Thursday, September 07, 2006

Sorry, sorry. Not really busy, just... meh. I was down in Maryland last weekend, touring the Antietam battlefield & Harper's Ferry with my parents for Labor Day. Things have been middling busy at work, but not insanely so, I don't think.

It's getting a little coolish, and it's been raining way, way too much for this time of year. The apartment still leaks, although the roof guy & I have agreed that it's probably the exposed, aging brickwork on the south side of the house, and not the new roof that's the culprit. Whatever it is, the apartment stinks of mildew & mold. I've been burning a candle someone gave me at ComCon to try to change the stink, if not eliminate it. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be one of those strongly-smelling candles.

Picked up a cheap copy of the first disc of Argento Soma. Cheap DVDs are neat and all, but once you get one of 'em in a series, you find yourself semi-obligated to go & get the rest of the damned series, which are rarely as cheap as the first one you picked up on a whim. The show wasn't as bad as I remembered it being, from having watched an early digisub of the first episode way-and-a-hey back when it was new and notable. Nothing great, but really well-animated, and not the usual run of mecha cliches. It's supposed to be a loose mecha version of Frankenstein, in the same way Infinite Ryvius was supposed to be a very loose space opera version of the Lord of the Flies. (Same production house, I'm told.) I've never actually finished reading Shelley's book, but I doubt it had quite such a prominent role for the little girl befriended by the monster as what's portrayed in Argento Soma. In fact, I kind of suspect that the flower-girl from the classic Frankenstein movie was an invention of the filmmakers. Eh, speculation from total ignorance - so illuminating! The Japanese writers of Argento Soma turn the relationship between the flower-girl & the monster into the typical miko-and-kami Japanese cliche. Think Neo Ranga.

No comments: