Category: Anime

S.W.A.T. Reviews: Spring 2013 Pt. 1

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The premise of these reviews is simple: watch the first episode of a series and then immediately sit down to record a review mini-podcast. The reviews are five- to ten-minutes long and entirely off the cuff. As always we only review new shows (so no sequels or continuations) and try to avoid anything that just looks outright awful. Here are 2 early shows of the new season:

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Listen – Episode 1 of RDG Red Data Girl from P.A. Works with the opening “Small WorlDrop” by Annabel. It is streaming on Funimation and Hulu.

Listen – Episode 1 of Otona Joshi no Anime Time from NHK and The Answer Studio.

Ongoing Investigations: Case #207

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So we enter the final batch of episodes of Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated S2 with 16-17. While I will miss the show I’m glad they were give the chance to end the series in a tidy manner. Plus I feel overall two seasons feels like a good length for the series. While I would have liked more I don’t feel like I was robbed of anything. But we shall see how much those feelings remain when the series is actually over. Until then we have Aliens Among Us and The Horrible Herd.

After a show goes on break it is always nice to transition back into the series as if you had just watched the previous episode last week. Mystery Incorporated transitions from its big “should have been accompanied by an ominous pipe organ” revelation from Theater of Doom with a general mystery that they solve pretty quickly so they can add in some detective work on the overarching mystery.

Aliens Among Us proved that the funny was still in the series as well. Sheriff Bronson Stone seemed to be taking lessons from Giorgio Tsoukalos this episode. Also Scooby seems to imply that he is so frequently asked to dig up graves as part of their investigations that he has become slightly tired of it. Also the fact that the villains of the episode apparently lives in Frodo’s house for no well explained reason is a quick blink and you miss it gag.

Random Trivia: It seems that the GPS coordinates for Gatorsburg would put in a Warner Bros warehouse in Burbank, California which is amusing little inside joke.

The Horrible Herd on the other hand proves that Professor Pericles is playing for keeps (although killer German Stormtrooper robots is not exactly kid gloves.) There were an interesting amount of subtle Aliens homages in this episode. I am curious how much they are going to deal with the fact that a good deal of town was destroyed in this episode or will they mostly just hand wave it away. With this series either scenario is possible.

I glad to see the series is still going strong entering the endgame. I think this is really destined to be a series people look back on and wonder why it did not have a bigger fan following when it was on the air. Its lovely mixture of parody and homage make it far smarter than you would assume at first glance.

Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated how I’ve longed for you!!! Even after a long break, the series hasn’t lost anything. Fred still has the most amazing moments, Daphne is still awesome, and all the mysteries and oddities just keep getting piled on.

Easily the best part in either of these episodes is when Fred and Sheriff Stone have a sleepover because the gang is trying to protect the Sheriff from aliens he believes abducted him. Fred’s insights about love and how the only thing better is traps is full of sage wisdom.

Daphne’s cheese expertise, which I had totally forgotten about, comes back into play when the mass of skeleton-bee-piranha-cows descend on the town.

Throwing in the Space Kook was an excellent nod.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #206

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narutaki I read Akira Toriyama’s one-shot Kintoki. Toki believes he is the last of his clan the Kine known for their fighting prowess. One day while collecting money in town, a girl from Venus helps him, later when she gets in trouble with a local lord Toki rescues her.

It is pretty straight-forward. The battle panels look great which is no surprise. The character designs are just so-so, though I did like the girl’s weird suit. There are dinosaurs and Toki uses a bow so that’s fun to me!

But it doesn’t really feel like a one-shot; it doesn’t come a satisfying conclusion. It feels like the setup for a larger story which a lot of times one-shots are! But I don’t think that was really the goal here.

sep-anime

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is entering the final part of part two of the series otherwise known as Battle Tendency. Since this part is fairly well regarded they have definitely slowed down the breakneck pace they had with Phantom Blood but by the same token they have not drawn out anything out as well. So everything has been moving along quite nicely.

Joseph Joestar is a very different protagonist than his grandfather. He is cocky, brash, street smart, and just more fun that his predecessor. Plus who cannot love when he predicts the next line his opponent is going to say. It always comes off as slick when he does it. Hirohiko Araki does it enough to make it Joseph‘s signature trait but makes sure that the gimmick does not wear out its welcome.

The main villains of Battle Tendency are the Pillar Men and they take already on the nose names like Robert Edward O Speedwagon and brings them to the next level. I mean when you have a vampires named ACDC and Wham you are not playing your cards to close to your chest with your references. But in a way that makes it all the better. While they are still vampires they come off as very different than Dio which is good for the story overall.

Lisa Lisa is probably one of the strongest female characters in the series. It is a shame that not many of the female character in the series really reach her heights until part 6. It is amusing to see how many characters in other series she went on to inspire including Rose from Street Fighter and Iku Nagae. Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli keeps up the tradition of Zeppeli family members who befriend the protagonist and then die horribly. Rudol von Stroheim is probably the only Nazi you will ever root for (but still feel dirty about it.)

The animation is cheap but I have long since accepted that. That is just part of the show’s makeup at this point and no amount of popularity is probably going to change that. I’m mostly just happy the series is being animated in the first place.

I really want to know if they are going to continue onto part 3. They might stop here or as hinted by the trading card game we might get a new version of Stardust Crusaders. I have my fingers crossed. I mean we all want to see D’Arby! again.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Continue reading →