romance

"The Recollections of a Certain Pilot" aka "The Princess and the Pilot" is something of a wartime adventure-romance between, believe it or not, a princess and a pilot. The pilot, a half-breed constantly being victimised for his racial inferiority, is a highly-skilled mercenary who is tasked with escorting the rather naïve princess across 12000km of enemy airspace to unite her with her fiancé, the prince of their country. The overall plot is quite good. However, there are, as usual with anime, a number of holes and clichés in it.

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors (authoresses sounds rather dodgy, no?) of all time. While she is better known for her Vorkosigan saga, a very popular sci-fi, space opera-ish series, I was completely enchanted by her foray into fantasy, which yielded the excellent Chalion series.

I've been a huge fan of Nodame Cantabile ever since it was released. I've watched the live-action series, read the manga and also watched series one of the anime. This review deals with the anime sequel, dubbed "Nodame Cantabile: Paris Hen", which deals with Nodame and Chiaki's stay in Paris.

You should probably not be reading further if you are yet to see the first series.

So, thanks to a lot of hype, I ... acquired this anime and watched it all in a couple of sittings. I'm a real sucker for anything that revolves around music and the fact that this is directed by Watanabe Shinichirō (director of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, etc., who is known for blending music in really well) with music taken care of by Kanno Yōko (who is a bloody legend), is about as big a recommendation as any anime can get.

A production with Miyazaki Hayao handling the screenplay and his son Goro directing, 'From up on Poppy Hill' has all the qualities of a vintage Ghibli wonder. In many ways, this coming of age story is similar to that of one of my favourites from this studio, 'Whisper of my heart', with a school + home setting, two very earnest and driven young teens, and puppy love. Unfortunately, something is amiss as the finished product does not hit home.

A (probably unacknowledged) remake of A Walk to Remember starring that fell whore Mandy Moore (no offence to Mandy, but I couldn't help but rhyme), A Millionaire's First Love is pretty dire. Why I bothered to start watching it or subsequently sit through its entirety, I will never know. But I do know that I cringed on occasions greater than one and less than 500.