Quick Roundup--Reading and Viewing
Mar. 20th, 2012 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiAnime
Un-Go: Detective solves cases involving science (fiction) and magic in a near future/AU post-war Japan. Generally, I recommend this intellectual 12 episode series, though I agree with those reviewers who've said it would be better if it were longer. As it is, too little of its intriguing potential is explored. Its standout characteristic is its setting. Based on novels written shortly after World War II and set in the post-war Meiji Era, this science fiction transposition captures with an eerie melancholy the daily reality of living in the very early years of reconstruction from a devastating war. From the quietly toppled buildings in the background to the war stories nobody talks about to the moments of overzealous happy-bustling-business-entertainment, the whole series conveys a sense of lacquering over an ugly painting in the hopes that the shine with transform it.
This setting could be a great jumping off point for human drama. But if Un-Go jumps, the series ends when it is about three inches off the ground. The detective protagonist, Shinjurou, is the only standout character: a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued young veteran trying to pretend he doesn't have the scars the obviously has. He's an interesting mix of glib and fiery, flashy and curiously understated.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have anyone of equal stature to play off. His magical companion, Inga, is an interesting concept, as a soul-sucking demon sort of sidekick, but she never ascends from interesting concept to interesting character. The series ends while we're still trying to figure out what she is, let alone who she is. Likewise, the series's rather fun AI is more fun as concept than character. Of the human characters, Kaishou, the on-again off-again antagonist, too, could have been interesting insofar as you never quite know if he's conniving or just very bland (with a dash lighthearted irony), but we don't get to know him well enough to get below the bland to human. His daughter feels more emotionally genuine, but never rises above the admittedly impressive feat of dull-but-not-annoying rich teenage girl. And so on. I wish the show would get another season, but it doesn't look like it will; it hits too minor a key to be a commercial success.
But I recommend it on the basis of the setting and Shinjurou. Here's a parting example of both: Shinjurou wakes up in a hallucination in which the war never happened. He goes about his day musing on how nice it is that he's helping to make a movie about a horrible war, but it's just fiction. Yet his discomfort is palpable in his strange musings on this "fictionality," his lying in bed at night, staring. As a means of showing how deep into his subconscious the reality of the war has sunk, this is perfectly pitched.
Books
I dabbled significantly with By Way of Deception, which purports to be author Victor Ostrovsky's account of working as an intelligence agent in the Mossad. Apparently, Ostrovsky himself subsequently stated that he'd made up a lot. You can kind of guess. There are just things that don't track, like if the Mossad is so dangerous and globally powerful, how is it he managed to expose their entire institution with no reprisal?
That said, taken as a work of fiction, I found the book a fascinating example of how to conduct spycraft. I have never read/viewed a work of fiction in which the business of intelligence was conducted with such fearsome grace, though Le Carré probably comes closest.
And just about twenty years later than I should have, I finally read the first Discworld book. I think I missed my own best developmental window for this series (at least based on this first one: I know there a lot and they evolve). I probably would have loved it in high school. Nowadays, for one thing, I don't have time to read comedy. I need to read for catharsis, and with almost no reading time, that leaves little time for laughs without a cathartic payoff. I also found it impossible not to find the book almost 100% derivative of Hitchhiker's Guide or The Last Unicorn. But I did enjoy it; it's fun and light. Rincewind and Twoflower are both engaging characters, and the Discworld itself is interesting and probably the most memorable thing in the book. I also like the interdimensional bit on the airplane. I'll try the second one at least.
Un-Go: Detective solves cases involving science (fiction) and magic in a near future/AU post-war Japan. Generally, I recommend this intellectual 12 episode series, though I agree with those reviewers who've said it would be better if it were longer. As it is, too little of its intriguing potential is explored. Its standout characteristic is its setting. Based on novels written shortly after World War II and set in the post-war Meiji Era, this science fiction transposition captures with an eerie melancholy the daily reality of living in the very early years of reconstruction from a devastating war. From the quietly toppled buildings in the background to the war stories nobody talks about to the moments of overzealous happy-bustling-business-entertainment, the whole series conveys a sense of lacquering over an ugly painting in the hopes that the shine with transform it.
This setting could be a great jumping off point for human drama. But if Un-Go jumps, the series ends when it is about three inches off the ground. The detective protagonist, Shinjurou, is the only standout character: a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued young veteran trying to pretend he doesn't have the scars the obviously has. He's an interesting mix of glib and fiery, flashy and curiously understated.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have anyone of equal stature to play off. His magical companion, Inga, is an interesting concept, as a soul-sucking demon sort of sidekick, but she never ascends from interesting concept to interesting character. The series ends while we're still trying to figure out what she is, let alone who she is. Likewise, the series's rather fun AI is more fun as concept than character. Of the human characters, Kaishou, the on-again off-again antagonist, too, could have been interesting insofar as you never quite know if he's conniving or just very bland (with a dash lighthearted irony), but we don't get to know him well enough to get below the bland to human. His daughter feels more emotionally genuine, but never rises above the admittedly impressive feat of dull-but-not-annoying rich teenage girl. And so on. I wish the show would get another season, but it doesn't look like it will; it hits too minor a key to be a commercial success.
But I recommend it on the basis of the setting and Shinjurou. Here's a parting example of both: Shinjurou wakes up in a hallucination in which the war never happened. He goes about his day musing on how nice it is that he's helping to make a movie about a horrible war, but it's just fiction. Yet his discomfort is palpable in his strange musings on this "fictionality," his lying in bed at night, staring. As a means of showing how deep into his subconscious the reality of the war has sunk, this is perfectly pitched.
Books
I dabbled significantly with By Way of Deception, which purports to be author Victor Ostrovsky's account of working as an intelligence agent in the Mossad. Apparently, Ostrovsky himself subsequently stated that he'd made up a lot. You can kind of guess. There are just things that don't track, like if the Mossad is so dangerous and globally powerful, how is it he managed to expose their entire institution with no reprisal?
That said, taken as a work of fiction, I found the book a fascinating example of how to conduct spycraft. I have never read/viewed a work of fiction in which the business of intelligence was conducted with such fearsome grace, though Le Carré probably comes closest.
And just about twenty years later than I should have, I finally read the first Discworld book. I think I missed my own best developmental window for this series (at least based on this first one: I know there a lot and they evolve). I probably would have loved it in high school. Nowadays, for one thing, I don't have time to read comedy. I need to read for catharsis, and with almost no reading time, that leaves little time for laughs without a cathartic payoff. I also found it impossible not to find the book almost 100% derivative of Hitchhiker's Guide or The Last Unicorn. But I did enjoy it; it's fun and light. Rincewind and Twoflower are both engaging characters, and the Discworld itself is interesting and probably the most memorable thing in the book. I also like the interdimensional bit on the airplane. I'll try the second one at least.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 08:46 pm (UTC)I also have a strong sense of "don't have time for this" with him these days, and I started pretty strong.
(I tended to have a lot of conversations about Pratchett with people who met me before about 2008, since -- and it took me years to figure this out -- at the time one of my few real-name Internet presences was a Pratchett review I wrote on Amazon when I was 17.)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 12:02 am (UTC)I'd say avoid Eric (boring) and Small Gods (nasty and humourless). Some prportedly for teenagers (the Tiffany Aching series and The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents) are just as good as the others and have as much depth.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 04:58 pm (UTC)