[EVA] KareKano and afterwards (OT)

[David K]

Traffic is pretty light these days on the ML, so I suppose this is safe to 
bring up.

UC Berkeley Anime Club recently broke away from its "All Slayers All The 
Time" thema to screen KareKano 1-4. George Chen's review is available in the 
archives, so I'll mention a few observations of my own and move on to 
discussions of Mr. Anno himself that I had with some of Club members.

Mr. Anno is fond of traffic lights and still shots. There are some 
references that remind me of Eva, such as a scene of Yukino being "launched" 
like an Evangelion and "Air" playing as BGM for a classroom scene. The 
series is hyper-paced/introspective/hilarious, sometimes all in a single 
moment, and the music is very good. I am hooked, but I have yet to have 
success at obtaining later episodes.....

It seems to me that Anno Hideaki suffers from an image problem, at least 
here in Berkeley. His bouts with serious depression has been 
well-publicized, perhaps too much so. The psychoanalyzation in Evangelion 
and the confusing imagery of EoE didn't help matters. Consequently, most 
members considered Mr. Anno to be a crazy loon, and were somewhat surprised 
by the style and content of KareKano. It must be also said that most that 
I'd talked to didn't like EoE either because they really didn't like it, or 
because they didn't understand it. However they enjoyed KareKano quite a 
bit. I confused them even further by informing them of Mr. Anno's latest 
project about a sex comedy involving a hamster.

They commented on Anno's penchant for drawn out still frames and background 
shots. Some thought it was overdone, perhaps to skimp on animation costs and 
detail work. This is a major pet peeve of mine - as two things can be 
equally true at the same time. It may be money-saving device (I doubt this 
very much), but it also works as an effective stylistic device. I've noticed 
that the Club members require an overload of visual input to be amused and 
become very agitated when there is none - hence their undying and perverse 
loyalty to Slayers.

There was a brief mention of Perfect Blue coming to the local UC Theatre 
which led to the feasiblity of an EoE theatrical release. Members were 
overall highly doubtful as most anime theatre releases need to be able to 
stand on it own. They brought up Ghost in the Shell, which required no prior 
knowledge of the manga to understand. They also railed against all dubbing, 
as such seems to be a requirement for an anime to be shown in theatres.

This brought up the interesting case of "Princess Mononoke" which has an 
impressive dubbing cast, to say the least. Miyazaki Hayao's latest (and 
perhaps last) masterpiece was the last showing of the Toronto Film Festival 
and drew rave reviews from mainstream critics who bothered to see the film - 
most notably from Roger Ebert. The cast includes Gillian Anderson, Billy 
Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Claire 
Danes as the Princess herself. Many disliked Danes for some odd reasons and 
others were adamant about their "Dubs suck - they always have and always 
will" stance, but most were intrigued by the ensemble. I dislike dubs as 
well, no matter how talented and famous the voices may be, so I will try to 
get a hold of the original Japanese version at some point. However, I will 
be among the first at the ticket booth when "Princess Mononoke" is released.

david - Die! Lina Inverse! Die!

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