Brand's Blog

Anime Relations: Dance with Devils, One Punch Man, Kagewani, Young Black Jack, Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen, Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou, Osomatsu-san

Not sure how I ended up watching so many shows this season. Normally, I follow about 4 anime (with extra leftovers) each season. Now, I am up to six. Plus there are still some that haven't aired yet and I watch to check out.

Young Black Jack - I'll pretty much watch anything with Black Jack in it. This is based on a spin-off manga not by Osamu Tezuka though. First episodes was Back Jack-ie enough for me though. I will say it is one of those shows that use a really weird mix of character designs. Some are really modern and there there are throw backs to Tezuka designs that look really out of place. Also, Black Jack in chains and Black Jack with a CROWN OF THORNS, is a bit much for me. But still fills a Black Jack sized whole for me, so I am down.

Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen - I am solely watching this show because apparently a GIANT ADORABLE PIGEON will be a character in it. I know nothing about the original series but from what I read you don't need to know anything. First episode was alright pretty standard set-up to a "spirited away" type fantasy. Where we find our main character has amnesia and is rescued and helped by a cat girl. I do like the reverse bath house scene where the girl is checking out the guy. I can't say to much for this one yet but I am so waiting for pigeon.

One Punch Man - Solely watching this because it is going to be the BIG anime this year. Eh. It had some really nice animation. And it does have surrealist humor which I like but really didn't hit me in the funny bone at all.

Kagewani - Short form horror anime from the guy who did Yami Shibai. As with Utawarerumono the first episode was a pretty generic set-up (just for horror this time), but what it does do, it does well. And it sets up some larger mystery. I loved the first season of Yami Shibai, hoping this will live up to it.

Concrete Revolutio - Checked this one out because it is supposedly the "craziest" show this season. I mean it was weird but but not Lesbian Bear Storm weird. Also not as weird as Osomatsu-san which I'll talk about later. This show so far is kind of an anime super-hero slurry. It has a really graphical style with screen tone dots everywhere. And we have all kinds of super powered humans, aliens, and mechs. The first episode doesn't follow a strict timeline which makes it a bit confusing but I feel like as the show plays out it will make more sense.

Osomatsu-san - Holy shit this show was weird. It broke the 4th wall from start to finish. From the start where they are black and white with a 4:3 ratio and talking about how people today won't relate to a Showa era show. Then it flips to a modern looking show where the sextuplets are an idol group with super power to destroy asteroids. It only gets more insane from there. There is a ton of anime parody in it. I got to say this might be a surprise winner for me this season. I generally don't like comedy but if it keeps up with this kookiness I'm all for it.

Dance with Devils - Is a reverse harem where all the hot dudes are also demons. When I heard about it, I kind of wanted to watch this for the cheese factor thinking it would be pretty terrible. Then it got some really good reviews... I got to say this was surprisingly good. It's got that cheese factor but almost in a Tim Burton kind of gothic way (though not in visual style). Oh, and it is also a musical...

Anime Relations: Stranger: Mukou Hadan

Okay, so I did the Anime Watching Challenge much like the manga challenge. Only, this was much more of an investment since I picked hard and had to watch 40 titles. Here is a rundown about how I felt about all of them.

»Watch a movie: Sword of the Stranger
I enjoyed this movie but wasn’t quite blown away by it as I thought I would be. Still if you are looking for a good action flick to watch, it is worth checking out.

»Watch a short anime: I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying
Cute anime about a woman who marries an otaku and doesn’t quite get it. Not a huge time investment, so worth checking out for something silly.

»Watch an ONA: Rain, the Little Girl, and My Letter
Original Net Animation. This was a short, and as far as shorts go it wasn’t bad but it didn’t really do anything for me.

»Watch an award-winning work: Glassy Ocean
This is a short surrealist movie. I don’t regret watching it, but it wasn’t that exciting and made it a bit of slog to get through even though it isn’t that long.

»Watch an anime with a character voiced by one of your favorite seiyuu: Gugure! Kokkuri-san (Jouji Nakata)
I normally don’t like anime comedy but this had the right amount of weirdness (and maybe cute guys) for me to enjoy it.

»Watch an anime by a director/composer/studio you like: Yuri Kuma Arashi (Kunihiko Ikuhara)
An anime by Kunihiko Ikuhara (who directed my all time favorite anime Utena) about murder lesbian bears. How can you not like it? If you like auteur directors it is worth checking out for that alone.

»Watch an early work of an established anime staff member (10+ roles): Dallos (Mamoru Oshii)
Finally, a work by Oshii that I found bearable. It is still a bit pretentious but at the level of pretentiousness that I actually enjoy. It isn’t up its own ass like a lot of his other works. Worth checking out from an anime history standpoint as it is the first OVA series.

»Watch an anime that started the year you joined MAL or later: Kaiba
After Tatami Galaxy and this I can say I am now a Masaaki Yuasa fan. I really, really liked this series. It was kind of made for me, unique art style, sci-fi, and about memories. All things I’m kind of obsessed with. It was really touching also.

»Watch an anime that meets the ½(your age) + 7 rule: The Poem of Wind and Trees
I watched two classic shounen ai (boys love) movies that take place in boarding schools in Europe somewhere. This was the better of the two. It does have some problems, both boys are voiced by females but they are old enough that a male voice should have been used. It’s not even the deepish kind of female voice like Romi Park so it was a little off putting. Also, what is probably the main antagonist gets introduced at the very end and then doesn’t really do anything. Still, if you are into this sort of thing (or high melodrama) totally worth watching.

»Watch an anime with a main cast (3+ characters) of only one gender: Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu LOVE!
This is parody of magical girl anime. It was a cute fun show. It was extra wacky so I enjoyed that.

»Watch an anime that focuses on non-romantic relationships: Free!: Eternal Summer
The sequel to Free! was just as enjoyable as first season. It is a very pretty show, about some very pretty men swimming and being friends. It is a good slice-of-life show and even if the genders were reversed, I’d still watch it.

»Watch an anime with children in it: Wandering Son
Ever wanted a serious anime about transgender kids? This is it. It is a nice slice-of-life show with the main focus being about growing up transgender.

»Watch an anime with a non-human main character: Pom Poko
It’s about dese nuts.

»Watch an anime about food, music OR art: Your Lie in April
Holy, crap this show was good. I was totally crying at the end. A great romance, coming of age story. The animation is this is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend this one.

»Watch a historical OR military anime: Macross Frontier
I think Your Lie in April edged out this one a little but this was also a really great show. You don’t really need to know anything about Macross to watch it, and it sets up an interesting sci-fi world. The characters are all great and feel pretty fleshed out. This is one I regret waiting so long to watch.

»Watch a slice of life OR comedy anime: My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy
I normally wouldn’t watch a show like this but I started watching it in club and ended up really liking it. Again the humor has a really weird bent. The MC suffers from “Absolute Choices.” Where choices are presented to him from up on high at important moments but if doesn’t choose one (they are all usually terrible) he suffers a lot of great pain.

»Watch a horror, sci-fi OR fantasy anime: The Seven Deadly Sins
Again another one I might have not watch if not for club. A really enjoyable fantasy adventure series, with a lot of intrigue. All the characters are kind of OP, so I guess it works out fine?!

»Watch an anime that is tagged with a genre you dislike: Redline (Cars)
This is a beautiful movie that is completely hand drawn. It looks amazing and I really love the designs. The plot I’m more meh on. The story just didn’t do it for me, and so I had to break up watching this movie over a few sessions. Still any fan of animation should check it out.

»Watch an anime that does not take place primarily in Japan, but is still within our universe: Natsu e no Toira (Door into Summer) (France)
This is the other classic shounen ai (boys love) movie I watched. This one was kind of ehhhh. I had already read the manga but it stuck with me so little that I didn’t even remember until like 15 minutes into the movie.

»Watch an anime that has a main character that is a professional in his field (e.g. doctor, detective): Gokusen (Teacher)
This is another one I wish I had watched sooner. It is a very “me” anime. It is about a young woman who just started teaching but is secretly a Yakuza heir and all her students are delinquents. It is a really cute, light hearted show. The only problem is this is from a time where all anime looked kind of like ass.

»Watch an anime with an archetype as a main character: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Tsundere inverse)
I think there for a while I started to believe in the internet backlash that Haruhi wasn’t that good, I was wrong.

»Watch an anime with a character/setting that you can relate to: Salaryman Kintarou
I can relate to this in the vaguest sense that we both work in an office… It was hard to find anything for this one. This was an anime I was really interested in based on the concept of a former bosozoku (bike gang) leader becoming an office worker. I’ve had the DVDs for a while. It was okay, but in execution it just is kind of uhhhhh. The animation is super assy. The main character is really hard to relate to. It is almost impossible to tell what he is thinking. The main character’s woman being raped is a huge motivation in the story. Oh, she also dies in childbirth and was blind... The story and pacing is a big old sloppy mess. Kind of entertaining but it was pretty disappointing, I was hoping to like it more.

»Watch an anime three-cours (or more) in length (hard): King of Braves GaoGaiGar
I picked this one because I already owned it on DVD. Which the DVDs had been sitting unwatched for a couple of years. It was kind of hyped up as a crazy mech show like Gurren Lagann but it's not. It is a really good mech show for someone who is 8 - 12 though. I still liked it but it was a lot to sit through at 49 episodes. Half the series was dubbed, and it is a pretty darn good dub. But I wish the whole thing had been dubbed, this is kind of the perfect series to watch while crafting or such. Apparently the series didn’t sell well so they didn’t include a dub on the second half. It is a cute fun mech show, that is a bit over the top. I want to recommend it to anyone with kids the only problem is the lack of a dub for the second half.

»Watch an anime adapted from a manga with a score of 8.0 or higher: Assassination Classroom
I’ve been reading the manga for this one since early on. Which is from the same creator as Demon Detective Brain Eater Neuro which is another manga I really loved. This adaptation was pretty good. If you are looking for an action anime with a weird bent to it, this is it.

»Watch an anime adapted from a novel, light novel or video game: Durarara!!x2 Shou
I watched the original Durarara!! for another entry. I enjoyed this second season. I’m watching the thrid now.

»Watch an anime that has been adapted to live action: Bunny Drop
This was another anime that I had read the manga and enjoyed. It is a very cute show, about a man adopting his deceased Grandfather's love child, if you like slice-of-life.

»Watch an original anime: Death Billiards
I started watching Death Parade and found out it was based on this so I had to check it out. Very much like watching a 0 episode of the show. If you like anthologies like the Twilight Zone, I recommend this. Especially this because I am pretty sure it was inspired by the Twilight Zone episode “A Game of Pool.”

»Watch an anime with a score of 7.0 or below: Violence Jack: Harlem Bomber-hen
I knew what I was getting into, but this was just terrible. Damn my need to own every Go Nagai related DVD. *shakes fist at the sky*

»Watch an anime ranked in the top 300: Magi: The Kingdom of Magic
Had already watched the first series so, this was a good chance to watch the second. This was another really good series. It is a fantasy, adventure, with some light rpg elements. It starts out mostly focused on a Middle East setting but it is kind of world spanning. Also, really great fleshed out characters.


»Watch an anime that someone on your friends' list rated a 10: Elfen Lied
I’ve been curious to watch this for a while. I liked it more than I thought I would. The story is pretty strong but a lot of the time what should come off as serious kind of comes off campy. Also, this is from that ass period of time for anime and doesn’t look so hot. Sometimes it looks like everything is kind of jaggy and a gaussian blur was added to cover it up.

»Watch an anime with less than 10k completed members (hard): The Nameko Families
So, this kind of has a weird back story as it is an anime based on a series of cell phone games starring the Namekos, which are from the game Touch Detective. It took me a while to figure that out. It’s pretty cute. I have an odd affinity for mushrooms, so I thought that part was cute. But I liked that there was no dialogue in this. The stories were told through actions and some weird noises the mushroom people made.

»Watch an anime recommended to you by another Anime Watching Challenge participant: Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha.
At first I was like ehh, I don’t know. But I fell in love with this series. It is just super cute and a little silly. I really like how the Goddess character likes to play otome games (dating sims for women). If you are looking for something cute but still a lot of touching emotions I recommend this fully.

»Watch an anime that another user has watched for this challenge: Garden of Words
Much like Oshii, I’m not a big Shinki fan but this was streaming for one day only for World Shinki Day. I enjoyed this more than a lot of his other works, still a little slow for my tastes. But I have to say this is another one to watch for the animation. There are moments where I thought it must be video it looked so real.

»Watch an anime recommended to a title you scored the highest for this challenge (so far): Hotarubi no Mori e/Into the Forest of Fireflies' (Your Lie in April)
I had read the one-shot manga this was based on. That one-shot is one of the best I’ve ever read. This is a short movie, it adds a bit more than the manga but doesn’t drag it out. It is a really cute and touching story, about a girl meeting a forest spirt. Totally worth checking out.

»Re-watch an anime: Robot Carnival
I was going to originally watch something different for this when I picked up Robot Carnival at Otakon. Now, this is going back in time. This one of the earliest anime I have ever seen. There used to be a local UHF channel in Philly that showed a lot of Godzilla, Kung-fu, and anime flix. This was one of them. It still really holds up. It is made up of nine shorts from different directors but all of them are about robots. This new DVD looks amazing. The animation in this is super nice a full 24 frames per second (which is very uncommon in anime). The designs are all super nice (if a bit dated). If you are a classic anime fan and haven’t seen this, totally pick it up.

»Watch an anime that starts with the same first letter as your username: Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040
This was a show where I owned the DVDs for like forever and never watched them. Overall, I liked this show more than I thought I would. I do really like the original Bubblegum Crisis but this was a pretty good remake/reimagining of it. The first half is so-so, but the second half is much more interesting. Also, the animation for its time holds up pretty well. Though you most love 90s bass thumping techno beats or you won’t be able to listen to it.

»Watch an anime that has a non-Japanese title: Death Parade
The series that comes after Death Billiards. Again if you like the Twilight Zone, this is highly recommended. It does have some continuity but a lot of the stories are one-shots. Overall, a good show.

»Watch an anime that has a verb in its title: Black★Rock Shooter
I’ve been meaning to watch this for a while. I had really liked that OVA that had come out and this is more of that. This gets a lot of hate on forums, I’m not sure why. But again I liked the OVA. Cute girls psychological drama?

»Choose a random trope from TVTropes and watch an anime listed under the trope: Durarara!! (The Rest Shall Pass)
I was curious about this series so when it showed up on that TVTropes entry, I was sold. This another series that is really good. This is a series that uses a truly ensemble cast (something I feel you don’t see a lot in anime). It is a bunch of interweaving plotlines (which are told semi out of order) that feature a lot of supernatural elements. Something, I should have watched sooner as this is right up my alley.

»Watch a staff member's favorite anime: The Eccentric Family (Kineta)
This was another surprise show that I ended up really liking. I was vaguely curious after someone talked about it in a panel but I really didn’t know much about it. It is about a family of tanukis living amongst humans in modern day society. There are a lot of wacky hi-jinx but what really holds this together is they mystery of how the family’s father was captured and eaten but a certain club who one of their former friends is now a member of.

Anime Relations: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal, Ansatsu Kyoushitsu, Plastic Memories, Arslan Senki (TV), Ore Monogatari!!, Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works 2nd Season

Anime that I watched this season.

Ongoing

The Heroic Legend of Arslan
Would you be interesting in something like Game of Thrones only with like a 100% less rape? This is it. It is a fantasy story that starts off with low/no magic and magic is slowing introduced over time (still pretty low magic though). There is a fighting/political intrigue over the secession to throne. The character designs were done by the same woman who wrote Fullmetal Alchemist but this was written by the same person who wrote Legend of the Galactic Heroes so it is much more inline with LoGH then FMA. Overall I like it, but this is totally the kind of stuff I do like.

MY love STORY!!!
This show will give you the beatus. I'm not big into romance but this one is just really cute.

Sailor Moon Crystal
It is also most done. I can say it was ehhhhhhh.... I don't think it was as bad as a lot of the flack it got. It's just the older series is so much more charming. Plus, in the older series there was a lot more time to flesh all the characters out where here not so much. I will give Crystal plus points for making Chibi-Usa a lot less annoying though.

Finished

Assassination Classroom
Overall I enjoyed this adaptation more then I thought I would. I tend not to like to re-watch stuff that I've already read. But this was fun and colorful like it should be. It does kind of end in a weird place since it ends in what will most likely be in the middle of the manga. But there will be a second season next year and I will be watching it.

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (TV) 2nd Season
I enjoyed this but it really seemed like at points in this season they were stretching things out to get the episode count they wanted. Three episodes of Arching and Emiya pontificating could have probably been one. Though, one of the most gorgeous anime I have seen.

Plastic Memories
This was the most frustrating of all the shows. Written by the guy who wrote Steins;Gate, about androids that need to be recalled after their 10 year life cycle? I'm in! Only, all the sci-fi stuff is window dressing for a kind of okay romance show. Like early on there are some good emotional moments dealing with the concept of recalling the androids and how they and the humans around them deal with it. But then halfway through this because a straight romance which could have been told similarly with someone having cancer. Felt it was kind of bate and switch and could have been done without any of the sci-fi elements in the end. They were just window dressing but I felt like it didn't serve as much of a point in the last half of the series. After saying all that, it isn't a bad show, just not the one I expected.

Anime Relations: Devilman

Past Panels:

The Perverted Genius of Go Nagai
Otakon 2011, 2012 (18+)

Sugar & Old Spice (18+)
Otakon 2012
MangaNext 2012

Murder, Mystery, and Manga!
Otakon 2008
Anime Boston 2009

Shin Megami Tensei
Otakon 2005, 2007, 2009, 2008
Katsucon 2005, 2009

Anime Relations: Mazinger Z, Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen

In an effort of self promotion I am going to try and update this with a mention of updating my Manga Blog when I updated it, if that makes sense...

Review: Mazinger Z

So, this year at Otakon I ran a panel on the man himself Go Nagai. In doing so, I wanted to catch up on some of his anime and manga works. I managed to watch a ton of (pretty terrible) anime adaptations of his work, but didn’t get around to much manga. I started and recently finished Mazinger Z though. This ending up being pretty interesting because while I had known of Mazinger Z the only related series I had seen was Mazinkaiser and Mazinkaiser SKL. So, I went into this title pretty fresh.

Read the rest here.

Selling some anime and manga on my selling stuff LJ: http://community.livejournal.com/itcamefromhere/

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