Angel’s Egg- an unlikely story of hope

Angel’s Egg is an animated movie that was released 27 years ago during 1985. It was produced by a number of different studios and directed by Mamoru Oshii. I watched it but a few days ago directly after an intense spiritual experience, perhaps it was due to this- and the fact very little dialogues takes place during it- that much of the movie’s use of symbolism and religious allegory really leaped out at me. Now, Angel’s Egg offers very little in the way of exposition, leaving viewers to interpret what they see as they wish, therefore, please bear in mind that this is merely my interpretation of what I saw, nothing more.

Enough with all the nice-y-nice already!

Something that has increasingly come to my attention over the years I’ve spent watching anime is the awkwardness that so very often pervades the interactions between casts of characters. Conversations are often far too polite, stiff even, in spite of the fact that the characters have usually known each other for a very long time. This is most obvious when the cast is made up mostly of female characters. There is a disturbing lack of that light-hearted ridicule that I myself am regularly subject to by my few friends, or observe so often in the friendship of others. And sometimes when a character attempts to turn something another character says or does into a joke, that can often come across as awkward too due to the character on the receiving end of the joke’s aggressive overreaction to it. I’m thinking pretty much every interaction Sunohara ever had with Tomoyo here! And, if you couldn’t tell from the fact that I’m writing a post focusing on the very subject, that’s something that bothers me somewhat.

Binbougami-ga! episode 2- Mean Girls

It’s only the second week of my blogging Binbougami-ga! and I’m already struggling to find things to say, mainly because this second episode presented us with next to no new comedy material (and as far as the storyline goes, all that happened was we met a priest who gave Ichiko a sword that summons fluffy pigs, unicorns, and Gintama’s Sadaharu!) I mean, nearly all of the comedy techniques used in last week’s episode were used once more in this week’s: the characters continued to be VERY LOUD, play on stereotypes (bumbling, incoherent foreigner, perverted priest, etc.), and refer to other shows. As a result, the episode felt very same-y. As I said during my last post, it is important that the show regularly explores new avenues of comedy in order to compensate for the lack of story with major progression, and that’s just not happening…

Nazo no Kanojo X episode 11

This episode started off good, maintaining the will-he-do-anything-will-he-not-do-anything tension of last episode, up to a point, and that point was Urabe, awkward cardboard robot version’s entrance. From that point, ‘til about the final few minutes of the episode, it all got a little bit boring… I mean, I understand what they were trying to do, resolve the issue of Hayakawa interfering in their relationship by showing her the bond between Urabe and Tsubaki, but this is something that’s happened a couple of times now, to different degrees. Sure, so now there were two naked girls, instead of just the one, but so what? Naked girls do not make a masterpiece, at least not in anime. Greek sculpture maybe, but not anime!

Avatar: Legend of Korra episode 8

Man, that was a manic episode! During this episode Tarrlok’s credibility as a villain was established as he lorded his power over a whole bunch of non-bending innocents, arrested ¾ of the new Team Avatar and kidnapped Korra. We also discover that he’s a blood-bender, and may have played a part in the scene of Korra’s flashbacks. You know, I’ve been watching a lot of One Piece lately, the Enies Lobby arc, to be precise. It has taken the Straw Hat Pirates and the Franky Family nearly ten episodes to get from the main entrance of Enies Lobby to the courthouse… Really puts things into perspective!