The Clown who doesn’t watch television has continued the adventure.
Over two years ago, I wrote about my television catch-up journey. I did finish watching Jubilee with some gusto, and though I loved the first season of Pachinko (and have The Grass Roots’ Live for Today [1] on music rotation), I have yet to catch up with the second season because of reading that a third (and maybe a fourth) season are planned. My distaste for multiple seasons in American television never diminishes.
Nine Perfect Strangers was fine (seeing Nicole Kidman in her 2nd Russian evolution from Birthday Girl was something), and just reminds me that with the many shows Kidman is doing, I’ll have a lot to sit through in my retirement years— I suppose that I owe a proper watch to Faraway Downs (I didn’t hate Australia), and I still owe Expats a watch. Then there’s Special Ops: Lioness and Scarpetta, none of which are currently on the watchlist.
The Underground Railroad is still on the pending list, and I only went through half of Trigun, as well as only going halfway through Magic Knight Rayearth. I also made the mistake of “wanting to re-watch” Inuyasha, only to realize that’s over 150 episodes (of the original series). I’ll be in my 80s when I finish that.
I started the year by watching WOWOW’s (ever one of my favorites) Sai, and I would’ve watched the miniseries version of After the Quake as well, if Netflix had chosen to carry that instead of the film cut. Which reminds me of the announcement that Netflix made a deal to carry NHK shows— including Taiga dramas, Asadoras and titles on there Drama 10 lineup. Starting with Mampuku, which is kinda long, but I did immediately (less than a week ago) go through Tokyo Salad Bowl, which I enjoyed. In the end, Japanese short miniseries lasting less than 13 episodes for only one season is my desired format.
After much waiting (I had seen a couple of episodes as a teen), I sat through the first season of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack. It will obviously be an Inuyasha-type of watching, in which I’ll be much older when I get through those shows. I honestly don’t think I would even be able to sit through seasons and seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Battlestar Galactica in this day and age, and I adore those shows.
Other anime one-shots that I sat through (or had hoped they had been one-shots) were Dandelion, with the best ending theme song and vibe. As well as Mad Bull 34, The Darwin Incident (WHAT WAS THAT ENDING), went through the second season of Dorohedoro, and I’m about to start Lazarus.
On the non-Japanese more Western-centric side, I saw Rise of the Raven, the Hungarian series about Janos Hunyadi in the 1450s, which I loved. I also watched the miniseries version on Franz Kafka’s life, titled Kafka, which is a total different project to Agnieszka Holland’s Franz movie, which I must admit enjoyed more. Alas, I’m a movie watcher.
I also did end up peaking at The Amazing Digital Circus.
