This is part of what I call the ‘Semi-Colon Series”, as there are three shows with the same caliber of title and the same grammatically annoying way of presenting it. They are “Chaos;Head”, “Stein’s;Gate” and “Robotic;Notes”. Of the three series, the last one is the most accessible. The other two are beset with shifting realities and uncertainty as to what is truly going on. Now, they are fine shows and I would suggest you do check them out, but they do require more in the way of attention and commitment than a lot of people are willing and able to give, especially when they play the ‘What is Reality?” card.
“Robotic;Notes” is not as demanding, but you has best pay attention, especially since it has the jump-back. The Jump-Back (another of my annoying made-up terms), is when a particular episode ends on a cliff hanger. The next episode begins in beyond the point where the last stopped, setting up something, and THEN we jump back to see the cliff hanger and the results. It can get a bit aggravating when you want things to be a bit more linear.
Let’s start at the beginning: we are in the future (oh, really? Again with the ‘in the future’?) It is 2019 and we are on the island of Tanegashima. The school here has a robotics club with fitful membership. Yashio Kaito spends most of his time playing an on-line game called Kill-Ballad, where it is giant fighting robots (they have some marvelous tablet-pads to do this on). The other club member is Senomiya Akiho. Her older sister was in the club and left behind a giant robot that could not be finished in time, so it sits and sits and sits. And technology has so changed, it might be better to scrap it, get some cash for the metal and try again. (more…)
Crime has never been so odd and criminals never so odder. “Cuticle Detective Inaba” initially follows the standard crime drama trope. Our hero, Hiroshi Inaba (dead center), used to work for the police department, but got tired of being bossed around and thwarted in what he could accomplish, so he struck out on his own, as he feels he can do more without the restraints of police protocols and his annoying partner. And that’s where the standardness ends.
You have noticed the ears, right? Well, that isn’t some rockin’ hair style, our detective is a genetically-engineered werewolf and he can determine EVERYTHING about a person by tasting their hair. OK, it’s not as bad as licking drool, but still….
He will need all of his skills as a new villain has come to Tokyo, Don Valentino, a Mafia crime boss who is going to bring Japan to her knees with a daring series of bank robberies. He will amass all the money in the land…..so he can eat it. Yes, that guy IS a goat. Aiding Don is his fight is Fernando, that burlap-bagged guy who looks like a refugee from “Resident Evil”, Dr. Noah (the purple-pigtails. Yes, Woody Allen did that joke in 1967 with “Casino Royale”) and Gabriella, that scowling maiden at the far left, who is simultaneously the best and worst assassin ever. Oh, she can hit her mark….but it’s usually Don. Right between the eyes. (more…)
Be forewarned, this is the most disgusting show I have ever seen, and I saw “Elfin Lied”, but I’ll explain.
“Mysterious Girlfriend X” is about Akira Tsubaki, the guy to the left, who has transferred into this school. One of his classmates, Mikoto Urabe, the Veronica Lake-type, is an odd fish. She bursts out laughing one day, but no one pays her any heed. One day, she is sleeping in class and is awoken by Akira, but she leaves behind a puddle of drool. He decides to (are you ready for it?) take a little taste of it. What? A drool-licker? Ugh! Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! Who the crud licks people’s drool off their desk. Obviously, this was not done in the health class.
He falls ill (and no wonder! Why don’t you just lick her gums while you’re at it?) and she stops by to tell him he has ‘love sickness’. This now means that they are boyfriend and girlfriend, although she is physically and emotionally distant to him. SHE calls the shots here. And should he decide to hug her without warning or permission, she whips out a pair of scissors she keeps in the band of her panties and will scissor away that which needs to be snipped. After school, they walk along the same street until they come to the junction where they go their separate ways. Before they say good-bye, she offers him a fingerful of drool each day. The drool can transmit feelings, among other things, between the two of them.
It’s just that the drool is rather viscous, somewhere between honey and motor oil and it presented with such prominence. The fact he gloms onto it like it’s honey (or motor oil; he’s a weird bird to begin with) just adds to the unsettling nature of their relationship. (more…)
A similar problem horror shows encounter is taking things away too soon. I remember when I saw “The Shining” for the first time. I had Jack Nicholson come on screen and I already knew he was nuts, so his slide into insanity was not only not a surprise, but had me wondering why it took so long for him to achieve it.
This show is creepy right from the get-go, so the slide into uncertainly is effectively removed. That only leaves us with what I refer to as the Death of the Week…but I get ahead of myself.
In 1972, at Yomiyama Middle School, in Class 3-3, there was an honors student who was good at sports, very popular among his peers and even the teachers were fond of. However, when Misaki suddenly died, the shocked class decided to carry on as if Misaki was still alive. However, when the class’s graduation photo was taken, they saw someone in the shot who should not have been there—Misaki. (Enter kettledrums and violins.)
We now fast-forward 26 years. Kōichi Sakakibara is going to school there, but starts off the year in the hospital, owing to a punctured lung. Just about to leave the hospital, he sees a strange girl wearing an eye patch, who descends to the basement of the hospital to ‘see someone’. But on that floor is the morgue. What gives?
As Koichi goes to school, things take a turn for the weird. He sees the girl again, but no one talks to her at all. It is as if she does not exist. Well, nature abhors a vacuum, so he starts to ask questions, but is told to “stop hanging out with something that doesn’t exist”. So, does this settle the issue? Did Freddy Kruger stop at one? (more…)
Horror has a big problem: balance. Show too little horror and people feel cheated. Show too much and they get turned off by the gore. Shiki tries this balancing act and it ultimately falls apart, but it did its best.
The story opens up in Sotoba, a rural village in the mountains, one of those ‘the road in is the road out’ type of town and everyone knows everyone and everything about everything. Another hot summer has descended and school has concluded for the break. Megumi Shimizu wants out of this place, longing for the bright lights and big city, perhapsTokyo, but she knows that is not going to happen, now or later.
She runs into the mysterious Kirishiki family, who has moved into the massive and impressive Kanemasa mansion that overlooks the town. Megumi disappears and later turns up dead, for no really apparent reason. She was anemic, but not enough to kill her.
Then slowly, ever so slowly, people are dying off. In a place where one or two deaths a year are expected, we are getting into one or two deaths a week. Is there an epidemic? Some kind of contagion? An undefined disease?
The local doctor, Toshio Ozaki, who took over the clinic from his father, is baffled at what is going on and has no immediate answers. Not even the priest, Seishin Muroi, has an answer. Or does he? (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!!
Every so often, a show comes along that captivates and attracts and “Mushi-Shi” was that for me. From the very first episode, I was involved. Yes, it had the potential of turning into the “Monster of the Week”, but it was handled with such a deft hand that it never felt like that and, more importantly, you really connected with the characters who were in need.
The overall story is about Ginko, who is a Mushi Master. Mushi are beings with supernatural powers. Some are symbiotic, some are parasitic, but all are troublesome to some degree. His job, as he wanders the Japanof the late 19th century, is to help people who are afflicted with these Mushi. What makes things worse is that regular people cannot see them. Ginko is ‘gifted’ (and whether it is a gift or a curse is for you to decide), but he cannot stay too long in any area, as he becomes a magnet for them and things really get out of control as a dangerous amount of them throw things out of balance.
He carries on his back a wooden box which has all that he needs and jars to capture a few Mushi or remnants of them. He knows Adashino, a caliber of medicine man and scholar who wants these items. Oh, don’t let his constant smoking bother you; it is done to keep the Mushi at bay. (more…)
I always feel badly when I give up on a show. To me, it is a caliber of failure that I can’t tough it out to the end, but it then violates my Third Rule of Anime. (“If you feel the show is not going to get any better, leave it. It will NOT get better.”) Sometimes, the show is taken away from me. I watch a lot of Comcast/Xfinity On Demand and it seems they are always having an argument with the Funimation Channel. Someone calls someone a slob and the show line-up gets yanked away (which may have happened with “Case Closed”).
In some instances, I take this as a sign to give up on it (I did this with “Piano” and “Gundam Seed Destiny”). This show, I walked away from it, as nothing was happening over and over again. I got to Episode 10 before I said enough was too much. A typical show plays out like this:
Our victim (usually a girl between the ages of 14 and 24), is put upon by some horrible older person (mostly a man, but not exclusively). They do some heinous act and nothing can be done to bring the swine to justice. In their despair, the victim either remembers the Hell Girl site or hears about her by a conveniently passing person. You can only access this site at the stroke of midnight and when you do, you will type in the name of the person who needs some discipline.
Upon sending the name, Ai Enma, the Hell Girl, magically shows up at your place, which is creepy enough. I mean, it’s past midnight and I am in my darkened lair. I have done this deed and she is there mere seconds after the dispatch of it. Brrrrrrrr! She then launches into her spiel: (more…)
Short of vampire movies, it feels like “The Count of Monte Cristo” is one of those stories that has been made (and remade) a huge amount of times. I mean, it is a pretty resilient story of betrayal, revenge and redemption and this anime version is no different at the core than any other version. But how they approach it is very intriguing. Now, the official title is “Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo” and that part of the title is made clear as the series progresses. But what we have here is what I call Future Past. It feels like 19th Century France in architecture and dress and those phony airs of tact, but we have a lot of the conveniences of the modern age: space travel, computers and hover vehicles, to name a few. It does help that this takes place in the year 5053.
Although we keep a lot of the story, we also tinker a lot with the story and that is not a bad thing. We focus in on Viscount Albert de Morcerf. A rather naïve 15-year-old lad, he and his friend, Baron Franz d’Epinay, are attending some grand and glorious festival on Luna (yes, we are on the moon; remember, this is the 51st Century), where they are having a ripping good time. However, Albert falls afoul of some cutpurses and is kidnapped, only to be rescued by Le Compte-de Monte Cristo, a mysterious man of enormous wealth and magnificent charisma. (If you know the plot, this will not come as a great surprise as to the reason for the kidnapping, OK?)
Still, it is a good retelling of the story, in tandem with the surroundings, but the huge selling point is the look of the show. (more…)
