Anime in the Theater
The city I live in played host to a special viewing of the Anime Bleach: Memories of Nobody a few days ago. My wife and I don’t share Scratch’s dim view of Anime and decided to go see it.
First up, I have never read the Manga nor seen the series of Bleach. All of the characters were completely new to me. So, walking into the theater and seeing some of the Cosplayers there I had no clue what was up with them. Although, my wife was quite excited to see that a Catgirl decided to show up. As for me, I tend to share R. K. Milholland’s view on catgirls. Oh, and for those of you that don’t know what Cosplay is, it’s “Costume Play”. You can always tell you’re near some Anime/ Comic book event when you see lots of fake fur or people carrying swords taller than themselves. Just as a PSA, if you see people with fake cat ears and tails it’s probably an Anime convention nearby. If the catgirl is followed by a man in a kilt, probably a comic book or gaming convention. Or you live in Seattle, but that’s a different story.
Anyway, we went to see Bleach, and it was an okay flick. It might have been better if we knew what the heck was going on, but it was pretty neat. Truly, the excitement came from the event. To be in a giant room with a lot of people watching something that they absolutely love is pretty exciting. And more than a little funny.
If you’re familiar with Anime at all you have probably seen some character gather is Ki and do some snazzy power move. From an animation standpoint, these effects have to be a favorite, ’cause to me it looks like they just rotoscope nearly the whole frame and call it done. The fans really seem to get off on this stuff, too. Whenever one of the Soul Reapers would turn they screen white everyone in the audience would explode in applause or “ooh and ahh” like the Fourth of July. Every time the audience did that I would wonder if they knew that it was really just a cartoon. I’m guessing one in four did. I hope. I’ve met people that try to do these Ki strikes. It’s pretty fun when they pull that nonsense and nothing happens. They look so sad that their Ki wasn’t strong enough. Maybe they need to learn more Japanese and eat more raw salmon.
Anyway, the event was fun, and after the movie I was able to tell just who each of the crazies in the front row was supposed to be. And why they were carrying stuffed animals.
Remember to support local events like this, folks. Yeah, this time it’s Anime, but maybe next time it will be that new French film, and we all know what the French are like. Tune in next time for fewer catgirls and more cartoons.
