Umi Monogatari (2009-06-24) Summer

Description

The story centers on Marin and Urin, two "pure" sisters who live alongside the fish in the sea, but yearn to be in the world beyond the water and above ground. One day, a beautiful ring falls in the middle of the sea, and Marin and Urin retrieve it. The two decide to leave their waterbound world for the first time to deliver the ring. After an arduous journey, they come across an isolated island where a high school girl named Kanon lives. The encounter between Marin and Kanon and the maiden of the sea and the maiden of the skies and awakens a hidden power as the world is threatened by an enveloping darkness.

via ANN

Genre: adventure, magic
Theme: mahou shoujo
Mood: light, oceanside
Length: 12
Duration: 24m

Links: Official AnimeSuki animenewsnetwork.com AnimeNFO AniDB

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Melative? When did Melative become such a frequent word in my unfortunately limited vocabulary? I dunno. I started using the service just the other day, and it’s pretty freakin’ sweet. Not the noob-friendliest web UI, but the internals are awesome.

I’m loving it.

Sped up, the slow, Avenger-style pans of Kuro’s face were a bit less painful. Unfortunately, he moves so fucking fast in combat that with the speed increase I was just sitting here like O_____O.

Actually, blame Mohiro Kitoh. Over the last week, I marathon-read his two main finished manga, Bokurano and Narutaru . They were both fucking awesome.

(I feel like I should preface by saying that I have not seen the anime of either, nor do I particularly intend to. However, Uninstall is a genius OP, as I’m sure you all know, and made fantastic background music to read Bokurano to. And, you know, to write this post to. And to do anything to, really. That song is amazing.)

(Second preface: this post will contain some spoilers for both series, but I’ll try to keep it light, and steer clear of any major game-changing spoilers.)

Bokurano and Narutaru both deal with death in a major way. Each explores and handles one side of death, leaving the other mostly ignored. From a thematic perspective, the two are perfect complements, and are best understood in the context of the other.

First, Bokurano. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Bokurano is the story of fifteen kids, mostly seventh graders, who find themselves the chosen pilots of a massive robot to fight other giant robots and save the world. Sounds generic enough, except for the catch. Each kid pilots the robot once, in turn… and then dies. Furthermore, each pilot knows when they’re going to have their turn next, but not when the fight will happen. So the manga consists of a series of character studies, of how each child deals with and prepares for their own imminent death.

Their thoughts cover a wide range, from terror to sadness to pride at their chance to save the world. Each is a complex character, with a fleshed-out backstory and a thoroughly believable psychological makeup. Most chapters are narrated by the character in question, as they try to seek some closure in the time they have left, or escape their inevitable fate, or somesuch. The unifying factor is that in every case, their struggles are internal. They do not seek help, or discuss their plans with others, or anything else like that. More than that, the vast majority of the stories deal with purely internal problems. How does the person themself deal with their own death? They do not think beyond their own end, as to how their actions will affect others. A handful of the characters break this trend, making preparations for their siblings and loved ones for after they are gone, but even they do it for internal reasons. Near the end of the story, we have a series of vignettes revisiting the families of the children, and how they coped after their deaths, but these are fairly short and secondary. Bokurano is, first and foremost, the story of how people deal with their own deaths.

Narutaru is the inverse of that. Again, a brief summary for those unfamiliar. Teens bond with magic baby dragons with really cool powers. As one would expect, they use them to do things like murder their classmates, rape people they had crushes on, and attempt to destabilize the government. Don’t be fooled by the cutesy-friendly mahou shojo / pet monster feel given by the first few chapters; Narutaru rapidly descends into a psychological bloodbath that reads like the bastard love child of Tomino and Anno.

In Narutaru, death is brutal and sudden. It happens with almost no warning, and no celebration. Whereas characters in Bokurano spend long chapters monologuing and philosophizing about their own deaths, Narutaru characters are simply there one panel and gone the next. Death in Narutaru is not about the character who died, but rather those left behind by their death. Early on, the first villain is killed rather viciously by the main character. Most series would simply move on. Yay, we won! Not Narutaru. The police mount an investigation. The main character is haunted by the boy’s face on the news for the next week, and, worse, learns that his death meant he wasn’t around to care for his ailing mother, who died without his help.

Things like this continue to happen throughout the story, as every death has extreme consequences on the surviving characters. When people die, their relatives and loved ones become relevant. Funerals are held. People are arrested and forced into psychological instutions, as one would expect. Deaths in Narutaru have aftershocks that shake the entire rest of the story, and ripple through the psyches of everyone left behind.

In this way, Bokurano and Narutaru form a duality. Each deals with one side of death–Bokurano the internal, and Narutaru the external. The two themes are complementary and work together beautifully. Death is prepared for in Bokurano. We see it coming, but then, after it has happened, that story is over, and the death all but forgotten. Death is sudden in Narutaru, but followed up. Every death is the beginning of a story, not the end, as the story focuses on those left behind it. In a way, one cannot truly understand either manga without the other.

Final ratings:

Bokurano: 10/10

Narutaru: 8.5/10

Strongly recommend both to anyone who likes psychological… anything.

Next up on my reading list… Five Star Stories, courtesy of ghostlightning. Don’t expect me to write anything about it, though, unless I get particularly inspired.

.lolikappa

Delicious.

This piece of shit had a few things going for it:

1. Drill bullets
2. Drill armor
3. People feeling each other’s weight
4. The hat from Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
5. People shutting up and fighting

Simply amazing show, especially the motorbike episode.

It was fun, but too long. The game probably delivers better pacing.

Not as painful as Remember my Memories, but just as bad if not worse.

I sped through this. bluemist warned me against watching it in a way, implying that I wouldn’t like it if I liked the original To Heart for the reasons I did. He was pretty much right. All the dumb worrying/romance was just that, dumb, and the crappy visuals and sound did nothing to save the show. This didn’t feel at all like the spiritual successor to To Heart, much less its sequel.

But hey. It’s a show that even MAL hates, its one review being negative and well-rated.

Awesome show, should have taken it slower, and preferably when I was more awake. I began drifting off during the penultimate episode. Anyway, I thought it was strong that the characters were more or less able to recreate the relationships they’d had before their wishes were granted. It shows that they were loved and didn’t need to change. Good stuff.

Just one thing: I’d contend that the show could have ended after episode 4.

It starts out absolutely horribly. I blazed through the first few episodes, displeased with the show. Over time, it got better, I think. I slowed down to 1x for the second half of the series. I’ve been thinking about it, and I just can’t justify Ureshiko’s behavior for the first six episodes or so. She’s really bad at communication, or she’s absolute shit. Her husband is nothing but absolute shit. Yeah, he couldn’t help the fact that she wouldn’t explain stuff to him, but where’s the love? “You won’t kiss me so I’ll abuse you and make your life wretched.” Fail.

In any event, it’s nowhere close to a good show, but it’s a lot better than it could have been.

(For those wondering where #4 is, #4 was Boys Be, which I pretty much twittered.)