Today I’m starting a new feature which will deal with the worst of the worst of troll groups in anime fandom. The terms fanboy and troll are often used to describe devotees of a certain series, so I have decided for the sake of clarity to merge the two terms into new single one; fantroll. The definition of fantroll is a extremely devoted fanatic of a certain series or franchise to the point of delusion and who directs hatred towards fans of other series or franchises because they do not share the mindless devotion of the fantroll to the given series or franchise. For the inaugural entry I thought it would be most appropriate to start with the single greatest example of the fantroll; the Eva fantroll.
I had been aware of Neon Genesis Evangelion for some time, hearing all kinds of things about it, and when one of my friends lent me her copy of the show in 2005 and I sat down and watched it. My thoughts on the show at the time was that it was a average mech show. This was before I slowly become aware of the phenomena that is the holy status that some percentage of the Eva fandom hold the show in. As I heard more of ravings of the Eva fantrolls about how it was “the greatest anime of all time” (You can thank ADV for starting that nonsense), my enjoyment and opinion of the show went down considerably. Before I go into the things the hardcore fans of this show rant and rave about, I just want to be clear I do like this show.
Now I’m going to pick apart the show, and discuss some of the outlandish and outrageous claims that the fantrolls make about Eva. One of the most often cited aspects of this show is the use of Christian imagery and icons. While its a interesting element of the series, fans often read more into it then there is actually there. They forget that its a show made for a Japanese audience, and the presence of Christian symbols its just a weird novelty to the creators and not some deep, intertwined, and complex plot element. Moving on to the most annoying part of Eva; Shinji Ikari. Boy do the fantrolls even like to hype up Shinji , I once had someone claim to me that he was the greatest character in all of anime, wow that’s arrogance lol. Someone also wrote into Gundamn’s mailbag with badly butchered grammar and made a similar claim, but went a step further by saying that Shinji was the reason people watch mecha anime. Honestly, are you that caught up in your worship of this mediocre series that your so delusional and pretentious to try to say this guy is the single most influential character in the history of anime? I could probably think of a 100 characters that have had more of an influence on anime.Char Aznable and Lynn Minmay are just two off the top of my head, who have had much more of an impact on Japanse culture and anime than him. Shinji did nothing at all during the series to warrant being called iconic, in fact he’s just like almost every other mech lead character in recent memory. Another annoying aspect present in Eva is the disposable enemies that appear almost every episode for the first half of the show, this is also known as the monster of the week cliche. This gets old fast and really saps my enjoyment of the show during the first half. The constant remakes of Eva are also extremely annoying which serve just to devalue the series and are just a cheap way for Gainax to make money off the mindless cult that worships the series as the second coming.
What all this adds up to is a symptom of a larger ailment in the Western fandom that has to do with what shows are considered the greatest by Western fans. A lot of fans in the West only see a very limited amount of anime series from Japan and there is a tendency to automatically declare these series the best there is. When they find out about other shows they tend discount these shows and go on believing that what they hold dear is the greatest without evaluating the merits of the other shows, its cognitive dissidence at its finest.
Well that’s all for this post, I’m considering what group to profile next. It was suggested to me to talk about the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom so I might do them next.
Alright so the World Series is about to begin and the baseball world is anticipating an exciting end to the season. However, for those who don’t care and especially for those of you who have an interest in Japan, things are just about to heat up. Right now the buzz off the diamond is centered around free agency for next year. There’s a few big name pitchers that teams are looking to sign, but there’s clearly one man who will draw the most attention.
His name is Yu Darvish and if you watched a little tournament called in 2009 called the World Baseball Classic you’ve seen what he can do. If you’re unaware about him here’s the short story. He was born in Osaka to an Iranian father and Japanese mother. He became a dominant pitcher at the high school level and has continued to do so at the pro level in Japan. He’s been playing in what’s regarded as the second best baseball league in the world, NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball). Yu was drafted out of high school by the Hokkaido Nippon Ham FIGHTERS and has played with the team for seven seasons. In that time, he has become one of the most talented pitchers in the league. In terms of his personal life Darvish married the Japanese actress Saeko in 2007, the tabloids called it a shotgun wedding as the idol was pregnant with their first child at the time.
So, the twenty-five year old right-hander has been “teasing” major league scouts since his teens, but now it seems to be the time he finally arrives in North America. The news came out in August that Darvish had hired Don Namura, a baseball agent who has previously helped players move from Japan to the major leagues. A source said to be close to Darvish claimed that he was finding it hard to stay motivated by baseball in Japan. Honestly who could blame him? Take a look at his stats.
You can see that this year he set career highs in strikeouts, shut outs, and ERA. His numbers far are better than those of Daisuke Matsuzaka. Which is very comforting to MLB scouts and fans alike. Matsuzaka who plays for the Boston Red Sox is headed into the final year of his contract. And the 100+ million dollars spent on him is now considered to be huge waste due to his inability to stay healthy over the past few seasons. That being said, the consensus is that Darvish is indeed a better player, but how he’ll hold up to a MLB schedule is still unknown.
Over the past few months many MLB scouts have made the trip to Hokkaido to check out Darvish in person, and it seems as if this will be his last year in Japan. However, nothing is set just yet. Technically, players (Darvish included) in NPB aren’t free agents until after their ninth season. The process in which MLB teams can sign Japanese players who have played less than the nine years is the “posting system”. This agreement was signed in 1998 between the two leagues. It allows the Japanese teams to get compensated for they players they lose.
Here’s how it works roughly. A player, Yu Darvish in this instance, tells his team to “post” him. The team management can agree or they can refuse. If they agree to “post” they player, the process works like a silent auction. The MLB commissioner will notify teams of a player being posted, they then have four days to submit a sealed bid to him. After which, the commissioner tells the Japanese team what the highest bid is, not revealing the team. The NPB team then has four days to accept or reject the bid. If accepted, the winning team has thirty days to sign the player to a new contract. If they can’t, then the player stays with their team in Japan for at least one more year and the bid money is not lost.
Why is this important? Well it is and it isnt. The Fighters management have said that if Darvish asks to be posted following this season, they will comply. Interestingly enough though, Darvish spoke out on twitter saying that the news reports from the previous day (Oct 18th) of him saying he wants to be posted are false. So, what does this mean? I think that Yu doesn’t want to take away from the game. His team is in the playoffs, and as a natural competitor he probably wants to stay focused. I get the impression he will make the jump to the majors for the 2012 season. He’s said before that he wants to stay and pitch at home and be hero for the youth of Japan. That was all good well three years ago. Now there’s nothing for him to prove in NPB, and as history has shown Japanese players hit a new level of stardom once they make it to the majors.
Yu will take the mound in Game 1 of the First Stage of the Climax Series on October 29th.
The teams expected to bid high on Darvish are: The New York Yankees, The Texas Rangers and The Toronto Blue Jays. The bid to negotiate with him could be upwards of 50 million dollars and his annual salary could be in the 8-10 million range. From what I’ve seen it’s going to be money well spent. Yu Darvish will put butts in seats, and he will bring a new level of excitement back to the game of baseball.
If you guys have any questions about something I missed out on or want to know more about Japanese baseball let me know in the comments below.
Pretty boys, Bishounen, Bishies, call them whatever you like they are everywhere and seem to be creeping into each and every type of modern anime show being created. Why are they so popular, what makes them relevant to todays anime, why are they in all the shows I/we love and why am I writing an article that will further increase the belief that I am actually a fujoshi?
Original Demographic
For all the un-initiated Bishounen is a combination of the word Bijin which means beautiful and Shounen which means younger males, Bishounen refers to the pretty boys found in anime and manga. In western anime fandom bishonen or ‘Bishie’ for short would refer to any outrageously good-looking male character in anime. It should not come as a surprise that most of these characters are found in Shoujo manga/anime, Bishies are very popular with females and in a medium that is primarily dominated by male oriented material the addition of these characters in shows is often treated as icing on a cake for most fan-girls.
There have been a few shows that have taken a unique approach to the role of Bishies in female targeted anime. Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler is one such show, The series is a dark, Gothic, action drama with supernatural elements, the basic premise of the show is very fascinating and may seem like one that can appeal to a wide demographic but the twist comes when the humour and blatant pandering hits. The character designs are clearly meant to appeal to a female audience and the subject matter often gets lighter than the viewers may have preconceived.
Black Butler
Obviously the series as a whole is very popular, popular enough to have two seasons worth of anime and an ongoing manga series. Both males and females enjoy the series even if they may be for different reason all-together.
There have been more series that have turned this formula into a success, Hetalia and Ouran High School Host Club have had and increasing popularity and its fans are not only vocal about it, they are also loyal. The manga versions of these series is always in the top 10 best sellers list and the FUNimtion Brand Manager of Hetalia herself has announced to the public that the show has done incredibly well for them. Clearly these shows have something about them that must appeal to a wider audience than the desired niche female portion of the fandom.
However, there is always two sides to a coin and very recently there have been a few shows that have attempted to mimic the formula of the above shows and have failed terribly. No.6 was a story set in a futuristic, post apocalyptic sci-fi world and has some pretty cool action sequences and drama. They also had an ‘implied‘ Yaoi subtext that felt tacky and unnecessarily lengthy in most of the scenes that it was implemented. The writers of the show were clearly trying to reel in as wide an audience as they could and by adding some pretty boys and yaoi, they thought female fans would come flocking to this Sci-Fi Dystopia anime as well. Unfortunately for them the show as a whole just didn’t work, the story seemed to come to a screeching halt whenever the two leads had an opportunity to be together alone and to make matters worse this show aired on the noitaminA block meaning it only had 11 episodes in which to wrap itself up nicely, 11 episodes is not nearly enough for any mystery anime let alone a Sci-fi drama. The constant pandering just killed the show for me and many other viewers and proved that just having pretty boys in your anime is not a formula for isntant success no matter how hard you pander to the fujoshi.
Pretty Boys In My Manly Show??
I remember gong onto a forum to discuss this one show I had just finished watching, I thought it was amazing and assumed most other fans would as well, to my surprise the response I got was underwhelming, positive but underwhelming. I later noticed that only female fans seemed to talk about the show as much as I did and only females seemed to cosplay as these characters at conventions and such, it didn’t occur to me exactly why this was the case until I saw a Durarara!! panel at Anime Expo 2011 online. nearly 7/8 of the crowd was female and they all screamed and squeed whenever two characters were mentioned, Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima. Suddenly I got it, it was because this show, my manly show, my favourite cool characters…were actually bishies. I was a little shocked at first but soon came to terms with it, the show was successful and it definitely would not have been so well received had it not garnered such a massive female following.
Izaya Orihara PVC Figure. This line of male figures is meant to target female audiences
Another good example of such a phenomenon would be Sunrises’ super hero show Tiger and Bunny. A show meant to appeal primarily to an older male audience so much so that the protagonist was designed to be in his thirties and have a beard! ( believe it or not this is quite rare in modern anime)
Tiger and Bunny has such a Western feel to it so it came as a huge surprise when suddenly the show gained massive popularity in Japan and with its female audience. In a flash Pxiv was spammed with various fan art, fan fiction, figures, posters and all sorts of other related memorabilia soon followed, some more creepy than others.
Tiger and Bunny is one of the best selling titles of the year in Japan, with each volume selling over 25,000 copies. The Show has been licensed by VIZ in the States and Siren Visual in Australia and will undoubtedly do very well even in the west once it is released.
An Interesting article by Project Haruhis‘ Jon Snyder contained the results of a ‘most popular anime series by gender’ poll taken by an Otaku matchmaking service in Japan. The results showed that women watched more Mecha than men and men, well lets just say they liked Kyoto Animation works as a whole. In the top 5 of the Womens list were Gundam, Code Geass and Macross Frontier, on the surface these shows may not seem like they would appeal to massive female fanbase but taking a deeper look (or not so deep) into these series and we can all see why, lets take Gundam OO as an example.
Male Cast of the Gundam OO Movie
A story rife with political intrigue, war themes and lots and lots of action but it also has a predominantly good looking cast. Was this deliberate? Even if it wasn’t it worked well enough to gain itself two full anime seasons and a theatrical release. Gundam OO is not the best the franchise has to offer but it certainly has its fans no matter how convoluted the plot becomes, no matter how bad the writing gets, as long as there are pretty boys fighting in Giant sparkly robots it will sell.
Fujoshi Bait
If a formula has been tested and it succeeds why not go all the way and try to create something spectacular with it. The Producers at Sunrise must have known they were onto something special when they were penning the script for the Mecha Action Thriller Code Geass and to make sure they didn’t alienate the female fanbase from this soon-to-be-masterpiece they decided to let the artistic geniuses CLAMP create the character designs for their show. At least how it must have gone if it was planned that way.
Regardless of the fact of whether it was deliberate or not , the decision to use CLAMPs’ character designs was ingenious. Ofcourse this meant that nearly the entire cast of the show would be superficially attractive even by anime standards. The show was popular and ended up selling well, so well that the next season was big enough to air on prime time television in Japan.
A common trend in Shounen anime is to add a superficial romantic subplot in order to reel in as many female fans as possible. While this tactic has been proven to work a more effective and more common one is to add atleast one or two pretty boys in the show for the female fans to fawn over. A very good example would be Naruto Shippudens’ Sasuke Uchiha himself. After the series first time-skip the character who was already popular with the females because of his good looks was given an even more appealing look and his default costume rendered him shirtless, I’m not kidding. A more recent example would be Ichigos’ final transformation in Bleach, a design unashemadley meant to sell figurines and to pander to the female fanbase.
A Faboulous Future
With the increasing popularity of shows like Natsume Yujinchou and Tiger and Bunny and a sudden influx of more Josei anime, it will come as no surprise to me if we begin to see more and more Bishounen in anime genres that they initially were not found in. I personally don’t mind this but then again maybe that’s because I am secretly actually a fujoshi 🙂
So, here I am chilling out on a typical Friday night with no worries, no cares and above all, no date, as I happen to see how far down the whiskey bottle goes when it comes to pulling yet another boxy anime tape off the shelf. After some time in the darkness of “over exceeding” a bit to much, I came to in a world of a desolate Japanese city, filled with heavy smog of radiation and abandonment, as I happen to see far into the distance. I then hear a flute tune pierce my ears, with such beauty and sorrow as the tune danced in my eardrum. I look over to see a younger man in a camouflage poncho with a green leaf up to his mouth as he plays the peaceful tune and then looks up at me. He then begins to tell me his tale of how destiny seems to bring him from one Hell to another. This is the tale of Riki-Oh Saiga…
Ok, so for those of you who know what Riki-Oh’s about, you think I’m going to talk about the (overly) awesome live action movie based on the manga by Masahiko Takajo. Well, you would be half right. I am going to talk about Riki-Oh, but only the anime that is a condensed version of the movie, but you get the same story (only the movie is SO MUCH BETTER). Throughout this review, I’m going to use some captions in words to emphasize how crazy some of this stuff happens, and to use some pop/video game culture punching references, so try and keep up kids. So lets Hebrew Fist our way into the wild and crazy world of Riki-Oh: The Wall of Hell OVA.
The OVA starts us off in the year 199x in Yokohama (and it would not surprise me if this was the same 199x as Fist of the North Star series timeline) as the world in this “year” is full of “high radioactivity rain” and “magnetic field warnings” on a daily basis (these are in the OVA I kid you not) where we get to a man in a camo poncho on a stoop blowing into a leaf to make music that most people can play from any toy recorder flute (its all in the tongue kids) as we seem him suddenly stop playing and stands in the middle of the road. While this “mysterious” man does this, we cut to a Cadillac driving down the streets of Yokohama with a fat old guy in the back trying to score some boob action from two honeys on his lap, when the driver notices the man in the street. Before the car can come to a screeching halt, we see the stranger raise his fist to his face with the Star of David etched into his backhand and proceeds to PUNCH INTO THE FRONT OF THE CAR!! This “Falcon” of a punch is able to turn the caddy into an accordion with the driver halfway out the front of the car in a bloody and disfigured mess. The old guy and some bodyguard of his get out to take on this stranger where we see the man in camo punches the bodyguard hard enough in the jaw to RIP IT OFF!! The old guy tries to shoot the man but is stopped by a flying high kick to shatter one of the legs and gets another “Busta Wolf” to the skull to leave a fist impression, killing the old man. We then know who this mysterious man is, which he goes by the one and only name of Riki-Oh Saiga.
"THIS HAND OF MINE BURNS WITH A HOLY POWER!"
For Riki crimes of being a total bad mofo, he gets the hammer of the Japanese judicial system and gets sent to Koboku prison for 9 years. After some shots of prison life with the prisoners making shelves and having a sentence of continuous woodshop class, we cut to the washroom of Wakamatsu being harassed by another inmate Iwata due to Waka getting out on parole. Iwata throws Waka into a shelf for no reason other than to be (one of) the alpha male of the prison. Waka looses his cool and attacks Iwata with a wood scraper, only to be tripped by one of Iwata goons and Iwata using the scraper to leave a nasty scar on Waka face. The guards come in, Iwata says “oh its an accident” and carry off the injured Waka. With Iwata talking up his victory to his running crew, we then see him trip and fall on a plank of nails facing straight up and Iwata gets his hand and eye into swiss cheese. It was Riki who set this up for Iwata and tells him to watch his step, and walks off blowing on his leaf. Iwata, having his eye, hand and pride poked “full of holes”, gets one of the guards to set up an ambush for Riki by using the fattest man there, Bandoh. During this Riki decides to pay his respects to Waka, by breaking out of his cell the only way he wants to, BY PUNCHING THE CELL WALL TO GET OUTSIDE! Once out, he meets the guards who are carrying the corpse of Waka off the grounds handcuffed. Riki states that his freedom is granted when he died and breaks the cuffs off, then Riki gives Waka the wooden train he made for his son and walks off.
Next day in the showers, Riki is confronted by Bandoh who states he is promised all the food in the world for his fat self to eat if he defeats Riki. Riki gets a backhand from Bandoh, only to laugh it off and punches Bandoh once for the deathblow. Iwata decides to jump in with a nail being used as a weapon to stab Riki. Riki counters this by using his hand to catch the fist, which then the nail impales into his hand while he crushes Iwata stabbing hand and sends another Jew Death Fist to Iwata body with enough force to have his entrails BLOW OUT OF HIS BODY FROM THE OTHER SIDE! With Riki actions in check from the corrupt prison guards, he gets sent to isolation for 30 days. We then see a dream or flashback of Riki at a grave site for someone by the name of Bi-Rei with the image of the Swastika inside the Star of David. Yes, in the year 199x, the Jews and Germans have put aside there differences of what happened in WWII and join there two beliefs into one, for the purpose of making the martial “of-all” arts of this dreaded decade. With Riki about to take his life, an old man approaches Riki and tells him about his destiny, and to stop him from killing himself and the dream ends. So what will become of Riki? Can Riki get out of this “Hell” alive? Find out… for yourself.
Imagine the world today without the Holocaust
I am going to stop here in my review, because in this 45 minute OVA, I only talked about maybe 15 minutes of what happened. And boy, does it get crazier from there. Riki-Oh is about one of the many great things you will ever get to witness in your lifetime, and to me, it has one of the best stories you will ever get to know about (through the manga of course). I didn’t even get into the fights with the bosses of the “wings” in the prison Riki is at, or who the warden is, and the more ridiculous stuff that happens from there. Truth be told, the live action movie is actually better represented in the manga because the live action movie is SO MUCH MORE AWESOME than the OVA. I mean shoot, the Daily Show had a clip of the movie in their intros back in the day!!!!
So yes, I recommend EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET gets to witness Riki-Oh for the first and many times after the first time seeing this. Ill say watch the live action movie first, then the OVA. There is one more OVA after this that I have not seen, so I don’t know how insane that will get. If you have enjoyed this review and reading everything about Riki-Oh I care to mention, then feel free to comment, or bake me a cake, or a phone number for you ladies out there what want a Riki-Oh in there lives, its cool.
Thanks again for reading, and check my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. See yea next time…
Sorry it’s been a while folks. Trouble logging into this. Anyway what have I been up to? Nothing much really. However I have finished Clannad. The first series mind you, not After Story. Just a quick note, I wrote all this in the first person as I was watching them. I wrote them in Celtx. So if it gets too weird You know why. Also I was watching it dubbed.
Okay so, finally going to start watching what some people consider one of the greatest anime of all time. A series that has great character
development(not surprising seeing as how it originated from a visual novel) and has put many otaku in tears. Let’s get this show on the road.
Episode 1:
Hmm starts off bleak doesn’t it? Awful colouring. “Anpan”? What? Oh there’s the colour! And they’re walking. OP time!…Dear God that was bad. So generic. Greg Ayres! Whoo! Dude, don’t mess with the Rugby club. They’re the type f dudes who can knock out pro boxers with one hit. Oh well they’re slac
kers so I guess they shouldn’t be too worried…Getting boring people…Not impressing at all…Blah blah blah shut up about how much you love this school! I don’t care! I hate school! Wait did that chick with grey-ish hair just pwn a bunch of dudes in a moped gang? I like this character already. Seems Greg Ayres’ character wants to do the nasty with our little ass-kicker here. And he gets kicked. Nice. Aww poor what’s her face from the start. The Drama club is on hiatus or whatever. Kinda feel bad for her…Nothing’s happening…Okay going to that girl’s, who’s name is Nagisa apparently, house. That mom looks way to young. And she’s crying. And the dad is really cool. Seems like a cool family. Dude Tomoya lives in a dump! Dad’s a drunk eh? Pity. And he’s running away. “A place where your dreams will come true?” Huh…okay.
Okay I go on for a bit during some of these episodes. Mainly picking the plot holes in Fuko’s stupid arc -_- so I’ll just put in what I wrote for the last episode. Be warned the last half of this episode of Clannad I didn’t write ANYTHING except for one sentence because I was so into it. Also there wasn’t much to commentate on in my opinion. I really started writing this so I could put it into one big blog post but there’s just too much. Maybe I’ll post it all someday, who knows? Also I know there’s an extra episode and an OVA after this but I’m going by official episodes. Actually. I think I may have something written for the Tomoyo chapter…Ugh way too long. Never mind folks.
Episode 22: So Nagisa finally found out. That sucks. I suppose they couldn’t have kept it a secret for long. She was bound to find out sometime. Well..this is depressing. They try to cheer her up and it fails. Wait she’s actually going to go on stage after she pretty much committed suicide in her head? She’s emotionally unstable! Stop her people! Are you all dense? Jesus Tap-dancing Christ!…(I had a lot of ellipsis in this text file because I was so into the episode. I found this happening around episode 13 I think? Right around the time I found a place with higher quality dub episodes. This following sentence was just after the show had ended.) Now that was sweet 🙂
Sorry everyone if this was a short post. I’m just trying to get back into the rhythm into blogging because it’s been a while. Anyway if you are interested in reading any more of my thoughts on individual Clannad episodes or just want to check out more of my stuff well…Tough luck. I only blog here and I don’t like advertising my tumblr or my podcast so sorry folks. Assuming you actually like my stuff that is. Anyway my question for people reading. Did you like Clannad? Just Clannad I’m talking about now, not After Story. If you did what was your favourite episode and why? If you didn’t like Clannad, then tell me why you didn’t like it. No flaming though please 🙂
Innovation is usually seen as a good thing by most people in any given field in human endeavor, however there are always a small percentage of die hard adherents to something that cannot accept change in any form. This is nowhere more apparent then in video game fandom. So I’m going to look through some of biggest fanboy dust ups over game companies trying reinvent their franchises.
OK, these are not in any particular order, there just ones I have been made aware of. The first one is the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, of which I’m a huge fan. There have been a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh games across many game consoles, but the three that are relevant for this discussion were on the Game Boy Advance and Gamecube. The first GBA game was the Sacred Cards released in July of 2002 and it was different in a couple respects. First, unlike all the previous games in the franchise, this game actually has a story, in fact it lets you play one of the story arcs from the show. The other difference was the rules of the card game itself were different, and that’s really pissed off the fanboys of this franchise. The second GBA game was called Reshef of Destruction, was very similar although it had a completely original story. Now both of these games have flaws, like most games, but they are also good games broken the formula and because of that the fanboys labeled them as inferior, which is so short slighted. Moving to the Gamecube, in 2002 a Yi-Gi-Oh game was released called the Falsebound Kingdom that was radically different from anything seen in the franchise thus and since then. The game was a combination of the RPG and RTS genres and was not a card game at all. Instead the monsters from the cards become characters in the game to be used on RPG style teams of 3 under the command of one of the cast from the TV series. A lot of the items in the game are also cards from the card game, which shows the detail the developers put into the game. RTS element comes out in the missions in the game in which you move your teams and engage your enemies and capture bases, additionally there are other objectives to complete sometimes in a given mission. The games was received very negatively by the review community as with many games that step outside the norm. The game has some flaws, as the maps for the missions were really low rent and not very inspired, but was balanced by the great graphics of monsters and battle animations.
The next franchise that attempted to go a different way and hit a brick wall of fanboy rage was Devil May Cry. The controversy stems from the redesign of Dante, a design that wildly changes from the previous four games. This game doesn’t even have a release date yet, its suppose to come out in 2012 sometime, and the hate is already flowing from the fanboys. You would think that people at least would wait until the game came out ,and not just complain about the visuals.
Infamous is another franchise that has felt a rain of fanboy artillery fire over the design of a character, Cole, the main character in the game. The difference here is that, Sucker Punch the developer of Infamous, caved into fanboy pressure and changed Cole back to to way he was in the first Infamous, although there was still minor changes to him to better fit the new game. Again its just kinda sad that fanboys cannot get pass such trivial things like character designs.
When Transformers: War for Cybertron was announced, the main complain yet again was superficial about character designs. The G1 40 year old virgins were complaining about why wasn’t the game using the 1984 designs. Well maybe because its 25 years after the fact, and things need to change sometimes to bring in new fans to a franchise. Blinded by nostalgia glasses is a common medical problem for most Fanboys, and can be corrected by getting out of your parents basement, actually getting laid , and not watching porn all the time.
In sum, I just wish fanboys would come out of their formulaic comfort zone, and give a game with a different take on a beloved franchise a chance. Its almost like fanboys are afraid of change in and out of their game life, which is probably why they cannot get out into the world and get their lives going. If there is any group of fanboys from anime or video game fandom you look to see get owned by me, please leave a comment or pm me on the forum.
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So, another Friday night, another shot of Jack, and another hit of japanimation to watch. If you know the story by now, in which you should, this is the part where I start to pass out and into a world of what is on my VHS tape. As I awoke, I found myself surrounded by a heated battle taking place, where its covered by missile fire weaving through jungle brush. I look to my right and see a full size transport with something that looks like a military style mech in the bed, with a ear piercing shrieking voice of a woman in red and black spandex yelling at me to keep my head down and hop in. Once in, she floored the gas through enemy fire from bipedal robots as they gave us some hostile bullet debris as a welcome gift, where she began to tell her story of what kinda world I am at currently. Oh boy, I can just tell this is gonna be fun, as we gun it into Power DoLLS.
Power DoLLS is, I’m going to go ahead and say it, not that great. Its not terrible in any means, but it just seems it needs some work to be a bit better to most viewers. So I know in my reviews I give you guys about half of what the OVA is so you can go out and see it for yourself, but I am going to spoil what happens, because its pretty short and just really kinda…bland I guess. If I had to compare it to something, you can look at it as a girls version of Gundam Wing, since there is 2 guys in this entire OVA, and none of them are Zechs. Well, let me start this off.
PowerDoLLS takes us to the future year of 2540 AD, where there is a, I guess, civil war between the Terran Government and the colony world of Omni, which is full of machine gun fire and jungle life as to Vietnam. We get introduced to our two main female protagonist Yao and Fahn, where Yao picks up some war orphans as they hightail it out of there location back to base with one of there mechs in the bed of there transport. After Fahn does some female whining to Yao that the Omni military transport isn’t a short bus to the local grade school, they get attacked by the Terran mechs and gun it to the nearest bridge that Yao states is on there way. When the team is on the bridge, it gets blown up by missile fire which Fahn says “screw it” and gives the gas pedal hell as she jumps the gap to head to base. Once there, Fahn and Yao have it out again regarding regulations and Fahn calling out Yao for being to soft since she didn’t want to leave the kids behind.
It's a mother, beautiful bridge, and it's gonna be there. Ok?
We then get introduced to the DoLLS commander Hardy Newland as she and the first guy we see in the show are talking about her specialized team. After some shots of Yao moping because of being hassled by Fahn (and a fan service shower scene…yea its like 2 seconds of boobs, like you guys never seen cartoon boobies before) they have some breakfast only to go straight to another mission. In the briefing room there ordered to take out a city that the Terran forces are pushing to take back, and Fahn has the idea of destroying the dam to the river that the city is bordered too, as the easiest alternative to avoid fighting the Terran forces in the city and getting owned (I’m sorry, pwned). Yao then states she disagrees with this plan due to local villages being affected by the attack on the dam, but Hardy states the villagers have been evacuated so its cool.
While on the transport plan to the dam, we get a flashback of Yao past and how she became an orphan, which is why she sides with kids in the first place. Fahn then gives her some crap, but not after the group reaches there drop zone and into a fire fight with the forces of Terran. We find that Fahn is hung up on the plane, where we also find out that Yao has the best shooting on the team since she can pick off the leaver hatches at some 50 yards WITHOUT SHOOTING DOWN HER OWN PLANE!!! But this becomes the part where the show makes Yao look like Rambo since she can shoot anything and take some missile shrapnel for her team, which she saves Fahn ONCE AGAIN and causes her to crash land in the village. With Yao’s mech screwed up from taking the missile for Fahn, she decides to hold off the Terran forces while the team goes to destroy the bridge all “Force 10 from Navarone” style, and tells her team that the village they are at is her old hometown before coming an orphan.
With some ammo and plot armor in place, Yao is able to hold her own against the Terran forces by going all Rambo 2 on them before she herself is outta bullets, and ejects to cockpit while the mech is being trashed, only for her to come back to the mech to activate the self destruct mode on the outside. This begs the question, why would someone design a self destruct sequence on the outside of a mech that you have to run back too once you eject in order to activate it? Maybe there is an internal self destruct mode and was trashed before she ejected, I really don’t know. But her mech goes boom and takes out the forces. So with Yao running back to meet her rendezvous, Fahn and the gang are setting up the charges on the dam and getting it ready to blow. Yao then goes to her old house and talks to her stuffed bear she had as a kid stating that she feels bad about destroying the dam her dad built. Yea, the same dam that is being blown up is the same one her dad built when she was a kid, but yet shes not the one doing it, but her team is.
So after the team gets done, they don’t see her at the chopper, which we meet the second guy in this show who is saying “screw you girls, your all crazy, I am getting the fudge out.” But before the copter pilot can get ready to go back to base, he gets hijacked at gun point, from the COMMANDER OF THE GROUP, NEWLAND, who I am pretty sure has rank and jurisdiction over the pilot. So I guess the copter pilots on Omni are mercenaries, like in Rambo 2 where Trautman couldn’t order the copter pilot to land to pick up Rambo and the POW. I guess for a resistance group of female mech pilots, you get what you pay for. The group then somehow finds Yao at her house and tells her to “Get To Da Chopper!!” as Yao Jordan jumps to the copter moments before the waters take out her old house. Fahn gets teary eyed and gets poked fun of, and that’s this OVA.
RUUUUUHHHNN, JUMP TO DA CHOPPAH!!
So that is Power DoLLS everyone. Again, the only good parts were the parts that were pretty stupid and crazy, but its so so so little compared to the rest. This OVA is something you can forget most of what happens after a couple of days, or hours depending on your memory. Like I said, its kinda bland and thrown together it seems, but it is short since its only a half an hour long. I found the tape to this over 3 years ago, and seeing it today, I forgot A LOT of what happened, because there is not that much to remember really. This is an OVA that came out in the mid 1990’s, so this is taking me off my track of 80’s OVA I have been touching on for the past couple of reviews. And I found the DVD collection to this sometime after finding the VHS when I worked (the little time there) at Play N Trade when I lived in Raleigh which had… another Power DoLLS OVA to it. Yes, there are two of these that exist, and they are quite different.
Also to point out, this seems like this was an Evangelion VA reunion since about half of the people who worked on this were in Eva. With Fahn being dubbed by Tiffany Grant, Yao being dubbed by Allison Keith, and with Laura Chapman and Sue Ulu in it as well. What I found to be enjoyable in the dub was Grant making Marine Corps jokes by saying “Semper Fi” and giving a funny crapped out version of “Halls of Montezuma” while driving through enemy territory. I am not sure if they dubbed this before Evangelion or after, but its a bit of a treat to listen to if your ADV dub fans or Eva dub fans.
So, I will one day get around to doing a PowerDoLLS 2 review in due time, but now I am going to take a break from the PowerDoLLS universe for now. But hey, If you wanna check this out, be my guest. Its available through BakaBT so you wont have to spend anything for it, and I am sure the VHS copy of this is on the cheap if you do decide to own it. But see you guys next time.
Kyoto Animation is a name you have most likely heard more than once if you keep up to date with the ins and outs of the anime fandom, they are an animation studio based in Kyoto that were founded all the way back in 1981. They began by doing in-between animation work for shows such as Cowboy Bebop, Turn A Gundam and the Doraemon movies, they even did some work on some Studio Ghibli movies at one point. ‘KyoAni’ (as they have become to be known) did not create their own full fledged TV series or Movie until the year 2003, their debut was a little known OVA called Munto. Munto was an original series with a mix of Fantasy and Slice of Life elements, the series was not bad it just wasnt great, it did well enough to get a sequel green lit down the line. The Slice of Life elements portrayed in this show would later go on to become a staple in the rest of the TV shows Kyoto Animation would animate.
The first big break the studio had was the chance to animate one whole season of the Mecha Anime Full Metal Panic, previously done by GONZO. The series they created was not a typical sequel per say it was more of a comedy/gag/ parody of the original, fans of the original Full Metal Panic loved it and some of them still proclaim it to be better. Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu was the first hit Kyoto Animation had and the producers of the show acknowledged this enough to have them animate the second season, the true second season if you will Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid in 2005.
In the same year KyoAni animated the TV adaptation of the popular Key/Visual Arts Visual Novel Air. The series was a slow-paced romantic drama that had your typical ‘moe’ looking girls, the one thing to note about this show is that despite not having any ‘action scenes’ in particular it was very nicely animated and the background art was very nicely detailed, something rare for anime of that genre. Tatsuya Ishihara was given the role of Director, the combination of Ishihara, Key and Kyoto Animation would eventually prove to be a recipe for success for all the parties involved. Air did well enough that a second Key Visual Novel was animated the following year,there was also a notable increase in visual Novel anime adaptations in the industry as a whole. This would only be the first of many major impacts KyoAni would have on the Anime Industry.
The Big League
2006 was a massive year for anime in general and it seemed like Kyoto Animation had the timing right to release their creativity upon the world. Alongside the very succesful release of the Key Visual Novel Kanon, which was the second time the show was given the anime treatment, the first being a bad Toei rendition. KyoAni unleashed the Light Novel anime adaptation The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The light novel already had a rabid following in Japan so failure was not an option. They hit ball right out of the park with it, the animation was fantastic, the writing was solid and surprisingly enough it had such a huge mainstream appeal that a lot of modern anime fans (such as myself) found the show as a great gateway into the fandom as a whole.
The Dream Team
The opening and ending sequences were very cleverly thought out and animated, the dance sequence at the end ‘Hare hare Yukai’ which quite honestly had nothing to do with the canon of the show was a massive massive hit, not surprisingly it was the brain child of outspoken Director Yutaka Yamamoto. The shows lead Director was Tatsuya Ishihara who at this point had 2 major titles already under his belt. Another key figure in this team would be rising star Naoko Yamada who was a key animator for most if not all the work KyoAni had done, she would later on play director for a game changing series down the line. The Voice actors they hired for the show consisted of then up and coming idol Aya Hirano, the inclusion of insert songs and her singing the opening and ending songs was planned to give her musical career a jump start and boy did it work. the male Seiyuu in the show were top class as well with Tomokazu Sugita, Daisuke Ono and Minoru Shiraishi, Shiraishi would become somewhat of an easter egg character for KyoAni shows with minor appearances in atleast every show they would produce from then on.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya went on to smash BD sales records with an average of over 40,000 BD sold with each volume. The show was both a hit in Japan and overseas, it is what many critics and analysts believe to be the main catalyst for the already growing ‘moe’ genre in the industry. After seeing haruhis; success everybody else wanted to cash in on this new fad.
In 2007 KyoAni adapted another Key/Visual Arts Visual Novel Clannad to both critical and monetary success, it was nothing new really just really well animated, really well written romantic comedy. It was the release of the self promotional comedy/parody anime Lucky Star that really propelled KyoAnis’ status in the Otaku fandom. Lucky Star was adapted from a 4-Koma (four panel) manga by Kagami Yoshimizu. That style of comedy in anime was popularised by Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star seemed to follow suit. The show had no real plot it was simply four high school girls hanging out and having fun. There were a ton of anime/manga/video game references in the show, KyoAni took the opportunity to advertise their own shows in the anime as well.
The cast was very similar to that of Haruhi Suzumiya and young upstart Yutaka Yamamoto directed the first four episodes and the opening of the show which again was a dance routine. Yamamoto had a fallout with the studio and has not yet done any other work for them, he did however leave a legacy with him, both the Hare Hare Yukai(which has over 3 Million views on youtube) and Sailor Mottekke Fukku( which has Over 7 million views on youtube!!!) Dances had become so popular that fans expected something similar from both him and the studio from then on. He went on to direct Kannagi, Black Rock Shooter OVA and Fractale which were not as big as Lucky Star or Haruhi but not too bad either, his styles were certainly present and fans continue to hope for a return to form for the talented director. Yasuhiro Takemoto was given the huge task of directing the subsequent episodes and the choice was wise because this was the same director that helmed the successful comedy/parody TV show Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu.
It’s important to note that KyoAni had continued to do what worked for them, moe character designs, romance and comedy anime, insert songs, quality animation, well known voice actors and otaku culture references. With every new show and with every year KyoAni seemed to find a new market to tap into and unlike other studios they continued to service that new market by incorparating whatever it is they seemed to like in their subsequent shows. Lucky Star and Clannad sold big, really big and the innumerable references to Haruhi Suzumiya in Lucky star had fans hoping for the continuation of the show the following year, they didn’t get what they wanted instead they got;
Clannad After Story, another Key/Visual Arts visual novel adaptation. The sequel to the very popular first series of the same name. After Story built upon what the first season had already given us and added a little more realism with less comedy and more drama. The execution was incredible and is definitely a must watch for any Harem fan or any other anime fan still skeptical about the genre. It of course had Tatsuya Ishihara as the director and this time had original creator Jun Maeda write the score for the show. The show was a huge success and is very very highly rated.
The only other show produced in 2008 was the Lucky Star OVA which unfortunately is not available legally in the west, which is a shame because it’s an hour long episode of the same Lucky Star goodness that even has an extended live action version of the very popular segment Lucky Channel.
Anime News Network Top 20 List
Trendsetters
In 2009 KyoAni decided to bring back the much anticipated much beloved sequel to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The would be broadcast on TV again but this time in chronological order and with a whole seasons worth of new episodes. Fan reaction was fever pitch and the expectations were incredibly high. The show brought back all of the original cast and crew so the production value was incredibly high and consistent. The first half of the series was magnificent but then about half way through the season KyoAni did something both revolutionary and risky.
This little segment might get a little spoilerific so Spoiler Alert I guess. The light novel had a segment called Endless Eight in which Haruhi made the summer holiday loop more than a hundred thousand times because she never felt satisfied with what she and the SOS Brigade had achieved in that time. KyoAni decided to animate eight of all of all these episodes differently and dub over them as well! This was revolutionary in the sense that each of those episodes was magnificently animated, it would have been incredibly expensive and annoying for the animators to do the same scenes a little bit differently each time, not to mention they had to pay the voice actors for each and every one of those episodes in which they pretty much said the same lines.
Did we really have to go through all of that?
It was risky in the sense that they hoped the fans would stick with the show each and every week and then go on to buy the ridiculously priced Blu ray volumes as well. Well it turned out just fine in the end, fans watched the show and raged at each episode for being ‘exactly the same’ but they also went on to buy the Blu rays of each volume as well. KyoAni had done something no other would have dared, they cashed their chips in and went all out and it payed off. The fans knew they would quality material down the line anyway and boy were they right.
In the Spring of 2009 KyoAni unleashed the Smash Hit K-on! upon the anime world. The show was slice of life comedy about a young high school girl that decided to join a high school band on a whim. It had all the ingredients that made KyoAni adaptations work; cute character designs, comedy, otaku culture references, insert songs and amazing animation. surprisingly the show was not directed by Talsiman Ishihara but by debut Director Naoko Yamada. she ofcourse had worked on storyboards and was a Key Animator in nearly everything KyoAni had done upto this point so why not give her a chance. Little did they know that she would direct their biggest selling and most successful franchise to date. It’s very rare to see a female director in anime, let alone a female director for such a huge series, KyoAni again was leading the way and setting trends for the industry.
There has been a fair number shows trying to mimic the formula that K-on! had but have quite honestly fallen short. perhaps it’s because of the female touch the show had, that’s just my personal opinion but in retrospect, the show was successful because it appealed to a very wide range of audiences. The primary target being male Otaku ofcourse but there was a fair number of young females that enjoyed the show as well. It steered clear of any fanservice and stayed as light and fluffy as ever.
K-on! sold Big and smashed BD records with each release, it sold an average of 30k with each volume (numbers for K-on courtesy of Jakes Anime Blog) and the insert songs were so popular that it even spawned J-pop group Sphere consisting of Aki Toyosaki (Yui hirasawa) and Minako Kotobuki (Tsumugi Kotobuki) their success on their own was testament to how much quality was put into the show. K-on! has somewhat become the poster for moe shows, with many fans showering both praise and hate upon it. The love outweighed the hate though and fans were excatic when a second season was announced just after the first one ended. However fans would have to wait a whole year before they could see this come to fruition.
On Top Of The World!
K-on!! finally aired in 2010 and this time had double the episodes and double the fun, it truly was a spectacle so much so that it ended up winning the Tokyo International Anime Fair Award for best TV series for that year. The show hit an incredible milestone as well by selling over 500,000 copies of Blu rays that year surpassing the likes of Bakemonogatari, Evangelion 1.0 and Gundam UC. KyoAni had really come into their own and at this point all the fans and critics alike only expected the best from them.
The sequel to the much beloved and controversial second season of Haruhi Suzumiya was unleashed upon theatres early that year as well. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was so highly anticipated that one of the promotional bookmarks was auctioned off for over $3,000. I was one of the many fans excited for this movie so much so that I sat through that horrible horrible camrip. The Movie starts off right were season 2 left off and is INCREDIBLE, all 2 and 1/2 hours of it. The emotional impact the film has is even doubled if you sat through all of endless eight because the main plotline of the story is about Yuki Nagato and how her experiences have led to develop emotions…supposedly.
Clearly I wasnt the only one that enjoyed the film as it is highly rated by nearly everyone else (see ANN TOP 20 list) The film grossed over 100 million Yen in its opening weekend alone, that’s about US$1 million. The English versions of the Blu ray and DVD are set to be released in a couple of days for Region 1 and in november for region 4, they are without a doubt going to sell big.
This year KyoAni have given us the adaptation of the comedy/gag manga Nichijou. A lot fans have said it is one of the weaker titles they have produced in recent years but I would like to remind them of the countless times they tried to resurrect Munto. Nichijou is certainly for a particular crowd and doesn’t have as much mainstream appeal as their previous titles, it is noteworthy to mention that the animation they have in most of these episodes is phenomenal. The studio is certainly having a lot of fun with this series and why not? they sure have earned it.
The Future Has Moe…I Mean Money
December 3rd is a date firmly burnt into the minds of all Otaku because it is when the K-on! Movie will finally be screened, only in Japan ofcourse. the movie will open in over 130 screens. This is more screens that what Evangelion 2.0 and Mobile Suit Gundam OO had and about 6 times the amount that The Disappearance got as well. Pre orders for special tickets have already sold out so this movie is guaranteed to be a huge success. The entire cast is back and Naoko Yamada will be Directing this one as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMR3ORTx89I
Kyoto Animation have certainly come a long way since doing in between animation for Studio Ghibli and Sunrise, they have taken risks and along the way set trends for all the other companies to follow. They continue to deliver quality shows each and every year and while they may have had a hiccup here or there, they learn from that and work upon those very mistakes in their upcoming titles. I really like Kyoto Animation and I hope they stay successful, the industry really needs as much success as it can get right now and even if KyoAni don’t necessarily produce shows that may cater to your taste at least appreciate that there is a humble studio out there making great animation for this little niche hobby that you love so much.
Hey Anime Addicts, so I finally finished main lining the wondrously busty Catherine and now will proceed to review the game. I know that this game has a big following on this site, and I hope a lot of you will read this who are not yet fans of this game will pick it up and play it because its really a one of a kind game. This game has controversy surrounding it, not only for the mature content( when I told a friend I was playing this game she said oh the sex game :P), but also for the difficult of the game itself, I’ll address both of those points below.
Background Story:
In this game you take the role of Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old, systems engineer for technology company. He’s kind of a lazy, unorganized, and very in the moment average guy with not much of a future planned out. He has a girlfriend of 5 years(amazing I know), called Katherine. Katherine has recently began to talk about getting married and then Vincent started to have very dark nightmares. The next morning he wakes next to a hot, young, and curvy girl also named Catherine and wonders he how he will get himself out of this mess.
Game play:
Catherine is two games in one, a puzzle game and what you might call a ” moral” psychological thriller. The puzzle element of the game is pretty straight forward as it involves 9 stages with various themes and lengths. At the end of each stage there is a boss stage in which a large creature will change up the wall of blocks and will attempt to kill you. In each puzzle stage there will be various items that can used to help complete the stage. Sprinkled through the stage you find “sheep”, other guys like Vincent trying to escape the nightmare and they will try to impede your progress. As you proceed through the game there will different types of blocks you will encounter, ice blocks, spike blocks, exploding blocks, black hole blocks, etc. and learning how to manage each type of block will be integral to your completing the game. Also important is mastering the various techniques for scaling the different walls of blocks, these will be taught to you at certain points in the game.
The other element of the game, the moral psychological thriller, mostly takes place between each stage in the form of questions asked by a disembodied voice in a confessional booth and the question is usually on the subject of some issue of morality. How you answer the questions affects the ending you will get upon finishing the game, there are 8 endings in total, three for each Catherine, and two neutral endings. Some of the questions will asked at a bar called the Stray Sheep where you will interact with your friends and get messages on your phone from both Catherine. In the bar there are additional features like a mini game called Rapunzel which is also a block based puzzle game, and there is a jukebox that plays various songs from different Atlus games.
As for the game being too difficult, honestly with any game you should probably play it on lower difficult levels, learn the game,get skilled and then try to beat it on the more challenging settings. Its true this game is very challenging, in fact the develops actually created a very easy mode because people complained it was so hard. I found the game to be not as insanely difficult as people make it out to be, playing on easy I think I never dropped beyond 90 retries as there are more enough items that give retires, so on normal and hard it cannot be that impossible.
Visuals and Graphics:
The game play graphics are pretty good for this day and age, the blocks are rendered in nice detail and are as the characters. Where this game really shines in terms of visuals is in the cut scenes. There are two types, ones that are CG graphic or ones that are anime style. I really love the anime cut scenes, I have never seen such great animation in a game and Atlus really went out of their way to make those scenes so beautifully animated. The CG scenes are good as well, just a little overshadowed by the anime scenes.
Closing Comments:
I loved playing Catherine its a one of a kind gaming experience that combines two genres of games that I think no one ever thought would go together, and yet it seems to work in this incarnation. Its a special treat if your a anime fan like me, and most of you that will read this most likely are. This game asks some interesting questions about relationships and what people want out of life and I found myself rethinking a lot things I thought I had figured already about life. In sum, if you want a game that will make you think, with puzzles, and you are a fan of anime this game is for you.
