Listening to:Eureka Seven: Complete Best
track: 「虹」by 電気グルーヴ
Some quick Eureka Seven thoughts before I forget. I still like RahXephon a little better, mostly for reasons that are largely aesthetic in nature, but on a purely personal level, I have to stick Eureka Seven ahead of Evangelion on my list of all-time favorite titles. The highlight of the show? Denki Groove's (電気グルーヴ) "Niji" plays at the show's final climatic scene, and contextually, the song is just magic. I can't really go into it any more without coming off as totally cornball here, but the final 5 minutes of the show, coupled with the 50 episode buildup preceding it, is just something that's really quite poignant and incredibly rewarding. Overall, the characters are very deep, and much in the same way that I felt the cowardly protagonist was what made Eva so enigmatic and true to life, the type of self-doubt and the subsequent character growth displayed by Eureka Seven's main players are what really power the show. What's great here is that the character development is set at a slow boil over the course of 50 episodes, and aside from a filler ep. or two, the various tangents never stray particularly far from the main story arc. The thing about Eva was that it turned out to be, for lack of a better term, a tragedy piece, and given the mainstream following that the show eventually garnered, audiences weren't necessarily ready for that type of mindfuck at the time. It's interesting, because Gainax's penchant for terrible endings aside (Eva, KareKano, Mahoromatic, etc.), you don't see that type of tragic, apocalyptic ending with the giant robot shows so much anymore, because studios are afraid of receiving the kind of backlash that Eva initially did. In the end though, I don't really like comparing Eureka to Eva, because though the two shows certainly possess multiple similarities, Eva is truly a unique, groundbreaking beast of a show, while Eureka is a wonderful little love story with a really, really good sci-fi backdrop. Given that the lead character is 14, there's really no shortage of corny lines, and though there are a handful of characters that can get real irritating, most likely by design, the product as a whole is a masterpiece in my humble opinion. Not my favorite show of all time by any means, but it's certainly in the top 5.
April purchases, revisited:
4/1 1969 - Maya (CD)
4/22 The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)
I couldn't find a copy of the 1969 record anywhere, although I should have figured as much beforehand. That's really the one thing that sucks about not having Tower Records around anymore; if you're looking for anything even remotely obscure, you're going to have to find it on the web. I decided to pass on The World Ends With You for the time being, not because of any current monetary issue, but because I can't realistically play a DS game until I get my new glasses. So, although I did manage to save about 50 bones by cutting out a couple of items from the list, I unfortunately spent $200+ on the aforementioned prescription glasses, another chunk on a physical exam sans any medical insurance, and the usual sum on various impulse DVD (Rob & Big seasons 1&2), literature (Foer's Everything Is Illuminated), game (Arcana Heart), music (She & Him!), and clothing purchases (a pair of jackets to get ready for, uh, summer). That being said...
Projected damage: approx. $400
Actual damage: approx $1000
I'm a little afraid to see what happens when I add my car insurance, gas, food, and phone expenses to that. Of course, the best part is that there are still five days left in April. I'm not trying to shoot down any personal spending records by any means, but certain silly things happen to me when I have the money to throw around. Questionable? Perhaps. But irresponsible? Nah, I don't think so. I was weighing the various pros and cons of the PS3, the Wii, and the X-Box 360, when it occurred to me that I could conceivably afford to get all three if I so wanted to. But the reality is that I can still play the PS2 for days on end when I have the time to do so, and like it or not, I've got to pocket a couple of grand before I head to Japan. So that's me being somewhat levelheaded for a change.
1 comment:
i hit a couple o' things on that list, too. i'll wait for the next jordans - hopefully i'll have 2 bills to burn by then.
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