What I watch currently

I found this great webpage, Next Episode which lets you mark up the shows you watch that come out of American television. American shows have week-to-month long breaks in the middle for no apparent reason. Some show might have only 13 episodes per season, but there might be two seasons in a year... or show might have 26 episodes, and then come out two episodes at a time, every two weeks (save when its on vacation etc). All in all, a great service.

Stuff I watch (includes wikilinks);
Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is action cartoon. It has the best qualities of eastern action (fastly moving cameras, cool character moves), good acting, big budget, magic, changed world, hint of romance, bad guys that have good qualities, good guys that have bad qualities etc. It has a definite storyline that has been written in stone. The plot moves forward, and the characters have objectives they might reach only after few episodes from setting them.
Its about a world where Tribe-Nations - each master of one of the elements - fight against each other (actually, Fire fights with Earth and Water). The person who was supposed to stop the fighting got stuck in the ice for 100 years, and now has to master all the four elements, while Fire Nation tries to stop him. The person in question is 12 years old and has a very bad attention span and no idea how the world has changed during his chilling time.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is intentionally made to look like 60s Hanna Barbera-shows (you know, like Flinstones). Harvey Birdman, who used to be D-list superhero, has turned his life around and now works as a lawyer at Sebben & Sebben, taking cases of other animation characters, such as defending Fred Flinstone (accused of being a Mob Boss) or pushing the case of Apache Chef, who has spilled coffee on his lap and cant.. krhm.. grow big no more. Very crazy, very enjoyable.

House is a hospital series centered around Doctor House, who has high moral values and no ethical ones. In one episode he drugged the patient to make sure he wouldnt object to the tests he ran. He also regulary has people break (illegally) into patients houses to find out what they are hiding. Hugh Laurie (of Jeeves & Wooster and Black Adder fame) is House. Again, highly enjoyable but with lots of disgusting graphics.

Jericho is only few episodes out yet but looks very awesome indeed. After atom bombs start dropping, little Jericho in the middle of nowhere gets off without any hits nearby. The series follows the town as it tries to face the new reality. Kinda Falloutish.

Heroes. Another new series. Around the world, few people slowly find themselves having superpowers. Even though they dont know of each other - indeed, dont know the others even exist - they start to find their way to New York. And while they don't know of each other, they walk the same streets and talk to the same people. It's only matter of time before they meet.. and thats good, because in six weeks New York will be in ruins if nobody does nothing.

Time Jam

Very good reason to get drunk.

From wikipedia:

...the situations typically arose from misunderstandings or ideological differences between various groups that could be resolved through reason and perseverance. The core theme of the stories is an optimistic liberal humanism: the adventures aren’t about defeating enemies but about exploring, facing challenges, and celebrating diversity.

This is one of my favorite comics. They handle more like travel journals into strange worlds than future-themed adrenaline-action with explosions every three minutes.
My favorite sequence in the comic-series was when they after tracking down drugs and illegal technology on 80s Earth, find out that the guilty party is Holy Trinity. Big is Valerian's and friends surprise when they find out that God is a no-good, down-on-his-luck business man, Jesus is an old hippie and Holy Spirit is a broken slot-machine.

Im quite sure, after seeing that intro, that Tim Jam will not be anything like that. Well, hopefully it made the creators rich.

School Rumble

This was actually one of the two animes I have bothered to watch during - say, the last two years (not counting my eternal love, Rose of Versailles [should write about that too, someday]).

School Rumble is a school comedy, in the heart of which there is cute girl named Tenma, who acts and appears like she would be several years younger than her age would presume; she is pretty bad with school and not the sharpest pen in the box anyway.
The other main character is the school's toughest tough guy, Hajima. The series starts at the beginning of the school year; Hajima returns to school only to be near Tenma, who he loves from his heart. He, like Tenma, is not very bright; for a thought guy, he has a big heart, but people cant see it because he is also quite violent by nature, and fears for his imago (and enemies, who would surely attack him if they would see him going soft). Hajima is also exellent artist, and now and then during the series we see peeks to his manga, which revolves around him getting Tenma as his girlfriend (naturally, the manga has happy ending).
Tenma, too, is in love, but to a guy who can only see... food. Therefore, the two main plots is Hajima trying to propose to Tenma, and Tenma trying to propose to her heart's desire, Karasuma. Karasuma, too, is a character of suprising qualities. All in all, of all the characters, he seems to be most out of this world. Excelling in everything he bothers doing, he dosen't seem to have much social contacts - maybe he is simply unable to creating them.

Along with Hajima, Tenma and Karasuma, the casts consists of most of the class they are going to, 2C. Each of them seems to have qualities not really expected from normal people, or even of anime thats basicly a love story. Tenma's little sister can read minds; class president (in love with Tenma's sister) is also karateka, one of Tenma's classmates is (apparently) half-Swedish, and has problems with her family she seldom sees... and so on.

But the thing that really makes School Rumble orginal is how drastically the genre of the story changes; Dragonball, Initial D, sports, horror... all such and more the story sifts to, and often, only afterwards the viewer gets to know, was it all a dream, or did it really happen? The characters, particulary Hajima, go to the very extreme to get what they want or forget it -- such as becoming a holy man who talks to animals, channeling their wisdom to those who want to know the future. Other particular thing that suprised me was how jokes of the moment, that don't really have any part in the plot carry on and on, while other stories would simply disregard them. Like the holy man sketch; it only lasts five minutes, and the animals are only part of the background, making the joke to work. But few episodes later half the episode is used to tell what happens to the giraffe that Hajima had earlier.

The anime was very refreshing experience. Usually Im bothered by the ammount of cliches these series use, seemingly without noticing. School Rumble avoids most of them, and when it dosent, it gives such twist that you cant help but enjoy. This is, surely, one of the best series I have ever seen. It would, thought, be even better if the show would have definite ending. Now Hajima only finishes his manga, which gives him some small comfort before going after Tenma again; Tenma, though, dosent seem to understand its over now. After the texts, she starts telling about what happens in episode 27 - without realising this was the very last one.

We can only hope that someday there will be OVA or second season. One would really wish to know how the story finally ends. Apparently there is a manga too, but what hope do we have of ever reading it in english (or in any other language I understand?). Chances also are, that the manga hasnt found it conclusion yet either.