4 anime music videos

Lately, I’ve been watching amv again. It’s kind of a neat to become aware of new series. But this can backfire when I grew intrigued with an anime called Tales of the Abyss only to find out that it is a game. *sigh*

I especially like the completely inappropriate ones. The innocent ones with salacious songs. The overwrought, angsty songs paired with comedies. And the peppy songs with the serious shows.

1. Geeks Get the Girl – by American Hi-Fi. The anime is World of Narue and it is about an ordinary-Japanese-schoolboy and his alien girl friend. Pretty sure, he wasn’t getting laid on the show. Somebody worked hard on the editing, and this is a funny one.

2. Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. It’s Cowboy Bebop, and I think the devil-may-care song matches the spaceship crew nicely. Pity the visual quality is sketchy, this is otherwise well done.

3. Fallin‘ by Alicia Keys. This is from Kingdom Hearts which I haven’t played. This shows a love triangle between Kairi, Sora and Riku. Kairi appears very naive in the clips which undermines Keys’ rather torchy song.

4. Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham. This is Blue Seed, one of my all-time favorite anime ever. This is pretty funny, especially since Kusanagi is hardly a rake. Oh, and lots of panty shots, in case that concerns you.

The Westing Game

This is classic children’s mystery, written by Ellen Raskin, which won the Newbery in 1979.

A disparate group of people all become tenants of the same apartment building, Sunset Towers. They are surprised when they are named heirs of an eccentric, wealthy man Samuel Westing. However, to gain their inheritance, they must solve the mystery of his murder.

The characters I liked best were ten year old Turtle; her lovely but spineless older sister Angela; and the unhappy but virtuous Judge Ford.

I can’t help but like Turtle because she’s smarter and more persistent than anyone else in the book. Plus, she kicks people in the shins when they touch her hair.

Ford, although successful, resents the man who funded her education. The enormous chip on her shoulder is affects her peace of mind.

Angela is beautiful and is soon to be married. Other than that, she’s a nonentity to everyone she meets. This does not comfort her. Usually I dislike Angela characters but I couldn’t help rooting for her.

All the characters change as they attempt to solve the mystery. Everything wraps up neatly once the mystery is solved.

I wish I had read this when I was younger, I would have loved. Since Raskin isn’t condescending to her readers, I enjoyed it still.

Weetzie Bat & Fangoria

I read these a while ago but didn’t talk about them at the time.

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Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block. (1989).

Famous young adult book. Weetzie Bat and her best friend Dirk look for love and deal with complications of life and relationships. The story is fantastic but not that much of a fantasy, if that makes sense.

Here is a review of the book.

I especially liked Block’s use of language in this very short book. All the perkiness and fairy glitter cover a rather sad story. I was intrigued by Witch Child, My Secret Agent Lover Man’s offspring.

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Fangoria’s 101 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen: A Celebration of the World’s Most Unheralded Fright Flicks by Adam Lukeman. (2003).

I enjoyed this a lot – Lukeman is an entertaining writer. I used it to add movies to my horror project.

My only objection to the list is Kingdom of the Spiders (Trailer). That was no hidden treasure.

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Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood by Mike Artell (2003).

A lot of fun and I like how Petite Rouge, who is a duck, bests the alligator (not wolf). A smile of a picture book.

A review.

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Storm Warriors by Elisa Carbone. (2002).

Nathan helps a rescue team, the precursor to the Coast Guard, in North Carolina in the 1890s.

Issues of adolescent identity and the African American struggle. Based on a true story – the author’s note had more interest for me than the book.

Nancy Keane’s booktalk.

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Bound by Donna Jo Napoli. (2006)

Based on the Chinese version of Cinderella.

Xing Xing survives the horrific abuse of her wretched stepmother and believes her mother has become reincarnated into a giant fish.

The first book by this author that I’ve read. She’s well thought of but I disliked this book.

(Here is a positive review).

The violence was disturbing. I didn’t buy the conclusion either. Xing Xing should have acknowledged that she was marrying the rich man to escape her abusive home. I didn’t buy that they suddenly had a meeting of minds.

But I loved the cover.

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So.

beauty and the beast links

by Alice Chan.

A basic version of the tale of Beauty and the Beast.

Here is Surlalune Fairy Tales’ annotated version of B+B.

A reaction to Robin McKinley’s Beauty: I agree with the blogger that Disney’s film is eerie in its resemblance to McKinley’s book. Here is an excerpt from the novel from McKinley’s website. Some interesting background.

Russian animated B+B to watch online.

I love Betsy Hearne’s survey of B+B retellings and revisions. It’s fun to see how many permutations one story can go through and her book is entirely readable.

A B+B as a Viking tale. Just awful but a good candidate for a mockamon.

Japanese romantic comedy TV show: The Beauty or the Beast. They are both journalists but she behaves in an exemplary professional manner and he doesn’t.

Anna Campbell’s post on romance novels and fairy tales with a bit on her own B+B retelling Untouched.

A romantic description of the Disney version of B+B from Timeless Movies.

Rick DeMott, editor of Animation World Network, on Jean Cocteau’s B+B (1946). This is a beautiful film and well worth seeing if you liked the Disney version.

A memory of the 1980s TV show starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman and relevant links and a clip from B+B.

Here is Emily Short’s B+B interactive fiction. I enjoyed playing it.

A review of Mercer Meyer’s B+B – which is my favorite picture book version.

My reaction to Hannah Howell’s B+B.

The Courting-Lamp Mystery

This is a coming of age story for young adults written by Madeleine N. Myers. I bought this book, in a library sale because I like reading old books. It was published in 1958.

Julie comes from a family of scientists and scholars. She flunked out of her senior year of college and has returned home to lick her wounds. She spends the summer reassessing herself and her future. She becomes mixed up in a small mystery concerning a courting-lamp. The mystery illuminates her own life more than it reveals the secrets of the past. She also has two men who courting her, a stolid man and a imaginative but poorly dressed man.

I found Julie to be unlikeable. She thinks poorly of herself and is afraid of taking action. She’s jealous of her siblings’ accomplishments and happiness. She even attempts to undermine her sister’s engagement.

She does manage to grow up by the end of the novel but I still didn’t like her much. The best part is the mini history about glass-making inserted into the story. Unfortunately, this was not a forgotten treasure.

Hotel by Arthur Hailey

Image via Wikipedia

The intertwined stories of the employees and guests in a fine hotel the St. Gregory, in New Orleans. There is the aging owner and his manservant in law school, the manager with the nasty secret, the secretary, the garbage man, the sous-chef, the teen heiress, the duke and the duchess and the poor sickly old man.

The overlapping stories are easy to follow, and I read it quickly. Many of the stories and characters were entertaining.

However, it is very dated. The main conflict is whether the hotel should be integrated as far as the guests go. The protagonist is the hotel manager, Peter McDermott, and he has wretched morals. If this were written today, he would be the the villain. He doesn’t defend the African American guests who are attempting to attend a dentist’s convention. He capitulates to the bigoted owner of the hotel. Plus, he seriously considers having an affair with a teenager.

It was disturbing and not worth reading unless for scholarly or historical purposes.

Beowulf (2007)

Beowulf (2007): This didn’t exactly work for me. The animation was sometimes excellent and sometimes uneven. I noticed it over and over again and it bothered me.

The story more-or-less followed the original as I remember it. Beowulf (Ray Winstone) comes to the kingdom of Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) which has been haunted or hunted by a bloodthirsty monster called Grendal (Crispin Glover). Beowulf waits all night for the monster to show up and tears off its arm. Then he heads off to its watery, underground lair to find and kill Grendal. Things go a bit off-track here but the ending was more-or-less on target.

The theme did confuse me though. What were the creators (Robert Zemeckis, Neil Gaiman, et. al.) trying to get across?

• Heroism is a damaging illusion?
• Don’t believe everything you hear/read?
• Old English narrative poetry is suspect?
• Heroes are only human (except they can survive being whomped by monsters)?
• Having sex with a sea hag is good for your career?
• Angelina Jolie looks like a girl in a superhero comic when she’s naked?
• Anthony Hopkins doesn’t?

In my confusion, I turned my, not very pleased, thoughts to the female characters. I thought about the little wooden signs the female characters were holding. Grendal’s mom Angelina Jolie) had “Femme Fatale”; Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn) had “Doormat.” Gitte (Sonje Fortag) had “Boobs” and Ursula (Alison Lohman) was left with “Huh?” I was kind of hoping Wealthow would hit Beowulf with her sign at which Grendel’s mom would snicker and Ursula would choose “sympathetic” in hopes that it is the right expression.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Written by Julia Quinn.

Miranda has been keeping a diary ever since she was ten. A boy she then hero-worshiped suggested it. Now they are both grown up and he’s become a widower. He’s changed from a considerate youth to an embittered man.

Miranda still loves him but she isn’t sure if he is capable of loving after his wretched marriage.

This was a solid Regency. Although many of the situations were typical,  Quinn made them seem fresh an satisfying.

Questionable Content: Hannelore’s Ideal Man

I would not have thought of him as being her ideal man but it’s a perfect fit. Heh.

Serenity, Fables, Love Roma

Serenity: Those Left Behind. Story by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews. Art by Will Conrad. It had some beautiful artwork but the story was unimpressive.

Fables: Legends in Exile. Story by Bill Willingham. Art by Lan Medina. The trouble I had with this one was that it was just a mystery. They didn’t have to be ageless or fairy tale characters. That bothered me a lot. Once I got past that, it was an entertaining story and I enjoyed reading a comic with ’super-hero’ art rather than manga. This the first mainstream American comic I’ve read in a while.

Fables: Storybook Love. Story by Bill Willingham. Art by Mark Buckingham, Lan Medina, Bryan Talbot, Linda Medley. I liked this one better than the first one. For one thing, the magic came back in, and for another, I know the characters a little better. Goldilocks was freaky. Wolf’s appearance changes pretty drastically and that disturbed me. I liked Snow a little better this time around. Sleeping’s affliction was funny. I think I will try to read the others now.

Love Roma. Minou Toyoda. I really liked the simple, lively artwork on this one. Hoshino decides to ask Negishi out on a date. His matter-of-fact and public declaration embarrasses her but she agrees. This is low-key but funny little dating comic. Nothing outrageous happens. They do ordinary things and sometimes they fight or misunderstand each other. But they value the other person’s honesty, a quality that they believe will keep their union strong. I’m making it sound treacly but it’s not.

My favorite story is when he goes to meet her family. They decide they would feel better if they had her father’s approval. Hoshino announces that they are dating. (For some reason, the father’s spit take looks like bars of crystal.) Then when the father hedges a question about their sexual activity, Hoshino reports they have kissed but not had sex. The father is relieved but Negishi smacks Hoshino and the mother just laughs. It’s refreshing to read a Japanese comic about love without tear-filled eyes.