School's In!XP

PUC's Entrance Gate

Hell yeah! After long 7 and a half months of pure inactivity the day has come!XD
Tomorrow I'll be starting my Psychology course at PUC and I'll also be returning to my Muay Thai lessons after a long break...XP Although I'm guessing that this week will be more filler lessons than anything else it'll still be a nice change of pace...XD

Overall this last seven days were very lazy.  I think this was definitely the week that felt more like vacations of all since I've returned to Curitiba!XD Probably, cuz it's the one preceding the start of the classes. I slept probably half of the week (for real...XD). The only bad point is that I had to start using an occlusal splint for bruxism and it's a pain in the ass =_=.
Still, I was able to have some fun. Went twice to the movies, hung aroung with my pals and watched lots of new stuff!@_@ Ah! I also sent my documents to the Rock In Rio organizers and they were approved! Now, I only have to wait for September, 25th and headbang till death!XD

The movies I watched in the cinema were Black Swan and Biutiful. And I have to say, they were amazing! The story, the direction, soundtrack, actings, everything was outstanding. Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem were superb in their roles. I think it's almost impossible for Natalie Portman not to take the Oscar home this year. I also watched, at home, King's Speech, Winter's Bone, The Town and Four Lions.

Geoffrey Rush's brilliant performance as Lionel Logue in King's Speech

In my opinion, King's Speech has been getting way too much attention. The movie is quite good, Colin Firth is really good as King George VI (although Geoffrey Rush's was way better - he's my favorite to get the oscar for actor in a supporting role, he definitely deserves it!) but I just don't think it's as wonderful and excellent as I've been listening everywhere.

Jennifer Lawrence doing a great job in Winter's Bone as Ree

Winter's Bone is a pretty good movie but it doesn't impress, if I may say. Jennifer Lawrence does her part pretty well and the story is pretty well developed. It's worth watching it but it'll hardly leave a permanent impression.

The Town and Four Lions were a tad bit disappointing. The first one mainly because of Ben Affleck and a weak story. And the second one because of the weak humour, although I did laugh at some moments.
This week I'm planning to watch True Grit (I'm dying to see it @_@), The Fighter, Animal Kingdom and after a long delay, The Social Network.

Despite being a complete noob when it comes to movies I like picking some favorites to the Oscars every year. So far my favorites are:

Picture: Black Swan
Director: Darren Aronofski
Actor in a leading role: Javier Bardem (although I'm pretty sure Colin Firth will take this one)
Actress in a leading role: Natalie Portman
Actor in a supporting role: Geoffrey Rush
Actress in a supporting role: well, I have to watch True Grit and The Fighter to make up my mind...XP
Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

I'm not gonna say anything about the other categories cuz I really don't understand much about them to pick a favorite ;D

I also watched lots of new animes and there was some pretty good stuff. Fractale specially! You can read my impressions on the Winter Animes Season here: http://www.animevice.com/profile/adanadhel/blog/

Fractale: So far the best in Winter Season

Well, that's enough rambling for now! I'll come back in the near future to talk about my first impressions of my course, so, you ghost over there, look forward to it!=D

As for the song of the week, I didn't have anything prepared beforehand nor can I think of any song that relate to what I talked about here, so I'll just pick one randomly...XD

Bad endings everywhere

Somebody once told me: "you can't judge something by its ending" to which I replied "Sure you can. A bad ending in an anime, movie or series is like having a stripe of line painted across a work or renaissance art. It doesn't matter how good the overall is, you'll always focus on the stripe, or in the bad ending. Nobody starts watching something expecting for a lame ending"


There are many reasons that can cause an anime to have a terrible conclusion. The most common are:


1 - The original work's (manga or novel) ending is lame and the show just reproduces the original ending. (Specially forced happy endings)
i.e.: Angel Beats!, Clannad After Story


2 - The series isn't an adaptation of a manga or novel (a.k.a. "original animes") and the script just happened to be bad overall or in the ending.
i.e.: Yumeria, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin


3 - Animes that start before the original work is concluded, approaches the original work's story and is halted with an open ending.
i.e.: (There are dozens of examples here) Gantz, Tenjou Tenge, etc


4 - Story completely different from the original or improvised endings resulting in something with a very low quality
i.e.: Fullmetal Alchemist, Rurouni Kenshin


5 - Anime doesn't get the expected response (low ratings) and is decided to be cancelled.
i.e.: D. Gray Man, Mobile Suit Gundam (the original one)


Lately, it's been more and more common to come across bad endings in animes which made me stop to think.What the hell is wrong with those studios? Except for when the original work already has a bad ending, all the other cases are to be blamed on the studios. Don't they realize that this ends up being negative for them?I truly fear an overall drop in animes qualities. Actually, this can already be noticed if you stop to think on the last, let's say, 30 animes you watched. How many of them had a satisfactory ending?


I understand that the concept of bad ending can vary when we talk about case #1. But when it comes to the others we usually have a consensus and those are usually the vast majority of the shows out there. I think that this could harm the animes production in a way that many people will stop watching shows from a certain studio or that they know to be based in an unfinished series. As a huge japanese animations fan I'd hate to see a drop in production or in quality shows due to such a silly reason.


My Top5 Worst Endings:


1 - Clannad After Story (forced happy ending just for the sake of it)


2 - Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu (totally open and incomprehensible ending)


3 - Mai HiME (forced happy ending just for the sake of it)


4 - Arakawa Under The Bridge x Bridge (builds up for 2 seasons and ends up with nothing happening at all)


5 - Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin (the ending seemed so rushed, as they had forgotten that they had to finish this series and only remembered it on the last episode)


Honorable mentions: Code Geass R2 and Soul Eater.