Ponyo

A Miyazaki film now playing in theaters.

Synopsis
It’s from the creators of Howl’s Moving Castle. A young little goldfish lives under the sea. She is the daughter of the ocean’s guardian, and she wants to be human. One day she swims away from home, gets stuck in a jar, and washes up on the shore, and a little boy named Sosuke rescues her.

He names her Ponyo. Through her magic she begins to turn into a human, but her father is against it completely.

Will Sosuke and Ponyo be able to stay friends?

My thoughts
It’s definitely a Studio Ghibli creation; the animation gives it away real fast. There are some funny old ladies in it, and they reminded me think of the evil fat witch in Howl’s Moving Castle.

The father was a really funny, eccentric, creepy guy. I wish we were given more background on him. The fish and water under his command (and Ponyo’s) was something to see, very animated and interesting. There was a long, stormy ocean scene, and it was quite impressive.

It’s meant for kids, so there’s no real epic fight or anything. Just a, you know, happy ending. I wasn’t really impressed with the story, but the presentation is great. There are a lot of details in the scenery.

Worst Part
Ponyo’s voice is annoying. Fortunately she doesn’t say much.

Disney had hand in this, so many voices are kiddies (one of the Jonas Brothers is Sosuke, but to make up for this, Betty White was one of the old ladies, which was hilarious).

Best Part
Lots and lots of fish and sea creatures (crabs, octopi, planktons, jellyfish). I loved every second of it. But I’m really into fish and the sea.

Also there was a quite sudden, unexpected song at the end that was just so childish and unfitting that I laughed out loud (a few other people around me did too).

Some fanart I found on Google:

Those fish were so cool.

---

All images grabbed from google. Forgot to source them… Here’s a more in-depth review of its release at the Venice Film Festival.

Fruits Basket Manga (warning, spoilers and swearing)

I’ve been reading Foruba (the ‘cute’ Japanese nickname for Fruits Basket) manga for a while now.

The series started off wonderfully.  I loved it and was hooked rather fast.  I actually bought the first 12 volumes for a steal on eBay.

The plot sounds lame, but the characters are quite likable.  Basically, Tohru is living alone, has nowhere to go, and she happens across the Sohma family, and they take her in, only for her to find that many of the Sohmas are cursed and change into animals when they come into close contact with people of the opposite sex.  This last part always sounded ridiculous to me, so I avoided the series until Herro asked me to watch the anime with him online once.

I also avoided it because Tohru’s eyes are freaking huge and scary! Pic from this site.

If you can get past this plot element, the series is rather interesting as you get to know the characters and their struggle with the curse.  It starts off rather comedic (haha you can turn into a bunny!), but there are many times in which the story gets dark and leaves you in suspense.  

Haha, Yuki turns into a stylized rat. From the anime. Pic from this site.

---

The big mystery: who -is- this mysterious Akito, the one who has so much power over all the Sohmas?

I’m evil, can’t you tell? Pic from this site.

---

Anyway…

The series hasn’t been completely brought over to North America yet, but I got impatient when someone linked me to an online scanlation, and so I finished it there.

Much to my disappointment.

LAME ENDING.  LAME.  HARRY POTTER LAME.

If you don’t want spoilers, or don’t want to see me upset/swearing, please stop reading now.

———-

——–

———–

———-

———-

——–

———–

———-

———-

——–

———–

———-

———-

——–

———–

———-

———-

——–

———–

———-

Akito x Shigure?  WHAt The FUCK!!??

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
EWWWWW
ewwwwwwwww

EWWW !!!

EWWWWWWWWWWWW

*copypasta more ewws*

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
EWWWWW
ewwwwwwwww

EWWW !!!

EWWWWWWWWWWWW

Phew.

That’s just freaking disgusting.   Shigure did Akito’s mom, Ren, for God’s sake!  I’m not joking! And now he’s with the daughter?

And didn’t Shigure say like 5 books before that he ”loved” Akito so much that he wanted to crush him/her.

Argh.  Just argh.  Akito & Shigure….

---

That’s what bothered me the most.  

But there were other little things.  The fact that it was made into a “happily ever after” fairy tale type ending, and -everyone- got together with someone (except Momiji the bunny because no one cares about him.  He wasn’t even given closure with his sister and family AT ALL).

The bunny is the best character and most neglected. Pic from this site.

---

Even Doc Hatori got together with Shigure’s editor, and you know I had no freaking idea that they even knew each other before hand.  It’s like, oops, I never finished his story, oh wait, I got this extra girl character here….
Why did he not get with the schoolteacher who used to date Shigure?  That makes a lot more sense to me, really.

No, not that Doc Hattori! Pic from Japan Times Online.

I like Doc Hatori. Probably because his name reminds me of the other one. Pic from a stupid imeem quiz.

---

Argh Shigure and Akito… argh.

Thank God I didn’t buy the last books (not that they’re out, but you get the idea).

---

And the whole Kyo & Tohru don’t know if they love each other crap was so long and drawn out.  Freaking emo trip, too.   It was all I could do to keep reading it.  It seriously took me 10 minutes to read the manga on Kyo telling her about his role in her mom’s death (i.e. I skimmed the whole thing).

Aren’t they sooooo kyooot together? No, seriously. I nearly barfed trying to find a decent non-makeout pic of the two together.
I -would- have liked this couple. Really, I would have, if it didn’t take the whole damned series to get them together. Instead, they tip-toed around each other as if they were made of glass.

---

And Kyo’s foster dad ended up with a teenager in high school (Shishou and Hanajima).  Pedo much?  No, no, she wanted him, so it’s like Kodomo no Jikan.  Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but still, you see how I feel about this.  And the author had another couple like that, too (Kureno and Uo).  What is with this?  

WAIT.  That makes three completely different couples end up as young girls with a much older guy.

Arghhhh.

---

Oh, and incest (!!) thrown in for good measure.  Okay, I’m exaggerating, but a few many couples were Sohma family members with other Sohma family members. Rin and Haru, Kisa and Hiro, Akito and Shigure….

Actually, I don’t object to Haru and Rin. They fit together well. Pic from here.

Furry porn. FUCK NO. By the way, Kisa is in ELEMENTARY school! Pic from some stupid, stupid people.

ARGH Akito and Shigure….. I am NOT finding pics for that coupling!

Even Kakeru and what’s-her-name (his girlfriend) were cousins (some random other unimportant characters). I paid enough attention to that story arc to notice that.

---

Oh yeah, and as for the plot, and it was all “the bad guy suddenly realized he was bad and became good all of a sudden” type plot.  What?  I was expecting more blood!  BLOOD. (I have a thing for overdoing blood in my sprite comic).  Book 20 was so good!  It set up an “I can’t wait to see what happens next” type of anticipation (did Kureno, the rooster, -really- die?), only for the next book to fail me completely and remorselessly.  Nope.   No one dies, no matter how hurt they get.  I really hoped Kureno died.  That would’ve been a great way to advance the plot. But the plot didn’t really advance. It sorta stagnated instead.

If only Kureno the cock really died. Pic from the manga itself.

Oh yeah, and Kureno did Akito once, too. More incest! Yeah, NO. And I found fanart of it MY EYES ARGH.

---

One part I did like was the truth about the zodiac origin story. In the original story, the rat tricked the cat into missing God’s feast, and so that’s why Kyo and Yuki fight all the time (cat vs. rat).

The Zodiac animals. Pic from Animefringe.

But in the real story, God (a normal human) made friends with normal animals, but then the cat died of old age. And God was sad, so he made some food thing that would make all the animals be reborn over and over so that they could, in essence, live together forever. And he made the cat’s dead corpse eat it. But when the cat was revived, it told God that it didn’t want to be continuously reborn, and all the other animals got angry at him for this, seeing it as a betrayal, and so that’s why -everyone- in the manga didn’t like Kyo and thinks he’s worthless.

DO NOT WANT. Pic from the manga itself.

No one knew this true Zodiac story until the very end (or so it seems). It’s also why Kyo has a monster as his alternative form. I’m guessing the curse could only be finally broken when the Cat found someone to truly love him and not pity him, or some shit like that. Sounds like a plot I’d use, hahahah.

Okay, so, in book 5 Kyo is forced to reveal to Tohru the fact that he has the potential to turn into a monster.

Someone’s fanart of Kyo-monster. Pic from someone’s Photobucket.
Scary huh?

And you know what, that moment is the -only- time he -ever- transforms like that!  I was totally expecting some emotionally-charged moment when he’d transform into the monster and cause problems (perhaps in a fight versus Akito.  That would have been awesome) and make Tohru fall in love with him even more as a result.   But no!  It’s like the author just forgot and made a footnote on it.
Oh, the curse suddenly broke.
For everyone.
The end.

Fucking A.

So, if you want to enjoy this series, read the first ~15 books, and then make up your own ending.  Just like Harry Potter.  Read the first 5, make up the last two ;)

That’s what I get for reading a Shoujo manga….

Deathnote is so goddamn boring

It was a chore to watch the 5 episodes I watched.

I’m sure you’ve heard of this over-popular anime.  Light, a smart kid in high school in Japan, comes across a Deathnote, a book in which he can write anyone’s name and they will die at whatever time and in whatever method he specifies.  His main nemesis becomes L, a mysterious genius detective who vows to stop him.  Light takes on the name Kira (how “Killer” sounds in Japanese) and vows to defeat L and become a god.

It is very, very, very slow-moving.  A friend told me it’s an intellectual anime.  It’s not.  I enjoy detective anime.  This is just long, drawn-out torture.

I also enjoy character-driven anime.  The characters in Deathnote are almost wholly unlikable.

Light is stuck-up about how he can outsmart the cops and kill people without anyone able to stop him.

He even looks like, well, an asshole.

L is ‘mysterious’ and can be said to have no personality aside from his objective to stop Kira.

We are only shown his computer and a little bit of his mouth and hair in profile. As if it matters! It’s not like we viewers will recognize the guy or anything.

Ryuk is the one with most personality.  He’s a shinigami whose Deathnote Light is using.  He likes to eat apples.  I like him because he looks cool.  Kinda has like a fish head … and I like fish as pets … I also like how he flies without ever flapping his wings.  Nice skills.

Mmm, apples.

Light’s sister or relative or whatever she is, looks cute and bad at math.  That’s about all I’ve seen of her.

Random police/FBI people are just going to die anyway so there’s no point in liking or becoming interested in them.  I bet Light’s dad will be written into the ground soon, too, since he’s chief of the serial killer department of police.

Here’s why I only watched 5 episodes.  It -may- get better, but there’s no way I’m going to find out.

1.  Repetitive.  Every episode recaps what happened in the last episode.  I guess that’s useful if you were watching it once a week.  However, nothing important ever really happens in each episode, so it’s not required.

2.  Repetitive.  The episode itself repeats new information learned, usually 3 or more times.  (Kira can kill people without physically being there!  How amazing!  Let’s discuss over & over again!)

3.  Repetitive.  Every episode is about Light killing people in new (and not really interesting) ways.  Mostly, he kills people with heart attacks while changing the circumstances of death to test how specific he can get with the Deathnote.

4.  Repetitive.  Every episode has people repeating how Kira can kill anyone.  Yes, I know.  No one’s safe, even people in jail.  Get on with it.

5.  Repetitive.  At least 5 minutes of every episode focuses on the police, who are, during that entire time, merely wondering whether they can trust L , wondering how Kira kills people in jail, or talking about resigning in fear of Kira.  Because, you know, no one’s safe.

6.  Redundancy.    Light just kills a few more people, and maybe learns a little bit more about using the deathnote (oh, this week he learned he can set the time of death.  Next week he’ll learn how to make people leave dying messages to torment L).  Or it’s about how L is getting closer to finding Kira, but oh!  Light’s just one step ahead of you, L.  Maybe next episode!

7.  Redundancy, redundancy, repetitiveness, boring.  Heck, I’ve spotted a few points where this post has repeated itself!

All Light is is a sadistic, unlikable character, killing people without repercussion.  In ep 5 he kills an innocent man who was about to get married.  Sure, the guy was in the FBI, and investigating Kira, but he didn’t deserve it.   I just can’t watch an anime focused on an evil main character for 25 35?! bloody episodes until he finally gets caught.   Seriously.