January 22, 2008 – Mostly Harmless

Ayase Asuna in a bad mood

I started watching Shigofumi. The idea here is that after people die they have an opportunity to write one letter to one person. Fumika’s job is to deliver that letter which she does dispassionately.

In the first episode Fumika was to deliver a letter from Ayase Asuna’s late father to her boyfriend. Fumika finds Shouta who is not Ayase’s boyfriend and the whole episode revolves around Shouta. He wants to receive the letter and become the boyfriend by completing a rocket he was working on for her.

Late in the episode it turns out the letter says Ayase killed her father. Shouta refuses to believe it and gets killed by her for discovering her secret. See picture above.

In episode 2 we find out that the father had really, really deserved to be killed. Now that Shouta is dead he sends her a letter in which he apologizes. He’s sorry he missed what was going on in her life and that he was not able to help her.

The animation is not bad and the episodes keep moving but the subject matter is odd. It’s like the show is trying to be cute with drama.

Rudy can smile The New York Times has a good article on Rudy Guiliani which highlights many of his bad temper abuses. It’s a little long but some of the examples I had forgotten about. I like the photo from the article, it shows a “lighter” side of the presidential candidate.

I think the Rudy 2008 campaign is beginning to realize that his tough guy 9/11 hero bit is not going to get him delegates. Lately his stumping in Florida is lacking his 9/11 rhetoric and his latest ad does not even use the word “terrorism”.

When Rudy was mayor he did improve things but he did so without any class. It was a “my way of the highway” but it was needlessly mean spirited and he became a real bully. From petty arguing with radio show callers to slandering a victim of a police shooting, he made it clear that he wanted to be a mean SOB.

Rudy was tolerated because he did get things done and the city was a mess. But previous mayors proved that you could work with people and still get work done. Ed Koch was quite a character but he was effective. David Dinkins made lots of mistakes but he did have class.

I can’t imagine Rudy as president. We’d have a bigger melt down than we have with President Bush. The Bush Cheney administration is petty, no-bid, ignores disagreement (on good days), and has a demonstrable contempt for the law. President Rudy would trump that; President Bush is sadly not too bright. But he’s not really mean or a bully.

What an image, the school yard bully having his finger on top of the button to launch the missiles.

Day: January 22, 2008 (page 1 of 1)

Shigofumi is one weird anime

That’s the Rudy NYC remembers

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Search

Jan Dembowski

Personal Links