Listen to the Rain

Some .Hack//SIGN came up on Spotify for me, and having never engaged with that series before beyond hearing Obsession, the OP, in an AMV somewhere and getting my hands on it. Hearing the other songs, I was caught by surprise by how much I liked it. Once I took a closer look, I realized that it's because the composer is Kajiura Yuki, the same person who composed the music of Sword Art Online, aka the only good part of Sword Art Online. Come at me.

I finished Dororo today, over a year after I started watching it and after dropping it for eleven months. I was really excited when I saw the first episode, but the series started meandering a bit as it went on, and it really failed to stick the landing. I can't blame them too much--it's an adaptation of a Tezuka Osamu original that was also never really finished, so they had to make an ending up, but I can blame them enough to not like it.

The soundtrack is amazing, though, so I went and bought it. I'm sensing a theme here.

Sunday was an Anime Chicago discussion circle about Princess Mononoke, so I rewatched it for the first time in years, and in Japanese this time. It used to be one of my favorite movies and my favorite Ghibli movie, though that position has now been taken by Spirited Away, and it's really hard for me to shed the perspective now that since Ashitaka is Emishi, one of the indigenous groups of Japan that were conquered and assimilated by the Yamato in Japanese pre-history, Princess Mononoke is the equivalent of a Native American coming into white civilization to tell them that the spirits are angry. I said that right at the beginning and it threw a couple people for a loop, but that doesn't detract from how good the movie is. It's still fantastic for its nuanced perspective of conflict, of how both Lady Eboshi and San have understandable reasons for their goals, their ends are just mutually incompatible. I described it as two ends of reform ideology: Lady Eboshi--who I previously never noticed is dressed directly as a samurai, including the traditional 丁髷 chonmage hairstyle--thinks that the real problem is the people running the system, and if she were charge, everything would work, which is why she's trying to set herself up as an impromptu daimyō. On the other hand, San thinks the entire human world is corrupt and innately dangerous to the forest, and only by destroying it completely will the 主 (nushi, "spirits") be safe. Which I guess makes Ashitaka the centrist, so no wonder nothing works out--he tries to offer a middle path that just results in Tarara and the forest both being destroyed.

neilworms mentioned that the concept for the film changed drastically over its development as Ashitaka took on more and more prominence, to the point where they were considering changing the name to The Legend of Ashitaka. I wonder what the earlier version would have been like, and how San would have been featured if she were really the character who got the most screentime? I kind of want to see that movie now.

In non-anime news, the weather in Chicago has gotten better over Memorial Day Weekend (barring the massive thunder-and-lightning stormburst on Saturday), and while I haven't been to any barbecues, I did spend time outside. Sunday, britshlez and I sat out on blankets in Ravenswood, in a green park-like strip of grass near the train tracks, and drank cocktails we had each made at home and brought with us. Today, koppel invited me (and a couple other people) to the grassy expanse west of Lake Shore Drive, since the actual lakefront is still closed, so I went there any sat down in the shade and talked with people until the need to use the bathroom and eat dinner drove us all to get up and go our separate ways. I should probably buy a beach blanket if I'm going to be sitting outdoors with people as often as I expect I will this summer--a bath towel is fine, but it's hard to lie down on and annoying to transport. I'm just glad that I already have a bunch of mason jars I can use to transport cocktails and water, since my poor water bottle was abandoned at the office when it closed a day earlier than I expected.

Now that I've beaten the Link's Awakening Remake, aaron.hosek has been hounding me to play Trails in the Sky the 3rd--I'm the one who got him hooked on the Trails games, so I have no one to blame but myself--and I've finally run out of excuses, so I'm off to do that!