Samurai Champloo

HIPHOP SAMURAI ROAD MOVIE ACTION.

Champloo is that Okinawan dish that appeared in Azumanga Daioh during the school trip arc. Kind of a jumbled-up stir fry dish.

Sampling bits of today’s sensibilities and mixing it up with old time period Japanese drama.

Yet another cool Nabeshin production. Check out the trailer!

This movie is my current boom obsession. http://www.tamala2010.com/

Imagine a mutant hybrid of Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick, animated in the classic 1950s TV style of Osamu Tezuka, and you have some idea of the incredible strangeness of Tamala 2010, the amazing new feature from the two-man music and visual artist unit called “t.o.L”. Super-cute space kitty Tamala goes head-to-head with the Dark God of Death, killer dogs, a robotic Colonel Sanders with an axe in his head and more, using her trademark karate kick and heart-shaped sunglasses. A sample of some of the dialogue?: “Later you anaconda bitch!,” “Moimoi, me very tasty. Wanna eat me? “ and “Beware, Martial Law has been enforced in the Eastern Hate District!”
“Trust us – it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” ~ Margot Gerber, American Cinematheque

From the Japanese pressbook:
It is the year 2010 on Cat-Earth, a planet in the Cat Galaxy. On her first birthday, the punk cat Tamala blasts off aboard her pride and joy, her spaceship Vanpla Turbo 1, heading for her birthplace in the constellation Orion. However, she hits an asteroid near the small planet of Q, and falls into its atmosphere.

Q, behind Cat-Earth in terms of civilization, is a barbarous planet of endless war and terrorism between the Dog and Cat tribes. At first in a state of near-panic after her emergency landing on a planet she’s never been on before, Tamala gets the urge to go out and have some fun. She quickly picks up a tomcat named Michelangelo, and they set off for the big city in his Porsche. Tamala, who is without fear, has a great time getting a tattoo, bowling, skateboarding, and shoplifting sunglasses with which they play tag. They go to a concert at which Tamala jumps up on the stage to dance, which drives the 10,000 people assembled there into a frenzy.

Tamala does everything with such complete authority that Michelangelo is sent reeling, and he begins to realize that she is not just your ordinary everyday cat. And it is also true that since she has come to Q, strange things have started happening. All of a sudden the streets are full of advertisements and merchandise bearing the logo “Catty&Co.” And the kid-cats are all telling each other about having the same weird dream about a bizarre robot cat ascending a long escalator into the sky. This is, as a matter of fact, the dream Tamala has whenever she takes an afternoon nap—the dream that has stolen into the minds of the people of Q. While they sleep, the robot cat brainwashes them so that they will act in the way Catty&Co. has planned for them.

It’s the first movie in a planned trilogy. There is a TV series starting for Tamala too. I’m rocking out to the soundtrack right now. The Japanese DVD has English subtitles for the nihongo-impaired.

matteimashita!

Everybody has been waiting for this one. The game is mostly text with a few static images and no voices, but the story is so compelling it pulls you along. And it’s doujinshi! Amazing how doujinshi is rising up to turn into a mainstream product, like Haibane Renmei did.

Since the game’s images were so static and sparse, it is very easy for me to be absorbed in the realtime motion and interaction and spoken dialogue that exists in the anime version. It seems to be sticking fairly close to the game’s story, with allowances for film-style storytelling versus book-style. It’s great to see the characters “alive” like this.

The opening song is reminiscent of Enigma, hee hee. Sneaky, without having to pay licensing or royalties. Ah, Megamisama did a similar thing in their soundtrack. I swear they just lifted songs from Windham Hill’s catalogue and tweaked them just enough to be different and royalty-free.

This is one of those shows where I know the story so I’m just enjoying watching how it folds out in another form of storytelling. Shingetsukan Tsukihime Official Site

I don’t know what it is about girls with guns but I just love shows like Gunlinger Girl. I would liken it to Noir, Phantom of Inferno, La Femme Nikita, and The Professional. It’s about some Italian black ops organization that works for the government (i think) using girls who are enhanced through some kind of implants for assassinations.

The opening song is by The Delgados and it’s brilliant. It’s on their latest album Hate. I loved the blurb in the opening credits about Gunslinger Girl licensing “The Light Before We Land” from http://www.mantrarecordings.com. I don’t know if people notice but i hear and feel a vast improvement when a show uses a “real” song for the opening rather than one written explicitly for a show. For instance “Duvet” for Serial Experiments Lain and “Guardian Angel” for Texhnolyze. Then again maybe most shows just usually go with the lowest bidder or have to use a pre-existing arrangement within the company to tout some flash in the pan band. I also think it’s really cool whoever is in charge of Gunslinger Girl took the time to create an ending song in Italian.

Checking out the opening animation, i was wondering if the animation came first or the song selection did. On first glance it seems that any song could be plugged in for the opening, but the Delgados song just works so well.

The show also puts in letterbox bars with an unobtrusive pattern for people with 4:3 TVs. I guess the producers really wanted this show to be in widescreen aspect.

I have seen the first two episodes so far and like how the two episodes go over the same series of events and show different perspectives and details. It’s a nice bit of setting and storytelling.

What else can I say? I want some more. http://www.gunslingergirl.com

Over the holiday weekend i watched a ton of anime

Stellvia 1-13
Gundam Seed 1-38
Tenshi na mainiki
Scrapped Princess
Ultra Maniac
Lupin Movie First Contact

Stellvia RULES. I like the character designs and story a lot. Kids trying their best to do well always gets to me. i watch this for pleasure and entertainment.

I am not a Gundam fan but the relentless viewing of 38 episodes in a weekend did get to me. I’m going to keep watching this one to see how it ends. The captain looks kinda like Misato. Woo woo.

Ultra Maniac is cute. I like Yoshizumi Wataru’s storytelling and artwork starting with Marmalade Boy. Ultra Maniac had cute girls in it but was a little too Magical Girlie for me to want to devote time watching it. Greg wore me down though so now I am resigned to my fate to keep watching this show. Did I mention how cute it is? It’s really REALLY cute.

Yesterday I watched Stellvia 14 and of course enjoyed it, wondering where the story is going. Then I watched Last Exile 14 and realized how high I hold Last Exile in regard. Last Exile is like me putting my psyche aside and just totally be immersed into the Last Exile Universe. This is going to be one of my lifetime favorites. The sensation of flying, the backstory just hinted at, the plot at stake, the character interactions…

Maybe it’s just because I’m starting to learn how to fly but i just get so into Last Exile. LAST EXILE RULES!!!!!

Hi there,

Want a chance to get an original sketch by Yoshitoshi Abe?

There’s a FanArt Contest!

Gregory pointed me at the link to a translated manga Bleach.

I read the first three volumes licketysplit last night. It definitely feels like a Shonen Jump comic. Perfect for little boys to read. I enjoyed it very much.

It was weird reading it translated into English. It came across as being more juvenile than I think it may have if I were reading it in Japanese. I’m not really sure. Reading it translated also helped me realize that dialogue is pretty sparse and what an impact the illustrations have on if I like a series or not.

I was very impressed with the quality of the way the translation was applied to the pages of the comic. I don’t know how good the translation is, but the writing flowed well.

I have an issue with subtitles in videos as well. They are great for getting meaning out of the dialogue but my eyes keep flicking towards them whether I want to read them or not.

I always fight with myself whether to get the Japanese DVDs for a video right away which is expensive but immediate, or wait for it to come out to the U.S. which would include subtitles and maybe extras, and best off all, much cheaper.

The times I have waited, my interest has petered out to the point that I don’t usually pick up a U.S. version unless I had missed hearing/watching it during its Japanese release, or until after all the volumes come out and I can get it for a discount or I happen upon it at some store as an impulse buy. Guess I’m more the type that better strikes while the iron is hot.

Just watched the first two Nanaka 6-17 and Tenshi Na Konamaiki.

Nanaka is under my line for wishing to continue. Cute enough, interesting premise, but just not enough intrigue for me. LOL I am taking this too seriously.

Tenshi Na Konamaiki?
GET IT!
WATCH IT!
ENJOY IT!
THIS ROCKS HARD!

I sat down and watched Narue no Sekai up to six. I like this one a lot. It at a level of cute cheap animation and story that does not go so deep for me to just veg out and enjoy very much. The bishoujo characters just keep coming!

The other series I watched is Kino no Tabi 1 & 2. My brother gave these to me thinking I would like them. I indeedy do. Same Director Ryutaro Nakamura as Lain and it shows. Based off of a novel series. I am noticing the “adventurer” archetype which the character Kino is. Prince Ashitaka from Mononoke Hime as well. Traveling around seeing the world but not judging. “Seeing with eyes unclouded” kind of stuff. Six novels, a PS2 game, one DVD, one CD so far announced/available for this series.

The world isn’t beautiful, therefore it is beautiful.

New Yoshitoshi Abe anime!

TEXHNOLYZE

Seems like the same team as Lain.

Here’s a site with information in English.