HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES! okay, I still have not read or watched it yet, but this makes me so excited, you can't even imagine. Manglobe and chaotic good main characters are the very best, the very very best (and agreed on the opening episode of Samurai Champloo -- it's hard to touch that level of storytelling excellence).
Ristorante Paradiso isn't one of my favourites of Natsume Ono's, because I think it suffers from too many characters that go underdeveloped in so short a volume (though there are expansion volumes, I believe, that delve into the other characters' lives). But I enjoy the mother-daughter relationship in that one, as thorny as it is.
The volumes came today and I devoured them. Nance, they're so good~ it's Natsume Ono at her casual easy best. I still like her Italian politician stories best, but these are pretty good because they're so subtle, you know? And they're really about friends as family, which is one of my favorite anime tropes.
I had that same feeling with the Ristorante Paradiso anime! I did like the main character, and I did like it was all about older men and mother-daughter relationships and, you know, a more mature side of life than what we normally get, but I wanted just something.... more. Which, thankfully, is House of Five Leaves.
Eeeeee, House of Five Leaves! I love it beyond all reasoning, even though the second volume of the manga has been sitting unread on my shelf for several weeks. I love Ono's drawing style and I love how the animators adapted it and I love the colours in the anime and I love the music (except for that ED, which is very what the fuck). I'm not sure if I like Otake as much as I do just because she's awesome (hello, stabbing Yaichi with her jewelry pin) or because I really liked her voice actress.
I actually didn't notice the flashback in the first episode when I first watched it, I just thought 'oh, it's some more characters we'll meet later', and I think that helped me not get impatient with it later on.
Also now I need to go rewatch Samurai Champloo and marvel at everything again. HOW IS THAT SHOW SO AWESOME.
It is pretty good! I powered through volumes 1 and 2 and then volume 3 on the SigIkki website, haha, because it's SO GOOD AUGH and I think I love Matsu beyond all reason because he's totally one of those prickly-on-the-outside woobie-on-the-inside characters and OTAKE~~~ OTAKE~~~
I realized that forcing myself to write these episode evaluations, as dumb as they are for readers, really forced me to look at the anime a lot closer than I would have if I wasn't writing at the same time, haha. Like I started thinking about episode 2 in terms of how Natsume Ono did "time compression" in her panels really subtly? But in the anime, because there are no panels, we stretch the time out, and we kind of lose the woodprint-esque quality of her art.
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Ristorante Paradiso isn't one of my favourites of Natsume Ono's, because I think it suffers from too many characters that go underdeveloped in so short a volume (though there are expansion volumes, I believe, that delve into the other characters' lives). But I enjoy the mother-daughter relationship in that one, as thorny as it is.
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I had that same feeling with the Ristorante Paradiso anime! I did like the main character, and I did like it was all about older men and mother-daughter relationships and, you know, a more mature side of life than what we normally get, but I wanted just something.... more. Which, thankfully, is House of Five Leaves.
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One day I will have a marathon rewatch of all my favourite anime, and Samurai Champloo will be on that list.
Natsume Ono's Italian politician stories are awesome! I like her not simple as well for its staggeringly Shakespearean tragedy.
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I actually didn't notice the flashback in the first episode when I first watched it, I just thought 'oh, it's some more characters we'll meet later', and I think that helped me not get impatient with it later on.
Also now I need to go rewatch Samurai Champloo and marvel at everything again. HOW IS THAT SHOW SO AWESOME.
Reply
I realized that forcing myself to write these episode evaluations, as dumb as they are for readers, really forced me to look at the anime a lot closer than I would have if I wasn't writing at the same time, haha. Like I started thinking about episode 2 in terms of how Natsume Ono did "time compression" in her panels really subtly? But in the anime, because there are no panels, we stretch the time out, and we kind of lose the woodprint-esque quality of her art.
IT IS SO SO AWESOME.
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