Dance in the Vampire Bund
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: SHAFT
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Funimation Video
Brief Overview: Mina Tepes, Queen of the Vampires, uses her vast fortune to erase Japan's national debt. In exchange, she takes charge of an artificial island off the coast of the country and establishes a land where her kind can live.
Things have been going a bit more smoothly this week, since I've dived into the Spring shows a bit more. I'm hoping to get a couple more of them done tomorrow on my day off (federal holidays FTW). There are still a couple of Winter reviews that I realized I didn't post. Right after I'm finished with this I'll probably set them up to post over the next couple of days so I don't have to think about it anymore.
Other than that, I'm in kind of an anime-watching lull. I'm hoping to get the Spring reviews over with fairly quickly so that I can catch up with all the anime I've been holding-off watching (including a few purchases that have been sitting on my shelf for far too long). I sense a few anime binges coming up in the near future.
This Week:
Recent Posts:
Review Pipeline:
Recently Watched:
Recently Purchased:
I don't usually post first episode reviews of series that I've purchased on DVD. I'm not exactly sure why; I think that posting previews of shows that are already long-completed feels a bit pointless, and that it's just easier to take those series as a whole. In this case, however, I was so wowed by what I saw in the first episode that I just had to post something, however informal it might be.
While I watch and enjoy plenty of series, it's the rare show that smacks me across the face from the get-go and says "look at me!" This is one such show. In this case it's not really the animation that's the main draw, because it's one of those shows where a lot of dialog is spoken off-screen in that money-saving way about which we fans often complain. It's also not the story, which at its core is very simple, about a girl who discovers a magical world and wants to make a change. No, in this case it's the visual design of the series' world that really caused my jaw to drop, and what convinced me that my purchase of the series would be well worth it.
Pet Shop of Horrors
Number of Episodes: 4 on 1 DVD
Production Company: Madhouse
Region 1 Licensing Company: Sentai Filmworks
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Sentai Page
Brief Overview: A rash of strange murders involving animal attacks has been occurring recently, and the one thing connecting all of them is the victims' patronage of a strange pet shop in Chinatown, run by an eccentric and androgynous shopkeeper named Count D. Count D sells rare and unusual pets to people who come to him searching for something special, but they're only released after a contract is signed - if any terms of the contract are broken, then the pet shop can't be held responsible for any of the resulting consequences. More often than not, it seems as though the patrons of the shop simply can't resist breaking their contracts, and the consequences are deadly.
"The characters looked weird in that episode." "What was wrong with the animation there?" "The art looked really off this time."
I've heard these kinds of comments many a time since I've spent many years watching anime in large groups. There are plenty of anime which suffer from major quality control issues from time-to-time, and even though much of modern anime is based on the idea of "limited animation," which refers to using visual shortcuts to compensate for lack of movement and a small budget, sometimes it gets really tiring to see yet another series with slapped-together visuals. But there are other times when character movement may seem erratic or a change in character design may be coupled with some truly spectacular action animation. In those cases, you might be dealing with what the Japanese call "Sakuga."
Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: Studio DEEN
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Opening
Brief Overview: Chizuru travels to Kyoto in search of her missing father. She encounters the Shinsengumi and they give her refuge and eventually allow her to travel with them, since they are also in search of her father.
Senkou no Night Raid
Number of Episodes: 13
Production Company: A-1 Pictures Inc.
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer
Brief Overview: The second entry in the "Anime no Chikara" timeslot devoted to original anime productions, this series follows a group of Japanese spies in 1931 in the bustling city of Shanghai.
Giant Killing
Number of Episodes: 26
Production Company: Studio DEEN
ANN Encyclopedia Trailer Crunchyroll
Brief Overview: East Tokyo United, a struggling Tokyo football (soccer) team is at the bottom of its division and both team and fan morale are low. Only a new coach, a former player who helped manage one of England's amateur teams, has any chance of turning things around.
Heartcatch Precure
Number of Episodes: TBA
Production Company: Toei
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Promo
Brief Overview: The veritable magical girl franchise returns for its seventh installment.
Huh?
To review, Section 23/Sentai Filmworks recently announced the acquisition of some anime titles formerly announced by Bandai Visual. Bandai has even already released one of the titles, Sola, in the US. Nobody seems to know what the heck is going on, and Bandai's only response seems to be "we still have the license! It's all fine!"
I would like to think that there's going to be some epic throwdown regarding these titles, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part. I suppose it helps that neither of the titles in question are ones that I'm particularly worried about running out and buying, so I can just sit back and watch things unfold.
This is the first "official" weekly update, following my post on the 18th. This week I've been fairly prolific with everything but actual reviews - though I'm nearly finished posting the Winter first episode reviews, I'm sadly behind on the Spring ones mostly due to the site reformat and other things going on behind the scenes. I've been having better luck with some full series reviews, another of which was recently posted. Other than that my goal this week is to really buckle down and focus on getting the Spring reviews written so that they can be completed and I can get to watching some of the series that have intrigued me. I'm hoping to write a bunch of them and then pre-schedule their postings so I don't have to think about it too much.
Here's the breakdown for this week:
Recent Posts:
Review Pipeline:
New Site Ideas:
Recently Watched:
Recently Purchased:
Shadow Star Narutaru
Number of Episodes: 13 on 4 DVDs
Production Company: Planet
Region 1 Licensing Company: Central Park Media (defunct)
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer
Series Summary (contains spoilers): Every Summer, Shiina Tamai visits her grandparents who live on an island. While pushing herself to swim to a landmark out in the sea, Shiina sinks beneath the waves and encounters a strange starfish-like being who she adopts and names Hoshimaru. It turns out that Hoshimaru is more powerful than he looks; he has powers of transformation, and can turn himself into a hover board on which Shiina flies, amongst other things.
Durarara!
Number of Episodes: 24
Production Company: Brains Base
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer Crunchyroll
Brief Overview: Ryuugamine Mikado moves to Ikebukuro to attend high school and on his first day there witnesses an urban legend in the flesh - the headless rider, Dullahan.
Japanese broadcast schedules are not a frequent topic of discussion amongst most anime fans, and why should they be? While the time a series is broadcast often has something to do with how popular broadcasters think the show will be, whether a show is broadcast in prime-time or the wee hours of the morning doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the quality of the show itself. There don't seem to be many timeslots that attempt to relate their included anime by subject matter or theme either, with one notable exception: noitaminA.
noitaminA (the word "Animation" written backwards) is a half-hour (now a full-hour) late-night Fuji TV timeslot that was established in 2005 in an attempt to extend the anime audience beyond that of the young male demographic. noitaminA is known for broadcasting anime adaptations of josei manga such as Honey and Clover and Nodame Cantabile, but since its inception its catalog has come to include horror series (Ayakashi, Mononoke), slice-of-life comedies (Moyashimon) and science-fiction series (Jyu Oh Sei) among other things. While there have been a few exceptions, including Honey and Clover, Nodame Cantabile and the upcoming Shiki, most of the adaptations run 1-cour (season) of 11 or 12 episodes.
Section 23 announced a few new licensing acquisitions today, but something about a couple of them seemed a bit unusual to me. Along with the license of Tytania, a sci-fi/space opera series (which has the distinction of being one of the few anime I've ever classified as being dull, and I like slowly-unfolding stories, too!), they also announced releases of Sola and Shigofumi. What's strange is that both those titles had been announced some time ago by Bandai. Sola has actually already been released here in the US by Bandai in both a regular full-season set and as one of their Anime Legends brand re-releases for a less expensive price. Shigofumi was snatched up in early 2008 while it was still being broadcast, but after that point Bandai seemed strangely quiet about it.
So what gives?
First of all, it's important to note that both titles were licensed under the "Bandai Visual" label. While there might not seem to be a huge distinction between Bandai Visual and regular ol' Bandai Entertainment, there actually is kind of a convoluted relationship. Bandai Visual is a Japanese enterprise concerned with anime and film production and distribution. In 2005, Bandai Visual established an American arm called, appropriately, Bandai Visual USA, in order to distribute its anime products directly to consumers in the states. On July 1, 2008, Bandai Visual was dissolved and incorporated into Bandai Entertainment, a North American based subsidiary of Bandai America (phew!). Now Bandai Visual USA no longer exists, and anime licensing and distribution in the States is handled by Bandai Entertainment. The point is that the reorganization of the company led to some delayed titles, and even though Sola made it through relatively unscathed, the whole debacle probably accounts for the disappearance of Shigofumi from Bandai's roster and its reemergence later on as a Section 23 title.
Even so, Bandai has already released Sola as I mentioned before, so why would there be a need for Section 23 to swoop in and claim it? This seems like a troubling omen for Bandai and of course the chatter over the internet is that, after a string of underperforming releases, the company might be getting out of the anime business altogether.
I'm having a difficult time deciding how I feel about all this. I watch a lot of fansubs but I love my DVD collection as well. There's something about collecting physical media that, to me, is enjoyable. Moreso than having a hard drive full of digital files, anyway. When a company folds it means that there's that much less of a chance that I'll be able to add a title to my DVD shelf, and there's something very weird about that to me. Even though companies like Section 23 and Nippon-Ichi Software are still sprouting up (and with Toradora! in its corner, I'll be interested to see how Nippon-ichi fares), the amount of larger companies really seems to be dwindling and that continues to be unsettling.
Funimation announced a whole slew of new acquisitions at their Anime Central panel last weekend. I can't say that I'm interested in very many of them (and I've in fact panned a few of them in recent memory), but one of their titles immediately made me stand up and take notice - Rideback.
Rideback is an example of a series that tried to do a lot, wasn't entirely successful in all respects, but was very good where it counted. The story was an interesting blend of technology, politics and a character's journey of self-discovery wrapped up in an almost breathtakingly beautiful blend of CG-aided animation and gorgeous background artwork. I've heard people complain about the series trying to do too much with too few episodes, that it strayed from the source material (a complaint that I rarely take to heart unless I feel like there's been a substantial drop in quality between the original and the offshoot or a negative reinterpretation of the original material's message) or that it wrapped things up too quickly. I suppose that could be true if one's primary angle of interest was that of the mecha technology in the series or if one was hoping for an anime about racing. For me, however, the lure of the story was almost entirely based around the main character and how she went from someone who was lost without the ability to perform ballet, a talent she had nurtured from a very young age and which connected her to her late mother, to a confident young woman able to channel that ability into something new and help save the world in the process.
It's not high art, nor is it some enduring masterpiece. But it is a touching story and I thought the ending was really intense and fit with the direction the series had taken from its opening scene. Much like the more recent Sora no Woto, the series wasn't about war so much as it was about the people on both sides who fight, and reluctant heroes who are able to turn the tides using unconventional means.
Needless to say, I'll be happy to buy this one when it comes out. I would love to see it on Blu-ray just because the picture quality, even in fansub form, was just beautiful.
Funimation also announced more details regarding the dubs of some of their older acquisitions, along with release dates (which interest me more than the dub casts, to be perfectly honest).
I'll have to start budgeting now, looks like the second half of the year is going to cost me a bit of money. Honestly, I'm just happy that a couple of shows that I really liked are actually going to be available for me to buy since I feel like there was kind of a dry spell for a while.
At dinner the other night, a friend of mine asked me, "do you ever watch any anime beyond the first episode?" I was sort of dumbfounded, because in comparison to most people I know I watch oodles and oodles of anime. There are always a few shows that I really like, but there are some shows I continue to watch because of a little something that catches my interest. Sometimes I really like (or absolutely hate) a particular character, and their presence is enough to keep me watching. Sometimes I watch things that I have a morbid curiosity about. I go out of my way to pick out a few things here and there which I really don't like - I know most people would consider that a waste of time, but what better way to be able to articulate what you like about your favorite shows than to compare them to something you don't like? Even in some of those cases, I've ended up feeling more positive about a series than I thought I would at the outset.
Of course, the issue here is that I rarely write publicly about what I'm watching and so it's not unthinkable that someone might get the impression that I give up early and often. I tried the episode-by-episode blog at one time and that simply didn't work out due to my own time constraints and the fact that I watch simply too many series at once to have concrete thoughts about each episode. Since changing the site format last month, making it 100% easier to update things, I thought that it wouldn't be out of the question to post weekly updates on what I've been watching, what I intend to watch (including any DVDs I've ordered), and the status of any reviews in the pipeline or other pieces that I intend to write. I want to work on writing more full reviews of the series I finish. And heck, I also read the occasional manga, so a manga review here and there might be nice too.
So here's a status update for this week. Going forward they'll probably be much smaller, since I'm dumping a backlog of stuff down this time:
Ookamikakushi
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: AIC
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer
Brief Overview: Hiroshi Kuzumi moves to the village of Jouga, which is divided into the old and new parts of town by a river. He's warned to stay away from the old part of town, or horrors may follow close behind.
Seikon no Qwaser
Number of Episodes: 24
Production Company: Taki Corporation, Hoods Entertainment
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer
Brief Overview: Oribe Mafuyu meets a silver-haired boy named Alexander who is a Qwaser, a being who manipulates the elements and draws his power from sacred breast milk.
Toward the Terra
Number of Episodes: 24
Production Company: Tokyo Kids, Minamimachi Bugyousho
Region 1 Licensing Company: Bandai
Series Summary (this contains spoilers): Jomy Marcus Shin is an atypically-brash Ataraxian youngster who often gets into trouble at school as a result of his antics. At age 14, he is at the cusp of impending adulthood, and all that remains for him to do before shedding the confines of childhood is leave his parents' home and take an "adulthood exam;" a psychological examination which helps the individual leave behind the attachment to his/her parents and aim towards a new goal - to return to the human home world, Terra. During Jomy's adulthood exam, a painful event where one of the computers in charge of monitoring Jomy's homeworld tries to forcibly tear away the memories he has of his family, Jomy is rescued by Soldier Blue, the leader of the Mu, a race of evolved humans who have psychic abilities, and taken to the Mu ship. Though Jomy initially resists the idea that he may also be a Mu, the realization that he has nowhere left to go on Ataraxia finally allows him to come to terms with this aspect of himself, and he eventually takes up the mantle of leadership in Soldier Blue's absence.
Every once-in-a-while, someone asks me for manga or anime recommendations. It's flattering to be asked, and I'll generally try my best to provide them with some useful leads based on their likes and what I'm familiar with. Recently, a friend of mine asked for some manga recommendations for a friend of hers. She wanted me to recommend some shoujo series, along the same lines as NANA or Nodame Cantabile. My immediate response was to state that those series weren't shoujo, they were josei (which in retrospect probably sounded kind of rude). Both she and my husband were confused about the difference, and since I see the same confusion from other people pretty regularly and because I tend to throw these terms around frequently, I thought I would elaborate on how I make the distinction between the two.
Josei is the Japanese word for "female/woman" and refers to anime and manga aimed at the demographic of young adult women. It's essentially the "older sister" to shoujo and deals with more mature characters (generally female characters around the same age as the targeted age group) and themes like college life, motherhood or the trials and tribulations of being a part of the workforce. Many josei manga and anime involve romance, though of a less idealistic and more realistic variety than what is often found in shoujo manga. They also tend to contain more graphic or frequent sexual content.
Josei manga appear in demographic-specific compilation magazines, but I tend to take those categorizations with a grain of salt. More often than not I trust my gut feeling about a series more readily than what magazine the series ran in. If a manga or series deals with more adult themes, has a realistic romantic component or stars a more mature female character, it might fall into the josei category.
Unfortunately for people like me, josei is one of the most under-represented categories of manga and anime when it comes to what's available to purchase in the United States, but there are some options out there and even some series can be obtained through less scrupulous means (but I'd certainly buy them if given the option!). Here are a few of my personal suggestions, but keep in mind that this is in no way a complete list and that there's a bit of fluidity between the worlds of shoujo and josei so not everyone will necessarily agree on the demographic should you go searching elsewhere:
Waaaaaay back in February of this year, I caught wind of the announcement of a Kurenai OAD, to be bundled with a future edition of the manga. I was a very big fan of the anime series and I consider it one of the highlights of 2008. I was under the impression, based on forum discussions at the time of its broadcast, that many other people thought highly of the series as well. I was surprised to find, however, that following the announcement of the OAD and the broadcast of its preview, many people (though not a huge majority, by any means) seemed to laud the new production's closer adherence to the manga's character designs, and to voice their disdain of the TV series because of how different its tone was from that of the manga.
Both the manga and the anime are adapted from a series of light novels, and while I know next to nothing about the story and tone of of the novels, it doesn't surprise me to hear that the two subsequent adaptations are so different from each-other. For example, the anime version of Le Chevalier d'Eon tends to focus more on the historical backdrop of its tale and how the supernatural elements are woven into the story. The manga adaptation, however, brings the supernatural and cross-dressing elements to the forefront. The anime comes across as more mature and serious, while the manga is not much more than very pretty fetish-fuel. The point is that a set of basic ideas and characters can inspire other creators to go off in multiple directions and it's not that unusual to learn that, in the case of the various Kurenai adaptations, there seem to be plenty of discrepancies between the two secondary works.
Out of curiosity, I sought out chapters of the Kurenai manga for comparison, and was honestly pretty disappointed in what I found, mainly due to a major difference in tone from the TV series. Part of the appeal of the TV anime was how it was able to maturely handle some very serious subject matter, and how it also became a commentary on the role of traditionalism in Japanese society and the ways in which Japan might solve some ethical dilemmas that arise when tradition tramples on human rights and the dignity of others in modern society. None of the characters felt typical and despite the fact that the majority of the characters are female and that the show is centered around a male protagonist, not once did I get the impression that a harem was developing. There was a good amount of humor in the early part of the TV series but it never seemed as if it was going to devolve into some corny slapstick comedy. The series even lamp-shaded any concerns the audience might have about there being any lolicon fuel early on with a particularly amusing misunderstanding between the main character and a friend at school, and it was obvious that that sort of content wasn't going to have a home in the series.
The manga, on the other hand, seems to fall into every shounen genre trap laid out for it (at least within the first 8 chapters, which is where I really began to lose interest and decided to stop wasting my time). The story is oversimplified and formulaic, and the characters are all one-note caricatures based on a host of obnoxious types, with many of the females harboring obnoxiously-dimwitted crushes on Shinkurou. Tamaki, who in the TV series tried to give off the impression that she was worldly and experienced with relationships but who was really just as vulnerable as anyone else, comes across as a sex-crazed goofball intent on getting Shinkurou into sexually-uncomfortable situations. Yuuno is a jealous bitch who begins to rage every time she sees Shinkurou and Murasaki out together. Ginko is a Tsundere (my personal anime kryptonite). There are fanservicey jokes that make the aforementioned characters look like fools. The character designs, which seem to be one of the major reasons manga fans disliked the TV anime, are cutesy and only serve to make it look more like every other manga. It's honestly like a lot of other really mediocre shounen series.
So to me, saying that the OAD will be more like the manga is a good enough reason for me to stay away from it at all costs and hold onto my good memories of the TV series (or heck, even give it a good re-watch). However, I'm holding out hope that it won't dip to the manga's depths and will retain at least a little bit of the things that made the show worth going out of one's way to watch. At the very least, the OAD may lead some people to seek out the TV series and enjoy it, which is definitely a good thing.
Hidamari Sketch: Hoshimittsu
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: SHAFT
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Promo Video
Brief Overview: The girls of the Hidamari apartments return in this slice-of-life comedy revolving around the lives of art school students.
Cobra the Animation
Number of Episodes: 13
Production Company: Magic Bus
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Crunchyroll
Brief Overview: Cobra is a space pirate who decides to erase his memories and become a normal, everyday guy. That is, until his memory begins to creep back and his adventures begin anew.
There were some recent rumblings regarding Gainax hiring some extra help for an upcoming series, the setting of which was said to be early 20th century England. I remember thinking to myself, "oh, that sounds like it could be kind of a cool setting for a series." A couple of days ago, Gainax announced their next project, and whether or not the hiring notice was in reference to it still isn't exactly clear to me. But was was clear was that the title of the series nearly made me spit out my drink:
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Let that just sink in for a moment. Go ahead, feel free to giggle; I certainly had my share of laughs over the title and I certainly won't be the last person to do so. I mean, we're talking about a title and characters named after pieces of women's underwear here. The bits of plot revealed so far tell us that Panty, a sexy blonde idol type character, and Stocking, a gothic lolita, are angels sent to Earth to battle ghosts. The barrel of Panty's gun is shaped like, well, a pair of underwear, and Stocking's sword is striped like her stocking.
While I will admit some disappointment upon first learning about the plot and seeing the magazine spread featuring the character designs, I'm beginning to think that the whole thing might be less ridiculous (or, well, less stupid) than it first appears. Hiroyuki Imaishi, who also directed Gurren Lagann, is returning to direct this piece. Say what you want about Gurren Lagann's over the top plot and manly posturing, but the series' sheer kinetic energy and bombastic animation was nothing if not completely mind-blowing. If that same effort can be applied to this more stylized piece, it will certainly be worth checking out for the visuals alone. I also have to give props to the character designer for going in such an unusual direction. While the characters certainly fall under the umbrella of "cute," it's not your typical big-eyed moe girl cute. In fact I would be more likely to try and compare it to something Western, like Powerpuff Girls, if anything.
Plenty of anime have bizarre titles, but whether this show will be as utterly goofy as its name suggests remains to be seen. Impress me, Gainax!
Omamori Himari
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: Zexcs
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Trailer Crunchyroll
Brief Overview: Yuuto Amakawa is protected by his family's guardian spirit, who happens to be a beautiful, sword-wielding catgirl.
Sora no Woto
Number of Episodes: 12
Production Company: A-1 Pictures
ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Crunchyroll
Brief Overview: The first of the "Anime Chikara" projects, this series follows a group of five girls as they guard a fortress and play their music during the decline of humanity.
About a week ago this acquisition was announced, and I have to admit that I was not only a bit surprised, but sort of skeptical as to how much money it was thought could be made from this property. Normally just about any series that comes out in Japan receives at least the full fansub treatment, meaning that at least one group somewhere will complete the series. In this case, the original group dropped the show about a third of the way in, another group picked up and sporadically subbed until it was about half done, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of it since. That says to me that fan demand isn't very high despite this being a well-known, classic property.
However, this isn't meant to be a post focused on my skepticism. I wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to one of the most ridiculous characters that I've ever encountered in anime, Duke Togo, the man behind the sniper rifle. One of the most comical things about the recent anime series is that the main character is really nothing but a robot; a man of few words and even fewer facial expressions who always gets his target no matter what. The tension in the show doesn't come from questioning whether Golgo will fulfill his objective, because he always does. The entertainment value comes from how utterly over-the-top many of his tasks are, how ridiculous the measures he takes to accomplish them are, and how many times Golgo has sex with prostitutes without cracking a smile.
So anyway, I wish good luck to Section23 and Sentai and hope that they have a surprising amount of success releasing this show (they're even going to the trouble of dubbing it - perhaps they're hoping the relatively easy-to-grasp subject matter will equal a wider appeal). Here's a little visual guide to the character of Duke Togo, a.k.a. Golgo 13:
