Video Backlog: “Big Windup! (Ookiku Furikabutte)”

Publisher: Funimation (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles.
Length: 26 episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2007
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Ren Mihashi was the “ace” pitcher in his former school’s baseball club. Apparently the only reason why he was selected to be pitcher was the fact his grandfather owned the school. Coupled with his slow pitches which made every game for the school a lost one, the team aren’t exactly friendly with him. Mihashi decides to break away from what is a horrible situation by moving to a new prefecture and to a new high school, Nishiura High. However his self-esteem is at rock bottom due to his experiences at his former high school. Yet he still decides to join the baseball team. He almost decides not to re-join, but the rather quirky female coach, Maria Momoe, essentially forces him to join. In the team he befriends the catcher, Takaya Abe, and becomes the team’s main pitcher, despite the fact his pitches are rather slow. However Abe seems that there is more to Mihashi’s pitching style than meets the eye, and due to his directions Mihashi gains his utmost trust.

With the pitcher and catcher working in almost total harmony and the rest of the team in place, a practice match is set up. The group set off on training camp. Unfortunately the team playing them turns out to be from Mihashi's old school. Mihashi already has a rather skittish and shy personality, but with the prospect of facing his former taunters, he loses confidence big time. However Abe manages to build up his confidence enough so he can play. Things seem to be going well with Mihashi striking most of his former team mates out (thanks to Abe’s directions), however Abe now thinks that Mihashi is getting homesick for his old team, and has to shake the feelings out of him. With their first success, the team now prepares for the Summer National Senior High School Baseball Championship. Unfortunately the team they have picked to play is the team that won the championship last year. How can a bunch of rookies win against them?

So this is the second sports anime and Funimation titles I’ve watched in as many weeks. Sports anime is not my favourite genre, however the way a lot of these shows are constructed (especially non-shonnen ones, such as this show - it’s from a seinen manga) make them quite intriguing. Unlike “Bamboo Blade”, this show is heavily focused on the sport side rather than the non-sport aspect of the character’s lives. The first few episodes did really turn me off. First problem was Ren Mihashi. I could generally accept his extreme shyness and barely tolerate his constant crying, but his actions in the early episodes made little sense. In particular going from situation where baseball was hell due to his team mates, then moving to a different prefecture and REJOINING the school’s baseball club. I mean, what the hell? It just doesn’t make any sense. The other aspect to this is he rejoins in the same position which made his life a misery; pitcher. The other problem I had with the show is how fast it went from the initial members joining to full on matches. There seemed to be no time from training or anything. And nobody seems to try out for the positions. People just stated what they were and nobody, not even the coach, said anything. And speaking of the coach, Maria Momoe, I don’t really see the point of making her exceptionally breasty.

Once the baseball starts, that’s when the show really kicks into gear. The fascinating part for me was the tactics used in the games, in particular those thought up by Abe and Momoe. I did play baseball in high school (for one tortuous term only), but there was hardly any coaching from the teacher, let alone any mention of using tactics during the game. I know baseball is pretty big in Japan, but it really seems to different to the US system of college sports where it resembles a slightly watered down professional set up. I don’t know, but wouldn’t it be more fun for the kids if there wasn’t all that pressure? Surely not many of them are gunning to make to the pro league? That aside, because of that the games are really nail biting at points. I was really thoroughly entertained during these parts, perhaps because I knew the basics of the game. At the very least I thought the show was realistic. The kids didn’t really show any silly superhuman skills which many sports anime fall back on. Some of Funimation’s terminology was rather odd at times. Some of it wasn’t familiar to me or I knew certain aspects of the game under different names (admittedly I’m not too well versed in baseball, I just know enough to get by). Luckily this only happened a couple of times. One of the problems with the show is that even though the team states that they want to go to Koshien (Hanshin Koshien Stadium where the finals are held), all we see are a practice match and the first official match, which are spread over almost the entire 26 episodes. The show also mostly focuses on Mihashi and Abe exclusively. The final episode (an OVA extra) focuses on a player in other team before the events of the first episode. It really feels out of whack because we only briefly follow the player in the series. I think more time should have been allotted to individual team members and series is way too short for the scope of the story. A second 13 episode series was broadcast in 2010, but I think this show need more time devoted to it than that. In the end it was pretty entertaining, but some aspects where a little hard to swallow, but most of these relate to the early episodes. I really think this show would have benefited greatly from a much longer episode count. 6.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs). 

Video Backlog “Bamboo Blade”

Publisher: Funimation (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles.
Length: 26 episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2007 - 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Toraji Ishida, better known as Kojiro to his work colleagues, is a part time teacher at Muroe High and also more importantly the coach of the school’s kendo club. A meeting with his sempai, Kenzaburo Ishibashi leads to him wager that his students can beat the other. As Kojiro is a pauper, if he wins he gets to eat at Ishibashi’s father’s sushi restaurant for a year. As Kojiro lucked out and beat Ishibashi in a kendo championship in high school, and Ishibashi still feels slighted by this. If Kojiro’s team loses, he has to surrender his trophy to him. While Ishibashi already has a full team ready, Kojiro only has a total of two students that fit the criteria. The battle will take place against five of Ishibashi’s female students and currently Kojiro only has two in his team; Kirino Chiba the quite competent and happy go lucky team captain, and Sayako Kuwahara, another girl quite competent at kendo, but she often quits and re-joins on a whim. She hardly turns up to practice.

Hoping that he bumps into a girl who’s an expert at kendo, Kojiro’s wish literally comes true. He discovers Tamaki Kawazoe, a student in the first year of high school who is a kendo prodigy. Tamaki spends hours at home honing her skills and fighting grown men at her father’s dojo. She sees no need to spend her spare time joining the school’s kendo club. However the club has two problem members; Toyama and Iwasa. The former is an expert bully and the latter is his lackey. Both have put students off joining the club for a couple of years. Tamaki’s sense of justice forces her to join and rid the club of the bullies though a match with Toyama. Soon after the very beautiful Miyako Miyazaki joins along with her oddly dumpy boyfriend Danjuro. Despite absolute beginners, Kojiro is pleased he has a fourth member. Fully aware he requires five, he hatches a plan to take on Ishibashi’s girls by using Tamaki twice in the match and pretending she’s the first and fifth member.

I’m rather iffy on a lot of sports anime. I’m not much into sports in the first place, and secondly a lot of sports’ and manga are aimed at the shonnen market and you end up with absurd storylines and super human plays. I much prefer it when the sports part of the show is incidental to the story. “Bamboo Blade” almost fits the bill in that regard. While kendo does play a fairly big part in the show, the characters and their backstory are what actually makes the show work. Tamaki, or Tama-chan to her friends, is unsurprisingly the focus of the show. She is an avid anime and tokusatsu fan, with her favourite show being the sentai-like “Blade Braver”. Tamaki is very stoic and very serious in everything she does. The humour in her character comes from her child-like obsession with her favourite shows. There is also some romance hinted with fellow team mate Yuji Nakata, but his is mostly in the minds of the female kendo club members. Tamaki doesn’t seem to be interested in boys as such. Miyako is another key character in the show. The humour generated from her character revolves around the fact she’s sweetness and light on the outside but has a rather dark and almost demonic side which comes out frequently. She also has a bizarre female stalker from old school, Reimi, whose antics are a bit creepy at first until find out what’s really going on, which only adds to the laughs. Also Miyako’s taste in men (i.e. Danjuro) is strange for a girl as pretty and popular as herself.

For most of the show it’s quite light and focus is on comedy rather than the tactics or rules of kendo. However at times it does veer towards melodrama and some sequences felt like they were taken out of a shoujo manga melodrama handbook. Then suddenly it’ll snap right back into comedy mode. These moments really threw me. I don’t think throwing these moments of drama into what seems to be a comedy works. I felt that it really threw off the flow of the story. Surprisingly a lot of the secondary characters, mainly the girls from Ishibashi’s team are really quite well fleshed out (despite their short screen time) and provide a lot of humour to the episodes they’re in. Unfortunately for me a fair wack of the jokes fell rather flat. The strike rate was about half. However when the writers get a set up right and its well thought out and written, the punch line can be a cracker. The climax of the show, though probably more accurately the coda, was a bit of fizzer for me. It just sort of petered out slightly, especially in terms of the fate of Kojiro, though that was solved I the final episode. The very end of the final episode was a bit annoying. It sort of sets up a second series, which to date, never eventuated. Funimation’s publicity of the series is just plain awful and misrepresents what the show is about (sushi? It’s mentioned for about half of one episode at the most). Most of their promotional material panders to the lowest common dominator (which I blame ADV for starting the trend of this type of promotion), but for whatever reason this time it really shat me to tears. Overall it’s quite an enjoyable series. It’s quite funny in parts, but the drama felt a bit shoehorned in and maybe a little out of place and unnecessary. I would have preferred if it was purely comedy. I’m going to give the show 6.5 out of 10. Unfortunately it’d not quite good enough to give it a 7. Perhaps I’m a bit too hard on the shows with my scoring now days.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: The Nitro Powered Honda Today Returns

“You’re Under Arrest - Second Season (Fast & Furious)”
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2001
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

After the deletion of ADV’s previous “You’re Under Arrest!” discs and AnimEigo losing the licence to the original OVA and TV series, I had given up any hope of any more of the anime being released. Somehow Sentai have the magic touch and have released not only the second series, but the final (so far) third series. Based on Kousuke Fujishima’s (of “Oh! My Goddess” fame) manga, the series reunites some of the staff from the previous YUA anime outings with animation production by Studio Deen with character designs by Atsuko Nakajima (“Ranma ½” anime). Interestingly only Aoi’s design is noticeably different. Everyone else’s designs remain the same as they appeared throughout the entire anime franchise. The series pretty much follows on from the 1999 film and no real new ground is broken in terms of story. Nothing much has changed from the 1996 TV series. Saori Saga, a high school girl who gets involved in case with Natsumi and Miyuki in the first series returns as a rather uptight cadet. Shouji Toukairin also returns (and leaves, then returns again), but his character is underutilised. Surely the romance between him and Natsumi could have been amped up.

Also making little more than cameo appearances are “Scooter Mama”, Strikeman and the Buddhist priest. Somehow Strikeman seems a whole lot stupider in this series and his brand of justice seems to be forgotten by the writers of the show. The local children, where were in kindergarten in the original OVA series return also, this time as primary school students. And of course Chie Sagamiono returns to hassle Yoriko. Nakajima’s father and new wife, Sena, are also heavily featured this time around. A new mechanic at their Zapper bike workshop, named Honda, becomes a rival to Nakajima for Miyuki’s affections. Another spanner in works rears its head with Natusmi being offered a new job with the Special Forces unit, which of course has the potential to split Natsumi and Miyuki up forever. As I said before, not much has changed from the original series. Even the music is the same. The animation is much better than the original series, that’s for sure, but goes off model numerous times. The quality of the stories is no better than the original, but I’d think I’d seen it all before and no new ground was being broken here. I was a little bored with what looked like a rehash. The end of the series with the tension between Nakajima and Natsumi and with Miyuki sort of made me like the show again though. Certainly I enjoyed seeing this likable cast of characters again, but not a great deal was done with them which hadn’t been done previously. I’ll still give it 6.5 out of 10.

“You're Under Arrest: Full Throttle”
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 24 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2007 – 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Unfortunately for whatever reason, Sentai never licensed the “No Mercy” TV special that was originally broadcast in 2002 after the Japanese TV broadcast repeat of the original series. I’ve never seen it, but after watching the initial episodes I suspected that it was a bridge between the 2001 series and this series. That’s not the case. Apparently the TV special takes place before the second season. A little explanation or just a small justification to audience would be nice. The series begins with Miyuki returning from training in the US and Natsumi returning from her training from the Japanese Self Defence Force. What annoyed me greatly about the beginning of this series is that Natsumi’s departure and sudden return at the end of second series is pretty much glossed over. Natsumi’s stint with the Special Forces unit, supposedly in aid for her to transfer permanently, there is never mentioned. It’s almost like the last few episodes of the second TV series never happened. Ditto for the leaps and bounds Nakajima and Miyuki’s relationship made in the final episode. Everything is set to zero. Honda is never mentioned again, Saori Saga has left before the events of the first episode and Chie Sagamiono doesn’t make any more appearances. For the most part all we are treated to is the usual self-contained stories, which this time around are rather weakly written. It’s as if the writers think the audience has an IQ of a walnut. One episode has the girls dressed in animal suits to entertain a group of children while simultaneously searching for a time bomb. Another is a beach episode coupled with a daft plot where high school boys take candid photos of bikini clad girls and post them to a website. These episodes don’t show any of the female police officers in good light. Most of the time they look rather incompetent. Is it really all that hard to write a reasonably intelligent plot?

The first two episodes start off the series fairly well with Miyuki helping a young rich American boy escape the clutches of jealous relatives. There’s also a great two part arc where Bokuto Station has to deal with a bunch of joyriders causing accidents and fails to curb their behaviour. This cleverly segues into another plot where a vigilante takes out the joyriders and Miyuki takes it on herself to stop the vigilante, against the chief’s orders, due to the injuries sustained by Nakajima due to her actions in attempting to stop the joyriders. It’s really quite well written and makes a fine end to the series (though two OVA episodes close out the show). In the end the last few episodes had won me over and I sort of forgave a lot of the earlier silliness. Unlike the previous two series, the animation here looks pretty darn good. Atsuko Nakajima’s character designs are treated with a lot more respect. What’s quite interesting with this show is the closing animation, with its very heavy Yuri overtones between Natsumi and Miyuki. Perhaps this explains why Natsumi doesn’t really seem to care that Toukairin has disappeared and Miyuki doesn’t seem all that interested if Nakajima never makes a serious move. With this series it really mystified me why the writers didn’t build up on the situations and characters that appeared in the previous anime. Most of the introduced characters and ideas were only briefly mentioned or forgotten entirely. Instead were where yet again stuck with the same cast from the original series. The ideas seemed to be running dry by the midpoint of the series. You really have to wonder why they would do this as it feels a bit like a rehash of the first two series. However there were some great moments here and some quite exciting episodes. I’ll still give the show 6.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Tree of Palme”

Publisher: ADV Films (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 136 minutes
Production Date: 2001 (2002)
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

In an alien like world which may just be an alternate universe, an old inventor named Fou lives alone in a house next to a giant Koolop tree. He does have two non-human companions; a small dragon-like creature and Palme, a now mostly inactive boy robot carved out of a Koolop tree. Long ago Palme cared and played with Xian, Fou’s terminally ill wife. However after her inevitable death, Palme retreats into his own world seemingly depressed and eventually he ceases to function, except on the rare occasion when a giant fish like creature passes by. Some years later, a blue skinned woman named Kouram suddenly appears in Fou’s house. She pleads with Fou to deliver a mechanical globe she calls the Egg of Touto to an underground realm called Tamas. However coming as a shock to Fou, she also gives him a small amount of Crosskahla, a mythical blue sap that Xian dedicated her life to discovering. Kouram escapes just as Fou’s pursuers enter the house, obviously in search of her and the contraption she left behind. Fou has hidden the items from the soldiers prying eyes, but he is stabbed by them anyway and left to die. However after they leave to continue to hunt down Kouram, Fou’s final act is to use the Crosskahla along with inserting the Egg of Touto into Palme’s abdomen to revitalise his broken robot boy. When Palme awakens, some days after, he leaves his dead creator and begins his journey into the outside world.

Unfortunately for Palme, his journey starts out quite badly. Mistaken as an orphan child wandering the desert, he is captured with a group of other children and taken to a city, destined to be sold off. However the children are saved by a group of street urchins, who then take most of the children into their group. Due to Palme’s depressed nature, most consider a pest and useless to their cause. That is until they discover that Palme is a robot and contains Koolop tree oil, a substance that is highly valued in the marketplace. However a conflict occurs between a faction within the group who wants to sell off Palme and a minority who wants to save him. This comes to a head and a fight occurs, with a knife being held to Palme’s neck tubes which accidently releases some of the Crosskahla which floods the city with a blue light. The light alerts Kouram’s pursuers who are searching for the Egg of Touto. All hell breaks loose as the street urchin’s base is exposed and the group scatters. A trio of survivors manage to band together to help Palme; two rabbit like child creatures called Mu and Pu and Shatta, a young man of the same race as Kouram. Somehow they manage to stowaway aboard a small ship in order to flee the city and Palme’s pursuers. There he meets Popo, a young girl who resembles Xian. The initial meeting terrifies Popo, but it also awakens Palme out of his stupor and back to his former self. Leaving Popo’s abusive mother behind, Popo, Shatta, Mu and Pu continue one by foot to Tamas with Palme to complete the journey.

I first saw this film almost a decade ago at the Japnaime 02 film festival. I went to see it (along with a few other films screening that day) with a few people from the anime club. The subbed 35mm film print had been to more than a few film festivals in its brief life and was really worn out. The film broke a number of times and due to the film’s jumpy narrative we sort of wondered half-jokingly if that was due to film being missing some scenes because the film print was so damaged and brittle. Watching this film it seems the truth is that the narrative indeed jumps all over the place. Looking at ADV’s liner notes, it seems that this film was conceived as a TV series. Certainly the plot does feel rather compacted, and even with its long running time it really feels as if bits are missing. For example Mu and Pu secretly board a ship with Palme and later when discovered start calling Popo by her name even though there is no evidence that any of them have met. But the major problem with this film is Palme himself. It’s really hard to get inside his head and figure out what he is thinking. The way he acts in the latter half of the film completely contradicts flashbacks with him interacting with Xian, especially in terms of how he interacts with nature and in terms of how empathetic and sympathetic he is. What I hated the most is how Palme is treated during the first half of the film. He is beaten down many, many times and it becomes quite a depressing watch. The way Palme learns to “become human” is done in a really ham fisted way. They might have had a neon sign flashing during these bits saying “Palme is learning to become human”.

The film was conceived and directed by Takashi Nakamura. I really liked his 1995 kids film “Catland Banipal Witt (Catnapped!)”, and eagerly anticipated this film, but “Palme” really turned me off his work. It was only in the last year I saw his TV series “Fantastic Children”. Certainly Nakamura has a lot of great ideas in his works, but he seems to rarely pull it all together to create something that really cohesive. “Palme” is pretty much in the same boat. Reinterpreting “Pinocchio” in a sci-fi setting was a great idea and the artwork and world design is fantastic, but the story is just so damn cluttered with dead ends and scenes which should be trimmed. And most annoyingly as I said before there are several jumps in the film which aren’t explained. It’s as if whole scenes had been deleted from the film. The story is also told rather badly and there are just way, way too many ideas in this film. It’s as if Nakamura wanted to cram in as many ideas as possible into the film and then forgot to give any of them purpose or meaning. The strange vibrator/dildo like bola creatures are a perfect example of this. It’s obvious they are important to the story, the characters do fear their presence, but it is never really explained to the audience how they are important or how they are a threat. This is the last unwatched ADV disc in my pile (ignoring the Sentai Filmworks stuff of course). It’s kind of sad this load of bollocks id the final disc I have from the company. Overall it’s an extremely frustrating film with some beautiful looking art and sequences of animation that is told in a very poor way. I can only give it 4.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Beauty and the Liquid People (H-Man)”

Publisher: Columbia Pictures (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 87 minutes
Production Date: 1958
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

A member of Tokyo’s underworld dashes to a waiting car on a rainy night with a large bag. But before he can open the door, something grabs him by the leg. He fires furiously at the assailant who is off camera, but the man in the car drives off leaving him to his fate. A taxi then comes and seemingly runs over the man. However upon closer inspection by the police and taxi driver, only the man’s clothes and belongings remain. Inspector Tominaga (Akihiko Hirata) and his team discover the bag contains drugs, which leads to the discovery that they were stolen from a man known as Mr Gold. Gold admits he bought the drugs from a guy named Misaki. Known to the police, Inspector Tominaga and co head to Misaki’s flat where they find instead his nightclub singer girlfriend, Chikako (Yumi Shirakawa). She claims she hasn’t seen him for many days, however the police are convinced she is lying and stake out the flat in the hopes he will return. The police do however capture a suspicious man who attempted to get in contact with Chikako. Tominaga realises it’s his old friend, Masada (Kenji Sahara), an assistant professor at Joutou University. Masada explains that people are possibly melting away in the rain due to contact with fallout from nuclear tests in the pacific. He was seeking out Chikako to ask her if Misaki had been out on a fishing boat and had been affected by radiation. Tominaga finds it hard to believe this theory and asks Masada to stay out their way.

Chikako is menaced by a gangster who breaks into to her apartment, but then strangely melts away once he steps outside into the rainy night. Masada than manages to convince Tominaga to listen to the stories of the survivors of a fishing vessel who came across an abandoned ship. While investigating to see if anyone was on board, several of the crew were attacked by slime like creatures, melting their victims away until only clothes and personal belongings were left. The surviving crew now suffer from radiation poisoning. Masada then shows Tominaga an experiment where a frog dissolves after being exposed to radiation. Yet Tominaga is still unconvinced that the same thing happened to Misaki. During a police bust to arrest criminals in the nightclub Chikako performs in, several people including one of the criminals and a dancer are stalked by and end up being dissolved by the slime creatures, right in front of the police’s astonished faces. Tominaga now realises that Masada was right and has to stop these creatures before it is too late.

This is yet another Ishiro Honda directed sci-fi film with special effects from Eiji Tsuburaya, however there isn’t a giant monster to be seen. It plays very much like a gangster film with a B-movie plot about a blob-like creature dissolving people stuck in about half way. The structure of the film is odd in that way. While in the first scene we see the demise of a criminal, it’s completely unclear what exactly has happened to him. All we see is a bunch of clothes in the rain and wrapped around the bumpers and tyres of a taxi. It’s not until half way through the film that things become a lot of more clearer and the supernatural stuff happens. Until then there’s a police action, a couple of nightclub scenes and even a car chase. Probably because that structure, the film does seem a little slow in spots. I mean it’s advertised as a sci-fi film, but there isn’t much sci-fi for at least half of its length.

When it does get to the titular “H-Men” (there’s more than one), Tsuburaya’s effects are pretty damn good. For a lot of the sequences I really wasn’t too sure exactly how he did it, like the slime climbing up the walls and then suddenly changing directions. Some of the dissolving victims were also quite creepily done. Some 50 years on and the effects still stand up to a lot of today’s effects. Even the blue screen effects with the human form of the slime creatures aren’t bad at all. The cinematography is really outstanding as well. Every shot is well framed and film looks brilliant. The acting isn’t bad at all either. Most do a great job. However I felt Yumi Shirakawa wasn’t all that impressive. She felt a bit dull and uninteresting as the gangster’s girlfriend. However as the nightclub singer she really lit up the screen. If that was her singing the English songs in the film all I can say is I’m highly impressed, though the last one has some odd lyrics (“I met you in the bomb shelter”? What the hell?) This film is also notable for an on screen appearance of Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima who plays one of the doomed sailors. This is the second film the “Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection” set that I have watched. At least on this film the subtitles aren’t bad at all. Except for a couple of unsubbed newspaper headlines, everything seems to be adequately translated and subbed. The disc case sucks with all three discs on a single spindle. In conclusion this is another great Toho sci-fi film from the late 1950’s. It’s very much a piece made for adults rather than the Toho films of the 1960’s and latter which were family films which ventured into clichés and made the genre extremely tired and dull. I’m going to give this film 6.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Tears to Tiara”

Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2009
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

A village populated by a group of people known as the Gael who live on Erin Island is invaded by the imperial army of the empire commended by a solider named Drwc. Much to their surprise the village is completely empty, except for the village priestess Rhiannon. Drwc manages to capture two Gael children and blackmails Rhiannon into telling him her “true name”, which he then uses her to put into a trance. His objective is to use her as a sacrifice to resurrect the demon king Arawn from his tomb. When the village’s proxy leader Arthur, sister of Rhiannon, discovers she has been kidnapped, he rallies the villagers in order to rescue her. But despite their best efforts, the demon king Arawn is awakened and takes the form of an albino man. Unfortunately for Drwc, Arawn releases Rhiannon from her trance, doesn’t take her as a sacrifice and kills him. Despite saving his sister, Arthur is highly suspicious of Arawn and attempt to fight him, but Rhiannon declares that she has chosen Arawn as her husband and therefore is chief of the Gael tribe. Arthur has no choice but to accept.

Arthur knows that once the empire discovers what has happened to Drwc and his platoon and will consider this as a rebellion, they will set out to destroy the Gael village. The group set out to prepare for this upcoming war and manage to pick up a motley crew of supporters along the way. Arawn leads them to the castle on the island of Avalon, former capital to elf race and still occupied and run by a small number of them. The elves are surprised to learn that Arthur and Rhiannon are descendants of the elf king Pwyll. The Gael tribe soon set up camp in the castle. Unbeknownst to them is the fact a fleet from the empire is heading straight for Avalon castle.

For many anime fans my age “The Record of Lodoss War” is the benchmark for fantasy anime. This is probably a bit unfair on many titles but for me, that’s the way it is. I knew that “Tears to Tiara” was based on a computer game, but it was only after I watched it that I discovered that the game was based on eroge game. This doesn’t really change my opinion of the series, but it does explain a lot of elements of the show, namely the number of women in the show, who don’t really add much at all to the plot. In the early part of the show there’s at least one character added to the cast every episode. But as I said before, the great majority of them don’t add anything at all to the show or the overall story. It would seem that they are just there to add a bit of humour or for specific filler episodes. The character designs were quite appealing, but really felt rather generic at the same time. The battle scenes are the show’s greatest strength. They’re really well choreographed and extremely well animated for a TV series. It’s quite interesting that despite being a fantasy series, there are very few battle sequences involving magic. The animation is quite good too. Towards the end of the series, the quality of the animation dipped quite a bit and as a consequence the battle sequences were a bit flat. However things turned around with the finale with the final couple of episodes being up there and possibly beyond the earlier battle sequences.

The story doesn’t quite fair as well as its animation and battle sequences. I felt it was all a bit “paint by numbers”. Apart from the women and girls in the show who don’t do a great deal at all, I also had a lot of problems with Arawn. He’s a demon king, but he hardly shows off his powers, which was a bit odd. Sure he’s seen as a leader, but he makes for a rather mediocre one really. You could say that Arawn is using his demon powers to make Arthur a king, but there’s little evidence, overt or subtle, to show this. In the latter episodes, it is revealed that Arawn is defying the gods who rule the world leading humanity on path to greatness. For me I felt it was all a bit too much to take seriously. It felt rather silly, especially when it was quite hard to distinguish between humans and other races. For example the elves are pretty much indistinguishable from humans (no pointy ears here). Overall I felt the show was a bit of a chore to get through, especially from mid-way through the series. While the story was a bit clichéd and daft, the animation and especially the action sequences made up for a lot of its short comings. 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Ghost Hound”

Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 2007 - 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Eleven years ago in the rural town of Suiten, Taro Komori, now 14 years old was kidnapped with his sister Mizuka. Eventually the kidnapper was tracked down by run over by a truck before the police could capture him. The children were found inside the old hospital which is usually underneath water near the base of the recently built dam. Unfortunately it was too late for Mizuka and she died before she was rescued. Sake brewers by trade, the Komori family were devastated by this tragedy. Taro’s mother was particularly affected and Taro himself developed narcolepsy due the constant nightmares reliving the incident over and over again. The school has hired a new therapist for Taro, Atsushi Hirata, who attempts to delve deeper into his psyche by using new techniques on him which dredge up forgotten memories of the incident. Taro also has to contend with a new transfer student from Tokyo, Masayuki Nakajima, who is interested in Taro’s kidnapping and the details and mystery behind it. Masayuki soon discovers that a fellow student, the delinquent Makoto Ogami, has a link to the kidnappings. His father was rumoured to be linked to kidnappings and committed suicide not long after the case was solved.

Masayuki somehow ropes Taro and Makoto into going back to the scene of the crime, the old hospital, which due to a lack of water in the dam has been exposed again. There they experience what can only be described as supernatural as all three of the boy’s souls seemingly separate from their bodies which they dub soul traveling (in other words an “Out of Body Experience”). The boys soon grow accustomed to soul traveling and end up discovering what is dubbed the “hidden realm” which contains the spirits of various creatures, both human and animal. They also discover a large black sprit roaming the area where the suspected kidnapper was killed by a truck. Taro latter confronts this sprit. At the same time strange occurrences begin happen in the town. People start seeing spirits, including Taro’s psychologist Atsushi Hirata. Somehow part of this supernatural activity is linked with a young girl named Miyako Komagusu, daughter of the local priest, who worryingly to her father seems to be possessed from time to time by some sprit. Makoto’s grandmother, Himeko, a leader of a forgotten cult, has taken an interest in her and wants to become the cult’s new leader in a bid to revitalise it, which apparently has the backing of various top ranking politicians. Then there’s the Biotech research facility which seems to be doing some rather strange experimental work which is attracting not only sprits, but holy men from around the country. Whether it is coincidence or not, all of these elements are leading up to something very big.

This series was Production I.G’s 20th anniversary project and was devised by Masamune Shirow of all people. Taking into consideration the quality of staff who worked on the show, unsurprisingly they’ve turned out one hell of a series. The story itself is quite complex with many twists and turns, and quite a number of detours along the way that do feel like they’re part of a wider story and not “filler” (which, let’s face it, not many anime series do this successfully at all). The three leads in the show, Taro, Makoto and Masayuki all have dark pasts and a little traumatised by it, however they interact with the work normally. I like how the show treats their pasts in a realistic way. The boys have to deal with parents with mental illness, death, father’s cheating on their wives and other internal family conflict. It’s as you’d expect a person would react in the real world. Perhaps Makoto is the least stable of the three, but still he is depicted in a realistic manner. Well as realistic as you can get when people are soul travelling and there are spirits and ghouls everywhere. A nice addition to the trio is a boy who Masayuki befriends, Michio Hoshino. Though not as interesting as the other three, he does provide an avenue for Masayuki to redeem himself for past sins and he also lightens the mood of the show. The other cornerstone of the show is the mysterious younger girl Miyako Komagusu. Unlike the main three boys in the show, there is little back story provided about her. She does play a large role in the show, but I wish the writers had paid more attention to her and fleshed her out a bit more. But this is also a problem with many of the female characters in the show. A lot of them are interesting but certainly less time and attention is paid to them compared with the male characters. However this doesn’t affect story or the flow the show at all.

Production I.G has gone all out on this show. It certainly looks fantastic for the most part. There were more than a couple of moments which had me on the edge of my seat and a few even gave me a couple of scares (which you have to admit). But the element which makes this show work is the sound design. In fact the soundtrack (it’s more like a soundscape really), sound effects and ambient noises are transformed from normal sounding to a processed form; starched, slowed down, distorted, a heavy echo or phasing added etc. Elements like the sounds from Taro’s shortwave radio receiver in his bedroom are also given the same sonic treatment, creating otherworldly sounds which fit in with the theme of spirits practically overtaking a small country town. The overall effect is that the soundtrack and effects resemble experimental electronica or an ambient noise collage album. It barely resembles anything heard in the greater majority of anime series, and is certainly very effective in creating a surreal and creepy atmosphere.

Where the show falls down a bit is the explanations of what is happening. At times explanations can be quite dense and filled with unfamiliar psychological and pseudo-psychological terminology. Luckily most this is limited to the next episode previews. There also seems to be a slight attempt to include as much paranormal phenomena as possible which feels like the writers had a list of phenomena and were ticking it off as they depicted them in the show. There’s a bit of a disconnect between what Taro’s psychologist’s visions and how they relate to the bigger picture of the story for example. Why would he experience missing time and see a UFO when it really has no connection to the rest of the strange occurrences in town. Sure as he says in the series, you could chalk it down to various psychological conditions, but why would he have a different experience to everyone else? Luckily the show really doesn’t really try to explain away most of the phenomena. In the end this is an extremely well written and produced series. It mixes supernatural elements with a drama played straight, a good dose of humour and psychological elements. I think did lose a bit of steam towards the end, however overall it’s fantastic series 8.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Phoenix”

Publisher: AnimeWorks (Media Blasters, USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 13 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2004
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

An ambitious short anime series, this show attempts to encapsulate Osamu Tezuka’s unfinished manga “Phoenix (Hi no Tori)” which began in 1967 and the last chapter to be published was in 1988, a year before Tezuka’s death. As you can imagine only a few of the arcs have been adapted, and from what I understand they are presented out of sequence in regards to when they were originally published. The first arc presented is “Dawn” from the first volume from 1967. This involves the empress Himiko of the Yamataikoku from the mid third century who invades Japan to seek in an effort to obtain the mysterious Phoenix and eternal youth. However general Sarutahiko takes a young boy as his son after decimating a village and complications arise for him and his adopted son. A side story is also told about a man who from Yamataikoku who infiltrates the village before it is destroyed. The next arc is “Resurrection” from the sixth volume published in the very early 1970’s. Initially taking place in the late 25th century, it flows the tale of Leona, a young scientist who is resurrected though robotics and modern medicine. The problem is his mostly cyborg brain only sees humans as frightening blobs. Guided by the Phoenix, he comes across a robot due to be scrapped, Chihiro, however he sees her as a beautiful human girl whom he falls in love with. Leona’s partner, Lamp, believes he is making story up and hiding data he had on the Phoenix’s feather, which they acquired and studied before Leona’s accident.

The third story is “Strange Beings” from 1981, which involves a young female samurai whose father is on the verge of death. A young Buddhist nun visits and tells her father she can cure him. Fearing that she will be successful and cure him, she travels her faithful retainer to the nun’s temple in the mountains and kills her. However they soon both discover that they cannot escape the mountain and she soon finds herself having to impersonate the nun as sick people travel to the temple to be healed by the Phoenix feather that the temple has. Later to becomes obvious to the pair that they are trapped in some sort of time warp. Bizarrely demons and other strange creatures also come to the temple to be healed. The next story is based on “Sun” which was the final arc completed before Tezuka’s death. It revolves around a young Korean soldier called Harima whose face is replaced by a wolf. He escapes to Japan with the help of an old woman and becomes the feudal lord Inugami ad finds himself in the midst of a supernatural war. The final arc in the series is from “Future”, originally published in 1968. In the 35th century, the world has come to an end. People live in shelters underground. A young man called Masato Yamanobe has escaped one of the cities because he has a banned shape shifting alien (a Moopie) who has taken the form of a beautiful girl called Tamami, and naturally both are in love. Pursued by a several robotic dogs, the pair are rescued by Dr Saruta, a scientist who has been exiled by society. Dr Saruta promises to help Tamami who is at her limit as long as he can use her to create new life to resurrect the Earth. Unfortunately the computers who run the underground cites decide to attack each other with nuclear weapons which wipes out humanity which also damages Dr Saruta base which proves fatal to him. The Phoenix however has made Masato immortal and his lives out his life watching the Earth resurrect itself.

Like with the “Buddha” movie which I saw a couple of weeks back, I had problems with this series. Like “Buddha”, “Phoenix” is based on a long manga, twice the length at least. A lot of material has been cut and really the only thing linking these stores is that the Phoenix makes an appearance in them. Other than that, there’s no link really. Well I suppose you could say the only real link is man’s attempts to acquire the Phoenix in each story so he can achieve immortally. While he pretty much fails each time, the Phoenix is always there imparting wisdom or guiding mankind. For me the stories were rather hit or miss. I liked “Strange Beings” the best and “Sun” was interesting too, but the rest kind of left me cold. Like the adaptations of Leiji Matsumoto’s work, I generally like the ones made back in the 1970’s and very early 1980’s, but find the recent ones rather silly. The stores don’t seem to echo the values of today. They’re way too old fashioned and too simple. With some exceptions such as “Black Jack” and perhaps “Metropolis”, I too find Tezuka adaptations made posthumously rather disappointing. More accurately, to me they feel rather silly. It feels all rather old fashioned and the dialogue hasn’t been updated to suit modern times. For example in the first arc the female lead in the side story says she wants to become immortal so she can have a thousand babies to repopulate the village. There’s also the completely implausible notion that a couple could raise a family in a created of a volcano for over a decade and a half. Some of the scenes are really, really grim too. There’ isn’t a great deal of humour to break this grimness up in some parts.

The animation is OK. It’s bog standard TV stuff, nothing to write home about. Unlike “Buddha”, “Phoenix” has retained the spirit of Tezuka’s character designs which I liked very much. Naturally Tezuka’s “Star System” is in full swing with appearances from Rock, Lamp and others. Takahashi Ryosuke of “Votoms”, “Flag” and “Gasaraki” fame is the director here. Maybe I was expecting way too much, but I was rather disappointed with this work this time around. Perhaps because of the fact this is a Tezuka work the pressure was on and he didn’t do much with the material and played it straight. Certainly the ending just felt too schmaltzy and a bit silly for my liking. Though made over 30 years ago, I would prefer to watch “Phoenix 2772” than this adaption of the material. Overall I was rather disappointed with the series, but still it was entertaining enough to give it a 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: Week 11, 2012

Instead of writing individual reviews, I’d thought I’d do one for the week. Plus I don’t really fell like doing long reviews for such mediocre titles.

“Generator Gawl”
Publisher: ADV Films (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 12 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 1998
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

In the far flung future of October 2007, three teenage boys, Koji, Ryo and Gawl arrive via a time wormhole from the year 2145. Unfortunately they realise that something has gone wrong with their trip back in time. Instead of arriving more than a year ahead of their deadline, they realise they have arrived with only three months left before they have to complete their mission. Their mission is to stop the research currently going on at the Oju Academy. If they don’t, World War III will happen. By hacking into the school’s database, they manage to successfully enrol themselves as students. They also manage to arrange accommodation by staying in rental accommodation supplied by the mother of soon to be fellow classmate, Masami. A rather forceful teenage girl, Masami doesn’t get along with Gawl at all. In fact she accuses him of being a pervert and stalker. But this is nothing more than a distraction to the three boys, as they have to fight off continual attacks in the form of “Generators” seemingly transported to this time period from 2145, sent to foil the trio’s plans. Generators are a kind of enhanced human being who mat look normal, but can transform into a creature capable of super human strength. Gawl is also a Generator and ends up fighting off the majority of their pursuers. The trio soon discover that a mysterious woman named Ryuko Saito is behind the funding of the research that will lead to the creation of Generators which will bring about World War III. They decide to assassinate Dr Tekuma Nekasa whose research is key to all of this.

Like many of Tatsunoko’s shows, this one involves a transforming hero. Like “Tekkaman Blade”, made some six or so year before this TV series, this show has very similar designs, but is a much more upbeat and colourful looking show. The problem I had with this show is nothing is made clear as to what is going on until about half way through. It’s all a bit confusing as to what people’s motives are, especially for Koji, Ryo and Gawl. Most episodes have Koji and Ryo doing a bit of investigating and trying to keep Masami out of their hair, and then a new Generator lands and Gawl fights it. I also got a bit sick of Masami’s clashes with Gawl. It was something we’ve seen a million times before in similar shows. The character design looks very late 1990’s AIC which isn’t surprising since designer Akira Oguro had worked as a key animator on many of the company’s shows. The series does improve substantively mid-season with a flashback to Koji, Ryo and Gawl’s past (or is that future?). Though with these and latter revelations, it is a little bit hard suspend disbelief. Time travel paradoxes abound. It wasn’t even this convoluted in “Doctor Who”. Despite this I really enjoyed the latter half and will give the show 6.5 out of 10.

“Hyper Doll”
Publisher: Pioneer (Geneon, USA)
Format: Region 1 and 4 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 2 Episodes x 30 minutes (originally 40 minutes each)
Production Date: 1995
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

For some unexplained reason, an alien power has sent two humanoid androids, Mew Fumizuki and Mica Minazuki, to defend Earth against various monsters. However neither is interested in defending the Earth at all and would prefer to laze about. The only thing that can motivate them is their boss, an alien whose hologram inexplicitly appears out of pineapple and ham pizzas or okonomiyaki. The only other motivator is a boy their age, Akai, whom they love to tease. Mew and Mica are operating undercover as high school students and are always threatening to dispose of him if he reveals their identities. The only reason he associates with them is he accidently discovered their arrival (only hinted at during the opening credits) and pleads with them to protect the Earth anytime there’s trouble. Mew and Mica also take delight in teasing Akai about Shoko, a girl he is interested in and funnily enough Shoko feels the same. A monster jellyfish creature, Kurageman and Inagoman, a grasshopper monster, sent by villainous Dr Zaiclit (*snicker*) soon terrorise Shinjuku. Again it’s up to Akai to attempt to get Mew and Mica to save the day.

This 1990’s OVA is to a large degree representative of a lot of the disposable trash that was released in that decade. For me, I really think to borders on a fine line between amusing disposable entertainment and utter crud. It’s based on a rather forgettable manga by Shinpei Ito which was published in part in English by Ironcat about a decade ago. Mew and Mica are fairly unlikeable. They’re bratish, self-absorbed and uncontrollably violent. Akai is the stereotypical luckless male who’s as dull as dishwater and moans all the time like he’s a teenage Japanese Karl Pilkington. The monsters are as expected, quite absurd and include a talking monster earthworm in the second episode. I suppose the area where it does shine is in the parody of live action superhero shows (of the Japanese variety). In particular I liked most of the absurd aspects of the monsters including a complaint from Inagoman that he disappointed that his only dialogue was “Nago!”. The humour in the show was rather hit and miss for me, but I did find Mew’s comment that she thought yukatas were for bondage strangely amusing.

The truth is though I do own the DVD version of this, I actually decided to watch my old Pioneer subbed VHS tapes instead for this review. For the dub VHS and DVD versions, Pioneer have cut out the 10 minute bonus live action sequences and the live action end credits. This is highly annoying as they do add to the show. The voice actress for Mew (Mayumi Iizuka), Mica (Yukana Nogami) and Shoko (Yuri Shiratori) perform a song (over the top of scenes from the show) during the end credits. The first live action sequence involves a live action Mew and Mica saving a tokusastu otaku and his girlfriend from a giant monster intercut with Mayumi Iizuka and Yukana Nogami performing of all things, a cover Pink Lady’s late 1970’s disco hit “Monster”. The second one is less elaborate with Mayumi Iizuka, Yukana Nogami and Yuri Shiratori playing live action versions of their anime characters. The commander appears suddenly out of a pizza which causes Shoko to faint. Mew and Mica decide to fall asleep beside her and all three have a dream about going to Yokohama while they sing a song from the “Hyper Doll” soundtrack. The VHS versions also came with a translated version of the Japanese LD inserts (folded up of course). One has a transcript of a conversation between Shinpei Ito and Hideaki Anno (yes, the Evangelion director). Their conversation involves idols and their own fandom with idols. How’s that for an odd extra? Overall it’s a rather mediocre OVA, but does provide some laughs at times. The out of print DVD does strip the original English subtitled release of some really interesting material which is a shame. 6 out of 10.

“Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens”
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 14 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

High schooler Jin Mikuriya carves a female wooden stature out of a holy tree that has been cut down from a shrine earmarked for redevelopment. Much to his surprise a girl his age bursts out of the sculpture. She is named Naga and claims to be a goddess. As the shrine she is the goddess of is being merged with another due to redevelopment and her sacred tree is no more, she has no place to go and ends up staying with him. Luckily he curtly lives alone in a rented flat. Nagi also claims that she has to cleanse the “impurities” from the area, which take the form of various insects. She uses a found plastic toy baton from a recent anime magical show as a makeshift exorcism staff. While Jin is more than a little sceptical at parts of her story, he also has to contend with his school colleagues and his childhood friend, Tsugumi who is smitten with him and takes the living arrangements the wrong way, despite Nagi insisting that she is Jin’s half-sister. To complicate things further, Zange, apparently Nagi’s twin sister turns up in town posing as a catholic and on her way to becoming an idol by taking confessions for 100 yen per person in the streets of the CBD. Apparently several centuries ago, Zange and Nagi were the same tree, but was split and planted either side of the river for the convenience of worshippers. Luckily Zange’s tree resides inside the grounds of a catholic church, hence her get up. Nagi decides to become an idol too. After all she needs worshippers, the worship of her transfers into her powers. Jin soon discovers that Zange has actually possessed the form of a girl named Hakua Suzushiro. Her father Reiri Suzushiro, the schools’ religious research teacher, has doubts about the Nagi’s claims, which casts doubts in Jin’s mind about her.

I suppose this series can be best described as A-1 Pictures doing its best Kyoto Animation impersonation (albeit the episode animation isn’t as good as Kyoto’s). The show certainly looks and feels like one of their shows, especially with it’s very inspired opening animation sequence which the titles card animation sequence echoes the one in first “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” series. Of course the idol concert themed opening animation has practically nothing to do with the show itself, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s probably one of the best opening animations I’ve seen in the last decade. I love it. The show itself is pretty typical with a boy surrounded by a number of women, one a tsundere, one a childhood friend etc etc. It also follows the usual clichéd path of having a number of “slice of life” episodes where little of any consequence happens, and then it dumps the drama and resolution quickly into the final three or so episodes. While there are number points in the series where hints are dropped (some not so subtle) as to what is to come, I really feel this is a playbook that anime series planners have used way, way too often in the last decade. It really makes me ache. But luckily what saves the show from the doldrums is that it is quite funny at times. It certainly had me laughing out loud at a number of points, which quite frankly surprised me. A lot of the secondary cast are pretty good, but mostly fall into stereotypes. However they were quite entering stereotypes which I’ll freely admit. There are also a number of otaku friendly parodies in the show, but the “Lucky Star” karaoke one was way too obvious. The US release was an experiment by Bandai Entertainment and Aniplex, announced and released on the same day, sub only on two separate discs only six months after the Japanese release. Unfortunately they never continued with this experiment. In the end this show was only slightly better others in this genre. 6.5 out of 10.

“Nurse Witch Komugi”
Publisher: ADV Films (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 6 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 2002 - 2004
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

A rabbit like alien from the Vaccine World who is named Mugi-maru, is sent a mission to find someone who can transform into a Nurse Witch and save the planet from viruses spread by the evil Ungrar. The first person Mugi-maru comes across is the mildly successful cosplay idol Komugi Nakahara, who gleefully accepts the role. While Komugi should be promoting various products and appearing at various fan events, she’ll be forced to fight off another one of Ungrar viruses, usually spread by her nemesis Magical Maid Koyori. In reality Magical Maid Koyori is Koyori Kokubunji, Komugi’s friend and fellow model at the agency Kiri Pro.

OK, I’m really not going to spend a great deal of time on this review. Remember “Soul Taker”? No? Well I guess some of you do. This rather bland spin off OVA series has the cast of the original series in different roles in a sort of absurd magical girl/”Otaku no Video” kind of show. However the parody aspects of the magical girls genre fall flat, as do the bits involving otaku culture. Then there are a ton of shitty jokes about breasts and perving on girls in the bath. It’s all rather ho-hum. The third episode is essentially a music video compilation with crappy story woven around it. If the songs or the visuals were entertaining, than I wouldn’t have minded, but it’s pretty boring. There were some rather funny moments though. In particular there was a great “Gatchaman” parody in the second episode (this is a Tatsunoko production so there’s plenty of references to their older shows spread out over the six episodes), and I thought the transforming Big Sight building was rather clever as was some parts of the finale in the last episode, but that’s about it. There’s a follow up two part OVA called “Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magicarte Z” which ADV obviously couldn’t be bothered with. Probably just as well. I just wish it was a bit more witter and the writing was a bit cleverer. Instead it’s aimed towards the lowest common denominator. I will still give it 4 out of 10 because some parts were kind of OK.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs)

Video Backlog: “Usagi Drop”

Publisher: Siren Visual (Australia)
Format: Region 4 DVD, PAL, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 11 Episodes x 22 minutes
Production Date: 2011
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

When 30 year old bachelor Daikichi Kawachi goes home to attend the funeral of his grandfather, he sees a young girl in the front garden holding a bunch of bellflowers. He assumes it is the daughter of his cousin, but his mother informs him, much to his surprise, that she is Rin Kaga, his grandfather’s illegitimate daughter who is now six years old. As you can imagine the family is rather embarrassed by Rin’s existence. After the funeral, talk soon turns to Rin’s future care and wellbeing. Rin’s mother has flown the coup and no one even seems to know who she is, so the burden of caring for her has fallen back to grandfather’s family. All of the entire members of the family reject taking Rin in. Someone suggests that the only option is to put Rin in an orphanage. At this point, Daikichi’s sense of social justice, and perhaps his paternal instinct, kicks in. Much to everyone’s astonishment he announces that he will look after Rin.

And so Daikichi begins a steep leaning curve. What does he feed her? What clothes should he but her? How does he enrol her into nursery and primary school? There’s also the problem of work. He has to be able to drop Rin off at school in the morning and pick her up in the early evening. That means no more overtime or drinking with workmates afterwards. He also finds that his giving up smoking and drinking in order to care for her. Through Rin befriending a bratty boy named Kouki Nitani at the nursery, Daikichi becomes friends with his mother, the gorgeous Yukari Nitani. Being both single parents (she’s a divorcee) juggling work with the upbringing of their child, they both find common ground to form a strong friendship and consult each other on raising children. Though Daikichi wishes their friendship would become cosier, he feels uncomfortable pushing things. But Daikichi has other things to worry about, such as Rin getting sick, the reappearance of her mother and his cousin leaving her husband and showing up on his doorstep.

This is yet another in Siren’s noitaminA series of releases. For a number of years now, Siren has taken a lot of risks with the material they release. Not only at the more extreme end of the scale with schlock like the various 1970’s Italian cannibal genre films and various hentai titles (all of which have had problems with Australian censors and religious morality groups), but also titles like these that you would think would be incredibly niche inside the already niche and tiny anime market in a small market like Australia. The only thing I think which makes a title like this worthwhile for the company is probably a low licencing fee. Otherwise why would they bother with sub only animation release of a show where a thirty year old bachelor raises a six year old kid? Despite the very odd premise, this show knocked the socks off the western anime audience. It’s even in ANN’s top ten anime currently. The show is most certainly heart-warming. Rin is incredibly cute and I think my paternal switch went into overdrive in certain episodes in this show. It’s great to see break out of her shell in the wake of the death of her carer, Daikichi’s grandfather (which makes Rin his aunt) into a very inquisitive and creative six year old. The two other children who appear in the show, Kouki and his cousin’s spoilt daughter, are monsters in comparison.

Interestingly the manga was published in a josei manga anthology and written by a female mangaka (Yumi Unita). Considering Rin and Daikichi’s journey together, one can only wonder if Unita has children herself. I fully understand that this series is meant to be a light hearted slice of life show, but hardly anything remotely threating rocks their world. Despite Daikichi transferring to a less intensive role (with his workplace amazingly agreeing to a transfer – something which doesn’t always work out in the real world, especially in non-government workplaces), oddly money seems to be no issue. Strange, as one would think children would increase household spending dramatically for Daikichi. There’s also his sudden shift from bachelorhood to being a single parent. It’s shown as an incredibly smooth transition in “Usagi Drop” (well, relatively smooth), while in real life I doubt this would be the case. The other parents shown in the show also play “happy families”, even those who are one parent families. I just felt this wasn’t exactly a realistic view of parenthood in a modern world. Everything is so damn flowery and upbeat. Daikichi never, ever chastises Rin, nor does she do anything “naughty” as such. It’s so sugary at times it’s sometimes slightly cringeworthy. But this only happens for a couple of brief moments in the show. I also had problems as with Rin’s mother. I’ve seen her described as intelligent and independent, but in the anime at least she’s childish and extremely self-centred, caring more about her career than anything else, including her daughter.

The artwork is fantastic (the animation was by Production I.G) with an emphasis on a water colour type backgrounds and to a degree animation, though as episodes progress most have standard colouring for the animation itself. The show only chronicles the first arc of the manga which essentially is Daikichi and Rin’s first year together. I understand that at the end of the manga it’s a little less innocent than earlier chapters (a spoilerish hint; it gets a bit Woody Allen in the end), but this anime is completely free of any hints of what is to come. It’s very chaste and sweet and thoroughly deserves its PG rating. Though due to the ending of the manga, I’m really surprised that the loony moral conservatives (i.e. Tankard Reist and her cohorts) haven’t tried to conflate the two and proclaim that this show is child sexual abuse and attempt to have the show banned in Australia. Nothing would surprise me anymore. Why can’t these people fuck off and leave society alone? If I wanted that shit I’d move to Singapore. Turning to the disc, yes Siren has included all four mini episodes that were included on the Japanese BD and DVD releases. That’s pretty amazing as the last one only came out in January this year. I think this is the shortest time an anime has made it from broadcast/home video release in Japan to DVD in Australia. Anyway, to sum up, I didn’t quite like it as much as that majority of fandom did, but I’ll still give it a solid 7.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: "Yozakura Quartet"

Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 12 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Somewhere outside Tokyo, a town called Sakurashin exists. It is a town where demons and humans coexist. The town is protected by a barrier created by seven humongous pillars which are “spiritual sakura (cherry blossom trees)”. These seven pillars exist in both the human world and the demon world and connects both to each other as well as shielding the town from uncontrollable demons. The town itself doesn’t have a council per se. Instead it is run by the Hiizumi Life Counselling Office. This is a centre run by four teenagers; Akina Hiizumi, an 18 year old human male who the director of the centre who can “tune” demons back to their own world, Hime Yarizakura, a 16 year old girl who is mayor and is apparently the human form of an ancient dragon, Ao Nanami, a demon wolf girl with telepathic and precognitive abilities, and Kotoha Isone, a half human, half demon girl who’s ability is to materialise objects using only words.

A number of demons and humans help the four members, most notably Kyosuke Kishi, an 18 year old “oni” (ogre) demon, who is probably the most rational and dependable person in the group. After a rash of incidents where girls are threatened by a man wielding gun are solved, everything seems peaceful in the town again. However a demon named Enjin Hiizumi arrives on the scene and is hell bent on destroying the barrier that protects Sakurashin and its inhabitants. To complicate things further Enjin has possessed the body of Gin, Ao’s missing brother and Akina and Hime’s friend during high school. Of course eradicating this threat who has close links to three of the four members Hiizumi Life Counselling Office proves to be a seemingly impossible task. Soon Enjin has weakened the barrier enough to threaten not only the existence of the town, but the entire planet as well.

From the very first batch of Sentai releases, the company has shown they like to snap up the other shows that other companies ignore. And it’s (mostly) not the crap leftovers either. There are truly some gems and a lot of lesser shows that aren’t exactly gems, but they’re still very good. This show falls in the latter category. I think the whole demon world/human world colliding together thing and both parties have to get along type story has been done to death (see “Hyper Police” and “Combustible Campus Guardress”, the latter of which it most resembles), however the stories presented here in this show are quite refreshing. Perhaps this have more to do with the presentation and style of the show than the actual storylines. The designs and feel of the show seemed very familiar to me when I first watched it. It felt very similar to “Durarara!!”. I was kind of unsurprised to discover that Suzuhito Yasuda who did the character designs for “Durarara!!”. “Yozakura Quartet” is Yasuda’s first manga series. The key to this show’s success is probably the fact at the core of the show it’s a slice of life type story with some nice drama and action/fight sequences laid over the top. The demon powers in particular are really quite well released. Kotoha Isone’s power of making objects, mostly various kinds of firearms, was truly inspired I thought.

I think what lets down the show is probably some of the actions of a couple of characters, in particular Akina Hiizumi. It was really hard to feel any sympathy for himself whatsoever. In the show it is explained that both Akina and Hime have essentially inherited their roles. Between the two, Akina in has more difficulty as he sort of sees his role in “tuning” as a curse as such. One demon in the show calls him a murderer as they view tuning as a death sentence. As a result, Akina is a little lazy when it comes to his duties. In the eyes of the audience most would see him as a slacker. His lax attitude clashes with the other members Hiizumi Life Counselling Office towards the end of the series as the town is falling apart. While there is some sort of attempt in the end to redeem his character, it’s not really well done any just about everything else going on overwhelms any effort to do so. As a result I could neither sympathise or empathise at all with Akina. There’s also a number of rather interesting secondary character such as the ”land gods” like Yuhi Shinatsuhiko, who takes the form of a young boy despite being over 250 years old. However I really felt their roles weren’t thoroughly defined or explored. A couple more episodes could have been added to the series to flesh things out a bit more. In the end I quite liked this series. It most certainly isn’t a classic, but it’s a really solid piece of entertainment and you can’t ask for much than that. 7 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: “Mobile Suit Gundam”

Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles.
Length: 42 episodes x 24 minutes (episodes 1 – 14, 16 - 43)
Production Date: 1979 - 1980
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

I’ve been watching no more or less anime than usual; however I’ve had to dump two series part way through viewing them. One was a dodgy bootleg I bought a while back that sputtered multiple times through the first disc until I gave up and trashed it, and the second series I started watching before I realised that I hadn’t actually got the final disc. Oh well. Despite Bandai Entertainment kicking the bucket in terms of home video distribution, luckily they managed to get the last part of the original Gundam series out. When I received it, I put the rest of the backlog aside to watch it.

For those who don’t know, the original 1979 TV series is set in the Universal Century year of 0079 (calculated to be about a hundred or so years in the future by some fans). Humanity has ventured out into space and lives in nearly a dozen or so large colonies in Lagrange point orbits around the Earth and the moon. One of these colonies, the Principality of Zeon, declares independence from the Earth Federation and a war ensues. At the eight month point of the war, half of humanity has perished and a number of space colonies have been destroyed, with some deliberately being dropped on cities on Earth. The Federation has sent their new warship, White Base, to the colony Side 7 to acquire a newly developed weapon being built there; the RX-78 Gundam, a newly developed “mobile suit”, or in layman’s terms, a giant robot. Side 7 is the process of being evacuated when a Zeon reconnaissance team of three Zaku mobile suits enter the colony. One of the team members disobeys his commanding officer and shots at unmanned Gundam being transported inside the colony. This starts off a fire fight and teenage boy Amuro Ray accidently acquires the Gundam’s manual (knowing that the robot was his father’s project) and on the spur of the moment decides to fight the Zakus, and wins.

The White Base’s temporary captain, lieutenant Bright Noa, is forced to take on Amuro as the Gundam’s pilot and several of the other teens evacuated from Side 7 as pilots of the other mobile suits and staff aboard the ship, as the majority of the military crew is either dead or severely injured. Along with other civilian evacuees from Side 7 (mostly the very young or the elderly), the ship attempts to make it back to Earth and the federation’s secret base in Jaburo, South America. However it becomes increasing clear that the Federation has no intention of relieving the makeshift crew of its duties. Instead it uses the White Base as a testing ground for experimental mobile suits and weapons and often uses the ship as a decoy. All the while, the crew have to weather continual attacks from various Zeon forces including forces lead by the charismatic and mysterious Char Aznable. While the White Base’s successes are initially attributed to the ship’s technological superiority, it later becomes apparent that several of its teenage crew are in fact “Newtypes”, a new evolution in the human race which has a type of extrasensory powers.

I think I first saw the first compilation movie of this series in 1997 or thereabouts. While I did buy the movie trilogy on DVD when it came out around a decade ago (it’ll be a decade in May since it was released), like most compilation films of anime series, the major problem is that a lot of material is cut out and a lot of context goes with it. I know a lot of the movies were reanimated with new or altered scenes, but in my eyes I don’t think it made a lick of difference. Combined with the rather long runtimes of the films, they were quite a chore to sit through. Despite the insistence of Gundam fans, I think the TV series is a much better way to experience the original Gundam. For me I found the story a lot clearer and easier to digest in the TV series. While a number of characters such as Crowley Hamon, Ramba Ral, the Zabi family and Ryu Jose have fleeting appearances in the movies, here they are fleshed out and their motivations are clear. In particular I found Kai Shiden to be a better character here. Little time is devoted to him in the films, but here he is the almost black hearted and sarcastic antidote to the rest of the crew’s seemingly never ending stoicism. I also found Char’s actions a lot clearer here than the film versions. In short the TV series let’s all the ideas breath and develop more. Things make more sense and there’s context and reason behind a lot of what seemed rather senseless actions.

One thing which seems lot in the film compilations is role many of the women play in the series. In the movies I felt that most of the action revolved around Char, Amuro and the Zabi’s. Putting aside the obvious fan favourites of Sayla Mass and Lalah Sune, many of the female characters are much stronger and much more interesting than their male counterparts. Kycilia Zabi in particular has a much larger role here and is on equal or greater footing then the male members of her family. Though she did have a key role in the films, Matilda Ajan also is much more fleshed out and seems to clearly know how to use her feminine charms to control male officers. She seems to make a greater impression on Amuro in the TV series as well. Personally I thought Amuro was a bit wimpy and a little unheroic as a main character. Perhaps that was the point, but I could never warm to him at all. And despite fandom loving Lalah Sune, like Amuro I could not see why she was so popular. I really think the audience isn’t given a chance to connect with her. She felt rather distant to me. Due to her fate, I think there should have been a stronger connection between her and Amuro. Perhaps in the original plan this was meant to happen, but due to the cancellation and subsequent reorganisation of the show’s ending, it didn’t.

While I have difficulties with many of Yoshiyuki Tomino’s shows, mainly due to the rather jumbled storytelling and absurd character names, for whatever reason this show really hits the spot with me. Certainly there are a number of flaws in the show. The first is some of the inconsistent animation. There’s some really off model designs (even by late 1970's TV animation standards), both mecha and characters. Also some of the plots are bit silly. For example in one episode, the ship runs out of salt and they make a rather desperate bid to find more. The infamous 15th episode, “Cucuruz Doan's Island”, missing from all English language releases by order of Tomino himself (I did however find a copy to watch), is also pretty daft. There are also the three prepubescent children, Katz Hawin, Letz Cofan and Kikka Kitamoto, who don’t add much to the show. It’s really hard to believe they’d be allowed to stay on board. I suppose seeing as this show comes off the end of a very long line of 1970’s super robots shows, it was inevitable some of that silliness would leak into a fairly hard militaristic sci-fi show like this. The mystical qualities of the Newtypes have always thrown me a bit. I find it problematic that there doesn’t seem to be any attempt to try to explain why they have appeared or why some humans suddenly evolved to have these powers, or why there’s a large concentration of them on Side 7. The other bugbear for me what how the Zeon’s mobile suits just got bigger and uglier with each passing episode towards the end. But hey, I can live with that. It’s interesting that the colonies themselves are based upon those found in Gerard K. O'Neill’s 1976 book “The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space”, in particular the “O'Neill cylinder” which most of the colonies in Gundam are direct copies of. How Sunrise didn’t get sued is beyond me.

It’s quite amusing that this show in its English dubbed and “enhanced” format (the audio was completely replaced and some digital effected were added for its 2001 US broadcast) practically killed the franchise in the US. You just have to wonder what Bandai and Sunrise were thinks. Why didn’t they go with “Gundam X” or “Turn A Gundam” instead? We get that dopey dub from 2001, but of course the more interesting part of this release is the original audio and video. Both are stunning for material over 30 years old. The video doesn’t have a spot of dirt or a scratch on it (though cel, lighting and filming artefacts are apparent). The audio is top notch which kills that stupid baseless rumours that it was too damaged to be released that surfaced when the series was released in English on DVD a decade ago in the US sans the Japanese dialogue. The main problem here is the missing episode 15. You really have to question Tomino’s sanity sometimes. Sure it’s probably the worst episode in the series, but it’s quite rich to claim that release is a “complete collection” (as it says on the front of both sets) without it. In conclusion it’s a fantastic series that made me re-evaluate the original Gundam. I will be revisiting the movie trilogy again sometime the future because of the TV series. It’s easy to see why Japanese fandom loves the show. I was going to give it a 9, but some of the silliness dragged it down a little for me. 8.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: "Katanagatari"

Publisher: NIS America (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles. Region A Blu-ray, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles.
Length: 12 episodes x 50 minutes
Production Date: 2010
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

It is the Edo era. Many years prior, a rebellion took place where the leader of that rebellion, Takahito Hida, was killed by a man named Mutsue Yasuri. For this crime, Mutsue and his family were exiled to the island of Tamba. Many years later only his son, Shichika Yasuri, and his daughter, Nanami Yasuri survive on the island. Both have been trained in the art of Kyotoryu school of martial arts, though Shichika was chosen by his father as the head of this school. The Kyotoryu style is not exactly your typical martial art. Shichika is a swordsman, but has no sword. The martial art is designed so he performs as a sword. Shichika and Nanami live pretty much in blissful ignorance of the world outside their little island. That is until a young white haired woman named Togame, a strategist who claims to be under orders from the Shogun, arrives and asks for Mutsue’s help to recover twelve extraordinary swords collectively known as the "Deviant Blades" swords forged by a sword smith named Kiki Shikizaki. The brother and sister explain that their father is dead, but Togame insists that Shichika be his replacement and help her retrieve the swords.

However the Maniwa Ninja Clan are also looking for these swords and have send one member, Maniwa Koumori, to stop Togame’s search. He kidnaps Togame in an effort to dissuade Shikizaki from journeying with her. Shikizaki soon finds himself in his first real battle and in the process discovers that his father killed Togame’s father. Knowing that Togama him to travel with her despite what his father did to hers, Shichika makes the decision to leave his island home and accompany her in her journey. Over the course of the next several months they challenge the current owners of the swords in an effort to collect all twelve. However the owners never give them up easily and quite often the Maniwa Ninja Clan will challenge them as well. There’s also a mysterious figure named Princess Denial lurking behind the shadows. Her link with Togame will soon be revealed.

This is yet another series based on a bunch of light novels. The author of the novels, NisiOisin, pumped out a light novel per month over a period of 12 months which is quite astonishing. Now in this adaptation, two things stick out like sore thumb; the highly stylised designs and the double length episodes. Both really help make the series stand out, but it’s the story which makes this show a winner. I’ve read where people suggest that the series is a satire on generic shonen fighting manga/anime, but I can’t see that at all. Certainly it does take tropes from chanbara cinema and similar sword/samurai epics and puts a twist on them or ends up taking the piss out of them. For instance the preview for episode four hypes up an upcoming fight. However the actual episode itself focuses on Nanami as two Maniwa Ninja attempt to kidnap her. The fight itself is only mentioned at the end by Shichika and Togame, but apart from the preview, none of the fight is actually shown.

There are a few problems I had with the show. Towards the end it delves into some surreal territory which I think wasn’t really needed. The ending was a bit of a surprise as was the whole explanation about the origin and purpose of the "Deviant Blades". It was a bit hard to swallow that explanation and I’m still a bit iffy on the ending to tell the truth. NIS America’s release is pretty damn good. It has the usual chipboard flat box and the hardcover booklet with a ton of artwork. In both books there’s about two and a half pages dedicated to a glossary of terms used in the show which is really helpful. However NIS still manages to not explain what the story is behind the cross that can sometimes be seen in Togame’s left eye. As I understand it, it has to do with some sort of pun on her name. Wrapping up, I think this is a really great show and was a bit surprised that there seems to be little fan buzz around it. It’s really quite unique in terms of presentation and the story is pretty damn good. I really wish anime studios would take more chances to make shows like this. 8 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 27 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).