Posts Tagged ‘Monkey High!’

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #079

March 19, 2010

hisuiconIt can be easy to dismiss Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn with “another year another Gundam project” but I am thrilled to see a full return to the Universal Century. Unicorn is so UC you can hardly tell it’s not directed by Tomino. Banagher Links is a student on the colony of Industrial Seven.  He is quickly drawn into a brewing conflict when he helps the mysterious girl Audrey Burne who is trying to prevent a war between Neo-Zeon and the Federation over a mysterious object know as the Laplace Box. At the end of the episode most of Banagher’s friends at school have been killed by the fighting that had broken out, he has found his father just before he died, Audrey and his remaining friends have been picked up by the Londo Bell soldiers, and Banagher himself is piloting the Gundam Unicorn. The animation is luscious and everything is what could only be OVA quality. The fights be they hand to hand or mecha are fluid and expertly choreographed. My only real complaint is other than being totally into Audrey I did not get much of an impression about Banagher. We know that Micott is the inheritor of the Frau Bow legacy of being in love with the main guy who totally ignores her and Takuya is a geek. Suberoa and Marida Cruz of Zeon distinctly make an impression as people to watch. It will be a hard 6 months to wait for the next episode but it will be worth it.

YAYAYAANEWUNIVERSALCENTURYGUNDAMYAYAYA! Okay, now that I got that out of my system, I can happily say that all the hype (that I myself was contributing to) surrounding this OVA release is 100% justified. Gundam Unicorn has all the trappings of the original storyline directed by Tomino, it knows its source material well. Audrey caught me happily by surprise with her determination and courage. Banagher acts in typical UC teenager style and does things seemingly for no reason and falls in love at the drop of a hat, but atleast I didn’t want to punch him! They set up a lot of players for the coming story and rattle off a few tempting names before a spectacular finale. I am completely in love with the modern but 70′s characters designs that are the trend for series with old roots, their simplicity actually makes the series looks even more slick. And that’s pretty amazing because the production quality is on overload with this. I am also enjoying the robot designs with this animation as well, Marida’s Kshatriya makes quite a splash in this first installment. Everything about Gundam Unicorn’s debut episode was exciting and better than I could have imagined, here’s to the rest being as impressive!

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #049

June 26, 2009

Quest for the Missing Girl is a mature manga. Not in the sense that it has cursing, violence, or graphic sex; Missing Girl deals with topics such as missed chances in life, settling down and moving on, relationships between parents and children, and compensation dating. Even compensation dating which could easily be used for a gratuitous sex scene is discussed as a subject of serious weight and importance but is never shown. The story begins when the mountaineer Takeshi Shiga is informed that Megumi, the daughter of one of his old friends, has gone missing. Shiga soon finds himself playing the part of detective in Shibuya, which is just as unfamiliar to him as the mountains would be to most other people. As the story goes on we learn about what lead up to Megumi’s disappearance and how it relates to the lives and decisions of all the other characters involved. Except for the climax there is not much action. In fact, the climax is mostly Shiga VS inanimate object. The draw to this book is as a fascinating character study and tightly plotted one book story. It’s never going to have a huge fan base in the manga community. The story is excellent but it won’t pop for younger manga fans. It is not mature due to excess. It is mature because it’s a well told story which deals with matters that only those with life experience will care about.

I was really glad I had a chance to read Quest for the Missing Girl which is nominated for an Eisner this year. The plot of Megumi missing actually brings to the surface many underlying mysteries in the lives of the characters. The strained relationships also make for thoughtful scenes. This really gives the book a hefty amount of weight that is woven in and out of this not so complicated missing person’s case. All culminating in a daring rescue attempt that is very “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”-esque. There is something very passionate about Shiga who literally comes down from the mountains to find this girl. He isn’t a super over the top seinen hero but Shiga is definitely a manly dude who does some manly things. Jiro’s artwork is far from simple but it isn’t very stylized which compliments the story perfectly. So while on the whole it doesn’t come off as gritty it still seems gaunt at times especially with his way of shading. This book begs to be picked up and read in one swift sitting. Quest for the Missing Girl was my first encounter with manga-ka Jiro Taniguchi and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. So much so that I ordered up a few more of his books immediately.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #036

March 20, 2009

I read books six and seven of Here is Greenwood. Always enjoyable series with just enough realism in the friendships to make the guys seems like people you know. Six is almost exclusively crazy antics while seven finally introduces us to a love interest for Hasukawa. Seven also has a chapter much like Here is Devilwood called Here is Edo. As you may have guessed, it stars everyone in a samurai drama. As always the author’s little comments throughout add as much comedy to the scenes as anything else. Looking forward to finishing this series up soon.  

So I went solo to two anime events around New York recently. Neither of them were enough for a whole report but they were interesting enough to talk about. I went to Spring Fest at Polytechnic. It was a small one day convention. I went to show some love for Subatomic Brainfreeze’s Most Dangerous Anime panel. It was mostly Dave playing Crystal Triangle and  showing some choice scenes from the train wreck that is Gundress. I had only heard of the horror that is Crystal Triangle from AWO but I finally got to see how awesomely horrible it actually was. The audience had a good time MST3King a movie that rightfully deserves it. The theatrical release of Gundress is famous for being released incomplete. It was amusing to see the slapdash job they did to get what was generally a horrible piece of cinema on the screen for the release date. I really liked their little tea room and enjoyed their “mystery flavor” blended tea. There was also a good deal of gaming going on but I would rather be humiliated at playing multi-player games at home rather than humiliated in front of an audience. I was interested in staying for the What The Hell, Game Industry? panel but I had to go to meet someone to see Watchmen. It was basically a large scale meeting of friends from the university than a full-fledged convention. While it was not worth traveling for any great distance, I would recommend it to anyone in the NYC area. Plus it’s a nice, free way to meet other anime fans.

Read book five of Monkey High! It continues to be a wonderful shojo romance that that doesn’t linger on random misunderstandings. I like the pace of the books keeping the moments quick. They have added the idea of a love triangle. However, since Haruna does not seem to be torn between the guys, rather another guy just happens to really like her, it isn’t actually a love triangle. Thank goodness. Monkey High! has done a good job of creating a sweet story about the relationship, not the chase. Looking forward to the last few volumes of this series.

The next day found me going to Anime Day at Kinokuniya. I have to say Kinokuniya events get really nice turn-outs. While this means it is another good place to meet people, it also means that most of the events are standing room only. I came in half way through so I missed out on getting a Soul Eater Key chain. While this breaks my heart I somehow found a way to trooper on. I noticed from Scott’s twitter that those two girls who cosplay Ranka and Sheryl were on the cosplay panel. I finally arrived at two and I mostly only popped in on all of the panels they were presenting. The mixture of having nowhere to sit and having cool things to look at in Kinokuniya  distracted me from the events themselves. After browsing around for a bit, Scott, his friend, and I went to lunch where I discussed why bringing poor Hayate Ayasaki and Nagi Sanzenin into Internet arguments stands against all that is good and holy.

Been keeping up with Rideback this season. After watching episode nine, I still stand behind it being the show to watch from the winter. I have really liked how the pace built over the episodes, slowly moving from school centered to politically centered. It was done in such away as to not jar you. As secrets, plots, and characters are revealed the depth of the world involved is becoming clear. The animation continues to impress as well as the coolness of ridebacks. Instilling in us that we all need one right now.

While at Kinokuniya I made some purchases that were worth mentioning. It seems my prayers to the gods of anime merchandise were obviously heard because they released an all Saber art book. It is pretty good. Not enough fighting Saber to make me happy but enough variety to make me want it in an instant. Of course we have to have a maid exploitation (or maidploitation as I like to call it) picture of Saber and the raciest shot we get was Saber in a tight school bathing suit. I always appreciate the lack of utterly depraved Saber pictures because I would like to show people the art books I own without deep shame. My favorite pictures are Saber on a motorcycle and Saber dressed as Rin. I also got a book of Kido Senshi Gundam-san manga. I will admit I partially got number 4 just because it has Sayla Mass on the cover but I don’t feel anyone can fault me for that. I am very amused by a Gundam comedy series using the Universal Century characters. I noted it was only characters from the original series. Does anyone know if there are plans to do the same thing with charters from Zeta or the UC Gundam OAVs? My favorite section had to be the misadventures of sexy but angry White Base nurse Sayla. Some one has to get to translating this series because it looks priceless. It has smoking Zaku’s and baby Garma. What more do you want. Oh and naked Char. See something for everyone. I also saw an awesome Gundam Heroines book at Book Off. It seemed to be all the Gundam series up to Gundam X. I had already spent enough at Kinokuniya that I decided to hope it was still there the next time I would swing by there. Does anyone own the book? Is it worth picking up?

Rideback is the only show I am keeping up with this season, so this is the pic of the week:


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Ongoing Investigations: Case #022

December 5, 2008

For the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump they released three new special anime episodes on their website subtitled in English. Romance Dawn was the One Piece addition to the line up. Romance Dawn is the name of one of several prototype manga that would influence One Piece. This anime take the version with Silk instead and modifies it to be a part of the current One Piece continuum. Luffy gets separated from the rest of the crew and has to save a village from the pirate Crescent-Moon Galley. It was an enjoyable little filler story. While not amazing, it is an effective little wink to any big fans of the series which I think all of these special episodes are supposed to be. If you already knew that Eiichiro Oda made three separate prototype manga named Romance Dawn then you should have already watched this if you already haven’t.

Read Monkey High! volumes 2 and 3 and it continues to be a sweet romantic comedy that doesn’t dwell on minor miscommunications. The second book has an epically long chapter that the manga-ka talks about at the end, apparently it was for a special issue. The kids participate in a quiz show to much laughter and antics but we also saw a little more of Haruna’s home life and her strained relationship with her father. Also in the second volume there is some hilarious commentary at the end by the manga-ka depicting her reactions to the many postcards she receives. She also goes on to say that she can’t believe girls think Masaru (the main love interest) is cute. Volume 3 deals with the ever popular Valentine’s Day and as usual with this series it results in minor drama and much laughter. Both these volumes have Haruna attempting to communicate that she likes Masaru as much as he likes her amidst their ever meddling classmates. I am looking forward to the next volume, it always puts me in a good mood!

Cobra The Animation: The Psychogun is over the top, pulp, science fiction fun. Cobra is one of those so-silly-it-is-good shows that thankfully never takes itself seriously. Cobra is part bounty hunter, part space Lupin, and part Inspector Gadget. After Cobra wastes three space pirates in the intro he decides to dress as a priest to steal some diamonds. During his flawless heist, pirates attack the museum he is robbing and that means it’s Psychogun time. He eventually saves the sexy archaeologist the pirates are after. He follows her to Mars partially to hit on her and partially to kill more space pirates. Seems fine enough but it’s all the details that are crazy. The archaeologist Dr. Utopia More I like to call Dr. Space Thong. Every woman in the series is dressed in either a bikini or skin tight spandex. That is height of women’s fashion in the future. There is also the pirate commander who is a sarcophagus with arms and legs, flying skeleton robots, and a super stereotypical Mexican space pirate with mustache, sombrero, and bandoleer. Cobra himself has a sexy female android, about a dozen gimmick cigars, and his uberhax Psychogun that puts Megaman’s blaster to shame. Oh and Cobra not only tosses women around he uses Newton’s law of universal gravitation as a pick up line. Good times. I can’t wait for the next one.

I always wait anxiously for the next book of Kekkaishi, so I was very happy to finally get volume 15. At the end of the last volume we saw a small girl and were unsure of her powers. In this book she proves to have a totally cool ability to make friends with inanimate objects and specifically rope in the story. She is then able to have it do things for her and even use it as a weapon. She totally needs to take the place of lame Sen. Along with her, enter some cool villains with the power to paint boxes and make them into walls, portals, etc. We also meet the librarian for the Urukai, lots of interesting characters showing up recently. We also see characters fight that we hadn’t had a chance to yet. In addition to all of that, Yoshimori starts to pull more power into his zekkai and Tokine starts developing more of her ability to manipulate space. They are growing and the questions about Karasumori are coming to surface as well.

The Bleach: SOULs Character Book is a very pretty book. The first part is some very nice colored art and stickers. The second part is detailed character write-ups of just about everyone, locations, items, and concepts in Bleach up to the end of the Soul Society arc with a preview of the Hecto Mundo Arc. There is also an interview with Tite Kubo and Masakazu Morita who plays Ichigo. We then have an original prelude comic and the prototype comic for Bleach. I was amused that Ichigo and Orhime had crushes on each other in the original draft of Bleach. It also has palm sized Rukia for most of the story which is either super silly or super awesome depending on who you ask.

My recent obsession with the Vocaloid phenomenon has sent me to many a great fan artist. I like this person’s overall style and they happened to do a few pictures of the series as well. So this is the pic of the week:

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #015

October 17, 2008

Samurai Deeper Kyo 30 was very Samurai Deeper Kyo. We got some villains named after playing cards thrown at us. I keep waiting for a group of villains named after popular fast food chains. Though we at least get some good back story on Hotaru finally. And with the return of Kyoshiro and the discovery of Kyo’s body we may just be entering the final arc of this series. I am very grateful.

GTO: The Early Years 7 and 8 are entertaining as always. I sort of miss the raunchy buddy comedy of the earlier chapters. The sex comedy parts occasionally appear from time to time to break up the action but it has mostly turned into a Bosozoku fighting manga. I had been waiting see the story of the original Midnight Angel Masaki who is so important in the finale of GTO. Without reading Shonan Junai Gumi it seems sort of random for this character to suddenly be mentioned out of nowhere and then be so important to Onizuka. Now we finally get to see who he was and how he effected Onizuka’s life. This makes his appearance in GTO a cool little nod to those who have been reading Tohru Fujisawa’s works since the beginning. Also man, oh, man could fujoshi go to town on this series if they wanted to (and possibly did). The amount of unintentional homoerotic subtext you could read into the predominately male cast interactions are hysterical if you think about it.

Ah, my shojo love is returning! I mentioned a few weeks ago I was in a bit of a shojo slump but thanks to Mixed Vegetables and now Monkey High! I feel my spirit reawakening! Monkey High! is a very funny and sweet romantic comedy about an unexpected relationship. Haruna has just transferred schools and thinks all the kids at her new school are a bunch of monkeys; they are rather loud and wild. And the ring leaders are best friend duo Atsu (tall, handsome, charming) and Masaru (short, cute, goofy). Now you are probably thinking, “Oh I know where this is going.” But you are wrong! She totally starts crushing on silly Masaru and essentially ignoring Atsu’s antics and advances. Not only that but they start dating before the end of book one. And we are off on a ride of fun, non-angsty, new love. The setting is very typical but the characters are well written and charming. I was also quite relieved to see the problems that crop up in shojo manga, like misunderstandings, not linger on for too long. They were put out there, explored, and resolved in a easy manner. Masaru is hard not to love, he remind me a bit of Otani from Love*Com, but not such a curmudgeon about his height. I’m am excited to pick up the next book in this series.

I read Del Rey’s Phoenix Wright: Official Casebook volume 1 manga. It is not the proper Phoenix Wright manga but a doujinshi anthology much like Galaxy Angel Party. So it is gag stories rather than new cases which I am sure is a disappointment to some people but just fine by me. I always like to see different artists takes on established characters. Plus the stories are short so if you don’t like someone’s art style or interpretation you are on to the next before you know it. I was overall happy and nothing was eye or brain meltingly bad. It is no substitute for a new game but it is certainly not a bad supplement while you wait. Also I am slightly surprised that there was not one appearance of Ema Skye. I wonder if this was produced before she was added as a character in the series. I am also curious if Del Rey ever plans to get the main Phoenix Wright manga. I assume they are waiting to see how well this does before they fork over the cash for the main series.

Finally got around to watching the first five episodes Code Geass and really enjoyed it. It has a great and diverse cast. So much so that I can’t dislike any of them, atleast not yet, and certainly can’t pick a favorite. Lelouch’s descriptions didn’t do him justice, I needed to experience this character. The dichotomy of his personalities is fascinating and at this point he hasn’t killed any civilians. The opposite side of the coin, Suzaku, is an equally good study of the differences in the human condition. They really are after the same things but are going about them in completely different ways. So far I am impressed.

I see why some people draw comparisons between Code Geass and Death Note but it is mostly looking at apples and oranges. They have more that is different about them than in common. It does suffer the Sunrise robot show curse of taking several episodes to get up to speed. I know everyone we were watching with was really only sold on the show after episode three. I feel everyone should give Code Geass a shot to shine or fail on it’s own merits and flaws. I can’t say that I have picked the Lelouch or the Suzaku camp as of yet if I even wind up picking either. If I had to pick anyone to root for it would be Euphemia li Britannia, if for nothing else my predisposition to support girls with pink hair. I did want to watch Gundam Seed just to see what was up with Lacus and if she was cool or not. Euphemia seems like a cool character but she was hardly in it enough for me to make a solid choice.

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