It's been forever since I watched Tenjou Tenge and most of the reason I did was for the OP anyway. I was misleaded into thinking Masataka was the main character, which saddened me deeply when I learned he wasn't.


So I was watching Index thinking all oh my God this animation is looks beautiful hey this Biribiri is kinda cute oh wow this magic and church stuff is so cool but somewhere along the line the justice loving dense but sincere stereotypical main lead suddenly becomes even more awfully uninteresting but now with a harem. I guess it's my fault since I didn't expect the series to be so amazingly shonen-based but what made me rage was the wasted potential it had and the I will never meet a loli clone that narrates her sentences in 3rd person sja;fjasdfaf

@ Ryke on 20th Century Boys: Hey I just finished reading that...

Well, okay, yes, that last reveal was a little pointless, but I think the idea of him dying without you ever having a clear idea of who he was was the point, both behind the reveal and the recurring "OMG I HAVE NO FACE" motif. Admittedly that may have been more the original Friend's shtick, but I kind of lost track in there... perhaps it's meant to be read several ways (since it has a different meaning applied to the original Friend).

Anyway, the last pages were kind of a reaffirmation of the futility of the whole thing, so it works for me, though I did have to go remind myself who he -was-. Honestly 20cb got a little carried away with dramatic reveals, some of which were, I swear, just Urasawa dragging out the series, since several of them more or less undo each other. BUT it's the only series I've ever seen that -adored- being cheesy and dark at the same time, and actually pulled both off for the most part. There were definitely points in the middle that had more emotional gravitas than the ending, but... *shrugs* It did draw me in to the point of marathoning the last 150 or so chapters in like, four days.

--Back on topic: I did get really seriously chewed out on a Gundam 00 forum for making wild speculation based on the ending of the first season after the second season had started but before I was caught up. I found it to be perfectly valid in a thread that was specifically FOR season 1, since, if you've ever been in an English class, you're aware that predictions you make are meaningful regardless of whether there's a large group of people who already know how true/false they are. I mean, okay, I criticized the series for "killing" several characters and then bringing them back two episodes later, to which the response was "they were never really dead." Well, -obviously-, but then why create the expectation that they were dead? At which point I was yelled at for "making snap judgments," apparently because I continuously process what I'm watching.

The fact that I said I'd rather those characters stayed dead may have had something to do with it. But Gundam 00's biggest antagonists are a who's who of cliches, and I wanted to see where the series would go after killing most of its "enemy" cast halfway through. And so far (S2 episode 16), I was more or less right--those guys have done maybe two-three things that couldn't have as easily been done by any other random baddie.

Oh, and if I may rage at the series itself... why the HELL would you start out basing things off of -real- issues like conflict in the middle east and then just dive back into the big barrel of Gundam conventions (super soldiers, psychic powers will allow people to understand each other and put a stop to war, etc.)? Honestly, Zeta was great, but if you're going to suddenly use the AD calendar, don't we deserve something a little more open-minded than "Wars are the fault of a few shadowy figures manipulating everything"? Don't we deserve second-season antagonists who do not DEVOUR PUPPIES because it's fun? Honestly, I can handle a false sense of justice, but you cannot tell me that any soldier in an army that uses automatons with a KILL MODE actually believes they're doing the right thing.

Well, it was -literally- a device that was there to advance the plot, so what would you expect? XD

Honestly, I never thought of it from a technological standpoint. I guess I just assumed that Orwellian re-education camps have virtual reality simulators with mind screw capacity. But now that you mention it, it doesn't seem to fit with the setting so well. What I don't get is how it manages to perfectly recreate the personalities of people Friend clearly did not seem to think that much of, to the point where they're able to interact with people who didn't actually exist at that time in a reasonable fashion. With Kyoko it was believable because at first no one noticed her and she seemed to get dragged along more than being able to alter things... I guess everyone else has the virtue of actually having been alive for it the first time around, maybe the program rearranged itself around what they knew?

More to the point, why was it there anyway? Did Friend have a deep-seated need to drive his most successful brainwashees to suicide by making them live his childhood? And for that matter, why weren't the others around with Kyoko since later efforts at putting multiple people in the system resulted in everyone being in the same version of the world?

Honestly, though, story-wise the thing that sticks out the most to me is that, if you bring Kenji back for the final act (which was awesome although I may have liked the series better when it was heart-crushingly depressing), then Kanna's place in the story is kind of questionable. She sort of ends up as the interim hero, who is promptly overshadowed when the original main character reclaims his role... I mean, okay, she obviously isn't a Twentieth Century Boy, but for all her struggles and character development throughout the middle of the story, Kenji gets to come back and Messiah it up, and then DISAPPROVE of her, and thereafter she's sort of relegated to being the one with the psychic sense for the last two volumes. Granted Kanna was doing some damned stupid stuff, but when Kenji was all "I disapprove," he seems to have been referring to the most reasonable thing she'd done in a while, unless someone filled him in on all her other stupid desperate stunts. And then that issue just kind of hangs there at the end. Which is a shame, because, you know, aside from the occasional random panty-shot, Kanna got to be not-objectified and a strong individual to the point of absurdity.

(And you really thought Kenji was coming back? I figured he was gone for good--I mean, hell, he was gone for almost as long as he was around, the first time, and in-universe he certainly had plenty of time to go check in with his pals... Besides which, at that point the series had basically spent its entire length kicking him repeatedly, so it seemed reasonable enough to kill him)

But yeah, gotta forgive most of it. I mean, I'd have liked to see Kanna... not lose her reason to be the person who she was just because Kenji came back, but in fairness his being dead -was- her big motivator for pretty damn near everything.

And speaking of 70s anime flair, I cracked up when Chouno showed up in Tetsuro's outfit and Kenji said "That's three-nine's". And the "I guess that makes me Yabuki Joe" statement was made of win. Oh, and I have a feeling that, if I ever get my anime-fan friends to read up to the bit where Sadakiyo first appears, his "THAT'S NOT A GUNDAM! GUNDAMS ARE MOBILE SUITS!" bit will be used to make jokes at my expense. Oh well.

My most rageful experiences?

My cousins loved Inuyasha and for a while, my house was a sanctuary away from where they were living. Two of my uncles retired about the same time. Both with three kids and their wives. All moved into my grandparents' house. Three bedrooms plus a spare in the basement. So nearly every weekend they were over at my house - this went on for months. We watched Inuyasha movies - several times - during all those months. Throw in that Inuyasha aired on a Saturday night...

Kagome screaming his bloody name repeatedly each time was enough to make me want to kick teeth in. I learned how wonderful it was to leave my room, where everyone gathered around the TV, and just take a shower when Inuyasha came on.