anime update

[cerusee]

I'd probably update more often if I did these for manga, but my wrists are too crap for my to type that much.


Still watching:

Lucky Star:

Never underestimate the power of an easy joke. And I love Lucky Channel more than my hypothetical future offspring. They never write!


Dropped:

Terra E:

Alas, the art and the voice-acting were not awesome enough to overcome my inability to sit still longer than twenty minutes if I already know the plot. (I'm running into the same problem with Rurouni Kenshin; I've already read the first three volumes of manga, and the anime does take its time...I'm only willing to sit it out for the latter because I know there's another twenty-five volumes worth of story material after the stuff I've seen. Oro!)

Kami-chama Karin:

Okay, it takes more than a cute chibi voiced by Nakahara Mai shouting, "I AM GOD!" to make me sit still for longer than twenty minutes, even when I don't know the scanty plot.


Kinda on hiatus:

Naruto Shippuuden:

An ill-fated back up-hard drive reboot ate most of this. I'll probably download a few dozen episodes and watch them all over the course of a week between semesters of grad school, if they're crazy enough to let me in.


Picked up:

Hataraki Man:

This anime is my new boyfriend. Or something. It hits the same sweet spot as Tramps Like Us, only with less fist-shaking because I like the status quo boyfriend, dammit; the status quo boyfriend might actually remain the boyfriend. And it's shorter. Moyoco Anno has been vaulted into the lofty realm of josei manga-ka that I sort of worship and why aren't there more comics available in English about career-oriented women in their twenties? I don't want chick-lit prose novels, dammit, I want comics. And an acceptance letter from grad school.

Comments

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

In Tramps Like Us, it's not even that I don't acknowledge that Sumire and Hasumi have issues... they have major issues, and for Sumire to marry Hasumi right now, as things stand, would be a terrible mistake for both of them.

But I'm just frustrated that the manga is not making any attempt whatsoever to move them towards solving those issues; if anything, it's the opposite, just trying to hammer into our heads that "It's not going to work!" Augh.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

In Hataraki Man, the protagonist, Hiro, and her status quo boyfriend do break up in the end, but it's made rather clear that it was a happy and functional relationship once upon a time--it's not that they were really incompatible all along, and she'd have been okay if she was only with The One, but because they both had demanding careers and became extreme workaholics who prioritized work over each other for so long that they grew too far apart to fix things. And the show's belief in the satisfaction of a work-related identity is so powerful that that doesn't even come across as wrong, or even a mistake--just as a realistic consequence of choosing that kind of career.

Maybe it's a subtle distinction, but it makes a huge difference to me--instead of being about how romance will only work if you find The One (message: The One may not be taller than you, but he understands you perfectly, and that's all you really need--take that, romantic cliche!), Hataraki Man really believes that you will be a different person at different stages of your life, and you will need different things, and be capable of different things.