Hige vs. Otaku

I mentioned a principle know as the University Effect in a previous editorial. Little did I know that it engages fully when you merely return to the city of your university, not just to the institution itself. And by engage, I mean fully engorge, digest and assimilate until you lose control entirely and it’s just a tidal wave after tidal wave of Life crushing your helpless body against the rocks.

So yeah, life has been rather manic these past few weeks.

I’ve bagged myself a job; I’ve somehow been duped into being social convenor of a university society (we shan’t draw attention to the inherent irony of that statement — I’m saving that for when I reel off my JOIN US PLZ I’M EVER SO SELF-DEPRECIATING spiel at the Freshers’ Fair next week); and I’ve got a literal metric fuckton of reading to do before I enrol in four days (God, the amount of Dickens . . . someone blind me with something sharp and violent, please). Needless to say, something of a step up from dog walking being the most energetic event of the day when I spent most of this summer at home. Because it involved, like, going outside.

These days I’m outside more than in, being battered by Glasgow’s capricious weather patterns and regaining my supple, emaciated student physique after eating a few too many pies while back in the nest.

To summarise: Been busy; neglected anime. Soz.

Still, I have been keeping up with Darker than Black and Gurren Lagann. The latter is rapidly making me think GAINAX might even fuck up this seemingly unstoppable warhorse of their catalogue and give us a boring, premature ending. Of course I won’t judge out of hand – we’ve still got two episodes to go – but my developing opinions of the final moments we have witnessed so far has been a bit meh. And when in the Sam Hell have we ever meh’d in regards to Gurren Lagann? Episodes twenty-five and six need to be more than a war of attrition or I’m going to be seriously miffed. The former will get its own entry as per the resolution I made when it first started (i.e. I Shall Blog As Much Darker Than Black As Possible), back in those heady days when the show hadn’t degraded into insipid mediocrity. Listless sigh indeed.

Episodes 17 & 18

For one of those troublesome random tangent arcs this was a rather charming pair of episodes. The whole ‘Dolls have emotions’ theme was reiterated; we got a likable new character in Kenji; Hei got some covert character development in his new friendship. And, perhaps most importantly, sour-faced granny landlord got some extended screen time and further proved that, yes, she is completely badass. Really, if the previous (and forthcoming, most likely) not-quite-continuity episodes were as enjoyable as this Darker than Black wouldn’t give me the hump in such a way. BONES managed to weave in continuing plot elements into a peripheral arc without it feeling pointless, which goes to show they’ve got the skill to do it so why sully something potentially brilliant with wanky boring deviations? It’s a sad state of affairs – especially when I’m so eager to love it – and I can only hope an end-of-series marathon will polish up my opinion of this grubby diamond of a show.

Episodes 19 & 20

Having watched so much anime you’d think I wouldn’t fall pray to the old ‘cherry blossoms blowing in the wind’ trope the medium likes to crack out for those special romantic moments. But combine it with Yoko Kanno’s simplistic piano composition (often when she’s superlative in Darker than Black, I’d say) and BONES undeniable visual chops and you get one of the stand out scenes of the series. It’s helped, of course, by Darker than Black’s restraint in these kind of thing; you could never accuse the show of being overly sentimental or wet. Huang’s little side story works much with the same success as the previous arc in tying tangential plot points to broader continuity, and all in all I’d say it’s my favourite since the very first arc. I have similar affection Yin’s deviation, but DtB seems to be at its best when it deals with tragic, complicated love stories. Huang’s line "a Contractor wouldn’t commit suicide, would she?" at the end of episode twenty really caught me off guard with its poignancy to both the immediate situation and in a grander sense. Shioko might be a poor example (due to her obeisance – my favourite of the show by far), but it’s obvious Contractors aren’t soulless – at least, not in the company of normal humans. I think this distinction is key to understanding DtB’s prime concerns, and hints towards ideas about shared social morality and how we affect each other’s sense of justice, ethics, compassion and suchlike regardless of emotions. But I’ll save theorising for when the show is over. I hope DtB concentrates on these topics in its conclusion because god knows how it will wrap up all the loose ends its been flinging at us in any neat, satisfying way.  Six (I assume) episodes to go. Who wants to bet that there’ll be a second series?