Too much new anime to watch, can't keep up!

Haven't posted in a while. Ah well. Been watching quite a few of the winter series: Yumekui Merry, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Gosick, Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne, Freezing, Dragon Crisis, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? Infinite Stratos and Fractale. That's a lot of anime to watch (not counting the older stuff I'm re-watching or catching up on) which leaves me little time to blog about it. Probably going to do a mid-season overview of the series I'm following, if I get to it.


Anyway, re Madoka:

Boy, what a surprise that series has turned out to be!

I'll get back on the blog-horse pretty soon.


Laters!

Holy crap. I'm old.

So I was watching Shuffle! thinking that I might do a review on it, when I remembered that it first came out in 2005 and that made it a little too old to do any sort of review.

Hmm. This might be too old. Or maybe it's just me.

Then I thought to myself, "wait a minute. It's only five years old. Most of the clothes I am wearing are older than that.". Thinking further, I realized that I have videotapes of fansubs that are more than three times that old. I was a member of the Anime Club of Michigan back in the late Eighties/early Nineties. We met once a month at a comic trade show at a VFW hall in Livonia. We would bring in blank VHS tapes and club members who had the fansubs (mostly Gundam  for me in those days, but I also got such gems as Kimagure Orange Road and Legend of the Galactic Heroes) would dub them for us. Sort of a Samizdat network for Japanese cartoons. Each month, on the way to the meet, I would stop at the local Target or Meijer and grab a bulk pack of cheap VHS tapes, hit the meet and socialize with like-minded Southeasterm Michiganders and fellow Canadians. The next month, I would make the hour-long drive back to Livonia, pick up the tapes (and hit Koyama Shoten -- a local Japanese grocery -- for udon and a couple of packs of Mild Sevens) and  spend the rest of Sunday evening enjoying grainy ELP-quality anime (8 hours per tape! Can't beat that!). Glory days indeed.

Loosen the connection with your monitor to see this in "VHS-Vision!"

Going back even further into the mists of time, in the early-to-mid-Eighties I was stranded in northern Ontario, a poor pale kid stuck in a mining town (Timmins, Ontario) three and a half hours from the nearest city of any size. I was never the outdoorsy type -- surprise! -- so there was little for me to do but watch TV, read comics, play paper-and-pen RPGs and build model kits. Luckily at that time there was a pretty-well-stocked hobby shop and an equally well-stocked comic book store. I frequented both. From the TV, I got to watch the absolutely amazing (for me, at the time) Robotech, as lovingly butchered by Harmony Gold. From the hobby shop I got kits of giant robots bearing the name "Robotech" but, I later found out, in reality from cartoons called Fang of the Sun Dougram and Super Dimensional Century Orguss. I also got the Palladium Robotech RPG, where I learned that what I knew as Robotech was actually the bastard creation of an American company, smashing together three separate anime (or "Japanimation") series into one barely coherent story.(In later years, I would watch Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA and curse the day Carl Macek was ever let loose on those masterworks.).

Thank you, Carl Macek, and Curse You as well.

The same channel yielded a strange cartoon called Astroboy that had really cool tech and a robot main character with bizarre hair. Again, it would not be until much later that I found out the show I was watching was actually the second iteration of the Osamu Tezuka classic Tetsuwan Mighty Atom and was made specifically for the Canadian market.

Around the same time, the comic store yielded a comic that was unlike anything I had ever read: Area 88, by Kaoru Shintani. Being as I was in Air Cadets at the time, the story of mercenary pilots fighting a desperate war in the Middle East really struck my fancy. It was gritty, beautifully drawn and had more than it's fair share of tragedy and brutal violence. I still have every issue, going back to the first one I purchased (issue #1).

Still have it, mint, in bag with backer. Value: $2.

Scraping clean the last layer of this archaeological geek dig, we find ourselves in the late Seventies. A seven-year-old kid runs home from school to catch his favourite cartoon, Battle of the Planets (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the American version), shown every weekday at four o'clock on Global TV. His life hinged on whether Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny and Keyop, with the help of 7-Zark-7 and 1-Rover-1 (whose animation looked completely different, thank you Sandy Frank!), would be able to protect Center Neptune and the Earth from the evil Spectra and its dastardly minion, the lipstick-wearing Zoltar. They unmasked Zoltar in one episode -- and there was a flash of long, blonde hair! Was Zoltar really a woman? We never found out...

You wanna bet I had this kit when I was eight.

 
That same kid really pays attention in French class because the French channels have more of the same style of cartoon: Albatore, Corsaire de l'espace (Captain Harlock) and Goldorak (UFO Robot Grendizer), and if he learns French he can understand what the hell is going on; for example, why the pretty green ladies burst into flame when they are shot in Albatore..

Sure, it looks cool, but what are they saying?

Yeah. I'm closing on forty years old, here; been watching anime in some form or another for about 30 of those years. Suddeenly, a five-year-old series doesn't seem that ancient...

P.S.: Check the Zettai Ryouiki on Princess. Some things never change.

Until next time...

Another face 'round these here parts

So a little earlier today I was talking to my good friend Devolution and, while comparing anime we had been watching, I realized that it might be nice to have another viewpoint, especially by someone who watches different sorts of anime than I do. So to that end I invited him to post here as well (you can see his name down in the "contributors" box).

Cool.

Fanboy Squee, Yuri, and related stuff.

Leading the coolness front (at least as far as I'm concerned), is that a new chapter of To Love-Ru Darkness (manga) has been released in English. It can be found at CXC Scans' website. I do urge all to check it out.

In more cool TL-R news, fansubbers Doki and Chihiro have begun jointly releasing the Motto To Love-Ru Blu-Rays. Happiness in the form of harem fanservice. Review to come presently.

In other anime-related fluff, I have been busy the last couple of days stuffing my cranial space with Koihime Mousou. I am halfway through Shin Koihime Mousou (the second season) right now, and am enjoying it immensely.

One of the other hats I wear is as a proofreader/quality checker for the scanlation group Kawaii Scans, a group that does yuri manga. How did I end up there? That's a good question, but I am enjoying it so far. Sachiko-sama is a good boss to work for, and really enjoys what she does.We've worked on quite a few really cute things, and this is good.

So why Koihime Mousou? Well, I figured that since I am doing all this yuri-related stuff, I should watch more yuri anime. Simple as that. I have already watched the excellent Candy Boy and the better-than-average Kanamemo (though the manga is awesome) and am currently working through the angsty Sasameki Koto.  I've also received some great suggestions for other series that I am looking forward to watching. 

So until next time.

Yet another new blog, Yay.

As if the blogosphere wasn't crowded enough, I humbly present another entry on which to waste your time spend quality time. This here blog will mostly be about the anime that I have watched. Exciting, no?

No? Well, then.

Let me get this out of the way first: I watch a lot of anime. Like, way more than should be healthy. And after watching all this anime, I realized that I should have someplace where I can regurgitate all the ideas and thoughts I had about said anime (or manga, or whatever). Thus this will be another one of those "well, here's what I thought of it" space-fillers. I'll try to keep it entertaining, though.

In addition, I will probably be ranting about other things from time to time, as I do indeed have other interests. I will try, however, to keep on track as much as possible. I enjoy certain kinds of anime, and this blog will reflect that, but keep in mind that this is basically a fan blog. I also enjoy healthy debate so if you agree with what I said, fantastic. If you don't, let me know. I also enjoy suggestions on new anime to watch, so suggest away.

The design of this blog might be changing a bit in the near future, as I get used to the format and find new, cool stuff to add.



So basically, that's it for now. Next one will be a review.