah! Livin' on a prayer!
23 November 2007
This post is brought to you by The ABC (Roxas, Mike, Kaura, CCYoshi, Martin,Hige, J.Valdez, Owen S), and no, we’re not American Born Chinese.
If I learned anything from the new fall season, it’s embracing mediocrity. And, I mean it in a good way. Who said mediocrity was a bad thing? I wrote a post back in the beginning of the season about the ‘gem’ of the fall season, in retrospect, why does there even have to be a gem? People’s judgment are so clouded by the elitist sentiment these days that they go about rejecting things purely on the basis of it being dumb. How smart does a show have to be for it to be entertaining? Maybe a show centered purely around the intricate aspects of quantum mechanics better suit your tastes, because, obviously you’re way above the everyday anime.
Every once in a while, I’d just like some pure entertainment, like a summer blockbuster with all the special affects, all the car chases, big explosion and random guys standing half naked with a gun and his back to a blazing ball of fire. Every once in a while, I’d like something stupid, something incredibly moronic, something shallow. Does every episode, every character, every possible need to carry some symbolic meaning? No, I’d prefer them not to and yes, it sounds like I’m advocating stupidity. But then, is what you’re advocating really intelligent?
Anyways, here we are, at the halfway mark. I have to confess, I’m only actually watching four or five shows right now and probably should listen to me own advice. But, surprisingly, I’m having trouble just keeping up with those four or five. I didn’t get around to watching episodes 06 and 07 of anything till yesterday morning. I’m still waiting on that one last episode of Baccano! from the summer season, it’s so good, and just so good. And, whatever happened to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei? Right, before I start ranting about that…Onwards, to my favorite and, according to some, possibly the stupidest show of the season, Rental Magica!
All right, so lets break it down. The male lead faints in half the episodes. The female lead, who is most blatantly in love with the male lead, uses ancient Celtic magic and throws mistletoe. The two other supporting characters uses cats and pieces of paper on a wooden stick. There’s also a ghost. They run a magician rental company. Every once in a while, they all get caught up in a real jam and the male lead rips off his eye patch, goes, quite literally, (they share the same seiyuu, they sound almost identical) Lelouch and gives out random, very concise and almost nonsensical orders (Honami! Fire your mistletoe 24.56 degrees, three meters ahead!). What’s not to love?
Going with my previous rant, that’s all you have to love. The flashy action, the random orders, the characters, that’s about it. I mean, the only reason I really wanted Rental Magica, aside from the plot, was the nice promo art. That’s really why I decide to watch a lot of anything, the book cover, the commercial, the promo art. Itsuki was cute, damn cute. But peaking just a bit behind the curtain, Rental Magica gives you some amazing characters. Itsuki Iba, despite the general consensus, is some solid hero material. He just needs to step past his own fear, which he does in half the episodes (forget that he faints). It might be that ridiculous Glam Sight power, but apparently the more he uses the worse it is for him. I’m projecting that he learns to fight without it and saves the the world in the end.
Then you have Honami, who, I’m telling you, is so in love with Itsuki. It’s cute, it’s terribly cute to a fault. You know, almost all the girls are in love with Itsuki and its pretty obvious why. The guy’s so shy and timid and he has a heart of gold. When other fangirls have a thing for the badass, evil type, I have a thing for the clumsy, shy type. Anyways, Honami, I can’t call her a tsundere, I actually don’t know what to call her. She cares, a lot, for Itsuki is always the first one to his rescue, the first one to shriek when he faints. Episode four, I think, really peeled back a layer of their relationship and I thought it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. The cuteness, the drama, the creepy red moon!
Things just started getting interesting around episode seven, when the little homunculus girl showed up. Apparently her brother was a co-founder of Astral, the company Itsuki presides over, and is an incredibly powerful alchemist and is out to, I assume, destroy Itsuki and his company. I was really hoping he’d be that guy at the very end of the opening, but it seems its too early for that. (Side note, the guy in the end of the opening is cute, very cute, his cuteness rivals that of Itsuki’s). And, what about Itsuki’s father? He’s not really dead, he’s just missing, so does that mean he shows up in the end? Anything can happen, because so far, the show has been episodic.
Nekoyashiki-san, the cat guy that looks like Gin, said there’s charm to Itsuki’s personality (or, something like that) and I’m willing to say that this ‘charm’ permeates through the entire series. It captures both the normal and the magical world in such clarity and instead of having the lead character be the greatest magician ever, he’s the worst magician, ever. Hell, he’s not even a magician!
To hell with it not being smart, to hell with everything. The show is entertaining, just like Night Wizard and Gundam 00 (I’m willing to say that G00 is pure mecha porn with some political banter that doesn’t make sense). It’s a good solid series, I just have a problem when people start calling things ‘stupid’ when they have no idea what the hell they’re talking about.
If I had more time, I’d go on some rant about G00, but I’m two minutes short of a deadline. Ah! (Heh, time waits for no one.)
[…] J. Valdez – http://farawaynowhere.com/blog Xerox – http://niraikanai.animeblogger.net/?p=131 Owen S – […]
[…] Eight months have passed, and like Simon and his life underground, much has changed since my early days at WordPress.com. While I’m not saving mankind from annihilation any time soon, I have gotten to know quite the idiosyncratic group of bloggers, in addition to having founded The ABC, a joint blogging initiative of which this post happens to be party to. Others taking part in this include Roxas, Mike, Karura, CCYoshi, Martin, Hige, J. Valdez, and Xerox. […]
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Like you, I’m not keeping up with many shows. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you mentioned any show I’ve watched this season.
A show doesn’t have to be intelligent to be entertaining.
> “…yes, it sounds like I’m advocating stupidity.”
Viva el estupido!!!
@J.Valdez – “I don’t think you mentioned any show I’ve watched this season.” That’s true for a lot of people. Everyone’s watching Clannad and ef (even I hopped that bandwagon.) XD
I think this season is improving a little. There’s some improvement, then again, I got pissed off on Dragonaut and just dropped it. I like pure entertainment if it’s done right, but so far, nothing seems to hit the right spot.
I like pure entertainment if it’s done right. So far, most of the shows this season haven’t got it. I do have to say that I haven’t been able to watch some of the better shows because I wasn’t keeping up with them, and so my review is going to be biased.
[…] a while. In fact, that’s exactly the rather broad topic for another post rush by the Anime Blogging Collective (every word is a separate link, so please click and enjoy accordingly); the autumn 2007 […]