Certainly one of the more intriguing ‘school’ shows I have seen, “Assassination Classroom” (“Ansatsu Kyōshitsu”) is an odd duck of an offering in anyone’s book.

One day, the world wakes up to find that 70% of the moon is gone, completely vaporized and now is in a permanent crescent shape. The alien who did it states to the Japanese government (good, YOU losers deal with it!) that within a school year, Earth will also be destroyed by him, but he offers mankind a chance to avert this fate. In the 3-E Class at Kunugigaoka Junior High School (where all the slackers, dummies and other losers end up), he starts working as a homeroom teacher, where he instructs his students not only in regular subjects, but also in the ways of assassination. The Japanese government promises a reward of ¥10 billion ($100 million) to whomever among the students succeeds in killing the teacher, whom they have named “Koro-sensei”, as for some reason, he (we assume it’s a he; it’s the tie) doesn’t have a name. However, offing him has proven to be an almost impossible task, as not only does he have several superpowers at his disposal, including the capacity of moving at Mach 20, but he is also the best teacher they’ve ever had.

There are about 30 students in the class, leading with (around the clock, starting at upper left) Nagisa Shiota. Now, this person is a guy (a joke later played out in the show). Not particularly strong, he is blessed with keen insight, as he tries to figure out the best way to exploit Koro’s weaknesses (and he has a load of them).

Next is Karma Akabane, a slacker in every sense of the word, he is also thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to being a homicidal maniac. Class is now interesting enough for him to attend; otherwise, he’s probably downtown, mugging folks and causing numerous degrees of mayhem. (more…)

I used to complain (and still do) that anime was always about the future, but this one, “Junketsu No Maria” (“Maria the Virgin Witch”) takes place in the past, the far past, like the Hundred Years War past (1337 to 1453). I think this one takes place during the Caroline War segment of it, so we can put it between 1369 and 1389. Above us is Maria the Witch (and her two familiars in their owl form, left to right, Priapos and Artemus). She helps the people of the nearby village with medicines and other kind of support.

For the most part, the church tolerates her (barely), but when war comes to this part of the world, she gets on her broom and conjures up spirits to send the English packing. Well, this does not bode well for her, either with the Church or with God. No, He doesn’t make an appearance. Besides, who would do the voice? Chris Ayres? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Seriously, Archangel Michael comes down to threaten Maria not to use her magic in public, as it is an affront against God. He sends a minion of his to watch over her, Ezekiel, a rather slight girl, to do what she has to do to stop Maria, up to and including dispatching her, if necessary. (more…)

This isn’t necessarily a ‘girl who saves the world’ anime, but “Akatsuki no Yona” (“Yona of the Dawn”, also known as “The girl standing in the blush of dawn”) certainly embraces a woman who goes from wallflower to being front and center (that’s her, front and center).

We start off in the kingdom of Kouka, with Yona as your typical pampered princess, whose biggest concern might be chipping a nail (actually, it’s her flaming red hair; she hates it). Along with her bodyguard Son Hak (off her left shoulder) and childhood friend Soo-won, they live a happy, sheltered life….until on her 16th birthday celebration, she sees Soo-won kill her father, King Il, and engineer a coup. The reason behind it, the king was weak and deserved to die. Well, that’s been a pretty good reason to kill rulers since we’ve had rulers. Yona and Hak escape, as Hak is the Thunder Beast and can use that blade of his to devastating results. Sadly, both of them fall to their deaths from a high precipice while being pursued by the palace forces.

That puts a major crimp in things, as Soo-won was going to marry Yona, to give legitimacy to what he wanted to do as king. He can (and will) still proceed, but it just makes things a whole lot tougher. However, our demoralized duo is not dead, but has taken refuge with an oracle of some ilk, Ik-su. Offering his young apprentice, Yun (far right), as a guide, they have been instructed to hunt down the Four Dragons, as they have pledged their fealty to the King of Hiryuu castle. Wait, but she’s a girl, so she’d be queen, right? Shhh, it’s the emotional import. As the rightful heir and eventual ruler, she gets their support. Oh, and they aren’t real dragons, with scales and a forked tail and breathing fire, but they have the attributes of a dragon. In my picture up there, you see all four of them (I’ll break down that cast a bit later). (more…)

The OVA for “Assassination Classroom” is, quite simply, the worst OVA I have ever seen, as there is no real reason for it. Now, a full review will follow when the show actually concludes, but, for the nonce, the plot revolves around Koro Sensei (that smiley face up there). He is a space alien and has personally blown away 70% of the moon. He gives the earth nine months (until March, in the anime) to have this classroom of slackers and losers try and assassinate him or it’s bye-bye big blue marble. It’s a lot harder that you think.

The series just dropped us into things with a rather thin background in regards to the initial events, and I was hoping the OVA would be a kind of Episode #0 or #0.5, to pre-explain things better, but no such luck. It is, in fact, a compilation of Episodes # 7 and #8, but with no real rhyme or reason. I mean, I can WATCH Episodes #7 and #8 in full and get what I need and not have this Cliff Notes version trotted out. OK, the art is a little different and the version I saw used an alternate font for the subtitles, and there is a slightly new take on things, but, overall, it’s those two episodes done again. And since this OVA came out just after #8 was released, it’s even more perplexing. And if you just decided to grab the OVA, then you are tremendously behind the curve, as you are, in effect, coming in about mid-season and no amount of catch-up is going to help. (more…)

When I first heard that, I thought the speaker was crazy. That is a driving reason TO go, as you get a chance to see the latest and newest before anyone else or an opportunity to find something you didn’t know about. For “KrakenCon”, it was a grand disappointment for me in regards to the anime offered.

Two of the viewings made sense: “Evangelion 2.22” and “Kim Possible: So the Drama”, as the ladies who did the voices, respectively, for Asuna and Kim, were guests of honor (or ‘luminary’, as that is what their badge said). The rest of the shows had some kind of naval or military tie in: “KanColle” (girls who are battleships), “The Princess and the Pilot” (giant airships that are like aircraft carriers), “A Lull in the Sea” (about watery folks), “Arpeggio of Blue Steel” (a Japanese submarine takes on an alien battleship fleet), and others, although I would have chosen a couple of different ones, like “The Pilot’s Love Song”, “Squid Girl” and/or “Tide Line Blue” (OK, that last one is an older title, but one of the first series I watched during my Seventh Anime Attempt). But, except for “Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet”, I have seen them all and I have reviewed them all. That is a problem when you watch as much anime as I do: unless it is a Grand World Premiere, it’s old hat. I did try to take in “Gargantia”, but logistical problems arose and it was not shown. (more…)

So, after all the problems and concerns, the Day finally came, but not without more problems and concerns. The first was transportation.

Now, with acres of free parking (and I mean acres. “Mythbusters” does their show here at the Alameda Naval Base for a reason: lots of empty), I had planned on taking the car, but the wife has this Saturday class, where she learns about proper and sustainable gardening techniques. Yeah, so how do you keep the rats from eating my tomatoes, short of me standing out there with a shovel? Anyway, she needs the car. Fortunately, between public transit and a shuttle from the hotel to the site (a mere ’10 minute shuttle drive’), I get to hoof it. Me, being paranoid, I like to give myself a lot of time. True, the event did not open until 10am, but I remember what went off the track for Famine!, so I gave myself a cushion. The subway ride takes about 30 minutes, but I don’t have to transfer. Yeah, I tried to work the NYC Subway system once and I practically ended up in Syosset trying to get to Wall Street.

I spent a lovely Saturday morning power-striding to the station (“It’s SATURDAY! I get to SLEEP IN!!”) and getting the train, then a one-block trod to the shuttle point (as I can remain underground until needed, like Punxsutawney Phil), in front of the hotel that I didn’t stay at to get the 9 am shuttle. You see, it only runs on the half-hour; I guess 10 minutes there, 10 minutes to unload/load, 10 minutes to get back. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I did not want to cool my jets by making a misstep and hang ANOTHER 30 minutes. The shuttle should have tipped me off to the logistical problem ahead. (more…)

Yes, I know, I have told people that they should really do no more than one anime convention a year and really, do it every two years, but what can you do when an opportunity arises? I will gladly explain.

I had initially thought about doing SacAnime. This is located in Sacramento, California, about 90 minutes from where I reside. I was debating whether to get a hotel room (fantastic rates, right?) or crash with some relatives that are fairly close to the location of it (CalExpo). SacAnime started out as a small small, but has grown to a medium medium (Anime Expo is a large large, whereas Fanime! is a large medium or small large, depending on how well it gets attended and who they can bring in). When I broached this idea to the daughter, as this would occur over the Labor Day weekend, she counter with KrakenCon, which took me aback, as I was not fully familiar with it, even though it is much closer to me than any of the venues mentioned, being located on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay Area. (more…)

Owing to a change in scheduling and approach, I feel compelled to give another pre-convention update as to what is going on. For a one-day convention, it certainly is creating a huge amount of problems. Thank goodness I didn’t decide to go for a hotel room; I can’t imagine the logistical nightmare that might generate. Also, the parent company for KrakenCon wants me to play up and promote and push this all over the place, as they want to increase the size of it and get more people in (What? With an attendance cap in place?) Well, as Oscar Wilde once noted, “The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about.” So I guess all ink is good ink (or electronic lettering, depending).

Now, the Big Thing about this venue is that it is being held on an AIRCRAFT CARRIER! Well, that’s different, but doesn’t the flight deck of a carrier have the room for about, say, four football fields? (A football field is about 1 1/3 acres or 57,600 square feet). And you need a vendor’s cap? How big are the tables? The size of the end zone? That’s a huge amount of manga! (more…)

Part of the problem with any art form (movies, music, anime, painting, books, graffiti at the bus stop) is that there is so much already out there and so much more coming through, it is very easy to miss or overlook or just be oblivious to whatever else is out there and you cruise right on past things. There are a lot of really good shows out there, but you may not have heard of them or the capsule description doesn’t really capture the flavor of the show.

As part of an on-going series, I want to draw your attention to these overlooked gems and suggest that you take some time out of your busy day (there is no need to see a replay on the NFL Network of a game between the Patriots and the Falcons played in Week 13 of 1992) and check them out, which brings me to my first offering, “Gunslinger Girl”.

It is interesting in that it is fully set it Italy, something that you rarely see in anime. We begin with the Social Welfare Agency (or “the Agency”), ostensibly a charitable institution sponsored by the Italian Government. While the Agency professes to aid the rehabilitation of the physically injured, it is actually a military organization. It is composed of two independent branches: Public Safety, its surveillance and intelligence-gathering division, and Special Ops, the anti-terrorist division. (more…)

The big problem that I have with anime movies is that I never get a real chance to see them in the theaters. With the exception of a lot (but not all) of Studio Ghibli, I would assume the bulk of these offerings never leave the Land of the Rising Sun. On those rare occasions that they do, it is a really limited release over the course of one weekend, in a movie theater that the bus lines don’t get to, at an outrageous ticket price (I had a chance to see “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” like this, but the tickets were $20 each!) and with a grand total of five showings.

Thus, when I do encounter a movie, I give it a look-see, and I will potentially not get another shot at a look-see. This means it is pot luck at best. Like the Mystery Bag, whatever is whatever. I had a chance to see “Rakuen Tsuihou” (“Expelled from Paradise”), a film I heard nothing about at all, even though it has been out in the US for theoretically five months.

It is the future. Most anime is about the future. Angela Balzac is an agent at the space station DEVA, whose inhabitants have no physical bodies, their minds digitized and processed into a virtual reality environment. She has a day off and is ‘lounging’ at the ‘beach’ on a ‘wonderful day’. Seriously, if this is all VR, it’s not much different than the Matrix, right? Anyway, after some Village People clone tries to hit on her, the beach scene deteriorates, as they have been hacked by some initially unknown entity. (more…)