Legendary. One of the best anime series that has ever existed and this one is the series' best. This is also the one that got me into anime. There are so many things going on here. The narrative structure, the bent, squashed, folded time, the atmosphere, the poignant dream in the end... everything.
Though this, the fifth one in the series, is in my opinion the most irrelevant one in terms of story to the great main story line, but here through this maneuver the whole story line is given a 'cosmological' and metaphysical context, in which the meaningfulness of life and the nature of spacetime is philosophically and even theologically revealed, making the story much more poignant and moving.
Kinoko Nasu's stories are "uneven": there's always something profound, but this profoundness is quite "plundered" by the light-novel genre. Kara no Kyoukai is the least polluted one of his series. I can sense that he has some true understanding of the conceptual and symbolic contents of various religions, and is quite well-read in esotericism. Occasionally he's profoundly philosophical (BTW I hate what Touko Aozaki said in the moment of Araya Souren's dying; pretentious), and there's always a feeling of mystery and truth when he writes seriously.
2024-10-21
The Tree of Life
It's complicated. A film I return to from time to time but never had that patience to watch without skipping uninteresting parts.
The film is strangely simultaneously very bad - extremely bad - and very good - good in a unique way. It's pretentious but not really.
I especially like how the father is depicted and the tension between the son and the father; it's deeply moving. On this point alone this film is worthy of a watch. It's not one of those highbrow films, and moreover under a seemingly pretentious mask there truly is something that's... hard to describe.
Disagree on several points with others (maybe with Malick included) about the theme of this film and I can't read anything like grace vs law there. But whatever.
2024-10-21
World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Ot...
Strangely comical and somehow clueless, just like most of the old films.
2024-06-19
Birdy the Mighty 鉄腕バーディー 铁腕芭迪OVA
Was quite enjoyable since Birdy was cute. Typical red-haired girl of the 90s.
2024-06-04
Serial Experiments: Lain 玲音
It's actually a profoundly flawed anime since the most interesting element is just directly "explained" by a coming-out-of-nowhere voice, namely a "narrator". A remix and maybe the pinnacle of the cyber-tech-gnosis culture of the 70s-80s. But it's still a joy today to watch.
