Starr is Screaming

All I told sashagee before we went is that it's about racing.

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Redline IS about racing--the entire movie is about a once-every-five-years race called Redline where, in the space future of flying cars, they requires four wheels and powerful engines. The protagonist is named JP ("James Punkhead"), has a foot-long pompadour, and drives a car called "Trans Am" that looks like a sci fi Pontiac Firebird. Some of the other racers include a cyborg named "Machine Head" who has his own themesong where the chorus goes "Machine Heeeeeeeeaaad!🎵🎶", a pair of intergalactic bounty hunters, two Japanese dudes from Earth (animeified versions of the stars of Mole Brothers), or a pair of magical girls in stripperific costumes called "Team Boin" (Team Bouncy). There are planet names like Dorothy and Sweetgrass (a planet of magical girls--though they don't use their magic during the Redline) and Roboworld. Roboworld is the planet that the Redline takes place on, much to Roboworld's annoyance--it's some kind of military dictatorship, with a blasted rocky hellscape surface, and the racers race through a minefield (they're so fast the mines don't blow up until they're out of danger), through a secret testing area where illegal bioweapons are being developed, and all the way to the main Roboworld governmental building. There's a mafia sideplot, there's a love story, at one point there's a kaijū fight in the background, each of the secondary characters has their own short arc and just enough personality to be compelling but not enough to take over the narrative--for Machine Head, he first appears looming over another racer and says “Move.” The other racer says “I’m not moving!” and there’s a moment of tension before Machine Head says, “Fine. I’ll go around you then.”

It's great. sashagee loved it even though before we went she was incredibly confused why I would invite her to a movie about racing.

Also I did not realize that the voice actor for JP was Asano Tadanobu, who recently won an Emmy for his work on Shōgun! We were talking with neilworms afterwards and he mentioned that, as well as some of the other cameos that people who had seen other Koike Takeshi works.

The venue really made a difference, I feel like. The last time I watched Redline for ping816's anime discussion group, I of course watched it on a 1080p computer screen by myself, and I liked it, but it was nothing like watching it in a movie theatre with a full crowd that all laughed when any of the many comedy bits of the movie happened. I did not realize that Facets was such a title in the independent/foreign cinema space. They have a lot of other screenings--they're showing Tampopo this month--and I should really get on a mailing list so I know what's going on.

Unfortunately, I don't have nearly as much praise for the dinner we went to beforehand. We joined some other people from Anime Chicago at Mi Nueva Tierra nearby, which has 4.5 stars on Google but based on our experience there I have no idea why. We got burrito bowls--sashagee had steak, I had roasted cauliflower--and they were fine but nothing special. She got horchata, I got a blueberry Old Fashioned--again, fine--and the bill came out to $60 for the two of us for a meal we came away from thinking "Eh, I guess." I wish we had all gone with spacedragon's initial suggestion of going to the nearby Strings ramen, or that we had gone with jeremy.podczerwinski and erendira.morales to the vegan Thai place they went to. Well, for next time we'll have to remember that.

She always forgets how old she is but she doesn't forget her birthday.

I took today off, partially because of her birthday but also because last night was sashagee's birthday present--a Babymetal concert:


Babymetal always put on a great show and this time was no different--they have basically infinite energy even though they've been doing this for fifteen years. The last time we went to see Babymetal, the show was very long--Babymetal didn't even come out on stage until 10:30 p.m. or so. This time they were out on stage at 8:30, finished by 9:40 or so, and we were home by 10:15 p.m., albeit having to run home in the pouring rain. I did think it was kind of funny seeing all the metal fans scurrying for cover. sashagee's comment was that it made her mascara run so it was extra metal cred (she was full Baby side of Babymetal, in pink with glitter on and odango hair).

When we got there the line was wrapped almost all around the block, so we waited for a while and were eventually joined by confuciousdragon. He split off when we got inside because sashagee wanted to grab another Babymetal T-shirt, and the whole time we heard music coming from upstairs. We thought they were just pumping up the crowd, like what happened later when we were waiting for Babymetal to set up and they played System Of A Down's "Chop Suey" and almost the entire crowd started singing along, but when we got through the line, finished paying, and finally got upstairs, it turned out that Bloodywood had started their set at the exact time the doors opened(!!) and were almost on their last song! We got about one-and-a-half songs before they left the stage and then we had to wait thirty minutes for Jinjer to set up.

Jinjer wasn't really my thing--I was probably a more little critical than I should have been because the last song I had heard from Bloodywood was fantastic--but the story that confuciousdragon told us did make me more sympathetic. He said they're a Ukrainian band who were just getting big when the war started and most of their songs are about their experience. It makes me wish I could have understood the lyrics to their songs.

Babymetal, of course, put on an extremely high-energy show that was tons of fun, and unlike last time, sashagee didn't start feeling bad so we could keep our place the entire concert! We were in the back left the whole time, watched the whole show, and then sashagee bought two more t-shirts (for Bloodywood and Jinjer) on the way out. Good thing we had them, too, because we needed them to cover our heads as we ran for cover from the rain.

I took the next day off because it was the actual day of sashagee's birthday, and so she would have time to recover, most of the day she didn't do anything. We sat around for most of the day until the evening, when we went to her birthday dinner downtown at Ema. We ate there before last year, when we were wandering around down town and passed it and I suggested it as a good place, and sashagee liked it enough that she seized on it for her birthday dinner. We got some of the same things we got last time, a hummus and a salad, and I got a "charred eggplant" that turned out to just be baba ghanoush under a rename (I was hoping for actual charred eggplant). The real start was the dessert, though, just like last time. We skipped the vanilla panna cotta and I got a lava cake and sashagee got a pear honey pie. Both of them were delicious, though sashagee didn't realize that the pears had been absolutely soaked in alcohol until she was eating them by themselves (without the pie).

When we were done, we didn't have any other plans and sashagee was a bit tired, so we got back on the L and headed home.