House of Five Leaves
Jun. 25th, 2010 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiNow that we are within a couple of episodes of the end of House of Fives Leaves, airing on Hulu (subbed not dubbed, thank God), I feel I can make some preliminary comments. This will be non-spoilery to the best of my ability.
In brief, this anime is about a samurai, Masa, who keeps getting laid off by various employers for having a conflict-avoidant personality. He gets hired as a bodyguard by a group of kidnappers, the House of Five Leaves, and must deal with his own uncertainty about becoming a criminal and his desire to learn more about the people he's working with. The story unpeels the life histories of the various kidnappers, most notably their leader, Yaichi, who is an enthralling mystery to Masa from the start.
It's a very good anime! Even if the end proves weak, I can say now that it has been a good ride. Personally, I found some of the side stories and tertiary characters rather boring and a waste of story time, which was probably exacerbated by only seeing 25 minutes per week. But I know others really enjoyed these stories. And the central few character stories are riveting.
This is perhaps the slashiest anime I have ever seen, in the old-school sense of the word. It is not BL; it just has an incredible chemistry between its leads, who are clearly emotionally impacted by each other. Not infrequently it has "subtext" (as they used to say) such as Yaichi showing a bit of knee whilst chatting with Masa or certain lingering looks. I find the story very fun and rather refreshing on this level, probably for much the reason that fangirls got into slash in the '70s and '80s. The rejection of overt romantic text in favor of a subtle kind of UST and natural chemistry between characters or actors allows relationships that are not stereotyped or overdetermined. It lets personalities mesh the way they naturally want to. I'm enjoying it. And yes, I do want them to have sex (but I accept they probably won't).
In brief, this anime is about a samurai, Masa, who keeps getting laid off by various employers for having a conflict-avoidant personality. He gets hired as a bodyguard by a group of kidnappers, the House of Five Leaves, and must deal with his own uncertainty about becoming a criminal and his desire to learn more about the people he's working with. The story unpeels the life histories of the various kidnappers, most notably their leader, Yaichi, who is an enthralling mystery to Masa from the start.
It's a very good anime! Even if the end proves weak, I can say now that it has been a good ride. Personally, I found some of the side stories and tertiary characters rather boring and a waste of story time, which was probably exacerbated by only seeing 25 minutes per week. But I know others really enjoyed these stories. And the central few character stories are riveting.
This is perhaps the slashiest anime I have ever seen, in the old-school sense of the word. It is not BL; it just has an incredible chemistry between its leads, who are clearly emotionally impacted by each other. Not infrequently it has "subtext" (as they used to say) such as Yaichi showing a bit of knee whilst chatting with Masa or certain lingering looks. I find the story very fun and rather refreshing on this level, probably for much the reason that fangirls got into slash in the '70s and '80s. The rejection of overt romantic text in favor of a subtle kind of UST and natural chemistry between characters or actors allows relationships that are not stereotyped or overdetermined. It lets personalities mesh the way they naturally want to. I'm enjoying it. And yes, I do want them to have sex (but I accept they probably won't).
