xxxHOLiC, v12 (CLAMP)

Something resembling PLOT has arrived! It starts off with Watanuki’s birthday, and a sign of the hardship of being Yuuko (anything beyond feelings has a price). The next scene is Watanuki in a dream of Doumeki’s grandfather (Haruka) and discussion of the butterfly who dreamed he was a man or vice versa (was the butterfly the dream or the man). He then notices Sakura, and Haruka vanishes. There’s also a story about Kohane (the psychic girl from previous volumes) and her powers and their consequences and her relationship with her mother; she was on a show with several other psychics and saw more than the others and was accused of showing off and being a fraud. Watanuki spends the rest of the volume living his life and falling in and out of dreams at random times: some with Sakura, some with Haruka, one with a boy from a previous volume (the boy in the tree who was a lingering spirit, I think). As the volume continues, it gets more and more disjointed; unfortunately, it reminded me of bad manga translations until I realized that it was intentional. Watanuki actually accepts comfort from Doumeki at one point and manages to surprise Yuuko at the end.

One thing that really impressed me was that a couple of things I had vaguely noticed as I read or watched were things that Watanuki noticed and mentioned in this volume; Himawari and Doumeki are the only students ever shown, the only people he sees are those who come to the shop and those related to them, and background people (in the anime at least) were just blobs. They were the sort of things that could be put down to story-telling choices and not showing irrelevant things, and in the anime to lazy animators (though I think that might be the most likely reason for the background people being blobs; that’s not that uncommon), but they turned out to be relevant.

This seems to be a transitional volume; nothing much really happened, but it’s laying the ground for future revelations. There are a lot of discussions about dreams versus reality, tons of butterflies in conversation and art, and some hints about Watanuki, though I don’t know if I would have recognized those hints for what they were if I didn’t have a vague idea of what is to come (failed to completely avoid spoilers).

Sakura is unfortunately from volumes 18 and 19 of Tsubasa, which have not yet been released in the US (17 came out in May; 18 is scheduled for August and 19 for November), so I kind of skimmed her parts. According to amazon.co.jp, volume 13 came out last week (6/23); it doesn’t have a US release date yet. The novel will be out in October, though. I don’t know whether I should be patient and be better about avoiding spoilers (run if I see the words “Tsubasa” or “xxxHOLiC” anywhere) or give in and read ahead.

Torchwood, series 1

Torchwood is the Doctor Who spinoff featuring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, set at some point after the first of the new Who series; the last episode of this series corresponds with the eleventh episode of the third series, apparently. Torchwood’s purpose is to investigate anything that may involve aliens or their technology and to keep the alien technology out of the public’s hands. I’m not sure if they are also supposed to be protecting the public from the aliens; if so, they’ve forgotten that part (and Gwen’s purpose is to remind them that there are people involved). I think there is more information about Torchwood’s history and mission in the second series, but I haven’t seen that yet. The group also includes Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper (ex-cop and new girl, replacing Suzie), Burn Gorman as Dr. Owen Harper (medic), Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato (computer wizard), and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones (general office staff), and briefly included Indira Varma as Suzie Costello.

I think I enjoyed this more now than I would have at the time that it aired; I heard enough about it that my expectations were very low. I treated it more as a mindless action sort of show than a drama with actual character development and consistency; I would have liked more action and less drama, though. It probably also helped that I watched the relevant Doctor Who episodes when Sci Fi first ran them a couple of years ago, and so didn’t really remember how Jack used to be. I tried to watch it when it first aired and only made it halfway through the second episode before giving up; I really don’t like the “watch the new girl screw up” sort of episode but couldn’t bring myself to skip it and continue. When I rented it, I watched most of that episode on fast forward (the subtitles were mostly readable) and continued on.

My biggest problem with the show is Gwen; I don’t like her and she’s too much of a major character to ignore. I kind of liked her in the episodes where she was more one of the group instead of the female lead, though. I did think that a few of the random episode characters would have been more interesting as a regular than Gwen; I would have liked to have seen more of Suzie, and either Diana (the pilot from “Out of Time”) or the cop from “They Keep Killing Suzie” could have filled her purpose better. I don’t like Owen either (and tended to fast forward through anything dealing with him alone), but as part of the group, he’s tolerable; Gwen was kind of whiny (not quite the right adjective, but I can’t think of a better one), while Owen was more snarky and sarcastic (and I liked Gwen best when she and Owen were being snarky at each other). I might have liked Owen better had he not been introduced as a rapist, and I’m kind of appalled by the number of people who don’t consider what he did to be rape (using a drug to get a woman who said NO into bed and using said drug on her boyfriend without giving him any sort of chance to say yes or no = rape. It doesn’t matter that he used it on himself (it was some sort of alien perfume/pheromone spray); there is no indication that the others had any sort of choice).

Looking back through the episodes, it looks like they used several generic plots that I really don’t like (first-day screwups due in part to lack of knowledge/training, fish out of water/adjusting to a new world, focus on outside characters instead of the main cast). I liked the more action-oriented episodes best; it was easier to turn off the brain and ignore plotholes and other problems when there was more action than character interaction. Several episodes showed the loneliness and alienation of working at a place like Torchwood and having to keep everything secret. There were also a whole lot of plots driven by the fact that the characters keep acting like they have no common sense and occasionally lapse into complete idiocy. I’m not sure how they managed to investigate anything before Gwen arrived; she spent a fair amount of time using basic police procedure with better results than the rest of the team had.

xxxHOLiC DVD 3

This is the continuing story of Kimihiro Watanuki, who is a high-school boy who can see spirits; the spirits he sees are very interested in him. Yuuko Ichihara runs a shop that grants wishes for a price; one day Watanuki finds himself there and eventually agrees to work for Yuuko until she feels that his work is equivalent to the price of his wish. For the most part, it is episodic, though there are recurring characters and character and relationship development; the part of the manga this series was based on has vague hints of an underlying plot, though the hints didn’t really make it in to the anime.

For the most part, the episodes are fairly faithful to their manga equivalents, though the overall order is different. This disc is probably the least faithful; I’m not sure where episode nine came from, the ghost story episode (ten) had completely different ghost stories, eleven was shifted from winter to summer (but was mostly faithful otherwise) and twelve was an adapted version of Himawari’s manga ghost story. The dub remained fairly faithful to the subtitles; ranting bits were often a little different, but the general meanings were the same. I didn’t notice as many of the random changes as in some of the previous episodes, though there were still a few. Some of the next episode previews were dubbed accurately, but some were completely different.

Only a few cultural references were removed: references to shochu (Japanese liquor) were removed in the beginning of episode nine; the dub did not mention alcohol at all, though they generally have no problems showing drinking (and it was obvious from the context that that’s what it was). There was a random mention of the southwest corner being unlucky in the subtitles of episode ten that was not in the dub, but it was never really mentioned again (the manga mentioned a lucky corner, but did not explain it or reference it again), and the list of things they should do before telling stories was different. In episode eleven, they left the various food references intact with brief translations in the subtitles, but a mention of potato shochu was changed to Chardonnay.

The menus vaguely annoy me (and have all along); it’s not immediately obvious that the xxxHOLiC logo is what needs to be selected to go from a submenu to the main menu. The extras are the same as the other discs: an image gallery, textless songs, and trailers (Samurai 7 (box set), Yu Yu Hakusho® (first season uncut box set), Dragon Ball Z® (double feature), Glass Fleet (specifically for v6, probably spoiler-y), Shinobi (live action, an older title and trailer, re-released on Blu-ray), Fullmetal Alchemist® (didn’t watch, afraid of spoilers), Vexille (again, though it might be a different trailer), and xxxHOLiC (fourth collection)); the front-loaded trailer was Tsubasa. There was a new advertising insert; it included a release calendar for July, August, and September, which was a nice addition.

—The Art—

—The Episodes—

9. Pinky Promise — (not sure where this story came from; the pipe fox’s introduction in the manga is followed by the girl with wings) discussion of the red string of fate; introduction of the pipe fox; Yuuko gives a ring to another girl with problems with her pinky; Watanuki and the pipe fox follow her one day, and Doumeki joins them the next day. They discover her bad habit was different from the other girl’s, and the pipe fox saved the day.
10. Lamplight — (v2, c12-14, modified) Ghost stories at Doumeki’s temple, and an explanation of Doumeki’s powers. This episode severely diverged from the manga (not bad, just different). It was much earlier in the manga; it immediately followed Doumeki’s introduction and was Yuuko and Himawari’s first meeting. Himawari’s story is very different (man who killed his wife in the anime vs a hotel with a boarded-up room in the manga) and they managed to completely rewrite her story for the dub without losing any of the meaning. Doumeki’s story was also different (his grandfather meeting a ghost in the manga vs a student and a ghost in the anime), as was Watanuki’s (boy at a third-floor window in the manga vs guy at the crossroads in the anime). The connecting bits are the same as in the manga (almost word-for-word), though they moved the discussion of the number four after Watanuki’s story, and changed the first shape on the screen during Yuuko’s story to the guy at the crossroads.
11. Confession — (v4, c21, modified) a look at Watanuki’s home; the introduction of the zashiki-warashi, slightly modified (moved from Valentine’s Day to Obon in the summer), though the basic plot is the same. Watanuki makes holiday food for everyone, tries to give one to Himawari, fails, and gives it to Doumeki instead. The zashiki-warashi shows up looking for a gift, and takes the food from Doumeki, along with his soul. There’s an added appearance of the ame-warashi, who shows up and tells Watanuki about the zashiki-warashi and tells the zashiki-warashi she has the wrong holiday (gifts to boys are Valentine’s Day, not Obon).
12. Summer Shade — (v2, c14, modified) the group takes a summer vacation together. This is a modified version of Himawari’s ghost story, with an added voice waiting and wearing a blue dress and wondering if the blue flower was noticed. Himawari’s story featured a hotel where guests at the end of the hall heard noises from the non-existent room next door; Watanuki’s room is at the end of the hall but he hears weird noises from next door; he looks outside and there should be another room. He investigates and finds a room with words all over the walls and ceiling; the words weren’t subtitled, unfortunately. The random voice looked like a voiceover for the words, but Mokona said the words were something different. The random voice was never explained. I think this is my least favorite episode; everyone seemed slightly out of character. Doumeki seemed meaner than usual and repeatedly called Watanuki an idiot, and everyone expected Watanuki to do all of the work (normal) but acted like that was unusual and only for the sake of their plan.

DVD 1, DVD 2
listing at ANN
Funimation’s official site (actually for both Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC)

Wonder Woman, Season 1, DVD 3

The 70s TV series starring Lynda Carter as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman; Diana is in the Navy but works for Military Intelligence as the secretary to Major Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner). This was one of my favorite shows when I was little, and I know it’s dangerous to watch things that were once loved because they often do not hold up well, but I rented it anyway. I realize that its major function was to show off a scantily-clad Lynda Carter, but a little thought in the scriptwriting would have been nice; it takes a lot for mindless action to break my suspension of disbelief, but this consistently succeeded. Broken suspension of disbelief leads to nitpicking everything instead of just watching and enjoying, unfortunately (though nitpicking can be fun). It’s weird what is acceptable (maybe with eye-rolling) and what made me go “that’s not right” and want to rant. Some of this was noticed while watching, but thinking about it is making me notice more random details.

I did like this well enough and will eventually rent more. I think my biggest problems overall are the stupidity of the Nazis and the complete lack of security anywhere; it seemed anyone could get into any sort of military installation or secret base or hideout or safe house without any problems. Implausible plots and the issues with the superhero/secret identity can be attributed to the comic book origins and can be accepted as long as they are somewhat internally consistent, but the lack of common sense and basic security precautions on both sides is what is most likely to break my suspension of disbelief. I am very glad they didn’t really have the characters using some approximation of the appropriate accents, though there did occasionally seem to be traces of accents; I’d rather have the Germans speaking normal American English than bad attempts at German accents.

There are three episodes on this disc (6-8); I think the discs in the original set had content on both sides (the menu says turn the disc over for episodes 8-10), so this is probably the first side of the second disc, but it’s the third in Netflix’s version. It is subtitled in English, French, and Spanish; the English subtitles are true subtitles (not closed-captioning converted into subtitles) occasionally have people’s titles instead of their full names (i.e., someone says Major Trevor, and the subtitles only have Major) and occasionally drop names completely. There are no extras on this particular disc; the extras menu says check other discs for extras.

—The Episodes—

6. “The Feminine Mystique, Part II” — and I don’t remember part one at all; it’s been months and I’m not entirely sure that I watched all of it then. The main plot involves an experimental aircraft that the Nazis want, with a subplot of Diana’s younger sister Drusilla (Debra Winger) trying to convince Diana that she needs to go home. Of course, Drusilla also has the ability to spin around (and clearly got dizzy while spinning) and change into a patriotic costume, and of course, the Nazis can’t tell the difference, so of course she gets kidnapped and accidentally reveals the location of Paradise Island to the Nazis. They are interested in the bracelets and want the raw material (Feminum); they manage to take over the island and force the girls (none of them look over 20) to mine the Feminum by threatening the queen. The queen only had one guard most of the time; it seems if she was superpowered like the rest that she could have rescued herself, but it would have been a much shorter show. Diana and Drusilla eventually save the day there and identify the double agent in the army.

   This episode mostly caused eyerolling: if one assumes the Nazis are incredibly stupid, everything else follows more-or-less logically. I do wonder where the inhabitants of Paradise Island are getting their polyester/spandex/rayon from, though.

7. “Wonder Woman vs. Gargantua” — A Nazi deserter is being interrogated; the Nazis want him back and have a plan involving a trained gorilla (who is also trained to hate Wonder Woman and attack her on sight). I don’t know what it says about me that the trained gorilla didn’t cause me to do anything but roll my eyes (even when they broke his programming and retrained him in a matter of hours), but the hotel/safe house that might as well have had a flashing neon sign saying “Deserter Here” hurt my brain. It was implied that the hotel’s location was a secret, but there were big “Keep Out” signs and army men and razor wire everywhere. Also, he was apparently the only person there; a shot of the outside at night revealed one lit room. I found it very hard to believe that the extremely paranoid deserter would have been in the room at night with the curtains open, the light on, and his back to the window while reading; he was on the fourth floor, but I would think he might be worried about snipers. Wonder Woman and Diana Prince also gave almost the exact same speech about cruelty to animals in front of the exact same people, and no one noticed. Despite her desire to be kind to the gorilla, she dropped the raised-in-captivity Gargantua off in the middle of Africa without a second thought; from the way she was talking earlier, I thought she would take him to Paradise Island, where they live in harmony with animals, but no.

8. “The Pluto File” — a professor has discovered how to create and prevent earthquakes; a mercenary (The Falcon) wants that information and plans to use it. He is also carrying and spreading the bubonic plague, but is not yet showing symptoms himself. I watched this a couple of days after the last, so I wasn’t quite as nitpicky while watching. There was one scene that should have been extremely awkward for Diana: Diana visits the professor in the hospital after the file was stolen; she notices the Falcon aiming a gun at the professor, changes (in front of the window!), blocks the bullets, leaps out the window (completely breaking it), and chases the Falcon, but he had a getaway car waiting. There was a guard outside; he ought to have heard some of that and come into the room to see what was happening and noticed Wonder Woman and the lack of Diana (or at least the broken window and lack of anyone else in the room), but apparently did not. The Falcon’s goal was apparently to cause an earthquake at an experimental nuclear reactor and cause it to blow up, taking Washington with it. Wonder Woman apparently knows physics.

Wonder Woman on imdb and wikipedia

Ju-ken, Summer 2008

Note: this is no longer being updated as of mid-August (the idea was to keep it short and on the top page; it is no longer either) and will probably be deleted once it stops getting hits; please see the 2008 activities or the current events instead. Everything here is also in the main post.

May 2008 log

I failed to read much of anything this month, but watched a little more than usual due to unreliable internet in my area. I also failed to properly keep up with this, so it might not be complete.