The Maison Ikkoku Viewing Project, part 0: Background

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So as I mentioned in the previous post, I’m planning to start a watchthrough of Maison Ikkoku, the second anime TV series based on a manga by Rumiko Takahashi.  (Fun fact: Firefox recommends “Hashish” as a spelling correction for “Takahashi”.) Here’s a basic rundown of the series and my plans to get us started.

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Still alive

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Good grief, it’s been a long time since that last timestamp, hasn’t it?  Without getting into details, real life has been getting out of hand for a while now, but I’m planning to start regular posting again shortly.

First of all, welcome to everyone who followed the link from The Worst Bestsellers and their awesome shout-out on episode 74!  TWB is one of my favorite podcasts; they read and review books of dubious quality, and their mix of snark, feminism and librarianship is always a delight.  It’s a pleasure to give back on Patreon and help keep Duarte in cat treats.

Here’s an overview of some of the things I’m planning:

  • Resuming Urusei Yatsura reviews, of course.  A friend of mine has digitized all the DVDs, which will make it easier to grab screenshots. (I’ve gone so far as to order a copy of the Laserdisc of the 5th movie, since my DVD is the UK release.)
  • I’m also planning to expand my Takahashi reviews to add Maison Ikkoku!  I’d been meaning to recap more of her works, and I recently got a complete set of the DVDs from eBay (I’d previously only had 5/8 of them).  The TV series didn’t overlap, but the manga did, so it seems appropriate to cover them both.
  • In addition to that, there’s a third recap I want to start: an overview of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 1970s, specifically the period between their run in Adventure and Paul Levitz’s second run.  This period has some of my favorite stories, but it tends to be underappreciated, and with DC picking up their reprints from where the Archives left off, this is a good time to highlight the era. (I recently filled in the holes in my collection from the Action and Superboy backup eras, so I’ll have the originals available.)
  • More mini photos!  I’m close to finishing the Bones Kraken mini, and I recently received this monster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2SEoeIGGgI
  • At Anime Central this year I did my first real cosplay in a while, movie Logan (the mid-movie version, which doesn’t stand out as cosplay, and the end-of-movie bloodsoaked undershirt version, which does).  There are photos.

Stick around!  I have big plans, knock wood.  Until next time, the Woggle-Bug says “Hey buddy, how can I get this car out of second gear?”.

The end of the WoD as we know it, part 1b: Gehenna, chapter 2: “Wormwood”

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“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.” —Revelation 8:10-11

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
—T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

The first full scenario in Gehenna is the quiet one, where the setting doesn’t so much die as fade away.  Since I’m covering the details of a published adventure, the rest of the review will follow the cut…

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