(no subject)
It doesn’t help that I want to write on the destruction of the personality due to a third party via Sebastian from Brideshead revisited... and Subaru from Tokyo Babylon. Really wish I could have brought this up when I saw Armintor yesterday...
It’s this video’s fault for letting this idea come to me:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?vid_id=71366
It’s absolutely beautiful and makes me want to cry... ; o ; All those years ago when I finished the manga through fan translations come back immediately. I love this series...
Oh well. I probably won’t be able to use the manga effectively at all in my paper, anyway; I don’t have the Tankouban or American volumes with me, and I’ll have to search for the fan translations that are hiding on my computer... plus, I’d feel silly again having to explain the whole background like I did in my Utena/Wilde paper last year. Takes too much space where analysis could be, and often comes off as something meant for High School level... but still, the concept of the personality crushing under outside influence (Sebastian, Subaru)... UGH! Could have been absolutely divine... And the dichotomy! One who is so childish and hanging onto an Arcadia already slipping through his fingers, another acting too modest and old for his teenage years who in a years time will lose the two most important people in his life... both finding their own vices in either alcohol or smoking... one who seems to push away those important to him, and another who tracks down the person that betrayed him all this time by causing him fall in love with a mask. Or, heck, if I really wanted to get complicated, I could include Peter Seel’s biography in the mix (the trickery of those in his church, the police, the Nazis... his inability to talk to his family about his experiences at the concentration camp outside of Alsace...).
But seriously. The complexity of Seishirou and Subaru’s relationship is what drew me to the manga, along with the cultural criticisms found therein. I find it sad that CLAMP had to use it as a ploy for people to read X... it probably would have been much nicer to just have a straight up sequel rather than get caught up in all of this stuff that reminds me too much of Sailor Moon (no offense to the Moonies). As in, the overall lack of deep or original story arcs but decent character interaction. Is it odd that I actually prefer the live action version of Sailor Moon to the anime? Yeah, I kinda thought so... but don‘t knock it ‘till you actually try it. A lot of things are utterly MST3K-able, like Luna the not-quite-hand-puppet or CG creation, to the creatures of the week... but the character interaction is surprisingly good at various points here. Just ignore the weak plot that tries to tie all of these characters together... and the ballet dancing. That they call “fighting.”
That’s one good thing about X: the character interactions (even Kamui lightens up! Dude. Who knew that the ultra-angsty-asocials can be converted? AND MAKE NEW FRIENDS ON HIS OWN?). And, of course, the art. I just wish that CLAMP would finish it, already... X feels like an animal at the zoo that is never fed properly and never gets to sleep because people are always trying to feed it cotton candy or poking it with sticks...
Don’t get me wrong; I love CLAMP, but it’s been so long since they’ve produced something like Tokyo Babylon where they go into the facets of intellectual discussion. Nowadays it mostly comes off as fluff or storylines they know will be popular… and fluff can be fun... but... eh. I want meat, dammit, not just the fat. Or strange/unnecessary crossovers. But then again... I figure it would be difficult to really reproduce something like Tokyo Babylon without it feeling like a cheap copy of the original...
Apparently I have so much to say now, but it’s all over the place O O;;.. Glad I have until Sunday to work on this...
...
... Heck, if Armintor is still in tomorrow, I guess I can poke him again if he doesn‘t mind me going into comic-ness, but he didn‘t seem receptive on the suggestion I made on including Ghost in the Shell in my paper, anyway… I may end up writing on Dorian Gray instead... much more appropriate for my purposes...
::goes back to re-watching the pretty video::
It’s this video’s fault for letting this idea come to me:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?vid_id=71366
It’s absolutely beautiful and makes me want to cry... ; o ; All those years ago when I finished the manga through fan translations come back immediately. I love this series...
Oh well. I probably won’t be able to use the manga effectively at all in my paper, anyway; I don’t have the Tankouban or American volumes with me, and I’ll have to search for the fan translations that are hiding on my computer... plus, I’d feel silly again having to explain the whole background like I did in my Utena/Wilde paper last year. Takes too much space where analysis could be, and often comes off as something meant for High School level... but still, the concept of the personality crushing under outside influence (Sebastian, Subaru)... UGH! Could have been absolutely divine... And the dichotomy! One who is so childish and hanging onto an Arcadia already slipping through his fingers, another acting too modest and old for his teenage years who in a years time will lose the two most important people in his life... both finding their own vices in either alcohol or smoking... one who seems to push away those important to him, and another who tracks down the person that betrayed him all this time by causing him fall in love with a mask. Or, heck, if I really wanted to get complicated, I could include Peter Seel’s biography in the mix (the trickery of those in his church, the police, the Nazis... his inability to talk to his family about his experiences at the concentration camp outside of Alsace...).
But seriously. The complexity of Seishirou and Subaru’s relationship is what drew me to the manga, along with the cultural criticisms found therein. I find it sad that CLAMP had to use it as a ploy for people to read X... it probably would have been much nicer to just have a straight up sequel rather than get caught up in all of this stuff that reminds me too much of Sailor Moon (no offense to the Moonies). As in, the overall lack of deep or original story arcs but decent character interaction. Is it odd that I actually prefer the live action version of Sailor Moon to the anime? Yeah, I kinda thought so... but don‘t knock it ‘till you actually try it. A lot of things are utterly MST3K-able, like Luna the not-quite-hand-puppet or CG creation, to the creatures of the week... but the character interaction is surprisingly good at various points here. Just ignore the weak plot that tries to tie all of these characters together... and the ballet dancing. That they call “fighting.”
That’s one good thing about X: the character interactions (even Kamui lightens up! Dude. Who knew that the ultra-angsty-asocials can be converted? AND MAKE NEW FRIENDS ON HIS OWN?). And, of course, the art. I just wish that CLAMP would finish it, already... X feels like an animal at the zoo that is never fed properly and never gets to sleep because people are always trying to feed it cotton candy or poking it with sticks...
Don’t get me wrong; I love CLAMP, but it’s been so long since they’ve produced something like Tokyo Babylon where they go into the facets of intellectual discussion. Nowadays it mostly comes off as fluff or storylines they know will be popular… and fluff can be fun... but... eh. I want meat, dammit, not just the fat. Or strange/unnecessary crossovers. But then again... I figure it would be difficult to really reproduce something like Tokyo Babylon without it feeling like a cheap copy of the original...
Apparently I have so much to say now, but it’s all over the place O O;;.. Glad I have until Sunday to work on this...
...
... Heck, if Armintor is still in tomorrow, I guess I can poke him again if he doesn‘t mind me going into comic-ness, but he didn‘t seem receptive on the suggestion I made on including Ghost in the Shell in my paper, anyway… I may end up writing on Dorian Gray instead... much more appropriate for my purposes...
::goes back to re-watching the pretty video::