Dai-Guard: Giant Robot Stomping and Office Politics Galore

Whether you watch this one in English ("Office Workers Saving the World!") or Japanese ("Even a salaryman can protect the peace!"), you're in for an entertaining take on the giant-robot-with-pilots anime.  Dai-Guard is kind of like what would happen if Dilbert married Megas XLR and a child was born: a giant robot action office dramedy. 

I still seem to get a kick out of it after all these years.  Here is one review, and here is another.

Basically, this security company was building a giant robot to fight off these strange, deadly creatures, but then the strange, deadly creatures sort of stopped invading, so the company was left with a pointless giant robot.  They decided to use it for marketing.  Then the creatures came back, and the public relations team in charge of the robot was the front line of defense against creature invasion. 

The military tries to be in charge, but that really doesn't work out well.  Their straight-laced representative ends up sort of blitzed by the burning and somewhat ridiculously enthusiastic commitment to saving lives that comes from kids who watched too much anime growing up and trainging in PR and getting to pilot a giant robot. 

Also, I feel compelled to mention that there is seriously a robot name Kokuboga. 

The pilots are all just somewhat average office workers with complicated, slightly-more-dramatic-than-usual regular joe lives (one of them doesn't get along at all with her step-dad, one seems like a total ladies' man but is hiding a rather tender secret).  Their co-workers are often a hoot; their boss is pretty great, and the company president could take the Pointy-Haired Boss in a duel in about 2 seconds.  They hate trying to save the world on a tight budget, but them's the breaks. 

Office politics cause problems, as do military politics and even politics politics.  It's all just another day at the job, except they're robot-jockeys instead of desk-jockeys.  I wonder if my job would be different if that were the case for me.

One of the things that makes this an enjoyable background show for me is the rewrite for the English dub.  It plays fast and loose with literalness (okay, it really just sometimes dispenses with it altogether), and the acting isn't great (I think it was one of Monster Island's first), but it's fairly amusingly quotable with its referenences to cow squashing, monster wrassling, and getting dunked in heterodyne coffee.  If that doesn't appeal to you, there's always the Japanese dub, which is fun, too.

Some people complain that Dai-Guard gets too heavily dramatic sometimes.  I know exactly what they mean, but I don't really care.  :)  Yeah, I may want to smack a pilot now and then (this would have been a very different show with Bright Noah in charge), but the hystrionics just make it work better for me.  When we get to that last battle, I am fully invested in these people; I know what struggles they've gone through to get here, how they've struggled to relate to each other, and I care how things turn out.

So if you want some giant robot action that doesn't get deadly serious (it ain't Full Metal Panic) but isn't all fluff, and you're hankering after a comedy that stars adults every bit as annoying as your real co-workers (only funnier), Dai-Guard is your new best friend.

Have you seen this one?  Any thoughts?

Another volume of Swan, another shojo crisis unsolved

Dear CMX,

Thank you so so so so much for publishing Swan.  I adore this series and support it wholeheartedly.  Thank you for publishing it and other obscure series that never would have seen the legal light of day in this country.  I love you. 

Also, you're killing me. 

It's not really your fault. 

There should be a law--let's call it the twelfth law of fair shojo manga--that you can't end a volume with the main character having an unspoken revelation that leaves the reader wondering what was just realized.  Especially if it takes more than a year between volumes. 

I am asking Santa very hard to use all his influence to make sure volume 15 will hit its February release date.  No, I don't believe in Santa, but I do believe in you, CMX, so please don't let me down.  I have to know what Masumi figured out at the end of volume 14 before I forget what led up to the dramatic revelation.

Thank you again for publishing such ancient, sparkly-eyed, big-haired, classic shojo ballet goodness.  Thank you thank you thank you.

Sincerely,
TheMooninAutumn

P.S.  I am trying very hard to appreciate modern ballet, but I've tried for over a decade, and it still hasn't happened.  This is also not your fault because if anything could have made a convert out of me, it would have been volume 14.  Thank goodness my appreciating modern ballet has nothing to do with how awesome this series is.  Please keep it coming!

An entertaining review

Hooray for more Gundam 00!  Here's an excerpt from a review that was really fun to read.  (Thanks, Carl!)

"Gundam 00 doesn't rectify its shortcomings in this, the final leg of its first season, so much as it steamrolls them with brute narrative force. It's still populated by a platoon of unlikeable ciphers, its emotional engagement still never engages, and its dialogue continues to stink like a wet skunk ("I am Gundam!"). And yet, by the time this set comes crashing to a close, all of that is about as relevant as cavalry in a nuclear war."

The next sentence is even funnier.  I love reading hilarious, passionate reviews.  Be sure to check it out, especially if you don't like Gundam. 

Do you think part of a reviewer's job is to make the review itself entertaining?

Having fun with best of 2009 lists

I love best of/top X lists.  I cannot make them very well because I am not a critic, and I am terrible at ranking things.  I enjoy the end of the year because of all the great lists that people make up and the debates they provoke. 

When else do people come up with recommendation categories like "Best Use of Wagner in a Manga"?

What weird category of best/top manga would you like to see more people address?  What weird category would you like to nominate something for (and what would you nominate)?

Shinesman: So shines a good deed . . .

Shinesman is the story of a bunch of quirky office workers who are also costumed superheroes fighting the forces of evil when their company calls.  Seriously.  It's a smart, cheesy anime that shows the sometimes "complicated" lives of these regular salarymen and women who also serve as a sentai team. 

Their colors are unusual.  Their enemies are ridiculous.  Their special abilities and weapons are unique.  Their personal lives are a bit dicey, too, because they can't reveal their secret identities to their loved ones!  Oh, the drama!

Really, it's a comedy.  A darned funny one, especially if you were ever into the Power Rangers or any other sentai stuff ported to American television.

One of the best things about the show is that the English adaptation and dub are funnier than the Japanese, so much so that the show's creators acknowledge that the English dub got something right that was missing from the original Japanese dub (if I'm remembering this right . . .).  It has its charms in either language. :)

It's cheap and funny and would probably make a great stocking stuffer for the otaku with a sense of humor in your life.  Don't just take my word for it, though.  Here's a review I liked.

Thinking about Shinesman is making me think about Dai-Guard, so I'll probably talk about that show next . . .

Do you know where this post's subtitle quote comes from?

Hooray for Heroes Are Extinct!!

I finally finished reading Heroes Are Extinct!!, and I enjoyed every minute of the rereading.  I'll be honest: there were a few moments there when I wasn't entirely sure how things were going to turn out because the ending could have been satisfying either way.  I won't spoil it for you. :)

If you haven't heard of this three volume gem, Heroes Are Extinct!! is the story of what happens when a bunch of aliens come to conquer Earth.  The General in charge is pretty fired up because he used to watch sentai cartoons, and he is looking forward to a fierce battle with a team of costumed super-heroes, which he doesn't get because there are none.  It's kind of Galaxy Quest-ian.

Not content to conquer an undefended planet, the General hides his identity, kidnaps five people, and trains them to be the Earth's defence forces.  Meanwhile, all manner of hi-jinks are happening on his home planet and his ship because his companions are a bunch of weirdos (my favorite being the tall, creepy, bald guy who only whispers and shows his affection by tying bows of ribbon into people's hair).

There's lots of political unrest, tragic back-stories, sacrifice, and just plain weird stupidity, as well as a dash of romance, a giant bunny, robots, transforming watches, some help from LASA, double crossing, a coup, and some cheerfully over-the-top violence.

It all really made me want the manga that inspired Shinesman to be translated.  I love a manga that has fun with itself/ doesn't take itself too seriously and still manages to tell a satisfying, sometimes touching, story in a short period of time.  Hooray for Heroes!

What short series do you recommend that gets the job done well?

Figure 17: one of my favorite obscure anime

I adore Figure 17.


It's quiet, unusual, beautiful, harsh, touching and simply a solid, well-executed piece of entertainment.  It's a coming-of-age, show with an unusual structure (each episode is about 45 minutes) that allows for more dramatic development of the characters and the setting (gorgeously rendered rural Hokkaido in every season).

Here's a review I liked.

Oddly enough, this time through, Figure 17 put me in mind of Noein, which is kind of a mirror image where the action was more frequent, the science harder, and the characters less-well developed because of the larger main cast and the regular shorter episode story structure.  I adored Noein, too.


Another review I liked mentioned the show's "gentle charm."  The reviewer says, "This is a sweet, gentle show in many aspects, but at no point does it ever become sickly or sugary, and for walking this line the writers have my respect."  I agree.  Emotions and actions were firmly grounded in reality, specifically in realistically flawed, changeable characters who learn and grow and take steps backward along the way.


Your mileage may vary, especially if you're feeling cynical or have incorrect expectations, and several reviewers mentioned that marathoning the show might now be the best idea since the series may grow ponderous under its own weight, but an episode or two a week might be perfect for a couple of months.

Be sure to check out the copious extras, including the fun one with "The Alfee" lead singer and the making-of features that talk about the unique structure and the care that went into all aspects of the story.  It's all very thoughtfully put together.  This show is also one of the very few PG-rated anime out there, but it never, ever feels dumbed-down because it realistically deals with a lot of issues kids probably will face in their lives and most adults already have (except for the whole alien thing, most likely).

As an adult, you may need tissues.  Just saying.

Have you seen it?  Do you love it?  Why or why not?

Hayate no Gotoku (heheh, it's a pun)

I get a huge kick out of Hayate the Combat Butler.  Apparently a bigger kick than most, but I'm having such a good time, I don't care.  This show is having just as much, if not more, than I am, so we're a good match.

If you don't know, Hayate is the heartwarming story of a poor boy with loser parents who leave the country to flee their debts and, as a parting gift, sell their hard-working and responsible son's organs to the yakuza.  At his wit's end, Hayate considers kidnapping a young heiress he finds wandering around, but then he ends up saving her and getting hit by a car, and because she kind of misunderstood his kidnapping attempt as a confession of love and has a little crush on him, she hires him to be her butler and pays off his debt.

There are so many allusions to anime, manga, and video games that I really can't begin to describe them all.  Suffice it to say that there is an Evangelion reference so hilarious that I probably would have bought the first boxed set just so I could own that one episode.  Also, the opening episode's encounter with Santa is pretty much worth the price of admission.

I will admit that I really, really wanted some ADVid notes a la Excel Saga for this show because I know that I'm barely catching half of the references, and I know I'm missing almost all of the puns. I sort of wish it had a dub, so I could listen to it again while doing other stuff around the house, but I don't think I'd wish that ridiculously fast dialogue and all those jokes on any voice actors.  Plus, no one could do those intros better than Norio Wakamoto.

And it's still funny, possibly because it's moving so fast.  Manic is probably a good descriptor of the pacing most of the time.

Something about it all reminds me of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (The Power of Negative Thinking). (I mean, more than just the fact that the guy who created Hayate used to be an assistant to the guy who created Zetsubou-sensei, a fact which Zetsubou's cranky creator frequently makes pointed grumbled references to.)  They share a similar zany, moving-too-fast, incredibly wrong and funny, self-aware comic sensibility.  Or something.  You should see/read them both.  They are probably unrivaled in madcap (self)mockery.

I've seen mixed reviews for Hayate (mostly for the anime), and I'm curious about why people's mileage varies so much.  A lot of people dislike the value (no dub but the price per episode is too high).  I wonder if for others it's about expectations?  Difficulty keeping up?  Something else?  Do you have an opinion either way?

Jihai

Hooray for CMX!  I love that they're still bringing over great eclectic stuff.  I also like that some bookstores still stock at least the first couple of volumes, so I can see if I'll like the series.  One series I like that just finished up (with volume 3) is Jihai. 

I'm not entirely sure what audience it was aimed at, but I think most people who like sociologically-based sci-fi or alternate world fantasy would probably be part of the target audience.  The plot kind of made me think it was aimed more at boys, but the execution and artwork made me think maybe it was aimed at girls.   I liked it a lot, regardless.

Also, I am a big dork because I didn't realize that this is a later work by the same author who wrote another promising CMX-released sci-fi series I liked but haven't finished called The Flat Earth/Exchange, which I mentioned in another blog post about memory and artificial intelligence.

Volume 3 was a hard read because I wasn't sure how things were going to end.  The main character is an artificial human whose programmed lifespan is running out, and that was hard and sad to read about because by then I was quite invested in all of the characters.  I felt like I couldn't respect the story if it had a strained and artificial happy ending because a lot of hard choices and intrigue were happening in volume 1 and volume 2, and I didn't want to be disappointed by a weak cop-out.  No worries.  No spoilers.  It ended quite satisfactorily, especially for a three volume series. :)

Keep 'em coming, CMX!

Rumbling Hearts (or, the consequences of finally being honest with yourself and others)

Takayuki is an insensitive clod.   NOTE TO TAKAYUKI: Dude, what she wants is for you to say you love her (because you mean it).   Also, you're right: this is all your fault.   First time in anime history that the milksop hero actually realizes this in a realistic manner and sort of tries to do something about it.   Way to go.

Akane is a brat who doesn't know what's going on, but it's not all her fault because nobody told her what was going on.

The world would be a better place less full of needless drama if these people would just talk to each other and explain what's going on.   Sheesh.

I also wish they would have eased up on the cheesy music.   It would have been more drama than melodrama that way.

Did I mention I really like this show?  Bust out the tissue boxes and angst!   You were right all those years ago, JB.   :)

Have you seen this show?  Any thoughts?  Any comments on how intervention could have prevented a bunch of the problems the characters caused each other?

Rurouni Kenshin: aging as well as its protagonist

There's nothing like Rurouni Kenshin playing in the background to keep you company as you write a long letter to your new boss to try to save your job.




Reasons why RuroKen Season 1 rocks:

• + The dub: Yeah, it rocks pretty hard.  It's not perfect, but who is?  It's more than adequate.  Standouts include Kenshin and Kaoru.  The voices usually annoy you when they're supposed to and are at least decent other times.  The crazy baddies sound creepy or overblown as needed.  There are very few "janitor" moments and only a few voices that irk me (sorry, Yahiko, but you drive me crazy in both languages, but I think you're supposed to).
  
• + The setting: I think the reason this series ages so well is because its Meiji Era, straight-historical setting is supposed to look old-fashioned.  If you like history, the period details kind of suck you in.  Things look dated because they are dated.  So Cowboy Bebop had better animation?  Doesn't matter; the fights are still cool.  I would like to believe that even young fans raised on computer animation can appreciate the energy of the action scenes.
• + The balance (humor/violence): Wacky and dramatic moments war with each other.  Kenshin is the best example (it is his show, after all).  He goes from casual and jokey to admonishing and humble to seriously ticked off pretty fluidly.  Any show that can slip in genuinely cute romantic moments and ridiculously serious and epic one-on-one fights is going to keep my interest.
• + The characters: The characters have decent dramatic range, and while they do settle into types, we do get to know them decently, and the dilemmas they face give them a lot of opportunities for camaraderie and jocular humor as well as dead seriousness and passion.  There's room for drama and melodrama, and there's good distinction drawn between them.
• + The subtitle: "Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story" caught my attention right away back then (on the manga) and still intrigues me now.  Since I studied Romanticism in college, I can still remember my first fascination with the merger between the dying Western Romanticism aesthetic and the recently forced open Japan during the beginning of the Meiji Era.  I like the parallels and contradictions and the clever way the creators swirl the two together and give an interesting picture of what it may have been like to live in that time and place.

Yep, I am a big nerd, and I love it!


Rewatched anything recently that you were surprised to find yourself still liking?

Economics for Otaku

I read a great quote from Jason Thompson in this article. 

"The easy availability of scanlations (online bootleg translations of manga) makes it even easier for hardcore fans to self-marginalize by removing any economic weight from their opinions."

Yep, especially in this economy, the fan dollar is the way to vote.  Cast your votes wisely!

Crows Zero - pretty boys who can beat the snot out of each other?

Otaku USA did a review of Crows Zero, a movie based on a comic written by the same gentleman who created Worst, a series I got a huge kick out of when DMP released the first three volumes.  I'm glad I checked the movie out because it was pretty great and seemed quite faithful to the original's tone, content, and world view.

Less far-out there than the live action comedy Cromartie High (the only other manga to movie adaptation I've seen), Crows Zero was still funny but contained the violence Cromartie only hinted at.  The sub-plot with the aging, loser yakuza flunky was particularly well-done.  The team-building bits were often amusing, as well. 

All the hints at backstory made me wish this manga were translated, and the special features only made me more interested.  Ah, well, such is life.  Maybe I'll go read my three volumes of Worst again while my capsule toy of Hana watches benevolently.


Can you recommend any fun manga-to-movie adaptations?

Pandora Hearts brings the darkness

I'd never heard of Pandora Hearts, but Yen Press was sure excited about this license, and I've been digging it in Yen+.  It starts out interestingly dark and only gets darker from there. 

However, I was a bit hesitant.  I've been burned so many time by series that start out well and then crash and burn by tapering off, often because they're by new authors.  In a spirit of magnanimity, I picked up an earlier one-shot title by this author.  This was actually another strike against the author because I don't like most one volume series.  It's hard to establish characters, create a world, and follow a whole story arc to a satisfying conclusion in one book.

Crimson Spell wasn't earth-shattering, but it was intriguing.  After reading it, I find myself looking forward to a nice, well-crafted, earned unhappy ending to Pandora Hearts, one that will honor its great set-up, world-building, and tragic characters.  That probably sounds a bit morbid, but I've also been burned by works that start out with tragedy and style and darkness and end in whimpery, simpery happy-endings, maybe because the creators can't keep up the darkness realistically.

It's not that I like doom and gloom and sadness, per se.  I just like consistency.  I will suspend my disbelief way further than most people, but if you jar me out of your world of your own volition, sometimes, I get annoyed.  I feel disappointed because the expectations you've built up go unfulfilled.

So, anyway, here's hoping Pandora Hearts stays exquisitely tragic right until the bitterly sweet end.  :)


Any darker anime/manga you liked that didn't fizzle at the end?  Any that drove you crazy by crashing and burning into sentimentality?

Where's my website? Princess Tutu edition

I love Princess Tutu.  What's not to love?  Killer classical score, engaging plot, intrigue, killer moves (also ballet, but fighting with ballet), heroes and villains, true love, unrequited love, lots more fighting, and ballet.

Anyway, the one thing that would make my Tutu experience perfect would be if somebody made a simple website that listed by episode, chronologically, all of the gorgeous music from the show with a little summary of which ballet/scene each piece came from and any trivia bits that show the cleverness of Tutu's creators in picking those pieces for each specific Tutu scene.  Princess Tutu for Armchair Fans or something.  If that fan were particularly dedicated/obsessive, they could recommend similar recordings to the ones used in the anime.

Anyone interested?  Or do you know if such a site exists?

Hunger, exercise, manga (Yakitate!! Japan)

Competitive bread-making.  I love every ridiculous minute of it.

I read a couple of volumes of manga during my exercise time (stair machine and stationary bike make this possible), and I have discovered once again why reading Yakitate Japan is so dangerous: it makes you really hungry.  Volume 20 made me crave pork cutlet sandwiches so bad I almost fell off the stair machine.  Mmmm.

Check out page 84 of volume 19.  It strongly reminded me of another post I made about one of the odder things that happens in professional Japanese baseball games.  It's just so . . . appropriate that it's Kawachi.  Again, I nearly fell off the stair machine.

NOTE TO SELF: In future, only read Yakitate Japan on the bike.

Along with getting a culinary education, you can learn important facts like the following:

"You all know that pandas are actually carnivores . . . right?. . .  Moreover, pandas sometimes attack people--they have the second highest rate of zookeeper attacks (in first place is the elephant).

"My goodness, I can't understand why everyone loves such a vicious animal.  If people can love this thing, I'd rather they love me instead."

Yep, very educational.


What manga or anime have you found to be educational as well as entertaining?

Yokai Doctor - heartwarming if you give it enough time to justify the crass

I'm reading a good argument for my three volume manga rule (maybe I should call it the three strikes rule), where I try to give a new series at least three volumes to win me over before I write it off.  Volume 3 of Yokai Doctor was pretty great. 

It's nice to see characters who seemed somewhat generic branch out a bit, and I like the depth each volume brings as it throws in new curve balls about the main character's past.  Who knew that what seemed like crass boob jokes could suddenly become somewhat warm-fuzzy inducing?  Certainly not me.

The point of view character even had a couple of moments that startled me, although she is still something of a stock character.  What the series needs to really make me a fan is to make her into a "real" person.  I'm definitely reading the next volume, though.  Thanks again, Del Rey, for picking up something unexpected and enjoyable.


Are there any series you like that require at least three volumes to hook the reader that you wish more people would read?

Gakuen Alice (Kodocha, Part II?)

If Nanoha A's is made out of pure, earnest, sincerity, then Gakuen Alice is made out of pure, earnest, sincere goofiness (and a dash of darkness).  This supernatural school comedy takes place at the Alice Academy where kids with special abilities are gathered.  Sometimes, this show's energy and sheer randomness makes me think it's channeling Kodocha.  (Sob.  Kodocha season II, I'm still waiting for you.  Weep.  I'll wait forever . . .  But until then, have some Gakuen Alice!)

Mikan, our heroine, doesn't know anything about this special ability school stuff.  She just knows that her aloof best friend Hotaru suddenly left without warning and then sent her only one postcard from her new school.  Being the headstrong, thoughtless, dedicated twit that she is, Mikan takes off to give Hotaru a piece of her mind, and finds out that only people with special abilities (Alices) are allowed on campus.

Luckily, it turns out Mikan has one.  She just has to figure out what it is.  And then figure out how to fit in with all the weirdos.  And make friends.  And get back at that terrible boy who calls her names based on the kind of panties she was wearing when they first met.  Chaos ensues.

I like this one because there's the goofy, and then there's the dark, and they intertwine the whole time. 

• There's a trouble-making, broody,  bratty boy who picks on Mikan, but his perpetual bad mood and penchant for driving people away might be because the school is making him use his particularly dangerous Alice to do their dirty work. 
• Yay!  Mikan has an Alice, so she can stay with her best friend Hotaru!  Oh, and she's also trapped in the school since it's a little like a roach motel for Alices. 
• It may be much safer to stay at the Academy (Alices are worth a premium on the human trafficking market), but Alices and their families are given no real choice in the matter of where to attend school once they find out they're Alice-users. 
• Some Alices are very powerful, but the users die young.
  
• One teacher is on Mikan's side, and another one gives her the lowest rank possible and won't let all the letters she faithfully writes to her grandfather go through the mail. 
• Fun and school hijinks abound, but there's this little plot to destroy the school organized by disgruntled former students and kidnapping and some scenes that would highly offend PETA. 

Then there's the axe-wielding stuffed teddy bear and the giant chick.  Did I mention Ruka's rabbit?  (Ruka has an Alice that lets him befriend all animals.)  Cute and creepy are holding hands a lot in this show.

The Alices are often hilarious and impractical.  Some kids have normal ones like teleportation and telepathy.  Others can make it rain in a small area or create a cloud of gold sparkles or make people laugh at their awful puns.  Some can transfer pain or control fire or invent ridiculous, amazing robots.

I got a huge kick out of this show's hyper humor, and I got sucked in to the touching bits.  In the end, I was slightly disappointed by the anime because a lot of the darkness was just waved away in a manner that seemed inconsistent with the whole show.  That may have been because they had to end it with one season, and it's not like there weren't really affecting moments in the final conflict, so I'm still pleased with the show as a whole.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading the manga to see where things diverge and what happens next.  Please, keep publishing this one, Tokyopop!  It's crazy fun!  And a big thanks to Right Stuf/Nozomi for bringing it over here.  It's a hoot.  :)


Have you seen Gakuen Alice?  Or Kodocha?  Any thoughts?  Can you recommend any other crazy comedies for younger audiences?

Baby & Me (how much cute can you take)

In honor of my adorable nephew (and his parents) visiting me just before my birthday, I thought I'd talk about a series with an adorable character.  Lots of adorable characters, actually, of many different ages. 

From reviews I've read of the series, Baby & Me seems to be a love it or hate it title.  I love it.  I find it refreshing and fun and sad and funny and incredibly cute (and sometimes surprisingly dark and tender). 

It's the story of a boy named Takuya who has to take a lot of responsibility for his much younger brother Minoru after their mother dies.  Tales spin off from their family to their friends, random people they encounter, neighbors, co-workers, and anyone else they come across.  Slice-of-life mixes with family drama and office/school comedy.

Even when it's making me cry, it just feels sort of pure and almost healing.  When I am having a bad week, it's usually Baby & Me (or Honey & Clover) that I really yearn to read.  Maybe I just like Ampersands.


Do you have any "comfort food" manga or anime suggestions?

Nanoha A's: the perfect antidote for Black Lagoon?

So what do you watch with Black Lagoon?  Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's!  I love alternating shows that make my brain hurt.  (That grinding sound and slight smell of burning is the gears in my head changing.)

Nanoha is one of the most earnest and sincere anime out there.  It is made of cute and trying hard.  There's a good bit of darkness here, but it can't overwhelm the sense of earnestness.  It drives all the curse words and ultra-violence of Black Lagoon away with the power of its purity, but I still find myself humming the Black Lagoon opening theme song (one of the best examples of Engrish available in the Western world, in my opinion).

Nanoha's back, and so are a lot of familiar faces.  If possible, this season's villains are even more pitiable than the last.  They are so not-evil that you just get all torn up inside.  I have one disc to go, and I'm going to be sure to have my tissues handy for the last one. 

I was actually surpised at the ground Nanoha A's covered in the second to the last disc.  It ended with the showdown and revelations I expected for the season finale, so now I've no idea what's in store in the last disc, but I'm wishing for some good, pure, unadulterated redemption!  Bring it.

Black Lagoon's Dutch

There was a bit of controversy when Black Lagoon kind of swept the "Dubbies" this year.  I had only seen the series in Japanese, but I decided to give it a try in English, and I have to say that I have rarely encountered such a perfect performance as the one Dean Redman turns in as Dutch.  It's impossibly good.  No matter how incredibly lame or melodramatic or ridiculous the line is, he OWNS it.  It's really astonishing.  Has he really not done any voiceover work before?  Just wow.


Have you heard it?  Any thoughts?

Five reasons I like Hunter x Hunter as an author

If you kind of like HxH but you hate the way anime always drags stuff out (30 episodes = about 38 chapters+ some original material), and you love to read, I'd recommend that you give the manga a chance.  Here are five reasons why I like it.

Short-term plotting (grabbing my interest)

From the beginning, we have a main character who has a short-term goal: be allowed to take the Hunter exam, pass the Hunter exam, and get a Hunter license.  He meets other people with the same short-term goal.  Action, mayhem, and brutality ensue.  I am invested in this short-term goal and am willing to stick with the manga long enough to see it through.

Long-term plotting (character development in trickles, getting me more invested in what might happen after the short-term goal is accomplished)

We meet each character and slowly get to know more about what makes them tick (in Hisoka's case, I'm guessing blood made of evil).  Our first impressions are changed as we spend time with people under pressure, and the relationships get a little deeper as people get more invested in each other's success.  So Leorio likes money and wants to be a doctor; why?  Kurapika wants impossible revenge.  How?  Killua was raised by assassins, but he kind of wants to try hanging out like a normal kid and having fun and making a friend and stuff and maybe kind of redeeming his soul even if he doesn't think about it like that because he's twelve.  Gon's dad?  Keep reading.  Killua's family?  Yeah, keep going.  Finding out what it means to really be a Hunter?  Yep, the exam isn't over yet.

Close adherence to source material

Countless times, there is a great manga, and then they make it into an anime, and you watch it and don't like it because things you liked from the manga seem to be missing for no discernable reason, replaced by repetitive romantic comedy or pointless quests or five minute fights that last five hours.  Not so in HxH.  It's actually kind of scary how closely they adhere to the source material.  I don't understand why people don't do it more often.  I mean, the dialogue is already written, the fight is already choreographed.  People liked it a lot.  Use the stuff!  What a great way to cut corners without ticking off viewers or the creator.

Decent original material

Wow.  It was a shocker to me, but, in the second collection Viz put out, there was another round added to the Hunter exam, and it was pretty good.  Not only were several characters given a bit more time to develop, but the group dynamic really grew (which made the part where they resumed the original story line and killed off a bunch of the people even more harsh).  And two very unexpected people saved the day in a really natural way.  If I hadn't known it was an anime-original arc, I wouldn't have known; it was that organic.  See, it can happen.

No crappy moral of the story inserted for the edification of younger viewers

We do learn about how friendship can be a good thing, but it's in the context of a lot of fighting to the death.  Yep, brutality, sometimes ambiguous motives and morals, murder, violence, more violence, and some stuff about friendship and trust and self-discovery and stuff.  I mean, even if your friend up and kills someone for no really good reason, that doesn't mean you should give up on the poor, little sociopath.  He really was manipulated/provoked, and you shouldn't hold it against him.  That's kind of the moral of the story where it left off with collection II.  There's so much violence, but what upsets Gon the most is that the sociopath in question's brother took him apart psychologically and reduced him to the killer he was trying so hard not to be and then didn't even feel bad about it.  Definitely not After-School Special territory.

Of course, I'm invested in this show from my manga reading, and I really hope it sells well enough that we at least get to see through the Auction and Greed Island (and maybe even, you know, until Gon and his dad meet up), so I may not be completely objective (hahaha), but I really get a kick out of this creation in both forms and hope that more people check it out and enjoy it like I do.

Don't fear the old school; love the old school.  Some day, the stuff you love will also seem horribly outdated and aesthetically awful and will need love, too.  Appreciating older stuff now is kind of like paying the love forward.  Or something.



Is there an older anime/manga you really wish people appreciated as much as you do?  Give it a little hug by sharing it with us, please.

DNA Angel (and Black Cat)

I'm watching DNAngel at the moment, and it's reminding me of Black Cat.  Not because they're that much alike, but because the anime are alike in their vague relationship to the manga source material.  Occasionally, things will happen, and I'll think, "Oh, I remember that!  It actually happened in the manga!"   This happens very, very rarely.

DNAngel is not irritating me nearly as much as Black Cat did probably because it's been a longer time since I read DNAngel, which has had a spotty and stretched out release schedule.  (It's related to how I refuse to read a book any time near when the movie is going to come out.  I don't want to know all the great stuff they're leaving out.  I just remember the source material in a hazy way, so I can enjoy the pared-down movie.)

Another reason it may not be bothering me as much is because it didn't mess with the established chronology as severely.  DNAngel kind of made its own way, not adhering too much to what actually happened because they knew from the beginning that they needed to craft a show that had an ending at episode 26.  As a result, DNAngel was more of a school comedy/romance than anything resembling the manga.

Black Cat took the same characters and a few similar plot lines and did its own thing, removing a lot of the things that made the manga work for me (such as the long time it took Train to adjust to his new life, develop his new philosophy, and become Sven's partner).  I think I was so irritated from the start that I just didn't watch it as its own show.  Or maybe I was just so disappointed that so much of my favorite stuff (like 80% of it) didn't make it into the anime because of the changes that I didn't give it a chance on its own.

Anyway, if I think of the DNAngel anime as a separate entity from the manga, it was pretty fun.  It was a tad repetitive, and I gained some authorial insight into why episodic material doesn't work in novels (we don't need the same scene repeated ad nauseum to reveal the same character trait). 

By the end, Kevin Corn's freak-out noise was starting to sound much more natural.  Also, Vic 's performance as Dark was way more enjoyable for me than the Japanese voice actor's.  (Then again, I tend to say that about whatever language I watch it in first.) 

Overall, I think I prefer Hunter X Hunter.  :)


Your thoughts on DNAngel, Black Cat, anime adaptations of manga that didn't/don't work?

Eat-Man: Eating Bizarre for Breakfast since (before) '98

Okay, Eat Man has one of the most ridiculous premises I've come across in manga/anime:  Man travels the world helping people, often by eating weapons piece by piece and producing them from his hand at just the right time to do damage.  I am not making this up.  So how come this show is so entertaining? 

It's certainly not the music, though there is something charming about the ending theme.  The animation quality varies.  I like most of the voice acting.  The plots are somewhat episodic and the characters not usually well-developed. Bolt Crank will really never be more than the strong, silent type. 

(Does anyone know if this was a shonen series?  It's different from the similar Immortal Rain, which has more of a shojo or modern cross-over shonen appeal . . .  But it also has the sort of character/world designs one tended to come across in titles for more mature audiences.)

I think what makes me watch is simple: there often comes a moment when someone is brandishing a deadly weapon in a menacing way, and Bolt just walks up and eats it.  You never know for sure when this is going to happen, but you want it to every time someone waves a gun or a knife at him.  I mean, the last thing a bully expects when he threatens someone with a weapon is for the guy to show absolutely no fear and instead to eat your weapon.  I mean, come ON.  It's so lame and hilarious that, when paired with the semi-serious sci-fi/fantasy drama world, I just can't help but like it.  And there's also a sort of fun tension that builds through the episode as he eats various nuts, bolts, bullets, etc.  Will he finish in time?   What will he produce this time?

And even though I know I'll never learn Bolt's backstory (even if I do learn Japanese), he's still a figure that makes me curious.  Ah, well.  Such is life.


Have you seen Eat-Man '98 or read the two or so volumes of the manga that came out years ago?  What are your thoughts?

Hunter X Hunter

"I tried to watch [HunterXHunter] once," a friend said.  She then made a face that is difficult to describe, but I translated it as, "That was way too old school animation for me."

How sweet it is, this old school animation. 

I don't really hold this comment against her because I know that she's an artist herself, into yaoi and pretty boys and the more recent aesthetics.  I'm not sure why I even thought she might have been into such an old shonen jewel like HxH. I'm the omnivore who loves shojo and shonen, old and new, equally, the one who rarely notices art and lives mostly for the story (and characters). 

I think I just wanted someone to confirm for me that Hisoka is possibly the creepiest shonen antagonist in the history of the world. 

I've been reading the HxH manga since Viz started releasing it all those years ago (and before that, Yu Yu Hakusho, also by Yoshihiro Togashi and also an excellent shonen title in both manga and anime form), and Hisoka creeped me out to an extreme degree from day one.  He's a total sociopath.

It's not like that character type is unfamiliar.  There are a lot of sociopaths in manga and anime; they make great antagonists and villains.  So I'm not sure exactly why Hisoka makes me so . . .  unsettled, I guess. 

I think it's not the uniqueness of the character type so much as the world and characters who surround him that makes him so effectively unsettling.  I liked HXH's world from the start because it's so unsentimental.  Sure, the main protagonist is kind of a cute-looking kid, but he's tough as nails, stubborn, unreasonable, and committed to his own code of ethics, and there's really nothing traditionally cute about him.  The cutest character is almost a soulless killer, for Pete's sake.

The world of HXH is violent and hard, sometimes almost unspeakably brutal (man, that fight with Hanzo was tough to watch).  The main characters are really aware of this, aware that sometimes there are no easy answers and sometimes no right answers at all.  They're all driven.  The pace can be unrelenting; the situations appalling. 

Gon's father left him to be raised by his aunt; Gon left her behind to go find his father.  Leorio lost a friend because they couldn't afford medical help.  Kurapika's whole clan was slaughtered for money.  Killua is an assassin-from-birth who's trying to get a conscience.  It's way more complicated and awful than that, but you have to read it or watch it to see the depth and scope of the whole thing. 

I might recommend starting with Viz's second box set where things get really out of control.  There's an original arc that's actually good, and there are some fights that are amazing and sometimes hard to watch, though they did take the manga's violence down a notch.  I think I'm glad because I remember that fight with Hanzo being even worse in the manga . . .

The thing that keeps me reading is that Gon is not a simple person; lots of people in the story make the mistake of thinking he is, and I bet many readers who didn't stick with the series thought so, too.  I stay with it because at least once a volume, Gon reacts in a way that I just don't expect.  Most of his interactions with Hisoka fall under this category.

I guess I must be expecting the cutesy good boy shonen response.  For some reason.  Still.  Sometimes I think I have Gon figured out, but then he throws me with a reaction I couldn't have predicted that is nonetheless completely consistent with his character.  A lot of Togashi's characters in this series are like that.  It's kind of realistic in a way. 

Since you don't know everything about a person (you learn more as you know them longer), you can't predict what they'll do or how they'll react.  You don't know a lot of the whys for their behavior, so they surprise you more at first the more you get to know them.  The extreme situations the HXH characters are in make it seem a bit exaggerated, but not completely unrealistic.

It's that juxtaposition of cute, young-but-not-naive-or-as-innocent-as-you-think-he-should-be main character and brutal world that makes this a Shonen Jump Advanced title (OT/16+), and it's the interaction of all the characters in this world with Gon that makes me keep coming back. 

Or maybe I just want to know what Hisoka's up to next.  Shiver.


Have you seen the manga or the anime?  Any thoughts?

The perils of Halloween cosplay

What we have learned :  When you dress up as Emma but don't quite have your costume together and don't want to wear the wussy, lacy apron you managed to find for $.50 and are also not wearing the sachet you found for $.25 that, when flipped upside down, kind of looks like a sad shadow of a hair cap and are thus wearing a plain, black, extremely simple Victorian dress, people will think you are dressed as a witch even though you are so, so not.

A couple of my co-workers thought I was Jane Eyre because my hair was shellacked to keep its normal flyawayness in check, and I was okay with that since we had to dress up as a character from a book, but I put my formally-booted foot down after a scruffy man and his scruffy teenage son leered at me, snickered, and called me a witch. After I saw them leave, on went the lace apron and the cap that didn't quite match. And no one could think naughty maid thoughts because I was literally covered from neck to wrists to floor.

Halloween cosplay

At work, we're having a Halloween party for area kids, and we were asked to dress up as a character from a book.  Being the huge, poor nerd that I am, I--with the help of a local university's theater department--am almost dressing up as Emma.   (see Emma: Volume 1) 

I guess if I ever really do properly cosplay her, I'll need to find someone to make a nice, sturdy apron, a collar, cuffs, and a cap.  And I'll need to find some glasses.  And a hair-stylist.  Other than that . . .  I'm going to say I'm Emma on her day off.


Have you ever cosplayed for Halloween?  What reactions did you get?

Tokyo Vice

And now for something completely different! Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

If you're interested in Japan in general, you might want to check out Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein.  He's an American journalist who spent years in Japan on the crime beat.  Needless to say, this is kind of rare. 

Any nonfiction book that starts out with the yakuza threatening the author's life is bound to be dark and probably compelling.  Knowing that the author survives gives the book its own kind of tension.  Does he pursue the story?  How does he not get killed?  What led him there?  What led him to later combat human trafficking? 

I've been interested in the topic of the justice system and the Japanese underworld pretty much since I read my first manga touching on it maybe six years ago.  I must say that I am intrigued by the lens Adelstein provides the opportunity to look through in this case, and I'm looking forward to seeing what insights I gain through the course of the book.  I may check back in after I've read it.


Do you know of any good nonfiction books about aspects of Japanese culture?  Do recommend.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: here comes the cute

If you like a good magical girl show, you might want to try Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.  (You should hurry before it falls off the face of the earth like other Geneon titles!)

IMPRESSIONS

Nanoha is a third grader.  There's a ridiculously long transformation scene with the longest amount of transformation nudity I have ever seen (you should probably not watch this with your non-anime-fan grandma or your kids).  The ferret bit is hilarious, especially when Nanoha realizes that not only was the talking ferret a boy but, you know, a boy about her age who's just borrowing the ferret's form, and now his discomfort with the hot springs incident makes more sense . . .  The English dub is . . . um, watch the Japanese with English subtitles if you can.  I suspect that there's more to Nanoha's family than it seems, but I may be getting a bit wild with my speculations.  There's magic and science and a somewhat sympathetic antagonist, and it's just pretty darn cute (except when the antagonist's mother is abusing her).

Did you like Cardcaptor Sakura?  Or Magical Do-Re-Mi?  Give this one a try!  Even if you hate it, it's only three discs long!  I think.  (I just finished disc 2.)


Have you seen this show or any of its sequels?  What did you think of it?  Any of the other magical girl titles?  Do you have others to suggest?

Music, anime, and you

Have you ever gotten into a musician because of an anime?  Maybe it was a theme song or an entire soundtrack, but because you heard it in an anime, you actually went out and tracked this person's music down. 

I almost did that with "Paranoid Android" after hearing it in Ergo Proxy, but that was mostly because I really wanted to find out what the lyrics were since I was pretty sure "unborn chicken voices" were not among them, but I decided to let it remain a mystery.

A lot of us have been introduced to people like Kenji Kawai, Yuki Kajiura, Yoko Kanno, and Ko Otani through anime, but some of us have also stumbled on other, more obscure treasures.

I am about to say something akin to heresy.  I got into Bowling for Soup after hearing their theme song on the TV version of a certain anime.  If you know which one I'm talking about, you are amazing and should admit it, so that I may admire you.  Anyway, there was so ridiculously much energy in that song that I had to find it, and I loved the CD it was on. 

In case you're wondering where this is coming from, I'm cleaning my apartment and listening to music, and one of their songs came up, prompting me to listen to the whole album again.  If you're not familiar with them, Bowling for Soup is a gleefully offensive and sophomoric punk-y band.  I find it easiest to describe them as a cruder, more vulgar Relient K.  They make me laugh with well-timed inappropriate comments, and there's something great about certain immature lyrics in four part, layered harmony . . .

So, what composers, groups, or singers have you found through anime?

The value of a good opening theme song

Have you ever seen an anime where the intro song is so perfect that it captures the tone and content of the anime itself and is enjoyable no matter how many times you hear it?  Which ones stick with you even now?

The sweetness of Strawberry Marshmallow

Strawberry Marshmallow is just too darn cute.  It is also one of the few manga that references non-Euclidean geometry.  I wonder if their example is meant to really be a mathematically accurate example.  (I doubt it, but I don't care.)

Nobue, the 16-year-old older sister has that Calvin's-dad-in-Calvin&Hobbes' desire to mess with easy targets, which her younger sister Chika and Chika's friends frequently provide.  Her relationship with the next door neighbor is brutal and funny. 

We've probably all encountered someone like Miu: she's that person who acts on her impulses and just does random, weird, sometimes terrible things for the heck of it, and you almost always find yourself wondering what is going on in her head.

Having finally read all of the manga, I think I shall say that I probably like the anime a little better because it was able to summarize and show more succinctly how the girls interact.  It was created after the creator had done all his trial and error, so it could use the best material to the best effect.  Or maybe I just love the scenes of Miu biting the dust in one way or another after doing something stupid (they're more concentrated in the anime, I think).  Either way, goofy and random cute fun had by all.


Have you seen and read Strawberry Marshmallow?  Do you have a preference?  What do you like about it?

Waiting for Tokyopop

Why do I do this to myself? 

I finally read the first volume of the light novel series The Good Witch of the West.  It was good, which is why I'm once again annoyed at Tokyopop (the English language publisher, in theory) for just leaving everybody hanging.  Are they scrapping it (like the excellent Kino's Journey and the interesting Scrapped Princess)?  Is it just on hold until the economy gets less shaky?  Does anyone even know at Tokyopop since they aren't even responding on their own forum or informing their marketing people/sales reps?

I should know better than to start a Tokyopop series since the ones they do finish publishing are often so-so, and the great ones just disappear.  Like many other manga readers who have been with Tokyopop since before they started the 100% authentic manga revolution, I'm trying not to lose all faith in them, but they are making it increasingly hard for fans to care about them because they don't appear to care about their readers, (you know, the ones paying their salaries and stuff).

Thank you for your continued release of 12 Kingdoms, but there's so much more you could be doing.  Be great again, Tokyopop!  Please!

Where's My Manga? Mattress Edition

There are shonen manga about playing board games, baking bread, playing soccer, and even joining boy bands.  What more could there be to write about?  Here's one idea . . .

When Brad was a young boy, his father, a celebrated mattress maker, was killed right before his eyes in a sudden, tragic, mattress-related accident.  Life was hard after that, but Brad always knew he wanted to make his father proud by being the best mattress-maker the world had ever known.  He studied physics and engineering, raided the local dump for study materials and mattresses, and also worked part time jobs to help pay his family's bills.  Join Brad in his quest to make the Divine Mattress and honor his father's memory while carrying on his legacy.


Any suggestions for a title?  Any plot or character suggestions?

Dazzle - What is it about this manga that I like?

I am trying to figure out once again what I find so compelling about Dazzle.  Seriously.  It definitely strained the limits of my 3 volume test, but even though I wasn't crazy about the first few volumes, I ended up hooked somehow. 

I mean, there's so much not to like.  The character designs are sometimes ugly and inconsistent, perspective and formal art stuff is often notably absent.  It feels like it's full of cliches and like I should hold that against it, but in the end, I think it just moves too fast for me to get a grasp on what I shouldn't like.

I mean, half the time, the plot and action going on don't make sense.  It can be senselessly violent.  The characters seem shallow but constructed to seem deeper, the sort of clunky contrivance that usually makes me grind my teeth. 

But they are deeper.  They have so many layers, onions weep, but the revelations are just sort of flung out there in the middle of the action or during the bipolar lows.  And then we don't have time to process because we're fighting again (verbal sparring or to-the-death combat). 

It's a huge mess, and every volume makes you change gears multiple times.  There's so many mysteries for the sake of being mysterious that I should hate it, but I don't.

Maybe I like that they're playing for keeps.  This is not a kiddie manga (or if it is, well, that's scary).  People die, sometimes pretty horribly, and they don't come back.  It may be a fantasy world, but dead is dead (increasingly important as the story goes on).

Now that I think about it, Dazzle sometimes reminds me a bit of Gundam Wing, especially the way they mix the action with the sci-fi with the random philosophizing about the nature of war, humanity, and other important things while people are being slaughtered and violence is being extremely present.

I love the banter.  A good crabby exchange of dialogue can cover a multitude of sins.  It's got that snarky, cranky vibe Saiyuki managed to capture, where the road trippers love irritating each other sometimes even more than fighting.

Dazzle may be filled with absurdities, but if you sit back and enjoy the ride and don't think about how impossible it all is, you may just find yourself getting some hard thinking done when all you thought you were doing was watching the show.  Keep those tissues handy for later volumes; this is not a nice world to live in.

To top it all off, now that I'm really addicted, Tokyopop may not be publishing it anymore. 

Until I hear of its final fate, I will content myself by pointing out that it was getting all melodramatic when it stopped, and I will ignore the fact that I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT REALLY BAD!!!!!  I am an adult, and I am patient. 

Also, I'm easily distracted, so you don't have to worry about my blood pressure.

Hey, what's that over there?  It's shiny . . .


Are there any shows/series you like that sort of defy your own logic?  Stories that you should despise for bad execution or whatever, but you just can't look away?

Dragon Ball, public morality, and a graphic novel about Bertrand Russell

This article is just pretty darned funny. Read it out loud for increased humor value.  It also raises some serious issues about graphic novels, schools, the importance of informed librarians, parental involvement, censorship, and all sorts of other issues it's always important to discuss.

It's #1 of the Paperback Graphic Novels.  "LOGICOMIX - AN EPIC SEARCH FOR TRUTH, by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. (Bloomsbury USA, $22.95.) The life of the philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell, and his passion for mathematics, is recounted in this graphic novel."

Geneon suggestions

Drat! Geneon titles are falling off Netflix faster than I can watch them with my limited time and even more limited funding! Do you have any must-see suggestions from the Geneon catalog for me, so I can bump them up the queue? Do share!

The great fun of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Some characters are entertaining to watch, but they would drive you bonkers if you had to spend any time with them.  Haruhi Suzumiya is one of them.  I got a kick out of the anime, but I really enjoyed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (the original book).  It was a lot of fun, mostly because Kyon is an entertaining  narrator, and here he really gets center stage.  His irritation and general discombobulation as Haruhi jerks him (and everyone else) around is a hoot. 

"The uncontrollably sobbing girl, the unresponsive bookworm, and the bewildered, castrated bastard (me) spent the following period of time silently in the club room with a record-setting strained atmosphere. In the distance I could clearly hear the lousy horns of the brass band and indiscernible yelling of the baseball team."

He's self-aware enough to toss off these great mental one-liners, and he's frustrated and curious enough to let things happen.  All in all, he makes this book. There's just something glorious about the difference between what he thinks and observes and what he actually responds to and says about the Haruhi-induced madness going on around him.

"Don't call me pathetic.  I am just an ordinary male high school student."

Thank goodness that's not true.  (For a great longer review, be sure to check out Martin's.)  Kudos to Yen Press for bringing this over and translating it so well.


Have you seen and read Haruhi?  What are your thoughts?  Any characters you liked better in one medium than the other?

flare-up

I hope not to have to post this too much, but I've been having trouble with my tendonitis and an illness affecting my voice at the same time.  This renders me unable to type or write & dictate my posts.  That explains the absence of posts, I hope.  I'm working on it and hope to have more posts ready ahead of time for whenever it happens again.

Apologies.

Loving Skip Beat! and learning patience (eventually)

I admit it: I still love Skip Beat!  Volume 19 just came out.  I love the silly stuff, the scary stuff, and the earnest, dramatic stuff, too.  All the characters are so damaged to start out with, and their interactions are often so hilarious that I have to laugh out loud or talk back.  The art may be poor sometimes, but I don't care!  The story is fun and funny, and I want volume 20 now.  Sigh. 

If anything teaches me patience, it will be manga.


What long series is teaching you patience (or has taught you patience and rewarded you in the end)?

Gad Guard: For me, it's all about the music

In all the recent reviews I've read about Gad Guard's re-release, not one has even mentioned the thing I liked best about it.  This series made me want to listen to jazz music 24 hours a day.  It made me want to go to the library and check out every jazz CD they had.  I may not have paid much attention to the parts of the show that were repetetive and dragged on, but even if I was cleaning the bathroom or washing dishes while it played, I loved every minute of the music. 

If only the show had been as awesome as the soundtrack!  I did like the art design, too.  To be fair, I don't seem to think the show was quite as abysmal as other reviewers, but it's been a couple of years since I saw it, so nothing's fresh in my mind except that music.  Where's my John Coltrane CD?


What anime series can you recommend for one aspect of the production that grabbed you (whether music or backgrounds or animation or character design or whatever else) enough to make you not mind the parts that were sub-par?

More on Geass

I think one of the reasons Code Geass season one was so painful to watch had to do with writing/plotting.  So many times things would line up, and you would be able to see how things might possibly work out so that those concerned could go on with their lives and maybe not die or be totally miserable, and then every single time something unexpected would happen, and you'd have to watch your dreams of a happy ending get vaporized again.  And again.  And again.  It's brutal.  And kind of like real life sometimes (only about a million times more exaggerated).

Bring on season two.

Code Geass: Where everyone loses

One of the things I liked about Code Geass was how there wasn't really a hero.  (I know that's one of the things that turned a lot of people off it.)  I mean, the protagonist was definite anti-hero material, but the guy who looked likely to be the hero was, well, hardly spotless himself.  (I'm trying to avoid being a spoiler monkey here.) 

In fact, it's hard to really pick who's "right" in this situation because there's so darn much necessary evil being thrown around that you'd have to seriously redefine "right" to pick a winner.  You have two people who have the same goal, are going about it through different channels and are 100% committed to doing whatever it takes to reach that goal.  Needless to say, there's a lot of conflict in the show.  (And that's not even including the 60 gojillion other characters who have things at stake.)

Many people have mentioned how over-the-top and melodramatic this series is.  They mention the hilarity of some of the overblown dialogue. (I would probably argue that it's not unintentional, as many claim.)  They mention the swamp it makes of morality.  They also mention how a viewer can notice all these things and still be addicted to the show.  For all the near-camp content, it did win awards for a reason.  It's a glorious, flashy, attractive, sometimes even thought-provoking (if you can spare the time to think) mess.  Everyone loses, and I still watch it.


If you've seen Code Geass, do you dislike Lelouch and Suzaku equally, or do you harbor a soft spot for one of them?  Why?

Animal Academy and the value of American anime/manga review magazines

Or magazine, as the case may be.  Sometimes, for whatever reason, a manga will seem unappealing to me.  I will leave it to fall to the bottom of the list or just forget about it and read something else.  Sometimes, this will be a big mistake I will find out about later when I am reading a magazine.

Animal Academy was one such title.  I passed it over until I read a review in Otaku USA that made me think I'd like it, so I gave it a try, and I really enjoyed it.  It was cute but not saccharine and dodged many shojo manga tropes that make me crazy.

Basically, it's the story of a girl so dumb she only got into one high school she'd never really heard of out in the extreme boondocks.  As it turns out, it's a school where animals able to transform into humans go to learn how to be convincingly human.  She's the expert in that, which is a novelty to someone who's always been at the bottom of the academic stack, but she isn't supposed to tell anyone she's human. 

For some reason, it reminded me of a less-hyper version of Gakuen Alice.  It's genuinely adorable, and I'm looking forward to where it goes from here.


Have you ever read a review somewhere that made you give something you'd overlooked a try that lead to you finding a new favorite or just a good read?  Do share where you found the tip and maybe why it made you reevaluate if you remember.

Guru Guru Pon-chan: Creeptasticly Cute Fantasy Romantic Comedy

Wow, after a two year gap, I finished up the last of Guru Guru Pon-Chan, one of the earlier series Del Ray published. 

 
VAGUELY SPOILERIFIC

As a writer, I wanted not to forgive the story for the cheap ending.  I was actually crying there for a while during the last few chapters, sad at where things were going and wishing for the cheap ending, and when it came, I was irked.  Were my tears for nothing?!  How dare they jerk me around and then cop out?!  But it's Pon-chan, so I got over it.

END OF VAGUELY SPOILERIFIC

If you never ran across it, GGPC is a cute but slightly disturbing series about this baby labrador retriever who falls in love with the boy next door.  (The human boy next door.)  There is a mad scientist involved, so of course something is invented that will allow her to become human.  This is intially hilarious because she's a very young puppy, so her first transformation is into a baby with the mind of a puppy, so there are hilarious poop-related scenes and embarrassing first impressions.  Anyway, puppies grow up fast, and eventually she's a teenager like the boy she loves, and then it gets into definitely unique romantic comedy territory.

The main hurdle for me in GGPC is the slightly creeped-out feeling I get whenever I think of this manga as a true love story between a dog and a human.  (It's not bestiality-related; get your minds out of the gutter.)  There have been other manga with similar creep-out factors, like when people fall in love with children somehow in adult bodies or adults who revert back to childhood mentality.  Then again, there's a lot about Japanese relationships that can creep one out . . . 

I'm hardly a raging feminist, but something in me gets irked at the idea that certain traits openly identified as immature are considered beneficial for women to have in Japan.  Of course, no one should read a goofy manga like this like a social science textbook, but the connection is still clearly being assumed. 

Just think of how annoying it would be if a teen girl acted like a half-grown dog (short attention span, overly excitable, always hungry, happily naked, always getting into trouble and having to be rescued, socially crippled due to a lack of common human sense).  Such behavior in a sixteen-year-old human would not be endearing at all. 

But because she tries so hard, in the end, she wins the affection of everyone and the love of the hero because true love conquers all and stuff.  Including me because I sheepishly admit that I found the story cute and fun even with the creep factor present, and, as I already mentioned, I cried even after two years away from the series. 

Maybe that's why it won the Kodansha Award: it's so charming despite its flaws that you're willing to accept it all with a silly half-grin on your face.

Chibi Vampire gushes its last

I just finished the last volume of Chibi Vampire, one of the most openly tender romantic comedies I've read.  (Check out the cover for volume 12 in a store sometime.)  Sure, there were the usual annoying tropes, but sometimes I just had to look away because of the tenderness.  It's deeper than mere cuteness, far different from sympathy, not even vaguely erotic.  It's the sort of love that sacrifices for and thinks about the beloved. 

It's a special kind of sensitivity far from sentimentality and unexpected in a comedy where the main characters start their relationship because the girl has an epic defective-vampire nosebleed all over the boy.  I don't want to give you the wrong impression: most of the series is slapstick hi-jinks, traditional romantic fumblings, and sometimes copiously embarrassing amounts of blood.  Most tropes can be interesting if enough blood is involved, apparently.

But there's something genuinely endearing about these characters, in all their quirkiness.  Even Elda kind of has her moment there near the end.  And Ren, well, I'm glad our "sexy creature of the night" stayed Ren until the end.  He stole some of the best comic scenes in this volume.  I am still snorting about them . . .

I have mixed feelings about the bittersweet ending.  Part of me is angry, thinking that they should have given Karin the chance to choose for herself.  Part of me is proud of those who made the decision out of deep love for her.  The logical part of me was wondering exactly how things were changed so neatly, but Karin has always been a bit of an airhead, so I could see her really not questioning anything . . .  Yeah, I'm being vague so as not to be a spoiler monkey.

Anyway, I should probably see the anime even though I know it doesn't follow the same course.  If I'd made an anime after the manga run was over, I might have changed the ending, but I'm not sure.  Would everyone have been happier in the end if I did?  I don't really know.  I'm so glad I'm not in charge of the universe.

Your thoughts?  Have you read it all/seen it all?  How does one determine if there has been a happy ending to something?

On The Familiar of Zero

+

• a plot
• hints dropped early that came back around and tied things together in the end in a somewhat natural but still surprising way
• didn't resort to, "It's fantasy; we don't ever have to explain it in a way that makes sense!"
• male lead who isn't a total pushover (mostly because of his special ability), at least, not all the time
• different hair colors and eye colors had regional reasons; black hair, black eyes = significant/meaningful
• implied rather than showed some things related to the ending, so it wasn't as tedious as some shows can get (except for the underwear, mentioned below)
• the female lead's tsundere tendencies make logical, explainable sense and tie in to the whole plot (really)
  

-

• English dub not so great; might be better in Japanese because overacting for comic effect easier to take in a foreign language
  
• cheesecake, gratuitous fanservice
• underwear, related to above
• attempts at character development not always successful

I thought it was a fun, short series.  Also, every word in the title makes sense related to the show!  How often does that happen with anime?!


Have you seen it?  Any thoughts to add?  How was the Japanese dub?

NG Life Makes for Very Good Entertainment

Volumes read: NG Life 1 and 2
TMIA Rating: b

NG Life is the story of this high school kid who remembers his fabulous past life as a gladiator in Pompeii where he had a great friend and a lovely wife and was happy, dang it, until, you know, the whole volcano thing ruined that. 

In the present, he has a few . . . issues to deal with as the only person who remembers his past life.  First, his incredible best buddy, his closest friend in the whole world has been reincarnated as a girl.  They grew up together in this life, and she is really cute and used to his fussy quirkiness.  (She remembers nothing.) 

She pretty obviously has a crush on him, and this creeps him out something fierce, so he pretends not to notice.  When he looks at her, he doesn't see this cute girl he grew up with in this life.  Instead, he sees his rough-and-tumble, prank-playing best friend of yore.  This leads to hilarious and frequent meltdowns enojoyed by the girl and his classmates and parents. 

(His parents are the reincarnation of his younger sister and this jerk he used to know in Pompeii.  This causes him additional stress, as you might imagine.  His dad in particular is kind of a smirky jerk who really shines with snark in the second volume.)

A new wrinkle is added when he finally meets the reincarnation of his beloved wife, and boy, is he cute.  Yeah.  He.  More meltdowns ensue.

This is one of those manga that makes me happy because it strikes that balance between actual reincarnation memory pathos and all those amusing public meltdowns due to internal stupidity that you can't really explain to people.  The main character provides the tears and the comic relief all by himself.  The supporting cast members do good jobs of supporting and moving the plot along by being mostly normal people living normal lives while our poor main character is drowning in drama. 

It's fun to watch the fight within our protagonist because it happens in a somewhat realistic way.  He can't just say to himself, "Yep, she may have been my best bud in the past, but now she's a cute, smart, talented girl who likes me, so let's live happily ever after!"  Well, he can (and sometimes does) say things like that to himself, but he never listens to himself and usually ends up having an imaginary meltdown . . .

So he vacillates between making progress and falling backwards in the way that he relates to the people around him who aren't burdened with the knowledge he has.  It's just a hoot. 

I also give it kudos for setting up a potential BL situation and never quite going there.  Extra points for restraint that makes the unexpected things that happen funnier.  The author could have taken the easy way out but didn't. 

I'm looking forward to volume 3.  :)


P.S. I had to look in the notes to figure out what NG meant.  Do you know?

Why I love Zipang

Who doesn't love a good historical drama disguised as a science fiction piece?  

Zipang is a tense, thrilling, moving action-drama about a Japanese Navy Self-Defense Force ship that suddenly finds itself 60 years in the past the day before the Battle of Midway.   Oh, yeah!  

It's really a bit of a niche piece because it helps to have a decent understanding of the JSDF mentality and the nonfiction sensibilities of the Japanese regarding war.   (That might sound dead-boring, but it's so not.)  It's done well enough that you can pick things up as you go if you're sensitive to context.   It would also help to have some understanding of military history, specifically of Japan's place in WWII, but I think a lot of that is also provided through context.   Anyway, the interactions between the past and the present are intriguing and fascinating, and I really want to hit this one guy . . .  

. . .   But I'll never get the chance because it just stops at the end of the first story arc from the manga which is untranslated and shall remain so forever.   Argggghhh!  

But it's a great ride up until then.   The show really goes into some great territory about how to live in a time when no one else shares your values.   They're committed to saving lives, and they know when and where lives will be lost, but they can't risk changing history, or something bad might happen (such as Japan winning) . . .   Thought-provoking and really well done.

Why do I love Heat Guy J?

Anime watched: Heat Guy J
TMIA rating: b


Well, first there are the bagpipes.  I quite like this soundtrack (I own it) because how often do you hear bagpipes in anime?  It's also a pretty good sountrack, but the bagpipes are such a unique and manly instrument that their presence alone says certain things about the show.

Then there's the dub.  It's a good dub.  I think Steve Cannon is an under-appreciated voice actor.  Edmundo's VA wasn't too shabby.  Johnny Yong Bosch was perfectly insane as Claire Leonelli.  There  were a lot of good performances in this series.  If it hadn't been a few years since I saw the show, I could remember more, but I lent it to someone, and it has disappeared.  That's why I'm glad Funimation snagged the license and is releasing it again!  Some day, when I have money, I hope to be able to get it again.  Or I'll send J after whoever didn't return it to me . . .

I remember that sometimes the unexpected would happen.  Your mileage may very here because I don't anticipate things when I watch a show, so I'm not trying to figure out what will happen next.  I notice if what happens next isn't totally predictable because of genre conventions/tropes.  In this show, the characters had somewhat realistic depths to them, and sometimes the happy endings didn't work out at all.  It takes guts to do that.

And we know I like Nobuteru Yuki.    He can be distinctive (and his noses in those distinctive shows drive people like ST completely crazy), but he can also be almost invisible as a character designer adapting other people's designs, and that takes skill.  (Just so you know, this is one of the distinctive shows but with slightly less crazy noses than Escaflowne.)

So anyway, it looks and sounds good, has good characters and surprising plot twists, and has good production values.  (I remember the extras being nice, too.)  I enjoyed it a lot.  I look forward to re-watching it soon, thanks to Funimation.


Anybody else a fan of J and Daisuke and co.?  Anything you'd like to add?


AnimeNerd quiz


Who said this?

"If you want to be a man, board my ship."

Night Head Genesis, making you want to slap people with psychic powers

 I'm quite proud of the ambiguity of that title.  Read on to see what I meant.  :)

Reviewed: Night Head Genesis Disc 1

TMIA rating: b

I just saw the first disc of Night Head Genesis.  It has an interesting premise, more-than-decent music, and beautiful character designs.  That's why it's so unfortunate that it sort of bogs itself down in lame tropes.

That's not actually a very fair review.  The things that drive me crazy about NHG are mostly things that would not drive me crazy if I were watching this series one episode a time one time a week. 

(NOTE: There is no excuse for the unintentionally hilariously bad in-between art.  It's really brutal, which is a shame because the character designs are really nice.)

Also, I'm not the sort of squeeing fangirl this show has laser-sighted its targets on, so it makes sense that the genre-specific crud irritates me. I just think it could have been an even better show without that stuff weighing it down.

Back to what makes me crazy while watching it.  I may want to kill someone if I hear another, "Help me, big brother!" or, "I'll protect you," but that's mostly because I get to hear them every episode, about every 20 minutes when I'm watching a whole disc at a time. 

(NOTE: these lines don't need to be said; they are implied/shown very clearly.  I'm not just saying that because I would appreciate not having to listen to them all the time.  The show would benefit from a little more restraint here (pay voice actors less!) and a little less restraint in the animation budget . . .)

There are enough interesting pieces to the whole that I am willing to stay with the show, even if it doesn't turn itself around and become a masterpiece (it doesn't).  It's a decent show on its own merits. 

I would like to use my untapped psychic powers to slap that younger main character, though. 

It's okay.  By the end of the first disc, he's found a purpose other than being miserable and making me crazy, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he can take what was his weakness and use it to help others.  (I'm sort of personally invested in seeing this sort of thing work out . . .)


Seen it?  Any opinions?


MangaNerd Quiz!

What graphic novel series does this back cover copy come from?

"What if you could see dead people and a guy in a giant bunny suit trying to get them to the other side?"