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So, after what's now turned into years of trying to get myself into this show, I finally sat down and watched R.O.D. the TV and now I am free of that long curse ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
47nite put on me ... at least until I get around to reading the e-manga he got me.
I know there are people out there who really love R.O.D. the OVA./R.O.D. the TV but to be honest, I haven't really been on board. I thought R.O.D. the OVA vacillated between boring and underwhelming. The one bright spot is the main character, Yomiko Readman, but while she DOES have a distinctive personality, sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to like her out of some generic relatability. "She likes books? *I* like books! And I can cosplay her without being ninety pounds! Sweet!"
R.O.D. the TV is kind of similar. I think it succeeds very well at its four main characters. You have Michelle, who acts like a bimbo but is the most capable of the team. You have Maggie the gentle giant. You have Anita, a brat who is compelling by the fact that she's strong and weak at the same time. And you have Nenene, who is basically the tie between the two series and the mouthpiece for the IMPORTANCE OF ART but has a pretty neat character arc. I like these guys. I really do. I hate to admit it, but I actually cried a little bit at the three sisters' reunion.
But ... here's the thing. R.O.D. the TV is a decent anime, and it can be quite good at the inter-relationships between its female characters. (I wasn't big on the Nancy/Junior subplot.) But one of its major themes is the importance of books, and that seems strange, because the makers of the show seem to have read barely any. But I guess I should have known that when they had one major character who is such a bibliomaniac that she buys out entire bookstores and can read large multiple books in a day say that her favorite book is the Harry Potter series.
I know some of you may be thinking I'm a snob right now. Look, guys, I really liked those books. I thought the seventh was the most fun thing I read last year. But I really, really, really, really do not see a major bibliophile naming those books as her favorite. Then again, I don't see a bibliophile indiscriminately buying a whole store of books in one fell swoop, either. The makers of the anime (or the manga) understand that bibliophiles are passionate about books but don't seem to understand WHY they're passionate about books.
This is a rather simplified definition, but basically, I believe people are passionate about books because they can relate to them on some level. I don't really see why Michelle would find that the Harry Potter series are the books that speak most closely to her life, and she's already an adventurer so I can't imagine she likes it on the escapism level. Also, I haven't read his work yet, but don't see why Maggie, who seems like a sensitive soul outside of adventuring, would see in Hemingway's masculinity-is-awesome tomes. Her admiring him I could see ... but her FAVORITE EVER? It just doesn't seem right ...
But nevermind. What really gets me is that the creators don't get that such a passion could work the other way. It's inconceivable that Michelle, Maggie and Yomiko could like EVERYTHING. Nobody who is passionate about anything likes ALL OF IT. Even bibliomaniacs who only read one type of book, like extreme romance or sci-fi readers, don't like EVERYTHING in the genre.
Say I'm making too much of this, but I say, like its characters, R.O.D. the TV is simply NOT GEEKY ENOUGH.
The Great Men in the OVA were mostly scientists who I do not know about. I didn't find their super-powered selves very interesting, but whatever, I figured that could be just me. However, I knew about almost every book referenced and found that they didn't do much interesting with them, either. I think the only book that was treated appropriately was Anne of Green Gables, but even then Yomiko's paraphrase of the book's last line for the last line of the anime was jarringly stupid and the Anne/Diana relationship is really the subplot of the book, anyway.
The rest though ... we have an episode going to Transylvania ... let's mention Dracula! And then let's not mention any other books until the final episodes.
And oh, the final episodes, so much missed potential ...
Like the whole thing where the UK takes over the world. OK, I like that. It goes back to the Victorian literature and steampunk and the height of the British empire which has now wants to rise again. But they can only do that by resurrecting The Gentleman, who is the smartest guy on earth and has been the true genius behind all of England's greatest writers. Because apparently what bibliophile otaku to hear is that everything in the world isn't really original because it was inspired by some megalomaniacal old geezer. The plan seems either like a way for Japan to conceive of their writers as the only smart and original ones or something worthy of an Oxfordian.
So the British Library decides to do this by going all Nicolae Carpathia and uniting the world under a one-world, one-language, government. Essentially wiping all culture other than a generic version of old Britannia and brainwashing everybody into a new world peace. Also, they have old, dead writers brains send out signals to unleash their characters' powers on any country that would seek to destroy them and ...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't believe I typed all that either.
Look, guys, I have a problem with this big scenario. I can't get how all of the countries except for the United States (which put up a pretty poor fight, being run by a George W. Bush-alike whose primary characteristics are that he cowers and pisses his pants) are pretty much OK or outright FOOLED into signing over their CULTURE under the face of negotiating pressure. Some actual show of strength to cower the Earth into peace? OK, that I could see ... but not all this Illuminati bullshit.
Also, the idea of magical author brainwaves, while dumb, does have some fun potential when the Wellsian tripods and pterodactyls/pteronadons/pterosaurs/whatever they're calling them this week from Conan Doyle's The Lost World pop up but ... sheesh, that's it? I may be spoiled by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic books but COME ON? You have a whole spectrum of Victorian badassery at your fingertips and that's seriously the best you can do? Come on, have some Vril popping out of the ground or SOMETHING! It would have been thematically perfect!
The way the girls and Drake figure out how the world was changing was also really sad and depressing. They read that many books and all they really needed to know to figure out how to break into the British Library was two dates? What the fuck?
I think it would have been so much more fun if America had thought to put Mark Twain's and H.P. Lovecraft's noggins in a vat and Dokushena could have countered with Wu Chengen sending millions of Gokus out from his brainwaves but it doesn't seem like that was on the authors' radar. Hey, and here is also a much cooler idea. How about we do a story about how genius can't be controlled and have Orwell's brain cause a revolt among the masses? Or maybe some commentary on how every brain we see is a white dude's and how this is reflective of imperialism? (OK, I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Jane, Charlotte and Emily have a place in the brain wall but even still you have to consider that it is cultural appropriation on a huge scale.) Isn't that more fun than watching women throw paper around? And why do we only see four of the names, anyway? That's a load of bullshit!
Also, I feel like *I* could have made a better case for how a world with no intellectual freedom is a bad one, rather than all the girls' crowing about the importance of memories and love and blah blah blah. Fight for your world, girls, not just yourselves.
But ... yeah, I'm disappointed in R.O.D. the TV. It needs better references. It needs to be geeky. It needs to have a connection to books that is not just shallow and generic but based on the true, turbulent love of a bibliophile.
But then it would have been a different story altogether, I guess. I'll try to read those stories in the future, instead.
47nite put on me ... at least until I get around to reading the e-manga he got me.I know there are people out there who really love R.O.D. the OVA./R.O.D. the TV but to be honest, I haven't really been on board. I thought R.O.D. the OVA vacillated between boring and underwhelming. The one bright spot is the main character, Yomiko Readman, but while she DOES have a distinctive personality, sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to like her out of some generic relatability. "She likes books? *I* like books! And I can cosplay her without being ninety pounds! Sweet!"
R.O.D. the TV is kind of similar. I think it succeeds very well at its four main characters. You have Michelle, who acts like a bimbo but is the most capable of the team. You have Maggie the gentle giant. You have Anita, a brat who is compelling by the fact that she's strong and weak at the same time. And you have Nenene, who is basically the tie between the two series and the mouthpiece for the IMPORTANCE OF ART but has a pretty neat character arc. I like these guys. I really do. I hate to admit it, but I actually cried a little bit at the three sisters' reunion.
But ... here's the thing. R.O.D. the TV is a decent anime, and it can be quite good at the inter-relationships between its female characters. (I wasn't big on the Nancy/Junior subplot.) But one of its major themes is the importance of books, and that seems strange, because the makers of the show seem to have read barely any. But I guess I should have known that when they had one major character who is such a bibliomaniac that she buys out entire bookstores and can read large multiple books in a day say that her favorite book is the Harry Potter series.
I know some of you may be thinking I'm a snob right now. Look, guys, I really liked those books. I thought the seventh was the most fun thing I read last year. But I really, really, really, really do not see a major bibliophile naming those books as her favorite. Then again, I don't see a bibliophile indiscriminately buying a whole store of books in one fell swoop, either. The makers of the anime (or the manga) understand that bibliophiles are passionate about books but don't seem to understand WHY they're passionate about books.
This is a rather simplified definition, but basically, I believe people are passionate about books because they can relate to them on some level. I don't really see why Michelle would find that the Harry Potter series are the books that speak most closely to her life, and she's already an adventurer so I can't imagine she likes it on the escapism level. Also, I haven't read his work yet, but don't see why Maggie, who seems like a sensitive soul outside of adventuring, would see in Hemingway's masculinity-is-awesome tomes. Her admiring him I could see ... but her FAVORITE EVER? It just doesn't seem right ...
But nevermind. What really gets me is that the creators don't get that such a passion could work the other way. It's inconceivable that Michelle, Maggie and Yomiko could like EVERYTHING. Nobody who is passionate about anything likes ALL OF IT. Even bibliomaniacs who only read one type of book, like extreme romance or sci-fi readers, don't like EVERYTHING in the genre.
Say I'm making too much of this, but I say, like its characters, R.O.D. the TV is simply NOT GEEKY ENOUGH.
The Great Men in the OVA were mostly scientists who I do not know about. I didn't find their super-powered selves very interesting, but whatever, I figured that could be just me. However, I knew about almost every book referenced and found that they didn't do much interesting with them, either. I think the only book that was treated appropriately was Anne of Green Gables, but even then Yomiko's paraphrase of the book's last line for the last line of the anime was jarringly stupid and the Anne/Diana relationship is really the subplot of the book, anyway.
The rest though ... we have an episode going to Transylvania ... let's mention Dracula! And then let's not mention any other books until the final episodes.
And oh, the final episodes, so much missed potential ...
Like the whole thing where the UK takes over the world. OK, I like that. It goes back to the Victorian literature and steampunk and the height of the British empire which has now wants to rise again. But they can only do that by resurrecting The Gentleman, who is the smartest guy on earth and has been the true genius behind all of England's greatest writers. Because apparently what bibliophile otaku to hear is that everything in the world isn't really original because it was inspired by some megalomaniacal old geezer. The plan seems either like a way for Japan to conceive of their writers as the only smart and original ones or something worthy of an Oxfordian.
So the British Library decides to do this by going all Nicolae Carpathia and uniting the world under a one-world, one-language, government. Essentially wiping all culture other than a generic version of old Britannia and brainwashing everybody into a new world peace. Also, they have old, dead writers brains send out signals to unleash their characters' powers on any country that would seek to destroy them and ...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't believe I typed all that either.
Look, guys, I have a problem with this big scenario. I can't get how all of the countries except for the United States (which put up a pretty poor fight, being run by a George W. Bush-alike whose primary characteristics are that he cowers and pisses his pants) are pretty much OK or outright FOOLED into signing over their CULTURE under the face of negotiating pressure. Some actual show of strength to cower the Earth into peace? OK, that I could see ... but not all this Illuminati bullshit.
Also, the idea of magical author brainwaves, while dumb, does have some fun potential when the Wellsian tripods and pterodactyls/pteronadons/pterosaurs/whatever they're calling them this week from Conan Doyle's The Lost World pop up but ... sheesh, that's it? I may be spoiled by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic books but COME ON? You have a whole spectrum of Victorian badassery at your fingertips and that's seriously the best you can do? Come on, have some Vril popping out of the ground or SOMETHING! It would have been thematically perfect!
The way the girls and Drake figure out how the world was changing was also really sad and depressing. They read that many books and all they really needed to know to figure out how to break into the British Library was two dates? What the fuck?
I think it would have been so much more fun if America had thought to put Mark Twain's and H.P. Lovecraft's noggins in a vat and Dokushena could have countered with Wu Chengen sending millions of Gokus out from his brainwaves but it doesn't seem like that was on the authors' radar. Hey, and here is also a much cooler idea. How about we do a story about how genius can't be controlled and have Orwell's brain cause a revolt among the masses? Or maybe some commentary on how every brain we see is a white dude's and how this is reflective of imperialism? (OK, I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Jane, Charlotte and Emily have a place in the brain wall but even still you have to consider that it is cultural appropriation on a huge scale.) Isn't that more fun than watching women throw paper around? And why do we only see four of the names, anyway? That's a load of bullshit!
Also, I feel like *I* could have made a better case for how a world with no intellectual freedom is a bad one, rather than all the girls' crowing about the importance of memories and love and blah blah blah. Fight for your world, girls, not just yourselves.
But ... yeah, I'm disappointed in R.O.D. the TV. It needs better references. It needs to be geeky. It needs to have a connection to books that is not just shallow and generic but based on the true, turbulent love of a bibliophile.
But then it would have been a different story altogether, I guess. I'll try to read those stories in the future, instead.
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From:
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Who knows; metaseries that achieve a level of notoriety often come back in gloriously retconned ways. The manga alone follow two different plotlines, removed from the OAV/show.
What's really amusing (for me anyway) is how you rail against the narrative/intellectual underpinning of this series and ignore the surface of it. And just this week I'm rekindling my love of the novel because my design school is saying we as artists/designers need narrative/underpinning of our own before we....... go ahead and design the surface... for some show ...which perhaps someone else will write an online review of that ignores the surface anyway. XD;;;;;;
From:
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Aw, wow. That's cool, but I have to admit a sort of laziness and frustration kept the review very singular. I didn't even bring up stuff like some of the inappropriately-placed fanservice and how callous the happy reunion after the submerging of Hong Kong seems in the post-Katrina world.
What's really amusing (for me anyway) is how you rail against the narrative/intellectual underpinning of this series and ignore the surface of it. And just this week I'm rekindling my love of the novel because my design school is saying we as artists/designers need narrative/underpinning of our own before we....... go ahead and design the surface... for some show ...which perhaps someone else will write an online review of that ignores the surface anyway. XD;;;;;;
Sheesh! Well, I guess I could comment on how neat their clothes are if you wanted ... and how I hate how the background characters look normal while the main characters have the large anime eyes but ... eh. You attack the surface and it sounds to people like you're nitpicking, you know?
From:
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I would think the people of Hong Kong would be more offended by the similarities of the December 26, 2004 tsunami than Hurricane Katrina, just based on the higher likelihood of their loved ones lost in ~that~ calamity.
Then again, depicting Hong Kong as a high-tech fortress seems to fit the actual profile of that city now. :P)
Nah ...I conceded you have the moral high ground. XD I was just groping for some kind of parable (aloud). Something to the effect that: you're analyzing a work from the top down and arriving at something profound while I'm starting at the profound and diluting it by working my way to the top (or, surface). ^~
(I'd do well if I could dissect my readings this semester like you always do; if only time permitted.) ☺
From:
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True, true. Although Katrina has the whole man-made aspect (the ineffective levees were found to be the greater calamity than the hurricane itself). The December 26 tsunami was pretty much nature all the way.
(I'd do well if I could dissect my readings this semester like you always do; if only time permitted.) ☺
Higher education tends to mess stuff like that up, yeah ...
From:
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The sexism in the manga is going to drive you bonkers. >_>;
I love the series anyway.
From:
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From:
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