The Weekly Orbit is a weekly(-ish) column collecting and refining my more casual anime- and manga-related thoughts from the previous week. Mostly, these are taken from my tumblr blog, and assume familiarity with the works covered. Be wary of spoilers!
So, just to be very honest dear readers, this one was a struggle to get finished. I think I’m in the middle of a depressive period again and, without getting too into it, getting this together at all was pretty tough. I hope you can forgive the relative lack of images once again this week. (I couldn’t even do a banner image this time, as something is wrong with WordPress’s image processor at the moment, seemingly? Sigh.) I’m not sure if I’ll be back to do this again next week or not.
Ave Mujica – Episode 9
In this past week’s episode of everyone’s favorite fun time girl’s band party, Uika thinks about murdering her former coworker. Ain’t it nice?
At this point, I’ve sort of run out of things to say about individual episodes of Ave Mujica beyond doubling back on praise I’ve already given it. The only issue with a show like this is that saying the same things about it over and over can get a bit dry: nonetheless, I will say that the psychodrama is on point as ever this week. Uika returns, gaining some actual focus for the first time in quite a while. This pays off magnificently since, well, yeah, she does in fact get a pointed intrusive thought about throwing Mutsumi down the stairs when the two meet for the first time since Ave Mujica’s breakup. If you’re worried about Mutsumi’s safety though, you should really be keeping more of an eye on Mortis, who accidentally “kills” her in headspace this episode. (She’s probably fine. Probably. Ignore that Mortis spends the rest of the episode pretending to be Mutsumi.)
The real highlight for me is actually the final scene of the episode, where, for the first time, every single member of MyGO and AveMuji have gathered in the same place: Livehouse RiNG, naturally. This feels like an absolute tempest waiting to happen, and Nyamu gets the final word of the episode in with a visceral reaction of disgust. Not an inappropriate response to “Mutsumi” (actually Mortis) bending to Umiri’s plan to get Ave Mujica back together. When part of your show’s central narrative has been compared by its director to a “double suicide,” you have to account for these things. Next episode looks like it will be even worse. (And thus even better.) What can I possibly say at this point? It’s simply great.
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX – Episodes 1-3*
The ridiculously-titled GQuuuuuuX is set to celebrate Gundam’s 45th anniversary when it premieres in April, but, as is common these days, the first three episodes have been stitched together and released as a theatrical film ahead of time to build hype for the series’ premiere. I happened to have the opportunity to go see this movie—a subtitled release, no less—in theaters here in Chicago. (I went with my girlfriend and we had a lovely time. Hi, CC!)
There are obvious disadvantages to the three-episodes-as-a-movie structure, but for the most part they’re not really a huge problem with the GQuuuuuuX film. But it is notable that the first third thereof is pretty different from the rest. The opening act is a broad-strokes, impressionist what-if of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, in which behelmeted antagonist Char Aznable [Shin Yuuki] steals (this continuity’s version of) the original Gundam before Amuro ever so much as shows up. From there, the entire One Year War that makes up the original series’ plot goes wildly differently, and this culminates with Char’s mysterious disappearance at the end of the first act. Evidently flung through time, Samurai Jack-style, after a plan goes awry and he’s confronted with Some Newtype Bullshit.
I’ll admit, as someone who’s very much a Gundam neophyte, the first act here was a little bit of a tough sell. It’s excellently-directed, and the faux-retro look works shockingly well, but from what comparatively little I’ve seen of 0079 I was not super attached to Char, so him being the viewpoint character for most of the film’s buildup did not immediately excite me even if I can recognize that it was well done. Instead, it is the remainder of the film that most interests me. GQuuuuuuX here pulls off the impressive trick of drawing a direct line through the original Gundam, through the “Daicon Spirit” school of anime—that’s the zeitgeist of Gainax and her stylistic descendants, if you need a refresher—up to the present day. The most surprising thing about this is that it’s not more common: a full-color illustration that “real robot” and “super robot” are just points on a graph, it’s what you draw between them that matters.
Once we leave the original 0079 setting behind, we set off for something that is decidedly this show’s own thing, and the obvious ambition on display here clicks into place. Izuna is a burned-out space colony patrolled by Zaku in police deco, and there’s a theme of class warfare run through the whole thing. Our main characters are a schoolgirl, Yuzuriha “Machu” Amate [Kurosawa Tomoyo], driven and curious, who is eventually drawn into a world of underground mecha fighting and hijacks a Zeon test unit, the titular GQuuuuuuX. a “courier” (read: smuggler) she falls in with, Nyaan [Ishikawa Yui], her tie to that world. Joining them for the movie’s final act is Itou Shuji [Tsuchiya Shinba], a graffiti artist who’s somehow come into possession of what used to be Char’s Gundam. The movie only just came out, so I don’t want to spoil too much beyond what I already have, so instead, I’ll just say that the presentation and atmosphere here is absolutely fantastic. Especially with regard to the action, you can really tell that the Diebuster guy [Tsurumaki Kazuya] is directing this.
Manga
Destroy It All & Love Me in Hell – Chapters 1-19
The girl band golden age has coincided with toxic yuri as a subgenre—or strain, or whatever you want to call it—of girls’ love media gaining about as much attention as it ever has. This, I feel, cannot possibly be a coincidence. While the girl band characters use their medium to entangle themselves in each others’ neuroses and, hopefully at least, eventually come to some kind of resolution, the toxic yuri manga needs no such pretense and no such happy ending.
A year and a half ago, I talked about the then-seven chapters of Destroy It All & Love Me in Hell, explaining the general idea and appeal of toxic romance as I did so. My opinion has more or less not changed now that I’ve caught back up with it quite some time later. I am really just in awe of how compelling this series makes two girls ruining each others’ lives. Since that initial post, Kokoro has gone off the deep end as well, becoming obsessive to the point of forcing herself on Kurumi at one point. We’ve also met a new character, a hanger-on of Naoi’s who is enough of a masochist that she resorts to trying to bribe the girl into treating her badly. All this to say, it’s as toxic as it’s ever been. This is really more of a PSA than anything else: yes, if you want to read the girlies despairing, it has remained very good at delivering that. There’s also something to be said, though, about Kurumi’s quest to live free of expectations, and how every step she’s taken, seemingly toward that goal, has ended her right back where she started. I may review this manga when it finally finishes, whenever that will be, since I’m very interested in how this story ends.
That’s about all for this week. As always, I ask that you make a contribution if you enjoyed this column and are able to do so.
In lieu of the usual Bonus Image, have two, taken from this unofficial translation of an event from the BanG Dream! game, where Tomori says that Taki reminds her of a coffee bean. It is cute enough that I may die.
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