Category: Events

Ongoing Investigations: Case #089

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hisuiconWildstorm sent us a copy of the Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles prelude book. It is a graphic novel that helps link the Robotech TV series and the Shadow Chronicles movie. Rouge officer T.R. Edwards has allied himself with the Invid. Rick Hunter must catch this traitor before he can use his newly stolen technology to strike back at the Earth Forces. The first thing I noticed is that the book has a really American comic feel to it; being a DC Comics imprint and made for American Robotech fans this is unsurprising. Overall the story was nothing objectionable but also immediately forgettable. It seemed mostly for Robotech fans so I felt like an outsider listening to a conversation between old friends to which I was unaware of many points of the undiscussed history. I clicked a good deal more with the characters from the first part of the Robotech saga partially because those are the strongest characters and partially because that is the part of Robotech I remember the most. T.R. Edwards came off as a mustache twirling villain despite the fact that they did make an honest effort to give him some depth. I enjoyed the mechanical designs more than the human and monster designs which seemed bland to me. It was nice to see them dedicating the book to the memory of Carl Macek pretty prominently on the credits page though.

We went to Vertical Vednesday this week which featured the up and coming (and sure to be great seller) Chi’s Sweet Home as well as a look at pet manga in general. Ed even brought along copies of the book for us to peruse which is in full-color if you aren’t familiar with Chi. There is pet manga that stretches back to Tezuka, I urged him to license his dog manga, but Ed felt it really started to get a foothold in the 80’s along side the beginning of josei. And most pet manga today runs along the josei and seinen lines. It was a quick introduction to a small but popular genre, and you’ll be unsurprised to learn cats are the most popular animal. Near the end we also got to take a look at the second book of Twin Spica which I was infinitely more excited about! Vertical Vednesday’s are a relaxed night with the industry making it well worth a short trip.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #087

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hisuiconI decided to check out Real Drive mostly because I was intrigued that I knew almost nothing about the show despite its pedigree. A cyber future anime from Production I.G and Masamune Shirow seems like the type of show everyone should be talking about. I think the main problem people have with this show is two fold. First is chubby girls. All the female characters are full figured to the point that most of them look sort of chunky. I did not have a problem with it but I know that it is like 80% of the reputation of this show. The second is my nickname for the show: Slice-of-Life in the Shell. While there are cases of killer cyborg assassins, man’s relationship with technology, and political intrigue the fact that Minamo Aoi the 15-year-old girl is the main character is a turn off if people wanted the standard Shirow protagonist. One of the stories is even about a ghost at Aoi’s school but what people are mostly going to remember is Aoi and her friends being goofy ghost hunters. Overall the slice-of-life aspects are really high at times so if you can’t stand them there is no reason to even try to plow through to get to the good fight scenes and deeper plot. I had a good time but it’s hardly a show that you must see especially considering how light the story can be at times. I do have to give the show props for making the other protagonist a 81-year-old hacker in a wheel chair. Now that isn’t an overused archetypal anime character.

I got Kekkaishi 21 in the mail earlier this week, I’m glad I had this on pre-order. The last few books have been setting up the many facets of sacred sites being destroyed and then hanging the blame on the Yoshimori’s clan which is causing turmoil in many different sects. Everything is still very shrouded in mystery, few ties of trusts, which is only multiplied by Okuni’s group getting involved. Things really heat up in this volume when Karasamori itself is targeted and as Tokine makes a difficult decision in the battle. We finally get more hints about who and what is destroying the sites and Yoshi among others starts doing some detective work. Yoshi continues to grow in this volume, but there is a little too much of people spelling everything out. And given my dislike for Sen, it doesn’t help that he is digging further and further into his know-it-all attitude even though I can read betrayal all over him. However, Yoshi is able to recognize himself as a person who has to listen to others with the realization that using their knowledge to further his learning is okay. I also can’t help but feel Yoshi is such a misunderstood guy, but he is moving forward. Kekkaishi is also starting to feel a bit more like shonen adventure and even less like shonen fighting than it already does. The battles are good and hard won but they aren’t dominating the plot. I really wish this came out quicker!  Continue reading →

Ongoing Investigations: Case #085

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hisuicon In the Reverse Thieves time-honored tradition we watched Detective Conan Movie 1: The Time-Bombed Skyscraper out of order. Actually we were going to watch the 5th movie but then about 10 minuets into it realized that it was making reference to the first movie. In a somewhat Encyclopedia Brown-style moment the movie begins with Conan solving a case unrelated to the main story. After this intro we soon discover that a good deal of explosives were stolen recently and several acts of arson have been committed. The person behind both crimes tries to contact Shinichi to challenge him to find the bombs he has placed around the city. This felt like a standard episode that was forced to be a movie’s length. The whole affair with the criminal giving Conan clues to where the bombs are mostly seemed there just to stretch the length of the premise. It was an entertaining movie but so far the weakest of the movies we have seen.

The first Detective Conan movie feels like the first. You can tell they don’t quite know what to spend the hour and a half on, the pacing is a bit off, there aren’t enough suspects, and the climatic action happens after the culprit is caught. I find this only a little odd because they had produced very good one hour specials prior to this feature. Though I did find the ending scenes in the skyscraper with Ran and Shinichi (Conan behind a wall using his bowtie voice changer) properly tense and sweet. Since we accidentally knew the identity of the bomber thanks to starting the 5th movie, it is hard to assess whether this mystery was properly difficult to solve. But I think it is one of the few that you can really grasp who it is as well as their motive long before Conan cracks it. There are still a few twists like how the bomber knows Shinichi and what he learns about him and uses in his scheme. This movie isn’t bad by any means but it isn’t especially memorable.

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