Bound by an especially twisted thread

It would seem that the sure way to make me do something is to proclaim, here on this page, that I will not do something.

Not an hour passed after I said I wasn't going to watch the Chinese-subbed version of episode 3, and I watched it anyhow. Didn't understand a word. Of course! Duh.

But I also made a big deal out of the fact that, because I really want Noir to be something special to me, that I was putting that away and not watching it for a long time. Last night I was a bit moody and agitated, and tried watching an old Jean Cocteau film. And I totally didn't have the patience for it. So I put that away and scanned my shelves for something else. And my eyes kept coming back to my Noir box. So I caved in and grabbed disc 5 (I've figured out if I start disc 5 at around 8pm, I'll wrap up just after midnight) and fired it up.

And I'm really, really glad I did!

And it's not just that I missed "my girls" so badly. I've been sampling and scrutinizing so many different series and movies lately, that I was starting to feel a little jaded about the overall quality of anime, and was starting to suspect that maybe, just maybe I was seeing something earlier that just wasn't there. Was I coming to the end of my little anime "distraction"? Was this blog about to become just another set of stuffy art-house film reviews?

I'm happy to report that Noir is just as amazingly stunning and wonderful to me as it ever was!

Good gracious, I love this show! It's so simple yet so complicated at the same time. Every glance, every nuance, every color, every cut... all of it communicating its visual music to me on a myriad of levels. And though I have every scene all but memorized, I cling to every line, every action, every resounding Wather PPK shot thumping from the subwoofer; I'm glued to the screen and taking it all in like I'm seeing it for the first time.

Noir is unlike any anime series before it, and no anime since has approached it. No, not even Madlax. I've thought before that Madlax rivaled Noir, but now I'm certain that it doesn't. Mind you, Madlax is very, very good, and I can't wait for ADV to get the DVDs done so I can see it at it's very best. But Noir is clearly superior.

And I'm glad I took the opportunity to remind myself of that.

But this time, I'm putting it away again for a little while. Maybe I'll watch it on New Year's eve as a way to ring in 2005!

(Oh, and I'm not going to scrub my bathtub tonight. And I'm not going to rake leaves tomorrow! Let's see how that works... *wink*)