by ·2 Comments

Fairy tail

Yeah, OK. I usually try to lull you in to reading my review, kind of disguising until the end as to whether I liked it or not. For this one, I’ll save you the time: I no longer like “Fairy Tail”. I have abandoned the show.

Now, I gave it a good damn run: 60 shows (“Case Closed” has taken me for longer at 130 and I still watch that. I would have watched “Inuyasha” and “Ranma ½” more, but foul circumstances took them away from me. And I am still working through “Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood” but that ends at 51). But I felt it treated me badly, like other long-format shows.

So, what got to me? It’s just that it took me that long to see the repetitive nature of the overall show. I had read the first five manga and really liked what I read (since I check them out of the library, someone borrowed Books Six through Eleven forever, so I had to give up. And I don’t read manga on the internet). When I heard they had done the show, I watched it with eager anticipation, but I started to notice a trend.

The Evil Folks show up. The Good Guys arrive on the scene, but are soon put to flight. The Good Guys regroup and through some personal effort, defeat the Bad Guys and send them packing. Then, we have beers all around for a Job Well Done. The next day,Continue reading

by ·0 Comments

Anime Rules

Many years ago, I started compiling what I called “The First Rules”. This was a series of guidelines to cover a variety of issues in life and, as the first rule for whatever, is the most important to consider. For example, the First Rule of Coffee is “If you don’t drink it, don’t make it.” How many people have you seen try to make coffee that have zero experience with it? You end up with something that legally could not be called ‘coffee’.

The First Rule of Sex is “Don’t have sex with someone crazier than you.” (“Fatal Attraction” should have REALLY taught you that!)

I had a standing rule for anime. The First Rule? “At least see the first episode.” A lot of people complain that they do not like anime, but then you discover they have never really seen it, or caught it in a glancing manner. They need to sit down and what whatever show from the first episode and THEN they can make their pronouncement.  This brings us to the Second Rule: “Watch the series from Episode One”. There are really extremely few shows that you can pop in on late, even at Episode Two and you need to know the set-up or you are puzzled beyond belief. You can’t always hope that there will be a recap episode (and should it occur, is somewhere around 13 or 14 in a 26-run show) and playing catch-up never really works. I tried to watch “Boogiepop Phantom” at Episode Three and was completely at sea for it, so I walked away. Which is a nice segue to Rule Three.

“If you feel the show is not going to get better, leave it. It is NOT going to get better.” I violated this rule twice: “Peach Girl” and “Gundam Seed Destiny”. For “Peach”, I knew by Episode Three that it wasn’t working, but I did not leave. “GSD” took a bit longer, as they had a big Mid-Course Correction around Episode Six or so. I watched “Peach” to the end, but when “GSD” was removed from my TV line-up, I let it drift into space.Continue reading