Pillow-book notations on weekend reading
Oct. 10th, 2004 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaIt's been pointed out to me that by the time the Truth or Drabble game gets around to enforcing my participation, the topic produced by my karmic load may well be weighty enough in its OMGWTFness to sink the Internet. Perhaps I'll pick Truth instead. XD ...Oh, very well, but in the real-life game I always pick Truth. My personality, that of the crowd I hang out with and my long-time public blogger status result in me having basically no shame regarding TMI in mixed company, whereas at the very least Dare usually involves me having to get up from wherever it is I may be lounging (cool drink very much mandatory given context). And that's annoying, j0.
(...What do you mean, you stopped playing Truth or Dare after high school?)
Thanksgiving was all right. Consumed metric tons of glazed ham and re-watched Hero. I can't help it, that movie makes me tear up (as well as ponder ethics and collapse under visual aesthetic overload). Although the second time around I started to wonder things like, "When and how did he get Broken Sword to write that scroll in the third version of events, then?" ^^; Dunno, anyone want to shoot the breeze regarding continuity as opposed to neo-Maoist allegory?
***
I may have noted that I've been suffering from eyestrain these few days - again. The only antidote for it is to sleep more and get off the computer (and for that matter not read or watch anything, but at that point you may as well be merciful and reach for the icepick). So instead of puttering about online I read sixty pages of the current Mirage of Blaze novel, which is not too bad given each book is only 250 pages or so. The fight scenes are really good. XD The character psychology is best, and then the fight scenes, and then... everything else. They shouldn't've bothered with anime, it's so obviously an RPG manqué that I have the common spells memorised and could scribble up rules for the game engine. OTOH I watched the first episode of the OAV (in a very decent Chinese dub, thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
luxetumbra), and it does behave a lot more like the version in my head than the TV series. Even if it does look like Initial D rather as everyone said. In a good way!
The DVD special that came with it was an interview with Seki Toshihiko. I don't think I've ever seen him interviewed (have never been much for tracking down seiyuu really): he comes across as very likeable, good-humoured and articulate, with what seems to me like an excellent grasp of the source material - but then he talks about it as if he (and Hayami Sho) had been working on the project for like decades. I have no idea if this is in fact the case, but the comment about the series being "so old the first dramas came out on cassette tape not CD" was amusing.
("Enjoyable...? No, see, the thing about this series - Kuwabara Mizuno's work as a whole really - is that it's particularly good at delving into and analysing human weakness and pain. In other words, it's ANGST. Acting in it is not FUN. The only enjoyable thing about it is the professional satisfaction one derives from successfully portraying a sense of OW PAIN. ...Women really dig these books.")
***
Also read Slide, finally. What. The. Aaargh. If I didn't have nightmares that night it's not for Hojo Akira's lack of trying. I actually think it's the best thing she's written, at least out of the doujinshi I've read, but for the sake of sanity it's probably best to treat it as a work of original fiction. Or, y'know, as taking place in the Prince Of Tennis Meets Dangerous Liaisons Crossover Alternaverse as opposed to anything remotely resembling canon. I doubt she invented Dark!Fuji, considering most of the instances I've seen are by people who probably do not fetishize Hojo Akira, but she's the only one I've come across who wrote a long tense story about him and didn't let her hand slip once in mercy. Tezuka eyes Fuji in this one as he might a freshly-summoned Demon Lord of Hell sitting on his living-room ottoman and sipping tea, and the reader heartily concurs.
All this and the Yamada D begins to chip at my resistance to the idea of uke!Tezuka (YDY has thought about her characterisation of Tezuka, okay, there is internally-consistent psychological justification derived from canon going on, besides which ALL her semes are just ukes fallen on hard times anyway. Except for Inui). Send help PLS KTHX.
(...What do you mean, you stopped playing Truth or Dare after high school?)
Thanksgiving was all right. Consumed metric tons of glazed ham and re-watched Hero. I can't help it, that movie makes me tear up (as well as ponder ethics and collapse under visual aesthetic overload). Although the second time around I started to wonder things like, "When and how did he get Broken Sword to write that scroll in the third version of events, then?" ^^; Dunno, anyone want to shoot the breeze regarding continuity as opposed to neo-Maoist allegory?
***
I may have noted that I've been suffering from eyestrain these few days - again. The only antidote for it is to sleep more and get off the computer (and for that matter not read or watch anything, but at that point you may as well be merciful and reach for the icepick). So instead of puttering about online I read sixty pages of the current Mirage of Blaze novel, which is not too bad given each book is only 250 pages or so. The fight scenes are really good. XD The character psychology is best, and then the fight scenes, and then... everything else. They shouldn't've bothered with anime, it's so obviously an RPG manqué that I have the common spells memorised and could scribble up rules for the game engine. OTOH I watched the first episode of the OAV (in a very decent Chinese dub, thanks to
luxetumbra), and it does behave a lot more like the version in my head than the TV series. Even if it does look like Initial D rather as everyone said. In a good way!The DVD special that came with it was an interview with Seki Toshihiko. I don't think I've ever seen him interviewed (have never been much for tracking down seiyuu really): he comes across as very likeable, good-humoured and articulate, with what seems to me like an excellent grasp of the source material - but then he talks about it as if he (and Hayami Sho) had been working on the project for like decades. I have no idea if this is in fact the case, but the comment about the series being "so old the first dramas came out on cassette tape not CD" was amusing.
("Enjoyable...? No, see, the thing about this series - Kuwabara Mizuno's work as a whole really - is that it's particularly good at delving into and analysing human weakness and pain. In other words, it's ANGST. Acting in it is not FUN. The only enjoyable thing about it is the professional satisfaction one derives from successfully portraying a sense of OW PAIN. ...Women really dig these books.")
***
Also read Slide, finally. What. The. Aaargh. If I didn't have nightmares that night it's not for Hojo Akira's lack of trying. I actually think it's the best thing she's written, at least out of the doujinshi I've read, but for the sake of sanity it's probably best to treat it as a work of original fiction. Or, y'know, as taking place in the Prince Of Tennis Meets Dangerous Liaisons Crossover Alternaverse as opposed to anything remotely resembling canon. I doubt she invented Dark!Fuji, considering most of the instances I've seen are by people who probably do not fetishize Hojo Akira, but she's the only one I've come across who wrote a long tense story about him and didn't let her hand slip once in mercy. Tezuka eyes Fuji in this one as he might a freshly-summoned Demon Lord of Hell sitting on his living-room ottoman and sipping tea, and the reader heartily concurs.
All this and the Yamada D begins to chip at my resistance to the idea of uke!Tezuka (YDY has thought about her characterisation of Tezuka, okay, there is internally-consistent psychological justification derived from canon going on, besides which ALL her semes are just ukes fallen on hard times anyway. Except for Inui). Send help PLS KTHX.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 12:52 am (UTC)Like all artists, Broken Sword had numerous works squirreled away that he never did anything with. It was one of many parting gifts for Nameless. Included was a basket of lotus seed paste buns and jasmine tea for the long and bumpy road to the capital. He had also given Nameless a number of other scrolls with the 15 different characters for dog, 35 characters for cat, and a treatise appealing for lower taxes, should he have a hcance to present it to the Emperor. However, as Nameless bumped along on the long and bumpy road to the capital, he simply could not conceive of any possible way of working these extra scrolls into his plot to kill the emperor.
On a random note, I think Sky should have come in at the end and assassinated the emperor like a random angry Greek or government agent from Shanghai Triads. That's real tragedy for ya.
portraying a sense of OW PAIN.
Funny you should mention that. The first time I watched Mirage of Blazes, I couldn't help but to recognize Seki Toshihiko with the sudden *ahem* thought of "Oh, that sounds like Riki. Still the best voice actor when it comes to angsting and suffering, eh? But alas, no Iason to match. ;_; Instead, I guess he gets Raoul." (Though I notice new fansites tend to associate Hayami Sho with Muraki from Yami no Matsui. So sad...)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-12 01:48 pm (UTC)It would make a better movie if that had happened, wouldn't it. But I guess they had to stick to... history, for lack of a better word.
I've heard Hayami Sho in so many series that nowadays I just associate him with Hayami Sho. ^^; He plays Naoe well, though.