Anime on The uber geeks

Chris Fehnel
About, Posts, Website, Photos
Sameer Barkawi
About, Posts, Website

Colin Devroe
About, Posts, Website, Photos

Dragonball (2009) Will Be Awful

By Sameer Barkawi with 4 reader comments

I can’t think of an anime that has been turned into a Hollywood movie that has done well, in the existence of Hollywood. Maybe this is because I’m young, or maybe it’s because it has never been done. Take the most recent example, Speed Racer. Even when directed by the Wachowski brothers, getting good reviews, and offering a PG rating to bring in families, it flopped harder than a 300lb tuna on the deck of the S.S. [JOKE HERE].

I remember the Speed Racer cartoon when I was younger and watched it and I remember it well, but I never had a desire to really see it stretched out on the big screen. Transformers worked, so maybe the studio was looking to capitalize on another gem from so many others’ childhoods. But Transformers, along with G.I. Joe, may be in the rare circumstance that they transfer well over to the live action format. Unfortunately, a beloved anime is being transformed into something that will torture any fans’ very soul.

Dragonball

Source: Dragonball Movie Blog

From the casting alone I want to call this movie dead in the water. Not that I don’t think Justin Chatwin can act, it’s just that I don’t see him as a young Goku. Nothing about him screams Asian mythology. And I just know Piccolo is going to look like a man with green paint on his skin or a cheesy CGI recoloring. I love Dragonball. It was a great series. I really don’t want to see it get a live action treatment. It won’t benefit well at all.

The story worked because it was about an innocent little kid that had enormous strength. He fought off the bad guys pretty easily, but there was an innocent charm to his abilities that made it all work. Chatwin, at age 26 doesn’t exactly exhibit these qualities of boyish nature Goku has.

Look for this to loudly crash into theaters sometime in 2009 and quietly sulk away when it fails to gross half of what it cost and is chewed alive by critics.
(Note: I really want this to be good, but have faced reality.)

First Impressions of Gonzo Anime Online

By Sameer Barkawi with no reader comments

If you missed it, Gonzo announced they were streaming anime online as it was being aired in Japan. This is pretty huge, as it’s a pretty sizable company offering subtitled anime to the public as it’s being aired, basically cutting out the need for fansubs. The first episodes of the two series, BLASSREITER and The Tower of DRUAGA -the Aegis of URUK, are officially up on Youtube and other video sites, playing to the public for free.

I’m completely thrilled by the prospect of getting my anime fix the day it’s aired. If this model works for Gonzo, it’s possible others will follow their example. I know that Crunchyroll offers the ability to download the full episodes for a donation. The donation prices are $2, $5, and $10, and it also has an option to donate more where you fill in the blank. This open pricing method is pretty interesting, and I wonder how well it actually works. They have a list of the top donators, with some giving as much as $50. I tried donating $0, but it wouldn’t let me, so apparently this is a mandatory donation. The file size of the first episode of BLASSREITER is 312MB, which will probably be the average for all the episodes.

“The download video file is a high quality Xvid encode and DRM-free, so you can use it on anything! In order to play the file, you will need a video player that supports the Xvid codec. Crunchyroll recommends the VLC media player!
You will be PMed and/or emailed the download link. You can download each file as many times as you need from 5 different IP addresses with login required.
This download is for personal use only. Please do not share this file illegally! Information will be embedded into the downloaded file that can be traced back to your purchase.”

For those of you that are cheap, or can’t afford to shell out cash for an episode, don’t worry, you can still watch it for free on the website itself. Like Youtube, the quality is pretty bad. It’s definitely watchable, but it will skip a bit and look pixelated if you watch it in anything bigger than the window they give you. And that, I’m assuming, is because they are free.

Now, on to BOST TV, which is the third site to air the two series. BOST TV is a little different, in that it requires you to first create an account to view any video. Once you have your account, to view a video, you have to rent it. To rent though, you need to add points to your account (Note: The first episodes of the two Gonzo anime are both available to rent for free). Every 500 points is $9.95, and you can buy points in four quantities: 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000. Unfortunately, aside from the two Gonzo anime, the others aren’t available in my region, but the majority of rentals clock in around 100 points to rent for 14 days. During those 14 days you can download PSP and iPod compatible files right to your computer for mobile viewing. The quality is substantially better than the other two, and loads itself in small chapters so that video loading and buffering doesn’t slow down playback.

If there wasn’t the price tag, this would be my first choice. BOST TV does allow for season passes to ease that, though. The entire season of The Tower of DRUAGA -the Aegis of URUK can be purchased for 1000 points (or $19.90) and BLASSREITER for 2000 points (or $29.80). However, you still have to follow the rules of the rental period. Only once you add them to your library via rental, does the rental period start. So you can purchase them and watch them at your leisure, but make sure you actually watch it once you start, because you’ll have to get it again if you stop and don’t finish it during the rental period. It’s about $2 an episode without season passes, and between $1.25 and $1.65 with the pass.

There are a number of options available here depending on what suits you best. Hopefully, these are just a sign of things to come for anime and online video streaming. You can pay for it and get excellent quality, or watch for free and deal with a bit of pixelation. Either way, you’re watching it without waiting years for it on DVD or having to hunt down a fansub somewhere.

Anime Review: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

By Sameer Barkawi with no reader comments

Long title and a bit of a tongue twister, but it’s anything but that. As if I didn’t already have enough good things to say about the guys over at Gainax, they give me another gem of an anime.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a new action/comedy/mecha anime from them that promises insane action sequences and delivers. On the surface, it’s your standard action/comedy blend. And it does entirely well, even if that was the only thing it had going for it. But this is so much more. It’s an homage to all the great, epic hero tales that have come before it. A young boy finds a key to an incredible power, and as the story progresses, he learns how to use it. The anime itself spans about thirty years. It has love, action, laughs, and loss. It even dives headfirst into some deeper issues about mankind and life. But it never dwells upon them. It never takes itself too seriously. And that’s part of what makes this series so great. It has all the pieces you’d expect to find from past films and movies: young hero destined for great things, dark evil villain bent on destroying the world (multiple villains in fact), attacks that have signature names, transformation sequences that are repeated over and over again, and the good guy walking away victorious. It celebrates all these things, and with a care and ability that doesn’t come along too often.

The animation is, as always, impressive. I just can’t get enough of the style and quality Gainax continues to put out. The remarkable final sequence of events is enormous. Literally, the hero and the villain fight atop multiple universes in the final duel. It takes everything that has come before it, pays its homage, and multiplies it. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, a bigger badder enemy shows up. And the heroes are there with an even mightier, stronger weapon.

The comedy and action blend is not something I generally fall for as hard as I did here. Full Metal Alchemist had a really nice blend, as did Trigun. But most of these are exceptional cases, for myself. Somehow, Gurren Lagann manages to remain funny when it needs to be while still dramatic enough to care, and has so much action that you’ll watch episode after episode, cringing that it ends at episode twenty-seven.

The only negative things that one can say about the series is that it doesn’t try too hard to do anything new and a little bit of an animation hiccup during one of the earlier episodes. But I’m completely content with that. It doesn’t need to do anything new. The one episode, which introduced characters and was pretty funny, is an insignificant blemish on an otherwise flawless pearl. Gainax achieved something so pitch perfect with this series, that it feels completely fresh, even though we’ve seen all this before.

This is another notch and perfect example of just how far anime can be pushed, and why it’s an incredible medium. And, on another positive note, a Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann movie is in production, debuting in Japan in September. I cannot wait.

Trigun gets the big screen treatment.

By Sameer Barkawi with 2 reader comments

Finally! What great news to find on a seemingly mundane Thursday.

This anime has a special importance for me because it was the first anime series I’d ever watched, and still remains one of my favorite of all time. The plot is basic but some of the action scenes and animation are the best the 90s had to offer. The main character, Vash, remains one of my favorite anime characters of all time for his goofy charm and noble character. The series had some pretty serious issues and themes present, but never took itself too seriously. If you are new to anime, this is an ideal one to get started on.

Apparently the movie will be in Japanese theatres sometime in 2009. Time to add another film to the list of movies to see in the next year. How sad it is that it’s only the end of the second month of the new year and I’m already looking forward to next year’s lineup?

Trigun Collection (Episodes 1-26) [3-DVD Box Set]
Trigun, Vol. 1 (Trigun) Manga

Anime Review: FLCL (Furi Kuri)

By Sameer Barkawi with no reader comments

FLCL; Furi Kuri; or Fooly Cooly. Whatever you want to call it, it stands up as some of the most bizarre, yet entertaining anime ever created. It was produced by both Gainax and Production I.G., two mammoth companies. Gainax is most well known for putting out Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE). Production I.G. is one of my favorite companies, releasing movie gems like Dead Leaves, Blood: The Last Vampire and Jin-Roh, and series like Ghost in the Shell and Blood+. Production I.G. has some of the best animation you can see anywhere. So when these two got together, as they did on the final NGE movies, big things are to be expected. And does FLCL ever deliver.

Great animation, bizarre story, great voice actors (seiyu), and an awesome soundtrack combine to create what could only be called anime splendor. It’s a hilarious adventure of a young boy named Naota, who lives in a boring town when a strange woman shows up with a guitar and runs him over. Things only escalate from there, with giant robots, looney secret agents, a giant iron, and space pirates; all in under six short episodes. This OVA (Original Video Animation, anime that when released goes straight to DVD) is one of the craziest stories you’re likely to come by. It shows off exactly what anime can do that sets itself so far apart from every other medium out there.

And did I mention the music? The soundtrack itself worth a mention as much as the anime itself. Almost all the music is provided by a Japanese rock band called The Pillows. The music fits into the six episodes perfectly. It adds to the whole, making FLCL one of the most enjoyable anime I’ve ever seen.

So is there anything bad to say about this? Yes. The same things that set it apart (a plot that will make just as much sense by the end as the beginning) ultimately makes it hard to be enjoyed by a wider base. Many of the jokes are also very Japanese. Without some knowledge of the culture or little notes that explain what is being made fun of, much of the humor is lost. I have a hard time deciding whether or not the small amount of episodes hurts the series. If it had been longer, everything could have been fleshed out and explained better. It could have been much more accessible. However, the quality of animation would have dropped, and there’s no telling exactly how much easier the plot would have been to digest had it been fully spread out.

The series aired on Cartoon Network sometime two years ago during the [adult swim] scheduling block. It still airs sporadically. If you’re lucky (or happen to be able to browse a TV Guide) you can still catch the episodes on cable. And if you happen to like it, or love it like myself, the next closest thing to FLCL I’ve been able to find is Dead Leaves - which also happens to be released by Production I.G. too. Combining some of the same ridiculously beautiful animation, off-the-wall plot, and inane humor of FLCL, Dead Leaves still manages to be a whole different monster.

Amazon links for the series: FLCL - Ultimate Edition DVD Collection and Dead Leaves. OST here: FLCL - Ultimate Edition DVD Collection.

Miyazaki’s next movie Japan release date

By Sameer Barkawi with 2 reader comments

Princess Mononoke

Miyazaki is probably the most recognized anime director around the world. He’s been able to capture even most American audiences with his amazing animated features. I mean, the body of work this guy has is astounding. Nearly every one of his films is one my favorites. Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Spirited Away top the list, while Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds, and My Neighbor Totoro round out his impressive career.

Ponyo on a Cliff

Nausicca recently reported that the Japanese release date of Miyazaki’s next film, Ponyo on a Cliff, will be in the middle of July. Why is this important? The sooner it releases in Japan, the sooner I can see it here in the US.

Each new film released by Miyazaki is translated and exported faster and faster. Princess Mononoke took over two years to reach our shores, while Spirited Away was a much quicker 14 months. And the last major picture released by Studio Ghibli, Howl’s Moving Castle, took half as long, at only seven months. Hopefully, this one will follow suit and arrive only a few agonizing months after the Japanese release.

My favorite of his films has been Princess Mononoke, but Spirited Away I find is his most popular among people I know. I wonder where Ponyo on a Cliff will fit among them. Which one is your favorite?