Knee jerk reactions to forthcoming anime series - Part Two

March 31st, 2007 by Brack

Hayate The Combat Butler

As a concept this sounds gold. Combat Butlers? Sign me up. But look at that artwork. First of all it just looks so 00’s generic. And the fact the director just got done doing that mind unravelling Densh Otoko spin-off makes me think this will be unessential.

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Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

Third series of this magical girl anime made for 18-30 year old men. At least they appear to not be primary school age in this series. That’s some improvement, I suppose. I’ve written about this series before here.

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Heroicage

Are XEBEC any good anymore? Tetsuo Sato seems to have fallen out with them if his “no more Stellvia or Nadesico, EVER” statement a couple of years back. And didn’t they upset Akamatsu fans by ineptly animating the start of the first Negima series? Apparantly this show is by the folks who did Fafner, hence the identikit Hisashi Hirai character designs. And hence:

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Seto no Hanayome

Mermaid-based romantic comedy with indistinct 00’s character designs, brought to you by the man who gave you Yugo the Negotiator, Magikano, Ragnarok and Galaxy Angel Rune. Honestly, how does he get work with a resume like that?

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El Cazador

The new anime from Bee Train director Koichi Mashimo, a man responsible for some of the most over-praised, dullest anime of the last 10 years. .hack, Noir, Avenger, Madlax, Tsubasa TV. His work is stilted, slow and coma inducing. And yet people love it. Particularly the girls with guns shows he’s done of late, which is just insane. Compare the action in Noir to the action in Black Lagoon. Hell, compare the action in Noir to the action in Dirty Pair:Project Eden (a film Mashimo directed 20 years ago). The guy appears to have forgotten how to be fun.

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Cross Counter Of The Day - Blazing Transfer Student Episode 1

March 30th, 2007 by Brack

Yes, hell has frozen over and someone has fansubbed the Katsuhiko Nishijima (Project A-Ko) directed GAINAX rarity Blazing Transfer Student. What with this, To-Y, the eighties Lupin III series and Urashiman amongst others showing up lately the fansub scene looks to be more and more like what it should be - the championing of the old and obscure.

And if they have Cross Counter Punches in them, so much the better.

Blazing Transfer Student fansub link

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Knee jerk reactions to forthcoming anime series - Part One

March 30th, 2007 by Brack

My feature from my Livejournal, “HATE FUN?” makes it’s debut at AWESOME ENGINE today as I begin to judge books by their covers. Namely the forthcoming Spring season anime by their websites. I’m going to do 5 at a time otherwise my soul will wither and die. And so might yours.

Animation edition of portable application game “k tie girl”!

I have no idea what this really called. But it looks like more awful moe rubbish.

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Hitohara

Anime News Network claim this is shoujo, but then again they claim Strawberry Marshmallow is too. I need to post about the ANN encyclopedia vs. 2ch sakuga board feud sometime. But not today. This show looks awful.

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Gurren Lagann

I am looking forward to this. A lot. Because it’s directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi. What he do? Bits of FLCL. The ED animation for Gad Guard and Paradise Kiss. Directed Dead Leaves. Directed the best two episodes of Abenobashi (the SF and Hollywood episodes). Directed the first episode of Re:Cutie Honey. KA and Storyboards on Trava. This could well be a glorious return to TV for Gainax.

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GeGeGe no Kitaro

Another GeGeGe no Kitaro adaptation, this time to tie-in with the recent live action film. It’s Toei, so it might not be super astounding animation wise, but it is likely to be solid work. And the nineties show did give Mamoru Hosoda some early work. Storywise there shouldn’t be nothing to worry about if they are faithful to Mizuki’s manga and it should provide an interesting counterpoint/inspiration to the recently animated (and live action-ised) Mushishi. I’m tentatively looking forward to this, though personally I’d like to see more of the original 68/69 series.

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Robby and Kerobby

Apparantly this is part of “Anime Lobby” a show designed to promote the talents of the idol Tsuji Nozomi. There’s a clip on the Anime Lobby site. Looks like some attempt to cash in a theoretical frog interest mustered by Sgt. Frog/Keroro Gunso. Also punk woman and cross dressing magician woman with painted on mustache. Despite this I’m going with:

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Top 100 Anime Addendum #4 - Hajime Ningen Gon

March 29th, 2007 by Brack

Now this showed up in the 89th position in the 2006 broadcast chart, but I’m wondering if it was a combined vote for the 90s series Hajime Ningen Gon AND the 70s series Hajime Ningen Gyators. Both are based on the gag manga by Shunji Sonoyama. Youtube has nothing on the more recent series, so here’s the OP animation for Gyators.


Here’s some blurb about the show from the EXPO 2005 site

GON, THE STONE-AGE BOY (Hajime ningen Gon) : EXPO 2005 AICHI, JAPAN:

Originally broadcast about 30 years ago as Gyatoruzu. NHK (Japan Brodcasting Corp.) began showing a new version of the show, GON, THE STONE-AGE BOY on one of its broadcast satellite stations in 1996. This cartoon is sometimes rebroadcast on NHK Educational Television. Through the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and in the twenty-first century, a wide audience has watched this cartoon show. The setting for this show is the Stone Age in which people and animals live together in peace and harmony. Gon is a curious, mischievous young boy full of energy. He is surrounded by his friends and family, including his mother, father, his girlfriend Piko, and his best friend, a gorilla named Dotechin. Every day is full of adventure and excitement.

And from Studio Pierrot’s English language site:

PIERROT - Animation Production Pierrot:

It is the primitive age. There are people enjoy life in harmony with nature. Although they have no television, cars or personal computers, their world is an open paradise filled with gifts from God. Gon, a little boy, lives with his parents and his best friend, Dotechin, a gorilla. Gon’s family does not have much foods, but they always share what they get. Together with Dotechin, Gon goes on adventures in the wild where mammoths run around and sabertooth tigers swagger. He runs into a child Dragon, finds a poor baby bird with a big appetite, and encounters a fairy from a star. Animals, birds, plants, fish, and everything which exists on earth becomes his friends. This is a heartwarming comedic story. It certainly entertains not only children, but also their parents.

And Ben Ettinger makes with the history over at AniPages Daily.

Pelleas.net | AniPages Daily - Hajime Ningen Gyators:

In October 1974, a new Tokyo Movie TV series begins: Hajime Ningen Gyators, or Early Man Gyators. Working on this series we see a smattering of both ex-Mushi Pro and ex-Toei figures, now working for various small subcontracting studios: First and foremost, Osamu Kobayashi, Tsutomu Shibayama, Yoshio Kabashima, Yoshifumi Kondo, Hiroshi Fukutomi and Yuzo Aoki at A Production, the studio that was the subcontracting backbone of Tokyo Movie’s situation comedies in the early 1970s, and indeed provides the backbone of Gyators; but also Yoshiyuki Momose at Studio Neo Media, run by Keiichi Kimura (Tiger Mask), and Minoru Maeda and Minoru Okazaki at Takao Kosai’s Studio Junio, as well as possibly a few other small studios I’m not aware of.

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Anime Convention Cosplay is Awesome

March 28th, 2007 by Brack

I have a few crummy pictures of various costumes from the recent Minami 13 convention on my flickr account. You can find them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chewabletoys/sets/72157600032793958/

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Free Music is Awesome

March 26th, 2007 by Brack

Jeezus Factory have a new compilation out featuring a track by the band of my brother, Heartwear Process. The MP3s are free, or pay £2.50 for an old fashioned CD.

Jeezus Factory
Heartwear Process

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Top 100 Anime Addendum #3: Maicching Machiko-sensei

March 24th, 2007 by Brack

This clip is probably Not Safe For Work. OK? OK!



What is this?

Well as I have no idea, beyond that is came out in the early 80s, we’ll have to see what the internet has to say for itself:

No-sword:

For those who came in late, Maicchingu Machiko-sensei is an 80s manga/anime property about a teacher for whom everyone at the school is hot, and her skirts’ unfortunate tendency to flip up and reveal her panties, upon which event she says “iyan!” and/or “maicchingu!”

Well that explains that.

That article also mentions that, as is the trend today for old manga/anime properties, it has a live action version coming out. Twitch is all over that:

Twitch - Trailer for Minoru Kawasaki’s JISSHA-BAN: MAICCHINGU MACHIKO SENSEI: TÔDAI O-JUKEN DAISAKUSEN!!, starring Hanako Nanjô, Hikaru Wakana, Anri Sugihara, et al

That article mentions Kawasaki’s other directing credits. All you need to know: CALAMARI WRESTLER.

Curiously, 12 episodes of the show have appeared recently on torrent sites, apparantly in a raw form. As someone who’s liked other Studio Pierrot shows of that era I hope this is paving the way to a fansub. If Hell Teacher Nube and flamingo pink jacket era Lupin III can get subbed anything’s possible.

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The Ten - teaser trailer

March 22nd, 2007 by Brack

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My Favourite Big Train Sketch

March 21st, 2007 by Brack

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MAD MONDAYS - Takahiro Kishida

March 19th, 2007 by Brack

Takahiro Kishida is the character designer and frequent key animator for the awesome series Noein. Other notable shows include Arjuna, Giant Robo, Spring and Chaos, Lain, Haibane Renmei and the show that seemingly every notable animator working today worked on - Hakkenden.

He also worked on Koi Kaze, but don’t hold that against him. Actually I think a lot of the Haibane Renmei staff worked on that show. Which is kind of hard for the brain to wrap itself around.

Download the MAD in DivX form at Stage6
Manga Entertainment’s UK Noein site.

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