Day 3 - In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

I'm a big fan of re-reading and re-watching, so this is actually kind of hard to narrow down. I've accumulated an /awful/ lot of favorites in forty-six years.

But let's take one that stands out a bit because it has a few things that would normally turn me off: Dantalian no Shoka.

Premise: there's a magical library of forbidden books that can twist causality, and this library is maintained (therein lies a tale) by three 'reading princesses', each of whom secures a human partner to assist her as her 'key keeper'. Many tales of their adventures ensue.

As for the things that are often my deal-breakers... First, this series has a significant dose of horror, and I'm not a fan of that. Second, it gets /awfully/ Gainax about the women. (Death. Doom. Mental dissolution.)

For me, the saving grace, and the hook that keeps me coming back, is that the horror isn't left dangling. It gets closure, and often justice of some kind, and the resolutions are sometimes quite thought-provoking. I like that. Then too, the men are often just as Gainaxed, and there's a really strong emphasis on consent, at least between the princesses and their key-keepers. I like how that plays out quite a lot.

Plus? It's just so pretty.

So, there's a new anime this season that I find myself ambivalent about.

It's got good production values. It has, so far, an episodic yet lively plot that manages to be interesting even with limited overall plot to tie it together. Most of the episodes are essentially horror, but so far psychological suspense outweighs disturbing gore. I don't like horror, and I'm still watching it anyway.

The thing is it's very... Gainax. There are lots of women! On the face of it they're independent-minded and powerful women! And yet... so many of them wind up helpless or destroyed.

It's not glaring. In fact, it's pretty subtle on the usual scale of these things. But this is the kind of show that feels like a technical Bechdel pass while violating the spirit of that litmus test.

And yet! Lots of women! Engaging characters! Really quite subtle drama and suspense! Very few characters who are hamming it up, and those are lampshaded for it! And, to be fair, the vast majority of the male characters are just as agency-less in the end.

*sighs*

( The premise... )

I have hopes that the yomihime will turn out to have their own agendas, and so far the horror is rarely past my "dark" threshold, so I'm still watching. We shall see.

In closing, Our (first) Hero is quiet and thoughtful and competent, and kind of unfairly hot, and Our (first) Heroine snarks a blue streak.

*sighs*