More "Escaflowne", plus a bit of a fansub watching update

Last week I mentioned that I went deep into the rental queue to continue "Twelve Kingdoms"; this week I've got disc 2 of both "Vision of Escaflowne" and "RaXephon". Haven't gotten to the latter yet, but I just watched the former.

It's been quite a while, and it took me even longer to remember what already happened with "Escaflowne" in disc 1 than it did for the others that I've been neglecting, but no big deal really. Again, I think the characters & story are a lot more interesting than I expected, but this time around, it seemed, well... more of a "girl's show". Oh yeah, the word is "shoujou". Only, it's "giant robot shoujou" or something like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's not quite as annoying as the "ineffectual teenage boy" sort of thing I keep complaining about, but there's just a lot about it that makes me sigh in mild frustration with the whole obviousness of it. And there's a little more of the usual anime cliche comedy in this one than I remember from the last one.

But overall, it's still kind of creative, and light enough that I can find it watchable. There's a cheap edge to the animation at times, but the action is reasonable, and the overall art direction serves the show well. I'll stick with it.

In the fansub world, I watched the latest "Trinity Blood", "Speed Grapher", and "Monster". Not in a row, mind you, as they obviously aren't in the same league.

"Trinity Blood" gave a little more backstory and exposition, but in a way, it was rather trite and ho-hum. This show isn't going to go anywhere interesting or unique, but it's still got a bit of a quirky spark to it that will keep me downloading at least a little more.

"Speed Grapher" just about made me quit right on the spot with that really, really nasty "dentist" sequence... in fact, just thinking about it makes me want to never watch it again. Really, the show, despite the classic vibe, is kind of stupid. Twisted, but in a stupid way. It didn't help that I tried to watch it while eating lunch, but I don't think that I would have been any less repulsed by it no matter what. I really should drop it, but it's got that "car-wreck-on-the-other-side-of-the-highway" kind of wierd attraction to it. Repulsive attraction. Bleh.

"Monster", of course, I can't ever say anything bad about. A new arc is just getting into gear and while I'm pretty sure I know where the suspense is going to resolve, I'm still interested in it. I mean, yeah, it seems rather predictable in a lot of ways, but the depth of the characters really pulls you along for the ride anyhow. And maybe "depth" isn't quite the right word either. Maybe "believability". Or something. At any rate, there's still another season's worth of episodes left supposedly, so it'll be a while before I can get any resolution with this one. Which is fine by me; I'm enjoying it!