Anime is one of my more recent loves, though I had come across it as a child. It was harder to get/find once upon a time but now the internet and even TV is crawling with the stuff. From artwork, to videos, to fanfiction, to fandom websites and cosplay I can barely surf without coming across an anime reference. Well that's fine with me, and in fact I hope it continues to become more and more popular because Japanese folk have very unique points of view and an excellent medium to share their ideas. In anime I have found some of the best, most intense, and in depth plots and characters ever created.
At first though, with Naruto, I was a skeptic. I thought it might be akin to the Pokemon or Dragonball type shows and I was reluctant to get into it. (Bleach kind of freaked me out with the plushy doll characters but I'm over that now too.) When I started watching it though, I couldn't stop. I watched 200+ episodes over the course of a few weeks on youtube with subtitles. I'm of course partial to the Japanese voice actors now but I think I grow attached to the actors of the version I view first. I watched Yu Yu Hakusho in English and prefer it that way. (A lot of credit for that goes to the awesomeness of the English voice actors I do admit.)
The current episodes of Naruto are after a "time skip." The series is now called Naruto Shippuuden and the characters are about 2 years older. This far in I have now grown attached to certain characters and have developed dislike for others. The new character, Sai, is definitely in my like category so far. He is a wonderful replacement for Sasuke, whom I despise.
One of the best things about Sai is his social bumblings. (He seems to have something like Asperger's syndrome or is simply underdeveloped from isolation/conditioning.) He truly does not know the proper way to interact. He is an excellent ninja, but the Naruto team dynamic is based a lot on the emotion between teammates. He even has to fake smiles, something with which I am all too familiar. I sometimes find myself at a loss for how to function in a social setting and I enjoy seeing aspects of myself in characters. It is nice to see diversified characters like Sai, it makes the story much more involved and viewers/readers can relate or sympathize on some level. If you can't make some kind of connection, positive or negative, with the characters in a story then it probably isn't any good.
Now that I have found a better place to watch (stage6) I am sure to look out for new Naruto episodes. I'm really interested to see how Sai develops in the new plot line. It also helps that I find Sai's penis jokes and insulting pet names highly amusing. Here's to hoping he sticks around. :)
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
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