Actually, context doesn't help with this one

Life has been getting in the way of writing anything substantial lately, but filler posts are forever.

One more label gone

So it looks like Bandai is doing the Geneon thing.

Lately I've been going through a lot of my old backlog to show friends who never saw this stuff the first time around, and it's been faintly odd to see all the logos for companies who are now long gone. And now one more.

Media Diary: Utena Interlude

Here's some more stuff I did instead of screencapping Utena.


Star Driver has some of Utena's campy charm, but inherited almost none of its strengths and actually managed to worsen its flaws. Takuto is an even more one-dimensional and boringly invincible protagonist than Utena: once you get used to the Zero Time set design the fights stop being interesting to look at, and his constant victories feel completely unearned. Forget physical danger, he's never even in emotional jeopardy. The supporting cast can't pick up his slack either, there are so many characters fighting for screen time that people vanish for long stretches of the show, or get written out entirely if they threaten to become too interesting. Sugata in particular is just criminally underwritten, which actually totally sabotages the ending.


I enjoyed the pirouetting robot kiss through the glass goofiness for a good long while, but the show lost all goodwill during the final stretch, when it went into serious business mode without bothering to build to a climax or shed any light on the cryptic backstory or jargon, and actively going out of their way to avoid having a final villain with any kind of dramatic weight. You can't expect me to care about characters you forgot to characterize, guys. This show plays out like a first draft, and I got annoyed watching it just flounder around bungling basic story beats until we hit episode 24 with characters and plot that'd barely progressed since episode 4. I was fine with Star Driver not having a brain, but it turned out to not have a soul either. I expected better.



On the other hand, I had much lower expectations of Afterschool Nightmare, and ended up pleasantly surprised; I can see why this was a darling of the manga-friendly comics blogosphere. This one also brought Utena strongly to mind, with its highly symbolic fight scenes, deeply damaged characters, and sex & gender fluidity; the main character is intersexed, and the center of a love triangle between a boy and girl attracted to opposite sides of his/her nature. It also shares one of Utena's primary flaws, in that the protagonist is the least interesting character in the entire story. I like Utena herself fine, but Mashiro here is really more interesting as a piece of symbolism than a protagonist.

I want to kind of damn this with faint praise; the story tends to stay within the bounds of heart-tugging shoujo melodrama, but manages the occasional genuinely nasty moment. Similarly, the art is not especially great on the whole, which makes the more imaginative visuals all the more striking. So overall, there were just enough interesting bits to keep me reading through to the end, which is where Mizushiro really steps up her game, and manages to explain just what the hell was going on in a way that makes perfect sense of everything. Afterschool Nightmare isn't going to be one of my all-time favorites, but it does have that special something that keeps it on my mind, even if I'm not entirely sure why. Check it out.

Dororon Enma-kun

When I saw the names Go Nagai and Yoshihiro Yonetani together, I figured they'd produce something absolutely batshit.
Was not disappointed.

I'd seen the recent Enma-kun OAV, which was a fairly disastrous attempt to gritty up the property; Yonetani, naturally, embraces Go Nagai's penchant for cringe-worthy humor with such gusto that I found it hard not to laugh, even when the heroine is doing a pee dance, or the old lady at the sento is swinging her tits around. And the monster of the week spawning a giant metal cock for Enma to sword fight is pretty much awesome by any standard.
Objectively, this is not at all a good show, but the unique energies of these two madmen seem to feed off each other fairly well; if the opening above gets you wet, then FUCK, watch it.

We also checked out the first episode of Tiger and Bunny, which was fun; let's hope they don't hit the workaholic dad has no time for his kid cliche too hard, because the corporate sponsored heroes working for points on a reality TV show premise is working for me better than I expected.

Media Diary, "Reminded of Better Shows" Edition

Not much I've seen lately excites me enough to muster a real post, but let's do a quick rundown to keep the blog from getting any dustier.


Peacock King (aka Spirit Warrior) is far duller than you'd expect from a show where Neo-Nazi black magic cultists discover they are actually robots with false memories of being human. Possibly because at least half of the first episode is wasted on tedious mumbo jumbo made up mysticism plot exposition, and then episode two slams through about 3-4 episodes' worth of plot and apparently ends with the hero sacrificing himself to restore world peace. You would wonder how there can possibly be another three episodes, and the answer is "by pretending the first two never happened and starting over, with a lower budget." Overall, I'd say any jones for watching Rintaro-directed magic dudes blowing shit up would be better satisfied by X, even the hilariously abridged movie version.


I was hoping STRAIN might be entertainingly bizarre thanks to the "vaguely based on A Little Princess" thing, but it ended up as yet another smoking wreck of wasted potential. All the ingredients for a decent show are here, but that show is called Gunbuster. I did think GB was a bit rushed at 6 episodes, but Strain spends most of its 13 just spinning its wheels; the situation and character dynamics are set into place fairly early on, and the show basically wraps up the way you think it will. On top of that, the nasty GONZOish CGI mecha ruined the fight scenes for me, and the interstellar telepathic hivemind of naked little girls makes me want to bang my face into a desk forever. It is also probably not a good idea to name your main antagonist "Ralph" if you want to give him any gravitas at all. I kind of respect the show's perverse commitment to making the heroine completely PTSD and unlikeable, and the blank-eyed doll constantly staring at her during the space battles is sort of hilariously creepy, but on the whole this is a very skippable series.

Geobreeders is sadly not as good as I remember it being. The characters are still pleasantly eccentric, but the run-and-gun-and-explode action is only OK (and they sort of forgot to put any in the sequel). Perhaps my bar for breakneck setpiece silliness has been raised since the '90s.

Evangelion is awesome as always, glad I waited to see 2.22 on blu-ray, blah blah blah. At this point there's just not much left to say about Eva that hasn't been rehashed over and over since 1995. I am a little annoyed that people are praising this movie as an unprecedented emotional lightening of the series and not remembering that its happy characters and awesome robot fights were pretty much all already in the TV episodes it's riffing on (admittedly with a lower budget, but still pretty great-looking), but that's nothing new either. I do wonder what Mari's deal is, but there's just not much to go on; she barely appears in the movie, and most of her scenes rehash things Asuka or Kaji did originally. I suspect she may be some kind of subtle taunt to the Shinji-haters, since she's pretty much his direct opposite but her hot-blooded piloting style fails completely (and in ways that directly reference two of Asuka's notable failures).


Actually, I probably can get a whole post out of Key the Metal Idol, I mainly just wanted to post these screengrabs while I still thought they were funny. It is a pleasing strain of David Lynchian crazy, even if JP Meyer hated it. Just watch out for all the talking in that first movie.

Nominated for the 2011 Gendou Ikari Memorial Excellence In Parenting Award

Tell me what, Tell me what, Tell me what you want

Looks like the beloved classic Berserk is getting a new anime project. Sankaku Complex reports (the site is NSFW) that the latest volume of the manga includes a note simply saying that "a new anime project has begun."

Rumors have been flying around about a new season of the Berserk for the longest time. I've spoken with folks at Media Blasters who would have been more than happy to put up a pile of cash to make it happen, but it just dragged on. Apparently there were some leaked images in 2009 (Sankaku Complex - again, the site's NSFW) that not only looked nice but apparently hinted at some involvement from Studio 4C, which would be a dream come true for me.

The Japanese website for Young Animal has a number of very suggestive dates: 9.30, 10.1, 10.2, 10.4 & 10.5. The English phrase "commercial film" makes me wonder if this anime project is (or will include) a movie.

Few details. Lots of possibilities. I guess we'll have to see what happens over the next few days, but I'm pretty excited.

Just remember: put your glasses on, nothing will be wrong.

Pretty much all gleaned from Sankaku Complex (links above) and a pointer by a friend

"I understand. Your only choice is to revolutionize the world."

Now THIS is the Utena I remember.


Ikuhara is fully in his occult-opera groove, and mmmm, that is some glorious nonsense. It's
downright magical. My desire to blog wars with my desire to not ruin anything for anyone lucky enough to not have seen this yet, so I'll just stick to the big picture.

So, after the student council spent all of last arc trying to break Utena's will with their own, we switch tactics from the overt to the repressed... and make a clean break from their themes with a remix of "The Revelation of Absolute Destiny", themed dueling arenas, and the infamous Elevator of Emotional Torment.


The Black Roses' schtick is creating duelists from that old Jungian anime favorite, the shadow. In response, Utena starts relying more on her own "higher self", Dios, to win battles, rather than her own skill, or even luck.

Not that she seems aware of this. The Black Rose antics provide the first overt "magic" we've seen that isn't dismissed as a trick of some kind, and while Utena doesn't seem too shaken up, she does turn to another character to stay centered. We'll see how this works out.

Amazingly, the dub is actually sort of good here! The always magnificently-hammy Dan Green and Liam O'Brien foreshadow their yaoistic pairing in Descendants of Darkness with Mikage and Mamiya, and Akio's fiancee totally sells her trip through the Elevator. Shame the rest of the cast is as awkward as always.

So yeah, the Black Rose arc is full steam ahead for loopy greatness. Utena's particular charm is the way it totally wears its heart on its sleeve, but isn't above blowing off some steam by going even further over the top to poke fun at itself (which is to say yes, there's another Nanami comedy episode on this disc, and it's actually one that gets directly referenced in the movie). I genuinely have no idea how much of my love for this show is totally legitimate and how much is camp value, but the series definitely swings both ways.

I felt it important to note

This thing totally exists.

When? Where? Who? Which?

So, thirteen episodes into the Utena rewatch, and I find myself curiously dissatisfied. It's not like this stretch of episodes is bad or anything-- sure, two of the six episodes are taken up with a Nanami comedy episode and a recap, but we do get four episodes of Touga in full manipulative bastard mode, along with an expanded version of Utena's rescue by the prince that toys with dramatic irony and unreliable narrators.


It's good stuff, and finishes establishing the characters and obsessions the rest of the series will be riffing on, but somehow it's just not hitting me like it should. The only part that seemed especially Ikuhara was the the hilarious bit from Miki's two-parter where he remembers Touga's dialogue much more homoerotically than he actually said it.


(and speaking of that, the awfully-acted dub takes some... interesting liberties with the dialogue here and there. I can't imagine the rerelease will keep that. Almost a shame)

Are operatic swordfights just not enough to hold my attention any more? That seems doubtful. More likely, I've just watched and rewatched this opening stretch too damn much for it to have any impact any more, which would make sense considering the first thirteen eps were all CPM had for like four years thanks to some poorly worded contracts. I believe the movie actually came out here before the Black Rose arc, which is probably the worst possible way to see that film, but more on that much, much later.

Anyway, we're finally out of the setup phase and headed into the meat of the show, and hopefully towards the amazing, lush lunacy that made me remember it so fondly. I never did actually watch the Black Rose sequence in full, hopefully that'll shock me back to life.

Satoshi Kon dies

From here.

Got a text about this a few minutes ago, and it still doesn't feel real. Don't know what to say...

New Policy: I Only Post About Series Beginning With U

So we all know Makoto Shinkai, right? Well, think of Kazuhiro "Romanov" Higa as his evil twin. They both have a rep as one-man anime studios, but Higa's muse leads him to ridiculous, rip-roaring pulp action instead of emo teenagers. His output may look like a PS2 cutscene (which is in no way an exaggeration; he worked on the two Gungrave games), but you can't fault him for sheer, demented charm.

I first heard of him from his unbelievably random English-language magical catgirl '70s gun-fu epic Catblue Dynamite, and he also did some kind of Dominion Tank Police reboot called TANK SWAT that I can't find ANYWHERE, but today let's chat about his earlier time travel adventure Urda.
The plot is insane. I'll just say it involves a bioroid space loli from NASA's warp drive project falling through a wormhole back to WWII, as long as you understand that this is just BEGINNING to scratch the surface of the awesome/dumb here. This is basically one plot twist after another, sandwiched by random ludicrous action scenes. It's only about half an hour long, and circumstantial evidence on the DVD leads me to believe it was originally webcast in five minute chunks, which does the already scrambled narrative no favors.

But if you're going to watch this, it's not going to be for the plot, it's going to be to see someone have a hand-to-hand rocket launcher fight with a Nazi cyclops on top of a speeding Jeep. Urda is not "good" in the conventional sense that refers to quality, originality, or cleverness, but it is "good" in a WHOO HA HA DID YOU SEE THAT way. The fun is in the actual animation, so it doesn't screencap too well, but if you liked any of the other stupid things I've posted about here, I recommend tossing this one on your Netflix queue.

THAT'S ME!/EVOLUTIONREVOLUTIONEVOLUTION!

Has it really been a decade since I last saw Revolutionary Girl Utena? Time to fix that.
Quick primer: Utena Tenjou is basically a good-natured shounen adventure protagonist hanging out in a boarding school melodrama. While going about her business of cutting through all the histrionic bullshit making everyone's life miserable, she falls into yet another genre, a fighting tournament to rescue a princess of sorts. Hmm... when I lay it out like that, I recall that Bryan Lee O'Malley has admitted to liking Nana, but I wonder if Scott Pilgrim isn't a little influenced by Utena too.


Either way, this is very much a sister show to Evangelion, exploring and exploding the tropes of its chosen genre (I'm particularly fond of the unusually literal version of the all-powerful student council). Utena usually wins her fights by refusing to play along with everyone else's drama and applying out-of-context solutions to the problems presented, and now that I think about it she only seems to fail when her enemies trick her into questioning her own judgement and thinking inside their boxes. Let's see if my memories are correct; so far I've only rewatched the first seven episodes, and Utena hasn't really started relying on her customary tactic of winning by exploiting the opponent's psychological flaws, or just cheating with the power of Dios. So far they're pretty much just establishing all the characters they will later tip over like dominoes. Well, episode 7 is one of my all-time favorites, but then I always was very fond of Juri.


I think I probably will rebuy the Right Stuf version, if only to be rid of CPM's horrible old policy of "we will give you one chapter stop every fifteen minutes and you will like it" (and the hardsubs on all the dueling songs). Of course, you shouldn't be skipping past anything anyway; the show has a lot of ritualistic elements (the shadow puppet Greek chorus, the fight songs and catharsis during battle, and and of course the ascent to the dueling arena and drawing of the Sword of Dios) and as far as I'm concerned sitting through the opening and ending is just another one. Besides, those songs are awesome.

If I end up rewatching the whole thing, maybe I'll finally write something about the alchemical symbology that seems to underpin the whole series (the Rose Bride being a dark girl dressed in red that everyone abhors but wants to possess is extremely suggestive). I wonder sometimes if Kunihiko Ikuhara did this deliberately or just backed into all this Jungian stuff by being his weird self (I never actually watched his Sailor Moon work so I can't say if it was any more blatant there), but he'd certainly never say even if you asked, saucy bitch that he is. It's a shame he never really did much else after the Utena movie.

Also, I give up

I'm officially enjoying this inane, insane show. I only wish I knew why the hell they only animated half an episode last week.

Even A Fortean Can Draw Anime

Presented more or less without comment.




Actually no, I do have one comment. How is it that Chiaki Konaka is somehow not attached to this project? I actually find it kind of hard to believe given that he seems to live and breathe Forteana.

Cat Shit One

I've never wanted to see something dubbed so much in my life.
Cat Shit One (aka Apocalypse Meow) is basically a hard core war action movie done with adorable fluffy stuffed bunnies. (You can see the stitches in their feet.)
Japanese hard core military jargon, however, is so riddled with terrible Engrish that I found it really detracted from the intended experience; now matter how intensely you growl, "You copy?" it doesn't sound at all bad ass.

The short film is a fucking blast, though. Never read the manga -- I think my impression was that he drew bunnies because he couldn't actually draw at all. But I appreciate the idea, and hope this does well enough to encourage more.

Full Redline trailer

Now with more Engrish.

Occult Academy 2

Think I'm ready to commit to this being pretty dang great. Time Agents sent to save the future FROM ALIENS, Nostradamus, ghosts right out of The Haunting, and the pace just keeps things moving at exactly the right speed.

Hey, maybe Princess Resurrection won't suck this time

The first anime was a fucking disgrace, but the new OAV at least has loads of blood!

Shiki Ep 1

A lot of what I was afraid of is certainly true, but it's also way more faithful than I expected. Generally, I think the structural changes are very smart decisions, compressing the first volume or so heavily -- without really feeling like they are -- and focusing on a single character's story, ending with something like a hook.

The aesthetic, however, is more of a problem. The more conservative designs are generally working fine, but Fujisaki is not exactly known for conservative design work. What the fuck he was thinking with Atsushi's ugly gorilla design is beyond me, and turning Megumi into a pink haired goth loli is pretty typical of the exaggerated approach to her character they've taken. All of the beats of her personality and arc are identical to the novel, but instead of playing these realistically -- making her a painfully naive, hopelessly lost kid -- they've turned it into generic Asuka-inspired anime yelling. This works better than it should -- it's probably a good sign that she managed to still be a little bit sympathetic despite it all -- but coming to this directly from the novels I couldn't help but feel they'd done her a disservice.
There were enough moments in this that did capture the original tone that I'm planning on watching a few more episodes, and will keep my usual bile in check. Basically reserving judgment for later.