HTF Anime Discussion Part VIII (2 Viewers)

[TheLongshot]

I dunno, there seems to be plenty of existential discussion in both TV series.

Jason

 

[JohnAD]

I've been chugging through my anime pile the last couple of days:

Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy: This show ended up being about as cute as you'd expect from the packaging. The story and plot weren't bad, and there was some surprising character development. The ending was a little sad, and I'm not sure three-year olds would understand it, although maybe a five- or six-year old probably would. PQ-wise, the picture was pretty darn good, with only some jaggies on outlines that were noticeable. This will probably be one of the first anime series that I will show to my daughter when she gets old enough. 'B' - Recommended.

Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy Summer Special: Two more episodes of cuteness, told as a flashback. If you enjoy the regular series, you'll enjoy this. 'B' - Recommended.

Mao-chan: Another kid-friendly series. I've gotten through disk three, and it's been pretty enjoyable. There is minimal violence; the 'cute aliens' (I kid you not) are tapped on the head. The humor isn't just for kids, though. The antics of the Chiefs of Staff are certainly funny enough. There is even a nice homage to Love Hina in one of the episodes of volume three.

John.

 

[AlannaE]

Merry Christmas Ya'll!
I have watched a bit of anime lately...
The first four volumes of A Little Snow Fairy Sugar - very cute show so far, my daughter loves it.
Chobits - first disc - still one of my favs.
Koi Kaze 1 n 2 - I adore this, it seems even creepier now but the anime seems so "real" that its difficult not to get caught up in the story.
I have ALOT on tap but am trying to just stick with two series at a time, one to watch with my daughter and one for just me. So far this has worked out well.

Other shows she has enjoyed watching this year: Strawberry Marshmellow, Kaliedo Star New Wings, Galaxy Angel A, Angelic Layer.

Stuff on tap: Gunslinger Girls, Galaxy Angel Z, Last Exile, Wild Arms, Saber Marionette J, Saber Marionette J to X, Bottle Fairy, Witch Hunter Robin, Excel Saga, .Hack

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Capsule Review : Hadashi no Ginrei, Tetsuwan Ginrei, Aoi Hitomi no Ginrei These are three "special episodes" spun off from Giant Robo, and as their names imply, they concentrate on the gun-wielding girl member of the Experts of Justice. The first two titles are puns on more famous anime : Hadashi no Gen, a.k.a Barefoot Gen, is the story based on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, while Tetsuwan Atom is the Japanese name of what Americans call Astro Boy. These two episodes are lighthearted parodies of the series. The first is essentially a skit, in which the Big Fire organisation gets fed up with Ginrei spoiling their (mostly quite stupid) plans, and decides to take steps — but the Experts are one step ahead of them, as usual. It's bulked out to a little less than 30 minutes by "image videos" and some answering-machine messages (titled "I Love Moshi Moshi"), in Japanese of course. The second has a strange framing device, in which the Experts and Big Fire are both holding parties, at the same place, involving bad jokes and a lot of drinking. Meanwhile, there's a TV show on featuring the characters of the series in a story with "G.R. Number 2", Daisaku in a checked suit, giant-robot idol concerts, and other indescribables. This episode has the only J-Pop opening among the otherwise classically-scored Giant Robo programmes, and a bizarre a capella ending performed by Lord Albert and Ivan, as well as some more answering-machine messages. The third episode is more serious in tone, featuring Ginrei and Tetsugyuu hunting for Big Fire activity in a low-rent desert, a cross between Arizona and Turkestan. The first few minutes are matted down to Cinemascope aspect ratio, with the top of the frame at the 16:9 frame line, so you can blow it up on a widescreen TV and get the whole picture, although the credits underneath extend down far enough to be cut off. One of the main characters is a small boy named Rude who bites Tetsugyuu on the finger while being held at arm's length several feet above the ground. Tough kid!

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Well, it was close, but I managed to watch everything I've bought this year, to my own satisfaction.
明けまして おめでとう 御座います Everybody!

 

[Max Leung]

Heh, good work Chris!


Hey, no more than Samurai Champloo, Welcome to the NHK, or Gundam Seed.

I'm really enjoying "Welcome to the NHK". Especially after just visiting Tokyo - it's a real hoot recognizing the galge (girl pickup) games' covers from my brief visit to Akiba!

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Capsule Review : Giant Robo Here's a warning : If you don't like the kind of story where everybody dies, Giant Robo is not for you. There's a lot of effort on building up the characters, and a lot of effort to make you care about them, and a lot of them get killed off. It's very well-made, with quite a bit of emotional power for something which is made of paint and plastic, and doesn't feel at all manipulative. Nominally, the story is about the efforts of the "Experts of Justice", a bunch of superheroes working for Interpol, to frustrate the plans of the "Big Fire" organization to take over the world ; and specifically about a single week in which the world is menaced by something called the Eye of Vogler, and about the youngest of the Experts, a boy named Kusama Daisaku, who controls the super-powerful fighting robot of the title. The setting is a world of about 2040 AD, in which almost everything on Earth is powered by a recently-discovered clean, renewable source of energy, the "Shizuma Drive" — the Eye, among other things, shuts down Shizuma Drives, with understandably bad consequences. The series is also a prolonged meditation on family relationships and how they shape character, especially father-son relationships, although it comes more in the form of action than in the form of talk. This is not to say that there isn't a lot of talk, but it's not like Ghost in the Shell, by which I mean that the discussion is in line with the plot instead of parallel to it, commenting on it. Daisaku struggles with his father's cryptic last words, "there can be no happiness without sacrifice", and with the trust represented by Giant Robo, and he has to make hard choices (no surprise they're not always the right ones). It's also a tribute to the great manga author, Yokoyama Mitsuteru, who wrote the original Giant Robo manga, as well as Tetsujin 28go (Gigantor) and many others. Many characters are drawn from his other works, such as Babel II (which was adapted into an anime), and his long-running adaptation of the Chinese novel Suikoden (which wasn't, although other anime have appeared under that title). Wholly Recommended

 

[Max Leung]

Thanks for the review Chris.

I'm trying to remember if I saw Giant Robo trailers - was it a Geneon release? And is it relatively recent?

I'm still really enjoying "Welcome to the NHK" - it's a lot of fun. Reminds me of Otaku no Video in some ways. But it also has a nice human touch to it.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Giant Robo originally came out 1994-1998, and at last notice was a Manga Entertainment release, although with Bandai's entry into the Western market we may see a release from them (they are the Japanese publisher). Recently released by Geneon was the new Gigantor aka Tetsujin 28go, based on another Yokoyama work and featuring some of the same characters and some of the same designs, and produced in 16:9 widescreen.

 

[Kris Z.]

Giant Robo is being distributed by Media Blasters. They've released the remastered and restored version in both singles and in a very, very cheap collection. It includes all the episodes of Giant Robo as well as the GinRei ones, a total runtime of about 17 standard length episodes, for less than the price of a normal 3-4 episode DVD. Taking into consideration the high quality of the work, it's probably the best deal I have ever seen when it comes to R1 anime DVDs. Everyone should buy it, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

By the way, is anyone else psyched about the remastered/restored Gunbuster release by Honneamise coming up in February? Personally I can't wait.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I'm very happy that GunBuster will be getting a decent US release, at long last. It was one of the very first anime titles to be released here, on (erratically) subtitled VHS by the long-defunct "US Renditions", but most people haven't seen it, which is a real shame.

Of course, I'm biassed. I liked it so well that I've bought all three Japanese LD editions!

 

[Max Leung]

Thanks for the info guys!

 

[JohnAD]

I finished off the rest of my big TRSI stack over my vacation:

Mao-chan: The last disk proved to be just as cute as the first three, and the ending was about what one would expect for a show geared towards younger kids. When Aiko is old enough, we'll be watching this together. 'B' - recommended for younger kids, and their parents.

Daphne in the Brilliant Blue: This series is definitely not for younger kids. There is a lot of fan service, but if you can get past that, Daphne is an enjoyable series. The story takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic Earth (presumably caused by global warming) where ocean covers most of the land, and people now live in the floating cities in which they had escaped the catastrophe. Maia, the main character, is a teenager trying to get into the civil service, only to fail. she is reduced to working for Nereids, and company that specializes in odd jobs. There is some fairly decent character growth throughout the series' run, and I liked the ending. Disks six and seven each contain a bonus episode that doesn't fit in with the main story arc. Both episodes are some of the funniest of the whole show. PQ-wise, Daphne is a recent show, show the image quality is generally good. Being a Pioneer/Geneon disk, there are naturally some jaggies in some of the outlines, but they really didn't bother me. 'B' - recommended.

El-Hazard: The Wanderers: Based on what I'd heard before picking this series up, I was expecting a horrible show. What I got wasn't nearly that bad. Several of the regular EH characters have their personalities changed from the OVAs (Ifurita being the most obvious), and the whole Makoto-Ifurita romance has been replaced by a Makoto-Rune Venus one. The first half of the series introduces the main cast, while the second half gets on with the meat of the series. Compared to the OVAs, the story isn't horrible, just less satisfying. The ending was pretty good, though. PQ-wise, this is an older, low-budget series, and it shows. 99% of the PQ issues stem from the low budget, and (presumably) the state of the masters used to make the DVDs. The ending credits are also incorrect for most of the episodes. I can only think that Pioneer gathered their most incompetant or lazy titlers (titlists?). There were also some instances of bad English grammar and spelling on a few episodes as well. 'B-'.

John.

 

[AlannaE]

Does anyone know what happened to Magical Meow Meow Taruto Complete? It was supposed to be released 12/19 but DDD cancelled my order and its no longer on their website. Amazon and buy.com show it as being a preorder that ships in 3-6 weeks. Does anyone know whats going on with it? I was eagerly anticipating this because it looked like a show that my daughter and I could both watch. (We just finished up Sugar).

 

[JohnAD]

Alanna:

TRSI appears to have it: http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/cat...em/71832/4/0/0

I checked the Bandai Entertainment site, but they weren't showing any problems. My guess is that it's a problem with Amazon's and DDD's distirbutors. I have noticed however that DDD is getting flakier with some anime titles.

John.

 

[AlannaE]

I was hoping not to pay quite that much for it but cant find it anywhere else. DDD had it for around 27 bucks with free ship before they pulled it from their website. Its not just Amazon and DDD's distributors either, I cant find this thing anywhere. Maybe they didnt think it would sell well or something... dunno...

I DO have a question though. What do you think these titles are worth all together including shipping? Someone wants to sell them to me but the price seems a little high and wanted to get a second opinion before I paid:

Magic Users Club vol 1-7
Adventures of the Mini Goddess 1-4
Video Girl Ai
Vampire Princess Miyu 1-7 with box.

Thanks for the help.

PS started Bottle Fairy. It is a "cute" show but not nearly as good as Sugar. In fact, most of the time its pretty boring since none of the characters have really great personalities and the fairies are usually doing something stupid. Only when that naieve "stupid" ends up being cute does it get my interest. My daughter didnt particularly care for it either. We are up to September in the series/first disc. Risky Safety looked interesting, any thoughts on that?

 

[JohnAD]

Alanna:

Are the disks new and unopened, or used? If they're used, I would want to inspect them first. Of the four series, I've only seen Adventures of Mini-Goddess, which is a good one. What is the asking price?

John.

 

[Kris Z.]

Assuming they're used I wouldn't want to pay much more than $100. They're all really old releases and not worth much, and none of the titles are earth-shatteringly great either.

 

[AlannaE]

They are used but in excellent condition from a high ranked seller. I know Vampire Princess and Ai is OOP. They wanted 150 shipped for the lot. it seems high to me but then again Im used to only picking up cheap boxed sets.

 

[JohnAD]

Alanna:

The price seems a little high to me, but then I don't really buy used disks. Having not seen most of those series, I can't really judge whether they are worth the price.

John.