(Originally 3 April 2007)
I can't really think of anything in depth to say about the following, or it's been discussed already and I've missed the boat.
Kanon 2006 was extremely well executed. Animation quality, dialogue, scene framing, all thoroughly considered throughout the entire series. OST wasn't very memorable, but it didn't seem needed except for a few key moments where the music was appropriately poignant. Yuuichi for the most part was quite ordinary, not some arrogant prick, nor a loser doormat. No one was over the top really, just ordinary personalities in extraordinary situations and, occasionally, with extraordinary powers.
The story wasn't very cohesive, highlighting the difficulties that arise when trying to port a medium where multiple paths are the norm to a single-pathed one. Characters just arbitrarily show up or get sidelined, not just in terms of screen time, but also in their effect on the story, making cameos in both kinds of contexts. It didn't bother me too much, because the execution was doing a fine job compensating, but the disjointedness was apparent nonetheless. For that, Kanon 2006 didn't leave any sense of fulfillment or nostalgia because by the end, most of my trust was placed in the execution as opposed to the story.
When you see a fireworks display, you say it's perfectly timed, the light display was pretty, but if there's no orchestral score to move you, it is merely a great display of execution, nothing more.
Likewise, Asatte no Houkou is also a fine display of execution up till the last third or so. Great atmosphere, not much needed to be said and so not much was said. I wonder if it's inevitable that, for me at least, if there isn't a compelling driver in the storyline, I begin to watch almost exclusively for execution. I'm still debating whether to keep this one, as I began to lose interest around the point that Karada ran away to the city and got herself into some truly cringe-inducing moments. The angst was also cringe-worthy, not moment-worthy.
Welcome to the adult world, Karada. She got pwnt, I suppose it only makes sense to let her cry over it. I'm kind of torn. On one hand I think kids shouldn't have that red button that they can press to get away with being dumb (and their parents shouldn't have one to justify treating them like dumb kids), but on the other hand this series just shows that kids will cry when treated like adults. I'm not liking that precedent, but now I have to consider how applicable that precedent is to kids in general.
I have no strong opinions with respect to Soukou no Strain. Its story developed with a one themed mind. Sara Werec was not Ayako Kawasumi's greatest role, given she didn't say much at all throughout the whole thing. The body count of characters had initial shock value, but it quickly wore off when their deaths had no real significance, except to traumatize Sara more, but even that wasn't conveyed in any strong way, with the exception being the Gambee pilots taking their revenge of sorts on Sara around episode 5 (don't remember, don't have references, can't be bothered to find them). Oh shoot, another character with an actual name got sliced and diced. Meh.
Obligatory note of Lavinia's episode 7 debacle. Pure filler episode, and more fan service than comedic value.
The launch music, a kind of march form, was the stand-out piece for the OST. Bearing the long-winded title, The Decisive Battle of Fate
, it matches the tense pre-combat atmosphere. The OP and ED drew zero interest; the vocal timbres were too thin for my liking.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Recently completed series
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Kanon subs
(Originally 12 November 2006)
For episodes 5 and 6, I've found that SS/Eclipse yielded a better viewing experience. I think it's the little details, like the addition of translator's notes, and the seamless integration of english beside or even replacing the characters on signs or books. For episode 6, where Yuuichi is looking at a job advertisement for a position at a manga cafe, SS/Eclipse initially shows the original text, then has it morph into a translation.
For these two episodes afk hasn't put up any translator's notes, and not translating that bit of the job ad causes the viewer to miss out on the irony and the exchanges that take place in the next scene.
In terms of translations, afk's is maybe a bit too literal. The dialogue felt disjointed, more lines seemed out of context, and the translation of some things that probably would have been better left alone, like translating manga to comic book, and pork bun into meat bun (but SS/E could have been wrong), is jarring. Some terms are widely understood, like manga, and others deserve a translator's note instead of being watered down to fit the dialogue timing, or just plain watered down. SS/E tossed in a translator's note in episode 5 to talk about octopus-shaped sausage, and went into more detail about the term's etymology. I wouldn't have noticed or cared, but it was a nice touch that I missed when viewing afk's interpretation.
So it seems that even though afk releases later, usually about a day or two, it's not necessarily better than "speed sub" releases.
I'm not sure which one to keep at the moment, although thus far I've been keeping afk's because I started with afk. Maybe I ought to delete everything, and watch episode by episode, and get a batch download when the subbers wrap things up. The current situation is, watch SS/E first to get the gist of things, then use afk to get a more complete picture, at least when the two don't conflict.
Diversions
(Originally 22 October 2006)
Work is kind of owning me. I've been on work terms before but typically any obstacles to progress lay solely with me. Perhaps I put on a braver face back then and pinned my inability to get things done on just me not knowing enough, not putting in the effort. Maybe now, I just point fingers.
I've given a few perhaps unwilling friends quite an earful about problems probably most jaded digital hardware designers deal with on an all too frequent basis. I hoped it might have been vaguely educational. I'm learning quite a bit despite being more or less stone-walled on multiple occasions by design tools, integration problems, implementation issues, testing and prototyping. It sounds a lot like fighting through a good chunk of a digital design flow, actually.
Anyway, I was kind of bummed out Friday after running into a quirk created by some fool of a designer, and picked up by a design tool, that essentially led me to think, "I'm screwed," as well as wasting a day or two banging my against the wall. Unfortunately, afk's release of Kanon ep 3 had not come out (and wouldn't until Saturday afternoon), and for no particular reason I've become somewhat loyal to afk and didn't feel like going for the Static-Subs/Eclipse release, nor The Waffle House/Sprocket Hole release. In the end, with midnight approaching I decided to TWH/Sprocket Hole and let the download run overnight.
The number "significant" events per episode seems kind of low, typically because there is quite a bit of dialogue. However, I am nevertheless fairly entertained and don't mind the length of each event/incident, maybe because the dialogue flows well and is informative, and the little animation details that get injected, like switching scene shots, stuff happening in the background, keep me busy.
I finished semi-marathoning AIR over the working week, after work of course (you all know I don't get out at all), and my impression was excellent scene direction and it was visually appealing all around, but there wasn't much of a story. The various character stories resolved themselves fairly quickly (although the series is only really 12 episodes), and the ending left me kind of disappointed with all of the time-shifting that went on. The intended effect was to make the viewer have some kind of epiphany as they saw the cyclical pattern invoked, but I didn't feel any relevation, much less an "Ah ha!" moment once things clicked together. I think for the most part there wasn't enough development to justify a solid connection of seemingly disparate elements, so I just accepted things with indifference and that was that.
Nevertheless, I was still entertained, and the same goes for Kanon. Not much development in the story thus far since more mysteries are introduced than steps taken to resolve them, but I continue to remain entertained because of the little things. One might say that the studio (Kyoto Animation) is great at inserting filler while not being too obvious about it.
Ditto for Asatte no Houkou. Not much is happening there either, but I wasn't bored despite the paucity of development and dialogue.
I also checked out Hataraki Man. Arienai is the only group that I know of that is currently subbing the series. My rather sad laptop apparently has a hard time running H.264 compressed video, but no dropped frames (except at the beginning as VLC buffers the data) so far even at 100% utilization. The same can't be said for ZnT in H.264.
Only one episode of Hataraki Man is out, but I rather like it thus far. Its premise seems fairly grounded in reality. There are no lesbian school girls, or giant fighting robots, or any kind of large scale destruction really. The first episode takes a stab at things like office politics, government politics, scandals, whistleblowers and repercussions, ethics and journalistic integrity, and work versus having a social life. Pretty heavy stuff and all of it crammed into one episode. It would be awesome if the stories only gets better from here on in. I get the feeling that the main storyline is going to be contained in a single episode, or in fairly short 2 or 3 episode arcs, and then a new one will manifest itself.
The lead character is female, workaholic, overachiever, and reminds me of a certain someone in my class. I don't know why that's a draw for me. I suppose I can relate to the character if I've seen someone like her in action. Then in marked contrast there's the slacker who just gets the necessary stuff done and can't be bothered to spend any more of this time playing the climb the corporate ladder game.
Sometimes I stare at those kinds of people in disbelief. Other times, I want to be like them, secure in my belief that I don't have to play by other people's rules, not caring for the marks game, or the promotion game, or the publishing papers game (which I don't play, but I might in the future — still thinking about grad school).
Just by random I decided reading a KnM fan-novel. I had been meaning to, actually, as there was some clamoring a long time ago on the Shoujo-Ai forums that if KnM were to be remade, it should use the plot of the aforementioned work. I never did get around to it, as work started and such. I started Saturday afternoon, read till about 4 in the morning, started after lunch today, and finished about 9 pm. Apparently the entire thing was about 300 pages equivalent (probably letter size paper) at 10-point font. I'm not sure if that qualifies as fast — that works out to about 10 pages every hour. I thought I used to read much faster, but use it or lose it seems to apply here.
The story is good. The writing itself is decently polished, something that lends most stories credibility. It's probably unfair to quickly judge a story just be the style of writing, but it tends to be a good barometer of the amount of effort the author wishes to put in. Like a good performance, it's all about exceution, execution, execution. I don't purport to have any credibility when it comes to judging execution, but sometimes the difference is night and day.
Anyway, excellent expansion of the KnM universe, creating a backstory behind the somewhat bland or ridiculous premise of the series. Grammar errors abound, but usually not to the point where it was impossible to decipher the intention of the statement, sometimes characters disappeared for a while (I felt), and the epilogue was kind of odd in that a new character was introduced who only played a bit role, barely stirring the pot.
There was talk of the author doing a sequel, and maybe that character would play a major role. I look forward to it.
Kanon 2006 OP and ED
(Originally 11 October 2006)
Get them. I just like the ED track mostly. I tend to prefer OP tracks that are faster paced. Both tracks produced/arranged by I've Sound, sung by Ayana. These are the original tracks from the source game, something that the 2002 Kanon series couldn't use because of licensing issues.
I haven't played the game, or seen the 2002 series. But I heard that the story is top notch, and I'm always up for a good story. I don't really think much of the character design, but I've never sat down and tried to work out my preferences. I try not to let something like that get in the way of my enjoyment of a good story, anyway.
Kanon 2006: Episode 2
(Originally 14 October 2006)
I actually chuckled at some of the moments in episode 2. I just don't find a lot of attempts at humour to be all that humourous, with a good chunk of anime humour being of the slapstick variety, with a compromsing position thrown in before or after the beating. I tend to just feel sorry for the victim(s), because they tend to be deliberately stupid. Kanon's humour is very much in the dialog, and the script has a very natural flow to it.
Yuuichi is right: Kaori Misaka is a damn cool girl. Voiced by Chikane's voice actress to boot, although I can't tell any resemblance.
I tried viewing ep 2 using Static-Subs/Eclipse's joint venture, as well a.f.k's interpretation. While SS-Eclipse comes out in 24 hours or less of the show airing, meaning I could grab it probably Friday morning or late Thursday night where I am, I can't actually do so because I've got to go work. a.f.k's sub has been out late Friday night the past two episodes, and I'm finding the sentence flow and structure to be a bit better. I've heard that SS tends to be more literal, and I perceived a bit of that from their subbing of KnM. For Kanon, sometimes SS has a line that seems more appropriate given the context and situation, but on balance I'm finding a.f.k to be more enjoyable.
I've also started to watch AIR, because it's Kyoto Animation, and another Key story. Might eventually get around to watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
