Misanthropy

To take a break from all the political ranting, I just finished watching Paranoia Agent. What a crazy but absorbing anime. I'm not sure I fully grasped all the nuances (I watched the first episodes a long time ago), and the end perhaps took things a bit too far, but over all I really liked it. The story telling is complex and interesting, (a lot of the story is in fact about story telling) and I'd like to sit down and watch the whole thing again from start to finish. I hope it stands up to the repeat view test. I'm definitely buying this when it comes out on dvd, though, if they're really going to call shounen bat "little slugger," I'm going to be cringing quite a bit at the subs.

I've also started watching Samurai 7, which I'm adoring (need to re-watch the original movie). The visuals are really great, and though the priestess character and her little side kick are a bit annoying (I don't recall anything like them in the original--why oh why does anime always feel compelled to add the pretty girl and the cute character?), so far anyway, they're not too annoying and the good is far outweighing the bad. Having a robot playing Mifune's character is pretty fun (and what anime face could possibly hope to match up Mifune's facial expressions), though I'm sure that there are some people who don't like it.

Samurai Champaloo is also another series I've been watching. Predictably, I love Jin. I want a Jin icon.