The Garden of Discordia

Been busy, mood also went up and down.

But if you hit Berlin and speak German, I encourage you to see "Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder" in the Berliner Ensemble.

I never thought a play carried, mostly, by a little old lady and an actress playing her mute daughter could become something so powerful. It started out a bit slow, but after 2-3 scenes, Mother Courage's presence filled the stage and I was truly gripped by the play. Really liked the costuming etc choices they'd made for this play!

Fandom is apparantly discovering ice-hockey recently. Mainly the NHL if I understand correctly.

This is such a weird concept to me. I've been trying to avoid hockey and football for most of my life, and yet, both sports are everywhere. It's literally like trying not to breath, to grow up in a lower-middle class area in Sweden and not get hockey and football shoved into your face at least once every other year.

Trying to watch Sailor Moon sometime in 1995-ish: Every third ep is cancelled/moved due to hockey games and yet you KEEP ON WATCHING because sometimes it comes on after they finish.

Sport staples in school: Indoor bandy, football, "brännboll", swimming and ice-skating. All the guys have hockey skates, some of the girls too, and every one of those people skate much better (and more violently) than I did.
I did use to play a mean game of bandy, though.

Headlines every time a World Cup rolls around: OMG FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL HOCKEY It's a snake, a snaaaake. You kind of have to stop taking public transport, watch TV or read newspapers to avoid

Hearing sudden shrieks of joy/screams of rage from the neighbours: Sweden just scored against Brazil or Finland, lol/lost epically

Hockey. How can you be fannish about ice-hockey? I mean, it's like being fannish about plumbing or something. It just is

Trying to write something. It's not working, so I thought I'd blog.

/procrastination ahoy/

Yesterday I went with a friend to see Die Mausefalle, the Berliner Kriminal Theater version of Agatha Christies über-classic The Mouse Trap. Because I am a Christie n00b and also never remember the plot of crime stories unless I read them like twenty times, I was totally surprised by the ending.

It was fun to go and the theatre was very nice; small intimate room, we sat at the very last row and I still had no problem making out the character's facial expressions. I think it might be some kind of old factory building or something, because there was a lot of naked steel and high roofs in there, which worked very well with the classical red theatre curtain.

The acting wasn't overwhelmingly great but solid enough. Otoh Christie doesn't really write characters as much as types. And it was nice, a cosy evening with a good play and some really funny moments.

Also easy to understand even if your German isn't overwhelmingly good, so it's definitely a theatre I'd recommend to visitors who want to take part of a bit of Berliner culture but aren't certain if they can follow a play. And really, the 19 € places are absolutely spiffy (just don't sit too much in the middle, the pillar will be in the way).

Wouldn't mind going back and seeing perhaps a German crime play, or Arsenic and Old Lace.

How do you like my new (DW) icon? ^^

- Sanji comes off really well in the Little Garden arc. Zoro comes off as out of his freakin' mind, but what else is new... Usopp! Usopp is so adorable here ^______^ He's met his idols and I think he really learns something from them. I know many Usopp-fans think he's got among the best character developments of the entire gang, and in many ways they are right. Because Usopp's dream isn't to become the best of anything, just to become Good and dare to follow his dreams, his process of maturing is more realistic. I mean, for being One Piece...

- As we leave Little Garden, Zoro is grumbling about his lack of strenght. This is important I think (not only for the must-cut-iron foreshadowing), because it's the start of his dissatisfaction with himself imo. I mean, I know he got his ass kicked by Mihawk, but even Zoro seems to admit that Mihawk is truly beyond him. He wants to catch up, but he's not feeling that he himself is a failure by losing to the worlds strongest man, so to speak. However, he promised Luffy he wouldn't lose again - in Zoro's eyes, I think that while it is marginally acceptable to lose (temporarily) to the Best Guy Ever, anything more means he has completely and utterly failed. Mr. 3 could catch him and he became helpless; even if Mr. 3 doesn't fight with swords, that's too much of a weakness for Zoro.
He's seeing the world and realizing what the scale of strenght really is in the Grand Line, but for now, his only way to tackle this is by a rather negative way of thinking. "I'm bad, gotta become stronger for strenghts own sake".

- Hmm, idk, but if anyone can become ill from the variable weather on the Grand Line, "even the strongest warrior", how come it's never been a question before or after Nami's illness? Hmpf. Glad that Vivi notices her amazing navigational skills, though! The other Strawhats are all too clueless for this, so it's good that someone can see such things only not when they're the Golden Lion Shiki

- Okay, Zoro as a lookout I can buy you gotta use him for something after all but asking him to keep an eye on the Log Pose? Nami met him and Luffy way back in East Blue, she has to know what a pair of idiots they are.

- I completely forgot who Wapol was. He showed up halfway recently in a cover story, and I had to go look him up on the Wiki. Too durned many characters, One Piece, too many by half.
AND HE'S CHEWING ON THE MERRY THE BASTARD KILL'IM!!

- I love the bit where all the Strawhats are sleeping on the floor in ill!Nami's room. Aw so sweet ^^ And then we get another extremely cute scene with Luffy and Zoro keeping watch of Nami and Luffy's sooooo excited about the new island but can't abandon nakama omg island~

- Vivi teaches the Strawhats and Luffy, that sometime you can't fight your way through things. It's an interesting scene, because it's rare that any of them do a formal bow (especially for Luffy), but it happens once or twice in important scenes later on too. Vivi leaves her mark on the Strawhats and they remember what she's shown them about leading.

- Ah, Zoro's scarred feet. You know, I always figured that his scars were due to "rule of cool", but it actually seems as if there is a consistant logic to them. The big wound on his chest was first sewn up by Usopp and Johnny, then torn open by Arlong. The doctor in Nami's village even has a freakout at how badly it's been grafted together. The scars on Zoro's foot look as if he's sealed them himself, perhaps with some help from Usopp and Sanji (or whomever). We just got shown that the only one with even the vaguest sense of medical skills is Nami, so no wonder they get the snazzy Frankenstein's seam look. Same with the timeskip scar - Zoro was away from Chopper and I would guess neither of the people who were there with him had any major skills in how to treat wounds.

- This is getting really long & I gotta do other stuff today (why?). But I'll finish with saying that Dr. Kureha is totally cool. Belly-button pierced old ladies, rock on!

Watched the fifth One Piece movie, The Curse Of The Sacred Sword, because it was about a cursed sword and Zoro.

Not really worth all the effort I had to go through to download the darned thing. For one, the animation is pretty bad, the female lead is such a wishy-washy meh character and the plot is full of characterization errors.

( Review, relatively spoiler free )

But I've also been re-reading the One Piece manga! And that gave a lot more ^_^

DM's unorganized One Piece re-read: From the beginning towards Little Garden
I have a feeling that I need to "clean up" my impressions of One Piece as compared to all the fanon one gets clogged down with, so I thought I'd go back to the beginning and see what happens, now that we're entering the New World. Also, school holidays and it's bloody hard to download anime here, why not re-read One Piece?

- Zoro and Luffy express an interest in fishing between Whiskey Peak and Little Garden. They're still wildly enthusiastic about this hobby two in-series years and half a world later. I go "awww".

- I remember that I found Usopp's introduction, and the Black Cat pirates pretty boring. I like Usopp better this time round, but the fights d-r-a-g. Might be because only the Captain is there for a reason, and that reason is that he's giving up on the pirate dream. Heck, cowardly and greedy old Buggy has more dreams than that! Compared to the fights against Don Krieg (which, admittedly, I skipped some pages of) and Arlong, there's also far too much effort spent on quirky mini-bosses who don't really interest me and don't even fight in a fun way.

- Sanji and Zoro don't really argue at first, until Zoro "insults" Nami. And in the manga at least, they're not even fighting that much at the beginning of the Grand Line. I get the image they don't interact all that much yet - whiich changes pretty rapidly once Zoro drops a line about being a better hunter than Sanji. Poof, rivalry is born.

It's quite interesting to see this too, because it's such a thing (especially in fandom) that you kind of don't remember how it started or who does what, only that it exists. Both cases seem to be a bit of Zoro being thoughtlessly rude (he ttly is, loads of time. Mostly at the start/end of fights, but in general as well), Sanji taking offence, then it leads to aimed insults. After a while, they're both much more quick to take offence but here at the start, the fights are clearly escalating step-by-step.

- I forgot how cool a character design Bellemere had *starry eyed gaze at ex-soldier punk mom* Also, Nami's background is so sad ;_____;

- A lot of Luffy's silent rages, "weird instincts" and so on that we see here (and which sometimes confused people, including me, since he was so silly otherwise) make oodles of sense once you have the childhood flashback backstory.

- "A hero only dies once, a coward dies a thousand times". Or he overcomes his fears ten thousand times...
I had completely forgotten Usopp's stand against the kissy-faced fishman in the Arlong arc, but it's actually a really nice scene, despite a pretty boring enemy. Usopp wavers back and forth a lot, but when it matters, he's there for his friends. This is the first times Usopp goes back to take it up with a scary opponent solely for the sake of the crew. Well done!

Then a bit of opinon.
I've seen, on TVtropes and elsewhere, that people claim that Zoro gets more grumpy as the series processes. True, he's openly laughing more often back in East Blue, in the very first chapters, but that seems to cut down already by Usopp's island and almost feels like Oda getting a handle on his characterization.

There's also a distinct lessening of freak-outs, from Zoro but I think Sanji too. When they try to enter the Grand Line, everyone goes completely OMGHOHSHIT!!! with huge cartoony eyes and whatnot. There are still such moments later, but Zoro rarely participates (Robin, never). And Sanji, while more easily flustered, doesn't end up in the same amount of panic over unforseen wheather and weirdness either.

Part of it is simply that they've gotten used to weird stuff, but part of it is also how they react in crowds, I think. Will keep an eye on this later.

But, my point was mostly, is that it's not true that Zoro's lack of happy faces directly connects to his defeat at the hands of Mihawk. As I said, he's doing the whole open-mouthed laugh a lot less once they've picked up Usopp already.
In Logue Town, he's getting a new cursed katana = Happy Zoro (they're all really happy in this town, aw so cute~). And then there's the Whiskey Peak fight, where he's clearly internally doing the manly version of "squee! fighting mooks with my new swords! yay fun!"
In retrospect, I really like this scene because it shows how much Zoro enjoys swordfighting. The Strawhats are usually up against such odds that it's hard to judge how much they enjoy their various martial styles, but here, it's obvious that Zoro really likes it. It's like when Sanji gets to cook that elephant tuna shortly before, he's in his element and he's apparantly having fun with this new, interesting thing :)

My theory is that Zoro's gotten more mellow after the timeskip, more balanced, although he's if anything even ruder and rougher... but I really can't remember all of this massive amount of canon to judge that, nor can I really remember how Usopp developes through the series (which are basically the two things I'm most curious about), so, back to the basics it is!

I also want to see all the leads and little details that Oda drew some eight years ago (there's a mention in something like book ten, omfg, about how One Piece has been going for two years. Ancient History, dude), which leads to my next point...

OMG! Such an early mention of Jimbei and Fishman Island! And it's Zoro's bounty-hunter pal who knows something about it!! Hm, Mihawk's words about Zoro being almost frighteningly ignorant about the big world make a lot of sense. Luffy at least seems to have made a consciouss choice in this direction: he doesn't give a damn. Zoro is just clueless.

Hacchan also talks about being the second-strongest Fishman swordsman and, indeed, that was picked up recently. Heh, you can really see how the plot has expanding on Oda while writing. The beginning of One Piece ties to tightly to the 'geographical middle' of things, which we've just left, where a lot of slightly later stuff feels much more side-questy.
I knew there would be parallels between the East Blue beginning and the "second Romance Dawn", but I had no idea there would be THIS many.

It also explains a lot of things about Arlong. ( Cut for Fishman Island spoilers )

- Whoa, Luffy, you broke the mast off Merry to deal with Laboon? No wonder the poor thing is in such a bad shape if that's how you handle her... No, but it becomes sadly clear very early on that poor little Merry isn't made to handle the Grand Line. (Never have I felt so much for an inanimate vehicle ;_; Oda you bastard)

- I totally forgot that Mihawk and Shanks have had some kind of alteration in the past. Huh, wonder what that's about! Actually, with this and the later big fight and the whole training thing, Mihawk is totally acting like a (semi-willing) mentor to the Strawhats. It makes me curious about his motivations, because this really goes against his Icy Cool I Don't Give A Damn persona.

There are so many amazing shows, plays, concerts and events in Berlin. If I had the money and the time, I could go out every night and enjoy something, and I think I could spend more than a year doing that without ever having to repeat myself.

Now, I have neither the time nor wallet to be able to do quite so much, but I told myself that I would try to catch at least some of what this city has to offer and I'm working on it. Even when I have exams....

Okay, I hadn't exactly planned to do so much during my exams, but when two friends (one of whom I hadn't seen for at least half a year) turn up during the weekend right between two exams, what are you to do? Well, I made sure to study extra much the week before and spent time with them, walking through an icy Berlin the first day, and then hiding in various museums the second day. I absolutely need to go back to the Neue Museum btw, we just had time to rush in, admire the Nefertiti Bust and peek at the Egyptian department - I think I could spend an entire day in there though, so much cool ancient things!

Anyway, while B-san and T-san had tickets to B2ST, I as it happened had booked (something like three days before they told me they were coming) tickets to Brecht's Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) and, well, ain't missing that for no exams!

It was A-MAZING. I managed to fuddle up things with the tickets just before we split up, so I had a load of stress getting there, but once I was inside, it took only a short time before I got into the flow of things.

This was a very cool, distanced rendering of the play, with mime-like make-up on the actors and extremely few props. Now, this is a style of theatre that is quite popular in Stockholm (in my, admittedly, limited experience) and for many plays and operas *cough*Wagner*cough*DonJuan*cough* it just doesn't work very well. It all tips over into uncomfortable sillyness and, depending on what kind of plot it has, sometimes it also gets too confusing to follow.

It's a bit different with Brecht, of course. This is what Dramaten seems to aim at and don't always hit.

Fluorescent tubes in front of a sometimes completely black stage, white faces in velvet jackets and and a androgynous Mack the Knife, with hints of both Marlene Dietrich and the Joker, against the wonderfully grotesque-clownish Peachums don't hinder the Threepenny Opera, but make the absurdity into a rather elegant joke. I've read several reviews of the play in German magazines, and some feel that this too cool, too stylish version has lost the political edge, but I dunno... It was all so peeled off, so bare, that the actors had to carry it almost entirely on their own, and they did so with a captivating and sometimes biting disdain for the issues of poverty, justice and fairness.

So that's what I did when I should've been studying. Don't regret a second :P

Tonight (which is actually after the exams, so go my planning skillz) I went with my landlady to see Philippe Jaroussky, a countertenor who was singing French pieces in the Chamber Music Hall by Potsdamer Platz.

Lovely. The songs were often very delicate and elegant, though some of them - especially at the end, he really relaxed during the extra numbers - were also very lively.
In the first half we unfortunately realized that our places weren't very good, since we were high up and just behind him, so the acoustics got a bit murky. The small size of the room and the amphitheatre shape, did however make it feel quite intimate.
After the break, we moved down (snagging the places left when two ladies moved even further down, heh) and then things really took off! I've got next to no knowledge about classical music, but there was something quite otherworldly about how his thrilled above the accompanying piano.

When we walked out, it felt as if I left several kilos of pure stress behind ^_^ Absolutely a treat that I received just at the right time

Afterwards, we walked round Potsdamer Platz and Eva showed me how the Berlinale works. Might go there tomorrow after school and see if I can catch something...

So Berlin's got a cold snap. Fine, I'm Swedish, I should be used to it right? Apparantly nobody told my skin that. Despite careful usage of moisturiyer on face and hands, I've gotten weird "scaly" spots next to my eyes. Not very visible )yet *sob* but they are dry, itchy and just feel weirsd. I am not supposed to have scales, yo. And my skin, which is finicky in the best of weathers, is not supposed to go weird on my face dammit!!

If anyone has suggestions, do feel free to share...

That I spent yesterday taking a three hour walk through Berlin, to show B-san and T-san the city since they had come visit me (and see Beast, the korean pop-band), probably didn't improve things...

Due to freezing-our-noses-off yesterday - especially when we went to an Asian Restaurant in the evening, it was so bloody cold omg, we decided to give the touring Berlin thing a bit of a break. Thus, today was mostly spent indoors: first at a nice big Sunday breakfast. Then, stuffed full with bread, ham and fruit, we went to the Musikinstrumenten Musem. B-san is interested in classical music, T-san recently did a bit of studies in the area and I'm a curius-about-everything music!n00b, so it was quite a pleasant visit. I feel that they could have put up some more signs talking about the history and make of the instruments, but the collection looked nice and in the audio guide, we could hear many samples of the exhibition pieces. Very nice, the latter really lifted the visit to something else!

Since a student ticket is a measly 2 euro and the café was also cheap, I can absolutely recommend everyone with a bit of an interest in music, instruments and historical items a visit. The museum is right next to the Berliner Philharmonie at Potsdamer Platz, and the building in itself is worth a look too.

And after faaaaar to many years, I am going back to Animagic the (afaik) largest anime con in Germany. It'll be the very last thing I do here, since the con runs 27th-29th of July, and I have to be back at work the first of August. Not too shabby a way to say ~auf wiedersehen, Deutschland ^___^

And I'll be joined by setsuna_jiba, whoooo \o/
My last Animagic (which was, what, in 2004? They were still in Koblenz at the time) I was mostly alone, since my German friends were working as staffers. Still had a lot of fun with the shows and the cosplay contest etc, but having another crazy fangirl as company is always better. And Set-chan is crazy in the very best way ♥ ♥

We're also planning to cosplay, aw yeah!
    ...soooo does anyone know where you can use a sewing-machine in Berlin? Preferably for little money? Yeah, no, didn't think so.

If anyon else lives in the area and wants to say hi, gimme a shout! We'll probably also have Thursday to look at Bonn, so if you know some nice spots, please rec them. I've got no idea about about... anything, regarding the city, really.

We had snow! It's not much left now, but the cold is definitely here. This means I really should get out and buy more warm sweaters (lost one during my Christmas vacation, one is frankly fugly from age and the other two get used a bit much) but since I hate shopping, I've so far only managed to grab yet another Die Ärzte sweater from the fan-merch store round the corner. Oh well, at least it looks warm and cosy.

Exam period is coming up, which means I need to do ALL THE STUDIES and I also have two presentations to do. Bohoo, stressy... That's one verbal exam, one written and two essays which I think (and hope, good lord) that I can hand in after the actual term is over.

To that, there is also the very last bit of the paperwork to extend my stay at Humboldt, but at least I'm guaranteed a place here now ^_^ But I had to print a paper, sign it, then I gotta scan it and send to the insurance person, then get a reply and lastly show that to the administration here. Uuuh...

Because I have so much to do and so little time I got a haircut. Not a complete waste of time, because it was getting messily long, and I was too tired to study more than the two hours I did today anyway. Now, no more haircuts until February has passed! If I can affordid then, however, I'll take the time to dye it in March.

And lastly, an anime blog I want to read in the future when I have time (hah): Karaconner. I need to catch up on the ANN editorials that I follow too and probably buy the latest volume of FMA. So much to read, so little time...

I've seen this movie like three times now, and I still haven't managed to review it. Wellp, I only bought the DVD once, so let's blather a bit about pirates in honor of my first fullprice anime purchase for years!

When it comes to One Piece, I have a very back-and-forth relationship to the manga (don't really watch the anime). First I read some eight volumes, and found it silly. Then lanjelin began rawing about it and after quite a while, I gave in and decided to give it another chance. When I could borrow the whole bunch from A-chan and A-kun (~50 books at the time) I discovered that I did actually like it, and that it took off and became much better after a while.

But there were still too many fighting fillers (god save me from One Miniboss vs. One Strawhat fights) and at times the story just drags. I'm also getting increasingly annoyed with Oda's designs for female characters, which have decidedly not been improving lately.

Very telling is how I've felt about the latest chapters. ( Extremely miniscule spoilers about the latest manga chapters )
It's not a long sequence, but it's absolutely lovely and like that it made me interested in keeping up with this insanely long shonen fighting series... idek, man, I think I'm just a sucker for Epicness.

Epicness being something that the sixth One Piece movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island does pretty well, though it doesn't reach the heights of the best manga chapters. Would be hard to, considering how those often build upon a long and ardorous journey.
This movie also has some really with funky animation - really, it looks nothing like anything else One Piece, but still captures the feel of the characters quite well - and a healthy dose of horror. You thought Thriller Bark was bad, you ain't seen nothing!

I've seen the tenth movie too and Youtubed a bit of one of the other ones, but honestly, they mostly feel like extra-long filler eps or summaries of previous arcs. This movie starts out a bit like that, as the Strawhats (just before Water Seven, I'd say) pick up spam a message in a bottle, advertizing a luxurious pirate resort on Omatsuri Island. Once they get there, however, they're challenged to a series of pirate tests.
Ho-hum, been there, done that and it was one of the most boring non-filler parts too... but hang, why does such a big resort (and it's huge and lushly animated, managing to look pretty good even six years later) have no other guests? And how come an island, marked with a flower on the sea chart, not contain one single blooming plant?

This is one part of where the movie does a good job, imo, as it let's the more naturally inquisitive characters discover things in a very organic fashion. We in the audience always know a bit more of what is going on than the Strawhats, but never more than that we realize that something is deeply off with the friendly Omatsuri island.

( Cut for spoilers for movie #6 )

The music didn't impress me that much; I've seen it mentioned positively in some reviews, but except for the memorable carnival piece played whenever Omatsuri reveals more of his Epic Resort, I honestly never noticed it. Which is perhaps a good thing in it's own way, because it certainly helped building the mood?

The cutting of the movie also impressed me. It's made like a collage of moments, where we switch POV's several times (thus breaking up the fight scenes huzzah), so that scenes layer over each other in a very thought-out way, that I'm certainly not used from TV animation. The director has also made Summer Wars (not seen) and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - the latter makes me think he should stick to material with a bit more oomph in it, because while TGWLTT also had a lot of fancy cutting, it felt a bit dull tbh.

So. That concludes my somewhat rambling (sorry) review. If you want to see this movie legally and do not speak German, though shit, cuz it's not released in the US, the UK or Sweden. Don't ask me why, it works as a One Piece film and it's actually a decent stand-alone anime movie too.

By the by, I listened to the very first scene with the German dub just for the lulz, and I can again conclude that German's dub anime miles better than Americans. Even if Ruffy's voice felt a bit off and Zoro's was too high-pitched, the acting part of VA just felt much more natural. Lovely packaging too, with slip-cover and a poster. Just wish they could've squeezed some extra material on the actual DVD. Oh well.

Like One Piece? Like scary anime? Like flat-style animation? See this movie ^_^