Signs of Spring

stormy today, more snow tonight, but spring can't be denied. the lawn is turning green at the edges, chives from last year have voluntarily sprouted in a pot outside, and the magnolia has budded.

march magnolia

magnolia buds

Alice

here's my review for scrunch.

i loved it.

when i originally saw the trailer i wasn't impressed, but seeing the whole movie i felt gave me time to bond to the characters, which was the difference. the acting is all excellent; really liked alice and she's a great hero, depp's hatter and helena bonham carter as the red queen, great! ("Enormous Girl!"). the 3-D (as in Avatar) is seamless, no gimmicks. a nice blend of tim burton's wild darkness and the lewis carroll madness. i was especially pleased at the moment when bayard the bloodhound gets his sad story resolved.

as a side note: all of the previews were in 3-D too, the toy story looked really good. another trailer mysteriously began with an older man's voiceover with footage of a younger man (his son). i heard the voice and said to jordan, "it's sheridan!". of course it was the new TRON LEGACY, which sees the return of both boxleitner and bridges. in 3-D.

Hagane no Renkinjutsushi

Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) began as a manga in Japan, and is an on-going publication.

The first anime series ran in Japan from 2003-2004 (51 episodes). It ran on Cartoon Network with an english dub, which was how I first saw it. This series strays pretty severely from the story in the manga in the later episodes.

The second anime series, called Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in english, is apparently much closer to the manga storyline. It started airing in Japan in 2009, and this is the series that J&L and I watch religiously every week. We love it!

If you're interested in watching, Hulu is streaming the episodes about two weeks after the Japan airdate, subtitled in english.

Of course we can't wait that long, so we've been watching an unofficial english fan-subtitled version that shows up at Anime Lime within 1-2 days of the original airdate. The "fan subs" are fun in themselves, often bizarre, with engrish, mistranslations etc. And we get to see all the tsunami/earthquake warnings! This is also where we watch "Naruto Shippuden".

Adult Swim is showing an english dub of the 2nd series now (started Feb 2010), but Saturday's at midnight is too late!

another warning in japan

during Hagane no Renkinjutsushi again! not flashing this time, but accompanied by a shrill warning sound. earthquake last sunday.