Summer Streaming Season Part One: The Shallow End

Blood:C
(Disclaimer: I have never seen Blood: The Last Vampire, and judge this show on its own merits)
Meet Saya! She is very nice, but also clumsy! Hello Saya! Watch her 1) pray 2) go to school 3) be kind to animals 4) fall on her face 5) sing a song 6) BEAT THE LIVING SH*T OUT OF A MONSTER 7) the end!
So concludes the first episode of Blood:C, a disappointingly fluffy addition to the popular Blood franchise created by the artist collective CLAMP (Cardcaptor Sakura, Clover) and Production IG (Ghost in the Shell, FLCL). As you can probably tell, the plot's about as deep as the shallow end of an inflatable pool, but B:C (why can't this show have dinosaurs?) does have some good points aesthetically. As always, Mokona's designs are F***ING GORGEOUS, and IG's animation is incredible, though not quite at FLCL level. It should also be mentioned that Nana Mizuki has a really pretty singing voice. I want one of her CDs! In short, this is basically 24 minutes of talented people doing nothing. But it's watchable nothing, so it's at least worth a boredom look, if nothing else. NNN (out of a possible 5 Ns)
Blood: C (AKA: Before: Common Era) is streaming on NicoNico

Uta no Prince-Sama
There is exactly one great character in Uta no Prince Sama, a reverse harem set at a music (read: J-Pop) boarding school. His name is Shining Saotome, the academy's incredibly rad and impeccably dressed headmaster. Were this show just about Mr. Saotome and his madcap antics, this would be the best anime of the year by default. Sadly, we only get about two minutes of his shtick, and we're back to stock characters, bland cliches, and annoying J-Pop.
Haruka is a...girl. She likes music. That's basically all we know about her. She's a viewer stand-in though, so it doesn't really matter, does it. She attends the Saotome Academy, a prestigious boarding school where good little children get to do J-Pop with their favorite idols! Haruka then meets a bunch of bishonen heartthrobs, each with their own distinctive gimmick, who semi-fawn over her and do J-Pop! Then they do J-Pop! Plus: Dark past. If you thought High School Musical was a work of art, you'll love Prince-Sama. Otherwise, there are only two minutes of the show you need to watch. I think you can guess. NN
Uta no Prince-Sama (AKA: Uta no POS-Singers) is streaming on NicoNico

A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives
So.... A six-year-old moe vampire Himea sucks six-year-old boy Taito's... blood. Nine years later, fifteen-year-old silver-haired ulgyboy Taito has forgotten everything, and Himea, who still has the body of a six-year-old, sits around naked somewhere. Meanwhile, a random evil dude named Gekkou sits around being evil while his furry friend makes sex sounds. Then furry gets thirsty. Then furry nearly gets hit by a convenient car, but is saved by...Taito! And his head fell off, because that always happens when a car hits you. But then he's still alive, which reminds me of this. Then Tight-O remember Himea, Hime grows boobs, Tightie Whities runs a bit in a remakably poorly animated sequence (I believe there are exactly 3 frames). Then they meet again at last. Then Evil Gecko kills Himea! Oh noes!
My god is this show bad. It's uncontrollably ugly, preposterously perverted, completely cliched, sickeningly sloppy, and just plain old unwatchable. That last sentence probably took more effort to write then the whole episode. I can't imagine who this anime is for, and I do not want to know. The very act of imagining someone liking this makes me feel like vomiting. Good luck sitting through this turkey, my friends, or better yet, don't. 0
A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives (AKA: I Put All the Effort into the Title) is streaming on NicoNico

Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise
Haruka and Aoi, two normal high school girls from a world where looking 4 is normal for high schoolers, are secretly Twin Angel, two magical girl phantom thieves (who don't steal anything) who fight crimes such as vegetable robbery, stealing the magic tiara, and turning people into cats(?). They're also sometimes helped by Misty Knight *cough-Tuxedo Mask-cough*, a tall dark handsome mystery man with a mask... and a tuxedo.... Can they stop the bad guys? Will their secret identities be safe? And most importantly, aren't they adorable? AWWWW....
Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise takes from the shallow end of the inflatable pool to a drop of spit on the ground. The show is a downright insult to the viewer's intelligence, even though said viewers are mostly three years old. I can't imagine any of this content being of any interest to anyone not three, and even an infant would rather watch something else! Did I mention the show is also mildly perverted? It should come as little shock, as the series is based on a pachinko game (a medium which brought us such classics as Rio - Rainbow Gate), but STILL! I should note that I am not referring to the transformation sequence - that is a staple of the Magical Girl genre, and it should be expected. But really, COME ON. Jiggling breasts? Cat girls on all fours? What the hell are you thinking!? If you are going to make a show for toddlers MAKE IT FOR TODDLERS. Idiots. Negative -N-N-N
Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise (AKA: I Cannot Believe I Just Typed That) is streaming on NicoNico

Spring Streaming Season Part Three: Boys Will Be Boys

The Spring Season also brings us a healthy batch (or heaping pile, depending on your tastes) of new anime blockbusters from the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump and the fattening wallets of Toei Animation. In the first installment of these reviews, I talked about potentially "unforgettable" anime, but these are the ones we'll REALLY remember for years. Why is that? Because they'll be running for years and years and decades, until the cash cow milk runs dry.

SKET Dance
Just about any frequent Shonen Jump reader will agree with the following statement: to be successful, a Jump series needs to have either an interesting setting or interesting characters. While SKET Dance is plenty watchable and good fun, it is blazingly obvious that it features neither qualities.

SJ franchises in the past have had diverse and fascinating settings, such as a "Grand Line" inhabited by pirates, or maybe a "Soul Society" where shinigami lurk. Not for SKET Dance though, which settles for a normal high school home to (mostly) normal students. This unnamed mystery school is home to the SKET Dan, a small club (Okay, trio) dedicated to helping people (SKET is short for Support Kindness Encouragement Troubleshoot) with problems, a la after school special, though they will occasionally do odd jobs like taking care of monkeys (?). Only one of these members of SKET Dan is at all interesting, the brainiac Switch, who is shy enough to only talk out of a simulated computer voice, but egotistical enough to declare one moment the "Switch, you're Awesome!" Segment. However, Switch is given less attention than the remaining two thirds of the group, Himeko, a boring example of the "tough chick" cliche, and the protagonist, Bossun, your typical SJ funny guy with a secret power (in this case, goggles that make him more focused [?] ). In short, though the show can still get better, the horribly straightforward concept bars it from greatness.
SKET Dance is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Blue Exorcist
When the Blue Exorcist manga made its North American debut from Viz a few months back, it was received a generally warm welcome from the blogging community at large, though often noting that the first chapter was... not so great. I can't really say how accurate these opinions are, as I have yet to get to reading the manga. 10 bucks is a lot of money to plunk down on a new manga that will likely take me 10 minutes to read (What can I say? I'm quick with shonen), so I decided I would sample the series through the anime, and I am glad to report that if the manga is at all as enjoyable as the anime (save the apparently bland first manga chapter), then Blue Exorcist has a good chance of joining the ranks of the best shonen manga.

The plot of these first two episodes (which cover the aforementioned bland first chapter) is rather cliched: Trash-talking badass Rin and his brother Yukio have been raised by the kindly (but also badass) priest Father Fujimoto. However, Fujimoto is not really Rin's father in any way other than his title, as Rin is actually the spawn of Satan! After a violent encounter with Satan and some other demons, Father Fujimoto is dead and Rin vows to become an exorcist and "Beat the shit out of Satan." This is story is kind of silly (And when in the christian bible were there ever demons at all like the ones in this show?), the series makes the creaky cliches feel new again with impeccable pacing and snappy dialogue. The mix of familiar tropes and bold storytelling is comparable to Fullmetal Alchemist, another shonen series by a female author. Overall, Blue Exorcist is a fun, exciting new series that deserves attention for the outfits alone, not to mention all the other great stuff.
Blue Exorcist is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Toriko
Of all the current (by which I mean less than 10 years old) series running in the Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump magazine (not counting Jump Square, V Jump, Jump X, etc.), the second best would probably be Toriko, second only to the fantastic unlicensed comedy Beelzebub. Though I have yet to getting to reading past the first volume, it impressed me enough that I was actually moderately excited about Toei's hotly anticipated new anime adaption. The anime was good enough, but as an adaption, the show is sorely disappointing.

The anime, just like the manga, is set in a Gourmet era where mutated animals are as delicious as they are deadly. Meet Toriko, the most badass gourmet hunter ever, and his milquetoast assistant Komatsu. Together they defeat and devour the most terrifying and tasty animals ever! GRAAAH! Not exactly the most substance-heavy, but unless you're a devout member of PETA, it's good fun nonetheless. Even so, the anime version is neigh-unwatchable, for just one simple reason: the color scheme. Toriko was not a particularly pretty series in the first place, but this just destroys it. Bright colors are a good choice for saturday-morning type cartoons like this, but this just goes too far! Pink gators? Green apes? Ugh! The adaption's one saving grace is the inexplicable casting of Rumi Park (Fullmetal Alchemist's Ed, Nana's Nana Osaki) as Komatsu. Even though this can be very distracting, it's weirdly entertaining to hear the voice of an alchemist and a punk rocker reduced to a complete and utter wimp.
Toriko is streaming on Funimation.


Also Streaming
Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi, Tiger and Bunny, Tono to Issho, Battle Girls - Time Paradox

AND THAT IS ALL

Spring Streaming Season Part Two: Revenge of the Little Sister

Ucch, Moe. On this blog, I have previously defended the style/genre/cult/whatever at a time when no-one seemed to see any good in it, but that's besides the point. 90% of Moe, like everything else, is crud, and TV anime seems to be one of the main creators of that percentage. With last season's drop in moe shows, not to mention the whole Bill 156 thing, I thought to my self, "Well, that's the end of petty syndicated moe blobs," and breathed an innocent sigh of relief. I even speculated which ugly, perverted trend was next. Oy vey, how did I not see this coming. This season sees a resurgence in the cult of cuteness' vice-like grip on the tellie, with at least 5 shows (not even counting what's not streaming) beaming to your screen for 20 minutes you will never get back. Here's my take on four of these titles, My Odinary Life, A Bridge to the Starry Skies, We Without Wings, and Astarotte's Toy.

My Ordinary Life
One of the more interesting (or at least less offensive) sides of the moe symptom is 4-koma. 4 koma are four-panel comic strips, but unlike their western cousins, are often serialized in magazines dedicated to them, rather than newspapers.And with magazines means demographics, so there are countless moe 4-koma mags. And these moe 4-koma are perhaps the purest example of moe. Sexuality is completely absent from these series, and instead places strong emphasis on kawaii cuteness, witch is perfectly fine. The one notable problem with these comics is that, like our comic strips, these 4-koma are so decidedly innocent that very little happens and it's boring and not funny. The key difference is that instead of this dullness pleasing kindly grandmas, it is intended to sucker LFB (a term coined by Erica "Okazu" Friedman, short for "Loser Fan Boy"), slash fiction reading, slobbering Otaku. I expected My Ordinary Life, an anime adaption of a manga of the same name, to be another one of these droll experiences, and even though I was right to the extent that this is another friggin' show about cute girls in high school who look about 6 years old, the series does have one trick up its sleeve: it's actually funny.

My Ordinary Life follows a couple of girl's, well, ordinary lives, while casually undermining said ordinariness. One girl is actually a robot. One boy commutes to school by goat. Bumping into a random passerby creates an explosion taken right out of Akira. The brilliance of the show is that it balances the ordinary and the not without ever devoting itself entirely to either extreme. If all a moe series needs to be good is to go well with a cup of tea, then My Ordinary Life is perfect for those who like their tea with a bit of sugar.
My Ordinary Life is streaming on Crunchyroll.

A Bridge to the Starry Skies
If you are reading this, as I'm sure the more sensible of you have already stopped reading, do know that this anime sickened me. It sickened me to the very core of my moral fibers. To give the show credit, I did have a very strong emotional response: Those poor voice actresses! Doesn't it hurt to talk in a high pitch voice like that? I feel sorry for everyone who worked on this turkey. The animators who are only allowed to put care in to the depiction of panty shots, and must otherwise resort to bad CGI busses and cardboard-cutout motion. The director(s) and screenwriter(s), who for all I know are truly creative people, forced to cull from the Database. What do I mean by Database? Let's take a look at the plot:

We begin with a childhood memory. AWWW! Now cut to bad CGI bus. Self-insert-fantasy character H of earlier childhood memory is on bus with his shota-moe brother. Take it from me, younger brothers are never that nice around an older sibling. Some creaky exposition reveals that they have gone to the place of CHILDHOOD MEMORY AWWW! They get lost. Then, a monkey steals Shota-boy's hat, reminding us that we are supposed to this what we are watching is "wacky."  H chases monkey, falls off a tree, and realizes... he's at the lake from his childhood memory! AWWW! Meanwhile, shota-boy wonders where his oniichan is. Then, cute girl! She is most certainly the one from the childhood memory (AWWW!), and gives us the show's first panty shot, also reminding us the show is supposed to be "wacky," but in a different way. Then, it's the "Oh no I fell and kissed you!" scene. I could go on for longer, but I think you get the idea. Anyway, skip this.
A Bridge to the Starry Skies is streaming on Crunchyroll.

We, Without Wings - under the innocent sky
Many moe and harem anime in the past have what I like to call "the Self-Insert Male Protagonist" (or SIMP, for short). Normally the only prominent male, the SIMP has essentially no personality, and is surrounded by cute girls. The reason for this is that the SIMP is really the LFB, who fantasizes about being the chick-magnet SIMP, or more to the point, replacing the SIMP. The SIMP may be meek, and even be hated by most of the girls, but this only adds to the LFB's fantasy, creating tantalizing thoughts, such as If I were him, I'd do that different! However, We, Without (Chicken) Wings (Sorry, couldn't help it) does not feature a single SIMP, even though the characters are possibly based on that very same LFB demographic. This is because the two (Two!) main characters are complete and utter arses. The arses in question are Shusuke and Hayato, backstabbing, lecherous money-grubbers who happen to frequent the same bar (maid cafe?). Watch as they try, fail, and try, and fail (etc) to pick up women! Fun!

It's nice to see that the folks at work on this series are actually putting some effort into their job, because it made the show significantly better than I would have expected. The humor is funny, the pacing is sharp, and the characters are interesting. That does not save the show, though. The anime is crammed with over the top, distracting fanservice, some of which is literally pedophillic. I simply cannot imagine continuing to watch a series in which a girl who cannot be older than 15 asks one of the protagonist about his "monster." It's really a shame though, because the show seems to be brimming with promise. Oh, well.
We, Without Wings - under the innocent sky is streaming on Crunchyroll.

five minutes of Astarotte's Toy 
*Repeatedly bangs head against wall* Excuse me. Sorry. OK. No matter how hard I try, I can't really seem to get past the first five minutes or so of Astarotte's Toy. So, let me give you a review of those five mintues. Here we go. We begin in random bright colors magical land where a girl who looks five-years old gets chased by a cute dragon while being told to do her homework. Then the girl, Astarotte, screams "I HATE... MEN!" Still with me? Then in an absurdly sparkly bath scene we find out that Astarotte is a Ten-year old Succubus, which apparently means she has to start "sucking the life-seed" out of men. That was when I started banging my head against the wall.
Astarotte's Toy is streaming on Crunchyroll, but I'm not giving you a link. Think of it as a favor.


BILL 156
I wonder how, in a post-Bill 156 world, that a show like Astarotte's Toy gets on TV. In fact, how did ANY of these shows get on TV? Rather than a decrease in shockingly awful moe, we have gotten more. The problem is, even though Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo (and also a homophobic, misogynist, nationalist pig), believe the bill is anti-child pornography, it's not! The bill prevents "offencive" material portraying sexuality from being sold to minors, and whether you're for or against that, it doesn't change a hell of a lot. The really bad stuff is already 18+, and the Bill is vague enough that subtexts will generally not be much of a problem. AND MOE IS BUILT ON SUBTEXT. Mind-numbingly obvious subtext, but it's still subtext. So, nothing has changed. Nothing Will change. We are doomed.

IN PART THREE: JUMP For Joy

Spring Streaming Season Part One: Say it Four Times Fast

The winter season was disappointing. Few shows were especially good to begin with, and two of the best, Level E and Fractale, never found their footing and floundered their great potential. Even so, the year may bring us a great new anime yet, as we see in the spring season. Here are four new shows with promise to be remembered for years to come: [C], Hanasaku Iroha, Deadman Wonderland, and Steins;Gate.

[C] - Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility
Fuji TV's Noitamina programing block has consistently produced engaging contemporary anime, some failures (Fractale), others successes (Eden of the East), but all ambitious and stylish exercises in pushing the limits of TV anime. [C] may be Noitamina's most ambitious production to date, a thinking man's Yu Gi Oh where entrepreneurs duke it out in a fantasy world for financial success. Kimimaro Yoga is a second year economics student who aspires to live a normal, stable life. All this changes when he meets Masakaki, a strange, jester-like figure who gives him a credit card granting him access to the Financial District, a simulated reality where entrepreneurs, or entres for short, duel weekly for access to vast fortunes. Win a duel, and you're set till next time. Lose, and you go bankrupt and are doomed to spend the rest of your life penniless.

First of all, this anime is a total mind f@#k. Kudos to Kenji Nakamura for creating what may be the most bizarre otaku-inclined creation since FLCL. The show is consistently flashy, stylized, interesting, mysterious, and most of all involving. We have yet to see if [C] can achieve anything deeper than that, but appears to hint at rich layers beneath the surface. [C] may not be the best anime you'll see all year, but it will definitely be worth your time. After all, time is money.
[C] - Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility is streaming on Funimation

Hanasaku Iroha (The ABCs of Blooming)
Have you ever seen a TV show that made you feel smarter? If you have not, Hanasaku Iroha could very well be your first. Iroha is a fun little anime about love, life, growing up, and a little inn in the country. The inn in question is Kissuiso, a hot springs run by the stern grandmother of the series' protagonist, Ohana Matsumae. Ohana is a resourceful girl (and I mean really resourceful, not just shojo heroine resourceful) who practically raised herself due to her single mom's negligence. Said negligent mom is also the reason Ohana has gone to Kissuiso, as she has run off to elope with her boyfriend. Ohana takes the trip to the country well, after some romantic complications and other problems at home, and dreams of a storybook adventure in the country, rife with beautiful landscapes and kindly elderly women who give kids candy. Her dream is immediately crushed upon arrival at Kissuiso. To put it in Ohana's words, "Yes, it really was a fairy tale. A pretty girl reached out her hand to me... and told me to die!" Despite this, Ohana works diligently, and learns to love her new surroundings.

I cannot put into words how lovely this show is. Free of pandering exploitation (save one bizarre yet clever sequence in the third episode), Iroha is easily the most genuine and heart warming thing you will see all year. Not only that, but the show is aesthetically beautiful too; Look at the detail in the background art, the softness of the character designs, the subtle ebb and flow of the animation. This is easily the best anime of the season, if not the whole year. If the show is about blooming, there's no way series director  Masahiro Ando is a bud. I look forward to seeing where this show will go, and how Ohana will blossom.
Hanasaku Iroha (The ABCs of Blooming) is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Deadman Wonderland
I organized this reviews to only spotlight the shows that looked like they had Classic potential, or at least some staying power, but I'm sad to report that Deadman Wonderland is nothing but what you would call a "Genre Show." However, it is still a good show, and worth the 60 minutes that watching the first three episodes took up. Based on the manga of the same name by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou (published *partially* in english by the now defunct Tokyopop ^_^), Deadman Wonderland is a pulse-pounding, prison-break-grindhouse-thriller-whatsit about and emo dude named Ganta whose classmates all get murdered and stuff and gets sent to prison even though he's obviously innocent. And of course, this being anime, it's not a normal penitentiary but an !EVIL MOTHER****ING HEVY METAL PSYCHO DEATH KILLER MONSTER JAIL FROM HELL! - Deadman Wonderland, a privately owned prison built on the ruins of Tokyo (Shades of Akira?) that doubles as an amusement park where prisoners must star in potentially deadly performances. Throw in lots o' bad@$$, and you've got an anime.

The premise may just be plain exploitation, but you have to give the show credit: it's friggin' gripping. I knew this anime was not merely grindhouse after only the first few miniutes of exposition, a seemingly bland scene with some soon-to-be-dead high schoolers chatting about how cool the field trip to Deadman Wonderland will be. These opening moments are infused with a palpable sense of dread, a mood which carries through the whole series and has yet to fail to impress me. The story is trashy pulp brilliance, but the viewer is forced to take it seriously. The action is tense and lavishly animated, possibly improving on the manga (can't say for sure, as I haven't read it). That's not to say the show's THAT good. I Often wished the show would stop taking itself so dang seriously, eliminate all self-pity, and just focus on the pulp. And no matter how you slice it, supporting characters like Shiro are as one dimensional as a straight line drawn with a pencil. Ganta is a far from a unique protagonist, a shallow imitation of Shinji Ikari with some instability and McFarlene-esque super powers thrown in for fun. I'm not loving this anime, but I think I'll keep watching for now.
Deadman Wonderland is streaming on Crunchyroll

STEINS;GATE
And so, we begin with a mind f@#k, and end with a mind f@#k. In fact, mind f@#k is the only word I can think of to explain Steins;Gate, a show that cannot be described, only experienced. I cannot really say what the plot is, but I do think it has one. Mad scientists and conspiracy theories, I guess. Anyway, the main problem with the show at the moment is that there isn't really anything more to it than that. I guess the idea of a mindf@#k anime with neither GAINAX, Mamoru Oshii, or Noitamina attached to the project isn't a good idea. So far, I'm a tad indifferent to Steins;Gate, but I'd like to see where it goes.

( a quick minor aside: the fat dude on the far left looks a bit like me, which is the main motivation for my continued viewing of this show)
Steins;Gate is streaming on Crunchyroll

IN PART TWO: The Good, The Bad, The Moe

List: Ten Anime For People Who Do Not Watch Anime

FLCL


This madcap rock n' roll OVA adventure features just about everything good about anime. It features gorgeous animation (courtesy of GAINAX and Production I.G.), first-rate humor, Inception-level surrealism, interesting characters, and a solid story to boot. The dub emulates the original japanese almost exactly, down to the last a-re. The performances suffer from this a bit at first, but about 5 minutes into the first episode, the voice actors get really into the story, leading to a faithful adaption completely equal to what came before. FLCL can be found streaming subtitled in its entirety on Funimation.


ONE PIECE

While I prefer the manga, the One Piece anime is a perfect hook for a new fan for the lack of that "IT GETS GOOD AT Vol. 9" mentality that comes with the manga, and a glorious Saturday morning cartoon feel that makes the show great for casual watching, despite the daunting 500+ episode count. The Funimation dub (avoid the 4kids version) perfectly reproduces that Loony Tunes aesthetic, and even dubs the theme song! One Piece is streaming in both formats on Funimation, with new subbed episodes weekly.


MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM (Original)

As I mentioned last week, Giant Robot anime is awesome. While not the "first" or "best" Giant Robot anime, the Gundam franchise has defined the genre for decades. The original is a little dated, but in that lies its charm, as well as a way to justify Yoshiyuki Tomino's sloppy storytelling. The show is currently only available here in dub, but the dub is good, and a subbed edition is due out on DVD later this year. The whole thing (save one mysteriously absent episode mid-series) is streaming dubbed via Crunchyroll.

SUMMER WARS

This fun new film from Mamoru Hosoda and Madhouse features a one-two punch of flashy fight scenes and involving family drama. It could be better, but it is very good. When I saw this movie, I was reminded of the recent Scott Pilgrim movie. Edgar Wright described the film as a "fightsical", like a musical, but instead of breaking into song at an important moment, the characters break into fights. Summer Wars is similar in this way, but without the strong emphasis on fight scenes that often detracted from the main plot of SP. Kids will enjoy Summer Wars, though they may not understand everything. The dub by Funimation (who, as you can tell by this article, are a big presence in R1 anime) is stellar, highly watchable, and easy to understand despite many culturally specific moments. Not streaming.

THE WORKS OF SATOSHI KON

Satoshi Kon is an amazing director. His movies can be dark, whimsical, cutting edge, sophisticated, or entertaining, and usually all of these at the same time. Perfect Blue is easily the scariest movie I've ever watched. Few movies will ever be able to the whimsical grace of Millenium Actress. Tokyo Godfathers is an incredibly fun film to watch, and makes the Christmas spirit actually seem genuine for once. And Paprika captured all those emotions and combined them into a gorgeous, elaborate love letter to cinema. Several of these movies have been dubbed, but the only professional-standard dubs (i.e. not by some office workers at Manga UK) are Paprika, and his TV series Paranoia Agent, unseen by this reviewer. Anyway, his works are very Japanese, so I strongly suggest watching them subtitled.
Not streaming.

GHOST IN THE SHELL

 
I've always found it hard to believe that Mamoru Oshii's cyberpunk masterpiece Ghost In The Shell was so successful in America. While the fact that it inspired The Matrix certainly generated a lot of attention, I can only think of one reason Ghost in the Shell could be so popular: America has a lot of hipsters. Based on the vastly inferior manga by Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell is set in a hypothetical future world where most people have had their bodies replaced with cyborg technology, and are linked in cyberspace. Motoko Kusanagi and the rest of the Section 9, a covert operations division of the Japanese Police, are tasked with finding the "Puppet Master", a mysterious entity hacking into peoples bodies. Throughout the movie, elaborate philosophical questions are raised about humanity and technology. If you have ignored anime in the past because it was not "serious" art, be sure to take a look at Ghost in the Shell. And for those who don't like Japanese voices, the dub is very good. Streaming dubbed on Netflix.

LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY


Hayao Miyazaki is the most widely recognized anime director outside of fan circles, and for a good reason: His movies are amazing! Castle in the Sky was his first feature film created as a Studio Ghibli production, and possibly his best. This is old school escapism at its best: The young hero. The mysterious girl. The dastardly villain. The lost kingdom. The epic adventure. All of this and more in this amazing movie! Castle in the Sky was adapted into english by none other than John Lasseter of Pixar fame and produced by Disney, featuring A-list actors such as Mark Hamill and Mandy Patinkin. Not streaming, obviously.

COWBOY BEBOP

Funky, jazzy, and slick, Cowboy Bebop was the first anime many people watched, and the all-time favorite of many more. In a future where space is so heavily colonized that no government can even hope to manage crime, hopeful bounty hunters dreaming of wealth pursue criminals across the stars. This is the story of the bounty hunters on the ship Bebop, and their various adventures. Though the concept sounds straightforward, Series Director Shinichiro Watanabe and Composer Yoko Kanno infuse the story with a distinctive style incorporating elements of western, film noir, jazz, and, of course, bebop. The show was dubbed, though it's much better in Japanese. Not streaming.

FULL METAL ALCHEMIST


Based on the very good manga by Hiromu Arakawa, the Full Metal Alchemist anime takes the manga's story of two brothers searching for the philosopher's stone in a wildly divergent direction. Featuring great animation from BONES and even better world building than in the manga, FMA is great for new fans and jaded mangaphiles alike. While I never liked any of the dub (except for the movie), it has been hailed by many as one of the best of its kind. Streaming in both formats on Funimation.

EDEN OF THE EAST

Eden of The East may be a non-anime fan's best option on this list, and it is only a year old. Akira Takizawa's journey to find his lost memories has more than a whiff of Bourne Identity-style thriller, but at its heart, the story is as much about Akira as it is about his friend Saki Morimi, and their relationship provides the series' emotional core.  Indeed, this show feels far less like director Kenji Kamiyama's previous series, a TV spin-off of Ghost in the Shell, and more like character designer Chika Umino's josei manga/anime, Honey and Clover. The series is heavily flawed in places, but for the most part, Kamiyama's attempts at telling a fresh story pay off big time. For the dub, Funimation turns out a solid production as always. Streams have been taken down (oh well).

Mary Pope Osborne's The Magic Tree House to be Adapted into Anime; Childhoods of Many Hang in Balance

When I was a kid, I used to read The Magic Treehouse. I'm sure a few of you readers out there (hello?) did as well. Perhaps it was fate that I grew up to be an otaku, because The Magic Treehouse is huge is Japan. Of the 92 million copies sold worldwide, a whopping 3.3 million are sold in Japan alone! In fact, it's so popular they're making an anime version! See what I mean? Fate.

Anyway, I'm getting mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the inner child in me is screaming "HECK YEAH!" though maybe not screaming, because back then "heck" was a bad word. On the other hand, the choices for the behind the scenes crew are downright bizarre. The directorial choice, Hiroshi Nishikiori worked on the anime of Azumanga Daioh, which-despite the fact that Azumanga is no kid's show-could mean there could be a touch of Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&! innocence to the production, which would certainly not be a bad thing, but I also noticed he directed A Certain Magical Index, a gooey harem show. The choice for screenwriter even more off putting, as Ichiro Okouchi, while also having worked on Azumanga, worked on the dumb harem/dumb fighting anime Negima! as well as Brave Story, based on the children's book by Miyuki Miyabe, which according to ANN Australia, is flawed in the script. Uh oh!


And yet, I'm not ready to condemn this announcement just yet. The fact is, I want this to be good, and maybe in the end it will be. So for now, ignore that last paragraph and let the inner child do the talking.

Linkblog: Hideaki Anno Teaches Grade School

 As every single reader of this blog better darn well know by know, I love Evangelion, and appreciate the work of Hideaki Anno. One day, while surfing the net, I came across this old NHK special, in which Anno, shortly after leaving the anime industry and at the height of his depression, teaches a Grade 6 class the basics of animation. One may chuckle at the thought, yet the special gives a surprising level of new insight into this important creative figure. A worthwhile watch for whomever enjoys Eva.

(note: this is the beginning of a series of GAINAX-themed link blogs building up to the official english release of Evangelion 2.22. My review of this movie will probably be about a month late do to some preoccupation at the time of release, so take this as an apology)

Zyword of the Week episode 5:The Manganime Conundrum

Naruto Uzumaki, Naruto
I'm sure you know this guy up there. I'm not recalling his name at the moment, but he's kinda famous. This boy ninja has had an incredible amount of success over the years, with plenty of well deserved fans, and wouldn't you know it, they made an anime! Oh yes, now I remember his name. Ramen. Anyway, the anime is more popular than the manga OK moving along...WHA?

Monkey D. Luffy, One Piece
I have never understood this, and likely never will. Manga adaptions of anime or video games are often overlooked, and video game adaptions of popular series are often hyped heavily, but are soon forgotten. But an ANIME? Stop the presses! This is big and historic! Who give a sh** about the manga now! This is...

Haruhi Suzumiya, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
I don't want to be a prude, but most anime adaptions are boring if you've already read the manga of played the game or read the novel or whatever. The problem is that with some exceptions (Fullmetal Alchemist, Akira, Ghost in the Shell), nearly every adaption follows the original to the letter, except for when they want to cram in ten episodes of boring filler arcs that are easy to skip.

Son Goku, Dragon Ball
The fact of the matter is, these shows are made for TV. It's fun to tune in once a week with your friends to see Goku come to life in gorgeous animation. But the problem is, that is not what happens here. Nothing is shown on TV. Rather, we are given DVD box sets and simulcasts to watch alone. I don't wish this didn't exist, exactly, but it's kinda too bad.

Conan Edogawa, Case Closed
I think the answer to this issue is more anime movies. This seems to be the general path that the anime industry seems to be going in anyway, but the fact remains that nobody ever takes the risk of changing the original to create something new unless it's a movie. Plus, no filler. I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

Review: Oreimo

 It is a well known fact that two of the most popular otaku genres (discounting old classics like the giant robot) are Moe (pronounced mo-eh), and self-parody. Self-parody is popular for obvious reasons, namely the fact that we otaku love talking about ourselves. Moe (AKA cute young girls doing stuff that is cute) is a bit more complex, and I do not feel like delving into that can of worms at the moment. Nice examples of self-parody series include Genshiken and Welcome to the NHK. Examples of Moe that did not make me retch are Azumanga Daioh! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime I am about to tell you about today is an amalgamation of the two, a "Genshiken Daioh!", a "Welcome to the Melancholy of Haruhi". It is titled "Ore no Imooto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai", or in English, "My Little Sister can't be this Cute". Let's call it "Oreimo" for short.
  One day, average Japanese teenager Kyousuke Kousaka discovers an ero-game lying around the house. Later that day, his younger sister (do you hear that sound? It is fan boys drooling) Kirino kicks him out of bed, asking for advice. She lead him to her bedroom, and reveals to him her...rather large collection of ero-games (the joke is they're all little-sister games), expensive merchandise, and magical girl anime. Kyousuke never knew it, but Kirino is a major otaku! And so, despite his lack of interest in the otaku community, Kyousuke takes it upon himself to help his sister figure out how to live with her niche hobby.
 I found Oreimo to be very similar in mood to Haruhi, which, like Oreimo, is based on a light novel. The world is bright and cheery, laughter is infectious, the cute girls are cute, and Kyou-kun is the exact same character, not that there's any problem with that. At the same time, the show gives a true to life depiction of the otaku lifestyle (with the exception of some oddities) up there with Genshiken. Surprisingly, the two styles do not clash, nor do they neuter each other. The only place where it felt even slightly mismatched was in Kirino's obsession with gal-games,and that was taken seriously enough within the story (not to say it isn't played for laughs sometimes) to not affect my enjoyment of the series. Perhaps it even raises a good (if unintentional) point about otaku culture's often confused sense of sexuality. Why ARE little sisters so popular? Is there some deeper meaning to the perseverance of gender swap and harem shows? Who cares?
 Anyway, I found Oreimo to be a fun, smart, rollicking good time, though the people reading my blog (i.e. my family) may disagree. I'd make a closing statment, but I have a feeling it would change, just like the end credits did every episode. OK, done!
Oreimo is currently streaming HERE on Anime News Network

Update: I was right! My opinion about the show DID change. Not Genshiken. Not Hrauhi. This is nothing but crass entertainment. But you know what? I was entertained, so I'm okay. But you should avoid this. It is the Two and a Half Men of anime

The Otaku's Best of 2010

So, 2010 is almost over, and I must say what a terrible year. That whole "market crash" thingie, all the scanlators, frickin' Quasar of Stigma! But, I digress. There were plenty of good things that happened this year, good things that did NOT, in fact, involve breast-feeding alchemists. Of course, no one actually read Quasar of Stigma, and I only read a chapter to sample and see if it fell into (almost wrote "feel into") the So Bad It's Good category. It did not. So anyway, I guess it wasn't THAT bad a year... oh HI, Hetalia! Whatever, here's what I enjoyed this year.

Best_New Manga A DRUNKEN DREAM AND OTHER STORIES By Moto Hagio

Haunting, beautiful, and charming, the short stories in A Drunken Dream feature many popular tropes of Shoujo manga, but are told quietly, with a short, wistful execution, like a melancholy dream. Highlights include the bitter-but-still-wistful "Girl on Porch with Puppy" published in the Tezuka-founded COM magazine, which also published Phoenix, and "The Willow Tree" a beautiful example of the power of visual storytelling.

Best New Anime EDEN OF THE EAST directed by Kenji Kamiyama

An incredible piece of speculative  fiction, Eden of the East tells the story of Akira Takizawa, an amnesiac man with nothing from his past except for a cellphone with 8.2 billion yen and a contact with a woman named Juiz, and a gun (this is literally all he has; when we first meet him, he is standing around in front of the White House naked with no clue what he is doing). The story also centers around Saki, a directionless college graduate who gives the story an emotional core in a manner alike to the "companions" in Doctor Who. Surprisingly warm-hearted, there is something in this for everyone. Bonus points for the film references.

Best Reprint CLOVER by CLAMP

Clover is CLAMP's most challenging work, a steampunk shoujo opera of doomed romance in three acts. The brand-new Dark Horse edition puts the entire epic together in a single volume, with high-quality images that do far better justice to CLAMP lead artist Mokona's high contrast experimetation.

Best Finale SCOTT PILGRIM by Brian Lee O'Malley

I probably don't have to tell you, but Scott Pilgrim is so epic. However, what many people have lost in the sea of internet memes is that SP has a genuine emotional core. This is a story about learning to live with yourself and live a happy life, an important moral for the often socially inept comics/animation/games world. Plus, there are epic fight scenes and great lines like "Ramona earned the Power of Love! The Power of Love heals all wounds!" So take another look at this book that you probably already own, and think about it for a good, long time.


Best Continuing Series One Piece by Eichiro Oda


As we approach (or reached already, if your Japanese) volume 60 with no sign of stopping, this is one commercial gargantuan where all I want to say to the artist is "Good for you!" and give him a HIGH FIVE!

Best Guilty Pleasure Demon Sacred by Natsumi Itsuki




That's right, freaks and geeks! I actually bought this goddamn thing! It may be cheap, disposable entertainment, but Tokyopop had a good idea for a change, and sold the first two volumes at a price point of $5.99 a volume, meaning I could enjoy this for what it was and not be distracted by my sudden lack of cold, crisp ca$h money.

Best Webcomic/Best Thing Ever AXE COP by Malichi (6) and Ethan (30) Nicholle


He is a cop. With an axe. And a dinosaur. Who can fly. And has Gatling guns for arms.What more do I have to say? Oh yes. Book edition now in print.

Best Dub Tales from Earthsea directed by Goro Miyazaki and dubbed by Disney

Now, most people agree that Earthsea kinda sucked. Goro Miyazaki's theatrical attempt at getting his famous father to notice him, the film has every element of a classic Ghibli except, well, the magic. However, I would argue that this is a fitting adaption of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Cycle (you know that old guy, Sparrowhawk? The first book chronicles his youth). Anyway, Disney has once again done a fabulous job with the dub, possibly improving the Japanese original. Willem DeFoe steals the show as Cobb.

Most Anticipated of 2011(Anime) EVANGELION 2.0 directed by Hideaki Anno and MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM directed by  Yoshiyuki Tomino


As readers of this blog may know (do you exist? Tell me in the comments PLZ!), I am an uber-fan of Eva, and, while disappointed that Anno doesn't want to do anything new, am really looking forward  to seeing how he can change things up a bit. Plus, it's showing in a theater where I live. Hooray!
Also, after watching five episodes or so dubbed on ANN, I am really psyched for the re-release of  the historic Mecha show Mobile Suit Gundam, with the Japanese included for the first time! (I still like the dub though)
Update: Anno is not the Director of 2.0, rather it is Kazuya Tsurumaki, co-director of most of the TV series. Anno is the supervising director, however, as well as the screenwriter.

Most Anticipated of 2011 (Manga) THE BOOK OF HUMAN INSECTS by Osamu Tezuka and ONWARD TOWARD OUR NOBLE DEATHS by Shigeru Mizuki

These are, of  course, very different selections. "Insects" is one of Tezuka's titles from his experimental period, and is being released, as always, by Vertical. Vertical has done a fantastic job with every Tezuka title they've published to date, and if the cover design is even close to the level of quality of Ayako, it will be a real treat.
I am also quite pleased to hear that Drawn and Quarterly has seen fit to publish Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, the first North American translation of a title by Gekiga and Youkai master Shigeru Mizuki.While it is too bad that his classic GeGeGe no Kitaro couldn't come out first (it is available in french, like every other manga I want to read), but I have been anticipating this ever since I read a description of it in Dreamland Japan.
Anyway, both of these (and Eva 2) are coming out in March, so I guess that will be a busy month for me.