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kaigouOf all the unexpected things... I just played an mkv on my poor little now-obsolete powerbook. Unbelievable, because I've been fearing that as more and more fansubs move to the mkv format -- granting that I hear it does make the subtitle/timing/compression issues much simpler and faster -- that I'll need to invest in a new and sadly expensive computer just to keep up... and the ignition on my car needs to be replaced. I can't do both at once!
[Story summary: Seirei no Moribito is about Chagum, the Second Prince of an empire, the carrier for the world's water spirit until it's ready to be reborn. The empire's astrologers believe the water spirit a demon, and Chagum's mother hires Balsa to protect Chagum from assassins. As the story develops, the astrologers discover falsehoods in the empire's history/folklore. Meanwhile Balsa works to keep Chagum safe from assassins while her friends Tanda and his master, Shaman Torogei, seek answers via indigenous knowledge. Yes, there is strong correlation between Conquerers/Invaders and Conquered/Indigenous in the cultural undercurrents, and the coming-together of the two sides is part of the tension.]
Anyway, to my shock, the mkv played on my laptop without a hitch, lovely, lovely. High point of this episode (okay, one of many) is when Chagum, the 12-year old protagonist, approaches Tanda, who'd made a sort of roundabout proposal that Balsa stay and make a life together. Tanda -- at first startled to learn Chagum had overheard, then a little embarrassed at the directness -- admits to Chagum that Balsa hasn't exactly given an answer. Chagum asks -- in that so-realistic, straightforward, disingenuous way that a young man can have: "Why don't you just sleep with her?"
I just about spit tea all over the keyboard, in a combination of embarrassment on Tanda's behalf, surprise at the question, and deeper surprise that it would've been left in the script (let alone put in, in the first place). Clearly the story's author knows the mind of a young man, and the folks doing the anime aren't taking the easy way out of pulling their punches. Unlike so many anime/shows/etc where the implication of sex is always just that -- at most, an implication -- here it's treated just as frankly as the backstory episode where Balsa's own bodyguard has to fight, and kill, six trained warriors at once.
Honestly: if the story can tell of a man forced to defend himself in a life-or-death contest against former friends -- why wouldn't it also treat the issue of love or companionship with the same sort of honesty? Why is it we can see people getting blown up, cut up, killed, and yet fade-to-black on anything that smacks of a positive intimacy? I'm not saying we need porn in every story, just that as readers/viewers (and this seems to be true across cultures), the violent is treated with almost hyper-realism while the nurturing/connections moment -- usually the first kiss or First Time Nekked -- gets little more than the start of the motion, fade to black... and then it's not mentioned again. I think it's the mentioning that's key, and perhaps I notice this only because Seirei does have fight scenes, but when those are done, there's little discussion or looking-back on the character's parts... while the emotional does remain, isn't dropped, doesn't become just the implied "now they're holding hands so they must be together" silence.
There are so many reasons to love the series, though, and not just that minor detail. The music is understated but balances the scenes well, the script is both subtle and eloquent, the fight scenes are absolutely kickass, the longshots with no voiceover let us enjoy the visual (and the body language) instead of more talk talk talk, the plotline is simple but the characterizations are what carry things... the backgrounds are rich and complex with varying scenery that befits the different environments, the characters themselves are both alternately close-mouthed and communicative.
Especially wonderful to me: the animation makes every effort to let the visual carry just as much as the tone. Tanda puts his hand to his cheek when he's skeptical, although he voices little more than a "hmm." Balsa says nothing but turns her head while the grip on her spear shifts a little. A particularly evocative moment (and indicative of the no-expense-spared element, I think) was when a young girl repeated her grandmother's story about the guardian who bears the spirit-egg that will become the world's water spirit. At first, her hands sat in her lap, then she raised them up, fingers open; but as her words became more patterned (in the oral folklore style of telling), she began to mimic what must have been her grandmother's motions, the kind of hand-based illustration that appears in nearly every culture (even if the motions are different for each). Hands reaching up like claws for one passage, becoming a single fist, then one hand held out palm up while the other arm sweeps a broad stroke of a fist. I found that one scene amazing, because so often animators will try to skimp in a long passage like that: they'll show reaction shots, which are too often just a long still shot of the people listening. Or they'll show an overhead/longshot, with everyone sitting still, or just the person talking, with no significant animation other than the mouth.
Slight aside: I get the money-saving reasons, and I get the simplicity in cell animation, to draw the entire face and animate only the mouth. But sometimes, watching the cheaper anime (even that with an otherwise good story or characters), I feel like there's a disconnect between what's moving and what's still, on the screen. It's much of the reason I can freely dismiss the entire "lip-flap" issue of sound matching mouth movements, because so often I just ignore the mouth-movement completely. It's obviously not even animated in the same pace/timing as the rest, so whatever.
But with Seirei, everything feels tied together, and the animated mouths move in conjunction with the eyes, the nose, the line of the jaw. And speaking of faces, the story now as progressed from Chagum's original place as the Second Prince of the empire -- an independent, if somewhat insulated, boy of eleven -- to a young man who's spent the winter learning to fight, to hunt, to fish, to hold his own. There's a distinct, if subtle, change to the way they're drawing him: his jaw isn't so rounded but has developed a slight line to it, his face is now just a little more oval, the eyes not quite so large, and even his height is just a bit taller than at story's start.
I am so definitely, definitely giving copies of this story to the young women I know -- and I include the 8yr old and 10yr old girls in that, too. Yes, Whedon's Buffy was a great role model in the sense of a strong woman who could also express hope, fear, love, lust, sadness, etc (as contrast to the strong-silent lone warrior with implied frigidity) but a lot of her baggage is, well... it's baggage. Okay, yes, adolescent character comes with baggage, but she's also at heart metaphorical, and that detracts slightly for me in terms of saying, "here's something worth watching," to a young girl.
Seirei no Moribito is a radical departure in that sense. Balsa is strong and fully competent, but there's no bones made that she's spent a vast part of her life training those skills. She's conflicted at times, can be cautious, is patient but when pushed does have a serious temper, can make mistakes, is stubborn to the core, is principled, is good-humored, can tease, can laugh, has good friends, can be uncertain what her heart really wants. When Tanda implies that he'd like her to stay and make their winterlong retreat something permanent, she's caught off-guard, doesn't know what to do, and when he takes that as a close-to-No, she's both exasperated at his reaction and timing, but fondly so. She simply sets it aside and keeps on her current task (protecting Chagum), but doesn't drop it altogether. The animators make sure to show she's studying Tanda a bit more closely than before, now that he's broached the topic.
I like that this is a character who really is a woman, as a woman is: not just a cardboard 'serious threat' who otherwise shuts off all emotion. Not as a stereotypical "shut down emotions to get through the day" crap we see in grown quasi-mercenary male characters playing the strong/silent/cold game, or the teenagers (male and female) who can't handle both strong positive emotion (love/nurturing) and strong negative emotion (anger/killing) and thus shut down one completely rather than swing wildly. Balsa is thirty when the story begins; she's done her time as an adolescent, she's learned the balance. Buffy may be a role model for young women struggling through the teenage years, but Balsa is who Buffy might someday become.
Now, if only the story doesn't get licensed (and dropped in fansubs) before it's finished its primary run. I don't think I could wait after the last cliff-hanger to find out what happens.
*starts counting down to next Monday's distro*
[Story summary: Seirei no Moribito is about Chagum, the Second Prince of an empire, the carrier for the world's water spirit until it's ready to be reborn. The empire's astrologers believe the water spirit a demon, and Chagum's mother hires Balsa to protect Chagum from assassins. As the story develops, the astrologers discover falsehoods in the empire's history/folklore. Meanwhile Balsa works to keep Chagum safe from assassins while her friends Tanda and his master, Shaman Torogei, seek answers via indigenous knowledge. Yes, there is strong correlation between Conquerers/Invaders and Conquered/Indigenous in the cultural undercurrents, and the coming-together of the two sides is part of the tension.]
Anyway, to my shock, the mkv played on my laptop without a hitch, lovely, lovely. High point of this episode (okay, one of many) is when Chagum, the 12-year old protagonist, approaches Tanda, who'd made a sort of roundabout proposal that Balsa stay and make a life together. Tanda -- at first startled to learn Chagum had overheard, then a little embarrassed at the directness -- admits to Chagum that Balsa hasn't exactly given an answer. Chagum asks -- in that so-realistic, straightforward, disingenuous way that a young man can have: "Why don't you just sleep with her?"
I just about spit tea all over the keyboard, in a combination of embarrassment on Tanda's behalf, surprise at the question, and deeper surprise that it would've been left in the script (let alone put in, in the first place). Clearly the story's author knows the mind of a young man, and the folks doing the anime aren't taking the easy way out of pulling their punches. Unlike so many anime/shows/etc where the implication of sex is always just that -- at most, an implication -- here it's treated just as frankly as the backstory episode where Balsa's own bodyguard has to fight, and kill, six trained warriors at once.
Honestly: if the story can tell of a man forced to defend himself in a life-or-death contest against former friends -- why wouldn't it also treat the issue of love or companionship with the same sort of honesty? Why is it we can see people getting blown up, cut up, killed, and yet fade-to-black on anything that smacks of a positive intimacy? I'm not saying we need porn in every story, just that as readers/viewers (and this seems to be true across cultures), the violent is treated with almost hyper-realism while the nurturing/connections moment -- usually the first kiss or First Time Nekked -- gets little more than the start of the motion, fade to black... and then it's not mentioned again. I think it's the mentioning that's key, and perhaps I notice this only because Seirei does have fight scenes, but when those are done, there's little discussion or looking-back on the character's parts... while the emotional does remain, isn't dropped, doesn't become just the implied "now they're holding hands so they must be together" silence.
There are so many reasons to love the series, though, and not just that minor detail. The music is understated but balances the scenes well, the script is both subtle and eloquent, the fight scenes are absolutely kickass, the longshots with no voiceover let us enjoy the visual (and the body language) instead of more talk talk talk, the plotline is simple but the characterizations are what carry things... the backgrounds are rich and complex with varying scenery that befits the different environments, the characters themselves are both alternately close-mouthed and communicative.
Especially wonderful to me: the animation makes every effort to let the visual carry just as much as the tone. Tanda puts his hand to his cheek when he's skeptical, although he voices little more than a "hmm." Balsa says nothing but turns her head while the grip on her spear shifts a little. A particularly evocative moment (and indicative of the no-expense-spared element, I think) was when a young girl repeated her grandmother's story about the guardian who bears the spirit-egg that will become the world's water spirit. At first, her hands sat in her lap, then she raised them up, fingers open; but as her words became more patterned (in the oral folklore style of telling), she began to mimic what must have been her grandmother's motions, the kind of hand-based illustration that appears in nearly every culture (even if the motions are different for each). Hands reaching up like claws for one passage, becoming a single fist, then one hand held out palm up while the other arm sweeps a broad stroke of a fist. I found that one scene amazing, because so often animators will try to skimp in a long passage like that: they'll show reaction shots, which are too often just a long still shot of the people listening. Or they'll show an overhead/longshot, with everyone sitting still, or just the person talking, with no significant animation other than the mouth.
Slight aside: I get the money-saving reasons, and I get the simplicity in cell animation, to draw the entire face and animate only the mouth. But sometimes, watching the cheaper anime (even that with an otherwise good story or characters), I feel like there's a disconnect between what's moving and what's still, on the screen. It's much of the reason I can freely dismiss the entire "lip-flap" issue of sound matching mouth movements, because so often I just ignore the mouth-movement completely. It's obviously not even animated in the same pace/timing as the rest, so whatever.
But with Seirei, everything feels tied together, and the animated mouths move in conjunction with the eyes, the nose, the line of the jaw. And speaking of faces, the story now as progressed from Chagum's original place as the Second Prince of the empire -- an independent, if somewhat insulated, boy of eleven -- to a young man who's spent the winter learning to fight, to hunt, to fish, to hold his own. There's a distinct, if subtle, change to the way they're drawing him: his jaw isn't so rounded but has developed a slight line to it, his face is now just a little more oval, the eyes not quite so large, and even his height is just a bit taller than at story's start.
I am so definitely, definitely giving copies of this story to the young women I know -- and I include the 8yr old and 10yr old girls in that, too. Yes, Whedon's Buffy was a great role model in the sense of a strong woman who could also express hope, fear, love, lust, sadness, etc (as contrast to the strong-silent lone warrior with implied frigidity) but a lot of her baggage is, well... it's baggage. Okay, yes, adolescent character comes with baggage, but she's also at heart metaphorical, and that detracts slightly for me in terms of saying, "here's something worth watching," to a young girl.
Seirei no Moribito is a radical departure in that sense. Balsa is strong and fully competent, but there's no bones made that she's spent a vast part of her life training those skills. She's conflicted at times, can be cautious, is patient but when pushed does have a serious temper, can make mistakes, is stubborn to the core, is principled, is good-humored, can tease, can laugh, has good friends, can be uncertain what her heart really wants. When Tanda implies that he'd like her to stay and make their winterlong retreat something permanent, she's caught off-guard, doesn't know what to do, and when he takes that as a close-to-No, she's both exasperated at his reaction and timing, but fondly so. She simply sets it aside and keeps on her current task (protecting Chagum), but doesn't drop it altogether. The animators make sure to show she's studying Tanda a bit more closely than before, now that he's broached the topic.
I like that this is a character who really is a woman, as a woman is: not just a cardboard 'serious threat' who otherwise shuts off all emotion. Not as a stereotypical "shut down emotions to get through the day" crap we see in grown quasi-mercenary male characters playing the strong/silent/cold game, or the teenagers (male and female) who can't handle both strong positive emotion (love/nurturing) and strong negative emotion (anger/killing) and thus shut down one completely rather than swing wildly. Balsa is thirty when the story begins; she's done her time as an adolescent, she's learned the balance. Buffy may be a role model for young women struggling through the teenage years, but Balsa is who Buffy might someday become.
Now, if only the story doesn't get licensed (and dropped in fansubs) before it's finished its primary run. I don't think I could wait after the last cliff-hanger to find out what happens.
*starts counting down to next Monday's distro*
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no subject
Date: 25 Sep 2007 11:00 pm (UTC)And I LOVE the characterization of that anime. For everyone. I loved how there wasn't a VILLAIN. I mean, there was fighting and dying and all that, but other than Rogsam, who really was a bitplayer overall, there wasn't a VILLAIN. There were folks that were annoying, or had conflicting desires that brought them into conflict, or who had misinformation and thought that they needed to be enemies when they didn't, but there wasn't any obvious person that was cast as the perennial bad guy, or even the episodic bad guy. They were just PEOPLE, rather than shounen stereotypes. I kept expecting the anime to take a cliched turn and devolve into pointless fights, but it kept not happening. And there was only one time when I yelled, "GOOD GOD YOU'RE BEING DUMB, STOP IT!" at the screen. All the other times...though they might have been acting on wrong information, everyone's motives actually made SENSE.
And I AAAAARGHed at the place that 23 stopped. ._. SO CLOSE to the end!
no subject
Date: 28 Sep 2007 07:41 am (UTC)Which is to say, there have been animated series for which the story may rock, but the style itself just makes me gnash my teeth. Although I will admit sometimes these things can slowly grow on you, in some cases: I couldn't stand Fruits Basket for the first volume or two, but by the end of the second volume, the story had me so caught, I had to keep going.
(I actually first read Furuba after having it recommended as a manga for my niece, but since neither of her folks reads manga, I never send her anything I've not read myself and checked out. I did eventually decide that Furuba was just a little too dark for her quite yet -- she's now 10, so maybe in another year.)
no subject
Date: 28 Sep 2007 05:00 pm (UTC)I get what you mean about Furuba being dark. I mean, most folks' immediate thought is that it's fluffy shoujo, but it really is quite dark under the surface, and particularly the manga, esp. when you get to learn pretty much anything about Akito. I don't think that I'd want someone younger than 12 or so reading it, either.
no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2007 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Sep 2007 07:46 am (UTC)(Now I just have to work on all of them to watch it in the original Japanese, instead of the sure-to-be-lousy dub. Sigh.)
wandering over
Date: 27 Sep 2007 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Sep 2007 07:48 am (UTC)I try to refrain from gushing about stuff, but I can't help but analyze things -- it's the way my brain works. I suppose that means when I particularly like something, I have to turn around and figure out why.
Not that figuring out, in teh case of Seirei, was really that hard: there's so much to like, even love. I honestly can't wait until the translated novels are finally out on bookshelves.
no subject
Date: 8 Oct 2007 10:28 am (UTC)The pretty may be an instant hit and favorite, but series like Seirei last in the viewers' heart.