Mon 23 Jun 2008
Toshokan Sensou 11…not (War Sucks)
Posted by issa-sa under Rambles and Half-lies, Spring 2008, Toshokan Sensou
[8] Comments
I’ll be honest, I’m in no mood to blog Toshokan Sensou 11 now. And probably not at all until the next episode is released and pooh poohs all the worst-case scenarios bubbling in my head right now. Those who’ve watched the episode can probably guess why.
I usually need a good 3 viewings to comprehend a typical episode of this show to what I deem is a suitable level of “Hey, I get what’s going on in this needlessly complicated setting!” (and that includes once with my tutor (who is now a Toshokan Sensou convert thanks to me, wakaka- not even in the mood to use an evil laugh in a post *sigh*) But after watching the raw of episode 11 a grand total of once, I really couldn’t bring myself to rewind the episode to slowly go through the dialogue like any ‘good’ student of the language should. And, no that has nothing to do with the many yucky adverts peppering the raw -_-”
This episode’s dialogue was more serious and military-themed than I could cope with, so I could only keep up with the general gist of the events. It didn’t stop me from taking note of all the dark foreboding within the episode though, which I won’t go into now. And if you’re expecting another one of my crack Toshokan Sensou postings… God, how heartless do you think I am?? (You know, maybe I should try it just to lighten up the mood here -_-”)
What I do realize now, thanks to some of the starker scenes in the episode, is that when it comes down to it, I really dislike war themes, period (be it in anime, other forms of fiction, or worse still, in real life). I have no actual objection of such themes being explored since they almost always point to the very fact that “War is bad, it happens, but it shouldn’t“. It doesn’t stop me feeling ridiculously appaled and sometimes downright uncomfortable to have to watch scenes depicting the grim aspects of war (like in this episode), but that’s probably the naive “we should all hold hands and sing happy songs Why the hell is it so dificult for us humans to even get along with one another???” part of me speaking.
That being said, it should be surprising why I love (and still do – despite what I’ve said, this episode hasn’t compromised my favourable view of this show in the least. In fact, depending on how the next episode plays out and from what I can guess from the preview, it may just be elevated further – but that’s a ‘better-case-scenario’ really) a series that advertises itself as Library War (a part of me still thinks that title is AWESOME), but fellow fans knows where the real juicy meat of the story is:
And speaking of worst-case scenarios, the worst one for me right now is if I stop blogging completely and just write Doujou X Iku fanfics for the rest of the year. If I didn’t totally suck in the latter anyways (not that I’ve tried to or anything…).
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June 23, 2008 @ 12:46 am
damn… the two of us are floating on the same boat. down to putting in different scenarios to cancel out what we just saw for episode 12 down to writing fanfics. -_-” this is terrible for me… this is one of the few anime i can watch over and over again without getting tired of.
i guess it’s bad of me. but if someone’s gonna die, i hope it’s the other guy. :’(
June 23, 2008 @ 1:03 am
This sounded really depressing. I havent seen ep11 yet, but only thing I am scared of is Doujou dying. I suddenly got that idea around ep5-6, when watching song at the beginning with Iku crying, and I pray for it to never happen since then… Iku will definitely live, and anybody else can die… It would make me sad, but not depressed for the rest of the year. And with this said, I am gonna watch ep11.
June 23, 2008 @ 2:58 am
Was so taken by the Toshokan Sensou 11 that I googled it and found this blog. I was kind of lost in terms what was being said but this was a clearer episode, but very fast one. I would think that it would be counterintuitive to have Doujou die. And especially in the last episode. I doubt the last episode would present any watershed event.
June 23, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
@biankita: I’d rather noone die, though it looks like in one case at least, if it doesn’t happen, all the “Toshokan Sensou makes no logical sense!” people will be raising complaints again -_-”
@Alienne: More realistically speaking, I’d probably only be the MOST depressed AT this point of the year, rather than stay that way for the rest of it. I can always turn to episodes of Chi’s Sweet Home for ’solace’ -_-”
@yanoto: Yea, the dialogue being fast didn’t help either, though it was mostly when they were discussing their plans of actions and such that I got confused, as opposed to the “Thank god this is here!” chamomile scene where Doujou & Kasahara’s words were clear as ever
Can’t say I can predict exactly how the next episode will turn out, since I’ve silenced the urge to peek into the novels for now. But it’s for sure that whatever happens, they’ll end the series on a ‘happy’ if not bittersweet note, as can be assumed from the way the OP is played out.
June 23, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
FINALLY! WAAAAAAAAAAAR
Any blood and guts? XD
June 23, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
I just ignored the Library mumble jumbles in this episode and concentrated on the Iku x Doujou stuff rofl. It’ll take me 2-3 watches, or at least the occasional pauses in-between scenes to look up the technical stuff to understand the SRS plot elements of this episode ^^;;
June 23, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
@blissmo: LOL, blood yes, guts… figuratively only I’m afraid, blissie (in which case there was probably more of it than the blood -_-”)
@usagijen: Sadly the Ike X Doujou took up too little time in this ep compared to all the CRASH BOOM BANG going on. Was about to have my tutor decipher all the mumbo jumbo for me today, but Ocha Subs spared him the trouble XD
June 24, 2008 @ 10:33 am
man ep 11 left me rather speechless. Didn’t expect the body count shoot up so high in a single episode.