nobahn's Anime

Ultimately what makes Alita: Battle Angel so special – and a little mindblowing – is that it exists at all. We live in the era of Disney Pixar Marvel Lucasfilm and a bunch of other studios chasing Disney Pixar Marvel Lucasfilm-style dominating success, like a factory for giant-sized, focus-tested, family-friendly genre entertainment that often feels like eating the same bowl of nonthreatening sugary cereal again and again. I love a lot of those films, but seeing Alita: Battle Angel so confidently smeared all over the biggest and most expensive canvas in the world – this weird-ass, unrepentantly strange and violent cyberpunk story dripping with the edgy adolescent blood and grit of the '90s – it felt fresh. I've known this story, these characters, all of which it recreates faithfully, for nearly 25 years, but this movie felt totally unique, somehow like nothing I've ever seen before. In an age where mass-market entertainment can often feel like it's all the same Content™, an insanely confident, ambitious, intense, and proudly weird movie like Alita: Battle Angel is something to be treasured and cherished. I can't wait to see it again.

Curiously enough, the characters are NOT two dimensional. What this series has is action, and plenty of it! While there isn't much in the way of plot, wherever the plot ─ or what passes for it ─ takes the series (whether it be the beach or outer space), there's more than enough misdirected mayhem to wreck most everything in sight!
The ending of ep.#3 is quite amusing!

• Ruminating on how I've always been behind everyone has me circling downward in a vicious cycle. Not good! :-(
• There's no denying it anymore; I can't go on like this alone. I am alone and the bottomless abyss beckons. Was I merely being delusional all this time? I don't know, and that uncertainty is the only thing that I am certain of. I am at the edge of the abyss of the deep end of the pool, staring down at it. I don't know what to do anymore ─ and that's assuming that I ever did know in the first place.
• "There's a harsh truth to face." I'm never going to accomplish the goals I want to fulfill. A life without hope invariably ends in suicide. I suppose my epitaph would best be: "UNREALIZED POTENTIAL". Everyone that I've started out with has long since disappeared over the horizon, leaving me all alone, all by myself. There never was a reasonable chance of hope for me; entertaining any meaningful hope for myself is merely delusional. I don't know what to do; a life without hope is its own unique hell.
  7. • The club deals with various setbacks.
     • The Diving Club slacks off with midterms approaching.....
  8. • 04:53 mark: Never before has a letter being opened up been slowed down as much through time dilation. Pro: Unexpectedly anticlimactic. Very good.
     • Futabi is unexpectedly competitive. Very un-Japanese for someone of the feminine persuasion. Very good!
     • 1st ½ ends with a twist. Very good
  9. Huh?! No sign of her family with her making the move???!!!
     Rewatch.
  I knew that I'm fragile, but I never realized that I'm this fragile.
  10. • The girls go shopping.
      • The girls go the beach.
      Futabi passes the pool course ─ something that I cannot do.
  11. Kitten as metaphor for Futabi.
  12. Both Futaba and Hikari pass the open-water test and get their certifications.
  13. OAV | Futaba's two middle-school friends (Akane Mizunashi & Chizuru Himeno) visit Shizuoka during Summer break and become acquainted with the other members of the Yumegaoka High School Diving Club.
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• IMHO, the English dub is as good as the Japanese dub.
• The visual direction is quite remarkable.....
• The graphics are gorgeous.

3. Death is discussed in a happy manner in this episode.

• Creating a British school with Japanese cultural items is just too bizarre.....
• It's easy to see where the animation budget was allocated for the OP & Ed -- and why.

4. This episode had me smiling!

The dub is quite good; however, I need to rewatch the last third of the series because I still do not understand how Tenshi / Kanade Tachibana developed her abilities/powers.

• Interesting character designs.
• Art house film? Seems like it.....
• ~25 minutes in length.
• Your appreciation of this film will be in direct proportion to your tolerance for the art house genre.

Also, check the below link:
Sixteen and Evangelical by Laura Turner

"Anohana「AMV」- ღ Secret Base ღ"

"Secret Base/ 君がくれたもの (10 Years After Ver.) Lyric AMV (English+Romaji+Kanji)"

"ENGLISH "Secret Base" (from Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day) | SUMMER RAIN MELODIES"