Category: Reviews

Violinist of Hameln, It’s sort of an anime.

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Imagine there was a director who read the original Slayers novels and said,”This is good. A really good fantasy adventure. I just wish there was not so much goofy comedy.” Then he went and took out all the breast jokes and the eating gags. Then he just makes the whole plot about Lina and her companion’s quest to save the world from Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo and his horde of demon warriors. Then he took all the characters and did not totally rewrite them but he made them all serious business. That is basically what they did with the Violinist of Hameln. It does not make the Violinist of Hameln a bad anime in the least. It just makes it based on the original work but not a direct adaption. The anime reveals itself early to be a dark fantasy epic that hits the ground running. I suppose it is also one of the only ways to tell a 37 book story in 26 episodes.

Sometimes veering from the original is a horrible mistake and sometimes you get two interesting pieces of work that are individually good. As soon as I read more of the manga I can make my call on that one. I became interested in this show a good number of years ago now. I was looking for something in the fantasy realm. And as most fans know, good anime sword and sorcery epics are few and far between. This is one of those obscure shows with a cult following. It has a quirky gimmick with a very serious and dark plot. Although, in the anime the quirks quickly fade as the story progresses.

Hamel and Flute both grew up in the idyllic little village of Staccato. Hamel is an introverted boy man who carries around a rather large violin and has a talking crow, Oboe, for a pet. Flute is his upbeat and cute friend. One day, Flute stumbles upon an injured knight and tries to nurse him back to health. Eventually the Knight brings major trouble to the village and Hamel is forced to protect Flute on her journey to the capital city to meet Queen Horn and where she can be safe. Along the way they are joined by a pianist, Raiel, who seems to know Hamel and a young Prince, Trom, of the Sword Kingdom. We slowly learn that there is more to everyone in this little adventuring party and that they all play a role in much larger events that will shape the future of everyone in the kingdom.

As you can see, many characters and most places have musical names and the ones that don’t use magical music. I really love the character designs, very extreme costuming and a use of bright colors. This is where a lot of its quirkiness lives. It’s a real contrast to the world surrounding them because everything is dark and mysterious. I think the series constantly juxtaposed things this way. Even the way the story is told, it starts off seeming like a simple story about demons and a kingdom and turns into being a look at moral ambiguity.

I still find that fact that Raiel has a huge R on his hat and carries around a mini piano rather hysterical. I really liked Sizer’s character design although her scythe also has a huge S on it and doubles as a flute.

Hamel wakes up one day to find he has sprouted a horn. Odd. He is a very silent and aloof kind of guy, I know hard to believe in a shonen series. His original objective is to protect Flute but as the series progresses it really becomes a discovery of who and what he is and where he fits into the fate of this world.

Not to give too much away, but I will say that no character is exactly what they appear to be at the beginning at the anime. Things that seem like unexplained plot holes or odd character decision are often explained later in the series and actually make sense in retrospect. Okay, maybe Cornet is not hiding dark secrets but that is mostly because she is sort of annoying so no one wants to include her in sinister plans. I also feel that one of the main themes of Hamel is an examination of love in the romantic sense, the platonic sense, and the familial sense. How much can you love someone despite what they have done in the past and might do in the future? How much are you willing to sacrifice to please the one you love? How much are you willing to sacrifice the happiness of another to make the one you love happy? How much are you willing to sacrifice another person to make yourself happy? Everyone in this series has to answer these questions at some point in the story.

The supporting cast is strong and that is where my favorite characters, in all series, frequently come from. Raiel, who we meet is a childhood friend of Hamel’s and a traveling musician. So he actually uses his magical music for more than fighting foes. I think Raiel is a good character stemming from his constant turmoil from loving and hating Hamel. This becomes more prominent as the series progress and creates moments where you really don’t know how he will react. Then you have mostly useless Flute, the female love interest; all knowing Obo, the crusty badass crow; Trom, the high-spirited, sword-swinger; and Clarinet, the one everyone thinks is annoying but I didn’t really find her so. Also you have have Clairi(net) who is a powerful wizard! I LOVE HIM! He works for Queen Horn who protects the kingdom at all costs. Everyone contributes something at some point and therefore makes for a well-rounded cast.

I seem to remember us joking that Mohinder tended to drop the ball less than Flute who mostly seems to wander around with the party and be nothing more than a plot point for quite a good deal of the story. When she is not being useless she is actively making things worse. She does contribute at several key points in the story so she is not a totally useless character. Raiel is an oddly conflicted character and makes him a wild card in the series. I feel that several of his changes of heart that seem to come rather suddenly and at times a tad bit unexplained. I think most of them in part are related to shifts in dispositions of Raiel in the manga. And I wish we had seen a little more of Trom. He was very important when he was introduced and then somewhere near the middle he seems to appear in every episode but does next to nothing other than at the climax. I’m curious if once again he was supposed to be more important but due to the problems that seemed to plague Hameln’s production. Oboe is just made of manly voice and encyclopedic knowledge. The only huge plot hole in the series is that one even bats an eye about Oboe’s existence as a talking crow. You you think he had the same convenient plot invisibility that Andre does in Rose of Versailles. You liked Clairi? Unpossible. It is not like there are legions of fan girls (and quite a few fan boys) for him. I think you summed it up best with, “The most popular doujinshi pairing is not Clairi and a specific character, it’s Clairi and anyone and everything.” As a side note, I felt that Ocarina was thrown into the anime just because she was a rather prominent character in manga. She could have been easily removed from the anime and it would have had no real effect on the plot.

So, what the hell is everyone fighting against in this series? Well, we really don’t get to know too much about them except they are demons and they want to revive their demonking because he is their demonking! Some of our villains have intricate pasts that weave them into the relationships with the characters and some are just plain evil.

Music is of course a huge part of what makes this series unique and a joy to listen to. Like we mentioned there is magical music and that music is classical pieces played by either the violin or piano. Oboe jumps in to tell you the name of the piece and why it is significant to use at that point in the story. So if you know nothing about classical music, which I don’t, then is both entertaining and educational.

I remember the President of the anime club at college loved Hameln because of all of the classical music. The only sad things is as the series progress I feel that the music becomes less integral as it is in the beginning. Anime needs more series with classical music soundtracks other than Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

I think we have to talk about everyone’s biggest complaint with this show. It is a rather unfortunate thing, but it must be addressed. This series is about 50% (maybe even less) animated, the rest being filled in with still and pan shots. I remember people having a similar complaint of Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, too. Let me tell you, that has nothing on Hameln! I at least take heart that it isn’t poorly animated, it just isn’t animated a lot of the time, haha. While this doesn’t bother me too much, I can see the annoyance. There are times even I am cracking up from the lack of it. Sometimes you wonder, “why did they animate that! Couldn’t you have animated that fight scene more?” So it watches more like an illustrated storybook with limited movement.

Hameln is fine if you go into it with the right expectations. You have to realize that watching Hameln is more like watching a slightly animated manga rather than watching an anime. If you this, you can give in more of a fair shake. There are clearly going to be people who just can’t watch this show. In many scenes they don’t even animate the characters talking; or even try to hide the fact the characters are not moving their mouth’s like in later episodes of Evangelion. This show was obviously not given a real budget but for some reason could not or would not prune down the number of episodes to accommodate this.

This series had me guessing and asking questions from the get go. And I feel a number of things were not fleshed out enough and left me with many more questions but I tend to obsess over minor things that I notice. The over arcing plot and ideas that it was trying to get across were wrapped up with finality but certainly not with the “happy ending.” The play between what is truly good and evil is really explored with compassion. I enjoyed the overall heavy tone of the series that is lightened by its character designs. It somehow made it a little more bearable and less pessimistic. I really do think this series has a lot to offer as a story but as a animated piece it clearly lacks any really luster. So you really have to choose which is more important.

Hameln definitely helps fill in the lack of serious European fantasy anime. Fantasy fans cannot live on Record of Lodoss War alone. I feel the ending would be considered the True Ending or Normal Ending if it were a video game. You finished the game but not everyone got the ending they were hoping for. It was not a BAD END path but not the Good Ending or Happy Ending. All in all I feel that you should at least give the show a shot and see if you can deal with it’s problems and accept it’s original and engaging story.

Oh, and be forewarned that the fan-sub of this show was mediocre and becomes worse as the series goes along. There are even times whole sentences aren’t translated and they use really poor grammar. But it is not UNWATCHEDABLE just laughable at times.

The Rose of Versailles, the manliest man is really a woman!

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I will refrain from just writing, “I love this show!”a 100 times over. But seriously, I do. It combines so many of my favorite elements: history, royalty, court intrigue, and cross-dressing sword swingers! You ever wonder why shojo shows have sparkles around characters? This show is why. So many shojo creators mention this show in their influences. It ‘s historically important to the anime time-line. And that alone seems like a good reason to check it out.

I remember that each member of CLAMP mentioned that Rose of Versailles and Candy Candy were two of the biggest influences on them as children. One side note, neither of those shows got licensed in the U.S. but were breakout hits in other parts of the world besides Japan. If I remember correctly, it was rather popular in France. They did co-produce that Live-Action movie with the Japanese back in 1979. I guess that speaks volumes on how well it was done. If the French liked something that foreigners did about them it must be good. :)

By the way, I am calling this a spoiler-free discussion because nothing about Oscar is spoiled, but that doesn’t mean things known in history aren’t mentioned here. If you know nothing about the French Revolution and the things leading up to it, learn some!

You mean Marie Antoinette does not get a happy ending? I am shocked!

Rose of Versailles in one sentence is: the story of an imaginary cross-dresser who is assigned to guard a spoiled princess, whose antics kill most of the cast.

After having nothing but girls, General Jarjayes decides to to raise his 6th daughter as a boy so he can have someone to carry on the family legacy. General Jarjayes raises his “son” Oscar so well that she is chose to become the body guard for Louis the XVI’s new wife, Maire Antoinette. Since Marie Antoinette is both naive and self absorbed she frequently makes powerful enemies and horrible choices in friends. In fact most of her friends are, if not more, dangerous than her enemies. Oscar spends most of her time foiling the plots of those around her to ruin Marie Antoinette while trying to prevent Marie Antoinette from destroying herself on her own. Overtime Oscar becomes disillusioned with the royalty of France as she sees that their petty schemes and extravagance is slowly killing the French peasantry and France itself.

I think the one sentence description fits perfectly.

I really liked Rose of Versailles for two reason, even before I saw it. The first is that it was major influence on my favorite anime, Utena. Anything that helped make Utena has to be good. It’s a fact. The second reason is a secret reason. Known only to me (or anyone who knows me well enough). Other than that, Rose of Versailles is good for a number of reasons. It has beautiful animation for it’s time and beautiful animation in general. Secondly, it has iconic historical characters that are well adapted to a fictional story, while incorporating solid fictional characters. It also takes characters of minor historical importance and gives them some interesting fictional back stories. I like all of the fictional characters added to the story. A solid cast is vital to a show filled with drama, and melodrama, like this one.

The animation of this series incorporates a lot of different elements. I don’t normally bring these things up but since it is an older show I think it is worth mentioning. There are so many detailed backgrounds and period costumes that it is very daunting to think about hand drawing each and every thing. They use watercolor stills also. It also incorporates dramatic lighting, such as only certain characters being in full color. And I feel they also give you decent combat scenes. While they certainly use the flashes of light or quick cuts, you still see a sword fight. I don’t feel like they skimp on it.

It’s very clear that quite a bit of research went into making this. From what I can tell Riyoko Ikeda has done lots of research for all her historical series. There are some historical inaccuracies but most of them seem to be made for ease of plot or dramatic power rather than any lack of research.

Minus Oscar’s household, almost everyone else who appears, that has an importance to the story, is actually from history. Although, I have read her father is a real General but can find zippo about him. That isn’t to say their plots and whatnot are right out of history, but their personalities are pretty on target. Obviously, some things may be exaggerated for the convenience of storytelling. The Wikipedia character listing does a nice job of linking to the actual historical figures.

I’m sure if we were French or either of us had studied French history some of these more minor characters might be more familiar to us. Well, a lot of liberty is taken with Rosalie Lamorlière because as far as I can tell there is not that much known about her historically. Historically she was a peasant woman who looked after Marie Antoinette before she was executed. In the show she becomes Oscar’s student, and by doing so she plays a part in several rather important events. The real-life Rosalie probably had little to nothing to do with. She is also written to be secretly related to quite a number of major historical characters.

Well, the thing about history and historical fiction is since no one knows everyone and everything involved or that contributed to something, you can make things up without it seeming too unreasonable. So liberties are taken with what went on in their private lives but also in the events of the time. This is why I love historical fiction. The romances are of serious importance (because this is a shojo series), such as the one between Marie Antoinette and Hans Axel von Fersen, which has historically been a point of contingency among scholars. I was also quite surprised that the scandal of Marie being thought to be a lesbian (although untrue) wasn’t more prominent. There is some exploration of shojo-ai in the series, and this would have been an good opportunity for it, especially between Marie and Oscar.

I feel it comes up enough for a kids manga. During Jeane’s trail for her involvement in the affair of the necklace she mentions that her, Oscar, and Duchess Julie de Polignac were Maire Antoinette’s lovers and when she is on the run she writes memories that surely bring up their fictional affair. Marie Antoinette does dote on Oscar enough that it seems like a good avenue for shojo-ai but they mainly stick to the traditional love triangle with Fersen. Rosalie and her sister seem to have less than platonic feelings for Oscar throughout the series.

I think the view of Marie Antoinette is interesting. They really play up the innocence of her actions and also how naive and childlike she is. She becomes a sympathetic character who actual history hasn’t been too kind to. However, when you watch you can trace just about everything that happens back to her selfishness. But that is what happens when a spoiled child becomes the queen of a country.

They don’t pull punches in making you occasionally want to slap some good sense into Marie Antoinette. If anyone gets the short end of the stick, it’s definitely Louis XVI. He appears often enough at the very beginning of the series but soon disappears to the occasional guest appearance.

But Oscar is our main character and a very good one at that. Raised as a boy since birth, and taught the art of fencing and other combat, she comes to a crossroads at the age of 14. She can guard the new princess or she turn back to womanhood (although I don’t think Oscar actually feels that is an option). The only thing I feel is thoroughly unbelievable, is how readily everyone accepts this woman acting like a man. And taking a position as captain of the royal guard. But suspension of disbelief for the stories sake.

Well, I think it was best summed up with the line, “Oscar you more manly than a man.” Oscar is manlier than every shonen fighting lead combined and at least as mainly as Kenshiro or Hiko Seijuro, and that is some pretty high praise. Guts is manlier than Oscar but NO ONE is manlier than Guts.

Yes she is rather amazing. Always chivalrous and brave and beautiful and intelligent and valiant and strong and talented and and and! She puts every male character in this series (and possibly all other shows) to shame. And all of the side characters are enamored with it: Andre, Rosaile, all the ladies at court. That is okay though because I think everyone watching the series is rather in love with her, too.

I did not notice it at first, but you also mentioned several times throughout the series that Andre seem to be able to come, go, and do pretty much what ever he wants despite being a servant unless the story requires him to be restricted in some way. At the same time, they make a big deal about Rosaile having to pretend she is noble to get away with certain things whenever she is around.

The Duke du Orleans is a brilliant villain, never scene without that evil glint in his eye. Historically he was known to always be sticking his nose in everything, always in the thick of it as it were. And this story is no different, you’d think he started the French Revolution completely on his own! Robespierre who? And Jeane, whoa, that woman is crazy! But to be fair, history paints a very similar picture of her. And lets not forget Saint Just, who doesn’t appear till much later. In Rose of Versailles, people who are evil are like the most evilest people ever. Although, they only seem to pop up randomly and then never appear for years at a time.

It’s not like Duke Evil moustache shoots children in the back…oh wait he does. And one bit of advice to anyone living in Rose of Versailles France, don’t ever take on a secret job assignment. The minute you finish a secret job someone pops out of nowhere and kills you to make sure you never talk. Just place a sign in the front of your store stating that you only take public contracts. I feel that the author is a little kinder to the female villains. She tends to try to humanize them and give reasons for the female villains of the show like Jeane and Madame du Barry being as horrible people as they are. The women in Rose of Versailles are just as horribly evil as the men (if not more so) but they are given some sort of motivation for their horrible behavior. The bad men in Rose of Versailles are just bad to the bone because they are bad dudes. She never tries to humanize the Duke Orleans and the Duke Guemenee.

Rose of Versailles doesn’t expect you to be a history buff to enjoy it either. I think you can tell the show was made for a mixed audience, so you won’t feel left behind by anything if your French history isn’t up to snuff. Although, the incredibly obvious foreshadowing can be laughable at times. The is serious time skipping going on, clearly you can’t fit everything that ever happen leading to the French Revolution into a 40 episode series, so a lot of the middle years are cut out. Like when Marie is having children and what not. Also I feel the series has a shift in view from the first to the second half. The first half really has a lot of Marie and Oscar but the second half focuses solely on Oscar.

I feel the first half deals a lot with the politics of the time in the forefront and they make the relationships run in the background; although, they are intimately tied to what is going on. After the affair of the necklace it gets turned on its head and the relationships are brought to the forefront where as the politics are moved to the background. Oscar making a lot of decision involving how she feels about the court and nobles has a lot to do with it. I wonder if Riyoko Ikeda had Oscar drop out of the politics because it was the natural progression of the character or because she just tired of writing about the court.

This show is one of the few really old titles that people constantly call for to be licensed. At every convention, if you go to industry panels, you will hear it asked for at least one time. Japan loves it and so does everyone else! It is really unfortunate that it doesn’t seem very likely to happen or it would have by now. Until someone wrestles the rights away from the manga-ka we don’t have a prayer.

Well, I have the feeling it’s one of those problems where if you could throw enough money at it it would go away. The problem is the amount of money you would need throw at Rose of Versailles to get the licence would probably make it totally unprofitable. It has it’s fans in the U.S. but I’m thinking they want mainstream new show prices for a show that is old and carters to what is a niche audience in the U.S.

Cat’s Eye and Orguss: 2 Golden Oldies

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Why you should buy them! (probably)

I think you should buy them. In fact, I demand you go buy them.

I think we are extremely lucky that ImaginAsia has come along and decided to try this. Classic shows released in the past have done notoriously bad. Not because the shows aren’t good, but fans seem to be superficially obsessed with the way a show looks. I’m not saying style doesn’t matter because there are some things that are so ugly is it hard to look at it. But to miss out on a really good show because of it seems counter productive.

Well, I think a lot of ImaginAsia‘s plan to pick up older series come with the fact that they have a novel distribution system that makes it economical to release niche titles to a niche audiences and still get some kind of profit. First off, ImaginAsia is a cable channel so they can put anything they license right on TV, which is an advantage that most anime distributors don’t have. Then ,they are releasing them on high quality press on demand DVD-Rs. This means they are possibly not as high a quality a disk that has been factory pressed DVD, but the only real difference between the two will been seen 5 or 10 years so I guess we shall see then. For now they see good enough quality.

Since they are so cheap to make, can be made in house, and since they are only distributed on the Internet, ImaginAsia can sell them at a lower price than normal anime DVDs. Also since they are print on demand. They don’t have to worry about a factory filled with thousand of unsold DVDs if a title is unsuccessful. Also since they are going for a niche market, so they’re not spending big bucks on a dub. All in all this seems the best way to see a old anime series that does not have nostalgia factor like Voltron. I wonder if other companies will start to do the same thing if ImaginAsia makes a profit.

But for me, I really love 70’s and 80’s style so the vintage of a show is not really an issue for me. I jump at the chance to watch some older shows. And as such have jumped at these ImaginAsia releases.

Yeah, there are a bunch of really good classic series that could use some U.S exposure. Captain Harlock, Rose of Versailles, and Dirty Pair come to mind right off the bat. There are also some legendary old sports anime like Aim for the Ace, Touch, Attack No. 1, and Tomorrow’s Joe. Some of the greatest hits of anime go unknown in the US because they are old sports shows but are an integral classics of anime in Japan.

I like the way they are released even-though some people take issue with it. Of course, they are subtitle only, which doesn’t bother me since I don’t even listen to the dub track, ever, not even as a test, for most shows. The first disc comes in a thick box that holds all the discs. The box is nice, comes with artwork and all the discs have artwork on them, too. Then each disc after that just comes in a … So you just continually add discs to the big case filling it up. It saves space, is cost effective, and quite frankly is the only way we are ever going to get shows like this in America. And if these releases do well, we can expect more in the future. It would be wonderful to get a lot more classic shows here in the U.S. Especially since Rose of Versailles is part of the TMS catalog. It’s a long shot, but you never know.

Well there is always the rumor that Riyoko Ikeda is super duper crazy and is the main obstacle preventing Rose of Versailles from getting licensed.

I like the boxes and they are pretty nice looking. Most people prefer smaller boxes as opposed to single boxes for each DVD anyway. I mean I don’t even keep most of my DVD cases anymore. I throw all my DVDs in CD notebooks. I need space. Otherwise where am I going to keep all my Saber figures?

Well we can talk all day about what a good distribution idea ImaginAsia has but if the shows stink who cares? Or if you hate the types of show they licensed then why should you care. But I think ImaginAsia picked at least two good series in Orguss and Cat’s Eye. They are very different shows but both have a distinctly fun old school vibe. They have yet to ship me Nobody’s Boy Remi so I don’t know how good that series is.

Orguss is about Lt. Kei Katsuragi is a fighter pilot who is assigned to protect a dimensional bomb set to blow up an enemy space elevator. When the engineering team assigned to detonate the device has to flee as the battle turns south Kei decides that he don’t need no stinking dimensional science PhD to set off a highly complex dimensional bomb. Since Kei is 80’s anime protagonist, and a huge jerk, he sets off the bomb horribly incorrectly. This has a two fold effect. The first effect is Kei is transported 20 years into the future. The other is that he rips time/space in half and mixes dozens of different world together rather unstably. Kei pops out with his transforming fighter and is discovered by a traveling band of merchants. They take him in partially out of the kindness of their hearts and partially because he is an idiosyncratic point. What an idiosyncratic point is unknown to the viewer but everyone in this new mixed-up Earth seem to think one is very valuable. In fact the militant Terram keep sending soldiers to capture or kill Kei because he is an idiosyncratic point. Kei stays with the Emaan merchants because they seem to have his best interests at heart. Oh and because he is a horn-dog that probably has a shrine to Ataru Moroboshi in his room and the Emaan ship is filled with cute girls and sexy ladies.

Orguss is space opera lite. There is a serious plot but the show doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. The main characters are not dark and tragic, at least not so far. Kei is a super-flyboy, jerk as far as I can see with glimmers of sensitivity. But to counter act this, he is slapped in just about every episode. Mimsy being the one doing the most slapping. Mimsy the love interest, although I feel like it is really rushed.

Well, the whole Mimsy and Kei like each other does sort of come out of nowhere. I guess since Kei hits on anything that moves and is female he was bound to eventually get someone who was interested. Mimsy also seems interested because Kei is different and not a super prat like her fiancée Sray (who I’m sure is going to die sometime in the last 5 episodes of the show). I’m sure they will string the romance along by making her go back and forth between Kei and Sray until Sray gets killed.

Plus ,he uses the guaranteed techniques of world famous pick up artist Mystery. Duh!

On the Emaan side, there seems to be a lot of women in high ranking roles, which is nice. Most of the ship is female. They have a female captain and their best pilots are also female. I wonder if this has to do with their society. But of course Kei is just way better than anyone. Although, this sort of makes sense considering the Emaan society are merchants.

Well, a large female casts with leadership roles lends itself (but does not guarantee) some strong female character roles. The captain Shaya seems capable so that is something. Maaie and Lieea are somewhat more cutsey but seem decent at supporting Kei. I remember reading on Anime Jump that someone theorized that if Orguss was made today it would be a harem show and all the girls would love Kei.

I guess I can see that, but I don’t really think it would have to be. Thank god this is not a harem show, sorry people. I also really like Muum, the little girl robot. Her first appearance is the first time we see Kei seem to care about anything. He dots on her like a little sister. I see her as a super-adorable R2D2 that fixes his ship and gives him information.

Well, having watched the second disk she does sort of slip into proto-moe. She definitely has a crush on Kei but thankfully Kei does not seem to be a robo-pedo.

Why, why!?

Because Moe had to come from somewhere.

Cat’s Eye is one of those shows that you just have to roll with. The premise is so outlandish that you have to be in it for pure entertainment.

Hitomi, Rui and Ai beat Superman in the worst attempt to hide someone’s secret identity. These three lovely ladies run a little cafe called the Cat’s Eye by day. By night they are the notorious cat burglars called Cat’s Eye. They steal various pieces of art and always leave a calling card. They always steal pieces of art that had been part of their father’s collection before it was broken up after he disappeared. They hope by collecting pieces of their father’s collection they will find some clues as to what happened to him.

And they also where outlandish outfits! Like roller skates and bright colored scarfs in combination with their jumpsuits, I swear they look like they are going to a roller disco. They also have access to everything ever, ever. Planes, boats, all sorts of equipment. I suppose all of that cash from the art their father collected keeps them going, as running a cafe probably isn’t raking in the money. But then ya gotta wonder why the art was sold and now they are stealing it back? Where were they that they didn’t inherit it?

Then there is Toshio, Hitomi’s fiancée, frequent visitor to the Cat’ Eye cafe, and the detective assigned to stopping Cat’s Eye. Obviously Hitomi is dating him for his gentle compassion and rugged good looks not for his common sense or stunning intellect.

It is so hilarious! Especially when he takes people who need his help with Cat’s Eye to the Cat’s Eye cafe to discuss their plans!

The show seems rather episodic with the women from the cafe lining up another piece of their father’s collection, them doing prep work, them pulling off the job, and then how they get away.

This seems to be a popular method for caper shows. It makes sense and allows the series to continue for a long time. But it also makes me want to watch it in spurts as opposed to straight through. Once again that isn’t bad but it is a different experience. There is an over-arcing plot but for the most part I could watch it once a week and grasp what is going on. And if there ever is something I need to remember, they will probably remind me of it when it comes up.

From what I understand in 37 episodes in the first season and 36 episodes in the second season we only get real answers from the manga. Japan really seems to like formula shows like Lupin and Conan. They were definitely made to be watched once a week and if you missed an episode you would be fine tuning in next week none the worse for wear.

I found both shows to be entertaining and full of 80’s charm! Not to mention music. They are both fun and don’t take themselves to seriously, which I can appreciate. With both a good price and a good quality release they are a great buy. I am definitely going to continue to purchase these shows and look forward to other releases from ImaginAsia.

I also really hope this works out for ImaginAsia because I just keep dreaming about what other awesome older shows they could get from TMS.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Innocent Venus
Reading Spiral
Listening to Adrift ~Sky Hurricane~

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Le Chevalier d’Eon
Reading Yotsuba&!
Listening to Jungle P by 5050