| "The whole world is about to end - because of a damn puppy!" |
[Aug. 26th, 2005|02:32 am] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Susumu Hirasawa - Yume no Shima Shinen Kouen | ] |
Today I watched some TV. Attack of the Show on G4 at 12a, back-to-back with a rerun of the final episode of Paranoia Agent on Adult Swim at 1a. On both I have some thoughts.
I watched Attack of the Show because John Rogers, a blogger I read, was making an appearance. Sadly it was much, much less of an appearance than I was expecting and indeed checked the blog halfway through to make sure that he hadn't rescheduled or something.
AotS is a show for the ADD generation. They cram so many segments into the show it's pretty amazing, but it gets irritating to me because they're all prettymuch headlines and a throwaway joke. There's hardly any detail at all. Not to mention it basically sums up things that have been blogged about for the day anyway, and if ever I watch it I'll have read the blogs first - off the top of my head, the Chinese gov't's limit on gaming time (which I showed to Zippy), and the Spoilers blog (which I added to my bookmarks today) were both featured in blog posts I read today.
All of their weird ebay auctions were on Who Would Buy That?, as well - I don't know who got to them first, since WWBT runs off of submissions, but SOMEONE ripped off someone there.
Aside of all the obsessive gamer talk (I know, I know, it is G4 after all), the subject matter seems right up my alley though. Consequentially, even though I try to dislike the show, I find myself watching it fairly often (maybe once a week). Rogers was on today, like I said, and Wikipedia's creator was on not too long ago (mad propz to Omni for that one), as well as the awesome band 8-Bit Weapon whom I follow through Myspace.
...By the way, they introduced Rogers as "Global Frequency TV series creator John Rogers", which is a misnomer on so many levels. Want a list??
-Global Frequency wasn't picked up as a series - it only exists as a pilot
-Rogers didn't create the series - it was originally a comic book by Warren Ellis
-Rogers didn't create the series (I assume) - he just wrote the pilot
End of nitpicking.
I don't know what kind of viewership AotS gets, but I'm glad Global Frequency got some more recognition, on a show that many people watch would would be the type of people who would download and become fans of the show. More exposure is more support, which is more of a chance to get something done - whether it be another channel picking the show up, a DVD release, a movie (Hey it worked for Firefly), whatever.
And to wrap up the section on AotS before I start going anime-crazy and people start running away, Rogers' top blog entry gave me a giggle:
For the last time ...
... "Unobtanium" was a JOKE, people.
(He was one of the writers of The Core)
---
PARANOIA AGENT!
Okay, I promise, after this, I will no longer gush about it. It's the rerun of the final episode, to write anything else after this would be overkill.
I already watched this episode -- I bittorrent'd it subtitled and in Japanese because I wasn't sure if the final episode was going to rerun or not. It did though, so I was treated to a repeat viewing - which is VERY HELPFUL and revealed to me a lot more.
Different experiences between dubbed broadcasted and subbed on VCD:
-My subbed episode had the opening theme karaoke-style, complete with a Maromi bouncing ball. Aww.
-AS version was widescreen and downloaded was not. Ooo, pretty.
-I find reading the subtitles difficult to keep up with at times
-VCD included the pre/post-commercial break bumpers, which were really neat and creepy.
-AS has the lame action block bumpers. What is up with those! >.<
-Because everyone has already bitched about it on the AS boards, THEY DIDN'T SHOW THE PROPHETIC VISION T_T - These are, I've gathered, more cryptic versions of the "next episode" bits they show at the end of most anime. AS doesn't show these, just like they don't show a lot of anime's opening themes. My subbed version had it though, and I do agree that it's an important part of the episode, and interesting to boot.
Comparing the subtitles and the dub (assuming the subtitles are accurate), the dub was really really good. The dialogue never felt overly strained to me like it does in a lot of foreign stuff (using a lot of filler words and pacing speech oddly to fit lipflap), but from what I remember of the subs the dub fits to a tee. Excellent work.
Next for a bit no one will understand unless they've seen the show:
Ikari, in his matchbox world with Tsukiko, finally understands it's all fake and he'd rather face reality. He takes a bat from a nearby man, which becomes three-dimensional in his hands (like the bat at Tsukiko's childhood home becomes a sword in the hands of Maniwa), and starts "whacking" the residents of the cardboard town just like Lil' Slugger did in the real world.
That's the part where just allasudden I started coming up with all this symbolism and excellent meaning. And realising that I need to hop to getting this on DVD.
People gang up over finding sold-out Maromi goods, but the tidal wave turns into (or comes out of) a mountain of the dolls. Perfect irony.
--And even though I feel like I'm getting to the core of the show with my understanding, there are people who are looking even further (probably too far) into it. There are comparisons to 9/11... Puberty... Capitalism...
It's all what you make of it I guess.
~Joy hopes this new analytical tendency of hers will help her out with the coming school year. |
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