Hey there everyone, I’ve been pretty busy recently but don’t for a second think i have forgotten you all. I have been considering changing this theme to another, darker one which you can see if you click the “Try Our New Look” link on the right. After you try it out and return back here (by closing the bar what will pop up at the bottom of the page) please vote in the poll on the right, or if you like neither please tell me why in the comments below 🙂 . Your Feedback will be much appreciated.
There are several music animes out there (with “Nana” and “Beck” coming to mind first), but what about a musical anime, where the characters burst into song for no apparent reason. It may be that “Nerima Daikon Brothers” could be that first one. For your information:
Nerima – a ward inTokyo. Daikon – the famous ‘white radish’. Brothers – Well, brothers in arms.
It tells the story of Hideki (the big guy in the middle). Sure, he’s merely a daikon farmer, but he has dreams, big dreams and they do not involve farming implements. One day, he’ll build the world-famous Daikon Dome and his little entourage will play to packed houses of screaming, frenzied fans every night, rockin’ the house with some rockin’ music. But, until that time, he farms and rehearses every chance he gets, as they have a makeshift stage in the field. The neighbors do not take kindly to those musical intrusions, and hurl both bottles and epithets to get them to shut up.
The band consists of Hideki, his brother Ichiro and cousin Mako (plus some random pandas; don’t ask). Any resemblance to the “Blues Brothers” is strictly intentional. Alas and alackaday, big dreams cost big bucks and our little singing trio are badly skint in that area. In fact, Ichiro has a real job working at a host club, where not only is he a most popular draw, he also comes across a lot of help and information. Too bad they are spending most of their time fending off rapacious agents, devious psychics, duplicitous nurses and questionable auditions.
Adding to their woes, whatever money they are able to obtain is quickly siphoned off to repair for damages incurred during their latest escapades or balance off a massive debt imposed on them so they at least pull even. No one said being an overnight star was easy. (more…)
There are some show titles that are going to draw your interest immediately. “Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt”. Yeah, I gotta check that one out. “My Sensitive Pornograph”. Whoops! I backed the wrong pony on this one! “Chu-Bra!!”. I wonder if it is about undergarments……
Well, yes, it is. It tells the story of Nayu Hayama (the bespectacled one), a middle school student who is having some problems with her undergarments to the point of it being a wardrobe malfunction. Since the underwear in question is rather adult in nature, two curious students, Yako Jingūji (the brunette) and Haruka Shiraishi (the pink one) wonder if there is ‘something more’ going on, especially when a much older man comes up to Nayu to ask her questions.
We come to learn that she is a caliber of ‘beta tester’ for underwear. In fact, she is so enamored with underwear, she has made it her life’s ambition to be the greatest undergarment designer in the world, following in the footsteps of her famous (but dead) grandmother. Her aim is to make undergarments that are both pretty and designed to do what they are meant to do. (more…)
Seldom does one see a show that is this perverted without really showing anything that perverted. Other shows that claim to be less perverted show a whole lot more than these folks. Now, I will admit that when I heard the title “Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt”, I had no real idea what it was all about, but it has genuinely NOTHING to do with underwear and garments as you might think they should.
Our two heroines are Panty (the blonde) and Stockings (the brunette), the Anarchy Sisters. They are fallen angels, kicked out of heaven for their very bad behaviors. They have been sent toDatenCity(and here is a joke; datenshi is Japanese for ‘fallen angel’) and they have to do battle with monsters (or ‘ghosts’) whom torment this city.
Depending on how hard or involved the fight with the ghosts is, this manifests itself in the amount of coins they get. They are literally trying to buy their way back into heaven. (more…)
Admittedly, I am a late arrival to anime, despite my background. I was just a wee sprite when I first saw Astro Boy on NBC in 1964 and I was not impressed. It took me another 40 years before I finally decided that I liked anime. Do keep in mind that I had numerous runs-in with it in the ensuing years, and treated badly most of the time.
Since 2004, I have been rather keen on it, watching almost everything I could lay my hands and eyes on. There have been some notable failures (“Fantastic Children”), total mistakes (“Gundam Seed Destiny”) and wonderful surprises (“Mahoromatic”), but with the latest crop of shows out there, I find myself playing the Frankenstein Game.
Two that really get to me are “C3” and “Maken-ki! Battling Venus”. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with the show, but I find myself seeing other shows in them. (more…)
Recently, (as in today) I started watching Angel Beats and by the end of episode 1, I had an intense urge to write up a first impressions review on it. Now firstly I have been hearing about this show for quite some time now and I guess I somewhat kept putting it off (no idea why), but hey, I’m glad I finally got around to it. Now, it starts with a middle school aged boy whom we shall call Otonashi who wakes and finds himself in the middle of the school grounds a few meters behind a girl, who so happens to be crouched, aiming an awesomely customized M16 at the head of another seemingly harmless school girl. At this point of the show I sat back and thought ‘interesting, let’s see how this progresses’.
The girl (the one holding the gun called Yuri) starts to explain that this world was one that you go to after you die, and that you must fight this ‘angel’ person/being in order to remain here, and also that while you were here, it was impossible for you to die, seeing as you are already dead. The only thing was that if you decided to not go against Angel then you would ‘disappear’ and well, no one is sure what happens when you disappear, but it is assumed you may reincarnate as a random animal such as a flea or tadpole. (more…)
The original title of this show is “B Gata H Kei”, which translates out to “B-Cup Slut”, but since Americans are possessed of delicate sensibilities and should not be offended, it was appended with “Yamada’s First Time”, so now we can all enjoy this with no fear of revulsion.
The plot is fairly straightforward: The above maiden, 15-year old Yamada, has but a single goal: to sleep with 100 different men before she graduates. She is best described as oversexed, flirtatious and lustful, and is a very popular figure on campus. But she is a virgin, and this puts a bit of a crimp in her dreams as her standards has her turning down boys right and left who would jump at the chance to jump on her.
She decides that for her very first time, she needs to find the Golden Cherry (an inexperienced, virginal boy) and ends up setting her sights on Kosuda Takashi, a member of the photo club. However, Yamada’s insecurities have her pushing hard when she should take it easier and backing off when she should be moving forward. This creates all kinds of comedies of errors and loads of misunderstandings.
If the pursuit of Takashi was not hard enough, a pair of new rivals manifest themselves. The first comes forward as a childhood friend of Takashi, Mayu Miyano. (more…)
Make no mistake about this one: Judy Garland is NOT on the other side. This is a brutal, rough, vicious show that takes no prisoners. It is also rather rare in that it examines the Post-WWII life ofJapanand how the war really changed both people and society.
It starts out in July, 1956 and six boys are being transferred to the Shōnan Special Reform School. They are hooded and chained together and are treated like scum and villainy, especially when they have to board a public bus to get to the school. The brutality starts almost immediately when one boy is beaten for trying to return a doll to a little girl who dropped it and no one does anything about the punishment meted out to him.
Once in their cell, after a most humiliating jail processing procedure, they have to confront Sakuragi Rokurouta, who challenges them all to a fight to see who will be the top dog in this little group. Our six other prisoners are:
This series has always perplexed me, as it is a mere TWO episodes. Again, billed as an OVA, it covers, more or less, Book Three (the manga runs for about 18 issues). But it comes off as not much more than a test run. It starts from nowhere and ends up nowhere and you honestly do not enjoy anything in between.
It tells the story, ostensibly, of the life of schoolboy Densuke Mifune, who is a transfer student into the ZashonoAcademyIsland. This is a massive educational complex, handling students from Kindergarten through college (about 56,000 total people). On the first day, he (literally) runs into Chiharu Shinonome, who is possessed of the biggest bustline you have ever seen (and, no, she is neither of the two people at the top). Densuke, being your typically dense anime male, squishes Chiharu’s breasts like he’s kneading bread, much to the anger and chagrin of the rest of the male population, who want to be able to do that as well. (more…)
Short Run Series, Part I – Welcome to the “Jungle”
Most animes run in ‘seasons’ of 12, 13, 24 or 26 episodes. All of those numbers make sense to me. 13 episodes (or weeks) are one-quarter of a year. I accept 12 episodes, as you will lose a week to some holiday special (“The Death Note Christmas Show”. I’d love to see that one, especially when Light and L sing carols together). I would even accept 50 episodes (that’s almost a whole year, with one week taken up by eating lots of turkey and another one for a break away from the murder and mayhem, to reflect upon this most joyous of times. Then, we can return to the murder and mayhem.)
It’s the shorter ones that have me scratching my head. Sometimes it works (“Planet of the Beast King”, 11 episodes), sometimes it doesn’t (“Golden Boy”, six episodes, somewhat self-indulgent), but there are some that are so short, do they even count as a show? What is it that they get such a miniscule amount of shows? Was there a budget crisis? A test run? Some kind of a bet? Nothing else to do?
The first one in question is “Jungle de Ikou” (or “Jungre de Ikou”; I’ve seen both spellings). Now it gets billed as an OVA, but don’t you have to have a series BEFORE you have an OVA? Is there some kind of anime rule or regulation I missed on this?
