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 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.
It was back in 2001 or 2002, when it was still new, that I first saw Noir. A friend and I were trying to watch all the best series out there, and when we found this one we tore through episodes as fast as we could download them. Although I now realize that we didn't really grasp more than a small portion of what was going on beneath the surface, at the time we both felt that it was an excellent series. It's remained on my "A+" list ever since, one of a handful of series that I felt were truly fantastic, but for more than six years I never got around to watching it a second time.
In the summer of 2008, someone on my friends list was asking for recommendations of series to watch. Her criteria included things like "strong women," "intrigue," and "maybe some angst." I listed off a handful of personal favorites, including Noir, which I felt fit those descriptors like a glove. I realized then that it had been a long time since I'd seen Noir, and that my memory of it was getting a little vague. So, I got out the CD-ROMs I'd burned the downloaded episodes to back in '02 and spent my next two days off marathoning the series.
The show hit me with the force of a freight train. Emotionally I was drawn in to a degree I hadn't been before. Intellectually, the 26-year-old me noticed levels of meaning that the 19-year-old me had missed, subtleties and nuances, layers and depths. There was a whole lot more going on in this show than I'd thought. I went out and rented the DVDs and watched those, uncovering new meanings in the series with the help of the better translation. Then I rented them again to show to a friend, who agreed it was awesome. Finally, I realized that I was going to wind up wasting money that way and just went ahead and bought the series boxed set, the first time other than the Farscape Starburst Editions that I'd bought an entire series on DVD. I started to show the DVDs to friends, and to loan out the boxed set to them, all of whom agreed it was awesome. I started to cruise the internet for analysis of the series, background information on the production, and yes... even for fanfic.
In short, I turned into an utterly unabashed fanboy.
Now I want to convince you, my internet friends, to watch Noir. I do this because I think you will enjoy it, knowing the ways in which your tastes coincide with my own. I do this because I love to share the stories that I enjoy with the people that I like. I do this because I know many of you have recently lost (hopefully temporarily) a show that you love, and I think this will provide some of the things that you miss from it. And I do this because my real life friends, while generally intelligent people who loved Noir when they watched it, don't do the sort of in-depth analysis that you all do. They don't dig down into the layers of meaning like you all do. They don't read into subtext and nuance like you all do. And I really, really want someone I can talk about this series at length with, about more than just the surface stuff. About the things underneath. It's a selfish desire, I don't deny it. But I think it'll be to your benefit as well.
Some of you have no experience with this medium. Perhaps this would be a good time to give it a try. Others of you have only seen examples of it you didn't like. I urge you not to judge an entire medium based on those poor examples, any more than you would judge all of film by the works of Pauly Shore or all of television by the reality shows on FOX. I guarantee that this series is not like those you've seen before, because it's not like anything I've ever seen before, and I've seen a lot. This would not be a bad gateway series for the medium, despite its complexity. There will not be a lot of confusion over divergent cultural concepts (most of the series takes place in France) and it abstains from many of the more odd or obnoxious tropes of the medium. One could easily have made this series live-action, if one had a hundred million dollar budget for practical effects and location shoots.
If you're reading this, then I know we like some of the same things. I think you'll like this, too. If I'm wrong... well, video rentals are cheap and downloads are free. It's only 26 half-hour episodes, the exactly length it was always intended to be, so it's not a huge cost in time, either. What do you really have to lose?
And now, on to the review....
Overview
( Noir... )Plot
( It is the name of an ancient fate. )
Characters
( Two maidens who govern death. )
Qualities and Flaws
( The peace of the newly born their black hands protect. )
- Mood:
excited
I've clearly been out of anime fandom for far too long, because a lot of great series have passed by without me knowing of them. I still wouldn't know about Seirei no Moribito ("Guardian of the Sacred Spirit") if I hadn't heard about it on the TWoP forums when Cartoon Network bought the rights to air it.
Seirei no Moribito takes place in a fantasy world that resembles feudal Japan the way most western fantasy settings resemble medieval Europe. Our protagonist is a woman named Balsa, a bodyguard for hire who fights with a spear. One day she saves a kid who fell off a bridge into the river, and finds that she's bought herself a world of trouble. The kid is a prince and his own father, the Emperor, has ordered his death because the kid is possessed by a spirit. All of which means that Balsa has to take the kid on the run with a squad on royal assassins on their heels, sneaking, planning and fighting her way out of certain death.
Seirei no Moribito is a really good series. Getting the shallow out of the way first, the animation in this series is great. It's by the same production company as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and has the same high visual quality. The action is good, albeit there isn't as much of it as one might expect. The fights are so fast and furious that even I had to work to keep up, and the choreography is solid. There aren't a lot of spear-wielding protagonists out there (swords get all the love), so Balsa's fantastic skills are a chance to see a fighting style not often seen on the screen.
Seirei no Moribito has a great plot as well, full of twists and mysteries for the characters to solve. I can't say too much without giving it all away, but the thing in the kid isn't what anybody thought it was, people's motives aren't what you'd think and the whole thing is much bigger than anyone expected. The characters are interesting and have complicated pasts. You wouldn't think that members of a team of assassins hunting down an eleven-year-old could be sympathetic characters, but they are. None of them want to have to kill the prince, but they're bound by duty and honor. It's entertaining to see how the assassins' respect for Balsa grows each time she thwarts them, and there's nothing "grudging" about it. They're impressed by her deviousness at planning ways to escape them, her skill and strength in beating them up and her dedication to saving someone she doesn't even know, even if it costs her her life. Balsa, meanwhile, is tough and pragmatic but also human and emotional, mixing harshness and caring as needed and unleashing a storm of righteous fury on anyone who threatens her charge. The prince grows as he learns to survive in a world completely different from that of the palace. And the expansive supporting cast ranges from the creepy to the funny.
With beautiful visuals, good action, and a good story, this is a series that anime fans shouldn't miss.
- Mood:
restless
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
the_narration- the_narration
Syndicate
