Anime Guidepost

The Battle Against Negligence Continues! Hoshin Engi, Dragon Ball Kai, Fractale

2011-08-11T13:40:00.005-06:00

Eeeeeeehehehehehe . . . . . . Yeah, I still not keeping this thing up to date. Then again, I've had quite the first half of a year. Let's just say a lot of things have changed. For starters I'm going back to school and I haven't really been watching that much anime. I decided to completely skip the past Spring and Summer 2011 seasons as I saw very little to be interested in. I might go back and watch Tiger & Bunny or No. 6, but there's been very little to be excited about these past seasons. In fact, the few I picked from Winter haven't been complete winners either, as you will see.

I haven't slacked off on my manga, though, so let's start with that:

Hoshin Engi (23 Volumes)

Rating: 5/5

I love this series.

I actually remember that this was the first series I ever read scanlated waaaaay back in 2001 or 2002. I had stumbled upon it in the midst of my Anipike wanderings (who remembers Anipike?!) and was totally in love with a hero who used his brains instead of his brawn. Later, when I watched the Soul Hunter anime several years later, I realized that it was based on that manga I read back in high school. Since then, I decided to use a bit of brains myself and got my local library to pick up the whole series.

And what a great series it is. Taikobo is a sen'nin, a kind of supernatural being, who is given the Hoshin Project to help protect the world from a Demon who has taken control of the Empire. Based on a classic Chinese novel that takes place at the end of the Yin Dynasty (roughly 11th Century BC), Ryu Fujisaki takes several liberties, slowly adding more and more science fiction elements that turn it into quite the epic.

The thing that sets Taikobo apart from his fellow Shonen Jump peers is his way of solving problems. Instead of resorting to brawn and tapping on reserved powers, Taikobo uses his brain, creating cunning plans to outwit his enemies. While this is still a fighting anime series (Taikobo does raise an army and gathers a handful of companions), his methods tend to be so unorthodox that it instantly makes him memorable. More than once he twists the situation to the point that he's the villain just so that the problem can be solved without any casualties. His kind of cunning and meta-problem-solving makes him very reminiscent of other famous Trickster Heroes like Br'er Rabbit and Till Eulenspiegel (or Bugs Bunny, if your not some snobby folklore literatus).

Another element that makes this series stand out is that it never compromises its goofiness. Even to its epic finale, it never takes itself too seriously and is a total blast to read from beginning to end. This series is highly recommended for everyone. Go read it!

Dragon Ball Kai (97 Episodes)

Animation: 3/5

Story: 3/5

Music: 4/5

Overall: 3/5

I know I reviewed Dragon Ball Z already on this blog, but I figured it'd be worth at least talking about the Kai version for a bit.

Dragon Ball Kai covers the first two major story arcs of Dragon Ball Z and while it's cool that they got all the voice actors to redo the dialogue and gave it a new soundtrack, it does feel a bit like a cash cow, given that they're simply reusing old animation and given it an HD face lift.

Unfortunately, I don't know if their "face lift" really helped much. There were times when I watched it that I felt the animation was worse than the original. Never during my run of DBZ did I think some of the frames had been colored win MS Paint by a middle schooler. I understand that they were trying to smooth out some of the faults of the old films but some of those shots just looked terrible. They didn't happen often, but I think I saw almost one scene per episode that was like that.

The pacing certainly was interesting, though, as they decided completely new points on which to end episodes. However, having most of the filler cut down still didn't make the series feel any shorter, and when filler was left in, I was a bit annoyed, but I understood that some of the later scenes wouldn't make sense if side characters suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

I admit that I think the music was an improvement over the original Japanese soundtrack. While all the orchestral scores were still very Toei, it felt fresh whereas the old one was a bit dated.

As for the series ending where it did, I'm okay with that. I never really got into the Majin Buu/Fusion stuff, and having the story end there does give it a better sense of closure without resorting to the ridiculous. I know that FUNimation completely redubbed the series (I remember joking that they could edit up the old dialogue in the same spirit as Toei, so redubbing it is pretty cool), but I haven't watched any of it. Should I ever get the feeling of watching more Dragon Ball, I'll have that to look forward to. To be honest, it's been a bizarre, if minor, trend lately to release/rehash a popular series. We've just had Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Rebuild of Evangelion, and now Hunter x Hunter is being given a second shot with rumors of Rurouni Kenshin making a comeback. At least they're all being reanimated, something that I think could have improved Kai greatly. Oh well.

Fractale (11 Episodes)

Animation: 4/5

Story: 3/5

Music: 3/5

Overal: 3/5

This wants to be a Studio Ghibli film so bad it hurts. I imagine going up to anime producers and saying "Castle in the Sky in eleven episodes" may be a great way to get attention from the get-go, I think it's worth remember that a movie is only two hours and a season's worth of anime is around ten.

I'm going to borrow Wikipedia's plot summary. It's not exactly something I want to do, but they're pretty concise this time and I'm feeling a bit lazy. "The story takes place on an island resembling a futuristic Ireland, in a world ruled by the 'Fractale System' that ensures mankind's stability and prosperity. One day, Clain meets a fleeing girl called Phryne, who disappears during the night leaving a pendant. When he is able to activate the pendant (which turns into a 'doppel,' a kind of robotic hologram, named Nessa), Clain sets out for a journey with the girl-shaped avatar Nessa to look for Phryne and discovers the secret behind the Fractale System." From there Clain runs into Lost Millennium, a rebel group dedicated to destroying the Fractale System because it encourages people to lose touch with reality and face-to-face conversation. However, people are so adjusted to the Fractale System that taking it away all at once could cause all sorts of problems. To Clain's credit, he takes neither side and only wants to help his friends Phryne and Nessa, both of which turn out to be fundamental to the Fractale System.

While it certainly does try to raise some interesting questions (pros and cons of virtual reality, etc.), and gives us some nice, sweeping landscapes and epic airship battles, it really can't shake the notion that it's simply padding in filler until the climax. I think that 11 episodes really was too long for the story it was trying to tell; perhaps if they reanimated it as a compilation movie, it'd work better.

Still, it was a pleasant change from the normal anime fare we get these days. Nice pastoral scenes and music, especially the end theme, create a very casual, relaxing feel even as things get turned upside-down and serious. Given the modern trends of hardcore grit or over-the-top moe, Fractale offers and nice third direction that aspires for Miyazaki greatness. It's just a shame that it falls so short.

Hopefully, I'll get back on top of this blog and post more regularly. I can't promise anything too regular, just striving to write more than I have been. I still have my Fall 2010 selections to finish (I'm almost done), and Infinite Stratos and Level E from Winter 2011. I watch all of Zeta Gundam but decided that I really didn't have much to say about it. It was very angsty to a fault. I mean, something must be wrong when I get excited about a character's death simply because it means that I don't have to hear them anymore. I've put ZZ Gundam on hiatus but I plan to get back to it shortly.

Speaking of Gundam, I'm very excited about this upcoming Fall season of anime. Gundam AGE looks to be like no other Gundam before it. While some are concerned about the Mega Man/Digimon-style character designs, I have no problem with them as long as the story can hold up. The second season of Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Squid Girl) is a part of that season as well, and the aforementioned Hunter x Hunter remake by Madhouse (MADHOUSE!) starts in October. I've actually started watching the first anime series to prepare for it as I'm caught up on the manga. However, after watching three episodes dubbed, I've switched to subs, something I've only done once before and that's with Naruto. It's probably just as well, given that all the OVA's won't have dubs.

In any case, look forward to more reviews as I'm trying to get back into an anime watching rhythm!

Struggling to get back on track!! Monster, Mobile Suit Gundam, Shinryaku! Ika Musume

2011-01-26T14:35:00.004-07:00

You'd think with the free time I have now I'd be able to do this better than ever. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess, but there really is no excuse for negligence in your own promises. Hopefully, this will make up for it a little bit. Now that the holidays are over, things should settle back down to a normal level of insanity. Anyways, let's get talking about anime!

Monster (70 Episodes)
Animation: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

I'm sure there are several of you wondering about those scores given Monster was made by the critically acclaimed Naoki Urasawa, but I've got my reasons, and no they don't stem from the fact that I watched the whole series on Syfy. While I certainly don't think this was a bad series, I don't know if it really should be lauded as much as other people say it should be.

The story takes place mostly in Germany, with some later episodes in the Czech Republic, and revolves around a Japanese doctor named Kenzo Tenma who is a genius of a brain surgeon. So much so, in fact, that he is the apple in the hospital director's eye and is willing to let him date his daughter. Things seem to be sailing smoothly for our foreigner when he is suddenly stopped one day by a woman while he is walking down the hall at the hospital. The woman demands that he give her dead husband back. Tenma knows nothing about the woman or her husband's case but when she says that someone of higher political position was given treatment over her husband and he died because of it. This ethical conundrum is enough to make Tenma pause and rethink his life and his work.

When a young boy with a bullet in his head is brought in, Tenma sets to work on him when the director decides to pull him away to treat another high society figure instead, despite the fact that he came in after the boy. Tenma decides to follow his heart and ignores the director, saving the boy's life in the process but letting the other man die at the hands of a less capable doctor. However, no good deed goes unpunished as Tenma's reputation tanks immediately. The director treats him like he's not there and the director's daughter dumps him, dropping the engagement ring onto the street in front of him. When he makes it back to the boy now recovering in the hospital, he rants about the injustice and politics of the hospital environment, wishing that the leaders would just die. Then those very men die soon afterword. Tenma is the immediate suspect, but he's innocent, not really knowing what happened. At the same time, the boy he saved disappeared.

The story then jumps to several years later and Tenma is still working in the hospital when one of his patients happens to be a criminal working for a serial killer that no one can find. When Tenma chases his patient, he runs into the grown version of the boy, Johan, he saved so many years ago. Realizing that he was the one who killed the director and his associates so many years ago, he is instantly crushed by tragedy and responsibility, compelling him to seek Johan out and kill him in order to atone for his mistake.

The story moves around a lot from there, taking its time to introduce many incidental characters and how their situations are related to Tenma and Johan. At about episode 20, the story then dumps another ten characters into your lap that run around this tragedy between the principle two. While it is nice to see that anime is capable of telling a dramatic thriller, it still begs the question as to why it needed to be animated. Sure, Madhouse does a great job and I understand that it is rigidly faithful to the original manga, but it started to get a little too long in the tooth towards the end and it got to the point that I basically stopped caring about the characters. I only wanted Johan to die, no matter who got the shot in.

Still, there were some interesting and well-developed characters, which does show that you don't need off-the-wall character design to make characters memorable and perhaps that's why people like it so much. It's not an anime filled with spiky-haired heroes, ridiculous supernatural powers, and epic space fleets, so it has to take its time to tell a story that can still engage an audience. As for the music, I found it to be mostly forgettable (thought I never did listen to the official ending song; I understand Viz Media couldn't get it, not that Syfy would show it anyway.).

Monster certainly stands as proof that anime can do different styles of story telling but I don't know if it deserves to be in anybody's top ten anime. I guess I generally like anime that is willing to use animation as a principle part of its storytelling and Monster's was stiff in this department, relying on a lot of talking-head dialogue to move the story. However, that does give credit to Monster's story because it was capable of carrying the series most of the way through.

Mobile Suit Gundam (43 Episodes)
Animation: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

I don't know if I ever said as much on this site, but I am on a personal quest to watch all of Gundam in production order, starting with this one. I've since finished Zeta Gundam (which I'll probably review next time), but I thought I would take some time to discuss the classic original series here.

Mobile Suit Gundam (also known as First Gundam) was a pretty big deal in the history of anime, but it certainly had it's share of struggles. Originally 50 episodes were planned, but lack of ratings pushed the count down to 39. However, the director, the now infamous Yoshiyuki Tomino, was able to extend it out to 43 and the series continued to be a mediocre success. That is, until Bandai came out with the Mobile Suit kits that let kids build the robots themselves which sold incredibly well. From there, Gundam has been an ever-present entity in the world of anime, coming out with series after series over their 30-year history with varying degrees of success and popularity. I became a huge fan with Gundam Wing when it was broadcast on Toonami, but I've never really watched the other series except Gundam 08th MS Team and Gundam 00, so I decided that if I'm going to be a proper mecha and Gundam fan, I had better watch this stuff.

The original Mobile Suit Gundam was made in 1979 to 1980 and it shows. It's filled with all sorts of stock footage and certainly takes it time to show off the various suits to ensure that kids will want their parents to buy them for them. However, it also sets up many of the traditions that Gundam has been known for all these years; a political war-is-hell drama, a villain wearing a mask hiding a scandalous identity, great characterization on both sides of the war which makes you a little uncomfortable to be rooting for the good guys, taking a romp around Earth's surface before having an epic battle in space, the rights of people living in space colonies as opposed to those living on earth, etc.

The first series revolves around Amuro Ray, a fourteen-year-old boy whose father has been working on a prototype Mobile Suit for the Earth Federation for the war against the rebellious Principality of Zeon. When Amuro's space colony gets caught up in a battle, he uses the confusion to take the Gundam and help the experimental warship White Base escape to space with several citizens aboard. As they go around space, and later Earth, trying to get the civilians to safety, Zeon's Char Aznable, also known as the Red Comet, chases after them, trying to take them down. Earth Federation bureaucracy doesn't help either as White Base is ping-ponged from battlefield to battlefield. While the series is extremely episodic in nature, it does hold to its subplots fairly well, even if they are the hormonal hysterics of our hero.

The music also deserves special mention here as it sticks to Gundam and general space opera tradition of having various melodic cues mean specific characters or forces. While the music itself isn't great, it's nice to see that they picked up on that style so shortly after Star Wars.

Mobile Suit Gundam is now a relic to be seen and discussed by old-anime fans and anime critics, so those are the only kinds of people who I can recommend it to, if they haven't seen it already. While I don't see myself ever really watching this series again, I'm certainly glad I saw it at least once so that I can truly enjoy the heritage it has left for its franchise and for anime as a whole.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume (12 Episodes)
Animation: 5/5
Story: 4/5
Music: 3/5
Overall: 5/5

I know I promised to talk about Evangelion, but I decided to hold off on that to talk about something new for a change. I've noticed that I don't talk about recent anime all that much so I thought I'd at least throw a bone in that direction. And it helps to talk about a series that I love.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume is the hilarious story of a humanoid squid dedicated to overthrowing the human race because of their negligence toward ocean waters. She decides to take on the polluting humanity by first attacking a seaside restaurant owned by the Aizawa family. However, when she succeeds in blowing a hole through one of the walls, Eiko Aizawa insists that she work it off and before she knows it, she's using her tentacle powers to serve customers at the beach.

When I first read the premise in the Fall Season previews around the web, I knew that I had to watch this series; it looked to ridiculous to ignore. And thankfully that hunch paid off in spades as this is one of the funniest anime series I've seen, putting it in the same company as FLCL and Kodocha (odd crowd . . .). Eiko works great as a demanding straight man, with the rest of the cast filling in around Ika Musume's life (her name really is "Squid Girl" in Japanese).

There really isn't much of an on-going story as each episode contains three mini-stories, but that works fine for this kind of punchy, Azumanga-Daioh-style comedy as we're introduced to the other denizens of the beach, ranging from lifeguards and other seaside restaurants to an adoring cosplay fetishist and a handful of creepy American scientists. The music isn't quite as memorable as the cast, though, even with a hyper, DDR-style opening, but one doesn't really expect hummable themes with a show like this.

It only takes one episode to fall in love with Ika Musume and only three to feel it's hooks deep in your body. If someone licenses this for US distribution, I'll definitely pick this one up. While I do prefer dubs, creating a comparable dub script might not be worth the trouble. Sub-only is probably the best I'll get with something like this anyway. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a light, fluffy comedy to ease them into pure bliss.

Well, it didn't take a year to get a new post on this blog, but I still have a lot of room to grow. I'm going to try to do better at this (and get back to anime watching; I'm falling behind in my other Fall 2010 series!) but I still can't make any concrete promises. Maybe next time, I'll talk about Zeta Gundam, as I said before, and the manga version of InuYasha that I finished (FINALLY!!!).

As for Winter 2011, I've decided to watch Level E, Infinite Stratos, and Fractale (what a debacle that's been lately). I don't see much else that I'm interested in, and I hope I'm not missing anything this time around. Except for Cardfight! Vanguard. There's no way I'm going to sit through a Yu-Gi-Oh! wannabe.

I'm Back!! Naruto, Black Cat, Requiem From The Darkness

2010-11-11T12:07:00.005-07:00

Well, it really has been a year since I blogged here. It's been a very interesting year since then, but I am now finding less and less excuses not to write here. The amount of anime I've watched in the past year has left a lot of tittles to be reviewed. While I may refer to the titles I watched over that lost year, I don't think I'll try to review everything I've seen and mostly focus on what I'm finishing right now. However, here are a few titles that I finished fairly recently. Let's start with the most renowned.

Naruto (220 Episodes)
Animation: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 5/5
Overall: 3/5

Reviewing a long running, shonen/action/adventure series is a different challenge than simply covering a standard length series, especially Naruto. Things tend to go all over the place so maintaining consistency for such a long period of time is pretty impossible. Nevertheless, I have finished the series (FINALLY!) so I shall try to review it as a whole.

As for Naruto itself, you'd have to be pretty new to anime to not know anything about it. Even so, it does have all of the anime formulas in line. Naruto Uzumaki is an orphaned boy who seeks attention and approval by committing pranks and practical jokes. He claims that he'll one day be the Hokage (leader of his large ninja village) and everyone will have to look up to him. Of course, like any anime action hero, he has a ridiculous amount of potential, specifically in the form of a massive demon, the nine-tailed fox, sealed inside of him. As he graduates from the Ninja Academy, he begins his ninja career going on missions, fighting villains, and generally being heroic, all the while getting stronger and stronger. Before long, he becomes the inspiration of those who meet him with his die-hard attitude and contagious cheerfulness.

Of course, you can't get into Naruto very far without also explaining the main rival. Sasuke Uchiha is about as dour and condescending as the hero is bright and friendly, and arguably he has every reason to be. His older brother killed everyone in their massive, prestigious clan, and he is compelled to avenge them. In the meantime, he is forced to team up with Naruto and they tackle missions together with Sakura Kinimoto, a shy but intelligent girl, and Kakashi Hatake, their stoic team leader and coach. At first, Sasuke's dark demeanor plays a great foil to Naruto's exuberance, but as the series goes on, he finds himself moving away from the team and the values they hold. Eventually, he betrays them and Naruto feels responsible, going out of his way to find him and stop him.

Based on a manga from Shonen Jump, all of this feels like Dragon Ball Z all over again. Granted, I would say that it's better than DBZ, but it doesn't do anything all that different. It's more like an upgrade, like DBZ version 1.5. Shonen Jump really has been notorius for taking the basic formula that they established with DBZ and reusing it in different contexts (YuYu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, One Piece, Bleach, etc.). Maybe it even goes back further than that because I find similar themes and conventions in older SJ series like Saint Seiya and Fist of the North Star. In any case, Naruto takes an unique ninja spin on it, all taking place in a fantasy land with occasional anachronistic technology as opposed to traditional ninja locales like historical Japan.

Then there's the infamous filler episodes. For 85 episodes, the story leaves the manga and starts running on a loop like a hamster wheel, throwing Naruto and his wide cast of buddies into mission after mission, none of which really advancing any of the established subplots. They're like the Naruto Movies, except not quite as well written and no where near as a well animated. However, as I was grinding my way through them, I actually started to enjoy them. There were some funny segments and decent action, but most of all it took on a very old-school-American-comic-book feeling of sending out the heroes to defeat the quirky villain of the story. It wasn't great but it worked and I admit I was entertained. Sure, the stories aren't that interesting or integral to the story and the animation suffers some, but I would argue that they didn't descend that far because the main story wasn't isn't mind-blowing anyway and the animation was merely adequate from the beginning.

There is one element that I haven't touched on yet and it's the one that got five stars for me. While it eventually got pretty silly towards the end, I could still enjoy the music. As I watched the series, the music seemed to improve for me. Perhaps it simply stood out more as the series got worse but I'm going to insist that's beside the point. Naruto's music takes two music styles that would seem to fit and blend them together in a way that is absolutely incredible. One is tsuguru, which, if I recall correctly, is based on traditional Japanese music and uses traditional Japanese instruments, but the compositions are more contemporary. The other style is 80's rock. By combining heavy metal riffs with traditional flutes and shamisens, the soundtrack is all at once heart-pounding, epic, fun, and headbangable. I personally consider Naruto's soundtrack one of the best in all of anime.

But music is not everything. Naruto is hard to recommend to anyone because most anime fans have either seen it or seen as much of it as they wanted. I would insist that One Piece and Bleach are better, but Naruto certainly isn't bad. Of course, I've started Naruto Shippuden and, given how long it took me to get through the first series, it may take me a while. But I figure that I might as well continue watching the story.

Black Cat (24 Episodes)
Animation: 5/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 4/5
Overall: 3/5

Another Shonen Jump classic, I really loved the manga for this series. Its atmosphere and character interactions reminded me of Rurouni Kenshin (which is my favorite manga of all time, by the way) so I had been looking forward to the anime adaptation. I had heard that they changed a few things but those changes didn't look like they'd be that much of a hurdle.

And to be honest they weren't. The story only gets 3/5 for a different reason entirely.

Black Cat is the nickname of Train Heartnet, an assassin for Chronos, a secret organization that runs a majority of the world. Known for his deadly accuracy and incredible fighting skills, he became notorious, even becoming one of the Chronos Numbers, their elite group of assassins. Number XIII to be exact, perfect for a black cat.

However, as he is off duty, he is caught off-guard by a female sweeper (read: bounty hunter) in a yukata named Saya. At first he doesn't know what to think of the cheerful girl but before long, she rubs off on him, changing his dour and hateful disposition of one more laid back and joyful. Unfortunately, another Chronos assassin named Creed Diskense happens to be looking on and is horrified by the changes in Train.

In the meantime, Train takes on a job that gets tangled up by another sweeper named Sven because of a little bio-android girl named Eve. Originally designed to be a human weapon, Eve has an unusual run in with Sven where she begins to appreciate the joys of the outer world (she having been sheltered most of her life). After seeing this change, Train decides to leave the girl alone, going against orders and eventually leaving Chronos entirely, a treasonous crime punishable by death. In an effort to bring Train back, Creed kills Saya, but his plan backfires, as the tragedy compels Train to go his own way instead.

From there Train teams up with Sven and Eve (and Rinslet, a professional theif) to take on various jobs and enjoy life. However, Creed bungles up their lives when he declares his own personal war against Chronos by establishing the organization Apostles of the Star. Creed desparately wants Train at his side, but Train is only bent on revenge.

While the changes from the manga are obvious (Train leaves Chronos and partners with Train long before either meet Eve), they aren't what keep this series from reaching greater heights. The problem is actually in the direction.

Let's talk about the animation for a moment. I gave it a 5/5, and it deserves it. Full of style and slick fights, Black Cat is one good-looking anime. But there also lies it's problem. Very little of the animation actually supports the story, making it visually hard to follow. It's all style and no substance. As a result, the story suffers, especially when it decides to have a ending not from the manga only to make a huge mess of things. The new ending (and any of the other changes) were good ideas, they just weren't executed very well.

To go along with the style-over-substance, the music adds all the right touches, being cheerful and nuts when the anime is, but throwing in an iconic choir for the more epic moments. It's well done and memorable.

Still, I can't get over how much it fell flat. It had everything else lined up but in the end the series is just merely adequate. Even at just 24 episodes, it's hard to recommend when there are other series that do the same thing better (Trigun immediately coming to mind). I guess it's for those who like slick animation that doesn't go anywhere.

Requiem From The Darkness (13 Episodes)
Animation: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

Before I begin, I must admit that I'm not one for horror. I've only seen a handful of horror films, and I don't want to see those ones again. Maybe I'm just a wimp, but I didn't let that hold me back from watching a series that recently showed on the new Syfy Channel (the less said about this name-change-stupidity, the better).

Requiem From The Darkness follows the frightening adventures of a struggling writer named Momosuke who wants to compile a collection of scary stories. In his investigation, he runs into a trio of peculiar characters that have strong ties to the spiritual world and wonder the world of the living looking for beings that have sinned against their particular order. Sometimes the writer tries to help the trio find who they're looking for, other times he's attempting to protect their target. In any case, as the writer travels to find stories, he keeps running into the trio and eventually develops a crush on the voluptuous Ogin.

While the series is very episodic, it does a good job of creating a pretty freaky atmosphere, usually involving people doing horrible things to each other. This series is not very uplifting and each episode usually ends with several people dead. Sometimes the villain is one of them. Sometimes.

While everything else is mostly mediocre, the most memorable part of the series is its unusual animation style. It's filled with characters half in shadow and bizarre backgrounds where straight lines have been slightly warped. Even a simple door frame will be drawn with S-curves instead of a rectangle. Another interesting trick this series uses is some computer animation. Those paying attention will pick out fairly easily, but I still found it fascinating because it coordinated with the overall style, essentially masking the short-cuts they were making in an amusing way. One episode toward the end took place on a small island, so all the ocean water was presented as 3-D graphics, but the water was made to look weird and iconic enough that the cheapness of the computer effects was diminished almost completely.

Perhaps if you're into horror anime, you could kick the overall up a notch and give it shot. There's very little anime like it as far as I've seen. It's not going to change anyone's ideals in anime but it is a peculiar gem that stands on its own.

Not much else to say, really. However, I'll definitely be able to review more anime in the near future, especially some big name titles like Mobile Suit Gundam, Monster, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

As for the fall season, I've decided to watch Bakuman, Star Driver, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, and Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector (gotta watch the mecha stuff!). I'm also following Digimon Xros Wars, Dragon Ball Kai, and I'm catching up to Fairy Tail. However, it looks like none of these series will finish by the beginning of January, so I don't know if I'll follow any of the Winter season series. Fractale does look interesting, though.

In any case, expect another post sometime soon. Hopefully, next week. At least I'm gonna try.

Chaotic Updates! Karin, FMA OVAs

2009-11-10T16:42:00.002-07:00

Aah-hahahahahahaha! My classes have taken over my life! How long has it been since I updated? Over a month? Geez . . .

Sorry, everyone. This is long overdue, considering the back-logue of anime and manga I've since watched. I'm only following one series for this fall, the aforementioned Fairy Tail, though Book of Bantorra has peeked my interest. However, I think I'll wait for it to end and see what people say about it as a whole.

Karin (24 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overal: ***

I remember seeing a "preview" for this on some other Geneon disc, which was basically the opening animation and theme. Therefore, I couldn't draw any conclusions as to what it was about. I only saw lots of conveniently censored nudity and a girl who has nose bleeds. I decided it was some fan-service-heavy rom-com and forgot about it.

Some time later, I decide to pick up the first volume of the Chibi Vampire manga, thinking that it looked kind of cute and had some potential. Before long, I burned through what my library had, having endeared myself to the characters and their problems. It was later that I realized that Karin was the original Japanese title and there was an anime series that had the previously described opening sequence. I haven't finished the manga (my hold at the library hasn't come through yet), but I was able to get my hands on the anime's boxset and burned through it, and found it was good fun, like the manga.

Karin is the name of the main protagonist, the eldest daughter in a family of vampires, the Markers (Maaka in Japanese). However, he vampirism seems to work backwards as she has the tendency of creating blood instead of a craving to steal blood from others. In moment's of high blood pressure, she loses control and bites whoever happens to be nearby to pass the excess blood from her to her victum. Naturally, this causes her family no end of worries, simply because they don't know what to do with her. She's a teenager, well beyond the age of maturity for vampires, and yet she has no problem with standard vampire banes. She can walk in daylight, go to school, and hold down a part time job just like any human teenager. Her only problem is the once-a-month blood explosions, which she's been able to keep a secret this whole time, even from her closest friend, Maki.

Enter Kenta Usui, recent transfer student whose family has had quite a share of bad luck. He doesn't know his father and his mother can't hold down a job to save her life (entirely because she's an attractive woman who keeps getting in trouble with lecherous, middle-aged men; she's a complete victum). Because of this, he always seems down and his disposition leads others to think he's always angry (unfortunately, it's just the shape of his eyes).

Well, things get sticky when Karin meets Kenta and her blood starts to boil, curious because her monthly blood problem had recently happened. Turns out that Kenta has Karin's blood affinity, a characteristic or condition of humanity that excites vampires to feed. For example: lying, stress, lonliness, etc. For Karin, it's depression, something Kenta has in spades. Upon realizing this, Karin goes about trying to make Kenta happy so her blood doesn't go haywire. Her first idea: making him lunch.

From there it blossoms into ridiculous and cute romantic comedy as the characters discover each other (Kenta finds out about Karin and her condition quite quickly). It follows the basic premise of the manga, but for its dramatic ending, it takes a different route. Instead of dealing with other vampire families, the Marker family is trouble with a family of vampire hunters. While most manga adaptations that have their own endings can lead to mixed results, at least in Karin it's one of the more creative ideas I've seen, primarily found in the character of Winner Sinclair, the current heir to his vampire hunting family and another transfer student to Karin and Kenta's high school.

I personally consider Winner to be one of the best characters I've ever seen. While he takes vampire hunting seriously, his delivery (at least in the English Dub) is straight up melodrama, resulting in having the rest of the school thinking he's completely insane. As luck would have it, he falls desperately in love with Karin, completely oblivious to the fact that she's a vampire. More romantic hijinks ensue. Basically, Karin doesn't want anything to do with him (because he's a vamprie hunter), so she gets the help of Maki, who happens to be in love with Winner, to get rid of him. Unfortunetly, his obliviousness and devotion to Karin wears them down to the point of simply ignoring him. Probably the greatest result of this is whenever Winner talks to or refers to Maki, he calls her "Karin's friend and sidekick," every time. And for me, it never got old!

While the story is entertaining, I find everything else about the series merely adequate. The music doesn't really stand out, either being standard rom-com suites or old-school horror scores. The animation is decent. The story doesn't demand much action from the animators, but for the climactic ending, the combat strikes me as only being slightly stiff. The character designs are appealing and distinct and for a rom-com, that's all you really need.

I'm looking forward to the end of the Chibi Vampire manga (weird title change, by the way). I'm one volume away, so don't tell me anything. In the meantime, the Karin anime was a fun diversion, using the same characters and situations to present an entertaining anime series. It's not earth-shattering by any means so those unfamiliar with the story may feel either way, but I would recommend it to fans of the manga only for the sake of being introduced to Winner. Seriously, he fits right in like he was meant to belong.

Fullmetal Alchemist OVA Collection (4 "Episodes")
Animation: *****
Story: ***
Music: ***
Overal: ***

I knew that FUNimation had finally grabbed this, but when I saw it in Hastings for about $12 I figured I had nothing to lose. While I wasn't completely blown away, I felt this was a decent package to fans of the series like me.

The four segments have nothing to do with each other (and little to do with the main property) but provide some fun ideas that Studio Bones decided to animate. First is a wrap party by the characters after the "filming" of Conquerer of Shamballa, proving some goofy gags. Second is a side story that treats the audience as a character, resulting in an interesting fight scene between the alchemists and homunculi (it leaves me with the impression that it was orginally part of a ride or event). Third is a curious flash-forward, showing a trio of kids (who look very much like Ed, Al, and Winry) wandering around a modern Japan before returning to their great-grandpa Elric. The fourth is a live-action segment featuring Alphone's armor as he wanders around Tokyo, trying to find Studio Bones.

I don't think I've said this on the blog yet, but I find Fullmetal Alchemist's music to be a bit bland, which was used for the OVAs. Sure, the character themes are alright and the lullabies and comic tunes strike the right chords, but all it amounts to is decent background noise that barely stands on its own. The animation is impressive, though. I'd say it's equal with what Conquerer of Shamballa presented. Slick, immersive, even when everything is chibi-styled it looks nice.

Clearly, this stuff was for the fans, as most OVAs based on bigger properties are. They expect a certain familiarity with the Fullmetal Alchemist story, specifically the anime continuity (though I would suggest that the second segment would be an ideal introduction to FMA). In any case, the set provides some fun chuckles and nostalgias for fans.

This should be good for now, but I've got quite a bit in the future. I finally finished Revolutionary Girl Utena (I was three episodes away for months!). I also wrapped up Gundam 00, which was interesting, and I've got Shangri-La almost done, so there's certainly more to cover. Here's hoping it doesn't take me a month to update this blog, eh?

Struggling to get back in line! FMP Fumoffu, KuroKami, Kieli

2009-09-17T13:09:00.003-06:00

As I expected, things got rather hectic once college picked up again, but I can still find moments to talk about my anime watching and manga reading. By the way, I finally got around to reading Hayate the Combat Butler and I AM LOVING IT!!! A total nerd fest that I imagine I'll be enjoying for quite some time now.

I've been kind of keeping an eye on the upcoming Fall Season of anime and I have to admit that I'm only really interested in Fairy Tail. I don't think that it's going to rewrite any rules of anime or anything, but it should be fun. To be honest, I'm surprised no one has jumped on it yet for an American lisence. I don't think it's the next Naruto, but I think it would still do well.

Ah, well, time to get started!

Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu (12 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****

As I had explained before, a friend of mine insisted that I watch this and The Second Raid, so I rewatched the first series to hype myself up for them, which I have since reviewed. Now I've finished the comedy/romance side note of the series and I have to admit that it was straight-up hilarious. Taking Sousuke Sagara's hyper-military perspective on even the most mundane things makes for some very funny stuff, and it takes a lead role for this short but sweet series.

Drawing more from the funnier pieces of the manga and light novel series, there really isn't main plot so much as it is a sitcom, taking our familiar cast and watching them muck about the high school. Kaname and Sagara generally go about solving high school level problems with the expected mixed results. Tessa comes back for a stint as a high school student, effortlessly driving up Sagara's blood pressure and stress.

Of the new characters never before seen in animation, we have the Student Body President, who may not even have a name (not that he needs one) and his assistant. Let me just say that I consider the SBP to be one of the best characters in the series. Totally on board with whole Sousuke's-here-to-protect-Kaname-mission thing, he doles out assignments to Kaname (as she is the Class President for her class) and her bodyguard-cum-assistant Sousuke, ranging from helping serve rolls at lunch to resolving issues with the Martial Arts club, and the SBP does it with such style and command you can't not respect the man for all that he can do.

Despite being comedy-driven and not focused on a major plot, the animation is spectacular. Even if it's just Kaname hitting Sousuke with her paper fan yet again, it seems to be done so well that it is impossible not to get caught up in all that goes on. The well animated slapstick and antics really keep the show moving at a ridiculous pace, proving that Full Metal Panic can be just as awesome when it's telling jokes as when it was telling an intense action/thriller.

The music is the same set of pieces heard from Full Metal Panic: standard and adequate, with a few memorable tunes that excited you before. At this point, I would also like to add that the ending animation is contagiously cute. The song itself is decently punchy, but seeing chibi versions of the cast marching to it for no reason is one of my favorite parts of this series.

This series, while still relying on its source material, is a very different show from the first series. Sure, it had its moments of slapstick but they were merely bookends to get viewers into the characters and circumstances before launching into the real storyline. There really isn't any kind of major villain or even Mecha action, leaving the robots in the shop for TSR.

Fumoffu has great moments, from Sousuke training a rubgy team filled with pansies to the SBP speaking street slang to get the right message across, to Kaname voluntarily being kidnapped just to see if Sousuke will really come to her rescue. While I don't know if this will properly set me up for the latest series, it is great material that allows the viewers to sit back and relax before the next string of explosions and plot twists.

KuroKami: The Animation (23 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ***
Music: ****
Overall: ****

You have to admit: Bandai had some real guts trying to pull this off. Trying to one-up the fansubbers, they helped produce the series so that it could be broadcast in three different languages within 24 hours of each other. I remember reading that the voice actors were dubbing over line-art and sketches of the show, before the color was put in and stuff. However, I'm afraid KuroKami will only be remembered as a massively ambitious and experimental because, as an anime, it comes across as rather corny.

KuroKami is about a boy named Keita whose mother died in a traffic accident. Due to this and other events, he lives alone and generally doesn't try to make friends, afraid that anyone he makes friends with will get killed. However, as he attends high school, he suddenly hears about the idea that if people meet another person who looks just like them, they will die. Putting together some of the things he remembers about his mother's accident and wonders if it's true. As if answering his question, a little girl he knows from his neighborhood happens to mention that she saw a girl just like her then crossed the road too soon and gets hit by a huge truck.

At the same time, Keita befriends a girl by the name of Kuro by giving her ramen at a ramen shop. While she's grateful, she also explains that she is on a quest to kill her older brother. She also explains that she is a Terra Guardian in charge of the Doppleliner system. Every person starts with two dopplegangers of themselves throughout the world and their terra, or life force, is divided between them. If one should die, the other two gain the dead one's terra. However it has come to the Terra Guardians' attention that someone is abusing this system, with Kuro's brother at the head.

While Keita doesn't seem to show much interest, he gets wrapped up with Kuro's battle for revenge and dies. Kuro leaps to save him the only way she knows how: by forcing Keita into a contract with her. Now as a Terra Guardian's Contractee, his concentration has an impact on Kuro's ability to battle. Before long, other evidence arrives to show that perhaps Keita's mother was caught up in this mess as well. Keita finally comes on board and Kuro takes him on a quest for the fate of the world.

There are a lot of great ideas presented here, but before long it declines into the massive rut of generic shonen-style action. People seem to battle for little to no reason and by the end, the dialogue and motivation for the characters, as they rally to fight a common evil, grows cheesier by the episode. As a result, I found myself not really trying to raise my expectations anymore. Instead, I focused on the animation.

Which was CRAZY!! While the character designs take some time to get used to, the action is unbelievable. If I had to describe it, then imagine you were watching Dragon Ball Z with a massive subwoofer and EVERYTIME some landed a punch, the whole house shook. Despite all of the attack-name shouting and superhero-like powers, everything seems to hit with great weight. You feel every crack and crunch, and quite often, I felt myself wincing. Perhaps I should be giving credit to the special effects guys. In any case, the action is the real star of this series and is worth seeing just for that.

The music may seem tacky at times, but I rather liked the whole rock/metal motif they had. It got the blood pumping as characters crashed into each other. I particularly like the second opening theme, "Trance".

Overall, it was a fun show, despite the characters being almost forgettable and the plot getting shallower as it went along. Perhaps it was a safe series for their multi-dub experiment, but I think the ride was worth it.

Kieli (2 Volumes)
Rating: **

It's really hard to review a manga series that is so short, especially with one as dynamic as Kieli where there certainly was more room to explore within its distinct world.

Taking place in some far future where people have since colonized other planets, Kieli is teenage girl going to a church school in what looks like a recreation of 1930s Europe. Supposedly several years ago, there was a horrible war where super soldiers called [immortal] were created to end the war, only to have their creators turn on them when they were no longer needed. Now, they are used as a kind of boogeyman and generally considered as a myth.

Meanwhile, Kieli goes to class, continually isolating herself because she is the only person she knows that can see ghosts, that is until she meets Harvey, a strange man who doesn't seem to want to hang around much, especially. After a small adventure in helping Kieli's ghost-roommate finally move on, she becomes infatuated with Harvey, thinking that me just might be an [immortal], decides to use her school vacation to travel with him and his companion, a ghost called Colonel with a harsh tone of voice possessing a radio. Their quest: to help the Colonel find peace.

The story doesn't have much to tell, mostly showing how this adventure helps Harvey become human again by letting this girl fall in love with him. Perhaps the light novels have more to share, I don't know, but it's hard to really get into the series when it ends so quickly. The pacing is fine and the art is nice, pleasant when it needs to be, haunting when it calls for it. But the series seems mostly content with not having much of an impact. It might make a nice movie someday, but I would have really liked to see more of the setting and scenario.

Once again, I can't promise when I'll be able to write up a new article, not that I have any decent excuse: I've recently watched the Karin anime and I'm still just a few episodes short of finishing Utena. However, I've also got a set of classes that may not seem like a lot, but they're very demanding in their own ways. I'll get back to writing as soon as I feel I can.

Madness Ensues! Tsubasa, Eden Of The East, Gun Blaze West

2009-08-11T11:39:00.003-06:00

Once again hit by the uncertainty of my future, I am not writing on time. However, despite my particular circumstances, I still have things to talk about at least for the near future. In fact, once school does start, I may get myself in a far more regular routine, compelling me to be more consistent as a whole, thus including my reviews of anime and manga.

And speaking of manga, what happened? Seriously, go check out Shonen Sunday and Sig Ikki. Are we seriously considering serialization of translated print manga for the internet? This could be huge, especially since Viz has the rights to publish Rin-Ne in English at the same time as the Japanese version. We'll see how this really goes down as I think this is massively ambitious, considering that they just lost their Shojo Beat magazine. In any case, it's something to keep an eye on.

Moving on!

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (52 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ***
Music: *****
Overal: ***

The idea of a CLAMP manga getting an anime adaptation is certainly not something new by now, but the results seem to vary, at least for me. While I am a fan of how Card Captor Sakura and the X Movie turned out, I felt that Magic Knight Rayearth took a real weird turn at the end that really makes me wish they could have taken the manga ending instead. (I still have yet to see Chobits, xxxHolic, or Angelic Layer, though I have high hopes for the last one; it's Studio Bones after all.) So now we come to Tsubasa's adaptation.

To begin, I absolutely love the manga series. As derivative as it is, CLAMP has done some pretty inventive and exciting things with this bizarre spin on their own works. So when I decided to sit down and watch the anime, I had some pretty high expectations. While there were some highlights, I must say that I felt ultimately disappointed.

To be fair, the animation does the series justice, painting lush atmospheres and locales that set the characters where they belong. However, for an action series, the actual battles occasionally seemed stilted and unnatural, quite often satisfied with slowly panning dynamic poses and relying on flashes of light and other still pictures for the blows, and not really bothering to animate much. It's the same kind of things I found in the King of Bandits Jing series.

I also have a few problems with how the story was told. I thought that drawing from such a great manga as its source material, there would be nothing to fear, but there certainly is room for some improvement. For starters, there several moments when the show is simply satisfied with needless camera panning. It will move from one picture to another, with nothing being said or done, as if the director is simply trying to stall for time. I remember that frequently the end of an episode would simply drag on, providing nothing new to the plot or action. I guess I could label it as faulty and uneven pacing, as this was evidenced throughout the whole series. While the story arcs based on the manga are fun, the filler stories start to creep in by the end of the second series and I really get the impression that the writers couldn't come up with something new. It felt like I was being told the same story they told in the first season.

A bit of a spoiler, but the series essentially ends as a cliff-hanger. The main objective doesn't get solved by the end, but what could the animators do when the manga hadn't finished yet? At least there's room to add on (and they have with OAVs).

However, there is one bright, shining star in Tsubasa, and that's the music. This has got to be one of the most original and epic soundtracks I have ever heard. It's like a subway sandwich with a bit of everything and it tastes great because of the variety inside it. You get some techno-driven ethnic drums combined with a great sounding choir and a serious infusion of jazz. While you get the basic variety of soft pieces and action pieces, it never really loses that bizarreness, helping set the scene for Tsubasa's varied locations. However, having the music as the best part of the series can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

I guess I would recommend this series to those who haven't read the manga yet as a kind of teaser for the manga series. The anime really does nothing to add to the story or it's dramatic questions, but rather seem satisfied with giving the manga some color and an impressive soundtrack, followed by tacking on some rather pointless stories. As a whole, it's decent, but forgettable. As I've said before, I'm critical of anime adaptations the first time through, but even so, I feel no incentive to re-watch the series when I can just re-read the manga.

Eden of the East (11 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****

Ever wonder what Lost might be like as an anime? Okay, I've never actually seen an episode of Lost, but I think I'd feel the same way I felt about Eden of the East: confused, but enjoying the ride.

The show begins with Saki Morimi on a trip from Japan to Washington D.C. when she suddenly meets with a completely naked man who is carrying a gun, a bizarre cell phone, and has completely lost his memories until just a few minutes ago. She gives him coat only to realize that her passport is still in it, so she ends up chasing him down to his apartment. In the meantime, the guy looks into his cell phone and learns that he can contact a certain person named Juiz who can grant any wish he desires. He gets back to what seems to be his apartment and finds a small armory as well as several different passports for different identities. He takes the one named Akira Takizawa and decides to burn everything else. He runs into the girl and the two of them decide to go back to Japan together, only to learn that Japan has been hit with missiles (suffering no casualties, strangely enough).

Before long, Akira learns he is a Selecao, one of twelve people chosen to help “save Japan,” whatever that may mean to these individuals. Each of them were given a cell-phone and ten billion yen for their task, the money spent for their demands to Juiz. However, one of the twelve is called the Supporter who has the right to kill any of the other members if the Supporter feels like they aren't doing their job.

All of this conspiracy-like head twisting gets further complicated by the current economics of Japan and the concept of NEETs, people who currently aren't employed, in education or training of some kind; I guess there are quite a few of them in Japan. Saki happens to one who, with a few other people, created the namesake of the series: a bizarre internet program that sort of combines Google maps with a forum. This allows people, for example, to hold up a cell phone camera and the video screen with suddenly get pop-up information for the various locations or people you may be looking at.

In short, the story's pretty convoluted, an impressive feat for only having eleven episodes. To be honest, there are still a few things that still aren't clear me, perhaps a downside of fansubs. I'm hoping now that FUNimation has the rights to the series, they'll make a dub that'll make things fit together a little better. Of course, there are still a pair of movies yet to come out to finish all the loose ends, but those are a little harder to fansub, I believe. I'll just have to be patient.

The animation is pretty slick, but that's to be expected from Production I.G. Still it's pretty neat to see how they made the characters interact with their hyper-realistic environments. The music is alright, the highlight being that the opening is actually from the band Oasis. Has that been done before: a popular western artist having a song for the opening of an anime?

As I said before, it's confusing, but a fun ride that will make you smile more than once. With all of the dark and creepy cloak-and-dagger moments you get an instantly lovable cast of realistically goofy characters. At times you'll wish the series would decide if it's a shojo manga or a Bourne rip-off (they actually allude to it in the series!), but it certainly isn't one people should miss out on.

Gun Blaze West (3 Volumes)
Rating: **

To say that I like Nobuhiro Watsuki is an understatement. I seriously consider Rurouni Kenshin to be the greatest Japanese comic ever made. It's a great epic story with great characters, great pacing, and a good sense of action. However, since then, his works have been lacking. Gun Blaze West was his next attempt and, given some of Watsuki's liner notes, you can tell that things weren't going well from the start.

Gun Blaze West basically takes the standard Shonen action/adventure formula and plugs it into a wild west setting. You get a spunky hero with unlimited potential, a mentor to help him get started, a pair of companions to keep him in check, and a cast of villains and opponents to test his strength against. The fact that all of this takes place in the wild west quickly becomes its best quality. Instead of martial arts or chi blasts, you get guns and some good old-fashioned brawling.

The story kills out just as things really get going and the point of Gun Blaze West is made fairly clear. Apparently the series got canceled rather quickly, but Watsuki blames himself for this as he explains that he was doing everything by the seat of his pants and with a bad illness on top of that. To be honest, I don't know if we miss much. While the idea of Naruto with a six-shooter may seem appealing (and Watsuki did have some pretty interesting character designs along the way), it's clear that he's done better work. He lost the decent pacing that he had (a problem that I think he continued with Buso Renkin; that series moves way too fast for its own good) and his characters don't have the fresh chemistry between each other like in Kenshin.

Simply a sputter of bland story-telling that looks rather pretty, I think I can only recommend this to Watsuki fans like myself and anyone who is curious about a Japanese perspective of Western Films.

Ended on a bit of a downer, didn't I? Oh well, not everything in otaku-dom can be warm-fuzzies and robots. I'm not sure when I'll get the next article up, but I'm fairly certain that I'll have Kurokami and Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu finished by then. I've also got Revolutionary Girl Utena almost finished and a few other short manga series on my list, so I can only blame myself for not getting things posted.

Just as an after-thought, is anyone else getting a bit overwhelmed by all of the anime and manga that's hitting the web? I brought up Viz's manga sites earlier, but when I look over FUNimation's video portal or CrunchyRoll, the number of titles available on those sites is absolutely baffling. Anime is hitting the internet hard and I think we need to be right there with them so they don't regret all of the efforts they've made.

Missed A Week, But I'm Back! Tenchi, Hyakko, Fruits Basket

2009-07-27T10:51:00.002-06:00

Waagh! Sorry I'm late! I had a really apathetic week last week and things got kind of bad. I even had this article planned in my head and I just decided not to write it. I'm going to blame hayfever. It's a good scapegoat. In any case, no more excuses. I can do this! So here we go.

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA Set 3 (7 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ***

The Tenchi franchise is about as old as the hills now and the formula is pretty much the same here, just simply picking up where the first two sets of OVAs left off. Tenchi, in his house filled with hot alien girls, is suddenly visited by even more hot alien girls. What starts off as Tenchi's long lost family pouring in and telling him he's already engaged turns into a crisis that could destroy the universe. Basic Tenchi stuff and yet quite fun if you've already enjoyed everything leading up to this series as I have since it was broadcasted on Toonami.

However, I do have a few complaints. I don't talk much about the whole issue of subs and dubs and that kind of thing, but here the dub bothered me. It wasn't that the dub was bad as it was that FUNimation didn't (or couldn't) get some of the original voice actors and that was a little depressing. I had heard that they were using a different voice for Ryoko, but I figured that a sexy space pirate wouldn't be hard to recreate, and I was wrong. Not that the voice was bad, but the original voice actress who played Ryoko certainly was better. Mihoshi's voice actress was different as well, but I didn't care as much. Airhead is airhead and I've never cared much for Mihoshi anyway. One thing that did puzzle me is how they got the original voice again for Tenchi, but didn't have him do Tenchi's grandfather, Katsuhito, like he did originally. Oh well.

My other complaint actually is in the animation. Don't get me wrong, it was still good, but it wasn't the same quality and smoothness that the original OVAs had. Even if they're older, they certainly were slick and had a lot of fluid motion, whereas this third set has the standard stickiness you expect from television anime. I thought OVAs were supposed to by better in the animation department.

It's still a fun series, though. I don't know if it's ideal for someone to pick it up on its own; they do spend a lot of time referring to material brought up in the earlier series. Sure, the first episode is sort of a recap, but there's still other details you wouldn't really get unless you had watched the series from the beginning. At least we don't have to wait and buy each episode individually!

Hyakko (13 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: *****

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE LICENSE THIS!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!

. . .

Lemme back up. When the Anime News Network was doing their Anime preview for (geez, I think it was) last fall, they didn't seem to care much for Hyakko. It was four high school girls simply being the kind of silly you'd find in anime. Yet, as I picked which series I was going to try to follow, I couldn't get it out of my mind and I decided to give it a shot.

I have since been left on the ground rolling in laughter. This series absolutely KILLS me! I don't know if it just fits in with my sense of humor or what, but I loved almost every minute of this series (I'll get to those other parts later)!! The character design is immediately striking, the character interactions are incredibly dynamic, and the music keeps everything pumping full of life and energy. Even when they toss in a few anime in-jokes, the show doesn't necessarily expect you to get them, which allows you to join in with the rest of the cast in being pleasantly baffled. Of course, when you do get it, it's just as great.

The premise is simply enough: the campus is one of those K-12 schools, but the first character you meet is Ayumi who transferred in just for high school, which becomes apparent when she gets lost five minutes into the first episode. Plagued with a timid nature, she tries to find friends but can't find the courage, so when she stumbles across Natsumi, the snooty girl, Ayumi can barely get across that she could use some help, only to learn that, despite being a student at this school since the beginning, Natsumi is lost, too. As they wander around, they come across Torako leaping out of a building as plan to not loose her own sense of direction because she and her friend Suzume are lost as well. Torako is the gung-ho reckless type (almost like a shonen anime hero) and Suzume fills the personality-of-a-alien-robot type. From here, the four girls (who are all in the same class, as it turns out) become close friends simply by happenstance and it's great to see them clash against each other over this and that. Mostly, Natsumi practicality compels her to scorn Torako for every nonsensical thing she does while Ayumi trembles in indecision and Suzume eats everything. They also seem to be the central focus as they befriend/harass the other girls in their class.

My only criticism is what happens at the end of the series. After being a rather off-the-wall comedy, it suddenly strikes a large vein of seriousness that almost seems uncharacteristic. While the series does a good job of diving fairly deep into the various characters' problems and personalities, it suddenly dives a little too deep into Torako's family life and troubles which are rather complex and dark in comparison. And the final episode is a little disorienting as it takes everything back to before the series got started. Maybe if I had read the manga, this whole thing would make more sense.

That aside, the series was a lot of fun and I would love it if some company could pick it up and bring it here. I don't care if it's just a subtitles-only complete box set a la Media Blasters (though I wouldn't turn down a dub if someone feels like it would be worthwhile), I just want this series on DVD without having to pay through the nose for an import. I really wouldn't know where to look anyways.

I may not have seen every anime comedy under the sun, but I enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who likes their comedy a little on the off-beat side.

Fruits Basket (23 Volumes)
Rating: ***

I reviewed the anime here on this blog before and found it to be a fun, light-hearted comedy concerning a rather frightening family. However, the anime could only go so far as the manga hadn't finished yet, so they decided to make their own ending, bringing everything to a reasonable close.

Fruits Basket is a fairly well known property by now, as it is the number shojo manga in America (or is that just TokyoPop hyping things up?). I imagine most everyone is familiar with the premise by now, and if not, I've done a decent enough job with the anime review that I don't feel like re-typing it.

In comparison to the anime, the manga starts out just as light-hearted, but then dives deep in rather serious situations and material. It spends a rather long time on each of the other zodiac members that I wouldn't really consider to be main characters, sort of like how Kare Kano got away from the main couple for some of those later graphic novels. However, to Fruits Basket's credit, it still focuses on Tohru and her interactions with the various members of the Sohma family, even if they seem tangential. In fact, as the series progresses, it seems to wax more and more philosophical, almost making it seem long-winded at times.

Toward the end, Fruits Basket remembers that shojo manga tend to have romantic parts as well, and Tohru finally decides she in love with one of the guys (I won't say who simply because I didn't think it would be him, so I'll leave it a surprise for those who haven't read it) and helps him over come his Zodiac curse.

After running for 23 volumes, we finally have the happy ending we've been waiting for all this time. Things get sorted out, negativity is replaced with smiles, and all is well. It just took a really long, roundabout way of getting there. Maybe it was just the release schedule of the volumes from TokyoPop, I don't know. However, I feel satisfied with how the series went as a whole and I don't think it as a waste of my time. (Again, their version of Cinderella for their school play is the most hilarious play-in-a-manga I've ever seen.)

Well, as I warned, things may get more complicated as I get closer to the fall semester, but I've already got a plan for next week's article: I'm almost finished with Eden Of The East (wow, what a trip) and I've got the rest of Tsubasa Reservior Chronicle handy. Also, there are a few short manga collections that I could have finished by then as well, so at least I'll have something to write about.

I wonder when One Piece will become available online again with FUNimation . . . .

Summer Blues! Code Geass, Tower Of Druaga, Astro Boy

2009-07-12T21:07:00.002-06:00

I apologize for not getting this posted yesterday, but the pollen of the world decided to give a massive headache along with an itchy nose, and I'm afraid to say that things may not get better, according to the big picture. While it has been great to watch all of this anime, my summer is starting to turn back towards worrying about school, which means finding tuition money and then spending time on homework or, in short, less time for anime. I don't know how often I'll be able to update from here on out, but I'll try to be as often as I feel I can.

At least I've got a few titles to get things started for now.

Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion (25 Episodes)
Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion R2 (25 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****

Yes, I have finally finished all of Code Geass and, boy, is my brain tired. I remember when this series was first starting to get all of sorts of attention from all sorts of fans and I thought I'd give it a shot when it rolled around on Adult Swim's online video player and found myself ensnared in a tangle of plots that I could pull my eyes away from.

In an alternate but not too distant future, the Empire of Britannia (located primarily in North America) begins expanding its territory across the world, including Japan, taking it over completely and turning into Area 11. The people there are now called Elevens and treated as a lower caste by the Britannians. Lelouch is a Brittanian prince who is living as a high school student in Japan under the surname of Lamperouge in order to hide from potential assassinations. However, he still holds a personal grudge in his heart against whoever killed his mother in an assassination, a trauma that left Lelouch's little sister, who is “hiding” in Japan with him, blind. Lelouch figures that it's someone else within the Brittania family and vows to get revenge, but having been dumped in Japan, he feels powerless to do so.

Meanwhile, even though Japan has been a part of Brittania for 10 years, there are still resistance groups trying to fight for their Japanese heritage. They get wind of some chemical weapons are being transported and try to prevent the Empire from using them. Lelouch happens upon this act of terrorism and decides to follow up on what's going on, thinking that he can make a dent in Brittania. However, instead of finding chemical weapons, he finds an incapacitated girl in green hair and tries to take her to safety away from the terrorists violence. Along the way, he runs into Suzaku Kururugi, his childhood friend and native Japanese, fighting as a soldier for Britannia. Without having time to catch up, they try to get out of danger, but end up getting separated again, with Lelouch being caught by a platoon of soldiers. They fire, but the green-haired girl suddenly jumps in front, saving Lelouch's life. As the green lies on the ground, she suddenly starts talking about giving Lelouch “power.” Finding himself up against a wall, he accepts and is granted the power of Geass, where upon eye-to-eye contact, Lelouch can alter the will of anyone. He uses his power to escape the soldiers, by ordering them all to commit suicide, and begins to help the terrorists in their efforts against the Empire, later becoming their leader under the guise of Zero, a masked hero for justice. He begins to figure that, with his own cunning, his new power, and the terrorists' resources, he can finally topple Brittania and find out who killed his mother.

What happens from then on is a convoluted tale that warps between political intrigue, high school antics, supernatural powers, and personal anguish, as Lelouch and the others feel the weight of their new responsibilities and try to defeat their enemies and fears. The green-haired-girl, simply named as C2, returns as an immortal being capable of granting Geass power and willing to Lelouch with his rebellion as long as he fulfills his end of the contract, a detail that remains unrevealed for quite some time. Suzaku ends up climbing through the ranks of the Brittanian military, quickly ending up as a test subject for a special proto-type mech.

Oh, yeah. There's robots throughout the whole thing. All the battles are straight-up mecha army action.

Code Geass is a very ambitious story, trying to weave together so many plot threads and still make sense, and, to its credit, it mostly succeeds. While my head spun with each plot twist, each piece finds its resting place by the end of the long series and felt satisfied by the end. Things went well, even if I felt like everything was stumbling through mud from time to time.

The animation was incredible, not only with the vivid scenery and memorable character designs by CLAMP, but with the action and combat as well, a crucial element for mecha anime. The robots all seem to have wheels on their feet, so the battles feel like over-the-top roller derbies with guns, and somehow they made it work. The music was more of a downer. It had its moments, establishing easy-to-recognize themes when things worked or didn't work in the story, but it didn't stand out much and I felt more could have been done with it. Even the opening and ending themes were rather mediocre.

When I got a few episodes in, I gathered the sentiment that this was going to be Death Note but with mecha instead of mind games. Sunrise has had all sorts of experience with their Gundam franchise in combining a political drama with robots and so adding in this supernatural twist could make or break the series. While it stumbled around getting there, it did come together in the end, resulting in one of the most renowned series Sunrise has produced (I think it even won some awards in Japan a couple of times). In the end, my sentiment was right. Code Geass is Death Note with robots. You have webs of character relations, sudden plot twists, supernatural surprises (especially when Lelouch runs into other Geass users!), and a wealth of memorable moments that really makes this title stand out. I can now see what all of the hubbub was for and I don't regret it.

The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis Of Uruk (12 Episodes)
The Tower of Druaga: The Sword Of Uruk (12 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****

The Tower of Druaga was an old Japanese arcade game where the heroes had to climb a 60 level tower in order to save the world. I don't think it ever made it to America, but it was quite a hit in Japan has since spawned a handful of games in the same world. In this anime series, Gonzo takes that game and turns it into a very entertaining romp through the tower and the personal struggles of those who climb it.

The story primarily revolves around Jil, a young Climber, who is sincere about getting to the top and defeating the great demon Druaga. However, the other Climbers don't want to listen because they're satisfied with how much money they can make Climbing the tower. He tries to join his older brother Neeba's group, only to be kicked out for his incompetence. He finally gets his own party, consisting of Ahmey, a female spear-wielder, Kaaya, a cheerful priestess, Melt, an eccentric mage, and Coopa, Melt's personal assistant that happens to have her own bag of tricks. They all decide to follow Jil up the tower in order to defeat the evil that lives at that top.

However, as they climb the tower, they begin to notice some of the connections between the tower and the condition of the king of the land, Gilgamesh, who supposedly defeated the tower the last time. Because it has come back and the past is slowly being revealed, the tower's true purpose becomes revealed and the heroes have to find the truth on top of it all.

While all of this is a very engaging Babylonian fantasy epic with it's own innovations (Melt's magic is swinging clubs like he's golfing, making Coopa a sort of caddy for him; it's brilliant), it is more than willing to take some time to put its tongue in its own cheek. The first episode is almost entirely a dream, spoofing itself and other action series and fantasy tropes (even going so far as a Monty Python reference and a sudden shift into Gurren Lagann mode) and not developing very much plot. Later on, the characters stumble into a series of bizarre traps that the heroes spend an entire episode walking into. They even take the time to send Jil into a life-size reenactment of the original video game, the other heroes controlling him with a joystick and buttons and having to restart every time something goes wrong. The moments of comedy brighten things significantly. Even if very little progression is made, it helps the viewers get to know the characters.

The second part of the series is much more serious, though, as things turn uglier, though it does take time to show the ski resort Melt builds within the tower. However, as it builds suspense and goes deeper into the secrets of the tower, I felt that the final showdown was rather light-weight compared to all the momentum it had been building. While I won't go into detail for the sake of those who haven't seen it, I thought there were some darker themes and heavier material into which they could have delved. Instead, they decide to pass over it and simply bring an end to everything.

The animation was great. Having many characters involved for massive battles with monsters and other Climbers went well for the most part. The biggest problem I had how the CG elements didn't blend into the 2D animation as well as it could have. It stood out and seemed somewhat distracting. Gonzo has always messed around with combining 2D with 3D, but they seemed to make it work so well ten years ago with Blue Submarine No. 6. It wasn't a major bother in Tower, but it was reoccuring. The music was nice, drawing on the themes from the video game but giving them a Lord of the Rings quality by giving them an orchestral feel. The opening and ending themes weren't bad either. Also, it should be noted that I watched this series subbed, for once. It'll be interesting how the series will sound after FUNimation dubs it.

The Tower of Druaga was a fun ride, even if it lost some steam at the end. And it's still available online (Thank you, CrunchyRoll!) so go watch it. It's worth it. It even led me to a discovery. I was in my local Hastings with some money to burn and I stumbled across the PS2 game The Nightmare of Druaga. Not only was it in the used bin for only four dollars, it was still shrink-wrapped after I tore off the used-wrap Hastings puts on its used materials. I primarily picked up simply because I was watching Druaga at the time. The game happens to be a wonderfully merciless dungeon hack that I imagine I'll be playing for years to come. I've become a fan of the Druaga series and look forward to where it'll pop up in the future.

Astro Boy (23 Volumes)
Rating: ***

Osamu Tezuka's genius has gone unrecognized lately, in my opinion. Especially in America. While I'm sure that most anime and manga fans are aware that he brought those two very mediums to the heights of popularity they enjoy now, they fail to realize that he himself is a great writer and artist, full of his own impressive ideas. Maybe some time I'll talk about his Phoenix series.

I recently finished Dark Horse's run of Tezuka's breakout hit, Astro Boy. He had some success with Kimba but Astro Boy is what got everyone's attention back then and the title propelled Tezuka to be the Godfather of Manga as he is known today. However, reading it now is a bit of a challenge. The layout and narrative style haven't aged well, coming across as very wordy and thick for a simple action series. Most of the time, Astro Boy is simply caught up in an evil plot or scheme and has to beat up the bad guys in order to save the day. General old-school superhero story-telling. This leaves the reader with a heavily episodic series that rarely refers to other stories. The particular collection that Dark Horse has translated doesn't even have the volumes in any kind of chronological or narrative order. You could pick up any volume and begin reading without having to read the others before it (except for two or three that collect a newspaper run, but even then, the story would be hard to follow).

So why do I give Astro Boy 3 stars? Well, even though Tezuka had to keep the story simple and action driven to please his editors, throughout his stories he was able to delve into more complicated material, even if it was merely subtext. The story begins with a brilliant robotics scientist named Dr. Tenma. However, he was so caught up with work that he neglected his own son. When his son got into a car accident, he felt the need to turn his life around, so he coerced the robotics department to help him create a robot version of his son and succeeded. Unfortunately, Dr. Tenma grew upset that the robot couldn't grow like a normal child and abandoned it, too, going into seclusion. Sometime later, Dr. Ochanamizu found the robot's body and rebuilt him with super powers, turning him into Astro Boy, who would eventually become the poster child for the ideology that robots deserve to have rights just like the humans.

I find it interesting that Tezuka is a contemporary of Isaac Asimov and his three rules of robotics. While they have their similarities, it's interesting to see how each of them consider the possibilities of robots with progressive artificial intelligence, and that's what makes Astro Boy such a remarkable work. The out-dated elements of the story can be compensated by the speculation and vision Tezuka offers for our future.

As for what to expect in future columns, I don't know what to tell you. I was expecting Shangri-La (which is has been pretty cool) to finish with 13 episodes but it's probably going to finish in the mid-twenties now. I do have Hyakko and Eden of the East fansubs sitting on my computer that I could finish up quite quickly. There are a couple of other anime series that I could really dive into that are just sitting around.

Another possibility may not be reviews of a specific title but a focus on broader topics within anime and manga. I'm not terribly industry savvy, but I could delve a bit into that as well. I'm just not sure. You'll just have to come back and check out what I've got to say!

Happy 4th of July! DBZ, Sky Crawlers, Dragon Drive, Clover

2009-07-04T12:01:00.004-06:00

Hey, I'm actually getting in an update on time!! Another reason to celebrate! In any case, I hope you all have a fun and safe Independence Day. It'll be a good break from all that anime, right? So let's get started with one of the most loved anime epics in the world.

Dragon Ball Z (291 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ***
Music: ***
Overall: ***

It's taken me two summers to pull it off, but I finally watched all 291 episodes of Dragon Ball Z. I remembered watching it on Toonami and being bitter at how long it was taking, even at five episodes a week (freaking Cell), but the thought occurred to be that I hadn't really watched it from beginning to end. It's been considered an anime classic, something that I'll get to a little bit later.

Dragon Ball Z (for those of you who have been living under a rock on Mars) is about Goku, a martial artist with incredible powers and potential, suddenly realizing that after all this time (roughly 150+ episodes that constitute Dragon Ball) he's actually a space alien sent to Earth to destroy it. However, he konked his head shortly after arriving, turning into the pure-hearted hero everyone knows and loves. This information spirals the story into an epic that results in saving the universe as a whole.

Trying to summarize the plot of Dragon Ball Z in a short paragraph is hard to do, considering all that happens. Not to say that the story's great, though, it just takes a long time to tell, which is why the new Dragon Ball Kai version is going to be so interesting.

For the music, I decided to listen to the Japanese Soundtrack, which, while orchestral, is simple and doesn't distract from the action. I wonder if the American Soundtrack wouldn't have been better, but I don't want to watch the whole series again just for that! The animation slowly improves over time, natural for a long-running show like this, but never really reaches jaw-dropping levels compared to television today. It may have been great back then, but now it seems standard, perhaps because it set the standard for all shows to follow.

Actually, that's the major reason I watched this series in the first place. Dragon Ball Z's legacy is huge, and now that I've seen the whole series again from this retrospective viewpoint, I'm cemented my opinion that Dragon Ball Z pioneered the modern Shonen/Action/Adventure style of story telling that we now see in the likes of Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. To be fair, they're all from Shonen Jump, but even so, I think DBZ laid the groundwork for most of everything to follow, including it immediate successor YuYu Hakusho and even series like Rurouni Kenshin, Rave Master, Negima, Zatch Bell, and the three I mentioned before. They generally all do the same thing: set up a massive premise to be lead by appealing characters that will take a ridiculously long time to tell so that, when they reach the climax, the viewers will have put in so much emotional investment on what's going on they will have everyone on the edge of the their seats whether they like it not. All the tropes we know and love started with Dragon Ball Z.

Again, to be fair, there probably were other titles that did similar things before Dragon Ball Z began in 1984. I have already admitted how much I'm loving Fist of the North Star, but it's not be rehashed like DBZ is with the newer titles I previously mentioned.

Dragon Ball Z's impact is huge, and that's what makes it a classic. It may not be very watchable now (though I had to check out it from my library with only a week for each season box set which at such a rapid pace made things a little better; I didn't much else those weeks though), but it does deserve respect for trail-blazing that it has done for later series.

I'll probably watch Dragon Ball GT, despite how little it is generally liked, next summer. I have a tendency to want to like things people normally don't like, perhaps as a way to be more open-minded about my expectations. For example, I don't think St. Anger is Metallica's worst album. They've certainly done better, but it isn't horrible.

Why am I talking about music, let's get back to anime.

Sky Crawlers (Movie)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ***

Sky Crawlers is a movie directed by Mamoru Oshii based on a book series about a fictional world war that never seems to end. The plot revolves around a small crew of fighter pilots for one particular side of the war and their philosophical dilemmas about dealing with the endless fighting. Some clearly take it better than others. Add in the concept that the soldiers seem to be clones of some sort, being replaced with frightening similar replicas whenever they die in battle. Of course, the movie doesn't tell you that out right.

The story is good, relying on a sense of philosophical science-fiction that, in the end, poses some pretty interesting questions. However, that sense if very subtle, giving the movie a very slow pace. The trailers give you a sense of action with all the dog fights in the sky, but don't be fooled. They're sporadic throughout the movie, though, to their credit, they don't take away from pacing that the show establishes right from the get go. Don't expect an action flick; it's far too introspective for that. You've been warned.

To be honest, I can't remember the music, and if that's the case, then it probably wasn't much. If it was bad, I would've remembered.

No, my biggest problem was actually with the character design. Don't get me wrong, the animation was slick, but everybody looked like they belonged in the Naruto universe, and that was distracting. I noticed that both anime titles have the same character designer, Tetsuya Nishio, but in reading a lot of the recent Naruto graphic novels, it seems like this guy and Masashi Kishimoto have been swapping sketchbooks. As I watched Sky Crawlers, I kept subconsciously expecting a bunch of ninjas to crash through, not that there was any logical reason for it, but because the character designs reminded me so much of Naruto that I wouldn't have been surprised if it did happen. Hopefully, it's just me.

In the end, it wasn't a bad movie, just a really slow one. It offers some sci-fi pontification and slick visuals, but I don't see myself watching it again.

Dragon Drive (14 Volumes)
Rating: ***

And we move back into dragons. Dragon Drive is the story about a video game that actually isn't a video game, but actually a portal into another world. Villains are trying to use the powers of this other world for their own benefits and it's up to the overly energetic heroes to stop them.

It's pretty standard, as far as story goes. The heroes struggle, find friends, and rely on their virtues to resolve the crisis. Setting that aside, I can't deny that Kenichi Sakura did a really good job getting an incredible amount energy across. It's expected that the hero will be spunky, but I've never seen heroes whose energy is so contagious. You get two of them, one for each major story arc, though the first one steps back in halfway through the second arc. They have various reasons for getting in the game, which is very Pokemon/Digimon; The player gets a monster and orders it to do battle with the other players' monsters. Naturally, the heroes get some weak monster that turns into something incredible later on, due to their bravery and perseverance. And yet, with all of these clichés, you get a story that relies heavily on its own logic and world setting, making it a very believable experience. I was surprised that it wasn't a game first (though I'm sure games came later; I know an anime series did).

Recommendable for being an easy-to-read yet enjoyable adventure, Dragon Drive moves quickly and has few flaws, if any.

Clover (4 Volumes, recollected in one Onmibus)
Rating: ****

A handful of years ago, I was getting into manga just before it boomed big and began controlling massive sections of bookstores and libraries. A friend of mine let me borrow the first box set of Magic Knight Rayearth (my first foray into unflipped manga) and instantly became a fan of CLAMP. I hunted down every series my library had at the time, first finishing off MKR, then finding and loving Cardcaptor Sakura, Wish, and Angelic Layer (I hadn't discovered Chobits yet). X/1999 was rather weird and hard to follow, but enjoyable. Then I happened up Clover. Sitting on the same shelves as their other titles, these volumes definitely stood out with their special dust covers. I grabbed them, read them, and was entirely blown away at what CLAMP could do. Unfortunately, those library copies ended up going missing and I hadn't read the series for a while. Thankfually, Dark Horse picked up the rights and published it as one big brick, with extra promotional artwork in the back. While I haven't had the money to buy one yet, I happened to find a copy at my library this past week and couldn't not pick it up.

Clover is the story that results from a study that the government did to find people with psychic or supernatural powers and ranked them from one to four, four being the most powerful. The problem was that anyone labeled with a four was equal in power to the five wizards that ran the government. They found one of these fours, named Sue, and she volunteered to be locked away for everyone's sake. However, the story begins several years after that, with Kazuhiko, a mercenary for hire that used to be part of the military, is given the job of discreetly taking Sue to a location that only Sue knows. Kazuhiko quickly learns just how far over his head he is, but is intent on taking Sue anyway.

This series is clearly CLAMP's most ambitious (Tsubasa is, too, but no where near as much as Clover). The art style and panel layout offers all sorts of cinematic scenes and story-telling, bearing a resemblance to more independent comics, like Hellboy. The characters and their relationships may seem shojo enough but are presented in such an usual way that they become instantly unforgettable.

As much as I love this series, I can't give it a full five star rating. My main problem is that the story concerning Sue takes place in the first two novels. The third and the fourth go further and further back in time, explaining the circumstances of some of the other characters leading up to Kazuhiko and Sue's story. They're still in there, but I've always felt those two were the central figures. Three and four aren't bad; they carry the same intense art style and help to really establish the world setting, but I've always felt they were rather extra and somewhat unnecessary. Maybe if they re-wrote it in chronological order, I would feel quite so put off.

In any case, Clover is incredible material and highly recommendable to any who reads and enjoys comics. It's CLAMP at their best once again. I still wish someone would do a full length movie of volumes one and two; a nine minute music video just doesn't cut it for me. I wouldn't mind if bits of three and four were slid in along the way, as opposed to tacked on at the end like they are in the collection.

I don't know what I'll review next week; I know I'm close to the end of The Tower of Druaga and I've been loving it. Other than that, I don't know if I'm close to finishing anything else, so I may have to dive deep into my memory and talk about older titles that I've completed, such as all of the Astro Boy manga. We'll just have to see. I'm sure I'll find something to talk about.

The Great Comeback!! FMP, Digimon, Shikabane Hime, Trigun, Dr. Slump

2009-06-27T21:01:00.005-06:00

Boom! Hey, everyone! I'm trying to make a comeback, talking about anime like I've always wanted to. Everything's the same as before, just now I'll be hitting newer titles as they come my way. I've decided to really hit big with several titles, so let's get started.

Full Metal Panic (24 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****

Once again, an older title, but I've got this friend who seems to think I'm missing out by not watching Fumoffu and The Second Raid, so I rewatched the original first season to get myself into the mood. I remember when I watched it before, I thought it was alright. Fun, but not much of an impact. However, I've learned that I am less critical the second time through I watch something. It's how I ended up liking the Trigun anime much more than before (more on that later!).

So anyways, the story: A certain mercenary organization called Mithril spends its time acting as a covert police force throughout the world, wiping out terrorist camps and illegal chemical factories for drugs and such. One of their major concerns is a type of person called a Whispered who, as far as I can tell, are born with an innate knowledge of something called Black Technology. Mithril goes out of its way to make sure these Whispered Ones aren't misused and/or abused by those with evil intentions, a big deal considering the major weaponry Black Technology is capable.

A Japanese high-school girl named Kaname Chidori comes to Mithril's attention as a potential Whispered, so they send a trio to watch over her. Two of them take care of basic bugging and surveillance, but the third is supposed to enroll in the school as a student and be her covert bodyguard. This third mercenary is Sousuke Sagara, a perfect military man to the nines and an ace mecha pilot but the emotions of a statue and over-assertive. The beginning mostly deals with Sousuke suspecting everything as a potential attack and making life miserable for Kaname, who turns out to be an opinionated tomboy who finds Sousuke's “antics” to be annoying to the point of insanity.

Of course, things begin to go south in a hurry as Kaname turns out to be a Whispered and thus the target of terrorists. From there, the action moves back and forth from the crazy adventures of Sousuke and Kaname to military mecha action and, most pleasantly, both at the same time.

The series is consistently fun, balancing the bone-crunching robots with Kaname crunching Sousuke's bones for humiliating her in public. This balance really creates a ranged experience not often found on other anime series and, best of all, helps set up the climactic ending that seems so satisfying when it's all over.

An early Gonzo piece, it's easy to see how quickly they wanted to integrate CG with 2D animation and, for the most part, it works. There are a few bits that seem obvious but otherwise it's fairly seamless and doesn't detract. Balance is found here as there isn't a shift in quality between big robot combat and Sousuke's involuntary pratfalls. As for the music, it works. The opening and ending themes seem rather average, but the actual score for the series feels like it came from Hollywood action flick, intensifying the action.

Now that I've had this refresher course, I can finally start on the other shows with worrying about forgetting anything and with a positive attitude. While many of the concepts individually aren't really new, they're brought together in a solid and believable way, and that's why FMP is favorite for many people.

Digimon 02 (50 Episodes)
Animation: 3
Story: 4
Music: 4
Overall: 4

Thanks to Toei and CrunchyRoll making some deals, the world has been blessed with being able to watch some of the classics of animation. And thanks to Toei's deal with FUNimation, they are spread all over for people to see. So why Digimon 02, you may ask, as opposed to Fist of the North Star or Galaxy Express 999? Well, Digimon is shorter (I haven't finished FOTNS yet and haven't even begun GE999) and it is one of my favorites.

You see, I was a Pokemon fan back in early middle school, which meant that Digimon was the weaker version of Pokemon. Same idea, but Pokemon was cooler, by some middle-school-age cool-ometer. You know how that all works. However, as the Pokemon anime was proving itself to be redundant and repetitive with no end in sight (I gave up after Orange League) I found myself more curious about the Digimon anime. So, switching over from KidsWB to the old-school Fox Kids block for a moment, I found myself at the end of the second season and completely enthralled. The climactic ending of that series convinced me to sit through most of the third season, which wasn't bad either. However, since then, I haven't had the chance to watch the whole thing from beginning to end. So when CrunchyRoll got the rights to post them on their website, I jumped at the chance.

Digimon 02 starts off like any other merchandise driven anime series: a group of kids suddenly become the “Chosen Ones” (DigiDestined in this case) and gain digimon partners to help them maintain the balance between the real world and the digital world. They fight off the monster of the day and keep the peace. Simple enough.

However, things don't stay simple for long within the series. Taking place 3 years after the first Digimon Adventure, the old crew has grown up, so the younger ones and a few new characters take over. They start taking on the Digimon Kaiser, who is trying to take over the Digital World. Then they learn that the Kaiser is another DigiDestined that had been corrupted by other powers for their own purposes, who had been corrupted by an old nemesis for his own purposes. As these twists develop, the heroes are faced with some tough decisions. Some of the returning heroes are haunted by the past, while the others suddenly feel the weight of saving the world and the costs it will have to take to do so.

I've always felt that the Digimon anime series have reached for an incredible amount of character complexity for a kids show, which is perhaps why I'm so drawn to it. The animation is standard. Toei isn't trying to blow the kids' socks off as they are making recognizable characters so they can be purchased later on. And there A LOT of transformation sequences. Be prepared to turn your brain off for a minute or two sometimes as they cycle through everyone's upgrades. The music is catchy and I found myself really liking the second ending's theme. If someone can direct me to an OST, that'd be greatly appreciated.

Watching kids' shows as an adult does take some humility, but, with Digimon 02, the payoffs are still there and the ending is incredibly satisfying (an not just because you're finished). I'll always have a weakness for Digimon and should more of it be posted online like that, I'll be there in a hearbeat. I still haven't completely finished the first and third seasons, and I know next to nothing about the fourth and fifth. And, of course, there's all the movies. C'mon, Toei! Snap, snap!!

Shikabane Hime (25 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****

GAINAX always has a soft spot for girls with guns and Shikabane Hime is no different. While this take on the motif is quite bizarre, we're still led on a fun and engaging GAINAX-style romp that won't be forgotten soon.

Shikabane Hime delves into the world of the undead and how it relates to Buddhist monks and the world as a whole. You see, when a person dies, if they have lingering regrets, they will come back to life as a Shikabane, gaining incredible powers and generally having a hatred for humanity. However, through proper rituals, a Shikabane can be turned into a Shikabane Hime, an undead entity that assist the monks in eliminating the Shikabane from causing too much damage. Of course, with most supernatural goings on, all of this is generally kept secret from the public as a whole.

Meanwhile, a high-school-age boy named Ouri walks up in the middle of the night and follows a strange black cat to see his “older brother”, Keisei, with a Shikabane Hime (Ouri was an orphan at the orphanage where Keisei works). New to this whole side of his brother, he suddenly is thrust into the forefront of the battles and politics surrounding it all. He learns about the various relationships the monks have with their partners, ranging from deep respect to deep loathing.

Soon, Ouri develops his own relationship with his brother's Shikabane Hime, Makina. Not put off by her aggressive, tomboy disposition (or the fact that she's cold to the teach because she's dead!), he tries to get to know her, despite Keisei's warnings to not bother with Shikabane and Shikabane Hime. As Ouri digs deeper and deeper, not only does he face enormous and destructive monsters, he also learns some frightening truths about the particular sect of Buddhism that deals with these undead creatures as well as about himself. Of course, things don't get any better when a clever group of villains called the Seven Stars enter the scene.

Shikabane Hime is an anime that certainly has a lot going for it: girls with guns, gruesome monsters, inquisitive boys, crazy and bizarre villains, and great action. The animation is great, though it is obvious that they're still in the momentum that FLCL gave them. Seriously, ever since that OVA series, everything GAINAX has done has had flavors of FLCL, especially when the action heats up. Things get angular and disproportionate, showing that combat doesn't need to be realistic to be engaging, and nothing cemented that more than Gurren Lagann. Don't get me wrong, it's great stuff (I freaking love FLCL), but it does tend to stand out. Perhaps I'm more of an animation junkie, but I noticed it and it was slightly distracting.

The music is also excellent. Using a couple of Evanescence-style goth rock pieces for the opening and closing animations and carrying those melodies over into the score really lent the proper attitude for the whole series. It's another OST I'd like to pick up.

The ending, however, left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that the series had been trying to ask some pretty deep questions all throughout, but for such an action driven story, I felt it ended before it was supposed to, like there was supposed to be one more episode before it finished. Using an analogy that hopefully won't be a spoiler, it's like watching Return of the Jedi and the movie ends just as Luke begins fighting Darth Vader in the Emperor's Throne Room. It felt weird. Certainly, there was an emotional resolution, but I don't think it makes up for the decision to stop where they did. Maybe it's just me.

Finally, I have to admit it was pretty cool being able to watch it legally just a few weeks after it aired in Japan on FUNimation's YouTube Channel and, later, their video portal. I imagine its brave steps forward has helps propel all of the simulcasts on CrunchyRoll and other efforts to bring anime to an international market, though it's doubtless that Kurokami is the most ambitious.

And speaking of FUNimation and streaming: tough luck lately, huh? First One Piece's simulcast goes down the tubes and now Phantom and FMA: Brotherhood. I've been way excited to watch One Piece and FMA online, but this really is a turn for the worse. Good luck to FUNimation on getting all of that turned around.

Trigun Maximum (14 Volumes)
Rating: ****

It's finally over!! After we all saw the anime, picked up Dark Horse's first two graphic novels, things slowed to a crawl as Nightow's publishing schedule went haywire and we didn't know when the next installment would come. Finally, we get to see just how this great saga comes to a close, and what an ending it was.

Trigun (for those who have been living under a rock) is a sci-fi/western action series that takes place on a desert planet that humans have been trying to colonize for several decades. In the midst of this recreation of western America is a man named Vash the Stampede, an outlaw with a massive price on his head and a horrible reputation. People say that he wiped out an entire town, but no one was killed. He wears a red coat and is an amazing sharp-shooter and a walking disaster zone.

Enter Millie and Meryl of the Bernadelli Insurance Company. Their job is to find this Vash and make sure that he doesn't wreck any more insured houses. What they find is a happy-go-lucky party animal who seems to be the least dangerous man alive. All about peace, love, and donuts, this supposed human hurricane spends his time wandering from place to place, eating and drinking as much as possible, and playing with kids. Is this really Vash the Stampede?

Things become clear as Vash's complex and haunting past comes to light and he has to stop his brother from destroying all of humanity. Only time will tell if Vash's message will hold out as he faces opponent after opponent and situation after situation, testing his physical and moral mettle to its limits.

Sorry if that sounds like a commercial, but I really loved this series. I picked it up and found myself engrossed with the characters, especially Vash. Pushing moral limits of a seemingly pure character is always fascinating (to me, anyways) and the Trigun series does that very well.

Trigun Maximum is actually a continuation of the original Trigan manga that had a short run before the magazine that was publishing it went under. The name was changed for the new run and it has finally finished.

Personally, I'm a fan of the art in this series. I know there are other people who find Nightow's work to be convoluted and hard to follow, and I have to admit there were times I didn't really know what was going on, but for some reason, I'm fine with that. To me, it carries the same spirit as a lot of the independent American comics of the ninties. Not necessarily reinventing the wheel for its basic concepts, but on how they were presented. Basically, it just shows that Nightow is a huge Todd McFarlane/Spawn fan. (When a Vash figure as proposed by McFarlane toys, Nightow blew a rod, as recorded in his omake.)

The ending is an interesting one. There is resolution, but things have been left open. Instead of concluding everything by tying all the knots, Trigun comes full circle with its characters almost picking up where they left off before the whole thing got serious. The homage to Dr. Slump is interesting as well (on the inside of the cover), also proving that this whole thing really wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously. And that's just like Vash, when you think about it.

And speaking of Dr. Slump, guess what else just finished?

Dr. Slump (18 Volumes)
Rating: ***

The work of Akira Toriyama has been crunching in America from the beginning of this decade. His world-wide phenomenon Dragon Ball has become on of the greatest franchises in entertainment's history. Seriously, I think it's now bigger than both Gundam & Star Trek combined. It may even rival Star Wars!!

However, before all of that, Toriyama was making a name for himself for a completely different reason. Back in 1980 (four years before Dragon Ball), he created Dr. Slump, a manga about a genius, yet lecherous, inventor, Senbei, and his female android, Arale. The misadventures of these two and the reoccurring cast of Penguin Village's citizens quickly became popular, extending the story all over the place and eventually becoming an anime series that ran for 200+ of its own episodes before Toei picked up Dragon Ball.

It's hard to really describe a comedy manga in terms of story, especially as non sequiter and self-referential as Dr. Slump. Toriyama, his assistants, and his editor make several appearances, either shamelessly moving the story along themselves or outright admitting they really have no idea of what's going on. In fact, the characters themselves are so spontaneous that they appear in Dragon Ball for a short while when Goku needs Senbei to fix the Dragon Radar.

While the comedy itself is fun, it's also rather forgettable. Driven by cheap gags and low brow humor, its entertaining, but I doubt I'll read these again. So why does it get three stars? To be honest, it was through Dr. Slump that I really began to appreciate Akira Toriyama's art style. Dragon Ball really doesn't offer a great variety of things to be seen, but Dr. Slump goes all over the place, including Star Wars. It's easy to see just how good of an artist Toriyama was (and still is).

While Dragon Ball will probably keep Akira Toriyama out of the streets for the rest of his life, he never would have gotten the chance to tell the story of a monkey-tailed boy from outer space if it weren't for the success he had with Dr. Slump.

And speaking of that ridiculously huge franchise, I've been watching the new Dragon Ball Kai (mostly out of curiosity; if they can cram all of DBZ into 100 episodes, I'm in) and I'm surprised that FUNimation hasn't licensed it yet. It may not get television ratings, but I'm sure its more compact storytelling will draw in new-comers who may have missed the glory days of Toonami.

Well, how's that for a comeback, folks. Now let's see if I can keep this up! Currently, I'm making a run on both Dragon Ball Z and Naruto (yes, I'm going to watch ALL of the filler episodes). I expect to be done with DBZ by the end of summer as well as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (man, the anime is weeeeiiiirrrrd). I've also got Code Geass R2 almost done and could be finished with a few others quite soon. In short, I have no excuse to keep reviewing anime. I certainly haven't stopped watching it.

More apologies, again.

2009-02-12T14:42:00.004-07:00

Wow, It's been a year since I've reviewed ANYTHING! I could complain about being constantly hit with the busy stick, but writing a blog really doesn't require a lot from the blogger. I mean, really? Yeah.

My anime watching trends certainly have shifted since last September. I'm no longer using the On Demand for my anime and I'm most on the internet now, either torrenting the latest dubs or watching stuff on sites like CrunchyRoll. By the way, I think that the new FUNimation video portal is incredible!! I've been watching Shikabane Hime on it and I've been very impressed! While I would hope that more anime appears on television, the internet now has a plethora of choices now and I'm rather excited about it. We'll have to see what fruits come to bear with this trend.

As for what I'm watching right now, I'm still plowing through Code Geass, I'm almost finished with Gundam 00 (Season 1), and I've been way impressed with the new Kurokami series. Not really groundbreaking, but it's been pretty cool. Onine, along with Shikabane Hime, I've enjoyed the classics from Toei Animation's page on CrunchyRoll: Digimon 02 (I've never really it seen it from beginning to end), Slam Dunk, and Fist of the North Star.

I recently finished Gurren Lagann (which was incredible), Slayers (which was alright), and YuYu Hakusho (which was fun). Since September, I completed Scrapped Princess, Mahoromatic, Jubei-Chan, and others. My anime watching hasn't let up, I just haven't been writing about it.

HOWEVER (and here comes the list of promises), I do wish to get back on track with this blog. I'm still watching anime and still have a lot to say about it. I still hope to start doing videos or a podcast or something, but for now, I've got to keep writing.

Hopefully, you'll see me next week. Hopefully.

RIP Toonami

2008-09-23T14:14:00.006-06:00

While this isn't as timely as the rest of the comments about this, I cannot say nothing. While I must admit that I haven't seriously watched Toonami for quite a long time now, to know that it has stopped for good is depressing. Toonami was a major part of my teenage years.

I started to watch it because of Voltron and Robotech, then, later, my friends got me into Dragon Ball Z, and I was addicted. Then they showed Gundam Wing and I was an anime fan for life. From there, it only got better: Tenchi, Outlaw Star, Big O, Blue Sub Six, and so on. I loved Toonami and all that they did.

Then I went away from Toonami (serving a 2-year LDS Mission didn't help) and when I came back, it just wasn't the same. They weren't trying new things anymore, not like they used to. And Naruto just wasn't enough to keep me coming back. So maybe, in the end, I didn't help Toonami continue; who knows. Still, it's sad to see such a good friend die. I mean, it's like the death of Mr. Rogers, except not so universal.

I can only hope that there will be other avenues for anime to reach mainstream culture. Adult Swim just isn't enough, and their treating their anime properties quite poorly. I've been doing more online, especially now that Funimation is really using their YouTube Channel, and more On Demand, through the Anime Network and Anime Selects (POST YOUR SCHEDULE!). The Sci-Fi Channel has picked up with Gurren Lagann and I am REALLY looking forward to Gundam 00 appearing on Ani-Monday's here in November. Maybe someone else will pick up the kind of legacy that Toonami left us with. I can only hope.

As for the guidepost, I apologize for not being more consistent in my writing. I've been watching anime quite regularly, thanks to the internet, On Demand, and my local library. I'm slowly powering through Naruto still, I'm looking forward to Tsubasa Season 2, and I've been enjoying Slayers and Code Geass online. I promise to do more with this site (especially if I can figure out how to get to the CSS for it) and I've got all sorts of titles to tell you about.

That is if I can get a job and keep myself from getting buried in schoolwork. Yeah, yeah, I know, the same old excuses, but life comes first, right?

Keeping on task! Escaflowne, Azumanga, Spiral!

2008-02-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

See! I can be consistent.

I don't know how I'm going to go forward from here, except to weekly keep you posted on what I'm watching and what I think of it. I finally finished Escaflowne and Azumanga Daioh, but Magic Knight Rayearth may have to wait because I've picked up Death Note again. I may finish that before anything else. I'm also finishing the first season of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and I've picked up the Escaflowne movie, so we'll have to see what I can get to for next week. I may also take a few moments and reminisce about titles I've enjoyed in the past. Let's begin!

Azumanga Daioh (26 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ****
Music: **
Overall: ***

Azumanga Daioh is a title that seems so simple when you watch it, but when you try to explain it to other people, it gets rather difficult. Really, its a comedy about the misadventures of six high school girls, but they aren't the general misadventures you'd expect. Conisdering that it was first a comic strip, it really is more comparable to Calvin and Hobbes than shoujo anime. And perhaps we're getting an idea of what it's about.

I had actually read the manga and loved it, so I anticipated the anime version to be as much fun. While there were moments were I was laughing out loud, sometimes there were things that were a little awkward. I don't know how to describe it, but I guess it's the difference between manga and anime, especially with comedy.

At first, I didn't like ADV's dub. I've always had issues with using Southern accents for the Kansai dialect because it's not a fair comparison. But over time, I got used to them and rather liked it by the end. Osaka ended up sounding stupid rather than southern, and that is much closer to her character.

The one thing that really got on my nerves were the theme songs. They have got to be the weirdest theme songs in all of anime, and that makes them hard to watch. And the rest of the music, though fitting at times, was pretty lackluster.

Azumanga Daioh truly is a strange show, filled with strange characters doing and saying some strange things, but somehow it works and is a comedy classic. It may not be one of my favorites (Kodocha beats the pants off of this) but definitely worth seeing and reccomendable to anyone looking for good comedy.

Escaflowne (26 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ***
Music: ****
Overall: ***

Escaflowne has become a classic on its own. Now that we have shows like Glass Fleet and Aquarion coming out, using the name of Escaflowne as one if its selling tactics, Escaflowne is now the standard for fantasy/sci-fi epics. It's such a shame that it ends so horribly.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things done right in this show. The Guymulefs are cool and the battles are very well done. Being a mecha fan, seing these massive suits of armor battling it out with massive swords is really sweet. There is also a lot of great atomsphere and a good sense of character depth. The music is also considred classic, this being one of Yoko Kanno's best works, and I agree that the tones really help set the epic mood this show needs.

However, I also feel that the story is a bit disjointed. We're suddenly flung here and there with seemingly little reason. The love triangle kind of takes a lot of the center stage, which is to draw in a female audience, but there are parts where I think it drags too much. And, of course, I have major issues about the ending where Hitomi and Van have to stay apart for absolutely no reason. Why can't Hitomi stay? Why does she go back? What kind of love is that?

Escaflowne definitely deserves its place in the anime hall-of-fame as one to look back on, but I guess it just quite isn't perfect. I haven't gotten to these newer titles yet, so maybe they'll work out al the kinks I didn't care for in this one.

Spiral (25 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overal: ****

I'm just kind of throwing this in. I haven't watched it in a while, but it really has a special place in my heart. And now that the manga is being produced by Yen Press, I'm finally going to find out the answers that were left unresolved from the anime series.

Spiral is a very different kind of anime. It starts off a handful of mysteries, but as the secrets of the blade children are revealed, it becomes a kind of battle of wits, episode after episode. Maybe because it is so different (from standard DBZ, Naruto shonen style action) that I like it so much. The further you get into the series, the higher the stakes become.

However, when you finish the 25 episodes, there are a lot of unanswered questions. While there is some resolution and Kanone is, essentially, defeated, you still wonder what the deal is with the blade children and why they are cursed.

There are still a lot of highlights with the show. I personally like the music quite a bit, and the adventures are a lot of fun to watch. Also, Funimation really does great work with the dub, hitting all of the characters on the nose, giving Eyes a british accent and everything, is rather brilliant. Again, we have a southern accent for Kansai, but it's forgivable. And, as a side note, the DVDs have an outakes section that just kills me. Now, I've always been a fan of outakes, like from Toy Story and Jackie Chan movies, but anime dubbing outakes seem a little odd. However, they way they were presented for Spiral, I think, was brilliant. Instead of just showing the scene they're supposed to be dubbing, they made a bit of a montage, mixing up the lines with images and music.

Spiral is very recommendable as long as you can tolerate a bit of a cliffhanger ending. Everything from Hiyono's terrifying ability to get information to the interactions between the blade children, especially Rio and Kousuke, is very entertaining. It's good to see how something different can come out as something interesting.

My life has succeeding in making me busy, but I'm still going to watch anime and be a guide to what (I think) is good. Leave comments and lemme know what you think.

Hi, I suck! Anime times 7

2008-01-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

WOW! I haven't updated in forever!! Time to start over. I'm just going to start blitzing through a ton of stuff and try to not have massive reviews but rather focus on shorter and more to the point blurbs. Hopefully, this will make up for not being consistent. I'll try to do better.

If you want to know my opinion of Anime Banzai 2007, I was disappointed. It was small and none of the major liscencing companies had booths or anything. It kinda sucked. And don't even get me started on the cosplay battle thingy. That was bad. Then again, I was only there for about 4 hours. I need to get my own car.

For those who wish to know, I'm currently in the middle of Magic Knight Rayearth, Azumanga Daioh, School Rumble, and Escaflowne. Expect reviews for them shortly. Now, onto the mayhem!

Origin ~Spirits of the Past~
Animation: *****
Story: **
Music: ***
Overall: ***

When I saw trailers for this, I have to admit I was impressed. The animation looked good. And so I thought I'd check it out.

And let me tell you, the Animation really was sweet. Seeing Agito tearing through everything was pretty darn cool. Everything else in the show is straight eye candy, proof that Gonzo really is one of the best studios out there.

As for everything else, however, things become lackluster. While it was a very interesting world, I couldn't help but think that I'd seen this before. And then I realized that I had. The plot is very similar to that of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and that kind of disappointed me. When the ending came, I thought that Shunack's death was a little dumb. The whole thing seemed barely held together and had an envirormentalist shtick thrown on top of it all, making it feel like a bit of a waste of time. IU also had a hard time with the characters and I didn't really care what happened to them in the end. It's a shame to see such great animation on such a let-down of a story.

The music seemed alright: the theme song was kind of catchy and helped set the tone of this green apocalyptic world. And Funimation's dub is spot on as usual.

I think it's worth seeing once, just to watch the animation, but there really isn't much else here that holds water.

Shaman King (64 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****

As I had said last August, I was in the middle of this series and since then I had finished it. While there were some differences in story from the manga, it was still a lot of fun to watch. The animation was pretty standard for a Shonen Jump title, but it was story and the characters that had me hooked. I also liked a lot of the music. While it has the happy, Pop-style hits for the themes, the soundtrack also has some gems.

If there is one thing that I didn't like about the series, it would have to be the ending that isn't an ending. While I do understand that they needed make a new ending because they had caught up with the manga (which is also unfinished), it was a huge let down to see that everything was simply put on hold for a while instead of having anything of a decent ending.

In any case, I think the whole series is worth checking out. If you like straight forward action with goofy characters and situations, you can't go wrong with this. I think it faithfully brings out all of the elements from the original comic. I just wish Funimation would finish releasing the uncut english version.

Kino's Journey (13 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ***

I had a friend who recommend this to me as something really out there, something that makes you think. When I finally got around to watching it, it definitely left an impact.

To begin, the world really is fascinating and the animation does it justice. While it's not really an action series, they still do some really neat stuff. Every land Kino enters, there's a story involved with the local citizens and they're pretty fascinating.

However, it is those stories that really get under your skin. Many times, Kino runs into one kind of utopia or another that's completely jacked up. In one world, two warring nations decide to stop warring and release their aggressive tendencies upon a third, backward nation that really can't defend itself. And the last episode really drove me crazy. Here, there's a group of people who think it is their heritage to stay in a certain place despite the impending doom. To me, their heritage is being able to move on and survive at all costs. There really is a lot of social commentary in this show and it really forces you to ponder what you've seen.

When I was watching this, I had a hard time with Kino's non-involving personality. She just wanted to observe and then drive away with no attachments, and that kind of irked me, too. I ended up making a comparison to Jing: King of Bandits. You have hero that wanders at random from place to place, but Jing is the complete opposite, getting completely involved with the local circumstances to the point that sometimes he's three times over his head. I guess I prefer heroes and not observers. Then again, Jing is an action series and Kino is not. Kino is contemplative and asks for criticism, in a sense.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ***

The new cult classic. Haruhi was hyped as the new weird thing since FLCL, at least that's how I felt the fandom came across to me. So, in the past months, I checked the whole thing out.

At first, I was hooked. There was a really weird plot that started with this girl and grew to time travellers, espers, and aliens. I figured this was going to be pretty cool and the animation was really good, too. However, as I kept watching, I slowly realized that I was watching a sitcom. I really bizarre and freaked out sitcom, but a sitcom nevertheless. The whole concept of trying to keep things the way they are was the real kicker for me.

The music was alright and while the whole dance sequence is now immensely popular, I couldn't see it as more than nifty.

All in all, it's a comedy with some really awesome animation and twisted premise. I do think it is worth seeing, mostly for Kyon's commentary on everything, because it really is a crack up, but it just doesn't hook with me as awesome.

Negmia! (26 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: **
Music: **
Overall: **

Another slightly bizarre comedy from the sick mind of Ken Akamatsu, Negima!, as far as I'm concerned, fails to satisfy in a lot of ways. While Funimation should be credited for trying to do a show with such a massive cast, they really couldn't help the story.

The manga itself is awkward, thanks to Akamatsu prolific use of fan service, but the anime somehow makes it seem even more awkward. To the credit of the comic, it really does pick up on the action and tells some pretty intense tales, the anime fails completely in this category. The whole Kyoto arc was slaughtered and my knowledge of the manga was the only thing that helped me get through it with any sanity. While the final arc to round out the series was a great attempt, it was a stupid idea in the end. But trying to make Negima into anime must have been a challenge in and of itself.

In any case, I would recommend staying away from this one. There are far better romantic comedies or action series that you could watch.

Trigun (26 episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****

Trigun is an anime classic for American fandom. When I watched it through for my first time I actually had a hard time with it because I was familiar with the manga and found all of the differences. However, after a second time through, I was able to better appreciate it as its own story.

What can be said that already hasn't been said already. The story is a lot of fun and then it gets really intense in such a good way. The music is spot on for a sci-fi western and Madhouse really makes a show with the animation. The gun play is great, the characters are instantly memorable (I love Legato's entrance!), and everything is just spot on.

I recommend this to anyone. I know that it is now quite a bit dated, but quality is quality and Trigun really sets quite a standard to follow. Now I just need to watch Trinity Blood.

Well, that should be good for now. I think from now on, I'm going to try and tackle quite a list and do it regularly. I doubt each will be this big, but I'm going to try make it interesting every week. That is, if college will let me breathe. It's been very intense lately. Nevertheless, I'm going to keep charging on, watching more and more anime and letting you people know about it. If you have anything to say, please leave comments. I'd like to know what you think of my reviews.

Also, I anticipate a site re-design soon. I'm tired of this starter template that I have.

2007-08-31T09:32:00.000-06:00

Hey, everyone. I know its been a while, but things are really starting to work out in my personal life, so I should have no excuse to be posting reviews.

However, the reason why I'm writing today is that I am finally going to my first anime convention, the Anime Banzai down in Salt Lake City. I've got some awesome friends that I'm going down with and I'll make sure to take some pictures and tell you my experiences. I hope this will be good.

As for what I've been watching, I've just finished Kino's Journey, and am currently plowing through Shaman King, Death Note, and Naruto. I've given up on Kyo Kara Maoh, so I may post a bit on that in the future.

In the meantime, just be patient and I'll get to all of the stuff I've been reading and watching.

Thanks and wish me luck.

RG Veda, and stuff.

2007-07-10T16:13:00.000-06:00

Well, at my new job, things are going slow. The training is boring and I'm not looking forward to when we start working (I don't know why I picked swing shift!). And when school starts, things are only gonna get crazier. I say all of this to let you know how long its gonna take to postpone the making of the videos. I'll still be able to post reviews on the things I've seen, but the videos are gonna have to wait for a while, when I have a lot more time on my hands.

But enough about me, its time to start talking anime!

RG Veda (2 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ***
Music: ***
Overall: **

RG Veda was the original manga that put CLAMP on the map, the same way Dr. Slump did it for Akira Toriyama before he did Dragonball. When you look at the manga, you can see the essential precursurs for the sweeping, epic art that fills the more successful Magic Knight Rayearth and X/1999 (wish they'd finish that!).

The story of RG Veda is a good, fantasy adventure. The current emperor, Taishakuten, is scum, having killed the peaceful emperor, Ashura, himself to start his own kingdom. His best general, Yasha, hears about a prophecy concerning the end of the tyranny and a forgotten child. Yasha goes and finds this child Ashura, starting a massive chain reaction of events. Soon, other heroes get involved with the quest to defeat the emperor, and they learn more and more about this child, who is a direct decendant of the late peaceful emperor I mentioned earlier. However, they starting to get scared as Ashura grows creepier and more violent.

And that's about as far as I am in the manga. Tokyopop is releasing the last one later this year. I won't say much more about the story, the spoilers are pretty big.

So why am I focusing so much on the manga when this is a review of the anime? RG Veda comes to us as two mere OVAs, both smack in the middle of the story. In order to really understand what's going on, you have to have read the manga. They really don't bother explaining much of anything.
The two episodes are interesting. The first is a retelling of one of the adventures from the manga, and it is pretty neat. The second episode has its own story, set at the end of their adventure, but not really based on the manga, and it doesn't really offer much more to the basic plot. It seems like the writers decided to speculate some of the ending bits as if the manga wasn't quite finished yet. And its apparent because when you get to that part of the manga, things are very different.

I gave most of everything three stars because it was all pretty good. The animation is good, making great use of the prevelant magic and fighting. The story is well done, too, feeling like they literally ripped it from the pages of the manga. You forget, in the middle of the deep epic, that CLAMP was in charge, and they can get kinda silly! And that makes it fun.

The music is particularly interesting. Nick Wood (definetly not Japanese) gives us a synthesizer heavy soundtrack that's just bizarre enough to make you keep listening, but it never really stands out. 3 stars for strangeness, but not much more.

However, the hurdle of not understanding the episodes without having read the manga forces me to give this an overall of two stars. It sees this was geared more toward the fans the comic already had as opposed to introducing a new series to the whole audience.

So basically, if you're a fan of CLAMP and have read the manga already, such as me, then check it out. But otherwise, you'll most likely be lost, having better spent your time on other shows.

And that's that. I don't know when I'll post next, but I'll get to it as soon as I can. Please let me know what you think! POST COMMENTS!

Craziest Summer Of My Life

2007-07-09T18:26:00.000-06:00

This is just gonna be a blog to say what's been going on. This summer has been all over the place, but I finally have a job and feel like I can stabilize myself a little better. In this time, I have seen and read a lot of stuff to review and I look forward to sharing it with you.

However, I am also interested in making some changes! For starters, I'm just going to give one review per post, but try to post more often (HAH!). That way if you're only looking for one title, you don't have to sift through a huge article.

The other change I'm interested in is actually an inspiriation from www.screwattack.com where they do videos for their features. And I thought, "I could do that! I wouldn't even need a camera!" While this may be a ways off, but I think have vidoes about various anime and manga would be neat. I plan to post them here as well as YouTube. I just need to get the ball rolling!

Well, as I said, no reviews for now, but I've got a long list of titles to do, so look forward to it! See ya!~

Fullmetal Alchemist and Spriggan!

2007-05-15T14:32:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Summer! I was able to survive finals week and still able to finish one of the greatest anime saga's of all time while simultaneously discovering a really awesome film! That can't happen that often.

I obviously need to focus more on blogging once a week again. Things have been pretty hectic, but I won't bore you with my life. Onto what's important!

Fullmetal Alchemist (51 Episodes)
Story: *****
Animation: *****
Music: ***
Overall: *****

This saga is one of my favorites, and having just finished it again, I remember why this show is so awesome!

If you don't know already, Edward and Alphonse Elric are two brothers that are prodigies of alchemy. However, in an effort to trasmute their dead mother, Ed loses a leg and Al loses his entire body. Ed then sacrifices his right arm to get Al's soul into a suit of armor. From there, they realize what is dead is dead, so they go on a quest to regain their lost body parts. This, of course, involves the legendary Philosopher's stone, capable of creating matter outside the laws of alchemy, something these brothers desperately want.

Enter the conspiracies, as the dark past of the Philosopher's stone is revealed to the Elric brothers. The story takes them all over, and as things develop, motivations shift and change, leaving only the brothers' desire to stay together. While it may be a bit annoying that you have to watch the following movie to get the rest of the story, it is worth going through it all. By the time you finish the 51st episode. You can hardly wait for the movie. This really is a well written story!

The animation is also very spectacular. Bones really outdid themselves this time. The action and alchemy flows together perfectly, the goofiness is consistent, and not out of place at all. And their whole world seems so real. Bones for Bones!

The music is a bit of a low point. It's decent, but nothing to go find the soundtrack for. Yes, the opening themes are good, but the rest of the soundtrack succeeds in supporting the show, and really doesn't stand on its own very well.

Overall, this is one of my favorite series. The characters and story are everything in this show, and that really makes the difference for me. It is shows like this that make me say anime is awesome, capable of create a story that isn't just special effects or goofy nonsense, but it still has a lot of those things as well. This isn't a saga easily forgotten.

Spriggan
Story: ****
Animation: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****

A spriggan is a guardian, protecting humanity from ancient technology too powerful to be discovered. Enter Noah's Ark. As people learn more about it, they begin to discover its true powers. Through some attacks on his friends, the spriggan Yu Ominae gets involved and travels to Turkey on an adventure to find out what's going on and to stop those who would exploit the ultimate power of Noah's Ark.

When I saw this title around, I thought it would be fun and I did discover it was all that and more. Seriously, this is a show worth seeing. The whole James Bond/Indiana Jones feeling is perfect for such a movie. While Yu does seem like Son Goku at times, the story still is very engaging, proposing some pretty neat things.

The animation is also really neat, capable of just as much action as any James Bond movie. The sweeping landscapes and detailed enviorments really throw you into Turkey and deep within the Ark. Great stuff.

The music was fun, giving a bit of an ethnic feel to the whole show, just as any other adventure film should. This is a soundtrack worth picking up!

Overall, it's just good fun, like Indiana Jones or anything similar. The dub by ADV is done really well. The thing is, while I may not have any major criticisms, this isn't spectacular on any level. Awesome, neat, but nothing really ground-breaking. However, it is definetly worth seeing, so go see it!

Well, I hope to post more often during the summer. I don't have a job yet, so I've got the free time to watch anime and review it! I plan to review at least the FMA movie, and maybe the Silent Mobius manga that I've just barely gotten to. We'll have to see.

SORRY!! Here's Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz and Fruits Basket

2007-04-28T13:13:00.000-06:00

I have been so horribly busy, it's unreal. And now that Final's week is approaching, I hope I can stay on top of it all without spontaneously combusting! NEVERTHELESS! This does not mean I can go without my duties to watch anime with reckless abandon. I personally have gotten into One Piece like you would not believe. People criticize it for being silly and not that great of a series, but that's because they're comparing it to Fullmetal Alchemist, Evangelion, and other giants. I'd like to think I see One Piece for what it is: laid-back entertainment. I like the jokes, the action's not bad, and it's just fun to watch. It's great to have that kind of diversion amidst finals.

But I am not here to review One Piece (especially since it hasn't even finished yet!) Here we go!

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (Movie Version)
Story: ****
Animation: *****
Music: *****
Overall: *****

I know I've ranted about Gundam Wing before, and this movie is no different. I love this show.

The story takes place after the TV show, but it is not dependant upon it, like Fullmetal's Conquerer of Shamballa. Some unsatisfied people try to set up war in the peace everyone has worked so hard to create, so the Gundam Pilots and other familiar faces pull together to stop them. While the plot isn't bad, I don't think it is as put together as the TV series was. Thus, only 4 stars.

However, as much as I like what goes on, seeing the stellar animation is incredible. The battles are articulate, and everything just looks so pretty. No frames were reused here.

And the music is great as always. While I am a sucker for Two-Mix, I also love the inspiring orchestral soundtrack.

I know I am biased on this, but Gundam Wing really is an incredible show, and this movie wraps everything up nicely, leaving you with good feelings at the end.

Fruits Basket (26 Episodes)
Story: ****
Animation: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****

I know this is a bit of a turn around from what I've mostly reviewed before, but I finally got around to watching this series, and it's been a good stretch.

Tohru Honda is a girl who has lost both of her parents and doesn't have a lot of money, but she doesn't let that get her down. In fact, you could almost say that her good attitude is infectious. So when she comes upon the house of Shigure Sohma, she feels that she's imposing when Shigure invites to stay with him and his relatives, Yuki and Kyo.

However, a curse runs through the large Sohma family. Certain members change into an animal of the chinese zodiac when overly stressed or hugged by a member of the opposite gender outside the Sohma family. But that is just the surface. Beneath all of that is the deep tragedies that seem to run through every member of the family. When Tohru comes to meet each member, it is like a shaft of sunlight comes into their lives, giving them the hope they need to go on. However, the head of the family is not necessarily pleased with what Tohru is unintentionally doing.

In spite of all that, this show runs mostly like a light-hearted comedy. As you learn more about the characters, the more you laugh. That's how it works with this show! It's only at the end does the laughter step aside, allowing for a touching end.

The story all in all is pretty neat, but the episodes could almost be watched in any order because it is so episodic. The other problem is that the story only goes so far. Having read the manga, I know that there is so much more to tell, and that Akito, the head of the Sohma family, isn't that easily defeated. I would have loved to see the school play animated. It was hilarious.

The animation is good. While there isn't a whole lot of action, the editing and the silly little things make up the difference. It has been pleasant, considering the things I've seen Studio Deen do before, mostly being Mon Colle Knights, Soul Hunter, and Rave Master. I guess this means they're improving.

The music is just okay. It sets the proper mood, but it doesn't magnify anything.

I mostly enjoyed this show as a light comedy with touching moments dispersed throughout. It may not be up the alley of action fans, but there is a lot of heart in these characters and you can't help but laugh at how they interact (or fail to). The ending was interesting, considering that the manga wasn't finished when they ended it.

Well, I hope that covers it for you. I'll try and post again next week. I think I can finish rewatching Fullmetal Alchemist by then. I don't know what I'll put it with though. We'll have to see. But right now, I've got to get studying. These finals aren't going to get A's themselves!

What a week! Gundam Wing and The Place Promised In Our Early Days

2007-04-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

Yowza. This week as been good for me and my anime watching. Or at least yesterday as I finished Gundam Wing and then watched Place Promised. Both of these shows are incredible, and I highly recommend them, as you will see.

Gundam Wing (49 Episodes)
Story: *****
Music: *****
Animation: ****
Overall: *****

Ever since I first watched Gundam Wing on Toonami, I have been a fan of mecha anime, and now that I've gone out of my way to own all of the DVDs, I decided to watch through them again.

And what a great series it is. The story is engaging, rolling all over the place. Governments change, people die, and major questions are asked. The greatest thing I think is that the bad guys really aren't bad guys. Both Miliardo and Treize have honorable agendas, even if their methods aren't pretty.

For those unfamiliar with it, the story goes as follows. The people of earth have built space colonies to send people to, but the Earth decides to invade the colonies for their own benefits. Enter the five Gundam Pilots, sent to Earth to take down the organization called OZ which is the Earth's source of military power. However, things get sticky from there, as OZ takes over the earth, then goes for space. I hate to go into more details because it would take several pages. The story moves quickly and quite often, if you miss an episode, you miss a lot.

The music is just as impressive. The whole orchestra-with-electric-guitars thing is awesome, and makes me think of bands like Kansas. And the themes by Two-Mix are just as good.

The reason why the animation is only 4 stars is because they reuse a number of frames for their battle sequences, which is reasonable. Trying to come up with new scenes with so many robots would be quite challenging. Nevertheless, the action is pretty awesome.

I guess I'm biased. I watched this show, knowing that I was going to love it and why I loved it. However, I believe this is one of the best Mecha shows out there, if not the best. (I still haven't finished Gundam Seed, so we'll see). The story, the characters, the music, the mecha, the whole nine yards deserves my 5 stars.

The Place Promised In Our Early Days
Story: ****
Music: ****
Animation: *****
Overall: *****

Be it known through the universe that Makoto Shinkai is a genius. This guy, who did Voices of a Distant Star BY HIMSELF, has created a masterpiece. While he had a lot of help this time, and it shows, this movie is spectacular.

The premise is simple. In an alternate Japan, two guys and a girl make a promise together, to fly to a far off tower on the northern island of Japan. However, war starts up and complicates their situations, separating them. The story is how the three come together and fulfill their promise to each other.

And then there's alternate dimensions.

It's a pretty crazy story, but it all fits together in a nice, warm-fuzzy kind of way.

The thing to watch here is the animation. The freaking backgrounds are gorgeous, and the use of color is almost unparalleled. It almost feels real, just by watching it. The characters blend into the environment so well, you sort of forget this is animation. My jaw just drops as I watch this. The art alone is reason enough to see this movie.

The music is also fitting. As flight is a major part of the film, the music captures that, especially at the end for the climax, which isn't intense, but definetily cinematic.

Again, I watched this show, knowing I was going to love it. But when my jaw still drops, even though I've seen it before, that's a sign. This show is awesome. The visuals are unreal. Go see this one if you haven't already. And if you have, see it again.

Well, this has been a good week. I doubt I'll ever have such a great lineup again. We'll have to see. For next week, I'll definetly get to Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, but what else, I don't know. You'll just have to wait and see.

Dang! Manga only: Kare Kano and Rizelmine.

2007-04-06T11:11:00.000-06:00

Not that there's anything wrong with manga, I just wish I could've gotten to some more anime this week. Oh well. College is really beating me down.

In any case, the two series I'm going to tackle now are both unique and bizzare. Again, remember that I only give one score for manga. First off:

Rizelmine (1 Graphic Novel)
Score: ***

Rizelmine is done by Yukiru Sugisaki, well known for D. N. Angel (which she hasn't finished yet!). The story is very familiar: Iwaki Tomonori is a 15-year-old boy who likes older women, but instead gets a girl who seems younger than him dropped in his lap. She is made of nanotechnology and her creators are trying to give her the full human experience, including being married. So, at once, it is declared that this nano-girl, Rizel, is married to Iwaki, much to his dismay.

From there, many of the basic story elements that permeate the genre occur. There are rivals for Rizel (though she is truly devoted) and other nanotech girls show up for various reasons all the while Iwaki is just trying to get away, only to discover that she's met this Rizel girl once before!

So why give it three stars? Because it covers ALL of this in one book. It goes by fast, yet covers all of the bases necessary. Being familiar with the genre, this is kind of a crack up because it is so extreme and insane, almost a parody of stuff like Oh! My Goddess, Steel Angel Kurumi, and Mahoromatic. You get the entire story in a nutshell, and that is what makes it nice.

Kare Kano (21 Graphic Novels)
Score: ***

Kare Kano is a more familiar title to the manga/anime community, but I just barely finished it. As I may have said, I have a thing for shojo manga, mostly because they're so funny! Kare Kano is brilliant in this sense. The comedy just keeps flying!

The story is crazy enough: Yukino Miyazawa works as hard as she can to be the best in school, to be the top, the most popular, the smartest. However, its all a facade. Enter Souichiro Arima, a handsome, popular, intelligent guy. When he beats her in testing, she is distraught and endevours to bring him down. But then, he finds out that she is just acting, and thus begins one of the crazy romances ever. This romantic comedy follows them through many of their trials and how sticking together usually helps them overcome.

Of course, there are side characters, and sometimes I felt the story dwelt on them a lot more than I thought was necessary, but these side trips weren't boring. Just long. Because of that, it goes all over the place, hitting quite a number of genres at once.

Overall, it makes for a great romantic comedy that does drag a little. However, as you really get to know the characters, and as things get hairier, you get sucked in what's going on, especially at the end with all the Arima family. It's a good series and should be looked by anyone who is into zany, high school romances.

Well, that's all I could muster up this time. I hope it isn't too bad. Next time, I'll definetly have more anime to review. I've just been rewatching Gundam Wing (one of my favorites) and I think I'll get to The Place Promised In Our Early Days, so look forward to those for next week.

Hoy! Inuyasha 4 and Soul Hunter

2007-03-30T13:30:00.000-06:00

Hoy! This has been a crazy week. But I've been feeling that every week. Maybe my entire life is just crazy . . .

Anywho, moving on!

Inuyasha the Movie 4: Fire on the Mystic Island
Story: ***
Music: ***
Animation: *****
Overall: ***

It is apparent that I like this one the best. For once, I really cared about what was going on. Those poor kids.

Alright, here's the rundown: there is an island where these four demons hoard half-demons to keep themselves alive through a curse a priestess gave them a long time ago. Now all that's left is a few kids, now fatalistic due to their circumstances. One of the kids escapes and finds Inuyasha who then is drug into their problems and its up to him and his friends to defeat the four demons who call themselves the Four Gods!

The story was pretty neat. It pieces together a little better than the other movies. I also gave the animation a notch up above the othe rmovies. They really did outdo themselves this time; I was way impressed. And as always, the music by Kaoru Wada was well done.

I do believe this is the best of the four movies. The story is engaging, the animation is great, and the whole this is fun. As repetative as Inuyasha can be, this one stands out.

Soul Hunter (26 Episodes)
Story: ***
Animation: ***
Music: ***
Overall: ****

I recently refinished this series, this being one of my favorites. And just in time, too. Viz has finally announced that they are going to translate the Houshin Engi manga that this story originates from. This series is quite a bit older, but is definetly worth a look at.

The story starts out simple enough. Heaven, known as the Sen'nin world, has decided that the manipulations of the demon Dakki have gone to far and she needs to be removed to save the Yin Dynasty of 11th century China. Taikoubou is the hero chosen, mostly because he is the only one stupid enough to go through with it.

So off goes our happy-go-lucky hero Taikoubou, but is he as simple as he seems? And what is this Houshin Project he's been commissioned with? Is it really to save the Yin Dynasty or are there hidden secrets about it?

Being more than just a "beat the demons" kind of show, this series focuses more on the relations between heaven and earth. Another great thing about this show is the characters. ADV did a good job on the dub, recreating the unique and down-right bizzarre cast that parades through China. There are so many awesome moments in this show.

The animation is okay, showing nice action every now and then. But there also some apparent flaws, like the obvious and inconsistent use of computers. The music is also very standard with a few good moments. And just grit through Kou Tenka's song. I know it isn't great.

Overall, though, it is the characters that make Soul Hunter for me. A fun and fresh set of heroes march through very tragic times, setting things straight in some unusual ways. However, even though the series goes for 26 episodes, I know it doesn't cover all that they could from the original manga (which is why I'm so excited to see if finally coming out!). Because of that, I feel that it could've been fleshed out and made longer, but oh well.

Well, that's that. Sorry I didn't get this off until so late in the week. I'll hopefully do better, but really have no idea what I'll review next week. I may have to wait until next Friday again just to finish something.

Sorry! Here's Three: Inuyasha 3, Elfen Lied, and Love Roma

2007-03-21T11:03:00.000-06:00

Yikes. Sorry it has been a while. Spring Break bogged me down further than I though. However, this did not stop my anime viewing. At least not much. This time, I'm taking on three, hopefully to make up for missing that week. Let's get to it.

Inuyasha The Movie 3: Swords Of An Honorable Ruler
Animation: ****
Music: ***
Story: ***
Overall: ***

The rivalry between Inuyasha and Sesshomaru heats up as the sword of their father makes an appearance at Kagome's family shrine. After being sealed for so long, it awakens and attaches itself to Inuyasha, turning him into a full demon. It takes some time (and a fight with Sesshomaru) before he is loosed from the sword, but the sword has a mind of its own. It goes to find Takemaru, the man who tried to kill Inuyasha's human mother and was her suiter. Because of his hatred for the father, and thus his sons Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, he is revived as a demon to fight the brothers. While things may be bleak, it gets worse when the only way to defeat this sword is to have Inuyasha and Sesshomaru work together.

I definetly liked this one much more than the first two (especially the second one). The story was more intersting and the memories Sesshomaru has of his father were very intriguing. The animation was good as always (they really know how to spiff things up for these movies). And the music was solid as before.

Overall, this is the best of the three I've seen, but I do have #4 waiting for me. I've been told it's the best, so I'll find that out for sure.

Elfen Lied
Story: ***
Animation: ****
Music: **
Overall: ***

Elfen Lied is a truely strange tale and definetly not recommended for minors due to its violence and nudity. An intense tale, the length seems appropriate at 13 episodes and one OAV.

The story deals with a creature called the Diclonius. At first look , they are girls with pink hair, horns in their head, and invisible hands that can cut through anything, as seen in the first episode as the main Diclonius, Lucy, hacks through everyone to escape. Just as she is about to leave the facility where she was being confined and studied, she is shot in the head and knocked into the ocean. She floats from the island and comes to the shore of mainland Japan where she if found by a couple of college students. Kouta and his cousin, Yuka. Kouta decides to take her in to his home because all she sees is a shy, innocent girl who can only say "Nyuu," showing evidence of a split personality.

From there, it gets hectic as villains other Diclonius show up, sent by the research facility to get Lucy back, only to find an innocent girl. That is, until she hits her head again. Then, Kouta's repressed memories start coming back about how this tragedy has happened once before.

It strange to see this tale ride up and down the roller coaster. The killings are sudden and the action is fast, but its more than just a violent tale. Each of these characters have depressing backgrounds that affect the story. It really is unique to see such cute characters have such dark histories.

While the action is well animated, the real treat is the backgrounds. Each scene seems to have a very detailed and vibrant environment, even if it is the bleak facility center. It feels very cinematic and really helps fit the characters in a believable place, making them more believable.

The downer is the music. I know the song has significance to the story, but doesn't make it a good song. The score is just okay, simply playing in the background of what's going on, never really enhancing the show.

Overall, this is an intense tale that I watched with my hand over my mouth at some of the tragic and more violent scenes. Full of emotion and action, this is a sad tale that does come to a nice end. It's not a complete resolution, but it will leave you with a smile on your face. The real reason why I left the overall score at 3 stars is that I can think of anime that I thought was better. So it's above average, but that's about it.

And as for the OAV, it doesn't really add as it is just a funny diversion. While it does explain the origin of how Lucy came to the reseach facility, it has a different tone from the rest of the series and, even though it takes place in the middle, it is almost better seen afterward, to keep the happy feeling it ends with.

Love Roma (5 Graphic Novels)
Score: ***

Love Roma is a truly unique romantic comedy. In the midst of all this action I've been reviewing, it must seem strange to see a this series, but I do like shojo manga. It is often some of the funniest stuff in the world. Kodocha was one of my favorites, and I am truly enjoying the anime.

Love Roma deals with a guy and a girl who are blunt and honest. Hoshino, the most blunt guy in the world, walks up to Negishi, and confesses his love for her. She doesn't know this guy from Adam. However, as he tries in unusual and over-the-top methods to get her love, she eventually warms up to him. The series mostly goes over their unique relationship and all of the pitfalls and comedy-of-errors.

This series is really funny. Some of the things Hoshino does are so extreme, it makes me wonder if Negishi is the only one who could accept him for who he is. As other characters get involved, usually in sneaky plots to get Negishi to go with Hoshino, the hilarity grows from there.

In the end, it's a story of the exploration of love for these two strange characters. I give it an above average score of 3 stars because it sets itself apart from most any other romantic comedy. I definetly recommend this short series (I wish there was more) to anyone looking for a good laugh.

Well, that covers everything here. I think I may need to explain my scoring a little better though. It will be tough to give series and shows an overall of 4 or 5. 3 is a good score for a quality title. But a 4 is a title that I consider a must own. A 4 is great. And then a 5 is a favorite. Stuff like Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Gundam Wing are 5's. Very few will get this high.

Maybe you think I'm a little strict, leaving many titles with scores of 3, but it will make a 4 title or a 5 5 title seem that much more.

Well, I should be back on for next week. I plan on reviewing Soul Hunter, and Inuyasha 4.

Back again! Inuyasha Movie 2 and R.O.D. : Read Or Die Manga

2007-03-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Over the weekend I was able to watch some stuff and I guess I'll end up reviewing some things I didn't plan on reviewing, but here goes.

First of all:

Inuyasha the Movie 2: The Castle Beyond The Looking Glass
Animation: ****
Music: ***
Story: *
Overall: **

Oy. I mean, I've seen a fair share of Inuyasha, so I know what I'm getting into. I guess I should have figured the plot would be redundant, but still, there were some things where I was just like, "What?"

The premise is pretty simple. After killing Naraku, a new evil takes his place to through the world into darkness. This demoness, Kaguya, enlists the help of Kagura and Nanna to break her out of the mirror she's imprisoned in. After that, because Inuyasha and friends are so much trouble, Kaguya takes Kagome in an effort to fight Inuyasha. She offers him his wish of becoming a full-demon, but, as anyone would know, Inuyasha just wants Kagome back.

First of all, the animation was good, as one would expect from a movie. They really went all out and had some pretty awesome stuff. And, as always, the music was very stirring and enjoyable. I've always liked what this composer has done for the series.

But, the whole story seemed off. Here comes the spoilers. I should have figured Naraku would have stayed dead, but man! coming from Kohaku's back? That, to me, seemed a little out there, even for the series. There was no reason why. It just seemed a dumb way to bring Naraku back into the story, especially at the climax like that. It was a serious let down for me.

This is majorly why I gave the show 2 stars. While the animimation and music were fine, the story tanked and didn't really amount to anything. Even the whole "This is the only time they kiss" bit wasn't as great as I thought it would be. So, overall, I sort of felt that I didn't need to see this movie. The first one was better, in my consideration, but the whole Inuyasha series I tend to watch with my tongue in my cheek.

Now, on to the other thing I did over the weekend. As I have stated before, I will review manga. However, I failed to mention how I rate them. Instead of breaking it down, like I do with the anime, I just give one score from 1 to 5 stars (*). The numbers' meaning is unchanged.

R.O.D. Read Or Die (the manga)
Score: ***

I understand this to be an interesting and unusual anime series, but I figured I'd give the manga a shot first. While I did expect it to be weird, it was a little weirder than I had first thought.

It begins with a society that goes out of its way to protect books and their authors. This Library of England has enlisted the help of a woman named Yomiko Readman. Her code name is Paper, entirely because of her ability to manipulate paper into whatever she needs. In fact, she's the best at it in the world. This series covers two of her missions.

I'm rating the series as all four graphic novels. It was short, but it was still a lot, especially as things get tense at the end.

The first mission is Yomiko protecting what turns out to be her favorite author from another fan with more malicious intent. The action is face paced and definetly quirky as Yomiko's cheerfulness is never unhinged. This really makes the battles very entertaining. Ultimately, she must overcome the various traps and villians set before her in her unusual way.

The second mission is a little more intense. Yomiko is sent to find an underground library for a private school with some severe teaching methods and rules. She finds herself fighting students with unusual powers of her own. However, her mission gets complicated when her dead boyfriend sends her a letter to go for a different reason. Driven by this, she becomes conflicted between following the mission and seeking for her old lover. What is the true intentions of the Library of England? There are a lot of mysteries and back-stories uncovered in this story that covers the latter three graphic novels.

While I can't say to you "Read or Die," this series was fun to read. With lot's of quirky battles and some intense situations, it's easy to see how this could become a cult hit. It definetly is a step above most other stories, but it is short and leaves you with a feeling of a roller coaster ride that stops before it should. Maybe I need to watch the anime.

Well, I'm glad I was able to get this off. I don't know how much more I'll watch and/or read this week. I'm kind of buried with homework. However, I should update by next week with the third Inuyasha movie. I hope it's better than this second one. I may also have reviews of Elfen Lied and Soul Hunter. It depends how things go from here until next Wednesday.

Until then, thank you for reading and check back again.

Heh, here we go. Astro Boy and FLCL

2007-03-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

I realized last night that there really isn't much left of this week, so I figured I'll just post now with what I know. One of the other things I didn't mention is I will be reviewing anime as I watch, not necessarily as it comes out. So I will review anime that may be 3 to 23 years old.

I should also explain my rating system. I focus on three things when I watch anime. First is the animation. Does it look good? Do the characters flow with the background? Does the action seem convincing, creating that sense of reality. Second is the music. All though this isn't as big of an issue as animation, music can really have a big impact on whether I (and maybe you) like an anime or not. Third is the story. I like a series that can keep me riveted to my seat by making me care about what's going on. Then after I've considered these, I give an overall score which is NOT reflected by the previous three scores. There have been series where the first three aren't much, but I still give it a high overall, and, when I do, I'll explain why. I score on a scale of 1 to 5 stars (*). 1 is awful, 2 is average or okay, 3 is decent, 4 is good, and 5 is great.

Now, as I decided to write again so soon, I challenged my mind to think of what series have I finished recently and two came to mind (psst- they're mentioned in the title). I got around to finishing the newest remake of the Astro Boy saga and I rewatched FLCL at roughly the same time. So lets begin!

ASTRO BOY
Animation: ***
Music: **
Story: ***
Overall: ***

Now, one may ask, why would I review, let alone see, a well known kid's show? I guess it comes down to the idea that Astro Boy was really the first anime, and his creator, Osamu Tezuka, was a genius in making both manga and anime a major source of entertainment. Without him, we may not have all of the stuff we enjoy in cartoons and comics today.

In any case, this remake of the classic story line does take some liberties. Astro gets some new powers and some of the circumstances have changed, but the core of the story remains the same. Astro is the recreation of Dr. Tenma's lost boy, but as Tenma realizes that he will never grow and progress like a child, he abandon's him. That's when Dr. O'Shea (changed from Ochanimizu, I think), finds him and revives him as Astro Boy, the example of a robot with a heart. They call it "kokoro," which is heart in Japanese.

The stories, though extremely episodic, take on a very Asimov feel, showing the benefits and issues with robots capable of thinking like humans. They often talk about rights for robots and creating a sense of equality between them. Another major concept is trying to reason instead of fighting. At the end, this is Astro Boy's stance as the robots and humans come to war. As simple as the show may seem, and I do admit it caters to a young audience, it still creates some thought about robots and humans, or even the relations between people.

As for the animation, it is a step above normal, creating some pretty cool stunts. And the whole world setting is very much like Tezuka's style, a very far future that is a full environment of its own.

The music is nothing special, just it's occasional themes that come in at the right times, and the American opening is a fun song. But it's nothing remarkable.

I gave this show 3 stars, mostly because its more than just a superhero show that beats a villian every episode. The struggle for what is humanity, though simplified, is a major part of the show, and helps it stand out from other kid's shows, and was even enjoyable for an adult like me.

FLCL
Animation: *****
Music: ****
Story: ****
Overall: *****

If you have never heard of FLCL (often said, "Fooly, Cooly"), you are missing on one of the most unique, original, and bizzare series of all anime. It's even hard to pin down what the story is. It starts with this boy, Naota, who is hit on by his older brother's girlfriend, attacked by an alien on a vespa scooter, and has robots come out of his head. And then it gets weird.

Mostly, the series is a parody of many other things. If you listen (and know your stuff), they mention and parody several different other anime titles and various J-pop stars. Episode 5 is a spoof of John Woo films (done very well).

The animation is spectacular, being extremely zany and incredibly well done. Despite the forgettable surburia that story is placed in, everything fits, even the weird stuff, in its seemly uninteresting podunk town.

The music is also memorable, most (if not all) of it being done by the Japanese band The Pillows, which gives the show a very punk feel with it's loud and strange rock chords. The music just amplifies the weirdness of the show.

Overall, you should watch this series just because it is so weird. Even though it only has 6 episodes, it would be hard to imagine what else they could do and keep it's style. And, because the show is so random and moves so quickly, repeat watchings help fill in some of the details, so of all anime, this has a very high replay value, something one doesn't necessarily consider with anime.

Well, I hope that satisfies you. I don't know what I'll review for next week, but keep an eye out. I'll definetely share something with you.

Thanks for reading, and lemme know what you think: bj_waters@hotmail.com

WELCOME!

2007-03-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Josh Waters Anime Guidepost. The ultimate reasons for this blog is to have a space to rant about anime and/or manga as well as give reviews online. It'll be good experience for me.

Anywho, I hope to update about once a week, usually talking about one show or another, often rating it on my personal system I've created. I hope that my remarks will help you get an idea of what's out there to watch and what isn't worth watching.

But to begin today, I'd just like to introduce myself a little and give an idea of what I do like. My name IS Josh Waters. I'm from Logan, Utah, USA, and I am currently a student at Utah State University with no major. (Technically, I'm computer science, but that'll change soon.) Of anime, I tend to like action and mecha series, though there are a few others that do crop up as favorites. Recently, my friend has got me watching Elfen Lied, a truly bizzare and intense series, so when I finish that, I'll review it for you guys. Some of my favorites, just so you know, are Bleach, Gundam Wing, Fullmetal Alchemist, and I'm way excited for Death Note.

As for manga, I'll read just about anything, but some of my favorites are Azumanga Daioh, Angelic Layer (anything by CLAMP, really), Rurouni Kenshin, and Oh! My Goddess.

In any case, I'll try to update again this week because this really isn't a review, just an introduction. And if there is a series you would like me to review, just email me! bj_waters@hotmail.com I'll try to watch/read it (if I can find the time) and review for you. In the meantime, try to be patient. This semester has been stressful and I also have a part-time job. But I think this will be an enjoyable experience for all of us. Okay?