This looks interesting a new, indie orientated outdoors comics con in Amsterdam Noord. About time something interesting happens in my neighbourhood.
Angel Beats! rewatch 04 – Day Game
After episode three’s angst, episode four is welcome comedy relief. It’s also mixed up Angel Beats! established formula a lot, as for the first time we get a cold opening rather than the theme song, a flashback to an unknown character’s life, something that will become relevant later in the episode. This is followed by the audience for the new lead singer of Girl Dead Monster, the former lead singer Iwasawa of course having disappeared last time. That leads into a new version of the opening song, as performed by GiDeMo, with the new recruit, the band’s groupie Otonashi encountered last episode singing the lead part.
Unfortunately said groupie, Yui is a bit of an idiot and manages to strangle herself with her microphone cord at the end of her performance. Death metal indeed. A lively discussion about the merits of letting her be GiDeMo’s lead singer ensues, and what it would mean for the band’s skill at providing diversions. Which naturally leads into the unveiling of Yurippe’s latest plans, which are remarkably low key: the battlefront is to enter the baseball competition and win everything.
There’s a catch of course: any of the Battlefront’s teams that doesn’t win against the NPC teams will get “punishment worse than death”. Which leaves Otonashi in the lurch, as he teamed up with Hideki Hinata, who promised to get all the best members on the team, but instead had to make do with the Front’s collection of idiots, including Yui, who drives Hinata nuts and to frequent physical punishment for her obnoxious behaviour. And really, who hasn’t want to do something like this to a slightly too cutesy cat girl every now and then?
But of course things can’t quite stay this light hearted and in the actual baseball game it’s revealed it was Hinata who had the flashback, remembering how his failure to catch a ball during a final cost his school team the chance to compete in the nationals. If he and his team now win the game, does this means he’ll disappear? Not quite, as it turns out and this remains a humour episode, setting up plot developments but not resolving them, with some more of the Battlefront members getting a bit of screen time. Funny, but slightly out of place in a series with only thirteen episodes, though I appreciate that it isn’t all angst, all the time.
Discworld for the Best Novel Hugo?
Charlie Stross has an interesting idea:
For the 2016 Hugos: the ENTIRE DISCWORLD SERIES is eligible, as a completed work, under Best Novel. … I think I'm going to nominate it.
— Charlie Stross (@cstross) September 14, 2015
To clarify, novel series are currently eligible for the Best Hugo Award, as seen by the inclusion of The Wheel of Time last year, though it’s of course arguable whether or not the Discworld series could be seen as a single story under its rules. If not, one could also argue that with the last Tiffany Aching novel having been released, that particular sub-series should be nominated instead.
Should this be done? That’s a harder question to argue. Terry Pratchett himself declined at least one Hugo nomination some years ago and while a nice gesture, he himself is of course not around anymore to see it. Quality wise the Discworld series in parts is as good as anything that ever won a Hugo, while even its worst parts are nowhere near as bad as the worst novels to have won the Hugo. But still, should the Best Novel Hugo go to a sentimental gesture? Or would it be better to just nominate the last Discworld novel ever on its own merits?
I don’t think I would include the series on my ballot, as a) I don’t like the idea of having proper novels compete with series anyway and b) I’d rather see a living author get the recognition. Pterry really doesn’t need a Hugo, even if it is a nice gesture. However, I reserve the right to change my mind if I can’t find five worthy novels to nominate this year.
Book loot
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done a book loot post, but today I got a lot of books from the local sf club I’d ordered earlier, including the run of Holland SF fanzines I used to read in the library. Apart from that there are three books by Gwyneth Jones: Kairos and Rainbow Bridge and especially interesting, a collection of her criticism, Deconstructing the Starships (which I got incredibly cheap if i can believe the price in the back of it). I also got a proper old skool yellow gollancz edition of Mindplayers, Pat Cadigan’s first novel, a Linda Nagata novel, Deception Well, a Leigh Brackett Erik John Stark book I still needed and finally, Pamela Sargent’s Watchstar and The Shore of Women.
Angel Beats! rewatch 03 – My Song
At first it looks like this episode will continue where the last had left off, with the Afterlife Battlefront planning another operation in their war against Tenshi. Yurippe plans to break into Tenshi’s domain to crack the computer system she uses and gather information on the enemy. There’s one problem however, as the Battlefront had tried once before to break into her domain and failed, mainly because, as Yurippe describes it, “we’re all idiots”.
Hence the recruitment of genius glasses wearing hacker Takeyama, “call me Christ”, to function as the brains of the operation, something resident idiot Noda immediately wants to test by challenging him to a duel. To everybody’s surprise, Takeyama defeats him easily — by reciting pi, quickly showing that Yurippe’s faith in him to lead this operation isn’t misguided. As with the first episode’s operation, the Battlefront’s band, Girl Dead monster, will provide a diversion luring Tenshi away, this time giving an official if unsanctioned concert. To lure the NPCs to the concert, GirlDeMo’s greatest fan girl plasters posters all over the gymnasium, but which are later removed by Tenshi. When several students object to this, she gives us a first insight into her personality, as she complains to herself that “now she’s the bad guy”.
It’s an important bit of foreshadowing, but the focus this episode is firmly on Iwasawa, the lead singer and guitarist of Girl Dead Monster. She’s the first person we see when the episode opens, demoing her latest song, a ballad, to the Battlefront, a song that will come back in the climax. Like Yurippe did last time, she tells the story of her life to Otonashi, of how she grew up in a dysfunctional family, how listening to and making music saved her, of how she died of brain damage sustained when she was hit by a beer bottle thrown by her father, how she was frustrated in not being able to sing a song that would reach others.
But now, in the most emotional scene in the series so far, she does manage. When the school security interrupts the Girl Dead Monster concert, their leader threatens to destroy the old guitar that had saved her back when she was alive, that she used to busk with, she erupts, takes it away from him and launches into “My Song”, the ballad from the first scene. Pouring her heart and soul into it, she comes to peace with her past life and vanishes. It’s a brilliant, emotional scene, and another example of how well the music is handled in this series.
It had been established in the first episode that you’d only vanish if you went along with the flow and engaged in school; this is the first indication that this isn’t quite the entire truth, that there’s more going on. Judging by Iwasawa’s and Yurippe’s backstories, the people in the Afterlife Battlefront have reasons to be angry at God, which is the real reason for why they fight. But now Iwasawa at least has found her peace, while the research the Battlefront uncovered shows that the truth behind Tenshi isn’t quite what it first looked like either. With this episode, Angel Beats! kicks things up a notch.