Day 25 - Best Anime Villian: Dr. Muraki Kazutaka from Yami No Matsui (Descendants of Darkness)

”Best?” Yes. He is vicious. He’s also creepily calm and intense. I don’t like it. He is so creepy that Ms. Shakespeare and I have been known to quote him just to skeeve the other one out. Ms. Shakespeare, "do you remember our sensuous night beneath the cherry trees?" Mwahahah! Dr. Muraki is the best anime villain in that he is irredeemably evil, overtly predatory and still somehow charismatic and beautiful. So evil! SO EVIL!! Is he human? Is he demon? No one knows. He seems to have no motivation beyond just being evil (and attracted to our hero Asato Tsuzuki)...EVIL! Like a pretty, pretty snake who will tie you up and make sexually suggestive remarks before biting you.



A close second is Light Yagumi of Death Note (yet another Shigigami or Soul Reaper drama) he is irredeemably awful, and the lead character. I like the way Death Note sets up Light as the protagonist only to allow viewers to watch him fall further and further from his first purpose into a narcissistic villain who destroys pretty much everything he once believed in. He’s truly horrible, but he doesn't quite have the creep factor of Dr. Muraki. So despite playing God, betraying everyone he knows, and stacking up one hell of a body count, he gets bumped to number two.



I need to do a Death Note post soon. It is a pretty messed-up series.

Day 16 - Favorite Mahou Shoujo Anime: Ai Enma?

Mahou Shoujo Anime is, from what I researched, not a thing I watch. It's about magical girls? Like Sailor Moon, or something. The closest I get is maybe Ai Enma, Hellgirl, from the Hellgirl series. I am sort of confused by the definition of Mahou Shoujo, so I'm just gonna assume that this counts.

Here is my defense:
1. She's a girl.
2. She has magical hell powers.
3. She wears a school uniform that looks kinda like sailor moon's.

Let's compare:

They are like Yin and Yang.

Sailor Moon is all: "Whoop! There I is!"

And Hellgirl is all:

"Pitiful shadow cloaked in darkness.
Thy action cause men pain and suffering.
Thy hollow soul drowns in thy sins.
How would you like to see what death is like?"

So, because I haven't written about Hellgirl before I'll say a few things now.

The plot of the series revolves around a reporter who is doing a story on a website called "Hell Corrospondence." The "Hell Corrospondence" site is set up for vengence. Wronged persons can send a name to the site and Ai and her assistants will carry them and their soul to hell to fullfil the grudge. The price for this service is that when the summoner dies they too will be carried into hell.  It's a lighthearted musical  romp...okay, that's just a lie. It's pretty dark and heavy stuff. The reporter, Shibata Hajime, has a lot of his own problems, and it turns out his daughter has a strange psychic link to Ai. And the psychological torture some of the cursed go through is pretty fantasticaly intense. Ai too has her backstory, which is tragic and heartbreaking. It's not a happy series, but it is beautifully animated and complex. I like complex! I like tragic! I like schoolgirls who take jerks to hell!

Whether this is actually a Mahou Shoujo? I don't know.

Here's what I got from the wikipedia: "Magical girl stories feature young girls with superhuman abilities, forced to fight evil and to protect the Earth." Well, maybe I'm waaay off base here. But this is as close as I get...so. Hmmm.

Day 5 - Anime Character You Feel the Most Like: Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck

The character of Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck (Nel) is introduced in her child form (above left) in the seventh season of Bleach. Nel's child form is very affectionate, animated, loud and troublesome. That's me. She is playful when she should be serious and is generally a pest. That's me too. She runs around with bare feet and has a cracked hollow mask that looks like a cartoon skull on her head. I would do that too. I wish I weren't Nel, but I am. My husband, Roy, (yeah, someone married me) watches Bleach  with me, and the first time Nel came on the screen he said, "Look, it's little you." And I said, as I usually do, "Why's every little loud troublesome thing me?" It was a rhetorical question. I know why. Yes, Nel is little me. Also, her drool has healing properties...I don't know how that fits in, but whatever.

Here's the thing that's lovely though--Nel has two forms. The adult Nel (on the right) is pretty fucking badass, concientious and honorable, but her badass is limited in that she can only be badass for short periods of time before her energy is drained and she reverts back to Child-Nel. This is like me; I have very little staying power with the adultness. Nel is cool, and although viewers find out later that she is "officially" one of the "bad guys" (an Arrancar) she isn't very bad in either of her forms. She, unlike the other Arrancar, avoids fighting, and believes that warriors should be honorable at all costs. There must be a reason to fight, and something worth fighting for. I believe this too. She changes for the first time into her adult form to protect Ichigo (who has the best name of any hero...Strawberry the Soul Reaper!) from harm at the hands of a dick-head Arrancar named Nnoitra Gilga (sexist douchebag) and is nearly killed in the process. Although Nel doesn't say so, I know she is willing to die to protect the people she loves. I respect that. I would die, or kill, for the people I love.

Like Nel, I can be pretty badass in short bursts, I am protective of the people I love, I can be serious and even (dare I say) complex, but essentially...why not be a happy, loud, troublesome child? There's some blending of the two that seems important and well, me. That and Adult Nel has quite the bodacious anime-rack...I too am burdened by a bodacious rack. It sucks.

So, although I'd rather be someone more together (as in whole and as in respectable/responsible/with-it), I'm not. My scowling, serious, smirking side has to put up with my loud, troublemaking, affectionate side. I like to play. I like loud things. I like to run around barefoot. And although I'll let myself be pushed around to a point, don't push anyone else who doesn't deserve it, or I'll go all centaur on your ass with nothing more than a smirk and a "heh."

Odelschwanck, out!

Happy Thanksgiving = Bleach (anime)

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm currently on Ep. 57 of "Bleach" an anime that may actually take me a long time to watch. With something around or over 200 Eps and counting, I don't see it going away anytime soon.

This is not a crappy anime. In fact, it's pretty alright. I really liked the first season the most so far because it did a good job of mixing "ordinary" teenage, highschool life with something supernatural. Now that all of the characters' special powers have been activated and they are hanging out fighting in the Soul Society, it doesn't feel as much like my kind of anime.

Before there were a lot of reasons behind things. The show was slower and Ichigo was discovering himself, and even fighting against becoming a Soul Reaper. Things have changed, and he is coming into his own.

There is a lot more fighting in the second and third season, well a lot more different kind of fighting. Instead of the fights being between Soul Reapers and Hollows. It's mostly Soul Reapers vs Soul Reapers or Souls/Humans vs. Soul Reapers. I love me some awesome fighting in my anime, but this is getting to be a bit much. If I hear the word "bankai" one more time I think I will scream. It took about 50 Eps before it was mentioned (this is the second, higher incarnation of a Soul Reapers sword), and now everyone is just crazy about bankai.

The thing is, I love Ichigo because he is different. I want him to be the great undiscovered, misplaced and superpowerful Soul Reaper, and I also like to see him struggle. It's not nearly as interesting when everyone around him is nearly as powerful, except maybe for Itsuda, who is powerful in a completely different not Soul Reaper kind of a way.

So in order to understand this post, you will probably have had to have seen a little bit of Bleach. I'll likely write some more detailed stuff later.