So, I wake up today and realize that it’s Dec 24th! Freak’n-A…

As many of you know, I make it a point to not do the stardard best wishes bull that goes along with owning a blog. We all know what time of year it is. We all know what’s going down today, or yesterday or the day before, depending on where you are. They’ve been drilling it into our skulls for over a month, now. It’s happy this and holiday that.

I’m just so damn tired of the commercialization of everything. “We know you love your family, but you have to show them by buying some really expensive crap that they didn’t really want anyway.” Sure, you could get your mother or father a card and wish them all the best in the comming year. But, you know what, the’ll just throw that card out when your sibling buys them a laptop.

Yeah, that’s right, you didn’t love your mom enough to buy her a new laptop, jackass. She only spent ten hours giving birth to you, you ungrateful child! Your father? He may have a shed full of tools that you’ve bought him over the years, that he does not use, but…a card…really?

I just can’t win. Well, whatever, Happy Winter Solstice 2009, late though it may be.

It took a while for me to place To Aru Kagaku no Railgun into the coveted “Best Show Ever” award slot. The thought had crossed my mind earlier, but I was reluctant to make the assignment (read: to lazy to write this post). Readers that haven’t thought me dead and moved onto bigger and better blogs might recall that another show, Toradora!, held the title previously. I feel it is important to note that this new awarding does not reflect badly on Toradora! or any future/previous holders of the “Best Show Ever” award.

One might wonder what would make this show stand apart from other noteworthy offerings. This season has offered another Kiddy Grade, Kempfer, 11eyes, among others. Why Railgun…aside from the fact that one of the characters is a cutie who can totally smash sh** with coins? Was it because another character is a perverted love obsessed lesbian with a pantsu fetish? Believe it or not, these were on the lower end of the reasoning behind why Railgun achieved this ranking, the “Best Show Ever” award.

No, the reasoning was far more distinct to this show. It made this show stand out. It was the defining quality argument for this series. In one word “hair accessories.” I know that’s two words, but it should be one word, like “hairaccessories” or “hairccessories.”

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Interestingly, Valkyria Chronicles would have taken this award last season for the same reason, if it were not for my reluctance to upset Toradora’s standing (read: too lazy again).

Long ago, in time long forgotten, there was an anime called Heroic Age.

Actually, it wasn’t all that long ago. It would be around two years or so. Of course, in aniblogger time, that might as well be Precambrian.  Bloggers tends to be a bunch that have a fixation on the current.  I tend to notice spikes of interest in certain shows garnering more attention, as measured in “hits” on certain blog posts over the course of time. They seem to be centered around loosely associated geographic areas. I find it interesting, because it either means that fansubs are awfully late for these languages/areas or people are watching domestic releases in their spheres. It’s probably a bit of both, but I lean more toward the domestic release on either DVD or media broadcast. In regard to the latter, I lean more toward television broadcast.  This pure conjecture on my part, though.

As of late, I’ve been watching more and more rented anime. Despite reports of the demise of the American anime distribution business, there are still plenty of releases every month. But the real gems have always been the economy boxsets.  Although, currently RighStuf and DeepDiscount both have the two Heroic Age boxsets selling for around the $40 USD price range, which isn’t really “economy” enough for my taste, being about average for a 26 epsiode series.

Well, that’s why I rented it.

This one still partakes in the occasional English dub. I find I enjoy not having to put as much effort into absorbing the story. But, beyond that, the most interesting part of this story was the links it had to Greek Mythology. After doing some research on wiki, I left this series with a greater respect for the plot.

How elements correlated and are ingrained with Hesiod’s Five Ages is of particular interest. The five ages, embodied by the five tribes in the story, are probably the most succinct example of blatant allusion that I’ve ever seen in anime, and I find it wonderful. I truely do enjoy a story that makes one guess and conjecture about the meaning behind the lines and symbolism, but sometimes just having it plainly layed out is fun too. This is especially true for a story that so heavily leans on a known subject matter.

That is not to say that the story is a one-to-one mapping of mythology, but the links are rather straight forward. The Gold/Golden Tribe are the height of existence and the more pure and knowledgeable, the Silver being next, Bronze being war like, Heroic being nearly gods, and the Iron tribe being newly born; they fight for existence and suffer for all they have.

The story turns out to be one of hope and achievement, but we already knew that was the case. Destiny played a supreme role in the plot of Heroic Age. Again, this is something to be expected.  The fact that the Iron tribe could only achieve their status through blessing of the Golden tribe is classical Greek mythos, which only strengthens the story, in my opinion.

Technically, this is a mecha anime, which will immediately turn off those who hate mecha anime. For that matter, the “mecha” are not really all that attractive. For instance, Bellcross spends the entire show with its mouth hanging open, seemingly unable to clench its teeth.  They howl and rage and break things. There is rarely any emotion other than fury. They are beast, in the most literal sense of the word. Maybe it was purposeful, as it is noted in the story that they were linked with other tribes to give them a sense of purpose or heart.

It was that kind of superfluous pandering to the belief that destiny favors the bold and love can conquer anything that infused the story. That’s beautiful.

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So, “Heroic Age” actually makes reference to two things: Hesiod’s Heroic Age and the main character Age, as in Age being heroic. Isn’t that great? That’s totally awesome. I love word play. Although, apparently, the age the story takes place in wouldn’t be the “Heroic Age,” because that was before humans or the Iron Age.

Apparently, Cal had a bit of a growth spurt during the time leap between  episode 19 and 20.  It looks more like a span of ten years rather than two. But, we are talking anime, here, where women of thirty years look twelve and those of sixteen look, well…older.

This Sin City movie poster was the image that immediately came to mind. I decided to make a rip-off (click for larger image).

So, this is where I’d put some caption on the image about Liang Ji really getting into the Wii. Seriously, she’s the freakin’ conductor of the crazy train.

Liang is such an insane character it’s hard not to like her. This is anime, so it is completely possible that they will work in some sympathetic story line for her that will justify all of her pure evilness. In all honesty, I really hope that isn’t the case. It would ruin her essence, her allure, her shining mental warped-ness that defines her.

Also, I seem to have started a perverse guessing game about when she will finally just kill Cummings (betting on ep 10, no real reason).

Like many others have stated, the show is worth watching on its production values alone. It’s a rather good work of animation. I can’t say that I find the story interesting at this point, but I find myself enjoying the characters. To that end, we all know that animation doesn’t necessarily a good anime make. Therefore, I’ll be waiting for something else to set this one apart. Six episodes in, they’re going to have to work for it, though.