Three things make a post.

First, rodo is having a poll on language and fandom participation that is crying out for some participation. Go vote!

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As some of you have heard, I started a new job today, as a CS rep at a mumble mumble major company whose local offices are really close to my house. Close enough that I probably will bike to work once I get a better handle on the whole "return to employment" thing. Currently I'm working 6hrs/day, 30hrs/week, but as summer is the busy season, I will be full time starting next month. The money is good for a temp job, the people seem nice, it's not difficult work, yadda yadda yadda... And my first impression is that I want to run screaming for the hills. I am desperately awaiting my financial aid letter from IUC, and probably am going to try to throw together a MEXT scholarship application, and will be applying to graduate school this fall (unless I get said MEXT scholarship for an April 2010 start date). Hey, at least now I can afford the transcripts!

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I've been paging through a lot of my old, old posts, and you know, I used to talk about anime a lot. But then, when I started this journal I watched anime a lot. And you'd never know I've received grants to research manga for all that I talk about it on here. So, in the spirit of recharging the manga/anime elements of this journal, I note here my thoughts on the new Fullmetal Alchemist anime, "Brotherhood."

• I sort of enjoyed, and sort of didn't like, how the first episode is a completely AU way of transparently setting up/foreshadowing the ending. I mean, there's probably people out there who are watching the anime but haven't read the manga (okay: I know some of them), but is the bloody obvious signposting really necessary?
• Relatedly, while I suppose that ship has sailed in terms of folowing the manga and getting the big reveal of Ed and Al's true condition in Lior, I had mixed feelings about how blithely they gave away the automail/full armor suit in the first episode, and about how they just shoehorned the entire past arcs into the second episode. Well, not the entire past--their training with Izumi was glossed over completely, and I hope they do the flashbacks to that in future. I guess I just think that following Arakawa's own pacing is best, because she's a genius.
• Voice actors! When Ed first showed up on screen, for the first ten seconds all I could think was "Why is Hitsugaya talking out of Ed's mouth?" but then my mind was able to dissociate them, which was probably good for my sanity. Also, after Ohkawa Tohru, Roy's new voice actor sounded way too high-pitched, but I also got used to that by the end of the episode. He's Urahara's voice actor, I think we're in good hands. My jury is still out on Hawkeye's voice actor though. I still think she sounds a little too...I don't want to say "feminine." I don't know. She's Rukia's voice actress, she's perfectly capable of sounding kick-ass. Maybe I just haven't watched enough. It's a Bleach reunion party!
• I still can't stand Rose. But I can certainly sympathize with her dilemma more than ever. Relatedly, go Arakawa for foreshadowing chimeras and the army that doesn't fear death so early on. Although, the army does do both of them better.
• Cutest ending credits ever! I like the opening song too. But the man saying "Fullmetal Alchemist" in the middle is unnerving. Also, embedded sponsor credits: good from the perspective of more time in the show, bad for occluding the view.
• I'm going to spend a lot of brainpower considering whether FMA could be called steampunk, and what that says about both FMA and steampunk if the answer is yes. If anyone has any suggestions for a good place to starting finding out what steampunk is all about (in a really obvious, newbie sort of way, since I've been dealing with it at a higher level without ever investigating the foundations), I'd welcome them.

I need a fandom tag. I've been marking everything "otw," which is sort of metonymic, and kind of fitting for that reason.