Read Or Die and R.O.D. the TV - World domination through literature
If so, then you love books almost as much as a Paper Master loves books.
In an alternate present day where the British Empire remained a world superpower and nations and corporations fight secret battles with superhuman agents, some of the oddest agents on any side are Paper Masters. Gifted with a telekinetic control over anything made of paper, Paper Masters can take ordinary sheets of paper and make them move according to their whim, form into giant constructs, gain razor sharp edges or become hard enough to stop a bullet. With a bit of loose leaf on hand, a skilled Paper Master is a dangerous and versatile combatant.
They are also, almost every one of them, raging bibliomaniacs, utterly obsessed with collecting and reading books. A Paper Master’s apartment is generally stuffed to the gills with piles of books, occasionally resulting in dangerous literary avalanches. They’re eternally shopping for more books, and they can easily be distracted from more important tasks by the pursuit of books. They’re book addicts.
And they fight
Such is the premise of Read Or Die, a franchise that began as a series of novels (no surprise there) and then spun off into several forms of media.
The original novels (which sadly have never to my knowledge been translated into English, so this is secondhand information) introduce us to Yomiko Readman—code name “The Paper”—secret agent for the British Library’s Special Operations Unit and possibly the most powerful Paper Master alive. She battles enemy agents in secret missions for the British government. I think some or most of those missions might involve books, which would definitely let her play to her strengths. This soon led to a manga (comic book) series telling a parallel story about some of Yomiko’s other adventures. There also emerged a spin-off manga called Read Or Dream following a different group of characters: three Paper Master sisters who work as freelancers. (The manga have been translated, but I haven’t read them yet.) The franchise then made the jump to animation, first with a three episode Read Or Die OVA (direct-to-video miniseries) in which The Paper and her fellow agents take on a mission to save the world from an evil mastermind, and then it all culminates in R.O.D. the TV, a full-length 26 episode television series tying together every previous part of the franchise.
The OVA has a little bit of a ‘60s spy movie feel, with secret agents battling an evil mastermind who’s trying to take over the world with super-science, and the opening credits play this up entertainingly. There’s a little bit less of that with the series (to begin with), but the opening credits also have an interesting retro vibe.
( Read Or Die: 'Secret Agent Double-Oh-Paper will return in HARDCOVERS ARE FOREVER' )
( R.O.D. the TV: 'Three Sisters Conference! All those in favor of beating these guys up? ...The motion passes unanimously.' )
All in all, the Read Or Die franchise is a solid piece of television: completely crazy and entirely enjoyable.
Oh, and there are books. Lots and lots of books.
Books have power.
Fear the books.
(Except for the Canadians. You had yours last month.)
Here's hoping you all have a good time.
(As with every holiday in recent memory, I have to work. At least they're springing for dinner.)
( Warning: extrememly caustic attempts at wit within. )
Okay, despite the snarking, I didn't hate it. Probably. I'm going to read the next book. (I got a little ways into it, in fact, but it had to go back to the library. I got too many books last time and used up all my renews before I got through them all.) My need for books is great. I often go through several in a week. My standards are low.
Autumn is upon us, and amidst the changing colors of the leaves, the dropping temperatures, the shortened days and the holiday-themed advertisements it also brings with it another change: the start of a new season of television entertainment.
The mainstream offerings have all been undoubtedly reviewed and analyzed quite thoroughly by plenty of people across the internet, so I won’t bother retreading that ground. Anyway, the truth of the matter is that I don’t catch much TV these days. With the hours I keep, I pretty much have to watch anything I wish to see online, so I tend to stick to what I’m already familiar with.
While a nighttime work schedule and an increasing sense of disinterest towards the current trends in the output of most of the networks has kept me from seeing much of what’s on the air here in North America, thanks to the power of the internet I have had the opportunity to examine some of the new series that are airing elsewhere in the world. Specifically, in a certain country that has produced several of my favorite television series over the years, not to mention quite a few other highly original, highly intelligent or highly entertaining ones (and, in all fairness, plenty of mediocre or absolutely terrible ones… and it’s usually the lousy ones that are best known).
You can probably guess which one I mean.
Welcome to TheNarrator’s review of the Fall ’09 season of Japanese animation.
So, how are the anime offerings for this season overall? Honestly?
Disappointing.
I know I shouldn’t go into an anime expecting it to be the next Noir or Cowboy Bebop just like I shouldn’t expect a live-action series to be the next Farscape or Sarah Connor Chronicles, but that didn’t stop me from hoping that there would be something truly impressive in this batch of shows. Instead, they’re mostly mediocre and clichéd. Most of the truly excretable ones I was able to avoid entirely by making use of other people’s reviews of them, but a few still slipped through. And there were some that might have some potential but are flawed in the execution. Those could perhaps be called "okay": not painful to watch, but I could easily name better series that one could watch instead, so the only reason to watch these would be if you’ve already seen all those better shows and now you’re bored (like me). One show could be good or suck, it's too early to tell. There’s really only one show here that I can definitely call "good" and sadly, it’s not action or scifi or fantasy or anything cool like that… it’s a friggin’ romantic comedy. When the best thing airing is a romantic comedy, you know it's a weak season.
Of course, you often can’t truly tell a series’ worth from its first episode or even first several, so it’s entirely possible that a series that I’ve dismissed will wind up revealing hidden depths at some point further down the line. But these are the judgments I’ve made based on how things stand at the moment.
I also tried to include plenty of snark where snark was due, so hopefully these reviews will be entertaining even if the shows aren't.
( Tegami Bachi - going postal, post-apocalypse )
( Sasameki Koto - a same-sex romantic comedy )
...and am I the only one that really, really wants someone--anyone!--to to wipe that smug facade of false moral superiority off Daala's face by reminding her that she used to be in charge of the Sun Crusher project? Sun Crusher. It did exactly what it said on the tin, only with more supernova. You want to charge someone with "reckless endangerment of a population"? Who was it who built a genocidal superweapon and then let a teenager steal it and use it to kill millions? Can someone please explain to me how Daala is the Chief of State, rather than facing a war crimes tribunal? We're talking about somebody who was not only evil, but so incompetent at it that other writers had to retcon in brain damage to explain it. To put both of those things in perspective: the only battle where she didn't lose and get at least one of her ships wreaked in the process was the one where she slaughtered some unarmed colonists.
Can we get at least one snarky remark on the subject? Pretty please?
Other than that, a decent book. I think I've figured out what they're up to with the overarching plot of the series, and it's moderately interesting.
....Of course, it's no Aaron Allston. :-)
Louisiana JP denies interracial couple marriage license "for the sake of the children"
See what you started when you started passing judgment on who can marry who, California voters?
- Mood:
irate
(Now with added alliterative appeal.)
As some of you know, I go through books at an impressive rate during the slow parts of my work shift. I have a hard time finding enough new reading material to keep myself supplied.
Well, I finished my last library book on Saturday even though I tried not to.* (Tamora Pierce's Terrier. My first experience with anything by Pierce. Not bad.) I've been making do with an RPG rulebook and a security gear catalog. (I needed a new pair of boots. Really good boots.) So if I'm not going to re-read Wraith Squadron for the twentieth time... I could really use some suggestions for books I could read. Any thoughts?
I'm very big on fiction. My reading habits tend towards science fiction and (to a lesser degree) fantasy, but not exclusively so. A good sense of humor certainly helps, but is not a must, so long as the story is good. It doesn't have to be fiction, but that's usually the best for drawing me in and keeping my awake and entertained through the long hours of the night. Plenty of non-fiction has proved equally gripping. (Georgia Diary, Shake Hands with the Devil and Your Inner Fish to name a few.)
There's more books out there than even I could read in a hundred lifetimes... but how do I know what's good? I could use you guys' help with that.
Thanks.
*I wasn't able to avoid finishing it. Aside from it being decently compelling, I was also exhausted on Saturday. Too tired to try and pass the time by writing or to stay coherent without something to occupy my mind. I got two hours of sleep, then spent eight hours with my friends gaming, then eight hours of work. And then on my days off I completely failed in my plan to catch up on lost and my plan to finish rewriting that story I've been working on. I swear, this weekend either I finish that damn story or it finishes me.
- Mood:
tired
By some strange confluence of coicidence, tonight I ate chocolate chocolate-chip cookies and drank dark lager with a friend who was wearing all black while watching Noir in a dark room.
Apparently I had a theme night without even realizing it.
Oy. That was not a good weekend. At least I'll have overtime pay and holiday pay coming to me....
- Mood: tired
It will probably surprise no one to hear that I’ve been simultaneously anticipating and dreading this book for months. On the one hand, a new Batgirl series is an opportunity for some of my favorite fictional characters to come out of the storytelling limbo that they’d been left in. On the other hand, it was also an opportunity for my favorite fictional characters to potentially be written wrong, to once again have their characterization derailed by hack writers too lazy to do even basic research on their subjects or be abused by the short-sighted editorial mandates of a misogynistic editorial staff, or to be thrust into incoherent stories with nonsensical plotlines.
So it was with a great deal of caution and some faint optimism that I started reading the first issue. As it turns out, both emotions were appropriate. This issue is not as terrible as we might have feared, but it does suffer from deep flaws.
( Spoiler Warning )
- Mood: grumpy
I'm really having to rush to finish a whole season-long boxed set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine before it has to go back to the video rental place.
It's worth it, however. Deep Space Nine is awesome and could beat up any other Star Trek and make it cry. Series-long story arcs, consequences for actions, moral quandaries that aren't hand-waved away, more character development for even the minor characters than any other series gave most of their main characters, the best space battles of the entire franchise, and the Defiant is the most badass starship the Federation ever built. Intelligent writing that didn't require the characters to act like idiots to move the plot forward: every time the friend I was watching with would go "Why don't they just do _____?" one of the characters would make the same suggestion.
I'm digging the nostalgia factor, but I'm also finding so much more than I was able to appreciate back when it was first on the air. This is a pre-Farscape scifi series with a lot of continuity and serialization and interpersonal conflict and shifting allegiances. Those are rare.
And the spaceships explode very prettily.
- Mood:
excited - Music:dun dun dunnn... dun dun-dun-duuuuun....
*I come into work and relieve the guard before me*
Him: "You know what I need?"
Me: "A drink?"
Him: "I need a droid that understands the binary..."
In Unison: "...language of moisture vaporators."
Him: "And I'm not settling for one that just worked on binary load lifters, either."
Me: "As well you shouldn't."
Him: "But what I could really use is a drink." *heads off to the bar*
-Proof that there are nerds working security
"I read that they're in talks with Speilberg to make [the Halo movie], but I'm not sure how that would work. The guy doesn't have a face!"
"Well, in the books he has a name and a face, so they could give him one for the movie, too."
"Wait, there are Halo books and you've actually read them? Man, they should make your kind wear special hats."
"Look who's talking."
-The same guard and me, at another shift change
"All the librarians have to be armed when they're on duty, of course."
-1635: The Dreeson Incident by Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce
"Okay, robots should not do cocaine. Especially not Tachikomas. They're hyper enough as it is."
-My friend, regarding a comedic scene from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
"When it comes to the safety of your family... don't you want to put yout trust in a swordsman who has shoes?"
-the swordsman's manager from Ashes of Time Redux
"He's quite the salesman."
-My friend on the above quote
"Is it just me, or is this movie a bit confusing?"
"A bit.... Wait! Have we ever seen the brother and sister in the same place at the same time?"
"...No! No we haven't!"
"Okay, now it makes sense. ...and has gotten considerably weirder."
-My friend and I on Ashes of Time Redux
Hacker: "I want to hack into his computer."
GM: "Okay. You easily break into his computer. All you find is his porn and his blog."
Me: "Heh. You should put his porn on his blog."
Hacker: "Oh, I am so doing that!"
-actual in-character conversation from last week's Shadowrun game
I was informed by![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nevermore999 that there's a five page preview of Batgirl #1 online, if anyone's interested.
The narration sounds like it's probably Steph. I'd be cool with that, since I like Steph, especially if Cass was still around training her and backing her up. The theory that there might actually be a whole team of Batgirls has been proposed, but I'm filing that one under "too good to be true" for the moment.
I’m not watching much TV of late. Aside from the fact that it’s summer, with a lot of shows on hiatus or cancelled, it’s also a bit tricky when you’re usually getting ready to head off to work at 9:45 p.m. And truth be told, there’s not a lot of stuff on that I even like.
Still, I have managed to catch a few things…
( One new, one ressurected, two that never died, several dead and making me nostalgic, one finished and still beloved. )
Anyway, sleep time. A friend is coming down from Bellingham to wake me up much too early so we can go to the lake.
I'm about ready to go see a movie in theaters just for the A/C.
- Mood:
hot
Very small week this week. Only one book I subscribe to came in, and that was Booster Gold.
So, this month in Booster Gold... I don't give a shit. No, really, I just don't, and I suspect you don't either. They used time travel to rehash storylines from 20 or 30 years ago, as they've been doing since this damn series started, and it's not particularly interesting or fun. Remind me again why I handed over $3.99 for this?
Oh, right. Because the back-up feature is Blue Beetle.
So, this month in Blue Beetle, the story was too short and a little predictable in places (let's face it, you knew the daughter was involved as soon as she was mentioned), but quite entertaining and somewhat original. All the things that the main feature that I was forced to also buy to get it was not.
I was hoping that the return of Batgirl was this month, but it turns out it's next month. Damn. Although with covers like this, I suppose I shouldn't be getting my hopes up at all. (Oh, for pete's sake, tell me they're not bringing back the yellow boots. Fuck you and your nostalgia, Dan Didio. They were retarded in the '70s and they're retarded now.) Remember the early part of the decade, when Batgirl first came out as an ongoing series and she was not sexualized at all and her costume actually fit the "terrifying creature of the night" motif of the Bat-Family and her sexuality was a non-issue? Kiss that goodbye, apparently.
I need to cleanse my palette with some Usagi Yojimbo or something... DC is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Oh, right. Finish revising that short story that's been sitting around on my hard drive for months.
::headdesk::
It'll get done one of these days, I swear.
(Anyway, I'm going to try turning in before the sun comes up for a change. Twelve hours of sleep will just about cover the sleep I shorted myself the last couple days.)
- Mood:procrastinatorial
Except for
life_on_queen , who gets a belated "Happy Canada Day". I bet you thought we forgot, but we didn't. We just put off celebrating it for three days so we wouldn't have to throw two parties. We're cheapskates like that. :-)...but things got busy. If I ever again agree to work overtime and to run a game on the same day, please shoot me. (Err... just not with a rifle, please.) I slept through Monday. Yes, all of Monday.
I put the complete run of Moribito up on my Mediafire account, to help somebody who was looking for it, so I figure I should make it available to everybody. As I've mentioned before, it's an extremely good series, one of the few with an unquestionably-badass and practically dressed female protagonist. It's based on a novel, written by an anthropologist, and the theme of how conquering cultures absorb indigenous cultures and heritage is lost runs throughout, amidst the devious scheming and fast-paced action. I actually think the adaptation is better than the original book, with more plot and character development. The second book is out now, too, and I enjoyed it immensely. I hope it gets adapted as well.
I still have Noir on there as well, although anyone with Netflix who can borrow the DVDs cheaply would probably be better served by doing that: eight years ago video files off the internet didn't look as good as they do now. I've already said how much I think you all would enjoy this series, so I won't reiterate.
Anyway, off to work. Again.
(Are those gray hairs in my beard? I'm strangely unbothered by the thought for a 27-year-old.)
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