We've done Eva and it was brutal and beautiful. It would feel wrong to follow it with anything other than another Gainax show.
In short, here's the deal. My flat becomes a cartoon show for a day, we eat food, drink a ton and get to know new people. And when I say a cartoon show, I mean the greatest cartoons known to man.
This time round it's Gunbuster and its equally good sequel, Gunbuster II. I couldn't be more excited. If Neon Genesis Evangelion is the greatest TV show I've seen then the Gunbusters are my favourites. They just mean that bit more to me personally.
For those who may not have seen GB and GBII, I won't link to the extremely spoilerific thread on the subject. The premise to both shows – child pilots, giant robots and a deeply personal and emotional take on relativity – is so simple as to barely be worth mentioning. So by way of recommendation these are both Gainax shows, the undisputed masters of serial anime who when they want to make a statement never fail to make a complex and rewarding state of the art show about anime as much as it is anime. Expect injokes, intertextuality, fanservice and bizarre shifts in tone and pace as well as a beautiful story with great characters told by the best artists in the medium. And bring a handkerchief. If you've never cried at a cartoon before these shows are a great place to start.
Often when we've talked about anime on Barbelith we've referred back to Gunbuster as a core text, and that status is richly deserved. Both series are like anime Rosetta Stones. If you come to this weekend you'll see nearly twenty years of one studio's commitment to commenting on and defining its era, at once wholly post modern and wholly heartfelt.
And if we're really lucky and if people are up for it, we may well squeeze in FLCL as well. Each show is only six episodes after all, even with FLCL we're only talking about nine hours viewing compared to the endurance test of Evangelion, which is a much more difficult show with a much longer running time.
Here are the dates that I can make: 18th – 20th May, 22nd – 24th June, 29th June – 1st July, 27th –29th July, 3rd – 5th August. Tell me what you can make, then it'll be first come, first served. |
