Sheryl in Wonderland

Right now I’m reading R. A. Salvatore’s Starless Night, which is the eighth novel about his dark-elf ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden. It doesn’t have much to do with anime, I know, but if you’ll bear with me for a moment this post will make as much sense as any of my previous attempts at communication have.

I genuinely like Salvatore’s work. His writing is descriptive and clean while keeping some of the interest in language that American style typically doesn’t have. That is, he’s not emulating Hemingway. Salvatore plots well, has fairly well-rounded characters, and knows his biggest talent is crafting action. We know exactly what we’re getting with a Salvatore novel — at least, the Drizzt novels. Salvatore isn’t the most amazing writer in the world, but he’s ever claimed to be. I’ve met him at book signings twice, and he’s truly charming in person.

I’m bringing up Starless Night for the plotting, though. The matter of the book is so lean — little appears that isn’t needed — that an astute reader can watch the pins fall into place as his plot moves in the barrel (it’s a lockpicking metaphor). For example, Drizzt refuses to take a mask along on his quest that he’d been given in the previous book: it magically makes the wearer look like whatever they imagine, and his race, the Drow, are hated on the surface, as they’re evil nearly to a man (they’re a matriarchy, so woman, really). Drizzt used it for a while to look like a surface elf, but he came to terms with what he is and gave it to someone else. His friend tries to give it back to him as he’s leaving, as it would be very useful when he re-enters the Drow city that is so hostile to him. Drizzt refuses it.

Later, the girl kind-of in love with Drizzt insists on following him, and the friend gives her the mask, as she’s a human and will stick out even more than Drizzt. She also takes the dagger than an assassin that held her hostage used — she’s repulsed, as Drizzt was by the mask, but she’s more pragmatic.

Soon after — I read both these parts on the same day — she’s hurt, nearly killed, in a fight underground. She manages to draw the dagger and stab her foe, and the dagger, as readers who remember the previous book will know already, sucks out the poor goblin’s life and heals her. I could almost hear the tumblers shifting into their proper positions as I read.

I told you that story to tell you this one: Macross Frontier. I’m caught up with the subs, finally. The show is still a bit difficult to judge. It’s putting those tumblers into their locked positions; they haven’t started moving yet. Events are moving, of course. A strange-looking man ran after Ranka, apparently with a record contract (or at least paying performances) in mind. Alto has been accepted into the mercenary organization on Frontier, and Sheryl, well, she’s still rich. But the intro. track isn’t called “Trangular” for no reason: the past three episodes are setting up a delicious triangle between Ranka, Alto, and Sheryl. What I like about it in particular is that there’s an actual relationship between Ranka and Sheryl; they’re not just connected by their tenuous attachments to Alto. Alto, on the other hand, seems to be interested in both girls: a much more realistic possibility than being interested in neither, which would be the typical situation this early in a show (Maybe I should mention, at this point, that I prefer “Alto” over “Altoh,” probably solely because I played alto saxophone in high school). Like in the book I talked about, we can see the parts moving into place throughout the Macross Frontier setting. In fact, the Macross habit of Roboteching seems appropriate thematically, as all the different parts of the show are on their own tracks right now. I feel confident they will “suddenly synchronize” at the right time.

OGT has already pointed out that Ranka isn’t likely to be a more accident-prone Minmei. I was also impressed that she didn’t win the Miss Frontier contest. On a personal level I wish the mean bitch hadn’t won, but I’m not a big enough fan (or a fan at all) of American Idol for this to matter to me much. What I think is most interesting at this time in the series is that Ranka and Alto are on the same points in their respective paths. Alto still can’t function properly as a Valkyrie pilot. We’re meant, I think, to partly sympathize with the onlooking gay dude with the weird hair who adores Alto because he poses after making a “kill” in the giant, incredibly expensive paintball fight. However, I think we’re also meant to realize it’s an incredibly bad idea, and he needs to stop right now. Alto on the stick is amazing; he controls his Valkyrie with a skill that drives home his desire to fly. His paper airplanes (the series seems to have given up providing him with material; the paper just materializes, I suppose, and it’s always blank) do the same — Alto wants to be a fighter pilot, but not really a fighter pilot. I can only assume he will deal with this in some way, as he’s going to be doing a lot of fighting soon. Ranka, on the other hand, doesn’t seem interested in the “idol” side of singing. While Sheryl admitted she understands how she is “sold” to her audience, Ranka can’t sing without falling over. She doesn’t even think, on her own, of a way she can perform for other people. She habitually sings in a less-trafficked place specifically because no one comes there (except Alto. He’s weird).

In the latest episode, I particularly liked the glimpses of Zentradi life. Frontier has boutiques just for Zentradi, though I’m not sure why they’re set up so one could look over the ledge into the shop. It seems like the second story would be higher, or else the first story would be very uncomfortable. Particular things please me in general, though it’s weird to see them in a Macross series (again, I have only my early childhood, so far, to compare this to).

I really am intending to write about Hayate no Gotoku, I just haven’t yet. Also, I’m two episodes in to Toshokan Sensou, so there’s that to blog as well. Oops.