More Stories

A typical Monday in the Annex with some perfect weather (that is to say, warm enough to walk around with a jacket, but not warm enough to actually break a sweat). All the usual stops were made, Beguiling, Suspect Video, a resupply of coffee and some groceries. I still haven’t finished that second story for the Liquid City anthology, but soon, dammit, SOON…

The Wife herself is also going to be very busy. She made the mistake one day of saying, “I have no stories to tell,” and immediately had a big one she wanted to do before the day was out. I won’t say much about it here, ’cause it’s her story and all, after all, but between Nowhere, Liquid City the Other Anthology, a couple of stories she’d previously forgotten about, and this new one, she’s got a lot on her plate.

And on my list of reccomends for this week comes yet another anime series courtesy of Suspect:

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

This one is completely random. I’d heard absolutely nothing about it, didn’t know a thing in advance, and hadn’t even heard about it. The only reason we ended up watching it was because the cover of the DVD case caught the Wife’s eye and I figured, “What the hell, could be fun.”

It’s a weird amalgamation of Coming of Age and Sliders. The story starts out with two 12 year old kids, Arumi (the adorable one in the white dress in the foreground) and her childhood friend, Sasshi (the one with the hat) as they face their last summer together. Both of them have spent their entire lives living in shophouses on the north and south end of a large complex called the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade. Arumi’s family runs the Pelican French restaurant on the north side–adorned with a big pelican on the roof–and Sasshi’s family runs Turtle baths–similarly adorned with a big turtle on the roof–but the years have not been kind to the arcade. Now, plots of land are being sold off, and the old place is gradually being dismantled. Arumi’s family will be moving away and Sasshi’s not looking forward to it.

What starts out as seemingly charming young love/coming of age story quickly takes a turn for the strange when the kids end up getting caught in a kind of spatial warp that constantly moves them from one bizarre, fantastical version of their shopping arcade to another. They go from Japanese fantasy role-playing game styled arcades to giant robot science fiction ones, and even film noir. It is just downright hilarious, and while it’s only 13 episodes in total length, this is another one of those little treasures that I need to add to the list of things for the collection

And, on a totally random note, here’s a baby panda: