Worth Reading – 07/30/2020 – Girl’s Last Tour, 2199, and more!

Back with a new edition of Worth Reading…  This time around, some anime stuff, and some interesting stuff that’s a little outside my normal coverage.  I think you’ll find it interesting.

Hit the jump and let’s take a look at what’s Worth Reading!

Throughout the journey, they talked. They shared. They played. They laughed. They fighted. They danced. They discovered. They sang: the opening and the ending, and the rain song. Just the two of them. Together. Such simple interaction yet so warm, like it’s melting everything around them in their cold world. They are always wandering, wondering, meeting new people, gaining new insights.

Girls’ Last Tour: Why Curiosity Is Important

First up, Ethan_07 of Anime as a cup of tea takes a look at what made Girl’s Last Tour tick, and why it was such a mesmerizing show.  He offers some thoughtful points…  but what always got me is exemplified by the image at the head of the post.  Chito and Yuuri were always focusing on the next simple thing rather than giving in to despair.  They simply took what was thrown at them and made the daily best of it – together.

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So over all, I think you know I love this show already. It’s complex, thoughtful, wonderful, full of cool and strange space stuff, has a serious and wonderful story, has a great cast of complicated characters, and it all works together in one very well written, thought out, and well written package.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199: The Complications of War

 

Hard to find a quote from this mini-review that doesn’t give the game away…  Anyhow, Scott of Mechanical Anime Reviews takes another swing at Star Blazers 2199.  He explains why it might not be his favorite show, but also why he still loves and enjoys it after watching multiples times and writing copiously about it.

And that’s something that’s something we need to talk more about, given how prone the anime community is to rating-and-ranking…  A show doesn’t have to be your favorite or highest ranked to be passionate about, or to fall in love with.  As a community (and I’m as guilty as anyone else), we don’t spend enough time talking about favorites.  Nor do we talk much about which shows are important…  but that’s a topic for another time.

For the curious among you, my side of the collaborative reviews of 2199 can be found here, and Scott’s can be found here.

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And now for a few things outside of my usual, I think you’ll enjoy them.

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What is your childhood comfort movie? Like, what film do you go back to when you’re having a bad day and you need to lift your spirits? A movie that you can go back to time and time again for years without getting tired of it?

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: Ultimate Childhood Comfort

Jonah of Jonah’s Daily Rants reviews the wonderful 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.  Wasn’t a childhood movie for me, came out a bit early for that (I was all of eight years old)…  But I did read the book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) not too many years later and loved the heck out of it.  I wouldn’t see the movie until sometime in the 1990’s and enjoyed it even though I was in my late twenties/early thirties.  So I had to share.

I’m guessing that Jonah saw it on VHS or more likely DVD/BD…  Very different from my childhood, if you didn’t catch it in the theaters, you missed out.  Unless it happened to show up on TV – and even then, you had to watch it when it was on.  And not many movies got reruns.

(Jonah does anime as well as movies and gaming, you should check out his blog.)

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Saw this the other day on Twitter…  and it really resonates.  Sometimes I hate to edit, and I especially hate to tweak or cut something I’ve worked hard on.  But sometimes that’s for the best.

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While the poet is looking at photos of a beloved of his, there remain parts of this person that are still technically alive on the pictures: the individual’s dust. This brings about an extra layer of sadness because even though a part of this person is still with the poet, it is a part that is non sentient and cannot interact with him.

From: Haiku about “dust”

I follow a number of haiku blogs, and this post about dust caught my eye…  Fascinating how many different things dust can symbolize.  Dirt, age, memories…

Way back in the early 80’s, the Acoustinauts took up the same concept in the brilliant Inhale Einstein.  Riffing off of “to dust we shall return”, the song asks…  “Will the world want to breath my dust?”  Give it a listen.

It also reminds me of a haiku I wrote some years back.

memories
ancient dust settles
attic stairway

The daily prompt was “ladder”, which in the Navy means what are usually called stairs…  And that got me thinking about where stairs might lead.  The original version was going up the stairs, but a long discussion on a FB haiku group lead me to reverse the “arrow of time” and give greater weight to the first line.

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And there you have it, a nice collection of stuff I hope you’ll find worth reading.  If you enjoy an article, be sure to drop a like or a comment on the original page.  Drop a comment below on anything that’s on your mind, related to this post or not.