Been watching
Blue Drop, which is a kind of nice, kind of melancholy show with yuri undertones. Mostly I like it for the character design -- there's something about them that feels substantial, like they're real people who occupy a physical space in their world, and I'm not just talking about the fat one. Something about their look reminds me of
Yamamoto Yohko, which I've mentioned before.
Anyway, though, one interesting thing about the show is that it takes place in a small town in rural Japan, and from the opening scenes it's clear that they used to be prosperous. (Although, really, the characters are girls at a private boarding school, and even the poor one hasn't ever gone hungry.) The show feels a little desolate, and the girls' dormitory feels like an outpost where they've all huddled together for protection at the edge of the world.
These are the places that have been hit by the recession, which we hear has been going forever without making a dent in the big-city standard of living. I haven't gotten very far in the series, but it's tough to miss the girls wandering past rows of closed shops. It all makes me wonder what it's like, outside of the bustle of metropolitan Japan.
words from chris, 2010-03-30 00:36:42, los angeles
