It’s My Life

It’s my life/ It’s now or never/ I ain’t gonna live forever/ I just want to live the live while I’m alive/ It’s… My… Life! I bet every westerner who watched this anime short is going to have this Bon Jovi song pop up in their head first. I know I did. It’s My Life is definitely a strange name for an anime but it’s not going to be one of those cute girls doing cute things genre. In fact, it’s about this dude, Astra Ludger Doomsday who is a retired knight. Living his peaceful retired life until a young girl named Noah crashes into it and mistakes him for someone else. And so this is their daily life.

Gar(b)age sale…
We are given a brief synopsis of the setting as mentioned in my opening paragraph. Astra decides to hold a garage sale to get rid of all the clutter in his house. Yeah, he got this idea while reading some monthly magazine. But will anybody come to his house located in the mountains? He has already used the postal service to distribute flyers. So we’re going to see weird characters popping up… The first is Kyuss who could be some pervert because he wants to buy everything Astra uses every day. You bet Noah and him are going to become enemies. Astra is worried about Kyuss because this former comrade of his never seems to work. Kyuss is confident of leaving things in Rose’s hands but as you can see, his subordinate of his doesn’t waste any chance in beating him up and even make him repent. Then there’s a pair of dragon brothers who plan to steal all the items but they are usurp and taken out by Elise. So much for their appearance. She looks around and thought Kyuss was for sale. 150 gold? So cheap. It’s a joke. He’s not for sale. Noah shows her cute drawings and Elise becomes interested in buying the whole lot. Next is this weirdo Riff who wants to sell her items to Astra instead. But thanks to Buntline making a good statement, the garage sale gets on in a normal way. At the end of the day, here comes this rocker, Johnny. He wants to do a live concert because that way a lot of people will gather. Will he be stealing his customers then? But Astra has no more things to sell. How about buying his time then? Then it becomes a competition to buy Astra. Or Noah. Ah well. Today’s garage sale is a success despite all the weird things happening.

Everything Must Go!
Well… That was… Weird… And just mediocre! Safe to say that I won’t be going to such garage sale in my life ever again if Astra decides to hold another one! I am not sure this 10 minutes of running time is just a promotion for a proper TV series. Because as first impressions count, I am not really impressed at all and hence I don’t think I would be looking forward if there would be any. You see, this series was actually made because of a crowdfunded project. And from what I read, they got 12 million yen! Yeah, that’s a lot. But that’s the controversy. A lot of fans felt scammed that all that money and they just got a single episode for just 10 minutes. I know it costs a lot of money to make 1 animated episode but with today’s cost cutting technology, I think people expect better. And to make a boring episode out of this crowdfunding source, I can see why many aren’t really too happy about this series that was being adapted from a fantasy manga. But I wonder if all that money went into the ending theme. Turn A Page is an English rock song by a German band, Blind Guardian that was released back in 2006. If you like bands like Scorpions, I’m sure this is your cup of tea. Anyway, I’m wondering if the bulk of the funds went to paying the copyright of this song.

The episode might be boring and just introductory. I mean, it just introduces what is supposedly the main characters of the series. But then again, we have to remember the synopsis that this is about the life of a retired knight. Even in the event if we might see all the adventures and missions of Astra during his time in duty, it may just be flashbacks. Yeah, all those illustrations in the ending credits animation was just tempting. They seem to look a lot more interesting and could have been so had this series been given a proper adaptation, fleshing out the story and the characters. Heck, even if we didn’t get all that, it would still make sense to at least show something on Astra and Noah. I mean, whom does this guy she mistakes for? A single episode just doesn’t justify how this loli ended up living with this dude. Without the brief synopsis especially for those who have never read the manga, we would not even think who Noah this and that she might just be some minor character who is Astra’s helper.

Overall, this OVA didn’t really make an impact and knowing that it got so much money from crowdfunding and it still turn out this mediocre, I guess it really shows that even with all the money in the world, you still need that passion and creativity to make an interesting series. I hope that this garage sale isn’t a metaphor of the producers selling out the fans’ dreams cheaply. After all, Astra said all these stuffs he is selling are important to him. So why the f*ck is he selling them in the first place?! I guess there’s no room in his heart for such memories. Plus, this guy lives in the mountains. Such big spacious space. He could make another big house as a storeroom. Unless he used all his savings to buy this house he retired in. Hence no more money and thus this garage sale. And yeah, even with this mediocrity, life goes on. That’s life for all of us. Good times, bad times. I’m sure we want to continue with Bon Jovi’s song but there’s another older song of the same name. Remember the one by The Animals? I think this one fits it all just fine. It’s my life and I’ll do what I want/ It’s my mind and I’ll think what I want/ Show me I’m wrong, hurt me sometime/ But someday I’ll treat you real fine…