Category: Reviews

Guin Saga (#2-5): The Marches Episode, Hungry like the leopard.

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Well done serial adventures like Flash Gordan and the Lone Ranger work best if they are addictive. They should engage the audience in a way that even after giving you some amount of resolution keeps you coming back again and again. Guin Saga is no exception to this rule, the first book tells a complete story but it is a very small piece in the grandiose epic of Guin discovering who he is, what he was meant to do, and being totally awesome while he does it. The next four books keeps up the constant forward momentum of Guin and his companions in the next leg of the journey. When you finish one book you will often be surprised how quickly you find yourself wanting to move on to the next.

Once I got my hands on the rest of the Guin books released from Vertical, it was a short time before I was finished and wanting more. We decided to review the rest of the Marches Episode of Guin together because a lot that is going on is very transitional especially in the second and third installments. This is by no means a complaint or a determent to the series, it is just a fact in a multiple volume story that some books will fall into this section of moving the story along without having any huge incidents. However, Kaoru Kurimoto is able to keep you on your toes the entire time with a rapid pace and varying points of view.

Like an good serial adventure we ended with our heroes in mortal peril (i.e. jumping into the churning waters of the deadly Kes River) after escaping the castle of the Black Count. They obviously survive the fall and soon find themselves with Istavan Spellsword running into the twisted wasteland known as Nospherus. Guin and company soon find themselves between the monstrous denizens of Nospherus and a large contingent of Mongauli soldiers led by the beautiful Lady Amnelis. Guin must find a way to marshal the inhabitants of Nospherus to drive off the army intent on killing them all, taking the twins of Parros, and annexing the wastelands. Guin is outnumbered and outgunned but he’s Guin, fate would not have it any other way.

It becomes quite clear as our band of heroes makes their escape from the Monguali army that Nospherus is a hellish place. However, as they start to understand it, they begin to use it to their distinct advantage with the help of the Sem barbarian tribes. Even though Guin is on the side of the Sem (and really all the inhabitants of Nospherus) it is always an uphill battle that requires cunning, supreme strategy, and a bit of fate’s guidance. The final battle still had a lot of surprises in store and while the overall outcome was what I expected, getting there and what was sacrificed was not. Once again the storytelling of Guin Saga really shines when it can lead you to understand characters but not predict the entire story to follow.

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Gundam 08th MS Team, Can love bloom on the battlefield?

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When NYAF announced that Tomino was coming we decide to try to watch as much Gundam as we could before he arrived. Since the original plan was to watch all the Universal Century series in chronological order this meant we had three Gundam OAVs to get through before we could move onto the next major TV series directed by Tomino, Zeta Gundam. I knew that different people liked different OAVs for different reasons so I was eager to watch them all as see which ones clicked with me. The two main selling points on 08th MS Team for me were realism and a good love story.

Since I really started to become a Gundam fan I have heard basically mixed opinions on every single iteration of the franchise. No one seems to completely agree on anything so really who knows what expectations to take into any of these shows! I can’t say I was any more or less curious about 08th Team than anything else on our plates. Nevertheless I went into 08th MS Team full of excitement and vigor, luckily the show kept me feeling like that throughout.

While Amuro Ray was still fighting during the One Year war there were countless other stories going on. One of those is the story of Shiro Amada a young Federation officer who came down from the colonies to help Earth fight the land war against the Zeon. During his trip to Earth he saves a fellow Federation officer in a underpowered Ball. Although he survives the encounter he strands himself on a derelict spacecraft and encounters a beautiful Zeon pilot named Aina Saharin. After they are forced to help each other escape, there is an undeniable bond between the two of them. Once on Earth, Shiro is assigned the commander of the 08th MS team and finds that his fate is tied to Aina who is a test pilot for Zeon’s newest mobile armor super weapon. Both Shiro and Aina must decided what is more important. Is their love doomed to tragedy when they are on opposite sides of the war?

Shiro’s new team isn’t exactly well loved and with a constant rotation of commanders people start placing bets on how long Shiro will last. And unsurprisingly this land war disrupts civilian life in the region as well. Because of this the 08th Team often finds them selves allied with a group of guerrilla fighters who live in the jungle region. While these guerrillas have no love for either side, they see as Shiro comes on the scene that they are the lesser of two evils for now. As for the flip side, we don’t see too much of the goings on as far as Zeon goes. We know there is a big, secret weapon. Though of course Aina is shown on some frequency both pining away for Shiro and also becoming increasingly wary of the project she is involved with. Most notable about this series is its focus away from the battles and robots. That is not to say that they are unimportant, but rather much more emphasis is given to the growing friendships and relationships on and off the battlefield.

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Animal Treasure Island, Shiver me timbers!

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We usually stick to talking about things we love because not only we like the stuff but because it lets us write better reviews. Nothing gets the reviews flowing on to the page like something you love. But sometimes we find some unique and interesting enough but perhaps doesn’t fall into the love category. They might not be as good as the things we love but for one reason or another they are so fascinating they have to be talked about. This vintage anime movie has many unique oddities worth discovering and examining if you are interested in the roots of Japanese animation.

There are many different ways to approach a work and for the most part we tend to put a lot of emphasis on characters, their development, and the relationships presented. However, those are not the only things that we can appreciate and they are not the only things that can give a work merit. For Animal Treasure Island we take on something perhaps we rarely do here on the blog, we are looking at style and direction and its context in anime history.

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