“The most useless are those who never change through the years.”

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Spoilers for Claymore manga and Gundam 00 season 1

Poor Raki from Claymore has fallen into this chasm of despisement along with Saji and Lousie from Gundam 00. There are surely more to be told of but these three have been on my radar of late. Oh, how short-sighted of you people!

Let us first examine the youth known as Raki. He is maybe 14-years-old when he and Clare first meet and start their wandering together. Clare sees a part of herself and who she once was in Raki and their bond becomes extremely important. What makes Raki so significant is that there isn’t a story without him. Clare would have awakened in just a few chapters and there would be nothing left. Even putting that aside, Clare’s character growth hinges on this boy. Really, Clare is not so interesting in the beginning. She starts to become an interesting, multi-dimensional character thanks to her continued interactions with Raki. Raki brings some of her humanity back to her. That humanity is what moves her to question what the Claymores purpose is and to find out the secrets of the Awakened. Raki is a young boy, who starts with zero experience with a sword, not to mention they are fighting demons that even Clare has trouble with. I cut the guy some slack! The writing was on the wall that Raki was going to grow up and be a warrior. He wants to be Clare’s equal at the very least and at most he wants to protect her like she protected him. Lo and behold he comes strutting into town in recent chapters tall and handsome with Claymore-like armor, a broadsword on his back, and some unaccounted for years. He dispatches a Yoma with surprising skill and ease. Rather a far cry from the defenseless boy we once knew. Take that haters!

Saji and Louise’s story was actually a highlight for me while watching the first season of Gundam 00. They were shown in almost every episode for varying periods of time, sometimes even for just a moment. I laughed and smiled watching these two young people dealing with such normal things like school, parents, and dating. It was desperately sad to see Louise lose her parents and be in the hospital with her own injuries; to see the anguish in Saji when he didn’t know what to do for her; and to see him give her that ring only to have her reach out with only one hand left. It was touching and moving, even thinking about it now. Theirs’ is the only story that is about civilians, how this war affects the common person. It was great to see such a different perspective because these two kids get pulled into something so much bigger than themselves. They are the innocent people that are tragically affect by all of the political war mongering and finally thrust into it themselves. This was a wonderful lead up to what promises to be an interesting tale. If Saji and Louise showed up for the first time at the beginning of the second season and we saw their background in quick flashback people would be calling BS all over the place. A lot of their history is tangentially related to the rest of the cast but it all just coming together now.

You have to give characters a background, a story, a life to grow from. If all of these people just appeared when they were finally “useful” they would have no significance to the audience. People would be calling foul left and right on them. I am certainly not saying that no character is useless, oh there are plenty, but I feel like people throw it around so much it splatters on everyone who isn’t a seinen hero! I enjoy those types of characters, don’t get me wrong, but I have a wide range of people I like to watch. So I think it is important to step back and look at the bigger picture. Their lives are connected and there are reasons they are appearing on our screens. I’m not saying you should like these characters (thought I do) but they are far from being useless in these stories.

Top 5 Minor characters who are awesome and useful
5. Mei Ling (Card Captor Sakura)
4. Ozma Lee (Macross Frontier)
3. Wataru Tachibana (Hayate the Combat Butler)
2. Ensei Ro (Story of Saiunkoku)
1. Urahara Kisuke (Bleach)

*title quoted from J.M. Barrie

Ongoing Investigations: Case #014

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I picked a DVD of the first 11 episodes of the Cyborg 009 TV series from 2001. It is fun and certainly exudes the action combined with gag comedy dynamic popular in the 60’s and 70’s. It makes me long to see the myriad of other animated iterations it has had. It also had an ad card in it for the TokyoPop release of the manga. Which is seriously out of print. 70’s is probably my favorite era for character designs so it makes me sad how little it is appreciated.

I finally started the second GaoGaiGar box set. It start off with the finale of the Four Healy Kings arc. Of course this means the Four Kings finally enact their dastardly final plan and actually take to the battlefield in person as is giant robot tradition. In fact, I would go as far as to say this is giant robot law. They send Go Nagai to your studio to Rocket Punch your staff in the face if you do not adhere to this sacred law. It’s good classic fun and I can’t wait to see what they pull out after this. I am sure it will involve guts and courage on the behalf of the Gutsy Geoid Guard. Also on a side note my roommate has a bizarre crush on Pizza. Which is very odd but what can you do but accept it and move on.

Watched Chocolate Underground up to 12. They have been starting to skip parts of the story, and it takes a little time to get oriented to it. I still like the satirical nature of the story and its portrayal of authority as stupid. Certainly keeps the feel of a young adult novel. But as we near the end, it is getting too rushed.

I’m not sure what my favorite anime podcast is, but I can easily tell you that my least favorite anime podcast is the Weeaboobies. I saw a link to their site off of Destroy All Podcasts DX. Since I enjoy DX I figured if they took the time to post the Weeaboobies podcast it was hopefully tolerable. I was slightly wary with the name Weeaboobies but I had hopes that they were an interesting all girl podcast despite their 4chan-like name. This was not the case. They are an extremely annoying all girl podcast. After their review of The Story of Saiunkoku I knew they were this blog’s eternal enemy. They are free to dislike The Story of Saiunkoku as long as they defend their opinion in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. The review of Saiunkoku seriously made me wonder if we watched the same anime based on the amount they misinterpreted the show or blatantly got facts about it wrong. The rest of the podcast was not nearly as annoying but it was still grating on my soul. I just have a feeling that an all girl podcast will catch on and the Weeaboobies will be Internet celebrities and special guests at cons or on other good podcasts. That is the day the Internet dies a little bit more (than it already has done dozens times before).

I normally stay away from talking about things I don’t like because I don’t want to draw attention to it. But I think in order to understand how bad this Weeaboobies podcast is one must listen though I did not make it to the end. I don’t expect intense research necessarily for all reviews but I dont think I’m asking too much to get the amount of episodes correct. I find it doubly necessary that the reviewer have actually watched the show to give me an opinion on. Shurei goes to the castle to encourage the king to take his responsibilites more seriously. She did not go to be a slut and get pregnant. Funnily enough Shurei and Ryuuki share maybe a handful of kisses in the entire first season. Shurei also wanted to be a court official from the moment we meet her, it did not happen all of a sudden after episode 9. It seemed like they set out to not like the show anyway so I’m not sure why they bothered watching it.

Time Hollow is a fun but very short puzzle adventure game. I beat it with casual playing over the course of a single week (which did include a round trip bus ride from New York to Providence). I feel it almost plays and feels like a visual novel more than an adventure game but there are distinct puzzles that separate it. They Americanized all the character names in the port so I know that will turn off some purists but it was not unforgivable. It’s mostly a fun time manipulation adventure with a psychotic serial killer thrown into the mix. It was a good game for someone who does not want mind-wracking or super obscure puzzles. I never was stuck for too long at any point but I also feel that it will turn off anyone look for a real challenge. They also sprinkle a good deal of short little animated sequences by AIC throughout the story.

Watched my friend play some Y’s Book I from TurboGrafx16. Do you know how you kill monsters in that game? By running into them . . .a lot. It was very amusing. Though the production values for art and music are pretty high for an old title like this. Which makes me wonder if they just ran out of money to make the guy look like he was swinging a sword while running over those creatures. Has anyone watched the anime of this franchise? I know there at least 3 OVA series of it.

NYAF 2008 A Walk Through Artist Alley

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GUEST REPORT BY SKEITH

As I’ve been going to cons over the past half-decade or so, my reason for doing so has changed. Originally, I was there to gaze at the cosplayers and meet people that (gasp) actually shared my interest for this niche entertainment. Eventually I graduated to actually cosplaying. With that out of my system, I settled down and now spend most of my time at panels or Artists Alley.If I could, I would probably spend the entire day at an Artists Alley, talking with the many interesting people who come from far and wide to set up shop. But that was not possible at the New York Anime Fest, not only because the alley closed with the dealers room, but because there were several things it lacked to make it an immersive place.

For starters, the podcasters’ alley, which complimented the AA quite nicely last year, was not present. I thought there was a good flow, going from one group to the other, since they are both amateur mediums and they both are groups that seem to be just as interested in sharing their art as they were selling you something.

Also, there seemed to be a short supply of manga and comics in the alley. Ever since I first stumbled upon “Directions of Destiny” at Otakon several years ago, I make it a point to purchase at least one book from each alley I visit. Though the pickings seemed to be slim here. Only about four or five tables actually displayed a manga or comic prominently, and of those only 2 caught my eye for a deeper look. One was a colorful comic-strip with fantasy characters, and the other one was a Suikoden doujinshi which gets my attention by default.

Being able to engage the artists in conversation is probably paramount in importance to making a great Artists Alley. Otakon makes for the best alley because it’s so large and the visitors are spread out; that lets you talk more easily. NYAF’s alley lacked size, and that means the artists were flooded by lookey-loos. Even though most of the people weren’t actually buying anything, it was hard to engage any of the artists in a conversation for long, let alone ask for a sketch after I bought their stuff.

None of this is to say that the quality of the art was anything but great. While the overall size was smaller, the ratio of good to mediocre artists was better than anyplace I’ve been to before. There was a fairly wide variety of art styles as well, from gritty western comic styles to super-shiny eastern ones. I was also embarrassingly gleeful at finding several great pieces of Pokemon art. There was also a good variety of trinkets crammed in there, from buttons and patches to window stickers.

Though technically not part of the alley, the adjacent booth for Alteil.com (my favorite CCG) became part of my art hunt. As the game is founded on tapping famous anime/fantasy artists for every card, they gave away several beautiful posters and postcards. I was also able to meet the entire American crew even got their artist to draw a sketch for me.

While I felt the Artists Alley was strong, it wasn’t something you could list as a big reason for going to this con. The limited number of people and the fact that it was pressed right next to the loud, though not very busy, dealers room really detracted from the alley experience. In short, I felt it was tacked on and wasn’t given the respect it deserves.