Gen X Otaku 1971: the OG blog

New Netflix features, and currently watching...

Netflix has added some nice features to their streaming options that I'd like to give them kudos for; but first I need to b*tch at them a little.  As some readers may know, licences for shows are not forever, and licenses for streaming in particular do expire over time.  Previously I've had shows I was watching get taken down and removed from my instant queue without any warning whatsover.  This happened to me for Trigun and for Gurren Lagann; Most infuriating with Gurren Lagann was that I went from streaming the English dub to having to switch to SUB-ONLY (Japanese) rental DVDs.  What the HELL, Netflix!?  Why  the HELL do you only have monolingual DVDs for rental!?  It's not like the bilingual editions don't exist!  I was so infurated I went out and bought the Box set of Gurren Lagann so I could finish this classic series.  I wrote a review to complain about this but Netflix always gives you a little slap on the wrist if you do stuff like that (you have to re-acknowledge the community guidlines, etc)  At least the Trigun rental discs are bilingual from Netflix. 

More recently, like within the past few months, I noticed that Netflix has started listing EXPIRATION DATES of shows whose licences are on the verge of expiring.  THANK YOU, Netflix.  This is a most welcome change as it now lets me prioritize my Anime viewing schedule with respect to streaming shows.  I recently had to race to finish the show Kiddy Grade (a very moe Sci-Fi story) and the old ADV films title Air Gear, which is a crazy racing gang show featuring mechanized roller blades.  I did manage to just finish both shows before their respective expiration dates with not very much time to spare.

I am still watching plenty of (mainly older) shows via Netflix DVD rental, but as I currently only have 2 disks at a time on my plan, I use streaming options for the times between receiving new discs...otherwise I'll work on my backlog of shows I've acquired on box set DVD/Blu-Ray thanks to being exposed to them at the weekly FUNimation screenings (and the montly Sentai Anime Night every 3rd Monday of each month) at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in Katy, Tx.

I just got back tonight from the final 4 episodes of the new series Freezing.  I own the box set but wanted to see the rest of this show on the big screen.  I learned from our host that there is also a few OVAs in the box set, so I will go back and watch those soon, too.  I won't go into a lengthy review now, but suffice it to say it was an evening well spent and the series finale did not disappoint.

I also recently acquired the (new) series LEVEL E on Box set after having seen the screening of Episodes 1-4 at Drafthouse.  The 2Lazy2Botaku guys really liked it, so I think it was a wise purchase.  I sure enjoyed the hell out of those first 4 epsiodes.  Definitely looking forward to finishing it later this year.

On Netflix streaming I'm currently enjoying/finishing up the FUNimation shows Black Blood Brothers, and Aquarion; from Sentai Filmworks I'm enjoying Canaan, which is super action packed and reminds me of a modern day, updated NOIR or MADLAX, both of which I loved very much back in the day.  I also added back Sgt Frog (Season 3) to my streaming queue; I used to have Crayon Shin Chan lined up on streaming but the license for that on Netflix seems to have expired.

I'm also making my way through the older series Blue Gender; Other shows in my queue include Guin Saga and Mushi Shi, but I find both of these shows kind of dull and not very interesting.  I was watching Hell Girl via streaming, but it too is now only on rental DVD.  It's an okay show, sort of like an Anime version of The Twilight Zone, but the stories are a little repetitive and formulaic after awhile.  They sometimes mix it up, but mostly it sticks to the same general, highly predictable pattern.

I do want to get back to Heroic Age eventually and finish it; I had gotten pretty far along with it on Netflix streaming but now it too is back to DVD only.  It's not a BAD show, but nearly every episode is just a set-up for a giant bio-Mecha fight, over and over and over.  It gets to be kind of tedious.  If not for an emotionally compelling performance by Caitlin Glass as the fair princess, I'd have no interest at all in going back to this show.

Another show I started but set aside but want to get back to eventually is Boogiepop Phantom.  It's a classic series albeit very f*cked up.  It's good, just very weird, slowly paced...the animation is kind of ugly, and there's a dearth of truly sympathetic characters, at least in the episodes I've watched so far.

Recently I finished the box sets of Ghost Hunt and Moonlight Mile.  Ghost Hunt is okay, but rather mediocre.  I recently finished the old ADV "joke" series Ghost Stories with totally original English dub script and that was WAY more entertaining, actually.  Many people hold up Ghost Stories as an example of a bad dub but I disagree.  Ghost Stories was wholly intentional, broke the fourth wall, etc.  No, a truly bad dub is Moonlight Mile...indeed the series as a whole is pretty terrible.  It has potential, and maybe the sciencey-space tech aspects of it are good and perhaps even accurate for all I know...but the storytelling in the show is slow & uneven and mostly pretty boring.  The show looks as though it has potential, and some of the mystery alluded to in the very first scene of Episode 1 is hinted at near the very end of the first season, but this show was so terrible in its first season that there's virtually no chance that any additional seasons will be licensed for dubbed North American release.  It doesn't hold a candle to PLANETES, which is a far superior space exploration show.  I will save my full-on hate for Moonlight Mile for a separate post at a later date.

Anyway, those are some of the shows I've been looking at recently...I don't update this blog nearly often enough, I know.  Sorry about that.

 

Anime at Alamo Drafthouse -- upcoming!

This is the cover art to volume 1 of the Manga series Dance in the Vampire Bund.

I managed to buy this particular volume for 30% off during the store-closing sale at my local Borders Books (which is now out of business and empty--so sad).

I bring up this series because the Anime that has been spun off this Manga will be screening very soon at Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks Mall, in High Def no less.  Mark your calendars...

June 7 - T.O (HD)
June 14 - Dance in the Vampire Bund (HD)
June 21 - Hero Tales Eps 9 -12
June 28 - Baka and Test - Summon the Beasts (HD)

Next month, we have volume 2...the Manga of which I also purchased at Borders for 40% off.

I'm assuming that Episodes 5-8 cover the events described in the second volume, more or less.

July 5 - Rideback (HD)
July 12 - Drop (Live-Action / HD)
July 19 - Noir
July 26 - Dance in the Vampire Bund Eps 5 - 8 (HD)

I actually have not yet read either Manga volume yet; I did literally judge a couple of books by their covers.  I hope the animation and voice acting live up to my expectations that these beautiful works of cover-art generate in me.

Also at the Borders Books Stafford closing sale, I managed to get sweet deals on the Azumanga Daioh paperback omnibus edition.  Our library has a copy but it's often checked out.  Osaka has a Brooklyn accent in the Manga, which differs from the Anime, where it's more of a Texas drawl.

I also picked up a three-in-one Manga of Eureka Seven.  I've seen the series and the feature film sequel, which I may do a review of soon.  Never read the Manga, though, so looking forward to it.

I also picked up a 3-in-one Manga omnibus for Gunslinger Girl; again, I've seen the first and second series of the Anime, but never read the Manga. 

I typically only buy Manga for shows I've already seen the Anime for.  Once you fall in love with the characters, it feels good to go out and buy the Manga so you can have them in Still Art form.  Then you can let your eyes take them in for as long as you like.  With Vampire Bund, I'm sort of doing the reverse.  I hope I am not disappointed.

Gantz...an Epic.

Gantz. This is probably one of my favorite Anime series of all time and certainly a classic, almost on par with Akira.  I have not read the Manga but feel I should now, having watched all the episodes of the original Anime series in English dub from ADV Films.

*SPOILER ALERT* (discussion of plot elements to follow)

(above are Kishimoto, Kurono, and Kato, the three central characters of Gantz)

Gantz is probably one of the most ultra-violent Anime shows I have ever borne witness to, it completely oozes with over-the-top sexuality (and taut sexual tension)...and is cynical and darkly nihilistic.  If you wanted to make an Anime series based on the mind and thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche, it would probably come out looking something like Gantz.

This is Gantz:

...some weird alien sphere thing that serves as a weapons cache and also a preservation capsule for some weird alien that lives inside it.  It occupies an empty apartment room in downtown Tokyo but is only ever accessed by the living dead, so to speak.

Gantz keeps a close eye on the lives of the citizens of Tokyo, and it chooses individuals who are on the brink of death and makes a kind of transporter "photocopy" of their entire chemical/physical make-up and transports them, fully conscious, to this strangely empty apartment room.  It then taunts the new arrivals and explains their former lives are over and their new lives belong to it.  It forces them to hunt down and kill other alien creatures living among the human population.  It observes the battles like a Roman emperor enjoying watching gladitorial combat.  It awards points to the combat survivors....and many do not survive.  Those that die on Gantz's missions die for good and do not come back.  Those that defy Gantz and try to leave the game before it is done also die horribly.  Those that talk about Gantz outside the games also die horribly.  Just like Fight Club, apparently you don't talk about Gantz either if you know what's good for you.

Gantz is sloppy, though, and sometimes produces copies of humans who end up not dying after all, like what happens to Kei Kishimoto, a young teen girl suicide who slit her wrists in the bathtub, but who was actually saved in the ER of a local hospital, but not before Gantz made a "copy" of her to play with in its sick games.  The Gantz-generated Kishimoto has no place to stay and ends up staying for a time with Kei Kurono, the nominal protagonist of the story.

Kei Kurono, voiced by veteran ADV Films actor Chris Ayres (brother of Greg Ayers), is, admittedly, kind of a whiny, self-centered douche-bag at first, while his erstwhile childhood friend Kato is a more caring and generous soul.  As they got older, the two grew apart and moved in different circles.  When they first meet in Gantz's apartment, Kishimoto comes very close to being violently raped by a Yakuza thug, but Kato intervenes and saves her.  Kurono is very attracted to Kishimoto himself but is a little dense when it comes to understanding and accepting why Kishimoto feels more affection towards Kato--who, oh yeah, saved her from being violently raped. 

Kurono eventually finds his balls and becomes something of a bad-ass in Gantz's increasingly difficult missions.  Kishimoto does notice and begins to feel respect and even some attraction for Kurono, but her heart still longs to be with Kato.

Every mission Gantz sends its "recruits" out on are deceptively "simple" and ALWAYS end up being more bloody and vastly more difficult that the characters are initially led to believe.

Kurono might have been able to win Kishimoto away from Kato had he played his cards more carefully and not been such a ginormous prick so much of the time, but alas, no.  He does fantasize about her, though, and we do get to watch hentai-level explicitness for a brief interlude.

Still, one shouldn't feel too bad for Kurono, since he does eventually bang a super-hot late entry into the combat later on, and later tries to protect Monical Rial's sweet & fragile character who is a stalker victim murdered by her stalker in "real" life.  By this stage of the story, Kurono is delusional and although we (the audience) see Monica's character as she is, Kurono sees Kishimoto in her place.

The ending is ambiguous, bleak, and nihilistic...bit of a letdown, I'll admit...but the series itself is so intense and so good, I really didn't mind the ending.  It was adequate and it works.  I'll have to look into how the Manga spins it later on.

Gantz was picked up and digitally remastered by FUNimation, who presented the first four episodes at a special screening at Alamo Drafthouse in Houston, Texas.  I regret very much not going, having subsequently watched all the episodes on Netflix DVD, which owns the original ADV Films releases.  I would seriously consider  buying the box set from FUNimation, this Anime is that good.  It is brutal, violent, with heavy sexual content and is not for the faint of heart, but it is also a brilliant work of Anime art and a true Anime classic.

 

Blue Drop: Pretty but Dumb.

I just finished the Anime series BLUE DROP from Sentai Filmworks.  I missed the opportunity to watch the first four episodes on the big screen at Alamo Drafthouse Houston awhile back; a decision I now regret.  Say whatever else you may like about this series, the visuals are undeniably gorgeous.  Let me issue my standard spoiler alert now, as I will be going into plot details below.  If you've not seen this series or haven't finished it, STOP READING THIS POST NOW.  If you have or don't care, let's continue.

This is a Sci-Fi anime featuring USOs or Unidentified Submerged Objects.  The space aliens' ships are literally shaped like futuristic surface warships, but also travel like submarines most of the time, complete with funky conning towers...yet they can also fly through the air and also trans-dimensionally through space.

The two lead roles are voiced by two veteran actresses harkening back to ADV Films, which Sentai came from.  First we have Monica Rial, who makes another appearance portraying a lesbian from outer-space (see also Kurau: Phantom Memory for another example), the alluringly beautiful and brilliant Hagino Senkōji (千光寺 萩乃 Senkōji Hagino^?); and it's also great to hear Hilary Haag in a leading role in an anime again, this time as the moody, passionate and short-tempered (and short statured) Mari Wakatake (若竹 マリ Wakatake Mari^?), orphan and sole survivor of a terrible and strange incident in her childhood.  Mari Wakatake (若竹 マリ Wakatake Mari^?) was raised into adolescence by her grandmother, who wants her to attend boarding school at the High School level, so she can be properly socialized and make friends among her peer group.

Hagino and Mari don't get along well at first.  Mari thinks she recognizes Hagino from seeing her from her chauffer's car, at the sea shore.  Hagino extends her hand in friendship but then seems possessed and tries to strangle Mari, who breaks free.  Mari is understandably freaked out and keeps her distance from Hagino and lets her displeasure be known to any and all.  Unfortunately for Mari, she's decided to pick on probably THE most popular girl in the whole school; she can't tell anyone what really happened, because noone would believe her, and Hagino herself seems to almost have amnesia about the event.

Hagino leads a double life.  To everyone at school, she's a straight A student, utterly beautiful, gracious, etc., with a huge, almost cult-like fan following among the student body.  They are very catty with anyone who doesn't agree with their cult that Hagino is the best girl to ever wear the academy's uniform, etc.

In reality Hagino is the Captain of Ship #5 of an invasion fleet of hostile all-female aliens.  Ship#5 was severely damaged in a freak accident several years earlier and now operates on a skeleton crew with just its captain (Hagino) and its first mate (voiced by Brittany Karbowski, doing a mock British accent, like many of the other aliens).  Hagino's original mission was advanced reconnaisance, to gather intelligence on human society.  But over time, she has fallen in love with Earth and with human society, especially Japanese society and culture, and has misgivings about her race's impending invasion of Earth.

This is the central conflict of the series, and also the fact that the accident on Hagino's ship was what caused the terrible incident on the island where Mari's parents both died, leaving Mari as the sole human survivor of the incident.  Mari survived because she is somehow special, different from other human beings, but exactly how is never adequately explained.  Indeed, there is a lot of elements to the story which get introduced and are given surface treatment but never explored or explained in depth, a source of frustration for this viewer in particular.

Also, you need to resign yourself to the fact that what drives this story are the relationships between the characters, especially Mari and Hagino, who are slowly falling in love...and forget about the whole military/sci-fi angle, or at least not think too hard about it.

Because if you DO think about it for very long, you come to realize rather quickly that Hagino is a fairly incompetent Captain.  She makes decisions that are stupid and make no sense (like letting an enraged fellow alien officer who blames Hagino for the death of her lover have free run of the ship, after detaining her only briefly in the brig--what's the worst that could happen?  OOPS!  Sabotage?  Who didn't see THAT coming?  ANYONE?)

Also, if Hagino and her first mate are able to run Ship#5 so incredibly well without a full crew compliment, why in heaven do the other ships in the alien fleet have crews at all?  If Ship#5 can be automated so well, then the crew are essentially mere ballast.  They suffer next to no deficits for lacking a full crew compliment the way they SHOULD, if they wanted to be more realistic.

I won't reveal the ending, but just note that the casting of Hagino as Joan of Arc in the School Festival play is no mere coincidence but foreshadowing.   Hagino, like Joan, rises up to save her people (the Humans she has grown to know and love) but at a very high personal cost.

The only reason Hagino seems to excell as a captain is by virtue of the fact that her compatriots in the invasion fleet are even MORE incompetent than her.

The best scenes in this show are the human relationships + Hagino.  Although the sci-fi space/sea battles are visually appealing, the appaling stupidity of the military operations on all sides does detract from this viewer's enjoyment of these sequences.

It seems the anime is quite a departure from the original Manga, which I have not yet read but now feel as though I should.

Mari survives into adulthood, and we realize her aged identity at the show's opening only at the end.

To conclude, Visuals are an A+, Story/Relationships: B+, Sci-Fi/Military Apects: D-

Currently available on Netflix streaming.  Worth watching, but the story is very slow paced, so have patience as it unfolds.

Kodocha; Kid's anime with adult-level emotions.

When I first started watching Kodocha, my first thought was, "Hey, this is kinda like Crayon Shin Chan", insofar as both Sana and Shin are hilariously age-inappropriate at times (the same appeal as South Park, for that matter).

(Sana Kurata being less-hilariously-age-inappropriate and more disturbingly age-inappropriate in the above image.)

Yeah, forget I ever said that.  Holy cow, Kodocha is on a completely different level than your typical "kid's" show.  Don't let the crude animation fool you:

Kodocha has surprisingly deep and heavy emotional content from fairly early on that will have you choking up with tears before you know it.  Yes, Sana Kurata is indeed a goofy, spastic character...Yes, she makes up her own corny rap songs on the spot...Yes, she dances in her room at night like you'd expect an eleven year old girl would...she's voiced expertly by Laura Bailey, who also voiced the lead role in Fruits Basket and is a well known name in Anime voice acting circles.

But the story gets serious and deep fairly quickly.  Adults should provide parental guidance to the shows themes and plot developments....the story is very good and very high quality, but could be emotionally upsetting and disturbing to younger viewers.  I'm not saying don't let them watch, I'm saying, watch it with them because they will need you there when the intensity ramps up.

I'm a Gen-X'er and I swear there were parts of this series that had me crying my eyes out.

My favorite actress, Monica Rial, voices Sana's good friend Aya, who later becomes the girlfriend of Tsuyoshi (voiced by Greg Ayers), who is the best friend of Akito, Sana's early seeming bitter rival and later good friend.  Aya features prominently in the opening sequences of Kodocha, alongside Sana, Tsuyoshi, and Akito.  Aya is sweet & shy, but also very good at heart.  Not much of a stretch for Monica ;-)

Also wonderful in the voice acting department is the phenomenal Colleen Clinkenbeard who plays Sana's eccentric mother.  Colleen's performance is mostly low-key here, but still thoroughly enjoyable.

 

This is a well-done series and well worth your time.

It is entertaining as physical comedy, sure, but it's the heavy-duty emotional content and coming-of-age story that keeps me coming back for more and more.

I'm on volume 6 and still eager for more.  It's opening and closing credits are one of the few cases in an anime show where I just let them play all the way through instead of skipping through them.  The songs are too darn catchy not to...

See if you don't agree... (btw, this particular ending is a fairly pivotal scene early on in the series)

The Artistry of Satoshi Kon, Part 2

The opening sequence to Paranoia Agent is kind of a head trip in its own right.

 

 

Some keys to helping you understand Paranoia Agent include...

....Watch the episodes in sequence from start to finish.  Don't watch it randomly on TV, start from the beginning, don't jump around, stay in episode order.  The story builds on itself sequentially and is hard enough to get a handle on in the original order it was written.  You won't be able to identify all the characters in the opening sequence until nearly the end of the show, as they get introduced one by one as the plot moves along.

As I stated before, the action really does center on Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子 Sagi Tsukiko^?), but this fact isn't readily apparent since Sagi seems to drop off the radar not long after being introduced as a main character.  But if you're observant, you'll notice she's always still around in the story.

Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子 Sagi Tsukiko^?) is important because she's the creator behind this cute lil' fellow, named Maromi and voiced creepily by veteran voice actress Carrie Savage:

Carrie Savage is expert at voicing incredibly cute critters and little kids...but she's also skilled at making characters sound ever so slightly demented and creepy in ways that can make your skin crawl.  It's a rare gift.  Though Maromi gets limited screen time as a moving, speaking character, mostly as a figment of Tsukiko's deranged imagination, Carrie's performance in the English dub truly brings this lil' critter to life as a pivotal character.

More often, Maromi is just an ubiquitous cultural icon seen all over the fictional Tokyo of this series.  He's a parody of other cutesy animal-creature stuffed toys and other pop culture icons in contemporary Japan.

I also have to compliment Michelle Ruff's performance as Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子 Sagi Tsukiko^?), since to me it seems a departure for her.  I'm used to Michelle Ruff as the voice of Rukia of Bleach fame, where she's kind of a bad-ass and plays up the sexual tension and friendly bickering between Rukia and Ichigo, voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch.  In other anime, Michelle Ruff seems to play either saccharine-sweet characters like the tragic Princess Euphemia of Code Geass, or else rather haughty/mean girls...her performance in Dears comes to mind.  But Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子 Sagi Tsukiko^?) is so emotionally sensitive and physically frail...at other times emotionally distant and withdrawn...I really think the character is probably slightly autistic or at least "aspie".  She's a person who clearly prefers the world of fantasy to that of reality...which is the central moral crisis at the heart of Paranoia Agent...which is ultimately about facing down our fears and coming to terms with grim, ugly reality...of finally putting an end to one's escapist diversions and jumping bravely through life's hurdles instead of running from them or making excuses.

This is, in some ways not unlike the moral crisis faced by Mima Kirigoe of Perfect Blue, which is exacerbated by the fact that, as an actress, it is her job to bring fictional characters to life for a captive television audience night after night.  Mima does a lot of soul searching, wondering if becoming an actress really was the right move...if only she'd stayed on with her pop-singer trio, who now seem to be having even greater success as a duo...the emotionally disturbed character she portrays on television seems to bleed over into her real life...

The only thing that makes Perfect Blue harder to watch now than when it first came out is all of the references to very early Internet technology that now are commonplace and passe.  It definitely shows its age and some of the suspenseful elements that were captivating in the late 1990s just don't have the same force today.  Today if some creepy stalker started an anonymous blog pretending to be a celebrity, he would get his pants sued off and his P.O. Box would be filled with "Cease & Desist" letters by some pretty high priced entertainment lawyers...but in the late 1990s the internet was so much more new and mysterious than it is now...

Still, the final twist in Perfect Blue is worthy of Hitchcock--I totally didn't see it coming--and the resolution of Perfect Blue, for me, is highly emotionally satisfying.

So, too, the final resolution of Paranoia Agent, especially the final speech delivered by the police inspector's terminally ill wife to Lil' Slugger.

I think probably the creepiest character in Paranoia Agent is Masami Hirukawa (蛭川 雅美 Hirukawa Masami^?), a corrupt low-level neighborhood beat cop with the Tokyo police force.  He is a regular customer of the prostitute named Maria...and when you later figure out WHY he makes all of the prostitutes who service him call him "Daddy", it truly makes your skin crawl...two pairs of two words:  Hidden camera -- daughter's bedroom.  Yeah, pretty sicko.  He later gets in way over his head with the Yakuza, and fate/karma itself sorta bitch-slaps him by the end.

Satoshi Kon must have believed that the monsters we bring to life in our fantasies and imaginations have real power...almost a Jungian idea...and that we must be mindful of them and their potential power.  Art imitates Life, Life imitates Art.

I did thoroughly enjoy Paranoia Agent, finally having an opportunity last weekend to sit down with all four DVDs and finish watching the series.  It is mentally challenging, very entertaining, and mind-blowingly weird.  I would say that it is probably Satoshi Kon's final crowning achievement, having produced an entire half-season series...as compared to Perfect Blue and Paprika, which for all their artistic merits, are in the end merely feature length films, entirely self-contained.

The artistry of Satoshi Kon, Part 1.

I recently finished watching Satoshi Kon's 13-episode Anime series Paranoia Agent.  It is a highly acclaimed series and deservedly so.

As I've come to expect from Satoshi Kon's work, Paranoia Agent is a show that seemlessly weaves reality and fiction to produce a highly compelling narrative.  I first discovered Paranoia Agent on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim network a little over a year ago, maybe.  Since I would catch episodes at random it really didn't make a lot of sense and I just blew it off.

I came back to it later having watched Satoshi Kon's other famous works, such as the mind-bending Paprika, and more recently I enjoyed his older classic title, Perfect Blue.  To be incredibly sloppy, I guess you could say if you took Perfect Blue, smooshed it together with Paprika and then stretched it out to a half-season length series of 13 episodes (full seasons in Japan are 26 episodes, fyi), the result would be Paranoia Agent.  Actually, my lazy description is not wholly baseless, since the Wikipedia article on Satoshi Kon states that Paranoia Agent is all of Kon's left over ideas that he was unable to squeeze into his earlier feature films but still wanted to do something with.

On an artistic/stylistic level, there is definitely a noticeable continuity that runs through Perfect Blue and Paprika and Paranoia Agent.  The characters are drawn in stylistically similar ways...they are definitely Satoshi Kon characters.

Think of the main protagonist in Paranoia Agent, Tsukiko Sagi (鷺 月子 Sagi Tsukiko^?) , pictured far left and voiced in the English dub by Michelle Ruff (arguably most famous for her voice role as Rukia in the long running series Bleach).  All of the action revolves around Sagi, ultimately.  She is an artist, but also very emotionally sensitive and physically frail...she's so withdrawn and socially awkward it wouldn't surprise me if she were on the autism spectrum.

To me at least, she's highly reminiscent of Perfect Blue protagonist Mima Kirigoe, a pop-idol from the J-pop group "CHAM!", who decides to leave the group to become a professional actress. It's a difficult transition, and Mima is full of self-doubt, and has to take a lot of emotionally grueling and very edgy roles to take her career to the next level.

With both characters, Satoshi Kon is clearly fascinated by the creative power of The Artist.  The power of the artist to create myth and narrative that have a real imact upon the mundane real world.  It is an idea that Kon clearly derives a great deal of pleasure in playing around with creatively as an artist himself.  Both Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent derive their storytelling power from mixing reality and fantasy seemlessly to the point where the line between them blurs and fades.

The show that is most divorced from reality is Paprika.  Paprika makes no pretense of being even slightly tethered to the real world.  Paprika is full-bore fantasy...true, the main character has her "real" persona and her "fictional" alter-ego, a.k.a. the titular character of Paprika, but this pretense doesn't hold up as well as in the earlier Perfect Blue and the later Paranoia Agent.

One continuity that does exist between Paprika and Paranoia Agent are the two hardboiled Japanese police inspectors who represent the world of science and rationality and gumshoe gumption.  Both are shown often to be completely out of their depth, but still, they have a resolve that is admirable.

 

 

Some advance warning appreciated! (Subs vs. Dubs)

Somewhat enjoyed the screening of  Koihime†Musō (by Sentai Filmworks) at Alamo Drafthouse last night.  I got to wear my "Otaku" t-shirt and got complimented on it.  However,  Koihime†Musō is subtitled only, with only a Japanese language track.  This is the kind of thing I like to know before I enter the theater.  I will watch anime in the original Japanese, but it's not my preference.

I see in hindsight I should have held out for tonight's screening which is not only in English by FUNimation, but is a sneak preview of a DVD that's not even out yet!!  Aargh!

This is why it's been such a butt-pain that Drafthouse/FUNimation have been so lax in posting their new schedule for the upcoming month(s).   Allegedly the webmaster "hasn't had time to update the website"...this month is half OVER for chrissake!  How LAME an excuse is THAT?!

Anyway, they did post the new schedule on their Facebook, which I reproduce here for my readers:

1/17: Koihime†Musō (Sentai Filmworks)

{which I watched last night}

1/18: Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~
1/25: Sacred Blacksmith
...2/1: Gantz
...2/8: Chrome Shell Regis
2/15: TBA
2/22: FLCL (HD 1080p)See More

As of last night, neither Drafthouse nor Anime-at-the-Alamo main website have yet to be updated, only the Facebook fan page.  This is crap.

Anyway, just had to vent...thanks, carry on.

 

Thoroughly enjoyed Big Windup!

Just want to say that I finished Season 1 of Big Windup! (おおきく振りかぶって, Ookiku Furikabutte^?), and that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's a great coming of age story wrapped in a sports anime about High School baseball.  It has lots of great sport action--amazing how the animators can stretch one opening ballgame into nearly an entire season of action...but there's so much more to this story than just a sports drama...it's also about believing in yourself, and the importance of friends who believe in you, even when you are too busy being your own worst critic.  It's about never giving up, sticking to a goal or task even when the going gets tough.  The voice acting is superb...I especially enjoyed the supporting characters Abe (team catcher) and Tajima (clean-up hitter) masterfully voiced in English by Greg Ayres and Todd Halberkorn respectively.  The characters are true to life teen boys, with all their insecurities and gross out humor, etc.  Tajima does talk openly about his masturbation habits, so parents should be advised in advance if this is an issue you'd rather not expose to your kids without first discussing it with them, but otherwise, this is a wholesome show that fathers and sons could probably enjoy watching together, especially if Dad is a former baseball jock himself.

Monica Rial makes a late appearance in the narrative as Ren Mihashi's female cousin, whom Ren grew up with and used to live with, but moved out after both of them hit pueberty in their early teens.  She calls him "Ren Ren", which cracks up Mihashi's friends on the team.

The bonding that takes place between Abe and Ren is really special and a joy to watch; Abe can be hard on Ren at times, but it is for his own good, and as often as not Abe is telling Ren he's better than he thinks he is.  As Abe says more than once, Ren has "really worked his ass off".

The boys enter the school year and the major regional tournament; they draw lots to decide who they will play first and end up head to head against the previous year's championship winners.

They are a green team full of all Freshman, going up against a seasoned team of mostly upperclassmen.  Nobody expects them to win, but any given game day, any team has a chance of victory.  This anime will have you on the edge of your seat, and the high points and conclusion are very emotionally satisfying, but the anime does a good job of maintaining dramatic tension and suspense the whole way through.

Another quasi-sports Anime I've been enjoying lately is the older title, "I, My, Me: Strawberry Eggs!", about a cross-dressing high school gym teacher...an enthusiastic young man with pony-tail hair ends up having to dress as a woman to get a job at an exclusive private school...and hilarious hijinks ensue...but at bottom it is the story of a caring teacher molding her(his) students' lives and helping them to grow up into mature young men and women.  This story is also very emotionally satisfying, all joking aside.

The main character is voiced by Crispin Freeman in his male persona, Sally Dana in the female persona.

I My Me! Strawberry Eggs (あぃまぃみぃ!ストロベリー・エッグ, Ai Mai Mi! Sutoroberī Eggu^?) is the story of Hibiki Amawa (天和 響, Amawa Hibiki^?) and his/her students at Seito Sannomiya Private School.  The main female student protagonist is Fuko Kuzuha (樟葉 楓子, Kuzuha Fūko^?), voiced sweetly by Carrie Savage.  Fuko has a crush for her teacher but it's unclear if she's a lesbian, or feels subconsciously attracted to Hibiki's actual rather than apparent gender.

Hibiki as the resident of Gochiso apartments is known only as "bra man" to the students, owing to an unfortunate incident--and who have no idea this somewhat eccentric man is actually their teacher in real life.

The reason Hibiki is able to pull off the cross dressing is due in part to his long hair but also because of a special necklace given to him by his land-lady, "Ba-chan", which changes his voice from Crispin's deep register (remember this is the voice of Alucard we're talking about here) into Hibiki-sensei's higher female register.

I have watched through Volume 3 and look forward to the conclusion in Volume 4.  Along with Suzuka I've been really impressed with how emotionally moving many of these sports anime narratives have been for me.  I love the drama and emotion of each and every one.

 

Book-keeping 2011, the Happy New Year edition.

Just a brief book-keeping notice, I am now back in action blogging from a new HP Pavillion desktop which I acquired on account of my old Denton-era desktop finally going belly up.  I lost my Yomiko Readman fan-art wallpaper in the process :-P

But small price to pay for a much better, zippier PC that is way more functional.

Let me also gripe at FUNimation and Alamo Drafthouse a little; I love both you guys, so don't take this the wrong way, BUT WOULD IT FREAKIN' KILL YOU TO POST THE NEXT MONTH'S SCHEDULE BY THE END OF THE PREVIOUS MONTH??  I GOTTA SOCIAL CALENDAR TO PLAN HERE!

I would like to start watching Anime on the big screen at Drafthouse again but I need to know what's coming up so I can determine if I've seen a title or not, or if not, do I want to.  Real simple.

Also, there's a revisioned release of Evangelion coming out on 22 Jan 2011 to the big screen at Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks, but to be honest, I've only ever seen like Vol. 1 of the original and it never really grabbed me enough to invest the time and emotional energy into it.

On the Anime home front, I've been watching (mostly on Netflix) more Ghost Hound, Ouran Host Club, and Kaze No Stigma.  I plan to do a longer post on Ghost Hound very soon, since I already saw eps 1-4 on the big screen at Drafthouse and picked up from where I left off on Netflix.  I'm already on Part 2.  I love it so far.  The others...Ouran is amusing, Kaze is mindless action fun.

I also started watching Big Windup! on DVD from Netflix and I must say I really love that series, too.  I don't know why, never thought I would like "sports" anime, but this one really grips me emotionally...the first "sports" anime I ever got into was Suzuka, though you could argue that's a romance drama *disguised* as a sports anime.  Not so Big Windup! which is explicitly about sports, specifically High School freshman baseball.  But it's also about so much more...about self-confidence, about doubt, about realizing one's true potential, and the importance of friends in overcoming obstacles.  People who can see your true gifts, even when you can't or won't.  People who believe in you while you're busy being your own worst critic.  What can I say, this show makes me choke up at times and brings a tear to my eye sometimes.

Anyway, I've got multiple irons in the fire...also received from Santa the complete box set of Baccano! so I can finally finish Disc 4, and I'm over half-way through Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, finally on the third and final disc.  Koyuki keeps mis-reading Maho.  I think she really does love him, but he's never sure.

So to make a long ramble short, I've got lots of Anime lined up to watch and review, all the usual spoiler alerts apply.  But stay tuned if you want some detailed reviews.  Sayonara!