Leave it to Gainax to kill off a major character and inject some darkness into what’s been a pretty lightweight series. And leave it to them to have done a recap ep only six in with massive amounts of reused footage, but to appease fanservice make the new stuff an onsen.
Archive for the 'anime' Category
Page 6 of 6
Holy cow, I just took a shower, and I feel like I need another shower. Oni, having Okinawa flashbacks yet?
Glad we rode yesterday and not today. Thought yesterday was hot? Sheesh, today’s worse! Chuck would have been kicking my ass even more! Guess I shouldn’t laugh at golf, hasn’t hurt him any!
And you’ll have to excuse my jumping topics all over in one post, this heat & humidity is adling my brains. It also made me want to do absolutely nothing & I ended up sitting in front of the computer all day. Most of it spent editing the sub for Toki wa Kakeru Shoujo for my satisfaction. Oh yeah, I should have realized the character design is Sadamoto of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame.
Looks like we have a winner here, I couldn’t wait for fansub & watched it raw. Having seen the teaser trailers for it, this intrigued me very much. Interesting art & designs, can’t help but be reminded of Ghibli works. The little girl (younger sister of the girl pictured in the right but not in this pic) is a ringer for Mei from Totoro, and there’s funky bizzarre creatures too. From what I know so far, the story involves a world where virtual reality is quite advanced. The kids are kind of playing a hyper real pokemon almost, they’re out looking for virtual animals. But it seems there’s some strange black thing loose in the system regarded as a virus that seems to be responsible for dissappearances of virtual pets. This is a show I’m definitely keeping my eyes on.
OK, a slept the whole day away, I think yesterday’s ride & eating a complete half tub of Haagan Daaz asian girl ice cream put me out. Doesn’t help that I had/have a dang headache that this nasal congestion I’m sure has something to do with. Damn these plants & their reproductive cycles. Anyway, since I’m not doing much of anything today, guess I’ll catch up on some anime mini-reviews.
Lesse, there’s this show, El Cazador de la bruja
Again, it’s all things we’ve seen before. Mysterious cute little girl is actually some subject of mysterious experiment that gives her powers. Tough on exterior hot shot girl bounty hunter ends up taking the girl under her protection, resulting in them becoming the object of everyone’s attention. It’s done well enough to be entertaining for now. Continue reading ‘Anime Quickies’
There’s still a pile of new anime I’ve watched that I would like to give my quickie evaluations, but I just finished watching one that I need to talk about. Sometimes it seems I gripe about many anime shows being unremarkable, but then something shows up that gives hope. Byousoku 5cm (5cm per Second) is one recent standout that I didn’t get around to mentioning. Lavish art, animation & detail. The anime I just saw was not that though, a new movie titled Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo
Translated its The Girl Who Leaps Through Time, which is an apt description of the premise. Basically schoolgirl gains the ability to jump through time and once she figures it out, uses it for her convenience. Yes, there should be the whole paradox thing. I guess they get around it by making it when she goes back in time, its kind of like she rewinds back to that time, but still she has gone through the previous time & remembers it. Don’t think too hard about it. Anyway, what this show really is is a school romance. Art is nice, animation good. Trying to figure out if its rotoscoping or CG they’re using. Its funny, touching, bittersweet, all that good stuff. Not as lavish as 5cm, but its still great.
New crop of fansubs showing up for this season. So far not much has really caught my fancy as really good, but there’s some that are entertaining. This is all subjective of course, and some judgements I make on a single show and some I totally miss or pass over as there’s so much out there I don’t have the time to watch it all. So here we go, in no particular order:
Murder Princess
Princess flees castle to escape a coup literaly bumps into ruthless mercenary/bounty hunter and their souls (conveniently) switch. Freaky Friday? The shin Princess charges back to the castle on a flame riding chopper (at least I find her more interesting than Nicholas Cage…) and proceeds to slice & dice. Oh my, what has happened to the demure Princess? Art & character designs are decent but nothing out of ordinary, animation is nothing to write home about, lots of animation resistance. Perhaps worth wasting some time on if bored.
Overdrive
Um, okay, this is a sports anime, I can just hear Dave running away. It’s got bikes… road bikes, and boys in tighties. I can hear Dave screaming and running real fast now. At least this isn’t a thinly veiled merchandising ploy to sell kids toys. Ep starts with how for the first time in history of the Tour De France there is a Japanese rider poised to win. So I guess the rest of this series will be about how this school loner becomes the hope of Japan after being manipulated by the girl he has a crush on. So what’s the messsage here, only losers ride bikes? Hey, I resent that. Anyway, I guess this is worth wasting some time on. It has some moments. Again art & animation decent. Detail on the bikes is quite good & acurate, Shimano & Trek are credited sponsors after all.
Claymore
Medievel setting, variation on the half human-half vampire hunter theme. I can’t decide what to think of this one. It’s being played totally serious, no humor, and also pretty cliched. I’m still watching it, but I don’t find anything really compelling in it.
Seirei no Moribito
Finally something of note. CG has certainly come a long way, anime has learned how to utilize it in a way that works with the traditional style, instead of having it stick out like a sore thumb screaming, hey look at what we can do, how cool is this? The art and animation in this show is outstanding. Looks like prob same people who did Blood+ if I’m not imagining things. I’m also impressed that they are keeping the quality up beyond the first episode. Now what about the show? Hmm, looks like trouble in royalty again. The royal prince (setting looks Tibety) becomes the target of assisination, by his own father the king, after he becomes bedeviled by some spirit. His mother the queen witnesses the prowess of the female warrior Balsa when she rescues the prince from an “accident” and procures the services of said warrior to take the prince away and protect him. And so the adventure begins…. There’s definitely enough here to keep me interested & wanting to see more.
Tons more to come!