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ローゼンメイデン 
This has to be the lousiest week ever for me. I'll explain about it when I'm ready but it's likely that I'll have to go away and postpone my posts for a week or two. I'll try to prepare some pre-made posts while I'm away. Anyway, this series is becoming less and less interesting as time goes by. It's really apparent now that the writers try to stretch out the story as long as they can. The things that have been spread over the course of seven episodes could have been done in 2-3 episodes. Basically they've just done the same thing over and over again. For example, Night short circuits, goes back to Kronos Heaven, being released again, rinse and repeat. Also, last week's episode suggests a no-turning point for Night and Gaku since Gaku has been asked to reformat Night. As it turns out, the situation is not that serious after all.
Well, I decided to continue this since it's too late to quit now with only 5 more episodes left. At this point, I'm just watching it to see if Riiko can quit her lousy job and become a patissier. There better be tons of cake shots in the upcoming episodes. Plus, it looks like the story will start to ramp up next week with the introduction of Soushi's ex-girlfriend. Speaking of that ex-girlfriend, I think I've seen the actress in another series/film before but I can't for the life of me figure out her name. If you're wondering about Osen, I'm still interested to cover it but I'll have to wait until the end of each monthly cycle (which is going to be soon) before getting the series from whatever bandwidth still remains in my account. As it is now, however, I'm not sure if I can actually get this week's copy of xxxHOLiC easily. I wish I have a 100GB download limit but I don't see the point when the season is slow like during summer/winter.
Once again, sorry for the crappy screencap quality but this is the best I can do at the moment. Anyway, it looks like the decision for Night to be more robotic in this adaptation is not really the actor's choice. When Night turns his head left and right in a robotic manner at the start of this episode, I realized that this is a direction from either the script or the director. This is rather unfortunate because the interesting thing about the manga was that Night actually looks similar to human just like those Replicants in Blade Runner or those Cylons in Battlestar Galactica. In this adaptation, however, Night acts more like an old-style robot, complete with creaking noise when he turns his head around. It's not surprising that Riiko feels uncomfortable around him because no matter how human his outside appearance, he still has some robot-like elements, just like those creepy Terminators.
The lack of chemistry between the three leads is starting to wear me down. I think there's something wrong when I don't really care that Night is off with another girl instead of staying with Riiko. I am starting to agree with some posters who suggested that the guy who plays Soushi's older brother would have been a better candidate to play Soushi. At least he looks a bit closer to Soushi in the manga. This reminds me of that new remake of King Kong where Peter Jackson for some reason think it's a good idea to cast Adrien Brody against Naomi Watts when the two have zero chemistry with one another. Meanwhile, Thomas Kretschmann, who plays the captain of the ship, actually looks a lot more similar to the original Jack Driscoll in both attitude and looks. Anyway, this episode also suffers from a mid-episode problem where the story feels stretched out longer than necessary. This would have been fine if some development comes out of it but at the end of the episode, everything just returned to the way they were.
This episode marks the beginning of complication for Night/Riiko's relationship, a part where viewers normally root for the couple. However, problem appears when there isn't much of chemistry between the two characters. In the past two episodes, the non-chemistry between the two works well because Riiko is not supposed to like Night just yet. However, in order for a romantic complication to work, the viewers must root for the couple to get together. Unfortunately, there is little chemistry between them and this affects the storyline. One of the reasons for the lack of chemistry is because the actors who plays Night and Soushi look a bit too young to be romantic interests for Riiko. I don't mind that the writers changed the setting from high school to cake business. But while they have done a good casting job Riiko (in relation to the changed setting), they didn't do a good job casting Riiko's potential suitors. The actors who portray Night and Soushi are okay as individual characters, but they don't spark chemistry with Riiko.
Everytime I watch this series for some reason I am always reminded of my Macbook Pro. I don't think I have an attachment towards a machine until I bought this particular laptop. Because of this, I wonder what would happen if one day computers do come encased in more interesting 'cases'. While I have no desire to have one that looks like a human (it'd be too hard to carry around overseas), I'd certainly would love to have one that looks like a dog or a hamster (anything small, really). Having said that, I wonder if that'd just complicate things. By giving a computer the appearance of a dog, it means there'd be a part of me that will also become emotionally attached to it. Since I like dogs, a computer that has the appearance of a dog would mean that I'd be worried that it may feel lonely when I'm not home. This is something that I'd not feel towards my Macbook Pro regardless of its sexiness because I see it as nothing more than a machine. So just for fun, here's a mini questionnaire: do you have an attachment towards your electronic equipment? Would you be even more attached if it has the shape of a living being that you like? What is that living being?
This turns out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The jokes are pretty good, the heroine is cute and funny, and the robotics FX used is not bad either. It's unfortunate that the ED theme is not as good as Last Friends' OP theme because that would be one thing that makes this already good drama outstanding. As it is now, I'm interested to blog this regularly since it looks pretty fun for the time being. The only thing that I don't like is the actor and characterization that they've given to Riiko's 2nd love interest, Soushi. Talk about downgrade. Come to think of it, as far as love interest goes, the heroine really is the unluckiest girl in shoujo manga stories. Her second love interest is a douchebag and her main love interest is a sexbot. Still, this is a pretty good adaptation so far. The setting changes from high school to a cake company is pretty a good deal, IMO, because I get to drool after those delicious cakes they featured in this series.
