Overlooked from 2005
Jan. 6th, 2006 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksI thought about making a best-of list, and then I realized that it would a) take forever to write up and b) wind up somewhat redundant, as a truly astonishing quantity of the things I've read/watched/seen for the past year have been on the recommendation of groups of people who read this journal. So I decided that I would instead make a list of my favorite things encountered last year which do not seem to have made a large splash for one reason or another, the things found in corners, chance-caught in theatres, dredged from import stores, mentioned to me in passing by one person if ever: the best I hope you haven't heard of. (Of course, just because I ran across something last year doesn't mean that that's when it was produced, and I'm pretty sure a lot of these are older-- I tend to be behind in popular culture, or even geek-popular culture, by at least six months anyway.)
Book: Non-fiction: Half the House, by Richard Hoffmann. I previously wrote this up here, and I don't think I can improve on my write-up. I fall over into superlatives when I'm even thinking about this book, let alone discussing it.
Book: Fiction: The Werewolf Of Paris, by Guy Endore. The Gothic novel meets the WWI-era novel of post-modern ennui in the midst of the Paris Commune. There are very loud crunching noises as the Gothic messily devours the post-modern ennui and then metamorphoses into a post-modern horror story. The reconstituted beast then eats your head. Probably the best book I have ever read about werewolves, even if you may have to beat it back with a stick. (Note: this is extremely old and difficult to find, but I found it very well worth the effort it took to exhume.)
Movie: Millions. This was directed by Danny Boyle, previously known for crime/drug movies such as Trainspotting, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the best children's film of last year, as well as one of the best films period. A pair of elementary-school-age British brothers find themselves in possession of a truly absurd quantity of money in pound notes in the week before the pound is due to switch to the Euro: what do you do with a fortune that will very shortly become wastepaper? Some of the things they come up with are both ingenious and hilarious (I like the bit with the pizza and the Mormons), but the thing that truly makes this a special movie is the writing and performance of the younger brother. He is a devout Catholic and believes the money to be sent from Heaven so that he can do good with it; his faith is real, touching, quiet, joyous, moving into the kind of magical realism that the best fantasy can produce. This film is one reason I am desperately unhappy with the current cinematic adaptation of the Narnia books-- I've seen the kind of wild love for a God that Lewis had filmed successfully, and in a movie for children, too. I am by no means a Christian (and neither, I believe, is Mr. Boyle), but this is yet another of the works that make me respect what Christianity has on occasion done for the creative impulses of various artists. The end of the movie doesn't quite hold up to the rest of it, but by that time it is juggling so much that I can forgive it a few dropped plates. Just came out on DVD, so those of you with Netflix have no excuse.
Comic (English-language): Fell, by Warren Ellis. Page down in the entry I linked to for Half the House to see my initial write-up of this. There's only been one issue since, but it's of just as high a quality. I don't know why this one isn't being publicized as much as it ought to be.
Manga: Professional English Release: Please Save My Earth, by Saki Hiwatari. I really admire a writer who can cause you to be able to keep straight not only a main cast of seven, but their previous incarnations who look nothing like them, as well as a subsidiary cast which is not tiny. Somehow, I've never had any serious doubts about who is really who and who is doing what, and I consider that a major technical feat. The art may take a little while to get used to-- this is old-school shoujo manga-- but it works most of the time and has occasional moments of staggering beauty, while the plotting and characters are simply a delight. Many years ago, an alien culture had an outpost of observers in a base on the Moon, who watched the Earth with a sort of proprietary interest; now, some Japanese high school students are finding themselves dreaming of the people on the Moon base as a kind of past-life memory, and discover that the tangled motivations of their past selves are not escapable. Interesting interplay between destiny and free will, interesting gender stuff, ambivalently cool possibly-mad villain: well worth trying.
Manga: Scanslation: Love My Life, by Ebine Yamaji. It's... it's manga about lesbians. And it DOESN'T SUCK. AT ALL. IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD. If you've ever read any other manga about lesbians, you'll understand why those previous sentences were in all-caps. BECAUSE THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. EVER. Except this single volume, in which there are characters and plot and good art and hot sex and all those other things that NEVER TURN UP IN MANGA ABOUT LESBIANS. Seriously, there are incidents in this book that have happened to me. I mean, what? I... I'm really just kind of stunned. Available from Kotonoha Scanslations.
Anime: Professional English Release: Supergals, ADV Films. If you're a shoujo person and you like Mars or MeruPuri or Nana or gods help you Hot Gimmick, go out and get this right now. No, now. Manga and anime. I'll wait. There. Now, wasn't that better than Hot Gimmick? Yes, I know it seemed very pink, but wasn't it cool how it was an accurate representation of a real Japanese schoolgirl subculture with accurate Tokyo geography and things like that? Wasn't it nifty how everyone actually had a brain, and how the characters were dealing with real teenage problems instead of the Soap Opera Love Triangle of Doom? Wasn't it interesting how the sparkly conventions of shoujo graphics were cleverly used to disguise the fact that the anime had absolutely no budget? And, most importantly, wasn't Kotobuki Ran just a badass to end all badasses, even in those scary platform sandals? You can get past the art style if you try. I promise. (Many, many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cosmorific!)
Anime: Fansub: Uta-Kata. I am one of three people I know who has seen this, which is a shame. It's a twelve-episode anime with a thirteenth episode which came out as an OAV; I haven't seen the OAV yet. I suspect a lot of people missed it because it took forever to get fansubbed, and also because the first few episodes seem both veeeeeeeeeeery slow and veeeeeeeeery generic. However, it turns out that the show is neither, and that it's an incredibly nifty subversion of the standard tropes of fiction about kids who get magical powers (Western tropes as well as anime, interestingly enough). The setup is simple: Ichika, an ordinary schoolgirl, is given a good-luck charm by one of her older and very pretty male tutors. She puts the charm on her cell phone, but, while she's cleaning in an old building owned by her school, the phone (charm and all) falls through a giant mirror. It's returned by the girl on the other side of the mirror, on the condition that Ichika do the girl's summer homework, which involves activating certain powers inherent in the charm. Ichika therefore gets Strange Powers with attendant costume changes (and fanservice) and the mirror-girl as an unexpected houseguest. So far, so generic. Until... things... start happening. Ichika's eyes start glowing red, sometimes. She can't keep down food. Her dreams are disturbing. Her neighbor starts stalking her. Her tutors act very strangely. It becomes obvious that she and the mirror-girl have the same character design, even though they look superficially different. Her parents seem bizarrely unconcerned. And Ichika's life goes to hell in a handbasket. I highly recommend this, and do give it five or six episodes-- on rewatch, I can't see how they could have made the first few eps any more gripping to a first-time viewer, and they're enthralling on repeat, but the initial pacing can be very frustrating. You can get the show from Lunar Fansubs on Bittorrent through Animesuki or other torrent sites. (That's Ichika and her guest Manatsu in my icon at the moment. Ichika's the one with the brown hair.coffeeandink, I think this would really hit some of your light sister/dark sister triggers. And much love to mikeneko for causing me to watch this!)
Album: Paging Mr. Strike, Machine Gun Fellatio. Positively the most insane, deranged, catchy, beautiful techno-pop album by a crazy Australian band containing people named things like Bryan Ferrysexual and the Widow Jones ever. But it may not be, because I haven't got absolutely everything MGF ever put out yet. Must try harder. Sometimes this album exudes a raucous joy in sexuality that has to be heard to be believed, sometimes it exudes a raucous joy in intellectuality, and sometimes it's just simply raucous. If you can get the song 'Rollercoaster'-- which I will be posting here fairly soon-- out of your head ever, ever again, then you are a freak of nature and I want to know how you did it.
I could go into things like fanfiction and webcomic and computer game, but I think those are a lot less likely to actually be obscure. So that's the lot, and I hope people have fun with at least some of it-- or in a few cases, trying to find at least some of it.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to track down some more books I've been looking for forever.
Book: Non-fiction: Half the House, by Richard Hoffmann. I previously wrote this up here, and I don't think I can improve on my write-up. I fall over into superlatives when I'm even thinking about this book, let alone discussing it.
Book: Fiction: The Werewolf Of Paris, by Guy Endore. The Gothic novel meets the WWI-era novel of post-modern ennui in the midst of the Paris Commune. There are very loud crunching noises as the Gothic messily devours the post-modern ennui and then metamorphoses into a post-modern horror story. The reconstituted beast then eats your head. Probably the best book I have ever read about werewolves, even if you may have to beat it back with a stick. (Note: this is extremely old and difficult to find, but I found it very well worth the effort it took to exhume.)
Movie: Millions. This was directed by Danny Boyle, previously known for crime/drug movies such as Trainspotting, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the best children's film of last year, as well as one of the best films period. A pair of elementary-school-age British brothers find themselves in possession of a truly absurd quantity of money in pound notes in the week before the pound is due to switch to the Euro: what do you do with a fortune that will very shortly become wastepaper? Some of the things they come up with are both ingenious and hilarious (I like the bit with the pizza and the Mormons), but the thing that truly makes this a special movie is the writing and performance of the younger brother. He is a devout Catholic and believes the money to be sent from Heaven so that he can do good with it; his faith is real, touching, quiet, joyous, moving into the kind of magical realism that the best fantasy can produce. This film is one reason I am desperately unhappy with the current cinematic adaptation of the Narnia books-- I've seen the kind of wild love for a God that Lewis had filmed successfully, and in a movie for children, too. I am by no means a Christian (and neither, I believe, is Mr. Boyle), but this is yet another of the works that make me respect what Christianity has on occasion done for the creative impulses of various artists. The end of the movie doesn't quite hold up to the rest of it, but by that time it is juggling so much that I can forgive it a few dropped plates. Just came out on DVD, so those of you with Netflix have no excuse.
Comic (English-language): Fell, by Warren Ellis. Page down in the entry I linked to for Half the House to see my initial write-up of this. There's only been one issue since, but it's of just as high a quality. I don't know why this one isn't being publicized as much as it ought to be.
Manga: Professional English Release: Please Save My Earth, by Saki Hiwatari. I really admire a writer who can cause you to be able to keep straight not only a main cast of seven, but their previous incarnations who look nothing like them, as well as a subsidiary cast which is not tiny. Somehow, I've never had any serious doubts about who is really who and who is doing what, and I consider that a major technical feat. The art may take a little while to get used to-- this is old-school shoujo manga-- but it works most of the time and has occasional moments of staggering beauty, while the plotting and characters are simply a delight. Many years ago, an alien culture had an outpost of observers in a base on the Moon, who watched the Earth with a sort of proprietary interest; now, some Japanese high school students are finding themselves dreaming of the people on the Moon base as a kind of past-life memory, and discover that the tangled motivations of their past selves are not escapable. Interesting interplay between destiny and free will, interesting gender stuff, ambivalently cool possibly-mad villain: well worth trying.
Manga: Scanslation: Love My Life, by Ebine Yamaji. It's... it's manga about lesbians. And it DOESN'T SUCK. AT ALL. IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD. If you've ever read any other manga about lesbians, you'll understand why those previous sentences were in all-caps. BECAUSE THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. EVER. Except this single volume, in which there are characters and plot and good art and hot sex and all those other things that NEVER TURN UP IN MANGA ABOUT LESBIANS. Seriously, there are incidents in this book that have happened to me. I mean, what? I... I'm really just kind of stunned. Available from Kotonoha Scanslations.
Anime: Professional English Release: Supergals, ADV Films. If you're a shoujo person and you like Mars or MeruPuri or Nana or gods help you Hot Gimmick, go out and get this right now. No, now. Manga and anime. I'll wait. There. Now, wasn't that better than Hot Gimmick? Yes, I know it seemed very pink, but wasn't it cool how it was an accurate representation of a real Japanese schoolgirl subculture with accurate Tokyo geography and things like that? Wasn't it nifty how everyone actually had a brain, and how the characters were dealing with real teenage problems instead of the Soap Opera Love Triangle of Doom? Wasn't it interesting how the sparkly conventions of shoujo graphics were cleverly used to disguise the fact that the anime had absolutely no budget? And, most importantly, wasn't Kotobuki Ran just a badass to end all badasses, even in those scary platform sandals? You can get past the art style if you try. I promise. (Many, many thanks to
cosmorific!)Anime: Fansub: Uta-Kata. I am one of three people I know who has seen this, which is a shame. It's a twelve-episode anime with a thirteenth episode which came out as an OAV; I haven't seen the OAV yet. I suspect a lot of people missed it because it took forever to get fansubbed, and also because the first few episodes seem both veeeeeeeeeeery slow and veeeeeeeeery generic. However, it turns out that the show is neither, and that it's an incredibly nifty subversion of the standard tropes of fiction about kids who get magical powers (Western tropes as well as anime, interestingly enough). The setup is simple: Ichika, an ordinary schoolgirl, is given a good-luck charm by one of her older and very pretty male tutors. She puts the charm on her cell phone, but, while she's cleaning in an old building owned by her school, the phone (charm and all) falls through a giant mirror. It's returned by the girl on the other side of the mirror, on the condition that Ichika do the girl's summer homework, which involves activating certain powers inherent in the charm. Ichika therefore gets Strange Powers with attendant costume changes (and fanservice) and the mirror-girl as an unexpected houseguest. So far, so generic. Until... things... start happening. Ichika's eyes start glowing red, sometimes. She can't keep down food. Her dreams are disturbing. Her neighbor starts stalking her. Her tutors act very strangely. It becomes obvious that she and the mirror-girl have the same character design, even though they look superficially different. Her parents seem bizarrely unconcerned. And Ichika's life goes to hell in a handbasket. I highly recommend this, and do give it five or six episodes-- on rewatch, I can't see how they could have made the first few eps any more gripping to a first-time viewer, and they're enthralling on repeat, but the initial pacing can be very frustrating. You can get the show from Lunar Fansubs on Bittorrent through Animesuki or other torrent sites. (That's Ichika and her guest Manatsu in my icon at the moment. Ichika's the one with the brown hair.
coffeeandink, I think this would really hit some of your light sister/dark sister triggers. And much love to mikeneko for causing me to watch this!) Album: Paging Mr. Strike, Machine Gun Fellatio. Positively the most insane, deranged, catchy, beautiful techno-pop album by a crazy Australian band containing people named things like Bryan Ferrysexual and the Widow Jones ever. But it may not be, because I haven't got absolutely everything MGF ever put out yet. Must try harder. Sometimes this album exudes a raucous joy in sexuality that has to be heard to be believed, sometimes it exudes a raucous joy in intellectuality, and sometimes it's just simply raucous. If you can get the song 'Rollercoaster'-- which I will be posting here fairly soon-- out of your head ever, ever again, then you are a freak of nature and I want to know how you did it.
I could go into things like fanfiction and webcomic and computer game, but I think those are a lot less likely to actually be obscure. So that's the lot, and I hope people have fun with at least some of it-- or in a few cases, trying to find at least some of it.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go try to track down some more books I've been looking for forever.
