Now and Then, Here and There #2:
Flight and Fall

CPM

100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
03/12/2002

Back To N Listings

Well fellas, looks like we came to the end of the ride, and I can't say it wasn't fun in a way... though in another, more true way, it was an excruciating journey that I have no real intention of repeating anytime soon, or ever if I have my say in it. While it might be good for you, I've watched sixteen different anime DVDs in the past week and that's way too much for someone who watches one a week at BEST. When I return to school in six short hours, you can probably expect the return of the "one review every other week, maybe" schedule that we've held so near and dear to our hearts for these two solid years. We all know how the experiments with other schedules have worked in the past. They haven't. I don't know, there's something about structure that really just doesn't let me get my groove on. You know the funny thing? I still do more work than Skabla. Okay. That's not really funny so much as it is sad.

To be honest, the only reason I'm even typing this review up is because I want to have a cigarette before I go to bed tonight and for the past seven days I've been writing two reviews, having a cigarette and going to bed. I don't pretend to know what it is , but it doesn't feel right having one without typing up a little anime related humor first, if you can call it that. It's much the same as how I don't like to smoke without music playing in the background.

And when I smoke in the early morning like this, just as the sun's about to rise above the broken houses and semi-dangerous streets of West Philadelphia I always put on the saddest songs I have available. Now, some of them I don't exactly know whether or not they're sad because they're in Japanese, but I think I can get the general idea even though "Me no speakie Chinie". Why I do it I don't know, because I'm not a particularly sad person... I'm not even sure if I have a sad setting on my emotional dial, which runs the gamut from "happy" to "angry" and none of the things in between. People have tended to express to me that my tradition is a bit strange, but I don't know readers... it just feels right.

In the same way Now and Then is a very strange show, but it just feels right. Like hot cocoa on a winter morning, or the leathery sting of your father's belt against your rear cheeks, Now and Then, with its amiable main character, evokes a comfortable feeling in you. It's a shame they go about and ruin with with all their real world problems like insanity and rape, but I guess that's just how it goes.


I'll try not to bore you with directional style or dub acting quality, because I did that all the first time around... even though I think there's some really sweet still frames in this show. I'll just say that something's not right with this dub and it isn't Lisa Ortiz. Lisa Ortiz manages to sound surprisingly non-Lisa Ortiz, but I think that's just because she's had a grand total of five lines in nine episodes. A retarded monkey couldn't screw up fifteen words, ANDREW couldn't screw up fifteen words and he forgets how to tie his shoes almost every time he puts them on. No, the problem is basically every actor on this disc is listed as "Additional Voices" for Pokemon on iMDB. Doesn't that strike anyone as a bit odd? I had trouble not imagining some of them going "Pika-CHU!" during their long harangues. And now that I pointed it out for you're probably going to suffer the same fate.

Unfortunately, salvation (if you want to call it that) comes for us during the last episode on the disc. Salvation, in the form of a display of LITTLE BOY PENIS. I'm sorry, is Akitaroh Daichi some sort of secret code name for Akira Toriyama? Because with all the children's wangs flying around I felt like I was in the middle of some obscure Dragon Ball Z film.


Please note that reports of the frequency of little boy wangs are greatly exaggerated. I'm just of the opinion that one is more than enough to make me fumble for the remote so I can turn the show off and go vomit. I don't like very much female nudity in my entertainment, what desire would I have to see underaged boys shake what their daddies gave them?

But try and ignore this, because the show is better than the penis swinging would make you infer. A heavy dose of idealism exists in these four episodes and Shu's logic is that of a child's... which is only appropriate. Shu doesn't want to stop the killing of just the innocent villagers. He wants to stop all the killing. And look, buddy, I sympathize with your ideas and everything but I don't exactly know if a crazy king that lives in a giant fortress that may or may not fly around is the best guy you want to give the Get Out of Jail Free card to. Again Now and Then surprises me with how honestly it treats its characters... and how shamelessly it steals things from popular Hollywood movies like Tremors. Or, wait. Are you supposed to call them homages?

Regardless, I'm about to have me an homage in respect to this week past. You know, the kind of homage you light up and then inhale. Here's to you Spring Break, and you Akitaroh Daichi. Try to stay off the boy dick, that's just plain gross.