The usual "watching" update

A few of the odds 'n ends that have been at the top of my GreenCine queue for a while have shaken loose, so I've gotten to sample few new-to-me shows again.

"RaXephon" -- Okay, is it me, or is this some sort of cheap "Evangelion" rip-off? Heh. Well, "cheap" isn't entirely fair. It definitely reminds me of the animation/art quality of "Kaze no Yojimbo", which I panned for it's mediocre quality earlier. But where I guess it differentiates itself from "Kaze no Yojimbo" is that it was a tad more interesting. It moved along a little better. It also had a really good attention to detail, which made it easier to engage the "suspension of disbelief" state of my brain and get a little more involved in it. That said, it's still a cheap "Evangelion" rip-off. I'll probably hold off on continuing it until I actually finish the real "Evangelion", which at the rate the Platinum discs are coming out, will be a while.

"Chrono Crusade" -- 1920s nuns fighting demons (with a demon sidekick). Chock full of the usual cliche facial expressions and reactions. But it was actually amusing enough to not be irritating. Not completely immature, though still a bit silly. I'm not going to put the rest of the series too high in my rental queue just yet because there's a lot more I want to either try or finish first. But it makes for interesting casual watching, and if it showed up on TV (it may have come and gone for all I know), I'd probably program the DVR for it and keep up with it.

And speaking of what's programmed on the DVR, I've tried a couple of episodes of "Last Exile", airing on G4TechTV. Unfortunately, the way the guide lists their anime block, I can only get the damn thing to record 1 of the 2 episodes each night, so the two that I've seen had a gap. And it's already somewhere in the middle, so I'm a bit lost. It's another one of those "steampunk" type of post-Victorian designs that seem to be pretty common lately, and it's kind of interesting. The dub isn't horrendous, and the animation and action are pretty good. If I can work out the recording difficulties, I might be able to actually follow what's going on.

I mentioned that I've been recording "Wolf's Rain" and "Witch Hunter Robin" as well. "Wolf's Rain" seems to be quite a few episodes along, so I don't have all the backstory -- though it's not too hard to figure out. The dub's kind of so-so, and I'm not really finding it all that compelling, so I'm probably not going to keep up with it. "Witch Hunter Robin" is a little better. I think I lucked out and caught it from the beginning. Though it keeps talking about a big event that happened recently, the way they flash back to it and are exposing the connections to it, I'm pretty sure it's just the usual Japanese style of starting in the middle of the story, and working through the narrative in both directions at the same time. Anyway, it's worth keeping up with.

Finally, a status on "Hellsing". I'm finding myself looking forward to Saturday mornings so I can fire up the previous night's recording of the latest block. It's an interesting show. It's got a "cool" vibe to it, and it's a bit of fun. If it keeps up the momentum in the "interesting" department, it may wind up being a purchase-worthy show.

One last bit to leave on, it looks like another group has started up the 1st season of "Popolocrois Story". For those that don't remember, it is very possibly the first series done by Koichi Mashimo under the "Bee Train" banner. It's a kid's show with all the childish trappings like cutesy music and whatnot, but it really is something rather neat and different.