Revolutionary Girl Utena 2: Private lifts, Demian, and Gnosticism.

(I finally got this done. I’ve been quite busy with moving lately and must apologize for neglecting the blog. Beyond that, I have no internet set up yet in the home, so I have to work Starbucks into my schedule.)

In addition to the usual commentary, in this post I examine the mythological and literary references in Revolutionary Girl Utena and their deeper implications about the plot. If you don’t get what “break the world’s shell” is about, you will definitely want to read this to understand what the hell is going on in this hypnotically eccentric story.

The Lost Symbol

I’ve never heard of The Da Vinci Code. In fact, when I first saw the trailer for the movie, I was most intrigued by the content of the motion picture. It wasn’t until I was sitting in an airport terminal in Mexico City did I got the chance to purchase me a copy of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and his prequel follow-up, Angels and Demons. In a eight hours flight from Mexico City International Airport to LAX, I had sufficient time to pour over the pair of books I’ve just bought on a whim. Reading The Da Vinci code was, for the lack of a better phrase, a philosophical liberation. The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, both with its respected motion picture adaptation, now has a follow-up, The Lost Symbol.

Canaan 12: Going Off The Rails On A Crazy Train

“Crazy, but that’s how it goes.

Millions of people living as foes.

Maybe it’s not to late

To learn how to love,

And forget how to hate.

Mental wounds not healing,

Life’s a bitter shame.

I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.”

Canaan 12. I got words. Read them.

Revolutionary Girl Utena 1: The sugary pink birthday cake of kickass fantasy anime.

SCREENCAP MEGAPOST.

It’s what I do. If you want a wall of text, you’re in the wrong place. In other news, former President Bush declared last week that Betsuni is his preferred aniblog for heavy use of visual-aids.

(I must apologize if my screencaps for Utena look more like screencraps. This is for various reasons, and does not reflect the glory of the remastered episodes.)

A short while ago, DigitalBoy invited anyone who was interested to participate in a community-wide project of blogging Revolutionary Girl Utena. The show is (supposedly) famous among anime fans for being funny, badass, and all-around awesome in general.

Before reading DigitalBoy’s post, I had zero knowledge of Utena other than hearing the name occasionally on various websites, and had never heard anything that would encourage me to pursue it. Normally I wouldn’t be open-minded enough to pick this show up when more recent series are waiting to be caught up on. However, I feel this is an opportunity to introduce myself (and my lame friends, who never bother to read MY blogroll) to the ’sphere members who are following DigitalBoy’s call to arms, and so have taken up the cause alongside him.

Together, we shall embark upon an epic journey along with the readers to meet this girl, Utena, and follow her as she revolutionizes the world with the power of friendship, roses, and good old-fashioned ass-kicking. Anibloggers, if you haven’t seen this yet, hop onboard the bandwagon and join us for the ride as DigitalBoy remembers love and I discover it for the first time.

Now without further introduction: Revolutionary Girl Utena: Episode 1 – The Rose Bride.

Canaan 1: I Remember Love (Of Babes And Bullets)

^A little shout-out to ghostlightning there and his love of Macross. I find it very easy to participate in the discussions on his blog, and find his writing style intelligent and easy to digest, without feeling pretentious or assaulting the reader with walls of text. You should check him out.

Before we begin, I’d like to point out that I’m a heavy tvtropes.org addict, and so make regular use of relevant trope references as often as I can remember them. You will recognize trope titles throughout my entries by All Uppercase First Letters. However, since that site has a reputation for sucking you in for hours at a time, I will only hyperlink to actual trope pages when I feel it’s beneficial for your knowledge in regard to the work being discussed.

Since Haruhi’s degradation I’ve been looking for a new dealer to supply my anime fix. Unfortunately, being an anime fan with an aversion to idiotic premises can be a quandary when your only options are like something out of a 14 year-old’s trash bin of rejected fanfic ideas (let’s face it, 98% of anime fall into this category, including the good ones). On top of that, most of the shows this season look like they missed the memo that Haruhi raised the bar for animation standards. Of those that look sharp, there are only two that I would consider, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and Canaan (because I’ve been following Bakemonogatari via The Jason, and it crosses one line too many for my tastes in regard to fanservice).

I’ve personally seen one-too-many Sci-fi Channel original movies about natural disasters to be remotely interested in Magnitude just now, so the only logical choice left is Canaan. The synopsis gives me hope for a good multiple-perspective mystery thriller. I just hope it’s more Indigo Prophecy and less Vantage Point.

Before jumping into the first episode, let’s establish some historical context for the title.

“Canaan,” in the sense of etymology, can mean low, humbled, merchant, or purple. In the Bible, Canaan the man was cursed by his father (for a stupid reason) and made the slave of his brothers. For this reason the house of Canaan was looked down upon by other Israelite tribes and they were ultimately subjugated. The land of Canaan was also the promised land for the Israelites, which God gave to them since he didn’t give a crap about the people already living there, having been descended from the cursed Canaan. (Old Testament God really is an a**hole. There’s a reason Gnostic Christians think he’s an impostor deity.) Here is a particularly dramatic Biblical quote in which Canaan is mentioned:

“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.”

Psalm 106:37-38

Time will tell if there is any genuine meaning to Canaan’s title, or if it falls into What Do You Mean It’s Not Symbolic territory. Now for the episode.

Netbooks: Normally I like Em’ Big, but they sure know what to do with it.

First off, I’m sorry about the title Zex. Just leave it be. It’s better this way.

So, to begin.

Netbooks. If you don’t know what a Netbook is, the simple explnation is this: Netbooks are smaller laptops that have cut out all the major power draining systems in a laptop has (i.e.  Disc drives, large screens, fans ect.  ) as well as putting in more stable operating systems.

The one I have been playing with the last few days is the acer Aspire One. It’s no wider than my forearm is long and about as deep as my phone. They sell for about $200-$500 dependingon make and guts.  They are powered by the Intle Atom or AMD Athlon Neo processors. The core powe is between 1.2Ghz and 2.0Ghz, run with 1-2 GBS or RAM. They have Falsh Internal hard drives, no CD/DVD drives and POWERFUL wi-fi cards.

Halo Movie: Is it still possible?

I still remember when Halo 3 was released back in 2007. Perhaps one of the most memorial period of the year, leading up to the release of Halo 3, was the shortfilm called Halo Arms Race that aired at the end of Microsoft E3 07. This 1:53 minute trailer gave us a first look at what the Halo movie might have look like if it is ever made, taking into account that this was made to build up hype for Halo 3 of course.

Animals With Lightsabers

Exactly as it says on the tin. I’m not sure if this counts as Rule Thirty-Six of the internet, but the randomness is the same.

Great Thoughts in Luke-warm Water…

I know looking at the tub now a days, it appear as either childish or feminine.  Maybe this is because of popular media showing the bath time with either a woman neck deep ( or lower depending on how racy the movie) with a good book and a glass of wine,  OR children splashing and playing with their little toys. All the action stars stand up in the shower and let the water run over themselves so they can get back out to blowing things up and having sex with girls. It seems that the bath tub has become obsolete unless you are sick, little or have lady bits.  This could also be a product of the American system of  “Get it done as fast as possible”   making people think they don’t have time to relax in the hot, soothing water. To let us enjoy a safe place that somewhat mimics the womb we left so long ago. I personally ascribe to this most of the time because I always am running late, even when I’m early. I did recently move into a new house where I have access to a claw-foot tub, that isn’t attached to the shower.  This means I don’t have a gritty nasty tub that always looks too gross to bathe in…so i now take time to enjoy that.

Beethoven Breakfast

@_@ “…”

Hilarious? Bizarre? You be the judge.