sideways | (no subject)

• Pairing a reread of the Lord of the Rings trilogy with a rewatch of the movies ended up being enormously fun. It's been near a decade since I've done much with either, having overdosed on it in my youth to the extent that it threatened to become boring. Fortunately the break successfully killed off some of the relevant braincells and freshened the whole experience. The movies remain classics in their earnest and affectionate rendering of Middle Earth, and I found myself repeatedly marvelling at the detail of the sets, the costuming, the ever brilliant soundtrack. It was the books, however, which felt like home.

• Every time I rewatch Wolf's Rain, it's with the wistful hope it will somehow finally make sense. I continue to hope in vain.

• Monster (the manga) and Alice in Borderland (the live adaptation) curiously followed a similar pattern in terms of my emotional engagement, starting out tense enough to make me squirm (I am a huge weenie) and then, once the early 'shocks' were out of the way, rapidly proving to be full of the usual tropes and actually quite predictable. I still enjoyed both well enough, despite a little disappointment. If I watch AiB's second season it will be mostly because of Kuina.

• Plus it doesn't matter when I have Unsounded there to pull exactly zero punches. I said this arc would hurt and it hurts. Please let some friendships be salvaged from the wreckage.

• I am a mere HANDFUL of levels away from finishing Crash Bandicoot, having at last conquered Sunset Vista. In my defense it didn't occur to me until very recently that I could go back to earlier levels and mine the hell out of lives? Oops.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was so disappointed in the ending of Wolf's Rain that I don't know if I could watch the series again (and I even have the DVD set in my library). It's unfortunate that a bad ending can kill an entire series that had so much promise. See: Darling in the Franxx, Aldnoah.Zero, Mahoromatic.

Yeah :( I still enjoy the series overall, but I confess I don't even watch the last two or three episodes anymore. Once Hige and Blue have reunited, I'm good XD

It does make me wonder if we'd have gotten a better story if not for the external troubles they were having. I'm not averse to a bleak ending, it was just so abrupt, and had some seriously jarring character swerves. If it had been paced out better, maybe...

Monster may not be the most unpredictable series, but gosh, I enjoy it for the execution and characters anyway. ( ♥ Eva ♥ )

I think I just had overly high expectations based on years of hearing about it being one of THE best animes - and I can see why it has that title, the art was gorgeous and the storyline compelling, I just forgot to consider that it is still very much an anime.

But yes, an amazing cast! I was so relieved Eva wasn't just some shallow villain there to highlight how our protagonist is such a nice man - there were a couple of times I worried! I also really enjoyed Grimmer's arc. (A fondness for emotionally damaged supersoldiers? Moi? It couldn't be.)

Ahhhhhh, how I wish I had a Grimmer icon! I love him so much. ;_; (Oh, surely this isn't a character type that I also eat up with a spoon or anything... ¬_¬ )