majestic

Quick post because I really need to go to bed, otherwise tomorrow (well, today) will be bloody hell, but... I get that. CCS is so ludicrously well made - for the most part - that you can't help put place it above other shows that might have had more impact or meaning if you had to give out a number. Funny how you haven't even seen the episodes I would consider the absolute best of the series yet. Except 16, of course.

Well, that's it, this is going to be next after Girls' Last Tour, Stardust Crusaders and Ts... a screw that title, that other show with Sakura and Shaoran.

A fake moustache would be an improvement. The current incarantion is just Clark Kenting. Without glasses.

The design comes straight from the manga by the looks of it. It's funny and kind of, hard to describe, fun to listen to, at least with the original Japanese voice acting. I'm having a hard time describing it, really. The way they talk is almost as if someone's talking really slowly and deliberately to a foreigner, and their speech patterns are noticably different from regular Japanese, so that's either a dialect or - more likely, I guess - to show that they didn't have much interaction with adults and simply retained their child-like speech. They meet another character in the third episode where this becomes readily apparent - they're saying the same words, just differently. Not that I have any idea how old they're supposed to be. Chi can drive a military half-track motorcycle that looks a bit like the ones used by the Germans in World War 2, and Yuu can haul large stones around and shoot her rifle with quite an astonishing degree of accuracy (Yuu also appears to be the more brawny, less brainy of the two, but then can be surprisingly perceptive). Then there's the absurdity of the two pondering life's existential issues in the wasteland in their special way. The third episode begins with Chi asking Yuu what she thinks the meaning of life might be, and Yuu just whacks her over the head with her rifle. Chi asks what that was for and Yuu says: "I thought you went cazy!", and silly stuff like that happens right after they both wonder if they have died long ago and are just trucking through the afterlife, only to later conclude that the afterlife surely wouldn't be this cold.

Hmm...

Girls' Last Tour, episode two. Warning, this post contains unmarked "spoilers"! Chi and Yuu drive some more through the wasteland. There's a snowstorm, and they come across an old, albeit apparently still somewhat functional, power plant (guess that means they're not the last two people on the planet) where they puncture a pipe carrying hot water, then take a bath. They weather the storm inside where Chi gets mad at Yuu for using one of her books to keep their bonfire going, then the weather changes and they spend the rest of the episode at the city's water drainage washing their clothes in the snowmelt, then find a fish that they grill and eat. And that's actually all that happens. Plus dialogue, of course. I take it all back. If nothing else would happen in this anime I'd still be good. Now I'm kind of afraid it will change for the worse. Still don't like the character design, but what can you do.

One of Shaoran's companions is voiced by Ira Gamagoori. That just adds to the overall feeling of confusion. Well, and it's a little hilarious. I don't see how it could. This is basically Sliders with Shaoran and Sakura. Sakura loses her memories and they're scattered throughout several different "worlds". Instead of a dimensional gateway they have this white fluffy creature you posted an image of a while ago that transports them between alternate realities. Shaoran is accompained by Gamagoori and someone named Fai D. Flowright, and with that name he's probably related to Kaito D. Whatshisface from Clear Card in some fashion. So... kinda expecting him to be a (or the) hidden villain. It's possible that the "real" Sakura makes a cameo at some point. Seems kinda logical that they'd do that. Tomoyo showed up too, she's a princess in a still feudal variant of Japan and banished Kurogane Gamagoori to a different dimension. Oh, right, and Shaoran has a weird fire based Pokemon that looks a bit like a fox that comes to help him after the dimensional vortex bunny dumped them in the middle of a gang war. There is one connection (outside of the characters): Shaoran's price for buying the dimensional vortext bunny is really similar to a plot point from the second Cardcaptor Sakura movie. Really similar as in totally rehashed. Here is one YUUUUUUUUUUUUGE spoiler (not really!) I don't know, but weird seems right, so far.

I'm currently watching the first episode of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. I couldn't help myself and jumped right in. I don't know where this is going yet, but Toya just called Shaoran a brat, and Sakura complained about it. Now Yukito just showed up. But everything is wrong. Everyone has different voice actors and this was animated by a different studio.

You're like a decade younger than I am, what we got on TV was a whole lot of Isao Takahata anime. That might not be as scary as accidentially running into Vampire Hunter D at a young age, but it sure crushes your soul properly. Although, to be honest, our traditional children's entertainment isn't happy either. It was supposed to teach us lessons in a humorously tragic way. Like the boy who would not eat his parent's food and starved to death, or the little girl that played with matches and burned herself to a little pile of ash while her cats mourned her passing. The most "lighthearted" one of that particular collection was a group of three boys mocking a person of color, and someone ended up painting them all black with ink as punishment. Eh. And that's without getting into fairy tales.

I watched a lot of anime as a kid without knowing it was anime - just really anything that was on TV. Which, as it turns out, was actually quite a lot. Took a very long break after Sailor Moon (not Sailor Moon's fault). Only just recently started again with the Sailor Moon rewatch. Regarding comics, I also barely had any exposure, unless you want to count me browsing through my father's Disney comic collection (there's a fairly long running series of German comics based on licensed Disney works from all around Europe). All of which I did before going to school at all. Come to think of it, I have no idea where those books are. Some of them were in fairly good condition, they should be worth something at least.

I'm sure watching more Violet Evergarden will fix that by replacing it with something a little more disheartening.

Jotaro and the Empress, her teeth crushing. Platinum, his hands fast. Chibi? Chibi chibi! Chibi! 🤬

Let me know if that's worthwhile to watch. It certainly looks nice. I will probably start OCD'ing Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle really soon. As soon as I have Girls' Last Tour wrapped up. May or may not post more on Revolutionary Girl Utena too. The last two episodes and the movie sort of saved the preceeding episodes for me, even though it's still a horrible mess of bad pacing and needlessly opaque allegory, metaphor and imagery. That's not going to excuse the way it is set up, but it really becomes better in hindsight. Although, I wonder how many viewers those last two arcs lost while it was airing. No, but any such questions are easily answered. The only manga I've read is Sailor Moon - and there only the first arc and bits and pieces of the third and fourth, and one graphic novel (A Dame To Kill For - and that only to make sense of the film). I never really got into comics for some reason, and by "for some reason" that's mostly because reading for entertainment is still a fairly new thing for me. The anime is on Netflix though, so I might give that a try, when I have the time. Which is a little difficult lately, but should clear up really soon.

It's on Netflix and I ended up watching the first episode. Yuuri is voiced by Kayo-Chin from Love Live! (haha). Anyway, there was something endearing about the two, even though I must admit that I absolutely hate the character aesthetics. I wonder what the 12 episodes are going to be about though, because while it was interesting to see them traverse an empty wasteland, I'm not sure that would stay interesting for much longer.

Meirei wo. Meirei wo! I wonder how many takes Yui Ishikawa had to do for that scream she lets out after Violet's nightmare.

Could have fooled me.

Man, that's SHIIIIIIISAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

Jesus Christ, did you just peek?

Massive movie ending spoilers, so @KP the meanie zucchini, @InsaneCommander : No peeking. @Bartimaeus: Feel free to look, just set yourself into spoiler mode, just in case you might want to watch it at some point.

Do you mean the one with the Russian dub? Because that really is god awful.

edit: Language warning, obviously.

edit: I can't fully decide if it's episode 6 or 12 that I liked the least. They're both not bad and have their place, but they're... kinda next to better episodes. Eh.

So how's that working out for you on your quest for something lighthearted and fun?

It is, isn't it? Episodes 8 and 9 are a two parter, you might want to watch them back to back.