anime

ooh anime post, redux

my constant anime ingestion continues…so i thought i’d do a follow-up post about whats been piquing my interest. im still sifting thru my collection too. my supply is far past my ability to consume…yar! must…watch…faster.

toradora! | ya…still going. up to episode 21 and its still a good series.

sekirei | if you like boobs the size of small children, this is your anime. mildly brainless, but the fight scenes are well animated. otherwise nothing exemplary.

fate/stay night | i’d seen alot of figures for fate/stay all over akihabara, so i thought hmm…a series with this many devoted figures (that weren’t all in skanky outfits…*cough* witchblade) couldnt be that bad. and yea…whats the opposite of suck? oh right…awesome. this series is awesome. really well written and animated.

tetsuwan birdy | voted anime with the best gravity-defying outfits…her clothes are glued to her! but besides that tho, its still a pretty good anime. story could be a bit under-explained at times, but i suppose thats ok since its just the first season (season 2 is currently ongoing). its also by the creator of patlabor, so it couldnt be that bad. and regardless of the near-limitless opportunities provided by the premise (boy killed, has spirit implanted in hot female aliens body) and the aforementioned glued-on outfits, its not even the least bit ecchi. like, not even a little…i was surprised (and ok, just a little disappointed). oh, and its by a-1, who also did kannagi mentioned in the last anime post. yea, theyre awesome.

code geass | holy shit. just like…watch it. both seasons too. brilliant story. im man enough to admit i cried a little. even the stupid pizza hut product placements couldnt blemish this series the slightest.

xam’d lost memories | still watching this series, but its pretty good. its by bones (eureka, full metal alchemist), which means at the very least the animations top-notch. its definitely got a miyazaki-vibe to it too…with the production design, characters, etc (one of the female protagonists has more than a passing resemblance to nausicaa).

edit | just finished it. what the fuck just happened?

koihime musou | looked like brainless fun with girls fighting each other in ancient china. ill get around to finishing it sometime…

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anime

ooh anime post

one thing i have been doing however for a while is getting back into anime. i was more or less out of the loop for a while…i think the last series i got was noein. but i4 sort of got me back into anime (inadvertently) when he gave me macross frontier. since then i’ve just been rolling thru series after series. some really good, some fucking terrible. seriously theres panty shots everywhere. apparently every single female character can only wear mini-skirts now (and in some cases, dont even wear pants)…who knew? i’ll also freely admit to digging the romance comedy genre. i know, i just damned myself…

stuff i’ve watched recently…

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anime

anime expo!

and now for some entertainment! for me, theres always been something wrong with fat white people cosplaying. dont get me wrong…i think its great anime cultures as prevalent as it is here. i just really never wanted to see what cloud looked like if he were 50 pounds overweight and ate deep-fried twinkies for breakfast.

anyhoo…anime expo 2006 is in affect! not-as-cute fat white people cosplaying japanese characters ftw! but hey…when it works, it works.

anime, archive | favorites, interesting shit

the akira bike

yes thats kanedas bike from the anime classic akira above. and no…its not a rendering. that shit is for real! this news may be a bit late for some, but i just read about it yesterday in the august issue of newtype usa, so its news to me. a couple of motorbike enthusiasts in japan banded together to create a working replica of kanedas bike down to every last detail…swept canopy, leather seats, everything. many of the mechanics of the bike in the movie werent quite realistic (the rake of the steering arm, etc), so they actually went about refining or just inventing new technologies to make the bike work, while retaining its distinctive and iconic form. the bike rides for real, has a water-cooled 4-cycle engine, computer navigation system (with trackball), and a really cushy seat. i want one. i must have one.

> neo fukuoka (the manufacturer)
> bsu group (a contributor)
> pictures from the 31st annual tokyo motorcycle show

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anime

last exile

its kind of odd…this time last year i was buying asian cinema left and right because of a lack of anime. now theres a noticeable lag in asian dvds i want, and concurrently a significant number of anime series i now want. how does that work? so having just gotten back my federal tax returns, i fig’d that it was coo for me to go out and get meself a new anime series. (woo!) so i got around to picking up last exile from otaku den, a (relatively) new series from gonzo, the studio that made blue submarine no.6. last exile takes place in a world called prestale, where two dominant nations, anatore and dusis, are at war with each other. their battles however take place in the sky, between giant flying battlecruisers, vanships (aircraft), and riflemen who fire broadsides reminiscent of naval battles. two vanship couriers, claus and his friend and navigator lavi, get caught up in the war when they take on a “cargo” of a little girl named alvie, who is being pursued by a third arbiter party…the guild.

while ill admit to being a sucker for airships and industrial-era designs, the whole story, design, and execution of last exile is just absolutely coo. the look of last exile is both familiar and original…much of the design takes cues from a broad range of influences, including turn of the century 1900’s, weimar germany, napoleonic france, and everything in between. they even have chocobo racing! chocobos yo…i swear. the storys coo too, but thats a given. im just nearing the halfway point, and the story is still picking up (with no indication of slowing down…)

> official last exile page (dead?)
> last exile info page

anime

haibane renmei

after having finished off the slightly inconclusive anime series neo ranga last week, i moved onto this new series last nite…haibane renmei. id read about it in the past, partly because its from yoshitoshi abe of lain and neia fame, but mostly because its an anime about angels. well…kind of. but anyone who knows me probably knows i have this odd predilection for all things angel-related. the story begins with a girl…rakka, who dreams shes falling from the sky, and then finds herself emerging from a cocoon. she meets a group of haibanes, “angels” with wings and halos who cant seem to remember their past or even their own names (theyre named for the dream they have. rakka just means “falling”). but they all live in a walled town and go about their daily lives with the other non-haibane denizens of the town.

odd premise, and ive only gone thru the first disc. but the series is pretty interesting, and a smidge quirky. case in point…haibane arent “borne” with a halo, theyre given one when they first emerge. rakkas doesnt want to stay over her head when she first gets it…so they jury-rig a head piece to keep it in place til it does. it then causes her hair to stick up from static electricity, and she later finds out that the “mold” they made her halo from was also used as a pancake iron by another haibane, hikari. hehe. im not sure what direction the anime will take…knowing abe, it will take a definitive turn for the contemplative. but im already taking to the series. thumbs up so far. ill hopefully finish off the series by next week, since its a rather short series.

> haibane renmei

anime, science + tech

kana computer mod

ah…and they wonder why computer nerds and anime otakus equally have less than ideal reputations. from the pages of gizmodo comes this kind of interesting/kind of disturbing case mod for a computer. katsuya matsumura, who is most likely both an anime fan and an avid computer enthusiast, built a whole anime maid/model out of poly-styrene and clay to house computers. and not only is it absolutely kawaii, its also got the obligatory fan service (aka: panty shot). it also looks life-sized and appropriately under-aged. katsuya…you are both absolutely coo, yet also quite frightening. maybe he’ll make a chobits model next.

> kana computer case (via gizmodo)
> matsumura katsuyas website

anime, cin3ma + television

lemony robin sena

*yawn*…so sleeepy. this is what i get for not having my glass of milk before i go to bed. bleh. hopefully this tea will wake me up soon enough. so lets see…theres a semi-new teaser trailer up for zach braffs movie garden state. its been hovering around for the past few days, but i didnt get a chance to download it til today. and its not so much a trailer as it is a video for the frou frou track “let go”. while theres no dialogue, and you really wouldnt know what the movie was about unless you read the synopsis, its slightly surreal tone is pretty interesting. and the tracks pretty coo also. the movie was written, directed, and stars zach braff of scrubs, along with natalie portman, peter sarsgaard, and ian holms.

lemony snicket
theres also an odd new one minute tv spot for the lemony snicket movie, starring jim carrey and himself. after carreys excellent turn in eternal sunshine, i thought he’d pursue more serious acting roles. but apparently hes gone back to channelling himself. *shrug* im still not really familiar with the lemony snicket books, so this is more curiousity than it is anticipation. and after watching this tv spot, its definitely curiousity.

sci-fi lineup
cinescape had a pretty interesting article today about what the sci-fi channel had lined up for this year leading into 2005. they have a number of series and movies planned based on some notable sci-fi and fantasy books, and even one based on an anime. one of the more interesting series the article mentioned was the mini-series ringworld, based on the acclaimed larry nivens (old school magic geeks take note) series of novels of the same name. the mini-series follows a group of explorers who crash onto a massive artificial ring encircling a star. gamers will probably recognize this premise as the story for the game halo.

another series worth noting…probably more for its cast than its slightly fantasy geek premise, is the series earthsea, based on ursula k. leguin’s a wizard of earthsea. with character names like ogion, tenar, and thar…it sounds rather dorky. but with a cast that features the likes of isabella rosellini, shawn ashmore (x2), danny glover, and kristin kreuk (woo!)…i think i might have to check out this series.

and one last noteworthy series on sci-fi’s lineup is the aforementioned series based on an anime. sci-fi plans on adapting to live-action the excellent witch hunter robin anime. the series, to be produced by roy lee and doug davison (the ring), follows a secret organization…the stn-j, that hunts down rogue witches in modern times. a new member of the organization, a young girl named robin sena, is actually a witch herself…and she uses her pyrokinetic abilities to hunt down other witches. the anime series definitely seems capable of being re-imagined as an actual live-action series, and the premise has potential to be expanded upon. ill definitely have to catch this series.

> garden state trailer
> lemony snicket tv spot (via cinescape)
> sci-fi channel lineup (via cinescape)

anime, archive | favorites

abenobashi

i finally got a chance to fire up my new anime series, magical shopping arcade abenobashi this weekend. created by gainax (evangelion, flcl, etc…) and co-produced by madhouse, the 13-episode series rocks all over the place. holy shit is it all kinds of weird. the series follows two friends, sashi and arumi, whos families live and work within the abenobashi arcade in osaka. the areas being redeveloped however, and arumis family is about to move to hokkaido…so sashi’s not too thrilled x2. after an accident that puts arumi’s grandfather in the hospital, all hell breaks loose when theyre somehow tossed into alternate universes where everythings stupid and nothing makes sense. each successive universe is a warped version of their own…where they meet their families and friends, but theyve all taken up different characters in their respective universe. they also constantly run into mune mune, a well-endowed girl who doesnt wear much clothing and constantly rubs her breasts in sashis face, and uetus, a “wizard” who seems to know why they keep getting tossed into different universes…

so in the second episode, they find themselves in a fantasy realm, mune mune kills sashi numerous times, and arumi has to drag his ass back to the king each time to resurrect him. they also manage to take down the evil demon lord of the realm by smacking him stupid with a breast-enlarging sword (that arumi had secretly bought for herself). in the third episode, arumi has her panties stolen by an oni, who they then fight to get her panties back in their transforming robot as they shout out their attacks. in episode eight, theyre thrown in a love hina universe where all the girls fawn over sashi, and arumi (whos been transformed into a mini-oni) is constantly being harassed by a chicken. all the stupidity eventually makes sense, and thats what makes the series rock so much. its also wickedly funny too (dur). and while its all kinds of crazy, the nonsense has a part in the overall story. but besides the seriously weird shit, underneath the nonsense lies a consistent (and eventually serious) theme about people learning how to be happy with the world they live in.

its also pretty damn funny watching arumi forced into a card captor outfit and manipulated to strike poses. and when sashi eventually learns who mune mune really is, itll make you think hard. really really think hard. the people at gainax are thoroughly screwed up.

> magical shopping arcade abenobashi
> abenobashi trailer

anime, cin3ma | international

casshern + cutie honey

i just saw this coo trailer today…even tho its been out for a while. theres a new live-action movie being produced in japan based on the old anime casshan (casshern): robot hunter. its not one of the better known animes in america, but the sci-fi channel…back before the days of cartoon network and toonami, played the 90’s remake of casshan a few times during their anime blocks saturday morning. the original casshan was released back in the early 1970’s, and followed the story of a human who fights the robot oppressors of the future by giving up his humanity to become an android himself. the new “casshern” live action movie veers decidedly away from the old post-apocalyptic imagery and is very steamboy-meets-1984-esque. industrial cities, flying airships, mechanized iron robots, numerous orwellian imagery…even a bit of russian constructivism too (along with the use of cyrillic). very coo. i actually had a hard time putting the two together when i first saw the trailer…id forgotten about the old anime til i saw this trailer. ill definitely have to check out the movie when its released on dvd.

and another anime android getting a modern live-action makeover…theres a new cutie honey trailer out as well. yea…best not to ask.

> casshern: robot hunter the movie
> cutie honey the movie