FunBlog

“Author” is puzzled by a Japanese graduate student at an American university who lets his children watch American cartoons, but not anime. I don’t think that’s very surprising.

Assuming that the kids are under 10, then the vast majority of the anime available here is not appropriate for them. Unlike the American cartoons, they are just not intended for that age group.

Japan actually makes a lot of kodomo anime which is aimed at young children, but it is rarely licensed in America, mainly because it is of no better quality than the stuff you see on Saturday mornings on American TV. It does tend to have a distinctly Japanese flavor though.

Example: Zenryoku Usagi (The “Give it All You’ve Got” Rabbits.) The rabbits are construction workers. They have great company spirit. They work very hard. They should have the rest of the country paved over in a matter of months.

Sumo wrestler steals cash machine from Moscow shop. (via)

Have you ever wondered what X-Men would be like if it were a shoujo manga? Me neither, but I think we have the answer here anyway. It would still be about young people with mutant powers, but it would be cute and whimsical, and just a little dark.
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The Last Station is an interesting, well-acted and poignant film about the last year in the life of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

In 1910 Count Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is perhaps the worlds most celebrated writer. He is also the guru of a movement called the Tolstoyans whose members believe in the abolition of private property, pacifism, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence, dressing like peasants and living in rural communes where they work the land with their own hands. The movement’s chief organizer, Tolstoy’s friend Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) is a dapper fellow who prefers nice suits and the city life for himself. He is dedicated to spreading Tolstoy’s ideas, but his foremost concern at the moment is to make sure that the old man leaves his valuable copyrights to the organization, thus effectively disinheriting his wife and children.

This earns him the enmity of Tolstoy’s wife Sofya (Helen Mirren), a smart and strong-willed woman who thinks that Tolstoy’s more radical ideas are a bunch of hooey. (Their marriage has been passionate but contentious.)

Chertkov recruits Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), a naive and idealistic young Tolstoyan, to serve as Tolstoy’s private secretary and instructs him to spy on Sofya and help undermine her influence on Tolstoy.

Valentin’s experiences lead him to question his faith. Tolstoy turns out to be a friendly and charming old man (though sometimes cantankerous and confused) who freely admits that he is not a very good Tolstoyan. He seems much more nuanced than his humorless followers. Valentin finds himself feeling increasing sympathy for Sofya in spite of her obstructiveness. Worst of all he falls in love with a pretty, free-spirited young woman (Kerry Condon), an embarrassing problem for someone who believes in sexual abstinence.

The ultimate message seems to be that love is more important than ideals, or at least that it should be.

Whew–try to say that title without pausing for breath!

Some people say that Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a second-rate imitation of Harry Potter. That seems unfair. There is no way this movie can qualify as “second rate.”

J.K. Rowling is no Shakespeare but she is a competent storyteller. The Harry Potter movies are state-of-the-art professional efforts which are often visually amazing. This movie, on the other hand, is notable for its uninspired story, cheesy dialog, wooden acting, and unconvincing special effects, which it tries to disguise with murky cinematography.

The story is based on Greek mythology, a body of material that has inspired some of the world’s greatest poets and artists. I guess there’s no reason it can’t inspire the less talented as well.
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Musui’s Story–The Autobiography of a Takugawa Samurai by Kokichi Katsu offers an unusual glimpse into a side of historical Japan that is rarely discussed, the seedy underside of life in the romantic Edo period. Instead of being the sort of noble and upright samurai that is usually depicted, the author comes off as a cheerful scoundrel.

Kokichi was born in 1802, the third son of Heizou Otani, a minor government official. As the younger son of a samurai, his best chance for advancement lay in being adopted by a samurai family with no sons. Accordingly at the age of six his father arranged for him to be adopted by the Katsu family, with the understanding that he would eventually marry their daughter Nobuko.
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An Education reminds me a little of those comedies where teenagers spend most of the movie doing dumb things, yet everything works out all right in the end. The difference is that this is a lot smarter and more believable.

The story (loosely based on an autobiographical essay be British journalist Lynn Barber) begins in London in 1961. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She’s clever and talented and bored with her life and the people around her.

She is thrilled when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), a charming and good-looking (though somewhat oily) older man. He takes her to places where she has never been, to a sophisticated world of concerts and fancy restaurants and nightclubs. She watches with bemusement as he cons her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) who are ambitious but rather dim.

Jenny is not dim, and she can see that David is dishonest, but she doesn’t care. She’s caught up in the thrill of it all and impatient with suggestions that she may be jeopardizing her future. In fact she gets few warnings since most people are charmed by David.

Still this is basically a comedy and things don’t end as badly as they might have.

Fans of xxxHolic will want to check out episode 17 of Kobato. for an interesting 30-second cameo. What follows is sort of spoilerish, so I am putting it below the fold:
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Crazy Heart is a well-made film with a really good performance by Jeff Bridges, but somehow I can’t get too enthusiastic about it.

Bridges plays “Bad” Blake, a boozy old country singer, once a big star but now reduced to singing in bowling alleys. The remaining fans who show up to hear him need to be very forgiving, though he occasionally shows flashes of his old charisma.

He agrees to be interviewed by Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a free-lance reporter and single mother. Somehow they end up falling love. (What is she thinking? He’s not just older than she is; he’s downright decrepit!)

This is, of course, mostly a story about alcoholism. Part of my problem with it may be that the combination of alcoholism and country music reminds me too much of Walk the Line, a much more compelling movie.

Crazy Heart tries hard and has it’s heart in the right place. Like many such movies it seems torn by the question of whether to have an overly pat, cheerful and crowd-pleasing ending, or an ending that is more believable but depressing. It eventually compromises in a way that is sort of satisfactory.

Here’s an off-the-wall idea. I can’t help wondering whether the floppy hats that Kobato always wears conceal the fact that she actually has puppy-dog ears. (Sort of like Holo in Spice and Wolf.) That would go a long way toward explaining her puppy-like personality.

The sequel continues the story begun by the first season of Clannad, adding a lot of depth to what started out as a fairly lightweight story. That does not mean that everyone who liked the first season will like the second. Some fans of the first season will really love it, and some may not.

As the characters leave high school behind and encounter the joys and sorrows of adult life, the tone of the story changes. The emotional highs of the second season are very high, and the emotional lows are very low. There is ultimately a happy ending but it is one that not everyone finds satisfactory, for reasons that I discuss in my spoiler notes.
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The recession has hit the anime industry pretty hard. There are only about 20 new shows, so according to Sturgeon’s Law we only have the right to hope for 2 good ones. It’s too soon to say whether any of the new shows will really turn out to be good. Many a show has had a promising start and a train-wreck ending. Still I’ve noticed 4 or 5 that seem to have potential.

Durarara seems the most promising of the new crop. It’s a dark but funny crime drama involving some high school students who like to hang out after dark in a crowded Tokyo shopping district, and some of the district’s odder inhabitants. Many of the latter have violent tendencies and some seem to have supernatural powers. So far the show has mostly focused on introducing the large cast of characters, but it has been quite entertaining.

SORANOWOTO is hard to pin down. It might turn out to be really good, or it might be one of the aforementioned train-wrecks. It is an oddly cheerful show with a strange and rather dark setting: an alternate version of Europe that after decades of war has regressed to an early 20th century level of technology. (This version of Europe seems to have had a large number of Japanese immigrants in the past. The local language seems to be French, but more than half the characters have Japanese names and some of them have retained significant elements of Japanese culture.)

The story involves a girl who joins the army hoping to learn how to play the trumpet. She is issued a bugle and sent with little or no training to join an all-female platoon in a frontier outpost. Their main weapon is a broken mecha that they don’t know how to repair. Frankly they don’t look like they could withstand an attack by 5 drunken rugby players, let alone a professional army.

This show has been compared to K-ON, Aria, and Strike Witches. The comparison with K-ON seems very misleading. The character designs are very similar but this seems a totally different kind of story. It also seems different from Strike Witches in that it is not over-the-top ecchi nonsense, and the animation quality is much better.

Strangely, the comparison with Aria seems more apt. The show so far has a sweet, gentle slice-of-life feel to it, though oddly juxtaposed with the rather grim setting.

However I can’t help similarities to Simoun. So far we have a bunch of girl soldiers left in an exposed position by a high command that is either unwilling or unable to give them the support they need. This could easily turn into an overwrought anti-war fable with a sad ending. It wouldn’t even have Simoun’s tragic virtues, since the warriors of that story were at least capable and well-trained.

If you liked Nodame Cantabile and Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter then you will want to check out Nodame Cantabile Finale. Personally I loved the first season but didn’t see the point of the second. The first season told a satisfying story; the second season didn’t really add much to it. Probably the final season will be more of the same. Still it’s a quality production, and a must-see for anyone who can’t get enough of the characters.

Hanamaru Kindergarten is the cutest and funniest of the new shows. The first episode unnerved many viewers with the little girl who insists that she is going to marry her kindergarten teacher, but the whole thing seems basically pretty innocent. (The girl’s mother is nuts to encourage her though. And does she dye the kid’s hair? What’s with that?)

Akiyuki Shinbou is a talented director. Anything he does is probably worth checking out and I really liked last year’s Bakemonogatari. Unfortunately I don’t think Dance in the Vampire Bund is in the same league. The basic premise is that Mina Tepes the queen of the vampires buys an island in Tokyo harbor to serve as a homeland for her people. The loli vampire queen is certainly a disturbing character, but a reasonable one for a vampire story. Unfortunately the other characters, including the werewolf-boy hero, just seem boring. Once I look past Shinbou’s unique visual style, the show seems like a collection of tired old shounen cliches.

It is probably fair to say that Queen Victoria saved the British monarchy, mainly by NOT being a national embarrassment, unlike her immediate predecessors. She also presided over the British Empire during the time when it grew to its maximum power and extent. This all makes her fascinating to the sort of people who like BBC dramas.

The Young Victoria is not a BBC production but it is still a typical offering in the “Masterpiece Theater” genre: serious, elegant and very British. If you like that sort of thing you will probably like this one.

The young Princess Victoria (Emily Blunt) was raised in near-isolation by her overbearing mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) and her slimy advisor Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong). They hoped to keep her dependent on them so that when she inherited the throne they could rule England in her name, but she stubbornly resisted.

She was aided at first by Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) the good-looking but devious Prime Minister. Later she found a more reliable ally in her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Rupert Friend), whom she married. Albert was young, handsome and straight-laced, but also an idealistic social reformer whose influence was to leave England a more humane and democratic place.

Naturally the movie focuses on the romance between Victoria and Albert. In the history of a royal family that has had more scandals than happy marriages, theirs is certainly the most impressive love story.

Nevertheless if you are interested in the history of the period you would probably do better to rent the 2001 BBC TV series Victoria and Albert which was a bit stricter about maintaining historical accuracy. The Young Victoria mostly sticks to actual historical events, but it is not above rearranging and exaggerating them for dramatic effect.

…maybe you shouldn’t see Avatar. The Register describes some overreactions by deranged fans.

The usual caveats apply: I haven’t sampled everything and my tastes are not yours. Series that are continuing into the Spring are not generally eligible, though I am making an exception for one that has no overall story.

The anime industry is clearly suffering from the bad economy. Fewer series were produced. Fan service shows (a mainstay of the second-tier studios) have gotten raunchier. Even if you think that’s a good thing, it has to be a sign of desperation.

Still, the year has to be judged by the best that is produces (remember Sturgeon’s Law.) By that measure 2009 actually wasn’t all that bad.

Outstanding Anime Series of 2009

Amazingly there were 3 series this year that really stood out, each with its own unique visual style.

Bakemonogatari (Ghoststory) Finally a series from Shaft that I can wholeheartedly endorse. Macabre, funny, twisted and solidly entertaining.

Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East) OK, the ending feels a little abrupt, but the show as a whole is brilliant, like nothing I’ve ever seen. A dark story, but funny and clever, consistently surprising and fascinating.

Kemono no Souja Erin (Erin the Beast Player) A great fantasy story, quite long but carefully written with no waste or filler. Warning: the drawings may remind you of a children’s book, but this is not for little kids.

Special Honorable Mention

Ponyo was actually released in Japan in 2008, but Americans had to wait until 2009 to see it. The bottom line: Hayao Miyazaki is back and near the top of his form, at least if you like things like Totoro.

Noteworthy Anime Series of 2009

Aoi Bungaku (Fresh Literature). This selection of stories by noted twentieth century Japanese writers is not for everyone, but I rather liked it. The stories are fairly dark; in an earlier post I half-jokingly said that contemporary serious Japanese literature is mostly about suicide in one way or another. This series did nothing to refute my thesis.

Clannad After Story People who had played the game seemed to like the ending more than those who hadn’t. Still, if you like this sort of thing, this is another solid adaptation of a Key visual novel by Kyoto Animation. Get out your handkerchiefs.

Kimi ni Todake is indeed an angsty shoujo romance, but this one is special. The heroine, who has more than a trace of ASD wonders wonders why she has no friends and tries to reason out logically what she needs to do to get some. The results are a bit strange, but surprisingly successful.

Mainichi Kaasan (Everyday Mom/Mom’s Life) Sure the character designs are horrifying, but this adaptation of the gag manga about a manga artist and her family is the most consistently funny show of the year. However you may need to have kids of your own to appreciate the humor.

Summer Wars. It’s cyberpunk vs. Japanese tradition in this movie. As science fiction it has a few refrigerator moments, but the depiction of the quarrelsome but supportive traditional extended family is priceless.

Toradora Finally–a harem comedy with a decent ending!

Interesting, but Not to My Taste

There were several shows that were worthy efforts, but which for various reasons I found unwatchable.

Genji Monogatari Sennenki OK, let’s get real. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, is not the world’s first novel. Perhaps it’s the first novel written by a woman, or the first example of chick lit. In any case The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius sometime in the 2nd century, reads much more like a modern novel.

This anime adaptation of Gengi is beautifully drawn, and the convoluted writing has been cleaned up to make it comprehensible to a modern audience. Unfortunately I can’t make myself care about the endless love affairs of a beautiful but narcissistic prince.

Kuuchuu Buranko (Trapeze) A daring, innovative visual style. I couldn’t make it through even one episode.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun) There are many people who really like this, and it clearly has a lot going for it, including fine animation and interesting characters. Unfortunately I find the character of Kuroko so revolting that I just can’t watch the show.

Kyoto Animation Jumps the Shark

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Second Season). There was plenty of reason to fear that the sequel would be a disappointment, given that the writers had cherry-picked the best of the source material for the first season, but nobody expected something as bad as this. Stretching what was at most 5 episodes worth of material to 14 episodes had the fans dumbfounded and furious.

Haruhi illustrates the sort of mistake that talented people can make when they get too arrogant, but Sora o Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (Munto) is a work of total mediocrity: an uninspired story, flat uninteresting characters and bad animation with obtrusive CGI.

You may not feel that K-ON belongs in this category. It was a tremendous hit, pretty to look at, funny and fun to watch. However compared to Lucky Star, the same studio’s earlier adaptation of another gag manga about high school girls, K-ON falls short. Lucky Star is just as plotless, but it is funnier with much better developed characters. The main innovation in K-ON consists of cranking the moe factor up to 11. This is no substitute for good writing.

Still Watching

Cross Game. There’s nothing obviously special about this sports/romance anime, except the fact that it is well-drawn, well-written and has lovable characters. It is a long, slow-moving series, but consistently enjoyable.

Kobato. I’m still not sure whether this is going to turn out to be brilliant or a disappointment, but it is rather cute and charming. Charm can only take you so far though. They need to prove that there is a real story here.

Inuyasha Final Chapter. It’s very simple. If you were a fan of the original series, you will want to see the ending. If you didn’t see the original series, the sequel has nothing to offer you.

Millennium Actress is something of an overlooked gem. The movie won all sorts of awards in Japan and was widely praised by critics, but its American release sank without a ripple. This supports the general rule that an animated film that doesn’t even pretend to be for kids has no chance in America. For anime fans it is worth a second look.

The movie is reminiscent of Citizen Kane, though it is less political and more romantic. The basic structure is the same: an investigator explores the life story of a public figure, seeking some key insight that will explain the life and give it meaning.
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The trailers for Up in the Air do their best to suggest that this is a formulaic romantic comedy about two people who initially hate each other but end up falling in love. It isn’t anything of the sort. Nor is it a cynical black comedy like Office Space, as one might guess from the premise. It’s something different, a bit smarter and subtler than either.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works for an outplacement firm, and what with the current economy he is very busy flying from city to city to companies that have layoffs scheduled. Mostly his job consists of firing people whose managers are too cowardly to do the job themselves. In between he gives motivational speeches in which he preaches a Zen-like avoidance of attachments and commitments.
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Avatar, James Cameron’s first movie since Titanic (1997), is a solid science fiction story, probably a classic. It is a visually stunning extravaganza which seems to have required the contributions of just about every CGI effects studio on this planet.

A lot of people are saying that while the movie is visually stunning the story is weak. I wouldn’t call it weak; I found it exciting and rather affecting. It is certainly very derivative and rather predictable, but that seems to be true of just about everything that comes out of Hollywood these days.
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The Princess and the Frog is something that we haven’t seen in a long time: a traditional hand-drawn animated film from Disney. The last one was 5 years ago. (It was called Home on the Range and it’s understandable if you don’t remember it.)

After Home on the Range flopped, Disney announced that they would not make any more hand-drawn films, and would instead use computer rendering for all future animated theatrical movies. Apparently they changed their mind, and I think that is worth celebrating.

The Princess and the Frog is not quite as good as the best of the classic Disney animated films, but that’s holding it to a very high standard. It has a solidly entertaining story, and much of it looks very good. If you care about animation, you should probably see this, if only to encourage Disney to keep trying.
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When I saw the trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox my initial reaction was “Wow, that’s pretty bad animation!” This was quite unfair.

My reaction was based on an unconscious assumption that this was an example of computer-generated animation, the approach used in most animated movies today. In fact, if you are an animation fan Fantastic Mr. Fox may be worth seeing because it may well be the last major motion picture ever made using the much older technique of stop-motion animation. The sad fact is that today’s computer technology can create a very similar look with more realistic motion, all at a much lower cost.
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This is a bit unusual–an anime based on ballet. The story draws heavily from Swan Lake and the The Nutcracker, with individual episodes inspired by various other ballets, operas and pieces of classical music.

This gives the series the singular advantage of having some of the world’s most beautiful music for its soundtrack. It also features clever and thoughtful writing. However the animation is, overall, only mediocre. It’s regrettable that this was not produced by one of the top-ranked animation studios (I’m thinking of Madhouse in particular.) If it had been this would surely have deserved a full five stars.
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The Blind Side is a mostly-true biopic. It tells the story of Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a homeless, functionally-illiterate teenager who ended up winning a football scholarship to the University of Mississippi; made the honor roll in college; and recently signed a $13.8 million contract with the Baltimore Ravens.

The movie is so sweet and upbeat that my cynical side wishes I had a good excuse to trash it. However the truth is that I had a good time. It avoids the trap of excessive sentimentality; in fact most of the time it manages to be quite funny. It’s a good approach. The director is smart enough to realize that the story inherently has enough emotional punch that there is no need to indulge in mawkish tricks.

Sandra Bullock, who plays Oher’s adoptive mother, is the heart of the movie. Her warm-hearted but tough-minded character dominates every scene she is in (which is most of them) and as often as not has the audience rolling on the floor.

Twilight, the original movie, was cheesy fun. The sequel New Moon is not as much fun, in fact much of it is rather tedious.

The sequel picks up where the original left off (and does nothing to bring you up to speed, so forget it if you didn’t see the first movie.) To begin with Edward decides to leave Bella (for her own good of course.) Bella gets depressed and mopes around for a loooooong time. She takes up risky activities and hangs out with Jake, the nice hunky Native American boy, whom she leads on and treats rather badly in my opinion.

It’s not until half-way through the movie that the werewolves finally appear. This is a great relief since the werewolves are good hokey fun, but we don’t see enough of them. The part of the movie that isn’t about Bella moping is perhaps one-third about werewolves and the rest about the emo vampires.

This is too bad since I like the werewolves better. I’m sick of hearing the vampires whine about what a dreadful curse it is to be eternally young and beautiful and rich. The werewolves are working-class monsters. They have a less-privileged life, but they are proud and good with their hands and generally don’t complain as much. Bella prefers the vampires, but that just shows her poor taste.

In 1966, a time when British performers were revolutionizing popular music, the British public had surprisingly few ways to listen to them. The BBC had little interest in broadcasting rock n’ roll, so British fans tuned their radios to “pirate” stations broadcasting from ships anchored in international waters.

(There was a somewhat similar phenomenon in America at about that time. The government did not own the radio stations, but it limited their number and regulated their content. Fans of cutting-edge music tuned to powerful stations broadcasting from Mexico, where the government was inclined to let broadcasters do as they pleased.)

Pirate Radio is a good-natured nostalgic comedy that takes place mostly on “Radio Rock”, a fictitious pirate radio ship. (Claims that the move is “based on a true story” are overblown, though some of the characters are very loosely based on real people.)
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“Robert X Cringely” (Mark Stephens) offers his own design for a “space garbage scow” to clean up all the space junk. It sounds a bit more practical than the approach used in Planetes.

Ewan McGregor

“More of this is true than you would believe.”

The Men Who Stare at Goats is an offbeat comedy that gains a certain edginess by making us wonder how much of it is based on fact. I doubt that there is much truth in it, but it is still hilarious.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a down-and-out reporter, is waiting in Kuwait in 2002, hoping to get an “embedded” position with a U.S. military unit. He meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a hard-bitten ex-soldier who claims to be a “Jedi Warrior”, trained in paranormal fighting techniques in a top-secret U.S. Army project. Ignoring the telltale signs that Cassady may be totally nuts, Wilton agrees to accompany him on a secret mission into Iraq.

During the trip we gradually learn the story of how back in the late 1970s and early 80s, the Pentagon, worried about Soviet psychic research programs, allowed the charismatic Lt. Colonel Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) to form a top-secret unit called the “New Earth Army”, in which soldiers were trained to be “warrior monks” using an eclectic mix of New Age techniques. However the experiment had tragic results due to machinations of a malicious recruit named Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey).

The movie claims to be a work of fiction based on a non-fiction book. The book is apparently totally serious but the movie takes a whimsical approach to the question of whether the program ever existed, let alone whether the soldier ever developed deadly psychic powers.

Amelia, a biography of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) is interesting but curiously unengaging. It is reasonably historically accurate (at least by biopic standards) and may be worth watching if you want to learn about the life of this remarkable woman. However as entertainment, as story-telling, it isn’t very successful.

Surprisingly little time is devoted to the dramatic flights that made Earhart famous. The move seems more interested in her personal life, particularly her relationship with her husband and manager, publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere). Yet it doesn’t really succeed as a love story either. Much of the time it just seems to be checking off the significant events in her life.

The only part of the move that achieves much dramatic tension is the final sequence depicting her doomed last flight.

Before that we are treated to a long conversation between Earhart (in New Guinea) and Putnam (in California). Even though they are speaking over short-wave radio, they somehow manage to get a perfect fiber-optic-quality connection, allowing them to whisper endearments to each other instead of shouting over the static. This is probably a good indication of the movie’s commitment to technical accuracy.

Wow! Ethan and Joel Coen must have been in a really dark mood when the made A Serious Man. It is a very, very dark comedy, essentially a retelling of the Book of Job, with no sugar-coating.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is the Job character, a physics professor at a small Midwestern college in the late 1960s. He’s an ineffectual nebbish who tries earnestly to do the right thing, though he isn’t sure what that is. The people around him tend to push him around and take advantage of him, while Fate deals him one nasty blow after another. (I use the term “nebbish” advisedly. The story is set in a mostly-Jewish community and has a strong Jewish sensibility.)

The move is painfully funny. I found myself laughing quite a lot, and when I wasn’t laughing I was wincing. You can choose to see this as a bitterly comic commentary on the human condition. If you can’t see it that way, it will probably be like watching a kitten being tortured. Not for every taste, in other words, and you need to be in the right mood to enjoy it.

By now I’ve had time to sample everything that looks interesting, and to write individual posts about some of them. Here’s a rundown of my current impressions.

Possibly worthwhile (depending on your tastes)

Kobato.. So far this is my favorite new series, cute and funny but with some dark undertones. The interplay between the impossibly sweet and optimistic heroine and her nasty, violent plush toy constantly cracks me up.

Aoi Bungaku. Dark, serious drama in a very high-quality production.

Kimi ni Todoke. Angst-haters beware! But if you like shoujo romance, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better example.

Inuyasha the Final Act. This has improved since the frenetic first episode, but it is still very fast-paced. If you were a fan of the first series there is a good chance you will enjoy this. However if you are not familiar with the story of the first series the new series will make no sense, and you are better off skipping it.
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This is an interesting and unusual anime series: an anthology of six stories by highly-regarded modern Japanese writers. Each story has a different director, which may lead to an uneven viewing experience. So far it looks very good. The writing is excellent (as one would expect) as is the animation by Madhouse.

Now this is probably not going to be to everyone’s taste. Contemporary serious Japanese fiction tends to be on the dark side. You encounter a lot of alienated people who think about killing themselves to make some sort of obscure political point. Or people who are bummed because their friends or family members killed themselves. Or intriguing fantasy stories whose background is never clearly explained, and which, on closer examination, seem to be a metaphor for how you feel when your friends kill themselves.

OK, I’m exaggerating just a little. But my main point is that most anime is based on manga or light novels, escapist literature about people who hardly ever think about killing themselves. So it’s possible that the typical anime fan won’t find this appealing.

Incidentally, “aoi” can mean “blue”, or “green” (like a leaf), or “unripe.” So does the title mean “Blue Literature”, “Green Literature” or “Unripe Literature?”

The latest fad among anime bloggers seems to be to list your top 5 anime, then try to draw conclusions from the list.

I’m willing to play along, but I’m puzzled by the question: “top 5 according to what criteria?” Should I list the anime I’ve enjoyed most, based on my initial reaction and number of rewatches? Or should I list the ones I admire most, based on overall artistic quality? These are not at all the same thing.

So I’m going to shrug and give both lists:

Most Fun

1. Cardcaptor Sakura
2. Spirited Away
3. Shakugan no Shana
4. Kanon (2006)
5. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (original broadcast order)

Of course, your mileage may vary.

Highest Quality

1. Spirited Away
2. Grave of the Fireflies
3. Cardcaptor Sakura
4. Haibane Renmei
5. Dennou Coil

There would be more overlap if I were doing a Top 10 list. Still, note that in one case I can’t link to a review since I haven’t been able to force myself to watch it again.

So what does it signify? I can’t say. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions.

Angsty shoujo romance is usually something I tune out very quickly (unless it’s played for laughs as in Itazura na Kiss.) Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You) plays it totally straight, but it still has me watching after three episodes. Maybe it’s true that the genre doesn’t matter as long as it’s done well enough.

Sawako Kuronuma is a girl who is shy, book-smart and overly earnest. She has no friends because her classmates are afraid of her. They call her “Sadako” after the character in The Ring, whom she rather resembles. When she is nervous, which is most of the time, she looks angry and speaks in shaky voice that sounds like something out of a nightmare.

When a cheerful, popular boy shows an interest in her she gradually begins to relax, lighten up and start to make friends. However given the nature of the genre we know that things are not going to be that easy for her.

The OVA turns out to be better than I had feared. It’s a lightweight filler story (which is true of just about every OVA released for a television series, except for those that are total-ripoff clip shows.) However it is entertaining and perhaps gives us some insight into the characters. Fans of the TV show will probably like it. People who hate the show…have probably stopped reading by now, so we won’t worry about them.

The story apparently takes place in the interval between the first and second seasons of the TV series. Show ▼

Yuuji and Shana are rooting around in Friagne’s storeroom. Of course fooling around with unknown hougu is inherently dangerous; a mishap occurs and hilarity ensues. Everything works out all right in the end. Nothing really important happens but there are some nice scenes.

Presumably Yuuji and Shana were looking for something to use against the Balle Masque, which is a nice touch. The second season manages to give the impression that the heroes just waited passively for the inevitable attack, without making any preparations. This story suggests that they did look for possible countermeasures, but failed to come up with anything effective.

Though the story seems to wrap itself up neatly, AniDB says that this is just the first part of a 4-episode OVA series to be released between now and next August.

So far Kobato. (with a period) is my favorite series of an admittedly weak fall anime season. It’s cute, it’s funny and it’s charming. Maybe there’s more to it than that, or maybe not.

Almost 15 years ago there was another anime series created by CLAMP and animated by Madhouse. It was called Cardcaptor Sakura. It was cute and funny and charming. When I saw the first few episodes, I thought that was all there was to it–fun but lightweight. Gradually it became clear that this was a masterpiece, a great classic of animation and perhaps the best example of long-form television writing ever. (It’s not the best-written series ever, but the better ones are all much shorter.)

Since then both CLAMP and Madhouse have gone on to make many other series, none quite as good and some much worse.

This new collaboration is quite different from CCS, but there’s something about it that feels similar. That certainly doesn’t prove that it’s another masterpiece. In fact the odds are that it’s not. But I’m willing to stick around to make sure. At worst, it probably will be a pleasant diversion.
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Perhaps it’s an indication of the overall quality of the Fall 2009 anime season that the show that seems to be attracting the most attention is one that irritates the heck out of me.

Seitokai no Ichizon (It’s Up To the Student Council) is rather reminiscent of Lucky Star with its cute high school girls, fast-paced anime in-jokes, and general lack of an overall story. On the other hand Lucky Star had much better artwork, bigger laughs and much more believable characters.
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The Informant! is an offbeat, funny movie based on a true story. It imitates the visual style and musical score of a 1970s crime caper movie, perhaps because that’s what the protagonist thinks he’s involved in.

Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is one of the top executives at agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). He is under pressure to figure out why the new lysine factory is failing to produce enough lysine (an agricultural feed additive.) He tells them that he has been contacted by an extortionist who says that the plant is being sabotaged by an industrial spy.
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Photos below the fold.
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(Sept 20) Various other attractions in Ueno Park. I think I managed to cover about half of it.
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(Sept 20) Since my flight home left in the evening, I was left with almost a full day to kill in Tokyo. I had never been to Ueno Park, so I decided to check it out.

There are lots of interesting things in the park, but the single most popular attraction is surely the zoo. My expectations were not very high based on my previous experience with Japanese zoos, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t quite measure up to one of the top-ranked American zoos (e.g. San Diego, Washington or the Bronx) but given the limited space they have available it is really pretty good.
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(Sept 19) Every morning the colorful market district near the train station bustles with vendors selling the fresh produce and fresh seafood for which Hokkaido is famous.
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