Bethel Anime Club

http://asosbrigade.com/

Haruhi Suzumiya is evidently world-famous:
http://www.fencedude.com/Images/WorldwideHaruhi.jpg

Hey all—

The final episodes of Windy Tales and Yume Tsukai are now available on the Anime Club server. If you missed them, I highly recommend grabbing them; Windy Tales has a delightfully mellow yet filling conclusion, while Yume Tsukai deconstructs itself in a way that casts doubts on dreams, its own characters, and morality itself.

Also available at the root level are WindCat.zip, a nice lil’ program created by Dr. Gossett as a homework assignment—watch it for a couple minutes, it’s strangely mesmerizing—and hold-tutu.avi, the music video shown at the last meeting. Watch it, it’s excellent.

I’ll see you all over Interim, when we ascend into the realm of the spirits with “Kamichu!”

–Matthew

PS:
“In a Station of the Metro”
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

“Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”

Hey all–

Yes, it’s time for endings (thus the T.S. Eliot quote). Last time, the end of Princess Tutu was as good as everyone expected; this time, all of our other shows shall draw to a conclusion,
“And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment.”
Certainly this is true of the ending of Yume Tsukai, in which the concepts you had formed of the characters, their work, their motivations, and (especially) their goodness will be radically challenged. What does it mean to be a good person? Does morality lie in our actions, or our desires–and if our desires are impermissible, can we be untrue to them and still moral?

Everything will come down to a rousing battle for the Eye of God itself in El-Hazard, where the returned Princess Fatora will prove to be not quite a damsel in distress, Jinnai will get his last laugh, and a surprise conclusion will hit you harder than you’d thought the show capable of.

And in the final episode of Windy Tales, Yukio’s return will set off a little whirlwind through time, and in the pattern of the dancing leaves we may just discern the questions to some answers about the show. Why do we have to grow up? Shall we judge our life by our ability to fulfill our goals, or is mere living enough? What does it mean to “be ourselves”–can it be that disappointment is a crucial part of this process?
“And all shall be well
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well.”

See you tonight!

–Matthew

PS: “We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

As finals swamp me with a truly o’erwhelming tide of work, I find myself spending my study breaks catching up on a show called Bokura ga Ita, a fantastically cynical high school romance that has renewed—all right, created—my faith in shoujo as a medium in which really, really fascinating and involving characters can be created. I’ve got to admit, I truly care about everyone in the show, and the manner in which they keep on looking for love despite their fundamental brokenness seems to me very profound.

That said, Bokura ga Ita has a problem. A big problem. Although all the animation is (to be generous) rather shoddy, the show’s creators have a serious issue with eyes. Apparently, they feel that eyes detract from the more interesting features of the face, such as, for instance, the VAST EXPANSE OF NOTHINGNESS LEFT WHEN EYES ARE RANDOMLY REMOVED. To illustrate my point I present to you the purpose of this entry:

Maybe. Guess what else he needs? A RIGHT EYE. Honestly, what happened to it?

Answer: he’s only got one eye, it just switches places a lot—sometimes so quickly that it looks like he’s got two. Proof:

Hey All,

If you want to go to Anime Detour this spring the registration due date is fast approaching. I’ve been instructed by Sara to get all applications in by the 15th, so if you are coming to anime club tonight BRING YOUR REGISTRATION!!! I will have extra copies if you want to fill one out there, the cost is $25. If you can’t come tonight, just drop off the form in my PO before the 15th, my PO Box is 2971. If your wondering if you want to come or not, you should, its a great experience filled with hilarious AMVs as well as weird people in costumes.

–Matthew W

Working hard for the good of all Anime Clubbers!

Downloads for last week are now available on the Anime Club Server, and I’ll fix the corruption on the front page once I get a chance. Meanwhile, please continue in your resolute campaign not to blame anyone for not getting “Gretel” uploaded…

—Matthew

PS: If you haven’t seen the über-high-quality “5 Centimeters Per Second” trailers, you *must* go check them out at http://a.scarywater.net/triad/ Makoto Shinkai is an old Anime Club favorite and a fascinating product of Japanese culture, and this film looks to be his best merging of long-distance romance, mono no aware, and “loving Buddhism” yet… note his fine literary taste, in that the central book for the movie is the little-known but excellent “The Grass Harp” (by Truman Capote, later to become famous for “In Cold Blood” but here showing a much more gentle and even whimsical sensibility). Run-on sentences are my personal sign of exhaustion; only one more chapter of “Aristotle’s Children” to go and I can head to bed… good night..

Hey all—

After a Thanksgiving break that I hope managed somehow to be relaxing even without the presence of Anime Club, its time for the final stretch! The end is nigh in all of our series:

—The land of El-Hazard is being demolished by a comely demon with a nuclear weapon and a sad look in her eyes; can Makoto’s newfound power to connect with her save the world?

—As Drosselmeyer’s story breaks down, Rue rues her past and Mytho becomes positively mythanthropic; can Fakir’s incredibly painful attempts to write save them, and what role must Princess Tutu play in the conclusion?

—Meanwhile, Nao has encountered an unexpected and shocking opportunity; can she leave school, her friends, and the wind-cats to pursue a burgeoning dream?

—And following the cataclysmic events of the last episode, Touko is in a state of despair that has kept her bedridden for days; when a new nightmare crops up while Rinko is away, can Misako and Tachibana deal with it alone if they can’t even deal with their pasts?

All this and MORE as eschatological fulfillment approaches like a speeding train! See you there!

—Matthew