Media Month in Review – June 2014

I use this post to go over all the media consumed/experienced over the past month, with 2-4 sentences per item. A way to give short thoughts on each topic.

Books/Comics:

• The Human Division, by John Scalzi – The 5th book in The Old Man’s War. You can definitely see some similarities to certain story-threads from Agent to the Stars and The Android’s Dream by Scalzi, who are also quite similar to one another. Each story was published to stand on its own, as each chapter had been released as a stand-alone ebook, and they do so well. I’ve enjoyed it, a very easy and enjoyable read. It does end in a way that simply demands a continuation, however, and I don’t think one had been announced to be in the works yet

Media Month in Review – May 2014

I use this post to go over all the media consumed/experienced over the past month, with 2-4 sentences per item. A way to give short thoughts on each topic.

Movies:

Only anime-films this time around. Didn’t catch anything this month either. Hope to fix that with both films at home and at the cinema :-/

• Wings of Honneamise – A film from the late 90s, feels like an attempt to speak of humanity’s woes, and how we can always be forgiven – even if we ruin Earth, we can still make it to a new clean planet, which we’ll destroy again, but on the other hand, if we just believe, we can fix it all. Definitely feels like an “end of the Cold War” sort of film, but one which presents both how we’ll keep ruining every other world as we ruined this one due to our pettiness, but also how if we but believe, it could be made better. I actually find it more than a tad boring, with only the last 30 minutes being of any real interest.

Media Month in Review – April 2014

April was my Spring Break month, I had a lot of plans, and ended up doing nothing… oh well. Happens. Too much vacation, I guess.

I use this post to go over all the media consumed/experienced over the past month, with 2-4 sentences per item. A way to give short thoughts on each topic.

Movies:

Only anime-films this time around. I hope I’ll catch Captain America: Winter Soldier, before it leaves the cinema theatres.

• Richard the Third – Theatre – I used to go to a lot more plays in the past. This is actually my first time hearing the tale of Richard the 3rd, in any media. It’s interesting, how most collections of Shakespeare leave out the bloody and political tragedies (Richard the 2nd, Richard the 3rd, Titus). The writing was solid, they added a certain modern decadent atmosphere that reminded me of the Titus version Anthony Hopkins starred in. The actor of Richard the 3rd was very good, but most of the other actors weren’t overly impressive. Seems they went for melodrama, on purpose. Of the three female actresses, the Queen Mother was good, but the other two were either wooden and stuck too close to their lines, or just felt out of place altogether.

Spice and Wolf – The Wise Merchant’s Journey of Love

Spice and Wolf is a series I’ve heard of for a long time, but never got to watch until recently. After watching Maoyu, which I’ve covered last week, I’ve been told that this show is exceedingly similar to it. Having enjoyed Maoyu quite a bit I’ve decided to check it out. Part of what makes it so similar is what makes this the 2nd out of three posts about “mind-expanding anime” which star Fukuyama Jun.

One reason I didn’t really watch the show could probably be seen in a recent Reddit thread where people had tried to give a “Boring tl;dr” treatment to show’s synopsis. Spice and Wolf was represented in that thread numerous times, and they didn’t even have to work hard to simplify the show’s concept: A small-time merchant travels around, teaching us concepts in economy. That sounds quite dull, right? But as some places have said, it’s not about concepts, and most concepts have been done multiple times each, but about execution.

(This is a Things I Like post, it’s not a review, but more a discussion of the show and of ideas that have risen in my mind as I’ve watched it. There will be very few spoilers in this post.)