Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Anime'orama

aka: If the anime stuff bores you, don't bother with this entry 'cause that's all it is, except for one little blip at the very end.

As the second title states, this is an almost all anime entry. I've borrowed a bunch of stuff from Kristen, but I haven't bothered to write about it, until now that is. So let's get started.

She lent me the last two dvds of Evangelion and after watching them, I am thoroughly confused. From looking at the art on the boxes, I assumed that the series ended with the end of the world and everyone dying, except for possibly the main protagonist Shinji. I now wish that it had ended that way. At least I would have understood it then.

The best I can figure is that the series ends with a worldwide intervention, intensive therapy and a group hug. In other words, assorted characters may or may not have survived, Shinji's father may or may not have have succeeded in his secret plans, the world may or may not have ended, humanity may or may not have have been destroyed, or it may or may not have been saved and I may or may not care.

Well, if nothing else, I finally saw the controversial fifth child episode. Controversial, because the so called fifth child, Nagisa Kaoru, may be gay. Sort of.

There is a crucial scene featuring the two boys where the dubbed dialogue is different from the subtitled dialogue. I found it amusing that depending on which version you read/listened to, Shinji either "likes" the other boy, or "loves" him.

Kristen has mentioned that there is some sort of controversy in the anime community over what exactly the relationship between Shinji Nagisa is. She doesn't know all of the details and I haven't bothered to find out the specifics, but I gather that there is contingent of straight fan boys out there who are very bothered by the idea that Shinji may actually love another young man. Even the idea of platonic love is too much to bear. Those poor straight boys, whatever.

To be honest, I don't know why they even care. Shinji is a very hard character to like/admire/identify with. He's a huge mess of psychological trauma and by American standards amazingly, if not aggravatingly passive. I liked the series, but at times I just wanted somebody to smack him silly.

The next series also has a hugely passive protagonist, but it make sense in this case, 'cause well, Key is a robot girl. Kristen lent me the entire run of Key, the metal Idol. I Liked everything except for the ending, but I guess you can't have everything.

The series begins with Key's grandfather dying (yes, the robot has a grandfather). His last words to her are that she can become a real person if she had the devotion of 30,000 friends. In order to get that many friends and become real, Key decides to go to Tokyo and become a pop star.

When Kristen described the plot to me my reaction was "huh?" It sounds bizarre and well, it is bizarre, but strangely enough, it works. The packaging called it a modern take on the pinocio story and I guess that is one way to look at it.

Although, from what I can recall, pinocio wasn't this "adult." There were several breast shots scattered throughout the series and there also some questionable male shots as well. One of the male characters spends several episodes sitting naked in a jail cell and another guy seemed to do nothing but lounge around his apartment in tight skimpy underwear. Not that I am complaining.

I have also borrowed something called Earthian. Angels are sent to Earth to judge humanity. So far, I've only managed to watch the first episode. I seem to keep finding other things to do instead of watching the rest. It's not bad per say, more just, well boring.

Even the rather fey characters and gay innuendoes wasn't enough to interest me. My loss I guess.

I've also watched some more episodes of Cowboy Bebop and Patlabor, but since I have already mentioned them in the past, so I won't bother you all with repeating myself.

Finally, the nonAnime bit. I wanted to thank Sandra, Mark4 and JDT for participating in my little guessing game. In the end however, it was Choire who realized that I had never been criticized for spelling out Los Angeles. So kudos to Choire for realizing that while I have gotten unusual comments regarding the site over the past year, no one has ever been that bizarre.

That sounds like a dare doesn't it?

More later

nico

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