Month: April 2009

Ongoing Investigations: Case #039

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I just got the third hard cover special edition of Black Jack. It’s Black Jack therefore it is awesome. As with any episodic series you will have you ups and downs. Some stories are amazingly powerful or stunningly cool. Other are quickly forgettable or even downright uninteresting. I have yet to see a bad review of a Black Jack book and you won’t see one here. The real question is whether or not the limited edition is worth the additional eight dollars. They are but there is no reason to pay through the nose when they become rare. The hard covers are well designed and you get a little hard to find bonus story in each book. But the extras stories aren’t that amazing if you have to pay a lot more to get them. Black Jack as a whole is worth what ever you have to pay to get it but there is no need to get crazy. And unless you can’t get over Osamu Tezuka’s old school art style, there is no reason not to go out and read Black Jack.

I am slowly going through all that CMX has to offer by manga-ka Nari Kusakawa. I read the first book of Palette of 12 Secret Colors. It is about an island that houses the most beautiful birds in the world. Along with them they train wizards (called palettes) who use the birds’ bright colors to change ordinary things, like cloth and rocks, into precious treasures that are sought the world over. We follow Cello, a wizard in training, who is anything but ordinary. Her magic doesn’t work like anyone else so she has a hard time learning the basics (she is so bad she has been held back a year in school) but her unique abilities get her into some interesting situations. Cello is a great lead, she is positive, funny, and easy to love. Dr. Guell, who is obviously the love interest, is blunt but funny and caring, so much so you can’t help but root for these two to come together. It continues to show her ability to weave fantasy, romance, and a little comedy into a charming combination. This series is after Recipe for Gertrude and you can really see her art style becoming more refined. I am looking forward to getting the rest in the series.

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Gundam 0079, Whoops! Sorry I beam-sabered your girlfriend!

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Gundam. That is a word that means so much to anime fandom in Japan. There were realistic robot anime before Gundam but almost every real robot show after Gundam either borrows from Gundam or goes out of its way not to be Gundam. I have watched most of the recent Gundam series but I have always wanted to see the origin. Every other part of the franchise has in some part paid homage to its founder. Anime of all genres have made reference to the series. Revered by many fans as the pinnacle of the franchise to which all later iterations are mere hollow shadows. It is required viewings for anyone who wants to fully understand what anime is all about. So here we go. We shall try and tackle one of the giants of anime once again of for the first time.

With the 30th anniversary falling in 2009 it seemed appropriate and also a solid reason for me to finally sit down and watch the series that kicked off a franchise I am coming to enjoy more and more. To be honest, I never really felt comfortable calling myself a Gundam fan, and have refrained from doing so, until I watched the beginning. So now that I have solidly planted myself in Gundam history I plan on watching more of the grandiose back catalog of shows because original Gundam is as good as boasted. I’m not sure if you are reading this because you want to know if you should watch original Gundam or if you have already watched it and just want to know what we thought, but either way it should be interesting!

Gundam 0079 starts in the middle of a most horrific war that will become a mainstay of the franchise. Several space colonies lead by the principality of Zeon have declared bloody independence from Earth. Due to atrocities on both sides, half the population of humanity has been wiped out. Gundam begins during a lull in the fighting. Amuro Ray was just a nerdy kid into electronics on the orbital colony Side 7 until the day that the Zeon forces, lead by the mysterious ace pilot Char Aznable, attacked the colony. During an attempt to steal the Federation’s newest technology, Amuro winds up defending the newly created battleship White Base with the revolutionary robot called Gundam. When most of the command staff of the White Base is killed in the raid civilians, low ranking military personnel is forced to man the ship. So a team of mostly untrained survivors must try to get the most highly sought technology back home to Federation controlled territory. What effect will this untrained crew have on the war? Who will survive?

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #038

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Caught up with the English release of the D.Gray Man by reading books nine through twelve. We get fully into the new arc which includes a big transformation for Allen. This also starts really dealing with who the Noah and the Arc are. The intensity seems to have kicked up which didn’t seem possible! There are some major battles with some major deaths. The art has fully evolved and it’s striking and well done. It feels like I have an affinity for shonen fighting that doesn’t get as much attention and this is one of those titles that gets overshadowed.

Since Narutaki and I are trying out a three month subscription to Crunchyroll, I decided to take a test drive a few series. The first series was Gintama. Gintama always interested me just for its odd premise. A comedy series set in a Edo era Japan that has been visited by aliens and forcefully made to open up to these invaders echoing actual Japanese history. Being set in this period can only mean one thing: Shinsengumi. The Shinsengumi are not main characters but they seem rather important to the overall plot. Gintoki Sakata, Shinpachi Shimura, and Kagura take odd jobs but otherwise live in poverty. The first two episode drop you right into the action with the main cast already acquainted which threw me off. However, It works well for an episodic comedy like Gintama. It is a quirky and amusing but never really made me laugh out loud. I like Kagura because she is so delightfully horrible but rarely malicious. Unfortunately, she happens to be one of those “lets make fun of the Chinese” characters the Japanese love. Can’t say I want to rush out and watch more but I would watch it at say an anime club or with a friend.

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