It seems to be some kind of unwritten law that if you have a fan-service heavy romantic comedy, you need to follow it up with a fan-service heavy OVA.
When “Maken-Ki” completed its first season, they had these rather silly ‘exercise’ videos as their OVA, which were nothing more than a thin excuse to look up skirts, down blouses and notice cleavage.
The second season of “Maken-Ki” abandoned everything from the first season to let us drool over the very athletic and toned ladies. The OVA discards anything like ‘plot’ and ‘story’ and ‘character development’ to let us now gaze upon their toplessness.
Yes, dude, I am talking NO errant clouds of steam, NO bizarre shafts of light. NO black bars of despair. You get to see their mighty mounds as if you are nose to nose with them. One shot of them looked like a view of the Grant Teton (that’s a French term; go look it up and see what I mean). And it’s RIGHT THERE! And the ladies don’t seem to mind at all, as they coo and purr and make other odd sounds. (more…)
I always have a concern when anything for the movies or TV is adapted from a video game, where “Blade & Soul” first came from. Can you name all the good movies or shows that came from video games? I’ll wait………but not that long. I have a review to offer. It’s a pretty pathetic list. Now, I have never played the game, so I cannot reference if the story works for the anime, but since we did at least string it out for a full season and not try to cram it into two noisy hours, it might work better.
The story revolves around Alka, Madam Front and Center, with those two really big…..swords. She has been trained as an assassin, the last member of the Clan of the Sword, as she employs a double-sword technique to dispatch her enemies, usually going for a throat slitting. Effective, but messy. She has a tattoo on her arm which makes her a target, as she is deemed an enemy of the state. She is seeking revenge as her master, Dougan Han (who looks like a floppy-eared dog) was slain by Jin Varel (the one with her back to us in the extreme upper left), and who uses dark magic to do her dirty deeds. The show is not only about Alka’s peregrinations to seek and find revenge, but to understand the real person she is inside. (more…)
“Maken-Ki Two” is another series that completely abandoned its first season to put out a second season that bears almost no resemblance to its first season.
It was bad enough that the ladies in Maken-Ki are, for the most part, very bounteous and that the boobs got in the way of things. The plot was, in some form, Takeru Ohyama’s arrival at Tenbi Academy to learn how to hone his special powers. At the end of the first season, they defeated a shadow group, but there was the threat that they would be back, so Takeru has to learn to get stronger and refine his abilities.
The second season has thrown that all aside. I will absolutely kill off the first episode, but the rest of the tales that follow aren’t much better or different.
Tenbi is an educational institution that people with these ‘maken’ powers go to, so they can how to properly control them. It’s like Hogwarts, but without dragons. However, some of the students decide to use their powers for mischief and mayhem. To combat this, the Disciplinary Committee is formed. It consists of nine students; two guys and seven ladies and six of the ladies are ‘out there’ Look at the artwork above. ALL of those ladies are in the series. (more…)
When the first season of “Medaka Box” came out, I really like the tales of this rather extraordinary girl believing that she could help all people, despite how craven or churlish or selfish they were to begin with. I got a bit concerned regarding the season-ending arc with Unzen (he’s the runty white-haired guy with the evil grin at the far right), but the promise of the second season seemed bright. Promises, I guess, are meant to be broken, and “Medaka Box: Abnormal” makes sure there aren’t any pieces to pick up.
At the Sandbox Academy, there is the mysterious Class 13, which is filled with Abnormals: people with very special abilities. With Unzen in hospital for a while, there is a vacancy in the class (man, what a tough school) and Abnormals who haven’t attended class since the Hiroshima Carp last won the World Series decide to show up and help push forth the Flask Plan. This is a plan to create the perfect human being (yeah, we all know where that ends up. Hasn’t succeeded before, won’t succeed now. PS, the Carp went 61-71 last season).
In order to put a stop to this, (uh, the Flask Plan, not the Carp) Medaka and Crew (the three in the lower left) seek out advice from Meguro Kurakami, Medaka’s…..older brother? Why hasn’t he made an appearance before this? (Blue hair, upper left). Aside from learning of the existence of an older brother (who is a major pervert and has a sister fixation), we also learn that he was an early administrator of the Flask Plan, but no longer believes in it, so left it all behind. (more…)
So as usual I’ve been watching naruto shippuden and recently I’ve noticed that I’m no longer simply bearing with each episode. In fact I’ve found that I have actually been looking forward to each one.
I remember some time back complaining about the filler that started in the middle of the great ninja war arc, while the interruption was indeed annoying the filler was actually pretty good. It could’ve made more money as a movie though, but hey, I’m not complaining.
As every fan knows, we are back in the ninja war arc and Naruto, along with killer bee are heading towards the front lines. To be more specific, last week was the encounter between Naruto + Killer Bee vs Itachi + Nagato. While it was a pretty cool episode I kinda dislike how soft Itachi is being portrayed at this point. He was kinda better when we all thought he was a cold, unfeeling, yet badass bastard. Sigh, but seeing as his intentions were always good (as we recently found out), I guess seeing this side of him was inevitable. (more…)
And now for something completely different…..a school-based anime. Here comes another one, just like the other one.
Welcome to school! This is Haroniwa Academy, also known as Sandbox Academy. Medaka Kurokami is elected Student Council President, despite her being a first-year student, with 98% of the vote. She institutes a suggestion box, dubbed the “Medaka Box“, for her fellow academy students to make suggestions and requests. Together with her childhood friend Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, (spikey head at the far right) Medaka is determined to address any kind of request by the students, from finding lost dogs to cleaning up club buildings and even fixing personalities. During the course of the series, Kouki Akune (that luscious manly hunk at the left) and Mogana Kikaijima (glasses girl) are also recruited by Medaka to become part of the Student Council. (the dorky-looking dude is Misogi Kumagawa, VP of the student council).
Oh, keep in mind that the shot of Medaka does NOT do her justice. She is certainly the most boobilicious character to come down the pike in the last 20 minutes. I HIGHLY recommend episodes 5 and 6, as they take place at a swimming pool. Roll your tongue back inside, prole!
The first season (yes, there is a second season, which just started) looks at how Medaka tries to answer all the problems that are presented to her, reforming those who need to be reformed (like Kikajima, who is a money-grubber) and giving opportunities to others to improve or at least not be as big a pain. However, the season-ending arc has her running afoul of Myouri Unzen. (more…)
I am not a big fan of ‘historical’ anime, as they always seem to play fast and loose with the rules. Modern sensibilities, placed on a different era, sometimes equal a show that just doesn’t make it, either as anime or history.
“Shigurui” plays out more like a Kurosawa film, akin to “Rashomon” or “Yojimbo”, but the level of mayhem and violence places it within the realm of “Gantz” or “Deadman Wonderland”.
The story begins in 1629, as we are seeing a tournament between, perhaps, two of the country’s best swordsmen. However, they are using real swords and not wooden practice ones, so this will be a fight to the death.
The two men participating, Fujiki Gennosuke (who has one arm) and Irako Seigen (who is blind) not only have a history, but each has a history together. The show is a flashback as to how these two ended up here and in their current physical situation.
It all begins at the Kogen dojo, where Gennosuke is the star pupil and Seigen is the brash upstart who puts Gennosuke in his place. Kogan Iwamoto, the head of the dojo is, for most of the year, mentally unbalanced and is slowly rotting away, but for a brief period once a year, he becomes lucid and coherent and makes decisions that affect the dojo for the next year.
Seigen, blinded by his arrogance, carries on an affair with Lady Iku, who is looking for something away from Iwamoto. Well, the sensei finds out, which leads to their physical travails and both are sent packing. However, years later, Seigen comes back, seeing revenge by brutalizing the students of the dojo in savage ways. (more…)
Synopsis Every day life is harsh for high school student Kenichi Shirihama. Known as the “Olympic Punching Bag” Kenichi has to sneak in and out of school every day to avoid being ejected from the planet by angry martial art thugs, and members of the schools most notorious gang Ragnarok. While at school, he meets a new student named Miu Furinji, who offers to help him seek out the martial arts training he needs to take care of his ever growing problem of foes.
Weak Knees The weakest kid is school also happens to be the most naïve in school. Kenichi is a kid with many names, none of which are good for marketing value. The story starts off in a somewhat typical Anime fashion that gives viewers a prequel type of buffer for the first few episodes. The series itself doesn’t really have anything of special significance plot or action wise until around the 10th episode. However, Kenichi is also a comedy with plenty of ecchi that TMS Entertainment figures will keep people watching until the story picks-up some traction.
Kenichi takes a play from the popular 1984 Karate Kid movie where Mr. Miyagi offers to train Daniel Larusso after being beaten up by local high school bullies. This sets the foundation for the first half of the 50 episode series. After being bullied by the local karate club members, Kenichi gets the opportunity to train from six martial arts masters who all specialize in different styles ranging from Judo to Muay Thai boxing. (more…)
I was afraid of this. It may be the new trends to deliver up pure fan service. Now, I may be jumping the gun with this one, as there has only been one episode, but it is a fan service delight of perversity and voyeurism.
It starts off with Haruko Amaya in her school uniform, which is too tight in the blouse and too short in the skirt, so it shows off her interesting assets (no, she does not look like what’s above, but you shan’t be disappointed.) She gives some song and dance about how it is best to remain in shape and proceeds to do sit-ups in her school uniform, so you can watch her Balcony shimmy and shudder with every hoist. We eventually change angle, so it could be gynecological review, as we can see that she wears coffee-colored pantyhose, which is still not dark enough to disguise that she wears blue-and-white striped underwear.
Then, she has the temerity to chide us for not paying attention to what she is doing. Oh, honey, I am paying FULL attention.
With sit-up done, we now shift to push ups, as they help build your upper…..arms! Wait, how can she do that with those two zeppelins in docking mode? No problem, she just goes all the way down and squashing them right against the floor. Now, I can’t do a decent push up, as I have something in the way! (more…)
While Naruto has been the bane of my existence recently (the annoying recap/flashback spanning multiple episodes), if the producers were simply working on this movie then it was definitely all worth it. Naruto movies have always been noted for bring pretty good (can’t say the same about the OVA’s) and this one was no different. This movie revolves around…. Hey! Instead of a boring synopsis, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so heres a video/trailer for ya! (Watch in HQ)
[spoiler]
[/spoiler] As you can tell from the Trailer (assuming you watched it) Naruto gets accused of killing multiple people as well as for an assault on the Raikage resulting in him being sent to a shinobi prison. Now if you are an avid naruto fan throughout the the rest of this trailer your thoughts went something like this:
Of course poor goody goody Naruto couldn’t kill anyone so its clear he was framed but why? *pause* :O There seems so be something huge going on here *pause* :O Gamabunta (The Chief toad) was summonned which means there must be a really powerful enemy! *pause* :O Is that Killer Bee! *pause* OMG Sage Mode! *pause* ROARRRRR!!!! THIS IS GONNA BE EPIC! DOWNLOADD!! (or if you’re like me) WHERE CAN I STREAM THIS!!
