mDuo13

So here I am watching my friend's elemental shaman throw enemy priests off cliffs to thematically appropriate music after finishing a spectacularly placid episode of Akikan... yeah, it's been a slow day. That's okay, though. After my pleasantly uneventful spring break, I had a friend over to visit, so this past week has been a storm of three-Xbox, six-player Left 4 Dead ("Left 6 Dead"?) and other largely multiplayer pursuits... so it's nice to have some time to catch up on anime and a quieter form of leisure.

I guess a lot has actually happened since the last time I blogged. In the last segment of break, after I finished catching up with Maria-sama ga Miteru, I ended up printing out the first Spice and Wolf novel fan-translation since Yen Press seems to be taking their time bringing the series over here officially. I put a fair amount of effort into getting the format just right - I used roughly the same conventions as the PDFs I make of my writing, and added in the images from the originals in roughly the appropriate places. (Thanks, job, for getting me a professional copy of Adobe Acrobat 8.0.) Then I printed it booklet-style and had to figure out a way to bind it, since I don't have a stapler that can punch through 60 sheets of paper, especially not in the middle. I ended up using a hammer and nail to make holes and then threading them with some really light spare wire I had lying around; the result is a binding that works surprisingly well and a book that reads quite nicely. I was able to carry it with me when I went downstairs and across the building to cook dinner.

As for the content of the book, it was pretty decently translated and about as entertaining as the story itself. I discovered that the Spice and Wolf anime covers the first novel's seven chapters in exactly six episodes, in a surprisingly close adaptation. There were only two big changes I noticed - first, the book's Horo is described as rather younger and more petite than from the anime, being about two heads shorter than Lawrence therein; second, the side character of Yarei from the books, a townsperson who takes up with the local merchants and tries to turn Horo in to the church, is replaced in the anime by Chloe, who is the same except female and (consequently?) more attractive looking. I thought both of these choices were interesting and probably rather revealing about the nature of anime in this day and age, but certainly not damaging to the charm of the story.

Upon revisiting it, especially in a written form, though, I understood the story much better. For one thing, it reinforced for me what I had already expected, which is that BSS's fansubs were of rather dubious quality in conveying the complexities of the economics involved; and second, there were some times when Lawrence's attitude was not clear from the anime, where his interior thoughts are mostly omitted. The book puts Lawrence's state of mind right onto the page, which makes things like his demanding Horo repay him for clothes she destroyed while saving his life a more sympathetic act. In the anime, it seems in-character but petty; in the book, it's an act of desparation and a clever way to phrase his demand when he realizes he can't believably say anything else.

In mostly unrelated news, I finished today RideBack, which is the first anime I have watched completely, from start to finish, in raw Japanese. (ARIA The ORIGINATION came close, but I watched subs of the first four episodes after the raws, and I also have not yet finished it.) I count this as a success and a landmark in my ongoing quest to overcome the crutch of relying on translations - because, aside from issues of patience, I've come to realize more and more than translations always lie. There were certainly some parts of RideBack I didn't entirely follow (mostly from the news broadcasts), but for the most part the dialogue was easily intuitive and the plot made a lot of sense. I also really liked the series quite a bit as a whole. The animation was good, the character development was good, and the setting and scenario were exciting and well-realized.

RideBack is, of course, only one of a host of shows I'm watching that are currently ending... I recently also finished Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season (which ended nicely except that there has been no confirmation yet of a 5th season), Blade of the Immortal (which was fascinating although perhaps not quality), ToraDora! (which was certainly quality throughout), Toaru Majutsu no Index (the confirmation of whose second season as Misaka-centric Toaru Kagaku no Railgun made me laugh, especially after my previous comments about the show's confusion especially with regard to its main character), Clannad After Story (no preview of a new KyoAni/Key series, boo~), and Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (which I think may be the most mediocre thing Kyoto Animation has yet produced). I'm also just a couple episodes each from finishing with Akikan, Tytania, and Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou. Given all this, it looks like next season may be rather relaxed by comparison.

That should give me time to catch up on old things, like Simoun, which I am currently slowly working my way through, although I was a little disappointed to find that I like neither the mechs nor the animation style... and in fact, none of the characters strongly appeals to me. I felt almost too much sympathy for the "enemy" side after Noto Mamiko narrated so eloquently for them in the first episode. On the plus side, however, the show has a spectacular Chiaki Ishikawa OP and a pretty enjoyable Savage Genius ED, too.

So that essentially covers what I've been doing, though certainly I could keep talking; I think I could probably continue indefinitely if need be. Anyone who's still reading at this point, I'm not sure I even understand your persistance, but hey... thanks.