Sometimes, after I’ve watched something there’s this moment of quiet, there’s this rare moment of silence, when I’m caught in a purgatory of sorts, half in, half out, just hanging there, in the viscous amber of something so terrifyingly morose and beautiful that catches me completely off guard. I can’t feel the blood in my fingers and there’s this eerie, delicate sense of utter detachment, a sense of being unable to breath, a sense of trying to keep everything from squeezing together.

Kenshin Himura is a character I’ll never forget. Every note of Iwasaki’s score speaks to his character. Maybe the differences between the OVA Kenshin and the series Kenshin is just inherent in the approach and style, but this man, whose life is marred tragedy after tragedy, is able to walk and smile and live, it’s just, it’s just, there’s no real word to describe. Much like Iwasaki’s score, most notably Kotowari, I just can’t over how much these four episode, this one man, how much it just brushes aside all of this sarcastic, cynical, skeptical bullshit the world’s mired in and just cuts, like a searing, hot blade right through my heart, as fatal a wound as something will ever leave.

I’ll remember the music more than anything. There was just something grating, something that irked me, something that stirred discontentment in my little soul, but it was in the most amazing way. It wasn’t sad, it wasn’t sad as it was heartbreaking? Tragic? It wasn’t sad as it was inexplicable. It was almost predictable in the sense that trust and betrayal, the English moniker for the series, are veteran themes of anime, but it conveyed the most disconcerting, the most unsettling sense of grief, of this mute, internal grief. Recollection or reminiscence, the Japanese title, hits closer to home. The Kenshin in the OVA is not the man from the series, he’s younger, rougher around the edges, lost. How much I appreciate this man after Tsuiokuhen, how much more do I understand the intensity of emotion…

I think it’s a bit redundant to say that it was amazing, or to tack any adjective to Tsuiokuhen. It’s an experience I’m going to walk away from not fully understanding, but satisfied nonetheless. Would it be cheesy to say that maybe it was so deep and so profound that the beauty of it is that I won’t ever truly comprehend it? Tomoe, the porcelain skinned woman, scented of white plums and Kenshin, the battousai soaked in the blood of those he had slain, bodies entwined in blood and snow, there’s something distinct, something iconic, something best, in my opinion, characterized by the last two or three minutes of Kotowari, to all of it.

I’m going to bury all of my emotional unrest and pandemonium back where Tsuiokuhen found it, bury that pebble of my emotions elsewhere. Would it be cheesy, also, to say that just as Kenshin bears the cross-shaped scar, that maybe I’m going to bear some sort of a scar as well?

This is probably the shortest entry I’ve written, but it was the hardest. From a good while, I was like a blind man, groping a blank mind for words, trying to piece together a response, my emotions askew and thoughts in disarray. It’s like being knocked out of your own body by a wrecking ball and having to fill your own skin and flesh again, an out of body experience in every sense of the phrase.

Alright, I didn’t want to watch Strike Witches. The trailer made me cringe and poke my eyes out with toothpicks. I can’t handle the little girls without pants! I can’t! I can’t! Give me blood, death, gore, anything but the cute, prepubescent lolis without pants! I mean, the idea, the concept is insanely kickass. In the years preceding WWII (1939, the year it starts actually) aliens attack the Earth! That’s not so cool, but wait! They have magical witches with the power to transform into aircraft! They use magic! They kill the aliens! It’s all very trippy, but I did catch a glimpse, of the five or so minutes that I spent watching the first episode before I closed it to save myself from brain injury, of a girl with an MG-42! I did enjoy the sound of fighter engines and the macabre sound of bullets and antique 1940’s weaponry. But, but, when the cute little girls without pants showed up, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t watch anymore. If they had pants, if they had breasts, if they weren’t just moe, then, well, I’d stick around. But, the pants, the pants, and pantie shots, the cat ears?

Natusme Yunjinchou: Cute…ayakashi?

I like this show, what can I say? I’m a sucker for semi-cute, semi-ordinary protagonists, semi-shunned by society because he has semi-cliche abilities to see Ayakashi. Did I mention that there’s a talking Fortune Cat demon? And that Brains Base (Baccano! love right here!) is doing the animation? When Natsume trips over Nyanko-san’s barriers and the doors burst open in the shrine to release…a fortune cat? I couldn’t help but laugh.

Natsume Yunjinchou looked like a cross between Death Note and Fullmetal Alchemist with a supernatural twist and a slight hint of Mushishi (though I can’t really say because I haven’t finished Mushishi), but it’s pretty different. Natsume inherited his grandmother’s book of ayakashi friends. The first episode (like Jacuzzi) broke that paper-thin barrier between fun and sadness. The one-eyed ayakashi that I thought was just out to kill Reiko, and in turn Natsume, was just lonely, just like Reiko. I thought it was cutest thing in the world, the ayakashi waiting in the rain with a leaf as an umbrella. The show just screams sentimental friendship drama, and y’know, I fell hook, line and sinker for it. God, I hate it when I do that…

And, nyanko-san, oh, nyanko-san…He’s so cute! I want a plushie just like him! Plus, he turns into a giant cat-like ayakashi.

Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo: Bitchy lady in heels solves supernatural mysteries and boss people around…

Yes, that was in fact my first impression. I sort of hated the show for the first fifteen minutes before the plot kicked in. I like the male lead, Izumida, he reminds me of Rock from Black Lagoon and in a way, Ryoko reminds me of a more refined (and infinitely more bitchy) version of Revy, without the badass pistols and the coolness (subverted completely for red nail polish, heals, shopping and bitchiness). The supernatural aspect of the show seems almost superfluous, it can do without it. Are people worried that without supernatural twists, show will be boring? No! I look forward to drab, ordinary, everyday homicide crime thrillers. Supernatural is almost easy, too. Oh, who did this? A ghost. Aha. Coming up with a decent crime thriller might actually involve thinking, I’m not surprised.

That aside, the series seems to run in arcs (reminiscent of Darker Than Black and Mnemosyne) but the first episode left me on a cliffhanger and I want to see how this Ryoko lady survives poison. She also names all of her cases and they sound ridiculous. I like the rivalry between her and the other detective and how there are two, tall, good looking female superintendents in the Metropolitan Police.

The one other thing that I’m wondering about is Izumida’s dream in the beginning of the episode of Ryoko shooting herself in a field of flowers and a white sundress with a Colt .45. Its only the first episode, so, I’ll wait to figure this one out.

Well, that’s about it for now, I’m still waiting on World Destruction, Ultraviolet and Blade of the Immortal. Looking back at it, I’m not so sure why I wanted to watch Birdy again.

Okay, very bluntly: Jesus Christ! Episode 14 was frickin’ awesome! I didn’t get a thing that happened, but they nuked everything and stuff exploded and it was awesome! And what in the name of god, after Sheryl took control of Skull 2, happen to Mikhail!?

I really hate how, sometimes, a perfect, perfect moment in ruined because of plot. Ranka and Alto’s solo flight on Gallia was perfect, the atmosphere of the scene and the actual atmosphere, the clouds in varying hues of pink and purple floating past as they giggled together, as he thanked her, a perfect, perfect moment ruined by…equipment jamming? I understand how there needs to be a running plot, but couldn’t you just let us get away with a few more seconds of one of the cutest things that’s happened so far?

And then, from there on, Macross Frontier went from, “Hm, I sort of get the story, the particularities of the Macross universe has yet to inhibit my understanding of it.” to “What just happened? What just happened?! What is that?! Who is that?! Oh my god, Grace just set off a thing that took a bite out of a planet! What the hell is Ranka!? What the hell is that bug thing? Someone explain to me what’s going on!!”

The whole deculture thing, yeah, it was confusing, deculture makes it sound like they’re loosing their culture or, uh, un-culturifying, but apparently it’s just a statement of shock or surprise in Zentradi. Confusing, I tell you, for a newbie like me to sit there and wonder why Ranka’s wonderful songs make them think they’re loosing their culture.

I saw a dubbed version of a Macross movie once, on HBO of all places, and the only thing, the only thing I remember from any of it was the fact that a pretty girl sang and the fighting stopped and everyone was happy. There are two pretty girls, they both sing, but stuff only happens when Ranka sings. Halfway through the battle, the Vajra get their asses kicked because Ranka started singing and then Alto comes in and blows them to hell. My question is, at this point, do humans know that her songs stop the Vajra?

More Ranka Lee questions: What do they mean by the Little Queen? Please don’t tell me that just because Ranka’s stomach happens to glow a faintly purple like the giant bug did that she’s like the new Vajra queen. Don’t tell me that Ranka was like some lab experiment and her parents made her in that first gen Macross thing. Don’t tell me that Ranka’s parents were Vajra, or, just don’t tell me something bad like that is going to happen!

More questions in general: And that guy in the red Valkyrie and Grace and that creepy guy with the bad hair that’s always talking to the president, just what is going on with that? What were the pills Grace was feeding Sheryl? What the hell did they eat half of Gallia 4 for? Just what the hell are Grace and that guy in the red Valkyrie? Who the hell is pulling their strings? Creepy thin man? And, most importantly, why?

Macross Frontier owes me a whole lot of answers and if the preview lives up to its name, all the answers are coming out way next episode.

In the meanwhile, someone needs to write a Macross Frontier Relationship Guide. In recent episodes, fortune has been favoring Ranka, tipping the scale of that particular love triangle to her side. (I wonder if they named that song Trianguler for a reason, besides bad Engrish.) After the Vajra kidnapped Ranka, all Alto’s been say was, “Ranka? Where is Ranka? I have to save Ranka! Ranka!” and it’s making the usually cool and controlled Sheryl look desperate, vying for Alto’s attention.

I still marvel at the fact that this much emphasis has been placed on a love triangle in a show like Macross, so much that I’m dying to see more of it. It was only in 14, when the shit hit the fan and the battle started, that I remembered that Macross was a mecha show. The chain of events that lead up to Alto and Ranka dropping out of the sky like flies was one of the most perfect set-ups for something indecently romantic to happen. She came to save him, using some crazy untested piece of technology and her song stopped an uprising. Ranka Lee’s first live concert was for him, Alto Saotome. It was so good. And when the creature in the forest startled them and Alto’s first reaction was to grab her by the waist and pull her towards him, that momentary scene looked so badass. He’s half naked, he has his arm around her and she’s in a skin tight suit, he has a gun and it’s pointed at you.

Almost every character in this show is involved in one way or another, romantically or not, with someone else. That scene on the bridge, where the girls were the talking about who liked who, seemed to fit the show, surprisingly. I still can’t believe someone (Captain Bobby) likes Captain Jeffrey (well, he is voiced by Toru Okhawa…) and that girl with the bento likes him, too, loves him even. When he told her she’d make a good wife, oh, how awkwardness makes everything cute. Speaking of cute, Luca and Nanase also seem to be developing, in lieu of the usual Alto-Sheryl-Ranka drama, a relationship of sorts, though it’s one sided for the time being. When Luca told her he’s come back to tell her something, I had the worst feeling that he’d die and I was so glad he didn’t. People who make that sort of a promise in war usually don’t come back. It breaks my heart every time.

Speaking of dying, what happened to Mikhail? His Valkyrie blows up, Sheryl is rescued, where did he go? Where did Mikhail go? Even he has a relationship thing, with that Zentradi giantess in the form of a cute little alien girl. What the heck happened to Mikhail? And since I started on the questions again, what does Brera have to do with anything? Ranka’s dream shows him and his harmonica. Brera himself asked a really good question, why does he care so much for this girl?

Brera’s untimely entrances and existence really begs the question, who ends up with who in the end? I have a feeling that somehow he’s in love with Ranka, but the future doesn’t look too bright for him, he’s in conjunction with creepy thing man and girl who pushed button to eat half of pretty planet with sky.

And I’m dying, dying, absolutely dying, after this trio of episodes, for a second OST. So many new songs! So many new songs I want to hear again! The way this shows uses music amazes me. Aimo, the song, the light melodic one that Ranka sings a lot, that Brera plays on the harmonic is such a simple, repetitive gesture in the series. You can almost call it Ranka’s theme, sounds like a maternal sort of love, of windy, green grasslands and open skies and calm, gentle clouds, of flying across the sky with the person you love, gently, floating like leaves, everything that’s detached from the reality, the war, the Vajra, Ranka’s potential role with the Vajra. It makes me want to forget everything and just listen.

I just watched the last two episodes, and I’m, how do you say this? At a lost for words, yet at the same time I have a gratuitous amount of feelings, emotions, just things I need to convey, one of them being how awesome Baccano! is. I sound like a fangirl, I am a fangirl.

Those last three episodes made it even better than the original thirteen. It was like, it was like, something that was just shy of being absolutely perfect finally becoming perfect. It was like finishing a jigsaw puzzle and slotting that last piece in place. It was like placing that last domino on the ground and watching the pieces fall.

Firstly, I love Vino (or, whatever he decides to call himself in the end) and Chane. I love Firo and Ennis. I love Isaac and Miria. I love Jacuzzi and Nice. The characters were amazing, the story was amazing, everything is amazing. The man who wrote the light novels is amazing. I need to learn Japanese. I want to experience Baccano! in its native media, print!

Baccano! falls into the same spirit as Gurren Lagann, or at least what I perceived this spirit to be, the sort of happy go lucky, nothing can go wrong zaniness. But, they are two completely different animals. You’d walk away from something like Baccano! on a sugar high. It’s New York (all good stories happen in New York, don’t argue with me on that), first of all, in the 1930’s, bootleggers, train robberies, mafia wars, tommy guns and all that nice jazz (quite literally), and the main characters are a bunch of immortal alchemist people from the 18th century, but they’ve all been around for 200 hundred years, toss in a couple of lovable, goofy, crazy, insane personalities like Ladd Russo, Jacuzzi, Firo, Isaac and Miria, and born is Baccano!

A small tangent: I love this show for being in New York. I remember at the end of episode 13, seeing Isaac and Miria walking around in present day New York, seeing the camera lift out of the street and zoom out, seeing the place I live, anime-style, touched my heart in a really odd way. The backdrops, the subway cars thundering past, the stores, the restaurants, the harbors and the parks and Chinatown, it presents the city in a vastly different way from, say, Darker Than Black.

I’m an official Claire Stanfield/Vino/Cross Continental Conductor/Rail Tracer fangirl. Way back when, when the conductor was just a nameless personality that I found cute, who had no lines, who had barely a role, but was listed in the credits and even had his own two second spot in the ending, I could never have guessed how big the twist was going to be. He even reminds me a little bit of myself, not that I’m crazy and walk around covered in blood, squishing little (immortal) boys on train tracks, or that I can do crazy acrobatics and dodge bullets, but just way he talked about Chane when he was eating with Rachel, that’s how I talk about people I’m in love with. How great of a character is he? Self-righteous mass murderer, pompous jerk, lovesick fool out to find the love of his life, a mute girl that he met on a train, literally on top of a train. He’s also insanely gorgeous, the red hair, that quirky smile, the way he toys with Graham because he knows he is so much better, the way he looks at Chane…

Shows like Baccano! fuel my love for anime like no other. Not only is it chock full of hot guys (Vino and Firo being my personal favorites), but it’s an exhilarating adventure, completely crazy and trippy, with a heart of gold. You can’t have characters like Isaac and Miria without having a heart of gold. Baccano!, sadly, for the most part is relatively unheard of. I met a cosplayer at Anime Fest last year that came as the Conductor. It took me a good few minutes to finally discern who he was cosplaying as and then I glomped him in joy.

And, before I forget, Luck Gandor is the demon? Is it me, or was that like a huge brick in the face? In a really good way? How insane is that? Luck Gandor, this unsuspecting, almost minor, character is the demon! The demon! From 1711! And he’s looking after Maiza! Man, they played it like Maiza was looking after everyone! Twists and little things like this just make me love the show all the more.

There’s just always so much going on in Baccano! The last three episodes are proof. They wrapped everything, and I mean everything, up in three twenty-four minute chunks. They even introduced a new character and left no loose ends. Everything, everything is explained. I guess that was the point of the last three episodes, but I’m just amazed that they did it so perfectly, so flawlessly that I have nothing to say, none of my usual, “Oh, you have loose ends.” crap apply here.

I loved that flashback of Jacuzzi and Nice. Jacuzzi is a strange character. I like him, I like him for the same reason Graham likes him. He breaks down that wall, that paper-thin wall between fun and sadness. All of those selfless things he ends up doing breaks my heart because the world is missing people like him, no wonder Chane is confused.

None of this could’ve happened in real life and I love it. That mouse, under the Empire State Building, that mouse under the Empire State Building represents everything I love about this show. There is no end to this story, it’s like a slice of life, it’s like a really good slice of life, without the sappy high school dramas and the pantie shots, instead you have guns and knives and immortals and action. Baccano! is about people’s lives entangling, in the most unrealistic, the most impossible, the most fascinating way, ever, as the chief points out to Carol (I had almost forgotten they were there). The possibilities are just mind blowing, if you even as so much look away for a second, you’d miss it. It’s like Ferris Bueller said, life comes at you fast, if you’re not careful, you might just miss it.

Despite it not having an ending, I felt like they closed the book on Baccano!, hard. It’s like putting down a really good novel, the satisfaction of having read something intensely fulfilling, like a good meal, it kind of stays with you and keeps you warm. I’m going to miss it, Baccano!, like I missed Gurren Lagann. This is the sort of stuff I can honestly say I live for, the sunshine of my love, you can call it that in a really strange way. I’m going to miss it alright, I’m going to miss it, everything from Isaac and Miria to the mice.

So, well, it’ll all just probably end up being backlog, but there are a few noteworthy series airing this summer, surprisingly, Strike Witches is on my list of shows I want to check out. Some really quick thoughts on the stuff airing.

Ultraviolet

I saw the movie. I didn’t really like the movie, but I like Milla Jovovich. It’s action. I like action. Good enough for me, I’m watching it, or I’m going to try really hard to watch it.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora (Someday’s Dreamers)

Long, long name. The director is pretty famous, though I’ve seen neither BECK nor Paradise Kiss, I’m looking forward to the show. I’m digging the promo art’s soft, simple, almost sun bleached colors. I’m not really sure what the plot is, but promo art is good enough sometimes.

Strike Witches

If you know me, that’s a surprise appearance on my list, yet at the same time, it’s not. There are three things I like, hot guys, guns and mecha. I don’t like little girls at all, one shouldn’t be surprise, so this whole mecha musume thing isn’t really right up my alley, but Shermans? Messerschmidts? Panzers? Count me in! Count me in! Then again, just from watching the promo trailers, the wriggling behinds of prepubescent girls that sprout cat ears and tails and transform into my favorite tanks and aircraft isn’t really right up my alley either. I’m committing some sort of an anime blogging suicide by picking up this show. I’m stepping out of the box, though I’m going to cringe and cry and gripe the entire way.

Tetsuwan Birdy DECODE (Birdy the Mighty DECODE)

Gender confused, Big Bird anime, sounds good. Ridiculous, but every once in a while, life needs a good helping of ridiculousness (see: Strike Witches).

Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Another crime-supernatural series, which reminds me a bit of Mnemosyne (which I’m not really keeping up with either, it’s all backlog! Backlog!). The character designs are very tempting and the animation, from the trailers, feel solid. I’ll give it a shot.

Natsume Yuujin-Chou

I can honestly say that I’m slightly excited about this show. Someone mentioned somewhere that the protagonist looks just like Edward Elric and has Yagami Raito’s abilities but backwards. Seeing how I’m head over heels for Fullmetal Alchemist and Raito, and just by virtue of the lead being cute, I’m going to watch this show. Also, he’s voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya (Nozumi Itoshiki from Zetsubou Sensei and Tieria from G00 and more recently, Mikhail from Frontier) who I’m quite fond of, another reason to invest a bit of my time to check this out. Unlike Strike Witches, this hits closer to home in terms of what I usually watch. And his cat, his cat is adorable and when it speaks, it’ll speak like Kakashi. You can’t get better than that.

World Destruction ~Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin~

The series is titled World Destruction. I’m watching it. It’s another one of those RPG game adaptation anime. I take a lot better to RPG game adapations than I do to eroge adapations and not to mention, the male lead, with his springy, blond hair is played by Mamoru Miyano, who I’ve grown quite fond of. And, I also caught a glimpse of cute, tiny critters in pirate garb, I’m a sucker for cute mascots (see: Nyankon-san from Natsume Yuujin-Chou). But, still, it’s about a girl with ability to destroy the world, I just want to watch this for the hell of it. I watch all summer blockbusters for the hell of it.

Blade of the Immortal

I’ve always, always wanted to read the manga but it’s been going on for a little more than a decade and that’s a lot of reading I have to catch up on. I was pretty hyped about the anime adaption, now I’ll get a chance to see what this incredible piece of art actually is. The trailer looked stellar and it’s the last show to air this season, so I’ll hold my breath and wait.

Germany just lost, 0-1, to Spain. I’m ready to grab a gun of some sort and kill people, though it’s really not that bad. These commentators just have to keep on rubbing it in, “Germany was obviously not the best team tonight.” Christ, I know they weren’t, don’t keep making me feel miserable. I spent the second half of the game rolling around on my living room floor in agony. With about ten minutes left, I just gave up. The last time the Germans won a major title, I was four, I don’t even think I knew what football was! Though, I have to say, Spain played a good game. I just feel so bad for Michael Ballack, he looked so sad. So, here’s to waiting another two years for the World Cup.

Satoshi Kon is not…

In other news, my friend procured tickets to a recent Satoshi Kon retrospective at Lincoln Center and invited me to go along. We were there for the showing of Paprika and an interview with Satoshi Kon afterwards. Seeing Paprika up on a big screen was a gorgeous experience. My first viewing of Paprika was rather miserable, the quality of the video killed it, almost. During the audience Q&A, I was really tempted to ask, “Mr. Kon! Why are you so good?” But I decided against that piece of rather trivial self indulgence.

The man has an incredible sense of humor. He was also a lot taller than I figured him to be, this lanky Japanese man with a pony tail that, if he sat a certain way in his leather armchair, reminded me of my own grandfather. He shared his seat, quite literally, with his Nikon, “the pride of Japan” as he called it and just randomly snapped pictures of the audience throughout the interview. At one point, someone asked him how he came up with characters like Hana from Tokyo Godfathers and he replied that since he had no transvestite or homosexual friends, he took to dressing up like Hana. Apparently, he doesn’t go around looking for work, most of his projects are recommended to him by people who’ve seen his previous films.

He also said that people who meet him for the first time are surprised by how nice he is, most people thought he must’ve been incredibly scary to turn out the stuff he does. Immediately after watching Paranoia Agent, I would’ve agreed with those fans, that show scared me to no end. Now that I’m writing about, I seem to recall so much more of what he said, except I don’t think anyone really wants me to regurgatate the entire interview.

I walked away with an autograph and I have to say, it was an indecently pleasant experience to be in the presence of such genius.

And now, Macross Frontier, finally…

This wasn’t exactly what I planned when I promised to write a Macross Frontier post. I had such a torrent of emotions and things to say right after I watched episodes four through ten, and I lost most of it through a week of finals and the Euro Cup.

I remember Owen S labeling Macross as a mecha centric show, differentiating it from Code Geass, which, in his words, was a Vehicle mecha. While I’m not a big fan of Geass, I do recognize that mecha in Geass is secondary to the plot and character. The recent Frontier spin-off of the series proves that categorization wrong entirely, so wrong I’m willing to say that Frontier pulls off the Vehicle Mecha gambit better than Geass.

What really surprised me was how rich of a romance story Frontier created. The love square (it’s not really a triangle anymore) between Ranka, Alto and Cheryl, and that new kid, that weird robotic kid who saved Ranka’s life during the film shoot and his eventual role in all of it, just makes for this really intriguing and delicious, if you remember all of Ranka’s Nyan Nyan commercials, pork bun of a show. Surrounded on the outside by the tennous and deceptive skin of a generic mecha show, Frontier has just a little bit more of something real, something that made me stop and wonder, something that Gundam 00 missed entirely. I’m thinking along the lines of hope, along the lines of something beautiful, something as big and as impressive as they make Cheryl Nome’s stardom out to be.

There was something incredible to an episode like “First Attack”, the combination of music and action, just the excitement building up during that concert, when Ranka and Cheryl are both singing and Alto is fighting, there was just something so gripping and so poweful. Infinity was the most amazing song, the most amazing song as it played during that episode. The songs, all of Cheryl’s pop star hits are so well tuned to the show. Kanno’s renditions of Cheryl’s pop songs are just so convincing. Diamond Crevasse, Infinity I can see at the top of some Japanese pop chart. They fit the show like a glass slipper, I can’t imagine the show without the music at all.

Really, though, after that episode, the wonder that first had me hook, line and sinker wore off a little. I just saw episode 11 recently and what struck me the most was the animation quality. Though, I really shouldn’t be surprised, animation quality has its way of dipping and climbing. I’m sure with the recent turn of events, something deeper and more sinister is brewing. The movie episode retained some of that wonder, just the way it happened. I’m a fangirl at heart and I love shipping people, and sometimes I wish to god Alto and Ranka would end up together, but the way it’s playing out, he might end up with Cheryl. And now, Cheryl and Alto are off somewhere else and Ranka has that cute, little Green squirrel boy, I’m so conflicted! That kiss between Alto and Cheryl and how Ranka saw it, and her kiss later, the show just has me spinning in circles. Knocked back and force like a pinball between the wavering emotions of these people.

The soundtrack is amazing, need I say more? After reading Paul’s take on the soundtrack, I’ve been looking forward to hearing it. Kanno doesn’t disappoint, she never disappoints.

I guess I was too quick to call Soul Eater the best show of the season because Frontier just stole my heart. And I just realized that I haven’t even finished the rest of the spring shows, people already have summer previews going up! Good god, I need to catch up!

Speaking of which, I just got word I need to leave in ten…see what I mean by a little distracted?

Will make good on my promises. Will write about Macross. Will not fail finals…

For starters, can I just say how much I love Bones, as a studio? How much I love the work they do? How much I love their style? How much I love their ending credit font, even, because it’s the same as in Darker Than Black? There’s something to their shows, there’s something to their presentation, that just flawlessly captures an atmosphere, a mood, an ambiance, be it the rich melancholy of a world seeking redemption in DtB, or the eerie yet cartoonish Halloween-esque playground of Soul Eater.

This is the part where I digress, like hell, into Darker Than Black…

I can’t drive down the FDR at night and not wonder how they manage to encapsulate the essence of urban existence into a backdrop. The twinkling amber lights of apartment windows, the violent red lights atop buildings, the abysmal night sky tainted with the faint hue of light pollution, they are things that I’ve never stopped to look at, things I’ve awakened to through an anime.

I can’t drive across the Queensboro Bridge, with the Manhattan skyline spread out in front of me and not think of Hei, and not just stop and think of that first two episode arc. That first arc made everything about the show, it was just so good. The action sequences to the aesthetics, the way the characters played off each other, the chemistry between them, the sheer mystery of everything. Those first two episodes basically hands the audience a cross section of the Darker Than Black world, dripping, just oozing a silent and mysterious cool that is almost too good to refuse. The allure eventually wears off, but the first two episodes define the show.

Darker Than Black has a real love-hate relationship with me. What I love most, what I can’t seem to let go off, despite the somewhat lackluster ending, despite the meta-physical convolution, despite all its seemingly fatal flaws, the show keyed in on something tragically human, struck a note as melancholic and heartbreaking as Kanno’s music.

I spent a bus ride coming back from Pennsylvania staring out at an encroaching sunset, with Kanno playing in my ears, and I just couldn’t shake that feeling, that feeling that accompanies something like Darker Than Black. Actually, everything Yoko Kanno seems to touch, every note she sets down, every song she arranges just tears my heart to shreds. The second the music starts playing a role in the show, the second one notices the soundtrack in the background, is the moment where this bridge, this sturdy yet subtle, this well-constructed yet barely noticeable, this vital yet rarely used bridge is born. And, in due time, it’ll become this well traversed and sacred connection, this link to the emotional memory of a show like Darker Than Black.

I’m trying really hard not to say the music made the show, but it was definitely essential. Darker Than Black without Kanno’s magic is a martini without the gin, a cocktail without the alcohol, a drug without the high, all glitter and gold without substance. The lady works miracles, Bebop, Wolf’s Rain, Darker Than Black, I fall hook line and sinker for almost everything she touches. Don’t even get me started on Bebop…

More to the point, the show carried one helluva of an unforgettable atmosphere. Maybe it’s just so easy for me to open a window, feel a breeze, and just let it sink its teeth in, just sort of let it gnaw away at the inner workings of my soul, tell me a story born from concrete, from a city. It’s one thing to romanticize nature and another completely to do the same to an urban setting. Really, I’ve just never felt anything as tangible as what Darker Than Black gave me from anything else. It’s so close, the white, arched back of a streetlight, the snapshot stillness of a silent block, Hei’s laconic stare that just carries so much weight, Yin and her smile, November 11, Misaki chasing Hei’s shadow, that bleeding sunset to which the show ends, everything, absolutely everything builds up to this grand personification of a city.

On quiet nights, when I look up at the sky and can’t seem to make out any stars, I think of Darker Than Black. I think of Darker Than Black and that elusive sound, that perfectly sublime sound of a track like Water Forest, that pin-drop clarity, that biting edge of In no Piano, that gutsy, foolish and frivolous bravado of Guy’s theme, that soft whisper of ScatCat and that godforsaken nostalgia o,f perhaps, my favorite track, No One’s Home, if I remember correctly, playing to Huang’s arc. And, of course, the ending theme, Tsuki Akari is the perfect closure to Darker Than Black. It’s like the show somehow speaks, speaks of the most tragic of all human suffering, a melancholic search for redemption, a doomed understanding of limitations, just something so poignant and so heavy, it’s going to take me ages to get over it.

God, that was something I need to get off my chest.

Back to Soul Eater…

Ultimately, this all goes back to Soul Eater, which reminded me, at the end of episode seven, of how skilled Bones, as a studio, is at crafting these delectable atmospheres. Soul Eater and Darker Than Black are two different animals entirely, two different things that share this same marvelous quality, the gift of a well-crafted setting. Setting is almost negligible in anime, but somehow Bones makes it as equal in worth with elements like character and plot and sometimes more memorable (in the case of Darker Than Black, or so it seems) than the more central aspects. The Soul Eater world is shockingly convincing, while I have no emotional attachment to a Gothic Halloween town, or the perfect symmetry of a school, one can’t help but marvel at the detail and attention paid to each aspect.

As far as the episode goes, seven serves as the springboard for eight, which, judging from only the previews, looks epic. Stein and Maka’s dad in action, that’s thirty minutes of animation I want to see. Bones, speaking of which, also turns out solid animation every time. Glancing at their pretty impressive list of shows, I can’t say animation ever came up as some sort of a flaw in their work. Gonzo on the other hand, is quite the opposite, amazing plots, terrible animation. Just seeing Ragnorak come to life, this hideous black thing take shape beneath the stained glass windows of a cathedral gave me such squeamish delight, because, just as a rule of thumb, epic battle will ensue.

Epic battle will ensue.

Actually, episodes four, five and six, together, were just awesome. In four, they start out with extra lessons and end with Maka and Soul’s resonance and Witch Hunting. In five, they start with super creepy, super powerful scientist man with a nail through his head and glasses completely decimating Black Star and Maka and Soul and Tsubaki, and end with the whole thing just being extra lessons. In six, they start with Kid being late to school and end with Kid blowing the crap out of everything.

One word: Awesome!

As strange as it sounds, the best part of watching something like Soul Eater is that it’s fine to act like you’re seven. I mean, when I was seven, I used to clap furiously like one of those vapid seals in the water park whenever Goku pulled off a Kamehameha wave. And I still clap furiously like one of those vapid seals whenever Maka pulls off Witch Hunting, or whenever Kid blows everything to hell with his cannons.

And the other best part of watching something like Soul Eater is how hilarious the show is. You can’t have a good shonen anime without the hilarity. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, even Gurren Lagann (which I hesitate to call simply shonen) all have their fair share of humor. Episode five was the biggest laugh in the world. For a while there, I was seriously concerned for their safety. Black Star just got his brain fried, Witch Hunting failed, and Kid forgot to fold the corners of his toilet paper. It’s only episode five, where’s my miracle!? And, then God parts the Red Sea Stein tells Soul that they passed their extra lessons. Extra lessons, ahahaha, I still get a kick out of that.

Stein is a character of particular interest. When he first showed up and I still had him down as evil villain of sorts, my fangirl self pegged him as my next anime crush. What’s not to love about a crazy, psychotic, sadistic scientist with a fetish for dissecting things? He also brought up the whole issue with seeing souls. I thought it was rather cute that the soul is a little, glowing ball that share distinct physical features with the owner. Kid’s soul has his three distinct strips, Stein’s soul has a nail sticking out of its head and Shinigami-sama’s soul is so bloody big that the camera needs to zoom out to catch the whole thing.

By the end of episode six, you’ve got a couple characters anchored as super powerful mentor figures, Stein, Shinigami-sama, and Maka’s dad. This really reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist sometimes, where Stein ends up being Roy Mustang and Maka and Soul are Ed and Al. Maka and Soul are the ones with latent potential, Black Star and Tsubaki have their thing going on, Kid is just powerful by default. And, sometime soon, something big, something potentially world threatening is going to happen and they’re going to save the world, twice maybe, it’s a year long, fifty some odd episodes show.

And, like any other good shonen series, it’s got the character bonding moments. Ever since episode one, Maka and Soul were just playing off their relationship as weapon and technician and as friends and as, possible, love interests. They’re almost overdoing it with the Maka x Soul thing, but they’re trying to be subtle and it makes really sweet moments like at the end of episode six all the better.

Sometimes, I have the feeling that Black Star’s slap across the face is going to be something bad happening to Tsubaki. I can almost see it in my head, the look on Black Star’s face, Iwaski’s music in the background (which, if I haven’t mentioned already, fits the series to a tee) and the sudden epiphany. Then, he pulls off one of his assassin moves.

It’s tempting, at this point, to say that Soul Eater is probably my favorite show of the season. Of course, I haven’t been exactly following Kurenai and Kaiba, the two other big contenders. But I’m sure they’re not going to rival my love for Soul Eater, which, for a brief moment, reminded me how awesome it was to be a kid, to clap like a vapid seal, to watch Saturday morning cartoons, and how awesome it was when someone’s power level goes over 9,000. It’s corny, it’s cheesy, and after feeding myself pseudo-intellectual shows with their metaphysical babble, deep soul searching moments and mindfuck endings, I tricked myself into thinking that maybe I outgrew the shonen genre. Wrong. Dead wrong. This stuff right here is the stuff I live for.

I just realized, I haven’t really said anything about Kid, or about his cannons. Awesome!

I’m back. It was amazing. Utterly amazing, to a point where I’m glad I don’t sleep at night and fail classes, to a point where I’m glad that accidentally cut myself trying to twist off bottle caps while watching the opening. To a point where I’m just flippin’ glad that they even have bonus DVD episodes, and someone subbed them.

Right, so the biggest thing: who the bloody heck is Graham Spector? Does he ever shut up? You know, I used to think people like Ladd Russo was a nutcase, freak of nature, obsessive compulsive, mass-murdering freak, until Graham showed up. I used to think Death the Kid was some sort of a strange anomaly, until Graham showed up. He doesn’t have a gun, no shotgun, no pistols, no knives or anything, he has a wrench. Yes, a really large, really dangerous wrench. He likes, not to kill people or anything normal like that, but he likes to smash and to dismantle. Smash and dismantle. He’s like more psychotic and mentally unstable, more violent and more melodramatic, more bipolar and moody and break out in more soliloquies than anyone, ever. Effectively, he’s like Viral. On crack. And you know what? It was damn amazing!

Halfway through one of his lengthy rants, I stopped and thought to myself, here I am, middle of the night, pile of work to do, watching a blond man, speaking to me in subtitled Japanese, flinging a large, disproportionate wrench repeatedly in the air, quibbling about love and peace, what else do I ever need? Seriously, this is pretty much why I watch anime. At all.

Favorite part, though, after he comes up with a plan to kidnap Eve (again?), he goes, “Sorry, I just had the need to use the word ‘genius’.” Or, something like that.  I do have to say that his voice sounds a bit odd for him, but the guy does a pretty, pretty job of convincing me Graham is totally insane. I’ve never heard of Tomogazu Sugita, but apparently he played Soldier Blue and Howlingstar (I never finished Dragonaut, by the way, feel free to spoil the poor thing for me).

Him, and Mr. Smile Junkie, are the only two new people I’ve seen so far. I don’t know who the hell Mr. Smile Junkie is, except that he’s immortal and has, possibly, the best name after Jacuzzi Splot. And for a while, when Huey (worst name, ever? Can I say that? Can I? His name is Huey!) was talking to Mr. Smile Junkie and they cut to a flashback, I thought for a moment, my God, Huey is a nice man after all. And then I realized, my God, Huey just called his daughter an animal experiment, a pitiful guinea pig and had the most twisted smile of not niceness when he gave her a hug. Huey is not a nice man.

I was also expecting to see Claire and Chane together. Aside from Ennis and Firo, Isaac and Miria, they’re probably my favorite couple walking away from the series. For one, I just can’t help liking Claire, even when I didn’t know he, like every single other character, was a freakish mass murderer! Yay! And for another, that whole train top fight thing, I’ll wait for you, God, that was just perfect. But, apparently, I’d have to wait for that, all Chane did was read the paper.

And Isaac and Miria! And their dominoes! I remember the end of Baccano! and those two being the first thing I saw when the episode opened up just made my day. None of these characters are truly essential to the plot, but the way I see it, you wouldn’t want Baccano! without any of these people. The biggest thing I had going against it in the beginning was how many characters the show boasted. I ran out of fingers the very first episode, for one, I couldn’t even keep up with the years. That, in the end, turned out to be the best part. You start out everywhere and everywhere ends up being right here.

You know what? I liked this episode, exactly what I needed. Baccano! has always been this really light, really easy to watch, with the best comic relief, some pretty sick action and just enough weight for it to have a kickass plot, show. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s always been sort of everywhere, and apparently it’s still everywhere (with Mr. Viral on crack filling in for the sadly absent Ladd Russo). I waited ages for episode 13 to be subbed, I’m going to wait ages (I have a feeling) for 15 and 16. But, damn this show is worth waiting for.

(And, Czeslaw Meyer needs to die, that kid bothers me. God, why is he immortal…)