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.
Category: Anime
Weird as it may sound, I judge an anime by how many screencaps it nets me. I screencap things on my first run-through an episode or movie, and obsessive-compulsively: if something flashes by my eyes and I miss grabbing the screencap, I will jump backwards in the movie as many times as needed to grab it. Annoying, I know. I wouldn’t want to watch anime with me either!
Much as I’ve been enjoying Star Driver and Kuragehime, the compulsive urge to screencap just hasn’t taken me. I assumed that I’d broken my habit of pausing somehow; that I’d returned to sanity. Then, on a whim, I downloaded Future Boy Conan and realized that I was still the most annoying person on earth to watch anime with.
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.
The above image is from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, but one would forgive you if you had to double take; the second half of episode 5 feels like it’s from a completely different series. Not only has the art style completely shifted, so, indeed, has the tone. Gone, for the most part, is the rapid-fire banter; the colours are washed out and the main character, believe it or not, is an old man.
Think of this as a Diary of An Anime Lived post if that tickles your fancy.
As much as I love Kuragehime, and as much as I have to say about it, I find it a little bit hard to write about. It hits a little close to home for me, and sweet as it is I really wish I didn’t relate to it as strongly as I do. The girls depicted in the series are less-than-ideal. They’re too short, or too round, or don’t pluck their eyebrows and wear old gray tracksuits. Moreover, they’re all completely obsessed with their own niche interests, shunning the world around them and the company of half the human race in the process.
I’m a fairly proud person: I take two showers a day, have plucked my eyebrows meticulously for years now and get too-expensive haircuts. The reason I relate to “the Sisterhood”, as Funimation refers to them as, is because I completely understand how they ended up that way (so to speak). Simply put, they can’t figure out how to be girls, and so they hide in their otaku-doms, sneering but avoiding the Popular Crowd.
My confession is that I can’t figure out how to be a girl either, irreverent of my pride or my grooming. Let me show you how those misfit girls become who they are.
Categories
Can anime do horror?
Truly good horror anime is hard to find. Anime tends to use many elements of horror, but it rarely adds up to something that’s scary.
Writing, even anime blogging, can be hard. We all have ideas about what makes good writing and that’s why, sometimes, I have trouble doing it for this blog. I want to write posts that are, in their own ways, perfect. I know that’s an unrealistic goal, but I try anyway, and this whole process gradually becomes a huge weight for me to carry. I’m insecure; I’m rarely happy with how any given post turns out, but I keep trying anyway, because I hold out the hope that you will want to read these words, flawed as they may be.
This was all dragged up by the Run, Melos! arc of Aoi Bungaku, two of the loveliest and most emotional episodes of anime I’ve seen.
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.