I must admit that I am a little disappointed with my Fedora installation. It does have its fair share of issues; just now it stopped responding to my keyboard, and all applications just locked up. Even better, when I rebooted, GRUB didn't even initialize. Sigh. It's my own fault, of course, going with such a bleeding-edge distro that has all the latest programs and utilities, not the tested and stable ones. I suppose it's good for a taste of where Linux is going, but it's not really (at the moment anyway) suited for serious daily use. Frankly, it doesn't seem to offer much benefit over XP, and if it crashes, then it's in fact worse!

I think I've had three weeks now of my anime exposure. I've got mixed feelings towards what I've seen. Let's see if I can muster the energy to blather on about them:

• Cowboy Bebop - Now this one has been a disappointment. I say that because I have read a lot about how it's one of the greatest animations ever, the pinnacle of anime genius, and so on. The ones I've seen haven't been the great experiences I thought they'd be - sure, they were entertaining, but nothing deep, profound, artistic, or whatever else I expect of something truly great.
  
  The story hasn't really done it for me, and I think that's the problem. You get the feeling that the whole thing is very stylistic, and you can see the various influences that it brings together, but then you also see that there isn't too much depth to what's actually going on. Sure, it has it's fair share of humour, but there doesn't seem to be any character development, and the plot doesn't really seem to go anywhere. I think continuity of story is important, and the ones I've seen are basically unrelated. This means there is no character development, and so we don't really get a chance to feel involved at all.
  
  Now having said all that, the show is entertaining. I would prefer to watch it over a great number of shows on TV, because it's certainly not some simplistic kids' show. The style is quite nice, and parts of it are funny, so I would never accuse it of being boring. In fact the style is what would keep one going and make one want to watch more of it. I'm too easily influenced, of course, but it's interesting how they try to blend different genres into the different episodes. You can sort of see that this all has the potential to be great, and that's a good thing - it just hasn't done it for me so far.
  
  My opinion so far - not brilliant, but I can see it getting there.
  



• Orphen - Lowered expectations give more enjoyment! Yes, I did not expect anything deep from this show, I expected some magic and a decent story, and that's exactly what I got, so I'm happy. There is something about this animation style that really captivates me - coupled with the music (which for some inexplicable reason reminds me of Japanese video games, even though I've never played any), it has it's own distinct feel.
  
  Story-wise, I've had to try to decipher the plot from the dialogue, and it is quite decent, although unfortunately I seem to have come in right towards the end, because next week is the last episode. Like I said, there's nothing altogether brilliant about it, it's decent entertainment, but I don't think it's much more (although I could well be mistaken, as I often am).
  



• Trigun - Ahh now this one is interesting. Again, I'm very easily influenced by what I read, so when I saw reviews of this hailing it as a blend of philosophy and sci-fi, I think I was already convinced that it was great. Alas, I've only seen two epsiodes (the first week, I must admit I thought it was too silly, just judging from the opening credits), but I am hoping that it turns out to be what is promised. Already we have the morally strong (yet wacky) hero, whose reputation causes the demise of those around him.
  
  The death of one of the people in the last episode really stuck in my mind, I don't know why. It was interesting to see the hero getting blamed for the destruction he inadvertantly caused, and him accepting the blame too. A slight deviation from the typical spotless champion of justice who does everything right. To be fair, not something dramatic, but I notice little things when it suits my opinion...!
  
  High hopes of this one!
  

Standard caveat of course, being that since I've only seen three episodes of each, this can hardly constitute a review. It's more of a musing, much like everything else on this blog.