Melody of Oblivion

[telophase]

Back when Melody of Oblivion was first being broadcast and fansubbed several years ago, I watched several episodes, and liked them quite a bit. But it's the sort of series you really need to be in the mood for and at some point I never got around to downloading more of it. I recently noticed that it was available on Netflix, and popped disc 3 onto my queue, guessing at about which episode I'd stopped at. I guessed correctly - episode 9 was the last I'd watched, and this disc started with ep 9.

How to describe it? It's a Gainax WTF?! series, and that should tell you quite a lot. It follows a young man named Bocca and his possibly sentient motorcycle-looking Aibar machine around a futuristic Japan that is controlled by creatures called Monsters, after the Monster-Human War. Bocca is searching for the Melody of Oblivion, someone or something hidden away that could be the savior of humankind.

I remember only vague, chaotic, confusing elements from the first eight episodes and discovered as I was watching episodes 9 and 10 that I wasn't actually crazy and that the episodes were just like that. rachelmanija and oyceter, you'll be happy to note that there is a Fowl of DOOOOM! in it, in the form of a parrot or cockatiel-type thing that flies around screeching "Truth or lies!" and then delivering messages to people. No heads in jars. So far. There are references to mythology and fairy tales. I vaguely remember a bus growing horns and turning into an analogue of the Minotaur in one of the early episodes, and there was one short story arc that dealt with a boy sticking his finger in a hole in a dam, like the story of the Dutch boy and the dike, and the most recent story arc has a villain that fights inside a giant robot suit that looks like a monkey and uses a giant extendible monkey wrench, like Monkey/Son Goku's staff. The Warriors of Melos, who are the only ones that can hear the Melody of Oblivion, activate their powers by drawing an arrow across a glowing tattoo on some part of their body, and they release the arrow with a cry that's taken from poker: "Flush!" "Four Card!" etc. There's a small group of freedom fighters that may not be as human as they seem that are also a theatrical company.

And those are the parts that make sense. I'd love to watch this with someone else in the room who can truly appreciate anime crack, just because.

ETA: Have also obtained and read volumes 11-22 of Samurai Deeper Kyo in the past 24 hours, and will be reading vol 23 later on tonight. I gotta say, that is way too much shounen fighty scenes to mainline in that short a time, and yet I. CAN'T. STOP. READING. Damn you, chomiji! (Honestly - how many times can a character almost get killed, then stand up and say "This time I'll stop holding back!" and kick his opponent's ass ... and then ten minutes later fight another opponent who's even tougher, go even more all out, and then SAY IT AGAIN? Aaaagh! There's gotta be an upper limit here somewhere!)

Favorite character: currently Hotaru. YOU ARE SO CUTE WHEN YOU'RE WEIRD! Also am tired of Yuya's primary purpose in the story being the one to whom the other characters explain patently obvious things that I'd already figured out from context. The audience for this is obviously way younger than me. :) Also also am tired of the expression she wears 90% of the time being: 8O Want to yell at her to shut her mouth before a bug flies into it.

Comments

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Honestly - how many times can a character almost get killed, then stand up and say "This time I'll stop holding back!" and kick his opponent's ass ... and then ten minutes later fight another opponent who's even tougher, go even more all out, and then SAY IT AGAIN? Aaaagh! There's gotta be an upper limit here somewhere!

Ahh, the hallmark of a shounen series. The 'Oh yeah, well, I'm really only using 10% of my TRUE POWAH! Now I'll really show you!' speeches. It brings a tear to one's eye, it does. XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Instead of revising my estimate of their current badassitude up, every time someone says that I revise my previous estimate of their badassitude down. So currently, in the first volume or two, they were mostly slapfighting with Nerf weapons.

But ya know - ya gotta admire the guts of a series that has Oda Nobunaga as a resurrected demon king and Tomoe Gozen as a revenant. Although I'm tired of every single group of fighters having a number in their name. The Four Emperors. The Sanada Ten. The Five Stars. And so on and so forth.

[chomiji]

Heh heh heh ....! (Or since Yukimura's my favorite character, I guess I should be going fu fu fu !, which is how he actually laughs in Japanese.) Another victim successfully hooked! Wow, through volume 22 already - you've got it bad!

Yuya has grown on me on re-reads - she never stays flipped out for long, and her optimism is pretty amazing. But yeah, it's a boys' series, and she gets to be everyone's little sister as well as the love interest. I wish Mahiro hadn't had to check out - she was a tough cookie (despite the pneumatic bustline). Yes, Hotaru's a huge favorite, and his huge fight scene with Kyo, and how that ends up, is one of my favorite things ... Kamijyo can be really good with facial expressions sometimes.

Yes, these guys are eventually essentially god-level, there's no getting around it. It only gets worse ... .

And now you can have some idea why I was nominating Hishigi as an emo example, even in just that one scene. And Akari's fast becoming another of my favorites, as is Yuan.

Re the silly group names: there's some tendency to call them by the Japanese names in discussions, which makes it less obnoxious, so the Emperors are the Shiseiten, and the Elders are the Taishirou. The Sanada Ten are actually straight out of legend, so there's not much that can be done about that ... . (Saizo is such an earnest dork - I love the idea of a dork ninja.)

(And I would love to talk to you some more about SDK, but this isn't flagged for spoilers, so maybe not now ... ?)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Japanese names would make them a lot easier to take. XD Since so many of the characters are inspired by (shall we say XD) history, I wasn't ever sure what came from the mangaka's head.

I found it mildly amusing that they're following the same path that Rachel and I will be taking from Tokyo to Kyoto. XD I saw the Nakasendo Road labeled on the map in the front of the book - despite the map not actually being anywhere near the shape of Japan - and squeed quietly, because we'll be walking part of it on the trip. XD

Yes, these guys are eventually essentially god-level, there's no getting around it. It only gets worse ... .

And the way everyone's walking around going "Well, Kyo's not up to the way he was back then..." makes me wonder how the planet survived without cracking open since every other person you run across is just about at that level too. And I wonder about how you train if you're a god-level person, because, really, the best way to get better is to fight someone better than you. And I wonder, as I always do at stories that push the romatic vision of fights to the death, at how many warriors survived to whatever age they are, since they all seem prepared to die at any given moment, and the body count is fairly high. But, y'know, I always wodner that sort of thing. XD

Heck, I'll make a spoiler-protected post for you and anyone else interested to yammer on in. XD I'll do that, then go to bed with vol. 22, since I'm about to give myself waffleface if I stay at the keyboard any longer.

[chomiji]

>> And I wonder, as I always do at stories that push the romantic vision of fights to the death, at how many warriors survived to whatever age they are, since they all seem prepared to die at any given moment, and the body count is fairly high. <<

Yeah, good point ... Akira is the real big puzzler that way. Given that Kyo found him when he was quite a tiny little thing, how the heck has he survived to reach the ripe old age of 19?

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Surely you aren't surprised that a young, female character is the victim of excessive cabbageheading?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I understand that there needs to be a character in the story that's airheaded enough that the details of the plot can be explained to them for the benefit of the younger readers, but GAH it can get annoying. Yuya also serves another purpose, to be the sort of centerpoint of the large, unwieldy group of characters, but unfortunatley she wasn't set up as sympathetic enough early enough for me to care much about her or even figure out why everyone likes her other than her big boobs. The mangaka is making some stabs at that, having the other characters reflect on her and what she means to them after a certain plot point happens, but it didn't come soon enough for my tastes. :)

[chomiji]

Of course the running joke is that she thinks her boobs aren't big enough .... .

The Aokigahara Forest arc seems to me to have been the "trial balloon" for the series - the Mibu arc is the story that Kamijyo really wanted to tell, and so now Yuya becomes more important.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that there are indeed some kick-ass female characters who can take on the boys on an equal level, but they're secondary characters, as you'd expect in most shounen manga. :/

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

I adore Melody of Oblivion. I'm sure that says something unfortunate about me.

(This is not to say I understand it. I don't understand Utena, either, and I love that too.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten how much I liked it. XD