04.08.2010 - Terrence Marks:

So what happened? Internet outage. When I write about it, it's angry and not very funny. Maybe I'll explain more later. But I was going through some fansubbed anime this morning, killing time before Verizon showed up. I realize that some of it will be to my liking and most of it won't, so I put it on double-speed. I read fast enough and I may as well get the bad ones out of the way quickly.

And I come across a most unusual one. It started out normal enough; three sisters doing unremarkably domestic things.

Then it got weird.
Two of them are trying to decide what to cook and they say...
"Let go of me!
I've lied to you
I don't care what you say, the world
I saw a student kissing a teacher today
And in other news...
the loincloth festival has begun today.
attendance is expected to be high"

Now, you're thinking: in context, it probably makes sense.

You're wrong. It comes out of nowhere, without any relation to the onscreen action or previous dialogue.

Also: the loincloth festival is real. But that's another story that you don't have to know right now.

As I was saying, maybe they're quoting some anime that I haven't heard of. Maybe it's a really important scene that everyone in Japan - or at least in their target audience - would recognize. If we're talking about banking and I say that Old Man Potter wants to shut down the savings & loan, you know what I mean if you've seen It's A Wonderful Life. Otherwise, I'm talking nonsense.

They talk a bit more, start cooking, squabble over what to make and who should make it, and five minutes later they repeat it again:

"Let go of me!
I've lied to you
I don't care what you say, the world
I saw a student kissing a teacher today
And in other news...
the loincloth festival has begun today.
attendance is expected to be high"

Is one of them quoting that bit of surrealism back at the other? Does that exchange mean something profound that I don't get?

Anyhow, they eat. There's a commercial break. The third sister is home and they're all watching a TV program; a teacher kisses a student. She says "Let go of me"
He replies "I've lied to you. I don't care what you say, the world". The younger sister says she saw a student kissing a teacher today.

One of the sisters changes the channel. "And in other news," the reporter says, "the loincloth festival has begun today. Attendance is expected to be high".

And it all ties together. Why were they quoting tonight's newscast before it airs? That's a pretty good hook, isn't it? It went from surreal to mysterious. Three ordinary sisters, doing ordinary domestic things, who had become unstuck in time. They don't go on adventures. They don't save the world. They don't solve mysteries or hunt criminals of the past. It's like Lucky Star (without the anime references) meets Dr. Who (without the bad guys and monsters). Or Seinfeld (without the jokes) meets Slaughterhouse Five (without, umm, well, anything that actually shows up in Slaughterhouse Five)

It felt like The King In Yellow - the first act was very banal and a bit confusing, but it's just setting you up so the horror of the second act can really blow your mind.

So I go back and watch the last scene at normal speed to see if they quote it exactly: it's not there. Just the discussion about pancakes. I go back to the first quoting: not there either. They're just talking about getting food delivered.

The series was suddenly a lot less interesting. I think that the subtitles ran faster than the visuals since I was watching at double-speed. Why did it do that? Yeah, that's a good question, but a lot less compelling.

PS. Dear Japan: Could you please make an anime like the one I thought I was watching? It'd be really awesome. Honest. Thank you