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Author Topic: 14 - "The Legendary Snowfields" - RETROSPECTIVE  (Read 4141 times)
Neil Lafrenais
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« on: May 17, 2003, 08:29:48 am »

Let us begin:

RETROSPECTIVE
The Wanderers - El-Hazard TV series
Episode 14 - The Legendary Snowfields
by Neil Lafrenais
22 April 2003

Ah, it's 1:30 in the morning and I've been spouting writing. What better way to top it off than watching a Wanderers filler episode and writing some thoughts about it?

The episode dives in with a dream flashback with young Rune and her mother (who shall be now reffered to as "Rune Snr"). Little Rune is delighted when it starts snowing, even though it causes her "mama" to disappear. I expect it was that infamous line - "LOOKIT" - that drove her away, Runey. The music is cued rather nicely when Rune awakes from her dream-gone-nightmare. She looks over to a story book, setting us up for a nice tie up at the end. Insert title ("Booooiing").

Suddenly, we cut to Makoto, Nanami and Fujisawa at Nanami's hastily set up eatery. The whole snow legend idea is introduced, along with Nanami's scheme to profit from it. Makoto even spouts out a rather cheesy line ("Oh, Nanami, what money making scheme have you come up with now?"). You're just expecting the sitcom canned laughter to kick in at any second.

Her latest food product, "Bean Jam Rice Cakes", don't sound very appetizing either. I'm still pondering if it's entirely possible to make jam from beans. I'm sure that beans are not fruit, and are vegetables. Oh well, this is screwball animé. Things are allowed not to make sense.

Oh, here we go. Dr. S seems to have moved away from the revered librian type of the OAV, and decided to become a wacky explorer. This new look is accompanied by a rather ghastly custard overall, and towel hat. Charming. Apparently, he's setting up a committee to find about all this snow legend nonsense, and it goes to his head. Alielle speaks for all of us, when she says "Oh please". Rock on, sister.

Science babble which basically translates to "the snow is a glitch". Dr. S also takes out a rather nice map of El-Hazard at this point. Probably a rougher version of the one seen on the titles.

The camel creatures make a welcome reappearance. Rune crashes the party and decides she's going. For some reason, Dr. S looks like he's going to object to this, but thankfully he doesn't. I'm pretty sure everyone's forgotten she's supposed to be grounded 24/7 this far into the series anyway.

Now, to the Bugrom Hive for more Jinnai and Ifurita antics. It would be at this point I'd start gushing over Marx's performance as Jinnai, but I'll skip it. Be warned though, his talent does hit you full in the face in this episode. Ifurita doesn't get anything good to say at this early stage, but Jinnai decides that the snow legend is weapon related. Pretty predictable.

More sci-babble, which basically translates to, "it snows" again. Some stationary montage as this is being explained for the third time. That Dr. S enjoys showing off, that's for sure. Right, so, after that, they reach "The Forest of Mirage", the destination for the snow. Apt name.

Ura gets a pretty flower in her hair. Fair enough for the Wanderers viewers, but for those who remember the infamous 2 frames in Night 4 of the OAV? Oh nonono. I won't go there.

Apparently walking was too common for the wanderers, so they decide to go by canoe. An unexpecting comedy moment comes in the form of Dr. S having his face sucked off by a rather odd Emu hybrid. This did make me laugh out loud on my initial watching. Visual humour is always a gurantee for laughs.

After more Rune-Makoto-Nanami love triangle scenes, the whole segment becomes a white water raft ride. Fujisawa acting cocky during this is amusing, to say the least ("I'm sorry, what did you say about my head?"). Fujisawa makes short work of the rocks by using his SUPER STRENGTH (I actually forgot he had that in this series. That's cuh-ray-zee Wanderers for you, I suppose). Nice one liner from Alielle, claiming Fujisawa's humour to be "sick". Nice background music here, as well.

Eventually they all fall down a waterfall, and survive Looney Tunes style. Dr. S seems pretty choked up about arriving, for some reason or another. Rune, of course, whines about seeing the snow, just to make sure we don't even think of forgetting the entire premise of the episode. Thanks, Runey. But, what's this? A Bugrom is watching nearby? Shock! Disaster! This could only spell danger for our crew!

Suddenly, it's night (for reasons best known to AIC). Dr. S is getting ready to see the snow, using all sorts of extravagant equipment that fails to interest me in the slightest. It is at this point that Dr. S gets the most perverted look on his face that I've ever seen. That grin is not one of anticipation of snow, I can tell you that much. The pervy way that he says he's "longed to see the snow with [his] own eyes" is also made exretremely creepy thanks to the leer.

I thanked the Lord God Jinnai for the commercial bumpers.

(TO BE CONTINUED)
« Last Edit: May 17, 2003, 08:38:53 am by neil_lafrenais » Logged



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Makoto Mizuhara
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« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2003, 11:13:11 am »

Quote
Her latest food product, "Bean Jam Rice Cakes", don't sound very appetizing either. I'm still pondering if it's entirely possible to make jam from beans. I'm sure that beans are not fruit, and are vegetables. Oh well, this is screwball animé. Things are allowed not to make sense.


Actually, that's a real food product, though the name is slightly mistranslated.  It's not so much a "jam" but rather a paste.  

Asian cooking uses beans (Especially the large variety of soy beans) quite a bit in their cooking.  

Most likely the beans she were referring to were Adzaki Beans (or the closest thing to them on El-Hazard)

http://www.fatfree.com/archive/2001/mar/msg00007.html

And as for the "Bean Jam Rice Cakes" from the way they were drawn, they were most likely Sweet Bean Paste Buns like these:

http://www.china-on-site.com/pages/cooking/1364.php

They're similar to steamed dumplings if you've ever had those at a Chinese Restaurant.  

Of course for something for "interesting" you may wanna consider this culinary treat: Shaved Iced and Beans.

But consider this, One of America's most common desserts has its basis of flavor in a bean - Vanilla Ice Cream.
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« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2003, 12:41:43 pm »

I still think it's an amusing writing.  :P
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