Hey, Good AX pics are hard to come by

I haven’t been sleeping well for a while, like the last three years, so it is not uncommon for me to pop awake and lie there, and I dislike doing that, so I get up and do SOMETHING.

I decided that I would get to the Expo early, as the taste of the defeats the day before left a bad taste in my mouth. It was rather soothing to walk about the venue, as there were a few people there and it was a physically cool place to be, which would belie the chaos that would be following.

I got there early, as they were showing some series on the modified schedule and I wanted to catch them. One was “Nyarko-san”, as that was more a reminder of what it was (I am working on a review for that), then “Love Hina”. I tried to watch it a few years ago, but found only a spotty version of it on line that wouldn’t stream properly, so I left it behind. This let me see three shows of it, but they are certainly handling things a bit differently than the manga. I know there will be a shift, but they are really playing down the fan service and upping the amount of physical abuse the male lead absorbs. (more…)

If any one term best described this day, it was Hurry Up and Wait, as that happened all the time.

When we got there for the Anime Scavenger Hunt, I checked the Update board to see that one show was cancelled and replaced with something else. That is the problem with being a caliber of Luddite. I don’t have a smartphone or a tablet or a working laptop (I have a laptop, but it might as well be bear skins and stone tools for all the good it does).

It was at the Scavenger Hunt this all came home. It was just a lark; what you did was be given a list of 25 items to find in and around the convention area. However, we got into the room late and they spent a lot of time trying to put together teams of four, so by the time we headed out, we had a mere 29 minutes to find the stuff. PS, no one found ALL the items,

This brought me to my first thought of conventions: you need a party of four, as you will have to take turns sitting in line for people and need instant communication with your team. This has been the most heavily attended AX convention and it shows. People sitiin line for hours to make certain they can get into shows, and you may not get guaranteed. None of that Disney trick of hiring someone handicapped to hold your place until you show up. What this means is that you have to miss other things in order to try and get what you want. (more…)

Sitting in front of the LA COnvention Center is a tank. Not an air tank (This is LA), not a water tank (we are in a heat wave, where it’s been like a bajillion degrees), but a tank. In fact, it’s the Anglerfish tank from “Girls Und Panzer” and a way for Sentai Filmworks (and what a bad name for a company, like calling yourself ‘Corm Movies’) to promote all of its offerings. Well, I was ready to go, dressed as Akira from “Tsuritama”. I even had my duck, but things got off to a bad start.

The panel I wanted to see “Anime vs Hollywood” and who wins with these anime-to-film translations (actually, we lose; Hollywood does not have a good track record for that) got cancelled. I went to the FUNimation.com panel instead. I have a problem with panels like that, as it is more of a way to let people know what their upcoming offerings are going to be and how wonderful we are. The only real good news they had was that the website was being revamped and would be less finicky as it had been, plus their new content and the numerous ways they would be bringing it to you. Tweet,Face, Tumblr; name it. They will get it to you

How many videos do they have on the site? “Well, it’s over 9000!” Yes, they actually said that.

I grabbed a couple of episodes of Inuyasha: The Final Act.” Now, if you just came to this series, you would be left in the dust, as they jump right into it and you would need to have some background as to who everyone is and what they are doing in the show. I had followed the show for about 40 episodes before it got yanked from my On Demand list, so I wasn’t that hard to follow. (more…)

On the surface, “Senran Kagura” is like any other kind of fighting girl show. Akin to “Maken-Ki” or “Freezing” or even “My-HiME”, it follows the tale of girls with special abilities and the training they need to go through to learn how to use their powers best to defeat the forces of darkness and evil and cruelty and icky things.

Now, the big question is “Are they Shinobi or Kunoichi?” Shinobi is a term used for a covert agent or spy ninja who engages in unorthodox warfare. Kunoichi is a term for a female ninja. Well, to be honest, it really doesn’t matter, as whatever ninja skills they might be learning is completely inundated by unrelenting fan service.

Let us run down the cast of characters. From left to right we have:

Asuka, the leader and a second year, she barely passed the promotion exam and is carrying on the ninja tradition from her grandfather
Ikaruga, a third year, very serious about being a ninja as her brother was bypassed to give leadership of the clan to her
Katsuragi, a third year and a touch of a pervert.
Yagyuu (but that spelling changes on who’s doing the subbing). A first year, she is a prodigy and uses an umbrella as her main weapon. Very protective of Hibari.
Hibari, also a first year and new to the group, she is both child-like and cutely clumsy. (more…)

Anime Expo 2013*

If you have never been to an anime convention, I highly suggest that you avail yourself of it. They are not the rarity of years past and if you do an internet search under ‘anime conventions’, you will find a long list of them. They range from local and fan-driven to highly professional with some dramatic clout. I happen to be in at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Find a map of Downtown LA and look for the Staples Center and that’s where I am.

In years past, I would roll up about halfway through Day One, where you would breeze through for your tickets, but you then lose half a day. This year, we decided to get there on Day 0. Also, in the past, they used to have a quarter-day of activity, but they dropped that. So, we get to the line for the ‘common’ tickets. There are tickets that were insanely expensive and are so SuperMegaAwesomeCrunchy. They give you entree everywhere: the front of the line, special venues, behind the scenes kind of stuff.. That line was so short, the ticket people there were playing their hand-held video games.

No, I had to get in the line with the unwashed masses, and some of them were very unwashed. How long was the line? It took me 10 minutes to find the end. Disney would be proud with the crowd control and how they kept us moving, but I felt like some tapeworm, navigating the serpentine intestine to get inside the building. (more…)

A caliber of post-apocalyptic, much of what we learn about the new world order is done in retrospect. All you need to know is that our story takes places about 1000 years after the collapse of society, when people with ‘special abilities’ tried to take over the world.

In this utopian society, everyone is born with special abilities and they learn how to use their ‘cantus’ (their term for it), to best help people. The village, Kamisu’s 66th District, (which looks a bit silly to have on a t-shirt), is the kind of place we all dream of. But dreams can always go sour. We follow the five people in Group One, who are:

Shun Aonuma, Satoru Asahina, Saki Watanabe, Maria Akizuki and Mamoru Ito. They go to these schools and academies to learn how to channel and focus their telekinetic powers and learn about the world they live in. (more…)

One of the hardest things is to find a good entrance anime, to get people interested in the genre, without scaring them off. I mean, you don’t open with “Elfin Lied” or “Baccano!” or “Gantz” and then be surprised when they run screaming into the sunset (or sunrise, depending on the time of day).

“Squid Girl” (or also known as “Invade! Squid Girl”) tells the story of Squid Girl (Whew! What a relief. If she had some other name…..) who is the forward force of an invasion. She is bound and determined to conquer humanity, who have polluted her waters and made life miserable for her and her kind. To this end, she comes ashore in some part of Tokyo, (I assume, no name is ever given, so I have to make a guess it is) and decides to take over the Lemon House, a yakisoba snack bar at the beach, to use as her base of operation. (more…)

OK, I’ll be honest: I had ZERO intention of reviewing “Rosario + Vampire Capu 2”, as I did not feel it warranted a review. I still feel it doesn’t, but I have not seen a show go so overboard from one season to the next as badly as this one. But when your daughter nips at your heels like a demented Chihuahua, demanding to see it with you for some ‘bonding time’, you get trapped.

All I can tell you for certain is something happened over class break. By the time the whole gang gets back to school, Yokai Academy has changed its name to “Upskirt U”. If the dresses were any shorter, they might as well be a long shirt. It got so bad, I starting counting the number of panty shots. Even “Colorful” (the TV series, not the movie) wasn’t this bad and it was strictly about panty shots.

Is there a plot? Much like Lindsay Lohan’s career, it has completely evaporated. The cast of characters (and for those who don’t remember, we’ll run them down for you) are from left to right: (more…)

This is another long-form anime. We are at 52 episodes and there is apparently no end on the horizon, but this is not a “Houston, we have a problem” kind of issue. This is a story that takes a long time to tell and needs practically every episode to do it. Much like preparing to go into space, you can’t slap it together and hope for the best.

The Space Brothers in question are Mutta (to the left) and Hibito Nanba (to the right; the dog is Apo). They have always been interested in space and its exploration, but feel that their circumstances at birth set their fates in motion for the life they now lead.

Mutta was born on the day that Japan lost in the World Cup preliminaries (for those keeping score, October 28, 1993). Hibito was born when Hideo Nomo became the first Japanese pitcher to throw a no-hitter in US Major League Baseball (September 17, 2006, for the record).

Despite being the older brother, Mutta has always trailed his younger brother, especially when he got into space first. Mutta became a car designer instead. We now flash ahead to 2025. At his career, while on the job, Mutta’s boss makes an injudicious comment about Hibito, so Mutta head-butts him (a la Zidane) and gets fired. Unable to live as he had, he has to move in with Mom and Dad, who needle him endlessly about his job status. (more…)

This has got to be the oddest coupling for a show I have ever seen. “Girls und Panzer” exists in some weird parallel dimension or alternative universe world where this is OK and fervently supported.

Miho Nishizumi (dead center) has transferred to Ōarai Girls High School, as they do not have a tank program. She is attending classes and meeting friends and having a good time, when we learn that the academy may be closed down unless it gets more students. So, they revitalize Sensha-dō (“Way of the Tank”) and decide to take on the Big Boys…..uh….Girls of other schools that have tank programs. What, the Flower Arranging Club was all full?

Since Miho comes from a long line of tank girls (and this is revealed through the run of the show), she is pressured to join the club. Here’s the weird thing (oh, and girls in tanks isn’t weird enough?): they live on an aircraft carrier. It has been kind of terraformed, so it looks like a regular little village or town, but they are out at sea about 90% of the time, coming to land to reprovision and have their tank battles. (more…)