Having a cable modem and a copy of BitTorrent can be too much of a good thing, especially if you're an anime fan. It's extra deliciously painful if you're on a DVDs by mail program. I haven't got the hard drive space or the money for it but I'm getting a lot of anime lately and its both painful and tasty.
My Anime series on DVD (by Blockbuster if you're curious) are currently the ones I didn't finish with when I had Netflix some time ago so I'm still catching up with Chobits and Hajime no Ippo (AKA Fighting Spirit.)
Chobits is one of those robot girlfriend shows that are so popular. The genre itself is rather creepy but Chobits doesn't object to a little hard sci-fi examination of the concept. It already deals with the problem of people becoming so attached to humanoid robots that they neglect other people, even their families. Actually, with the robots doubling as computers, the series is critical of our increasingly electronically isolated society but its subtle and not alarmist about this, thereby making its argument both palatable and more inviting to inspection. It doesn't hurt that Chobits is more concerned with pretty girls and embarrassing situations between men and women.
Hajime is a show that really hooks me because, despite the name and mainstream stereotypes of anime, its a boxing melodrama. No robogirls, no magic, no tentacles. Just a high school kid, Ippo, who discovers that he might be a boxing phenomenon. The show even steers clear of the cliches of typical fighting shows like the inexplicably popular Dragonball by having its fighters be mostly good natured people who deserve to win just as much as Ippo does. Ippo, of course, is going to be winning most of the time but that doesn't stop me from rooting on his opponents. The last episode I saw featured a respectfully characterized Black American character, Jason Ozuma, who wanted to make the tiny rural gym he represented proud. Naturally, I wanted Jason to win even though I knew the match would go to Ippo. Still the fighting was exciting, probably more so than real boxing (But I never watch sports so what do I know?)
There's a lot of anime available on the internet as well. I'm not a copyright slave but I don't want to download things if I can buy or rent them legally so with anime I stick to shows that aren't yet liscensed stateside. A.Scarywater.net, linked below, is a good resource of fresh, subtitled, unliscensed anime and related movies and videos. All of the files accessed using BitTorrent so learn about it before downloading.
There are tons of different shows I've peeked at lately, most of which didn't interest me enough to pursue more than one episode, but one has caught my eye. I downloaded a copy of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on name alone. I thought "Oh, a downbeat 'My So-Called Life' series." It's nothing like that but it does involve high schoolers. Instead it's a wacky sci-fi comedy that makes its mark in two ways. First, its not being shown in chronological order. Second, the first episode invovles a student film that gives the background of the non-normal characters' powers and origins without actually telling us that they actually have any special origins. It's not until the very end of the episode that we realize that the program really is a science fiction show and only in the last minute do we meet the title character. The show is STRANGE but in a way that separates it from the other anime series that debuted this spring.
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