Rouge Force

Redline.

2011-08-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been follow Twitter for the past week or so, you might have noticed that a film called Redline has been getting quite a bit of buzz. 7 years in production, its director Takeshi Koike working day and night for years drawing frame after frame—if you’ve heard about the movie, then you’ve heard about its production history. It got released over in Japan and it sold just a little over 4000 copies across its various DVD and Blu-ray releases. Disappointing stat to see from a movie that had so much heart and soul poured into it, but it’s not unexpected given the tastes of otaku over in Japan. Then again, this movie was clearly aimed at Western audiences to begin with, so hopefully it will gain a cult following over here.

That said, I couldn’t wait for the US release and I decided to buy Japanese collector’s edition Blu-ray (with subs on the movie and the extras) and I don’t regret it at all. In fact, I’m still trying to recover from the thrilling experience. The movie is the most intensive visual experience I’ve had since Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game. But while its amazing visuals have touted left and right, the humor and personality that help carry the film is pretty underrated. Yoshiki Sakurai and Yoji Enokido were brought on to tighten Katsuhito Ishii’s script so as make the story flow and for it not to be bogged down in too many explicit details story wise. The visuals and body language of the characters make up for the final, more streamlined version and they create an interesting world with lots of depth. The design work in the sets, the machines, the characters themselves, and the music are overflowing with tons of personality, It makes the movie not drag its feet when it’s not going all out on the race track and make the entire movie a joy to watch. Ishii was the one who wanted an overload of information on screen and Koike was the man for the job. Honestly, the movie is nothing short of stunning.

There were 100,000 drawings made for this film and there were a core of 15 animators working on it, with other key animators being brought in to fill in holes here and there. Shinya Ohira is one of the latter animators whose work stood out the most. This was the first work we’ve seen from Ohira since his work on Genius Party and it’s breathtaking. *SPOILERS**SPOILERS* Katsuya Yamada corrected one cut, cleaned up another, and Hokuto Sakiyama probably cleaned up the rest of Ohira's work since all his work was 1st Key Animation (in other words, rough key animation). His scene starts the climax of the film (the awakening of the bioweapon). It’s great to finally see Ohira at work again, but I wonder when we might see him next, if ever. Sushio animated Machine Head and the Super Boins' introduction, Hiroyuki Imaishi did Johhny Boy and Lynchman’s intro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri did about 20 to 30 cuts of Colonel Bolton in the third act of the movie. Kanako Maru did the intro of the MCs of the Redline race and Takeshi Koike handles the end of the climax film with JP heading towards the finish line and the very last scene. Sushio, Maru, and Koike did other stuff, but I’ve yet to decipher all the info on the Sakuga@Wiki entry (taken from the key animation book).

All in all, and I don’t say this often, you owe it to yourself to at least experience this movie once.

EDIT: To see the comments, go on the main page and click on "X comments" for this entry.

EDIT 2: Sushio also did Machine Head's intro. Yutaka Minowa did the cuts where Bosbos is putting on her earrings and the racers getting into their rides before the Redline race starts.

FMA Movie Staff Revealed.

2011-07-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

The FMA movie premiered over in Japan and the staff list has already found its way online. Thanks to liborek3 on Twitter, I posted the staff list over on ANN. As expected, it's a high quality production. There's a couple of animation directors from the new Evangelion movies involved (Shunji Suzuki and Atsushi Okuda), along with a few flash animators that were surely part of this production thanks to Shingo Natsume's involvement (Kenichi Kutsuna, Shingo Yamashita, etc. ). Natsume directed the memorable 6th episode of The Tatami Galaxy and he serves as the unit director here to help execute director Kazuya Murata's storyboard. Some of the other animators include Satoru Utsunomiya (his first work in 2 years), Hidetsugu Ito, Fumiaki Kouta (who animated this a few years back) and Hiroyuki Aoyama to name a few.

Curiously, Kiyotaka Oshiyama is serving as animation director, but he/she is credited with the task in katakana while the other four animation directors are credited in kanji. It's not clear specifically what is supposed to be the difference between the two, but given the placement of the credits it appears that Oshiyama oversaw the 4 animators under Kenichi Konishi's direction with him being the chief animation director. BONES also recently came up with the task "Motion Design" to credit Hironori Tanaka (who also worked on this movie) on the first opening to Star Driver and it's still not clear exactly that entailed either. Hopefully BONES's new approaches to production will be cleared up in the future.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Star of Milos Full Trailer

2011-05-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Movie comes out in Japan on July 7, 2011. It'll be in theaters over in the US next spring. Animation looks totally sick. Presumably that's Yoshimichi Kameda's work at 1:19. It's getting the usual reactions that it lacks details and shading, and I suspect that pretty soon people will be saying that even the animation quality from the 1st TV series looked better. All of this is nonsense. Yes, they cut down on the shading. Yes, they don't add in as much detail as they would if they just used one frame for a panning shot that takes forever to end. But is everybody so blind to the sheer vigor that's being put into the movement of these characters? The staff has been allowed to go wild and it's clear they're taking advantage of Kenichi Konishi's designs to bring a new spin to the FMA world.

It's clear it'll be worth watching for the animation alone, as the plot doesn't necessarily looks all that interesting. The plot seems to be a side-story and it's getting some backlash on that front alone. But I never heard anybody complain about the novels that were no different in that regard. Hopefully people can look past their predispositions to the norm when it comes to animation and actually appreciate this kind of ambition in the setting of FMA. It's not like the animators are going to stop working like this if they don't.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence MAD.

2011-05-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

I helped out a bit on this video, so I'm posting it here.

Yay, sakuga. This movie is tedious to watch, but I've actually warmed up to after watching it a few times. Though, it still is a masturbation session for Oshii and his pet topics (philosophy and...his pet). But the animation is absolutely amazing.
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On another note, some upcoming episodes for Naruto Shippuden that have potential are episode 211 with Seiko Asai as the animation director and 213 with Tokuyuki Matsutake in that role. Presumably, Matsutake is there pinch-hitting for his pal Hirofumi Suzuki. That's about all I got for right now. I might comment on ep. 204 and Masayuki Kouda's 209 later on.

Kemonozume.

2011-03-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

It sure has been a while since I've posted Mostly because I haven’t had the sudden urge to post anything and because I can’t find the time to do so on a consistent basis. Anyways, thank to Doftljus for telling me to update this blog.

On a more important note, you should definitely contribute to any one of the charities that helping out on relief efforts over in Japan. There are a ton of efforts going on right now, so you definitely aren’t out of options if you want to help: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-03-11/relief-funds-for-march-11-earthquake/tsunami-in-japan

Lately I’ve been trying to get things out of my backlog. One of them was Kemonozume, the first TV series that Masaaki Yuasa directed. This was aired in 2006, two years after the theatrical debut of his magnum opus, Mind Game. Without going too deep into spoilers, the show is about the story of a demon hunter swordsman, Toshihiko, falling in love with a demon (called “Flesh Eaters”) woman, Yuka. Stuff happens, etc.

Script-wise, the show starts off with plenty of intriguing drama involving the organization (the Kifuuken) Toshihiko is involved with and where the relationship between the two main characters is going given their standing in society. However, towards the end Yuasa introduces a main villain into the story that pushes these two elements aside and the question revolving the relationship was never resolved to my satisfaction. The first half of the last episode involves the main characters trying to stop a huge ball from crashing into Tokyo, so that only confirmed my view on the second half—that Yuasa did not know where to take the story that he started out with. Don’t get me wrong, though. For the most part, the villain is great to watch and the scriptwriting in the show was more than competent. But the contents of episodes 2 or 6 were more along the lines of where I was expecting the series to go.

On the visual side, Yuasa seems to try to challenge himself with everything he does by doing something completely different every time and you can see this trend continue with Kemonozume. As you can read from the Anipages link I posted before, this does present problems in terms of actually getting animators on board due to the level of skill required. This was probably an issue with Kaiba as well, where the key animators list for every episode was very small in comparison to your typical anime production. On the other hand, this leads to a great amount of work being done by skilled animators.

Every episode starts off with an avant-title section and they had quite a few notable animators work on these sections. Satoru Utsunomiya did episode 3’s, Hiroyuki Aoyama #5, Kouichi Arai #8, Nobutoshi Ogura #9, Eunyoung Choi #10, Hiroshi Shimizu #11. Kobayashi and Mihara did the avant-titles for their respective solo efforts.

Osamu Kobayashi’s was episode 7. You got what you’d expect out of Kobayashi, with his close-ups and the square mouths combined with that stuttering kind of timing. Embarrassingly, I’ve never seen a series directed by Kobayashi. I did see one episode of Beck way back when, but that’s about it. I’d like to rectify that. Kobayashi’s episodic work always sticks out no matter what, even on a show as eccentric and out of the norm as Kemonozume. So I’d like to see how Kobayashi’s vision would translate over a series of episodes instead of just one focused, singular work.

There was also an episode by Kenji Nakamura (#10), which packed in a ton of material rather effortlessly. I haven’t seen anything from him before, so I’m looking forward to his upcoming C anime series and the Bakaneko arc of Ayakashi which I ordered a little while ago.

My favorite episode was Michio Mihara’s solo key animation effort in episode 12. He also did a similar episode in Kaiba, where he drew every frame of animation for episode 4. In Kaiba, you could see Mihara giving the character’s more weight in terms of how they moved than what you would normally see in an anime. Here, the main attraction was the insane amount of detail he placed on characters’ faces or when outlining their bodies in combination with constant, vigorous acting throughout the entire episode. Even amongst series that supposedly have a “great budget”, you rarely see animation that feels so alive. By itself, the scene where Kazuma is running up the stairs to face the villain speaks for the raw energy that Mihara spread across the entire episode. Hiroyuki Yoshino's performance is also commendable.

I was surprised to Kenichi Kutsuna work on this show, since I had forgotten that he was involved. He did the silly action part with a chair that defies gravity in episode 8. Yasunori Miyazawa is here too and his parts are easily identifiable. On episode 8, he did a few cuts of the Kifuuken swordsmen fighting the Flesh Eaters (notice the panning back and forth) and on episode 13 he did the really sketchy line work when the main villain transforms.

On another note, I’m looking forward to Shippuden 204. Hiroyuki Yamashita is both the animation director and the storyboarder for the episode. Judging from the preview, it looks like it will look better than his last.

Episode 194 of Shippuden was another episode where it was definitely worth watching. It was the second effort from the Gorou Sessha/Masayuki Kouda duo. It was spent of a filler episode that harkened back to the juvenile potty humor days of Naruto, but it looked great doing it. There is a chase scene in the first half that is impossible to miss that shows that Gorou Sessha was the guy responsible for a similar looking part in 135 (the Itachi vs. Sasuke part). This also shows that he was responsible for the part at the end of 26 where Sakura winds up and throws the ball (or whatever it was) Sasori. His style is marked by that crazy blur and those bad-looking hands, but it still looks great in motion.

More Yamashita and Panties.

2010-11-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

Another post, another episode of Naruto Shippuden with Hiroyuki Yamashita as an animation director. I don’t want to make this blog dedicated solely to him, but there are only a few things that are making me fired up enough to post on here nowadays. Anyways, there were 8 episodes in-between Yamashita’s episodes as an animation director. Last time he was only directing half of one episode, whereas here he was in charge of the whole thing. The lip sync, timing and drawings that were so clear in Yamashita’s half of 178 wasn’t as prevalent here. You could see a bit of the flat fingers and everybody is thinner than usual, but everything that makes Yamashita so interesting to watch seemed to be lacking all around. It was much more reserved. I imagine Yamashita as an animator himself must have been responsible for the start of the fight here since that’s what stood out the most, but it still didn’t wow me like the ep. 178. Here are some of shots from 178

(^Presumably Yamashita work)

and from 186

(^Yamashita again?)

I’m guessing that the production schedule and the overall learning curve in becoming a animation director lead the difference in quality here. He’ll have plenty of chances to get more familiar with the the process of actually correcting and supervising everybody’s shots for a weekly TV schedule in the future, so I don't think this is a big deal.

On another note, Tsuneo Ninomiya was the first animator on the key animators list for this episode. He’s been involved in the industry since the mid 60s, but as far as I can tell his biggest contribution is being the character designer for MD Geist. Clearly the connection to Koichi Ohata's masterpiece had something to do with how this episode turned out.

I'm still watching Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and I still think it's the best show that's come out this year. Great action aside, episode 11 (or 6) had some beautiful work done by Yasunori Miyazawa. I'm guessing he did the brief shot of the little ghost getting killed and transforming, but there's no doubt he was responsible for the multitude of flames that were present at the end of the episode. Tomorrow's episode will have Ryo-timo as the animation director and next week will have Nobutake Ito teamed up with Masayuki. Good times ahead!

Recent Viewings (November 2010).

2010-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

As typical of this time of year, I’ve been crunching anime into my hectic and unorganized school schedule, but I have managed to enjoy a few things here and there.

---Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt- So with this we again have Imaishi directing as his unrestrained self. As much as I like Gurren Lagann, if you compare it to Dead Leaves, you can see that he’s holding back. Not in terms of the quality of the animation, but in terms of being absolutely crass and, frankly, immature. Lagann was clearly aimed at younger audience, so he couldn’t have the same kind of sex and poop jokes that he placed in Dead Leaves. The closest he ever came to that level was the uncut version of episode 6 directed by Shin Itagaki.

But that isn’t the case here. If you couldn’t tell from the trailer, then this show will make it clear as to what it’s about fairly soon. Right from they get go, you have a joke about “morning wood”, the huge sound effects that go across the screen (something that Imaishi also used in Dead Leaves) and the kind of visual set-up and organization that makes Imaishi’s work such a joy to watch. For the people that can get pass the ill-advised notion of anime should look like, the biggest complaint I’ve seen aimed at this show is that it’s the same joke over again. After watching 10 episodes (or 5 if you must), I can’t say that at all. While the characters have stayed consistent since the first episode, the way the “Geek Fleet” has handled and placed them in a number of various situations still remain interesting. From the fat monster to the booger monster, while they tend to involve some nasty or crass subject, the way they look at the boundary of what’s the norm for anime and go right past it is commendable.

The soldiers episode is one of the highlights in the early going of “Pansuto”, with the war sections all animated by Hirokazu Kojima and the script by Shigeto Koyama. Taking a firmly tongue-in-cheek approach to this hilariously dramatic struggle totally caught me off-guard. But the biggest thing so far in terms of blindsiding the viewer is without a doubt Osamu Kobayashi’s episode 10/5b. In large part by changing the art style to give off a more realistic tone, Kobayashi and Takashi Mukouda managed to inject convincing social commentary in this escapist show. Kobayashi’s previous endeavor on an Imaishi show (Gurren Lagann episode 4) generally left the viewers in an uproar, but I believe that the people who would have complained about the art and animation taking such a drastic turn already left show at episode 1. Imaishi clearly doesn’t care about the negative feedback the production got from that episode since he knows what he got. Bringing Kobayashi back to his next show and allowing him to go ahead with this scenario is the kind of bold accommodation of strongly distinct and individual styles that make Imaishi one of the few directors whose work I always look forward to. Needless to say, I’m looking forward whatever comes next (apparently people like Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, and Ryo-timo are working on future episodes)

---Naruto Shippuden (up to ep. 181)-Well, things are looking up for this show even with its current break into filler. Episode 178 featured Hiroyuki Yamashita, whom I’ve talked about before, making his debut as an animation director. He only worked on the second half, but what a half it was! It starts out animation by Yamashita himself and the rest of the episode, while not completely matching Yamashita idiosyncrasies since there’s only so much one man can do, did manage to retain a good deal of his sense of timing and visual flair. It’s been noted by others that Yamashita has been influenced by Hirofumi Suzuki due to the lip-synch on display on the episode and it’s hard to argue against that. Working on Shippuden has allowed him to be among some very talented people like Norio Matsumoto (who probably got him to work on Keiichi Hara’s Colorful), Suzuki, et all so it’s only natural to take in some of that experience.

Yamashita also directed the delightful new ED (#15), featuring Shingo Yamashita, Kenichi Kutsuna, Tatsuya Koyangai, Shingo Tamaki, Yoshimichi Kameda, 甲田秀人 (couldn't get a reading) and Yamashita himself as animators. Hiroyuki did the Naruto vs. Neji part which is easily identifiable and Kameda did the Rock Lee vs. Naruto part. The new OP is a slow piece with no action, but it still is another solid delivery from the Toshiyuki Tsuru/ Hirofumi Suzuki duo. Tokuyuki Matsutake leads the animator list (presumably he did the part where Naruto is blasted out of the water and he’s spinning around).

These new OP/ED debuted on ep. 180 and this episode also marked the debut of Gorou Sessha as an episode director on the series and Masayuki Kouda’s as an animation director (another Pierrot animator). Sessha (rumored to be the pen name of ex-Kyoto Animation animator, Seiji Watanabe) has been one of the bright spots in this series, being the animation director for eps. 26 and 143 (among others), and the chief animation director for episode 135. While Atsushi Wakabayashi was absent from Shippuden until his return in ep. 167, Sessha and episode director Atsushi Nigorikawa were trying to fill the considerable void that Wakabayashi left behind. Their best effort by far is episode 143, which features some great swordplay courtesy of Hiroyuki Yamashita right after the opening credits and the pacing and framing throughout exhibits the kind of ambition that you would find in Wakabayashi’s episodes, though I would not exactly equate the two. Not that it fails, on the contrary, but Wakabayashi is simply on another level.

Episode 26 marks the duo first real effort to break through and give the audience a high quality episode. You can clearly see their grandiose intent, but it ultimately falls short. It’s not bad for their first effort, however. Episode 135 is a retelling of the Uchiha massacre which contains some more striking imagery and a very nice fight between Itachi and Sasuke—I still don’t know who’s responsible for it.

Going back to ep. 180, this one features some neat smoke effects, particularly towards the end. I believe it was the work of Gen’ichirou Abe, the Shaft animator they got to work on this episode, who was responsible for this. I’ve never seen anything like it in the series. There are also some nice smoke effects when Sasuke kicks Naruto in the face that, as others have noted, feels very much in line with Kishimoto’s smoke effects. As a side note, Shigeki Kawai was the animation director for the first half half of ep. 181. Nothing great in comparison to his previous effort, but it’s safe to say that ep. 180 must have taken quite a bit of that budget from 181.

Looking forward, Chiyuki Tanaka was set to be the episode director and animation director for episode 184, but she ended up as only the animation director instead. Hiroyuki Yamashita is set to be the animation director for ep. 186 and maybe this time he’ll be the only AD on board this time. Perhaps he’ll be a workhorse like One Piece’s Naoki Tate after all. I wonder if the being an AD gets easier as you go on or do you just get worn down after having to correct so many subpar drawings.

---Street Fighter Alpha Generations- I went and rewatched Ikuo Kuwana’s directorial debut after reading Ben Ettinger’s post about it. If you thought that this movie was boring when you first saw it, I highly recommend giving it another shot. I thought so too at first, but after revisiting it I came away with a different impression. The biggest problem this movie faces, aside from being spearheaded by a novice director, is the “Street Fighter” tag that comes with a load of expectations. You automatically expect every notable character from the game to show up ala Gisaborou Sugii’s Street Fighter movie and for it to be overblown like the video game.

This movie would have been more at home in the 80s, where you saw these kinds of one-shot OAVS that were largely self-contained. The overall tone is very low-key and Kuwana lets the storyboarding and animation tell the story, much as you would expect from an animator who’s been given the task of directing. At the start of the movie, you’re not given a clear definition of where the current story is taking place in terms of the timelime; but it’s still able to move forward and backward without being too confusing and manages to be effective by avoiding the typical pitfalls of that “flashback sequences” fall in.

The line work on the old men’s faces on this one really bring out some expressive features, though there are notable shots throughout the movie where you can tell they had to sacrifice in order to pay attention to others. I could only tell Hiroyuki Imashi’s part on this one and they stands out, per usual—it’s the fight with the old man and Ryu and his part ends when the old man starts laughing after launching Ryu through the wall. The part after that looks a bit too smooth for Imaishi.

And that’s that. I typed a bit too much so I’ll leave stop right here.

Finished Monster (no spoilers).

2010-10-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

I finished watching Monster on Sci-Fi yesterday and I have to say that was one of the more satisfying conclusions I’ve seen recently. It remained faithful to the rest of the show while still wrapping what needed to be wrapped up and leaving just enough room to spark discussion. To be honest, after a while I kinda forgotten what had happened in certain parts. It became too intricate-- almost to the point where Urasawa seemed to be adding more dimensions and stretching out the story just for the fun of it.

I’ve heard the Monster manga is going out of print and I saw that my local Borders had the rest of what I needed to complete my collection. But I decided not to pick any of it up because I realized that I much prefer the anime over the manga, which Viz hasn't released past box set 1. Urasawa might be very good at what he does, but he has some tendencies that get quite tiresome after a while. Every revelation has to be super important and these have to be accompanied by close-ups of character's faces that he telegraphs from a mile away. He can get rather preachy too and his characters start to resemble each other after a while (thanks in part that he designs so many of them). But I find these flaws much easier to forgive in the anime. Aside from the elements of sound, the overall visual design and execution of the anime is superb for such a long running show. The animation and background art quality are remarkably consistent for its 74 episode run. There's a really solid staff with people like former Ghibli animator Hiroyuki Morita, Hiroshi Shimizu, Yoshiaki Tsubata, and Kunihiko Hamada, among others.

For the last stretch of episodes, the one that stood out for me was episode 71. This episode was written by Masahiro Hayashi, directed by Ryousuke Nakamura, with Junichi Takaoka as the animation director. While the realistic style of animation for Monster is consistent, you can tell right from the very first scene that they were aiming a bit higher on this episode. A slightly higher frame rate that leads to richer movement easily makes this episode stand out, even among the climax that spans across 6 episodes. My favorite scene here is when Lunge enters the hotel lobby with his rifle and the scene that occurs. Really nice timing and framing.

If you live in the US, then you can watch all of Monster on Hulu, or you can buy it all off of iTunes.... And none of these options are what I want. Viz needs to actually release the rest of this show on DVD, even if it's one cheap, slimpack DVD collection.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Review

2010-10-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

In a world of so many long-running series (Shonen Jump adaptations and otherwise), it’s very rare for a shorter show to make a long-lasting impression on the anime world. There are a few examples obviously, like Fooly Cooly and the original Tenchi Muyo! OVAs (though this one defaults a little bit due to having longer-running spin-off titles), but essentially most, no matter how big the fan base, just don’t seem to have lasting power over the years when compared to the ‘big boys’ of Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto.

That’s where Haruhi Suzumiya comes in. Few fan-bases for a show are so rabid and so powerful than this one, so much so that you’ll hear about this little gem just as much as you will Naruto. It’s that big.

Also known to just about everyone is that Haruhi Suzumiya started off not as a manga like most anime adaptations, but as a light novel, written by Nagaru Tanigawa with illustrations by Noizi Ito. There’s a total of nine books so far, with a tenth due out this year or the next.

Like with most huge titles though, I’m late into it. After hearing about it from just about all of my friends and reading about it online, I finally picked up the first book about a year or so ago, and I really enjoyed it. Only recently was I able to get a copy of the first ‘season’ as released here by Bandai however, which is what I’m reviewing now.

TMHS, as it’s abbreviated, is the story of Kyon as he enters his high school years, with a cynical mind-set. As a kid, he apparently found the normal world boring, and was much more inclined to read or watch stories involving secret organizations, alien conspiracies, and people with super-powers than he was to enjoy the real world. Growing up though, he’s realized that none of that stuff is possible in the real world, and is ready to slog his way through the mundane journey that is life - much like the rest of us.

That’s where things take a turn for the ‘worse’ for our hero. In the seat just behind him in homeroom, sit’s a girl who is about to change his entire world - Haruhi Suzumiya. Hyper, demanding, self-centered, and incredibly eccentric, she stuns Kyon and the rest of the class by her opening statement that if there are any time travelers, aliens, or ESPers (think psychics), they should come to her. That’s where the entire story begins, as an off-hand comment made by Kyon soon after causes her to make the S.O.S. Brigade (Saving the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade), bringing in three other people who are soon revealed to be more than they seem. Yuki Nagato, a quiet girl who loves to read, who is also an alien (of sorts); Mikuru Asahina, a timid, well-endowed beauty, who is also a time traveler from the future; and Itsuki Koizumi, a mysterious and seemingly always smiling boy, who is also an ESPer.

And thus, as they say, chaos and hilarity ensues. From saving the world from the ‘Godly’ side-effects of Haruhi’s temper, to playing baseball, to ocean cruises, to even normal things like a school festival, and all the way back, Haruhi is one surreal experience of a show. It’s that surreal feeling that makes this show so good I think. I mean, let’s face it - the entire concept, maybe not exactly like this, has sort-of been done before. The idea itself is nothing revolutionary. Any other author could have come up with this and it would have been an okay story, but at an episode count of 14 (speaking only of the first ‘season’ of course as that’s all I’ve seen), it would have been quickly forgotten in the realm of other, newer titles. No, what saves Haruhi from falling to the way-side is incredibly good writing as well as some of the most interesting characters ever seen in this kind of a story.

Speaking of the characters, this is definitely a character-driven story, so let’s talk about the individual members of the S.O.S. Brigade a bit. Starting with Haruhi herself, I have mixed feelings on her. At first, I (much like my girlfriend) absolutely hated the character. She’s bossy, downright female-dog like more often than not, and she pretty much shows no concern for her friends who are forced to put up with her in the hopes that the end of the world doesn’t reign down upon them. As the series goes on, she does become a lot more bearable, as she does learn to care a bit more about her friends, and her eccentricity becomes more funny than annoying. In the end though, she is definitely my least-favorite character in the series.

Moving onto Kyon, there’s not a whole heck of a lot to say. He’s the real main character of the story, as everything is told directly from his narrative, so you’re supposed to like him a little bit. Still, I find his cynicism a bit much at times, given that he’s now living exactly the things he once wished for. Would it kill him to crack a smile sometimes?

Yuki Nagato is another one that I’m not really sure how to feel about. A friend of mine is a huge fan of her, but to me she’s kind of just there in the background. She’s a lot like Mori from Ouran to me, a ‘couch’ of a character - they don’t say a whole heck of a lot, but the show just wouldn’t be right without them. Truth be told, Yuki does have one of the most badass moments in the show though, when she bare-handily takes down one of her own kind after Kyon’s life, but in the end I just can’t say I like her or dislike her really.

Now Mikuru…ahh…there’s my favorite character. In fact, I’ll admit it right now - I have a huge fan-boy crush on the character. I mean, look at her!

Can you blame me? Didn’t think so.

She’s absolutely adorable, full of cute little charms, and I’m sure a lot of people hate her on principle as pretty much a human incarnation of all that is ‘moe’, but you know what? If it’s done well, I think moe can be an endearing trait. Chalk me in with Haruhi and Konata in that regard!

The final member of the brigade, Itsuki, I think almost would have made a better lead than Kyon, personality wise. He’s a lot more my speed for a lead character, cracking little jokes from time to time, generally happy, and he seems to be an all-around nice guy. Well, with the exception of annoying Kyon for fun anyway. When I think about it now, it wouldn’t work with him as the lead since Kyon’s anti-Haruhi nature is needed to make her character bearable at all, whereas Itsuki thinks she’s a God and also finds all those annoying traits of hers ‘charming.’

The animation won’t disappoint either. I’m not lying when I say this is one of the most beautifully animated TV anime I’ve ever seen. Maybe it was because of the popularity of the novels, maybe it was due to how short the original episode count was, or perhaps a mixture of both - either way, this show is absolutely gorgeous.

So in closing, Haruhi Suzumiya is one hell of an anime ride, unlike any other. Is it a must-see title? I wouldn’t go so far as to put it up there with some others I consider must-see (like the first Fullmetal Alchemist, Air, and Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart), but it’s certainly a show that I think everyone should at least check into. It’s definitely one that you have to see to believe. So with that in mind, I bring this review to a close. It was a long one, but hey, it’s been a while.

I give The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a 4 out of 5. It's not 'best ever' level for me, but it is one of the best shows I've seen a long, long while. Check it out!

- Gyt Kaliba

P.S. - Look, more pretty Mikuru!

A update on Hiroyuki Yamashita.

2010-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

I wrote a bit before about Hiroyuki Yamashita and his distintive style in the Naruto Shippuuden series. However, Yamashita has been risen a bit more within the ranks on this project since then. He was credited with doing some Puppet Designs for Naruto Shippuden: The Lost Tower-- which is directed by Masahiko Murata who's done quite a bit of notable episodes on the series himself. And now it's been confirmed that he's going to actually be an animation director on the actual show.

Episode 178 preview:

The traits from Yamashita sans the triangle swords are all here to marvel at. Look at the mouths of Iruka and those three ninja. The shape and snappy timing of their lips flapping seems like they're drawn by Yamashita himself (perhaps he did or maybe he corrected a great deal of this scene). Naruto's arm while he's resting on Iruka is more squarish and flatter. In the same shot you can see that Kakashi's face is more slimmer than usual and the timing to his mouth movement is very similar to the previous scene I mentioned.

The only shots that can contain animation in this preview that don't look like the were corrected by Yamashita is the shot of Choji and Shikamauru and the latter one of the candle and Jugo talking. Yasuhiko Kanezuka is the co-animation director along with Yamashita--he's not too shabby himself, just not exactly doing exciting animation like Yamashita seems destined to do. Once the episode comes out it'll be interesting to see just how much of an influence Yamashita will have in his debut as an animation director.

Panty and Stocking Promotional Video.

2010-09-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the PV is out and everybody has their thoughts made up already. The funny thing I'm hearing is how it looks too American. Kinda funny how it points out how fans are so allergic to anything new or different from the typical anime tropes in animation. The mixture of different animation styles from other countries that results in new styles is something that should be celebrated and not be the victim of knee-jerk vilifications.

People might be familiar with the staff since they worked on Gurren Lagann, but here's a hastily-put-together refresher for the main parts.

Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi- Needs no formal introduction. A great animator before he decided to direct and still is. However, he's brought his kinetic vision that's inspired in most part by Yoshinori Kanada as a director too. Panty & Stocking marks a return to the crude humor of Dead Leaves with more overt American influences that makes it stand out even more among the mass number of boring art styles currently being offered.

Character Design: Atsushi Nishigori- character designer for TTGL. I honestly haven't dedicated myself to knowing much about his career aside that he seems to have started at Gainax as an in-betweener on FLCL. Good place to start if I ever saw one with the myriad of talented animators they got on there (Tetsuya Nishio, Keisuke Watabe, Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, etc.)

Co-Director: Masahiko Ohtsuka- while he's been at Gainax for over 15 years, he's only been a series director once (Petite Princess Yucie). Started out at Ghibli as an assistant director for Pom Poko and Yoshifumi Kondô's Whisper of the Heart, along with being an episode director on Eva.

Concept Art: Yoh Yoshinari- Brother of animator Kou Yoshinari. It would take way too long to list every one of his memorable works, but on Gurren Lagann (spoilers ahead) he animated the sequence in the 1st OP where Gurren Lagann pins down the gunmen with its drills and the subsequent zoom-out and explosion. The opening scene in episode 1 where we see the future Simon and the zoom-out revealing the entire ship. And the last fight sequence in ep. 27 where Viral throws Lagann. Again, those are just a few of his memorable works.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt will air on October 1st. Any R1 company with a brain and the money to do it has to pick this one up ASAP.

Casshern Sins.

2010-08-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

My first experiences with Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s work were the two DBZ Broly movies that he directed. Considering my later experiences with his work, these two movies stand out as being nothing like the pensive, angst filled themes that are typical of Yamauchi (even when it comes to Street Fighter). Instead, if you’re a DBZ fan, all you get out of that movie is some nice action. Either way you’ll come out wondering exactly why Broly is so revered in some segments of Z fandom.

That note aside, Casshern Sins is made in the true vein of Yamauchi despite my wildly different expectations for the show. Not being aware of who the director was, I was expecting a grandiose, bombastic slugfest full of hot-blooded heroes and villains when I first saw the designs. It is quite the opposite. Having watched 10 episodes, most are formulaic stories focused on Casshern encountering a person with a story to tell and it usually ends with him being frustrated and full of guilt of what he's done in the past-- a past he cannot remember in the first place. At the point where I am in the story, he looks like about to find a way to cope with his past, which is encouraging in terms of looking towards future episodes.

Essentially, Casshern Sins is an old-school take on apocalyptic story using today's animation. The character designs hark back to the 70s and 80s and the entire script has a kind of melodrama permeated throughout that gives off the impression that this is something that would be made back in that era. The most striking thing about the production is the coloring, designed here by Kunio Tsujita. This is the best example that I can think of where the color design actually adds another important layer to the visuals and is vital to setting up the atmosphere of the story instead of just being there. Not that I want to diminish the hard work of anybody who's involved in making animation presentable, but the work done here really left an impression on me. Tsujita also worked on The Tatami Galaxy , a show where you see a plethora of color designs (though, Yuasa's works are always interesting in that respect).

Overall the animation has been nice when it comes to the fights, but there have been two fights that stand out. The first was the fight in episode 6, which is handled by Norio Matsumoto, a master at this kind of material. The other was Naoki Tate in episode 10, the prolific animator on One Piece. He handles the first section of the main fight in this episode (a character starts fighting like Sanji, so it stands even if you're not familiar with animators). The opening is a solo effort in terms of animation, all done by Yoshihiko Umakoshi, who's also the character designer and the chief animation director for more than a dozen episodes. Episode 8 is also a solo effort in terms of 1st Key Animation by Tatsufumi Itō. This particular episode reminded me of a plot that would be more at home in a Macross series (singing in order to save the world), but maybe there's something in the culture barrier that makes me miss out on something here.

Despite my different expectations of the series and the fact that I haven't been a huge fan of the director's previous work, Casshern Sins has actually turned out to my liking so far. Recommended to those who want old-school melodrama in new packaging.

Animorphs Re-Printing in Spring/Summer 2011

2010-08-09T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm among the few who still remember this series, but in the interest of spreading the word in case I'm not (and in the hopes of gaining new fans), I wanted to post about this.

http://animorphsforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5362.0

K.A. Applegate's Animorphs is a great little series from the late 90's, early 2000's, and it's honestly my favorite book series of all time, even if that's due to nostalgia goggles a little bit. I'm not going to lie, it's no Harry Potter in terms of epic-ness and it's no Jurassic Park in terms of good writing, but it's a great long-running series to get kids to start reading, and a great sci-fi romp for those of us who already read.

For anyone who doesn't remember or the new fans, here's a short synopsis of book 1, The Invasion, taken from the official Scholastic Anibase.

Quote:

There are days when one small decision can change the rest of your life. Jake, Rachel, CAssie, Marco, and Tobias never expected to find anything in the old abandoned construction site except crumbling buildings, trash, and the occasional homeless person - but that was before they were given the power to morph into any animal they touched.

Now, these five kids - the Animorphs - are Earth's only hope against a secret invasion by a race of parasitic alien slugs called the Yeerks. Can they face all the surprises that will come - and still have time to be normal kids?

I'm not sure on the exact release date yet (I don't think it's even been set yet), but sometime next year, the first of hopefully many omnibus books for this series is set to be released, collecting books 1 and 2, and with new cover art, and possibly updated references and text (though I'm kind-of wary on that part myself). I urge any old fans to buy these to support the entire series being re-released, and anyone just looking for a good new young book series to read to give them a look as well. If things go well, we'll get the entire series re-printed so they're easier to find, and even possibly a new series out of the deal.

I leave you with the wise words of Jake, as adorning the top of every book -

Quote:

We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too risky, and we've got to be careful. Really careful. So we don't trust anyone. Because if they find us... well, we just won't let them find us...The thing you should know is that everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.

From I"s/I"s Pure Now Streaming

2010-07-23T13:28:00.001-07:00

I know, I know - I'm slacking on reviews again (not to mention the new banner braves gave me to put up). ^_^;

For now though, I'm dropping in to point out something I was shocked to see happen. Viz, almost a year or more after releasing them on DVD, have put up both I"s OVAs for free on Hulu. You can watch them here, but you have to have an account since they're rated TV-MA (which likely means they do include the Delusional Diaries). It should be noted however, that this is the subbed versions that are streaming.

As much as I hate to bite the hand that's feeding me, I've got to say it's about time Viz did something for the title, though very little since I only found out about the streaming thanks to a post on Toonzone. Back when the DVD was forthcoming, they issued no statements at first, and we only had vague rumors to go off of thanks to the role of Iori appearing on Erika Weinsten's online resume. After that, the DVD was shoved onto shelves with no advertising what-so-ever, not even a page about it in their Shonen Jump magazine. The release is completely bare-bones as well, so far to the point that there's not even music on the menus, no behind-the-scenes features like even Buso Renkin got (not to mention no sign of the Japanese behind-the-scenes that were on the original DVDs), and not even a trailer online to raise awareness.

No, in fact it seems at times like Viz didn't even WANT this to sell. I'm sure it wouldn't have done that great anyway, seeing as how it's only 8 episodes all together, but a little advertising would have gone a long way, and have left me a happier fan. It's my only really great rant against them.

Anyway, check out the streams and let me know what you guys think, I'm always up for meeting another I"s fan. Terata - er, Gyt out.

Redline has been picked up in R1.

2010-07-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

I don't usually write about titles getting picked up since you can already read the news on ANN for that, but this is a special occasion. As mentioned in my previous post over the World Record segment on The Animatrix, Takeshi Koike had been working on Redline amidst tons of delays. In the end, it took him six years to finish the thing and it has now been picked up for distribution in R1 by Anchor Bay.

This thing has been making the rounds around the world in select theaters and I still can't find a list of the animators involved. Doesn't really matter in this case. I usually check up on the staff to see if it might look good, but there's nothing to fear given this trailer and the overwhelming release positive response it's gotten. Day One purchase.

Anime OP: Speed Grapher.

2010-07-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

One of the more disappointing shows I've had the displeasure of encountering is Speed Grapher. If you take a look at the character designs by Yuusuke Kozaki and Masashi Ishihahma and some of the concept art, then you'll naturally have high expectations for this one when it comes to the visuals. The actual series was far from that and it's such a shame that the concept came at a time when Gonzo was crapping out series after series. Had it come out a few years earlier with the likes of Gankutsuou and Last Exile, then maybe it would have had a chance with a better person in charge of the series composition.

However, we did get this OP.

Of course, as is well documented, FUNimation couldn't get the rights to this song for the DVD release. There was also another OP that had about 4 or 5 versions before this one that also featured Duran Duran's Girls on Film, but it was mostly a cut and paste job with scenes from the show edited together.

For this OP:

Director: Masashi Ishihama
Storyboard: Kunihasa Sugishima
Animation: Masashi Ishihama, Makoto Uno, Yasuomi Umetsu, Hiroyuki Okuno, Hiraku Kaneko, Erukin Kawabata, Takashi Kumazen, Fumihide Sai, Yuuchi Takahashi, Takahiro Tanaka, Jun Nakai, Yuchi Nakasawa, Naoko Nakamoto, Hiroki Harada, 村田峻治 (sorry, couldn't get reading for this one), Hisashi Mori, Ryou Morizaki, Toru Yoshida.

Aside from Ishihama, the name in the list that immediately jumps out Hisashi Mori, given his work on Samurai 7 (solo first half of ep. 7, among other eps.) and on the 6th and 9th One Piece movies. He's a particularly exciting animator given the wide range of speeds he can animate at along with the impossible-to-wrap-your-head-around movements that he choreographs. If I had to take a guess, I'd say he either does the shot of Suitengu at :37 or the final shot in the OP. Hard to say given so many people working on here that I'm not familiar with, but I feel confident banking on those two.

EDIT: Blogger is acting up on me. Just double click on the vid and ignore the inconsistent font choice.

Shippuden ep. 167.

2010-07-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

This marks the triumphant return of Wakabayashi to Naruto after too long a wait. It is not quite as good as 133 due to Wakabayashi having to adapt a bit too much material from the manga that drags it all down, but it packs in tons of ambition and action that you don't see a lot these days that makes it all worth it. The fan response has been typical. So they think this kind of animation is bad? Does that mean they also think the rest of the show actually looks good? Don't get me wrong, Shippuden has its moments, But is the fanbases's idea of good animation a pan across a still background with characters opening and closing their mouths for half an episode? I don't know what to say that aside from "you're wrong". I know this might come across as condescending, but people need to realize that they're watching animation and that implies that for it to be good you need to have movement-- whatever that movement might be as long as it's interesting. And to create exciting movement, you also need to manipulate and work around character designs to properly convey whatever action you want to put on-screen.

All in all, though, I'm glad that Wakabayashi is back and it seems likely that he might be a regular again. And by regular, I mean one episode per year. This kind of quality takes time and money.

In less thrilling news in comparison, there's a new ED debuting in this episode. Director, animation director, storyboard, key animation: Yuu Yamashita. Koji Yabuno also did some KA for this one. He was an animator in over 20 episodes of the first series and he's a sub-character designer for Welcome to the Space Show and a character designer for Kshin Taisen Gigantic Formula. As you could tell from the latter's designs, his drawings are characterized by these big eyes which is akin to a realistic depiction of the stereotypical anime eye. My guess is that he did the shot of the wind blowing Sakura's hat away, among other other stuff.

Highschool of the Dead Episode 1

2010-07-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the summer anime season is well under way and the first series that I've been anticipating has aired.

It's a fact that Tetsuro Araki does not get enough credit for making the Death Note anime as successful as it was. Alas, that's more of often than not going to be the case when you're adapting someone else's work through an anime. Once again, he's adapting someone else's work because the only way talented people can seem to get any work nowadays is by tying them to an already existing property. Clearly anime is just as bad or worse as Hollywood.

Yousuke Kuroda (Big Windup!, Hellsing Ultimate) is handling the series composition, and Masayoshi Tanaka is the main character designer.

The first episode reminds me of the first episode of Death Note. The pacing is crisp and right to point. There are some dramatic and pensive moments, but it doesn't bore you in the details. The framing and camera work is also replete with Araki's style. A perfect example is the cut of the camera flying past the scenery and zooming in on the characters that you see right before the credits. I can't say that I'm a fan of some of the character designs for the female characters, but the fanservice is one of the factors to hook in the audience so it didn't turn out as bad as it could have been (see Dragonaut). Tanaka and Shinichi Miyamae are the animation directors for this episode. The drawings were particularly solid and dynamic throughout given the restraints of a TV series budget. Not breathtaking, but definitely nice. The show is apparently around 12-13 episodes long, so there's a good possibility that it can keep up with this kind of quality. As long as they do the same for the pacing of the script, this show will turn out to be a real winner.

There was reference to 28 Days Later in the episode, but it went over my head. Zombie movies aren't typically my thing. But I think that kind of allusion is a good sign that the staff has firm grip of the kind of thinking they need to have to make this show successful.

Of the key animators listed, I'm only familiar with Terumi Nishii from his work as an animation director in Death Note and Casshern Sins. There were quite a number of KAs and 2nd KAs, but I'd still like to know about how these two groups of animators work together to put out the final product. There's so much that needs to be written about how the animation process is handled in Japan. In any case, check this show out.

The show is streaming now at Anime Network's site. You need to be registered to be able to view the episode (not to mention living in certain parts of the world...)

Anime ED: Hanamaru Kindergarten ED 7.

2010-07-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

It's 4 in the morning and I just couldn't have a nice good sleep this night.I also dropped the "???" part of this series. Whatever. Here's an ED that might have gotten overlooked due to the show that it's a part of. As you might know, Hanamaru Kindergarten had this thing where they changed the ED every episode. Sayo Yamamoto directed the first one, Shin Itagaki directed the fourth, Ryo-timo (also known as Ryousuke/Ryoochimo Sawa) directed and animated the 6th one and Masahiko Murata did the same for the 10th one. But this one is the best of them all.

Hanamaru Kindergarten ED 7

Director/Animation: Osamu Kobayashi (director of Beck, Paradise Kiss, Someday's Dreamers: Summer Skies and ep. 4 of Gurren Lagann).

Kobayashi's style (I believe in particular the mouth and hair movement) is especially off putting to many if the reaction to the 4th episode of Gurren Lagann is to be taken seriously. But I find it to be especially refreshing. It was interesting to note while watching episode 4 of GL the stark contrast of something that was clearly an Imaishi show being done with a different sensibility for the movement that is a big part of the attraction for viewers. That is what made the episode so unpopular, but this type of animation can be pretty appealing.

Shippuden ep. 166.

2010-07-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

With ep. 167 airing just hours ago, I can hardly wait to watch it. Yes, I'm waiting for it to come up on Crunchyroll for all members to see. It's been more than two years since I saw ep. 133 on Cartoon Network and I think I can afford to wait one more week for more Atsushi Wakabayashi/Norio Matsumoto goodness (yes, he's back).

That said, ep. 166 isn't any to scoff at. While it's not on the same level of brilliance as ep. 82, it still manages to take the source material and improve on it. My main complaint with the Naruto manga after the timeskip has been that it's been way too eager to fly by interesting material and Kishimoto not getting the most out of the situations he comes up with. No worries, though. Akitoshi Yokoyama expanded on the Jiraiya vs. Pain fight and made the final payoff that more bittersweet and Toshiyuki Tsuru dealt with one of the most interesting characters in Naruto's cast biggest hurdle in a way that's hard to match with ep. 82. Actually, that's probably the only detraction from watching ep. 166, it isn't good enough as 82, even though it's a solid episode.

It's been almost a full year since the last episode from the Tsuru/Suzuki duo and this fares better than their last one (123). It focus on Hinata's backstory and her feelings towards Naruto. Kishimoto decided to put her in the Naruto vs. Pain fight and while it might have been touching in the manga, it's yet another example of my previously mentioned complaint of rushing through things way too quickly. Here, Tsuru goes a bit slower and is not afraid to come up with his own spin on things, building towards the climax and the confession that you already know is coming. Manga purists might decry this as "filler", but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Tsuru's being with the Naruto franchise since the very first episode doing a ton of the OPs/EDs, some episodes and a movie with Suzuki as his AD every time. So he's obviously very familiar with the characters and the world of Naruto, so I consider his stuff to be as "canon" as anything in that manga.

On the animation side, Suzuki is credited as doing the 1st key animation and Tokuyuki (listed incorrectly sometimes as Noriyuki) Matsutake is the first key animator listed. Matsutake been in tons of stuff over the years and he was also involved in ep. 133 (see here at 2:35); I guess he's had a hand in the Hinata vs. Pain hand-to-hand fight and probably more than that, but it's hard to tell.

Hirofumi Suzuki has been right there with Tsuru every step of the way on Naruto and the work he put into this episode is evident. The consistent high quality of the drawings (just look at those facial expressions), the lip-sync that you barely see in anime, and the sheer number of key animators and 2nd key animators must mean that he had dedicate tons of time to make sure that everything came out the way it did by correcting the drawings from so many people.

Also, the way some of the character's eyes were drawn is interesting, particularly Hinata.... I've learned that Suzuki has tried this kind of style before. From ep. 151 of the first series:

From ep. 166 of Shippuden

Okay, so they're not exactly the same, but I think that's Suzuki's evolving style is something to note. Take the episodes he did in the first series and compare those to the ones he's done for Shippuden. The way that Suzuki has took the character designs and atmosphere and made them his own has been a delight to see. The acting and attention to detail in Shippuden is clearly a step above, but those early episodes still have their moments (Zabuza's suicide, him laying right next to Haku, etc.).

The main credits are listed below, but I won't list the 2nd key animators since I couldn't find a reading for a good number of them.

Screenplay, Storyboard, Episode Director: Toshiyuki Tsuru (under the pen name Yasuaki Kurotsu)

Screenplay Collaboration: Masahiro Hikokubo

Animation Director, 1st Key Animation: Hirofumi Suzuki

Key Animation:

Tokuyuki Matsutake, Masayuki Kouda, Yasuyuki Ebara, Yoshihiro Maeda

Takahiro Fujii (sp?), Yukiko Ban, Keichi Ishida, Hisashi Samejima

Rinako Nishihara, Tatsuya Koyanagi, 朱暁 (sorry, got nothing for this guy), Hiromi Taniguchi

Atsuko Nakajima

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Trailer

2010-06-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

a

Just a quick little blurb to contribute something, since reviews are again falling behind on my front. ^_^;

The trailer (which can be seen here) for both Deathly Hallows films, the grand finale in the Harry Potter film franchise, is out now, and I have to say, it looks INCREDIBLE. But, the last so many films have been nowhere near as good as their book counterparts, where-as the first three (Azkaban in particular) were at least of a similar caliber. And let's not get started on the travesty of Goblet of Fire's film adaption. With any luck, this one won't fail to disappoint though. I have yet to see any of these films in theaters, but I hope to do so with both of these.

Cencoroll.

2010-06-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

I watched Cencoroll a short while back and I can't say that I was bowled over by what it did. Sure the guy animated everything and he spent tons of time doing, but is there really anything here worth revisiting or further delving into? I don't think so.

The plot of Cencoroll is that a guy has a pet monster (or something like that) that can transform into anything he wants. There seem to be other people who have these monsters and he encounters another guy who owns one and they fight. Oh, and there's this girl who gets caught up in everything.

The animation is lively and the backgrounds are actually nice to look at. In an era where background art is a sad afterthought I'd like to see this guy have a hand in more productions to handle this aspect of anime.

Judging the actual story however, there wasn't any different take on the usual anime tropes that would convince me to follow this for a whole series, which is what most people who've watched it have come out clamoring for. Bored and reluctant teenager has to save the city with a possible romantic interest hanging in the background is nothing that calls out to me. I don't want to get pegged as a reductionist here, but that's really I got out of the story. I guess the twist at the end might be the fuel for people wanting to see more, but the lead pair is hardly one that can carry a whole series.

In other news, I'm finally starting out on Kemonozume. After learning that Osamu Kobayashi had one episode where he did all of the key animation (along with some other 2nd key animators), with Michio Mihara doing another episode's animation all by himself, I finally decided to watch this show that's filled with talented people all around. Why is that no Yuasa show has made it to the states, though?

Wait, I know the answer to that question. *sigh*

Well, Tatami Galaxy is wrapping up this week. Haven't watched ep. 10, but I like how it's finishing. It most likely will have a better and more satisfying ending than Kaiba.

Some great news for Naruto fans.

2010-06-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

(just ignore those logos at the bottom...)

So...I just learned last night that Atsushi Wakabayashi is coming back to the Naruto TV series as the director, storyboarder, and animation director for episode 167 of Shippuden. With that in mind, the first thing one will probably ask is "and Norio Matsumoto? Is he back too?" Given how little he's done in the past year or so, I could only assume before that he's been working on another Naruto episode and the news that Wakabayashi is back has kinda confirmed this hunch of mine. Wakabayashi hasn't done a Naruto episode ever since the masterpiece that is episode 133 of the first series. He's been busy directing Guin Saga but he couldn't make his return at a better time.

The Toshiyuki Tsuru/Hirofumi Suzuki duo is doing episode 166. Their previous work together on a Naruto episode was ep. 123, which, while good, was kinda lackluster and slow to get off the ground in comparison to most of the other high quality Naruto episodes. However, they were in charge of episode 82, which is one of the best episodes I've seen in anime, and a lineup like this 2 episodes in a row is indicative that Pierrot is pulling out all the stops for this arc. Now the agonizing wait until these episodes air begins....

Dragon Ball Z Kai: Part One Review

2010-05-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

Don’t stop, don’t stop, we’re in luck now! Gyt here, and this time I bring you a review of one of FUNi’s most highly anticipated releases of the year - Dragon Ball Z Kai, Part One.

Let’s start from the top though. FUNi hasn’t exactly done the best in explaining just what this show really is, so casual fans are probably freaking out, thinking another sequel has finally come out. That’s not the case here at all. In February 2009, Toei announced Dragon Ball Kai, which is essentially Dragon Ball Z without the filler (for the most part). They took the scenes from Dragon Ball Z (and a select few from Dragon Ball), cleaned it up even nicer than the Dragon Box, drew a few new scenes to throw in, and essentially, called it a new show. So essentially, Kai isn’t a new show at all. It’s Z abridged, and with a new soundtrack and, partially, voice cast.

So in-of-itself, Kai isn’t anything that special - it’s just something to watch to enjoy the story of Z without it taking almost 300 episodes to get through. However, Kai represents something really good and special for FUNimation - a chance for FUNi to finally dub this portion of the story right. Even the most hardcore of dub fans can’t deny the simple fact that at it’s best, Dragon Ball Z is still FUNi’s worst dub. This time though, they have over ten years of experience to bring to the roles they’ve come back to. As such, I’ll be covering the dub more than the show itself, as the story is nothing new at all.

Oh, and the reason you’ll see me refer to the original version as ‘Kai’ and the dub as ‘Z Kai’, is simply because FUNimation changed the title for the US release. Z Kai, while annoying to remember to say, actually makes much more sense, as it’s the Z portion of the anime this series covers.

To start off, music for the show is all going to be dubbed. We haven’t hit any insert songs in the first thirteen episodes, but reports say those will be dubbed too. For now though, we have ‘Dragon Soul’ sung by Sean Schemmel and ‘Yeah! Break! Care Break!’ sung by Jerry Jewell. Sean’s performance of Dragon Soul isn’t the best in the world. It’s really good, but something about it does seem off if you’ve grown used to the original song. You also can’t shake the feeling that Goku is singing the song to you. I do like Sean’s Dragon Soul better than Jerry’s Y!B!CB! though, but that’s not to say Jerry’s singing is bad - I’m just that much in love with the original song, so it would have taken an awesome song dub to make me like the dub one more. Both songs are handled better than Ouran’s dubbed songs thouh, I think, but they’re not up to the standard of One Piece’s songs.

As for the voice cast itself, most people are turning in pretty much the same performance as usual, though the script being so much closer to the original makes all of those performances seem that much better. Stealing the show as usual though is Sonny Strait’s Krillin, which seems to be the role that keeps getting better and better with each recording, as it gets closer to Strait’s natural voice. I’ve never had a problem with Sean Schemmel’s Goku outside of his first work on the character, but he’s blowing all his past work out of the water here. He’s making Goku sound much younger this time, more on par with his work in the last of Dragon Ball. Vegeta still sounds the same, albeit pulled back to a more believable vocal range. Of the characters still voiced by the same person, I’d say Piccolo sounds the most different, more like Sabat’s natural voice at times, like Zoro in One Piece.

Now we come to the re-casted people. This is where I call a major, MAJOR foul on FUNimation. It seems like they didn’t even tell the people they’ve re-casted about the new show, or that they’d been replaced. And just who did they replace? Anyone that hasn’t been involved in voice acting in years outside of the DB franchise - Stephanie Nadolny (Kid Goku/Kid Gohan), Tiffany Volmer (Bulma), Monika Antonelli (Chiaotzu & Puar), & Bradford Jackson (Oolong). They also re-casted the Narrator who was previously Kyle Hebert, but that was primarily to have each series have a different narrator.

To start with the biggest re-casting, Kid Gohan (and Baby & Kid Goku in the first episode) is now played by Colleen Clinkenbeard of Luffy in One Piece fame. And that’s pretty much what you’ll be hearing when you watch it, Luffy. She doesn’t use near as much rasp as she does with our favorite Straw Hat, but it’s still unmistakably him. While Colleen’s Gohan does sound much more like a little boy than Nadolny’s, the change is too big for me to really get used to yet, and it still doesn’t sound like an actual little boy.

Monica Rial surprises me greatly as Bulma. She sounds almost identical to Vollmer at first listen, though after the first few episodes, you can tell it’s Rial. Still, it’s really easy to accept her as the character, and considering how much I was worried about her as the character, I was pleasantly surprised.

There’s not much to say about Brina Palencia as Chiaotzu and Puar, as this re-casting isn’t exactly new, it’s just the first time she’s gotten to play them in animation and not a game. That may be why it’s much easier to tell it’s her and not Antonelli now, whereas in the games you had to really listen to tell. That only leaves one major character re-casting to talk about, Bryan Massey taking over as Oolong. I’m not really familiar with Massey’s work, and the only other role I know for him is the Freezing Alchemist in the first episode one of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. So I’m hoping he’ll improve, and also hoping that he’ll turn out to be a quality actor in other things; but he makes a terrible Oolong, in my opinion. I think it may be that he’s trying to hard to sound like Jackson, and it’s horribly stunting his acting ability.

I’m unsure completely on how I feel about Doc Morgan as the Narrator. I never minded Hebert’s ‘monster-truck announcer’ voice for it, but hearing one more in the vein of Brice Armstrong’s ‘grandfather reading a story to his grandchildren’ voice for Dragon Ball’s narration is nice. Unfortunately, he’s not entirely used to this kind of work yet though he’s done commercial work before apparently, as he keeps changing his talking speed mid-sentence all the time.

The only other voice to point out is Gregory the cricket, which is also a great example of how not even Kai is completely filler-less. He’s still voiced by John Burgmeier, but they cranked up the helium effect way too high on his lines. Either that, or they routinely hit him between the legs before each take. I’m hoping it was the helium effect.

So overall, Kai’s dub is definitely pretty good. There’s some annoying directing done on a few lines, like how Raditz seems to have to yell every single word he utters, a problem Nappa shares in a few scenes but not too many. It’s enough to hurt, but still not enough to cause it to be bad. That said, if you don’t like FUNi’s dub of DBZ, you should give Kai’s crack at it a chance. But if you’re the kind of person who only enjoys the sub of it, do us all a favor and just stick with that.

If I sound overly hostile on that last part, it’s because certain fans in the DB fanbase have annoyed us dub fans recently with their incessant whining. They have every right to complain about the old dub and the new one both, but it’s possible to phrase it without being a jerk. This is something one fan in-particular, by the name of penguintruth, seems incapable of doing, seeing as how he’s even harassed Sean Schemmel over it. Him aside though, essentially this is the same cast as always for DB stuff, so if the voices rubbed you the wrong way even with the thought of an accurate script, you probably are best suited sticking with the sub on this one, because not a whole lot there has changed.

In the end, I give Dragon Ball Z Kai: Part One, a 4 out of 5. It’s the furthest from anything new for an old fan, but if you always wanted to check out this part of the story and the never-ending episode count ran you off, this is the perfect chance. Live your life like a Kamehameha!

The World of Narue - Complete Series Review

2010-05-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

To try and keep to my plan to have something up every few days now if I can, here’s another review from yours truly. This time I’m going to cover a shorter slice-of-life series, The World of Narue.

I first became aware of this title because of this AMV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgHCL_ooMAw&feature=related

After seeing it, I became interested in this title and asked some friends about it, and made a thread over on the FUNimation Forums to get feedback. What I kept hearing was that it was a great little show that slipped under the radar, and that I should get it when I can. It took me a while, but I finally got around to this one.

The story of Narue follows the titular character and her boyfriend Kazuto, and their manic adventures. It all begins when Kazuto, on his way home from school, tries to save a puppy in a box from the rain. When the puppy turns out to be an alien in disguise, Narue saves him with a swift hit from her bat. After that, Kazuto is head over heels in love with her, and Narue feels for him deeply too, as he’s the first person to accept her for what she is - an alien herself.

Other recurring characters pad out the roster, like Tadashi Nanase, Narue’s soft-spoken father; Masaki Maruo, Kazuto’s best friend and self-appointed expert at, well, everything; Hajime Yagi, a girl obsessed with proving Narue a liar about her species; and Kanaka Nanase, Narue’s younger older sister. And yes, you read that right.

Each episode is pretty stand-alone, other than obviously introducing characters by and by that will appear more later on. And though there’s alien devices and creatures galore, the story stays pretty grounded in being about Kazuto and Narue’s relationship, both from an Earthling perspective and an alien one. Some episodes even cover a bit of Kazuto’s fandom, as he was apparently a nerd for a magical girl show prior to the show’s start.

Considering the dub was done by CPM, it’s surprisingly not bad. Well, let me re-phrase that - it’s not as bad as to be expected from them. Veronica Taylor sounds absolutely adorable as the titular Narue, and is one of my favorite characters for her now. Dan Green turns in an interesting and respectable performance for Narue’s dad as well, and Rachael Lillis does an outstanding job as Narue’s sister. The accolades for the dub stop there though, as Jamie McGonnigal as Kazuto takes some time to grow on you. In the end you can accept him as the character, more or less, but a worse problem is Jimmy Zoppi as his friend Maruo. The voice fit’s the personality pretty well, but it’s grating and really doesn’t fit the face much at all.

I’d like to make special mention for Michele Knotz as Yagi however. According to a bonus on the DVD (and there’s quite a few, including some commentaries from the Japanese actors and director), she was a winner of a contest at a New York Anime Festival, where first prize was a role in an anime dub. That considered, she did an awesome job, and I rather hope she was able to stay in the business and continue to improve.

Even with the less than stellar performances by some, and the overall wonkiness that is a CPM dub, it’s nice to hear more work from a New York casting pool. In particular, Veronica Taylor and Rachael Lillis both should never be thrown under the same bus as 4Kids, simply because they’ve done some work with them. It’s all further proof that it’s the directors and adaptors of the New York area that makes some of the dubs come out the way they do, not the actors.

In the end, Narue is a cute little slice-of-life show that when it’s over, you’ll really wish it’d lasted longer. At a measly 12 episodes, the show is nothing groundbreaking, and I definitely wouldn’t call it a must-see title. But you could do far worse for yourself in this genre, and to top it off, this title can still be found cheaply. I recommend you pick up the CPM releas for $9.99 from RightStuf while it's still there. After that, there's the ADV/S23 release for $22.49, so you can still get it, but thirty bucks for twelve episodes is hardly half the deal ten bucks for it is. It’s hard to turn down a deal like that, and trust me, it’s well worth it.

I give ‘The World of Narue’ a resounding 3 out of 5. As said, you’re not missing out on anything legendary, but I definitely recommend it to anyone in the mood for a light slice-of-life title. As our heroine says, it’s a direct hit to your heart!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Remake)-A non-fans review

2010-05-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, Alc here with the second review of the 2010 remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street." All quotes used herein are property of their respective owners and come from interviews and bloopers by the actors in said film, I claim no rights to any of them.

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you
Three, four, better lock the door.
Five, six, grab your crucifix.
Seven, eight, better stay up late.
Nine, ten, never sleep again.

It’s been seven years since 2003’s Freddy VS Jason and fans have been clamoring for the return of Robert Englund and Freddy. Now in 2010 the Maniacal Dreamweaver is back to reek vengeance on Elm Street. But how does this new film, and the new Freddy, stack up to the original? Very well, I’d say.

While I won’t delve into the finer points of the plot of this movie a brief summary would be described as such:

A young man, Dean, dies after seemingly committing suicide in a café. A friend witnesses his death and hears him exclaim “You’re not real!” before the boy seemingly slits his own throat with a knife. At the funeral, the girl who saw Dean’s death, Kris, sees a photograph of herself with Dean, but wonders how that could be considering the group of “friends” never met each other until high school. As the film progresses two other teenagers, Nancy and Quentin, discover that their friends all went to the same preschool as themselves, a fact that all their parents continually deny and hide; resorting to taking entire pieces of their lives out of scrap books and hiding documents and facts from their children. The two discover that all of their friends have the same dreams involving a preschool and a burned man with a fedora and glove calling himself Freddy. It is only after confronting Nancy’s mother and Quentin’s near death by drowning that the two discover who Freddy was; a gardener at the preschool who considered the children, particularly Nancy, his entire world. The parents, seeking vengeance for the pain and molestation Freddy caused the children after taking him to his “magic cave” in the basement of the preschool, hunt down Freddy and burn him alive. Nancy’s mother lies, claiming that Freddy skipped town before any justice could be done, while Quintin’s father states that as far as the town is concerned, the man named Freddy Krueger never even existed. Suffering from insomnia and beginning to suffer from micro-naps (where the body tries to compensate for lack of sleep by blurring the lines between dream and reality, making a person fall asleep without even realizing that they’ve done so) the two travel to the preschool in order to find out the truth about what Freddy really did to them. Both fall asleep and eventually end up luring Freddy into the real world, where they believe they’ve dealt with him. But as the end of the movie shows…the nightmare is only just beginning.

Announcing Freddy Krueger as the new spokesperson for Roto-Rooter!-Nancy (Rooney Mara)

Now this review is coming from someone with almost no knowledge of the original film series, but I’d say this film is equally as good as the originals. Jackie Earle Haley made a bold move in taking over the hat, sweater, and glove of Englund but in my opinion made the character much more real and creepy. His voice is rough, something Haley grabbed from Englund’s portrayal, but the inflections used almost sound like the man had been burned alive rather than like he’d just gargled a bunch of gravel. Haley does make the character his own, including nervous tics such as the scraping of two of his claws together every time he anticipates a kill.

Critics claim the film is far too gory, comparing it to the Saw films and Hostel. My reaction to these statements is…"Are we even watching the same film?" Yes, this version of NoES is rated “R” for a reason, it has gore and extreme violence but said violence is nothing like the fetishism that new horror fans of Saw, Hostel, and The Hitcher are used to. Throats may be slit and blood may have splattered but people were not choked by their own intestines nor were they packed with three people’s worth of blood. The slasher bits were, in my honest opinion, well handled and not overly done considering the horror territory that this film could have strayed into with the dream sequences. Critics also claimed that JEH’s portrayal is far too varied, changing from perverted, to sadistic, to funny far too fast. While I may not have much knowledge of the original films I do know that the first film is much like this one: far more serious with dark humor spread throughout but nothing like the humor in movies 2-8 (the Nintendo Powerglove comes to mind). This film may be dark but it doesn’t lack the dark humor of the originals. Lines from Freddy’s comment to Quentin of “Why won’t you fucking die!?” to Freddy’s hilariously offhanded “Be right back…” (I need an icon of that, guys…seriously.) mix it up with jokes and dark humor but never make the film campy or cheesy the way the originals did. This Freddy is tenacious; never giving up until his prey is cornered and killed. “We still have six minutes left.” as Freddy tells Jesse while the poor guy hangs upside down in the dreamland boiler room with a gaping, bleeding hole in his gut as he gasps for breath before dying in his prison cell a few minutes later.

*Sigh* Let's try it again. You sleep and then I kill you, if you don't get that after 9 films then I give up.-Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley)

Most fans complained about the makeup but really, if you think about it, comparing the Englund makeup from any of the original films and you’ll see that it looks more like melted plastic than the skin of a burn victim. The makers of the new film actually used pictures of burn victims and victims of the blasts at Nagasaki and Hiroshima (with the severe burn footage there) as the basis for their realistic makeup. Screenshots simply never do the makeup justice. The trailers and promotional images and posters made the makeup look wonky, but seen in action, the makeup can truly live up to the grotesque images one can imagine from a man having been burned to death. The muscle, sinew, and bone are clearly visible under the ragged, half hazard hanging skin clinging to Freddy’s cheeks and while the makeup was all practical, some CGI touch up was done to show that there is no skin and very little muscle still attached to his cheek bones; giving his face a much more realistic and creepy factor than the makeup of old, reminiscent of a skull rather than just melted goo put on someone’s face. Haley spent a grueling three hours and twenty minutes having the makeup applied to his face and body before each day of filming. “They gave me these oversized contacts” Haley’s stated in one interview about the film, “They itched and make it hard for me to see, but really get me in the mindset of Fred along with the makeup job. It’s amazing to see myself transform over a period of a few hours…”

A lot of critics and fans also complained about never getting a full on shot of JEH in makeup (which we DO get as the film goes on) but most don’t seem to remember that movie goers didn’t really get a good look at Freddy’s scarred face until movie 2. Many were annoyed at how little screen time Freddy gets in the first and second half of the film. Actually, the original also used Freddy kind of sparingly. The true source of the terror was the teens’ reactions to what was going on. To see them clueless, hysterical and horribly sleep deprived is pretty darn chilling. Freddy is just the icing on that epic horror cake.

No matter what they say, much like with Transformers 2, many fans actually liked this new Nightmare on Elm Street. Critics and the more critical fans are constantly comparing this to the original far more silly and cheese filled films without realizing that, as the opening credits clearly say, this is “Based on characters created by Wes Craven” this is an effective, and enjoyable introduction to the character that made everyone scared to fall asleep. I don’t think making $50 million plus in the US and around $74 million plus worldwide can be considered a failure do you? To all those people who want to compare this movie to another film I think Freddy says it best:

“You think you can turn back time? You think you can BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE?”

Well…do you? Stop comparing the film to the originals and take it more as the fresh take for a new generation of horror lovers rather than something to appeal strictly to the old hats. This isn’t your father’s Freddy…deal with it. Englund himself has even stated that he liked JEH as Freddy, believing him to be the perfect fit for the role. And no, as the critics falsely claim, JEH’s voice was not digitally deepened or enhanced; Jackie did the vocal “effects” himself similar to what he did in Watchman.

Overall, I give the movie a 4/5. While it could have been a tad longer, I can understand why they cut out a few scenes shown in the trailers (Freddy cutting off his fingers digit by digit while giggling maniacally as one example) but I hope these and other scenes are featured on the DVD.

I know for a fact that this will be one of my first Blu-ray purchases, (as I only have 2 other DVDs in Blu-ray) and I can’t wait to have the DVD in my hands in a few months.

I’m going to bed, so here’s hoping Freddy doesn’t visit me in my dreams, though I’d be perfectly willing to let JEH do so. *laughs*

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Re-Make): An Old Fan’s Review

2010-05-19T10:19:00.001-07:00

A horror icon makes his return in an actually good remake!

Gyt here, and this time I’m bringing you a review of a film I’ve been anticipating for a while now - the re-make of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’.

Now be warned, there will be slight spoilers ahead, for both the original series and this film, as I compare the two.

Most will know the back-story, so I’ll summarize very shortly - Nightmare tells the story of a group of teenagers (most notably in this film, Nancy and Quinton) as they are plagued by nightmares. They soon realize that their nightmares are of the same burned man with a bladed glove, wearing a fedora and a Christmas sweater. Through research, they discover the origins of their tormenter - which I’ll have to get into later in this review, as it’s one of the biggest changes to the Freddy mythos.

I’ve long been a fan of the original series of films, though I’ll readily admit they’re corny as hell. Even the ones that are serious are corny in a way, due to their age. But there’s a certain charm to Freddy’s killings attitude and his humor that are really amusing, in a sick sort of way, but amusing none-the-less. So had they not done this film right, it was really going to annoy me, as well as a bunch of other fans. And there was ample room for error, especially with the re-casting of Freddy. No longer is the Springwood Slasher played by Robert Englund, as Jackie Earle Haley (better known for his role as Rorscache in ‘The Watchmen’) slips on the bladed glove.

So how did he do? Take it from a long-time fan of Englund, I don’t think anyone’s going to be disappointed by Haley’s work here. I will admit there’s a few parts early in where he sounds like he’s overacting a bit, or trying to hard to imitate Englund’s performance. But for the most part, he does his own thing while still honoring what the original actor did. He brings a nice nervous tic to Freddy that he never had before too - while he’s anticipating killing someone, he waggles his finger blades against themselves, reminding you of someone crossing knives against each other to carve a turkey.

The film as a whole is great in a similar vein - there’s lots of scenes, lines, and similarities that one can tie in to the original movie. A few longtime fan-favorite scenes that make a return are Freddy’s stretching through a wall, the dead girl in the body bag, and the glove coming out of the bath tub scene.

They also manage to perfectly balance the horror and the humor, unlike later films in the original franchise where things became way too corny. When they kept up playing the ‘We’ve taken out all of the humor’ card, I was afraid they were going to go too far, and take away what made Freddy great. Fortunately, that’s not the case, they’ve just returned him to his original balance.

Before I close, it’s time for me to cover the part that is going to cause the film to get some flack from long-time fans - in other words, MAJOR spoiler warning here.

They have altered Freddy’s back-story a bit in this film. Some of it is good and bad I’ll admit, but nothing to freak out over in my opinion, though I’m sure some die-hard fans are going to hate it regardless.

In the original, Freddy worked at a school as the janitor, in the boiler room, where he made his glove and sometimes killed the children. This time however, he is a gardener at a nursery school, and he never actually killed any children, though he did cut them. They don’t stop there however (and this is a change I approve of in a way) - originally Wes Craven (the creator of Freddy) wanted him to be a child molester and not just a killer, because that was the worst thing he could think of. At the time though, there was a rash of molestation cases in the news, and he didn’t want to press the issue and offend the families involved. They took the plunge all the way this time, and have him as a molester. This is all after tricking you for a while, making you think they were going to make Freddy have been innocent and wrongly killed - a change that would have been horrid and made me hate the film. I think they anticipated this, and that’s why they decide to mess with your head like that.

The film has already been getting some bad reviews, and I think the reason for that is because nobody appreciates an actually good horror film nowadays. When another great thriller like ‘Orphan’ gets bad reviews, and a gore-fest like ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ gets lots of love (though I will admit I haven’t seen either of those), then it’s easy to see that people aren’t in it for the actual scares anymore.

So overall, I was pretty happy with this film. In some ways, I like it better than the originals (probably a result of much higher production values), but in a lot of ways, I still prefer the old ones. Englund will always be the real Freddy to me even though Haley does an admirable job, but I look forward to where the new franchise goes at the same time. I can’t wait for this one to come out on DVD for me to re-watch either.

This is normally where I give what I just reviewed a number-based review, but this time I’d like to just leave you with my thoughts, as we’re doing something a little different here. You read my review, the thoughts of a long-time fan of this franchise. However, when I went to see this movie, my girlfriend was with me, and she’s never really seen a Freddy film before. She had an interesting idea of a double-review, one from a long-time fan and one from a new one, and so we’re going with that.

So be ready for her review coming soon. Until then, go see the movie yourself and let us know what you thought. Gyt, out.

Hiroyuki Yamashita.

2010-05-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

The biggest and newest talent to come out of Naruto Shippuden is Hiroyuki Yamashita (山下宏幸). You could say that Yamashita is Shippuden's answer to One Piece's Naoki Tate, with the notable exception that Yamashita has yet to be an animation director on one of Shippuden's episodes. Luckily for fans of both series, these two animators are the perfect fit for the series that they're involved with. Tate really brings Oda's unorthodox character designs to life with correspondingly unorthodox movements, and Yamashita brings Kishimoto's designs to life with slick drawings.

Yamashita started working out episodes on Solty Rei and later Pumpkin Scissors. After stints there, he's been working exclusively for Pierrot on Shippuden and that's where he's stayed up until now.

While working on a ton of episodes throughout Shippuden, some of the best places to get his identifying characteristics is the 6th Opening and ep. 143. You can see swords being shaped like triangles in the Sasuke vs. Itachi fight in the 6th OP, and the fight that's right after opening credits in ep. 143 shows off the square fingers and overall flat way that he likes draw hands--along with the triangle swords making their appearance as well.

He was also the storyboarder, director, animation director and provided some key animation for the 12th ED. It is a nice ED but it's hard to get some of his tics from a slow moving ending like that one. Though, I guess you can tell from this one how he likes to play with character's hair (could I have worded that more awkwardly?).

*spoilers up to ep. 149 of Shippuden ahead*

I just watched ep. 149 of Shippuden. While the overall highlight from an animation perspective might have been Chiyuki Tanaka's solid performance as an Animation Director, Yamashita managed to impress and steal the show again. It's a rather short sequence he worked on-- it's in the second half when Utakata and Naruto meet up with a little girl. They think she's innocent, but she's actually being controlled and sets off a paper bomb. The scene might seem tacky when you're reading it, but the storyboarding and the flashy animation hide any flaws in this set-up.

I'll post some pics to actually show you his work. Please note that everyone of these scenes actually look a lot better in motion since that's how they were supposed to viewed; this is animation of course, not comics. Not to mention that I'm using streaming sites to take these shots and I'm a pedestrian photographer.

Ep. 120 (click to get a bigger view of these pics; flat, square-shaped fingers)

Ep. 143 (triangle swords)

Ep. 143 (flat, squarish way of drawing fingers again)

Ep. 149 (not quite as flat fingers as usual, but the actual animation showcases his tendencies with animating certain characters' hair)
OP 6 (swords leaving a triangular path in its wake--I guess that's another way of describing )
And here's a couple of clips with his actual animation in action. The sense of timing for him is something that I find hard to give an accurate description since I'm such a noob at this. I feel that showing his work and seeing it for yourself is better in any case. However, I do not consider these to be the best way to get a sense of his timing. The scenes I've taken a picture of are better examples when you see them, in my opinion.

From ep. 88

Omake from ep. 26 (did everything except the flashbacks, of course; Animation Director is Gorou Sessha, whom I might talk later about his impact on the series):

The omake is notably different from his stuff afterwards, so I believe it's safe to say that he's been developing his stuff bit by bit over the course of this long series.

And that's...all I have to say about that.

Anime OP of the ???: Sci-Fi Harry.

2010-05-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt one of the most prolific and exciting animators in Japan has been, and still is, Shinya Ohira. Back in 2000 he was at the helm of the opening for Sci-Fi Harry. The series doesn’t get mentioned around anymore, so I can only speculate that it wasn’t anything special. However, the opening itself is a marvel to look at. Strangely enough, Ohira is credited as Shinnosuke Harada and the animators involved are listed as a group. It seems nobody was supposed to be working on this due to obligations elsewhere, but it’s been figured out who worked on it due to their individual style (it's possible there were more people involved than the ones I'll list, what I'll post is what I've been able to find out through a bit of research on the sites listed to the right).

The biggest thing Ohira has been a part of is the anime section in Kill Bill Vol. 1, where he animated the fight between O-Ren's dad and the thugs. I'd be interested in hearing what people who aren't well-versed in animation thought of that scene, because, as someone who's very interested in animation and the people behind it, I found it to be the highlight of the entire film. Even more than the Crazy 88 fight later on.

The last thing to come from Ohira was his segment in Genius Party, Wanwa the Puppy, that was released in 2008. It's been over two years now since he's worked on any other anime, so one has to wonder when is his next work going to show up.

Back to the Sci-Fi Harry OP, it's a surreal, haunting piece that really conveys the state of mental instability—the wavy, dreamlike state of portraying the world through the viewpoint of these unstable characters sets up an atmosphere that would hard to replicate throughout a TV series. It also sets up some rather high expectations for the rest of the show. I honestly tried to watch a bit of the actual anime after seeing the OP and it pales in comparison. The execution and presentation of the whole thing was clumsy and pedestrian. Too loaded with those reactions that are typical of Japanese voice acting (ie, gasping at seemingly everything) that plague almost every anime, but at least the series allowed for this OP to be created.

This is the best video I could find on Youtube. Too bad that it has subs and fansubbing credits to boot. To think that fansubbers have the audacity to credit themselves along with the show’s original creators makes me want to throw up.

Sci-Fi Harry Opening Staff

Director/Storyboard/Animation Director: Shinya Ohira
Key Animation: Shinya Ohira, Shinji Hashimoto, Osamu Tanabe
Song: "Mysterious" by Janne da Arc

Tenchi in Tokyo - Complete Series Review

2010-05-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lull between reviews again guys, but had a lot on my mind to say the least. Anyway, let’s jump right back in with a series I haven’t seen in ages, since it aired on the Toonami block - Tenchi in Tokyo.

Tenchi in Tokyo is the second TV series created based on the original OVA series, Tenchi Muyo!. Whereas the OVAs and the first series (Tenchi Universe) opens up with Tenchi meeting the girls for the first time through a series of events, Tokyo opens up after the fact - the girls already know Tenchi, are living at his house, and giving him all kinds of mayhem and chaos on a daily basis. That’s where things take a sudden turn though - Tenchi has to leave their small town and move to Tokyo, in an apprenticeship to a shrine-keeper there, to learn better how to take care of the Masaki shrine. The girls don’t take to this obviously, forcing Washu to make an inter-dimensional portal to get them to Tokyo quickly so they can visit him. Things aren’t exactly as they seem however - a mysterious girl named Yugi, capable of amazing psychic feats, seems dead-set on separating Tenchi and the girls forever. Making her task easier is a girl named Sakuya, who seems to be quickly capturing Tenchi’s heart.

I can’t say for certain that I’d ever seen all of this series prior to now, but I did remember before-hand that it’s the weakest of the Tenchi titles. But, the same can be said for Dragon Ball GT in regards to the DB franchise. That being said, I wanted to give Tokyo another chance, to see how it would stand out with me now. What I found quickly was this - comparing Tokyo’s status to the Tenchi franchise to GT’s status with the DB franchise isn’t fair at all. GT is actually enjoyable if you look past it’s faults and just take it as another DB title, Tokyo not so much.

Now don’t get me wrong, Tokyo is worth seeing if you’re a Tenchi fan, but do not expect much from it, especially not early in it. The first half of the series is done in a ‘monster-of-the-week’ fashion, each essentially being a stand-alone tale about Tenchi and/or one or more of the girls taking on some baddie sent after them by Yugi, with them none-the-wiser.

In-between these adventures, there are a few adventures that are great to see, like how the gang all met in this universe, and one that sets up for the later half, where Yugi directly confronts the girls at the Shrine. Other than that though, I can’t really say there’s much going for this series early in.

The latter half is interesting enough, but only if you like Sakuya, which it seems most fans don’t. To be honest, she’s my favorite Tenchi girl, even if this is her only appearance. And it makes perfect sense to me that, with all the crazy abnormal girls chasing after him all the time, Tenchi would be attracted to the normal girl. The twist involving her is a bit of a surprise, even with the hinting, but I can also see how that would ruin it for some too. I’m normally not one to notice such things, braves being a much better judge of these things than I - but even I noticed the less than stellar animation for this title. I can’t say for certainty, but I swear I see white lines at the top of some scenes. And the opening theme, near the end, has a particularly bad cel movement (I believe that’s how braves explained it to me), where Sakuya keeps jerking around sporadically.

Overall, it’s hard to say I liked this one, but I do plan on keeping it and probably even watching it again someday - so I can’t say it was all bad. Again, if you like Tenchi at all, you’ll probably like this at least a little, it is another fun romp in that world with those characters again. But other than that, it’s not particularly memorable.

I give Tenchi in Tokyo a 4 out of 10 - Not garbage by any means, but definitely not worth seeing if you’re not already a Tenchi fan. Gyt, out.

The Animatrix: World Record.

2010-05-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

A short post on a short, years after its release!

Before getting his other big spotlight by animating the entire OP of Samurai Champloo by himself (along with Mamoru Hosoda directing that), Koike was allowed to work on this massive project even when nobody outside of JP animation enthusiasts knew who he was. Koike had worked closely with Kawajiri on Kawajiri's previous movies with Madhouse, so with that in mind it's not surprising that someone of Kawajiri's stature would help out on the script of this short. In contrast to Kawajiri's methodical way of pacing fights and movement, Koike is definitely one who's more in-tune with the razzle-dazzle aspect that can be expressed through animation. I find this piece to be a real spectacle and it's easily one of my favorite anime shorts. Running in slow-mo is an easy to build up tension, but it takes a special kind of vision to express it like Koike does. The muscles expanding and contracting all across the runner's body, the exaggerated expressions and the scenes in-between do a good job of building up the drama, even if it isn't exactly revolutionary. Definitely an underappreciated gem. Though, so is The Animatrix in general when it comes to anime fans' opinion about it, I guess.

Koike is also the director for the upcoming Redline movie, but it's been hit with production delays, so who knows when it actually will come out. On the other hand, you can check out a list of his filmography here (NOTE: it's actually kinda outdated, but it's a good starting point).

World Record Credits:
Director/Animation Director: Takeshi Koike
Script: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Key Animation: Norimitsu Suzuki, Masahiro Emoto, Kunio Takahide, Takeshi Koike

And here's the mandatory MAD for Koike:

Anime Spring 2010 Season.

2010-05-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a roundup of what I've seen from the Spring '10 season of anime, a few weeks after everybody stopped caring.

-B Gata H Kei- The story is for this one is a high school girl trying to sleep with 100 guys, but she can't seem to get the first one under her belt. If the previous sentence didn't make you roll your eyes, then this might be for you. This is when usually somebody would post a long rant about how crap like this is ruining the anime industry and how pandering the otaku isn't going to get us anywhere, but Masaaki Yuasa got to make another anime series, so I won't do any of that. Thing looks like it was made in MS Paint, though.

-Heroman- I would like this one a lot more had I watched it when I was a few years younger. Now I'm older and more cynical in every respect, so I just don't get much of anything out of it. There was some nice animation with Heroman running in the first episode, and the two cuts in the OP where Joey's grandma is dancing and later on when there's a guys swinging a guitar. Aside from that, there wasn't anything of note. BONES puts out above-average quality for their TV shows, but that doesn't make the animation by itself all that spectacular. The bar is being set pretty low by everybody else.

-Rainbow - Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin- Potentially mature and heartbreaking material is handled with the subtlety of a shonen action manga. Not that I don't like shonen manga, but it has its place and it's not here. Tragedy porn in the same vein as Elfen Lied. Less moe and more pedophiles in this one, however. And the ED is a guilty pleasure of mine. Seriously, give it a listen.

-House of Five Leaves- This show feels comfortable in wandering around aimlessly. I can't say that I find the main character to be interesting and the show has so far managed to do a poor job jumping back and forth between past and present, but I'm still watching. The overall mood and setting is what makes me keep on coming back. It's a good choice if you want a change of pace.

-The Tatami Galaxy (Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei)- After the crazy plot twist at the end of the first episode, the series has still managed to maintain its quality through its following two episodes. For episode 2, Akitoshi Yokoyama comes back to work with Yuasa to provide us with another story involving a character with a strange fetish (nowhere as weird as Kaiba ep. 2, though). Norio Matsumoto, Shingo Yamashita, and Hiroki (or is it Hironori?) Tanaka did the Key Animation for this one with Shouko Nishigaki as the Animation Director. From what I can gather, Tanaka and Yamashita did the first half, while Matsumoto did most of the second half with Tanaka helping out. I haven't rewatched this episode as of yet, but I was excited to see Matsumoto again. The last work he did before this one was Princess Lover ep. 9. I've been hoping that his absence from the scene meant that he was working on another Naruto episode, but he popped up here first. I guess there's still a chance he'll come up during the current arc in Shippuden.

Tanaka is an animator that's really made a name for himself in a very short amount of time. He first appeared in Beet the Vandel Buster 6 years ago and ever since he's been at it non-stop. He's done a few solo episodes as an animator (School Days ep. 6, Saki ep. 20), along with appearing in a ton of other stuff. The first time I encountered him was in Naruto Shippuden ep. 131, where he was the Animation Director along with doing some KA himself. Yokoyama was also at the helm of that episode and it's one of the best Naruto episodes out there. Animators from Kaiba were brought in to help out that one, so you know what to expect in terms of quality.

The consensus as to why Tanaka's done so much in so little time is that his animation style itself--characterized by random drawings to get the character from point A to point B-- is the key to allowing the amount of work he's done. That and being really young and all the stamina that comes with it. Here's a good example of his stuff:

Episode 3 of The Tatami Galaxy featured Ryoutarou Makihara being the storyboarder/animation director (along with Naoyuki Asano)/director, along with doing some KA. I first saw Makihara in episode 11 of Kaiba. The highlight for me was the nice chase at the beginning of the episode. It takes place in between these tight spaces and it gives off a nice sense of claustrophobia-- taking your breath away like any good chase should. That left quite an impression on me, so I looked forward to whatever he would work in the future. The overall quality in this episode is the same as the last two- with a nice mix of colors, live-action shots and very solid framing throughout that makes the transition from one cut to the next seamless. Which is a plus since the dialogue is still going by at the speed of light.

You really need to train to read that fast. Normally I wouldn't mind watching a Yuasa show subbed (it's the only way I've been able to watch them so far), but a dub would be nice for this one. Make it happen, eh, FUNimation?

Anime OP of the ???; GaoGaiGar and Kaiba.

2010-05-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

Anime OP of the ???: an effort to put more content on this blog, while being brief and informative at the same time. I came up with this idea while sitting down in the pews today. By providing info on various OPs and EDs, I can still give a valuable reference point on more animators and directors while not having to spend too much time on a single post. However, since this is the inaugural post, I've decided to provide two for the price of one. The "???" in the title just indicates that there is no set interval that a new entry in this series will pop up.

And without further ado:

I listened to this song on this week's ANNCast and I just had to watch the opening itself. The animation is done by Takuya Suzuki, song (Yuusha-oh Tanjou!; King of Braves is Born!) is performed by Masaaki Endoh (not to be confused with the animator). I'm going to make a sweeping generalization here, but I think everybody who's a fan of animation appreciates good 2D mecha action. If there's anything that breaks my heart, it's the lazy, almost insulting, use of CG on mecha and just about everything else that's not human. There's none of that here, and everybody's happy for it.

Director, Storyboard: Masaaki Yuasa
Animation Director: Nobutake Ito (listed incorrectly as Nobutaka Ito on ANN, as of now)
Key Animation: Yuichiro Sueyoshi, Kenichi Yamaguchi, Takayuki Hamada
Song: "Never" by Seira Kagami (available on iTunes)

Ah, yes. One of my favorites. This is the perfect piece to introduce every episode of Kaiba, even when the story in the second half sadly becomes kind of a mess. This piece can also serve as a litmus test to see if you can stomach the eclectic visuals that's employed throughout the series. Here you can see the motif of mirroring the same act that Yuasa also used in the Kemonozume OP; one of Yuasa's artistic quirks that he seems to like to use, from my experience.

The Tatami Galaxy (Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei) Episode 1.

2010-04-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

Debuted yesterday and it did not disappoint. So far it looks like Yuasa's returning to a more light-hearted narrative ala Mind Game instead of doing a bigger-than-life plot like Kaiba. I like him better when he's doing the former.

While the subs went by as fast as possible, it was a two-fold approach by Yuasa according to an interview he did. He had lots of material to cover from the light novel and he also wanted to make the dialogue fast and dense enough for it to be incomprehensible to give off the feeling that the main character can't make up his mind. Not knowing what the light novel is like, all I can say is that he definitely got the point across on that last statement.

Visually, Yuasa goes back to implementing live-action shots along with 2D/3D animation to provide his psychedelic visuals. After thinking about it, I realized that the character designs and the overall aesthetic of this show is the most accessible I've seen from Yuasa so far, which is saying a lot about his previous projects.

Definitely looks like a keeper so far. Can't wait for the next episode. (It's streaming on Youtube and Hulu right now).

April 22, 2010.

2010-04-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

This is it. FUNimation has allowed Masaaki Yuasa the chance to properly introduce himself to the R1 world-- though, they might have already seen his work as an animator in the trip scene in ep. 9 of Samurai Champloo.

I'll be surprised if more than 10,000 people tune in for the first episode of Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei/ Four and a half mat myth compendium/ The Tatami Galaxy, but I'm optimistic that it'll be even higher. I'll try to give my impressions of the first episode after it airs. In the meantime, remember to visit FUNimation's Video Portal, Hulu or Youtube this Thursday for a treat. In the meanwhile, there's this trailer.

EDIT: Looks like the videos are too big-- just double-click on them.

EDIT 2 (May 01, 2010): Fixed the HTML code; now the videos are just right.

Bakuman.

2010-04-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

As you probably know by now, Bakuman will be serialized in Shonen Jump Usa for three months as a preview for the series. The first chapter ran in the May issue and it managed to entertain me, even though I was cynical going in. The Ohba/Obata duo’s previous work, Death Note, left me somewhat cold and even resentful even after I had finished watching every episode on the edge of my seat. The appeal of quick-thinking mind games, long explanations and good dose of melodrama that was tactfully added by the director began to wear off as I mulled over the storyline. I came around to thinking of it as an honest exercise in glorifying the absurd while being morally repugnant at the same time. The way human beings were treated and how Ohba decide to justify Light’s actions were things that I just couldn’t ignore. As of right now, I’m trying to get back into Death Note because of the solid production values. If I don’t take it seriously, then maybe I can come around to enjoying it again.

What I hoped to convey in the previous paragraph is to show that I have a love-hate-love(?) relationship with this duo, so I had a reason for being skeptical of their next work. However, Bakuman managed to allow me to get past that. The story revolves around a middle-schooler, Moritaka Mashiro, who has a talent for drawing. He gets recruited by another student, Akito Takagi, into teaming up to be a manga-creating duo.

Every shonen story seems to start out with the hero find out that he has some power hidden deep within him or he stumbles upon it and we’re supposed to care as to how he ends up using it. Bakuman starts at a slight different, though still familiar, angle. While the protagonist knows he can draw, he’s resigned himself to the inevitable fate of becoming a Japanese salaryman. Once he starts getting recruited by Akito, the comic seems like Ohba is actively trying to stop people from entering into the comic business. The fist conversation between the protagonists is rife with detailing the volatile world of being a mangaka. For example, the order of a series in the index of Shonen Jump indicates the popularity of a given comic and if a series stays too long at the bottom, it gets cut. And even if a mangaka has had a highly successful comic, he still has to continue to work after finishing said comic because if not he’ll go broke.

While all of this seems like evidence that Ohba wants to disenchant the dream of becoming a mangaka, it actually turns out to be the opposite. Ohba wants to romanticize this job and the process of achieving it. The reminiscing of Moritaka’s uncle, the absurd promises that are made, and the way that Ohba makes you look forward to these two kids making it to their goal gives the story an uplifting message for other kids with the same dream. It’s nice to see that after Death Note Ohba has decided to do a 180° turn when it comes to the atmosphere of this comic.

The art work is typical Obata, so you know what to expect. I’m thankful that there’s yet another one of his characters that has thick, pasta-like hair (Akito).

The first volume of Bakuman drops in August and I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom.

2010-03-06T19:21:00.001-08:00

I re-watched the third Naruto movie today and it was just as good as I had remembered. Directed by Toshiyuki Tsuru—who’s a regular on the Naruto franchise when it comes to doing OPs and EDs for the series along with a few episode here and there—this one is a good example of a director who’s more in tune with the animation side of things and that he uses that experience to tell a story. Not that this movie doesn’t have its hokey moments, as is customary for these movies based off a huge shonen property, but there are also, in a good way, conspicuous moments where the use of silence is a great asset—using the animation itself to tell the story and to show the character’s thoughts. Tsuru went on to repeat this type of storytelling with absolutely marvelous results as an episode director in ep. 82 of Shippuden and he also did the screenplay and storyboarding—all under the alias Yasuaki Kurotsu (黒津安明; credit to Anipages for that piece of info). Most of the content in that episode is anime-only, yet at the same time he constructed one of the best single-episodes that focus solely on a single character’s development that I’ve ever seen. He’s given the time to methodically build up an effective solution to the character’s state of grief; whereas in the manga, it’s all done rather rushed. It's another instance of the creators of Pierrot adding scenes that make the final result much more satisfying. Of course, that's setting aside the massive amounts of filler from the first series and the horrible pacing that pervades the first 52 episodes of Shippuden, but still....

Going back to the movie, the storyline in particular isn’t one that will leave you thinking for days to come. The director himself states that he wanted to do a movie based on the character of Inari from the first arc of the TV series, so you know you’ve seen a similar variation of this story before. But what you tune in for when it comes to Naruto movies in the first place is for the fights and this one doesn’t disappoint in that regard. Norio Matsumoto storyboarded his own fights (about 15 minutes worth of the climax according to sakugawiki; including Sakura’s and Lee’s second encounter with the bad guys). Of all the fights in this movie, the one involving Lee is the most interesting to watch. Here we get to watch him use weapons and you really get a sense of speed that makes you remember back to ep. 48 of the original TV series (another episode directed by Tsuru). Though, one other section that left me very impressed was the scene with the crew and passengers on a boat trying to survive the storm; it was animated by Takahiro Kishida. Sadly, I do not know who animated the scene during the climax (it’s a pretty long climax, btw; it goes on for almost 30 minutes IIRC) where the soldiers are being attacked by Kakashi and all sorts of mayhem is happening, especially with the tiger. Even the commentary track with the English staff noted that particular scene and felt that it was noteworthy.

And listening to the soundtrack makes me wonder why Toshio Masuda didn't come back to Shippuden.

That’s all I got for today. I apologize for my partially incoherent praise of this piece of work. :P

Mind Game.

2010-01-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

You might not have heard of Mind Game since it hasn't been released stateside (prospects of it ever being released over here don't look good at all, but there's a R4 release that's sub-only and the R2 has subtitles for the movie as well). Mind Game is a 2004 film directed by Masaaki Yuasa. I've heard a lot of comments praising this film, so my expectations were high.

Surprisingly enough, the story for Mind Game doesn't cover ground that hasn't been explored before. It's mostly about self-discovery, about making decisions in life and doing those things to the fullest. While these themes aren't anything new, the way they are presented in this film are what make them inspiring. The visuals in this movie are truly breathtaking. In a medium like anime where directors are more prone to emphasize the "tell" part of "show and tell", Mind Game falls on almost the complete opposite of that spectrum. With a near-perfect combination of animation, storyboarding and editing, it'll definitely be a hard ordeal for me to find anything that's on the same level of this movie when it comes to visual creativity. Though, I will say that due to how visually dense this movie is, it'll take me repeated viewings to completely appreciate it.

There's not much else for me to say unless I want to get into describing every amazing sequence in this movie, but to sum it all up, this is a movie that should be experienced by anybody who wants to watch something truly ambitious.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

2009-12-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

The Kingdom Hearts franchise is one that alternates between good and...not so good. Since the last entry in the series (KH II) was great, it's only fitting that the next one is full of disappointment.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (yes, it'll make sense in the end) is a prequel to Kingdom Hearts II, taking place after the events of Chain of Memories. You play as Roxas, who passes his days trying find out what he really is, while doing missions.

And therein lies the problem. Going on mission after mission fighting heartless may appear to be the same thing you've been doing before in different clothing, but the way that the missions are structured prove this to be wrong. First off, Organization XIII closes off certain areas of the worlds you visit so that you stay on track. It might seem like a nice way to entice the player to keep on playing so as to eventually reach the point where you can go somewhere new, but it isn't. It comes off as a way to not expand these missions into something more grandiose like the other entries in the series have done with their storylines.

Not to mention that this game gets off to an awful start. The tutorial phase lasts for about 1 to 1 and a half hours, but it seems like so much longer since it's spread among several missions that you go on with different members of the Organization. It's standard fan pandering gone awry. Though, some of the later missions where you get paired with members of the Organization are rather charming. Especially those with Xigbar, whose sarcastic tone isn't common in the series and is a breath of fresh air.

The story is more along the lines of Chain of Memories than the other two games. It's another existential crisis tale that might have been more effective if every meaningful conversation only seems to take place in one location. Yes, the clock tower is important. But you can get that point across without having a cutscene there after almost every mission. The ending is the most effective of the entire series which says a lot considering that you have to get through around 2/3 of the game before it becomes interesting.

The graphics are disappointing. It's very pixelated and even the cutscenes that are using the PS2 graphics are heavily compressed. The DS is not the right console for a 3-D action game. The battle system has taken a major step back with the removal of the reaction command, and only making Limit Break, where you go berserk for a brief period of time, more important in the gameplay. It plays like KH I and KH I isn't that fun to play after you play KH II and neither is this one. I didn't play the multi-player, but Mission Mode is quite the novelty since you can play as different members of the Organization.

The worlds that you visit are the exact same ones that were introduced in the previous games while adding some areas that don't necessarily leave much of an impression. Except the addition to Neverland, due to its amazing dullness. A bunch of rocks in the middle of the sea? So impressive!

Music-wise, the game is mostly made up of remixes of older pieces that are found in Kingdom Hearts II. But the soundtrack does include a new theme song for a character and a rather impressive mix of "Another Side, Another Story" and "Graceful Assassin" to make a song that's used in the final boss fight. Look forward to hearing that one.

As mentioned before, this game does get interesting in the later parts. The most interesting of which is the tease for Birth by Sleep that Nomura includes towards the end. That one seems like it'll be a blast to play. In the meantime, I'd only recommend playing 358/2 Days if you're a avid fan of the KH series. Everyone else might find to be a passable game if they found it in the bargain bin.

Turtles Forever Directors Cut - Streaming on December 16

2009-12-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

You read right.

I'd heard the rumors and been informed by a friend, but just now found the proof. Anyone else miss the movie version airing? Well, here's your chance to see it.

http://www.4kids.tv/buzz/view/world-exclusive-tmnt-turtles-forever-directors-

To quote: The "Director's Cut" of the TMNT "Turtles Forever" full-length feature is being released EXCLUSIVELY online on the 4KidsTV.com video portal on Wednesday, December 16th. The "Director's Cut" has more than 12 minutes of additional TMNT footage!

This should be the version they showed at Comic-Con earliers this year. Here's to hoping we get a DVD release announcement soon too!

Bayonetta Demo (PS3).

2009-12-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

It's been said a million times by now, but Bayonetta looks a lot like Sarah Palin. I'll never forget the amazing sense of irony that I got when I read a comment pointing that out for the first tme in the Electronic Gaming Monthly's Letters section.

Look-alikes aside, Bayonetta is the most fun I've had playing a game in a while. I've heard complaints that Bayonetta's design is a just rip-off of Millia Rage from Guilty Gear (transforming hair into weapons, including a huge dragon that finishes off the bosses), but I have to say that ignorance truly is bliss this time.

Playing this game is, to put it simply, fun. I feel like I'm playing an arcade game, going through the level hacking and slashing monsters with reckless abandon, while having a darn good time doing so. Yes, the main character getting naked is gratuitous and juvenile, but so is the entire game. The nature of playing a witch who fights angelic-like enemies with her hair and foot guns is juvenile to begin with. This game is honest about what it's about and players know what they're getting into.

The music sets up a nice, up-tempo ambiance to contrast the carnage that's going on-screen. There's nothing like tearing enemies apart while you listen to some soothing female vocals in the background.

While playing the demo, I got a feeling of familiarity after the initial feeling of "this is awesome". Turns out the director of this game, Hideki Kamiya, also did Viewtiful Joe which is another gem (somehow I didn't know that DMC, VJ, Okami and Bayonetta all came from the same guy). The similarities between VJ and Bayonetta are evident- from the rating system to the "Witch Time" that's activated from dodging your enemies at the last second.

The game does have a clunky camera at times and apparently there's some frame rate problems in the PS3 version (didn't really notice anything like this on my endp; might have been fixed while it got brought over here from Japan). Not to mention that it's only about 10 to 12 hours long, so that automatically rules out me buying this game on the first day just so I can pay $60 for it, but I'll definitely be picking Bayonetta up once it gets to the Greatest Hits line.

Belligerent Dumbledore.

2009-12-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a little something to give you a laugh. (<-link) Everyone's favorite headmaster acts slightly different when he's not on the movie set (midly NSFW due to language)....

This...never gets old.

Final Fantasy XIII Cover Art.

2009-12-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

As you already know if you follow Final Fantasy (or even if you don't), the cover art for Final Fantasy XIII got released this week. I don't really understand the hype over this whole thing, and at the same time I can't help but get caught up in it. The cover is a break from the usual treatment that the series gets in the US. The JP covers since FF VII have been the logo with a white background, while the US usually gets a montage of the main characters. This cover is in line with that and I appreciate the minimalistic tone. Though, why is the cover zoomed in on the PS3 version? I know it's a pedantic thing to get complain about, but everybody's mad about something when it comes to this game.

To some, it's that they changed the theme song. For others, it's that Tetsuya Nomura is working on the character designs because they hate the abundance of belts and buckles in his art style (for those people, thanks for not noticing that he's changed his style BTW). And for the amazingly weeaboo-ish part of the fanbase, it's that there won't be a Japanese track on the disc. Thankfully, I haven't heard anybody complain about Nobuo Uematsu not working on anything on this game. Don't get me wrong. Uematsu is easily my favorite composer out there, but it speaks volumes of how good Masashi Hamuzu is.

In the end, the overwhelimg majority of FF fans will still buy this game, so it's all moot.

Turtles Forever Review, Part Two

2009-12-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'll finish up now with Part Two, which while lengthy, pretty much just covers the voice-over aspect of the film.

Again I won’t comment much on the 2003 show as that’s all old news here (though I will applaud each and every one of them for their performances, especially that of Scottie Ray’s Shredder, who sounds downright heartless) and will instead talk about the voice replacements for the old toon and the cast for the comics. Sadly, you read right - due to union issues (and, I suspect, to the fact that the old show is owned by an entirely different company) they were unable to get the actors back for the old TMNT, Shredder, Krang, Rocksteady, Bebop, Splinter, or April. Instead, they had to use their in-house crew and/or hire new people to sounds as close as they could to the old show’s performers. Doing so, they got a cast that was pretty hit-or-miss for the most part.

Starting with the Turtles themselves, Dan Green (better known as Yugi Moto to most fans) was cast as 80s Leonardo. He is definitely no Cam Clarke, nor does he sound it, which is why he seems to be the voice most people have complained about online. To me he’s only my third least favorite replacement though, as he at least tries hard to sound right, as you can tell and it really does fit at times if nothing else. Moving on to Johnny Castro as 80s Michelangelo, we hit my second least favorite replacement. Now don’t get me wrong, Castro does a pretty good job of sounding like Townsend Coleman’s classic performance. That’s as far as it goes though - it sounds like a decent imitation rather than an actual impersonation, and it comes off incredibly stiff in the actual acting, so most of his lines are rather badly performed. Tony Salerno as 80s Donatello is arguably the best replacement, as he sounds almost exactly like the classic actor at times, and isn’t so tied to sounding like him that his acting is stifled either. Honestly, I could watch an episode of the old show and think of his performance and not be bothered a bit, so two thumbs up for him. Sebastian Arcelus picks up the mantle of 80s Raphael. He, like Salerno’s Donny, sounds an awful lot like the original voice, though not quite as closely. He sounds a lot better than the replacement voices used in the old show itself when the main actor wasn’t around, that’s for sure. His breaking-the-fourth-wall lines are hysterically done, but it does make one miss the original actor even more. Overall, he was satisfactory though.

Going on to 80s Shredder, we hit my most hated replacement with Load Williams. His voice just reeks of bad imitation of James Avery and Jim Cummings, both of which were the perfect voices for the classic Shredder when we knew and loved him. In fact, some of Load’s lines are so bad that I want to “kick a kitten” as it were. That’s not to say he’s not trying hard, it’s just that he is not a good pick for this IMO. Bradford Cameron’s Krang voice is pretty bad as well, but captures the essence of the old show’s voice well enough that it’s not quite as annoying. Though, his voice sounds oddly like Buster from Tiny Toons at the same time…which is a bit distracting, if you know voices like I do. Any voice of Krang’s is better than the voice used in the anime OVA ‘Legend of the Super Mutants’ though. Rocksteady and Bebop are both voiced by double-billers in the cast, Johnny Castro and Bradford Cameron. They don’t speak often enough to get a full feel for their performances, so it’s hard to judge them. Overall they act just like the characters should however, so it’s hard to criticize much without saying that Castro’s Rocksteady doesn’t sound like Clarke’s. Cameron’s Bebop does keep the snort though, which was a pleasant surprise. 80s April and Splinter both only have a handful of lines themselves, just barely enough to judge from really. These are arguably the best sound-alike’s if not the best acting like the old show’s cast as well. Rebecca Soler’s performance as April brings out both the newswoman desperate to get a scoop and the damsel in distress qualities of the character well, and does it sounding believable Dave Wills’ Splinter sounds more masterly than fatherly, which is how that version of the character should come off, and he sounds so wise that it’s hard to question if it’s not actually the classic actor after all.

And now onto the comics cast, which were easier and harder to nail at the same time I would think. On the one hand, they didn’t have to imitate or try to sound like anyone else’s performance, but on the other, they had to create from scratch a voice that would be acceptable to the hundreds of fans who have been waiting for years to hear what these versions of the characters would sound like. First off is Jason Griffith as Mirage Leonardo. He would be better known to anime and video game fans as the voice of Sonic in Sonic X and the games now, as well as the 4Kids actor behind Ussop in One Piece. You read right - the dreaded 4Kids One Piece actor for Ussop. Push all those past, bad performances from your mind though, because you are going to be blown away by just how…well, how badass he sounds as Leo. Some have already compared it to Dirty Harry’s voice, which I can only assume is a good comparison. All I know is his performance, mixed with lines taken verbatim from the comic itself, make this the most enjoyable of the voices to listen to in the comic cast.

The rest of the Mirage-verse characters don’t have near as many lines so it’s hard to comment on much besides the sound of the voice. Bradford Cameron pops up in the cast list once more as Mirage Michelangelo, and it’s definitely a unique voice here. It’s hard to find a word to describe it, other than snarky, but it definitely fits the character who, while goofy like all Mikey’s, is a lot more rough and ready for violence. Pete Capella steps into the shoes of Mirage Donatello, and is the most forgettable of the performances. It’s not that he sounds bad for Donny, but it’s not that he sounds good either. The performance is kind of just there, so it would have been nice to hear more of him to see what he could do with the role. For Mirage Raphael, we have veteran voice actor Sean Schemmel (who in addition to the well-known character of Goku from Dragon Ball Z, performed various smaller roles such as Nobody in the 2003 Turtles toon). After Mirage Leo and Mikey, Raph would be a hard character to follow up with vocally, but Schemmel delivers in spades, sounding just as fierce, violent, and sometimes bloodthirsty, as the angry one of the Turtles should sound in a more violent setting. The last of the Mirage-verse people is Shredder himself, who does show up albeit only for a few lines, which are performed by Dave Wills. I know the whole idea behind this Shredder appearing was to point out what a joke his involvement is compared to even the classic toon’s Shredder, but given the fact that he was still supposed to be a merciless assassin, they could have used a better voice here. He sounds a bit too throaty and guttural to be taken seriously, even for a throw-away villain.

And that brings this lengthy review to a close. I really can’t think of anything else to cover without going more overboard than I already have. If you missed the movie airing, the 3-part episode version airing has already started and will be over in 3 weeks. I’m sure it’s lurking online somewhere though, based on a commercial I saw, maybe even on the 4Kids site itself. Let’s just hope we get DVD news soon.

In the end, I give Turtles Forever a 9 out of 10. It is SO close to being perfect in my opinion, but what few glaring flaws it does have, I have to dock it a point for. If you’re a Turtles fan or were one growing up, this movie is for you. I’d like to thank 4Kids for giving us what is easily their best work ever, and I’d like to thank Eastman and Laird for creating such great characters 25 years ago. Go Green Machine!

Turtles Forever Review, Part One

2009-12-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

Cowabunga dudes! Gyt here, and this time with my most anticipated (in my opinion anyway) review yet. That’s right, this time I’m here to talk about the much talked about by myself film, Turtles Forever.

For those that don’t know, Turtles Forever is a direct-to-DVD (or rather, direct-to-TV, as a DVD deal is still in negotiations apparently) film put together by 4Kids Entertainment, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It utilizes not only the universe of the 2003 cartoon series put together by 4Kids themselves (which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should), but also features the 1980s and 90s universe that a lot of us grew up with and loved. It even features a bit in the original Mirage comics universe drawn by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, without which none of the other TMNT universes we all know and love wouldn’t exist.

To start from the beginning, here’s a short synopsis of the film, spoiling as little as possible while still giving you a good chunk of what’s going on. Hun and his Purple Dragons (of the 2003 series) are busy carrying out a heist for some technology. They are interrupted suddenly by four mysterious figures however, which is captured by the news crew there. Splinter (2003) is at home watching TV when the report about four blurry green figures trying to stop the heist is broadcast. Sending the Turtles out to figure out what’s going on since they haven’t been out all night, they arrive just in time to find four other Turtles - none other than the TMNT themselves from the 1980s series - held captive by Hun. A fight ensues, and in the end the Turtles (both sets) escape, and after some cajoling by Splinter and the 2003 Turtles, they get the story out of their counterparts.

While battling their Shredder in his Technodrome, a portal was opened that was intended to send the bad guys back to Dimension X again, but damage to the computer caused it to send Shredder and his croneys, as well as the Turtles, into the 2003 series universe. The mission is clear: Stop that Shredder and send everyone back into their dimension. But fighting him causes Shredder (1980s) to realize that if this new world has it’s own Turtles, than surely it has it’s own Shredder as well. Now with Ch’rell, the Utrom Shredder that was the most ruthless foe the 2003-verse Turtles ever faced among them once again, can either set of Turtles possibly prevail?

And that’s the first morsel of the story. It’s harder to talk about and explain than it is to understand, what with the multiple same names to throw around, but it’s clear as day in the film itself. There’s a lot of ground to cover in this review even after that, so I’ll limit myself to a few choice categories - How the 1980s-verse is represented, how the story utilizes the mixture of the mythos, how the Mirage comics characters are represented, the overall animation, and the overall voice-over. Again, I could go on for hours about this film, so I’ll try to stop myself from injecting more than I have too.

We’ll start from the beginning and cover the way they show the 1980s universe characters. This is where one of my few complaints for the film come into play. Those who never grew up on the 80s Turtles and will never see them are sorely misinformed as to it’s quality in Forever. In this, the Turtles themselves are shown as nothing but goofballs with very limited fighting abilities, and the Shredder and his men are shown as chump change villains who pose no real threat. Now, don’t get me wrong - the old show was pretty corny at times, they did use their surroundings more often than their weapons (something that I DID like seeing well represented here), and the Shredder was pretty goofy for an evil guy (how else would he put up with Rocksteady and Bebop?). But not realizing that they were in danger and needed to fight? Running in fear and crying when saved in some battles? What happened to ‘Turtles fight with honor’, one of their creed’s from the original toon? It’s clear that 4Kids was a tad bit biased toward their own show while making this, which was to be expected. But when most of the excitement of this stemmed from seeing the classic versions of the characters again, that’s a bad thing to do.

The two universe’s merge quite well though, showcasing just how similar and different the various Turtles themselves, as well as their allies and enemies, are. We don’t get a whole lot of the two Leos together on the field, which is disappointing, but the rest of the 2K3 Turtles are shown together with their counterparts enough to showcase it nicely. 2K3 Mikey loves 80s Mikey (the entire 80s TMNT for that matter), as he finds their humor refreshing. 2K3 Donny finds his 80s counterpart’s science to be baffling, as well as his technique in that field, but in the end has to respect it. And 2K3 Raph of course is appalled by the 80s crew, calling them ‘four more Mikeys’, but is especially annoyed by his dimensional brother who, rather than angry like him, is rude and sarcastic.

The story further utilizes the combining of the mythos using how much more prominent the ooze or mutagen that mutated the Turtles was in the classic show, as well as how frequently it was used. To avoid spoiling as much as possible, lets just say that a mutant army is involved at one point, which is where we get 2003-verse cameos of movie villains Tokka and Rahzar. It also has great use of both the insane technology that 80s Donny is capable of, as well as the massive technology of Dimension X that is at Krang’s disposal. In fact, we even see the strength of Dimension X and Utrom technology combined (does a suped-up Technodrome sound intriguing?).

Though they are shown only for a little bit, the Mirage comics universe is pretty well represented as well. To be honest this is the canon with which I’m least familiar, having only read the first three comic books via the official Turtles site myself. But it seems like while Forever takes place at the end of the 2003 cartoon series and sometime near the end of the 1980s one, it takes place during the first issue of the comic series somehow, so no knowledge of the comics is necessary to enjoy this film - though it certainly makes a lot of the jokes in this part of the film funnier. The Mirage Turtles themselves don’t get a lot of screen time, but they get enough to not be dues ex machina characters at least, which is what I was worried about initially. They, and their world, are animated in very nice black and white, to mirror the original comics once again, which were B&W themselves. You even get to see Mirage Shredder, albeit briefly, again an in-joke to the original comics. Believe it or not, Shredder was never meant to be the recurring, ultimate villain for the Turtles. He is pretty much dealt with by the end of issue 1 of the comics, though he does serve purposes later on I believe.

Coming now to the animation itself, we reach another area where I actually have a few complaints, and one of the few areas where I can touch upon the 2003 universe itself, which I’ve avoided because while cool, it’s honestly just there to tie all this together, thematically at least. In other words, all the excitement of this movie is for seeing the classic toon characters again, as well as the comic universe. The 2003 universe characters look pretty nice in this film, except for one glaring problem with the designs. When the 2003 series started, it had extremely detailed designs and beautiful animation, but by the last season entitled ‘Back to the Sewers’, the entire show had been re-hauled to more closely resemble the CGI film that had come out. The designs of April, Casey, Karai, and even Splinter were almost completely redone to look like the CG designs. For Splinter this was jarring but not outright awful, and Casey just looks stockier really, but Karai and April especially look almost nothing like their previous designs, in fact they look downright horrid in my books. The Turtles themselves became blockier and less smooth, had their pupils shown rather than the glowing white eyes we’d grown to love, and their masks now seem to shine as if they weren’t made of fabric. Fortunately the eyes were returned to the white glow for this film, but other than that the ugly BttS designs are in full swing.

The animation of the classic series and the comics are much more satisfactory. Other than a few off-design moments, the classic characters look EXACTLY like we all love and remember them, and considering how long it’s been since they’ve been drawn as well as this being an entirely different studio, that’s nothing to glaze over. The comics universe look a bit awkward in motion to be honest, but that’s only because they were kept so close to their original art style which doesn’t lend itself well to actual animation. Even the animation of the classic toon’s world and the comic’s world looks different than the 2003’s world, so as to keep the feel closer to how they were in their original mediums, so overall it was animated quite beautifully.

This review has gone on really long, so as to not kill everyone, I’ll finish up with Part 2 tomorrow. Until then - Turtle Power!

Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone Review

2009-11-30T13:20:00.000-08:00

Once again it’s Gyt, and this time I bring you a review of a much anticipated title among the anime fandom - Evangelion 1.01, the first in a series of four films re-telling the iconic TV series, Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Now in reviewing this one, I am at both an advantage and a disadvantage compared to many others who watch this movie - I have never seen the original series. That’s right, not a single episode. So while I can’t compare it to how the original series went at all, I’m able to judge the movie completely on it’s own merits. I think everyone should know that, going in to this review.

The story is thus - Sometime in the future, an alien (I presume anyway) race called ‘Angels’ have attacked the Earth twice, known as the First and Second Impacts. As such, the once proud city of Tokyo is now known as Tokyo-3. However, the Angels aren’t gone, they still attack, and only one force (besides the seemingly in-capable military) stand between the remaining civilians and death - NERV and it’s mecha force, known as the Evas. Enter Shinji Ikari, the son of one of the higher-ups at NERV. His father, never having a use for him before, calls for him to Tokyo-3. Shinji agrees thinking his father finally has a caring use for him, but comes to find he was only called to pilot Eva Unit 01, under the supervision of Misato. Between a life of rejection, and the new task of protecting Earth, Shinji could easily lose his mind at any given moment, but he’s not alone. There is also Rei Ayanami, the pilot of Eva Unit 00, but is she a friend or merely a co-pilot?

It pretty much follows along those lines too, going back and forth between one reason or another for Shinji’s infamous ‘emo-ness’, and a battle with an Angel. Having heard a lot of distaste for Shinji during my years as an anime fan, I can sort-of see why in this film, if he doesn’t get any better. That said though, it’s hard to fault him for being how he is, when you consider the kind of person his father is.

As for the character of Rei, it’s hard for one to feel one way or the other just from this film. She’s hardly in it, and is a very soft-spoken character, so right off the bat she’s not left much of an impression on me. The film does have a lot of other likeable and dislikeable characters, like Shinji’s father, Misato, and two of Shinji’s schoolmates whose names escape me at the moment. For me, the clear winner was Misato - her personality alone held enough appeal to keep me watching.

About the only thing I can comment on as far as the original series goes is the returning voice cast. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that FUNimation was able to gather everyone back, but they did get Spike Spencer (better known to me as Hanataro Yamada in Bleach and Papillion in Buso Renkin) and Alison Keith (known previously to me as Meryl from Rune Soldier only) back to reprise their roles as Shinji and Misato. The original voice of Rei did not return, and was filled by Brina Palencia. I can’t say how she compares to the original, but she did an admirable job in my opinion at least. Greg Ayres also plays the spectacled friend of Shinji’s, though I’m unsure if he played him in the original series as well.

The animation and action are superb, as is the soundtrack as well. Again, I can’t say how it compares to the original, but if what I’ve always been told about the series being made due to tax reasons and had been expected to flop are true, then I can’t see any of those three being better than what’s presented here.

Overall, Evangelion 1.01 kept me quite enthralled, especially for a mecha title which is far from my forte. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot when I found this for $19.95 or so at my local Wal-Mart, but given that price and all the hubbub around this one, I had to give it a look. In the end, I can sort-of see why this is regarded as a must-see title (again, assuming this film is a good representative of the series it’s a remake of) by much of the fandom. I still would call it a tad over-rated at this point, but I can say the same of much of my own personal favorites, so I can’t hold that against it. Things can’t get over-rated without first having SOME good to them to make people like it in the first place after all, at least that’s what I believe.

I give Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone a 6 out of 10. It’s filled with lots of mecha fighting of the most bizarre sort, characters that you’ll either love or hate enough to keep watching, and the cliffhanger alone will make you eager to see 2.0, which I believe is already out in Japan. I’ve had the original series on my list of things to eventually see for a long time, and after this it’s gotten bumped ahead of most other mecha at least. Evas, move out!

Naruto Shippuden: The Movie Review

2009-11-25T13:44:00.001-08:00

Gyt here again, and sorry for the long hiatus everyone. I come bringing good tidings however, with a review for the much anticipated Naruto Shippuden: The Movie.
Everyone who would want to see this movie is probably already up on the events of the end of the first series, so I’ll go ahead and mention some spoilers for the sake of setting up the plot. You have been warned.

This film takes place sometime, presumably shortly, after the beginning of the Shippuden TV series - in other words, Naruto has returned from his three-year training trip with Jiraiya, and has reformed Team Kakashi with Sakura and Kakashi himself. With only that to go on though, it’s hard to take a guess of just where this one would take place if it was canon.

‘The Movie’ moves right into the story quickly however, with an opening sequence of Naruto fighting a demon and dying. Did a record just skip? Well, you heard me right - Naruto dies at the beginning of this film. Such a huge thing was even used as the teaser back when this film came out in Japan. But how can the lead character die in his own film? You’ll have to watch for yourself to find out.

The story itself goes as follows: Years ago, a shinobi tried to use an ancient demon known as Moryo to conquer the world. Using his own and the demon’s powers in conjunction, he rose up with an immortal army and went from country to country establishing his rule. It wasn’t until a priestess from the Land of Ogres known as Miroku sealed the demon’s soul in one location and it’s physical body within another that the crisis was averted, and the world saved. Now however, a new ninja known as Yomi, along with four followers, are trying to reunite the demon’s halves, and are using the demon army to strike against the nations once again. Working together with the other nations, Tsunade sends Naruto, Sakura, Neji, and Lee on a mission to escort Shion, the new priestess, to the body of Moryo, so she can re-seal it. Yomi has other plans however, and sends his minions (now amped up by his Dark Medical Ninjutsu) to kill her.

And so, the two sides clash, naturally. For me, only the Lee v.s. Gitai fight was particularly memorable, featuring great action, choreography, and actually a new terrifying concept that I at least had never thought of before - Lee using the Drunken Fist while already using the Inner Gates. Hilarious, devastating - Awesome. That’s all I have to say about that.

The rest of the film falls far short of my expectations for some reason though. It just wasn’t near as enjoyable as the previous three Naruto films. It became hard to care about Shion’s plight, because we really don’t get to know her as well as we did the previous movie-only characters.
As always, the movie’s villains are more or less throw-away as well. I’m not entirely sure the villains other than Moryo and Yomi are even named in the film itself. And no explanation is given as to how a demon like Moryo exists in the world (it isn’t one of the Tailed Beasts, so are there other types of demons?), other than what I saw as a lame cop-out theory near the end.
The music, comedy, and voice-acting are all superb as usual, on par with the other films at least. In addition to the returning talent from the first series that also reprise their roles in the Shippuden TV series, you’ll get to hear wonderful performances from Laura Bailey and Vic Mignogna, who both do well as Shion and Yomi.

Now on to my main complaint with this movie (FINAL WARNING: Big spoiler ahead).

At the end of this film, like the others, we get ‘Rasengan Saves the Day’ syndrome. Seriously, I know Naruto doesn’t have the most moves he can use, but come on. First, he makes a Rasengan using his and someone else’s chakra in the first movie. Then he makes one mixing in Gelel power in the second movie. The worst offender, he makes one that gets hit by moonlight and just HAPPENS to be a special form of the attack, in the third movie. Now, he does it with a circular object in the center, thus making the ‘Super Chakra Rasengan’. Oh great. Now he’s got Gotenks syndrome too.

You won’t get much in terms of extras on this DVD either, not compared to the previous releases anyway. You get a set of Viz trailers as always, and some original Japanese trailers for this film, two music videos using footage from the movie for the first opening and ending from the TV series, and of course a translated copy of the movie booklet from the theatrical release. No commentary this time around however, which is honestly one of my favorite extra features you can give. I’ve been told the second Bleach film also lacks a commentary, so I’m thinking this is a price-cutting measure.

Overall, I did like the film enough that I’m glad I bought it. I think my growing distaste for how the canon Naruto story is going is only hurting my enjoyment of the film as well. In the end, it does achieve what it was meant to, telling a big, new story with the Naruto characters. And it does feature a nice set of cameos from the rest of the Rookie Nine, though the main extra people you’ll see featured are Shikamaru, Temari, Kakashi, and Guy.

In the end, I give Naruto Shippuden: The Movie, a 4 out of 10. It’s good, and definitely worth seeing if you’re a big Naruto fan. But other than that, there’s not a whole lot going for it, and even a Naruto fan may be disappointed. Give this one a look-see right away if you want, but it might be better to wait for a RightStuf sale or a price cut eventually. Believe it!

What you should be watching.

2009-11-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

The state of anime on TV today is pretty sad compared to how it was just a few years back. But there's still some solid stuff that's being broadcasted and you shouldn't miss them.

Well, actually there's really only 2 that you should go out of your way to watch.

-Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. Easily the best anime premiering on American TV right now, Moribito is about a bodyguard who's been entrusted with protecting a prince that's been order by his father to be murdered.

That's the basic plot and it really doesn't do the series any justice. The ambiance that's put together by Kenji Kawaii's music, Production IG's visuals, and Kenji Kamiyama's token script and direction that's full of exposition detailing a intricate world is marvelous. Having one of the best lead characters around doesn't hurt either.

Moribito is finishing its run with only a handful of episodes left on [adult swim]. While it's been a bumpy ride for this show between the constant setbacks- to the point where there was a nine month gap between new episodes-it's also been more than worth the wait. Do yourself a favor and take a copy of the first volume out of your local library to see what all the fuss is about.

Airs on [adult swim] (Cartoon Network) on Sundays at 1:30 am EST.

-Monster: This one is still fairly early in its run, so you can definitely start to get into it now. The story revolves around a doctor who decides to save a boy over the mayor- a decision that haunts him for the rest of his life.

If that plot summary seemed a bit hokey, then that's fine. Monster is kinda like that too. Urasawa tends to moralize his plot a bit too much, but even so, Monster is definitely something that should be watched by anyone who has an interest in thrillers. Drawing upon historical facts and the development of an intricate storyline do seem slightly out of place at times, but Monster does get genuinely engaging at times and you cannot fault this series for trying.

Airing on the Sci-Fi (or SyFy, if you want to call it that) channel on Mondays at 11:00 pm EST.

NOTE: I would also put the specific episodes of Naruto Shippuden where it actually has a budget as something that you need to watch, but maybe some other time.

Digimon Data Squad: Collection One Review (Part 2: The Show)

2009-09-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

And here’s that second review for Digimon Data Squad: Collection One, just as promised. This time I’ll be a little more brief at least - there’s not near as much I can say on just these episodes, without spoiling, which is why most of my reviews have been on full series rather than parts like this.

For starters, as this is a dub-only release, I’ll pretty much stick to talking about the dub, with only a few comparisons to what was changed from the original version, what I remember anyway.

Digimon Data Squad is the dub of the fifth installment in the Digimon franchise, known as Digimon Savers in it’s original Japanese form. It covers the adventures of DATS once they’re joined by a young man named Marcus Damon. Marcus had been just a street fighter, aiming to be the world’s best ‘Ultimate Fighter’. One day, after clearing out a group of punks in his area, he ends up fighting a rouge Digimon named Agumon. An agent from DATS named Yoshi tries to stop them, so they end up having to flee the scene. Having lost their fight however, Agumon decides to become an ‘employee’ to Marcus, calling him ‘Boss’ and expecting him to provide him food and shelter. When another Digimon attacks a burger joint in town, Agumon gets the blame as he was the only signal active at the time. Yoshi attempts again to take in Agumon, but when it’s revealed it was another Digimon entirely, Marcus and Agumon set out to fight it together. From punching the Digimon himself, Marcus unlocks the power hidden deep within, his DNA Charge! With it, and a Digivice tossed to him by a mysterious old man, Agumon is able to digivolve into GeoGreymon and defeat the other digimon. Yoshi takes the two back to DATS, to get them to join up and help the fight against rogue Digimon.

The story is pretty simple to follow from there - Marcus joins the squad and takes on rogue Digimon at every turn, along with Yoshi and her partner Lalamon, and a genius named Thomas H. Norstein and his parter Gaomon. Just like the other Digimon shows, this one starts off with a series of stories that are pretty well stand-alone. The cases the squad deals with range from a pair of burglars using a Drimogemon for their heists, to a singer with a Keramon that changes charts to make him appear as the top selling artist.

Also, just like in previous shows, each character of the main team (Marcus, Thomas, and Yoshi) all get episodes that focus more on them than the other two. Really, as you watch it, you’ll notice that lots of this show seems very similar in tone to the previous installments. When the show was in production in Japan, the decision to aim at the same (only now older) fanbase as before was made. That’s one reason that we have yet another leader with an Agumon partner, in reference to the original show.

There’s two main differences that you’ll notice between Data Squad and the previous shows. First off is the fact that even while he’s the leader, Marcus is anything but a Goggle Boy. Even beyond the obvious fact that he doesn’t wear goggles, his personality is quite different from the normal lead in these shows. Rather than being, for the most part, happy and out-going, Marcus is incredibly disagreeable and rather violent, turning to his fists more often than his head.

Though, he does still share a few common traits to a Digimon lead, in that he never gives up, and is determined to protect his friends and family from harm.

The other big difference you’ll notice is the art style. While the previous shows all had a style that was very much it’s own, Data Squad looks pretty much like your standard Shonen anime. This isn’t a bad thing really, but it can be a bit jarring if you’re expecting something that looks just like the previous shows.

Also just like the previous shows, this one has had a fair amount of edit’s done to make it ‘acceptable for kids in the US’. There’s nothing too drastic done though, except for one instance in a later episode on the set. Long-story short, so as not to spoil, a certain bomb-based Digimon is turned into an orange, and rather than threatening to blow things up, he threatens to flood the place with juice…yeah…barring that, the show is pretty much just how it should be.

Oh, and also, there’s some name changes for the main characters, but like usual, it’s nothing too major. Here’s some examples, using the main three human characters.

Original Japanese Name --- English Dub Name

Damon Masaru --- Marcus Damon

Fujieda Yoshino --- Yoshi Fujieda

Tohma H. Norstein --- Tohmas H. Norstein

As you can see, it’s per-the-norm for name changes in Digimon. While this is a sin to lots of fans, it doesn’t really bother me, so long as it’s something as simple as Taichi to Tai, or Masaru to Marcus.

You’ll hear tons of voices that you recognize too. Jeff Nimoy, the director from the original two seasons of Digimon, has returned, and he’s re-united much of the cast from all four previous shows, to keep the feel the same. Colleen O’Shaughnessy, Crispin Freeman, Brianne Siddall, Steve Blum, Melissa Fahn, Derek Stephen Prince, and many many more - They’re all here in roles as both humans and Digimon, along with new to the franchise but long-time friend of Nimoy, Quinton Flynn. Sadly, Joshua Seth is nowhere to be found in the episodes on this set or later on either, as he seems to have retired from voice-over.

All in all, this set is a solid start into the show, letting you know whether or not you’re ready to join back into the Digimon fold completely, or if you’re just going to live with your fond memories. Again, it’s available at a number of places online, so grab it if you get a chance guys. You more than likely won’t be sorry - just don’t go in expecting an experience quite as good as the previous installments.

I give Digimon Data Squad: Collection One a 7 out of 10. DNA Charge!

Rant, rant, rant! (Bleach).

2009-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

(And yes. I did pick this title off of the old segment that previously ran on Hey, Answerman!)

Read vol. 28 yesterday and I'm getting tired of Bleach. The constant introduction of new characters (double digits in this volume) is a real drag on the series. They're in and they're out. Not really having much time to bring anything positive to the plate, but just enough to make it seem so mundane.

Something that the other two big Shonen Jump series are good at is building up the stakes. One Piece starts out with fighting some relative small fry and it keeps on getting more and more epic as it goes on. Never overextending itself. Knowing what works when it comes to providing sympathy for protagonists and hatred for antagonists. Same with Naruto. Bleach just rinses and repeats the same scenario over and over. " Oh, let's infiltrate a foreign world, one that has a bunch of minions to do the head honcho's bidding, to rescue our friend. We'll eventually split up so we can drag it all out even more too!"

And why does Kubo hate drawing background art? He's great at drawing the characters themselves in different action poses and whatnot, but he just sketches a few lines in the background and sends it off to be published. But, that's only a minor annoyance compared to how he handles his panels. He constantly uses one panel to cover up 2/3 of a page. 2 page spreads are a lot more frequent here than I've ever seen in any other manga. A real lack of content. I might say that he's just tired with his creation, but he's been doing this for a while. With that in mind, I just think that he's been unable to grow as an author.

Sad to say that I'm going to keep on reading. I've already invested 28 volumes into this series, so I might as well see how this train ends up crashing and burn.

Digimon Data Squad: Collection One Review (Part 1: The Set)

2009-09-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

I’m very proud to bring you a review of this release, as it’s something that many of us fans have been waiting on for a LONG time. That’s right, a legitimate DVD release of episodes of a Digimon series in the US.

To cover why this is such a big deal, here’s the whole saga in a nutshell. Back when the first Digimon series was brought over, by Saban way prior to the takeover by Disney, there were two or three official VHS releases put out. However, due to low sales figures, the first season (or Digimon Adventure) was never fully released here. As far as I know no VHS were put out for season 2 (or Digimon Adventure 02), and the only tape I know of for season 3 (Digimon Tamers), was more of a ‘Best Of’ release, rather than the episodes in order. No VHS were ever put out for season 4 (Digimon Frontier) either, though by this point it has long been in the hands of Disney.

So prior to this release, there was no way to have any Digimon for yourself, outside of having had taped it off of TV back when it was airing, or importing either the original Japanese boxsets (which on top of requiring a region-free DVD player, is very pricey at around $500 a set) or the UK boxsets (which are incredibly hard to find, I myself have never been able to find them for certain). And there were never any DVD releases, barring the compilation of both Adventure movies and the first Adventure 02 movie, released here as ‘Digimon: The Movie’.

As you can imagine, when rumors of this set first started circulating the internet about a year or so ago, it was quite the buzz among the fanbase. It didn’t help that the main citation for this release for quite a while was nothing more than a Wiki article. On top of Wiki not being the best source to trust as a default rule, it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time it mislead us on Digimon (seeing as how the rumor of the Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 and Digimon Next manga being picked up for a US release hasn’t come true yet, it can be assumed that Wiki article was indeed false).

But luckily for us, this time it came true! I’m not sure what hand Disney played in this as the rights holder, but Well Go USA was able to give us a Digimon set. While Data Squad (or Savers in the original Japanese version) is possibly my least favorite of the franchise, I still had to pick this up as soon as I could find it. Sadly it took a while, but I finally got myself a copy. My thoughts?

Beyond the obvious thrill and awesomeness that come into this just for it being Digimon on DVD, I was pretty impressed by this release. It’s by no means a dream set, but it’s definitely a nice, solid release that was more than most of us expected. The case itself is what I think they call a digipak - Think more along the lines of the DBZ Season Sets put out by FUNi than the Naruto ones put out by Viz. In other words, instead of opening like a book, it unfolds to reveal the discs after you’ve removed the slip cover.

Pictures of the set from basically every angle I could come up with, in addition to a nice gallery of screenshots, will be shown in a follow-up post here. For now however, before I get into how the viewing itself was, I’d like to cover some of the bonus features for this release. All one of them - a nice little booklet with character descriptions, episode summaries, and some nice little artwork.
But first, to give you an idea of the story of this series without getting too spoilerific, if you didn’t catch this one on TV, here’s the description off the back of the slip cover.

“This first ever Digimon Data Squad Collection One set contains 13 full episodes from the newest Digimon series. Follow the adventures of Marcus, a cool junior high school student, and his favorite Digimon Agumon as they investigate their way through the Digital World battling Digital Monsters in exciting and different situations. Marcus' best friends Thomas and Yoshi with their Digimon partners Gaomon and Lalamon join in the adventures and help challenge and battle strong opponents along the way. Experience the newest Digimon series like never before.”

The inclusion of this booklet, mixed with it’s contents and the overall design of this set, makes me really think that someone on the design team from Well Go USA is a fan of the DBZ season sets. It just oozes the same feel as those, it’s hard to miss, unless it’s just me for some reason. The booklet has a few pages of nice art from the show, and some that was for promoting the show I think, all for you to oggle. The main event of course is the character bios and episode summaries. I don’t want to give you all of them, so as to not ruin the fun when you get the set yourself, but here’s a sample of the character bios, one for a human and one for their Digimon partner.

“MARCUS DAMON”
“Marcus can't contain his urge to duel when he comes across a worthy opponent. One day, after defeating the Digimon called Agumon, he takes in the mysterious creature as his apprentice. In the midst of a battle with the menacing Kokatorimon, Marcus is able to digivolve Agumon to the bigger and stronger GeoGreymon. The newly formed pair brings down the rouge Digimon and is inducted into DATS for their efforts.”

“AGUMON”
“Agumon is a dinosaur-type Digimon. He is Marcus's partner. During his escape from DATS, he finds a role model in Marcus when he loses a fight to the seasoned brawler. Agumon decides to partner up with Marcus as his apprentice. He has a special move called 'Pepper Breath' where he breathes fire from his mouth. Receiving Marcus's DNA, he is able to digivolve to GeoGreymon.”

For further exampling, here’s the episode summary for the first episode. Be warned, these episode summaries are among the most spoilerific I’ve ever seen, if you haven’t seen them. Read this part at your own risk.

“1. THERE ARE MONSTERS AMONG US!”
“Secret Agent Yoshi gets a call to chase down a rogue raptor Digimon, named Agumon, but she finds him in a fight with Marcus Damon, a boy training to become an Ultimate Fighter. After the two fight to a draw, the combatants bond and become friends. They work together to battle another Digimon invader, Kokatorimon, who is attacking the city. During this time, Marcus discovers he can awaken something in his fist known as the DNA. With his DNA and a digivice, he helps Agumon digivolve into a bigger, stronger form. Agumon becomes GeoGreymon and ultimately defeats Kokatorimon.”

Now onto the show on the DVDs itself. This set contains the first 13 episodes, spread across 3 discs, so there’s no worry on footage quality here. This only features the English dub version which should be well assumed as it is, as there’s no dub for the uncut version. There’s still two audio options to choose from, just both in English - Stereo or 5.1 Surround Sound. I recommend playing with those settings while watching an actual episode to see which one sounds best on whatever you’re watching it with.

The first disc contains the first 4 episodes, the second another 4, and the third the final 5 for this release, as seen below.
EPISODE GUIDE
DISC ONE
1. There Are Monsters Among Us!
2. Marcus' Inner Strength!
3. The Return of Thomas!
4. The New Team of Marcus & Thomas!
DISC TWO
5. Digital World, Here We Come!
6. The Ultimate Team No More?
7. A Birthday Kristy Will Never Forget!
8. The Singer's Secret
DISC THREE
9. Never Meet Your Heroes
10. Curse This Curse: Marcus's Bad Day
11. The Vile of Vilemon!
12. The Digi-Egg That Fell to Earth
13. The Rise of RizeGreymon!

The footage was taken directly from what was used to air on Jetix, as you can tell where there’s about 2 to 3 commercial fadeouts per episode. The Jetix logo and it’s animation aren’t present here though obviously, and the actual end credits are seen rather than an ad for another Jetix show, so this is easily your best option for seeing this show from the beginning.

However, that’s where things get a bit grim. This is the first and only anime title distributed by Well Go USA, and in spite of the obvious great effort put into this set, that makes me think they must be watching the sales figures like a hawk. Whether or not we get the rest of this show on DVD is directly related to how many sets sell, more than likely. So be sure to get a copy guys, as soon as you can. You can get it for around $20 from RightStuf, Wal-Mart, DeepDiscount, and presumably Well Go USA’s site itself.

With that, I draw this review to a close. I know, I know - I only covered the set rather than the show really. But there’s so much to say about this set that there was simply no room for that here. Expect a second review on this set, only focused more on the story, very soon. In closing, this is an exciting time for us as Digimon fans. So let’s all support this release and hope we get similar sets for the previous four seasons in the near future.

Air: The Motion Picture Review

2009-09-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

And now for the final review on the Air franchise, I give you Air: The Motion Picture. I’ll go ahead and warn you now - there may be slight spoilers in this review, as it’ll be hard to comment on the movie without discussing the differences between it and the series. However, I’m going to do my best to keep them to an absolute minimum.

For starters, you’ll notice that the art for the movie is different from that for the show. In a lot of cases, this is simply because of a higher funding for the animation studio, but this time it’s because the animation was from a different studio entirely. While the TV series and the OVA were done by TBS Animation, the film was done by Toei, of Dragon Ball and One Piece fame. It’s not that the animation is bad, it’s quite beautiful really. However, the basic art-style is completely different. To give you an example, here’s Misuzu in the TV series, compared to her in the movie.

Now, the other main difference between the show and the movie (without delving too deeply into the story itself) is the overall feel to said story. Whereas the show felt more like a mystery filled with drama, the film version feels a lot more like a love story. Which version you like more will probably depend most on which version you watch first, as I have to say I found the show much more enjoyable.

That’s not to say that I didn’t like the motion picture - I loved it, it’s definitely a must see for anyone who’s seen either the show or the OVA. Hell, it’s even a great film if you haven’t seen anything of Air before. I just can’t classify the film as a must-see for everyone, like I did the show.

There’s not really a whole lot more I can get into without spoiling some of the finer points of the story, but I will give you a heads up - keep your eyes peeled for small cameos by most of the other girls from the series, as well as the cute little puppy Potato. They’re small and relatively pointless, but it’s a great way to still show them.

I give Air: The Motion Picture a 6 out of 10. It’s not near as amazing and landmark as the series version, in this humble fan’s opinion, but still a film you should give a look-see. Gyt has spoken.

Air OVA Review

2009-09-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

As I had so much to say on the main 12 episodes of the series, I decided to review the last 3 separately. It works out well that way, since they’re part of an OVA I understand, rather than part of the series itself.

The first episode of the OVA, ‘Memories: Misuzu’s Story’ is merely a recollection of scenes from the series. There’s not a single piece of new animation that I noticed, which decreases the entertainment value for me. However, it’s not quite as bad as my dislike for the Blue Gender movie, and that actually did feature some new animation, so I think it simply depends on how much I enjoy said story. In the end, it was a nice little recap for the show, but I really could have done without being stabbed by the ending again, so soon after finishing the series. My poor heart…

The last two episodes of the OVA, ‘Air in Summer I: Mountain Path’ and ‘Air in Summer II: Universe’ revisit the background story of Lady Kanna’s search for her mother, that we first got to see some of in the latter half of the main series. When it randomly went into this story in the main series, I have to admit I didn’t care for it much - it was an unneeded distraction from the main story even if it did tie in to the overall one (I have the same feelings about the ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ portion of ‘The Watchmen’ graphic novel; I actually prefer it without it in there, as the movie did it). This time though, with the new parts that flesh out the characters and story much better, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also answered some questions that I still had left over from this portion of the series, which is always nice.

That and, Ryuya may well be my favorite character in the overall series as it is. Yukito is a great character, but there’s something about Ryuya’s attitude, especially in his interactions with Kanna, that is really enjoyable to watch. As much as I dislike watching the same thing again and again when it tries to claim to be something new, I actually wouldn’t mind to see another retelling of this story with only some new animation, going even further in depth on this set of characters. Maybe just a 6 or 7 episode series, showing a lot more of Ryuya’s past prior to meeting Kanna and Uraha, would be nice.

So in the end, I found myself quite enjoying this OVA; definitely a lot more than I was expecting. It’s a bit ironic too, as when I thought it was all a re-telling of Kanna’s story, I wasn’t too excited. Now, I wish it’d been the full 3 episodes after all, and not had a recap of Misuzu’s too.

Still, while I enjoyed the OVA, it was more like a regular anime rather than one of my possible required viewing titles. Also, I feel the need to make up for my time-based biased perfect rating of the series. With both of those things in mind, I give Air OVA a 7 out of 10. Definitely a nice thing to see after you’ve seen the main series.

Ponyo.

2009-08-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

Watched Ponyo earlier today and I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting. The room I was in had about 50 or so people. Not bad for a showing at 11:00 am on a rainy day.

Judging from the trailer and reviews I'd read, I had expected this to be very kid-oriented and I wasn't wrong, but it managed to make me watch it through a child's eyes and admire the simplicity of it all. The plot wanders slightly aimlessly, making it the movie seem longer than its 84 minute run. But, the animation is nothing less than breathtaking. The amount of detail that's poured into every shot of the water and the different type of fish and crustaceans is just astounding. The music is sublime, providing the perfect atmosphere to lay back and watch the world of Ponyo.

Dub-wise, this is easily the best dub for a Miyazaki movie that I've heard ( I have to say that I still haven't seen Totoro). Aside from the ending song- which sounds just like what you'd expect from a pair of kids singing- Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus put up solid performances in their respective roles. And yes, Tina Fey deserves all the praise she's been getting for her role as Lisa.

All in all, Ponyo is a quintessential children's fairy tale. Don't go in expecting something as hard-hitting as Princess Mononoke and you won't be disappointed.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood- Brief Overview up to ep. 19.

2009-08-14T20:18:00.002-07:00

***spoilers***

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood had, and still has, quite a bit against it once you think about it. Not only is it being judged by fans of the first series and of those of the manga, but it's only been about 6 years since the first one aired- not giving enough time for new anime fans who don't know anything about FMA to take over the fandom. For the first 13 eps., it stuck to material that's already been covered by the first series. But what the creators decided to do was just rush through this material and assume that you've watched all of this before. While that is true for most of the people watching this series, it really turns up flat for the most part and it doesn't even adapt Arakawa's manga completely with the random changes it makes, so in the end it seems like they were just trying to tick both camps off. Two things that really have improved is the animation, as well as the music, which was something I really didn't like about the first series.

Now that we're in territory not covered by the first series, Brotherhood at least now as the luxury of only being compared to one piece of work. It's still changing some parts and it's still kind of "so-so' so far, but ep. 19 shows the good side of taking some liberties. While leaving out the fight between Ling and Lan Fan vs. Envy and Gluttony seemed like a bad idea at first, it really allowed for Mustang and crew to be the center of attention in this whole episode. The art direction when Lust was getting burned to crisp was the best by far in this series. Not to mention that it actually handled Alphonse's brief, but important development really well. This part in the manga is definitely one that is hard to mess up, but considering how it's been so far, I was half-expecting it to be mediocre. I'm glad that it wasn't.

Air - Complete Series Review

2009-08-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Back again with another review finally, this time on a title I’ve heard about a lot but just now got to see myself. I’ve been told that I’m a bit of a moe nut, and whether this is true or not varies on your definition, but let me tell you this right now - if you’ve been avoiding Air simply because you don’t like moe, you are depriving yourself one of the better anime I’ve seen in a while.

Air is the story of a young girl named Misuzu, though you won’t be able to tell at first. For a good chunk of this 12 episode series, you’ll swear the main character is the traveler Yukito. To give you the basics, Yukito is a traveling puppeteer (he controls his little doll with a form of telekinesis, no strings on this one), looking for ‘the girl with wings in the sky’ from a story his mother told him as a young boy. Broke and hungry, he arrives in a new town, and that’s where his fate takes a turn when he meets Misuzu.

A sweet little girl with a nice amount of problems of her own (her inability to get close to anyone without bursting into an emotional, teary wreck being a major one), Misuzu is quick to befriend Yukito, wanting to play with him more and more. She offers her and her mom’s house for Yukito to stay at, which after some consideration, he accepts.

As the two gets closer, she tells Yukito of recurring dreams she’s been having for a long time - dreams of the sky, and another her in it, flying. Yukito begins to wonder if maybe she’s the girl he’s been looking for all this time. However, as complicated as things already are, this is simplicity compared to the other things the two of them are about to experience.

I’ll stop there to avoid spoiling more, but you can pretty easily divide this series into four or five different arcs, as there are some nice side-stories that at first seem stand-alone, but by the time you’re done, you’ll see just how important they are to the overall story.

The animation in this is truly beautiful, on par with the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime in my opinion, which is saying a lot. There’s not a single off-animation moment or episode either, it’s very constant, which is always a good thing. But as we all know, pretty animation alone doesn’t make a good anime, it takes a great story. Rest assured, Air is definitely not lacking in that department.

I will warn you now though, if you have any sort of heart at all, you will get very emotionally involved with the characters in this series. In-of-itself, that’s not a bad thing, but it’s really going to come bite you in the butt at the series conclusion. There are very few instances in anime that literally make me sad enough to tear up, or even feel like I’m going to. The end of really long shows gets me feeling like there could be tears somewhere, because I’ve watched these characters for so long. Fullmetal Alchemist is the only one to actually make a tear come out of me however, at the Hughes incident (the Tucker incident before that summons rage, so no tears). This time though, at the end of Air…I don’t think any actual tears escaped, but I certainly felt like crying.

Aw hell. I’ll be honest. Even if I didn’t cry, I wanted to BAWL like a little BABY! This is seriously one of the most emotional wrecking conclusions I’ve seen in ANY story, not keeping out stuff that’s not anime.

As sad as it is though, this is a great series that everyone should give a look. Even my favorite anime franchise of all time (Dragon Ball), I don’t call required viewing. There have only been two so far that I’ve called absolute required watching for the various good things represented in each one - the first Fullmetal Alchemist series, and the School Rumble series. Is Air good enough to join that rank? Honestly, I can’t say yet, I’m still having to work through my feelings that are so out of wack after the ending now. There’s a very good chance that this will soon be one of those shows I go about trying to make everyone see though.

So in the end, I really have NOTHING to complain about in this series. As horrible as the ending is, in it’s way it’s good as well, because it just shows how well the previous episodes have made you care about the characters. I can’t speak for the original version, but the dub is simply brilliant; Vic Mignogna, Monica Rial, and Luci Christian have NEVER sounded better. So whether you opt for the original ADV singles like I did, or you get FUNi’s re-release, this is one anime you really can’t afford to miss.

In the end, I give Air a full 10 out of 10 (though I hate to give a perfect score to anything, especially after I just finished it, since it is obviously biased a bit). You have seriously got to give this one a look guys. Gyt, out.

Watchmen- Brief Thoughts.

2009-07-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Contains spoilers.

This book has been dissected back and forth since its release, so I won't spend much time trying to do the same. I found Watchmen to be an interesting read. Not for the plot, but for the way the superhero genre was deconstructed. My favorite parts where the sections in between chapters that allowed for a more in-depth look at the psyche of these costumed crusaders.

I don't really feel liking commenting on the art aspect of Watchmen, because I'm not familiar with American comics, but this particular panel left me impressed.

It never wavers too much from its destructing until the last 2 chapters, so it's here where I find fault with Watchmen. The final reveal is rather anti-climatic; it merely gives off a sense of "is that it?" In the end, Rorschach was the only one who stood up for what was right. It doesn't really matter what he did before, because he ends up being the character you feel the most sorry for. Overall, while the ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth, I still feel that it's more than worth a read.

That's all I really have to say. Told ya it was going to be short.