Rosebriars and ink

I decided to rewatch one of the most fluffy and low-stakes anime I know, because I have had A Week. I'm on episode 8 (of 12) of Princess Princess and it's just... pleasant. There are a few points that would probably be stressful if I didn't already know the plot, but I do, so I can just enjoy Yuujirou being a jerk and teasing easily-flustered Mikoto, and Tooru being all self-sacrificing and tragic. And Yuujirou just being annoying to everyone. The yandere cousin plot just started in earnest and it's so frothy and dramatic and interspersed with thinly-veiled excuses for bishounen in dresses, which is basically the entire premise, and I love it for that.

I've never really managed to update my anime knowledge past the things my friends introduced me to in anime club in 2007 or so. I'm also in the middle of rewatching Hellsing (finished through episode 7), but I decided today called for lower stakes than that. (Man, my Hellsing shipping opinions are different now than they were when I was 17. I remember thinking Alucard/Seras was really compelling, and now I'm like... but Integra/Alucard is so much more interesting, past Jessa. Controlling the super magic vampire rather than being controlled by the vampire. Also interesting are Alucard/Walter and Alucard/Alexander. I probably won't muster the effort to actually look at fic, but I'm definitely thinking shippily.) (I've never seen Ultimate, but I have a copy of it too and vague plans to watch it with a friend who's only ever seen Ultimate and wants to rewatch it.)

Also delightful about both of these things is that I have old fansubbed copies, and in an era where there are official translations available for stuff so much more easily, I've ended up really nostalgic for fansubs. The copy of Hellsing I have renders his name as 'Arucard' and it delights me beyond reason.

I might switch to Kyou Kara Maoh after I finish Princess Princess, which I know the fansubs I have of are also weird, because which group was translating switched several times midstream and the different groups made different choices--I specifically remember that one of them translated "original king" and one left it as "shinou".

Someday I will finish Ancient Magus Bride, which I started while it was being released and then lost track of because I'm bad at keeping up with actively-updating things, but watching something on Crunchyroll with ads and all seems like an insurmountable effort right now, so just anime I have copies of on my media laptop it is.

(For reference, the full fairly brief list of anime I have copies of: Azumanga Daioh, Chobits, Excel Saga, Fruits Basket (original), Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate, Kyou Kara Maoh, Lucky Star, Ouran High School Host Club, Princess Princess, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Puni Puni Poemy, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Serial Experiments Lain. Some of these I've only seen once or only seen parts of despite that I've had copies for years. I'm just not good at visual media, especially when I'm not familiar enough with it to know exactly how it goes so there are no potential stressful surprises.)

God this is so melodramatic. THE PRINCESS SYSTEM IS BEING THREATENED! THE HORROR! PLAY DRAMATIC MUSIC! I love you, bishounen in dresses anime. I'm so glad you're here for me.

I'm just going to put all of my thoughts under a spoiler cut rather than trying to sort them by spoilery or not. Also, I saw it over the weekend, so my recollection has inevitably fuzzed up a bit since. (Partially collected from my post-movie twitter ramble.)

( Here there be spoilers )