OH HELL YES!!!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
PRETEAR
I have got to admit that I have some unresolved feelings about this show. I've been struggling with how to categorize this one for a few days but I can't seem to settle on anything concrete, that is except for a general feeling of angst... or discordance. I can say what I didn't like about it, but I can't just trash it. I really wanted to but there's something there to like. I just can't figure what it is.
Lets just get this out of the way first, crusty ol' Maguro is a fan of the, oh how you say, 'magical girls'. Sakura and the Sailor of Moon are some of my favs. Pretear tries to break out of the old molds and while it carries along some great ideas I can't help but feel like it's going against some unwritten laws. This may have to do with something they call "preeting", but I'll hash that out later. Now lets concentrate on the really terrible things about the show, the parts that I do understand my feelings on.
The first two or so eps are some of the worst set-up I have ever seen in anime. A mismatched gaggle of pretty boys (Leefe Knights) make the task of being the magical girl in this series sound tortuously boring. I stand with the heroine on this one as she decides against it at first, I would too I think. They all group around her and basically say, "You have to help us beat the monsters!" and "You are the only one who can!" You just can't walk up to a magical girl to be and blurt everything out like that. They were practically ganging up on her when these important moments are usually handled just 'talking animal' to 'magical girl'. It sounds ridiculous, because it is, and this animal talks, what is going on here?? That is how it is done. In Pretear this roving band of male leads just waylays her with the truth. Her initial rejection isn't nearly as believable especially when she turns right around and joins the scooby gang the next minute! The reluctance just isn't there in the beginning. The way I see it the discovery of her powers and purpose are the whole point of shows like this and they totally screwed it up. I was ready to stop after the first ep, but out of duty to you, my readers, I went on.
Secondly the magical girl does not truly control her own power. To use her powers she must 'preet' with one of the knights. What is this 'preeting' you ask? Well I can tell you that kids in Texas can't learn about it in health class. In the biggest state of the union they have a 'abstinence' curriculum, and preeting is only for lawfully married couples. Ok seriously, they really just hold hands and the knight turns into a battle dress or some such that allows her to shoot her lasers. It's... just the process... her expressions are... not very wholesome. Lets not even mention the fact that some of the knights are like, five or younger.
You just have to see it I think. Maybe I'm just crazy. You decide!
Thirdly Pretear really wants us to care about their characters, major emotions are tossed about with little regard to the sanctity of the unflappable magical girl archetype. Well most magical girls are hardly unflappable, they whine and doubt themselves sometimes. The problem here is that in Pretear our magical heroine has a full blown Shinji Ikari meltdown, complete with the screaming and the sobbing and on and on. WAY to much there. Not very fun to watch. A few of the knights end up tangled in this hurt-feelings and unrequited love soap opera emo thing and you just don't care about any of them. Seriously.
It bears mentioning that Pretear is a 13 ep OVA so they are short on time, ok that makes sense. Also it wasn't the creator's intention to do just another magical girl show, fine I can see that too. It's just so backward! I am constantly finding myself preaching things like the 'creator's intent' and 'genre bending' on this site but I somehow feel that Pretear isn't enough like other magical girl shows. Perhaps this is because all of the usual suspects are present; transformation sequences, special attacks, monsters and saving the world themes, while it turns everything else on it's ear. If you're going to try to make the post-sakura magical girl anime, then do it. Leave convention behind and do something else, don't tease us with this Moon Kingdom imagery and ruin it all. It's a bait and switch, people! Bait and switch!
Now, what did I like? The bald guy is really funny. As a matter of fact lots of the comedic moments are really funny. One of the knights wears a pair of bed-pans on his shoulders. That's pretty funny too. The toddler knight is sort of cute, and he actually cries when he realistically should because honestly a toddler should not be fighting extra-dimensional monsters, or preeting for that matter. For pete's sake, where are their PARENTS?!?!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Answerman and the Rant
That is a great name for a post. It really is. I want to write a book just so I can see that on a dust jacket. Anyway, I've submitted my infamous Bittorrent and Anime rant to the anime news network's Answerman column. They feature a rant on there each week, so I decided to serve up the real bile for em'. My anger on the subject has subsided since a year ago, but my stance hasn't changed. Perhaps I am getting old, or just tired. I am up way too late to be posting, but I just had this idea. I will keep my extensive readership updated as the story progresses. Oh yeah and Answerman? Don't forget to promote Anime Snobs!
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
DIRTY PAIR OVA
Now we're dipping into some serious classics. Coming straight at you from the year 198X... or 1986 if you want to be exact, the Dirty Pair OVA hails from an era when there was no Anime Network, Otakon or even Streamline Pictures. In the states if one wanted to see such marvels it was off to the Star Trek convention with a pocket full of cash. Funsubbers also did not exist, just a cabal of forward thinking opportunists who knew that people would pay dearly for the chance to see these shows. And in 1989 I paid way too much money for a poor quality VHS pirate copy of Dirty Pair: Project Eden, which probably was the first anime I ever bought. Of course there was NO other way to obtain this stuff, and I was young so I am obviously exonerated of any wrong doing, right? In addition to that awesome movie I was also treated to an additional three hours of promo reels and the notorious DAICON IV opening animation. This fan produced short was created by the people who were soon to become the core members of Gainax, and I'm sure that it was this four minute experience that cursed me forever with the anime habit. (RAMBLE ALARM!!!) Ok... the point is that the OVA and Project Eden share the same pedigree, so I was excited to see what else they had done with the story.
The series is smartly designed, even if the main characters seem to get easily distracted. It has a real sci-fi polish that most titles now a days simply don't care to exhibit. The world of the Dirty Pair is a cyberpunk in space motif, where governments and corporations clash routinely with the unknown and each other. Overall the stories maintain a plausibility and realism that is fun to see against the bouncy fun-loving Kei and Yuri, the series main characters. In reference to the aptly named Dirty Pair, it is so nice the see some women in anime who are not either prudish, crazy, traumatized or lusting after little boys. They're a couple of young, carefree characters that women seldom get to be in modern sci-fi anime. In fact in a couple of instances it becomes a kind of James Bond story with two female secret agents. Very cool.
All that being said, the stories can be predictable with a few exceptions. The situations contain a lot of cool ideas and sci-fi riffs but you usually know who the bad guys are and what the ending will look like. This could be a function of the title's age, but my guess is that cerebral storytelling wasn't the point of this one. While we are on the negatives let me say the english dub is a waste of time, terrible and bad. In fact comparing the two tracks, the japanese audio sounds like it has higher fidelity, and this is a title from '86! Another strike against ADV is that the transfer is littered with artifacts in the negative space and some really terrible after-images. Someone over there should have guessed this would have been a problem for a show that is centered in outer space. Add some really unimaginative menus to the mix and you have a rather lack luster effort given to the queens of the two-girls-in-space genre. It's not like there could be anyone over at ADV that doesn't have some nostalgia for the Lovely Angels... so what gives??
If you forget the crud layered on to it by ADV, I think the title has aged quite gracefully. The animation is very tight, top of the line for that era in fact, and the japanese voice work is very good and adds all the humor the show requires. Ship and environmental designs carry that mark of realism I talked about earlier and remain cool looking. Expect a lot gun-play and explosions and you wont be disappointed with this one. It's one of those 'girls with guns' things you can't help but like, though as my wife mentioned, it probably helps to be male when you're watching this. In it's defense blatant fan service does not enter into the picture here, not once. So there.
My suggestion: A real classic, something to keep your Sailor Moon and Project A-Ko discs company. Buy it.
The series is smartly designed, even if the main characters seem to get easily distracted. It has a real sci-fi polish that most titles now a days simply don't care to exhibit. The world of the Dirty Pair is a cyberpunk in space motif, where governments and corporations clash routinely with the unknown and each other. Overall the stories maintain a plausibility and realism that is fun to see against the bouncy fun-loving Kei and Yuri, the series main characters. In reference to the aptly named Dirty Pair, it is so nice the see some women in anime who are not either prudish, crazy, traumatized or lusting after little boys. They're a couple of young, carefree characters that women seldom get to be in modern sci-fi anime. In fact in a couple of instances it becomes a kind of James Bond story with two female secret agents. Very cool.
All that being said, the stories can be predictable with a few exceptions. The situations contain a lot of cool ideas and sci-fi riffs but you usually know who the bad guys are and what the ending will look like. This could be a function of the title's age, but my guess is that cerebral storytelling wasn't the point of this one. While we are on the negatives let me say the english dub is a waste of time, terrible and bad. In fact comparing the two tracks, the japanese audio sounds like it has higher fidelity, and this is a title from '86! Another strike against ADV is that the transfer is littered with artifacts in the negative space and some really terrible after-images. Someone over there should have guessed this would have been a problem for a show that is centered in outer space. Add some really unimaginative menus to the mix and you have a rather lack luster effort given to the queens of the two-girls-in-space genre. It's not like there could be anyone over at ADV that doesn't have some nostalgia for the Lovely Angels... so what gives??
If you forget the crud layered on to it by ADV, I think the title has aged quite gracefully. The animation is very tight, top of the line for that era in fact, and the japanese voice work is very good and adds all the humor the show requires. Ship and environmental designs carry that mark of realism I talked about earlier and remain cool looking. Expect a lot gun-play and explosions and you wont be disappointed with this one. It's one of those 'girls with guns' things you can't help but like, though as my wife mentioned, it probably helps to be male when you're watching this. In it's defense blatant fan service does not enter into the picture here, not once. So there.
My suggestion: A real classic, something to keep your Sailor Moon and Project A-Ko discs company. Buy it.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Second Life news!
SECOND LIFE PIONEERS IN VIRTUAL REALITY ONCE AGAIN WITH 'GREY GOO', THE FIRST EVER CYBER-VENEREAL DISEASE, NOBODY SURPRISED
Friday, November 17, 2006
A small programming note
One thing I don't think I've mentioned officially on the record is that Anime Snobs only reviews entire series. Not disk 1, or disk 5... THE WHOLE THING. We do it that way for two reasons. The first is that you can get 26 eps of a show released one to two years ago for 35 or 40 bucks these days in some cases, and where this is not possible prices have been slashed drastically across the board. The industry doesn't want to back off their usual $24.99 list, but you can buy those discs for between 12 and 18 dollars in most cases.
The second reason is that I find disc by disc reviews a little... I dunno, like getting your ipod shipped to you in 100 pounds of packing peanuts. You know what you want but it's covered in crap that doesn't help you. Take Anime on DVD for example (who else is there?), the commentary there is pretty good and what I like most is how complete it all is, so I tend to travel there on occasion. When I want to know if a show is good, I click on the last disc review of the series and read the last paragraph. That's it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone either. Just consider Anime Snobs reviews as that last paragraph with more information and better jokes.
We care about your time, and the time it takes to read things. For some reading is a serious chore, and up until this point were watching anime that honestly is just no good because bloated disc by disc reviews had taken away the light of commentary from their eyes. With my new condensed anime summations they have discovered timeless classics like Sadamitsu the Destroyer, and others. Now that you are totally behind my ARSOME format, click my google ads. I need the money.
-maguro
The second reason is that I find disc by disc reviews a little... I dunno, like getting your ipod shipped to you in 100 pounds of packing peanuts. You know what you want but it's covered in crap that doesn't help you. Take Anime on DVD for example (who else is there?), the commentary there is pretty good and what I like most is how complete it all is, so I tend to travel there on occasion. When I want to know if a show is good, I click on the last disc review of the series and read the last paragraph. That's it. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone either. Just consider Anime Snobs reviews as that last paragraph with more information and better jokes.
We care about your time, and the time it takes to read things. For some reading is a serious chore, and up until this point were watching anime that honestly is just no good because bloated disc by disc reviews had taken away the light of commentary from their eyes. With my new condensed anime summations they have discovered timeless classics like Sadamitsu the Destroyer, and others. Now that you are totally behind my ARSOME format, click my google ads. I need the money.
-maguro
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Blogger Beta and Firefox
I really don't want to admit this, but this blog looks better in IE than it does in Firefox. So if you want the 'full effect' you had better hope you have an IE install somewhere on your old 10 gig hard drive. It seems like FF simply has the wrong ideas about font size. I know it's a beta, but this is rubbing me the wrong way. Here's hoping that the Google techno-priests can hammer this one out and at least make them render the same way. I know that Microsoft pisses you off, but I just can't stand the Firefox display of this "ahead of it's time" anime blog. This naturally is all part of Bill's plan for ridding the world of fun. I can see it now...
Bill Gates, the man who has everything but...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
REQUIEM FROM THE DARKNESS
Oh man. Oh man oh man. I loved this show. I mean like, really loved it. Watching it every moment was like seeing some new awesome thing taking shape. Strictly speaking, this is not anime. No no no, it's something better.
Now how do I follow that up?, you might ask. Well I will tell you probably certain parts of my mental geography have me pre-disposed to really loving this anime. Let's count them, shall we? 1. Just about anything out of ordinary in the genre sets my heart aflutter. 2. I love horror stories, you can thank my awesome wife for that. 3. The antihero character type, this anime is full of em and honestly I can't get enough. 4. The central character in the story is a writer, something I have no hope but to identify with. So there it is, as you will soon see I was powerless to it's allure.
There is no point in avoiding the main push of this title, and that is the visuals. They are stunning. Not realistic, not beautiful, no super fluid animation here, or intense detail... What we are witness to here is a work of the utmost DESIGN. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. I will type it again. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. And that is within a title with numerous achievements. I guess it's what industry people might call "art direction". The creators put mood and style above all other concerns, and what we have as a result is a barely recognizable landscape which mirrors the dark minds of the series' antagonists.
The world of Requiem is dark and warped, literally no straight lines can be found. It is full of mists and forests and dangerous chasms, not to mention the terrible specters (monsters? spirits? who knows?) that the main characters are hunting. The beautiful and the profane often occupy the same space (or the same character!), and nothing can really be trusted to be simply what it looks like. Another thing I want to mention is the unity of the artwork. It really seems to have all come from the same artistic mind with every scene realized in the same messed up reality as the first one was. It has it's own rules and conventions that you pick up on as time goes along, these visual clues become more and more important to the story which makes them fun to find and follow.
So now we know that visually we are dealing with the most impressive release in the last four or so years, what about the rest of this thing? The stories are full of real tragedy and horror, human tales twisted by the supernatural. In this world legend and reality are truly one, each epsode being taken from ghost stories and then bent around some really foul characters. It contains the kind of unflinching plot that had it join Berserk (tho not concurrently) in japanese TV's infamous 2:45am air slot if that's any indication. Add this to the fact that Requiem can scare you like a real horror movie does, and it also delivers those cherished "I can't friggin believe I am seeing this..." moments where you are just totally shocked. Think, "Silence of the Lambs"...
The dub tracks are especially good, the english Mataichi is superlative, as is Nagamimi. Definitely hit up the english first on Requiem, reading the text on a subtitle track is going to ruin the visual experience pretty handily so listen to the Japanese second, if it all. Remember, it's not like you're watching some 'Please Teacher' bullshit where the japanese track only serves to help you feel like less of a tool while watching it. It is also worth mentioning that in a title with so much darkness and negative space, Geneon did an awesome job keeping the transfer clean and crisp. Of course in my opinion Pioneer/Geneon is the class of the entire US business, so no surprise there.
At any rate, you will never find a more unique specimen than Requiem from the Darkness. The characters are awesome, the stories are brutal and bloody, and I guarantee you won't forget it like how you forgot the way "X" ended. Can you remember the end of "X"?? No you can't. That won't happen here, trust me.
My suggestion: Here is my original draft for this review, "In Requiem, a horse bites a man's head off. Buy it."
Now how do I follow that up?, you might ask. Well I will tell you probably certain parts of my mental geography have me pre-disposed to really loving this anime. Let's count them, shall we? 1. Just about anything out of ordinary in the genre sets my heart aflutter. 2. I love horror stories, you can thank my awesome wife for that. 3. The antihero character type, this anime is full of em and honestly I can't get enough. 4. The central character in the story is a writer, something I have no hope but to identify with. So there it is, as you will soon see I was powerless to it's allure.
There is no point in avoiding the main push of this title, and that is the visuals. They are stunning. Not realistic, not beautiful, no super fluid animation here, or intense detail... What we are witness to here is a work of the utmost DESIGN. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. I will type it again. The design of the visuals is Requiem's highest achievement, not the animation. And that is within a title with numerous achievements. I guess it's what industry people might call "art direction". The creators put mood and style above all other concerns, and what we have as a result is a barely recognizable landscape which mirrors the dark minds of the series' antagonists.
The world of Requiem is dark and warped, literally no straight lines can be found. It is full of mists and forests and dangerous chasms, not to mention the terrible specters (monsters? spirits? who knows?) that the main characters are hunting. The beautiful and the profane often occupy the same space (or the same character!), and nothing can really be trusted to be simply what it looks like. Another thing I want to mention is the unity of the artwork. It really seems to have all come from the same artistic mind with every scene realized in the same messed up reality as the first one was. It has it's own rules and conventions that you pick up on as time goes along, these visual clues become more and more important to the story which makes them fun to find and follow.
So now we know that visually we are dealing with the most impressive release in the last four or so years, what about the rest of this thing? The stories are full of real tragedy and horror, human tales twisted by the supernatural. In this world legend and reality are truly one, each epsode being taken from ghost stories and then bent around some really foul characters. It contains the kind of unflinching plot that had it join Berserk (tho not concurrently) in japanese TV's infamous 2:45am air slot if that's any indication. Add this to the fact that Requiem can scare you like a real horror movie does, and it also delivers those cherished "I can't friggin believe I am seeing this..." moments where you are just totally shocked. Think, "Silence of the Lambs"...
The dub tracks are especially good, the english Mataichi is superlative, as is Nagamimi. Definitely hit up the english first on Requiem, reading the text on a subtitle track is going to ruin the visual experience pretty handily so listen to the Japanese second, if it all. Remember, it's not like you're watching some 'Please Teacher' bullshit where the japanese track only serves to help you feel like less of a tool while watching it. It is also worth mentioning that in a title with so much darkness and negative space, Geneon did an awesome job keeping the transfer clean and crisp. Of course in my opinion Pioneer/Geneon is the class of the entire US business, so no surprise there.
At any rate, you will never find a more unique specimen than Requiem from the Darkness. The characters are awesome, the stories are brutal and bloody, and I guarantee you won't forget it like how you forgot the way "X" ended. Can you remember the end of "X"?? No you can't. That won't happen here, trust me.
My suggestion: Here is my original draft for this review, "In Requiem, a horse bites a man's head off. Buy it."
Friday, November 10, 2006
Playstation 2 news!
MAGURO'S PLAYSTATION 2 DIES AT 5 YEARS OF AGE, MAGURO GRIEF-STRICKEN, HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO RETURN TO BLOGGING
HEAT GUY J
Hello again everyone. Maguro back with another anime that you'd better like, or else... german santa claus will cease to be surprised while reading your mail. (see below) I actually have a few titles I want to write about but HGJ is fresh in my mind so I won't have to make anything up.
Cyberpunk titles have traditionally provided some good storytelling but not always to most optimistic of futures. Heat Guy bucks this trend, as well as a few others. For one, our heartless automaton is not a diminutive high school girl, and our heartless automaton isn't actually heartless. J is an awesome dude, the kind of guy you'd want looking after the people you cared about. Actually the whole title is filled with a visual warmth and well meaning folks. Of course, there are some really terrible people about, but J and his human partner Daisuke usually beat the living hell out of them by the end of the episode with a few exceptions.
At the center of the story is a mob/revenge plot that you might have heard before, but the story really tries hard to stay away from cliche moments. There are a few things that you can see coming, but it really doesn't detract from the whole. And another thing you can really appreciate is the expert pacing in the storyline. The bones of the plot really start showing in eps. 8-9, earlier than in most shows. They never seem to rush through anything and every character and plot seems to get tied up nicely in the end.
I didn't always appreciate the character design, as the main characters seem to be suffering from 'Escaflownase', but most of the time it was very good. The English dub is serviceable, if not great. The best among the cast is easily J, who's deep rumble conveys a fatherly tone. I couldn't detect a victor in the english vs. japanese dub battle in this title. My one major complaint is that the episodes depend heavily on certain metaphors, which are reinforced a little too much for my liking. Clearly the creators knew that mashing up cyberpunk with a mob/noir plot was going to yield new avenues for the story, but perhaps western audiences are more schooled in these genres making the clues a bit overbearing.
And lastly I want to rail against the comparisons to Cowboy Bebop that were made in a lot of the media coverage and back-of-the-box quotes. Seriously, this is a different show altogether. Yes, Daisuke has some of Spike in his swagger, actually the police detective Ken Edmundo gets a little too, but that is really where the comparisons have to end. I understand trying to sell the show, and boy did they try, but Cowboy Bebop deserves better than to be dragged out in such a lame comparison.
If you know Ghost in the Shell, you should probably consider Heat Guy J it's maternal brother series. Shirow creates a world that is confusing and dangerous, where what we become out of our love of technology actually allows the human race to rise to the challenge of the future. In Heat Guy J, the technological beings themselves that arise from that progress are able to not only save us, but in a way display a caring for us that other people cannot. The message in both stories is that mankind can create a world that is sustainable and understandable, and that our creations will be good, because we are good. These ideas are therapeutic to a human race that lived through the horrors of potential (so far) nuclear war, and has the knowledge that science and human evil can combine to devastating effect. In a future where we are challenged in such a way again, I hope that beings like J are around to give us a hand.
My suggestion: Probably not for everyone, but I enjoyed it immensely. Buy this if you like androids and guys who have problems with their parents.
Cyberpunk titles have traditionally provided some good storytelling but not always to most optimistic of futures. Heat Guy bucks this trend, as well as a few others. For one, our heartless automaton is not a diminutive high school girl, and our heartless automaton isn't actually heartless. J is an awesome dude, the kind of guy you'd want looking after the people you cared about. Actually the whole title is filled with a visual warmth and well meaning folks. Of course, there are some really terrible people about, but J and his human partner Daisuke usually beat the living hell out of them by the end of the episode with a few exceptions.
At the center of the story is a mob/revenge plot that you might have heard before, but the story really tries hard to stay away from cliche moments. There are a few things that you can see coming, but it really doesn't detract from the whole. And another thing you can really appreciate is the expert pacing in the storyline. The bones of the plot really start showing in eps. 8-9, earlier than in most shows. They never seem to rush through anything and every character and plot seems to get tied up nicely in the end.
I didn't always appreciate the character design, as the main characters seem to be suffering from 'Escaflownase', but most of the time it was very good. The English dub is serviceable, if not great. The best among the cast is easily J, who's deep rumble conveys a fatherly tone. I couldn't detect a victor in the english vs. japanese dub battle in this title. My one major complaint is that the episodes depend heavily on certain metaphors, which are reinforced a little too much for my liking. Clearly the creators knew that mashing up cyberpunk with a mob/noir plot was going to yield new avenues for the story, but perhaps western audiences are more schooled in these genres making the clues a bit overbearing.
And lastly I want to rail against the comparisons to Cowboy Bebop that were made in a lot of the media coverage and back-of-the-box quotes. Seriously, this is a different show altogether. Yes, Daisuke has some of Spike in his swagger, actually the police detective Ken Edmundo gets a little too, but that is really where the comparisons have to end. I understand trying to sell the show, and boy did they try, but Cowboy Bebop deserves better than to be dragged out in such a lame comparison.
If you know Ghost in the Shell, you should probably consider Heat Guy J it's maternal brother series. Shirow creates a world that is confusing and dangerous, where what we become out of our love of technology actually allows the human race to rise to the challenge of the future. In Heat Guy J, the technological beings themselves that arise from that progress are able to not only save us, but in a way display a caring for us that other people cannot. The message in both stories is that mankind can create a world that is sustainable and understandable, and that our creations will be good, because we are good. These ideas are therapeutic to a human race that lived through the horrors of potential (so far) nuclear war, and has the knowledge that science and human evil can combine to devastating effect. In a future where we are challenged in such a way again, I hope that beings like J are around to give us a hand.
My suggestion: Probably not for everyone, but I enjoyed it immensely. Buy this if you like androids and guys who have problems with their parents.
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