Anime Review "86" Mecha/Horror/Psychological/Dystopian

 This is such a good show for so many reasons, and it's not quite finished yet, but the next episode isn't set to air for a couple of months so I need to talk about it and this is my outlet. 86 takes place in a world where sentient war machines have taken over large areas of land and the remaining humans fight to keep humanity alive. When the war started, the republic made a pretty racist decision of collecting all the people who weren't Alba (didn't have silver hair and eyes) and putting them in concentration camps. Those people were labeled 86 and the Alba were told that the 86 were not even human. The 86 were then experimented on to create technology and then used to fight the war machines. The republic tells its citizens that the war is humane, that there are no casualties and so most of the Alba go about their business without even worrying about it. Lena, however, understands the true cost of the war. She is one of the handlers (Alba tasked with organizing the fights and leading the 86 into battle -- from a distance using powerful tech, of course). She knows that the 86 have human emotions and fears. She wants to change how society perceives them, but she is laughed at and scolded for her views.

Lena gets assigned to a specific team of 86 who have lost most of their Alba handlers to insanity. This team is called Spearhead and their self-appointed commander is Shinei Nozen (codename: Undertaker). Nozen has a unique ability to hear the enemy's communications with one another which helps the team out several times in battle. He is called Undertaker because, since the battle machines will take the brain of a living human to power more machines and they are multiplying by harvesting the heads of 86 who have been left to die on the battlefield, Nozen prevents this by killing anyone who is too badly injured to be brought home instead of leaving them for the Legion (the war machines) to find. 

I should mention that the 86 are all children, kind of like a more messed up Hunger Games. The children are conscripted at age 13 and told that if they survive 5 years of battle they will be released and allowed to live outside of the camps where their families have been sent. Lena soon grows attached to the Spearhead team and does her best to help them survive. She also calls to talk to them every night. After a death, though, she is forced to face her own ideas and she realizes she might not have been treating them as much like humans as she thought.

The story has two parts. The first part follows mainly Lena, and the second focuses mainly on Nozen, although it does show glimpses of the other side, more so in the first half.

What I liked about this show: The characters are all very well-written, especially Nozen. The story is very dark and twisted but also moving. It tackles real world issues like war and racism in a dystopian setting. The relationships between the characters feel real and their emotions feel raw so the impactful scenes are that much more powerful. 

If you like this show, I would definitely also recommend From the New World which has a similarly messed up world. There's a little bit bigger of a supernatural element in New World vs. this one, but the relationships, the setting, the story and the characters are all excellent. Both shows have some pretty effed up things that are revealed about the people in charge. Both shows focus on a few characters who have development. Both shows deal with loss and let beloved characters die. One of the biggest differences between the shows is the amount of time that passes over the course of the show. From the New World follows the kids from early childhood until mid to late twenties. 86 follows the characters for maybe 2 years max (unless the last few episodes that haven't aired yet have some time leap montage). 

I am really looking forward to the ending of this show. The exposition of the world has been very slow and painful and I have so many unanswered questions about how the Legion came to be. I hope the last few episodes don't disappoint because I have really enjoyed the journey thus far.

Thank you for reading, Happy New Year! Here's hoping next year will be the one that sees my career take off (either as a teacher or a writer, preferably writer).

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays (whatever floats your boat)

Hey all! I'm in a particularly good mood this morning since (for the first time ever I think) my kids got me some stuff for Christmas. Anyway. I used to hate Christmas for its being a walking contradiction (i.e. a holiday originally celebrated by "pagans" but adopted by Christianity to convert them, and widely commercialized even though one of the key tenants of the religion it's named after is anti-wealth), but now I find it hilariously ironic that these contradictions exist and I enjoy an excuse to get all and sundry gifts (I enjoy picking out the perfect gift and seeing the faces when they open the gift, although if I get the wrong gift I really don't like the reaction then). As a celebration, here are some of my favorite shows with a Christmas episode I loved or movies with a Christmas theme:

Anime: Toradora, Horimiya.

TV shows: Frazier, 

Movies: It's a Wonderful life, Klaus, Nightmare before Christmas,  

(Can't really think of anymore off the top of my head, but if I come up with any, I'll add later)

Durarara!!! (Anime: Psychological/mystery/supernatural)

This is an older anime, available on Netflix at the time I watched it just this last month, but being removed by the end of this month. Sadly, I do not know where else this show may be available for viewing, so hopefully you can find it if you want to check it out. One of the things I liked about this show was the art style, which is a flavor all its own. All the characters are unique and the show has its own pacing. The direction is confusing at first, but it becomes clear eventually why it is done in this particular way. All the characters introduced are significant in some way to one another and the show doesn't really have a main character, being more about Ikebukuro than any one particular character.

Favorite characters: Simon, a Russian immigrant who sells sushi at a place called Russian Sushi, he starts out mainly as comic relief, but over the course of the show you realize his character is much more than he appears. Celty: without spoiling too much, I can tell you that Celty is one of the few non-human characters in the story. She is a dullahan (Irish fairy who calls on people who are about to die, basically a grim reaper type) Dullahans carry their heads with them but somehow Celty has allowed hers to be stolen and she has traveled to Japan to recover it, and along with it, her memory. The headless horse she rode through Ireland is too conspicuous to take along on the boat, so it shapeshifted into a motorcycle, which she rides through the city. Celty is the subject of many urban myths which float around Ikebukuro, mainly because her motorcycle does not need headlights to function and that some people say she doesn't have a head (she covers this fact with a motorcycle helmet, but it does get knocked off from time to time). She communicates with others via typing out texts on her phone, and she has one of the most developed personalities in the show. Walker and Erika: a pair of otaku who ride around in a van, this duo and the van's driver used to be members of a dangerous gang but that doesn't stop them from being the most quirky and fun duo on the show. Kida: The show starts with a kid from the country coming to Ikebukuro to attend school with his best friend. If the show were to have a protagonist, this country bumpkin would be it and Kida is his best friend. Kida has a past with the darker side of the city, something he hopes his bff (Mikado) and the girl he has taken a shine to (Anri) never find out, but they both have secrets of their own.

The plot is a little reminiscent of Crash in that it connects every single character who is introduced in some way or another, sometimes in more significant ways and sometimes in more subtle ways. It is interesting and pulls you in. The direction is very well done and the music is beautiful. I watched the subtitled version (I rarely watch a dub, usually only if I am showing the anime to one of my kids because they don't like reading subtitles all the time) but I can't really imagine how this show would be translated into dub since a lot of the misunderstandings have to do with certain characters having a poor grasp of spoken Japanese (or at least speaking very badly), even Simon the character I mentioned first, his main thing is that his Japanese is mediocre at best but at one point in the show one of the characters says "You know, sometimes I think you're only pretending you don't really understand Japanese" and then there's the few times it shows Simon speaking in Russian (his native tongue) I don't know how those would translate into a dubbed version of the show, if they'd just leave it in the Russian and with English subtitles, I don't imagine they could dub it, since the fact it's in Russian is significant.

Villian/person you love to hate: Izaya. Basically a sociopath, this guy just loves to manipulate people into do all kinds of things and he basically is somehow connected to every shady thing you can find in the city. His character takes sadistic pleasure in the misfortunes of others even though he claims to love people, he just treats them like pieces on a board for him to manipulate. He has this hate/hate relationship with the most loveable violent character on the show, Shizuo. Apparently, the two have been trying to kill each other (unsuccessfully) since they were in middle school together. It is debatable whether or not these two have some sort of attraction to one another, possibly because of their opposite personalities. Of course, being this worthy of hate also makes for a pretty complex and interesting character.

Both arcs are good in their own ways. If I have to choose between them, I'd pick the first. Kida's character isn't really flushed out until about halfway into the second arc, though, and it isn't until the second arc that Simon really begins to shine in his own right. Another thing I should mention is the chat room. The chat room is almost a character into itself, although it does nothing without the input of the actual characters, it is important in moving the story along and each of the characters hides behind a false name so you don't know, until it's revealed, who everyone is.

Favorite moment in the show: When it is revealed who the leader of the dollars really is. Again, if you want to know what I mean, watch the show. I bet you like it. I know I did.

Have a nice day, and thank you for checking out my blog.

First Anime Review: "Horimiya" (Romance/Slice of life)

So, even though I really love and get into a lot of anime, I haven't really tried reviewing one yet. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but the most relevant is that I feel like my review wont be able to do justice to the complex relationship I have with the show and the reasons I felt the show was deserving of the rating I gave it. However, I'm going to give it a shot anyway, and I'm going to start with a show I fell in love with almost immediately.

This show focuses on the relationship between Kyoko Hori and Izumi Miyamura. Hori is an outgoing, popular girl. The kind of girl you'd expect to be hanging out with friends outside of school, not rushing home to do housework and babysit her younger brother. None of her school friends know she's really a homebody either, as she hides this aspect of her personality. Miyamura is a quiet kid who wears glasses and everyone thinks he's a loner/otaku and doesn't really try to get to know him, but outside of school, he has multiple piercings and wears his long hair up to show them off. So, it's no surprise that Hori doesn't really recognize Miyamura when he helps her younger brother home after he's fallen and gotten hurt. What is surprising is the friendship that forms between the two over the fact they each know one another's secret.

What I really liked about this show: The show grabbed me first with a catchy opening and beautiful animation. Then, as I met and learned about the characters, I fell in love with them as well. Hori is a lot more than the popular pretty girl trope. She has a temper, but she's not your typical tsundere either. Miyamura isn't the loner/otaku he seems in school or the rebel he looks like out of it. He's actually just not very good at making friends on his own and the story behind his piercings ends up being quite interesting. The relationship dynamic between the duo pretty much flips the gender script in some ways, Miyamura being the first to confess his feelings to Hori when he thinks she's out of it and can't hear, and Hori often being the more domineering of the two. The show also has great secondary characters and interesting romance plots between them as well. Unlike so many other romance anime out there, Horimiya does not keep the viewer in suspense about their relationship and where it's headed. They start dating fairly early in the show without a lot of misunderstandings (there is one, but they sort that out pretty quickly) that get in their way. The show is less about whether or not they will date, and more about their relationship and them growing as a couple and learning about one another.

This show also gave me the feels pretty hardcore. I know, I know, like that's hard. But there was something about Miyamura in particular that I identified with and especially in the episodes that expose his past and why he ended up the way he did. In one episode he has a dream where he talks to his past self (I'm tearing up just thinking about it) and the younger version of him talks about hating doing various things because of people and not having friends and the older tells him that it will get better, but one particularly heart-wrenching moment was when the younger self says "can I die?" and when Miyamura wakes up, you see tears streaming from his eyes, and his immediate reaction is to call Hori. 

I also liked the directing. I thought they did a very good job of using the animation to convey what the characters were thinking and feeling and they coupled this with a soundtrack which was perfection itself. The voice actors all did superb jobs as well. Basically, I loved everything about this show. There are some people who think it's over-rated, or not as good as some other shows, but I disagree. The only thing I could possible find to fault it on, was that they didn't adapt enough of the source material. I would have watching a 24 episode show that kept more of the manga and loved it just as much.

For those of you who have seen it, one of my favorite scenes was when Miyamura stole Hori's candy. And for those of you who aren't in on the joke, watch it and find out. (currently available on Hulu)

Thanks for reading and see you all soon.

History

When I read history, specifically this history of European settlers and Native Americans, it angers me. It angers me because of the atrocities that were committed, because of the high and mighty (better than thou) attitude that the Europeans held. Because these strangers barged onto land that was already inhabited and decided it was theirs and they had a right to "claim" it because the inhabitants were not living in the way they deemed fit.

Imagine someone comes to your door. Whether you answer it or not, they barge in. Once they see the way you're living, they decide they don't like it. You don't deserve to live here if you're not going to live the way they think you should. So they take over. If you resist, they kill you. If you don't conform, they designate a certain sub-par space (attic or crawlspace) to be yours and you are not allowed to live the way you used to live because your home has been reduced in size. Then they expect you to be grateful they let you have even that. They teach their children, who grow up in your home, that you were the enemy, that they had no other choice but to imprison you and kill your family. 

It angers me, even knowing that without that history America would not exist as it does today. But perhaps that would be a good thing. What if, like the French, all European settlers had decided to live with, trade with, and coexist, with the natives? Or, if they'd just decided to leave the continent alone because it was already inhabited? We're certainly not the only ones in history to violently take over spaces of land and dominate the existing natives. Far from it. However, we do not deserve to teach history like we did nothing wrong. This land was inhabited, we invaded. Just like any other invader in the history of the world, Europeans invaded this continent and took over government. Don't teach history like we had the right to do it just because we succeeded. Don't pretend that the Natives that inhabited this land didn't have a history before Europeans showed up and started eradicating them and their history. Don't try to erase the evils of our past, because if we don't learn from them, we are doomed to repeat them.

Chasm

I just learned that an old coworker from when I worked at Sonic committed suicide. We weren't super close, but I did consider her my friend. She even offered to be a reference for me when I bought my car. I never knew she was dealing with any kind of depression and I guess that's what really gets me. There's a lot of people I've grown apart from over the years. People I see from time to time and ask how they've been, but never really know about their struggles. I wonder if I would have been able to help her if I'd known. 

My heart goes out to her kids, some of whom went to school with mine but who I never met. I've been in some dark places at times in my life, I think most people have. It's something you dont really tell people and that's probably because of how stigmatized it is. I don't know what she was going through, or why she felt like there was no other way. I guess the chasm left behind is something most people don't see from that place of darkness. All they can see is the chasm inside which opens, looming ever larger, and seems to consume all hope. 

She was around my age, so if I'd gone to school we'd probably have been classmates. Some of our kids did go to school together, although I dont think they were ever friends. I interviewed her once for an article I was planning to write on single mothers, or was it working mothers? It's been a long time. I also talked to her brother for a bit before we mutually decided to go our separate ways. But we weren't close, so I dont have a right to grieve, not really.

"Bugs" Supernatural S1: Ep 8

 Oh my, so much to unpack here. This was an amazing episode, even brought me to tears which normally they don't. Lots of the familial stuff and character development for Sam and a little bit for Dean. No damsel in distress in this one and no leachery so all-in-all, an excellent episode for me.

So it starts off with some construction guys working at a development of high-dollar houses. They are talking about how they wish they could afford something like this when one of them falls into a sinkhole. His leg is broken, and he hollers at his friend to help him get out, he's too far down to reach, so the friend goes for a rope. That's when the bugs start crawling on the guy in the hole. The friend rushes to the truck and reaches it just about the time the guy in the hole starts really freaking out and hollering for help even more as more bugs appear crawling up his shirt. By the time his friend (Travis, his part is really short-lived but his name is important because it shows up later) gets back, the guy in the hole is dead and he's bleeding from every orifice in his head. The title hints that the beetles had something to do with it, but the mystery element is really high here because you don't know why the bugs are attacking.

Cut to the Winchester boys. Sam is waiting outside a bar and Dean comes out proudly displaying his winnings from hustling pool. Sam expresses displeasure that they need to earn their money by scamming people. He asks Dean would it hurt to get a "day" job, to which Dean replies that hunting is their "day" job. Then Sam shows Dean the newspaper article he's been reading about a mysterious death a couple of towns over in Oklahoma. So they head that way.

Sam and Dean arrive to the site of the death armed with little information than that the authorities are crediting the death to "mad cow" disease even though it takes years to manifest. The boys talk to Travis to get the DL on his friend's death, posing as the guy's nephews. Once they learn everything they can from Travis, they head to the scene of the death. They find the hole, cordoned off with yellow caution tape, and they investigate. Sam comes out with a beetle and Dean gives him a "you're kidding me with this, right?" look and Sam proceeds to explain that beetles sometimes eat human tissue, the caveat being that it's usually dead tissue, not living, and that they would have had to work in a large group. The first thing they rule out is ghosts. If it were a vengeful spirit there would be evidence of activity, and they're not finding any. Plus, there's no precedent for ghosts using bugs. Dean asks if Sam thinks someone might be controlling the bugs. Sam says maybe. They need to talk to the locals.

They find an open house which is offering a free barbeque to prospective home buyers, so the brothers pose as interested parties to gain access. This is where things get a little interesting, because everyone they meet assumes they're a couple. Dean corrects the first person to make this mistake, and Sam claims they're trying to find a home for their elderly father. However, the next time the mistake is made, typically alpha-male Dean actually is the one to roll with it giving Sam a playful pat on the rear and calling him "honey". Later in the show, Dean comes out of the shower with a towel on his head, further breaking the "gender norm" and the norm for his character. I have to say, I liked seeing this side to Dean, although the part where he acts a bit self-righteous was less than ideal, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So, the boys talk to Larry, the developer who set this whole neighborhood's construction underway, and he introduces them to a woman whose name I couldn't be bothered to remember simply because the significance of her character was to point the boys towards the red-herring of the show, Larry's bug obsessed son Matt.

Right about the same time that Dean is figuring out that Larry's son has a thing for bugs, Sam is talking to the real-estate lady previously mentioned when Matt tries to scare her with a tarantula. Sam puts the nix on this operation and takes a liking to the boy who seems to think his father is ashamed of him (he's probably right, because Larry certainly acts like it). Sam tells Matt that things will get better, eventually and we can see that Sam identifies with the kid.

From the party they've gleaned that another person died the previous year from an allergic reaction to multiple bee stings. So they're pretty sure that someone is controlling the bugs and they're pretty sure that someone is Matt, but they need more. They get what they're looking for the next day (after squatting in one of the empty houses where Dean likes the shower a little bit too much, this is where we get the towel scene). The real-estate lady was attacked by spiders in the shower. The boys have a suspect. They follow Matt as he gets off the bus and heads into the woods. He asks them if they're serial killers. They respond in the negative and he seems to believe them because he immediately acts comfortable with them enough to show them what is going on with the bugs. He says he's been studying them since his family arrived at this place and they're acting strange. He brings the boys to a place where there are swarms of various insects and there they find several very old skeletons. During the conversation with Matt, Sam tells him he will eventually get away from his overbearing father when he goes off to college. Dean takes offense to this (this is where I think Dean gets a little bit self-righteous), because Sam has expressed that he feels a kindred spirit in Matt, which he confirms later as they walk to the anthropology department of a nearby college. Sam says their father was disappointed that Sam wanted a "normal" life instead of being a hunter. That he wishes his dad had been proud of him. Dean expresses displeasure that Sam told Matt to look forward to getting away from his family because Dean thinks family is the most important thing and that family should stick together. The anthropology professor tells the boys that the skeletons appear to be about 150 years old or older and that they are probably Native American judging from their structure. Dean asks if there have ever been any tribes that would have lived in this area and the professor stresses that "officially" there aren't, but that several tribes were relocated by white settlers and that the boys might find their answers by talking to some of the Native Americans that live about 60 miles away.

The boys head there and find an old man playing cards. The first thing he does is call Dean a liar. I like this dude. Then Sam asks him if there were ever any NA who lived in the area of the deaths. The man asks why they want to know. Sam says bad things have been happening and he thinks it might be related to some NA skeletons they found. The old man weaves a tale which brought me to tears about how the Calvary came to relocate his peoples 200 years ago. Not everyone was willing to relocate, so the Calvary raped and pillaged and murdered for six nights and on the sixth, they killed everyone remaining in the village. As he was dying, the village chief cursed the land. He swore that the white man would never again set foot on that land and that if he did, when the sun and the moon were equal in the sky, nature would rise up against him for six nights. 

The boys figure out that this happens every year around this time, the curse takes effect. Sam ponders "how do you stop a curse?" but Dean says that you can't, "You get the hell out" or words to that effect. Anyway, they try to convince Larry to get his family out by claiming there's a gas leak, but he isn't buying it. He asks who's there and Dean claims to be Travis from earlier, but Larry has worked with Travis and he's not buying it. Sam then gets hold of Matt and tells him to get his family out, somehow he has to convince Larry. Dean says to tell him his side hurts and he needs to go to the ER, but when they get there the family is still there and Larry is yelling at them to get off his property. Matt apologizes, saying that he told Larry the truth. Dean tries to convince Larry, but he's not listening, not until it's too late to leave as the bug swarm approaches.

So the Winchesters hole everyone up in the house trying to seal off all the cracks, but they don't figure out the flue is open to the chimney until they hear the bugs coming through it, so everyone hauls ass upstairs. Dean holds off some of the bugs with bug-spray and a lighter. They make it into the attic, but then they see that there are termites eating through the wood. Eventually that part of the roof caves and the boys find something to block it off with a piece of metal and a beam, but that eventually fails and just when everyone thinks they're doomed, dawn breaks and all the bugs dissipate.

The boys show up to the house as Larry and his family are loading a moving van. Larry says he's going to make sure no one ever lives here again, and that the place has been shut down while the government investigates the bones the boys found. Larry says he's not really sad even though this turned out to be a really big financial disaster and he looks over to his son who's throwing out all his bug paraphernalia. Sam goes over to talk to him. Turns out the whole almost being killed by swarms of insects turned him off them. "Now they kind of creep me out" he confesses. Sam says he'd be disturbed if that weren't the case and laughs. After they say their goodbyes to the family, Sam and Dean talk some more about their father. Sam says he wants to find their dad so he can apologize for all the nasty things he said to him, and Dean says they'll find him, Sam will apologize and then five minutes later they'll be back to being at each other's throats.

Okay, so side characters in this were really interesting. Larry less so than Matt, but that might just be because I understand the "weird" kid syndrome far better than the "I'm just doing what I think is best for you" overbearing parent. I'm giving side characters a 9/10, creep element was also pretty high, but I really don't like bugs. So horror/suspense also gets a 9/10. I don't have to take any points off for misogyny, so yay! Sam and Deans development was also really high in this episode and I'm going to give that a high 8/10 as well. Mystery, well even though we knew it was bugs, there was a high mystery factor in figuring out why they were attacking and the reveal was all I could have hoped for so I'm giving that a perfect 10/10. So all-in-all, this episode rates a solid 9/10. And I believe that is the highest rating I've given one of these shows since I developed this system.

That's it for now, tune in next time... wait, how many episodes left in the first season? J/K see y'all later, thanks for reading.