I went to the once-a-month anime club for the first time in a while. I wasn't avoiding it - I just often have other things to do on Friday nights. Tonight they showed three series that were new to me.

Kiddy Grade was a sampler series. It's a secret-agent-superpower-interstellar-office-type show which showed some promise. The plot wasn't particularly strong in the first episode, but I quite liked the younger-looking agent. Alas, the experience of watching this episode was entirely spoiled by it being dubbed. I'm not a purist when it comes to the subbing vs. dubbing controversy, but I usually prefer subbed for exactly the reason where this showing went wrong. What's with NA dubbers hiring voice actors to do "cartoon"-annoying squeaky voices? They were so grating that when the showing ended, I was deeply relieved to not have to hear those voices any more.

Azumanga Daioh was first recommended to me over a year ago by a Montreal anime fan (SCers - smith Nafai's player). The theme music rather scared me off at the time - it was agressively perky. I'm all in favor of happy, upbeat music, but this was perky with a manic edge. Before the showing started, a cluster of teenaged boys cheered wildly for it - no idea why in particular. The theme is daily school life of Japanese girls, but that doesn't really describe it at all. It's more like a funny comic in anime; a series of sketches involving a core group of characters. It really was funny, and while odd and strange too, there was enough coherency to get me through the strangeness. (And it was an extremely tight-knit plot compared to the Excel Saga, but then again, what isn't?)

Dirty Pair: Project Eden is a movie from an anime series, none of which I'd seen before. It was okay - nothing particularly special or inspiring. The really large hair all the characters sported was rather unexpected. Really big hair.