Archive for the English Anime Category


Dear Brother Anime (English)

October 22nd, 2012

It was 2004. Fansubs were already phasing out of the elegantly clunky VHS tape-exchanges by snail mail and were shifting towards the passionless and infinitely faster transmission of IP people had no right to share by digital means.

Oniisama E was already a relic of a former age even then. Fansubbed by a bastion of Victorian worldviews, each volume of the anime came with notes on culture, references and a full set of what we ought to be feeling and understanding. It wasn’t enough for us to know that the rain, the wind, the trains and the flocks of birds were symbolic, we were to be told exactly how to interpret them. ^_^ As the end of this series heralded the end of anime fandom as I had entered it, I finally wrote a review, if only to say goodbye to it.

Now we have a chance that I could never ever have expected – a free, legal, multi-language option for people to watch this oh-so-shoujo series, streaming on Viki.com. I hope every single one of you who loves Maria-sama ga Miteru will watch Oniisama E/Dear Brother based on the manga by Riyoko Ikeda.

This is a series fraught with fraughtness. In the poisonous hothouse of an elite girls’ school, a nice girl named Nanako will encounter insanity, obsession, emotional manipulation, friendship and love.

Kaoru-no-Kimi, the athletic masculine type, Miya-sama without whom we would never have had Juri in Utena and the beautifully tragic Sainte-Juste, who makes homicidal depression and drug use look…sexy. You cannot tell me that kids books today are too dark. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Character 9
Yuri – More than you expect (and more than Technogirls would admit)
Service – 4 for girls in suits, but nothing more salacious than that

Overall – 9

This stuff is made of awesome. Give me until Episode 7, and if you hate it, you can stop. But then, we can never be friends. ^_^





K-ON! Anime Season 2, Disk 3 (English)

September 21st, 2012

If you watch Episode 24 of K-ON!, Season 2 and aren’t just a teeny little sniffly when the Light Music Club sings “Touched by an Angel!” to Azusa, you are no longer a friend of mine.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Superhero Eric P., who sponsored today’s review is definitely a friend! Thanks Eric, every moment I spend in the company of Houkago Tea Time reminds me of friends like you. ^_^





K-ON Anime, Season 2, Disk 2 (English)

August 31st, 2012

The second disk of the Season 2 of the  K-ON! anime, continues as it began, with wonderful moments of real life interspersed with absurd moments that only could happen in an anime…except when they actually happen in real life.

Houkago Tea Time enjoy their final high school school festival, play their final concert at school, pass their final final exams as high school students, take college exams and celebrate Valentine’s Day with their adoring underclassman, Asuza.

Time passes, as it does. I can barely remember my high school years, to be honest. Not all of what I can remember is good, but I find that my mind strays more to the moments that were good as I get older. Because K-ON! is about fondly recalling high school I will share a story with you from my high school years.

I’ve mentioned previously that I was in marching band and that I played clarinet. I was exceedingly mediocre, but when you’re playing that many hours every day…(band class, compulsory music lessons, marching band practice, football games, competition and individual practice) I was tolerable. My sempai in band was the woman who became my wife some years later.

One day we returned from an away football game to find that the band room entrance to the school was locked and that no one had the key. The band director went off to try and find someone to let us in and we stood there, bored, tired, ready to get out of our uniforms. To keep ourselves amused, we started to jam. One of our songs that year was a jazzed-up version of “My Favorite Things” – not a song that too many of us had any fondness for, but it did play well in the show. So we started to play that. The sun was getting low, it was getting dim out on the side of the school we were on, and we just…played.

For the first time it all meshed. The trumpets and the trombones got along, the soloist actually hit his notes, the drummers suddenly learned to count to 4. The woodwinds were in tune and on.

It was the best performance of that song we did all year.

If I never remember another thing about high school, I want to always remember that moment.

This disk of K-ON! made me remember that moment.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1
Service – 4

Overall – 8

Thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsoring this review…and for bringing that memory to mind. ^_^





K-ON Anime, Season 2, Disk 1 (English)

August 15th, 2012

Season 2 of the K-ON! anime is, well, pretty much exactly the same kind of thing as Season 1 was, so if Season 1 didn’t appeal to you, then probably this season isn’t going to either. ^_^

Season 2 has exactly the kind of thing *I* liked about Season 1, so for me, this is total win.

The two things I liked best on this disk have nothing whatsoever to do with Yuri or music. For me, what makes K-On! work is the interplay between the four leads. More than any other series, this one strikes me as one written by someone who actually knew something about real girls. (As say, compared with Yuru Yuri, which reads like a guess as to sort-of what girls are, maybe, like, when they hang out.)

There are two scenes that strongly affected me in this way. The first, when the four are sharing a room for their school trip and making each other giggle by saying stupid things. Yep, we did that. Heck we *still* do that. My Mom once yelled at me when staying over my house for the holidays that my wife and I needed to stop giggling, it was keeping her up.)

The second is a scene so meaningless, so…normal…that it took my breath away. When they are all shopping at the home goods store and Yui comes running over to exclaim “Screws!” then dances in hyperactive delight at all the shapes and sizes of screw…yep, we do that too. ^_^

The palpable lack of Yuri is a plus, as well. When Yui hangs on Mugi there is no fanservice, overt or implied. This is how it should be. This is in fact, how it is.

K-ON! s that most rare of creatures – a moe 4-koma gag story about girls hanging out that gets it exactly right.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1
Service – 4

Overall – 8

Once again it is my great pleasure to thank Okazu Superhero Eric P. for his sponsorship of today’s review!





Revolutionary Girl Utena Anime, Volume 3, Disk 4 (English)

May 27th, 2012

At last, the conclusion to the “Apocalypse Arc” of Revolutionary Girl Utena.

There will be spoilers in today’s post. Please do not read past this if you have not yet watched it, or do not wish to know any details.

***

These final three episodes live in my mind as masterworks anime. And now, more than ten years later, I watched them again, fearing that I had made more of them in my memory than they were in reality.

I hadn’t.

The climactic moment for me has always been and will always be the quiet conversation over tea and cookies, when Anthy says that she’s poisoned the cookies…and Utena keeps eating, then admits that she too has poisoned the tea…and Anthy takes another sip.

Out of context, this moment probably doesn’t seem like much, but for me it is *the* moment of the series. Everything is understood between these two, everything is forgiven, even the betrayals to come.

Akio is revealed for what he truly is…nothing at all.

The revolution of the world comes and goes and only one person notices it.

Once again, as Anthy quietly points out the obvious to Akio, “You have no idea what happened here, do you?” I applauded. Once again, as I watched Anthy step out of the gates of Ohtori, my heart is filled with joy for her.

Fans really didn’t like this ending the first time around. It’s too ambiguous, too open-ended. We don’t know what will happen.

For me, it stands as the best ending to an anime series ever. The possibilities were endless, even the fanfic was extraordinary. Because we didn’t know, we could create a thousand different reuinions, a million different futures. At the end of the story, I wanted only to revisit some of these endings (especially those I wrote for myself, obviously ^_^) because in my mind, I know *exactly* what happened.

As, I hope, do you.

Ratings:

Overall – 10

The final Utena box set contest ends today, at midnight my time. Winners will be announced in a few weeks, because I have some personal stuff to take care of this week. Please get those final entries in!

It is my hope that this re-release of Revolutionary Girl Utena was as much fun for you as it was for me. Thanks, Nozomi/RightStuf for making it possible. And thanks for your donation of a spiffy third box set and Duelist’s Ring as a contest prize.