I'm a litterateur (ooh -- and yes, I'm mostly joking). I may be the only man in the world who creases his formal trousers with The Norton Shakespeare (it's heavy, you see, and I can't afford a proper iron).
Sometimes I lurk on /m/.
MAL Stuff
A note on tags: I recently discovered the tagging feature of my Anime List. The tags scattered across my List are not all entirely serious. Two perhaps need to be glossed. 'long dark night of the soul' is a facetious way of saying 'prolonged, deepening angst, possibly resulting in catharsis', while 'eye candy' refers not to fanservice but to eye-popping, high-budget animation.
My list is currently set to private.
The ratings on my list do not indicate how much I like a series. They indicate how good I think it is. The two judgements do not necessarily coincide (see also my favourites list, which is similarly disconnected from quality). They represent absolute values (these ones, in fact), not relative ones.
My avatar image is a portrait of the Greek revolutionary bandit/general, Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770-1843). Hopefully his obviously masculine appearance will work against the fact that Leuconoe is a female name.
Notes on Favourite Characters
- Balsa feels like a reworking of Ghost in the Shell's Major, but she's considerably more badass, as instead of an armoury of technological gizmos she just has a spear. She also manages to be a great foster-parent.
- Char/Casval/Quattro/Edward is of course a great rival, a great mentor, and then a great villain. He also has considerable force as a cultural icon: you can buy Char mobile phones and Char suitcases. Besides all that, he deserves to be on this list on the basis of anime's greatest headshot alone.
- We see Bright mature from a an inexperienced captain into a powerful commander over the course of the first MSG, which is good in and of itself. However, after that he becomes a comfortingly changeless (if not necessarily good) surrogate father to successive generations of angsty, heavily-armed teenagers, which I think demands a lot of respect. And after those teenagers have moved on, Bright is still there to oppose Neo Zeon.
- The selection of Master Asia needs no explanation and will receive none.
- Chirico Cuvie is a great example of the gradual recovery of a dehumanised character, and he's also badass enough to be mixed with 'Ai Wo Torimodose!!' without seeming out-of-place.
- Harry Ord is the refined Char of the Happy Tomino phase, a dedicated and chivalrous servant. His skill in combat and his ability to turn up in the right place at the right time are only matched by his brilliant dress sense.
- Neya is . . . a bit cool?
- Guchuko is a node of concentrated moe filtered through the tsundere archetype, shorn of the complications of attraction by being plainly non-human.
- GaoGaiGar-tan! Our Queen of Braves!
- Admiral Bucock, who would in a just world have been happily retired and drawing on his pension, fought a fantastic delaying action, knowing that he was probably doomed, in the defence of an unglamourous ideal which looked like it might also be doomed.
Claims
I've claimed the 'Claim a Sick Character Club' at the Claim a Claim Club Club. So hands off!
Our Man in Havana is indeed set during Batista's reign. But it was published in 1958 and didn't really go much into how Batista ruled Cuba.
Batista was someone who promised democracy in Cuba, but was really just another despot. Cuba at this point was pretty chaotic - mafia members would run schools and businesses, people were openly oppressed and the economy was going on a down spiral. The book really didn't do justice Batista's rule.
The thing with Cuba is... The country has either been run{or controlled in the background} by America or under Castro. For Cuba, it was actually pretty significant for them to break their ties with America and be under Castro's rule. It was at that time where Cuba really became an independent nation.
Though for Cuba this was kinda mixed in its effect in the country. While it did increase the education and nationalism in the country, the lack of freedom and the economy of the country really took its toll on it. As such Castro pretty much relied on the cheap oil he was getting from Russia, but the end of the Cold War really fucked that up for him so he had to both adopt more Western ideas and tourism. Hence the reason why I'm allowed to go to Cuba and why the pope was in Cuba once. Really, this is only occurring because Cuba's was in such a poor economic state that they have to adopt these concepts. Though the country right now is still very much a communist state and it's still run by its own accord{by it's "own" I mean Castro}.
In general I don't really think of the Communist Cubans as good or bad. It's really kinda subjective, I think. But overall I think the country was decently run by Castro despite certain circumstances.
Thanks to your having Infinite Ryvius in your top 5 alongside Baka-Raptor's notes of love for the show, I have now seen one of the greatest anime I've ever witnessed. Thank you kindly.
Ah, right. The legit purchases. I'm trying to attempt obtaining the 16GB 720p rips, although how I would watch them is another thing altogether, I suppose.
Been fine, mostly kept busy (to my uttermost chagrin) with non-anime, non-school things that have no business being said in a public capacity such as these. If you ever get online one of these days I'll tell you all about it, though!
Rewatching Gasaraki ... quickly? That sounds scary to think about!
Dougram is getting so good. Ugh, kind of painful to see it's literally been three months since a Layzner release from mSubs if I'm correct... but I'm just happy we've got more constant Dougram for our Takahashi fix. I have a hunch Crinn might be working on that batch torrent now, with 26 being a recap and all (at least from what the preview for it showed). And with a recap episode there, maybe we're about to hit another bigger arc or something. I have no complaints with the show so far (just wanna see it in better quality someday, lol), but I am hoping for something big to happen soon.
