Wet Hot American Summer

I wasn't expecting much from this series, but it was laugh out loud funny. It was even funnier than the film. I especially appreciated the visual humor, since a lot of comedies rely on all talk nowadays.

Both in the film and in the series, I loved the David Hyde-Pierce segments that are focused on academic humor. His wife leaving him because he hadn't been published, the tenure listed on a wall, him strangling his department chair - all gold.

All the actors did a great job, but Elizabeth Banks, Josh Charles, and Chris Pine were the standouts for me. Elizabeth Banks' fearless reportage was so over the top it was great. Her fighting a cartoonishly evil President Reagan was also hilarious. Josh Charles' THREE popped polo shirts and bombastic prep school delivery were endlessly entertaining, and the writers made an effort to emphasize that he objected to Camp Firewood's lack of class, not their race. Chris Pine as a punk Jesus / Jim Morrison was so great I was legit screaming each time he came onscreen. The Israel-Palestine angle to the two camps' disagreement was unexpected, but Chris Pine prevented another war with the power of music. (And also defeated death? As an actual god of rock?)

Throughout the whole series, the music was also great. I didn't want netflix to go to the next episode and cut off the credits music!

Marmalade Boy

Well. This anime certainly was. Long.

By the end of 76 episodes I was praying for surcease. But I somehow felt that I had to finish after coming so far.  Not that the characters came far AT ALL. How many times did we see the same boring love polygons?

The reason I started watching this anime was because someone had finally realized a good solution to love polygons - a stable unit! The parents changed partners, divorced and remarried, and all 4 lived together with their child from each original couple - Miki and Yuu. And it's true that when the anime focused on the parents, I really enjoyed it. They were a little selfish and involved with their foursome sometimes, but they were still really good parents. And they all got along so well it was great to see. Plus, they added some much needed humor!

With Miki and Yuu living together and dating one another, you would think this would be a good recipe for illicit makeouts, but they barely ever kissed it was the worst.

But the absolute worst part of this anime is that it's about a bunch of unlikeable sociopaths. I mean teenagers are all sociopaths, whatever, but everyone just acted so poorly all the time. The only mature person was Yuu, so he became attractive by default. And even then at the end he went kind of crazy. (Living in New York will do that to you. Don't even get me started on their "New York.")

The first triangle between Yuu, Miki, and Ginta, I honestly thought they might resolve with a threesome - I think Yuu would have been okay with that. But no dice. And it was all downhill from there.