Archive for the ‘Anime’ Category

Dragon Ball Z Kai impressions

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Dragon Ball Z is back on TV in the form of Dragon Ball Z Kai airing on Nick Toons. Kai is a condensed version of the original Dragon Ball Z series cut to be more like manga by removing most of the filler and creating a new script. Because the show is cut down without the filler, it moves quickly from one scene to the next, getting right to the fights and important parts of the story. I happend to catch a couple of episodes here and there and found myself getting abosorbed in Dragon Ball Z all over again.

The first episode I caught had Raditz arriving on Kame island, confronting his brother Goku, Goku learning that he’s an alien, Gohan being taken by Raditz, Piccollo showing up to team up with Goku, and then Goku and Piccollo taking off for Raditz and beginning the fight at the end of the episode. Normally, all of this would have taken 3 episodes to tell. In a later episode I saw, Earth’s heroes are just about to fight the Saibamen, when Yamcha shows up and kicks ass by defeating a Saibamen only to be killed when it latches onto him and explodes, all in one episode.

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Time of Eve anime review

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

In the near future, robots in the form of human androids live with humans doing household chores like shopping and cooking. There is a human ethics group against the use of androids, advertising propaganda commercials in defiance to “android-holics”, people who treat their androids as human beings. Rikou is looking over the logs of his family’s robot when he notices its been going off on its own when out shopping. Investigating with his fellow classmate Masaki, they follow the coordinates down an alley to a café called “The Time of Eve”. Stepping into the café they first spot a sign with house rules that reads “No discrimation between humans and robots”. They’re greeted by the bartender, Nagi, and after some deliberation over the menu order tea? Thinking over the weird house rule and looking over the guests, there’s an uneasy feeling about the place. If there’s no discrimation between humans and robots here, then how does that affect the 3 laws that govern robots behavior? The 3 robot laws being: 1. Do not harm humans. 2. Obey human orders . 3. Protect themselves if it doesn’t interfer with the first two laws. Are they the only humans among the café’s customers? “Don’t break the rule, OK?” Nagi warns with a smile.

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Genshiken Return of the Otaku Review

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

I noticed a new Genshiken book in the manga section of Borders, and was surprised to open it and find that it wasn’t manga but an original novel based on the series. Return of the Otaku would suggest that the characters from the Society for the Study of the Modern Visual Culture, a manga and anime about a college anime club, were making a return for another episode after the series, but that’s not the case. Return of the Otaku reads like a fantasy fanfiction set around the events of Genshiken during the first half of the series (around episode 12 of the anime) after the energetic Kuchiki joins, but before cute Ogiue makes an appearance.

Return of the Otaku starts slow with the first 70 pages, going about Kuchiki’s daily otaku shopping routines, while the plot is driven by a rich noble kid, Ranto Hairu, becoming the new chairman of the campus club commitee after flying in (via Helicopter) with his sister Ana. Hairu immediately takes control of most of the student body with his powerful and charismatic speech on creating a strong Japan and destroying any degenerate arts, creating a brigade of members that eventually lay siege to the club building.

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Jump’n into shonen anime

Friday, October 10th, 2008

After debating about it for a while I decided to finally buy the first DVD sets for Bleach and One Piece, two anime series everyone has watched except for me, so I wanted to finally catch up and be in the loop with some knowledge of what the series are about. What I wasn’t sure of was whether or not to start investing in these series that have high episode counts, One Piece is over 350 episodes, that’s a lot of DVDs! But if I didn’t pull the trigger for these shows I’ve taken an interest in, then I wouldn’t be true to myself.

Anime is an expensive hobby, and as much as its come down and gotten more attainable over the years, it still adds up. So I’ve decided on a few guidelines.

I’m mainly interested in the affordable boxsets than the single volume Japanese style releases, which works because more anime is being released in boxsets nowadays. So unless its a short 12 episode series like Genshiken with 3 DVDs, I’ll pass the singles. If only the first two seasons of Bleach are out, then that’s as far as I get to watch at the moment, I’ll watch something else. Of course there are other questionable methods, but I prefer to watch DVDs or TV broadcasts of licensed anime.

When I couldn’t find volume 3 of Kujibiki Unbalance at any of the local stores, I got tired of driving around and using up gas to see if the DVD was restocked and said the heck with, and decided to order it online. I looked at a few stores and BestBuy.com ended up being the best deal with it on sale for $15 (Usually $20) + $2 shipping + tax. Usually I’d just buy from the local Best Buy because of the pricing, usually at least $10 off MSRP, but looking around online at other stores, sometimes there are better deals. I looked at Amazon.com and ended up getting Bleach Season 1 for $27 and One Piece Season 1 Part 1 for $22 with free saver shipping. So I felt good about finding a deals on two sets I wanted and saved about $31 by shopping around. Anime News Network even has a price comparison chart on each DVD release page listing current prices from online retailers so you can see the best price without looking up each site, though it doesn’t list everything like BestBuy.com.

With that in mind, One Piece will end up being at least 30 boxes of 13 episode sets, usually selling for $40 each, that’s reasonable but still kinda high for 13 episodes. I got Season 1 Part 1 for $22, and I’ve seen Part 2 go on sale for $29, so i’m going to try to only buy the sets if I catch them on sale for no more than $30.

I’ve watched the first 7 episodes of One Piece, I can say that I haven’t smiled and laughed at any show as much as I have from this one in a while, so I might be watching One Piece for sometime.

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