Category: Anime

Ongoing Investigations: Case #119

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The last episode Gundam Unicorn left us with not so much a cliff hanger as a short pause before the crescendo that is the battle that opens up The Ghost of Laplace. While we get some conversation and character moments this episode is mostly a series of battles. Thankfully these battles are story relevant as opposed to lovely but time-wasting mecha porn filler. The battles are as engaging as they have been in the past although we don’t get much action out of Full Frontal. He mainly seems to be doing the Char the Manipulator not Char the Action Rival shtick this episode. We learn quite a bit about Marida Cruz and how she ties into previous Gundam material. We also get some mandatory Newtype nudity and trippyness as is a UC Gundam tradition. I did realize at the end of the episode that my Snarky Reductionist Theater title for the show would be Mobile Suit Gundam: National Treasure. It seems the main plot shall be Banagher Links pretending to be a calm version of Nicolas Cage as he goes around the historical sites of the Gundam universe solving puzzles that will unlock Laplace’s Box as he is chased by agents of various secret societies.  The end of this episode will seem VERY familiar to anyone who has seen a good deal of Universal Century Gundam but it continues the tradition of getting the audience excited for the next episode of Unicorn which is important in an OVA series like this.

I watched the short animation Out of Sight from Taiwan by recommendation from Twitter. It features a little girl whose bag is stolen, her dog then chases down the thief leaving the girl on her own searching the city for him. This is a brilliant piece of work incorporating all five senses in order bring the world to life. The design is stand-out while the little girl wanders the city as it comes in and out of focus. Beautiful, sweet, excellent.
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The OVA Reborn?

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The OVA market was a unique canvas for exploration within the anime industry. They allowed the industry to sell directly to the consumer with a nice markup. This let the industry do experimental projects that would either be rejected from a TV broadcast because they were either to racy, niche, or experimental to be viable. It also let the studios put more time and effort into their productions as they were freed from the demands of a weekly schedule. There were good deal of OVAs made that were both spectacular and horrible but many of them might not have been made any other way. It was propped up by the fact that the single episodes were expensive but hopefully you got what you paid for. But all good things must come to an end. A mixture of piracy, complacency, and competition from other media markets have reduced the OVA market to an oddity. A simple look at the Spring 2011 release chart shows that most OVAs are nothing more than extensions of existing shows. The question is what can take their place?

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Gosick #010: The Blue-Handed League

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Kazuya has been abducted like he was Princess Peach but his kidnappers might not be as sinister as we suspect. While Kazuya knows that there are foul deeds afoot at the Jiangtan department store he needs solid evidence of wrongdoing to stop their heinous operation. Victorique has a plan to make all the pieces of the puzzle com together and shine a light on the truth.
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