Spring

When I went into town today, the daffs were out on Parker's Piece.

Dawn Chorus

The past few days, while the sunrise alarm has been ramping up after 06:00, I've been aware of birdsong outside. And today was thoroughly springlike for cycling into town and back.

Anime — Akagi, Mahjong Legend; the Genius who descended into the Darkness

So, I'm a little late on this one. But when it comes out labelled as "Genre: Sport", you don't immediately think of something anywhere thrilling.

The very first glance at the introduction, and a look at those noses, tells you it's not going to be “just another anime”.

The best summary of the first three episodes (from which most of that montage comes) is that it's 1958, and teenager Akagi Shigeru drives a car into the ocean, then from zero background comes to win your tabletop game, clear your debts, double the winnings and and mess with the heads of the local yakuza.

From there on, after just one episode to catch your breath it's mind-games all the way. About the only weakness is that the series ends when it catches up with the manga, two-thirds of the way through a climactic match, where Akagi is wagering his blood against the fortune of the Secret Master of Japan, and only a sudden skip from Summer 1965 to Summer 1999 and a brief glimpse of middle-aged Akagi tells us all we need to know.

Not a series I would have expected to like from the premise; but one that is riveting watching — and bears a rewatch as the scan for the screenies above proved in passing.

Snow

The snow arrived overnight, and I woke up to something like this

The view from the bedroom window

So I decided not to go to the office.

Not inclined to drive

This meant that I ended up working an 11 hour day, with only a few interruptions, as a result of “eating our own dog-food”, with GotoMyPC, and related GotoMeeting and GoToWebinar (so I worked when had I been at the office I would just have been passively consuming an all-hands presentation). *sigh*

Winter night

About quarter past ten last night, it was a clear sky with hard bright stars, and a coppery fat waning half moon just rising. Going to bed, Penny the Burmese cat snuggled down under the covers between us, curled up, and purred very loudly.

Sunlight on branches

Morning dawned with a very hard frost, but very bright and clear.

Once sitting, now walking.

The ponds at work were frozen over too, except where the fountains had been churning the water.

[Now playing - Planet Rock]

Time and weather

Yesterday it was sunny, if breezy, comfortable enough to walk around town with T-shirt and sandals, amongst all the odd folk dressing by the calendar.

Saw the 37 hour old moon, a thin paring of light in the twilight sky, conjunct with Venus, at 5pm (new moon JAN. 19 4h01 UTC)

Is this ridiculous or what?

I mowed the lawn for the first time this year; the strong winds having dried the grass that their mildness has been encouraging to grow.

Admittedly, I would have done it a couple of weeks back, if it hadn't been so wet; but this is just crazy.

The weeds think it's spring already, too.

That new gadget

Everyone's talking about the new phone thing from Apple — whatever it ends up being called after Cisco's trademark suit.

What nobody has yet mused on that I've seen is whether the UK launch will see it co-branded with Orange.

Phenomena

Driving to work this morning, the sun was rising behind me and the moon, full hours before, setting in the pale light ahead of me.

And a double-decker school bus was stuck behind a horse for quite a while, with me a few cars behind that.

Anime — Haibane Renmei

Another anime by Abe, also responsible for Serial Experiments Lain

After a dream of falling, a girl wakes from a cocoon, amongst a community of children and young women with wings and halos; which she soon acquires.

The Haibane, the winged folk, are outsiders in a community that is a small town, in a walled hinterland. Effectively, no-one leaves; except that Haibane depart as mysteriously as they arrive.

A slowly told tale of redemption. But not of the person you first expect.

Not a life-changing anime, but one I'm glad to have seen.

Anime — Black Lagoon, The Second Barrage

Darker than the first season, with depraved goth-loli assassins, chainsaw wielding cleaners, and conflicted loyalties in a return visit to Japan. And thus bloodier too.

None of these people are nice, and we are shown it.

Still a rocking good series.

Anime — Saikano

This was billed as a real weepie, and good with it. So I even ordered it from the States (only to find an R2 release was in the works). And I was prepared to forgive the sketchy animation style.

Alas, this series fails and fails hard. In trying to be tragic, it falls heavily into melodrama, and ham overacting. The subtlety of emotion is akin to that of a flung house brick, so after a few episodes I was sitting there, numbly waiting for something really heart-rending.

Alas, while my eyes might have moistened a bit during the first few episodes, by the time we came to the tragic death of a close friend towards the end, I was thinking "Just get on with it.", and it continued to over-egg the pudding all the way to the very end.

Nowhere near as good as the buzz suggested.

Anime — Maria-sama ga miteru + Mari-mite Spring

Slice of life at a Catholic girl's high-school, centred on the doings of the student council, with the highest drama being about matters of etiquette, in the main — the girl who seems to be dating too many different men (who turn out to be her brothers); or the one who is found to have a set of Buddhist prayer beads, rather than a rosary (like fibbing to get into a church school here). No magic, no martial arts, no fan-service, save the occasional shoulder or ankle, or sisterly hug.

In contrast with the hyper-kinetic action of other titles, this is quite calm, and about the people, and, in the second series, the matters of succession, as the third-years graduate, and everyone else moves up one place in the council hierarchy.

This is definitely a series that deserves its high reputation. It's also one that on the face of it doesn't sound like my sort of thing at all, but just sort of clicked.

Anime — Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

Finally mopped this one up, after having d/ld it a while back. Having chosen the more active Miyuki fansub, I did have to suffer appalling literal romanization, like "Ririsu" and "Jiru" for Lilith and Jill.

Generally a harmless piece of ecchi, if a little incoherent given the world-book hopping background, but what the hey, it has some bad-ass sword fighting, too. And knowing the dud ending in advance helps it from being too much of a let-down.

Perfectly fine for whiling away a wet winter evening.

Anime — Kemonozume

One of the autumn's titles that didn't get much attention, perhaps because of the unusual animation style, with a lot of rotoscoping for backgrounds, and an almost European feel to the character design, except in occasional bursts of nigh standard anime look in the intro vignettes to most episodes.

The basic premise is that there are man-eating monsters who usually live concealed in human form; and there is a clandestine society of hunters who act to keep society at large free from predation. The heir to the society falls for a girl — but you guessed it, she's a Flesh Eater. Cue, one would think, Romeo and Juliet with martial arts mayhem. But no.

If there is anything that this builds on, it is Nietzsche's line about being wary of fighting monsters, lest one becomes one as well. Factions splinter, divisions blur, and things start falling apart as the intermittently happy couple try to stay ahead of pursuit. And by falling apart, I mean descending into serious madness, of one of the most messed up and depraved villains gets close to succeeding in dragging the whole world down with him.

Definitely 18-rating stuff, but definitely one of the more original titles of 2006. It's not every day your hero fights to freedom while bound naked (but for handy censoring blur) to a chair.