Category: Action

Gunslinger Girl: IT IS SO SAD

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 2011 lulled me into a false sense of security. Metal Fighter Miku was far from the best anime I ever watched but it was not horrible. In fact we loved episode ten. And we actually had to CHOOSE between that and Rune Soldier. It was so nice to participate in secret Santa and not make it into Sophie’s Choice when we decide what to watch. This year sadly was a return to the normal grind we have with secret Santa.

Our choices were Kaiba, Mysterious Girlfriend X, and Gunslinger Girl. There was a palpable sense of dread between Narutaki and I when we were trying to pick which of the three shows to watch. Kaiba was out because it would have meant the Kickheart diehards would have won and that is like letting the terrorists win (also WE watched an episode of the series in the past and were colossally turned off). Narutaki could not watch Mysterious Girlfriend X partially for personal reasons and partially BECAUSE PEOPLE LICKING EACH OTHERS SPIT IS DISGUSTING. So all we were left with was Gunslinger Girl. We had already read the first three volumes of the manga so in a way we were going over territory we had already crossed. But this let us see if the anime did anything different that might let us enjoy it more. Also we had already been bitten by this snake so we hoped we would be slightly more immune to its poison.

I had read a bit of the manga for Gunslinger Girl a while ago so it wasn’t too big of a deal to retread the ground with the anime. But I didn’t enjoy the manga so I wasn’t very enthusiastic.

Everything I said about the manga ends up going for the anime as well: some politics and plots are interesting but isn’t the focus enough of the time; the girls lives are so so so sad that I stop caring almost immediately; and it has a tendency to be quite talkie.

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Your Fate is Mine to Decide

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UCHUU KITAAAAAAA!!

While I am hardly Mike Dent when it comes to tokusatsu I do keep my eye on it. So when everyone was talking about how cool Kamen Rider Fourze was I had to check it out. It turns out they were right. It is pretty out of this world (thankfully I do not constantly make puns like that in the podcast.) When the series was about half done Patz from Insert-Disc mentioned we had to get together and do a podcast on this. We then teamed up with Dave Cabrera as he was periodically talking about the series on his own blog, Subatomic Brainfreeze.

In the premiere episode of the Cockpit podcast we discuss exactly what makes Kamen Rider Fourze so darn super cool. We also go into a bit of the general Kamen Rider franchise as well as the newest entry called Kamen Rider Wizard. So if you like Kamen Rider, tokusatsu, or just campy but awesome things in general you just might want to check this out.

“Space…a wondrous world, filled with infinite cosmic energy. Using the Astro Switches, these young people will open the door to the future of space. Space on your hand! Reach out and seize the universe!”

The Cockpit – Episode 1 – It’s Space Time!

Mardock Scramble the Second Compression: Eggs Sunny Side Up and Poker Chips Down

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Old hippies may ask, “Where have all the flowers gone?” but old anime fans ask, “Where have all the cyber punk anime gone?” It seems like one of those genres that occasionally still appears in anime but overall has faded away from the general milieu. Some elements of the genre have permeated their way into the rest of the medium and that is all that is left of it. But on a rare occasion you do get a full case of the real deal. For the longest time the only stand out examples were any entries in the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series but recently the Mardock Scramble movies have come along to round out the roster a bit.

We did not talk about the first movie as a unified effort. Narutaki saw it way back in 2010 when she caught a premiere at the NYAF but I did not see the movie until I watched it on Hulu in December of last year. So if your intimately curious you can go back and read our brief reviews there. Sufficed to say we both enjoyed the movie as a return to the combination of sex and violence with brooding philosophy that was the hallmark of so much 80’s OVA anime. We included it on our “New Anime for Older Fans” panel for a reason. But is this the Empires Strikes Back or The Matrix Reloaded for the series?

I’ve had to wait quite a while to see the conclusion to one heck of cliffhanger in Mardock Scramble the First Compression. Seriously guys, it was just plain mean. So understandably there was quite a bit of anticipation for this next part in the series.

Mardock Scramble the Second Compression gives us that closure as well as opening up a slightly wider look at its world.

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