Black Lagoon’s original run impressed me. The show was beautifully animated, included an interesting cast, and had enough violent gun battles to give a child nightmares. I also think it had the best crew of any recent show. What it lacked was length. Its 24 original episodes, stretched over two seasons, were fun to watch but the ending of the series did not provide enough closure. It felt more like a season finale than an episode meant to wrap up an entire series. Luckily a new OVA (a straight to DVD released) named Roberta’s Blood Trail was released in 2010. The OVA starts slow but if you liked Black Lagoon’s first run and can forgive the OVA’s lack of an interesting story you get a treat.
Author: dengar (Phil)
I started out intending to write a review of the show Noir, but while researching (okay, I’ll admit using Wikipedia) I discovered Noir’s spirital successors, Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja. Each show was animated by the studio Bee Train. I thought, great, I can do one big “girls with guns” trilogy review, but when I started watching El Cazador, I knew that it deserved its own review. Unfortunately, the show needed its own review because of what it did wrong, not what it did right.
Dragon Ball Z, Slam Dunk, Bleach, Hajime no Ippo. Most shonen series are based on physical activities like sports or fighting. Surprisingly, the general shonen formula can also work well with a non-physical activity. In Bakuman, J.C. Staff and NHK successfully tell a shonen-style story about two aspiring manga creators. The result is an interesting show that I anticipate watching each week.
The older I get, the more I start to wonder if the messages in anime are still relevant to my life. I’ve even started getting self conscious about what I watch. After all, what long term artistic value is there in something like To aru no Index Season 2? Don’t get me wrong, Index is a fun show, but it’s generally not very thought provoking. So when I hear about a more mature show like Bartender I get excited. Finally, a show I can watch and still feel like an adult! I was generally impressed with Bartender. However, I think the show erred by relying only on episodic stories instead of doing multi-episode arcs.
Free. Legal. And released within a week of the show’s Japan air date. Streaming video is something that I have craved ever since I started watching anime. I always feel guilty about not doing enough to support the industry, even if I do buy more anime than a normal person should. Watching streaming anime gives me a way to offer my support without needing to shell out $30 for 13 episodes. The biggest (legal) services right now are Cunchyroll, Netflix and Hulu.
In honor of Aniplex’s recent announcement of a new Read or Die (“ROD”) Blu-Ray box set I thought it was high time to review the television series. The box set itself deserves a mention, all 26 episodes of the Read or Die TV, the 3 part OVA and a booklet, all supposedly identical to the Japanese Blu-Ray box version. Then there is the price, $159.98 for pre-orders! A few years ago I thought $80 for a series was horrendously expensive, but this is just ridiculous. As another fan mentioned on Aniplex’s facebook page, “the year 2000 called and it wants its single season anime pricing back!” So unless you own the Geneon DVD release (you’ll have to pry mine from my cold dead hands!) be prepared to order it on Netflix. And order it you shall, because this is honestly one of the best anime out there.
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. Talk about a mouthful. The name may be a tribute to the author’s favorite band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, which also has four words in its name. In any case don’t be scared away by the name, this series about a rising rock band is a treat even for non-music fans.
This is a show about football (out of respect to Bateszi I’ll avoid using the word soccer…). The featured team, East Tokyo United (ETU), is dysfunctional. ETU’s fans are running away, the team keeps losing managers and players and worst of all, they just can’t win. At this point in the summary, anyone who has watched a feel-good sports movie knows the premise: a team of misfits need to come together and miraculously win the J-League!
After tackling time travel in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Mamoru Hosoda returns in Summer Wars to the more provincial and realistic world of the Internet. Luckily the Internet here is not the boring, text heavy internet of our time, but a more garish and interesting Internet of a not-too-distant future. Pastel colored avatars, corporate headquarters and shopping centers dominate the internet world of OZ.
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Japanese apology? Maybe next year…
Senkou no Night Raid is at a glance a show with great potential, beginning with its unique setting: Shanghai, 1931. Japanese occupied China showcases the height of Japan’s imperialist power and ambition. However, the show cries out for an in-depth commentary on Japan as an imperialist power. Such a narrative would provide a window into how people in Japan currently feel about the period. The Japanese are clearly still very sensitive and defensive. Even 60 years after the end of WW2, whenever China or Korea reflects on an embarrassing colonial issue, like Korean “comfort women”, the Japanese forcefully deny official government involvement.