A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

For those avoiding spoilers, this is a classic (ie, older and respected) anime in which a tarot card reading, sprinting, long-jumping schoolgirl is spirited away to the world of Gaea, where she is immediately embroiled in a war. This combines the "girl in fantasyland" and "giant robot pilot" genres, as Gaea has knights who fight from inside giant robots. The worldbuilding is bizarre yet strangely convincing.

It had excellent narrative drive-- I watched the entire second half in three days-- and very good characterization and character relationships, plus smooth and pretty animation and a fabulous Yoko Kano score. But I'd rank it as good, not great, and not just because of the "eek, we've got to wrap this puppy up in three episodes" conclusion. I liked the characters, but I never fell in love with any of them, so unlike, say, Samurai Champloo, or, to take a couple older anime, Trigun or Fushigi Yuugi, it never broke my heart. And that's what we always hope for when we start a new show, I think; to get that link, like some pilots have with their mecha, so when they get hurt, we feel the pain.

Massive spoilers below cut.

( Van! Hitomi! Van! Van-sama! Hitomi! Allen! Van! Jajukaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! )

Note: please do not spoil me in comments for developments occurring after disc 4 of Escaflowne.

Oyce and I also watched a randomly selected episode of Wolf's Rain to mock the horrible subtitling that translated "Paradise" as "amusement park." The episode we picked actually translated it as "Fairyland." It also used randomly selected Chinese pronunciations of the characters' names, so every time they yelled, "Toboe! Look out!" it came out "Lanhu! Missing!" A character named Darcia was alternately called that, Xorsha, and Jinhei. This made watching the series very confusing, when I watched the whole thing off of the awful bootleg version so many years ago.

So many years, in fact (probably two) that I had completely forgotten that the randomly selected episode contained a giant talking flying walrus. In fact, the whole episode was about the wolves battling a talking flying walrus the size of the Staples Center.

"I had forgotten about the giant walrus," I explained to Oyce.

"That can happen with anime," she assured me. This was because earlier we had watched a disc of Escaflowne in which there was a brief appearance by a mermaid.

"Mermaid!" I shrieked.

"Oh, yeah," said Oyce. "I forgot about the mermaid."

"Talking mouse with a fez!" I shrieked, a moment later.

"Him too."

( Insane Dilandau theories, farting guymelefs, random mermaids, and the Escaflowne drinking game. SPOILERS. )

This show has grown on me a lot after the first few episodes.

( Here be spoilers )

I have had absolutely nothing of interest happen lately, except for non-crisis-level things that are too depressing, infuriating, and/or business-or-legal-matter-related to discuss, and so have achieved the unusual state of being both behind on everything (as usual) and bored.

Randomness follows:

1. I learned via some scholarly paper that in Tibet, gay male sex is exclusively practiced "between the legs from behind." Uh, yeah, don't think we'll be getting into quite that level of detail. The paper was on a sect of warrior, duelling, smoking, drinking, martial arts-practicing monks who were also famous for being gay. Well, for male-male sex anyway, this was way before sexuality-as-identity became a concept.

2. I hate the IRS.

3. Why can't I find a little Jiraiya figure? I want a little Jiraiya figure! To make up for the lack, I have posed my little Naruto figure with a large, non-Naruto frog that I happened to have handy.

4. I watched the first four episodes of Escaflowne, which was as far as I got the last time I tried it. Last time I quit out of lack of enthusiasm for giant robots, high fantasy worlds, cat-girls, and androgynous psychotic cackling villains who are all, "I am eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil! Wheeeeeee! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" I still lack enthusiasm for those elements, but will persevere as I've been told the characters get more interesting later. Allen's "I am such a bishonen that I look like a fairy princess who could slash you to death with my nose" design cracks me up, but he's the character I am most grabbed by so far. Also, the music is excellent.

5. Can anyone describe the taste of yak-butter tea? My Dad has had it and liked it, but was unable to provide a more detailed description than "salty."

6. Has everyone who ordered Project Blue Rose received it by now?

7. Anyone read any good manga lately?

8. What about books?