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Power Dolls

Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ol’ OVA: POWER DoLLS”

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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.

You can also check out my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear.

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Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ol’ OVA: Cosmos Pink Shock”

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Yep, another Friday night, another mixed drink of booze and carbonated soda, and another long lost anime on VHS to jump into before the liquor hits me. When I came too, like many times before hand, I found myself on a hot item of interstellar travel, with radical fans of cyborg baseball hot on the trail as I look out the hatch window. I then notice off in the distance, rapidly approaching at near light speed, a intergalactic war ahead of me. The pilot, no more than a young teenage girl, was gunning through space like she jacked this interplanetary ride (which… she did). During the chaos that seemed to be going on around us, she started to tell me about her quest for a long lost love she would travel to the starts to get back. This is the galactic tale of Cosmos Pink Shock.

 

Cosmos Pink Shock is a short 35 minute OVA that is just really easy to watch and follow, no need to put a lot of brain power for it to make sense. The story is laid out before us, girl jacks space ship, flies through space and happens to causes chaos along the way, gets captured, all in the name of love. And like this short OVA, this is gonna be a short review, so sit back and enjoy. Well… maybe.

 

Cosmos Pink Shock starts off in the year 2206 with a red looking spaceship taking off that has apparently been stolen off a launch site as we see it go full force into space. The space patrol around the planet (I think its Earth actually) is telling the pilot of the “Hyper Rocket” to stop the ship, only to hear on the comm unit a female voice stating a good ol’ way of saying piss off as she knocks her rocket into overdrive into “supra lightspeed” mode.

 

LUDICROUS SUPRA LIGHTSPEED GO!!!!

We then cut to a intergalactic cyborg baseball game (I am guessing?) when the rocket, known as the “Pink Shock”, rips through the sky costing the game for the Tigers. The Tigers fans then hop on there space ships to go after the Pink Shock for continuing the losing streak for the Tigers team and chase after her. No more than 5 seconds later and probably a few planets a way, we get to some galactic war between a low budget Captain Avatar and some all female crew when the Pink Shock races through to tear more crap up. We then get to know who this reckless teen girl is, who goes by the name of Micchi, a 17 year old love stricken girl, dressed in her white hairband, black space spandex and can do spirit. She comes packed with her special catchphrase of “Pink Shock, No Stop, Power Up!” Up to this point shes been able to elude patrols in space, including the “Highway Patrol” (I didn’t see any highways in space, unless all highways in space are dark, or space is just one big highway). After getting the attention of space patrol, we get introduced to Captain Gatsby, a man who takes up the task of catching the Pink Shock once and for all.

 

The Pink Shock then crash lands on the planet Jupiter due to not ever filling up the tank, to put it simply (way to go Micchi), and pretty much lands in Gatsby backyard. She then gets captured and detained, but despite her situation, wants to get something to eat since she hasn’t put much thought into eating while zipping around through space. She has dinner (or lunch… whatever) with Gatsby and asks about his relationship status, which we see Gatsby other self, that he hates women. He explains to her why he hates women which to sum up, is things that women do that guys will never understand and what guys can’t stand either. He pretty much boils it down to as his mother cheated on his dad for another man and has scorned all women since then due to his mothers actions (well, this is something all human beings are guilty of regardless). Micchi explains her reasons of why shes been causing such a ruckes throughout the galaxy, and that’s for her “darling” childhood lover Hiro-chan. She tells him that during a festival when they were kids, aliens decided to randomly show up to abduct Hiro and only him out of AN ENTIRE CROWED OF PEOPLE, which has vowed Micchi to find him since that dreadful day.

Those girls be all up on my junk son!

 

It is then decided what will become of Micchi and her actions. Will Micchi get away from her captors and find Hiro-chan? Will Gatsby get over his hate for women? You’ll just have to find that out for yourself now.

 

I do wanna ad one little tidbit if I may: In Gatsby defense,I am pretty sure he’s not gay. Gatsby is just very particular of what kind of girl he wants, which to simply put, he doesn’t want one ditching out on him and ending up with a broken heart. You can simply state that the man has some pretty high standards, and maybe you could put it, to quote the 40 Year Old Virgin, that he is “putting the pussy on a pedestal.” Gatsby over the years, the way I see it, has put his hatred as a defense around his heart to avoid falling for someone who could turn around and break his heart later, since the girls he happens to see that fall for him, he believes that is exactly what they will do to him. And even though this is a short OVA with really no deeper story than what were seeing, I just happen to find Gatsby character interesting, and to an extent I have been in his position at one point in time.

 

But to sum up this is a really entertaining half hour OVA that is just there to sit back and enjoy. There are some parody moments in this if you happen to catch it, or if you happen to notice these things with a 1980’s anime fan mindset, or if your from that period with good memory. This can found at the Anime Classic Reviews site since it is fansubbed and easy to get to, so come on by and check it out.

So yea, another blog post for the books. And all you readers are welcome to check out my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. Well, see you guys next time!!!

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Anime of Yesteryear presents: “That little ol’ OVA: A.H. Mellowlink Ep. 1-2”

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As I awoke from my friday night binge of anime OVA tapes and booze, I happen to see a smoking wrecked robot on its knees as a dark red liquid was leaking out of the main hatch, with a lone figure standing outside the wreckage, holding something in one hand that could be described as a BFG (for you non-Doom fans, look it up). He wore a dark green cloak, ruffled hair in a ponytail and enough firepower to lay waste an entire platoon of Scopedog units. He then turned around and had 4 lines across the lower part of his face, something that could be described as warrior paint, a marking he made before his kill as he showed the eyes of sorrow and vengeance to me in a dead stare. He then walked over to me and began to tell his story, a quest to avenge the comrades he lost in battle, as he begun to prepare for his next hunt.

This is the story of Armor Hunter Mellow(Yellow)link, ok just Mellowlink. Sorry, couldn’t help to throw that in there. In all seriousness, Mellowlink is one mans quest to avenge his fallen comrades, a single order that got his whole squad wiped out, by going after his former commanders and avenging them one kill at a time. This takes place in the Armored Trooper Votoms universe, but happens a few months before the time line in the TV series. This OVA is one part Rambo, one part Platoon and with a hint of Apocalypse Now mixed in. Ok, its actually like 98 percent Rambo in japanese action cartoon reality. From the first 3 episodes I have seen, I can describe it as this: Mellowlink is if Rambo (First Blood: Part 2) was betrayed by Col. Trautman and Charles Napier character together and the movie had Rambo go after every person in the US Army chain of command for issuing the order to leave Rambo behind in the jungle when trying to rescue that one POW guy. Even though the order was done by Napier character (ok he does have a name in the movie, its Murdock) in the movie, “Rambo” Mellowlink would lay waste to Murdock with a hi-power “out-of-date” anti-A.T. rifle to blast him to liquid goo at point blank range. I wanted a review for my sins, and they (AAA Podcast, scratch that, it was me) gave me one. So grab your gun and your balls boys, because were taking a one way trip to the battle torn hellish world of Armor Hunter Mellowlink.

We start Mellowlink off on the planet of Astraglus in the year 7213, where we find Ality Mellowlink on a desert scorched wasteland of a planet with wreckage of fallen mechs and instruments of war, as he takes sights with his large weapon to take out a military truck. Upon destroying the vehicle, he finds the soldier who survived the ambush and hands him a dog tag, telling him the simple message of “Tell Capt. Dogman… I’ve come to see him from hell” It then goes to our man of interest Dogman playing cards with two guest of his, a woman with blue hair and one to challenge Dogman’s bet on the table by the name Lulucy, and Mr. “Tall, Blonde and Handsome” Lt. Cardine, who’s just chilling out watching the game. Dogman is interrupted by the soldier who was given the tag by Mellow and Dogman issues “all-hands-on-deck” because he knows whats coming. By this time Mellow is making the stage for his battle between him and Dogman in the desert and sees a transport coming. He is able to take out the transport and use it to get in the base. Once inside, he wreaks havoc to the base and meets up with Lulucy and Cardine, who all the more want to help him out since they seem to be investigating the scandal behind Mellowlink past known as the Planpando Scandal. Mellowlink is then able to face Dogman outside in a “man vs machine” battle by using the traps he put in place to disable Dogman’s assault, then Mellow is able to take one final charge and stab the cockpit of Dogman Scopedog to seize victory.

Episode 2 takes us to the port city of Tabbing, where Mellow happens to run into Lulucy at a local bar and finds his next target being “shown for display” as a poster ad for the towns “battling” champion “The Silver Fox of Melka” Lt. Fox. Mellow decides to go into the battle arena the same way he took out Dogman, with a big gun and balls of Goliath because this is how he rolls. He gets Lulucy to make her self as the “number one biggest fan ever” and give Fox some roses, before he realizes hes been given dog tags, in which he knows whats about to go down. He knows this because our favorite intelligence officer Lt. Cardine has explained what happened to Dogman in which Fox just shrugs off regardless. There in the colosseum its man vs. machine in a no holds barge to the death. Fox is able to grab Mellow with the Scopedog’s hands and claim victory, only that Mellow has a plan B and is able to thwart Fox plans of crushing him like a bug and jamming a spike in the cockpit, killing Fox and putting another mark in front of the list of names, Kill Bill style.

The last thing you see...

I think after describing the first 2 episodes you get the gist of what this show is about. This is a 12 episode OVA, so the trail of corpses and the stench of revenge is far from over. To give some back story to Mellowlink, this takes place in the war torn galactic universe of Ryouske Takahashi “Armored Trooper Votoms.” To sum up, Votoms centers around the world of Chirico Cuvie, a former ex- Special Forces soldier who was framed for a mission he knew nothing about. After escaping from his own military, he is on the hunt from his former allies, while meeting new ones along the way, and searching for a certain someone that he encountered on his last mission. That in a nutshell is Votoms. Of course during the review I mentioned things like “Scopedog” a few times. Well for those of you who don’t know, its one of the main mechs in the Votoms universe that pilots like Chirico and Mellowlink pilot. They are not just personalized robots, but as standard military weapons, which is one of the main aspects that makes the Votoms universe so unique.

But if this is something you readers wanna check out, than this is right up your ally. If your like me who lays around on Memorial Day weekend and watches war movies (well they used to do that on TV, I miss those days. I haven’t done that in a long while since Animazement is that same weekend every year) than watching this OVA back to back or in segments is completely up to you. Well readers, until next time, lock and load.

You are welcome to check out my blog over at http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/

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Anime of Yesteryear presents: “That little ol’ OVA: Wanna-Be’s”

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Hey everyone. So its another Friday night for me filled with my plastic, boxy, large cassettes with images of japanese cartoons from the past with a glass of Jack Daniels by my side as I use to transcend time and space with the man made invention dubbed “blackouts.” When I came to, I found myself by facing two fierce female warriors, with binding spandex and eyes of a tiger, pouncing on the prey of some butch looking women, with missing teeth and bad 80’s hairstyles. Looking around the area, I found myself on the sidelines of the grand gladiator brawl of Japanese woman’s professional wrestling. Welcome to the world of Wanna-Be’s folks, lets get ready to rumble.

Wanna-Be’s is an anime about woman’s “wraslin” with high tech power armor training equipment, butch ladies, evil corporations and moves from pile drivers to “The Vag’ Slammer!” This anime starts out really entertaining and ends with “…why?” It had a good and simple premise even with the evil corporation thrown in to the story, but how they bring in and execute the final boss is just… gah, why? Well, let’s elbow drop this anime into submission then go in for the count.

Wanna-Be’s starts off with a match between the Dream Angels and the Foxy Ladies, battling for the glory of the ring. Unfortunately it’s pretty much a one sided fight as the burly Foxy Ladies dominate the Dream Angels between choke holds, suplexes and being thrown into turnbuckles in there shear dominance in the ring. With the Dream Angels out, its up to the Wanna-Be’s to step in and avenge their sisters in the ring with Miki Morita and Eri Kazuma. The coach is able to set the Wanna-Be’s up with state of the art equipment (some say may rival what Dolph Lundgren used in Rocky 4) to get in top shape to take on the pro wrestling circuit and soon to exact revenge against the Foxy Ladies.

While all this is going on, we find that the corporation, the Kidou group, was funding the manager for the Dream Angels, now Wanna-Be’s, from the hi-tech training equipment to getting other “enhancements.” Turns out the Kidou group is putting in certain types of drugs into the female athletes to improve their stats for research and testing to… make them the ultimate fighter, or something.

Fight after fight, the Wanna-Be’s are able to finally get a match with the Foxy Ladies to settle the score from the slaughter of the Dream Angels. The fight is introduced by the main singer of Seikima II in an Undertaker style introduction with him throwing a coffin on stage and telling the crowd that the Foxy Ladies will make sure this coffin is the fate of the Wanna-Be’s. Talk about class man, and that is something I can totally dig. They have their showdown with the Foxy Ladies in a 3 bout match which is really entertaining to see. Full of kicks, holds, chairs and the Wanna-Be’s hulking out at the end to make the match a tie (due to them not getting the credit for the pin since the Foxy Ladies knocked out the ref like 5 minutes before hand. Yea it got pretty crazy after that).

After the match, Miki and Eri find that they are nothing more than guinea pigs for the Kidou group, just like the Dream Angels before them, and decide to go to the company HQ to put a stop to it once and for all. But, they find there is more to these experiments than what meets the eye, and to see the ultimate horror of the project. What will they find in the depths of the Kidou group? You’ll have to find that out for yourself.

Seikima II guest stars as the Undertaker

Wanna-Be’s starts out with a promise of a somewhat sturdy wrestling anime, but ends with something that I just cant imagine why the people who worked in this thought it would be a good idea. I’m not going to spoil it for you because I want you to see it for yourself, but I am sure your going to ask yourself when watching this “wait, why was that in there?” I have to admit, this anime is entertaining and ridiculous, especially for animes that I seem to enjoy the most give or take. You must also realize, this is just 45 minutes of mindless entertainment that you have no reason to put any thought or action into making it more serious or deep than what Wanna-Be’s shows you.

What got me into watching this was the character designs are done by none other than Kenichi Sonoda, the man who made the lovely women of japanese cartoons in the 80’s with Gall Force, Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean just to name a few (these titles I just named will be reviewed in the future at some point in time). I am a HUUUUUUGE fan of Sonoda’s work, and I hope to meet the man one day, and just show up with a truck load of crap I want him to sign, and possibly take him out to eat or to hit up a bar just to get the know the guy. I hope by then I have a acceptable ride like a ’67 Shelby GT 500 that would suit him to take him to one of these places.

All in all, if you wanna check this anime out, be my guest. And if you like wrestling in some way, its entertaining to see. But man, that ending will get you, I tell you what. I sign off my saying, have yourself an apple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APcAK0c9OJU

Well, this is my weekly review, and you can check me out on my blog at: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/

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Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ol’ OVA: Bobby’s Girl”

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So I’m back on this again, as I happen to dig deeper in the past, as far back as my binge drinking and obscure anime vhs collection can take me. When I came too, I found myself looking at some punk kid, who reminding me of what all of us seem to be at one part of our lives, that part where we don’t know what and where to go in life. Enter the world of 17 year old Akihiko Nomura, or what we’d like to call him, Bobby.

Bobby’s Girl (or “Bobby’s in deep”) is one of Madhouse early works from the 80’s, and this kind of anime just has the right heart and soul to go with it. From the quality of animation, a very simple story to understand, and very talented people all make this anime stand out for its time, only to fall into obscurity later. But, lets dive into Bobby’s world a bit and find what makes this unique.

The anime starts off with Bobby on his bike, because Bobby is all about his bike. He cleans it, tunes it and lives for it. He takes pictures of his ride one day and sends it to a motorcycle hobby magazine, which in turn gets a letter from a girl. The girl sends detailed and often romantic letters to Bobby, which he responds to answers that can be summed in one sentence, such as “My bike is blue” to answer the girls question about when she wants to see him again on the road. Bobby is just a simple guy, and answers like that are part of the binary response that guys use most of the time when answered a question. He’s not doing it to be rude or he’s shy, but I would have to say that is just his personality.

 

But things at home and life are different for Bobby. His grades are dropping due to the simple fact of “not-giving-a-crap” about school, and his dad is hounding him to get his act together and get his butt in gear for life, which Bobby just doesn’t seem to understand if it has nothing to do with bikes (I am sure there is some tech college in Japan where he can work on bikes, even in the 80’s). This causes him to drop outta school and get kicked out of the house to live with a friend. He then gets a job from a biker bar owner (and by coincidence the bar is named “Bobby’s”) who shares his passion for bikes too, and his past as a racer.

At one point Bobby’s “girl” stated she will call him on a specific date/time and wanted to make sure he is by the phone to talk to him, which has Bobby excited and waiting for the day. On that same day, Bobby’s boss takes him on a ride along the country side of Japan to a motocross track which it seems to give Bobby some options to his outlook on life, at least that’s how I looked at it. But then Bobby realizes that his phone call is coming soon and hops on his bike in a race against time. Can he make it back in time to talk to his mystery girl? You’ll just have to find out.

I’d have to give this OVA credit, despite its flaws. To sum up this OVA, its just a fun anime to sit back and watch, with no effort to put in any thought into trying to interpret the story or to look for anything further than what is provided. Its a simple cut and dry story about a boy who likes his bike and the events that unfold from there. What makes this OVA so special to me is the fact that it can relate to anyone. Everyone has been at a position like Bobby at one point in time, or multiple times. That is just how life is, even if it is unfair to us, and all we can do is learn and move on.

What steals the show on this is the animation by a long shot. This was Madhouse early works in the 80’s before they hit it big, and this was during the period that near infinite money was thrown into the booming OVA market where it seemed a lot of creative talent came from that we see today, both good and bad. The final scene to this anime can only be compared to breathtaking as the animation goes to stencil style as Bobby is riding on his bike to get to the phone in time with every detail to backgrounds, the bike, gear changing, you name it all. Its something out of a A-ha “Take on me” music video, minus the 80’s mullets sadly. There is also the attention to signs, logos and just American products in this show from cars to cigarettes.

 

I first heard about this anime from Gerald review of it on Anime World Order over a year ago along with his story on how he tracked this down, and I would recommend checking out that review. His review had me looking into this, which I’m glad I did. The anime is now online and finding a copy from those “sites” and the fansub group ToY-RC are the only accessible ways at this time. Your best bet to getting a physical copy is either by yahoo or amazon japan sites and to see if someone has it available.

All in all, if this is something you wanna look into, by all means please check it out. Its not perfect, but its definitely unique to see. But all in all, I wanna be Bobby’s Girl, because that is the most important thing to me: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xajs92_bobby-s-in-deep-ed_shortfilms

If you liked the review please leave feedback and to check out my blog at: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/. Well until next time.

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Survivor Series: Devil Survivor Review

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So I thought it would be appropriate for my first game review to be my namesake, none other than: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. This game is part of the long running Shin Megami Tensei series and its the first of the series that I have had the pleasure of playing. It also has the title of the first of the series to be released outside of Japan. Devil Survivor received very good reviews averaging an 8 out of 10. So let’s now take a look at the specifics of the game.

Background Story:

In Devil Survivor you are a high school student, who is referred to as Hero and who you give a name too at the beginning of the game,  who is about to enter his third year of high school and the game begins with you meeting your friends to hang out in downtown Tokyo. One of your friends is late and he explains your cousin gave him three new Comps, DS looking devices that are very popular with the Japanese, and he hands you one and tells you that your cousin has modified the Comps with a new program he wrote. Then you get an email on your Comps from something called the “Laplace System” and it makes some dire predictions about the future including a lock down of Tokyo. Soon the Japanese Self Defense Force announces a lock down of a large area of downtown Tokyo. Soon Hero and his friends discover that the Comps have an intriguing ability to summon demons  and battle other demons. The main characters are then attacked by demons and became aware that the modified Comps allow humans to fight demons on an equal footing and defeat the demons. They then embark on a journey to uncover the mystery surrounding the lock down and ultimately escape from this nightmare.

Game Play:

Devil Survivor is a tactical role playing game and plays much like similar games such as Final Fantasy. You have a team of three characters, but with a slight difference  that human character is part of the team along with two demons. You can have up to four teams at one time on the battlefield, however you might have many other playable team leaders in your party. As for demons, you can carry up to 24 in your Comp. One of the coolest features of the game is the ability to fuse your existing demons with ones you can buy in auctions or that you acquired other ways into more powerful demons. There are two types of battles you will encounter; ones that are plot related and free battles.  Free battles are pretty simple they just allow you to fight some enemies to gain experience to level up and earn some money to buy more demons in auctions. The plot related battles are more involved as the ones you choose will influence which character’s ending you will get at the conclusion of the game. These are called “paths” and every major character has one. The two times I played the game so far I got Yuzu(Hot chick in the pink with the very large boobs) ending and Gin’s ending(Gin is the badass in the tie that owns his own bar). There are other events which are non-battles that advance the story as well, you can tell them from battles because an icon appears next to them with a red exclamation mark and say “battle”, pretty easy to tell apart I know :P. The game is broken up into 7 days and each event you do moves the clock forward 3o minutes, so beware of this if you want to level up some more before moving ahead in the story.

Personal Comments:

I really enjoyed this game a lot, its exactly what I like in a role playing game. The game has a deep and richly realized story with many twists and turns, characters with good development(yuzu and mildori are annoying at certain points), and a simple and easy to learn combat interface. The replay value is high as there are many different endings depending on the path you decide to take. The game places the fate of you and your friends in your hands and its up to you who lives and who dies, it almost gave me a god complex lol (P.S. I’m not as crazy as I seem). I’m excited about the sequel that is coming in fall, and will review it when it comes out. If your looking to buy this game, I would go with the new version called Devil Survivor: Overclocked, which adds an 8th day to the story. I’m going to buy it for my 3DS(I was dumb and brought it at the high price early on, but I’m looking forward to my 20 free games from the virtual console and will get Netflixs soon on it). I give Devil Survivor 4.5 of 5 big boobed anime girls.

Ok that’s all for now. Not sure what I’ll review next, I’m I need to jump into Catherine because I know so many people on this site love that game.

 

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor


 

Fairy Cube by Kaori Yuki, Volume 3

Anime & Manga Reviews & News #1: Fairy Cube and D Gray Man

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Hello, faithful addicts of anime! I’m very pleased to meet you all, and super psyched be a part of the AAA blog. I’d like to kick back with you guys each week with a few reviews of my personal favorites, new and old classics-and even the stuff that should be labeled DO NOT TOUCH-in the world of  anime and manga. As I continue to blog, I hope you’ll check some of the titles that may be a little less familiar to you. In any case, I hope you guys all dig the reviews! Here we go:

 

Manga Review: Fairy Cube by Kaori Yuki

Ian is not quite like the rest of his classmates. He’s always been gifted with the power to see spirits and fairies that are roaming around in our world. However, nobody but his old childhood friend Rin believes in “Ian the Liar”. After a series of tragic events, Ian is dead and his “Other Self”, the lizard spirit Tokage, has taken over his body and stolen Rin for himself. Ian burns with revenge, risking everything for vengeance, even that which isn’t his to sacrifice.

Overall, this is a good manga, albeit a bit confusing at times. This 3-volume miniseries by the artist of Godchild and Angel Sanctuary is elaborately drawn and paced like a mystery slasher film. The character designs are nice to look at, the scenery is positively beautiful, and the characters themselves are generally very complex and lovely.

Now for the drawbacks. It took me until my third read-through to fully understand the antagonist’s motivations, and even then the conflicts weren’t fully explained. And while I do enjoy the manga”s pacing, the panels are a bit too small at times, which makes the action read faster and it becomes more confusing if you don’t take the time to stare at all the details. And who wants to do that?

Overall, it’s a decent series, and even if you don’t get it at first, it’s a short enough series so that you can just re-read it if you didn’t quite get it. It’s a nice series, it covers a lot of faerie culture, so I recommend giving it a shot if you’re a fantasy fan.

 Anime Review: D Gray Man, manga by Katsura Hoshino, anime by TMS, dub by FUNimation Entertainment

 

Allen Walker is a guileless fifteen year old with a depressing past: his adopted father, fresh from the grave, scarred his left eye, which sealed Allen’s fate as an Exorcist. Allen joins the Black Order, a gathering of Exorcists from around the world, who are trying to rid the world of Akume, a weaponlike demon creature that is born from the grief of a loved one. Allen, the angst-ridden Yuu Kanda, cheerful Lavi, caring Lenalee, and the eccentric Komui Lee, to name a few, are hell-bound on a mission to destroy the Akuma and collect a mysterious substance known as Innocence, which gives the Exorcists their incredible fighting powers. To make matters more complicated, fighting the Black Order every step of the way are the mysterious Millennium Earl and Noah family. 

 

As confusing this premise seems, this is an unusual anime with a lot of great aspects. There is drama, humor, and each character had their own unique desires and ambitions and aren’t afraid to step out and fight for what they want. A lot of characters have some interesting and even funny quirks, such as Allen’s penchant for gambling (and cheating), Kanda eating only soba and calling Allen “bean sprout” (“short stack” in the dub) because he’s short. The show is never predictable, full of unusual plot twists and arcs that involve some pretty weird stuff, such as a town that lives in a never ending time loop when only one townsperson notices(think Groundhog Day). The battles are intense, the antagonists alternating from just plain weird to being completely scary, and the whole anime is wrapped up in a bow with gorgeous, smooth animation and character design and a killer soundtrack. Seriously folks, if you haven’t heard your fill of this title by now, it’s a must-see, and if you’re a music addict (like me) in addition to being an anime addict, a must-add to your MP3 player. (Here’s the Season One opening theme: Innocent Sorrow)

 

Well, thanks for reading, fellow Addicts, and I’ll see you next week for more anime and manga to recommend (or just remind you to steer clear of)!!

This is DJ, signing off! Have a nice one! Ja-ne!!~

moto to love ru

Motto to Love Ru -Trouble-

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Alternate Titles:  もっとTo LOVEる -とらぶる

Original Japanese Release Date: September 17, 2010

Episode Length/Run-time: 12

Summary:
Because this anime is so horrible, it’s easier for me to just give detailed description of what accounts for about 90% of this show.

Review:

First of all, the story is broken down into a series of shorts.  Much like Azumanga

The show is about a girl named LALA who comes from a planet called Devilluke(she has a devil tail) she runs away because she is a princess and doesnt’ want to take part in an arranged marriage.  This is not the first series of this(I don’t know how there is a sequel) and so some of the stuff doesnt make too much sense to me.  Lala lives at a boy named Rito’s house and he’s the male “protagonist” even though he doesnt do much to fit the role.  Weak, nervous, indecisive. This show also has some side characters in it that are from the old series.  There is a blonde girl who can use her hair as weapons and apparently, for whatever reason she is an assassin from another planet and she is supposed to kill Rita althought I’m not sure why because from what I’ve seen he doesnt do too much to be deemed killable. The rest of the show is bs antics and panty shots, blushing, and slapstick comedy that isn’t funny. And of course, every single character in the show has a crush on Rito.  And I mean they’re literally throwing their bodies on him but this show never has any kind of physical interaction of that kind.  No kissing, no sex despite all the nudity, nothing.

Some scenes that make me want to kill myself:

  • There is a guy named Zastin who comes from Devilluke to retrieve two other girls from the royal family who run away.  There is also another girl in the school that Rita goes to that has a crush on him (somehow) and so they call him to the school so that she can confess.  At the same time Lala has cooked Rita some bad bento with black smoke coming out of it.  He’s watching the confession from the side of a building a bit away and up from behind Lala finds him and crams some of the food in her mouth.  He gags and runs out from the building towards Zastin and the girl.  He slams into the girl and she falls on him, ass up, and Zastin gets a shot of her panties and vag area.  Then she gets mad and hits Rita and chases him.  Ugg….
  • It’s Valentine’s Day.  Kotegawa a girl in Rito’s class is making him chocolate because she has a crush on him.  So…she tries to give it to him but she gets nervous and ends up cussing him out.  Later in the day, she tries again, and in the middle of it, another girl that is cute with green hair comes up and pounces on Rita and offers him chocolate out of her mouth (because this is apparently a harem) and he gets “scared” and turns to run in the other direction and runs into Kotegawa.  She falls and he ends up with his head basically in her vag. Ugg…
  • They’re at the beach.  The watermelon they are trying to split turns into a monster and spits red “cum juice” on the girls and then they pose for the camera provoatively  with all the stuff dripping off of them.
  • Tentacle octopus breast enlarger…

[starrater]

hack roots

.hack//Roots

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Alternate Titles:  None

 

Original Japanese Release Date: April 5th, 2006

Episode Length/Run-time: 26

Summary:

.hack//Roots is the prequel to the .hack//G.U. videogames. It follows the story of Haseo, a Multi-Weapon and member of the Twilight Brigade guild. In the year 2015, CC Corp. Building burnt down, and with it, most of its data for The World. By splicing data from what would have potentially been another game, CC Corp. created The World R:2 and released it in 2016.

Review:

Set six months before .hack//G.U., Haseo logs into The World R:2 for the first time and falls victim to the PKs that reside within The World R:2. Pking has apparently become a big problem.  He is saved by Ovan and Shino, which prompts him to join the Twilight Brigade.  The Twilight Brigade members are on a mission to find the Key of the Twilight, however, the TAN guild opposes this because they want Ovan’s character data due to the device in his left arm and will stop at nothing to keep the Twilight Brigade from their goal.  The twist is when Tri-Edge shows up. Things briefly pick up in the series when he turns up, making for a short run of episodes that were actually fun to watch.  Makes for some good drama and some action scenes.

If you plan to watch the series, without playing the game, don’t.  You need to play the games to finish the story and let me tell you, the game suck.  Badly.  You may go insane playing them.  But without playing the games:

      • Many unexplainable events
      • Characters aren’t fleshed out enough  you miss out on a LOT of character background.  things just happen without any reason for this being given
      • The ending leaves SO many questions unanswered

This anime has extremely large periods of nothing happening.  What the hell is the director thinking?  Everything happens very slowly.  Long periods of characters just starring off into space at the sky or at something in particular.  Really weird.  It’s a bit how you’ll notice in an anime how sometimes they will just be like a really long still image. Also it takes characters a long time to decide to do something and then an even longer time to execute.  It makes things ever so boring.

The anime totally abandons the “MMO inside an anime” theme.  .hack//Sign had scenes that would show the person using the computer or would have very video game like character traits for the in-game avatars. .hack//Roots totally dumps this trait.  You never see the out of game players and the characters in the series are just way too emotion filled and “real” to be ingame avatars.  As a result, it doesn’t really feel like you’re watching an MMO. Many of the characters are pretty unlikeable in the end as well.  They don’t get background and they really don’t feel that vibrant.  Even the main character Haseo is just a shitty emo character.

The visuals and music are very nice the animation and the overall art is very nice.  The character designs for .hack are always very interesting, and the artwork in general is of an excellent standard. This is a good thing, because you are forced     to stare at pretty visuals in which very little happens for a long, long time.   The music is fantastic as well.  The theme song and was played at the start of tonights podcast, “Silly Go Round” Is quite awesome and even the BGM features famous melodies such as the “Queen of the Knight” Aria from Mozart’s “Magic Flute”.

[starrater]

Review: School Rumble

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Episode Reviewed In: Episode 73

Alternate Titles:  Sukuran

Original Japanese Release Date: October 5th, 2004

Episode Length/Run-time: 26

Summary:
School rumble is an anime about love, romance and comedy.  The basis of the show are the “crushes” that the characters have on each other.  I say because its  recurring theme in the series.  Really, the show has no plotline beyond the light hearted high schoolers lives. But I gotta say that people must think that HS in Japan is random as hell because that’s what this series is.

Review:
In terms of the relationships there is a girl called Tsukamoto Tenma who is a cute girl that basically serves as the main characters.  She has a crush on a boy called Karasuma Ooji, who is this really weird character that has a beatles haircut and is strange and emotionless.  There is another character as well, Harima Kenji, who is a delinquent and he has a crush on Tenma.  LOVE TRIANGLE!  It’s announced that Ooji is getting ready to leave the school and so Tenma wants to confess to him. Of course, none of these characters are able to confess to each other and the show uses this as another basis for comedy.

In fact, since Harima is a delinquent, he has a bad rep and this makes it hard for him to confess as well because he comes off as a bit scary, but along the way you find out as do the schools students that hes not so bad.

The show is very random and there are some things in it that are used for comedy but make no sense to me at all. For example, Harima is able to talk to animals and later on he has like practically an entire zoo following him around…very random.
There are also some spoofs that really make the comedy in the show good.  There is a scene in the beginning when the 3 students, Harima, Tenma, and Ooji are all chasing each other (kinda like the cat that was running from the dog whom was running from the pig, etc..) except in this instance its Ooji biking to school insanely fast and weirdly, being chases by Tenma who is trying to confess and then Harima chasing her.  ENTER INITIAL D.

All in all, its a show without much plot but its just another light hearted comedy that is alright and does the comedy pretty well and doesnt get too series for its own good.

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