Amanuensis's Journal

I have given Fullmetal Alchemist (the original series) three episodes, and that's one more than I gave Bleach, and it doesn't have me, so, I'm stopping. I will give the new version of the series a try.

And I had thought 07 Ghost had me with the first episode--military-in-training BFF boys! Lost amnesiac royalty! He-killed-my-dad revelations!--but then episode two changed the setting and started inserting the supernatural stuff in handfuls, and that's a story I no longer care about so much.

Who was it who asked me to check out Soul Eater? I watched the first episode. It's cute and well-done! But it's not dark enough to hold me. (No, I can't explain why something needs to be "dark enough" and yet I can't get enough of Chi's Sweet Home/Chi's New Address. The rest of you are free to tell me why.)

Those of you gleeful that I'm watching Avatar, I've finished the first season and am squee-dancing as I wait for more discs to arrive. It's wonderful.

Back to mainlining Hikaru no Go. I've read the manga and am reliving the joy and tears all over again now that I'm watching the anime. (The manga's so huge I can't even remember how some of this s**t goes down and I'm on the edge of my seat every episode. That's a series.)

I finished the anime series Romeo X Juliet. The series feels like a cross-breeding between Romeo and Juliet, Zorro, Dune, and Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, and the effect is really, really fun. I think I enjoyed it more than I would have another straight adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, because while I love clever changes in setting and interpretation for Shakespeare adaptations, I also love the original text and have picky standards if one is going to deviate from it.

So, yeah, give me a royal house betrayed and an infant smuggled away in secret, give me a masked crusader to fight injustice, give me illegitimate siblings, winged horses, a sacred tree that sustains the heart of the world, and, sure, why not, give me Shakespeare himself as a character in his own story and you can still call the characters Romeo and Juliet if the romance is as sweetly, beautifully done along the same original lines and if the story's themes are still eternal love and how love, not vengeance, breeds peace. And do it with animation this gorgeous, yes, please.

I finally finished watching all the episodes of Strawberry Panic! Omigod. *feigns exhaustion* Anyone who liked it want to squee with me?