RoD Update

Well I just finished, as in just just finished, not a minute ago. Figured I might as well do the chit chat thing.

There’s some stuff that gets kind of confusing, because they claim this guy called Gentlemen (I doubt he’s related to Mister) who is apparently one of the I-jin. (It’s moonspeak so the I is pronounced Ee, remember that.) I-jin are people with unexplained powers, and is presumably where Michelle, Maggie and Anita get their skills at controlling paper. I’m not 100% sure of that, because they mention using DNA from I-jin but they were specifically studying paper users… which implies they don’t know a heck of a lot about what goes on. anyway, London goes through a bit of a time reversal and then much slower time warp… Knocked back to about the 1800’s and then progressing faster than “real time” back towards the future. Making it to somewhere around 1870 in the span of a few days. Of course there’s a Pteradon and one of H.G Wells’ Tripods roaming around… and it seriously raises questions when a Pteradon or five take out what looks like an F22. Jet FIghter… going faster than sound, made out of metal… smaller dinosaur…. made out of meat and bones… not going the speed of sound… Hmmm. I think the mass amount of metal would win, but apparently no. Anyway, they assume this must be because of Gentleman’s ability, which apparently we don’t know what is.

But we do. Because when they resurrect him he’ll re-write everyone’s brain and make them think well long story, watch the show. So… either he has two abilities or he totally re-wrote London AND called out a few creatures from some books. I should point out we did see some odd tubes with brains in them labeled as H.G Wells and… Sir Arthur Conan Doyle… Which could have something to do with it but in my mind only really explains the dinosaurs and the Tripod. Now if here-wrote London and the people in it, except for the people inside the Dokusensha… I mean … The British Library… which I’m not sure should be called that… Because they keep calling it Dai something or other, Or maybe that’s for Diet, which was on a sign, and which I have no idea what means. I assumed it was engrish for Dai something the E.T could be for european and Toshokan which would make it roughly the great European library… but who knows, I don’t.

I presume the subtitlers had a translator and I assume they know more moonspeak than I do, because it doesn’t actually take a whole heck of a lot to outclass me. Anyway the ending. The ending is… pretty typical, there’s nothing great nothing bad. Certainly there’s far better endings and in contrast far worse. Everything built up to one moment and something happens a little easier they want, OH SHI-! moment and then we have our ending and the subsequent ‘looks at what everyone does after the ending’. Like I said, typical. Some things are never wholly looked into, such as exactly who Nancy is, aside from an I-jin and a certain person’s mother… All we know is… she used to be borderline evil, and that she’s wandering around trying to find out who she is. I know Read or Die has an OVA so maybe it’s covered in that, maybe not. For all I know even the manga doesn’t go into it, I’ve never looked. It’s a good show though. Another thing we don’t really find out is what happened to JOe CARpenter aka Joker… I capitalize those for a reason… JOe CARpenter, Joker… JOCAR… Hmmmm. anyway, he’s busy sitting around in a rocking chair looking all dazed. A dog or some other animal is in the trees, his eyes go normal and he disappears… a few random loose threads, but as Columbo would say, I can’t help thinking about them.

Lots and lots of action. Very minimal in terms of fanservice. As I mentioned there’s a whole one naked scene, and it’s only boobs. I’m pretty sure you could count the panty shots on one hand and most of them are… well just there. I mean, Anita does a backwards hand spring from on top of a book shelf down onto some stairs… she’s wearing a skirt… panty shot… it really just… belongs there and isn’t emphasized at all. I don’t much care for either of the ending themes again not bad but not great in my opinion. I do liek the OP theme and I’m actually amused that there’s no lyrics, which means I can play it whenever and not have someone whine about more music in moonspeak.

The OP

The ED

And ED 2

Read or Die… the TV

Follow up post to yesterday… because I’ve been watchign nothing but Read or Die since… sometime yesterday. Well, except for that break I took to watch Muppets From SPace, but you can’t really blame me for that. I was afraid R.O.D was going to do it’s second boob moment or, more Anita panty shots, there’s only been two or three, and I didn’t think the other people would appreciate the entertainment or artistic value of either of those things.

Anyway, the show starts getting complicated a little ways past my last post. Then somewhere around episode… 17 they start explaining whats going on. And they do pretty well at getting it all over with in the same stretch. A couple things I already figured out were proven true as well a s a bunch of things I’d not bothered to think about. I figure I’ll have everything wrapped up in an hour or so and I’ll start in on something else. Maybe even one of those shows I already started talking about. You never know. On a random note the art still seems a little… something. It’s different things are drawn somehow and it just seems a little weird. I’ve come to the conclusion that the artists intentionally drew things just a little off, so that people like me would sit there pondering about the artwork for hours at a time… It’s not really old enough for it to be ‘progression of the style’ Like when you compare say, Speed Racer to Cowboy Bebop to … Moetan… Not the best comparisons but you get the drift. Anime in general has changed rather recently, just the style in which things are drawn.It’s not a bad thing it’s just different.

Did I mention Anita kicks ass? She does, on so many levels. Maggie’s cool sometimes, she really only makes puppets and that’s not so interesting. Anita on the other hand either throws sharp things at you or goes all Anita-fu on you and kicks you around, slaps you with giant fans and other exceedingly interesting things. Nothing to do with the loli factor either, sure it’s a bonus, but if it was Michelle, my least favourite of the paper sisters I’d still be going, ‘Geeze that kicks ass.’

Read or Die

No that’s not a threat.

I finally started back intot the swing of things by watching some of the anime that’s been piling up on me. Of course I didn’t go back to anything I started, or any of the new stuff that’s popular. No I went for something older, Read or Die the TV. My first impression was… well my first impression was OH SHI-! Where’s the sound?! Because the first episode starts off very very quietly. And the rest of the beginning continues like that. Quiet, slow, boring even. Sure there’s a little humour involved because the one characters named Nenene and, her guide at the air port wrote Nununu on the sign, which was *huge* but yeah slow, I was expecting randomness and violence, just from what I had seen on the internets.

Suppose I should point out, I picked this show up because of an animated .gif I saw of Anita kicking some serious ass. Well I got my wish a few minutes later, when a good chunk of a hotel just up and randomly explodes. Things escalate from there and I get what I wanted. a show that is mostly silly, random and violent. Nenene-neesama, and yes she makes people call her that, is a little… well not a little, a whole lot, of yelling kicking and whining, mostly because three people move into her living room. Two of which are bibliophiles, and the other one, Anita, well like I said she can kick serious ass, when she’s not being loli, or a pain in the neck. sometimes even when she’s busy doing both of those things. She kind of reminds me of… well Louise… minus the horse whips, and magic, most of the magic anyway. The three girls, who are sisters if I didn’t mention that already, they can make things out of paper. Like giant flying birds capable of lifting airplanes, or clothes, Anita I’ve only ever seen make things to throw…

The art styles a little… well it reminds me of something. It’s well doen enough, but when they sometimes intentionally draw things funny just because. Like Anita’s legs when she’s busy chasing Nenene-nee sama around town. I’m really not sure what it’s reminding me of, and it annoys me. Not the art the not being able to remember.