… because we just got back from a modestly successful meteor-watching expedition to Salisbury Beach.
I wish someone would get around to distributing a professional release of Twin Spica here. It’s the story of a little girl who wants to become one of Japan’s first professional astronauts, and who (in very Japanese fashion) works hard and lives honorably to achieve at least the first steps toward her dream. Nothing big or flashy, just a very engaging story — it really reminds me of the Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein YA novels from the 1960s, books like THE STARS ARE OURS and HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL. I think it’s a great “starter” anime for sci-fi geeks.
Also, I got my copy of Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and the first chapter (“He’s Smart, But His Birds Are Sloppy”) explains why Japan is — seriously! — testing potential space-travel candidates by having them produce a thousand origami cranes. Those of you who’ve seen the fan-subbed versions of Twin Spica (or read the manga, which is now being released in English) will understand why this tickles me.
************
P.S. Soonergrunt, you are a most honorable warrior, and my prayers are with you this weekend & going forward.
Nemo_N
Damn fine show. Azumi is all flavors of awesome. Botched ending but most anime based on ongoing manga (at the time) suffer of that.
Gotta pick up the US version (took a peek at the final volume in japanese, but I have to see if I missed something).
Bonus gif
Yutsano
Hang on, gonna ask my brother if he’s gotten around to watching this one yet.
Okay, he’s heard of it but hasn’t seen it, and curiously enough couldn’t find it reviewed anywhere. Just from the synopsis it reminded him of Wings of Honneamise which is VERY good if a bit on the weighty side. So he’ll look up a fansub and get to checking it out. Cute intro though.
Fencedude
Anne, I know I’ve said this before, but your taste in anime is exquisite.
Twin Spica truly is a gem, and I’d love to see a US release, though most likely that ship passed long ago.
roshan
Something related to Net Neutrality:
You’ve Already Paid $2,000 For A Fiber Connection You’ll Never Get
NobodySpecial
Found a post over at Starslip Crisis where a commenter mentioned that they were going to throw away all the Akira stuff after it was done until someone with foresight saved it. It mentioned they used the backgrounds as packing material.
If true, that’s fucked.
Yutsano
@NobodySpecial: Someone needs their otaku card officially revoked. Baka.
Something Fabulous
Echoing the note to Soonergrunt: hoping for a a good report on Monday for you.
NobodySpecial
@Yutsano: Wasn’t me, and I didn’t have time to go check. So it’s not true?
thalarctos
@soonergrunt–I’m behind on my reading and seeing this reference in the post, I just went back to find out what’s going on. As another mostly-lurker, sometimes-poster, I’ve grown to expect good, solid, well-reasoned posts when I see your handle. Please count me among the many who are hoping for a good report on Monday.
Robert Sneddon
See also the award-winning “Planetes” (spelling is correct) for hard-SF Japanese POV on space exploration. Part comedy, part romance and a lot of fun. It also features a character who makes Werner Von Braun look like an easily distracted dilettante with a heart of gold. The manga runs to five volumes, available from Tokyopop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
R-Jud
Jesus, and I thought I was having a down week medically. Soonergrunt, I hope everything looks good on Monday.
“The most beautiful words in the English language aren’t ‘I love you’, but ‘It’s benign’.”
–Woody Allen
henqiguai
Gawd dammit ! I log off the ‘net for one frakkin’ day to hang with the family, and y’all apparently break out into all sorts of entertainingly interesting freak outs. Now I’m gonna have to spend the weekend trying to catch up.
If this place wasn’t such a rich source of information and thought provokers, I’d just walk away. <sob>.
aliasofwestgate
Twin Spica also gives a gorgeous cover of Japanese pop’s original pioneer, Sakamato Kyu (yeah, he did that Sukiyaki song in japanese). The song is so poignant, but it suits that little show so perfectly. I’m pretty sure Kyu-chan himself wouldn’t mind the song’s use the way it was in this anime. Also the band that covered doing it real justice, though the original is just as much of a tearjerker, decades later.
Yoru no Hoshi Wo
Alwhite
“Have Spacesuit…” hit me at just the right age & just the right time, early teen / early 60’s. It seems so corny now but then it made me dream of going into space myself one day. I met RAH a few years later, after “Stranger in a Strange Land” and fortunately for me never mentioned that book (he HATED hippies!) but did ask about Spacesuit & a question on the math of Mars travel which he seemed to like a lot. His libertarian views seemed so quaint at the time but would be right in fashion today.
Soonergrunt – think good thought & know that there are a bunch of people you never really met that are pulling for you.
J.W. Hamner
AI Rebellion: WTF
Emma
I love the Japanese anime I’ve had a chance to see — if I were to try to get an idea of the possibilities, styles, etc. what would you all recommend I look at? Sort of anime 101?
greennotGreen
My sister and I *loved* “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel” when we were kids. I’ve read it about 11 times, and I gave her a copy for one of her birthdays even though it was really expensive for a kid – over $10!
Unfortunately, a few of Heinlein’s adult novels revealed some disturbing ideas about incest (bad for the gene pool, but apparently quite desirable otherwise,) I thought “Farnham’s Freehold” was pretty damn racist, and he seemed to have a penchant for nudity. (Personally, I don’t want to think about RAH nude.) Still, some are quite good. After I read “Puppet Masters” I had to sleep with my back to the wall for weeks.
Emma
And dammit, I was just reading another thread and found out what’s with Soonergrunt. I hate that damn “they’ve found a mass”, having heard it myself — well, found it myself when I was showering. If good wishes can help, there’s a whole lot of us sending them your way, Sooner.
Seebach
The manga is being released by Vertical in the US:
http://www.vertical-inc.com/twinspica/index.html
Manga and anime for mature audiences has a tough time in the US, due to a combination of people having sucky taste and the apparently God-given right to piracy among so many so called “fans”.
@Emma:
If you like politics, you’ll like Eden: It’s An Endless World. It’s struggling with cancellation because not enough people are buying it. It breaks my heart. :(
Rheinhard
@Robert Sneddon:
Right on! As soon as I saw this post, I thought I should throw in a recommend for Planetes as well. Besides the great characters, it deals with a real issue: the accumulation of junk in near Earth orbit endangering space travel. The US anime release (a few years old, can still be found on amazon and elsewhere) features interviews with real researchers at Johnson Space Center in Houston who work on this problem.
I’ve seen about half of Twin Spica in fansub and really liked it, and always meant to go back and watch the rest. Actually, since I’ve never watched the many-times-more-popular Bleach, when I started seeing people with plushies of Kon, for a long time I thought that for some reason they were fans of Mr. Lion from Twin Spica.
Alwhite
@greennotGreen:
Yeah his later books got really weird about 2 issues – wanting to have sex with his mom & living forever. I have no idea about what caused the former but the Lazarus Long, 2000 year old man thing was him looking for a way to cheat his own death. The Navy sent him home in the mid-1930’s & told him the illness he had picked up in Panama was going to kill him soon. He had cheated death for 40 years so I think he hoped to do it forever.
Farnam’s Freehold is a libertarian screed that is better than Atlas Shrugged only because is is blessedly shorter.
RoninJin
@Robert Sneddon: That’s a great one. I just bought the series on DVD after watching it on Netflix this year. I would highly recommend this one to Anne Laurie if she’s interested in that theme.