Ballet, and anime being anime

[jennaria]

This weekend was a staying-in, not-seeing-people sort of weekend. For wife, it was because of her ankle (and muscle strains resulting from compensating for the ankle): for me, it was sheer mental exhaustion.

Two things watched, though: the Royal Ballet's ALICE IN WONDERLAND (teaser snippet here), and first episode of MOB PSYCHO 100. The anime I watched because it came in second on Crunchyroll's Anime Of The Year (IIRC), and I can...sorta see why? Maybe? It's a nice solid shonen anime so far. The catch is, it's so generic. Middle school boy who thinks he's nothing special, in fact has Phenomenal Cosmic Power!; Mentor figure (who is totes taking advantage of him, although he does seem to kinda sorta give a shit about the kid); random chick who exists for main character to crush on (and does not, as of yet, have anything else to distinguish her); family with at least one member who is perpetually Disappointed in main character...we haven't yet hit any characters to join the 'Defeated by Main Character and thus suddenly his friend' crowd that usually shows up in this sort of show, but it's only one episode, give it time.

(It's watchable. It's not as 'oh lord I've seen this twenty times' as other anime still in my queue. But it also doesn't have the something beyond the story that YOI hit me with.)

The ballet was because Wife saw the teaser snippet online, showed it to me, and then impulsively bought the DVD as a present. Yay! And it was beautiful, and beautifully danced. ...also confusing if you never read the book (I had to explain that no, Disney's version is not what you would call 'faithful to the book'), and the best scene was the one from the teaser. But the first act, while it wasn't exciting or funny in the way the second act management, still had a gorgeously dreamlike atmosphere that is not easy to create or maintain on stage. I loved the Cheshire cat (as puppeted by six or seven near-invisible-in-black performers), and the Caterpillar.

...The Red Queen still totally stole the show. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comments

[st_aurafina]

I've only seen snippets on video but Christopher Wheeldon's Red Queen is the best Red Queen. And I love that the Mad Hatter is in tap shoes.

[jennaria]

Yes to both of those! It's very very good: it's mostly that (a) it's a little too, mmm, contemporary? for me (e.g. the White Rabbit's solo in the second act), and (b) there's only so long you can stretch the dream-like ambiance before the lack of plot gets you, which is the critical problem in the first act - you get a tiny taste of plot, and then it's all AMBIANCE until the very end of the act. :-/

(I took ballet for most of my childhood - finally stopped when (a) puberty hit and I realized that I really really really did not have a naturally balletic body, shall we say, (b) we could not afford for me to keep taking classes unless this was What I Wanted To Do With My Life, and (c) I was attending a feeder school for the local professional company, and I hit the point where I could either go pre-professional or acknowledge that I was just doing this for fun, which we couldn't afford to continue (see point b). All together at about age 12. So I admit that I have opinions on ballet, which are strongly influenced by what I knew and liked in childhood. :wry:)

[thesilentpoet]

I still need to watch YOI.

[jennaria]

YES YES YOU DO.

(You still have my log-in information, right?)

[thesilentpoet]

Uh, send it to me again so we can be certain? Yeah, yeah. C. is doing his own thing tomorrow evening, so maybe I finally will. :D