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X, ep. 00-03
I'm very confused... did episode 0 air before the first episode in the TV series? Because it's very spoilery, plus, it makes absolutely no sense at all if you haven't seen the series. I mean, I was pretty baffled, and I've read the manga. The boy was just sitting in utter confusion, wondering who all those people were.
It was also incredibly strange seeing the characters animated. As always, the style is different from the manga, and though the characters all still look like the CLAMP characters, there's a sort of flattening that happens whenever manga is animated, a reduction of all the fine inky lines of the original. Also, Kotori's bangs look very silly animated, while they look all right as squiggly lines in the manga. It's also very, very strange hearing the characters. I've seen the X movie twice, but that was five years ago, and I've been reading the manga for the past six years (or, er, rereading when CLAMP stopped writing it), so none of the characters really had voices for me.
Kamui sounds much older than I thought he would -- he actually sounds incredibly like Heero in Gundam Wing, which makes sense. I had forgotten just how homicidal and antisocial Kamui was in the first few books. But he sounds very tough-guy-ish, and I guess I was thinking of a younger, higher voice. Fuuma sounds about what I would think. Kotori, amazingly, sounds less annoying that I thought, but then, I never liked her in the manga. The anime version is faring much better with me so far, but then, I suspect that's because there has been much less interaction between Fuuma and Kamui and Kotori so far in the anime. If I remember right (which I probably don't, because I haven't reread the first 15 some books for a really long time), the first five books at least spent a great deal of time on the three, and way too much time idealizing Kotori as the perfect girl. Bleh. Gah, even her name is cute -- "Little Bird."
I wince every time Sorata speaks. He is too high-pitched. I don't mind the accent, which is actually kind of cool, but there's a nasalness to his voice that is extremely irksome. I'm actually considering listening to the dub because it annoys me so much... Sorata was one of my favorite characters, so the voice incompatibility saddens me. Arashi is much more expressive than I thought she would be -- I was thinking of something more along the lines of the monotone Ayanami Rei in Evangelion. Hinoto also sounds a little strange, but I can't quite pinpoint why (and I love the whole Arashi-dono, Yuuta-dono, etc. thing. Now I want to dig up the original language manga and see if that's there... actually there's one in the store, I should do that). I liked Nataku's voice.. I think it's a female seiyuu doing a male impression (like Kenshin and Quatre's), which is a nice way of portraying Nataku's asexuality.
I'm amazed at how much of the imagery is the same as the movie -- feathers, sakura petals, the clockwork gears. I don't remember if the imagery is in the manga originally, though it probably is. And if not, I'm quite sure it's in the artbooks. I do sort of miss the images of a glass globe shattering in the movie (and the manga?). Wow, I really should reread the manga sometime.
Speaking of which, I'm still irked by the way they brought it over. I wish they would reissue the first few volumes -- they all have those silly music-themed subtitles that are nowhere on the original, and I think they're missing the neat Tarot card imagery. Plus, I loved the starkness of the giant colored "X" on the cover and associating the color with the character on the Tarot card and the spine and the Tarot imagery. And I liked how the little spine images all flowed together into one long mural thing.
I do like how they just show blood splattering everywhere from Saya dying, as opposed to the movie, which had exploding women. I think I am still traumatized by the flying limbs (and heads) of the movie, so much so that the image of Kotori tied to a cross with wires in episode 0 had me wincing in anticipation of the wires cutting and her split apart body sliding down everywhere, with the laughable and deeply weird climax of Kamui cradling her decapitated head and crying. I think (besides that) one of the reasons the movie was so awful was that it focused entirely on the Fuuma-Kamui-Kotori triangle, which does not interest me in the very least. And the rest of the Dragons have brief appearances, after which they die horribly. The supporting characters are really my favorite, because Kotori really, really bored me in the manga.
I wish I had the manga in hand... I know "saya" means "scabbard/sheath" in Japanese, but for the life of me, I can't remember if the kanji is the same. Oh well.. And wow, it really sucks to be her. She married into the family and had to give birth to a sword accordingly? I wonder if they disclosed that ahead of time ... oh, yeah, by the way, if we get married, you're going to eventually die a horrible death giving birth to this sword my family has guarded for generations. Still want to get hitched? Uhhh... no thank you.
Mostly I'm just hanging in there waiting for the juicier stuff to happen... though I cheered when Arashi and Sorata showed up (my favorite characters, obvioiusly). I do miss the imagery in the movie and the comics of the almost disgustingly organic way the sword comes out of Arashi's palm, all twining tendon and who knows what. But it was neat, because it was as though the sword was a part of her, and it was a nice contrast to the killer Divine Swords that had to be birthed by women.
I also sort of giggled at the explanation that the kekkai/barriers were 1 km in every direction, because Sorata's, at least, was very clearly not a circle. I think these are the places my head goes to when I'm not overly concerned with the plot -- so far, it's still following the manga, albeit in a more condensed fashion.
One thing I really miss about the manga is being able to see the kanji for the character names. Although when I was reading it in Chinese, it was also annoying because I'd get on internet fansites and have no idea who the people were talking about, seeing as how the Chinese pronunciation was different from the Japanese, and I was too lazy to memorize the romanized names on the back of the cover. I think I've got them mostly down by now.
But I did like how some of the names were indicative of things --
Kamui, for one, had the kanji for "God/divine" (kami) and something like power or threat (i). I remember the manga had a bit in which they were saying "kamui" could mean three things, the power of a god, the power to threaten a god, or something like that. Need to reread. So being "Kamui" is a sort of role as well, which allows for more possibilities.
I keep wondering if it's supposed to be significant that the "fuu" in Fuuma is the same as the first kanji in "Seal" (fuuin).
Nekoi Yuzuriha's name is rather ironic, given that "neko" is "cat." I think the manga said something about her being named that on purpose, as a sort of misdirection.
Then, of course, Sakurazuka Seishirou always comes to mind whenever there are scatterings of sakura petals.
Kasumi Karen's name is very fiery -- "ka/natsu" is "summer," "ka" in "Karen" is "fire," and "ren" also has a fire radical in it.
I particularly like Kishuu Arashi's name... "ki" is "ghost," "shuu" is "curse" and "arashi" is storm. Very cool.
Hrm, that's all my rambling for today. Unfortunately, the second X DVD is not in hand, so I have to wait before watching ep. 4! Oh the pain.
I am, however, really looking forward to finally having some sort of closure on this series. Sigh. This was maybe the third manga series I picked up, and I've been reading it for the past six years, and I'm still mad that they're not going to finish it!
It was also incredibly strange seeing the characters animated. As always, the style is different from the manga, and though the characters all still look like the CLAMP characters, there's a sort of flattening that happens whenever manga is animated, a reduction of all the fine inky lines of the original. Also, Kotori's bangs look very silly animated, while they look all right as squiggly lines in the manga. It's also very, very strange hearing the characters. I've seen the X movie twice, but that was five years ago, and I've been reading the manga for the past six years (or, er, rereading when CLAMP stopped writing it), so none of the characters really had voices for me.
Kamui sounds much older than I thought he would -- he actually sounds incredibly like Heero in Gundam Wing, which makes sense. I had forgotten just how homicidal and antisocial Kamui was in the first few books. But he sounds very tough-guy-ish, and I guess I was thinking of a younger, higher voice. Fuuma sounds about what I would think. Kotori, amazingly, sounds less annoying that I thought, but then, I never liked her in the manga. The anime version is faring much better with me so far, but then, I suspect that's because there has been much less interaction between Fuuma and Kamui and Kotori so far in the anime. If I remember right (which I probably don't, because I haven't reread the first 15 some books for a really long time), the first five books at least spent a great deal of time on the three, and way too much time idealizing Kotori as the perfect girl. Bleh. Gah, even her name is cute -- "Little Bird."
I wince every time Sorata speaks. He is too high-pitched. I don't mind the accent, which is actually kind of cool, but there's a nasalness to his voice that is extremely irksome. I'm actually considering listening to the dub because it annoys me so much... Sorata was one of my favorite characters, so the voice incompatibility saddens me. Arashi is much more expressive than I thought she would be -- I was thinking of something more along the lines of the monotone Ayanami Rei in Evangelion. Hinoto also sounds a little strange, but I can't quite pinpoint why (and I love the whole Arashi-dono, Yuuta-dono, etc. thing. Now I want to dig up the original language manga and see if that's there... actually there's one in the store, I should do that). I liked Nataku's voice.. I think it's a female seiyuu doing a male impression (like Kenshin and Quatre's), which is a nice way of portraying Nataku's asexuality.
I'm amazed at how much of the imagery is the same as the movie -- feathers, sakura petals, the clockwork gears. I don't remember if the imagery is in the manga originally, though it probably is. And if not, I'm quite sure it's in the artbooks. I do sort of miss the images of a glass globe shattering in the movie (and the manga?). Wow, I really should reread the manga sometime.
Speaking of which, I'm still irked by the way they brought it over. I wish they would reissue the first few volumes -- they all have those silly music-themed subtitles that are nowhere on the original, and I think they're missing the neat Tarot card imagery. Plus, I loved the starkness of the giant colored "X" on the cover and associating the color with the character on the Tarot card and the spine and the Tarot imagery. And I liked how the little spine images all flowed together into one long mural thing.
I do like how they just show blood splattering everywhere from Saya dying, as opposed to the movie, which had exploding women. I think I am still traumatized by the flying limbs (and heads) of the movie, so much so that the image of Kotori tied to a cross with wires in episode 0 had me wincing in anticipation of the wires cutting and her split apart body sliding down everywhere, with the laughable and deeply weird climax of Kamui cradling her decapitated head and crying. I think (besides that) one of the reasons the movie was so awful was that it focused entirely on the Fuuma-Kamui-Kotori triangle, which does not interest me in the very least. And the rest of the Dragons have brief appearances, after which they die horribly. The supporting characters are really my favorite, because Kotori really, really bored me in the manga.
I wish I had the manga in hand... I know "saya" means "scabbard/sheath" in Japanese, but for the life of me, I can't remember if the kanji is the same. Oh well.. And wow, it really sucks to be her. She married into the family and had to give birth to a sword accordingly? I wonder if they disclosed that ahead of time ... oh, yeah, by the way, if we get married, you're going to eventually die a horrible death giving birth to this sword my family has guarded for generations. Still want to get hitched? Uhhh... no thank you.
Mostly I'm just hanging in there waiting for the juicier stuff to happen... though I cheered when Arashi and Sorata showed up (my favorite characters, obvioiusly). I do miss the imagery in the movie and the comics of the almost disgustingly organic way the sword comes out of Arashi's palm, all twining tendon and who knows what. But it was neat, because it was as though the sword was a part of her, and it was a nice contrast to the killer Divine Swords that had to be birthed by women.
I also sort of giggled at the explanation that the kekkai/barriers were 1 km in every direction, because Sorata's, at least, was very clearly not a circle. I think these are the places my head goes to when I'm not overly concerned with the plot -- so far, it's still following the manga, albeit in a more condensed fashion.
One thing I really miss about the manga is being able to see the kanji for the character names. Although when I was reading it in Chinese, it was also annoying because I'd get on internet fansites and have no idea who the people were talking about, seeing as how the Chinese pronunciation was different from the Japanese, and I was too lazy to memorize the romanized names on the back of the cover. I think I've got them mostly down by now.
But I did like how some of the names were indicative of things --
Kamui, for one, had the kanji for "God/divine" (kami) and something like power or threat (i). I remember the manga had a bit in which they were saying "kamui" could mean three things, the power of a god, the power to threaten a god, or something like that. Need to reread. So being "Kamui" is a sort of role as well, which allows for more possibilities.
I keep wondering if it's supposed to be significant that the "fuu" in Fuuma is the same as the first kanji in "Seal" (fuuin).
Nekoi Yuzuriha's name is rather ironic, given that "neko" is "cat." I think the manga said something about her being named that on purpose, as a sort of misdirection.
Then, of course, Sakurazuka Seishirou always comes to mind whenever there are scatterings of sakura petals.
Kasumi Karen's name is very fiery -- "ka/natsu" is "summer," "ka" in "Karen" is "fire," and "ren" also has a fire radical in it.
I particularly like Kishuu Arashi's name... "ki" is "ghost," "shuu" is "curse" and "arashi" is storm. Very cool.
Hrm, that's all my rambling for today. Unfortunately, the second X DVD is not in hand, so I have to wait before watching ep. 4! Oh the pain.
I am, however, really looking forward to finally having some sort of closure on this series. Sigh. This was maybe the third manga series I picked up, and I've been reading it for the past six years, and I'm still mad that they're not going to finish it!
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Episode 0 was apparently an OVA? I guess they were trying to see if they could pull the series off in TV form even though there'd been a movie.
A lot of the imagery is less bloody or less dramatic in the TV series than the manga or what little I saw of the movie, and I think it's an improvement -- not just because it's less gross but because you don't get the unintentionally ludicrous cradling of decapitated heads.
Spoilery reminder about Saya:
She didn't bear the sword because she married into the shrine; she volunteered to take Tohru's place as the mother of the sword because Kamui needed his only parent and everyone seemed to think Fuuma and Kotori would survive okay with their father around. What I miss in the anime is the scene where Saya reveals to Fuuma and Kotori's father that she's doing this because she's always been in love with Saya, and she's happy to sacrifice her life for the woman she loves, but she's sorry she's been a bad wife to him. And he reassures her that he always knew, and he doesn't mind, because he loved *her*, and she was a good wife, and their children are beautiful.
These people are so fucking weird. I love them.
The first time through I found Kamui completely intolerable until his heart got broken, but on the latest rewatch, as I said, I felt really sorry for him.
I'm going to write up my recent experiment in pimping X, and oh! the dismay I felt when I realized I was going to have to explain the origin of the divine swords. It's so fucking Lacanian they could use it in psych classes. (Sword = phallus; women can carry the power of the phallus, but they can't use it, only transfer it to men; yeah, yeah, yeah.)
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And then in George R. R. Martin's A STORM OF SWORDS, someone recounts a legend about a king who could make a magic sword by quenching it in a person's body, and his wofe volunteers.
Take those two, plus X's spirit swords, plus Arashi's sword which I guess she can only manifest if she's a virgin, and the way Inuki can turn himself into a sword for Yuzuriha to use, and I'd say you have the makings of a paper.
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Hee, now I want to push that on some unfortunate EAS student, being too lazy to write a paper myself ;). Still recovering from the thesis, haha.
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Someday I am really going to have to rewatch the X movie just so I can make up a drinking game or something.
Spoilery bit on Saya and Kamui's aunt:
Oh yeah!! I had totally forgotten!! That makes sense now. I was so confused because I kept thinking Kamui's mother died because of the sword as well, or his aunt. So I thought, hey, maybe there are two swords? I think there are two...
And yay, femslash ^_^.
I'm trying to figure out if the characters of Angel Sanctuary edge out the X characters in terms of weirdness, but I haven't read enough Angel Sanctuary yet.
Very much looking forward to that post!
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It's CLAMP. They have to have either femslash or regular slash somehow in any (...I think nearly all actually) of their titles.
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Honestly, I think it may be a tie. I still need to write up Angel Sanctuary -- am I right in taking it as partly a commentary on X? It surely can't be a coincidence that there are *two* crack-addled apocalyptic epics set in July 1999 starring winged boys, pretty boys, pretty girls, and pretty androgynes?
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I do know that the whole falling in love with the innocent girl who is like (or is) a sister to you isn't just a CLAMP thing though! It, or various other forms of incesty love, appeared in a lot more shoujo manga than I thought it would.
But I'm sure Angel Sanctuary has got to be somehow influenced by CLAMP.
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I think you'll like the ending of the anime. It was rushed, but I still liked it.
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Hey, I'm not arguing with any sort of closure, as long as it doesn't end with every single person dying miserably and the cradling of said decapitated heads. You know, the good thing about having seen the movie is having incredibly low expectations. I will be perfectly satisfied with something even remotely logical and un-bloodbath-like.
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It's been a while, but I seem to remember there was something funny about the kanji for Kamui's and Fuuma's names. Like they had double meanings and meant the same thing (or opposite things). But it's been years, so my memory could be faulty.
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I think that was the kanji for "kamui" -- I remember something about the meaning being "the power of a god" or "the power to destroy a god," or something rather double-edged like that.
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Alas, I still can't remember if that was what Fuuma's name meant. All I can recall when I think of Fuuma is that frog he puts on his head after he becomes Dark Fuuma and wears the Lennon shades. ^^;
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This is the problem when you read manga in the Chinese ;).
The characters for Fuuma's name are "fuu" (seal) and "ma" (truth/sincerity/real), but no idea what that means put together!
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