さくら

My classmates and I learned a nice farewell song last week - Sakura by Moriyama Naotarou. It was fitting seeing that our sensei, who have taught us for several levels, will be leaving us as she is moving to Sabah. We're kinda sad to see her go, she's a kind, sporting teacher who has been quite patient with us.

さよなら　なかじま　せんせい！

"The hawk with talent hides its talons."

I hope fillers would not be a thing for another anime I’ve recently continued to follow, Saiunkoku Monogatari. If Bleach was action driven, this one is drama-driven, which is only to be expected from a shojo (girl) anime. The first season was generally in the mold of a typical shojo anime – a cheerful heroine surrounded by a lot of good-looking guys (bishonen) -__-. But in Saiunkoku Monogatari’s case, it had a plausible reason for that -- the protagonist, Kou Shuurei, is the first female to take the national exam of her country Saiunkoku (reminiscent of ancient China), which was previously only open to males. She passed the exam with the third highest score and achieved her dream of becoming a civil servant.

In the second season, we follow Shuurei as she faces more challenges related to her work and at the same time fends off discontent from those who believe women do not belong in the civil service. What I like about season two is there’s less shojo anime elements (like Shuurei entering the palace as a consort, being kidnapped, and so on in the first season) and more about how the government of Saiunkoku works with all the political manoeuvring that comes along with it. We also get to meet two male characters who aren’t infatuated with Shuurei, although both are complete opposites. Shin Suou, or Tan Tan as he is named by Seiran, gets involved with Shuurei when she investigates a series of fake art paintings in Shi province. We later find out that he is a government official too, albeit a low-ranked one who is much more laidback than the very ambitious Shuurei. When a group of low-ranked civil servants (Shuurei was demoted to the same rank after the Jasenkyo incident) were given a month to prove themselves in order to avoid dismissal, many of them asked Shuurei to help them find tasks that would help retain them. Shuurei, being the kind-hearted person she is, agrees. Tan Tan told her she should focus on helping herself instead of helping them. He told her she was too kind and naive and that not everyone she meets would help her like those who did previously.

Around the same time, the two of them met another supposed low-rank government official named Riku Seiga. While Tan Tan voiced his opposition at Shuurei helping the other officials, Seiga happily agreed to help Shuurei. We later find out his true personality when he stole a report Shuurei wrote which would have helped her get retained. Seiga was actually a senior investigative officer whose work had been interrupted earlier when Shuurei took the initiative to investigate the case of the fake paintings during her suspension (yep, even during suspension she found something to do).

Fortunately for her, she was saved by Tan Tan who found the actual money press used for the counterfeit money related to the case of fake paintings, which they couldn’t find earlier. He handed it to her for her to submit as a report. Tan Tan in turn was safe from the dismissal because he had struck a deal with the head of the investigation department earlier. Shuurei, defeated, told Tan Tan that he had been right all along. To this he said, “I may have told you that you were too kind, but I didn’t say I hated it.”

From then on, Tan Tan becomes her friend and colleague (nothing more) while Seiga becomes her nemesis. It’s interesting to see how Shuurei does get less naive after that and even once managed to outmanoeuvre the scheming Seiga.

We also see more characterisation for Shi Ryuuki and military general Ran Shuei. Amidst the backdrop of declining support from the noblemen, Ryuuki finally fights his own demons and makes a decision that would guide him the rest of his life as an emperor.

As for Shuurei, it becomes clearer that despite her ambitions, she does have feelings for Ryuuki who had declared his love for her in the previous season. It certainly provides a dilemma for Shuurei who wants to climb the ranks to become a respected official. Yet, how can she become for example, the Prime Minister, if she becomes the emperor’s consort? The second season pretty much ends on this note -- with you rooting for the both of them to get together yet wanting Shuurei to fulfil her potential. I hope there’s a season three :)

"Ban-kai!"

I may not have been watching a lot of English language animation but I have been watching a lot of Japanese animation, or anime. Like Dreamwork’s How to Train a Dragon, you can see vast improvements in the works of recent animes. In the past few months, I’ve reconnected with Bleach, which I started to watch in 2006 but stopped after they started showing fillers. Now that the series has run a few hundred episodes, I can easily filter the non-filler episodes from the fillers.

Bleach is about a high-school boy’s involvement with Shinigamis, or soul reapers who control the underworld and keep the spiritual balance of the real world intact. In a moment of desperation, Rukia, a Shinigami on duty in Ichigo’s town, transferred her Shinigami powers to him even though she knew it was forbidden. Due to his spiritual strength, Ichigo unwittingly drains most of Rukia’s powers. From that day onwards, the two of them work together as Ichigo takes over Rukia’s duties while Rukia acts as his guide or mentor, all the while hoping to delay the day Soul Society finds out about the illegal transfer of power. Rukia, although a girl, talks like a boy and thinks in an extremely logical and tactical way, unlike us girls who tend to think emotionally :P. She could well be one of the most unique female characters in anime history. It’s the repartee between Ichigo and Rukia that I feel is one of the strong points of this anime. She gets to annoy Ichigo a lot and Ichigo, with his devil-may-care attitude, doesn’t treat her that much differently just because she’s a girl.

I guess there’s been many stories about soul reapers but what I feel distinguishes Bleach from others is its distinct Japanese flavour. The Shinigamis in the story reside in the underworld, called Soul Society, in which the architecture strongly resembles Japan during the Kamakura period. Thus, the Shinigamis are dressed in black hakama, a Japanese garb, traditionally worn by male.

As a very action driven shonen (guy) anime, there are a lot of fighting scenes. The good thing though is that the animation is very fluid and the fights (most of them) don’t drag on too long. The animation is top notch and detailed, they even illustrate the pink area within a character’s eyes!

As Ichigo and Rukia fight Hollows, a type of creature that eats human souls and try to conceal from Soul Society Rukia's illegal power transfer, they meet a lot of interesting characters, from Ishida, Ichigo’s so-called nemesis at school right up to the squad leaders of Soul Society.

One of the strong points of this anime, besides the action sequences are the characters. You feel like you want to know the background of Ichigo’s friends as well as the people he meets in Soul Society.

Shinigamis there are divided into 13 squads which are each lead by a captain. Within each squad, the members are ranked based on their strength or special powers. The captains, naturally, are the strongest among the Shinigamis. Each Shinigami has a living sword, called Zanpakutou, which they must work together with in order to be skilled in using their powers. It’s interesting to see each Shinigami’s power as their Zanpakutou, which could be a reflection of themselves, varies from one to another. All Zanpakutous look like a normal Japanese sword, or katana, unless released by their Shinigami. The first release, called shikai, is an ability all Shinigamis can do. The second level of release, called bankai, elevates a Shinigami’s power and can usually be performed only by the squads’ captains and vice-captains.

The only problem I have with the series are the filler episodes! It’s not just one or two spread in between they even have full seasons which are actually fillers. If I were the animation studio, I would wait until the manga artist finishes the following chapters and then start production. But I understand they probably need to keep the interest among fans going and probably can’t afford to not show anything while the artist works on the next chapters. I understand but I don't agree.
Picture courtesy of Bleach Exile.

"But you just gestured to all of me..."

I haven’t watched movies in ages but I managed to catch Dreamwork’s How to Train a Dragon (in 3D!) twice last week :P I hadn’t planned on watching it twice but the circumstances somehow led me to it. I didn’t mind since it was quite a good movie, which is quite surprising considering my ever increasing cynicism towards English animated movies released by studios other than Pixar. The story is about Hiccup, a boy trying to prove himself worthy in a village where dragons are considered pests and dragon hunting is the main occupation of its villagers. It doesn’t help when his father is not only a dragon slayer, but is the village head as well. During a dragon attack one day, Hiccup manages to catch Night Fury, the deadliest dragon of all but discovers that killing it may not necessarily be the solution his people have practiced for the past hundreds of years.

So what did I like about the movie? First of all, I liked the unusual Viking setting the story is set in. When I first saw the poster I thought it was set in modern times. The seaside Viking island was not exactly something new but something we haven't seen in recent major animated films.
The voice actors behind the characters played their role very well. Hiccup, the underdog protagonist voiced by Jay Baruchel, has an annoying nasally voice but he reaches out to you somehow with his clever lines and determination. His father, voiced by Gerard Butler, did an amazing job as a Viking with the weight of his village on his shoulders. Craig Ferguson was funny in his role as dragon trainer/Hiccup’s baby sitter Gobber.

While I thought that the Night Fury resembled a Digimon character too much, it grew on me. Named Toothless by Hiccup because it appeared to have no teeth at first, it is not as dangerous as humans made it out to be and is in fact cute, especially when compared to the other dragons. Yes, in a movie about dragons, dragons in all its shapes and form make an appearance. Some don’t actually look like the dragons we’re used to seeing or reading in fantasy books or mythological tales, so they might not appeal to dragon purists, if there are any out there. I like them though, whether its the stout Gronckle or the very lizard-like Deadly Nadder.

The story was a simple coming of age story well-crafted by Dreamworks and the animation just blew me away. It’s like the technological advancement in animation leaped by few decades (maybe it did because, like I said, I haven’t watched movies in a long time) or perhaps it’s just the magic of 3D. You can see the hairs on the hands of the characters, see the textures of the different fabrics worn by the Vikings and the ocean looked so real. The flying parts were breathtaking and you begin to understand why they wanted to make a 3D movie featuring dragons.

As a fan of the fantasy genre, I’m glad to see there are other good fantasy movies out there besides The Lord of The Rings trilogy and Stardust :D