Monthly Archive for January, 2005

Maria-sama ga miteru ~haru~ 1-3

Published
by
Zyl
on 5 January 2005
in maria-sama ga miteru ~ haru
. 0 Comments

Episode 1 - The Long Night: Winter break’s almost over. The Yamayurikai go over to Sachiko’s palatial house to celebrate the New Year and some stay for a slumber party. Yumi looks forward to the New Year.



Some great comedic moments in this episode when Yumi thinks that Sei has tricked her into agreeing to going on an overnight one-on-one outing. No such luck though. Bah! Loved it when Sei treats Yumi like a favourite pet in front of Sachiko. Like Sister, like Brother - Yumi’s brother, Yuuki, gets picked up by that rather creepy debonair cousin of Sachiko’s. Obscenely rich people have plenty of neuroses as well - given how all the married men in the Ogasawara household go to spend New Year’s Day at their mistresses’ place. That’s enough to make a girl look favourably on shoujou ai. :P Sei doesn’t even attempt to tease Yumi when they all go to bed together. Hmph.

An aside, the above can be interpreted as a 甲乙图 (basic martial arts diagram) that shows one method of countering Stripey’s supreme skill, the ultimate ladykiller family of techniques, 九阳假正经 - the Nine Masculine of Appearing to be Pure & Honourable. Sachiko-sama is powerful indeed!

Episode 2 - The Precipitate Yellow Rose: Torii Eriko, Rosa Foetida, has apparently been caught in the act of enjou kousai ( “subsidised dating” - euphemism for schoolgirl prostitution - and yeah, I can so see my search engine hits going up now).

Turns out she merely has to entertain her over-protective brothers and father who have Sis-con and Daughter-con respectively. Augh.

And she is pursuing a science teacher ten years older than her. An insight into Eriko’s whimsical yet persistent nature. My respect for the school principal (who is a nun) went up a few notches for her understanding of and showing understanding for the ways of schoolgirls.

And most importantly, Sei flirts with Yumi again! Yay!

Episode 3: An Extremely Busy Day. As a result of another one of Sei’s psychological ops/pranks on Yumi, the boutons put together a farewell show (mostly humiliating themselves) for their beloved Onee-samas, on top of having to prepare for the graduation ceremony (geez, student council with so few minions?). Yumi is over-wrought and faints. Everything turns out well though. Duh.



Turns out it is merely an evil plot to get stuffy ole Sachiko to loosen up further. Sachiko and Yumi, made for each other blah blah. No Sei-Yumi action unfortunately.

Ghost in the Shell: Innocence

Published
by
Zyl
on 3 January 2005
in ghost in the shell
. 0 Comments

This movie was in theatres when I visited Japan in 2004-04 but didn’t catch it as I wouldn’t have been able to understand it (no subtitles). The story is largely adapted from the manga’s Chapter 06: Robot Rondo: 1.10.2029 where love dolls are going berserk and killing their owners. Section 9 investigates and uncovers the links between the underworld, an unscurpulous company using illegal ghost dubbing technology and victims who victimize as they struggle to escape a horrible fate.

To state an important starting point, this movie belongs the universe of the first Ghost in the Shell movie and not that of the alternative Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex universe. Major Motoko Kusanagi has disappeared and only the faint whisper of her ghost can be felt for most of the movie.

The movie is largely from Batou’s point of view as he and Togusa race to get the evidence required to nail the faceless corporate culprit.

The mood of the movie is dark and gloomy, almost like mourning the Major’s absence yet she is always on the minds of the Section 9 team and of the viewers. The constant presence of shadow and the plays on light showcased some spectacularly good animation, fitting in with the brooding atmosphere of murder and mystery.

There’s a bit of philosophy but on a much less grand scale when compared with the first movie - better given that the first movie is often criticised for being ambitious and bombastic. Such complex ideas are better explored within the space of a 26 episode TV series or more.

Essentially on whether robots can have personality given their digitial processes compared to humans who are analogue or non-binary. All this only makes sense in the context of cyberbrains where the mechanical-biological distinction has been eroded - is the difference between human and machine merely the container (human flesh or cybernetics) while the processes are the same (social conditioning and learning as to programming)? And a normative question - humans don’t want to become robots, but will robots actually find human emotions and feelings alien and abhorrent if introduced into their systems?

Some of the characters are drawn rather differently like Ishikawa (left) and Aramaki (left of right pic, voice sounds different also) whose hair are no longer so expansionist. Togusa still looks like a shaggy dog though.


I also loved the way programs, programming and data were represented. It was visually rich and even exciting as good guys battled the bad guys in cyberspace for control over realspace. Interestingly, the language interface of the bad guys was in Cantonese.

In the movie, there seems to be a strong association between organised crime, lawlessness and the Chinese - an increasingly awareness of mainland China in the Japanese consciousness which has manifested in generally negative stereotypes.

Some great quotes as well:

生死去来
棚头傀儡
一线断时
落落磊磊

Life and death merely comes and goes
For the faceless puppet
But once its strings are cut
It falls with verve and dignity
(there’s a Chinese pun here which is hard to translate)

孤独に歩め
悪をなさず
求めるところは少なく
林の中の象のように

I walk alone and
do no evil
With few desires
Like an elephant in the forest

In conclusion, enjoyed this movie immensely for the high quality animation, the clean storytelling (and added sophistication and updating of Masamune Shirow’s original story), some great action scenes and a fantastic OST.

Edit: Bought the DVD (from a second hand Akiba shop) during my visit to Tokyo in 2005-04! =)