Tag: Kara no Kyoukai

Ongoing Investigations: Case #005

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So I have been on some 80’s OVA rampage and let me tell you, I see why they don’t make tons and tons of OVAs anymore. Most of them are rather unremarkable. I guess Del Power X was atleast mildly entertaining with its comedy and giant robots. And the robots use wrestling moves, haha. Dream Dimension Hunter Fandora, had no idea what it was trying to be. Was it space bounty hunting? Fantasy? Magical girl? Not really sure. Same goes for Campus Special Investigator Hikaruon. It started out fine but then our investigator changes into a sentai hero for no apparent reason. He was kicking ass as regular ole Hikaru, but the story was pretty lame anyway.

Blue Flames is certainly memorable because it was just that awful. It was insane! They must of thought about what kind of guy would be the biggest douche bag, now let’s make an OVA about him! The amount of stuff he does within 40 minutes is mind boggling. In the beginning, I thought he was a prostitute, but no. Anyway, he seduces this one girl which I really don’t know how since he is so cold. Oh, that’s right as the story goes on we find out he is totally amazing in bed (and allegedly good-looking), enough to make women attempt suicide, beg to be his slave, and buy him cars. At some point he also tells his family screw you and leaves for Tokyo for no apparent reason. One woman tries to kill him, but he disarms her and then has sex with her instead. Everything is then alright. At the end of this mess he is seducing another girl, he slept with about 6 or 7 in total, and you know he is planning to blackmail her rich parents. Not sure how that is an ending. We also come to find out that all of this is somehow going to take him to the top. The top of what exactly? Man with most STDs? ANN I demand you remove the words romance from the tags for this show.

Walkin’ Butterfly is a joesi title I picked up form Aurora Publishing. I am always interested in new josei titles because it’s one of the most unexplored genres in America. Michiko is an extremely tall girl that does not know what do to with her life. Because she is so tall she has never fit in and never really dated. She drifts from job to job and can’t find her place in the world. A mistake occurs when she delivers a pizza to a fashion shoot she winds up getting humiliated by Mihara the show’s designer. After some soul searching she decides to use her height to try to become a model and get revenge on Mihara. I’m not sold on the series yet but I am interested to read more. I was a little caught of guard by the drug use and full frontal nudity. It was not bad or exploitative but I was certainly not expecting it even if it was josei.

Natsume Yuujinchou may turn out to be my favorite new show from our summer list. I watched episodes two and three. It is simple, poignant, and has just enough of an emotional hook. Natsume is also starting to wield some power using the book of friends which adds another layer to the story. I honestly don’t know where this story will lead and that excites me.

I watched Garden of Sinners 3: Remaining Sense of Pain. It was as beautiful as the other two movies. Fujino Asagami, the main subject of their investigation in the movie is definitely an odd character. Her actions are somewhat understandable at points but they do let her off very lightly despite her actions. On a side note, I am also curious if we will ever learn why Mikiya Kokuto is so devoted to Shiki or do they just chalk it up to blind love. He has very good reason to want nothing to do with her but he seems to believe in her no matter what.

Takane no Jitensha was a short TV special. A boy wants his own bike so he and his mother make a deal. If he is in the top 100 at school after the next tests, she will get him the bike. As the story unfolds we find out about a mischievous spirit at the local temple. Takane somewhat jokingly says he will exchange his sister for a higher test score. Quite family friendly with a lesson being learned at the end. A cute story with stints of good animation. Though I wish the spirits were given a little more development.

The World Ends With You is why I watched so little else all this week. It’s a fun little game and an entirely new setting for a Square-Enix game. The main character Neku Sakuraba has found himself with the dreaded plot condition convenience of amnesia in the middle of Shibuya. It seems he has been entered in a deadly game for an unknown prize. Players must find a partner, defeat monsters called noise, and complete certain tasks every day within time limits or be erased from existence. The battle system is fun and fast but the learning curve is quite steep. You will be getting bad ranks on battles for quite awhile. The only other major problem is once you get used to one partner they take her way and add in another partner who plays slightly differently and has no equipment. So basically you have to readjust yourself to your new partner. It’s not insurmountable but it can be a pain. I also have a nasty feeling they are going to do it to me one more time. Hopefully the third partner will not have such a high learning curve.

That’s it for this week! Catch a new ongoing investigation every Friday!

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #002

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I just watched the second Kara no Kyoukai movie so I might as well talk about the first and the second movie. There are going to be seven Kara no Yoko movies each based on a chapter of the original series. Each chapter is partially a self contained story but they also all build to a unified story. The first story is a ghost story with a bit of a flashy action sequence at the end. We are dropped in the middle of the story with a decent amount of time to develop who everyone is. The second is murder mystery with the origin of how the main characters met. I don’t know why Ask John was so harsh on the second film. It was clearly meant to be an unfinished story. It presents a mystery that makes you wonder what happened that is clearly only meant to be solved in the last film. I think it is clearly a series of movies for fans of Kinoko Nasu. It’s his first major work so I feel the story telling is not as polished as his later works but I still found it entertaining. The visuals are certainly theatrical quality so it is a pleasure to watch. As far as I can tell without ever reading the original stories the adaptation is fairly faithful unlike previous Type-Moon series.

Macross Frontier 13 was exactly what I wanted to see. It actually started with 12 and continued on into this one. Ranka singing and saving the world with it, Alto fighting like hell to keep her safe, secrets revealed, explosions, awesome robot fights, and a good cliffhanger! YES YES YES! Throw in some cute moments between Ranka and Alto (which they did) and I’m basically set for life. I felt as if I have been waiting for this and now my love for the series has really burst forth. I also found it funny that in original Macross I really started to love it about the same number of episodes in.

I am also pretty sure one character who “died” in this episode can’t be dead because they were just getting interesting. They went from seemingly unimportant minor side character with intriguing questions hanging around them, to major conspirator, to dead. I don’t think so. I’m usually not one to complain about the ability to kill off characters but this character was just coming into their own.

I watched a few more episodes of GaoGaiGar. It is distinctly formulaic but it is still fun. I am curious how it supposedly it goes from a by the numbers kids giant robot show to something beyond that but I’m still in the formula section. This show has made me come to the realization that giant robot shows are nothing more than magical girl shows for boys. They have many of the same tropes just in different guises. They both have similarly organized bad guy organizations; they usually have the same recycled transformation sequences; they both have recycled finishing moves; also the finishing moves is usually upgraded at the exact same rate in both types of shows.

I was really worried about not getting my Nosatsu Junkie volume 6. However, TokyoPop did not fail me. I was really pleased with this volume, there is a huge turning point and then a cliffhanger so we don’t know the results of said turning point till the next volume. We are also seeing Naka moving into the spotlight with her modeling career. This effects Umi is some interesting ways including making him jealous and making him worry about losing his top spot, but inevitably he loves Naka more. Their relationship continues to amuse me and I love watching their hilarious and sweet encounters. Can’t wait for the next volume!

I just read One Piece chapter 506 and wow did we get some major revelations. We finally learn a good deal about the capture and execution of Gold Roger. There was something that was never quite right about the whole deal and it is finally explained. One Piece has been making a good effort to get to explaining some of the mysteries of the series as of late. I know that Daryl Surat had complained that he stopped reading One Piece because he could not get over that they kept bringing up plot threads but never resolving them. I never really was too distressed at any unresolved plot threads. I never got the feeling that they would not be resolved but I can’t say I’m unhappy that they are starting to be tied up.

Read the latest chapter of NANA. I love Ai Yazawa with all my heart but I am a bit put off by the things going on in this story recently. It seems like the longer it goes on the less she knows where she is going with it. What with the forward flashes not seeming to connect with the current arc. And funnily enough that character I have been loving and care the most about currently is Reira. She is driving things to happen and she also seems to care about the people around her. I find myself wishing for a conclusion and soon. Oh and as usual I hate Yuri, FREE NOBU!

For some reason I see Narutaki flying to Japan and starting a sit in protest outside Ai Yazawa in the way one would start a free Tibet protest. That’s it for this week’s investigations! Look for a new case file every Friday!

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