Anime #29--Not Quite "Anime"

Anime has had such a big influence on the west in the past twenty years or so, and consequently, we have incorporated these influences into our own pop culture.

The first example that comes to my mind is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar is the famous Nick series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko which just aired its series finale on July 19th. I am slightly ashamed to say that I watched most of the series online first, then got the DVDs from the library. ^_^;; I couldn't wait. I wanted to know which pairings won out in the end. And I'm very happy to say that the pairings I liked were the triumphant ones, ESPECIALLY the Katara pairing. (Kataang vs. Zutara--one of the scariest pairing battles I've ever seen)
Mike and Bryan often cite Miyazaki-sensei as one of the inspirations for Avatar.

The best anime balances great action sequences with humor and emotion, something we try to do on Avatar. We love all the films of Hayao Miyazaki, especially Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. Both movies deal with spirituality and the environment in an entertaining way. Also, there's a lot of great animation."[1]

It's also been confirmed that Appa's design is based on the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro. Of course, Disney, Pixar, and hopefully any animation studio in the world also lists Miyazaki-sensei as an influence.

Original English-language manga or OEL is more common than animated shows. To quote wikipedia, my favorite non-school research source:

Original English-language manga or OEL manga is the term commonly used to describe comic books or graphic novels in the "international manga" genre of comics whose language of original publication is English.^[1] The term international manga, as used by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, encompasses all foreign comics which draw inspiration from the unique "form of presentation and expression" found in Japanese manga.[2]

I personally don't have much experience with English mangas. The only ones I can think of offhand that I've read are Dramacon and RE:play. RE:play is the better of the two, though Dramacon is a fan favorite because it depicts conventions accurately and, ::gasp:: has a (semi) attractive GUY. ZOMG ROMANCE LET'S ALL READ IT. ::fangirl spazz:: -_-;; I dislike the main characters of that series, so the only merit of it is the subject matter.
Replay centers on a band and... also a mysterious good looking guy. But the lead female character (who is actually the main character, not the guy) is much less annoying than whatsherface from Dramacon, so I like it better.
Two titles is hardly a representation, though. OEL titles are not bound by genre, same as manga. OELs, however, are NOT American comic books. They are specifically stylized like Japanese comics, but made in America. Marvel, DC, and the like do not fall under the OEL category. Those are just... I dunno, comic books? I'm not much of a comic book reader, sad to say.
OEL are also very commonly published online. Again, I have little knowledge of this, as I've never actually read an OEL webcomic. (I did, for a few months, follow 8-Bit Theater, but stopped because I used to have dial up and it took too long to load) They're out there though, and can probably be found without too much trouble. I know at artist alleys, many artists sell comics, but also hand out advertisements for their webcomics. (which may or may not be the same series they are selling)

Reviews #8--Eureka Seven

With the exception of .hack//sign, this is the third mecha series out of the last 4 reviews I've done. Unlike Code Geass, though, Eureka Seven is very specifically a mecha series. A friend of mine got me into this series two years ago, but I'm still only on episode 18 because I don't watch episodes online. The library only owns up to volume 4, but I'm working to fix that.

The protagonist of Eureka Seven is a young teenage boy named Renton Thurston (like Lelouch, and half the male protagonists in the dubbed anime world, voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch). Renton's father is the "hero", Adroc Thurston who somehow saved the world and discovered lots of things about LFOs, trapar, and the first summer of love. Because of my long break from the series and the differences between the anime and manga, I have no idea what exactly about those things he discovered.
I CAN however tell you that "trapar" is "transparent light" and is a kind of invisible "wave" that can be ridden with a lift-board--basically, you surf in the sky. An LFO is a "Light Finding Operation, a mecha that can lift board, and yes, the pop-culture reference is intentional, especially when the military LFOs are called KLFs, and there's no point in finding out what the acronym is because it's a British band and that's all you really need to know. The show is ridden with pop-culture references, everything from the episode titles all being based on real songs, to the characters "Jobs" and "Woz" (Apple founders), to Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water in episode 16. No, I'm not kidding.

Anyway, Renton's father did some amazing stuff, but died. Renton is a loner, though everyone gives him attention because of his father. He's a great mechanic thanks to his grandfather, Axel Thurston, and loves to lift. (the act of lift boarding) One day, a girl in an LFO crashes into his house. That girl is the title character, Eureka, whose past, identity, and everything in general is nothing but a big mass of spoilers. I read the manga, so I get it (at least somewhat) but the anime doesn't reveal most of it until the 20s.

The series is animated by some of the folks who did Cowboy Bebop, and the studio that did Fullmetal Alchemist. The animation is spot-on, with everything from emotional scenes between Eureka and Renton to spectacular LFO board-riding fight scenes. The English voice acting is great, with such actors as Johnny Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Stephanie Sheh, and down there with a somewhat minor character, Megan Hollingshed. I have no problems with any of the acting, now that I've gotten into this trend of watching the English dub instead of the Japanese. I just figure if Bandai took the time to dub it, I ought to take the time to watch it. In fact, all of the last four titles I've reviewed were released by Bandai. What happened to my "FUNimation is the king of dubbing!" standpoint?

Overall, an exciting, yet emotional title. It's got all the stuff you'd expect with mecha anime, which Code Geass is significantly lacking. (emotional bonding with the mecha and so forth) There's a great story, though it takes a while to get through it. I'm itching for the rest of Holland's past, but so far, they have not obliged. Eureka alone is complicated enough for the relationship, but there's at least 4 on the ship, though only two ever get much development. Not to mention the other characters with the military, who really complicate things.
Great show! Though perhaps I'm a bit biased, but I give it an A.
As always, it was featured on Adult Swim, so 13+. It's not particuarly graphic or explicit (so far), but just to get your head around the emotional stuff, you ought to be 13.

Reviews #7--Gurren Lagann

Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann, ("Heaven Shattering Crimson Face") brought to America as just Gurren Lagann, is yet another mecha series I've taken an interest in. A friend of mine lent me the first two DVDs, and so you get to hear about them.
Just for the novelty of it, I'd love to see a shojo mecha series. Mecha in itself, is a shonen genre, but I really would love to see the differences if they aimed it at girls. Being a shonen, we've got all the shonen plot points: overconfident male fighting-type, shy with some sort of hidden inner talent/magic/drill/whatever not-normally-a-fighter type, busty girl with some sembalnce of a purpose to thinly veil the fanservice, and STUFF BLOWING UP. Though more general fights than explosions.
Gurren Lagann takes place on an unknown planet which may or may not be post-apocalyptic Earth. People live underground, and except for Kamina, deny the existence of a surface. Our main character is 14-year-old Simon, a shy scrawny kid who's really good with a drill. The people drill out to expand their village, since they can't go up. One day while drilling, Simon find a tiny drill. No, I'm not joking. He shows it to Kamina, 18-something cocky punk who wants to break out of the village. Immediately afterwards, he pulls Simon into his "Team Gurren" and uses a herd of some sort of weird animal to break out. He fails, Simon goes back to drilling, and this time finds a "face". 'Tis a mecha, which they are forced to use when a "Gunman" falls though their ceiling being chased by aforemnetioned busty girl. Her name is Yoko, and she's a killer shot with a rifle. After killing the Gunman with the mecha--named Lagann by Kamina, Simon, Kamina, and Yoko bust through to the surface.

Reasons for: It's a fun show, and you can't help but be pulled in by that. Kamina's definitions of manhood make you want to learn to fight just so you can apply them. The mecha piloting is plausible, with neither Simon nor Kamina being especially good when they start, and only winning through the immense powers of the Gurren and Lagann, and eventually, the Gurren Lagann. Yoko really DOES have a purpose, unlike other fanservice characters I've reviewed lately (coughKarenCodeGeasscough) and she's good with that rifle. The general plotline is tried-and-true, but the idea of a planet populated by beastmen that force people to live below the surface is intriging, and keeps you watching.
Very nice opening and ending, as well. First time in a while that I've liked the ending theme song of a show.

Reasons against: KAMINA, SHUT UP. I don't know if I love him or hate him. People get annoyed by Naruto's overconfidence, fighting abilities that he didn't earn, and general attitude in general, and Kamina's much the same. He doesn't have the slightest clue what he's doing, but he just charges blindly forward and pulls through in the end. Some of the "manly" things he does are just ridiculous. When he forces Simon to jump on top of his mecha instead of just picking him up, for example--long minutes of a battle are spent on Kamina smacking the Lagann away instead of letting it combine. Really, Kamina, how far did you need to take that? He's the heart of the show so far, now will he carry it or kill it? I'm sorry, but I want to see more of Simon, the ACTUAL MAIN CHARACTER, and not Simon whining "I'm afraid, let's go home!". What home? Am I the only one who saw the Gunman destroy it?!
For the first time since Yuugiou, I've got animation to complain about. Is it just me, or was the animation different in episode 4? That's not cool, Gainax. Transfer some of the budget on making Yoko as suggestive as possible and get some consistency.

Overall: I like it, but I just don't see what makes it SO great. B+ so far, but because I've read and know what's going to happen, A-.

Reviews #6 - .hack//sign

Every otaku has that first series that they look back on fondly, silently thanking the creator for making such a wonderful show that turned them onto the world of anime. If you haven't figured it out by now, mine's Yuugiou, created by Kazuki Takahashi. Why, then, do I bring the subject up at all for a review of .hack? It's a interesting situation I have with .hack//sign. (pronounced "dot hack sign") If personal anecdotes aren't your style, skip ahead to the review below.

BORING STORY
About 5, maybe 6 years ago, I turned 12 or 13. For my birthday I got this awesome necklace with a stone bear. (hence my thing for polar bears now) I wore this thing all the time, including to a Duquesne basketball game that my father dragged me to. Somewhere along the way, the necklace fell off, and I lost it forever. That fateful necklace-losing day, before the game started, we decided to roam the Student Union. (more like my dad decided and I blindly followed and possibly complained) There was a TV on somewhere in the union, and being a bored tween and an American, I of course paused to watch it. There was a guy with white hair, red markings on his face, and eyes that bespoke of horrors and pain. This guy, whoever he was, had some sort of horrible angsty backstory, and I had no idea what it was. I also remember him smiling despite the eyes-of-angst, but I think that's imagined. We left and came through the same place again, and there were a group of oddly dressed people, including said white-hair-red-marked-angsty man, and the best I recall it was dark, and rocky.
White-hair-red-marked-angsty man was on my mind for the rest of the day. Who was he? What show was that? Why was he so angsty? It nagged at me for a while, and then I forgot about it.
For some reason, about a year later, I decided to go back and look up just what it was I had seen. After searching old tv schedules online, I narrowed it to a few titles, among them .hack//sign.
After 6 years of buildup, I have finally seen .hack//sign. I realize now that if I had gone on any anime forum anywhere and asked about "really angst-filled white-haired red-markings-under-eyes guy?" I would've gotten an answer of ".hack//sign".

REVIEW
It's an interesting experience to know and be somewhat in awe of an anime for this long, and yet at the same time, not know a thing about it. I've never seen much discussion about .hack//sign, nor have I read reviews. I had absolutely no idea how good it was, or what it was about.
.hack//sign is part of the extremely complicated .hack franchise. If you want the entire story you have to watch the anime, play all the video games, and read the light novels. Or, you could just watch this anime, because you certainly don't need any prior knowledge to watch it.

.hack//sign is almost entirely set in an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) called "The World". Our main character is an angsty-looking tween-to-teen male Wavemaster (magic user, spellcaster, magician--take your pick) named Tsukasa. The first episode starts with Tsukasa waking up in a dungeon, not knowing how he got there or what happened to him before. Mimiru, a female teenage Heavy Blade comes across him, introduces herself, and asks him if he's okay because he looks SO angsty. Everything about Tsukasa screams emo backstory, right down the oh-so-subtle marks on his cheeks. ANGST, ANGST, ANGST. And yet, while the main character is screaming angst, it's in a very tolerable and somewhat likable way. It's not like, say, Lelouch and his "my mother is dead, my sister is blind, RAWR" kind of way, it's a "everyone hated me so I hate them but I'm really a scared little boy (girl?) deep down". Tsukasa's backstory is actually not something I've ever seen before, and I have to say a little creepy.

Back to the story. Mimiru wonders about the angsty Wavemaster, and happens to run across him again. She tries to be friends, but Tsukasa in his anti-social-yet-likableness, leaves. We eventually meet Mimiru's friend, Bear, a middle-aged male heavy blade; Bear's friend BT, a 20-30something female Wavemaster; Subaru, a I-swear-she-was-an-elementary-schooler-but-is-apparently-the-same-age-as-Tsukasa female... uh... Axe; Also, Silver Knight, her 23-year old sword-wielding protector; Crim, a 20-30something Long Arm (spear); and Sora, a male Twin Blade whose age isn't revealed until the last episode.
For a 25-28 episode series (depending on how you count the OVAs) the pacing is incredibly slow. All the plot revelations could easily be made in 13 episodes. But they take their time to flesh out the characters and give various red herrings and misleading relationships. For example, Tsukasa/Mimiru, the pairing you would most naturally expect... that gets very complicated, indeed, and by episode 10, you think it's not how you thought it would go down in episode 1, and by 25, you're wondering how you ever thought that in the first place. I give the series due credit for not falling into any stereotypical relationship traps, especially with BT, (BT and Bear, BT and Sora, BT and Crim) and with Bear.
If you don't like watching a slow-moving character-driven series, run away. Run far, far away. If you're willing to put up with complicated relationships and NOT KNOWING WHAT IS GOING ON even at the end of the series, sit down and grab some popcorn. There's almost 12 hours of character-y goodness in store for you. (and some nice ideas for cosplayers) It's not your typical anime, that's for sure. Where Code Geass could fit every mold in the book, .hack fits almost none of them. Surprisingly, it was Mimiru who won the battle for my favorite character, not Crim, Bear, Sora, or BT, like I'd expect. There was just something about the very complicated relationship that she had with Tsukasa that I liked. BT would've been my first guess for likable, but even that character type can't always do it for me. Maybe I needed some I-never-had-friends-before-I-met-you-guys kind of thing.

Tsukasa, while not my overall favorite, certainly has his moments. Oh, also, Macha! How can I forget everyone's favorite mysterious cat? There's a cat-player that's around when the trouble starts and is somehow connected. How, you will have to wait until the third-to-last-episode or soemthing ridiculous like that to find out.
In summary, good series, strays off the well-beaten paths of "high school drama", "believe in yourself", "friendship conquers all", "willpower and inner talent beat all competition" and just about anything that would stick it in a genre. There is also a significant lack of inappropriate violence, language, sexual themes, or anything at all. Save for... erm... that one relationship, but I can't really say it's inappropriate, just... mature. I will never recommend this anime series for anyone below 13, and I'd really say 14 or 15 to make sure you'll get everything, but it's not going to scar you for life if you DO watch it.

Rating: A
-Breaks new ground, excellent character development, good story, good animation
-Pacing can be a little slow at times, and confusion about storyline--what just happened? How do things END? Enough gets explained that you can watch it without going totally crazy, but the rest of the loose ends will nag at you for a while.