#random watch

  Judging by the Cover: This looks a Sailor Moon knockoff. But with train conductors that make me uncomfortable. But they can't be train conductors because there's a tank in the background!

Official Description: It stars three eight-year-old girls, Mao, Misora and Sylvia, as they try to defend the earth against invading aliens. The world's defense has fallen to unlikely straits because the aliens are excessively cute, of which combat engagements are televised: if the forces battling the aliens were not cute themselves, the general public would revolt, as it would be seen as "bullying". Consequently, three military leaders chose their granddaughters to be the defenders, fittingly, becoming a team even cuter than the aliens. [from wikipedia]

Thoughts:

v0xtheriot and I followed Doggy Poo with another pick out of the mystery box. We only watched one episode, a mercifully short 15-minute thing about some aliens trying to rob a museum or something.

I thought this one was kind of boring. Weirdly, this was pretty bloodless despite how cute and funny everything was supposed to be. It's like they skimped on background music for some reason. This apparently ran for 26 episodes in 2002, but looks like a relic from the early 90s because of this stiffness of the animation and lack of vibrancy to the colors. Very disappointing, considering there's a tank on the box cover.

Anyway, I have literally nothing to say about this because it was too short to get any sort of a reaction out of me. I will say that I'm really happy I was really close on judging this one by the cover for once! 

Judging by the Cover: Well, there's no way that's a doggy poo covered in snow. That must be a blurry pic of a white dog with a brown face.

Official Description: Once upon a time, a little doggy poo lived on the side of a road. He felt all alone in the world. He believed that nobody needed him for anything, and that he had no purpose in life.

Thoughts:

This was insanity.

Technically, this was not an anime, but it was included in v0xtheriot's mystery box (not a euphemism). It's a stop motion short film from  Korea, and holy crap. Obviously, it had the most interesting title of anything included in the box, so I'd been looking forward to this for awhile.

Life is full of disappointments. I could never have anticipated that a cartoon about dog shit would be so humorless, nor that anything so willfully strange could be so directly preachy.

The story is that Doggy Poo is, well, poo'd out by a dog. He quickly befriends a mound of soil from a nearby farm (who, by the by, looks like a pile of poop himself, and has potato bits or something that look like corn). Things quickly get philosophical, with Soil insisting that Poo has a purpose in life before being scooped up and taken to a farm to perform his purpose.

This runs only half an hour, but feels like forever Doggy Poo and the things he meets (Soil, a leaf, a super bitchy chicken, and finally a dandelion) is immobile, so there's very little animation. It's kind of quaint how it feels like a one-act play. Unfortunately, it's so slow, direct and obvious, it's not as much fun as its premise seems to promise. (It. is. a talking. dog shit pile. Why is it so, so sad?)

The story tries to play as weepy, but it really just feels ridiculous that a dog poo pile would be so existentially lost. Plus, even at 30 minutes, this feels a little long. There's padding, in showing seasons changing (does dog shit actually survive a full year?) and a couple of montages, plus some unnecessarily deep delving into the Soil's back story (I'm as serious as a doggy poo trying to find his place in the world).

But then, eventually Doggy Poo is absorbed by the Dandelion, and it looks like gentle facefucking. So maybe it was worth it.

Sticking with it? There's a pun here, I just know it. This is a standalone short, so there's nothing to stick with. But I do want to double feature this with The Happiness of the Katakuris sometime.

Watching on: Crunchyroll

First Impression: I am having trouble guessing what this is because I don't know what a "Gatchaman" is, and I don't know how a show can really be about crowds. Could it be an anime version of Tough Crowd?

Official Description: 

"Gatchaman" is the general term for warriors who wear special power suits called NOTE, which are manifestations of special spiritual powers possessed by living beings. The Gatchaman force on Earth consists of aliens who have been dispatched by a council and Earthlings who have been scouted for their latent abilities, all of whom work together to protect Earth's people and resources from alien criminals who have invaded the planet in violation of the probation enforced by the council. 

Thoughts: