Tag: Love Chunibyo & Other Delusions

Ongoing Investigations: Case #194

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narutaki I read Love Attack vols. 1-6 which was released by TokyoPop a while back, sadly that is all they did before the company went under. It is a super not serious romantic comedy about “the scariest couple in high school” Chiemi and Hirata. They both have a tendency to punch first and ask questions later, these two rough-and-tumble characters fall in love after Chiemi flying kicks Hirata. Hirata was so overwhelmed by his love that he asks her out in the middle of class.

One thing that really stood out to me was these two actually have fights, knock-down drag-out “you are a freakin’ idiot” fights, which is definitely a rarity. Again, it isn’t super serious either so it adds a lot of comedy to them and those around them trying to get out their path of destruction.

Still, deep down they are a really sweet couple who are very much in love. Yeah, they are idiots but loveable idiots. Watching them get to know each other and grow closer bit by bit is really endearing and fun. Over the years of reading shojo, I’ve gotten more and more interested in series where the characters are dating as opposed to trying to come together right up until the end.

The obstacles in the series are totally insane and over the top from Chiemi’s father locking her in a cell so Hirata can prove he is man enough to take her back; to the latest pretty guy who tries to seduce Chiemi who subsequently kicks him so hard he flies into a wall rendering him unconscious and then she feels bad and cooks him dinner; everything has the volume turned up. All the misunderstandings that invariable come are handled quickly and usually with comedy and a face punch as opposed to dragged out sulking.

The support characters have also captured me as Chiemi’s best friend Yuka starts to fall for Hirata’s friend Ohno. When she rushes to tell Ohno her feelings and is thwarted, she realizes she doesn’t need to hurry because her feelings won’t change over night. She can stay close to Ohno and slowly open his heart. I’d read a manga just about these two.

It is a shame there is no more available in the States, but a group of scanlators have picked it up so I’m hoping I’ll be able to see it through to the end.

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For an upcoming episode of The Cockpit I stated watching Heavy Metal L-Gaim. It was a good choice as it takes me one step closer to my goal of watching all the Tomino shows. It began in 1984 so in terms of Tomino’s TV output it was right after the mega uplifting Aura Battler Dunbine and before the equally heartwarming Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (that was sarcasm for the uninformed). From the first episode it is clearly not as dark as the shows around it but I don’t think it is as lighthearted as say Xabungle as well.

I know that Method to Madness likes to count the minutes to the first panty shot when watching fan service shows. Well there is no count in L-Gaim. We open up in the first scene with Amu Fanneria’s underwear right in your face. This is a running theme in this episode. We don’t see her unmentionables in every scene she is in but they are hardly an unfamiliar sight by the end of the episode. As Twitter informed me this tends to be more of fan service show than you might expect.

Amu Fanneria starts being chased by some mecha but it is all a ruse. She is actually a honeypot that is sent out to be rescued as a damsel in distress so she can help steal equipment from the unlucky sap who recuses her. So the hornball Kyao Mirao and the more gentlemanly Daba Myroad get caught up in her trap as her bandit gang tries to steal their hover truck and mecha. But soon Amu decides to join up with Daba after seeing how handsome he is.

As is the Tomino way.

This is an unusual in-between from Tomino’s either deadly serious mecha show tragedies and his slapstick comedies. Any scene with Amu Fanneria is mostly played for laughs but there are also people dying after breaking their spines  and having their hands chopped off like it was a “Kill ‘Em All Tomino” show. I have yet to watch any Tomino show that started so clearly straddling his two normal modus operandi.

I’m also curious because this is the show that seems to have annoyed Mamoru Nagano enough for him to make The Five Star Stories (whose anime would annoy him enough to make Gothicmade). While the show has a very Tomino style it is also clear that Nagano created the characters and robots. The L-Gaim look like a AV-98 Ingram and a Mortar Headd had a baby. So I am curious how much Nagano has  a legitimate gripe about Tomino ruining his grand vision that he had for L-Gaim. As far as a I can tell his problems with the the Five Star Stories movie were mostly in his head. But Tomino can be very variable (to be kind) in his work so Nagano might have legitimate gripes.

Well episode one alone makes it a bit hard to judge the story. The overarching plot has yet to be fully introduced. Some story seeds have been dropped but until I am farther into what is going on I can’t make a good judgment on the show.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #188

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The first book of Vertical’s Limit is intense and I only expect it to get more so as the series continues. If you are one of those people who think shojo is all high school romance, pick up LIMIT to change your mind.

Limit is about the have and the have-nots in high school, the cliques and the outcasts. Envy, bullying, peer pressure, violence, humiliation, and revenge swirl around the girls of this school. The social hierarchy of high school is on full display as our lead character is an underling of the most popular mean girl. She is a follower because it gives her a sense of security.

That sense of security is one I never had as a reader, the series has an ominous atmosphere from the very beginning. And just as you suspect, things change in an instant during a school trip. Characters’ true nature come out in a crisis. It was also great to learn about some of the past that got people to this point, humanizing those who need it most.

The struggles to survive in high school become survival on a more base level in Limit.

Random, I really liked the design of this book. The size and typography make it feels very Japanese.

I know that Natutaki and I were both interested in Cloud Atlas but not enough to randomly spend money on seeing it in theaters. But when I won free tickets to see an early screening all reservations went out the window. I have to say that was a fortuitous little blessing. The movie itself was quite spectacular.

It is a fairly epic interweaving of six interconnected stories that take place over a span of more than a millennium. We see the redemption, corruption, and transmigration of several souls over the ages in a complex tapestry of life and love. It starts in the 1850 and ends in a distant post apocalyptic world. The same actors play different parts in each era as we see how these souls fare through the ages. Sometimes heroes will fight the good fight through the years, other times villains will commit unspeakable atrocities, and some people will wrestle with demons to various levels of success in every age. But both little and great decisions will always echoes through the ages.

I will warn people. The movie does not have the most inviting start. It rapidly switches between the six stories fairly rapidly to introduce each time period and show you that the stories will consistently be going back and forth. The story then calms down a bit as if it was just reminded it was three hours long so it could take its time it saying what it needs to. The movie then slows down and takes its time establishing what is going on in each era and becomes infinitely more comprehensible. Most of the stories are serious life and death struggles with serious bits of drama and suspense. The one story about the book publisher in the present is mostly comedy but it is a nice relaxing tale that helps the story from being too brooding.

I have to say the movie does a good job of adapting a fairly complex book in probably the most effective manner it can. While I am sure the original book has more complexity and depth of themes I think the movie does a good job giving you a good sense of what was in the original while treating you to a visual feast in the meantime. You just have to appreciate the vast amount of time and effort went into basically filming 6 short movies with vastly different feels and settings and to then to tie them all together with the same principle cast. Simply amazing.

I feel much like with my review of Forest I think the word pretensions is going to be thrown around a lot. But unlike the extremely indirect Forest I don’t think you have to put in that much effort to put most of the pieces together. There is a good deal of metaphor and intricacy beneath the surface of the narrative but the basic themes and plot is simple if you pay attention. But if you are actively watching I think there is a good deal to be gained from the story. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers but overall I think the story is optimistic. Some stories end in triumph, others in heartbreaking tragedy, yet some are Pyrrhic victories. None of the main characters make it to the end of their tales without losing something important along the way. But the overall message is one of the triumph of the human spirit. And that alone made the movie very fulfilling.

Oh and the movie teaches us one other thing. If you are a racist bastard then you will get your just deserts.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Continue reading →