Uh-oh

[wombat_socho]

Steven den Beste, whose political and engineering opinions I respect quite a bit, has laid down the cudgels and is now running a nice little anime review site yclept Chizumatic, after his favorite character from Mahoromatic. He picked up ADV's mecha series Gasaraki, and apparently didn't like it much. I haven't gotten around to watching my used copy of Disk 1 yet, but I'd like to hear some other opinions from people who've seen it, mainly because SDB also had an extremly visceral reaction to Steel Angel Kurumi on account of its setting in the Taisho Era; the short version is that he felt Steel Angel Kurumi whitewashed the political ugliness of that era to excess. Well, you can't please everyone...I rather liked the series, myself.

Comments

[chibitoaster.livejournal.com]

I loved gasaraki. It's very strange, and sometimes too deep for people. It's definitely a thinking show.

I think the modern anime fan has become so conditioned to the eye candy and having everything explained to them, that they aren't appreciating the more deep intellectual series.

Gasaraki has some of the best mecha designs, certainly the most original ones in years, and I enjoyed it a lot. Sometimes, it was almost like a "Kubrik does anime" feeling.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

It seems pretty obvious to me that den Beste's problems with the series were more plot-related than anything else. He has some pretty serious criticism of the underlying political story and he also picks out a couple of plot holes...like sending troops out to face mecha without anti-armor weapons, to cite one of the more obvious things. I'm going to watch it anyway, but I'll be keeping an eye out for the stuff he mentions.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I should probably mention that I was seduced into buying the used DVD by Vic Bond's haunting "Charcoal Sketched Dreams" AMV, which uses the OP of Gasaraki with imagery from Haibane Renmei. OTOH, he didn't like Gasaraki either, so...