beccastareyes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccastareyes) wrote2011-07-17 08:12 pm
beccastareyes) wrote2011-07-17 08:12 pm
Entry tags:
Things I learned this weekend.
This may be a normal hormonal fluctuation, but I sob like a baby during series finales. At least, I've been watching a lot of anime*, and managed to get through all of the first two seasons of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and all of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. This weekend, I watched all of Madoka and the finale of Nanoha As. And sobbed through the finales of both series.
I don't know what it is between me and magical girl shows. Maybe that I'm a sucker for female-female relationships and love and friendship. And also the occasional fight scene, which excludes a lot of slice of life.
I mean, aside from a large cast of female characters and magical beatdowns, the two don't have that much in common. Nanoha's art is kind of moebait, and I say that as someone who liked the show. Seriously, the plot and characters are good, but I feel like Chris Hansen is going to have some pointed questions for me for having it on my hard drive**. Madoka, on the other hand, despite also being about girls who magically change their clothing, besides the opening sequence and some bits during the final episode, has an art style which is a mix of surreal and ordinary (aside from the fact that Madoka's parents and teacher all look like kids themselves).
Also, the plots. Madoka is more related to things like Revolutionary Girl Utena, though Madoka manages to not give me the feeling of 'what the hell did I just watch'. By which I mean, Madoka is a deconstruction of a magical girl show: it takes a lot of the tropes (the power of human emotion, the guardian animals, the lack of serious injury, the fact you have preteen girls fighting evil with no support network but each other) and twists them. Nanoha, OTOH, plays the whole thing straight, though I can't help wondering if some of the over the top magical effects are aiming for Gurren Lagann style ridiculousness. At least, there's a couple of scenes that are like '... really, show?'. Sort of just 'this is so over the top that you can't be doing this on purpose'.
But I did enjoy both.
* I become un-addicted Facebook games and start mainlining anime and my DVD collection after work. At least I can crochet while doing it. At this rate, though, I'm going to end up with a box of stuff to sell/give away and have seriously busted my yarn stash.
** Tangent: reading Wikipedia gave the history. Nanoha was a minor character in an adult-rated visual novel starting her brother. Later the creators decided that they could take a page from the Tenchi universe and make a magical girl series from this, which I guess means seeing how much of a common audience they had. I think this is when I admit I don't understand this at all.
I don't know what it is between me and magical girl shows. Maybe that I'm a sucker for female-female relationships and love and friendship. And also the occasional fight scene, which excludes a lot of slice of life.
I mean, aside from a large cast of female characters and magical beatdowns, the two don't have that much in common. Nanoha's art is kind of moebait, and I say that as someone who liked the show. Seriously, the plot and characters are good, but I feel like Chris Hansen is going to have some pointed questions for me for having it on my hard drive**. Madoka, on the other hand, despite also being about girls who magically change their clothing, besides the opening sequence and some bits during the final episode, has an art style which is a mix of surreal and ordinary (aside from the fact that Madoka's parents and teacher all look like kids themselves).
Also, the plots. Madoka is more related to things like Revolutionary Girl Utena, though Madoka manages to not give me the feeling of 'what the hell did I just watch'. By which I mean, Madoka is a deconstruction of a magical girl show: it takes a lot of the tropes (the power of human emotion, the guardian animals, the lack of serious injury, the fact you have preteen girls fighting evil with no support network but each other) and twists them. Nanoha, OTOH, plays the whole thing straight, though I can't help wondering if some of the over the top magical effects are aiming for Gurren Lagann style ridiculousness. At least, there's a couple of scenes that are like '... really, show?'. Sort of just 'this is so over the top that you can't be doing this on purpose'.
But I did enjoy both.
* I become un-addicted Facebook games and start mainlining anime and my DVD collection after work. At least I can crochet while doing it. At this rate, though, I'm going to end up with a box of stuff to sell/give away and have seriously busted my yarn stash.
** Tangent: reading Wikipedia gave the history. Nanoha was a minor character in an adult-rated visual novel starting her brother. Later the creators decided that they could take a page from the Tenchi universe and make a magical girl series from this, which I guess means seeing how much of a common audience they had. I think this is when I admit I don't understand this at all.