While my adult children are home over the summer, they've been perhaps inadvertently expanding my viewing selections. So I've apparently accidentally started both the Film Critic and TV Critic badges!
So far I've watched one new-to-me series, Space Force, as suggested by my Teen. My husband apparently watched some of this when it came out a few years ago, but it was a new discovery for us. We enjoyed the concept, and definitely appreciated the humour of the writing. Teen Astrophysicist-in-Training was also pleasantly surprised that the science which gets mentioned is mostly plausible - at least to some extent!
Yes, the writing is perhaps a bit inconsistent at times, but overall the show is a nice, easy watch with lots of gentle humour, interesting characters, and some consideration of complex relationships. There's also some good representation both in the cast and indeed the written characters - how often is aphantasia (lack of visual imagination) referred to in the mainstream media?
The downside for me is that cliffhangers at the end of episodes are just left hanging, and aren't properly resolved. Later episodes sometimes provide a partial explanation, but more often either just refer back, or (mostly) ignore the questions. It also feels as though something is missed in the storyline around Naird's wife - we know she's in prison, but so much more could have been done with this, either playing more with the secrecy around her crime, or something. It's just seemed strange that this situation was brought in, but there's very limited exploration of the opportunities it could present to the writers.
So for me it probably rates around 3.5-4 out of 5. I'd definitely watch a third season, but wouldn't rearrange things to be able to get to it quickly.
For something completely different, my best friend has recommended My Neighbour Totoro to me any number of times over many years, and I've never got around to watching it until now. I’m really not sure what to make of it! It’s definitely enjoyable, but also rather odd. Teen had forgotten the poorly-mum-in-hospital aspect, but fortunately that wasn’t difficult for us now! I understand that it's based on a traditional Japanese myth about tree spirits and their role in protecting children. I like the inventiveness and imagination of this film, but the non-human characters are rather unsettling to me. Totoro’s disconcerting smile, and the bizarre cat bus will take some getting over!
The young girls, Satsuki and Mei, are well portrayed, and although obviously slightly exaggerated are believable characters. Their dad, too, is realistic - caring for his children, struggling to balance their needs with his academic job and a sick wife. While the girls are somewhat over-the-top, with their generally high volume, high energy approach to life, they are sympathetic and do have a range of emotions and experiences.
Parts of the animation were beautifully detailed, but as is usual for anime (at least in my very limited experience), the characters are drawn in a much simpler style than the scenery, and I find the contrast quite jarring at times. And of course, not being a Japanese speaker at all, we had both subtitles and dubbed audio - the differences between the two scripts were fascinating and showed the decisions which translators have to make, especially when going between languages which work in such utterly different ways. Having both was actually helpful, providing a more rounded-out version of the dialogue.
So all in all, would I watch it again? I’m honestly not sure. Probably? I definitely wouldn’t avoid it, but it’s not at the top of my rewatch list.
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