Category: Anime

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Anime Editorials Reviews

Autumn ’10 impressions

batesziWelcome to yet another autumn run-down! Everything is loosely ranked into a makeshift top 10 and we’ve tried to keep our impressions short and to the point, but if there’s anything you want clarified, feel free to question us (and our opinions) in the comments. We’ve missed out certain series because they are sequels to things we haven’t seen (or indeed, dropped in the past,) but I hope this at least gives you an idea of where we stand with the new anime season (don’t forget to vote in our poll, too!)

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Anime Reviews

Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?

Though it borrows from the mythos of the (very real) city of Venice, there’s something pleasantly unreal about Aria. Rather, not unreal so much as there is a disregard for the idea and constraints of reality. Perhaps Aria seeks not to undermine reality as we know it, but in its ‘New Venice’, create its own sense of reality.

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Anime Reviews

The heavens are angered

The Twelve Kingdoms feels very much like a shoujo anime, but it’s more akin to Utena and Toward the Terra than Escaflowne, and by that what I mean to say is, while there are no melodramatic love triangles here, The Twelve Kingdoms is all about exploring and externalising the feelings of its characters; that’s girly stuff, right?

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Anime Music Reviews

I was made to hit in America

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.

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Anime Reviews

Beauty prevails

By most people’s standards, the above image will look a bit… ugly. It was snapped from episode 455 of One Piece, but, the thing is, I thought this episode was beautiful; beautifully animated, that is. The above is merely 1 frame in a sequence of animation depicting an old lady weeping. Her face changes its expression a lot in just this one scene, and while it may not look pretty, it’s the movement of the animation itself that conveys her emotion.

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Anime Reviews

Childhood's end: Naruto and Pain

I’m finally caught up with Naruto and not a moment too soon. Episode 175 closes not just Pain’s overwhelming story arc, but fulfils Uzumaki Naruto’s transcendence from annoying, mouthy kid to fully-fledged hero.

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Anime Editorials

Cherry picking in autumn 2010

batesziIt’s autumn again, and with it comes dozens of new anime series to get excited about. From these, we’ve picked a few that we’re particularly interested in. Marvel at our impeccable taste and insightful opinions!
CelesteI was thinking you’d come up with something better than that for the introduction. Evidently my expectations were too high.

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batesziThat is what happens when we write the introduction after the rest of the post.

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Anime Editorials Reviews

Farewell Satoshi Kon

It’s difficult to express the disappointment I felt when I learnt of Satoshi Kon‘s passing last week. Since then, many heart-felt tributes have been published and half-way through writing this, I started wondering whether it was worth posting at all. Alas, what is blogging if not personal? I liked his films and, at the risk of merely adding to the white noise, I just wanted to bid farewell to Satoshi Kon in my own way; on this blog.
As such, I humbly present these following, short impressions of his 5 films, written and screen-capped after I (re)watched them all last week.

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Anime Reviews

Can you make a giant killing happen inside of you?

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!

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Anime Reviews

The town where nothing ever happens: FLCL & I

Frankly, I lack the words to talk about Satoshi Kon’s passing; there are others who have said and will say things more eloquently. Instead, I offer you a diversion: FLCL.
I meant to write this post a while back, but never go around to it. Somehow, it’s been a very long, and a little bit of a crazy summer. Without many noticing, the 10th anniversary of a certain anime came and went in late April. You probably know it by one of it’s many names – FLCL; Furi Kuri; Fooly Cooly. I love FLCL. I’ve watched it so many times over the last decade that I’ve lost track.

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