"You are the affection within madness."

One more disc to go with this round of "MADLAX", which will make it the one project I started these past 2 weeks that I actually finished. Well, besides cooking a turkey, but still...

I have to go back to work on Monday and I know that taking a vacation has just meant that I'll have a lot to catch up with when I get back. Not a good thing, and very similar to the last time I took time off and allowed myself the luxury to watch "MADLAX" all the way through. Only this time I didn't watch "Noir" as well, because I couldn't bring myself to go that far. Ah well. Hopefully, I'll be able to pull of a "Noir Year's Eve" when I return from my Very Vegas Christmas, but with the Super Secret Deadline I have at work, it's not entirely likely. I'll play it by ear.

Disc 6 of "MADLAX" is a bit of a crusher. It kicks off some of the most emotional and tragic bits that you'll see anywhere in anime, and everything about the production and animation are outstanding and top-notch, so it's no wonder that I think back to this year's "El Cazador" followon and feel slightly betrayed.

I enjoyed "El Cazador" and still think it's better than most everything else that's been aired lately ("Dennou Coil" excepted, most certainly), but "MADLAX" is so amazingly well-crafted, detailed, and multifaceted that the overly-simple, obviously-outsourced bits of "El Cazador" made it such a dissappointment to me. I was going to try to do the "trilogy marathon", but I can't bring myself to put Cazzy in comparison to my favorite 2 others. Maybe that's for the best.

"MADLAX" suffers from a bit of continuity issues (to say the least) and is far from perfect in 100 ways, but in terms of cinematic moments and pure emotion, it kicks my sorry arse every time. "Noir" even more so, even with it's artistic niggles and incongruences. Cazzy, though, is just kind of 2-D in comparison. (Yes, that's a bit of a pun).

*Sigh* I shouldn't be dwelling on this, as I have the big finale to go through for "MADAX", and I want to be particularly primed for it in more than just how much Shiraz I've been drinking. So I guess I'll leave it at that. I'll rewatch Cazzy soon enough (with tacos and tequila, probably) and find I like it well enough on it's own. For now, the "MADLAX" shadow is going to obliterate it.

UPDATE: "There's a me inside of you." -- said it before and I'll say it again. The key to the whole thing.

And that's it for a while. *sob*