Of Swords and Parasols

Just finished this anime, and it was great.  Granted, I went in with relatively low expectations(read: entertain me for a few days) and ended up very caught up in it.

note:  I'd use a cut at this point, but the parents' computer thinks that the box is a popup...

The series is about Rosette Christopher a nun(NOTE: the series is only very, very loosely based on anything resembling christian doctrine...it's mostly there for the imagery.  These aren't nuns so much as troubleshooters and demon hunters who happen to be believe in God and wear clothing vaguely resembling a habit.) who made a deal with a demon, Chrono, when she was young to save her brother, Joshua, who had been taken by another demon, Aion.  Chrono had lost his horns, the source of his power,  and the only way for him to use his power without using himself up was to make a contract with a human, where using his power takes minutes off of their life.  The fact that he did a one-sided "love at first sight" thing with Rosette when they met didn't help make him angst any less over that(note:  didn't stay one-sided)

I have extremely high levels of love for Chrono.  He's a demon, yes, but he's always done what he thought was the right thing, only to learn he was being used and followed the right person.  The contract essentially bound him to his young form unless he was actually using his powers, which is rather funny as it made Rosette occassionally a) forget he wasn't really that young and b) occassionally forget he was a guy.  He's a little like Goku from Saiyuki, only without the constant whining for food and a fair bit of Hakkai levels of "I'm an angst ridden mass murderer and have no reason to exist without the one I love but I always put on a nice face because it's what she wants and pretend I don't angst 24-7"  type angst.  However, he has extremely well functioning Rosette filters and tends to remind us that he's the guy who killed 100,000 other demons a while back any time she's hurt or threatened(but it's instant submission the second she's ok or safe) even though Rosette's supposed to be the one who controls when he gets to use his powers(meaning, he could take control anytime he wanted to, but he doesn't because he would kill her)  He knew Rosette was the only one for him the day they met, and that the day she died would also be the day he died.  Know what?  I'm creating a new "angsty demon boys" tag just for him(there's enough of them in my anime and manga to give that tag a decent bit of use)

Rosette was a little too loud for me at first, but I rather liked her.  Like Hiyono in Spiral, her chipperness and good naturedness drop kick the boy out of his angsting just often enough to keep him from drowning in it.  All things considered, she also manages to rescue herself and take care of herself in battles far, far better than most anime girls do(barring the series where the girl is superwoman and the guy is the  hapless fool...she and Hawkeye from Full Metal Alchemist would be bosom buddies and trade war stories)

I also liked Azmaria and Satella, both of whom are character types who usually annoy me.  Azmaria was much more endearing than most OCKs(Obligatory Cute Kid) and, like Yahiko in Rurouni Kenshin and  Toboe in Wolf's Rain, actually served a plot purpose(notes that the OCKs she likes have pretty much all been covered...Chidori in Ceres, Goku in Saiyuki and Rio in Spiral don't count...they're not kids, they're just small) Satella is the kind of character brought in who's initial purpose is to disconcert and upstage the female lead(who she's always a little older than, taller than, better built than and smarter than) and act superior to her.  But in this case, her reasons(loud grl consorting with a demon) are actually pretty justified(her family was destroyed by Aion and she hasn't exactly encountered any worthwhile ones between him and Chrono) and Rosette holds her own against her pretty well.  Off the top of my head, the only other anime character of her type that I like is Megumi in Rurouni Kenshin.  I'm also pretty fond of Remington, the "priest" who essentially took care of Rosette and Chrono after Joshua was taken.  He has a pretty interesting story, and I wish they'd delved into it more.

As an aside, Chrono/Rosette/Joshua made me think a lot of toya/Aya/Aki in Ceres, only without the "lusting after your sister because of the evil spirit living inside you" part.  But in the fact that saving him is important to both of them and he's actually a good, sweet guy who's been damaged and controlled by the Evil One.

Anyway, great series, highly recommended, but keep your hankies ready.

Couldn't focus on Emperor and the Assassin...not because it wasn't good(it was) but because I tend to move around while watching things, and the house isn't well suited for that when watching subtitles.  i'll save it for weds or fri when I don't have anything going on.

Put in the  ChronoCrusade anime instead and watched the first 2 episodes before the second airing of Dresden Files.

It's been a while since I read the manga, and I never finished it because of that break it took in publication, but I quite like the anime so far(of course, between Spiral, Saiyuki and Peacemaker, I'm rather partial to Greg Ayres)  Now, I can't remember if I'm supposed to or not, but I am officially crazy shipping Chrono(who's actually rather Goku-like even without Greg Ayres, sans the constant "I'm hungry!") and Rosette.  Why?  She gets hurt and he breaks spiritually reinforced restraints and turns into an apocalypse-bringing type demon and is about to do his thing and she tackle-hugs him shouting "I'M OK!" and it's instant submission(which is also rather Goku-like, except that I could never in a million years ship Goku and Sanzo)  so yes, I shall ship and I doon't care whether or not I should.

I didn't figure out Dad's setup in time to catch the first airing of Dresden Files, but I did catch the second.  Awesome episode, probably the best one yet(actually, I think the episodes are consistently better and better.  i like that they're going ahead with making Harry/Murphy obvious right from the start(well, not the first episode, but after that)  he knows her what favorite pie is but hasn't figured out that she's immune to his charm when it comes to her job.  Harry really is helpless against anything that resembles a female, isn't he?  Not in that he falls for them(I don't think he even liked Heather that way last week, though she obviously liked him) but he sees a girl in trouble and it's like his common sense turns off.  Morgan is very different from the book Morgan, and the synamic with Harry is really different, too, but I loved him.  And we also got more of Harry doing magic and our first "Harry vs technology" scene.  Fullfledged one, as opposed to a couple comments about technology not liking him.  I wonder if that was Susan in the previews.

BTW, for those interested in the show, scifi is showing all 5 eps(including next week's) back to back on the 28th.

ETA:  In ep 4 of ChronoCrusade, we have him refusing to heal himself because his power is linked to her soul and using it drains minutes off her life...

Just finished the Cowboy Bebop anime, including the movie.  While I liked it well enough, I think it's like the Ghost in the Shell movie(but not series) in that I would have liked and appreciated it a lot more if it had been one of my earliest animes.  It was too much a case of style over substance for me, which I sometimes like, but when that happens, I prefer it to involve swords and/or insane amounts of pretty.  I rather liked what little there was of the main plot, and those episodes, as well as when it focused on Edward and Ein(very odd that 2 of my 3 favorites are the OCC and OA, as I'm usually neutral about them, at best)  I think  my favorite character was the very underused villain, Sid(Cyd?) Viscious, largely because he's one of the few anime villains who they just let be flat out evil instead of making him noble or tragic(not that I have a problem with those characters, as Kougaiji and Sesshomaru-if you can really call them villains-are my favorite characters in Saiyuki and Inu Yasha, and Darcia is my second favorite in Wolf's Rain, and Nakago my third in Fushigi Yugi.)  Or maybe it was the sword.

Still, it was worth at least one viewing.

It also seems to have put me in the anime mood, and I'm wondering what if the 3 in the backlog, GTO, ChronoCrusade, or R.O.D. The TV, I should watch next.  Of course, it's probably also influenced by the fact that I'll be ordering a few anime this week if ebay does well.  *automatically puts drealkulit down for GTO*