Ironically, the episode where everything goes the full Kafka and yanks the desire to live right out of you is the one that doesn't take place a zillion miles beneath the surface of the earth.
i really liked it, it felt like a return to Hunter X Hunter proper after the relatively self-contained Chimera Ants storyline, we got the return of familiar characters like Illumi and Hisoka, we got something of a closure on all the major characters' story arcs, with Gon finally meeting his father, Killua standing up to his family, Kurapika having recovered all the eyes and Leorio free to focus on being a doctor
it was good
if i had one complaint it was that this definitely felt like part of an ongoing story . . . which of course it is, so that's not really a complaint. just a little sad that the arc felt like it was building towards Kurapika's reintroduction and the expedition to the Dark Continent, and idk if that story will ever be finished and animated. but, at the same time, immensely satisfied with the ending we got.
i had other thoughts, i've found myself mentally comparing and contrasting the show with other series i enjoyed in the genre, like One Piece and FMA, but i think i'll hold off on that for now and just kinda savour the ending
It's an interesting example of how the story plays with the idea of the Other. On the one hand, it is impossible to entirely dismiss any antagonist or threatening force in the series as entirely inhuman or evil, while it becomes progressively easier as the series goes on to recognise how, in a different context, might be seen as a dangerous Other in themselves. On the other hand, the fact that the world is very big and very strange and essentially impossible to fully comprehend—like the real world, really—is frequently staring the protagonists dead in the face, and the forms that this vastness of things takes varies so that how it must be confronted varies wildly. The world never shrinks, only widens.
Also: Here, viewers, have a heartbreaking story about transphobia and parental rejection in the midst of this vignette of cosmic terror!
an interesting thing for me was how during both the Yorknew arc and the East Gorteau segment of the Chimera Ant arc, the show more or less encourages you to see the world from the villainous perspective, and the main characters become frightening
also interesting to note that in both those cases, although the villains are clearly villains, it's the main characters who are actively antagonizing them a lot of the time, rather than the other way around
y'know i was only mostly joking when i referred to the ants as "precious babies" . . . maybe not even mostly >_>
I like that Leorio is secretly one of the most morally upright characters in the show despite seemingly like the asshole self-centered member of the party at the start of the show.
So, Cardcaptor Sakura isn't quite Lesbears levels of gay, but I think it's getting to Steven Universe levels. Like, I'm aware that there are Plot Reasons for Shaoran's crush on Yukito, but that's clearly not all of it, and man, it's adorably pathetic. And this is on top of everything else, of which there is quite a bit.
Still kinda amused at how Uiharu's ability is only revealed late in the series, and has nothing to do with her very prominent headband of flowers. Despite being questioned about that.
Also, thank goodness Kuroko can serious-mode, when she stops joking around with Misaka.
And I guess they all go on surname basis or something. Mikoto, Kuroko, Ruiko, and Kazari seem to be rather seldom used to refer to them; they're usually Misaka, Shirai, Saten, and Uiharu.
My two fave characters are still Saten and Uiharu.
No matter what anyone says, I like the Rebuild films better than the original Evangelion.
I don't care if the originals were better-written. Part of what made the original Evangelion so thought-provoking was that it was one man's suffering projected on-screen. The sexual frustration and the crippling loneliness were what made the original series so powerful, but they also could only have come from a heavily diseased mind that needed help.
The only way to emulate that again would be to make Anno go through that suffering all over again. And I don't wish that on him.
So, my sources suggest that Chivalry of a Failed Knight is actually pretty decent, in that the writers are actually really good with establishing their characters and building tension. This is rare with generic magic high school shows, to say the least. Might have to put this on my Obligatory Fluff List.
That could be amusing. Bad but fun is good. But, well, good and fun is better.
For the record, Cardcaptor Sakura is basically the reason I have an Obligatory Fluff List now. In starting it, I realised that I desperately needed some anime in my life that wasn't heavier than "No Joy" with the bass cranked past 10, but that half my problem is knowing where to start.
All I know about CoaFK is that it has an amusing number of similarities to The Asterisk War, as I noticed thanks to an SA thread I follow which pointed that out. I've also heard that it is surprisingly watchable far as those shows go. I'll watch it at some point I'm sure.
Said Alice is also a sympathetic, well-rounded trans* lady, which is... more common now than previously.
Also, while it does parallel The Asterisk War almost beat for beat in places, the way each beat is framed and the actual writing quality (I am told) sets the two leagues apart—which is to say the difference between "refreshing and pleasant" and "trite and painful." Come to think of it, I don't think I've heard anyone say anything nice about the latter...
Well the character designs are pleasant if rather by-the-books, to me. I feel similarly Failed Knight actually, and that was the only reason I put it on my list in the first place. That and Kurogane apparently being trash garbage at fighting, except for when he's not because details I've already forgotten. Shrug Those are easy brownie points with me.
Yeah, "good" is relative here and deft writing can't salvage everything, but given the intensely lacklustre nature of the subgenre, it seems like a pleasant enough surprise.
Also: I still wish Haibane Renmei had a bearable dub. The dub is seriously awful - I'd even accept mediocre, if it existed. It's one of the few shows I've HAD to watch subbed simply because I couldn't get through even an episode of the dubbed version `0`
Huh. I'd heard that the dub was solid, although as with many dubs I can see it starting off on a bad foot. Then again, I can't watch Azumanga Daioh in English despite the solid acting simply because it feels wrong, so I dunno.
Maybe it was just me, then, I don't know. I watched about 5 minutes of the dub, tried skipping forward to see if it was like that all the way through the first episode, found that it was, and immediately decided to download the subbed version instead.
I know that feeling. I watched the Canaan dub and couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying.
I poked my head into Canaan the other day, and thought the English dub was...well, okay, I only watched about ten minutes, but it was good enough to be part of an intriguingly inviting experience that made me want to watch it. I remember thinking "This dub sounds quite good".
I might be, but the question of whether the homunculi are intentional retribution of the Truth still stands.I also find it telling that the entity is referred to as "the Truth". Even in the case of it intentionally traumatising those who cross its designs (and we should remember that Buddhism has no creator or all-powerful deity, so this entity is clearly unrelated to Buddhism), we come to a situation where the Truth punishes those who try to subvert natural law -- not even allegorical for our real world, but representational of it, religion or no religion.
You're mixing up the two continuities.
Spoiler:
In the first anime, Truth does not exist at all. A more scientific notion of the Gate does, and it's shown that the Homunculi are originally "Gate Children" summoned from within there into failed Human Transmutations. That does line up better with your ideas, and it's easy to get the two mixed up.
Spoiler:
In Brotherhood (the continuity I presume we're talking about) Truth does exist, but he/she/it (gender dependent on alchemist) is not responsible for the creation of homunculi. Homunculus/Father, the main villain, is.
I feel like this could have benefited if we specified from the beginning which continuity we're talking about. The first anime and the manga are different stories written by different people with different tones, themes and subject matters. I was talking about the latter, for posterity's sake. I don't care much for who's to blame for this, I'd just prefer if we specified which continuity we're talking about before we continue.
I'd also argue that FMA is also exceedingly well-researched and remarkably faithful to the philosophies that defined the late 19th and early 20th centuries...Its imitation of the West, just like FMA's, is influenced by the native culture of the author but also remarkably true to its sources...[T]he authors of these respective works understand the time periods they're imitating more effectively than the majority of Westerners do.
I agree with most of this!
But I'm not talking about world-building here. I'm talking about the values system of the work itself, viewed as a work of fiction and not as a sequence of true events. FMA is a very moralistic show, in that it injects a lot of traditional Japanese values into the story.
I'd argue that FMA is set in the time period chosen (or a close equivalent of it) particularly because of the values scholars commonly held in said period. An author, when choosing a time period for a work, makes a deliberate decision; it makes little sense to choose early 20th century central Europe to tell a story of particularly spiritual intent. If spiritual analysis was such a focal point, then it seems like some equivalent of the 16th century would be a far more appropriate choice, given the Protestant Reformation and it being the actual age of alchemy. If you squint at the dates, the witch hunts can be included.
These factors would be perfect for a story that wants to explore spirituality, religious exploitation, and pseudoscience. But FMA is chiefly concerned with more mundane elements, despite its occasional forays into the unknown, and it's to the manga/show's credit that it can make mundane concepts (like chemical laws) feel magical and exciting. Which very neatly, I think, represents how scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century must have felt about the explosive expansion of scientific knowledge throughout that period. It's also a time period wherein nation states are beginning to replace older models of social organisation, such as kingdoms and empires -- another fulfilled ideal of enlightenment philosophy.
Whatever the author's personal religious views are or were, FMA is set in (the equivalent of) a period of swiftly expanding scientific knowledge and common embrace of enlightenment values by the layperson, not just scholars or the privileged. There was a deliberate decision to tell a story about predominantly atheists in a secular setting, and while some spiritual values plausibly entered into the writing, I think those elements are very distant from the intent or purpose of the story (in any of its forms).
It's a long time since i watched (either) FMA, but i think maybe it's worth noting that the distinction between religion and philosophy wrt Buddhism is rather murkier than in the Western tradition? Arakawa may not have regarded 'all is one' to be at all comparable to Letoism, or at all incompatible with secularism.
Also perhaps relevant that during the 19th century, Europeans started to take an interest in Buddhism? Nietzsche said of it "though also a decadent world-denying religion, [it] is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity". Going a little further back, there are distinct similarities between Buddhism and the philosophy of David Hume, who was extremely influential on Enlightenment empiricist thought, in terms of how they approach questions of personal identity. The two need not be opposed, or not wholly.
I'd agree with that. My essential position is that, despite the plausibility of Buddhist-like or spiritual inclusions, spirituality is not one of the highly substantial or significant aspects of FMA.
Comments
i really liked it, it felt like a return to Hunter X Hunter proper after the relatively self-contained Chimera Ants storyline, we got the return of familiar characters like Illumi and Hisoka, we got something of a closure on all the major characters' story arcs, with Gon finally meeting his father, Killua standing up to his family, Kurapika having recovered all the eyes and Leorio free to focus on being a doctor
it was good
if i had one complaint it was that this definitely felt like part of an ongoing story . . . which of course it is, so that's not really a complaint. just a little sad that the arc felt like it was building towards Kurapika's reintroduction and the expedition to the Dark Continent, and idk if that story will ever be finished and animated. but, at the same time, immensely satisfied with the ending we got.
i had other thoughts, i've found myself mentally comparing and contrasting the show with other series i enjoyed in the genre, like One Piece and FMA, but i think i'll hold off on that for now and just kinda savour the ending
like, initially? the premise reminded me of the SCP foundation more than anything, but the situation was resolved in a way that was very HxH
an interesting thing for me was how during both the Yorknew arc and the East Gorteau segment of the Chimera Ant arc, the show more or less encourages you to see the world from the villainous perspective, and the main characters become frightening
also interesting to note that in both those cases, although the villains are clearly villains, it's the main characters who are actively antagonizing them a lot of the time, rather than the other way around
y'know i was only mostly joking when i referred to the ants as "precious babies" . . . maybe not even mostly >_>
Still kinda amused at how Uiharu's ability is only revealed late in the series, and has nothing to do with her very prominent headband of flowers. Despite being questioned about that.
Also, thank goodness Kuroko can serious-mode, when she stops joking around with Misaka.
And I guess they all go on surname basis or something. Mikoto, Kuroko, Ruiko, and Kazari seem to be rather seldom used to refer to them; they're usually Misaka, Shirai, Saten, and Uiharu.
My two fave characters are still Saten and Uiharu.
bla bla bla boshin
Also perhaps relevant that during the 19th century, Europeans started to take an interest in Buddhism? Nietzsche said of it "though also a decadent world-denying religion, [it] is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity". Going a little further back, there are distinct similarities between Buddhism and the philosophy of David Hume, who was extremely influential on Enlightenment empiricist thought, in terms of how they approach questions of personal identity. The two need not be opposed, or not wholly.