I've been re-watching Wild Arms Twilight Venom. Here's a little bit of history for you: When the WA:TV first came out dubbed in English I hated it. I was a sophmore in highschool way back then and I eagerly awaited the first DVD of the anime as I was still on a Wild ARMs high from playing WA3. I watched the first two or three episodes the first night and was disappointed. I found it dis-jointing how abruptly it jumps from scene to scene and how slow paced some episodes could be. I hated some what I percieved to be the dis-continunity in the series such as how everyone minus Issac has to spend alot of time together waiting for a ship to come at the end of the first episode but then act like complete strangers in the next episode. I liked the fourth episode alot, although -- I felt that one really captured the Wild ARMs spirit. But I did not order any of the other DVDs.
Earlier this year it started bothering me that I didn't know how Wild ARMs: Twilight Venom ended. Sheyenne's story about being dis-placed from his main body was a decent mystery and for some reason I became quite curious about how that came to be. I decided that I'd watch the entire series, starting from the beginning. Not only would I get to see the ending (eventually) but I figured I could write episode summaries and character pages and stuff for the Wiki so at the very least I'd be taking a bullet for the team. So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that I was really enjoying watching the anime. I actually thought to myself, "Is the same anime I hated all of those years ago?" Obviously, the answer was yes. The anime couldn't change but it was apparent that I had.
I think the biggest change was that seven years had passed since the first time I had watched it and not only am I a highschool graduate but I am also a college graduate. Now I'm not saying you have to be a college graduate or anything to watch WA:TV nor am I saying that WA:TV is highl iterature or anything pretenious like that, but I am saying college opened my mind to new ideas. I actually studied English and because of this had to read all sorts of literature from various time periods and from all sorts of other cultures and my opinions on storytelling changed. I guess because of my views expanding I was able to both accept and appreciate WA:TV for exactly what it is. I'm not a huge anime fan, although there's been a few I liked, and I guess this one just hit me wrong back then.
I have some observations about WA:TV but I think I'll save them for a later post as they're not at all related to the story of my unusual relationship with WA:TV.