First of all, thanks to everyone who’s emailed me in the past few days and weeks. I’m …touched… really, and it certainly feels nice and comforting to have people around who care. I’m sorry if it takes me ages to reply, I’m as lazy as anyone could possibly be. I just want you to know that I’m really really grateful and happy!
Okay, one more thing I’ve been meaning to do for so long but have been putting off all the time: anime reviews. October is one of those magical months because so many new anime series start in that month and now, with November having almost passed, I’ve finally managed to watch a few new titles.
One of the most anticipated new shows of this autumn was definitely the Ghost in the Shell TV series, Stand Alone Complex. Personally, my hopes of getting to watch something enjoyable weren’t too high as I’m not a big fan of neither the manga nor the movie. So I started watching the first episode and almost fell from my chair: Yohko Kanno wrote the soundtrack! Yes yes, for all you well-informed anime geeks this was no surprise at all and I, too, remembered reading something about her being involved in that project but I’d totally forgotten about it! What a pleasant surprise – which turned out to be the only positive thing about the series… The music is brilliant, but so far Kanno-sensei has never ever let me down. The anime itself is boring and, I’m almost afraid to say it, feels so American. Well, everything from the clothes to the hard-boiled action scenes to the story line feels like it comes right out of an American comic. Which is probably not bad, just not my taste really. So now I have more episodes on my HD and wonder what I should do with them… Be brave and watch them, hoping the show might get better? Extract the sound of each episode, ignore the dialogues and listen to Kanno’s wonderful music? We’ll see. So far I’ve simply ignored the files ^^;
I also saw the first episode of Gundam Seed. This is typical Gundam with a nice chara design (though my favourite is still Turn A Gundam, and that’s not just because Yohko Kanno wrote the soundtrack ^^; no, I also love the chara design, the story itself and the awesome retro feel of that series), the usual interstellar war, the conflicts and the coolest mechs. Will watch more episodes as soon as I’ve finished RahXephon. Btw, Rahxephon looks so much better than the Gundams! I want one to fly to school with, I think it’d look cool to have it parked on campus ^^; (I wonder if I’m the only girl having a bad bad case of mecha obsession ^^;)
The series I’ve enjoyed the most so far is Haibane Renmei. I had absolutely no clue what this show was about until I saw episode one. It’s based on the doujinshi series by lain and Nie_7 papa Yoshitoshi Abe so I don’t have to mention how gorgeous the characters look! The show has such a lovely atmosphere… I can’t really describe it, you have to see for yourselves to decide whether you like that type of anime or not. It’s light-hearted but also mysterious, has some serious undertones but can be funny and cute, too. I’ve seen the first three episodes so far and I think that everyone who enjoys the more quiet type of anime will like this one a lot, especially Miyazaki fans! Even though Haibane has absolutely nothing to do with Ghibli, their works and Haibane have a similar feel and atmosphere…