dangermousie | Weekend Fannishness: Dr Who, Bollywood, Full Metal Panic and RahXephon

This week’s ep of Doctor Who, is actually my least fave so far, mainly because fat farting aliens are so…tacky. But I am interested in the fact that TPTB explored the effect of Rose’s traveling on her near and dear, and Doctor’s “Take me to your Leader” was priceless. He continues to be an amiable lunatic. And Rose finds out the Doctor’s real age. Heeeee.

I have also watched the Bollywood joy that is Humko Tumko Pyaar Hai. Though I am afraid the joy was not in the way the film-makers intended. I summarized the plot in my previous HTPH post, so let me just say that this was like ten different movies all rolled into one, just as

lesbiassparrow said. One movie was a rustic romance, another one of those 1980s revenge flicks, then there was one of those glossy Switzerland things, and then two men sacrificing themselves for a woman who also sacrifices. All in two hours. This was a hodgepodge even by Bolly standards and reminded me of what I used to think BW movies were when I lived in Russia: colorful, silly nonsense.

I had tons of fun. Where to start? Amisha as a blind sculptor? Sculpting Arjun and smearing him with clay as he looks at her worshipfully? At first it was kinda hot, but when he whole face was clay-covered, it looked as if he was getting a spa treatment. The melodrama of her murdered mother (who earlier threatened the villain with an axe)? The fact that the villain must have been an escaped goon from Koyla, as there is no other explanation. Bobby and his gigantic Freudian candles and singing at a party? The fact that Bobby, in the first place, is so besotted with a gloomy, weepy woman is a bit bizarre. I guess he could be smitten by her beauty, but while I like Amisha well enough, she is not drop dead gorgeous enough to inspire this reaction. Aish, I could see. Amisha? Not so much.

Also, is the church Bobby took Amisha too the church they used in DDLJ?

But Amisha and Arjun have a nice chemistry together (I loved the scene when he carried her up to the shrine) and when he gave her the mangalsutra, or asked her what she wanted to see first, when she could see, and she answered “you” was pretty sweet. Just as his talking about his fantasies of her seeing him on their wedding night, or with two small kids playing in the yard.

Also, thankfully, the ‘does she know Bobby’s friend is her OTP’ was not drawn-out too much, and Arjun angsted so prettily, what with the crying and saying he died blah blah. Also, Arjun accomplishes the impossible and manages to look gorgeous with long hair and beard, the first man I’ve ever seen to rock that look.

I’ve continued my watch of Full Metal Panic (I am up to ep 16 now) and I like it more and more. Also, Sosouke and Kaname are definitely an OTP. That scene when they are in the woods, after he’s rescued her from the bad guys, and she flips out (because she thought he was just a normal student and here he is running with a crazy machine gun, using giant mechas etc etc) and he calms her down is…whoa. But not as cool as the scene when they are still in the woods, only now they also picked up Kurz, who is severely wounded, and they are being heavily pursued, so he tells her he came up with a plan where she’ll have a radio she could use to find Mithril and he and Kurz will run interference and draw enemy fire, and she refuses to go, so he points his gun at her, and she asks him whether he will shoot her if she refuses to go, to which he replies “yes” because it will be better for her than if she got caught. And she reaches out and touches his face and tells him he told her to trust him and his gun clatters to the ground and they just stare at each other in the rain for waaaaay too long, until Kurz breaks up the scene. And then they later have a bizarre Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ref. This show’s makers are totally hitting all my kinks.

I also adore the fact that Kaname’s way of saying “I care and I don’t want you to die” is to tell him he is a moron and yell at him. And because of all this tech implanted in her head, she is like a saner version of River. I love that she tells him how to use the Lambda Drive in battle, but what amuses me even more is her motivational speech (the weapon is cued to emotions, so Sousuke has to be angry and he is a very controlled person), which goes something along the lines of “If you lose, he’ll rip my clothes, play with my body and then kill me. Does that make you mad?” Heeeee. (I think it’s kinda beside the point that the baddie, Gauron, wants her for experiments, not for sex games. It certainly works as motivation. :P) This sort of reminds me of Rurouni Kenshin, what with hyper-competent men and bossy women who love them, and also because the heroes can beat up anyone, except this one wisp of a girl who totally beats on them. Heeee. Kaname’s bossiness stands her in good stead though. When she is being experimented on by the evil people, she rips off her blind-fold and is all “stop showing me these 3D movies, they are boring!”

Actually, while the military stuff is cool and all that, my favorite things about this show are definitely S/K stuff. And not just because watching Sousuke deal with normal life is hilarious. It’s because Kaname so clearly likes him but he is so clueless about relationships, it’s adorable. Kaname is a good choice for him because his quirks don't bug her and she can take it all in stride, and he is one of few people strong enough and whose approach to life is different enough who won't be put off by her bossiness as he just won't see it.

Favorite bits so far (no order):

1. Sousuke being told rescuing hostages is a priority and Kaname is secondary, but his abandoning orders and how it's hard for him to do so. But he hears shots where she is and he can't not go in.

2. Kaname so relieved to see him at the end of their ‘adventure’ because she’s thought he’s been transferred to another mission and bawling while everyone else in class stares at her as if she is nuts. And Sousuke telling her “I am insurance.”

3. My favorite scene so far: Sousuke taping the bathroom in school with police tape and ‘interrogating’ the boy he thinks wrote nasty graffiti about Kaname and Kaname running in there with the ‘not again’ expression and Sousuke pausing in mid-dunk of the guy and going, politely, “the girls’ bathroom is next door.” Heeeeee. The only thing nearly as funny is his getting rid of that guy for Kaname (he was asking her out and she was refusing), by sticking his gun under his neck. And Kaname losing her temper and telling him to walk with her, and not to pretend to be spying on her from behind his paper. He is so adorably clueless.

4. Kaname getting all jealous as Sousuke is being ‘trained’ for a date with this other girl because she wants to pretend she has a bf to her junior high friends, and completely denying she is jealous. And Sousuke on a date (especially when he stands up in the middle of some sappy movie which has a soldier going away to war and starts loudly protesting that their military tactics are stupid and they should use an ambush) is priceless.

5. His kissing the other girl when the friends (who are getting suspicious) are “prove to us you are couple, kiss.” Sousuke goes “it’s just mouth to mouth” and does and the girl hits him and runs off, and so do her friends, and he ends up sitting in the little pond and Kaname (mad herself, for other reasons heee) tells him people don’t just do that, and he replies, completely seriously, that he’s kissed a lot of men (and he talks about all those really dead people he gave mouth to mouth to) and Kaname isn’t mad any more because he sees he just doesn’t realize (and that he’s had one heck of a tough life) and they almost kiss and then he looks at her and goes ‘why are you blushing, are you ill, should you see a doctor?’ Heeee. Clueless.

6. Giving her bombs disguised as jewelry. Heeee. And then her coming to apologize with all the food she actually cooked for their meeting earlier (when he didn’t show up). I love that he relaxes with her, as much as he is capable of relaxing.

7. She is imagining a romantic trip to the beach and instead he takes her to army training. But he helps that kid with glasses, and I am struck again by how nice he is.

And then we learn a bit of Sousuke’s back-story and his character makes even more sense now. If he was a guerilla since he was eight, no wonder he is so focused and controlled. If he wasn’t, he’d be dead or in a mental hospital. I am also mildly curious, as he is clearly Japanese (his name, the fact that he blends into the school), but it seems he was fighting as a child in a made up Afghan-like nation, and had a different name. I guess I can always fanwank his parents were crazy missionaries who keeled over when he was a kid and he ended up stuck there. And of course, now he is on a mission back to the place (with a unit that doesn’t trust him) and it sucks. And it intercuts with Kaname, who actually IS at the beach this time, and first she is mad and then she is worried about his mission and she is thinking of him. Awwww. How ‘girl he left behind’ish. Especially when one of the soldiers asks him if he’s got someone waiting for him and he says ‘no’ and then he says ‘sort of’ and he is so young I just want to ruffle his hair. And his composure is actually rather interesting in these surroundings, as we learn more about him (as he talks about his whole guerilla unit being wiped out). It’s sort of “it’s useless to be upset about it, as it won’t do any good. It really sucks but you just suck it up and move on.” Hmmm.

The Captain of the Submarine actively annoys me. She is this annoying, breathy, fragile weirdo. I guess she is a captain because she knows about Black Tech, but she still irritates the heck out of me, so helpless and little-girly. Also, no frat regs are there for a reason. I am not even talking about her liking for Sousuke, but about her rooming with and fighting with Melissa, her subordinate. Way to run the place.

I have also finished RahXephon which was totally amazing. My favorite ep was when Ayato tried to protect that girl he rescued and ended up unknowingly killing her, or the very last one. Whoa. When he sits there on the floor, by the bed, holding her journal? Talk about depressing. I loved Ayato, whose life severely sucked. He’s had three well-understood break-downs, and that’s not counting the one he had when he was separated from Haruka, which apparently was so severe, his ‘mother’ had to erase his memories to enable him to function. Actually, the fact that his memories were erased makes so much about his personality make sense now. He is very emotionally blank, in some ways, which makes sense, as they had to erase everything Haruka-related and she was such a huge part of his emotional life, that it ended up leaving him rather hollow. I think it’s really significant that the one time he feels passionate (and one thing he feels passionate about) is that painting he keeps painting over and over and over, because (even though he doesn’t remember it), this painting is of her, it’s his last connection to her. And when he (unconsciously) forms an Istari, it takes Haruka’s form. And I love that he falls in love with her all over again, even though he doesn’t remember her. I love the scene where they kiss, but a part of me is also uncomfortable, which I find interesting as if it was a Victorian novel and the girl was 17 and the guy 29, I wouldn’t even think twice about it (and here, after all, she is only older because of time dilation). I love that in the very last ep, he and Quon are having this very polite philosophical discussion as their Doremus are fighting. I also find the thought of Von Barbem being not God, but Composer (just as Mother is the Conductor and Ayato is the Performer).

I feel quite bad for that couple both of whom had short hair, but I guess the world is remade now so they are OK, even if they never met. Also, this must be the most romantic thing I’d ever seen, because Ayato’s literally moved heaven and earth to be with Haruka. He remade the world for her. Wow.

Oh, and why did crazy assistant kill the Doctor, anyway?