"Back under the mountain, when the Herders had finished their sacred hymn, they made the warriors vow to keep silent, and the warriors had agreed, knowing that words could never adequately describe what they had just seen or experienced."
One of my favorite lines from the book, and one that aptly encapsulates my feelings about it. Guardian of the Darkness is something I can praise, but not really something I can describe too well.
Anyway, fucking sensational read. Guardian of the Darkness is beautiful, badass, dazzling from its awesome cover to its last page. The penultimate section of the book is a spectacle to visualize and behold in your mind, a smorgasbord of imagery. If anything, read this book for the most glorious physical/metaphysical spear fight ever featured in any literary work.
Buy/read/love this thing now if you enjoyed watching/reading Seirei no Moribito. I loved this continuation even more than its predecessor. I hope Scholastic keeps on releasing more volumes by the way and keeps Cathy Hirano at the translating helm. She's once again put out some fantastic work. Andrew any little tidbits on what happens in the later volumes of Moribito, if you've happened to read them?
Showing posts with label Nahoko Uehashi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nahoko Uehashi. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Kemono no Souja Erin
This one almost went under my radar - I remember reading the news that a novel by the author of Seirei no Moribito was going to be animated, but I had no idea they were burying it in the winter season.
Then I looked at the staff, and understood. The director of Library Wars. Seriously? The only reason I didn't complain more about how shitty the first episode of Library Wars was was that I watched the first episode of Real Drive immediately afterwards and concluded that Production IG had managed to destroy all value their name brand had at Wachowski speed.
So I downloaded this wondering if Nahoko Uehashi's skills were enough to make them rise again, like the phoenix, as the Wachowski's did with the undeniably awesome Speed Racer, or if we'd have to wait for them to go crawling back to Kenji Kamiyama in the spring.
Sadly, I think I'll be reading the novel instead of watching any more.
You can definitely see traces of what must have been a very interesting story, but the director's instincts are those of a die hard hack. Possibly one who wants to be more, as the awesome choice to replace the violent animal attacks with crayons shows.
But the majority of the episode was a collection of little things that annoy the piss out of me with anime. Little kids who speak in an adorably retarded fashion I know Uehashi would never dream of writing. The way people smile, and the unnatural beats of conversation, the overdone voice acting, even a few artificial bits of body language. It all just amounts to a pile of bad habits anime directors have developed over the years, and that the best of them manage to avoid, and I've just watched too much anime to be able to tolerate this crap.
And the music is seriously fucking terrible.
Shame, because I really like the backgrounds, the adult monsters are suitably ferocious looking, and the story itself certainly finds an unusual place to begin, leaving several promising threads for the show to follow. Since most people can't read the novels, and probably aren't as sensitive to certain hackwork directing tics, this entire review may well be a sort of backhanded recommendation.
Then I looked at the staff, and understood. The director of Library Wars. Seriously? The only reason I didn't complain more about how shitty the first episode of Library Wars was was that I watched the first episode of Real Drive immediately afterwards and concluded that Production IG had managed to destroy all value their name brand had at Wachowski speed.
So I downloaded this wondering if Nahoko Uehashi's skills were enough to make them rise again, like the phoenix, as the Wachowski's did with the undeniably awesome Speed Racer, or if we'd have to wait for them to go crawling back to Kenji Kamiyama in the spring.
Sadly, I think I'll be reading the novel instead of watching any more.
You can definitely see traces of what must have been a very interesting story, but the director's instincts are those of a die hard hack. Possibly one who wants to be more, as the awesome choice to replace the violent animal attacks with crayons shows.
But the majority of the episode was a collection of little things that annoy the piss out of me with anime. Little kids who speak in an adorably retarded fashion I know Uehashi would never dream of writing. The way people smile, and the unnatural beats of conversation, the overdone voice acting, even a few artificial bits of body language. It all just amounts to a pile of bad habits anime directors have developed over the years, and that the best of them manage to avoid, and I've just watched too much anime to be able to tolerate this crap.
And the music is seriously fucking terrible.
Shame, because I really like the backgrounds, the adult monsters are suitably ferocious looking, and the story itself certainly finds an unusual place to begin, leaving several promising threads for the show to follow. Since most people can't read the novels, and probably aren't as sensitive to certain hackwork directing tics, this entire review may well be a sort of backhanded recommendation.
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