Random Anime Picture #66: Working On It

I'm getting annoyed with myself.  While I've turned out some okay stuff recently here at The Pond, more often than not I find that I'm more whining about work than writing about something interesting.  So, yes, I'm annoyed with myself.

Not annoyed enough to be able to stop whining, but annoyed.  So instead of moaning, kvetching and complaining (and I totally expected FireFoxy to give me the red squiggly line under "kvetching", but it didn't), instead I'm going to give you something to look at.  Here you go:

-High School Of The Dead, ep08

And really, that's all you need to know about HSotD... which I really liked.  One of these days, I'll get around to giving the show a full review... maybe an episodic one?... but until then, you'll have to be content with a lack of content.  Or something.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:49 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #65: Ptui!

-THE iDOLM@STER, ep04

Work is the story of my life right now.  Pulled an 11-hour day on Wednesday, and rewarded myself by coming in only 20 minutes early today!  Woo!  Sunday is my last day off until August 27th, meaning I'll get one day off between August 8th and August 27th.  Double-yay!

Well, at least The Librarian came over tonight.  Lots of banter, no anime, which is fine too.  She's got the annual Anime Club Overnight + Pockypalooza event starting Friday evening, so she borrowed a few DVDs from me: the first four discs of Cardcaptor Sakura and Summer Wars.  Time for the kids to see what good anime is really like.  Oh, and there's Keroro Gunso, too... I gather Funimation donated the show to The Librarian's library.  Very cool of them, that.  Don't envy her, though... 13 or 14 hours of being cooped up with teenagers?  Yeesh.

Enough babbling.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #64: A Pleasant, Happy Show

In an attempt to distract myself from the ongoing saga of the Duck U Bookstore, I decided to watch something lighthearted, something innocuous, cheerful and fluffy.  Something like, oh I dunno...

-Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance
No, I'm not sure what I was thinking either, other than "I haven't watched this yet."  Unlike the first of the new movies, which was a faithful (but shortened) retelling of the first six episodes of the classic series, this second film strays far afield from the original source material.  It introduces a new Eva pilot, for example...

...then forgets about her for 45 minutes, brings her back in for a couple of moments, then misplaces her for an hour, but that's neither here nor there.  The movie also changes the personalities of the three main pilots.  Shinji is less whiny, Asuka is even more antisocial, and Rei... well, she actually has a personality.

The fight scenes are stunningly animated and amazing to watch.  They're also quite violent and brutal.  Blood, or what passes for blood in Evas and Angels, is spilled in copious amounts... and yes, the "wave of blood swamping the panel truck" scene is in here.

It appears that the Evas are "built" using Monty Python Black Knight Technology, as any wound suffered by the huge biomecha immediately begins spraying blood like a fire truck sprays water.  For example, there's one scene where an Eva is eaten by an Angel, the whole thing taken in one bite that severs the Eva just above the knees.  The leg stumps immediately begin spraying blood to the height of a 20-story building, and doesn't stop.  I don't know if Gainax meant that to be funny or not, but it made me laugh.

While there are some moments of intentional levity in Eva 2.22, on the whole it's a grim, dark, depressing film... pretty much like the original series, truth be told.  However, it's also much more tightly written, more engrossing, and less off-putting than the TV show.  I much prefer this "rebooted Eva" over the original, to be blunt.  We'll have to wait for the last two movies to see if they continue to be stronger than the series, of course... but if they are, well, Hideaki Anno will have made up for the horrible mess he made of episodes 25 & 26 of the TV show.

Oh, and Asuka gets her own version of the "toothpick scene."

Pen-Pen's gots the moves.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:12 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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