An Unnamed Anime Blog

Spiralling Round and Round

Spiral hadn't had a new episode come out in a bit and then suddenly there were a bunch for me to watch. I took in 16 and 17 today and they were quite fun. I wasn't sure where the show was going to go after the first arc of it, but they seem to be taking it in an interesting direction. These two focused around a plot by the hunters to take out the Blade Children. Of course it is the main character to the rescue.

While I'm not sure this show is real deep, it falls into that real of shows I like to watch just because they are fun. Another show that fit into that realm for me was Gatekeepers. Hey, not every show has to have these deep plotlines that keep you guessing every moment.

red menace

I watched the buena vista video chinese version of Spirited Away. It totally has a red tint. I tried playing with the color white point/coolness settings between 9300 and 5000, etc. Not much help. I really hope the U.S. version doesn't have the tint. I'm also glad I didn't pre-order the Japanese version.

I love this movie. It was great seeing it again. It does feel kinda disjointed to me even though it makes sense overall. Not the smoothest flowing narrative, but one I enjoy. I am still undecided between Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service as my favorite Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki film.

I do indeed gravitate towards these coming of age type stories.

Saikano Game

I hear they're making a Saikano videogame. I think there are some very basic flaws with this idea. Like, what happens if you screw up, do you get a happy ending instead of a sad one?

OH! Super Milk-chan

Elthar just had me watch the first episode of OH! Super Milk-chan and I don't think my brain will ever be teh same. I'm not quite sure HOW to describe this show. He said it best when he called it Di Gi Charat meets Ren and Stimpy. I'd say kind of, though I don't think it ever gets as gross as Ren & Stimpy can get. It was fun, and I did enjoy it overall, despite it being just so warped.

Kenshin on TV?

Uh, this is unexpected. Rurouni Kenshin on Cartoon Network? As part of Toonami? Oh dear, I don't want to see how much this gets edited for TV. I could see Adult Swim, but Toonami?

I'm not quite sure how to react to this. My one hope is that people would go out and buy the DVDs after seeing this and see it uncut.

update: Toon Network already has it on their schedule.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

A few months back a friend of mine was raving about this manga series he found called Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. He had me download all of it he's found and I had it off in my download directory waiting to be purused. In the meantime I'd also found two OVA episodes that had been done.

I just started reading through the manga about two weeks ago and it was amazing. I am taking my time reading through it because it is just too nice to rush. The story takes place in the future. It's off in the country and there is a robot girl named Alpha who has a cafe. For the most part you'd never know she was a robot. It doesn't really get mentioned a real lot in the story. But the story is just many kind of moments in time. It's got a very peaceful feel to it and I love the art in it.

Tonight I finally took in the first OVA and it was wonderful. It fit the feel of the manga perfectly. I was so pleased. I'm going to watch the second one in the morning, but I'm already knowing I'll want more. Luckily, they just started putting out a new OVA for it called Quiet Country Cafe. I'll watch that one after I finish reading more of the manga.

Anyone else seen/read this?

Most popular entry?

So lately everyone's been hitting the archive page for my first post on Wolf's Rain. Lots of comments there.

I'm still really curious about where this show is going to go. We're only 1/5th of the way in (assuming 26 episodes). And really we don't have a lot. A little mystery here and there, a fair amount of character development. Lots of really nice animation. And a soundtrack I'm really enjoying.

What Greg's been watching

Not much actually. I'm catching up on stuff. I've got DVDs going back to when I was laid off that I still haven't watched. These damn digisubs will be the death of me. Though there is some damn good stuff out there right now. Wolf's Rain continues to be very interesting. I was actually a little sniffly at the end of episode five. The new .hack continues to entertain me (I'm a sucker for cute). Naruto is still on the damn bridge (though it looks like things are about to be all finished up with that storyline soon). My goal this week is to make it through the rest of Figure 17, since it's been sitting there waiting to be watched for a while.

But first, I have to finish watching the second Fruits Basket disc...

old stuff

I'm watching a pretty freaking old anime, Maison Ikkoku. I used to be such an Orange Roadie, I never bothered to watch MI before. I had it in my head at the time you either liked one or the other.

I think I like MI more.

She's incredible math

I just got done watching the nineth episode of Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex. This show just keeps getting better IMHO. What I liked about this is that it wasn't an action oriented episode. In some ways it was a recap episode, but told with a slight twist. I loved the whole chat room concept because I think they got the feel of chat room conversations down pretty well.

The one thing I wish I could have gotten was a translation of all the text in japanese.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and the board's been a bit empty, so I'll just chatter about whatever I feel like. Let's see, let's see...

I'm sure most people here have seen fanfics about certain animes trying to pair everyone up so they all come away happy, right? Often a sort of fan consensus emerges as to how it should be done. For instance, in Ranma, I believe the pairings go: Ranma-Akane, Mousse-Shampoo, Ukyou-Ryouga, Kuno-Nabiki, Tofu-Kasumi, Happousai-Cologne (you sick, sick people), and, on occasion, Sasuke-Kodachi (often with various drugs involved).

Just as a side note, I dare anybody to try this with Utena. You might get as far as Utena-Anthy and Touga-Saionji before everything goes to hell, and even T+S is stretching it a bit.

Anyway, there are some fun things to do with this. You and a friend can try to mess with each other's minds by hooking people up in brain hurting ways (Of course, you have to justify your match at least vaugely, so no throwing together Mousse and Ryouga just because you feel like it. Ryouga-Ranma, maybe. I think the usual standard is "average dojinshi," which isn't terribly exacting), or you can try to pair up something that shouldn't be and post it on a blog.

What the heck, I'm bored and I just finished reading my Megatokyo book. Let's roll!

Piro-Kimiko HAS to happen, it's the whole basis for the strip. Breaking them up would be like breaking up Van-Hitomi. As for the others, Erika-Largo has a certain appealing symetry to it, since it puts together the two main male characters with the two main females. Now, moving down the ladder of importance, Seraphim... and Boo! Eww, no, I'm just joking. Seraphim's probably way too busy for a boyfriend anyway (and considering that the only one of appropriate size is Asmodeus... actually, what the hell, toss them together, it kinda works in an angel+devil way), and Boo is, as we all know, the only giant miniature space hamster in the realms, so he's a bit screwed. Well, actually the problem is that he's not screwed, but whatever.

As for Miho, the perfect partner is obvious: Ping! The cynical possible source-of-all-evil is already warming up to Ping as a person, and it's only a matter of time before she decides to play with Ping's more advanced... programming. After all, it's what she was made for, right? And all Ping really wants is someone to play with her. Besides, if they get together you have underage Japanese schoolgirl/cute robot lesbian angst. You can't get more creepy fanboy fetishes than that without tossing in cat ears and a tail, and somehow I bet you can buy Ping those as accessories.

Ed and Dom get each other, of course. In a strictly plutonic, antagonistic relationship, of course. **whistles innocently**

Oh wait, I forgot about the three schoolgirls with the bag and drawing lessons. Um... let's just ignore them okay? They're just minor characters and there aren't any more guys to go around. If you really must, call them a lesbian threesome, but not around Piro and don't tell ANYONE you got the idea from me. I mean that.

Sprited Away Wins!

Spirited Away was just awarded an Annie for best feature in 2002. Pretty cool I must say. It's nice to see this movie getting the recognition I think it deserves. I even think it was one of the best films of the last year.

What Greg's Watching

I've been playing a bit of catchup lately. I've got a bunch of DVDs that had been sitting around that I just hadn't gotten to yet. I also had (and still have) a ton of stuff downloaded, so in the past day or so worked on watching a bunch of it. Here's some of what was included.

Spring and Chaos - I'd gotten this for my birthday and had wanted to watch it sometime when I wouldn't be interrupted, so took it in late the other night. It's a very stunning movie, I felt myself very much drawn into the visuals of it and the story. It tells the story of Japanese Poet Kenji Miyazawa. I found it quite inspiring.

Saber Marionette J to X - Disk 5 - Back when I first started getting anime DVDs Saber Marionette J was coming out. I picked one up on a whim and fell in love with it. The first series was a fun lite action series. The second series (I'm not sure where the OVA J Again fits in, I'm assuming between them) picks up a little while later and has a much different feel. At the fifth disc things just get pretty stressed. Otaru just gets beat on consistantly both physically and emotionally. I found it a little hard to watch at times. And even though things brighten a little by the last episode on the disc, I still feel like I'm watching a bit of a car wreck in progress.

Arjuna Disc 2 - This is a show that Lyn had first turned me onto around a year ago (wow, has it been that long?). Bandai has done a great job with this release. It has a 5.1 soundtrack and the video is just amazing looking. This is one of those shows that really illustrates how crappy more digisubs look compared to DVD. This disc had some of my favorite parts of the show. This episode dealt mostly with her learning about the world around her. How everything is connected to everything else. Though I think one of the best moments was her talking to one of her teachers who had sort of given up on teaching. This is still a very highly rated show for me.

Kiddy Grade episode 15 - Kiddy Grade, the show that keeps surprising me. While I didn't think this episode was quite up to the level of some of the earlier ones overall, I thought the story it was telling was amazing. Most shows you can get at least a kind of general idea of where they are going by the 15th or so episode. This one just feels like you are on and continual roller coaster, never quite sure where it will take you yet. Quite a change from the start of the series which was kind of dull. There were also a few things that just didn't quite work well for me in this episode, but I think they were more issues with pacing. And some things that may end up making more sense as time goes on.

and last but not least

Naruto episode 17 - Finally the battle starts to get to the end. While I've been getting sick of the episodes long battle (that still isn't over), this episode worked a bit more for me. There was a fair amount of character development here that worked for me as Naruto and his foe find out they have more in common than they thought. There's also another great moment with their sensei where you see that ninja battles are just as much about outthinking your enemy as they are outfighting them.

Okay, this is looking like it must be a huge post, so I'll pause things for now and write about HikaGo and others tomorrow.