Archive
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I turned the TV on and found a rerun of House on. It's the episode with the dad that used "male enhancement" cream and the hormones wrecked havoc on h…
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So, I kind of decided yesterday to watch the first Doctor Who ep with Matt Smith... and since then I have watched the first eight episodes of the season. :D;; S…
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Odagiri Joe released singles?
Apparently he did! This is called Cherry The Dustman and I have no idea if this was solo or with that band he was in (*insert comment about Deppiness here*), ap…
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First series/season of Sherlock finished Sunday (and Moffat confirmed there will be more on an interview today, which you can watch here). I actually watched th…
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I actually watched this a couple of nights ago, but hadn't goten around to posting about it. My bad. In this episode, Peter and Neal (and Peter-and-Neal) take a backseat to let Mozzie shine for an episode. Which is great, because Willie Garson is just amazing as Mozzie, and he's consistently the most quoteable character on the show (and the first scene culminates in one such quote :D).
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So again, kind of filler episodes which mostly serve to reinforce what we learned about whichever Imagin was just introduced; in this case Kintaros. I wasn't really all that interested in the story itself this episode, because the plights of a pre-teen girl idol/model really just don't interest me very much (it's a matter of demographics, really). Things pick up in episode 12 when it becomes less about the modeling and more about an estranged father/daughter relationship. The second episode also revisits the problem of creating paradoxes by changing the past, which I find very interesting.
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And so we get to Ryutaros. I'm not really sure how I feel about him. Sometimes he can be fun(ny), and certainly liking puppies and kittens is cute, and his color is purple, but the fact that he's a willful brat means that ultimately I tend to find him very tiring and frustrating, sometimes outright annoying. :D;
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So the plan yesterday was to catch up on this week's White Collar, but it didn't end up happening because I was distracted by a shiny new object. Shiny new object being the BBC's Sherlock. \:D/ Anyway, I watched the first episode at lunch, and loved it so much that when I got home I watched it again instead of watching White Collar (I will catch up on it! After I watch Sherlock ep 2!). For those that live under a rock (like me, actually, I didn't even know about this until Dimmie told me about it), Sherlock is a BBC re-imagining of, obviously, Sherlock Holmes, written by Steven Moffat (of the latest Doctor Who). It's set in present day London, and just-discharged army doctor John Watson is feeling meh in general about civilian life (his therapist thinks he's traumatized by the war in Afghanistan and that he should start a blog to get it all out) and looking for a place to live, which is not easy in London with an army pension, and he figures no one will want to share a flat with him. So of course a mutual friend introduces him to someone else that is having a hard time finding a flatmate... a "consulting detective" and self-described "high-functioning sociopath".
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One of my favorite things about the Kamen Rider franchise, beyond the great characters and often campy fun, is the way it tackles in a very tangible way issues that, when you think about it, are very philosophical and/or existential in nature. It's really cool that what is first and foremost a Sunday morning kids' show, whose purpose is largely to sell toys, is so good at tackling questions such as what is the true measure of being human; or to what extent our circumstances or fate determine who we are and what we do. I was going to say it's a little amazing, but it's really not, when you consider that at heart, this is exactly what the very first Kamen Rider was about, decades ago (full disclosure: I haven't really seen any Showa yet, although Black in particular is definitely on my list of stuff to watch). Kamen Rider can be about the suits and the fights and about heroes of justice kicking ass; but if you let it, it will also make you think. It tends to sneak up on you, too, and that's what happened with these two episodes.
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As is probably obvious, my response to Den-O eps 7 and 8 can best be summed up thus: LOL, Smart Lady! Or Shimada Nanako, whichever you prefer! Also! Urataros comments on the unfortunate length of Momotaros' pole. And then Momotaros takes offense... when he figures out what Ura means, at any rate. 8D/ (For a kid's show, they sure get away with Urataros implying an awful of lot really horribly badwrong stuff).
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Now, if one is identifying common tropes that Kobayashi likes to revisit, wouldn't it be fair to say that Urataros is probably the closest Den-O has to one Kitaoka Shuichi? :D Probably, and this would explain why I like Urataros so much. I mean they're both full of it, they're both smooth with the ladies (well, Kitaoka supposedly is, we don't see it work in Ryuki because it's always directed at Reiko), and they're so much smoke and mirrors around their motivations that it's very hard to tell just what there is underneath it all... except for the fact that one suspects they're really not bad, underneath it all, just selfish, opportunistic and self-serving. But quite charming, really! Especifically with Urataros, there's the mystery of why exactly he's doing what he's doing, why he's possessing Ryotaro knowing the limitations of possessing a singularity point (which at this point... haven't exactly been explained).
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Oh, Kazuki
You're supposed to light the cigarette. 8D
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So that's two White Collar episodes in a row that I'd describe as awesome. :D/ In this one it was in large part due to Neal's unabashed glee at what is going on; first at someone copycatting him, and then even more so at learning that criminology students are studying him... spending an entire week on him, in fact. And also Peter's reaction to all this ("He's gonna be impossible after this").
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Watched Den-O 3 and 4 yesterday, but didn't get around to blogging about them then, and then today at noon I was distracted and so this post is going to be shorter than it would have been. :/ I wanted to bring up two things. The first is Momo, and it's possible I may be be thinking too much about a character that is, again, a "hooligan who likes pudding" and wo we're probably not supposed to look too deeply at. But I can't help it. :D
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So quick thoughts, because of the time: → First instance of Hana beating up Momo! → Again with Ryotaro's ingrained kindness: wanting to give the keyholder back to the bully, because it was the right thing to do. → First glimpse of That Guy (spoiler!) → Momo saves a little boy, aww. Again, Momo was always decent, under the hooliganism.
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So, starting with the Den-O (re)watch. Personally, I didn't realize before the link between Den-O and Ryuki, but now I do, and Ryuki being my favorite it's inevitable that I'm going to be drawing conclusions, the first of which involves Ryotaro himself and the ways in which he is like Shinji, and the ways in which he's not. Obviously, they're both "Fail!Riders", but their attitudes are very different. Ryotaro is resigned to be bullied, both by other people and by the universe itself, really, while Shinji kind of... just creates his own shenanigans, but meets everything with what can only be called feistiness. But really, even in this first episode, the real similarity between them is their drive to do the right thing. Shinji gets involved in things that are not his business out of his sense of justice, and Ryotaro, even when kicked to the curve, is always all about doing the right thing... to the point protecting those that have wronged him. And there's kind of an innocence, I think, in that, in their overpowering goodness.
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So the other things that made me love this ep are Mozzie and Peter's scavenger hunt, because it was awesome from start to finish, and then the myriad little details expanding and shaping Neal and Peter's relationship and showing it for what it is.
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So Kate (greatfountain at LJ/ @yanasoro) and I have been thinking about doing a Kamen Rider Den-O rewatch (rewatch for her, half rewatch for me, since I actuall…
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I realize this is premature, but I have this urge to call this the best episode of White Collar so far. At very least, potentially my favorite, because it had so many delicious character moments, and it was just so much fun. And Diana is the first thing that comes to mind that made the episode great.
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...Way to post a late reaction post, huh? Late as it is, there's one thing in particular I wanted to post about, in regards to White Collar's season 2 opener. I…