So I fired up HiDive (and a VPN, since pretty much all I seem to be allowed to watch in France is VOTOMS) and actually did some anime watching.
Hakumei & Mikochi: Episodes 1-4 rewatch(?)
I can't remember where I got up to with this before, so I started again. What a lovely little series this is. The kind of relaxing slice-of-life I can really appreciate, reminding people how joyful and comforting the simple pleasures of life and nature can be. Which is not so much the case when it comes to...
The Life of Budori Gusuko or Blue Cat Stares into the Middle Distance for Two Hours II
I'm not exactly sure what the message of this was supposed to be, presumably that humanity can leave nature alone and remain at its uncaring mercy, or we can try and prevent it from killing us but wreck the natural balance in the process so we're screwed either way. In the early stages I thought it was a commentary on industrialisation and thinking we know better than nature despite its cruelty, but given that Budori found his place in the world with people who unnaturally meddle in natural processes and his final choice was
to willfully cause global warming, thereby pretty much assuring he will not only perpetuate but probably even worsen the extreme weather cycles he is trying to prevent, the "happy ending" rings pretty hollow.
Also what was with the melodrama of them having no firewood? The famine I understand, but they lived right on the edge of a forest. The town's major industry appeared to be s*dding timber and his father was a lumberjack, how the hell did they not have any wood? Could they quite literally not see the forest for the trees?
Plot aside, it did have some very nice visuals, at least as long as they remained 2D. The continued terrible implementaion into 2D anime of poorly integrated 3D models (that look like they've just had standard materials applied instead of, y'know, trying to actually make them fit into the art style at all) makes me want to go to Japan and produce CGI for the anime industry, because I'm fairly confident I could actually do a better job. And I was always glad to see the
death/god cat because he actually had an expressive face, unlike Budori's vacant stare.
I've seen a few episodes of this iteration before, but remembered very little about it, beyond the fact that it's lighter in tone than other versions, being almost more like a sitcom.
Much as I do appreciate the obviously higher budgets and better animation quality of the OVAs and movies, for me Patlabor on TV is what really made me fall in love with the characters. They have so much more time over its longer course to interact and give you a better sense of their personalities and relationships (plus the music, as you've already pointed out, is awesome). I couldn't handle the dub. No Ohbayashi? No Toshio Furukawa? But especially no
Yoshiko Sakakibara? No deal.
