hontou ni » Random Rants

[Stripey] Legend of the legendary heroes – Light haired bishie Shion Astarl

Stripey — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:20:01 +0000

Has my love for lighted haired lolis finally breached the gender barrier?!?

You know that age of the tanuki is on the wane when instead of devoting his precious weekend to the bishoujo cast of Amagami SS, Stripey was beguiled by the charms of the light haired bishie – Shion Astarl – from the Legend of the Legendary Heroes (LH).

LH is like Rental Magica meets Chromed Shelled Regios (both very excellent productions by ZEXCS save for the lackluster ending) except it is penned with the ruthlessness of SUNRISE writers. While the intriguing plot drives me to devour the episodes with possessed frenzy, it is the characteristic ZEXCS characters that have left a deep impact on my 2D psyche, the chief perpetrator being Shion Astarl.

Watching Shion, a line from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight strikes a chord with me –

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Whenever Wife chan and I encounter a ‘near-perfect’ character in movies, we foresee 2 outcomes

1) If he’s a side character – He probably dies.

2) If he’s a main – He probably becomes the penultimate villain or sometimes the final boss.

We merely approach this from a character development point of view. The character needs to ‘grow’ somehow and if he epitomes ‘light’ (hope or righteousness) then the tale of his death/fall to darkness elicit the greatest dramatic/emotional mileage. Shion Astarl fits the 2^nd profile of such a tragic character.

A very personal (and somewhat naïve/simplistic) take on the ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ of this world is

1) ‘Darkness’ is a lot more efficient than light in achieving its goals.

2) It takes a great deal more of ‘light’ to overwhelm ‘darkness’.

Given that ‘light’ is bound by rigid principles/boundaries and ‘darkness’ embraces lawlessness as its key modus operandi, it is only mortal that agencies of darkness be employed alongside elements of light in any struggle. Think black-ops in RL or Claymores with their semi-demon blood in anime. (IMHO, only The Divine with omnipotence, omniscient and infinite resources can combat darkness without the need to tap upon the strength of darkness.)

Hence I thought it necessary for Shion to draw into his service Milan Froward though many claimed this to be the definitive start of his downfall. After all, there is no doubt that Shion can be capable of much Evil given that he has suffered much from The Cruel Teacher. He just needs a timely trigger. Yet despite the shadowy tendrils that threaten to engulf his kingship in darkness, the tanuki sees hope and strength of character. That the goodness Shion Astarl has clothed himself with thusfar (in the honourable people he has gather about him) would be his strength and guiding light even as he steadies his hands on this newfound weapon of darkness (Milan Froward).

I hope the writers of LH would avoid the clichéd path of corrupting Shion but rise to the challenge of singing the impossible ballad of his treading on the hairline path between light/darkness; flitting occasionally from one to the other but ultimately finishing on the side of the Hero-King, not Demon-King. A tall order no doubt but if this is to be ZEXCS come-back series, I expect no less from the Legend of the Legendary Heroes.

Now onward to episode 7.

[Stripey] Kirishima Shouko is awesome

Stripey — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:39:01 +0000

The comrade-in-anime (AKA the no. 1 Nanoha fan in Singapore) who handed me BakaTest in a thumb-drive (thanks bro!) had these parting words - "Shouko is awesome." Having just caught ep 7 (mock wedding) last evening, I want echo once more The Truth -

KIRISHIMA SHOUKO IS AWESOME

We all know that tanukis are partial to the childhood friend archetype (of which siscon imoutos are a subclass of if you hadn't realised). I have loved many MANY childhood friends (in anime) but few are in the league of Shouko whom I'd willing let burn ALL my ero-books.

Now before you dismiss this as a lame fanboy's fantastical wet-dream, let me state I love her not only for her lolicious figure with babelicious curves but for her steadfast love. It takes a great deal of emotional capital and courage to pine lovingly over someone who doesn't seem to care about your advances. In fact it's even more admirable to be able to anchor your feelings onto a single person at such a tender age where emotions are so fleeting. (This tanuki has 6 different crushes over 6 years of primary school education - not counting the less 'serious' one.) I supposed it also helped a great deal that tanuki-folk had deemed Yuuji worthy of Shouko's devotion (which actually reinforces Shouko's charms since good taste in men IS important in bishoujo-worship).

Sigh, wished I had met my wife as a childhood friend... imagine all the juvenile tasering-fun we missed out on. The more grown-up "Kneeling on durians" routine just isn't quite as intense. XD

[Zyl] OPS DEMONLORD After Action Review

Zyl — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:05:15 +0000

Be Proactive; Begin with the End in Mind; Put First Things Out of the Way First

This post is not actually about Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou but about my catching up with watching Daimaou.

OPS DEMONLORD Overview

Kabitzin, CINC SS!AB:

I know first-hand that backlogs are demoralizing and lead to fear, hate, suffering, the Dark Side, etc.

With an ever increasing backlog of unwatched anime episodes, OPS DEMONLORD was executed over the weekend of 10-11 July 2010 to stop the rot, maintain Summer 2010 offensive momentum and pave the way for watching series on the medium and long term lists.

The logistics were already been put in place - the relevant episodes for targeted series had been downloaded close to the sub release dates while torrent seed strengths and trackers were in optimal condition. What remained was to actually watch them.

OPS DEMONLORD Objectives

Three series were targeted for watching, within the allotted time, in the following order:

A Certain Scientific Railgun (RAILGUN: 16-24)
Arakawa Under The Bridge (ARAKAWA: 07-13)
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou (DAIMAOU: 02-12)

Secondary objectives included screencapping and notetaking for possible Series Reviews or future thematic posts but these were not to interfere with achieving the primary objectives.

Despite much positive feedback from trusted sources, expeditionary foray failed to even survive the first episode of B Gata H Kei despite not one, not two but three attempts and thus was not included within the scope of this operation.

Analysis of OPS DEMONLORD Outcomes

RAILGUN

OPS DEMONLORD was conducted with revised Standard Operating Procedures which were based on re-visiting fundamental assumptions. The immediate cause was a common one - the loss of momentum due to incursions from Real Life into the 2D sphere. However the root cause was identified as an Aniblogging Wall which had formed around the RAILGUN front.

Previous SOP had followed the "I Download, I Watch, I Blog" pattern on an episodic, weekly basis but could not be sustained. As the backlog of episodes piled up in quantity and languished longer and longer from the broadcast date, it was belatedly realized that the thought of having to blog an episode was itself an impediment to watching it.

RAILGUN was being blogged using Kuroko's voice and perspective; the filler arc which focused on Mii, Tsuzuri and the Dorm Mistress as well as the nastiness between Kuroko and Kazari in the final arc made blogging these episodes a lot more difficult and less enjoyable even with the return of Harumi was welcome and Mitsuko shed her victimhood and turned out to be full of love and win. In addition to this loss of intrinsic motivation, there was much less chance of extrinsic motivation, in terms of comments, given that the posts would now be far from timely. The decision was, thus, made - in the teeth of my Completionist tendencies - to drop the blogging of RAILGUN so that watching could be completed.

ARAKAWA

Blogging backlog did not lead to Watching backlog in the case of ARAKAWA. There was a cumulative element of the RAILGUN backlog causing ARAKAWA to get backlogged, with the feeling that I should tackle the earlier series first before watching this latter one. Nonetheless Aroduc's words proved prescient:

I guess it’s okay if you can’t get enough of Shaft, but these characters are nowhere near as charming as SZS’s cast and I was sick of hearing Hiroshi Kamiya shout

(And he still watched and blogged the series to completion regardless.) I had picked up the series because Maaya Sakamoto was the lead female but her character was not half as interesting or captivating as Sakamoto's other major role in Spring 2010, Yojohan's Akashi. My enthusiasm wore thin by the fifth episode and, for the purposes of this catchup operation, I eventually had to content myself with Miyuki Sawashiro's Maria and Chiwa Saito's Stella. Reinforcements for watching motivation were also supplied by wanting to read Halfadeckshort's summaries and reactions of this series.

DAIMAOU

Likewise, there was no blogging backlog to stymie the watching of this series which was picked up on the basis of the Shizu-sama Doctrine (Shizuka Itou voiced Fujiko Etoh). This turned out to be the biggest holdout (at 11 episodes) from the Spring 2010 offensive but once the marathon session got underway, the momentum of back-to-back episode watching overcame minor obstacles and irritations that could have felt less minor with one week gaps in between viewing. An average series that could have been so much more engaging and interesting.

Conclusion

The operation was successfully concluded due to sufficient logistics preparation and blocking off enough time for the marathoning. It did not go completely smoothly due to obstacles like the filler arc in RAILGUN, frustration with the slow pace of Recruit and Nino's development in ARAKAWA as well as the awkward transition from misunderstanding comedy to the more serious contentions re: the conflicting views about the role of the Demon King in Daimaou. Nonetheless it is a relief that they've finally been watched.

A positive externality - also created the momentum for significant gains against a medium term target series - MANABI STRAIGHT (01-07) - which is expected to fall to the advance of OPS FORWARD GO and be completely watched within the next one to two days.