Okay, even Grumpy Shizuo would like this one (Robotics;Notes)

Hello again!! Shizuo's still gone, I think he said he was going to Koyasan to visit an old friend O_o. Anyway, I went and looked back through Shizuo's more recent posts, and Spice and Wolf totally deserves a higher mark. Four out of five from me, anyway.

Celty said I should pick something I think Shizuo would actually like this week, so I'm going to talk about Robotics;Notes, because it has intrigue, romance, and for Shizuo, giant robots, explosions, and a death toll. It actually feels a little bit like it's trying to please everyone. It has characters that fit well into stereotypes, and there are the young love elements, but there's also a big overarching plot and mystery. I think it works really well.

It's a really recent release, so it might have a sequel, but it's pretty complete the way it is. It's produced by noitaminA and released in North America by Funimation.

So there are two main characters, really. There's Akiho Senomiya (Aki), a high school senior who heads up the robotics club, and her close friend Kaito Yashio (Kai).

Aki's dream is to build a giant robot, and Kai reluctantly tags along mostly because he promised Aki's older sister Misa he'd take care of her.

There's a whole cast of characters that would all fit nicely into a more formulaic anime. There's the doll-like Augmented Reality girl Airi Yukufune, the terrified of robots little karate-girl, Junna Daitoku, and the hentai shut-in programmer girl with a troubled past, Frau Koujiro.

Airi

Junna

Frau

But it never settles into any kind of pattern, and the troubled past that leads to the overarching plot shows how everything is all interrelated -- and all related to a guy named Kou Kimijima.

There's also a lot of super cool sci-fi stuff in it. Like the AR stuff, and the giant robots, and a plot to decimate the world's population led by a shadowy cabal who lust after world domination.

Aki and Kai have... well I won't call them super-powers, but they have something wrong with them. Aki get's the short end of the stick and when she has an attack she perceives the world in super-fast-motion, so she only gets one frame in ten or something. Kai's is more like a super power because he gets super-slow-motion, where the whole world seems to go very slowly, but his brain doesn't, so he can react really quickly and accurately. That's what makes him so good at controlling robots -- in the video game called "KILL BALLAD" and after that in the real world.

There are also other characters. Misa, Aki's absent older sister she's always trying to live up to; Subaru Hidaka, whose father is really upset he's into robots and doesn't want to be a fisherman like him; Doc, the owner of the robot clinic, and Junna's grandfather; --actually, now that I think about it, it's all about family, and trying to heal the rifts between family members. Even Frau's troubled past storyline is about her missing mother.

Agghh, it's so hard to write about without giving away any of the plot! But it all fits together really nicely and I'll say again that I think even Shizuo would give it a four out of five. Celty agrees. So with that I'm going to hand things back over to Shizuo, who's supposed to get back soon.

Thanks for reading! Shinra out! Bye!

Ah, Young Love! (Rosario+Vampire)

Hello Anime Fans!! Shizuo has been nice enough to let me post on here for a couple of weeks, so I'm going to do my best not to disappoint! I think I'll post about things the "toughest man in Ikebukuro" wouldn't (though I've been looking through his Hulu history, and he totally watches [Celty made me delete this >_< but it's a super cute one].

Today I'm going to tell you all about a cute and fun anime called Rosario+Vampire! Cue the title screen!

Ta da!!

Rosario+Vampire tells the story of a young human, Tsukune Aono, at a high school for monsters! He doesn't have any super powers, but he's such an upstanding guy with such a good and kind heart that even when he stands in the way and gets beat up, the girls all fall for him. Who's he going to end up with in the end?? Will it be:

A) Moka Akashiya -- A beautiful and shy young woman, she's Tsukune's first friend at Yokai Academy. She's sweet and kind, but when the rosary around her neck breaks, her inner self breaks free: a Class-S supermonster, a kick-butt vampire! Will Tsukune fall for inner Moka, outer Moka, or both?

B) Kurumu Kurono -- A fiendish, busty succubus with a soft side (but only a soft side for our hero Tsukune).

C) Yukari Sendo -- A super loli, slightly perverse witch with a thing for other girls' chests -- it might be out of envy.

D) Mizore Shirayuki -- A stalker-y, ice queen-slash-abominable snow woman who'd like to freeze Tsukune and preserve him forever.

or E) Kokoa Shuzen, Moka's slightly violent (and ALSO a vampire) half-sister. Sibling rivalry FTW!

Each episode introduces new characters and presents new challenges for Tsukune, but it all revolves around the theme of love and selflessness conquering all! 

Five beautiful brides out of five!

[sigh... I was going to end it there, but Celty says I have to try to put in something grumpy and Shizuo-like, so here goes: "Grr. I hate this stuff. It's vapid and I can't stand it. I award it no points. Grumble grumble."  I still think he'd give it at least two out of five. Maybe one. See you next week!]

Economics, the anime (Spice and Wolf)

Even if economics isn't your thing, if you're a fan of girls with fox ears and bushy tails then Spice and Wolf might still work for you. It's a two-season light romance out of Imagin and released for North American audiences by Funimation (like more than half of all anime these days, I think). It was good enough to keep watching (or I wouldn't have kept watching it) and if you're into romance or economics you'll really like it. If you're into both, then you probably make more money than I do and should just get out of the house and take a girl/guy/both out on the town, maybe make some real romance instead of shutting yourself in and watching a formulaic anime about trade practices in a renaissance-ish guild system. Just saying.

So plot-wise it's pretty simple. This guy, Kraft Lawrence, is a merchant. More in the Dungeons and Dragons sense than the Wall Street one, even if sometimes it felt like a lesson for kids on commodities trading.

His companion is Holo, a local deity who's all high-and-mighty because she's a goddess, but who's a little down on her luck because nobody believes in the old gods anymore. Through an improbable series of events, she basically decides she's going with him wherever he goes, and you spent the next two seasons saying "hell you two, just get a room already."

Most of the plot revolves around their relationship, and the seemingly endless supply of back-door deals and trading shenanigans that Lawrence is always trying to find his way out of. The questions are things like "who's trying to boost the price of one country's silver coins so they can take advantage when the bubble pops?"

That, and how long can a guy travel with someone that looks like this and *not* strike up a relationship?

Also: that's a fox tail. Not a wolf's. But wolves aren't foxy, I guess.

Anyway, it wasn't really my thing, but I guess it was cute.

Speaking of, I'm getting the hell out of Ikebukuro for the next two weeks, so against my better judgement I'm going with Celty's advice and letting Shinra do a couple of posts while I'm gone. I still kind of want to punch him, but the stitches held up fine, and Celty says this would be a good way to repay him. If there's and Yaoi on here when I get back I'm going to slug him.

Yeah, so 2 and a half bushy fox tails out of five. Maybe three. See you in a few weeks.

Another Bad Title (Ergo Proxy)

So this one's another example of a good show with a bad name. "Ergo Proxy" or エルゴプラクシ (Erugo Purakushi) is a pair of English words generally understood by the creator but which don't work out so well in English because that's not how they work. "Proxy" (I looked this up) means "someone or something that does something in the place of someone or something else". So say Tanaka wants money but can't get off his can to shake down someone who owes him, and he sends me instead. That makes me his proxy. "Ergo" is a Latin word that means "therefore". Like, "I think therefore I am," as I keep telling Celty. Except "therefore proxy" doesn't make a lot of sense, especially as it's a character's name: "I am Ergo Proxy, the agent of death" he says.

Whatever. I think the point is that he's the inevitable result of all the things that happen before he shows up. In that sense, it's cool.

So what's it about then?

God, I don't know. It's pretty abstract.

So it's the future, and humanity's screwed everything up. Folks like Re-l Mayer (pronounced "ray-el") and Vincent Law (pronounced "vincent law") and a few other named characters live in a domed city called Romdo. Domed because the outside kills you, pretty much. It sucks like 1984. Everybody's got a creepy android helper with a creepy face and a lack of self-interest, and things are falling apart because there's a virus called "cogito" (I looked it up: "cogito ergo sum" is "I think therefore I am", so "cogito" is "I think") which gives these androids, called AutoReivs, free will. And most of them, upon achieving free will, go on senseless killing sprees.

Creepy as hell, right? You want that thing around while you're sleeping? I didn't think so.

I think one of the main themes of the show is that free will can really suck if you don't know what to do with it. That comes up a lot.

Anyway, there's a creepy shadow government run by Re-l's grandfather, who's so old he might as well be dead, and some creepy floating statues who speak for him.

Hold on, I'll get pictures.

Hello, Re-l? It's me, skepticism.

Creepy shadow government (floating statues on either side)

The four statues are called Berkeley, Husserl, Lacan, and Derrida.

Derrida the talking statue, and Derrida the, uh, well whatever he was. Not sure I see the resemblance.

Right. So the plot is that this guy, Vincenct Law --

-- a refugee from another dome that got destroyed, and generally dull young man who works the cleanup crew in Romdo, runs into this little girl AutoReiv --

-- who's infected with cogito but who doesn't want to kill anybody, and they run away from Romdo and don't die, while first Re-l, and then later this guy --

-- Raul Creed, Director-General of the Citizen Security Bureau (read: shady secret police), try to chase them down. In the meantime, there's a mystery unraveling about these creatures called Proxies who seem pretty good at killing people (and each other) and not a whole hell of a lot else. And they're interested in Vincent and Re-l, too.

It's a post-apocalyptic science fiction mystery with philosophical underpinnings about the nature and purpose of free will, with a remarkably high body count and a very dark aesthetic.

No, seriously dark. You'll need to watch it in a dark room to see half the action.

It's interesting and a little meta at times, and overall a really good watch. It takes a little patience to get into, and you have to accept that it's done with a 90s goth aesthetic in 2006 (so raccoon-eye makeup is big), but give it a chance and it'll pleasantly surprise you.

Plus, as I've mentioned before, if you like alt-rock, it's got one of the better theme songs, by Monoral.

I'll give it four out of five.

The Hell Did I Just Watch? (FLCL)

So I just watched something called FLCL, pronounced "Fooly Cooly". Put briefly, it's the story of a young boy struggling his way through puberty while sexy and/or robotic intergalactic space pirates fight with domestic security over the transportation potential of the inter-dimensional portal in his head where his brain should be -- set to punk music.

I can't say I understood it, but I liked it well enough.

So this is Naota.

He's the main character. An ordinary middle schooler. His big brother's run off to America to play baseball, leaving his lonely ex-girlfriend to, I don't know, move on to the next in line?

Sullen doesn't even begin to describe this kid, but I'm pretty sure "moody" comes with the territory. He's a kid, growing up. It happens.

So one day he and Mamimi (that's the slightly not-right-in-the-head girlfriend-ish character's name) are standing on a bridge when a crazy chick on a vespa slams into him, and then, if I'm remembering this right, she hits him in the face with an electric bass.

That's Haruko Haruhara. She knocks him unconscious, gives him "mouth to mouth" because I think she's a little perv, and then moves in with Naota's family (such as it is: Naota's dad, a skeezy Manga dealer, and Naota's grand-dad, an only marginally less skeezy old man).

After she hits him in the head, giant robots start (after a delay) climbing out of his forehead whenever he gets, I don't know, angry or sexually confused or pretty much any emotional state associated with being a boy growing up. So it happens pretty frequently.

Yep. Forehead.

This is a very. Weird. Story. I want to say it's all allegorical, and it kind-of is. It's about growing up, and sex, and finding your place in the world, but it's also about forehead-robots and space pirates.

It's also the kind of anime where people will as often look like the pictures above as they will like this:

or like this:

or like this:

or like this:

Yeah, this anime has whole scenes of frantic page-flipping manga, and references to other pop-culture phenomena, so the animation's as likely to look like this:

Yes, that's a giant iron. Just watch the damn show.

As this:

Or this:

What's with those eyebrows?

And the music is awesome. Shinkishi Mitsumune and the Pillows have put out Three. Separate. Albums. of pretty awesome music.

So: roundup. It's a crazy-as-hell, funny coming-of-age story, with girls and robots and aliens, set to punk, all by people who know anime and the people who watch it. It's filled with in-jokes, meta-references, and easter eggs, and it's a travesty that it's only six episodes long.

Five out of five, watch it. You won't understand it, but you'll like it.

Now to leave you, here's a picture of a giant robot, and a link to the closing credits song for the show, "Shooting Star".

Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

Five Anime with Sweet Tunes

I thought rather than reviewing anything specific today, I'd just share some of my favourite music from anime I've seen.

1. Samurai Champloo

I've already talked about this one. It's pretty badass. The two songs I've got here are the opening theme and one of the closing tunes. They're both off  "Samurai Champloo Music Record: Departure". The record was produced by Nujabes and Fat Jon in 2004, with one track by MINMI.

Here's the first (which you've seen before): "Battlecry" by Nujabes.

And the second (which you haven't): "Shiki No Uta" by MINMI:

2. Deadman Wonderland

I haven't talked about this one yet, so I'll save any comments about the show itself for later. But the opening theme is pretty good.

The song's called "One Reason" and it's by a specifically put together group calling themselves the Deadman Wonder Band, though they're featuring Fade.

3. Ergo Proxy

Maybe it's because of when I was born, but my favourite music has always been alt-rock, so when I heard the opening theme to Ergo Proxy, a song called "Kiri" by Monoral, off their 2008 album Turbulence, I was pretty impressed.

4. Shakugan no Shana

SnS brings us to the world of Supercell, an 11-member Japanese supergroup that's about as hard to nail down as Jello, so I'll talk about individual members of the band as the folks making the music, but forgive me if I screw it up royally.

The opening theme to Shakugan no Shana is called "Light My Fire", and it's written by Ryo (the head of the band's revolving door of performers) and sung by Kotoko. It was released as a single by Kotoko in November 2011.

5. Guilty Crown

I'll get to all of these anime eventually, and I really enjoyed this one, but there are two more Supercell songs from this one to introduce, written by, well, Supercell in general I think, but I have no idea who within that, maybe the singers, maybe Ryo. First is "My Dearest", sung by Koeda. (To get an idea of how they got vocalists Koeda and Chelly, read this bit of the Supercell Wikipedia Page, it's a little nuts.)

The other one is sung by Chelly, performed under the name Egoist, after a band in the anime (which is a little meta, but still cool), and served as the second opening theme for the series. We'll end there, with "The Everlasting Guilty Crown".

I might do another of these posts eventually, when I've heard enough good stuff to put together a second collection. That's all for now.

What is this I don't even...? (Vividred Operation... the first thirty seconds)

Sometimes, I don't know what to think. I don't. There is some great anime out there. I know, because I've seen it. But this one I just tried to watch, well. 

The name of the anime is "Vividred Operation", and I really couldn't tell you if it's any good or not. That's because when all I see for the first thirty seconds of an anime is shiny vinyl booty shots of twelve-year-olds, I get squicked out *very damned quickly*.

Let's do a little "opening shot" comparison, shall we?

Here's Sword Art Online:

Guy in his room. Quiet. 

And Blast of Tempest:

Friends on a hot summer afternoon. Ephemeral.

And Vividred Operation:

 A twelve-year-old with paint-for-panties riding a motorcycle.

Sword Art Online:

Sweeping vista of a digital world.

Blast of Tempest:

Metaphorical shot of rose window and moody characters.

Vividred Operation.

A crotch sunrise from behind a twelve-year-old in booty shorts.

I can't even rate it, because I didn't want to watch it. If you have, or if you like booty shots of twelve year old girls, drop a note in the comments and defend it. I can't figure it out, myself.

Zero booty shots out of a lamentably-seen two, I guess.