Archive for the English Anime Category


Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st Blu-Ray (English) Guest Review by Richard B.

December 8th, 2010

 Today is Wednesday and you know what that means – a special guest review treat! Richard B. has been a commenter here several times and, as I will not get to see this BD until the new year, I thought I’d let him give us his two Canadian cents before I have a go at it. Take it away, Miwa!

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 1st is a retelling of the events of the first Nanoha TV series. While this may not seem like a good thing, it does pay to remember that back in 2004 the first Nanoha TV season was a scattered mess. As a spinoff from the Triangle Hearts adult game series the first few episodes were nothing more than a bad Card Captor Sakura clone. With a few unsavoury elements left over from its source material.

It wasn’t until later on in the series when Fate was introduced, that the things became interesting. She was a dark, mysterious magical girl with a troubled past, fighting our main character. So the first thing fandom did was pair them together as a couple. Add in the fact the battles in the final few episodes were done in more of a shounen giant robot style (complete with giant beam attacks) and the series took a complete 180-degree turn.

With all that and seeing how the later series were more popular and sold better in Japan, you could see why the makers wanted to redo the original material. And, for the most part, Nanoha the Movie is a superior retelling of the 1st chapter in the Nanoha universe.

The movie creators know what the fans in the series want – action and Nanoha/Fate. Luckily we get both fairly quickly into the movie. Fate is introduced much sooner in this version, and set up as the central conflict of the movie (with the Jewel seeds relegated to being a plot McGuffin). The movie handles the two becoming friends through fighting better than the TV series, both with better action scenes and better introspection. The pacing is tighter than original season, which dragged on at the beginning until pace picked up in the last 4 episodes.

The action is more like the later episode of the series, and here is where the movie shows off its big animation budget. The final battle between Fate and Nanoha in particular is well done and I had a big smile on my face while watching it.

There are some new original scenes, including some nice bits showing Fate’s past and training. But the character most benefiting from the new material is Precia, whose motivations are  given more detail as is the accident she had her in past. It fleshes her out greatly and makes for a much better character over all.

Most of the more unsavoury stuff from the original is gone, too. Except for the transformation scenes which were pretty ick. Thankfully, they only appear once for each of the leads.

The Blu-Ray version of the movie comes with an English subtitle track that is fairly well done. Except for a few nits (Arf is called Alf and the TSAB is called the DAB) it’s well written and easy to understand. The subtitle font is middle of the road, readable but I would have rather had either a bigger black outline or a non-white font color. The picture and sound quality is amazing though, as colors stand out and the animation quality never dips for the battle scenes, showing what BluRay can do for animation.

Nanoha the Movie fixes a lot of the problems I had with the first season, keeps the elements I liked and adds even more of what I wanted. It reminded me why Nanoha/Fate became the first Yuri couple I really liked. I hope we see the same budget and care given to StrikerS when it gets a movie. Highly recommended to Nanoha fans.

Art – 8
Story – 7 (Better than the TV but still the weaker of the 3 series)
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7 (Alot more than the first TV series)
Service – 8 –

Overall – 8

I’m told that the 2nd movie has been greenlit (presumably because this movie is doing well in DVD/BD sales, so good!) Next up is As, where we’ll be treated to the reimagined Knights and Hayate. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it’s as good a reboot as this appears to be!





CANAAN Anime, Disk 1 Blu-Ray (English)

December 3rd, 2010

Type-Moon’s CANAAN does what every good action story does – it starts off with a premise, stabs the premise in the back, drags the premise to a dumpster, pretends nothing ever happened and acts surprised when it comes back to bite it in the ass.

We are introduced to the situation first through the eyes of Osawa Maria, a fledgling photojournalist and her competent, irritable mentor, Minorikawa Minoru. Arrived in Shanghai on the night of a festival, they expect to be covering a conference of world leaders on combating terrorism. They don’t expect to be running through streets of Shanghai being chased by people with guns. They also don’t expect the terrorists to be the hosts of the conference.

Maria is saved by an assassin-for-hire by the name of Canaan who, we learn, is a friend of hers. Canaan has synesthesia which manifests in her perception of people and their emotions as distinct, traceable colors. Maria and Canaan are chased and chase others along the surface and through the tunnels of Shanghai as the conference looms. But when the conference opens and the terrorists take over by poisoning the world leaders with the deadly UA virus, everything shifts.

Leader of the terrorists, Alphard, has a specific grudge against Canaan and, it turns out, that they have a shared origin and a shared mentor. A mentor that Alphard killed. The story revolves around the three foci of Canaan, Alphard and Maria and the people that move around them.

The first disk takes us from Shanghai to the high desert where the UA virus was visited upon a small, unimportant village by an uncaring CIA as an experiment. The lives of everyone in the series is tied to that horrible experiment and many of them are still living with the effects.

Government conspiracy, assassins, knife fights, gun fights, chases through streets, helicopters and in cars, CANAAN provides action fans with just about one of everything – and does it well.

For Yuri fans, there is just about no way in this volume to avoid the obvious attraction between Canaan and Maria. I would say it’s mostly on Canaan’s side. Even Canaan’s handler, Natsume comments that she seems to have finally hit puberty. Which is about right. Canaan may not yet – or ever – feel desire for Maria, but she clearly loves her deeply.

This is my first-ever Blu-Ray purchase. Because I knew that the backgrounds would hold up to it, and I thought the visuals associated with Canaan’s synesthesia would look cool. I started watching this on a projector onto a large projection screen, so it was about 45″ of viewable screen – the visuals did, indeed hold up. They look fantastic. What didn’t hold up were the subtitles. I hadn’t considered that…obviously, neither had Sentai Filmworks. At 45″, the subtitles looked broken and pixelated. It got better by episode 5, but the first two episodes, it was downright distracting.

I shifted to a 15″ screen where the subtitles once again looked tight, but the visuals were constrained by the small screen. I’d split the difference on my TV, but it’s a old TV and I can’t connect my computer to it and I’m not running out to get a BD player or a new TV just for you. ^_^

This led to a question by someone on Twitter about which company had the best subtitles. I took examples from every current company I could find in the house and played them one after another on the 45″ screen. Here are final scores:

Media Blasters – 6 out of 10
Funimation – 8
RightStuf – 7
Sentai  – 6
Bandai – 6

I liked Funi’s subtitles best because at that size, they stayed crisp, and because they were not yellow. I know it’s so personal, but I cannot stand yellow.

Back to CANAAN,  Disk 1, Episodes 1-9 are a shockingly huge shift, from what appears to be a silly, slightly predictable action story to a vast government conspiracy, tragic personal revelations, angst and love, in many and various forms – even the kinds that are toxic.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Series – 4

Overall – 8

Overall, I consider this a totally worthy purchase. I like the action, the characters and the plot keeps shifting and swerving, like Canaan in the middle of battle.  Alphard vs Canaan makes for a great anime. Now I’m motivated to get back to that second light novel in the series and give it a go.





Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny Anime, Volume 3 (English)

November 23rd, 2010

As you know, I’ve been determined to figure out what the heck the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is about by using the least accurate, most ridiculous forms of media possible. And by god, I think it worked!

I was watching the third volume of Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny and it dawned on me that once I set all the semi-mystical dragon stuff aside I could actually follow what was going on.

You can be sure that I did not actually think this would work. But I guess if you see/read enough – and presuming even the worst aberrations have some minor connection to the actual story – I guess learning by osmosis does work after all. How unexpected. ^_^

In any case, Volume 3 ends with the legendary battle of Red Cliffs, sort of, and Ryuubi and Sonsaku defeat Sousou, sort of, and all the cool characters are very cool, as we both expect and desire.

This is followed by a shockingly sweet epilogue and then followed up with hideous extra shorts that basically go like this: Butt, Breasts, Butt, Breasts, Butt, Breasts. And everyone’s butts and breasts look exactly the same. Totally snoozariffic.

This was followed by a live event at Tokyo International Anime Fair, starring the Voice actresses for Kanu, Ekitoku and Koumei, which might have been interesting, but the audience was an Ikkitousen audience so…it wasn’t. “Which character breathes heavily alot?” Puh-leaze. They could have asked what it was like to pretend to break people in half, instead we watch them act like they give a shit talking about underwear. My fetishes are just not other people’s fetishes, I guess.

I also enjoyed the performance of the opening theme from the TIAF piece, as it was basically the singer, Kariyuki Mai,  karaoke-ing her own song. ^_^ She did a damn good job under the circumstances.

Would have liked a little drama recording though- with Kanu, Chouhi and Koumei there, they easily could have a 5 minute thing about Ryuubi or something. Oh, forget that, I really just wished Nabatame-san used her Kanu voice for something. Anything. The ads for stuff would have been fine. Oh well.

What made this volume work overall was Koumei taking the lead on the strategies used, so it seemed for a bit like it all made sense…and watching Kanu and Ryomou kick the shit out of just about anyone is fun.

And of course, there’s  a teeny bit of Yuri. Kanu has a shockingly frank scene where she admits to  Koukin that she loves Ryuubi – and she’s really open about it, too. We knew this, of course, but it was nice to see her just getting it off her chest, so to speak. ^_^

Ratings:
 
Art – 8
Characters – 8, for real this time, not only in our heads
Story – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 100
 
Overall – 8

If you’ve been able to put up with (or, god help you, enjoy,) the kind of lameass perviness that Ikkitousen serves up in shovel loads, then Ikkitousen:DD, Volume 3 is worth waiting for.

Nov. 27th correction: Aaack! I incorrectly thanked Media Blasters when I wrote this review. In reality, the credit belongs to Okazu Superhero Amanda M! My sincere apology Amanda and my thanks for your kindness and generosity. This is my favorite volume out in English so far and will remain so until we get Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor, if we ever do.





Shattered Angels Anime, Disk 2 (English)

September 28th, 2010

Shattered Angels: The Complete CollectionDisk 2 picks up the story in a state of complete chaos. Everything the Ayanokojis are attempting to do is falling apart. Their Angels are disobeying them because of crises brought on by personal feelings and Kyoshiro, the most idealistic of them, is falling in love with Kuu.

For viewers, this means a lot of bouncing around between the Ayanokojis and lots of pointless fights and screaming. And sort-of love scenes. And talking. God, do they all talk.

Everything comes to a kind of climax when the missing Ayanokoji, Kazuya, returns, with his own Angel (voiced by Ogata Megumi, using her UFO Princess Valkyrie Val voice.) Everything Kyoshiro believed in is crushed under Kazuya’s heel in a scene I love with all my heart. I absolutely, genuinely believe that the scene that makes me love this series best is the moment Kyoshiro greets his long-lost, thought-to-be-dead brother Kazuya once again…and has his head pounded into the ground for his efforts.

Kazuya turns out to indeed be as crazy as Mika and Sojiro had been saying from the beginning, as he co-opts the Angels for his own use. The climax is full of a lot of talking and we’re still unclear as to what, exactly, Kazuya was going to do when he destroyed everything, but as there really was never any chance of him doing it, we weren’t all that worried.

Kyoshiro and Setsuna head off into the sunset to find thought-to-be-dead-but-hey-we-have-to-look,right Kuu, Kaon and Himiko live happily every after, Sojiro and Tarlotte continue to annoy the piss out of one another and the series comes to a confusing, but less-unsatisfying than usual, end.

I watched this all with Bruce and spent a lot of time watching his reactions, because I already knew what mine were going to be. The fact that he laughed as Kazuya slammed Kyoshiro into the pavement sort of puts the period on that for me – it’s a really funny scene.

My only complaint, really, is the lack of Kaon and Himiko extras. Guess I can’t give up that one ADV disk after all…

Shattered Angels, despite everything, is probably the best thing Kaishaku has ever created. Yes, the plot is full of holes, and yes, the world in which it takes place makes no sense and yes, it’s full of handwaves and eye-rollingly dumb things, but…and this is a big but…it’s funny and Kaon and Himiko have a happy ending. Which is all we ever wanted from it in the first place.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7, except for Mika, Kaon and Himiko, who are all 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

Once more, thanks go to Okazu Superhero Amanda M. for her sponsorship of today’s review!





Shattered Angels Anime, Disk 1 (English)

September 27th, 2010

Shattered Angels: The Complete CollectionOn Disk 1 of Shattered Angels, we are introduced to the aptly named Kuu (空 means “empty” in Japanese, among other things,) an average highschool girl in a not-at-all average world, in which there are many schools and students, but no apparent teachers.
Kuu has a childhood dream of a prince with red hair taking her away, so when a red-haired “prince” by the name of Ayanokoji Kyoshiro arrives she, like the other female students in the school, is thrilled. But when she mets him for the first time, the “Prince” rips Kuu’s shirt open, *then* asks her to come with him. Sensibly, she runs away crying. (I commented to Bruce at this point, “I think he got that the wrong way ’round.”)

And then all hell breaks lose as giant robot arms and legs fight in and around the school, reducing it to rubble and forcing Kuu and Kyoshiro to run away from….?

Ultimately, Kuu and we learn of the existence of “Absolute Angels,” creatures that look like girls, but actually contain within them tremendous power. They manifest as robots and fight for their masters – all of whom are members of the contentious and crazy Ayanokoji family.

Of course, relevant to our interests, there are a number of characters, because this *is* a Kaishaku series after all. Chikane and Himeko clones Kaon and Himiko have a tragic love affair, tragic only because Kaon is an Absolute Angel who’s master is the slightly Evil, Psychotic Lesbian Ayanokoji Mika. I watch the series for her.

Kyoshiro, aside from getting the greeting/sexually harrassing order wrong, is painfully and hysterically obsessed with his oldest brother, Kazuya. I loved Mika right away, when, after Kaon had kidnapped Kuu and brought her to Mika, Kyoshiro has his Angel, Setsuna, lead their other brother Sojiro’s Angel to Mika’s school. When confronted with Kyoshiro and his whining about “onii-san this,” and “onii-san that,” Mika just looks at him like he’s an idiot and says something to the effect of, “Oh for pity’s sake, are you still on about that?” It made me laugh out loud.

The bulk of Disk 1 is taken up with Kuu being kidnapped and/or attacked or just being fail at everything, and Setsuna having to save her and pick up in the kitchen after her. Kyoshiro is an idiot and Kaon and Himiko are a beautiful, but tragic, love story. Mika is insane, sadistic and lesbian. ♥

Episode 3 still wins “Best Use of Showers as an Expository Setting.”

I am so very, very, very disappointed in the “Super Amazing Value Edition”of this series I could cry. Not a single DVD extra! Not one! What on earth is the POINT of watching this series if we can’t get the Kaon and Himiko extras?!? Why, Funimation? Why?

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7, except for Mika, Kaon and Himiko, who are all 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

Many, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Amanda M. for her sponsorship of today’s review!

Becoming an Okazu Hero is as easy clicking any link on my Amazon Yuri Wishlist or Amazon JP Yuri Wishlist, purchasing that item and Hey! Presto! You are a Hero!