Dear Prudence

I just spent some 6-7 hours reading Slate's Dear Prudence advice column archives.

SIX TO SEVEN HOURS.

I was weirdly fascinated by the strange shit that goes on in other people's lives. Strange, interesting, awful, crazy. Also eminently readable, apparently.

Midnight Special

So XY and I are in New York last weekend with my parents. We stop by our wedding rehearsal dinner venue so that XY can scout it out. When all is well and done, my parents suggest we take a look at the hotel next door.

A lot of family is coming into town for the wedding, and we can't accommodate them all in my house, so my Dad is looking into affordable alternatives for housing the family brood.

I'm instantly sketched out by The Hotel, whose name shall go unmentioned. First of all, the front desk is surrounded by plexiglass, as if in a ghetto convenience store. Second of all, the place just looks dank and shady. When the owner takes us to look at some of the rooms, they look like they haven't been updated since the 1940s. Seriously, I get the heebie jeebies just remembering what those rooms looked like.

But what takes the cake is that when my Dad was trying to bargain with the owner about prices, he noticed a sign at the front desk that offered a "Midnight Special."

Dad: "What is the Midnight Special?"

Owner [uncomfortably]: "Uh, that's a special price, if you just want a room for a couple-a hours."

I'm not quite sure how long it took the cogs in my Dad's brain to register the serious skeevy sketch factor presented by the "Midnight Special," but . . . yeah . . .

Suffice it to say that no family of mine will be staying in that dunghole.

Dexter Downfall

Dexter used to be a good show, a show I looked forward to watching every week, a show that kept me on the edge of my seat. The first two seasons were extraordinarily entertaining. Season four was thrilling. Even the much maligned season five had its redeeming factors.

But Dexter Season 6 just went to an irredeemably bad place, and I don't know if I can forgive the show for it. This season has already been horrendous, but this episode, the writers took my favorite (and possibly the only interesting) relationship in the show: Dexter and Debra as brother and sister and FUCKED THAT SHIT UP.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Debra is wondering whether she is in love with Dexter. This isn't Cersei and Jamie Lannister, of course -- they are not biological siblings. But . . . why d'you have to go there? They are BROTHER AND SISTER.

Arrrrrhghghghghg.

Naoki Urasawa's Monster: Season 1 Review

All I can say is . . . wow. This anime is worth every one of its 74 episodes. Naoki Urasawa's Monster was thrilling, well-written, well-executed, well-paced, consistently good, and the story chilled me to the bone. It alternately made me smile and hide beneath my blankets. In either case, I was never bored, and never felt like an episode was there only as filler. I haven't been watching anime for very long, but this is the single best series that I have seen thus far.

STORY

Monster is excellent, first and foremost, because of its story or, rather, because of how well the story was executed. It's a simple premise that serves as the engine that drives the entire series: Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a brilliant neurosurgeon, chooses to operate on a boy that was brought into his hospital first instead of on an important mayor that his boss wants him to save. That single decision sets off a horrifying chain of events as Dr. Tenma discovers that the boy he saved was, in fact, the titular Monster - a mysterious and terrifying manifestation of evil in the form of a beautiful, blond boy called Johan. Dr. Tenma spends the entire series traversing across several countries in pursuit of Johan and finding out more about how the Monster came to be.

The concept itself is not particularly groundbreaking. The good-doctor-as-accused-murderer slant is reminiscent of Harrison Ford's turn in The Fugitive, down to and including the top-notch-detective-in-pursuit. The single-act-sets-of-chain-of-events conceit, too, seems familiar, although I cannot place the idea in any place other than that movie Sliding Doors. But the vague familiarity of the premise does not detract at all from the enjoyment of the story, because Monster executes the premise so damn well.

Like Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs in the forest, Naoki Urasawa leaves something in every episode for the viewer to follow that ties in, somehow, to the main story. Even seemingly unrelated tangential story lines feed back into the search for Johan and the revelation of his origins. All of the details are unfolded at an appropriate pace - not so fast as to unveil dark secrets too quickly, and not so slow as to allow the audience to forget why we cared about the secrets in the first place. The result is a tightly woven narrative that keeps the audience keenly interested from beginning to end.

Of course, along the way, there are a few too-convenient plot turns and other ones that didn't seem as logically coherent as the rest of the story. (But what anime doesn't have some of those, I ask? This one had fewer than others.) And Naoki Urasawa treads a little too heavily on a few themes and tropes - for example, I think we see the Good Doctor Tenma treating the downtrodden and comforting crying children a few too many times. But these are faint complaints that pale in comparison to the deftness with which Monster relayed its story.

I will not spoil the details of the story, but suffice it to say that the search for the Monster, both in terms of geographic location and of origins, is immensely rewarding, and not something to be missed. I usually like to spoil myself on major plot points on Wikipedia and whatnot, but even a handful of episodes in, I could tell that Monster was going to be something special, so I resisted the urge to read spoilers. And boy, was it worth the wait.

ANIMATION

The animation was very nicely done, with dark, muted hues and beautifully rendered cityscapes and landscapes. The anime felt very much like a film in the way each shot was framed to emphasize certain shadows, or highlight certain angles. It all felt very cinematic. Although there was not very much straight-out action to show off technical animation skill, what scenes that did grace the screen were pleasant to the eye.

I'll also note that I greatly enjoyed the character design on this show, which featured realistic, generally plain-looking faces with normal body proportions (non-top-heavy busoms!) and appropriate clothing. What's more, the characters change and develop over the course of the show, as time elapses in the story. I loved that the primary antagonist, Johan, was a beautiful blond boy/man with porcelain skin and sky blue eyes, which up-ends the Ugly Character Must Be Evil trope that plagues anime -- nay, television.

SOUND

I loved the opening theme - the angel-like choir voices floating on top of the strong beat, combined with the dark, muted images of Dr. Tenma lookin' all shifty. It just worked in every way; I never skipped over the opening theme. The ending theme was haunting, but not as memorable in terms of the music, although the images - which were gibberish to begin with but later took on awesome meaning as the story unfolded - were interesting.

I also thought that the musical themes used during the show were quite effective - lots of use of foreboding suspense music and dramatic chorus music to highlight game-changing realizations (e.g., when a character was having a horrible flashback). Monster also used its fair share of horror sound effects during scary moments to perfectly complement the show's creepy images and occasionally terrifying cinematography.

Lastly, the voice acting was superb. Of course, I was lucky this time in that Netflix had the subbed version, so I finally got to hear Japanese actors, and boy, they were excellent. Johan was the standout - the actor managed to convey charisma, intelligence, and evil all in one silky smooth, never wavering voice. However, I also enjoyed Inspector Lunge's deep, methodical voice and Eva Heinemann's bitch-tastic, bitter voice - vulnerable and yet interspersed with explosive anger.

CHARACTERS

First, I will comment that this show has the lowest quotient of Annoying Characters of any show that I have encountered, which just goes to show anime makers that no, you don't need an squawking kid sidekick or a Simpering Anime Woman with Giant Breasts to carry the burden of the show.

Second, I note that Naoki Urasawa took extreme pains to develop almost every character that graces the screen. Even the minor characters got a delicious treatment. The show did more with one-episode or minor-arc characters like Dr. Schumann, ex-detective Richard Braun, and bodyguard Martin than other shows do with their main characters over the entire series run.

All of the main characters were fleshed out with exquisite care. From the initially-passive, later-determined, always-brilliant, and essentially-good-hearted Goody Two Shoes Dr. Tenma, to the bitter femme fatale, Eva Heinemann, to the combo Inspector-Javert-from-Les-Miserables/Tommy-Lee-Jones-from-The-Fugitive character, Inspector Lunge, each came off as a real, flawed character with human motivations and character growth.

However, as nearly every reviewer has commented, the crowning achievement of the show in terms of characterization was Johan Liebert, the antagonist, the "monster." In Monster, Naoki Urasawa gave a veritable workshop in how to effective build up a complex, multi-dimensional, and utterly terrifying villain. Urasawa used not just images, and not just Johan's words or actions but also the reactions of other characters to even the mere mention of his name to create this near-mythical, terrifying being. He combined fear of the character himself with the fear of the idea of the character. On screen, Johan himself pulls the trigger only a few times - he's not your average Tommy-gun-wielding villain. He works in far more subtle, insidious ways. The body count is just as high, but the terror factor is multiplied because you can't quite put your finger on how exactly he does it.

All I can say is . . . after watching Monster episodes, I not-infrequently went to sleep with my head tucked underneath the covers and clutching stuffed animals for the fear that anime Johan struck into my cowardly heart.

OVERALL

As should be obvious by my review, I have nothing but awesome respect for Monster. This show had compelling characters and a well-executed story. All the rest - the excellent voice acting, the haunting opening theme - was just icing on the cake. I didn't watch this anime for the longest time because I was deterred by the length (which, at 74 episodes, is not insubstantial). But I am so glad that I overcame that initial shyness, because Monster rewarded in every way.

Pixar

[updated 11/6/11]

There have been 12 Pixar films to date. I refused to see Cars 2 (and it got <40% on Rotten Tomatoes) but shall rank the other 11 below. I've changed my mind a little since my last ranking of the films:

1. The Incredibles
2. Wall-E
3. Finding Nemo
4. Toy Story
5. Toy Story 2
6. Toy Story 3
7. Ratatouille
8. Up
9. Monsters Inc.
10. A Bug's Life
11. Cars

____

[old post]

It was really hard to rank, but here's how I would rank the 10 Pixar films to date. I avoided cop-out ties. (Otherwise #s 5-8 would all be just #5.) But it totally pained me to rank Ratatouille and Monsters Inc. so low, 'cos I really loved both! Man, I love Pixar. (Sorry, this is a random aside, but I really like to rank things.)

1. The Incredibles
2. Up
3. Wall-E
4. Finding Nemo
5. Toy Story
6. Toy Story 2
7. Ratatouille
8. Monsters Inc.
9. Cars
10. A Bug's Life

Apparently another Hayao Miyazaki film is coming out soon, though. Exciting!

Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom: Season 1 Review

Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom is essentially Gunslinger Girls: The Teenage Years, where the assassins are gun-totin' invincibles that wear tight black body suits and a less cool version of Hei's mask from Darker Than Black.

STORY

As in Gunslinger Girls, here, we have main characters, Ein and Zwei, that are forced into becoming ruthless assassins for an organization called Inferno. Inferno's aim, as far as I can tell, is to take over the entire underworld of gangs, mafia, and other criminal organizations. To facilitate this, Inferno has a bunch of fear-inducing assassins, and the top dog is anointed with the title "Phantom."

The story revolves around Inferno's machinations at world domination and the internal scheming and rivalries that set the screen afire with bloodshed. The scheming, etc., is not particularly interesting, and most of it is nonsensical, but then again watching anime always requires a suspension of disbelief for maximum enjoyment.

Slightly more interesting are the character's storylines. The viewer gets to see how Zwei is recruited by Ein, the first Phantom of Inferno, and turned into an assassin worthy of the Phantom title himself. We see how Zwei, in turn, sets in motion a chain of events that leads to another young person getting turned into the third Phantom of Inferno. Those were the more interesting stories to follow, rather than the random plotting and scheming.

I hated when the setting shifted from the criminal underworld to a random high school in Japan toward the last third of the series, but I suppose that can't be helped. Where there are teen anime characters, they must attend a school with a bevy of annoying female characters -- isn't that written in the anime rule book somewhere?

ANIMATION

The animation was quite good. A few cinematic choices annoyed me. First, I was frequently annoyed by the long, drawn-out action sequences (e.g., Cal vs. anyone when she was using that watch) and the even longer, drawn-out death scenes.

Second, many of the random quasi-naked and sexual scenes bothered me. I'm no prude, but I feel strongly that nudity and sex shouldn't be used solely for eye candy or to appease fan lust; I prefer when they are used to further either the story line or the character development.

For example, I found the scenes of Scythe Master's oiling down of Ein's young, mostly naked body and of Mio's clothes being ripped off disturbing. Ditto to the constant shots of Clo's cleavage or the scenes of her feeling up Zwei. And I didn't think they added to the dynamic between the characters in a productive way.

By contrast, I didn't mind the obviously sexual positions that the directors occasionally put Zwei and Ein in -- not because I "want" them to "get together" or anything, but because their physical body language illustrated something about their characters that their words did not. In other words, in that case, the sexual cinematography added something to the story.

Third, I must declare that I hate scenes where characters scream "Nooooooooooo!!" or some character's name at the top of their lungs. So much more might be said with a scene of quiet agony. Not everyone reacts to strong emotions by screaming "Caaaaaaal" or "Errrreeeen!!!" (or, for that matter, "Steeeeellllllaaaaa!!!"). The screaming-when-upset/grieving motif is overused, ineffective, and, quite frankly, irritating.

Other than that, I found the animation to be pretty good overall. Nice, dark colors.

SOUND

The music for this series was below average, in my opinion. The ending theme to Phantom has got to be one of the more annoying songs I have heard in anime. The angel choir musical interludes were a bit too... obvious for me, I think, though I must admit to enjoying the hilarious "badass sexy" musical theme that accompanied Zwei/Reiji's succession to the Phantom title. The song so obviously screamed "I'm now a badass sexy assassin wearing a sexy suit" that I just had to laugh.

As for the voice acting, I wasn't the hugest fan. I found that the English voice acting from our leads, in particular, was kind of wooden -- especially Zwei/Reiji. I can remember only one line where Zwei's delivery really stood out for me in a good way (the scene where he yells at Cal that she'll be "fucked up too"). Ein/Eren's voice was a little too "I am a robot, and so my voice is flat."

And, of course, young Cal's voice annoyed the hell out of me, as young anime girls are wont to do. (To be fair, I enjoyed older Cal's voice a lot -- it had a nice grit to it that reminded me a little of Angie Harmon's work as Barbara Gordon in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.)

CHARACTERS

The characters were a mixed bag.

Phantom attempted to develop some characters, but fell short of building an emotional connection between the characters and the audience. Clo and Lizzy, for example, never resonated with me as characters on any level. Neither did the gaggle of high school girls near the end of the series. The series tried really hard to flesh out Clo beyond her breasts -- they gave her some flashback scenes to her days on the street with her brother, for example, but it felt like a haphazard attachment of emotional baggage rather than something that truly motivated her character. Likewise, Phantom made a half-hearted attempt at carving out a space for Daisuke Godo and his buddy, Shiga, but it was exactly that: half-hearted.

As a villain, Scythe Master was too much of a caricature to make be truly great, but his pale white hair and awful suit and sunglasses made for an easy man to hate (oh, right, and the fact that he turns young people into killers). NOTE: For an example of a deliciously fantastic villain, see Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

As for our main characters...

Reiji/Zwei had the standard pretty boy design -- he looks similar to Light Yagami from Death Note. His transformation from the inexperienced boy (dressed in plain clothes) in the first half of the season into the badass Phantom (complete with gold chain, longer hair, less baby fat, and a sleek, sexy suit with PINK dress shirt) was pretty blatant, but hilarious. His character development did take some nonsensical turns -- why did he rejoin Inferno after being beat up a bit? why did he go ballistic when going after Scythe Master? But overall, Phantom did a good job with fleshing him out as a character. But I would have loved to see Reiji attempt to go home to his family and watch that interaction, rather than just see him make one phone call. A missed opportunity.

Eren/Ein looked a little bit like Rei from Evangelion. She was too frequently unclothed or half-clothed. And she was almost too robotic, too brainwashed to make a compelling character. When you create a character whose primary character traits are 1) lack of memory; 2) lack of free will; and 3) complete obedience, she becomes hard to care about as a lead. Of course, this made her ultimate face-off with Scythe Master meaningful. But it was a long way to wait for a payoff at the series end. I suppose Ein's shell started to crack as Reiji/Zwei ascended in Inferno, but Phantom didn't really let the viewers see any interesting character emotions from Ein's descent. Another missed opportunity.

Lastly, I will just say that young Cal = Annoying Anime Girl Archetype. Older Cal was pretty interesting, though 1) the use of the watch that Reiji gave her was gimicky and overdone and 2) how did she grow so tall (and how did her breasts grow so large) in the span of two years?

OVERALL

It took me a while to warm up to Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom, but I ended up enjoying it. From the guns a'blazin' to Reiji/Zwei's "badass" Phantom song, there was a lot to enjoy. There was a lot to dislike as well, but overall, I found Phantom to be worth the time investment.

Tokyo Majin: Season 1 (Parts 1 & 2) Review

I picked up Tokyo Majin for two reasons: (1) It was available on Netflix and . . . I thought the guy on the cover was cute (yes, I admit it), and (2) A reviewer on Anime Planet mentioned that it reminded him of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favorite TV shows.

I really wanted to like this show, and in some ways I did. But it was also painfully bad in many other ways. I explain below.

STORY

The story line in Tokyo Majin was completely disjointed and nearly incomprehensible. It seemed like the writers were throwing everything together randomly and trying to make it feel coherent. It wasn't.

The season started out with monster-of-the-week episodes, but then grew into longer story arcs that were supposed to be connected in some way, but weren't really - not naturally anyway.

Even if the main plot had been coherent, it didn't turn out to be very interesting. Superpowered bad guy wants to destroy Tokyo, and he's manipulating people to help him do it! Good guys want to stop him! And they do! Wow, really? That's it? Basically, the story sucked.

Also, the "big reveal" at the series' end about the "vessels" and "deities" lacked any meaning because of the problem I describe in the "Characters" section.

ANIMATION

The character designs in this show were decent, but kind of weird. Tatsuma had his adorable sweatshirt and trademark finger-less gloves. But then they made another guy, Kareha, that basically looked just like him and robbed Tatsuma of his unique glory. All the girls had hairs sticking out in random directions, which was weird. I did enjoy the design of the first major baddie, Kozuno, as well as Marie Claire, the fiery bug-eyed girl that hung around with him. The Gigantor Nurse was also cool. Other than that, nothing special about character design.

I also didn't particularly enjoy the animation in the series. First, the supernatural elements tended to have a hazy, washed-over feel to them. Second, the action looked stilted and not particularly smooth. Third, the cuts between scenes were really abrupt, which made the show hard to follow and quite confusing.

SOUND

I loved the mix of music in this anime. The opening theme was a kickass heavy metal song by ACID that was reminiscent of "Howling" (the theme from Darker Than Black). It really set the tone for the anime. What I really appreciated was mixing in classical music - in particular, the dissonant chords followed by the fast 16th note violin passages (a modified version of Vivaldi's "Winter" from the Four Seasons, perhaps?) - during the action scenes. The use of strings really complemented the action on a screen in a unique way - not your average heavy metal action scene accompaniment.

As for the voice acting, it was a mixed bag: mostly unremarkable. I was intrigued enough by Tatsuma Hiyuu's English voice actor to look him up. (Okay, fine, I admit, maybe I was kind of in love with him. So sue me.) It sounded just right for the character - easygoing, unassuming. Aoi's voice actor, of course, annoyed me, as female leads are wont to do. And Daigo's voice actor took too much of a "meathead" approach for my tastes. Komaki's actress was decent, if a little unvaried. And Kyouichi's was fine, if not particularly subtle.

CHARACTERS

Good god, it felt like the writers took character crack, because this show was a giant character clusterf*ck. Characters that we were supposed to care about sprouted up like noxious weeds and robbed our main characters of valuable screen time. Which was infuriating, because I quite liked our main cast.

But who were the random drag queens? And the gaggle of guys with scars that hung around with Kyouichi? Why should the audience care about the look-alike Oribe twins, who were randomly introduced and had no personality or backstory whatsoever? Who are all of these old geezers that appear randomly to explain mystical stuff and then don't do anything? Why did they have to make mind-control baddie, Sagaya, a regular character, not to mention the nurse that works at the hospital? I'll admit I was a bit intrigued by the rabbit-feeding teacher (who remains a mystery to me), but was I supposed to care about the blonde female teacher? Who was the random blonde chick that they showed hanging around with the bums under the bridge (I have no idea)? Why did they have to bring in some new, random Alan Claude character to be one of the deities? Why did they devote screen time to the random detective and the autopsy guy? And then in the second season, they added even MORE characters in the form of the Martial Fist assassins - one of whom was just a copycat version of Tatsuma, too! Gah!

I was hoping they would come up with something cool for Kareha, the Tatsuma-look-alike (say, perhaps, Tatsuma's evil twin or something), but instead he was an incredibly boring character. Anyway, I digress.

I don't have a problem with ensemble shows, but when you have such a huge cast, you have to DEVELOP the characters for your audience to care about them at all. Otherwise, when old geezer #1 gets shot up with arrows, or blonde teacher gets her arm blown off, all it elicits is a yawn instead of a feeling of peril.

And **SPOILER** when the identities of the vessels and deities were revealed at the end of the season, I felt cheated because 2 of the deities had barely registered on my radar.

The presence of all of these excessive, unnecessary characters took away screen time from the main cast, who I actually kind of enjoyed. The show took the time to develop interesting backstory for Kyouichi, Tatsuma, and Daigo, which I appreciated. However, I wish the show had done the same with Komaki, who came off a bit one-dimensional. As for Aoi, they gave snapshots of her backstory and tried to explain why she feels such a need to protect people, but it wasn't very effective. She was just a very nice, boring character with little depth and annoying, patronizing speeches. And Kisaragi was okay, what with the family legacy burden on his shoulders, but he also had little depth as a character.

The lack of depth is pretty much a running problem in the show, except for maybe Kyouichi and Daigo.

My favorite part of the show was watching the main cast interact with one another, and watching their interactions change as they fought together over the course of the show. It did remind me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in some ways: gaggle of young teens fighting against the forces of evil. Except Buffy explored larger themes through its cast and supernatural storylines; Tokyo Majin, not so much.

I did enjoyed the romantic undertones, though I wish the writers had drawn more drama and created more tension from them. I mean, Daigo loves Komaki, who loved Aoi, who loved Tatsuma, who's basically asexual but is also loved by Kyouichi, who may also be loved by Aoi, who is loved by Kisaragi? Come on, we needed to see some bitchfights out of all that angst and tension!

But unfortunately, the gaggle of extraneous characters - including the annoying Reporter, who was mostly a useless character - dragged the show down and ate up valuable screen time. So there was no time for bitchfight awesomeness.

OVERALL

I wanted to like this show. Tatsuma was so good-looking. And I loved the little "tch" sound that Kyouichi made every time he scoffed. And I thought Daigo's backstory with his troubled teen years was very well done.

But nothing else in this show really worked. If Aoi's power was so powerful, why didn't she kick more ass? Komaki was given one "backstory" with her archery friend, but not much else. Why not? Oh, right, because the show was wasting time on the gaggle of extraneous characters.

Such wasted potential...