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petroniaHave a canned post. XD
I made a note of it when T and I finished watching the second season of Honey and Clover, but I can't find the entry or comment and now I don't even remember when that was. ^^; Early August, probably. If you wrote up thoughts on the series after having watched it uhh a year or two ago, drop me a link - I like reading old reviews.
More than anything it felt like a series one relates to insofar as it resonates with personal experience - art school, or the pattern of romance/friendship entanglements within a small social circle, or maybe just the general lameness of being in your mid-twenties and feeling like you're far from any semblance of getting your shit together. In a genre that's mostly about finding your One True Love before the age of majority, Hachikuro's the only anime I've ever watched in which the main characters were 20something college kids who don't have much income, can't get laid, struggle with undefined life goals and hang out with the same five people all the time, i.e. live what I recognize as real lives. XD;; The pacing is that of real life too: entirely absorbing from moment to moment, though when you stop to think you realize YEARS HAVE PASSED and all the characters have done is tread water. Yet when things do happen, they happen too fast, regardless of whether the change was good or bad, planned or out of the blue. As such my (and I think T's) enjoyment of the thing felt mixed. I keep relating it to Nana, which is also built on a contract (so to speak) of emotional veracity, but is filled with the kind of people who don't have any trouble getting laid. Or maybe, rather than talking about "trouble", I should talk about "standards". XDD Though I do believe there are two fundamental types in the world: people whose romantic drama is mostly characterized by what happens, and people whose romantic drama is mostly characterized by what doesn't happen (which is not to say the drama doesn't exist, far from it). Nana is all about the former, Hachikuro is all about the latter. In the end it asks the question I never think to ask, namely Is it worth it? But then I always answer Yes.
I identified most with the episodes about creative drive, I think, and the conundrum of talent - more surprised that the series went there than anything else. Had a somewhat unsatisfactory discussion with T about it on the drive back. ^^; I was telling someone recently that insofar as I can emotionally relate to the idea of God at all, it's God as Creator - in the beginning there was the Word, that makes sense to me. The flipside to that is that I can't reconcile the fact of lack of talent, in the way it's touched on in the series. Is it crueller to assume that everyone is born with a gift that goes undiscovered for most, or that some are denied the light no matter how long and deeply they love? Then there's the opposite case, like Hagu. My reaction to the ending is mixed too - I was sort of shipping Morita/Hagu, except there's no way one could call it "shipping" because, I mean. Shiz is disastrous. XD; I would have a firmer position if I could parse the opportunity cost of Hagu's decision, but it's harder than it looks. Evidently she chooses the environment that would best allow her to grow as an artist, over... what? Romantic love? (O rly?) A meeting of sensibilities, genius sparking off genius? Growth as a person? In what sense? Hagu does open up throughout the series, and in some ways she's very strong, but in others she's... hapless. If Morita ever made her less hapless it would be through subsuming her, but I never get a stronger sense of regression off Hagu than when Morita does something to upset her and she goes running back to Shuuji for comfort. I can't put my finger on why it makes me sad. XD; Evidently Hagu knows what she wants, and what she values from her own life is what most of the world values about her anyway, so...
Probably the case conflicts with my own deep-seated neuroses. XD I find it impossible to rid myself of the idea that personal strength equals lack of fear, and that one grows by learning to need other people less. Or maybe it's just easier to identify with Morita himself, who can't throw it all away for the sake of his art. Even if I can't clearly state what Hagu's throwing away.
In comparison the Mayama-Rika-Ayu situation is easier to sympathize with, all around. XD
There's the music. It's not so much that the soundtrack is perfect for the series, so much as Umino Chika clearly wrote her story around the songs themselves, to give the emotions evoked by them somewhere to call home. I think this because I do it all the time. XD Sometimes a song is oneself, or someone one knows; failing that it could be associated with a character or a work of fiction. But as often as not one has to imagine the video treatment. I've always thought SPITZ was music that best expressed the sensation of biking on country roads through green fields and small towns; it's uncanny. XD
More props to Umino - IMO Hachimitsu and Clover are SPITZ's and Suga Shikao's best albums respectively (or were when the manga began serialization). They're both focussed, early efforts with snappy rhythms and relatively airy production, less with the compressed pop gloss and orchestral balladry. Not that I have a problem with balladry. XD
I made a note of it when T and I finished watching the second season of Honey and Clover, but I can't find the entry or comment and now I don't even remember when that was. ^^; Early August, probably. If you wrote up thoughts on the series after having watched it uhh a year or two ago, drop me a link - I like reading old reviews.
More than anything it felt like a series one relates to insofar as it resonates with personal experience - art school, or the pattern of romance/friendship entanglements within a small social circle, or maybe just the general lameness of being in your mid-twenties and feeling like you're far from any semblance of getting your shit together. In a genre that's mostly about finding your One True Love before the age of majority, Hachikuro's the only anime I've ever watched in which the main characters were 20something college kids who don't have much income, can't get laid, struggle with undefined life goals and hang out with the same five people all the time, i.e. live what I recognize as real lives. XD;; The pacing is that of real life too: entirely absorbing from moment to moment, though when you stop to think you realize YEARS HAVE PASSED and all the characters have done is tread water. Yet when things do happen, they happen too fast, regardless of whether the change was good or bad, planned or out of the blue. As such my (and I think T's) enjoyment of the thing felt mixed. I keep relating it to Nana, which is also built on a contract (so to speak) of emotional veracity, but is filled with the kind of people who don't have any trouble getting laid. Or maybe, rather than talking about "trouble", I should talk about "standards". XDD Though I do believe there are two fundamental types in the world: people whose romantic drama is mostly characterized by what happens, and people whose romantic drama is mostly characterized by what doesn't happen (which is not to say the drama doesn't exist, far from it). Nana is all about the former, Hachikuro is all about the latter. In the end it asks the question I never think to ask, namely Is it worth it? But then I always answer Yes.
I identified most with the episodes about creative drive, I think, and the conundrum of talent - more surprised that the series went there than anything else. Had a somewhat unsatisfactory discussion with T about it on the drive back. ^^; I was telling someone recently that insofar as I can emotionally relate to the idea of God at all, it's God as Creator - in the beginning there was the Word, that makes sense to me. The flipside to that is that I can't reconcile the fact of lack of talent, in the way it's touched on in the series. Is it crueller to assume that everyone is born with a gift that goes undiscovered for most, or that some are denied the light no matter how long and deeply they love? Then there's the opposite case, like Hagu. My reaction to the ending is mixed too - I was sort of shipping Morita/Hagu, except there's no way one could call it "shipping" because, I mean. Shiz is disastrous. XD; I would have a firmer position if I could parse the opportunity cost of Hagu's decision, but it's harder than it looks. Evidently she chooses the environment that would best allow her to grow as an artist, over... what? Romantic love? (O rly?) A meeting of sensibilities, genius sparking off genius? Growth as a person? In what sense? Hagu does open up throughout the series, and in some ways she's very strong, but in others she's... hapless. If Morita ever made her less hapless it would be through subsuming her, but I never get a stronger sense of regression off Hagu than when Morita does something to upset her and she goes running back to Shuuji for comfort. I can't put my finger on why it makes me sad. XD; Evidently Hagu knows what she wants, and what she values from her own life is what most of the world values about her anyway, so...
Probably the case conflicts with my own deep-seated neuroses. XD I find it impossible to rid myself of the idea that personal strength equals lack of fear, and that one grows by learning to need other people less. Or maybe it's just easier to identify with Morita himself, who can't throw it all away for the sake of his art. Even if I can't clearly state what Hagu's throwing away.
In comparison the Mayama-Rika-Ayu situation is easier to sympathize with, all around. XD
There's the music. It's not so much that the soundtrack is perfect for the series, so much as Umino Chika clearly wrote her story around the songs themselves, to give the emotions evoked by them somewhere to call home. I think this because I do it all the time. XD Sometimes a song is oneself, or someone one knows; failing that it could be associated with a character or a work of fiction. But as often as not one has to imagine the video treatment. I've always thought SPITZ was music that best expressed the sensation of biking on country roads through green fields and small towns; it's uncanny. XD
More props to Umino - IMO Hachimitsu and Clover are SPITZ's and Suga Shikao's best albums respectively (or were when the manga began serialization). They're both focussed, early efforts with snappy rhythms and relatively airy production, less with the compressed pop gloss and orchestral balladry. Not that I have a problem with balladry. XD
