My buddy in Portland and I call up on the phone and watch shows together online. We used to do this in person, when we lived nearby and getting ahold of bad martial arts movies and anime was very hit or miss. There was no streaming at that point, and it was before Netflix. We'd eat chinese food, pizza, or I'd cook something because I'm good at that. There was beer, food, and a good laugh. Something to watch which wasn't the usual cliche Hollywood crap. We were bleeding edge for Americans who wanted more from entertainment than the sappy garbage Hollywood just won't stop making, won't stop driving away its audience. Anime was the answer. It was new. It was unpredictable. It was interesting.
Recently we've been watching a show called Allison and Lillia, which is a sort of 1910-1935 era story of adventures, without irony, in a fantasy world that's very like you'd find in those years. The age of steam engines, sidecar motorcycles, and fabric biplanes. They have a certain fascination with wrecking them too.
Living as I currently do, up in the gold mining country in California, there's lots of stuff like that lying around hither and yon. Many homes are built atop mine tailings, sometimes toxic ones. Mercury and Arsenic are public health problems here. There are many bits of baroque mine equipment, other stuff just kludged together. The gold mines were still in operation until 1934. Getting them working again, for the multiple billions in gold still down there? Non-trivial problem.
Sometimes TV gives us good things. I suspect we'll give the second episode of Agents of Shield a try. Some of the shows we've watched turned out to be crap. Others were good a season, then failed miserably. First season of Heroes was good. Second not so much. First two seasons of Battle Star Galactica were quality scifi TV. After the battle on that planet? It went downhill. First season of Lost? Pretty good. After that? Meh, pass. Glad I ignored it too. The mystical crap was crap. Lost was really painfully contrived. And I'm not a fan of Breaking Bad. I already know that people can turn evil. I find it hilarious that my favorite kind of anime is the daily life kind. Light and fluffy, sometimes with clever sarcasm on a situation. Haruhi Suzumiya was always 4th wall meta jokes from Kyon, he who narrates out loud without realizing it. That's one of the anime I own. Pity the author got stuck.
A Certain Magical Index is a frustrating story with a surprisingly good setting, a city you could believe exists it is so plausible, but is ruined by violence and gary-stuism by the hero. Strangely, the side story about the girls is rather good and a great deal more charming, as well as more heroic. The hero in that story is more believable, and the mysteries a lot more mysterious. Both shows are on Hulu, if you care. The second season of Index won't be released because Japan hates xtians. The whole season is about xtians being evil in the sort of highly imaginary ways that only Japanese people can come up with, and that's just not going to sell well.
I sincerely hope that Haganai will get a 3rd season because I really like that show. The little sister was believable as a person, twisted as she is with her obsessive cosplay. Still, the show is good, the animation quality excellent, and the humor effective. Its basic premise is outsiders join together in a club to learn what people with friends do so they can get friends too. They largely fail to find friends outside the club and get their own from other club members without really noticing. The animation quality is excellent, as is the voice acting.
The Japanese voice actors take their roles really seriously, and they are mixed appropriately so they have some proper range rather than all the same volume like American cartoons. This is important because the drama pulls you in, in a way that American cartoons just DON'T. And I'm sorry to say that because I knew at least one voice actor, a famous one, and I liked his work on Martian Successor Nadesico and Excel Saga. Its tough when the pay is low and you're basically just getting room and board out of it. Working for gas money and maintaining your reputation thanks to too much file sharing and too many delays when the Japanese Voice Actors get consistently better pay and held to a higher standard? That's got to be a little disheartening. After watching anime for more than 12 years now, I really appreciate the effort put into the good stuff. Its getting more cliche, of course, but still better than Hollywood. Nadesico, GITS, and Rune Soldier proved that good voice acting is possible. It rarely made good money for the companies involved, but its possible.
These days I sip wine while watching and ponder the willingness to honor their values. This is important. Japan is in recession and has been since 1989, since before I graduated from High School. The fears of Japanese economic domination certain movies was mistaken. Japan was crushed in its collapse and has never recovered. They have crap leadership who keep them poor and stupid and the public know this. They just know there's little they can do about it. Fragments slip into their media, even into Anime, where the metaphor can be twisted in interesting ways.
I wonder if Americans will set aside the failed leaders of today and allow the youth to step forward with their Maker projects and build businesses out of manufacturing their inventions. I think there's more future there than in those ridiculous international job-exporting corporations. It's the little guys that matter. The big ones are doomed. We might find ourselves having fun old-school adventures, being charmed by stuff we can build ourselves, and finding common ground with other bootstrap nations like the Philippines and Brazil. We might even see potential in Mexico if they drop the sarcasm long enough. This is why I study Anime and Motorcycles and cheap solar and cheap desalination. Its the future. I'm ahead of the curve, of course, but reality will catch up.
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