So I've taken the plunge and started watching some anime. I guess I shouldn't say 'taken the plunge'...this wasn't something that I was thinking about doing and then hemmed and hawed for a long period of time before finally deciding to get involved with. It was more like something that I had pretty much never thought about- anime was literally dead to me.
I had some experiences as an adolescent with Dragonball Z which really soured me to anime. The whole 'ridiculously overpowered attack that should destroy the enemy but ends up not hurting him at all but then the enemy counterattacks and destroys our hero and this whole battle is going to go on for a couple hundred episodes that really shouldn't be more than like fifty episodes'...it was just a little too over the top for me. So when I say 'took the plunge'...I think it was more like I was kidnapped, held against my will, and then dumped in the lake when the ransom didn't come through.
I now realize that there is probably nothing on Earth for which Dragonball Z should be the basis for your judgment.
My wife started watching a show called "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" on Sunday nights while we played Heroclix. At first I didn't pay much attention to it- I figured that it would be little more than people flying through the air in cool action poses (see the Strongbad e-mail called 'Japanese Cartoon'...yes...it's that epic). Plus they were speaking in Japanese, so it was pretty easy to ignore.
Then I started watching bits and pieces of it. It was extremely sad and tragic at times. First off, the whole show revolves around these two brothers who tried to transmute their dead mother back to life. This inevitably fails, and one of the brothers (Al) is lost in this limbo area called "The Truth", so the other brother (Ed) sacrifices his arm to bring back the soul of Al, which he transfixes to a soul of armor.
In one episode, it shows the daughter of a man who has recently been killed, and she is crying because her daddy is being put into the ground, and she's wondering how he is going to be able to go to work if he's being put into the ground. Yeah. As a dad, that's going to be a real big selling point for me getting into this show. NOT. Yet, the fact that they dealt with such a topic in a very real way definitely got my intrigueometer going.
Another episode dealt with a man who basically took his daughter and turned her into a dog. Again, it was heart-wrenching, disgusting...and starting to get interesting. I gradually started to sneak more and more peeks at the show. I started to ask questions. I would watch an episode here and there. Around episode 42, I was hooked, and started watching every episode. When we got all caught up and had to start waiting for the new episodes which released weekly, I went back and started watching old episodes.
Then I woke up one morning and realized that I was hooked on Anime.
Now in reality, this is all set up for what I really want to talk about. I guess you could call it filler. What I really want to write about is, ironically, filler.
Several shows that my friend has talked about me getting into are only one or two seasons long. And it isn't that they got canned after that- it's that the whole show is self contained within that framework. This concept fascinates me.
It fascinates me because I'm not used to a TV show having a definite plan, sticking too it, and not continuing to make episodes for the sake of making money. Lost, I'm looking at you.
It seriously is frustrating that here in America, rather than just letting the story tell itself until there is nothing left to tell. Instead, we find a show the people like, and decide to keep cranking out episodes until the actors are old, the jokes have dried up, and the show is merely a shell of what it once was.
I know that not all anime shows are this way- I'm told that Bleach (a show that I'm actually interested in watching) has many episodes of filler. So I realize that anime as a medium is not immune to the wiles of greed. But the fact that there are shows that know when their time is done and stick to that- it's amazing to me.
I think about shows like Smallville, Prison Break...even The Office. These are shows that I feel have went for far too long. Smallville had a run of four excellent seasons- when Clark was in high school, it just like such a breath of fresh air- the Superman mythos from a different perspective. It's like if we found a lost scroll that dealt with the life of Jesus in his 20's...a fascinating look into the life of Superman before he was Superman. And we were even willing to overlook the fact that every single episode revolved around Clark somehow dealing with some sort of Kryptonite powered freak.
But now? The show is a joke. They stretched it for far too long. It has ceased to be relevant.
Prison Break Season 1 was, in my opinion, the best television season a show has ever had. Theoretically it could have been a self-contained entity with a few tweaks, and it would have probably become the best show ever. I would even concede that Season 2 was pretty good as well- seeing how Scofield would be in action without the meticulous planning as the convicts tried to complete the actual escape. Season 2 was pretty good.
But Season 3? He goes back to Prison? REALLY???? Okay, I realize that there is the whole government conspiracy thing that is running slightly underneath the surface of the actual prison break. But to have him go back into prison has, in my esteem, taken what could have been the best show ever and made it into a mockery.
Even The Office, which is one of my favorite shows of all time, is not exempt from criticism in this area. Sure, Season 5 was phenomenal...but I had to sit through mediocre seasons in 3 and 4 to get there. Being a faux documentary about life in an office means that, I suppose, you could just keep going on and on and on...because life in an actual office goes on and on and on. And that's why there needs to be a definitive end in place at the beginning...because what's going to happen is that the name of my favorite show will be dragged through the mud as the writers try to slog through their minds to try and keep a reanimated corpse alive.
So in sum, I'm a fan of anime...a fanime, if you will. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is almost done. It has exceeded my expectations. The story has ebbed and flowed, the action has increased in intensity without getting too ridiculous. Is it sad that the end is on the horizon? Yes- but no, at the same time. Because I know that what is transpiring before my eyes is the culmination of a long journey- and not a way for someone to keep taking money from a dead horse.
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