(no subject)

[meimichi]

+ Kanba seems to pick up on Shouma's feelings for Ringo in the hospital scene, which I'd guess accounts for his abrupt change in demeanor towards her in the anime in the scene they share together later.

Was it canis_m who suggested that #1 going after the panties during their scene was supposed to signal that Kanba wasn't at all interested in Ringo? That makes more sense to me now if that was what they were going for, but it's completely useless without even a freaking reaction shot of Kanba in the first scene. Fail.



+ Ringo's feelings are made a lot more clear, I thought in the episode she folded much too quickly but here I get it. "Of course, Project M was important, but Shouma should never have gotten involved in it like that." She thinks if Shouma hadn't pushed her out of the way she'd be the one in the hospital bed, or even dead, so it's only right that helping Shouma takes priority over saving her family.



+ Kanba being utterly appalled at his own stupidity during the Himari scarf scene is really cute.



+ Masako bringing Shouma the drugged purin is cute. A little more dialogue than in the anime. Ringo complains that he shouldn't start with dessert, and he retorts that he's tired so he needs something sweet to get his energy up. Ringo: "You're such a child!" ♥



+ The novel keeps beating that THE TWINS ARE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ALIKE (EXCEPT FOR HOW MUCH THEY BOTH LOVE HIMARI) drum really hard.



+ The Ringo/Kanba scene is very well written. Ringo is genuinely scared that Shouma will die, and she's also surprised as she realizes how much she's started to care about him.



+ Ringo basically having a Shouma montage moment: "His annoyed, smiling face… His annoyed, angry face… His annoyed voice when he scolded her… Ringo missed it all." OH, KIDS.



+ "It...is, but..." If she could trust Shouma-kun, maybe that meant she could trust Kanba too, Ringo thought. She was a little surprised as she realized just how much she completely trusted Shouma. "You better save him, no matter what!"

Kanba glanced at Ringo, giving her a smile, and said firmly: "He's my little brother."

Me: ♥ KANBA, BE MY BIG BROTHER!! ...no, wait, that's not right. ...no, on second thought, that's EXACTLY how I feel.


+ Ringo giving up the diary:

But all she could do now is believe that doing this would save Shouma.

Her phone didn't ring again, and when she tried calling the number back, there was no connection. Ringo felt overwhelmed with misery, in her head and in her heart, and made her way back to Shouma's hospital room.

Was her heart still pitch black?

Was it still black and dirty?

Now that she'd lost the diary, Ringo had very little left remaining within her heart. Momoka's diary had been a huge source of energy for her to go on living. Because she'd had that diary, Ringo had been able to connect herself to reality.

If Takakura Shouma didn't come back to her, maybe there would never be another person whose hands could wipe away the blackness of Oginome Ringo's heart.

OH, RINGO ;___________________;



+ The frantic race to get Shouma back is in part because Himari is coming back with Shouma's clothes and nobody wants to have to explain to Himari that he's missing. Adds a cute element of tension to the plot that I liked.

There is an extra scene at the end where Himari comes back and finds Ringo alone in the hospital room crying (the sheets on the hospital bed still smell like Shouma~). Ringo tries to hide her tears, and right then the boys return. Himari is pissed they left Ringo-chan all alone in Sho-chan's room, and the boys make up a story about letting her have the bed to take a nap because she was so tired. Ringo agrees with their story and, pretending to be talking about the bed, she says meaningfully to them both: "Thank you."

She watches the twins and thinks they maybe they are a little bit alike, after all: neither of them will stop at anything when it comes to helping Himari.

The scene ties everything together really nicely, should have been in the show. I hated how they just left off with Ringo crying all alone. :|



I don't feel like I even have to say Ikuhara is my FAVORITE FOREVER, and I do love this show, but the novels just make me consistently frustrated with the anime. I've been kind of rolling my eyes at Ikuhara's, "You can read the novels first because the anime will surpass your imagination!" because...no. I shouldn't need to be relying on the novels this much to understand what everyone is feeling. And when the novels have made me cry four times in the past three chapters, while the anime has only gotten tears out of me once, you're dropping the ball somewhere. :/

Comments

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Now I feel all vindicated. XD; But it made me like Kanba more, to imagine that even his subconscious had concluded "Shouma is into her" -> "she's off-limits" -> "fish for panties elsewhere."

I might read the novels, but if I do I'm defs waiting until the anime is done as would prefer to avoid feeling consistently frustrated by it.

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not said explicitly but after Shouma's little speech about how it's not Ringo's fault, Kanba is like, "...you really are an IDIOT. >_>;" ♥

;w; I HAD SCANNED THIS PRETTY MUCH FOR YOU SINCE I KNOW YOU HAVEN'T READ THEM THOUGH~

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Okay okay since you scanned it ESPECIALLY FOR ME. I read it and lol Shouma being all "I'm just um not going to say anything about your soaking wet negligee" etc.

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

Right?! I was like, "WAY TO START THIS VOLUME OFF WITH AN EXCELLENT MIX OF *~FEELINGS~* AND LOLS."

[ener.livejournal.com]

Argh, what you say about the novels makes me desperately want to read them, but avoid them if the anime isn't living up to the book's storytelling. Typically you'd expect it to be the other way around… I wonder if a lot of the stuff gets cut due to staff conflicts? Like how in the commentary, Ikuhara says some of the comic penguin stuff was only kept because of staff. I love the penguins, but knowing there could be more depth to the characters instead of "crazy penguin antics" does leave a lot to be desired.

super tl;dr

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is Ikuhara himself and not everyone else, tbh. And I looooove Ikuhara, I think as a director and storyboarder he is basically perfect, but as a writer? ...ehh.

His Nokemono to Hanayome manga has similar issues. Hilarious gags, good atmosphere, some cool ideas. And I have no idea what the fuck is going on in it and don't understand what any of the characters are feeling.

He's so much in charge with Penguindrum that I think he has a tendency to let himself be way too self-indulgent. Which, I actually like his self-indulgent tendencies in and of themselves since I love his style, but!! XD;

But I think the main issue is that he is freaking obsessed with "shocking the audience." On the Utena commentary he was like, "That's always the first thing on my mind, I want to always be able to say to the audience: ha ha, bet you didn't see THAT coming!" But the reason Utena could succeed so well in that arena was because you had the audience POV character with her heart on her sleeve. You could be mystified by the other characters and Anthy could be a mystery from the start until the end, but you always knew what Utena was feeling so you never felt shut out.

Meanwhile on the Penguindrum commentary Ikuhara's all TEE HEE EVERY SINGLE PERSON HAS A SECRET I BET THE AUDIENCE WILL NEVER SEE THAT COMING!!! (We did, Ikuhara. XD;) He seems so gleeful about it, but his thing for EVERY CHARACTER SHOULD BE A MYSTERY AND I SHALL BETRAY NOTHING just doesn't work when it's every single person presented as a puzzle. If they just had one easy-to-understand POV character like Utena...

And I think a big part of the novels being so successful is the Shouma POV and how you're let completely into his head.

But I do recommend the novels because they're so good!! ...I just wish I could feel like the show and novels are two halves of a whole, but I just end up going TRY HARDER ANIME.

Re: super tl;dr

[ener.livejournal.com]

I'm very interested in Shouma's POV, since the anime doesn't particularly delve into his character as much as everyone else. Of the entire cast, who I "get" the most in the anime is probably Kanba, Ringo and even Himari to an extent. But with the way each character has an episode dedicated to their own personalities, at this point it should definitely be all (excluding Tabuki). Plus, in retrospect, the writing/pacing of the character personality reveals feels very unnatural… it could flow much better, since things almost seem to get swept under the rug in favor of the character of the week. lol this totally sounds like a whiny gripefest, but you know I don't mean it as such XD;;

Next time I'm in SF, I'll check if they have the novels~ Usually SJ Kinokuniya has a better anime goods selection, but I've noticed SF Kino actually has some novels I never expected to see. All else fails, I'll either nag some people who are currently over there or order it from HMV. (`･⊝･´)ｷｭｯ

Re: super tl;dr

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

...omg, new default icon?! I can't believe Juri is gone...! ;w;

lol this totally sounds like a whiny gripefest, but you know I don't mean it as such XD;;
I don't mean it as such either! I love the show, but I feel like it's SO CLOSE to being perfect and it drives me crazy that the little extra nudge for perfection keeps being RIGHT THERE in the novels so I'm like "WELL, WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT?!"

Yeah, I def agree that Kanba and Ringo are the most smoothly written. Kanba is unquestionably my fave, though - the flashback episodes really do tell everything about him you need to know. Himari needed one of the novel scenes of her alone in the house for her development to flow a little better. The novel Shouma narration has a dark tinge to it from the very first chapter, but the anime didn't go there until the reveal about the parents and I feel like the lack of buildup was Ikuhara just going TEE HEE, GOTCHA! The anime still feels weirdly restrained when it comes to Shouma anyway, I feel like I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop with him and the *~twins aren't really twins~* reveal. I still don't really get what's up with Masako and am hoping the novel helps (and I really thought at the start she was gonna be my favorite, she's totally my type!! but right now I think of everyone she interests me the least ;w;)

I special ordered the first one in SJ, hopefully they got some in stock by now~

Re: super tl;dr

[ener.livejournal.com]

It kept reminding me of the hot mess that was LF, plus the hot mess of movies she was in after that... XD;;;

Masako's pretty fun and I love love love how Hocchan voices her, but there's something missing with her for me. I do love every minute she's on screen, but I guess it's that I can't connect to her. Shouma currently feels all over the place for me, so I sort of wish they could've hinted at more to him in both Kanba's and Himari's flashbacks. Maybe they'll connect it all together when his episode arrives? I'm eagerly anticipating the not really twins reveal, in particular what the hell it would mean for everyone's dynamic. Do they know? Would Kanba start to see Shouma as competition for Himari?!

Re: super tl;dr

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

BUT IT'S BEEN YOUR ICON FOREVER. D: (Has she done anything decent recently to redeem herself?)

Hocchan is freaking amazing and so un-Hocchan-like here. I keep marveling at her performance every time Masako speaks. ♥ And Masako has the best gags. But yeah, I can't connect to her either. I kept hoping her episode would wow me but not so much, even though I thought she was really cool with the "I won't get on that train" line at the finish.

I think I'd be more surprised if Kanba didn't know than the alternative - there wasn't an "oh crap" vibe to when Shouma let it slip (just like it wasn't something that should be said out loud), and Kanba seems so in charge of the family that I'd be surprised Shouma knew something he didn't. They are already competitive over Himari anyway, and Shouma has Ringo which kinda takes him out of the incest triangle equation (Kanba needs to worry more about Sanetoshi being a creeper).

And while I love Kanba/Himari, Kanba seems to dote on Shouma nearly as much in a different way, and I love that dynamic too! I would hate to see it damaged, Kanba being all protective and big-brotherly to Shouma on the subway this week was too cute. ;w;

Re: super tl;dr

[ener.livejournal.com]

I actually couldn't remember what she'd done past that, but then I remembered Sunanare... soooo, no. XD;; She was the lead in the 2011 NHK Taiga drama, but I only caught previews of that while in JP last Winter and was super uninterested. She got a lot of flak for that drama, so I guess I dodged that bullet? I just couldn't believe that awkward movie where she killed someone right before she was supposed to get married (or something) and it just kind of went on for two hours with nothing happening. Sure, I've probably blocked most of it out by now, but that's all I remember... Sadly, Nodame, LF eps 1-2 and Rainbow Song probably demand a rewatch to redeem her for me!

Come to think of it, Kanba is wayyy too father-figure to not know about it. On the Sanetoshi note, it's kind of cute/hilarious/sad how Kanba thought the sweater Himari was knitting was for Sanetoshi... Oh Kanba, you can easily read other people's love vibes, but you can't even read your own object of affection. ;_;

/tl;dr city

Re: super tl;dr

[nyonyo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen anything past Sunanare. I didn't really like the Nodame movies either so it's been so long since I've seen her in something good... :(

lol I know. What is it with him and being a moron over Himari's knitting projects? SO DUMB. ♥