Tadaima! That was a refreshing two months! Though just two months, it feels like a coon’s age since I’ve blogged on Medieval Otaku. At any rate, the transition from critic to fan was achieved over this time. Being a critic is miserable: one watches so much anime that the flaws start standing out more than the good. At the same time, one feels as though one never watches enough, which induces one to watch mediocre anime and be tortured more than ever. A truly vicious cycle!
During the past two months, I have kept up with precisely one current anime: Aho Girl (★★★★). Two have been finished: Eureka 7 and You’re Under Arrest: Full Throttle. Many consider Eureka 7 (★★★★1/2) one of their favorite shows, and quality and uniqueness shine through the entire series. For all that, understanding why I enjoyed it is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps, if I watched it again, I could take apart more of the ideas–particularly, the comparison of Dewey Novak to Raskolnikov (the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.)
Hey! That’s a map of Slovenia!
Then again, even the name Dewey is worthy of remark, since it’s reminiscent of the secular humanist and Pragmatic philosopher John Dewey. Novak is from the Slovene word for “new.” So, could Dewey Novak symbolize a new John Dewey? One who puts Dewey’s philosophy into play with absolute power? (One doubts that the name Novak refers to a famous thinker. I only know of two Novaks: the American Catholic philosopher Michael Novak or the American conservative Catholic journalist Robert Novak. Secular humanism and Thomism are about as compatible as Christ and Belial.) Dewey’s refusal to accept or to condone extraterrestrial phenomena, the Coralians, may easily be compared to how secular humanists can’t accept the supernatural and try to destroy it in people’s imaginations. At any rate, material for an article exists. Maybe, I will write it.
On the other hand, You’re Under Arrest: Full Throttle is a very simple affair: I love the characters and police action; so, I will watch anything with the YUA label. But, only the first season (★★★★1/2) has a claim to being classic. The second season, YUA: Fast and Furious, (★★★1/2) and the third, YUA: Full Throttle, (★★★) can really only be appreciated by diehard fans, while YUA: The Movie (★★★★) is fun but predictable. I could write a piece about how annoyed I am that the third season appears to be playing to the lusts of the male fans through Yuri-esque fanservice, giving little time to the relationship between Nakajima and Kobayakawa, and forgetting the existence of Tsujimoto’s beau, Shouji Toukairin. Essentially, it’s vexing that the characters and their relationships do not naturally develop.
Perhaps, I have not completely squelched the interior critic after all! But, I must confess to watching a show I declared utterly derivative. I also claimed that I would never watch it because the triteness of the characters insulted my sensibilities. If you said to yourself: “Medieval Otaku is watching Rinne,” you’re quite correct! It seems like I’ll watch anything which comes from the pen of Rumiko Takahashi. She has been accused of using the same formula over and over again; yet, somehow, Rinne–after giving it a college try–diverges enough from the plot and mood of Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, and Urusei Yatsura enough to keep me intrigued. Perhaps I simply never wanted Inuyasha to end.
C’est tout! Some opinion pieces should be forthcoming. And, I should be writing for Beneath the Tangles come next month. Other than that, I will try to follow the program I set for this blog before the hiatus.
So, what anime should I be watching? (Yes, feel free to spam me with any and all shows which have caught your enthusiasm of late.)
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