Necromania

No, this isn't a post about how much I love World Of Warcraft Forsaken, although I do.
This is another of my slightly rare Anime bumps. Which crazy cartoon did I FINALLY finish this time? Well, I'll have you know I finished a couple but this one was:
"Shikabane Hime" , or "Corpse Princess" in English.

I watched both seasons and found it entertaining. A couple excellent twists and addressed MOST of the larger questions the series presented.
I loved the opening and ending credit sequences and the images they evoke as well as how well it embodied the series as a whole. I wont lie, the fan service was quite compelling without ever being blatant or pandering. Well, maybe it was blatant, but not presented in any ways that made it seem crude or part of a joke.
This was one of those shows where I really liked the world the creators had developed and would LOVE to build a character duo for cosplay because I think many fans of the series would be able to identify what show you're from, similar to many pokemon cosplays.

As with many anime, the finale was good, but left one with a feeling of unanswered questions. I know this is fairly typical, and one of my more anime intense friends said "now to watch the OVA" but to be fair the end actually gave some closure to the whole series. Definitely better than many other anime I've seen. So perhaps my rambling is moot.

Apparently you can watch this thing ALL over the intarwebs for free, I think there's even some *gasp* dubbed episodes on Hulu, for heathens who *shudder* enjoy, such a thing. . . . like me. Honestly though, sometimes I like to watch a series in dub so I can actually WATCH the show, see the animation in all its glory and not have to READ the show, so I usually do both if I enjoy an anime enough. Evidence of this is EVA & Lagann where I can tell differen versions by how different the dub. Vs. the official sub./fan sub.'s are.

Anyway. if the art and the AMV peaked your interest, here's the first episode. Check em out.

Comin' From Space to Teach You

For those of you who are even less aware of current anime and what's going on in the Japanese animated world (not hard to do, but if you're around here than I know SOME of you [I'm looking at you two Japanese majors who still haven't translated my knife markings snickering with each other like two magical girls] might be a step ahead of me on this one, but nonetheless) I stumbled across something fairly awesome in my quarterly assault on the intarwebs in search of moving drawings from the Great Island that stimulate me in very particular ways (yes, sometimes like that, but not too much).
What, you may ask? As to explain what the hell I just said, no, but as to what I found . . .

An excellent short series collaborated upon by Subaru (yes, the car company) and Gainax. As to be expected, there is a plethora of symbolism and things named after other things to give weight and connectivity. To the jaded cynical mind one might see it as one long commercial for Subaru in a passive non-obvious name placement sort of way, but honestly, that only occured to me like, once, as I started watching it.
It's short, its cute, its looks fantastic, its from Gainax, its simple and it resolves itself more than some three season animes I've seen, so here it is below in it's entirety, should take less than a half hour to watch, do so.

A Melody That Folded

My first reference to this Anime was hey-are, and I have since finished watching it.

I had not finished more than three quarters of the series when I realized I had never heard much about it, but I was enjoying it and anxiously awaiting some killer exposition.
It was at this point I decided I was going to look up some reviews, maybe look up some cosplayers, because I was really getting into the world and symbols and concepts, and was jonesin to write a fanfic or develop my own stories from the world.
I found very little, and the little I found was not comforting. One review I found was merciless swearing and bashing of the anime, and frankly, I could see where all of the arguments were formed and found the criticism valid and amusingly graphic. One other review I found was also lamenting of the anime, same emotions without the cursing. And the third and last review I found was was very "meh."

The anime is called Melody of Oblivion, its a semi "monster of the week" with the ever favorite "boy is normal, suddenly becomes bad ass, must save world now" and a decent amount of fan service. If you decide to watch it, be careful, there are constant discrepancies in different translations.

I personally want to give this anime a good review, but the best I can give it is a C- overall.

For anyone who likes their anime to be all put together and be all self contained, explaining the whole thing by the end of the series, (too much to ask, I know) it's not a good deal.
However, I read a lot into the symbols and references and really enjoyed the IDEA of magical/mystical physics/mechanics, for how the combat works, how the abilities develop.

Maybe I should track down if there is a manga, or just forsake it and start my own fanfics or something.

Honestly, as I step back and look at it critically, it is not an AWESOME anime. The hero is lame, the world isn't TOTALLY explained, and, a very Gainax (even though Gainax was the finishing house, not the parent developer) ending makes little sense. BUT! I can not totally discount an anime that inspires me to want to run an RP game set in this universe, write stories for the universe, and cosplay a character of my own design that would make ALOT of sense from that universe IF I understood, the anime correctly.

Also, the soundtrack was AWESOME!, If you can find the whole thing, lemme know, I'd love it until I can afford to buy a real copy.

Anyway, I say snag it, it's worth taking a peak. If you hate, you were warned, if you LOVE, I wont judge.

Anime Amusement

(An expansion of a 10 second review I gave at my last job to some costumers who are now good acquaintances. You know who you are, "sport/sparky" )

Lately I have been attempting to boost my anime intake. The current surge started earlier this year in hopes and an attempt to be a little more well versed by the time Fanime '09 hit. So, I started with an anime house I know and love, Gainax . So, I went through the catalog in the Wikki ( I know, I know, wikki is like that guy you hang out with who's always right and knows everything, and is usually basing what he knows on truth but the fucker hasn't even graduated college yet, gee, sounds a lot like me. Maybe that's why I like it. But anyway, its a good enough start for me.)

I have ingested Neon Genesis: Evangelion (good luck with just that link, if you don't know already, you might want to take a few days to fully explore it.) previously, as my first full anime, and I loved it. More on that later, as well as FLCL, um . . . same as I said with EVA, and so my choice was colored.

More recently I lovingly consumed Otaku no Video which continues to be a staple of the Otaku condition in my eyes. Then Ebichu which is ridiculous awesome, but try and find translations w/explanations cause there's a lot of cultural/wordplay goin on in that shit.

And then, ah yes, Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan .

(near exact quote from conversation)
"You remember how Eva was like, rape your brain and leave you broken in an alley and never calls you back? well Gurren, Gainax's only Mecha since then, it takes you out for a lovely dinner, takes you back to it's place, then fucks you in your ear hole, but at least uses lube and says it will call if you want it to. And you do, oh do you!"

I was at both Gurren events at Fanime, and they were awesome. There are better documented occurrences of them than I could post, but I don't know where they are, maybe I will post them later, but, I will say this.

(Tweet)
h47 Asking the panelists questions in rapid fire japanese is CHEATING!

I have since moved on to milking the series Melody of OBlivion . Its not as awesome as Gurren or Eva, yet, but its very old school, combines several elements that don't make sense together. I dig the music, the art style, makes me feel nostalgic when I watch it, like I'm 16 again watching eva in VHS all alone. odd.

Yeah, I think it was Mjerk who told me this, but I use it still to this day. The recipe for any good anime is at least 3 things that don't go together. Eva? Kids, mechs, theology. (yes theres many more) Cowboy BeBop? Kids, space ships, Yakuza. The list just goes on.

Aright, im bloggered out. More later.