Amazing Grace and Redeeming Love

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now, I see.

Begining with Episode 40, Eureka sevenN starts its final opening sequence for the series. The opening verse from the song is from a iconic 18 century song “Amazing Grace”. Amazing grace is a song with a “message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit.” In the homestretch of the show, redemption and love is found for three of our protagonists; Captain Jurgens, Lieutenant Dominic, and Anemone.

Check-in Station: Rinne no Lagrange eps1-3 (I’m really starting to hate this show.)

The groans!  The pain!  I suppose the end of this episode wasn’t bad, but for the most part I felt like the first 3 episodes of this series could have been rolled into two.  There was a lot of faffing about this episode, a lot of silliness.  And plenty of things that I know Ghostlightning would have cringed at in viewing.  The whole nonsense about Madoka hopping about the city trying to save it just irked me.  All she had to do was just leave the area.  Hell, she shouldn’t have charged in the first damn place!

The Passing of The First AGE Reveals The Human Face of Violence: Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 15

[Mobile Suit Gundam AGE 14]

It was bright and colorful, and was dark as it felt like it needed to be. Mobile Suit Gundam AGE finished its first age of three on a very dark note. The enemies are defeated. Vengeance was served. The hero’s innocence was preserved, even if his love was killed. The girl who loved him was victorious, but we do not see her triumphant – her rival was killed unjustly and the hero will not love her the same way, not for some time. The captain was tried and convicted for treason. The big government reveals itself to be unjust and evil.

The enemies are revealed to be human, and are victims of human negligence and corruption. Everybody loses, as war must go on. As a viewer I claim victory. This is Gundam, and better than I expected.

Nisemonogatari Finally Begins at Episode 03, Karen Bee Part 3

[Nisemonogatari 02]

Smut aside, the events in between the in medias res–like device the narrative uses to launch itself serve the following things:

• Remind us of, or re-present us with the characters of the narrative with some updates.
• Characterize the relationship between the two leads.

I find it striking how Senjougahara is portrayed with significantly less smut, to negligible levels (especially relative to everyone else). Ever since they got together, the fanservice coming from Senjougahara is circumstantial and verbal. She’s completely stopped being shown naked and such.

Senjougahara: serious business; everyone else: temptations for Araragi.

Forever Young

It’s a nice thought, but it’s an inauthenticity. I can’t stay forever young, not even in “mind” nor in “spirit.” I’ve seen things. I remember so many things. Even more telling, I’ve forgotten things. But there are things I want to remind myself as I grow older, as I do so today – things that are appropriate to share here on this anime blog.

The first thing: someday this blog will end. It will be well-before I actually die. But since I will die someday, so must this blog as I know it, as you’ve known it. The very idea of this finiteness allows for sentimentality. The sentiment here is that, at the very end of my youth and at the onset of middle age, I rediscovered and remembered love for cartoons.