James went back to working 40 hours a week this week; since he's still teleworking because he's immunocompromised and pretty much required to telework, all this meant was that we needed to leave his work desk and monitor out in the living room one more day.

As compensation for this, I was totally delighted to find an anime site which had the new version of Space Battleship Yamato (a.k.a. Star Blazers) available to watch with some advertisements. I started watching this series years ago, in the late 1970s, when my best friend Sherrye recommended it to me. "You have to watch this," she insisted. I didn't realize it was a serial story, so the first time I tried to watch it I came in the middle of second season and was totally confused. Who were all these people in the arrow-motifed white uniforms? Why was a World War II battleship spaceworthy? Who was that sneering blond haired guy with the blue skin? So I gave up on it, but the next time the first episode rolled around I came back. And was intrigued. And watched some more, and then got completely hooked.

Before Star Blazers, the only anime (back then it was known as Japanimation) I'd seen was Astroboy, Kimba the White Lion, and Speed Racer. None of them was very "deep." Yet here was a series about a young crew who participated in what was a nearly hopeless mission against severe odds, and they perservered and matured and fell in love or formed fast friendships and discovered wonders they didn't know existed. It was mind-blowing. And if you can develop a crush on an animated character, I did. Not the lead, of course; I never did that. No, it was on his quiet yet determined best friend, the "driver" of the spaceship "Argo," Mark Venture, who was my special guy.

When Star Blazers came to American television, it was intended for kids. American "suits" still didn't understand that Japanese "cartoons" came in all flavors, from material for children to material for adults. Space Battleship Yamato was an adult show, but Star Wars was still setting new records at the box office a year later and they figured an animated show about a crew of earnest Earthlings fighting dastardly aliens would be a sure thing for kids. So Star Blazers was expurgated for television—there were still big space battles, but blood wasn't shown, death was cut to a minimum (in several cases we got "oh, so-and-so got out just before the bomb exploded" line when in the original the person died), but amazingly the characterizations were left intact! So Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar) still went from a callow youth to an experienced deputy commander, his (mostly) good-natured rivalry with Daisuke Shima (Mark Venture) was part of the plot, and later his growing love for nurse and weapons officer Yuki Mori (Nova Forrester) remained. It was a revelation.

I still love the original version, but the new versions, Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and Space Battleship Yamato 2202, are marvels of their own. The new animation is stunning. The story has even more depth than before, with the storyline tweaked slightly, and there are (finally) more female characters within the crew. Yuki (Nova) is no longer the only focus; there's a weapons officer, a scientific advisor, a pilot, a nurse, and even what you might call a morale officer (all female), not to mention a supposed female ghost who "haunts" the ship's drive, involved in the story. The characters have more depth, and, like the new version of Battlestar Galactica, there are several "dark motives" going on under the surface. Even the enemy Gamilas (Gamilons) are more complicated: they're shown to have families, children, even deceased children that they mourn for. Starsha of Iscandar also has new tweaks in the 2199 storyline.

The only thing that bothers me about the 2199 story is that by allowing Kodai (Wildstar) bond with the female Cosmo pilot Yamamoto (they were both orphans), there was very little of the Kodai/Shima (Wildstar/Venture) friendship and competition in the story as in the original. Shima had his own arc in the mutiny subplot, but you got very little of the other best friends (occasional antagonists) initial plotline, and I did like the friendship there.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to errands—James finally got through to Kaiser's teeny brains that he was out of pregabalin, and we got to pick it up Thursday, along with going to Publix and Nam Dae Mun; Friday while James was at physical therapy I picked myself up a thimble at Hobby Lobby and food for Mr. Snow at Petsmart (where I met a sweet pit bull named "Nala" and her buddy the pit bull puppy), and then we had lunch at Okinawa on Dallas Highway.

Saturday morning we went to Hair Day, and that was nice. We had cheese and crackers, fruit and mini-muffins, and two home-made frittata dishes to snack on, and talked and talked, until it was time for James' Zoom club meeting. This meant it was my chance to vacuum...didn't do it last week and I emptied four canisters of mainly dog hair!

The only problem with this week was that the pad thai I had at Okinawa on Friday was spicy. Not pepper, not curry James said, so probably ginger. I still ate it, and my heart was fluttery all afternoon, but only after I ate some cherries. So I can't figure if it was the spice, the cherries (???), or just the heat, because after lunch we had stopped at Hallmark. I was seriously afraid I would have to go to urgent care because my pulse was 80-84 just sitting on the sofa no matter how I tried to relax. I finally took my heart medication and that took two hours to kick in. Wondering if my acid reflux is getting worse and triggering the rapid heartbeat.

The one thing we did not do this weekend was attend the Hallmark Ornament Premiere on Saturday. We simply didn't have time before Hair Day and after James' meeting it was too damn hot—almost 90℉. The ornaments were on display Friday afternoon at Hallmark, but unless you were a member of the Ornament Club, you couldn't buy them until Friday night. Since I really only want one thing (the Lord a'leaping for the Twelve Days of Christmas set) and James really only wants one thing (this year's airplane), we just hope someone still has them next week!

Labels: anime, chores, Christmas, dogs, friends, health, pets, shopping, Star Blazers, television, work

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:31:00 PM

(0) COMMENTS

Well, it was a busy week around here (and that didn't count work). The exterminator showed up on Tuesday to hopefully keep the ants at bay this year, and the filters for the air conditioner which were expected on Tuesday had already come on Sunday (the A/C tech told me bluntly when we had the new HVAC system installed that it would be cheaper if we bought our filters online than having them supply it), and then Thursday the HVAC system got inspected (the hypoallergenic filters cost $138 for two on Amazon; they would have charged us $100 to replace the one). The tech turned down the humidity as low as he could; he said it would make it feel cooler and should be better for the system. Way later on the repairman from AT&T turned up (finally, after they'd sent me a text saying they weren't coming) and we have a dial tone on the landline again. It's been gone for two weeks as far as we know; since the DSL never dropped out we didn't realize until I picked up a receiver one day. There was a short in the box outside.

So I was perfectly ready to sleep in this morning. The alarm went off at 8:30 and I told Alexa to shut off the alarm, and then the bed reached its soft blankety arms around me and I conked out for another half hour.

After breakfast and perambulation of the pooch, I went into Buckhead to visit the Barnes & Noble there. I have one more 20 percent off coupon and wanted to see if there was anything good to use it on. Didn't find anything for it, but did get an odd looking paperback cozy mystery about a family with a skeleton in their house (literally; it's sentient) that helps solve its own murder (I know; it sounded so wild I had to read it) and a new issue of "Best of British."

Picked up lunch at Tin Drum on the way home. Called James while I was eating; he had an appointment at Hanger (his orthopedic shoe place) at two-thirty and I wanted him to swing by to pick me up. We got to Hanger without incident and the technician agreed that James' shoes should not have so much wear on them after only a month (and he really only walks the dog in them). Both of the toe areas are fraying and there is already a hole in the left one. The shoes are still under warranty and they are ordering another pair for him, with hard sides instead of soft ones.

When we got done there James picked up a burger at Martin's (he hadn't had lunch and it was nearly three) and then we went on to Publix. Once all the groceries were put up it was already time to head up to Town Center for supper.

We ate at Fried Tomato Buffet again because it's about the cheapest supper we can get and on Friday night they have shrimp. Their fried shrimp have a very nice, light, crunchy coating. Plus I had cucumber salad and olives. But we saw the darn rudest thing when we came out: someone had gone in one of the stores and bought a vacuum cleaner and what looked like an air purifier or portable air conditioner. Evidently the boxes didn't fit in their car, because they had emptied out the boxes and left them behind the car next to them and gone on their way!

I had a Michael's coupon, so James sat in the truck and I ran in. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I wasn't about to waste a coupon, so I bought another watercolor pad. James wanted to check out the new Hobby Lobby—beats me why they abandoned a perfectly good new building near the JoAnn and the Michaels to move a mile or so away into a newer building—so we did. I used their coupon to buy a larger set of watercolor pencils (they're Sargents, though; not sure how good they are), some water pens to use with them, and blending pencils. We walked the whole store, though, and we saw signs of Christmas being put out: wreaths, big bows, ribbons, some picks, some craft parts (they have stickers of dogs in Santa suits; one of them is a collie—I must get one set), ornaments. And new aisles of fall! I hugged garlands to make me feel better about summer.

Spent the evening watching Star Blazers again.

Labels: anime, books, chores, crafts, food, magazines, shopping, television

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:47:00 PM

(0) COMMENTS