subdee

Talking about (or at least listing) mecha anime with worldserpent here and here, I was suddenly reminded of my love for Orguss, an eighties Macross spinoff that was nearly 80% filler and starred an almost total jackass.

The Story: horndog flyboy Kei Katsuragi sets off the space-time oscillation bomb, accidentally destroying the universe as we know it. He finds himself in a new patchwork Earth made up of many different alternate realities and ends up traveling with a band of space gypsies across a chaotic landscape filled with mecha and androids and aliens and Marie Antoinette. Awful as things are, they may soon become worse as the fabric of reality is rapidly unraveling -- but does Kei feel bad about having caused so much trouble? No! Because he is a Jackass. ( Read more... )

Anyway this is all incidental. The real news is that I found the OAV sequel, Orguss 02, online! Orguss 02 is an entirely different beast from Orguss. For one, the main character is a nice guy. For two, it's only six episodes long with no filler. For three, all these really big names in mecha were involved. For four, it's the Cold War all over again -- but this time fought as Europe versus the Ottoman Empire, in the 18th century, with Mechs.

Story: Set in a single reality several hundred years after Orguss and only loosely related. Two superpowers -- the Occidental Revilia and the Oriental Zafrin -- are at war using ancient technology (which is actually future technology dislodged by the space-time oscillation bomb). Lean, a mechanic, finds himself caught up in the conflict. Features political intrigue, charismatic but morally dubious guardsmen, and a mysterious woman who may be an escaped military secret.

Super Dimension Century Orguss 02
If you'd like the episodes, leave a comment and I'll leave you the link. *beams*

Six episodes, dual audio, English subtitles. The subtitles are in some cases horribly mistimed, but the English dub is good, so I actually recommend you listen to that (audio track 2). Orguss 02 isn't a life-changing experience, but it is a very, very solid series. High production values -- actually it kind of reminds me The Wings of Hommenaise, but with more likable characters.

This weekend has been a continual struggle. On the one hand, I enjoy leaving the house sometimes. On the other, it's negative degrees outside. -_- SO COLD. Yesterday I dragged myself out to the library and from there, some coffee shops (café-hopping: the homework-conscious individual's substitute to bar-hopping?) but each time it was a struggle to get up from the nice warm couch and head out into the bad cold night, just to ward off apathy. ^^; I eventually gravitated to Borders since it's the only place downtown that 1) has couches, 2) serves tea, and 3) is large enough that whenever I felt restless (TOO MUCH READINGGGGG) I could get up and walk around a little.

But of course it is very dangerous to spend too much time in a bookstore when you LOVE BUYING BOOKS but DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY.

Loot:
Land of the Blindfolded vols 1-2 by Tsukaba Sakura
Following coffeeandink's recommendation. Kanade and Arou are high-schoolers; Kanade can sometimes (erratically) see the future and Arou can often (even when he'd rather not) see the past. The two become close, using their powers in small ways to help those around them.( Read more... )

Pearl Pink vol 1 by Meca Tanaka
Another coffeeandink (and octopedigenue) recommendation. SO MUCH FUN. This is almost a "but" book: I don't normally like we-promised-in-kindergarten, "I will become your bride!", crossdressing idol books, but.... actually that last part is a lie, I totally love crossdressing idol books. ( Read more... )

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure vol 1 (Japanese vol 13?) by Araki Hirohiko
One fashion-conscious delinquent beefcake's quest to find and defeat the evil vampire Dio (who has a "dubious sexuality - the kind you wouldn't expect from a man") together with his surprisingly muscular grandfather, an undeniably chiseled shaman, a sunken-eyed-but-still-buff schoolmate and various others. ( Read more... )

Also read:
Glenn Altshuler, All Shook Up
Nonfiction: rock and roll in the fifties. Good for trivia but possibly not news to anyone who lived through the era. The author's pretty ambivalent about HOW, exactly, rock changed America, though he reports a number of contemporary theories.

Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker
Beautifully written series of short stories about Haitian exiles in the US and how they continue to feel the aftereffects of state-sponsored torture and repression. Danticat writes about ordinary (and not so ordinary) people with incredible sympathy and insight. The style is deceptively simple but so, so beautiful, and the stories themselves, simultaneously about the pressure to forget and the impossibility of forgetting, are haunting.

Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog
Clever but mindless. I was happily reading along, enjoying the author's digressions and wallowing (in historical trivia, wittiness, wordgames, and cool but DEEPLY FLAWED worldbuilding) until about a third of the way through the book, when I figured out the ending. -_-; After that, a lot of the fun went out of it, and I only managed another few chapters before losing interest. Similar to Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights
Nonfiction: civil rights in Greensboro 1956-1967. The author has a simple, consistent message: white progressives in North Carolina who called for "polite" discussion of racial issues did so as a way to prevent significant social change. Considering the topic, I found the book fairly soothing. ^^; Chafe is willing to award points for trying ("although" might be his favorite word), and he ends each chapter in a way that leaves room for pride as well as shame. Possibly he didn't want to scare away his audience? XD Anyway it's an interesting read, with some fairly well-chosen quotes. At times a little repetitive, but clear, and convincing.

Kazuo Ishiguro, When We Were Orphans
Very "inner life". I dunno, I liked it, but I can see why The White Countess was a horrible movie. There's stuff in this book that wouldn't translate at all to the screen -- take away the articulate, obsessively preoccupied narrator, all you're left with is a very childish way of looking at the world. Though I was amused by the book's central conceit, which is that for a while, at least, the world was willing to play along.

Also saw:
The Good Shepard and Dreamgirls, but I am media-blogged out. Maybe later.

1. Now that various other fandom challenges have or will soon be wrapping up, does anyone want to claim the next line at chain_of_fics?

2. Speaking of drabble_trade, I wrote one! I leave it up to you to guess which one.

3. Only a few days left to recommend fantasy-themed fics at fanthology! On a related note, there are no themes for February yet, is anyone willing to sponsor this month?

4. Way behind the crowd, five-indulgent-fic-ideas meme:

Name five totally self-indulgent story ideas. (The fanfic you would write if you didn't care if you had an audience and also had no shame.)

These are all stories I will ACTUALLY NEVER WRITE because they are really, truly, unsalvageably awful. XD; I have plenty of moderately embarrassing ideas, which would sound dumb if I described them but that I harbor hopes of maybe being able to pull off someday. These...are not those ideas.

( I warned you! )

No, I haven't started playing. I watched the cutscenes.

( Reposted comments - I'd link, but the entries are friendslocked. )

And to think I had a policy against reposting comments. XD;

( WHAT I THINK SHOULD HAPPEN NEXT: )

In other news, edited versions of non-YA readinglists from this entry finally posted to reading_mix:
The Psychology of Science and One and One is Three (formerly known as Looping Stories).