Void of Loneliness

Space travel fascinates many people, or at least mostly back in the 60s onwards. With this fascination comes many fictional tales of exploration, heroism, alliances and wars with extraterrestrials (if they exist) and so on. However, it seems that most people do not pay attention to the simple yet deeply disturbing burden a human must endure, travelling the great ocean of stars. Inevitably if we must travel a great distance in space, we will be thrown light years from our friends and family, perhaps never to see them again. How profound a thought this would be! It would not compare with traveling our earth; at least we would be standing on the same rock as they are.

My point is that with the expansion of space travel, humanity will be thrown across the bare reaches of space, communications taking many light years to travel from place to place (as Voices of a Distant Star puts much emphasis on) and one could call this time of expansion the 'Age of Loneliness'.

To the contrary on a brighter point, quantum physics has already established that particles are interconnected over as large a distance as you wish. So perhaps communications would remain instantaneous. And in the case of space travel...well maybe it is possible to enter hyperspace? We'll soon see. But is the majority of humanity always going to remain happy?

Robotech: The Macross Saga

Well well well. I never expected to be swept up by this series but somehow it leaves me wanting more. At first glance, Robotech looks like a typical mecha anime similar to Gundam Wing. The mecha turn into planes or even halfway into planes with legs. At first this made me chuckle a little. But the battles are actually quite a thrilling spectacle to watch and the transformation of the fighter jets into mecha does have a purpose.

In other aspects, I can draw similarities between this series and Neon Genesis Evangelion (Robotech may have even inspired the latter). One example is the tendency towards mass destruction... One explosion during the Robotech series was suspiciously very similar to that of an N2 bomb, its effects of gradually wearing through any building or material was animated in almost exactly the same way. Another parallel is the idea of giant mecha fighting in a city (frequent in NGE) and of course, the city in NGE is just like Macross; situated on an 'alien' site.

In any case, near the beginning of the series, I cringed a little at the tad bit too innocent blue haired Minmei and admittedly, I still feel annoyed to just listen to her talk or sing. At first a primary love interest, at the point I have reached in the series she sees little of Rick (the main character) and he begins to get closer to Lisa, an attractive strong woman. In the end, I'm guessing Rick will reunite and make Minmei his girlfriend which will be an annoyance as I prefer Lisa. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next as I move past the half way point of the series.

A Bowl Of Bolognaise/The Killing Machine

I made a mistake recently. It was a small one; nothing of concern; but it has some significance. It seems that while I was getting food from the fridge, I saw a bowl of bolognaise resting on top of it, left by a forgetful housemate. I don't understand it myself, but I only had one thought, thinking "He left it out. Silly." Something along the lines of that. Later on that night after failing to get to sleep, I made my way to the fridge to get a drink and once again saw the bowl. Upon seeing it, I suddenly realised that before, I had not even thought of putting it in the fridge for the sake of my housemate. I was so surprised by this, wondering how on earth it did not occur to me. In defense however, my mind was heavy with falling ill and the awareness of missing opportunities just an hour or so before. But it does show that you should keep your mind clear as you may only miss more opportunities if you dwell on the past.

In any case, I just watched an interesting martial arts film called 'The Killing Machine' based (loosely) on Doshin So's life; the founder of Shorinji Kempo. It was a wonderful film giving me much inspiration regarding the philosophy of Shorinji Kempo. The story was deeply moving and you feel much respect for Doshin So as a result. Nevertheless, it was absolutely fantastic to see my martial art being portrayed in a feature length movie (despite very peculiar camera shot techniques!).

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

At first glance, Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan looks like a typical anime geared towards young teenagers. Not my type of thing to watch. But I eventually discovered that it was perhaps geared more towards a mature audience, especially as Dokuro-chan likes to kill the main protagonist Sakura with a spiked mace, generally smashing the remains over the surrounding wall etc. Well the title is "Club to death angel Dokuro-chan" so I'm guessing there is a clue put in there somewhere. Not so much of a child friendly anime then? It is pretty amusing... if you can stand the high pitched chanting of a psychopath angel. The plot is quite simple, just like anime geared towards young teenagers wierdly enough. Boy likes girl. But three is a crowd as Dokuro-chan smashes boy all over wall with spiked mace. Dokuro-chan was sent to assassinate Sakura but for some reason actually didn't. Thats pretty much the plot. The humour is extremely random on occasions, especially when the boundaries of animation are broken and a couple of boys are magically transformed into a baboon and dog. In the second season, a face of an actual man is continually shown, nobody knowing who in the hell he is. Not a favourite anime but certainly worth watching for sheer stupidity and the delight of seeing a perverted little boy's brains being splattered in all general directions. Perverted? Well if Sakura invents technology in the future to stop girls aging, staying 12 forever; I think that counts as a bit perverted.