Yesterday marked the end of another anime: Versailles no Bara 'Twas the story of a young French girl raised as a boy to become a military general. Interweaving history and fiction, it culminated with the French Revolution. Main characters included Marie Antoinette and Hans Fersen, Robespierre and St. Just. The show aired in 1979, and still held up, mostly...
I would say that today's tragic anime soap operas are, on the whole, darker and more emotionally realistic. Much of Versailles (VNB) could be summed up as scenes of characters crying or yelling at things. Now, I love characters who have no hope or options, who are forced to push through to extraordinary ends, but VNB remained unmoving, because the true consequences of each plot and character action wasn't really explored, so the characters' emotional vulnerability remained demonstrative as opposed to ... well, believable. It was such a tragic story, and I didn't cry once. And I love crying over breakfast and anime.
Revolutionary Girl Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) was inspired by Versailles no Bara, and many of the scenes in SKU can be viewed as secondary texts, commenting on the original scene in VNB. I'll have to watch Utena again, for sure.
But not yet.
Today, I watched the first episode of Naruto. I expected to hate it, and only downloaded 1 episode as a result. But ... but ...
Right now I'm BitTorrenting the first 25 episodes! I loved it. It reminds me of Kenshin, a fantastic, fantastic show (well, up until the 3rd season) -- and I hear that Naruto spends 100 episodes getting darker and darker and darker....
I don't know how long the show will run, but I guess I'll see the other side of it sometime in late May. Naruto to carry me through the New Show Writing Process!
Currently, I'm also downloading Saikano and Shingetsusan Tsukihime. I used to watch one show with breakfast, one before bed. Chobits in the morning, Witch Hunter Robin at night, for example. But when I started playing FFXI, my evening anime was replaced with the equally epic Final Fantasy. I think I'd like to try watching before bed again, since my dreams have started to become an endless montage of fighting game monsters in nondescript dungeons. I've heard Saikano isn't that great, but I love the design so I have to see those 13 episodes. And Tsukihime is just something I read about on the web. Updates to follow as events warrant!