Things We Learned from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

Things We Learned from Whose Line is it Anyway?

 

1)      Africa is a continent.

2)      Snagglepuss should not put out a rap album.

3)      Coffee really is quite hot.

4)      Bill Cosby and Hitler would be unlikely roommates.

5)      Christopher Walken should not do stand-up.

6)      Tacos taste good with a little bit of paper.

7)      Lattes will make you micro-soft.

8)      Sperm banks have ATMs.

9)      There's a home shopping channel for serial killers.

10)   When Santa retires, he’ll move to Mexico, take up guitar and turn his reindeer into a carpet.

11)   “Dingisher” rhymes with “extinguisher.”

12)  Kid Rock is just one guy.

13)  Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett’s marriage isn’t legal in Texas .

14)  Jim Bowie liked to dress as a French maid.

15)  Friar Tuck is called “Tuck” because the belly covers everything when he’s nude.

16)  “Luck” and “wow” rhyme.

17)  Neon lights will break if you smash your head into them.

18)  Batman is gay.

19)  “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is also the name of an animal porn movie.

20)  “Milk Duds” is a type of bra.

21)  If you get an astronomy degree, you’ll end up delivering pizza.

22)  African chants have white men doing backup.

23)  Howard is not spelled “Horward.”

24)  Colin’s bald.

25)  You can see Ryan’s shoes from the moon.

26)  Balding men are the greatest lovers in the world.

27)  The arctic tern’s cry sounds like “Backstreet boys.”

28)  If you pummel someone with an Energizer, you’ll be charged with assault with a battery.

29)  Dinosaurs had B.O. and now they’re all extinct.

30)  Mimes should not sing.

31)  The Village People do polkas.

32)  Obi-Wan Kenobi secretly wanted to be known as Helen.

33)  If you drink and drive, drive real fast.

34)  And eat lots of mints, it fools the cops.

35)  Ryan has nice pants.

36)  Yogi Bear is not a Muppet. 

37)  They sell shower mirrors at prison gift shops.

38)  Never Riverdance in a thong.

39)  For the next fifty years, there will be sun in L.A. and rain in Seattle .

40)  You can get a massage over the Internet, but you have to use your own hands.

41)  Drew doesn’t do a d--- thing.

42)  Never deliver a sermon as John Wayne.

43)  The My Little Ponies take methyldexamphetaminesulphates.

44)  If you’re confronted by a street gang, never start a tickle fight.

45)  1930’s strip clubs are wrong on so many levels.

46)  This show was brought to you by the letter h.

47)  Stripping as Goofy is just wrong.

48)  The Wicked Witch of the West cannot be differentiated from Barbara Bush.

49)  In times of trouble, Captain Bloodloss will be there.

50)  E.T. was not in “Close Encounters.”

51)  Carol Channing should not play Spartacus.

52)  As long as there have been presidents, there have been songs about them.

53)  The points don’t matter.

54)  For one there was even a dance. 

55)  A dougie is a Canadian beaver.

56)  Virginity has been abolished in southern California .

57)  Yeah, there was a dance for John Adams.

58)  Bungee jumping is really dangerous if you don’t tie the other end.

59)  Beasts love kielbasas.

60)  Velociraptors do not make good pets.

61)  It was called the John Adams dance.  It didn’t go very far.

62)  You can power a DeLorean on static electricity.   

63)  Yogi Bear killed Boo Boo.
64) Scottish Gremlins don't buy drinks.

It's All About Respect, People

Sorry, but I have to have another rant (and I'm being very serious here).  I notice an alarming lack of respect for others' opinions in the Internet.  Even more alarmingly, I note that many attacks are on the persons supplying the opinions rather than on the opinions themselves.

I hate Pulp Fiction.  I can't stand the characters and I don't appreciate the story being told or the way it's being told.  It did not entertain me and I had to watch it in thirty-minute installments to get through it.  It was no Goodfellas.  BUT, I will never insult anyone for saying that they like it.  I can see how its fans like it for the dialogue (I will admit, there were a few lines from Samuel L. Jackson that I liked--the stuff about Marcellus Wallace), view of the gangster world, and nonlinear storytelling.  It did nothing for me, but if you enjoy it, fine.  Though I may disagree with your opinion, I defend your right to have it and will certainly not think you're a horrible person because we don't agree.

This is where I see problems with the way some people in the Internet express their opinions.  They not only criticise and insult the work, they insult they person.  This is a logical fallacy known as ad hominem, attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.  When I did my "Animation and the Eyes of Doom" post, I made an argument and backed up my points.  I never called anyone stupid because they didn't have the same belief as I did.  I disagreed with the misconception people have about animated eyes instead of the people themselves.

Because it draws such sharp lines of love/hate, I will use anime as an example.  I cannot tell you how much hate I have seen online for not only anime itself, but for anime fans.  Just type in "why do people like anime" in a search engine.  Some will attack anime itself, which is fine, as long as they have reasons to back it up.  As with everything, some critiques are based on ignorance--"big eyes" (which exist in all animation) and false claims that anime lacks variety, when anime combines genres in ways that Hollywood has never done, and that all anime look the same, which, if you watch some, you will quickly realise that they do not.  Mostly these are generalizations that classify all of something based on one representation of it, which I do not like to do.  I dislike Pulp Fiction, but not the crime genre of movies in general, so I don't avoid them just because I had one bad experience.  Otherwise, I'm going to miss a lot of good stories.  Other criticisms are well-founded: they don't like the fanservice (neither do I), they don't like the voice acting (Japanese or English), they don't like the lack of movement in the characters, they don't like the way that some anime end.  Fine--make your arguments respectfully and clearly, and we can have a conversation.

Ad hominem is where I lose my tolerance.  A talented reviewer who styles himself "Confused Matthew" has done some excellent reviews.  He believes that the Star Wars prequels are of poor quality and are badly written, and his videos strongly back up his opinion.  He even lets the movies criticise themselves by setting two contradictory lines in one scene of Star Wars: The Clone Wars next to each other and looping them.  However, during his review of Spirited Away (which had some problems in it), he makes the most conceited, immature, and downright irresponsible comment I have ever heard a reviewer say: "I don't like anime and I can't understand why anyone else does."  Then he flashes a picture of InuYasha (yeah, because if he flashed a picture of Tokyo Godfathers or Haibane Renmei, viewers would have laughed at him for his ignorance).  I may dislike Pulp Fiction, but I would never say that I couldn't see why anybody liked it.  To make such a statement injures a reviewer's credibility.  Okay, he has a right to say he doesn't like anime, though it does seem strange to hate an entire medium.  His depiction of "all anime" seems to be fantasy/action pieces, rather than the extensive genre/genre combinations that anime is capable of--drama, various types of fantasy, horror, comedy, historical drama, literary adaptations, slice-of-life, war, action, science fiction, action/drama, war/fantasy, science fiction/literary adaptation, fantasy/drama/slice-of-life, etc.  If he's only seen one movie and one show, it would be like hearing the song "The Wheel on the Bus Go Round and Round" and saying you hate all music.  They're generalisations, which are dangerous because I don't think that you should try to classify things you've never seen.

But I digress.  When he says that he can't see why anyone likes it, he implies that his opinion is the only right one--he doesn't like anime and nobody should.  It's an insult to his viewers who find a lot to like in the MEDIUM (he incorrectly labels anime as a genre instead of a medium).  With those statements, he says that he doesn't like it, nobody else should, and implies anybody who likes it has bad taste.  I once talked to a person about how good I, Claudius is, and he said, and I quote, "How good can it be if I haven't heard of it?"  As if the benchmark for greatness was whether or not he personally knew about it.  That's ignorance, closed-mindedness, and conceit.  We need less of that and more tolerance and open-mindedness.  (That comment is also a really strange one, considering that up until some point in your life, you hadn't heard of your favorite movie, book, song, or met your best friend.)

He also is irresponsible for telling us that he hates anime and then never explaining what he doesn't like about it.  If a reviewer doesn't like something, he/she should be prepared to say why.  I don't like Pulp Fiction, but that doesn't mean that I don't like all gangster movies: I like Goodfellas and I like The Godfather more.  I just didn't like Tarantino's movie, and I gave some reasons why.  Matthew never did so, so that makes it harder for me to accept his views.  Even taking a minute or two to explain what he doesn't like would be a great way to understand him.  I respect his right to not like it, but not his right to say that nobody should like it because he doesn't understand it.

I will point out two problems with his review, since I brought it up: he read a review that labeled Chihiro as a spoiled child, and then criticized the movie for not portraying her as a spoiled child, instead of the reviewer who incorrectly called Chihiro a spoiled child.  He also criticises the movie for never explaining who the spirits are.  These spirits are Shinto gods, which the Japanese target audience would be very familiar with and would not need an explanation about.  Just as films from the United States don't stop to explain who God and Jesus are, Spirited Away does not need to explain who the Shinto spirits are.

But even worse is a certain reviewer on YouTube who posted a video on "Why Anime Sucks."  He starts by flipping off the audience and saying something akin to, "Hey anime fans, f--- you motherf-------"  You would think from his hate and rage that every anime fan in the world teamed together and killed everyone in his family, destroyed the ozone layer, and assassinated the Dalai Lama.  No other catastrophe could merit that kind of hateful response.  As a reviewer, I should have stayed around to view the whole thing, but I could not, with that opening, do it.  If profanity and insults are the way you argue things, you have no good argument.  Good arguments don't need to insult the people holding another opinion; good arguments know that insulting others is a fallacy that doesn't back up a belief.  You can insult others all day long, but it doesn't do anything to convey your opinion that Pulp Fiction is a good or bad movie.  I don't go around saying, "Hey, Quentin Tarantino fans, suck eggs and die!"  Why?  They haven't done anything to me.  I have nothing against the people.  One of my friends' favorite movies is Pulp Fiction.  She likes it, I don't, and that's it--I didn't tell her to "f--- off" when I found that out.  I thought that The Pacific was poorly done, but I won't call anybody who likes it stupid.  What good will it do to hate the people liking it when it's the thing itself that you don't like? 

I'm not going to recommend any anime to anybody.  I truly believe that there is anime out there for everybody, just as I believe there's music, literature, theatre, movies, and paintings out there for everyone, as anime is just another medium for telling a story.  But, some people don't like to be pummeled with suggestions, so I will refrain from doing so.  Besides, this isn't about forcing anyone to watch anime or not watch Pulp Fiction; it's about understanding and respect, not assuming your opinion is the only way to go, and not getting taken away with generalisations that say that the entirely of something is bad just because one representation of it is.

Thanks for reading.  I'll be back to my reviewing self next time.

I'm Putting "My Left Foot" Down

My Left Foot at first seems like the kind of movie that you'd see on Hallmark: a based-on-a-true-story film of a handicapped man going through life, trying to achieve his dream.  This movie is not a Hallmark movie-of-the-week.  It merits the Best Picture nomination it got.

It's about the life of Christy Brown, an artist born with cerebral palsy in Ireland.  The only part of his body he can control is his left foot, which he would eventually use to paint and type.  He can't speak very clearly, but his mother never has trouble understanding him.  He meets Eileen, a therapist who specialises in helping handicapped people move and speak, who helps him.  This movie follows Christy's life, so that's all I'm going to say, lest I spoil too many moments.

I've heard people say that to win a Best Actor Oscar, all a guy has to do is play a handicapped person.  Daniel Day-Lewis plays Christy Brown and won an Oscar for his performance.  After five minutes, I knew that he had earned that Oscar.  He plays Christy which such passion that he completely disappeared into the part, as he does in nearly all of his roles.  His Christy doesn't want a psychology lecture about the dangers of smoking, he just wants a cigarette.  So many words have been said about his performance that I won't say any more, only that he conveyed all the emotion that you would expect in a part like that.  (Seriously, where was an Oscar for the kid who played young Christy?  I completely believed that those two were the same character, such was the strength of both performances.)

The script never dips into sentimentality.  Christy becomes depressed at times because of his situation and locks himself in his room and hides under the blankets.  He drinks, gets into bar fights, and even tries to commit suicide.  I can't explain how much of a relief it is to see a handicapped person portrayed as having the same emotions and life concerns as non-handicapped people.  Too often in stories like these, the principal goal of the protagonist is to be accepted as a normal person and to overcome afflictions to achieve great things.  Christy already is accepted as a regular person: the village boys include him in a bonfire celebration and want him on their soccer teams because he's a good goalie and kicker.  Christy reacts to rejections from girls just as anyone else would.  The problems he has to get over are his own feelings of self-pity and worthlessness.  This focus elevates My Left Foot above other films of this nature.  Most people accept him just fine--it's his own nature he has to rise above.

This is a compliment I will probably never bestow on any other movie, nor have I seen anyone else make this kind of compliment, but I focus on things others don't normally focus on in this blog, and here it is: My Left Foot boasts excellent usage of the 'f' word.

Profanity itself can be used to benefit a movie.  A precision curse word can drive a serious point home well.  I.e. if a character has never sworn before and then suddenly says, "Stop f---ing around!" then the others will listen to that person.  Such words can also be used to add a bit of strength to a phrase at a critical moment.  Many movies use profanity far too often.  Why is this a problem?  Repeated use of a set of a few words shows a lack of creativity on the part of the writers and the actors, and hearing the same word 420 times in a film get grating.  (That's the f word count I got for Casino...........it was a slow day)  My Left Foot utilizes profanity to its greatest benefits.

There are two cases I'd like to mention.  First: Christy is in his room.  Eileen knocks on his door, offering to help him with speech therapy at home.  Christy tells her to "f--- off."  Eileen responds that if he lets her in, she can teach him to say "f--- off" more clearly, which makes him laugh and let her in.  The writers turn his insult into a joke and a bonding experience for two of the characters.

Even better is the restaurant scene where (SPOILER WARNING) Christy declares his love for Eileen, who tells him that she is engaged to Peter.  Eileen says that she loves Christy, but he understands that it is platonic love, which he has had all his life. (END WARNING) And you know what he thinks about that?  "F--- Plato and f--- all love that's not one hundred percent commitment."  It expresses the depth of betrayal he feels and how much he desperately wants the romantic love that others have.  He's sick of the pity he gets from those around him and wants the love that "normal" people get.  A controlled use of profanity here enhances the drama and the seriousness of Christy's feelings.  Without it, the characters and the viewers might not pay Christy as much serious attention.  Such is his desire that when he writes the simple sentence "Be with me" to another girl, it makes a huge impact on us.  We know how much he desires romantic love and companionship and we want someone to see his desire and love him in return.  Those few words express so much more than many other loquacious love declarations in movies.

That was a shorter review than usual, but I've said what I wanted to say.  I recommend My Left Foot to anyone who appreciates good acting and human drama.

(My Left Foot. Dir. Jim Sheridan, Miramax Films, 1989. With Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker)

Animation and the Eyes of Doom

Now time for a rant.  Snark mode set to HIGH.  (Aware that using pre-existing images from the Internet is often illegal, and not wanting to get involved in a lawsuit, I have taken pictures of my own collection for this blog.  I have only a WebCam of low resolution.  That is why the images are fuzzy and the glare effect is in...effect.  I apologise for the poor visual quality.  On with the rant.)

You know what I'm sick of?  I'm sick of people saying they won't watch anime or they think anime is bad because "all anime characters have big eyes."

Guess what?

American animated characters have big eyes.

Take Rugrats, that popular show of Nickelodeon's from the 1990s:

Whoa, those are some large eyes.  And circular, too.  No irises even, just tiny pupils.  What's up with that?  How do they see in dim light when their pupils are stuck at one size?

 Or the top grossing movie from 1961, 101 Dalmatians:

I'm going to check, but I don't think real dogs' eyes are that big.  Or have that much sclera showing.

Or the longest running cartoon show in American history, The Simpsons:

Eeek!!!! More big eyes!  And what's with the lack of irises?!?  And their eyeballs are hanging off their heads when they're seen from the side.  That's can't be healthy.

Hmm...let's try Garfield and Friends, a cartoon based on one of the most popular newspaper comic strips in the United States:

Holy cow.  Garfield's eyes are bigger than his stomach.  You could fry up those eyes and feed your family at Thanksgiving.  And still no irises.  Those are the biggest eyes in proportion to the rest of the body I've ever seen.  So, why are those okay while Hitomi's aren't?

Poor Escaflowne.  Warner Brothers characters have enormous eyes as well:

And Disney too: behold Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.  No woman in the world has eyes this size:

The same can be said of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin:

If those aren't aren't too big for you, then these aren't too big:

Wait.  That guy next to Haydee...are those realistically proportioned eyes on the Count of Monte Cristo?

I think they are!  Imagine that...small anime eyes!

Yes, American animation can have smaller eyes too, as seen in Star Wars: Clones Wars:

Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American production styled after anime, features, like much anime, a variety of eye sizes:

Is my point that I want only realistically proportioned eyes on everything?

No, of course not. (Turning down the Snark-O-Meter) Irregular proportions are very fun in animation, as they don't occur in the real world, and the lack of a third dimension means that things that would freak us out in the real world look fine on paper.  As well, big eyes are more expressive than small eyes in two dimensions.  I once had to do a 2-D realistic wolf drawing and ended up making the eyes larger than they should have been because they looked dead and sunken in as they were; a slightly larger size brightened them and made the wolf more alive.  They still look normal but are bigger than a real wolf's eyes would be on its face.  If all animation used perfectly proportioned eyes, people would probably complain that they were too small, squinty, and unable to communicate emotion.  I don't ask anyone to like anime or like or dislike bigger eyes, only to understand that the very qualms they have with anime eyes are the same things that they don't care about in American cartoons.  It's an odd thing to complain about.  Should I complain about many American cartoon figures having only four fingers, having eyeballs that hang off their heads, or heads too big for their bodies?  No, of course I won't.  It's animation.

Both American

Peanuts

Sleeping Beauty

The Secret of NIMH

and Japanese

Haibane Renmei

Earth Maiden Arjuna

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

animation feature a plethora of eye sizes and shapes.  South Park, Family Guy, Rocko's Modern Life, Kablam, Danny Phantom, The Fairly Oddparents, The Powerpuff Girls, and Roger Rabbit all have larger eyes than you would encounter in the real world, while characters from the anime Cowboy Bebop, Gankutsuou, Le Chevalier D'eon, The Twelve Kingdoms, Death Note, Darker Than Black, Boogiepop Phantom, and Millennium Actress have more realistically shaped and sized eyes.  Scooby-Doo's eyes are small-medium while Kanon's are enormous, being moe, which calls for that visual style.  A norm of American animation is to have large round eyes with no iris and a pinprick pupil, whereas much anime shows the iris.  My statement: animation in general features larger-than-normal eyes on its characters.  "Big" eyes are the norm--they're more expressive and look alive.  Be also aware:  Do you know where Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy, the first major anime, got the idea for larger-than-normal eyes?

He borrowed it from American animation--Bambi, Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, and Disney in general.

Best Television Show Opening Title Sequences

Exactly what it says in the title.

I've seen a lot of lists like these, but none that have my selections.  So, I have written my own list.  Post your own personal favorites in the Comments section.  So, in no particular order:

Band of Brothers:  Choral music plays over creased, scratched photos and clips from the series that are filtered by hues of greens, browns, oranges, reds, greys, and blues.  Instead of showing straight clips, it shows a succession of photos to create action, looking like someone's slide show, or like a whole bunch of frames are missing from the film reel.  The chosen images incite curiosity about what's going to happen before you've even seen a frame of the series proper.  The shot of Buck dropping his helmet into the snow intrigued me the first time I saw it; I knew that something awful had just happened to him and wondered what it was.  That's something an opening should do: it should suck you in and make you want to find out what happens without seeing a single frame of action.  The music, a slightly somber, wistful choral arrangement, fits so wonderfully.  It puts you back in the time where the biggest war of the twentieth century was fought and prepares you for a true story of real persons.

Garfield and Friends: This cartoon had several openings.  I'm talking about the one that begins with Garfield on the fence starting the song "We're Ready to Party."  It's an upbeat samba combined with shots from various episodes that get you dancing and happy and ready for a fun time.  Garfield isn't trying to teach you any lessons or make any serious artistic statements: it only means to entertain you, and that's just what the opening does.  It has also woken me up on many a sleepy morning.  There's another opening to the show that uses the same song but different clips.  Why do I not put on that one too?  Personal preference: I like the clips of the one that starts with Garfield on the fence better.

Gankutsuou: The opening is done in a completely different animation style from the rest of the show. The visuals are drawn in the style of black and brown ink on parchment, giving a pleasant storybook or novel illustration look to this anime based on The Count of Monte Cristo.  Though the show takes place in the 51st century, the opening harkens back to the 19th century aesthetics that also appear.  The opening features only two minor usages of the stationary patterns that characterise the rest of the show as a subtle preview of what's to come.  The song is a romantic piano ballad whose lyrics echo Edmond's life before his friends screwed him over.  Yes, Burnel does hit a sour note near the top of the song.  But, I believe it's fully intentional, as it's Edmond singing.  Edmond's life sucked, sucks, and will continue to suck--he's never going to get back to the point where he and Mercedes were 25 years ago.  Why shouldn't he become so overwhelmed with sorrow at what his life could have been that he can't even sing decently?  It is just the one note--the rest is sweet and touching, and there's no way I'm going to degrade an entire song for one (possibly intentionally) bad note.  The whole thing fits together perfectly with the melancholy themes of the series and the book and is a pleasure to watch and hear.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete: I never liked this show when I was a kid, but I always loved the intro.  I've only recently come to like it after finding out that Rick Gomez, who played Luz in Band of Brothers, was in it, and I got such a wave of nostalgia listening to that one-minute opening that I went out and bought the DVDs.  The song contains lyrics that have absolutely nothing to do with the show but are somehow totally appropriate.  I think it's about a school shooting, but it's very upbeat.  The song is accompanied by shots of the major characters, which change every season (the shots, not the characters, except for once in season three).  The show very kindly lets you know you're in for a weird time when the opening gives credit to a metal plate and a tattoo. We see the band Polaris performing on the lawn, making it one of the few shows where we see the band instead of just hearing them.  It's also interspersed with random images, like a dog running through a sprinkler and a riderless bike flying through the air.  For nostalgia and feel-goodness, this one is the best.

Carnivàle: For sheer artistry, this one wins.  The camera goes into and out of Tarot cards containing images of paintings.  This deck was created for the show and has never been marketed.  After going inside each one, the picture fades into footage from the 1930s.  This effect puts us right into the decade while telling us that the story will concern biblical imagery and things that happened centuries ago.  In these clips, we see dance marathons, Jesse Owens at the Olympics, Stalin, dust storms, rallies at the White House, and, in a chilling image, a member of the KKK holding his child, who is wearing child-size KKK robes.  An excellent match-up occurs when the face of a girl morphs into that of Michael on the painting Saint Michael Victorious, which was chosen to represent the King of Swords.  The Destruction of the Leviathan and A Village Dance are also shown on the Ace of Swords and Temperance cards.  Also of note is the White House appearing on the Tower card, which represents utter destruction wrought by ones own means.  These cards let us know conflict of biblical proportions is coming.  The music is strange, trippy, and tells you you're going into a world where magic and a whole lot of strangeness reigns.  If you weren't in the mood for the show before you started watching, the opening puts you there.  It's a shame this show didn't get to finish it's story.  I never skip this opening.

Those are my favorites.  But these openings are great too:

Fantastic Children, which has maybe the best opening theme I've heard for an anime--it sucked me in by the second word.  The one thing that breaks the greatness is the inclusion of Wanda in the later portion of the opening.  The rest of the visuals, slow pans of near-static images, fit the song perfectly, but that one fast, out-of-place action bit clashes with the established mood.

The Pacific.  If you read my review of The Pacific, you'll know that I thought it failed on many levels.  But I praised the credits, an excellent opening to a sub-par series.  Searing music, charcoal drawings, and a color scheme of sepia infused with just a little red establish the tone and setting. 

Cowboy Bebop.  I don't care much for this show, other than the Vicious episodes, but I will agree that it has one happenin' opening.  Intriguing visuals and appropriate music set the mood for bounty hunting in space.  Jazzy, groovy, cool.  Let's blow this scene.

Mystery Science Theater 3000. The greatness of this opening speaks for itself.  It tells you exactly what's coming, shows you the characters, lets you see the very shoddy but charming special effects, and tells you that this is just a show about spoofing bad movies and nothing more, so don't worry about technicalities like how people live on spaceships.  And it's a very catchy tune.

I, Claudius.  The simplicity of the opening is refreshing.  A snake slithers over a mosaic tile representation of Claudius and the title, which is written as "I CLAVDIVS."  There are no snakes in this miniseries about the life of Emperor Claudius; the snake symbolises the poisoning, murder, and corruption in the Roman Empire.  Short and sweet.

The Muppet Show: This theme song will get stuck in your head for days.  And it's the Muppets.  What's not to like about the Muppets?

Next: I'm going to clear up a misconception that some people have about anime that bothers me.

Where's the Mythical "10th Kingdom"?

The 10th Kingdom is a Hallmark miniseries about a woman, Virginia, and her father, Tony, who travel through a portal in Central Park to the land of the Nine Kingdoms, where fairy tales are real.  And this realm has troubles.  The Evil Queen has escaped from prison and used her magic to change Prince Wendall, descendant of Snow White, into a dog and the dog into Prince Wendall.  Wendall-as-dog escapes through a magic mirror into the mythical 10th Kingdom, which is none other than present-day New York.  A set of bumbling troll siblings and a half-man, half-wolf named...Wolf...follow him to capture him.  Virginia, her father, and Wendall end up going into the land of the kingdoms where they hook up with Wolf and spend the entire rest of the series trying to find the magic mirror to get back home (and saving the Nine Kingdoms from the Queen).

For the most part, the actors are good.  Scott Cohen brings a great playfulness to Wolf that keeps the story bubbly (did I just say bubbly?).  He is perhaps the most developed character in the series (actually, most of them aren't that well developed)--his motives conflict and he has to try to make the best decisions based on what he really wants, which can be a challenge.  Tony is played with conviction by John Larroquette.  Tony is the guy who is in constant disbelief and frustration that they've entered a realm where fairy tale tropes are real.  He's a real fish-out-of-water and Larroquette plays him just like you would expect someone to act who has been thrown into another world.  Warwick Davis also shows up as a dwarf.  Somehow, every time he's in a scene, you feel like your favorite high-fantasy book has been brought to life, and the story is more fun to watch.  The main character, Virginia, could have used some work.  I found her personality grating, whiny, and overly-mean, and wanted either someone stronger and less of a pain for a main protagonist, or someone who starts out incompetent and becomes truly self-reliant and strong by the end.

Now the villains.  The three troll siblings are completely inept, but their antics are sometimes good for a laugh.  Other times, they're plain annoying (I also found dog-as-Wendell completely annoying and unfunny and started skipping all his scenes).  A better villain is Rutger Hauer as the Huntsman.  Yes, this guy is scary.  He knows what he's doing--he's good at tracking, is stealthy, and has a magic crossbow whose bolts don't stop until they hit the heart of a living creature.  Yes, run away from this guy fast.  Even though if he's shooting at you, running won't do any good.  Yep.  Good job there.  Just cut the trolls and put in more of this guy.  Now, there's nothing wrong with having more than one set of villains stalking the heroes.  Avatar: The Last Airbender did it effectively with Zuko and Zhao in season 1 and Zuko and Azula in season 2.  But here, the trolls are so inept that we never feel that the heroes are in any danger from them, which is always a mistake when trying to create suspense.  Maybe the Queen should have become frustrated that the siblings failed so miserably and asked the Huntsman to kill the trolls.

Dianne Wiest is wonderfully chilling as the main villain, the Queen.  She doesn't count on her minions to do everything right.  She will go out herself and do what needs to be done so that she can realise her goal of ruling the Nine Kingdoms.  When she says that she will kill your children if you disobey her orders, you believe her.  She may look weak, but at one point, when she does something similar to what Livia does in I, Claudius, you realise that she has the situation under control.  And I have to give a shout-out to whoever designed her wardrobe.  They give her dresses that look practical to wear but also have high collars that look like what Maleficent sports in Sleeping Beauty, along with a green velvet cloak.  Her clothes are reminiscent of Disney cartoons without being cartoony.

I also liked the depiction of Snow White, "the fairest in the land," as somewhat overweight.  Back in the times when these fairy tales were written down (and this series is based on the original tales), being plump was desirable for a woman--it showed that she got enough to eat, and it was thought that she could have more children if she were bigger.  The super-skinny look of today would be seen on peasant women who couldn't get enough to eat.  Kudos to the casting/wardrobe department for getting that detail right.

The best bits come when the show sends up fairy tales.  Tony and Wolf need a magic axe at one point.  They find the Woodsman, who will give them the axe if they guess his name.  If they fail to guess, the Woodsman will decapitate Wolf.  Tony, your average janitor, cannot believe what kind of twisted scenario this is.  He says this world is full of "homicidal maniacs," and, looking at my collection of Grimm's fairy tales, if you were to make them all come to life, he's right.  Grimm's stories have some horribly twisted elements in them, like dancing in iron-hot shoes, being decapitated and having your animals friends sew your head back on, being dragged naked in a barrel full of sharp nails until you're dead, being tricked into decapitating your daughter over an apron, and having to spend the rest of your life covered in pitch.  Yeah, unpleasant stuff, and seeing them brought to life would be completely appalling to someone modern like Tony (whereas to a guy like Wolf who grew up in this place, it's entirely normal).  And we relate to his disgust.  My favorite scene is the part where the group has to choose from two doors, one which will lead them onward and one which the frog guardian says "leads to a horrible death."  Tony decides he's had enough with these fairy tale situations and...yeah, I won't spoil it for you.  But let me tell you: that little scene was worth the three dollars I spent for the DVDs and the entire seven-and-a-half hour trip through an uneven story.

Deary me, does this series have problems.

Let me tell you a bit about the plot.  Tony, who had been imprisoned, finally breaks out and is reunited with Virginia and Wolf.  They run to the boat where Tony knows the magic mirror is...but they just miss it by a few minutes.  After sailing, they arrive at town...where they've just missed the dwarf on the boat by a few minutes.  They eventually meet him in the woods...and he's just traded the mirror half an hour ago.  They travel to the town, go through a convoluted contest to win the mirror...and then they just--you know what?  I'm getting really irritated by the constant near-misses here.  It's cliché, it's repetitive, and it's plain bad writing.  Not only that, but them just missing the mirror after they've won it makes the entire annoying foray into the shepherd town completely pointless.  Through a good portion of the show, the characters go from magical town to magical town, like the writers wanted to drag them through every fairy tale motif without pausing to think of the best way to do that to serve the story and characters well.  Yes, it does feel like the writers are dragging the story along, when instead it should feel like the characters have to go to these places because of their own decisions and motivations.

Let me tell you a little more.  (small spoiler warning) The Woodsman is one second away from decapitating Wolf when a Dea ex Machina--sorry, a bird--flies by and tells Tony the name of the Woodsman.  Wendall-as-dog arrives just a second before Virginia is about to lose a contest and helps her win it.  The heroes arrive at an auction for the magic mirror a second before--GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! SOMEONE GET SOMEWHERE AHEAD OF TIME FOR A CHANGE!!$#&**!*#&$#%#%%#@^#!@!

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Okay, I'm feeling a lot calmer now.  Near-misses and timely arrivals are not suspenseful.  It's irritating that the writers couldn't think of a better way to create suspense than to have someone arrive just in the nick of time to save the heroes.  As Francie says in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, "What if the hero had been held up and couldn't make it?"  She doesn't like these last-minute saves because they don't feel authentic--they feel written and contrived.  They certainly can be well-written and convincing, and having one of them in certain kinds of stories is okay, but more than that, even in a fairy tale, is cheap and contrived, and all the coincidences and contrivances bring the show down terribly.

In addition, The 10th Kingdom could have used more character development.  As I said above, Wolf is done well.  The others, not so much.  Take Tony--at the beginning, he has no problem sleeping with another man's wife.  At the end (SPOILER WARNING) Wendell gets him to stay in the Nine Kingdoms by enticing him with sex with young women. (END SPOILER) That was completely unnecessary and a bit disgusting.  Tony even mentions at one point that he knew his wife was sleeping with other men.  So, maybe he has no problem having sex with others at the beginning because his wife did the same thing.  By the end, he should have shaken off his insecurities.  Using sex to get someone to do something is not funny, it's gross.  He also wastes six wishes on selfish things like beer and slavery (though the last wish he makes is very useful).  That's fine at the beginning to show kind of a person he is, but he doesn't seem to learn anything important from the experience.  Near the end in the swamp scene, he still acts stupidly and selfishly, apparently not having learned anything from being in the land of fairy stories.  In fact (SPOILER WARNING He doesn't even return to New York at the end so that he doesn't have to work as a janitor or accept responsibility for what his wishes created.  Not a good moral. (END SPOILER)

Because this is a story based on fairy tales, I can accept a plot-driven story.  However, it would have been a great subversion to have had the characters drive this story, since so few fairy tales are driven by the characters, and motivations are fairly simple.

Bottom line: this series needed some serious editing and tightening-up around the shepherd and Kissing towns.  And preferably changed to something that wasn't so sappy.  Around two-thirds of the way through, after a critical spoilerific moment, the show does improve.  Things go horribly wrong for the heroes and they have to get by on their own abilities, which thankfully counters the contrivances of the earlier parts.  Near the end, they also have to do more with the save-the-Kingdoms plot line, which is much more interesting than the find-the-mirror plot line (and it could be just me, but I found many of the denizens of the Kingdoms so appalling and so extreme in their adherences to fairy tale conventions that I don't know if their way of life is worth saving, which is a problem audience-sympathy-wise).  So, to summarise: decent opening overall, sagging middle after the forest sequence, and good ending after Kissing Town.  It could have also used some more character development.  On a positive note, the special effects look good and not at all dated.

When it's good, it's gold; when it's bad, it's pretty bad.  Worth a trip if you like fantasy stories.  For better trapped-in-another-dimension stories, try The Twelve Kingdoms (no relation), Now and Then, Here and There (the ultimate deconstruction) and Back to the Future (yes, it is).  For a good fantasy for adults, watch Carnivàle.

Journey with Kino

Plot: an androgynous, Colt-wielding girl travels across the country on her talking motorcycle while maintaining a neutral stance on philosophical issues.

That's probably the best summary I will ever write.

Kino's Journey is a 13-episode series that follows traveler Kino as she rides from isolated country to isolated country.  She gets around on Hermes, her motorcycle, or motorrad.  Hermes talks.  Nobody seems to think that this is strange.  Except for one two-parter, each episode stands apart from the others, and Kino and Hermes are really the only recurring characters.  Chronologically, episode 4 takes place first, then 13.  Some episodes contain several stories from her travels, such as "Three Men Along the Rails."  This episodic approach means that there is no overarching plotline, no character arcs for Kino or any other characters.  On one hand, you don't have to invest anything in wondering if the story will turn out all right, which could be a turn-off for some.  On the other hand, you don't have to keep track of several subplots and dozens of characters.  While retaining suspense within the episodes, it also gives a laid-back approach to the story that one doesn't see very often.

The animation is very easy on the eyes, with lush backgrounds and subdued colors reminiscent of sepia photographs.  Lots of greens, greys, and browns abound here.  The character designs are quite simplistic but do the job--they reminded me of the designs in Fantastic Children.  I've never marked an anime down for having simple designs.  The designs and color palette give a unique, antiquated, sketchbook-like look to the story that is very pleasant to watch and fits the themes.  An more questionable visual look is the horizontal lines that run through the animation.  The director chose this to add to the old-fashioned look.  Whenever you get sucked into the story, you fail to notice them, but it wasn't the best choice overall to convey the mood.  No points off, but unnecessary.

Kino's Journey gives us a full range of emotions, genres, and reactions, from sadness ("Land of Prophecy"), horror ("Land of Adults"), ironic humor ("Three Men Along the Rails"), action ("Colosseum"), science fiction ("Land of Visible Pain"), mind screw ("Land of Books"), joy ("Land of Wizards") and "Kino, you're AWESOME!" ("A Tale of Feeding Off Others").   Most genres get represented here.  Heck, Kino's garb and guns are even reminiscent of Westerns.  There's a story for every mood, capturing a full human experience.  Life gives us melancholy, triumph, silence, laughter, terror, love, war, freedom, slavery, deserts, snow, rabbits, and things that make us go, "What the..."  The subtitle for the series is "The Beautiful World," and the series admirably gives us the whole world, which is beautiful because we see many parts of it.  Perhaps this is why Kino journeys: staying in one place would give her only a small piece of life, one outlook, which would constrict how she acts and thinks about the moral situations she finds herself in.  For the utmost freedom of mind and body, she goes all over the place.

This is not a critique of the show, but a question I have: Where are we?  Each country is isolated from the others by great distances; some are more technologically advanced than our society, and some doubt that human flight is possible.  Are we in a parallel universe or on another planet?  Are we in some odd future or past of Japan?  Is Kino actually a time traveler, with each country situated in a different era?  The series never even addresses or tries to answer this question, but it puzzles me more than the talking motorcycle. (Hmm...since Hermes never speaks before a certain character dies, I wonder if that person's soul went into the motorrad and is there to guide Kino.)  The animation style sort of gives the impression that all this happened long ago, or maybe at some point in the future when our society has been forgotten and the world has started anew.  I guess I'll never know.

Kino...I. Like. Kino.  I completely believe that she can take care of herself and travel alone; none of what she does ever seems improbable, young though she may be.  Her personality is done well.  She doesn't want to kill if she can avoid it, but if she has to defend herself with no assistance, she has no problem putting bullets in others' heads.  She dresses practically (and that duster coat is AWESOME), and for her protection, carries two guns and enough knives to be a dealer.  She always keeps her cool, even when the situation looks bad.  Her philosophical thoughts really bring this show into the mature category (I'll talk more about maturity in anime when I get to my Haibane Renmei review).  Does a rabbit's life matter more or less than a human's?  Does she even have a moral obligation to preserve human lives, and do they have an obligation to help her in return?  She'd not just out to see the world, she wants to think about the world.  She never judges anyone and never forces her opinions on others, which is both a benefit and detriment to the show, as I will discuss below.

Another thing I love about Kino is that she looks ambiguously sexed and acts ambiguously gendered. (EDUCATIONAL ASIDE For those who didn't know there was a difference: sex refers to the genatalia, gender is a cultural construction that assigns various activities and characteristics to people based on their sex END ASIDE)  She doesn't dress like a boy because she wants to be a boy--she dresses that way because it's safer and practical.  And for the record, she doesn't like to be called "boy."  She uses the typically Japanese masculine pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" to refer to herself because she thinks that "Boku wa Kino" sounds better than "Watashi wa Kino."  Also, the Kino whom she named herself after was a man and would have said "Boku wa Kino."  She doesn't care about gender roles and what girls and boys are supposed to do.  She does things because she wants to do them or because it's advantageous to do them.  Instead of carrying guns because she wants to be a man and men tend to carry guns more than women, she carries guns and practices with them to protect herself.  (And boy, when she pulls out her guns, she's AWESOME!)

This is a fantastic message to convey, one that I'm not even sure the series meant to convey, but which nevertheless is appreciated.  In my experience, I've always felt that human beings are far too complex of creatures to categorize based on sex, especially since masculine and feminine ideals change from place to place and time to time.  Up until about a hundred years ago, pink was a masculine color, as pink is a mixture of red, a masculine color, and white (this is why Kitty is very daring by wearing a pink dress to the ball in Anna Karenina).  Now, pink is feminine.  Wristwatches used to be feminine until WWI hit and officers found that wearing a wristwatch was more convenient than carrying a pocket watch on the field.  In Ancient Rome, women were seen as extremely lustful creatures who needed sex all the time while men could control their sexual urges; in the Victorian era, it was practically the opposite.  Seeing Kino as a successful embodiment of gender neutrality is an excellent message.  Kino is not labeled by the show.  She's not treated any differently because she's a girl or given certain treatment because some may think her to be a boy.  It would make absolutely no difference to the show if she were a boy.  No one cares whether she's a girl or a boy.  She's a person, plain and simple.  And I love that.

Now on to the only real detriment of the show.  Kino never judges and always maintains her neutral stance, even in extreme situations, like war zones.  She stays in the same place for just three days so that she can learn about the country while not wanting to become a part of it.  She's a traveler and doesn't want to get into taking sides.  This characteristic is double-edged for us viewers.  On one hand, it gives us a completely neutral stance on everything we see (something I felt was lacking in Earth Maiden Arjuna).  We're never forced to take sides and are encouraged to see everything as it is, rather than a simple explanation wrought by one person.  On the other hand, as a result of her impartiality, Kino often appears as too stoic and emotionally distant from the extreme events she witnesses.  Very few events get a physical reaction from her, episode 13 being one of those times. She doesn't grow as a character--she's a round character, but a static one.  There is no destination for her.  You've heard it said that the fun is in the journey and anticipation, not the destination.  Kino's Journey is this phrase incarnate.  As a result, this show lacks the emotional resonance and character arcs that give other shows like Haibane Renmei such profound effectiveness.  The journey is just as important as a destination, but without a destination, then what's the point of a journey?  The show could have made up for this deficiency if Kino had deliberated on this very topic more.  She may have asked herself, if she has no destination, then why journey?  What will happen when she's had enough? and the tried to answer.  That route would have given her some very welcome character development.  I know that I sort of gave an answer in an earlier paragraph, but that explanation doesn't seem enough to encompass the entire reason for Kino's travels.

However, this deficiency does not interfere with the enjoyment that this series offers.  It is much more intellectually satisfying than most shows out there and deserves a viewing by all anime fans (and those who typically don't watch anime).  In addition to this show, there are two 30 minute movies of Kino's Journey.  One lays out her backstory; the other is an excursion to yet another country.  If you like this show, I encourage you to check out these movies.  I don't think they're on DVD yet, but I saw them online, so that should work for you too.  There is also a series of light novels on which the series is based, but as I haven't read them, I won't comment on them.

Final comment: seeing little Kino pointing a revolver at a tall man's face and calmly telling him to surrender is AWESOME!

Earth Maiden Arjuna

Earth Maiden Arjuna is an excellent example of why I don't give star ratings to what I review.  There are some things that this anime series does well that deserve four stars; on the other hand, some things drag this series almost down to a two.  It doesn't feel right to give it four stars for the things it does right, because it's not a four-star series; however, I don't like to degrade the whole series to a two because of certain elements.  Even averaging the series to a two-and-a-half or three doesn't seem right to me.  That is why I just let my review speak for itself and do not summarise with number, letter, or star ratings.

Plot: Juna Ariyoshi is riding on a motorcycle with her boyfriend Tokio when they are in an accident, she falls off, and dies  (That's it, show's over...okay, it's just starting).  She then sees visions of the Earth's future--flames, flooded streets, and skeletons--while a boy named Chris appears to her and tells her that he will save her life if she will take his place as the Avatar of Time and protect the Earth from its death.  She accepts and is sent to protect a building from one of the Raaja, strange creatures that destroy everything and appear to be enemies of the Earth.  But, as she's about to strike it down with her bow and arrow, Chris asks her why she's about to kill it, leaving her confused as to what she's supposed to do.  So, she has to save the world while having no idea about how to do it, with very dismal consequences if she fails.

(Quick aside: Arjuna is a Hindi prince from mythology.  Like Juna, he uses a bow and his name may be the origin of the word "archer.")

Earth Maiden Arjuna is a magical girl anime, but a bit more mature than most of them.  The issues here are more grown-up and realistic ones.  It talks of philosophy, the enviroment, and the prospect of the modern world collapsing, which is a far cry from other magical girl shows where the threat is one that could not occur in our world (i.e. CardCaptor Sakura.  Not dissing this CCS, just saying it's different).  Sure, the Raaja monsters wouldn't exist, but the problems they cause in episode 12 are a very real concern for the world, as we are not equipped to handle that kind of disaster.  There isn't a long, time-consuming transformation sequence in every episode.  Juna doesn't even transform in all of them.  When she does, the transformation into her glowing avatar form is instantaneous, except for her first one, which understandably merits the attention.  When she's transformed, those around her don't see her as the glowing pink-orange-cyan creature with the enormous bow; they see her as Juna pretending to hold a bow and arrow.  She does not fight monsters in every episode, which is astounding for a 13-episode series that at first appears to be a monster-of-the-week show.  The story focuses more on how Juna relates to the world as she becomes more attuned it and how she relates to her people now that she can physically see invisible creatures and connections.  The series also does not have an opening credits sequence, starting the show right away each time while the credits roll over the action.  The show can give us much more story this way.  It really is amazing how much more story you can get when you dispense with opening credits and drawn-out transformation scenes.

A major theme is disconnect.  Juna feels, and then literally sees, the disconnect between her fellow humans.  At one point during a phone conversation with Tokio, she astral projects to his room and feels what he feels; as he tells her he loves her, she feels that he does not actually feel the love, and is instead going through the motions of a romantic relationship.  In another episode, she watches her boyfriend and his father argue; she sees the soundwaves traveling, but the things that each wants to make the other understand miss because neither is listening to the other.  They're so rigid in their opinions that they can't make an impresion on the other and change anything.  Juna also has a disconnect with her own philosophy.  She recites an archery mantra about becoming one with the target and breathing with the Earth.  If she actually followed the advice all of the time instead of just stating it, she would have no trouble with the Raaja, and...well, we would have had a very different ending (and a much shorter series).

The visuals are beautiful.  The series integrates hand-drawn animation and 3-D animation very well--the lights on the Ferris Wheel and most of the Raaja are integrated seamlessly with the 2-D animation.  On rare occasion the show even inserts live action footage to bring home its point about environmentalism.  These inserts are usually in the epilogues.  The color palette is extensive, sometimes conveying a wealth of bright colors that rival Gankutsuou (though without the stationary patterns), other times giving darker tones when the story demands it (such as the final two episodes), all displaying the new world that Juna sees.

The music is some of the best I've heard for an anime.  It's done by Yoko Kanno, who also did the music for such series as Wolf's Rain and Escaflowne, and she always delivers great music.  It's very appropriate for every scene and the material in general.  One piece has a girl singing acapella; more energetic pieces with resonante chanting appear in the action scenes; quiet, slow, and mournful themes underscore the ending episodes.  All great, though I wished they'd used "Didn't It Rain?" more than once.  There is a special feature on the DVD (which features audio in 2.0 and 5.1) that allows you to listen to the isolated score, so you can watch the visuals and hear the music without having to listen to all that pesky dialogue.

Wait a minute.  Does that mean that something in the dialogue drags this show down?

Oh, yes.

This series has a message: environmentalism is good and humans are screwing up the planet.  That's a fine message to have, and it's admirable for a show to tackle it.  The problem is, Arjuna doesn't just preach--at times, it hits you over the head with a grand piano until you're dizzy.

Case in point: Juna eats at a place called Meriken Burger, which is a too thinly-veiled shot at American food that could have been removed.  She cannot eat this kind of food at all because, now that she has hyper senses as the Avatar of Time, she feels the processing, preservatives, pesticides, and cruelty to animals that went into making it.  The chemicals in food are a worry to consumers because of the dangers they pose to the body, which is brought home by Tokio getting sick, so this is a valid concern for the series.  The over-the-top moment comes when Juna tries to eat a burger but finds herself literally repulsed by it.  It's as if her mouth and the burger are both north poles of a magnet and repel no matter how hard she tries to force them together.  We already know that Juna is disgusted by processed food--the creators didn't need to hammer the point home this much.  We also don't need to see Juna's friends forcing her to eat it so much--once is enough.

In episode 4, Juna and Tokio spend some time with an old hermit who lets his garden grow wild because he despises the techniques of fertilisation and tilling--they strip the land of the bugs and weeds that plants can grow with.  He spend almost the whole episode preaching to them about the benefits of letting bugs eat vegetables and letting weeds grow, as weeds are plants too.  He does have a point about the weeds, but the heavy-handed way in which he lectures the two and shoots down all of their comments gets grating.  You feel like you're in school instead of watching a show.  Also, he doesn't acknowledge the actual necessity of having a greater vegetable turnout in order to feed the very large population that didn't exist hundreds of years ago when the world could get by on fewer crops.  He attributes crop dusting and tilling to laziness rather than the need to feed a growing population.  The messages of all plants being neither good or bad and food becoming a part of you are fine, but executed in too preachy a manner.  I don't want to see a guy just lecturing me about natural gardening.  I have to say, though, you'll probably watch what you eat a little more closely the day after you watch this.

The show does much better in its philosophy when it gets off the topic of environmentalism.  Juna goes to a teacher's house to hear what he really thinks, as he teaches strictly from the book and mumbles all class.  He decides to teach her something, and he leads her to that message by asking her questions that seem to be unrelated until she displays just the thing that he wanted to warn her against doing.  In another episode, Juna talks to S.E.E.D. employee Teresa, who dislikes most uses of medicine because her mother used a certain medicine while pregnant with her which caused Teresa to be born a hermaphrodite.  Raised as a girl and not told the truth until she was much older, she was crushed when she found out she couldn't have children.  (Could this also be a subtle jab at the fact that parents and doctors want all babies to be easily classified as male or female and don't want to deal with intersexes?)

This series would have been more effective if it had been done like Kino's Journey, which presents its philosophical issues as they are and lets the viewers draw their own conclusions.  The "Before Birth" episode of Arjuna approaches this as Juna, via astral projection, watches a child being born in a hospital.  The doctors tell the mother that they are doing the right thing by inducing labor early.  Juna can feel the newborn's thoughts: she wasn't ready to be born and is scared in this bright place where she is immediately separated from her mother.  Juna and Chris's interpreter Cindy then talk about what Juna sensed.  The show doesn't let us take any side here, but I'm willing to give it a pass because nobody seems to talk about various childbirth methods and how the cold, bright, stressful hospital environments are often bad for birthing women and their babies.  It also connects back to the teacher episode where everybody does what is easy rather than considering each case separately and doing what's truly best for each individual.  (In fact, lying on the back is a very bad birthing position--it puts too much strain on the back, legs, doesn't make use of gravity, and contricts the pelvis.  The reason doctors recommend it is because it's the easiest position for the deliverer to help deliver the baby.)

Another odd thing is that nobody tells Juna what she's supposed to do, even though they know.  Chris tells her to fight the Raaja and to use her bow, but not to kill it.  This makes sense--Juna may kill Raaja, but more always spring up because the problem that creates Raaja still exists.  Nevertheless, someone might have been a little more clear to Juna about what she was supposed to do instead of killing, and then leaving it up to her to draw on her inner strength and that of the Earth to accomplish her mission.  If you're going to trust the safety of the world to one person, you'd better make sure that person knows what she's doing after a certain length of time.  If the writers had figured a way to make Juna's objective less confusing to everyone, and if more of the preaching had been done like the teacher example, then this show would have been something quite special.

Nevertheless, I would still recommend it to those who like good music and visuals, want a magical girl anime with a more grown-up storyline, and to environmentalists.

Next up: more anime action with Kino's Journey.