Getting back to study mode

Well yeah, it's an ongoing process and I'm clearly not there yet. But having been to my first lecture of the semester I'm getting there. I'm supposed to be back to actually working on background research for the IS during the week so I'll have something coherent done by next Monday. It should be doable once I really get started.

But today has been like a soft descent to that serious study mode and after coming back from campus quite late I've been a bit preoccupied by other things. One of them is an anime series I've been watching lately and especially its opening credits.

The anime is called Level E, produced by David Production and Studio Pierrot and created by Yoshihiro Togashi. It's a currently airing, weekly series that is now at its fourth episode. The setting is a small town in Japan and from the start we are told that there are countless different alien species living on Earth - some peacefully and others waging wars against each other - and the only ones who do not know about this are humans. Of course there have to be a few human characters among the lead roles who find out about the real state of the world, and getting introduced to one of these few is where the story starts.

Now the opening sequence that has been on my mind for a couple of weeks (only for a short while after each time I've watched the latest episode, though) is one of the best anime opening credits that I have seen. At least it suits my tastes. It gives a bit of a retro feeling with its use of colours, has some quite intriguing "camera" angles and gives an idea of the setting with aliens discreetly living among humans. Of course, containing a bit of fan service might not be all that relevant to the sequence but doesn't hurt it either...

The music the credits have been made to is a song called "Cold Finger Girl" by a Japanese singer Chiaki Kuriyama. Since I do not really understand Japanese, most of the lyrics would be completely uncomprehensible to me without the subtitles that have been added to the translated episodes. However, even without understanding all of the lyrics or reading the subtitles, there are points (sung in English) where it is clear that the combination of the music and pictures have really been thought through. They work well and make the combination of music, animation and use of colour and effects complete.

Here's the video of the opening credits (it does not have the subtitles and the video itself plays as a mirror image for some reason):

PS. The 250-project didn't move any further today, but I did write another entry to REEL Time. Check it out here.