Golgo 13 - Episode 9 - Sleep In The Prison

June 29th, 2008 by Brack

Golgo 13 goes to prison.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, Golgo arrives at a high security Alaskan prison, run by a weasel-like, sadistic warden. But what is Golgo really there for?

After the best episode of the series, we now get the worst. Good grief, the animation is bad, epitomised by some scenes early on, where the chief warden pulls a gun on Golgo and the perspective is reversed. Things closer to us get smaller and things far away get larger. It’s really quite poor.

The actual mechanics of the story are fine, though mostly stereotypical for prison stories. One exception is the spotlight scene, which I’d not seen done before. However the rough looking animation detracts from the positives that are there.

Finally, the eyecatch looks like it belongs to an entirely different episode. Who is that guy? He’s not in this episode for sure.

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Golgo 13 - Episode 8 - Action 4/24

June 29th, 2008 by Brack

In which some people mistakenly think they can shoot Golgo 13 before he can shoot them.

Golgo is hired to assassinate the Don of a New York mafia family that has moved in on the turf of his rival. However with his client dead and his target protected by “special” bullet proof glass, will Golgo 13 complete the hit? It’s Golgo 13, I think you know the answer.

This is the best of the Golgo 13 episodes I’ve seen so far in terms of animation. The background artists do a fantastic job in making New York seem a wet, miserable place to be. The visuals marry up well with the bleak inevitability of the plot. Golgo doesn’t toy with his targets, their desperate struggle to survive once they learn of his intentions is always of their own doing, and that is the crux of this episode.

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UK Anime Releases For 30/06/08

June 29th, 2008 by Brack

Just the one this week.

Bleach: Series 2: Part 1

In which we get to the third phase of a Shonen Jump manga’s life and we find the start of the “big plot”. Often you get a few trial chapters where the series introduces the characters and series concept, then a longer story where it finds it’s feet, before moving onto the main the story. Shaman King did it, Naruto very clearly did it, One Piece did the first two steps, but then kept the rest of series to multiple arcs similar to Dragonball. And talking of Dragonball, Bleach’s big plot owes a lot the Red Ribbon Army arc (and to be fair, One Piece similarly raided this for it’s Enies Lobby arc).

The biggest plus for the series is that adapts the manga at a pace quite unlike it’s peers. These episodes clear through manga material at least twice as fast as Naruto or One Piece typically do. This gets the series into trouble later, but here the series is refreshingly light on typical time stretching devices such as long reaction shots and lengthy recaps and flashbacks.

The cost of this is that you don’t get the occasional dazzling animation display that Naruto has, instead Bleach maintains a solid level of competency throughout.

The eleven episodes here can be picked up from online merchants for around £15, which is a decent price in the current DVD market, though I’d argue that just buying the manga would be the better way spending of that cash, as it’d get you three volumes and change. But it’s only better by a margin, as this boxset pretty much cover volumes 9, 10 and 11 of the manga. Yes, 31 episodes in and they’ve covered nearly 11 volumes of manga, that’s how pacey the adapatation is.

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Toren Smith’s Time Machine.

June 27th, 2008 by Brack

More old news from Issue 8 of Manga Mania (Feb. 1994). This issue is noteworthy for an interview with Masamune Shirow by Toren Smith, that is dated as taking place in October 1994, 8-9 months after this appeared in shops. Insert long convoluted Gunbuster reference here.

UK NEWS

  • Kiseki started their run on the title that kept them in business - Urotsukidoji, releasing Urotsukidoji: Revenge Of The Overfiend
  • Manga had release shuffle, Rumic World was on track, Guyver was delayed to March, and Crying Freeman, Doomed Megalopolis and Golgo 13 were out in Feb.
  • To fill space in the news, some facts and figures about manga in Japan were printed. Usual stuff about how much it sells in relation to western comic sales.
  • Anime Projects started releasing AnimEigo’s subs of Urusei Yatsura.
  • Future Shooter, a clothing company, were releasing some godawful looking manga-inspired gaming fashion.
  • A couple of UK Cons were listed. AUK CON was Anime UK’s one day con in London, and Anime Day was to be held over a March weekend in Sheffield.

US NEWS

  • AnimEigo do the first of many repackage/repricings of Bubblegum Crisis. They also dub Riding Bean, release more Urusei Yatsura OAVs and put UY movie 3: Remember My Love on Laser Disc.
  • LA Hero announce acquisition of “Wings of Oneamis” (sic).
  • ADV release the first Burn Up. Trish Ledoux, who writes this section, continues with her comments on ADV’s T & A reputation.
  • Streamline release more Doomed Megalopolis.
  • US Manga Corps release Heroic Legend of Arislan (sic).
  • Viz continue the Ranma TV release.
  • US Renditions continue with Devil Man.
  • Notable manga releases in the US include Oshii’s Hellhounds through Dark Horse and first (?) US shojo manga release, Promise from Viz.

JAPAN NEWS

  • Zeta Gundam gets a Laser Disc boxset release.
  • OAVs etc out:
  • Fortune Quest
  • Hakkenden
  • Plastic Little
  • Giant Robo Vol. 4
  • Orguss
  • Dirty Pair Flash
  • The Cockpit

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MEOW

June 23rd, 2008 by Brack

Anyone know who is the voice of the big black cat in Chi’s Sweet Home? The TV Tokyo site didn’t have a cast listing for him when I looked.

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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

June 22nd, 2008 by Brack

This ran at the BFI yesterday, so I took the opportunity to see the film on a big screen. For some reason they moved it to the main NFT1 screen, possibly it was doing better in ticket sales than they thought as the theatre was packed. Regardless, it was superior experience to whichever of the theatres I saw Mind Game in a couple of years ago, I wasn’t squashed up against the side of a wall. Also, unlike Mind Game, it was actually screened off a film print rather than a DVD. Unfortunately the film print had seen better days, the start of the film had a lot of noise and dirt on the print, and there were glitches here and there later in the movie. Nothing too detrimental, but a little annoying at the start.

Watching the film with a full audience reasserted in my mind that Mamoru Hosoda is the anime director that people have bemoaned is lacking - someone who can create excellent films, with broad appeal, whose surname isn’t Miyazaki. And he does it without aping the Ghibli style. Hosoda’s style is distinctly recognisable as his own. For awhile I wasn’t sure if the look of his films was his own, or that of his frequent collaborator Takaaki Yamashita, but seeing some of Yamashita’s work away from Hosoda, makes me think it’s firmly Hosoda’s vision that we see on screen.

Hosoda’s work frequently uses shots that frame the world in a way that simulates the point of view of someone standing in that world (though not a character POV). Lots of wide shots, low horizons and high skys. Often, rather than changing shots, or using tracking shots and close ups, we see a scene act out within that shot. Late in the film he plays with the idea of a tracking shot, using it as he would any of his other shots, by having a character move within the frame of the tracking shot, effectively outrunning the speed of the “camera”.

Also he takes great care in positioning characters within a shot, drawing your focus to them, even when there is a lot going on in the background. Hosoda is interested in rooting his animated world in reality, even if the story involves time travel, digital monsters or super-powered pirates, and here he gets to do that to it’s fullest extent yet. Often shots are full of bustling human life meaning that, unlike much anime, the characters don’t live in a vacuum of their own existence. And the movements of the main characters themselves aren’t some idealised, smooth version of human movement, they are clumsy, bumbling and rambunctious.

Story-wise, this is my favourite sort of science fiction, where a single idea is all that separates the fictional world from our own. It is a charming and light concoction, indeed, it is commented within the film that it’s good that the ability to time travel is used so trivially. The performances of the three leads are for the most part good, though Riisa Naka as Makoto is far better at the comedic aspects of her role than the emotional parts. Her crying really left a lot to be desired (a distressed walrus springs to mind) but there’s only really one scene that comes up in.

Easily the best animated film of 2006, it’s good that Kadokawa & Bandai have been attempting to give it the international recognition it deserves.

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The Title Blurb Read “Mighty Mecha Special!!”

June 20th, 2008 by Brack

More old news from 1993 courtesy of Manga Mania Issue 6, December ‘93.

Editorial: Figured I might start talking about these too. In this issue, Cefn Ridout bemoans the bad publicity anime was getting in the press. Well, one article in the Independent - “CARTOON CULT WITH AN INCREASING APPETITE FOR SEX AND VIOLENCE” by David Lister (not the Red Dwarf character one presumes). This perceived witchhunt of anime tends to be blown a little out of proportion by anime fans from this time. I think part of the feeling of belonging that a fandom gives a person, comes from the persecution complex most subcultures have, and the niche anime fandom at this time was no different. The people who were buying all those copies of Akira, Overfiend and Guyver are a completely different matter though. I doubt they gave two hoots what people like Lister thought and just wanted more sexy violent cartoons. Which is fair enough. GO TEAM SEXY VIOLENT CARTOONS!

UK News:

  • Kiseki had more of Macross II
  • BBC2 schedule Akira over Xmas, alongside a documentary called Manga.
  • BBC1 were showing the 90’s anime version of the Moomins.
  • Channel 4 were showing the overlooked UNICEF sponsored allegorical Dutch/Japanese production, Alfred J. Kwak. Melvyn Hayes as the Hitler Crow character was one of the great UK voice performances.
  • Manga Video had more Crying Freeman and Doomed Megalopolis
  • There was a report on a visit to Yaohan Plaza/Oriental City in Colindale, London, which was a popular haunt of UK anime/manga fans during the 90s. It was under threat of demolition a few years back, and just 3 weeks ago was “closed for redevelopment”. It’s probably a little odd that despite being into anime/manga since 1995, I never once went there.

Japan News:

  • Anime producer Haruki Kadokawa was arrested for smuggling cocaine.
  • Roujin Z due out.
  • Dirty Pair Flash announced. Lord, did this kick off a stink. The fuss was still around when I entered the fandom a couple of years later. The vemon it generated from hardcore Dirty Pair fans in the US and UK was mighty.
  • Anime Street Fighter film announced. The US live action film is mentioned in passing.
  • OAV/Laser Discs out included:
  • Comet Machine Gun Gakusave
  • Super Sonic Soldier Borgman
  • KO Century Three Beastketeers II
  • Fantasia
  • X2
  • Ushio and Tora
  • Machine God Corps
  • The Hakkenden
  • Black Jack

US News:

  • Viz - Mermaids Scar, Ranma TV First volume of the this long running 2 eps at a time VHS release. Anyone want to do the maths on how much it would have cost to get all of Ranma in this way?
  • US Manga Corps - The Ulitmate Teacher, Maris The Chojo/Laughing Target, Odin.
  • Anime 18 - Urotsukidoji II: Legend of the Demon Womb.
  • AD Vision - Guy - Awakening Of The Devil/Second Target.
    Ledoux gets in a dig at ADV’s T&A reputation at the time.
  • Dark Image - Outlanders.
  • Streamline - Neo Tokyo, 3×3 Eyes, Nadia movie collection.
  • AnimEigo had the fourth Urusei Yatsura film, Lum The Forever.
  • Manga releases: More of whatever was here before. Plus first time listings for Antarctic Press were included. A company that has a lot to answer for, but more on that down the line.

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HATE FUN? SUMMER’S HERE KIDS - ADDENDUM

June 19th, 2008 by Brack

Stay alone, put a record on, listen to the songs, keep yourself at home

You know, I think I failed to actually point out exactly what I am excited about seeing, so lets start with two things I didn’t list, and then the rest in order of excited-ness.

GOTHAM KNIGHT - The Batman OAV is out over here in July and I’ll be picking this up. At least half the directors involved I’m a fan of so this should be fun, fun, fun.

DETROIT METAL CITY - This is DMC’s year (or maybe next year if the film gets an international release). Anyway the manga is, along with Chi’s Sweet Home, the most obvious choice for manga to be released in English, and the Studio 4°C adaptation looks ridiculously faithful to it’s brilliance. Fingers crossed that as it’s Studio 4°C it might have subtitles included. A man can dream.

BIRDY THE MIGHTY DECODE - Noein creative team reunite, with SHAFT visual niceness.

COBRA THE ANIMATION

ULTRAVIOLET: CODE 044

There’s a bit of gap ‘twixt Ultraviolet and the next lot in measure of hopping up and down in expectedness.

SOMEDAY’S DREAMERS: SUMMER’S SORA - I am a mark for Osamu Kobayashi

NATSUME YUUJIN-CHOU - Takahiro Omori has goodwill with me after Baccano!

SLAYERS REVOLUTION - Oh nostalgia.

CHOCOLATE UNDERGROUND - Not holding much hope of seeing it given it’s release format, but if the opportunity arose I’d check it out.

RYOKO’S CASE FILE - I am also a mark for mystery/detective shows

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The fifth of those Manga Mania flashbacks.

June 18th, 2008 by Brack

This what was being reported in Issue 5, cover date October 1993.

UK News:

  • Manga Video release Wicked City, Heroic Legend of Arislan.
  • Kiseki had Macross II coming out.
  • Contanimeted 1993 was taking place in October at the New Cobden Hotel, Birmingham.
  • The lack of anime stylings in the UK releases of Barcode Battler and Z Knights is bemoaned.
    3 years later I would have a lecturer at university try and impress me and my friends by boasting he had a Barcode Battler. It was quite a surreal moment.

US News:

  • AnimEigo announced Ah! My Goddess. And they released AD Police 2, Kimagure Orange Road Laserdisc, more Urusei Yatsura, Dagger of Kamui
  • LA Hero/US Renditions were putting out the Macross II Lovers Again CD soundtrack
  • US Manga Corps had Astro Boy 30th Anniversary Collection, Gall Force 2, Area 88 Act 3
  • In manga news: Venger Robo and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 were starting at Viz.

Japan News:

  • Yoshinobu Nishizaki announces in Anime V that a new Yamato project is due in 1994. I guess this was the Yamato 2520 OAV.
  • OAVs out included:
  • Wataru
  • Super Soldier Borgman
  • Cashan
  • Arslan Chronicles
  • Machine God Corps
  • Ranma 1/2 OAV
  • Dominion

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HATE FUN? SUMMER’S HERE KIDS

June 17th, 2008 by Brack

Take a trip, join me in the sun, but not really though, cause I ain’t having fun.

Yes, the bane of gamesfaqs forum posters is back! Let’s put the boot into summer season anime before they even air.

Ikkitousen Great Guardians
Yuji Shiozaki’s alleged Tenjo Tenge-plagarising Romance of the Three Kingdoms as bouncy high school girls manga get’s it’s third season of anime. The first season had two unfortunate problems - it aired during the far superior Airmaster’s run. And it was shit. At least it only has one of those problems this time.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 1

Chocolate Underground

Alex Shearer’s Bootleg gets the Original Net Animation treatment. Quick poll: What’s a more soul destroying phrase - Original Net Animation (ONA) or Mobisode?

Telepathy Shoujo Ran

More light novel fun for NHK. This time from TMS. No director listed on ANN, so no idea if I should be excited or not. However the screenwriter, Makoto Nakamura, has apparently been responsible for many crimes against taste (Air, Clannad, Kanon).

UltraViolet: Code 044

It’s the anime spin off of the crappy vampires vs. werewolves film. But forget that.

It’s Madhouse + Osamu Dezaki + Romi Paku. So it should be well worth a watch.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 2

Sekirei

Standard anime for soft boys too afraid to buy actual porn.

Slayers REVOLUTION

As a huge roleplaying game nerd, I was immediately drawn to Slayers when I first saw it in… 96?97? But I eventually lost interest, outside of catching the films and OAVs at cons. I’m interested in this as both a nostalgia kick and as part of possible trend in anime.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 3

Someday’s Dreamers: Summer’s Sora

Another sequel~! And, it’s another magical realism anime. Talking of trends, THAT definitely is a trend in recent manga/anime. Geneon had announced this for US release, before disappearing from the US market. Oh, hey, it’s directed by Osamu Kobayashi. Colour me interested.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 4

Antique Bakery

I imagine this will have a lot of interest based on the popularity of the manga. However I’m not sure there’s any appeal in the production to non-fans.

Hidamari Sketch x365

The only anime with the codec that will be used to pirate it in it’s title.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 5

Strike Witches

GONZO spin off their OAV into a TV series. Director Kazuhiro Takamura has worked on some decent shows, but what he’s been more influential on have been pretty rubbish (Mahoromatic, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World). And by that I mean they were both pretty AND rubbish.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 6

Birdy the Mighty Decode

Noein director Kazuki Akane is in charge.
Noein screenwriter Hiroshi Ohnogi is writing.
SHAFT are finally make something I’m interested in watching.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 7

Ryoko’s Case File

This is a mystery. Both it’s genre and the fact I don’t know anything about it.

Zero no Tsukaima ~Miyoshi Hime no Rondo~

This show I’ve never heard of gets it’s… (checks) third series. Third!

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 8

Natsume Yuujin-chou

A young boy has the ability to see ghosts and is shunned by humans because of it. No, it’s not GeGeGe No Kitaro, it’s Yuki Midorikawa’s shojo manga about a boy with book of ghosts. Baccano!’s Takahiro Omori directs this new Brains Base show, so it could be worth a look as he has a proven record in strong adaptations.

Mission-E

Sequel to CODE-E. I think I watched 5 minutes of that once. It was enough.

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 9

World Destruction

Production IG/Sega’s videogame RPG tie-in. This won’t be any good.

Koihime†Musou

Dogakobo’s moe adventure game tie-in. This will be worse than World Destruction.

Blade of the Immortal

Yay, a Blade of the Immortal anime. Wait… What? Bee Train are making it? Koichi Mashimo is directing it? Can I take that yay back? Thanks.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Popular moe ideal student is secretly an otaku. I am not so secretly completely disinterested.

Cobra The Animation

That yay I took back for Blade of the Immortal, I’m using it here.

YAY!

oh and…

SEQUEL/REMAKE COUNT: 10

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