FUNimationed. (By the way, why does he have to attach a picture of himeself to the letter?)

Summary:

Makina and friends are running around the city trying to track down a rogue shikabane that seems to be targeting women. However, they always get there too late and the culprit always disappears before either her or Minari can get there. Meanwhile, Ouri gets sick and one night ends up infront of a doctor’s office. When he wakes up, Makina is there too. Apparently the doctor and a baby he is taking care of are the suspects. Makina tries to make a run with the baby, but is stopped by the baby’s mother. She and Ouri are captured, and the doctor injects her with some shikabane cells. However, these cells have no effect on Makina for she is already dead. Instead, Makina breaks free and kills the shikabane (with her Uzis!). Just as she was about to kill the doctor, Keisei arrives and stops her. Unfortunately, the doctor is murdered, later on, in a hospital.

Thoughts:

What we learned this episode:
Makina is already dead oh wait I knew that already
Makina’s family was killed in a fire
There’s some organization pulling the strings behind the scene … oooh big surprise /sarcasm

I’m a bit worried about the show moving along at snails pace right now, and honestly it’s not fairing so well against other shows this fall. I think my review yesterday pretty much covers what I want to say about this series so far;

Shikabanehime Aka – This ones a toss up. You must remember, just cause a show is below my expectation doesn’t mean it sucks (except for Kameko DX). Maybe I expected too much, being the Gainax fanboy that I am. I totally forgot my favourite Gainax works were all original works. Either way, I was expecting alot more action, and some actual storyline. I’m not getting alot of either in the first three episodes (score: D for double Uzis)

Well the show hasn’t hit danger zone yet… but its getting there.

Ooooh purple blood! Strange… but better than black blood.

So Ouri doesnt find it wierd that the telepathic cat can go through windows? Then again, he did bring a girl back to life.

Oh hey she got captured again.

My thoughts exactly.

I must of rewound and rewatched this part 5 times. I don’t get it. So she moved her hand, and this doctor just drops the syringe and accidentally pulls the trigger?? I mean its not his first time doing it (as at least 5 others have been implanted with shikabane cells). Argh. Logic fails me.

Edit: oops left out some screenshots

Summary:

The episode begins with the death of four kids in a traffic accident, one of them being Hikari, a friend of some kids at the orphanage where Ouri grew up.
At her own funeral, Hikari suddenly resurrects as a shikabane. In comes Miakina, and in the ensuing battle, she is run through by shikabane Hikari’s tail. Hikari then transforms into her human form when Ouri shows up and Hikari begs him to save her, leaving the injured Makina behind.

Ouri is lured to a park, where apparently two of the other kids have also become shikabane. Just as the three get ready to attack him, Makina shows up (apparently healed) to save his gullible ass (ok fine Ouri helped too… alittle).

Thoughts:
We learn that each shikabane has a human partner – or as they call them, a contractor. We also get to meet two other shikabane/contractor pairs this episode.

The OP was also shown this episode, the song fits the overall fell of the series, and for some odd reason, I just get the feeling Kiseki will die. I can’t quite explain why…

What has annoyed me about many shounen shows is that characters spend a lot of time talking and analyzing in the middle of battle. I mean WTF. If I was in a fight, I wouldn’t stand ther listen to my opponent ramble on. Makina is definitely a talker, screwing up not once, but twice because she was too busy talking.

I facepalmed orz

yeah I’m ready, are you?

oh guess not

This leads me to believe she’s relatively new to her job because we don’t really see Minari making those mistakes.

1, 2, 3 strikes you’re out!

Either way, a good episode, but definitely being outshone by the other supernatural/demon killing show this season, Gai-Rei Zero. God that show is made of wtf-win.

Tales of the Abyss has 10 groups subbing it, Shikabanehime:Aka has 1.

Let’s hope that the number of groups subbing is not highly correlated with how good of a show it is.

Summary:

Ouri Kagami, an orphan who grew up on the grounds of a Buddhist Temple and one night wanders around looking for his ‘brother’. He stumbles into a room where a young girl lies, dead. After secretly witnessing his brother revive the girl (and having a conversation with a cat) we get thrown into the present day – where Ouri is moving out of the orphanage.

This mysterious girl is a Shikabane, a living corpse, and she’s running around hunting down other Shikabane with two sub machine guns. She crosses paths with Ouri again, and this time it is Ouri who revives her – but even after being revived, her heart does not beat… for she is a corpse princess.

Thoughts:
It’s a little hard to judge how Shikabanehime:Aka will turn out from this episode alone, since it really depends on what Gainax wants do with it. Of course, I can understand why a lot of people aren’t jumping all over this – it wasn’t particularly exciting and it wasn’t particularly funny – but it was a solid introduction. To be honest, that’s completely fine with me, it’s not like Gurren Lagann had me drooling for more after first episode either, yet it turned out to be my favorite series of 2007.

Gainax sets the tone with a dark palate as opposed to their usual vivid colours they love to use and Shikabane looks like it will serve up some decent action, with a side dish of potential mind rape. And to the excitement of some (and annoyance of others) we get a glimpse of some trademark Gainax fight scenes reminiscent of FuriKuri and Mahoromatic.

And for the record, I love this art style

Special guest: Ranka fanclub member #92137

Summary:

At a tavern in town, Lina and Gourry are having an eating contest while Zel and Amelia watches. But the contest is interrupted by Investigator Weiser, who arrests Lina (again). The charges against her this time is for stealing the pets belonging to some wealthy women. Lina obviously protests, but the investigator stubbornly accuses her anyways.

Attempting to prove her innocence (and to claim the reward money for catching the culprit), Lina and friends head into town and ask around. However, most of the citizens are keeping their mouth shut, making Lina very suspicious. Later on, the party finds an island, and after making it past the giant jellyfish and the mob of lesser demons, Lina and the inspector end up inside a research lab. There she confronts and defeats a Chimera researcher (with the help of Gourry and a giant jellyfish of course).

It turns out the research is being backed by a wealthy prince, and that the inspector knew about this. But he used “attempting to capture Lina Inverse” as an excuse for accidentally stumbling onto the island and into the facility.

Thoughts:
Maybe it’s because I’ve slept a total of 12 hours the past 3 nights, but I found this episode slightly on the boring side. Xellos still refuses to make an appearance, and the comedy was fairly light this episode too (though some parts still managed to get a chuckle out of me).

Gourry makes a new friend

The bunny is just begging to be in blissmo’s comic

So moe Shin f-cking died (She even came with sparkles!)

Lina Inverse is Queen boobless!

Summary:

Lina discovers that many countries (including her friends’) has classified her as someone who could destroy a nation and after vowing to destroy all their home countries, Lina is interrupted by the inspector again. She convinces him that it was not her who was running around destroying their mage tanks so the inspector agrees to let them help him catch the imposter (as Lina has a few scores to settle with it too).

He takes them to the castle where they are keeping another mage tank and it’s instantly destroyed by the pokemon that followed them there. Lina and Gourry immediately chase the fleeing pokemon and battle ensues in the forest. The battle ends with Lina using an amped Dragon Slave, but the pokemon somehow dodges this and even takes out the Sword of Light that Lina and Gourry were looking for. However, it turns out that its only a replica, and the pokemon claims that the mage tanks and Sword of Light replicas were his creations and vowed to destroy all the stolen mage tanks. Just then, the inspector come running into the crater and accuses Lina of senseless destruction while the pokemon quietly escaped .

Thoughts:

Another good episode that made me chuckle at times and outright laugh-out-loud at others. Some favouries include:

“Next time I visit, I might as well turn it into ash…”

Gotta fight pokemon with pokemon. Pidgeot! I Choose you!

“You’re the Queen Boobless that came from Boobless kingdom to spread booblessness .. oh sh-”

Very cute! Maybe my next vector/wallpaper project?

PS. The cow mage tank is awesome.

Lina Inverse is back!!

Summary:

The series begins with Lina and Gourry attacking pirates because they have driven bandits to the verge of extinction. After getting the captain and crew to surrender to her, they are suddenly attacked by Seyruun’s navy. Lina recognizes Amelia’s voice and discovers Zelgadis is with her too.

The four are reunited in a nearby tavern, but the festivities are interrupted when the inspector arrives. He then arrests Lina for the crime of “being Lina Inverse”. Her friends/defence team think of ways to get her out, but they conclude that it is quite difficult to argue that she’s NOT Lina Inverse.

Of course Lina breaks free, and she starts battle with the army assembled to capture her. When the four try to escape, they are stopped by a giant turtle thing. And after knocking it down, Lina prepares to finish it off, when suddenly, a pokemon creature appears and uses Lina’s infamous “Dragon Slave” on it.

W… T… F?

Thoughts:
I don’t know how many of you out there have seen the original Slayers, but this is exactly as I remembered the series. It was good, clean, adventurous fun. Of course like all the others, the OP is sung by Megumi Hayashibara, although it’s not as upbeat as some of the older OPs, I’m sure it will grow on me. The first episode does a good job of getting me primed for the series again, and for those who haven’t seen the original, it was a great no frills introduction to the main characters and their personalities. Like all its predecessors, Slayers Revolution begins humorously but by then end of the series, I’m guessing that Lina and friends will be fighting for the fate of their world. I’m definitely looking forward to Lina’s abuse of her friends, her use of extremely destructive spells at the most inappropriate times and all the other running gags that I have come to love and enjoy. Only question is, have I grown too old for this series? I sure hope not.

Only thing missing is my favourite character, Xellos (who will definately appear later on and it looks like hes on the “good side” to boot. Of course, with the two-faced Xellos, one can never really be too sure).

Oh GONZO, why am I not surprised. (Warning: Spoilers etc)

Summary:

Needless to say I was pretty much expecting an ending like this. Le’see what happened in these final few episodes?

So, Kally died, and then Ahmey dies trying to kill Druaga. The remaining climbers (minus, Pazuz and Neeba the fheg) band together to defeat Druaga. Only its not actually Druaga, its the guardian. Of what? A key to the “mythical tower”. Kaaya obviously betrays Jil, and Needba used Fatina like a cheap whore. The series wraps off with Neeba and Kaaya entering the “mythical tower” and everyone else getting flushed out of the tower.

I’m not sure if I can call this a final impression. Nothing feels complete since its only the “halfway point”, with the other half airing sometime in 2009??? So mixed feeling here. The last episode did not only NOT answer any of the questions I had earlier, but it created even more! One thing we know is that King Gil has the Blue Crystal rod, but I’m not sure why he had to kill his advisor, Marf (or so that’s what I think his name was).

Oohh blood! blissmo is gonna have a field day

Also, Pazuz is not dead (wow yeah I didn’t see that coming /sarcasm). And they even threw in a mysterious loli for good measure.

Nice. As if we don’t have enough annoying lolis already.

Storyline aside, I applaud GONZO for their brave step. I mean the responses on Crunchyroll and Youtube is generally positive, except YouTubers got shafted the last few episodes. First, with hideous distracting ads telling them to go to CR to watch the show. Then after a large amount of negative responses, GONZO instead uploaded the first five minutes of each episode on YouTube, forcing the viewers to go to CR to finish the episode. However, they did a good job as I think alot of hardcore and casual anime fans OUTSIDE of Japan all know about the show, and are excited about the next season.

edit: I just checked GONZO’s Tower of Druaga page and they have replaced the said videos above with the full episodes.  Good for you GONZO.

I think this “online experience” model is a good start for GONZO. What will it lead to? How will this shape the future of fansubbing? WILL it even affect fansubbing? These are some of the things I will keep an eye on in the comming months. Could it use improvements? Yes. But at least GONZO is willing to listen.

Tower of Druaga ~Aegis of Uruk~ scores (scores in brackets for those too lazy to count):

Overall: (6/10)
Story: (4/10)
Art:  (4/10)
Character: (6/10)
Enjoyment: (8/10)

Story: As I said above, the story was intriguing. However, kinda mad that next to nothing was resolved at the end of the first season. Redeeming factor is that there will be a second season. 2009.

Art: Nothing special stands out about the animation. It was definitely on the bottom tier when compared to other shows this season (ie R2, Macross F, Kurenai, even Zettai Karen Children). The commercial break animation could of used more attention, I mean Jil playing with his shield on a blue-white gradient is nothing to rave about. Lacking in details. Terrible battle scenes. I guess you could defend it with “but that’s Druaga’s animation style”. Well then, this “animation” gets 4 cans of Coke Zero.

Redeeming factor is that the animation, while not superb, was also not bad absolutely terrible. And it was consistent throughout the series, at least.

Character: Characters were, I dunno. Some were likable, some were annoying and some were disposable. We don’t learn much about anyone, but that’s kind of expected from a 12 episode series. Wasn’t expecting much on this front, and I got what I expected (hey that’s not really a bad thing… I could of been disappointed).

Enjoyment: The show does what it was meant to do at least. It WAS enjoyable, and it even had epic moments I daresay. Highlights include : Awesome OP, first episode, ‘traps’ episode and Druaga arcade episode.

A lot of people had hoped Ururk would do for GONZO what Gurren Lagann did for Gainax. Although I would have been pleasantly surprised if that were the case, a quick reality check after the first three of four episodes told me otherwise. However, Uruk was a solid show, and I am willing to watch the second season (which cannot be said about some of GONZO’s recent works). I think because of the second season, I was more generous in the first season’s evalutaion with things like “oh maybe it’ll be resolved next season, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt” and stuff.

Upcomming from GONZO: Along with Blassreiter, Strike Witches TV (premiering July 3rd 2008) will also be posted online as it airs.

MERONPAN BEAMU-!!

I’ve mentioned before on my blog that I don’t find Shakugan no Shana (both seasons) really that great, but what really makes Shana worth watching are the Shana-tan specials. The animation is high quality and premise is great, but I think the show has way too many characters that annoy me. orz

Don’t get me wrong, the show doesn’t suck, except maybe the first half of season 2. (What the hell was that? Shana no Yuutsu ?!) Anyways, I’ll let bygones be bygones because Fumina Konoe Strikes Back is the first of these Shana-tan specials for the second season and it sure doesn’t disappoint! 9 minutes of pure comedic gold, those people over at J.C.Staff are amazing! But enough chit-chat, bring on the delicious melonpan!!

I really enjoyed the Melonpan Beaaaaaaaaam. I was laughing so hard I think I was tearing.

When Konoe only passed back memories of food and birds to Hecate, Hecate’s “Mission Failed” expression was priceless.

In the actual show Yoshida is usually my least favourite character, but in the Shana-tan specials, my love for her goes though the roof. J.C.Staff always makes her kinda bipolar and just a freak in general. Like having her play twister over Misaki city? That was a riot.

I probably didn’t enjoy pimp Sabarac as much as some others did. Not sure why. Maybe cause Margery is also one of my least favourite characters (right behind Yoshida).

Naninaze Shana-tan was brilliant. Pure gold.

What better way to end off a Shana-tan episode than with an appropriately place melonpan dance~!

To celebrate the return of Shana-tan, DOZO have a starfish wallpaper!

Anyways, it was worth sitting through half a season of garbage, and needless to say, I’m definitely looking forward to the next installment of Shana-tan.

I’ve been busy. I’d write something on my poor neglected blog about it if I wasn’t so goddamn busy, but I digress.

Anyways after a long vacation/break we return to our favourite GONZO show of the season. Note that all the screenshots are from episode 6, since I watched 7 – 9 while on my travels (did you know Ururk aired at like midnight-ish JST? Talk about prime time -_-) I’ll keep the summaries insanely short, and just list the important things that happen since they are way overdue :X

Summary:

Episode 6 – Jil and his party rescue an old injured warrior named Gigi, who was a famous Guardian in the past. They take him to a camping area but the party is plagued by problems. Jil gets his wallet stolen and Melt and Coopa get into an argument. Coopa thus leaves the party and sees the boy, Yury, who stole Jil¡¦s wallet. Coopa ends up befriending Yury and somehow they end up in the forest. Jil and the rest of the party pursues the two kids and somewhere we find out that Gigi is Yury’s grandfather. In the forest, Jil and his party defeat two monsters while Coopa and Yury are fleeing from another two. In the end Coopa gets cornered, but is saved by Jil and company. The episode ends with Coopa rejoining the party.

Episode 7 - General Kelb and the Uruk army is pinned down by a one-winged dragon. A large number of climbers, including Jil’s and Neeba’s parties observe the army as they prepare for the upcoming battle against the dragon. Jil tries to persuade Neeba, who is also known by some as “Neeba the Dragon Slayer”, that the Climbers need to work closely with the Uruk Army to defeat the dragon. Jil of course fails at gathering climbers to help him and the Uruk army defeat the dragon, but his party pulls through for him and gathers most of the the climbers in the area to help. In the end, the dragon is defeated and the Uruk army and all the climbers advance further in the tower.

Episode 8 - Kaaya tricks Jil into venturing into the original Tower of Druaga (claiming she had some incurable illness). Once inside Jil loses control of his body and instead, Kaaya controls it from some arcade-machine look alike. Throughout the episode Jil keeps dying but they only need to insert a coin for him to respawn on the first floor. Many side characters takes turns controlling Jil and after a whoel day of gaming, Kaaya gets Jil to Druaga. On that floor, Gil is able to move on his own. Battle ensues and after defeating Druaga, he heads to the top floor. There he passes out, but we get to see a Kaaya lookalike (it’s probably Ki?). Jil however, drinks a poison and dies, but is saved by the last coin used to respawn him.

Episode 9 – Climbers and the Uruk army are fighting against some blob things, when suddenly the blob things decide to blow up all the bridges. Everyone falls to the bottom of the pit and we have some irregular parings:
Jil and Fatina, Kaaya and Needba, Ahmee and Kelb, Melt and Ethana, and Kally, Utu and Coopa. While each pair (and trio) makes their way to the settlement of Baragesi, we get more background on Ahmee, as well as a few other interesting events. We find out Ahmee and Kelb knew each other and that Ahmee used to be in the Uruk army. A fellow superior proposed to her, but she did not know how to repond. In the next battle he is killed and Ahmee left the army. Meanwhile, one of Pazuz’s minons dropped a coffin-thing and it is discovered by Kally’s group. Kally gets a look inside but then Pazuz shows up. In the ensuing battle, Kally is killed, and so, Utu takes Coopa and flees. The episode concludes with Kaaya almost being tricked by Jil’s doppelganger and in the end the succubus confronts her and once again the topic of Kaaya betraying her party is brought up.

Thoughts:

Episode 6 – This episode was just useless. There wasn’t much plot, nor was there much character development. Usually this is fine with me as long as the episode was entertaining. In this case though, it was just plain bad.

Silver lining:

Episode 7 – This episode was ok for me. Nothing really stood out but it wasn’t a terrible episode either. That and I watched this the first night I arrived in Osaka so I was dead tired.

Episode 8 - A tribute to the original game, if you played it this episode was probably more enjoyable to you. Other than that we get a bit of info from the conversation between Neeba and Kaaya. Of course Kaaya has something to do with what happens after Druaga is defeated (as it has been hinted at many times that something will happen after his defeat), but Neeba asks her something along the lines of “how do you know you won’t ditch your comrades?”.

Episode 9 – Kally dies!? It felt tacked on, kind of like how Christine and bionacle man dies in Gundam 00. Not much character development, then BAM! Didn’t serve much of a purpose in my opinion. It did show how evil Pazuz is, but I think we knew that already.

Well only 4 more episodes to go with many questions still unanswered!

“Traps! and in more then one way.” Was what I wanted to write here. But Jason beat me to the punch.

This week, Jil and his party decide to take a shortcut filled with traps, hot springs (lol wtf?), gender bending, moe and a talking door that reminds me of the narrator from Hayate no Gotoku (a quick search tells me they are the same person). I’m not too sure what to write for a summary because I can summarize the whole episode in one line:

“Magic traps that can transform Jil and his party into anything. Hilarity ensues.”

With that, let’s see what our hero and friends runs into this week:

1. Gender bending traps

I can’t decide what was funnier:

Coopa finding out she has a penis, and then trying to smack it off.

or Jil and Melt wanting to explore their new bodies.

2. Suffed animal traps + bunny girl Kaaya <3

I want to take her home. XD

3. Fat people trap.

I love the >.< face!

4. Slime trap.

5. Coopa trap

OH GOD GET THEM AWAY FROM ME!

6. Yeah what the screenshot says.

7. Hyper trap!

It’s an awesome name for a trap.

8. Back to reality trap.

Ok so this episode was just as good (or better than) the first episode, it pretty much had me laughing the whole way. I mean I did enjoy the previous adventure episodes, but I’m a sucker for comedy. The SNES scenes were funny the first two/three times? After that it was overkill (and kind of annoying), I only see it as GONZO’s cheap tactics to save on animation (like the battle between the Uruk army and the Ropers, and Jil’s Roper dance?). Oh and using the same joke twice in the same episode isn’t very funny.

Other notables:

Kaaya’s Kitty impression was cute overkill!

The only thing that could top this is Kaaya doing a kitty impression in a bunny suit.

I enjoyed Fatina’s reaction to Neeba’s “Roper dance”.

More bunny girl Kaaya. It just doesn’t get any better.

As usual, episode 5 is here. As a side note, I’ve been purchasing the HD version and after I bought episode 5, my credit card company called me and asked about my “strange transactions”. -_-;;