Oh, anime. You're the crazy guy on the corner; I just have to watch when you're around.

So, I watched Trinity Blood and Bleach yesterday. I'm sure the purists might bitch and moan, as Bleach has been popular forever, but they can go to hell. Trinity Blood excited me more, honestly. I usually like characters like the father's -- rather, the way he acts. It lends a sense of verisimilitude if someone aside from an unimportant walk-on or villain acts in a silly manner, but anime makers, on the whole, seem unwilling to let silly people just be silly. Vash is the best example, he's got, ooh, *depth.* Because, apparently, if you act silly but have depth, you actually switch between two modes like a socialpath.

Anime people: watch Doctor Who, season nine especially, and watch Eccleston. He's silly, he has depth, and he doesn't flip back and forth like an ass.

It's grasping at the brass ring of vampire crap, which has been played out for a very long time. Hell, most magazines put in their submission guidelines that unless it's extraordinary, they won't take a vampire story and longer. It's not extraordinary, but I'm not paying past my tv subscription rates, so whatever. The villain vampire was the stereotypical dapper-dressed, elitist "dhampir" ass-hat; he even said something like, "the thrill of the hunt," because the entire vampire trope isn't enough of a cliché. Regardless, decent fun, and I think Vash's old VA is doing the father.

Bleach. Oh, Bleach. What the hell were you thinking? I mean, I enjoyed Yu-yu Hakosho, or however it's spelled, but there was no call to do it again, with the Buster Sword. I mean, really. At least there's a reason the protagonist knows how to fight -- a crazy, martial-arts-obsessed doctor of a father doesn't make much sense, but it's better than, "Uh, he's a street kid. Get off my back, I'm drawing the redhead in another fruity pose."

I'm seriously sick of the whole thing where the protagonist is super-cool-powerful; that is, I'm tired of the creators jacking off on their pages and animating the dripping remains.

But wait! I'm not entirely full of vitriol. There's ham in there, too.

It may not be the creators' faults -- Funimation's dubbing Bleach. They did YYH as well, I believe. They're possibly responsible for such gems as "the soul society," though maybe that just sounded good to a Japanese guy, I dunno. Either way, the terms for things are atrocious. I used to be able to take a great deal of joy from "bad-ass good guy spending his time being bad-ass and having 'hilarious' problems in his social life." Cause, y'know, I used to watch Dragonball Z. Then Goku decided to stay dead, but didn't anyway, and I went to college. Also, the Fusion dance. Go to hell, Fusion dance. Special hell, the Dante section.

So, Bleach is probably all right. I didn't delete the tivo pass, anyway, so I'll have more episodes waiting when I come home in a week or so. But, really, whoever turned it into the playground of a three-year-old with a thesaurus? I blame you for cancer.

Good evening.

Utawarerumono -- first thoughts

I've decided to write a little free-styling review of the first episode of this anime Unagieater said I might like. Short version, I did enjoy it. Long version:

Every time I watch an anime that I don't have baggage with -- that is, I've been hearing about it loads, it has something that appeals to me directly, or it's a sequel/&c. to something I liked, I sense, under the surface, a checklist, quietly and surreptitiously referenced as the show sprints along (and, if you've watched much anime, you know "sprints" is the appropriate metaphor for the pacing here). So, checklist, with this show's status:

• Do we have a pedigree, despite this being the first episode? Check.
  
• Did we put in a mysterious protagonist? That's a check, good buddy.
  
• Do we have cool-looking not-quite-humans, preferably female? Check check check, lots of checks.
  I mean, everyone in the first town has ears and a tail, leading to the inevitable:
  
• Do we have some very slightly uncomfortable moments of sexual tension, brought about by misunderstandings and inability to communicate like adults? Check.
  
• Did we remember the bad-asses? Check.
  
• What about cute, useless animals? Check.
  
• Anachronism -- that is, person totally out of place with the prevalent setting or period? Check.
  We can call this many things, but the only one I can think of right now is "Samurai Champloo no Mugen" characters.
  
• Did we remember to create weird-ass character designs, and then devise utterly normal, actually boring things for them to do? We're shamed you even asked.
  
• Did we provide a villain, preferably a weeny, a blowhard, and a jack-ass, with a tenuous connection to one of our main characters? Yes sir/madam, and we even had him try to punch a guy in a horned mask.
  
• What about foreshadowing? Did you remember to hint about some kind of, simply, "oh shit" moment? We're not f**king amateurs, sir/madam.
  

So, yeah, that's a 10-4 on the checklist, my good chum. I may develop this further and use it whenever I watch a new anime.

Anyway, the show itself. Wikipedia informs me, at least, if I squint, that this show's title means, "The one being sung." Sure, whatever. Great, Japan, just jack around with us, why don't you? No worries.

This is a reasonably funny show, with the potential for some decent story. I sense a Mononoke-hime, Nausicaa vibe going on here, with the forest guardian and all. That's perfectly acceptable, I think. Less preachy, probably. The main character has amnesia, because apparently I go through the trouble of watching foreign tv just to get crap from my mom's soap operas. Unlike those, though, he's remembering some stuff on his own, as actual victims of traumatic amnesia usually do. Spiffy.

The style's good enough. That's the deal, right? As Doc Hammer once said about Venture Bros. 01x04, it's good enough. They look mostly traditional, but everyone has some weird ear crap going on, except the main guy, or whatever, though I didn't notice them on the bad guys either. There are lizard things that I think are called some Nipponese bastardization of "raptor." Jesus I hope they just call them raptors when they dub it here. I still can't believe the Hellsing fans actually wanted him to be called "Arucard." That doesn't make sense on several levels: the sensible one is, he's Alucard! That's the deal! You spell Dracula backwards, you get powerful vampire name. Move on! The "way too into this crap" version is, they called him "Aakaado" in the anime/manga, not "Arucard." So go to hell.

I'm not sure there's anything else to say here. I'm not gonna bother burning the episodes, I'll just delete them when I'm finished. It is making me want to go and finish Scrapped Princess. Ah well.