dangermousie | Anime Fun

katranna, try not to faint, but I watched some anime today.

First, we finally unwrapped the Rurouni Kenshin, the series DVDs I bought a long time ago for Husband and watched the first ep. I quite liked it (probably because the girl was bossy), if not enough to obsess over it. Enough not to run screaming from the room when Husband watches it though. Of course, it wasn't nearly as fun as trying to figure out which of the three sets were the first part because they were labelled only in Japanese. It took a while in trial and error.

The best part of the whole thing was this disclaimer on the back. Trust me, I am quoting word for word, letter for letter:

"All rights of producler and of the owner reprodducde reserved vnavthrisd copying huring lending pubfdrmace and broad casting of this recroing is prohibted."

Indeed.

Also, I finally decided to give it a try and rented Escaflowne the movie from HV. Plot: Hitomi is a Japanese schoolgirl thrown into the world of Gaea, to save or destroy the world. It's visually astounding, and Van is actually quite a cute and angsty hero, but the story makes little sense because it has all these characters and spends about a minute on each. Also, Folken the Baddie makes me want to give him prozac. Why would you want to destroy the world when you are hot, have power, a cool flying castle and a hot chick willing to die with you? Moreover, the heroine Hitomi made an average Mary Sue look good. All she does is whine and cling to poor Van, who seems a nice enough guy with enough trouble in his life without having a clingy useless girl always weeping on him. The most (unintentionally) hilarious moment of bonding? Van tells Hitomi how he just wants to die because:
a. his people have been wiped out and he is the last one left
b. he is doomed to always fight alone
c. he only lives to kill his brother who is the evil baddie.
To which Hitomi chirps in with how they are kindred spirits and she knows exactly how he feels because she is a 15 year old prosperous schol-girl suffering from boredom and ennui (in case you can't tell, I added the last part).
Also, because of this jumping around of plots, they meet one second, he is annoyed at her for a minute or two, next he rescues her from badddies, they have almost no other interaction, and then all of a sudden she is his reason for living and salvation of the world. Of course, she talks him off the ledge so to speak, by promising to always be with him, only to disappear in a flutter of wings at the end. Which was supposed to make me weep but only made me ROFL because:
a. way to make the guy feel better. He is just going to go hunting for another set of destroy-the-world armor and
b. She was so annoying that it's probably a favor to Van and
c. Can you get any more Mary Sue?

Rurouni Kenshin Kenshin and Kaoru. Gosh, I wish I knew which hair products they use: