2001-06-26 - 12:31 p.m.
#76: No Need for 3x3 Eyes Marathon
Note to self: Well, it seems that the wrangling of a situation I had created has worked itself out and everything has more or less realigned to its starting point. So, erm, lucky? *half hearted v-sign* I'm not going to push the ssituation, however. -_-;;; Got a little melodramatic in the previous entry, which I apologise for, but the combination of bad news had me slightly cracked. I mean, it's not BAD that my dad has decided that he wants to retire soon and settle down in Australia.... That's not bad at all. It's just bad for me that we have to pack up again and move all the way back. I've already mentioned that I'm tired of moving before, I'm pretty sure. Well, I can stay here if only a) I learn to drive a car, b) get a job to support myself, c) get an apartment for my lonesome, d) stop marking off my goals with letters like this. So.... whee. Fun.
Well, I skimped on what happened on the day for Saturdays entry, so I guess I'd better sum it here.... Though now that I recall it, not a lot actually occured, really. Woke up at 8:30AM (a record for me. If I had more social engagements that occured during the daytime, I'd wake up earlier more often, yanno?), caught the bus at 9AM and arrived in the city at about 10AM. An hour to the city by bus. Whereas if I could drive, I could make the same trip in 20 minutes. Gotta focus on GOOD reasons to drive. Yeah. Anyway, I spent a goodly hour and a half trying to amuse myself with the sights and sounds of Auckland city, and ended up in Borders bookshop flipping through a Superman graphic novel. When you come down to it, there really isn't much to see on Queen Street unless you're seriously shopping for clothes and accessories. Which I wasn't. And my taste in clothing doesn't go further than "black, and LOTS of it!" anyway. -_-;;;; Hmmmm. I'm getting serious sense of deja vu here. I wonder if I've written that in a previous diary entry? O.o
Oh yeah, I was supposed to go to the university to finalise the transfer of unused fees back into the coffers of the Tiong family vault.... Again. Which I actually did. But the offices were closed for some reason (I be suspecting.... the exams?) and I didn't have that little form they sent me anyways so.... Poot to that situation. Back to me in Borders and going outside to meet the people we'd set the group meet with, a cadre of my former engineer university friends. With me being the "former engineer" and they being my "university friends": Mitchell, Ronnie and Thomas. We got lunch first at that underground Asian food court which served such nummy fried koay teow (they called it "fried horfun noodles with beef" on the menu, but I know fried koay teow when I see it! @_@) then waited around for the hour or so to the showing of Shrek at Borders and perusing through their (now rather limited) collection of manga graphic novels. A brief discussion on our anime collections and what we were illegally downloading for free off the net at the time prompted the resident non-anime knowledgeable fan Mitchell (and rather Christian to boot! He watches Dragonball Z though, so I forgive him) to comment that we were rather encyclopediac with what we knew. He's probably right, and it's not really something to be proud of unless you can make a living out of it. ^^;;;;
I always feel a mite bit awkward whenever the one who obviously downloads the most out of all of us, Thomas, asks what the AAC members have and what I can borrow so that he can concentrating on downloading titles which none of them have. Which makes sense, really. Why download some hugeassed file and take all that time when you can get it much more easily off someone else who's already got it on CD. That way, one can be more efficient at leeching stuff off the net, right? Thing is.... It somehow seems rude to be asking. ^^;;;; I dunno. Oh well, since I know of several AAC people reading this, this is a roundabout way of asking what's in their collection and what I can hog, heheh. Yes, I have this all worked out a way of asking people without ACTUALLY asking them! I am a GENIUS! ohohohohohohohohoho! ahem. Yes. Genius. Anyway, reason why Thomas asks through me rather than directly to the AAC members themselves probably stems from the same reason as mine.... Though he has probably more legitimate claims to propriety that than I do, since he's only ever been to one AAC meeting. And as a bonus for those of you paying attention, yes he IS the one I described in this journal entry here. Some people don't mix very well I guess. And he doesn't like Giant Robo which is like.... almost sacrilegious in my book of anime fandom. O.o He's also the one who asked me to borrow Macross 7 off EB so that's like, doubly evil.
Anyway, after about an hour of wandering Borders and talking we finally went in to see Shrek, which was actually genuinely good. And funny too. And AMAZINGLY detailed computer animation. I haven't seen Disneys Dinosaur, which apparently rivals this film in terms of realism; but there is just such a pure cartoonish joy hidden beneath those lush graphics in Shrek, which I suppose is as much thanks to the direction as it is to animation. It's not quite as bright and cheery as Toy Story, but it's almost like a live action cartoon, which is rather cool. In any case, a nice offering from Dreamworks SKG and I came out fairly happy that I'd paid 12 dollars to see the film. Okay, I was ALMOST happy that I'd paid 12 dollars to see the film. Lousy weekend prices.... *gnashes teeth* After that, the three of us spent an hour or two wandering up and down Queen Street to see the sights and smell the smells.... Again, in my case. Came away with a spiffy 24 CD wallet, which makes transportation of those bulky CDs oh so much easier.
AFter that, we all went our seperate ways and went home; me with all the episodes of Love Hina in one hand, and the stiff reprimand ICQ message in the other for the entry before. @_@ Didn't get much actual sleep that Saturday evening, so I stayed up to watch a bit of Love Hina with my companions: a slice of my mothers world famous (in this house) cheesecake, a bowl of golden hash brown nuggets and a couple of apples and mandarin oranges with a cherry on top. I eat a lot when I'm depressed. Actually, I eat a lot when I'm happy too. Actually, I eat a lot, period. Hmmm. In any case, stayed up until the wee hours of the morning more or less enjoying Love Hina before shuffling off to my usual bed time of 5AM. I've gotten pretty slack with normal bedtime hours ever since I quit University. O.o
Now we are on Sunday.... Decided to leave home at about 3:30PM, making a brief stop at Meadowlands shopping centre to pick up my lunch/dinner: More fried kuay teow! After I specifically told myself never to buy there again, even. O.o Luckily for me, they seem to have an alternate working shift of sorts, so that small stand had a different cook that day. So the noodles were serviceably tasty, if not completely so. Arrived at Zebs place for her 3x3 Eyes marathon about 4PM and was greeted at the door by Nadea and Zeb, sans wooden stake this time round. O.o Matt arrived almost immediately after me, just as I was about to start on my fried koay teow, in fact. Not exactly sure of the order of people arriving after that, since we were all watching Pinky and the Brain and the antics of those loveably inept labrats kept me from keeping an ordered count; but the final tally for the evening was Anne-Elise (I think her name is.... The new girl anyway), Amy, Fergus, Gemma, James, Josh and Nick. So after everyone arrived, and after watching the episode of Pokemon where Jigglypuff first appeared (YAY! JIGGLYPUFF IS THE COOLEST CHARACTER EVER! @_@) we all decided to feast upon 3x3 Eyes goodness. On DVD and on the 48 inch TV, wooha! Subbed to boot, which I haven't seen yet.
Well 3x3 Eyes was a pretty enjoyable experience even if I've seen it already.... Noticed that quite a lot of the jokes that were in the dub version were absent from the sub (with the former being brought out by Manga Entertainment, and the latter by Pioneer who also redubbed the series). While I assume the sub to be far superior in terms of the accuracy of subbing, I found the missing bits of humour and wordplay.... disconcerting. I was also used to "slightly dorky" Yakumo dubbed voice rather than the rather deep and cool voice presented in the original Japanese version, but that's just a preference thing. Fortunately for me, Megumi Hayashibara still sounded as cute as ever in the role of Sanjiyan Pai. *sighs dreamily* ^_^ Apart from the humour missing in the sub version, the difference between the dub and sub was also in the MASSIVELY different conclusions presented in either one.... For those of you who haven't seen it to the end, I've masked the next two paragraphs because they contain spoilers to either ending. If you wanna see, highlight the area.
Right, the following is going to be my intepretation of the facts presented, so I could be wrong. For the sub ending it is revealed that the Pai Yakumo meets in Japan after the explosion in China is not really Pai at all, not even an amnesiac Pai. The personality actually comes from a serpent demon, a servant of Benares (the Wu of Kaiyanwang) who was ordered to lock away Pais (original) and the Sanjiyans memory so that it would not interfere with Benares plan to ressurect Kaiyanwang. However, when this serpent demon locked away the Sanjiyans double personality, it too also suffered amnesia due to the dual nature of the Sanjiyans mind. Simply put, the Pai we see in the second series is not the same one as what we see in the first series. It has her body, but the mind is that of the amnesiac serpent demon. The REAL Pai is still locked away, with the Sanjiyan personality having surfaced to awakening first. But even though she wasn't the real Pai, the serpent demon decided in the end that while she may have been Benares servant, she was also in love with Yakumo and sacrificed her life (that is to say: her demon self, not the sanjiyan body) in order to save him and his friends. After the battle is over, the fully awakened Sanjiyan (with the still sleeping Pai personality deep inside of her) explains to Yakumo that the Pai he met was really a serpent demon, and that she still needs time to reawake the real Pai deep within her; so he needs to wait in Tokyo until that time comes. The serpent demon on the otherhand, awakes in a hospital having been reborn into a human body. She only has the barest hint of her memory past few weeks with Yakumo and the adventures they had, which quickly disappears as if a dream; and now lives the life she has wanted since the start of the second series, amongst friends in an ordinary life. She also later meets Yakumo in the street, but doesn't recognise him, implying that she can now go on with the life the way she wanted it without having to be connected to the Sanjiyan.
Okay, so that's the sub ending, which implies that the adventure is still continuing for Yakumo and Pai in their quest for humanity; and the serpent demon is now happy in the life of an ordinary high school girl. Now for the DUB ending, which is more than slightly misinterpreted. The above about the serpent demon being the new personality of Pai is all true, but there is an entire monologue delivered by the Sanjiyan which implies that the serpent demon is the TRUE personality of Pai; and that she has been reborn into a human body and Yakumo has become free of his duties of Wu because of that.... Basically Pai and the Sanjiyan have become seperate entities, and the snake demon was the original Pai (the happy go lucky one). So now Yakumo and Pai can meet and become friends, both as humans, and start a new life together without the whole Sanjiyan/immortal slave aspect. When Yakumo and Pai pass each other on the street in the ending scenes, there's a sense that the series is drawing to a complete close with a hint of wistfulness, hoping that the two of them will meet again. There is no HINT that the series would continue. While the dub certainly has the "mega happy" ending appeal, it also makes no sense. For one thing, the serpent demon was only introduced as the "new Pai" from China onwards, so how could she also have been the old Pai? The Pai before the Sanjiyan took on Benares in China and was swept away in the resulting explosion? That small detail really made it difficult for me to place the new OAV series in terms of the chronology of the old one. The sub for me, cleared up a whole lot of questions and was most probably the more accurate translation. In short, the dub made it seem the 2nd OAV series was to be the end of 3x3 Eyes, while the sub makes it out to be part of a continuing story. Pai is still not with Yakumo, she's still in a deep sleep inside the Sanjiyan. So for now the Sanjiyan personality is the dominant one over the body. The dub also introduced a whole subplot at the end about Benares wanting to betray Kaiyanwang and taking Pai as his bride.... Which made sense at the time, but since it wasn't part of the sub, I guess it isn't so much so now. Whew, I hope people got that. If they didn't don't worry: It's just plain confusing, so don't get in over your head with this one. ^_^
Ah well, I think that's enough writing from me. Need to go the university for real tomorrow. Besides, on my way to AAC Tuesday meet, innit? Night night. (NOTE: I was supposed to have posted this entry last night, but the diaryland services were down. Funny, that's the first time it's ever happened to me)
