BPA Reviews #1--My Favorites

I was going to switch my blog topics over to just reviews of anime/manga, but I keep thinking of other general topics that I want to address, so behold a new category of blogs: BPA (Bethel Park Anime) Reviews!

I realize that I never have really talked about my personal favorite animes, so in this first post, I'll list some of my favs, how I got into them, and what I like about them. Since I like them, that means I assume that other people should like them, and so I recommend these titles to anyone who reads this post.

Fullmetal Alchemist--I read the first two volumes of manga in November or December 2005, and I was hooked. I quickly read the next two volumes, and started getting the anime from the library. Almost any anime fan, and a good number of non-anime fans who have just seen it will tell you that FMA is one of the best animes in existence. Dubbed by FUNimation, it has one of the best dub voice casts that I've ever heard, which many fans claim is better even than the original Japanese. Vic Mignogna, Aaron Dismuke, Caitlin Glass, Travis Willingham, Scott McNeil, and many others star in this amazing show. (the first three of which I actually MET) Two of my favorite anime pairings are in this show, Ed/Winry and Roy/Riza.


Chrono Crusade - This is one of those titles I picked up off the library shelf just because it was anime, and I'd never seen it before. It was one of those rare cases where I wound up loving it to death. Due to the lack of library DVDs, I was forced to watch it online, but I own all the manga, so I don't feel so guilty about it. ^_^;; It's also a drastic misrepresentation of whatever church it's supposed to represent (they're dressed as nuns, but supposedly they're actually Protestant in the Japanese? I have no idea, but it's awesome, so I don't care) Chrono/Rosette is my favorite pairing from that one, but Satella is my favorite character. Read the manga if you don't like how things end with her in the anime.


Monster - This is yet another manga series I just picked up off the shelf because I was bored. It is, quite possibly, the best manga series I have ever read. No favorite pairings in this one, which ought to tell you how awesome it is, because almost all my favs have a pairing that I like. Definitely a series aimed at adults, and violent on top of that, so it's older teen rating is deserved. But if you're over 16, one of the best series I have ever, or will ever read. And not in a "ooh, it's so cute/it's a childhood favorite/it's a popular title". It's just GOOD.


D.Gray-Man - I don't quite remember why I started reading this. It was either another random shelf pick or a friend recommended it. I'm actually starting to lose interest in this one for some reason. For some reason, I really don't like Lavi as a character. Which is extremely odd, because I usually LOVE his type! (I went to Tekko as Jounouchi!) There's just something... I dunno, I don't like. Kanda also bugs me, but I always hate his type, so that's to be expected. Allen was the character that drew me to it, and Lenalee kept me reading. (which is maybe why I don't like Lavi--he's so obviously attracted to Lenalee, and I'm an Allen/Lenalee shipper) Anyway, Allen and Lenalee is my fav pairing from this one.


Cowboy Bebop - This one's a classic. It came up on tv.com in the "you might like this..." place when I was fav'ing FMA or something like that, and all the reviews RAVED, so I ordered the first DVD from the library. Didn't like it. Ordered the second DVD. Liked it much, much more. That summer, I wound up watching the entire series, and now I loved it. It's classic. I'm a big fan of Spike/Faye, but Bebop isn't the kind of thing where I'd want to mess with canon, so I don't pursue it too much. Dumb stuff like YGO, Bleach, Naruto, I'll make up whatever pairing I darned well feel like, but Bebop, FMA, Haruhi... I don't mess with stuff like that.


Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - A friend of mine showed me the Hare Hare Yuaki, and when I found out what it was from, I realized I'd heard of it, and had nothing better to do. I watched it in about a week. While I was supposed to be writing a paper. That's how good it was. Short, but good. As for pairings, I'm still deciding. Nagato, IMO, is AWESOME, but I can't really picture Kyon with her. Haruhi, is... well, Haruhi, but I most certainly CAN and enjoy picturing Kyon with her. Haruhi is practically canon, so I guess she wins. As I said in my other blog, do not watch these in chronological order! At the very least, do not watch episode 14 last!! It ruins the entire series if you do it that way. I LOVE the dub and all the special features, but I despise that they don't have a "Kyon order" release. Some people think the out-of-chronological order episodes is just a sales gimmick, but that's only because the episodes are number chronologically. If the show was presented non-linear but with chronological episode numbers, you'd have the same experience and no one would complain. I prefer the non-linear order because the pacing is better.


Hellsing - We watched this one time at anime. I spent about 3 episodes thinking Integra was a man, and the only thing I really liked was the violence. Now I've read all the manga, and I love it! Classic series, and a very nice NON-SHOJO take on vampires. (Kaname, meet Alucard. Alucard, meet the vampire that you're about to turn into a corpse) The anime is different from the manga, but Hellsing Ultimate (volume 1 cover featured to the left) is an OVA (original video animation) that follows the manga to a T. But warning: violence! Please, do not read/watch unless you're over 16. Seriously, it's violent. Really violent.

Shonen Jump - I'm going to lump most of these together, because found them all the same way. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Hikaru No Go are some of my favorite Shonen Jump manga titles. They're all very common titles as well, which you can watch any old time on CN, so I'll skip the summaries, too. I love everything about the Bleach manga (except Chizuru and those random scenes with Orihime and Rangiku) but the anime is definitely lacking. First off, it seems like the anime never properly captures the style of the manga. Then, the episodes take entirely too long (an entire episode for the fight with Jidanbo?!) and the SCRIPT! The dub script of Bleach is the single worst non-4kids script I've ever heard. >_> "So what the heck exactly is this thing that you want to show to me?" I know that translations don't match the mouthflaps. Obviously. That's why you get scriptwriters, to adapt the translations into conversational dialogue. Part of the problem might be the time, too. I imagine Bleach is very much in demand, and they probably want it out very quickly.
I don't even watch the animes for the others any more. I don't get CN, and I have no reason to spend all that time watching something that I read anyway. Bleach I only watched because I wanted to see how it was changed.


Death Note - I thought this deserved a place of its own, because while I read it in SJ for the first time, I jumped on the fan wagon well before most of the country. Everyone loves Death Note now. What's not to love? It's an amazing series. (I finished it last summer, so feel free to comment with spoilers)




...and here comes the odd one... Yuugiou. Known better spelled Yu-Gi-Oh! here in the states. (yuugiou is the literal furigana translation, though) I was in about... what, 5th grade? My first thought on seeing the previews is "oh, this is going to be stupid". (and in retrospect, in some ways, it really was) So I never intended to watch it. One Saturday, there's nothing on, and I thought, "might as well check it out...". I remember that (at the time) I thought the theme song was really uber cool. So I kept watching. It was episode 6. (don't you love how much I remember about it? XD) Jouno-- erm, Joey vs. Mai. I watched the whole thing. I loved it. I also must not have paid much attention, because I remember having some very wrong ideas about the plotlines. Anyway, I watched intermittently throughout Duelist Kingdom, and became a serious fan around episode 20some, Yugi's duel with Kaiba. I didn't miss an episode till sometime in the third season. As of now, I've seen all 224 dub episodes and the dub movie. (...in theater...) The characters and plotlines drew me in, the card games kept my attention, and the pairings keep me a fan to this day. It's my "childhood" favorite. It's not that good of an anime series. I know that full well. But it's much better than the dub makes it out to be, and I HAVE seen worse. (the animation, though, at times is the worst I've ever seen--but at times is extremely well done.) Jounouchi/Mai is not only my favorite pairing from this anime, it's my all-time favorite pairing. Jou/Mai makes my life. Seriously. I don't care too much if you poke fun at Yuugiou, (especially the dub, it deserves to go die in a hole) but do not mess with my pairing. Picture to the left is the cover of volume 1 bunkoban, the manga re-release in Japan.

There's other series I'm fond of, like Fruits Basket, Shaman King, Eyeshield 21, Akira, and more, but I'll save those for individual reviews.

Bethel Park Anime #19--History of Anime

Aaah, I'm sorry it's been so long between updates! Especially since I know that there's people out there who actually read this! (Keep the comments coming! :D That's the only way I know if this is actually getting read)

I had a presentation about Japan for AP World Lit, and I chose to focus on anime. So, with my newfound knowledge, I'm going to briefly discuss the history of anime.

Anime in America is defined as "a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful graphics depicting vibrant characters in action-filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic themes" (Cite). In Japan, anime is the word for all animation. Everything from Speed Racer to Superman to the latest Disney movie--those are all anime in Japan.

The Japanese have been writing long narratives with illustrations since the 12th century. Murasaki Shikubu's Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is (one of) the first novels ever written, and illustrated copies of it were circulating in the 1200s, some 200 years after she wrote it. Illustrated stories like Genji were called emakimono. Shorter, more comedic illustrated stories were called giga.

In the late 1800s, the British magazines Punch and Puck were very popular in Japan. They strongly influenced a couple of fellows whose names I don't currently remember. One of them created Tokyo Puck, a Japanese magazine similar to Puck, featuring comic strips. The other fellow founded an organization for professional comic writers. Together, those men (I'll update as soon as I can look at the book where I got the information originally) and other artists of the time invented word bubbles and sequential panels.

The earliest known Japanese animation was created in 1917. It was 3 seconds long, and consisted of a boy writing the kanji for "moving pictures" on a board, removing his hat, and saluting the audience. (Cite) Some extremely influntial animators of the 1910s and 20s were Shimokawa Oten and Kouchi Jun'ichi.

In the 1930s, Japan was preparing to go to war, and most animations were commisioned by the military. By 1937, all animations had to be approved by the military. All animations of this time were extremely patriotic and usually depicted the Japanese military defeating other countires. The first feature-length animation in Japan was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors in 1945. You may know Momotaro as "peach boy", the classic Japanese folk tale of a boy who goes on a journey and meets a bird, a monkey, and a dog. Well, this "classic" was actually invented in the 20th century.

After the war, the animations were no longer censored by the military. In 1948, Toei Animations was founded. Toei produced the first color feature animation in Japan, The Tale of the White Serpent, and would go on to release some of the most popular anime of all time, including Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon.

Osamu Tezuka, who deserves his own article, came on the scene in the 1960s. Tezuka, known as "the godfather of anime", "the grandfather of anime", and, at the time, "the Disney of Japan" quite literally invented anime as we know it today. Tezuka founded a studio called Mushi Productions to rival Toei. His budget was extremely limited, however. To develop plot and show characters' emotions without having to animate long, expensive scenes, Tezuka gave his characters large, expressive eyes. He found that large eyes show emotion much more easily. Nowadays, anime studios have enough money to animate any way they want, but they continue to use Tezuka's style. Even Miyazaki-sensei, who has extremely realistic characters (as opposed to the majority of anime) uses the traditional anime eyes to an extent.

The other distincitve trait of anime is wild, spiky hair. This also came about because of a lack of money, but was developed by manga artists rather than animators. American comic characters could be easily recognized by colors (i.e. Archie and orange hair, Superman and his red/blue costume) but Japanese comics had three colors: black, white, and gray. To make their characters distinctive and memorable, artists would draw crazy hairstyles. Manga is still published in black and white, but the hairstyles carried over into anime simply out of habit. Again, another one of those things define anime.

The 1970s saw more anime series. Directors such as Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki-sensei made their first films and directed their first series in the 70s. Takahata is probably best known for Hols, Prince of the Sun, and Heidi, Girl of the Alps; Miyazaki, for Future Boy Conan and Lupin III. Miyazaki's first feature film would be Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.

The 80s saw a huge wave of mecha (and subsequent super robot and real robot) series. Space Battleship Yamato (1974-75) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-80) paved the way for mecha in the late 70s, and they were followed by Macross and far too many Gundam series.

The first anime magazines, Animage and Newtype were released in the 80s. Former Animage editor Toshio Suzuki would later team up with Hayao Miyazaki to create Studio Ghibli, one of the best and most successful animation studios in existance today. Their first movie together was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Ghibli was founded with the money made from Nausicaa, and its first film was Laputa: Castle in the Sky. For more info on Ghibli and Miyazaki-sensei, here's the entry I had about Studio Ghibli or check out nausicaa.net. A quick edit to the info imn my post, though: while Ghibli animated Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies, they did not produce or release it.

OVAs or OAVs (original video animation or original animation video) started to come out in the 80s. Until that time, anime was either a TV series, a TV movie, or a feature film. OVAs are simply direct-to-video releases. (like Disney and their ridiculous sequels)

The famous film Akira was released in 1988. While it wasn't all that successful in Japan, it was a very good film, and started drawing attetion to Japan's animation industry. Nowadays, Akira is a classic anime film.

The 80s also saw many more Ghibli films, including Laputa, Totoro, Kiki, and Grave of the Fireflies. These films were some of the most successful of their time. Kiki was the top-grossing film of the year in 1989, and was seen by more than 2.6 million people.

The 90s brought one of the most celebrated mecha animes to date: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its creator, Hideaki Anno, started off animating the god warrior in Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Besides Eva, other widely known anime series such as Dragonball, Sailor Moon, and of course, Pokémon came out in the 90s. Pokémon is actually based on a videogame, in case anyone wondered how they could get so many episodes off of a show with no plot. (yes, I'm a Digimon fan. Digimon was better than Pokémon in every way--plot, characters, animation, voice actors, plot, music, plot, plot, and more plot. At least that's my opinion)

2000s had another brief wave of mecha anime, including more Gundam and Eureka Seven. The anime series created in the late 90s and on become far too numerous to categorize. Everything you watch on CN or anime channels: Naruto, Death Note, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Trinity Blood, Fruits Basket, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya... almost anime on American TV today, which means almost every widely known anime, was started in this decade. A distinct new type of anime that has emerged, though, one that specifically targets otaku. An example of this would be Lucky Star, which reguarly references other anime series.

Also, anime's popularity has increased dramatically over the years. This is reflected in the animations of the 21st century, and in the quality of dubbing. Prime examples of American Anime would be Avatar: The Last Airbender and Peach Fuzz (American manga series run in select US newspapers) Also, back in the 70s and 80s, and even some 90s, anime was regulary hacked apart, edited, attacked with Mr. Digital Paint bucket, horrible revoiced, and served to American audiences. The famous Macross was actually combined with two other series and presented to Americans as Robotech. Nowadays, such a practice is condemned by hard-core otaku and fair-weather fans alike, though the otaku are often more sensible about it. There is one major dubbing studio to date, 4kids Entertainment, that still heavily edits, rescores music, and has horrible, over-the-top dubbed voices, but I'll save them for another time. Sensible studios like FUNimation, ADV, etc, censor extremely little, if nothing at all, and leave all the original music and names. Not to mention their exceptional voice actors.

So that's a basic rundown of anime. Hopefully you enjoyed it, and aren't about to fall asleep right now. ^_^;; I'll update as soon as I can with the bits of information that I need to look up.

For more links, in-depth descriptions, and pictures, check out the wikipedia history of anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anime

Bethel Park Anime #18--Tekkoshocon 7

The date and place for Tekkoshocon 7 has been officially announced. Get ready, we're movin' on up! For the first time ever, Tekkoshocon will be held in the David L Lawrence Convention Center from April 3-5. (That's one week before Easter)
For any of you worried about walking around in Downtown Pittsburgh, it's really not that bad. The Convention Center is in the Cultual District, which is a very nice part of town. Pittsburgh in general is a pretty tame place, and though there are exceptions, I don't have any worries at all about the DLCC. And if you're wondering about walking around in cosplay, they welcome the animal people from AnthroCon, so I think we'll all fit in just fine.

The announcement can be read here. Check tekkoshocon.com reguarly for more updates on registration, parking, etc. Hope to see you all there!

In other news, Bethel Park now has an anime club called OWA (Obsessed With Anime). They meet Sunday evenings at the library. This week they're watching Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

Also, don't forget about BethelCon on July 20th!!