ultranos: ashley from Trace Memory (white-haired girl) sleeping (sleepy)
Watching Baccano!. My anime about 1930s gangsters, bootleggers, and other thieves got Immortals and alchemy mixed in. I am not actually complaining about this. 7 of 13 episodes in, and I pretty much like the entire cast. This never happens!

Reading Black Lagoon still. My manga about pirates and smugglers operating outside Thailand got...well, they're still smugglers, the mafia, Yakuza, pirates, and otherwise unsavory mercs. I just finished the arc that introduces Sawyer the Cleaner, who everyone knows is intimidating because you take people you want to...disappear to Sawyer, who when not wearing face-and-body concealing PPE is apparently a voiceless goth girl who wields a chainsaw. Who will happily chainsaw your face off if you piss her off. And who goes into a nervous breakdown if she loses her synthetic voicebox. And since she's still breathing after getting into a fight with Revy, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume she's a recurring character. Huzzah!

I'm still very much amused that the series that's pretty much Every Action Movie Ever Turned To 11 has women responsible for the majority of the badassery and plot-driving (with the possible exception of one arc, thus far, every single plot arc has had women affecting the plot in significant ways, and not by being the MacGuffin only). Considering the premise, it's incredibly refreshing. Especially since it could so easily veer off into gratuitous fanservice, I never feel like I have to worry about one of the guys wandering in and seeing what I'm reading. This is in spite of the fact that Revy's default outfit seems to be half a tank top and unbuttoned short shorts (really, anyone who hits on her gets kicked in the face or shot). Yes, in a surprising juxtaposition for a piece of media, the Ms. Fanservice character doubles as Celibate Heroic Sociopath (thank you, TVTropes, for that description). IT'S ALMOST LIKE THE CHARACTERS ARE REAL PEOPLE.
ultranos: kino standing, staring ahead (girl's got a gun)
I somehow stumbled into reading Black Lagoon by Rei Hirone. Let me tell you, this manga is hitting some of my narrative weakpoints: couriers on the wrong side of the law, smuggling, modern-day pirates, and kickass women. You know it's something crazy when the Chinese-American female gunslinger (who is also completely crazy) takes out a fleet of gunships with a submachine gun and a grenade launcher.

No, I'm not joking. Yes, it is awesome.

I'm also impressed by the diversity of the cast, which makes sense seeing as how the main characters are pirates whose main base of operations is out of Thailand. And it takes place in the real world, roughly around 1995, so issues like the results of the collapse of the Soviet Union years later, the wars in the Middle East, etc. all show up. It's a seinen manga, so these things are obviously not dealt with in an...idealistic light. Pretty much everyone, except POV Protagonist Rock, is a criminal and a killer and shows little to no remorse about this fact. That being said, the series is Every Action Movie Ever Turned to 11, so there are definitely moments where everything's running on Rule of Cool.

I'm really just waiting on getting enough cash on hand to buy the official translations right now. It's a good series, if you like this kind of stuff.

I'm also debating on what to watch. I mean, I could go watch anything that happened after the s4 finale of Doctor Who or, say, anything past the middle of s1 on Sanctuary. I guess. Or I could watch Baccano! (non-linear, Prohibition-era mobsters, thieves, and other pulp fiction), Durarara (gang wars and other dark urban things, complete with a female headless horseman riding a motorcycle and committing acts of vigilantism), Toshokan Sensou (aka Library War), Kara no Kyoukai (most likely a mind-fuck supernatural story), or Eden of the East (which also looks to be a mind-fuck, only with technology).

Profile

ultranos: kino standing, staring ahead (Default)
ultranos

Memoranda from the Usual Suspects

Media List:

Currently Watching:
-- She-Ra(in theory)

Currently Playing:)
--Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)
--Astral Chain (Switch)
--itch.io bundle (PC)

Currently Reading:
Fiction
-The Silence of Bones, June Hur

Nonfiction
-none

------------------

"So she's good cop, he's bad cop, you're morally-questionable cop, and I'm set-things-on-fire cop."

"Sounds about right."

--------

"WARNING: When attempting to be clever, make sure you not actually just being stupid."

--------

"Did you remember to sacrifice the goat before burning the ISO to the DVD-R?"

"Crap! Um, I've got a charred piece of meat here."

"That's called a steak. That's dinner. What about the sacrifices?"

--------

"I escape through quantum-tunneling. What do I need to roll for that?"

--------

"Why is it called a 'Monkeylord'?"

"Because it looks like a spider."

--------

"I have a moral objection to this problem. It implies microwaving a steak."

--------

"Did you eat the crazy cookies this morning?"

--------

"The GPU goes 4 by 4, hurrah, hurrah."

September 2020

S M T W T F S
  12 345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags