Kyou Kara Maou R 1

What does the R mean? No idea. But I watched the first episode today anyway.

Good stuff so far. Conrad and Josak being badass, Yuuri being Yuuri, and some crazy twists thrown in to mess with my mind. Maybe if I could read the light novels–which I do own; they’re sitting in a sad pile due to my lack of kanji skills–I would have known what was going to happen at the end of the episode, but I certainly did not. Or maybe this OVA is completely original. In any case: Fascinating! Corporeal? Guess we’ll find out!

I love the opening animation, too, especially where Yuuri goes from Maou-mode back into bashfully smiling Yuuri-mode. In fact, I loved that part so much I made this herky-jerky animated gif. (It’s a couple hundred K so I figured I’d link to it instead of forcing you all to download it.)

The ED, with trademark chibified cast members, was also quite nice.

There are a couple of new characters, including the main antagonist and his retainer, and apparently a new girl at the castle who wasn’t in this episode but is in the OP animation. I’m really intrigued by the antagonist, who seems to have certain abilities–which Yuuri is either immune to after a point or which someone stopped in time. His retainer is your standard badass swordsman there to give Conrad something to do, but hopefully he’ll turn into an interesting character like Raven did.

Since this is all Shou Shimaron related, I wonder if we’ll be seeing 刈ポニー?

Final thought: Brooke, there’s some Josak fanservice for you in this episode!

An interesting snippet from the first maru-ma light novel

Yuuri is having dinner with the previous Maou and her family, as shown in the anime. They get to talking about what Yuuri’s world is like, and he mentions science and technology. At first everyone’s response is that the humans have things like that to try and kill people from a long distance away, but Yuuri quickly says that he’s not talking about war technology, but technology for improving people’s lives.

“Wait wait wait, I didn’t mean that kind of science! In short, well, umm, machines that will do troublesome chores like cleaning and laundry, and machines that will plow fields all at once. In short, stuff to make daily living more comfortable.”

Cheri seems sweetly surprised.

“I don’t think cleaning and laundry are troublesome. That’s the job of the cleaning men and laundry women.”

I didn’t even think about how the queen lives up to now.

“So, so, instead of people in charge of cleaning or laundry, you’d have a machine.”

“If that’s so, the servants lose their jobs?”

“If that happens, those people work at factories to build vacuum cleaners and washing machines…”

I don’t really know if people can live easily.

Translation from Onadoru Euphoria.

I read a utopian story once–can’t remember the name, thought it was by Doctorow but am having trouble locating it–in which robots did all the menial tasks, freeing up people to pursue whatever activities they desired. People’s pursuits were profitable because there was typically a market for them. The pursuits were also typically creative. Unfortunately, to reach this point of bliss, the world had to go through a period of war, during which the US created the robots now being used to better people’s lives. In the story, the US was pretty totalitarian, and the utopia was in Australia.

I love the idea of people being free to do whatever pleases them, but I wonder if that’s even possible. Not everyone is as self-motivated as the author of that story (though we certainly wish we were sometimes!). So if people really were free to do whatever they wanted, would things really be different from now? Wouldn’t quite a few people sit around wallowing in boredom, watching TV, supported by the infrastructure and entertained by the people who did have motivation? And what about people who just want to have fun, and don’t care about producing anything or offering a service? I, for example, want to travel and eat. How would those things better society?

(And who maintains the robots?)

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to see that sort of philosophical question appear in maru-ma.

(By the way, “maru-ma” is the term used to encompass all facets of the story which was made into an anime called Kyou Kara Maou. The light novels have names with variations on “Ma no Tsuku“, for example. The common thread among all these is the “Ma”, roughly meaning “demon”, which is always enclosed in a circle, called “Maru”, hence “maru-ma“.)

A lazy day

Today, I was supposed to look through boxes of stuff sent to me from my aunt Carol, but I didn’t. Instead, I spent some time on the computer, and ate a delicious turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich Mom made. Then I showered, and then I played pool with Dad. After that I watched a bunch of Smallville with Sean, and then I went over to play with Connor and Logan before bedtime. After that I went to Ben and Manda’s and forced them to watch Kyou Kara Maou. (Ben said it was “interesting” and “different”. Not really a resounding endorsement…however, he did have a lot of fun repeating Japanese phrases, such as “Maken da te?! Now I know what to say if I’m ever in Japan and someone gives me a demon sword.”) We watched the first 7 episodes (the beginning and the Morgif arc), and then episodes 45 and 42, just because they’re two of my favorites.

And now I’m home. If I’m not too tired, maybe Sean and I will watch more Smallville. We’ll see.

Oh, I didn’t manage to get a family portrait like I was hoping, but I did get some representative Christmas shots yesterday. They start here in the December gallery. Check out this picture Mom took of me and Sean! I cropped it and adjusted the color levels.

me and Sean in Mom's dining room

Mom says we look cute together, but then again she’s biased ;>

I think we’re visiting Grandma tomorrow. I’m not sure if we will get to see Jeff and Mavis after all; it sounds like they’re not coming in until Tuesday, and Sean isn’t the type to stop on his way out of town :/

The visit is almost over. I’m not really looking forward to going home. We’ve decided to stay with Cheryl and Reid for another six months, like they offered. Originally we were planning to hurry up and get a rental instead. Having looked over our finances, though, it’s really prudent to just stay and save our money. Sean’s car is considered a loss by the insurance company, so very soon we’ll have a new payment to deal with. Bleh. At least the insurance payout was a decent sum…

Kyou Kara Maou 52

I mean, yow.

And yet…somehow, I’m not affected as profoundly as I would have expected. Watching the Rutenberg warriors riding off to their deaths…I felt it, but didn’t, at the same time. And by the end, I was just shaking my head, because the Shinou had done it again. I’m starting to tire of his string-pulling. And also of Murata’s little comments…because really, what has the Shinou done that’s so bad? If there’s going to be a conflict between Yuuri and the Shinou, can it go ahead and happen already?

I think part of why the episode didn’t work for me was due to an error in translation. One scene involves Cheri freaking out. The translation has Stoffel bark at her that she now has the chance to redeem herself, and she should be happy. However, I’m pretty sure that he’s actually referring to Conrad, and the other Rutenberg warriors. I mean, that would make more sense…what does Cheri have to redeem herself for? And the whole point of the episode is that Conrad and the other “half-breeds” are going to the front lines. Plus, Cheri laments the fact that she can’t do anything to save “that child”, which I’m certain refers to Conrad. I think the purpose of the scene was to add weight to the Rutenberg tragedy, but the mistranslation only took away from it. It made me confused–I spent time wondering what Cheri needed redemption for, rather than focusing on the tragedy that was about to occur.

I watched the episode twice, and it was only on the second viewing that it occurred to me that it might be mistranslated. By then, of course, I’d already had my initial reaction to the episode, so realizing what was really going on didn’t have the same effect as it would have. But I don’t want to just blame the translation for my lack of emotion. The episode itself is flawed, a vignette that really serves no purpose other than to maintain the status quo. I can accept that from comedic filler episodes, but not as easily from plot episodes. Something else should have happened.

But Yuuri came back, and saw Conrad, and almost said something…and didn’t.

I think that bothered me the most of all.

This may be a cultural difference that I just don’t understand. People are not nearly so forthcoming with their emotions in Japan as they are here in the US. Maybe that look shared between them was overwhelmingly enough, in Japanese culture.

But to visit the past of the one who loves your soul–the one who could never have the love of your past self (episode 50, anyone?), to see the past that you’re working to prevent happening again, to see his suffering…and then not say anything?

Something needs to be resolved there, and ending the episode like that gave no indication that resolution will ever happen.

The show has a history of putting off resolutions. Yuuri found out he had Julia’s soul in episode 35, but he never asked about it. Really, he didn’t consider the matter much at all until he was forced to, in the most recent story arc (episodes 48-50), and even then he never asked. It’s been a little more understandable up until now, because at first, he couldn’t ask Conrad, because Conrad was with Big Shimaron…and many things occurred in the meantime that could easily make him forget, or at least put off asking. There’s also the fact that he’s likely being sensitive to Conrad’s feelings…and also, after episode 49 especially, questioning his relationship with Conrad.

But there’s a limit to the believability of Yuuri’s silence, and I think we’ve passed it.