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My former orthopedist's office did indeed lose all my X-Rays. We hates them, we does, my preciousssss.
I am now up to the episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena aka Shoujo Kakumei Utena aka (for no apparent reason) La Fillette Revolutionaire, (the anime, not the manga) called "Nanami's Egg." I have concluded that Utena is not just the most whacked-out anime I've ever seen. No, it is the most whacked-out thing in any media I've ever seen. Whacked-out-- and also erudite, sexy, disturbing, thought-provoking, and very, very funny. I'll write more about it when I finish it, because right now I haven't a clue even where to begin.
One of the odd things about it is that patterns of imagery are set up very carefully and consistently, but in a way which doesn't give you a means of interpreting them. For instance, Nanami is consistently associated with or in opposition to or equated with or even turned into animals of various sorts. Why? What does that mean? I have no clue.
Naruto, a manga by Masashi Kishimoto, is about a kid named Naruto who lives in Ninja Land. Basically, everyone's a ninja, and so Naruto, a rascal with a good heart but not too much upstairs (he'd get along great with Saiyuki's Goku), wants to be the best ninja of them all. But everyone treats him like an outcast. Turns out that an evil fox spirit attacked the village, and could only be quelled by transforming it into a baby boy. That's Naruto-- who could turn back into the evil fox spirit at any moment.
(ETA: As pointed out in comments, the fox spirit was actually implanted in Baby Naruto, not transformed into a baby.)
Volume 1 was OK but not my kind of thing-- it really seemed aimed at ten-year-old boys. But I wanted to study some good manga fight scenes, so I jumped ahead to volume 5, which was about the ninja exams. I figured that would be wall-to-wall fighting. But it turned out that volume 5 was about the ninja written exam. It was friggin' hilarious. Like this part, from memory, of Naruto's classmates' thoughts as they contemplate questions like "If a ninja throws a shuriken from the top of a 23.3 foot tree at an average speed of 49.6 mph while surrounded by 16 enemies whose average height is 6' 1", what is the parabola of the damage? Show your work."
Sakura: Wow, this is kind of hard... I hope Naruto isn't tempted to cheat... Oh, he'd never cheat.
Sasuke: This is really hard... I wonder how Naruto's doing... Well, he's a stand-up ninja, so at least I know he's not thinking of cheating.
Naruto: THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! I'M GOING TO CHEAT!
The moment I put it down, I was seized with the desire to dash straight out and buy volume 6-- a desire which so far I've only resisted because the store I dropped in on didn't have it.
Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1
I am now up to the episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena aka Shoujo Kakumei Utena aka (for no apparent reason) La Fillette Revolutionaire, (the anime, not the manga) called "Nanami's Egg." I have concluded that Utena is not just the most whacked-out anime I've ever seen. No, it is the most whacked-out thing in any media I've ever seen. Whacked-out-- and also erudite, sexy, disturbing, thought-provoking, and very, very funny. I'll write more about it when I finish it, because right now I haven't a clue even where to begin.
One of the odd things about it is that patterns of imagery are set up very carefully and consistently, but in a way which doesn't give you a means of interpreting them. For instance, Nanami is consistently associated with or in opposition to or equated with or even turned into animals of various sorts. Why? What does that mean? I have no clue.
Naruto, a manga by Masashi Kishimoto, is about a kid named Naruto who lives in Ninja Land. Basically, everyone's a ninja, and so Naruto, a rascal with a good heart but not too much upstairs (he'd get along great with Saiyuki's Goku), wants to be the best ninja of them all. But everyone treats him like an outcast. Turns out that an evil fox spirit attacked the village, and could only be quelled by transforming it into a baby boy. That's Naruto-- who could turn back into the evil fox spirit at any moment.
(ETA: As pointed out in comments, the fox spirit was actually implanted in Baby Naruto, not transformed into a baby.)
Volume 1 was OK but not my kind of thing-- it really seemed aimed at ten-year-old boys. But I wanted to study some good manga fight scenes, so I jumped ahead to volume 5, which was about the ninja exams. I figured that would be wall-to-wall fighting. But it turned out that volume 5 was about the ninja written exam. It was friggin' hilarious. Like this part, from memory, of Naruto's classmates' thoughts as they contemplate questions like "If a ninja throws a shuriken from the top of a 23.3 foot tree at an average speed of 49.6 mph while surrounded by 16 enemies whose average height is 6' 1", what is the parabola of the damage? Show your work."
Sakura: Wow, this is kind of hard... I hope Naruto isn't tempted to cheat... Oh, he'd never cheat.
Sasuke: This is really hard... I wonder how Naruto's doing... Well, he's a stand-up ninja, so at least I know he's not thinking of cheating.
Naruto: THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! I'M GOING TO CHEAT!
The moment I put it down, I was seized with the desire to dash straight out and buy volume 6-- a desire which so far I've only resisted because the store I dropped in on didn't have it.
Order the series from Amazon: Naruto, Volume 1
