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Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ‘ol OVA: Goku: Midnight Eye”

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After having a quiet (yet secluded) Friday night full of countless hours of playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the occasional Panzer Dragoon Saga, it was time for me to take my binge drinking feat to the next level, watching yet another old school OVA from the day. After popping in the one of many random tapes I encounter on my near endless VHS shelf, I parked myself on the couch and the world began to spin around me. When I came too, I found myself face to face with quite a catch when it came to the female species. She had a lovely mane of pink 80’s metal hair, lushes lips and a half naked body to die for. This of course wasn’t all perfect, as she was fitted with motorcycle handlebars on her back as… an accessory? She gave me the most lustful of looks as her mouth began to slowly open up, which I know what your thinking guys, I was going to get some right? Well, I was going to get something, as I noticed a pink light began to grow the more her mouth opened. This freaked me out and I quickly kicked her away, which to my luck was a good thing or I would have been BLASTED BY A MOUTH LASER AT THAT MOMENT!!!! Scared out of my wits in the predicament I found myself in, a figure from behind her appeared and a silver rod stabbed her in the back. As I looked up at the shadowy figure, I saw a small red light lit up where the figures eyes would be, which made the sound of a bird cawing. He told me his name was Goku, an regular dick you could say (ie. Private Investigator) and he needed my assistance. Oh good, its another one of these Jack Daniels fueled adventures again I thought to myself, as I was now in the world of Goku: Midnight Eye.

Let me make this as perfectly clear as I can, I. Love. Yoshiaki. Kawajiri. Anime!!! And when it comes to everything this man makes, I have about all of them in my collection. There are somethings you can expect when watching a Yoshiaki Kawajiri anime, things like creatures (human or animals) having the ability of shooting lasers from there mouths, the main protagonist female companion dying or getting raped, women in the most awesome and ridiculous 80’s outfits, some women naked, a really cool weapon of choice that the main character uses, stuff blowing up like everywhere, an insanely crazy story plot, a “bad-ass” main character, some vampires, and more stuff that doesn’t make a lick of sense but you don’t care to analyze it further. This is all the key components that goes into a Kawajiri flick past 1986. It is because of these components that I will always add one or all of them if I was to make my own animation anything, or these are things I look at in any anime I want to watch period. Goku Midnight Eye is no exception to anything that I listed, because its is literally a tsunami of everything coming at you, which is why I chose to talk about it in this review.

 

Goku: Midnight Eye is a two part OVA that takes place in the future year of 2014 in Tokyo (and by God, everything that happens in these animes better come into view, especially the fashion sense of having girls with motorcycle handlebars on there backs, YEAH!!!). The first OVA starts out with a man on the run from our protagonist Goku, all because he has a key to the mob bosses mistress which he’s having an affair with (because he is their accountant). The man tries to fight back using a “mechanical robot Mazinger Z style” hand to fight Goku, which back fires on the guy. After Goku drops the key off to the mistress of the mob boss and turns her advances down, we see him give his intro about how bad Tokyo of the future has become corrupt by the the people who run the place and how they are destroying the city, one small earthquake at a time. We then cut to a night club where the main attraction is the only kind of girl I want to know (but no way in hell it would ever work out) who is grinding up the dance floor on all fours as her body moves rhythmically with the generic 80’s dance synth techno music blaring in the background. We see a man monitor another man in the corner of the night club who goes by the name of Genji Hakuryu. The man monitoring Genji is in a trance when he sees many eyes glow behind Genji, and pulls out his pistol and blows his brains out. This is met with Genji giving a toast to the dead man. Goku decides to see his old boss at the police station because of the recent suicides of Goku old partners through the police station and gets himself dragged in to the case, with the help of an old friend, Yoko.

"You can't trick my left eye"

 

Yoko explains that the business man is an arms dealer and known as the merchant of death, and the police are trying to get a case against him to put him behind bars. After two more officers decide to take there lives thanks to the naked women in peacock feathers (yes, a naked woman in peacock feathers is the cause of these suicides) Goku and Yoko decide to investigate the tower of Genji and figure out what is going on. Once inside, Goku meets the biker girl who is sleeping on the dance floor in the club (from earlier) and shows him she is more than what she appears, by SHOOTING LASERS AT HIM FROM HER MOUTH!! Almost getting roasted by the exotic woman, he gets knock out by a burly security officer and gets to meet Genji on his knees. After Genji explains his plans to Goku of how bad of a guy he is while petting the (PINK HAIR, CYBERNETIC, MOUTH SHOOTING LASER EXOTIC DANCER!! SPOILERS!!!!) exotic dancer like a domesticated pet cat, he lets Goku be stung by wasp who have been genetically altered to sting people with a sleeping toxin (not kidding) and leaves Goku on the side of the road in his awesome Chevy Corvette. Goku is then collected and drives along when the peacock woman decides to use her hypnotic powers while standing on a moving semi-truck tanker. The only way Goku can resist the powers is by stabbing out his left eye with a knife and drives off the bridge into the water.

 

We then cut to Goku on an operating table where a mysterious man inserts a cybernetic left eye into Goku, which grants Goku the ability to access ANY COMPUTER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!! After waking up on a park bench and playing around with his eye to take out two street punks who are armed with machine guns, we find out Goku has a new weapon, an extended silver staff (like the one Goku uses in DBZ, just not silver). Goku then realizes that Yoko might be in danger and rushes to get to her place. Can Goku defeat Genji and put his reign of exotic laser shooting dancers to an end, and will he be able to save Yoko? You know what I am going to tell you, so go find this and watch the rest. You still got a scene where Genji half Mexican midget assistant rides on the dancer to attack Goku and, by God, just see the darn thing already! I haven’t even explained the second OVA to you guys, where its full of cybernetic flying robot Pterodactyls, a rapist/pedophile M. Bison clone and inter-dimensional rockets that come from a flying space car. I cannot ruin the rest of this for you, even though I went on a pretty long rant regardless.

 

This is all you need to know about this anime EVER!

The OVA’s is actually an adaptation of the manga done by Buichi Terasawa, who is more well known for doing the Space Adventure Cobra series and a few other things too (I have the Goku Midnight Eye manga that was released by Comics One, which I have not read the whole manga series as of yet, yea shame on me) to add to his long list of things Terasawa wants to do. The fact that these two entities of Japanese creative genius didn’t make the world explode when they shook hands is something I am grateful for, and Kawajiri decided to put his own spin of things on the adaptation of the manga when he took on the project. Kawajiri also did the character designs for this (as most of his stuff) which the faces seem very unique and almost non traditional anime/comic book looking way you could say. Terasawa style is to have hot, half naked chicks everywhere, who either fight against or side with the macho main protagonist. You may call it mind numbing 80’s anime trash, but I see it as pure great, macho-ish, anime story telling nostalgia. It’s content like this is my answer to why I just cant get into current anime, because it has none of these things in it. And if it does, its very few and far between. If Kawajiri decides to adapt the rest of the manga (trust me, there is SOOO MUCH more to cover), I will be on board, waiting to see the day of the next OVA. Bottom line, why are you still reading this!

 

If you enjoyed this review, head on over to my personal blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. See you next time!!

 

Final Remarks:

Only in 1989 could people in the anime industry be with women like this, because this ment something.

madox

Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ‘ol OVA: Metal Skin Panic MADOX–01

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Merry (late) Christmas to all you good little boys and girls out there. It has been a while since I wrote well… anything for the site. But now that I got some time off before school starts again (and jobless once more), I have all the time in the world to waste away at drinking and watching cassette based anime, oh what a joyous waste of time and life that is. So, there I was Christmas Eve, munching on cookies served with spiked egg nog that made my heart glee. As I was getting half wasted, my butt firmly glued to the couch, I heard a large “thud” on the roof that awoke me into a drunken grouch. Getting pissed off from the footsteps up on top of the roof, I reached for my .44 Magnum, hoping to put a silver bullet in this dudes tooth… and his head. With the barrel pointed at my chimney, gun fully cocked, saying to my self “Let’s get ready to Rock!”At the bottom of the chimney, I saw a red and white hat fell, when the next words I heard echoing was “Ah, what the hell!”It was the fat man himself, stuck in the stack, who had a hard time moving, because his butt was a bit fat. And in a flash he landed head first at the bottom, getting himself together where he’d had fallen. I said “Hey Santa, you doing ok Bo’?” As he looked at my TV and said “Hey, whats this show?” I told him I was watching an anime called Madox 01, a show about a dude in a robot suit, reeking havoc in Tokyo for fun. Santa sat his huge butt down on my couch, pouring some Egg Nog and nodding “I gotta check this crap out!” So Santa and me chilled out to some Japanese cartoons, which takes us to our tale of what our adventure came too.

Ok, that is enough rhyming for one paragraph, there is no way I can keep that up for the rest of this review, but I at least tried to do something cool. So yea, Madox 01, to sum up, is a guy who wants to meet his girlfriend at the edge of town while being stuck inside a military mechanical suit. Cool premise isn’t it? And to be honest, this OVA isn’t that bad. It’s down right entertaining to see, from the easy to follow plot to the action scenes involving our protagonist trying to avoid the military from getting in between him and his girlfriend since he has their property that he just can’t seem to get out of. Well, that right there is the “easy plot,” dead serious. But if this tickles your fancy, I’ll give you my brief lowdown of what happens. So, let me and Santa cram in our robot suits while going down Tokyo in this review of Madox 01.

 

Madox 01 starts out with some cool looking animation with wire frames of robot legs, machine guns and rocking synth 80’s OVA music. We then go to an abandoned backwater town, filled with nothing but dirt, sand and isolation. But before you know it, 3 tanks are coming into the town and split up upon entering. Within a couple of minutes, a lone military mech suit takes out each tank one by one with set traps while demonstrating its raw firepower of its arsenal of machine guns and missiles. Once the last tank goes down, we see it was nothing short but a computerized simulation. We then hear the disappointed growl of one Lt. Kilgore, the tank commander who was completely humiliated by the military mech and, none the less, the woman piloting the machine, Ellie Kusumoto. Kilgore later approaches Ellie to not only give her his personal congratulations, but states ,in a since that in real combat, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and walks off.

 

Later that evening, we see the military transport truck driving along the Tokyo highway when a drunk driver in front of the transport losses control and crashes, which causes the cargo on the transport to somehow fly off the highway and land in a transport truck down below, which belongs to a mechanic on his dinner break. We then cut to our main protagonist Kouji, who likes to spend his days working part time at a mechanic shop fixing cars and staring at military planes that fly over, when we get introduced to his boss (or co-worker I guess) by the name of Onose. Ono gets Kouji to check something out in the bed of his truck, which turns out to be the cargo of what the military transport truck was carrying last night. So, they both get the great idea and take it over to Kouji apartment to figure out what it is.

 

While that is going on, we go back to the military base to get an idea of how everyone in the military is handling this, which is not very well as you could imagine. Ellie is wanting to retrieve her robot mech, but not if Kilgore has anything to say about it, since he is in charge of finding and bringing back the robot in one piece, presumably. While the military is in a fit, Kouji and Ono load the the cargo into the house, where Kou looks at the instructions on the side, and the label listed on the box, that read “Madox.” Ono sees a picture of Kou girlfriend, Shiori, and begins stating that she will be leaving for England for school and that she left a message for Kou to see her at the NSR building 8pm that evening. Ono decides to head back to the shop while Kou begins to fiddle with the box. After unhooking a few giant screws and pressing some buttons he obviously should not be pressing, lo’ and behold, the box transforms into our robot, Madox. I am pretty sure you guys saw this a mile away, I did say paper thin plot now did I? Kou decides to hop into the mech to satisfy his curiosity, which he finds out the mech has locked him inside, kinda like walking into a lions mouth, only it has pretty lights to look at, and its a robot really not a lion.

 

"If you are stupid enough, get inside the machine"

But chaos ensues, as the go go gadget robot begins to activate and starts to jets through a bath house and some residential blocks of the city, giving a debris ensued path right to the culprit, in case you wanted to know why there is a hole in your crummy apartment all of the sudden. Kou and his robot land in a convenience store, which Kou only save to get him out of trouble is to buy microwavable shrimp. I am not kidding, he buys vacuum sealed shrimp and rice and that’s it. No cops, no angry mob, no consequences for what just happened to him, as he tries to enjoy some shrimp while in his robot suit sitting on a bench in the park while he considers seeing his girlfriend at the NSR building by 8pm. Oh trust me, it gets even better from here folks. Back at the base, we find that Kilgore is going all out to get the Madox, as his intent is to destroy the machine than to capture it. Ellie confronts him, but he let’s the tank cannon of his gun get his point across, as he he points it at her point blank in her face as his way of saying “Piss off, this is my show now!” Ellie decides to take matters into her own hands and suits up to go into a prototype Madox unit to get ahead of Kilgore and capture the unit herself before any damage can be done to the city.

 

We then get back to Kou who stops at a gas station to fill his robot suit up with diesel fuel, asking the attendant for assistance. Of course, other than a hand full of on lookers, he gets help in fueling up his robot suit and is off to the NSR building. Of course on the way there, a bunch of no good punks want to drag race with Kou and his robot (oh dear god, this is just gold) which ends with Kou using the chainsaw blade feature of the machine to chop the car roof of the punks car. But not before the military stops in to use there way of putting and end to Kou, by shooting at everything around him while trying to shoot him. With the military hot on Kouji’s butt and with Shiori headed to the NSR building, can Kouji get his chance with Shiori before she leaves for good? Can he get past Lt. Kilgore and Ellie as well? Your just gonna have to see that for yourself now.

 

"I eat mechs like you for breakfast"

I will admit, this show has its dumb moments when you put into context of what is really going on, but it is highly entertaining in its own right. This is a Shinji Aramaki anime, so you can either love or hate his directorial pieces, coming from someone who is a master mechanical designer. The character designs are more or less alright really. Its like I want to like Ellie character design and I do at some points, then at others it just seems a bit off depending on the close up or the angle. This was also the first release title (or license actually) from AnimEigo back in the early 1990’s, sometime before they got Bubblegum Crisis. And also to note, there has never been a dub track for this anime, since all the releases have been sub only, including both for VHS and DVD.

 

But yea, all in all, I do like Madox quite a bit. It’s not to be taken serous by any means, its just a nice little fun show to sit down and relax too for about an hour. But yea, hopefully I should have some more reviews ready since I am out of school till the next semester starts in mid January, so I should have ZERO excuses to write more things by then, which I should… which I better do anyways. Well until next time, Happy New Year!!!!!!!

If you enjoyed this review, check me out at Anime of Yesteryear!!

CosmoPoliceJustyLaserDiscCover

Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That Little ol’ OVA: Cosmo Police Justy”

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So, back again at this I see. I should really see some sort of therapist or go to an AA meeting because these lonely drunken Friday nights are starting to take their toll on me I think. So, there I was, on a booze binge of picking something random from my VHS collection and chucking it into the VCR player, when the minute that Play button gets hit, my mind starts to go out on me once again. When I came too, I see myself in the middle of some sort of psychic battle between two space guys shooting lights out of there hands, with one man in a black space suit sporting a pencil drawn moustache shooting blue beams from his fist at the other man in blue spiky hair and a white space suit teleporting around to avoid the ongoing attack, as both parties duke it out on a random chuck of rock in space. The man in white gets the upper hand by getting behind the man in black and putting a psychic sleeper hold on the man or something. As I look in awe at the battle, which looked like something out of a rock concert light show, the man in white comes over to where I am and orders me in his space cruiser to take me over to the Galaxy Patrol HQ. On the trip there, he begins to tell his story of hunting down the worst of the espers in the known galaxy, to protect and serve as a Cosmo Police officer. His name, is Justy Kaizard… and I realize another journey has begun for me… again.

This time I am going to tackle the 1985 OVA of Cosmo Police Justy. To sum up, this is just another “popcorn” anime to spend 45 minutes of your time on, it’s not grand in any scale, but in some ways enjoyable to watch. So, let’s gear up and learn to teleport, as we psychically dive into this OVA world.

 

Cosmo Police Justy starts off with a space battle between two parties with our main man in blue Justy, blocking the attacks by a guy who has a black space suit on with some hoses hooked up and the deadliest of pencil moustaches at his arsenal. Justy is able to get the upper hand by getting behind the man and grabbing his shoulders, which somehow… knocks him out, or kills him… not sure? But, that’s not important, because we get a basic verbal back story of Justy Kaizard, a “hunter” for the Galaxy Patrol System Cosmo Police, who goes after the worst of “esper” criminals in the galaxy. Espers in this show are beings who are able to fly in space with no helmet on, teleport and shoot light from their hands, as well as deflect lights too. We then get to some city in space, somewhere, where we see a group of people who want to take on Justy to end his string of arrest. Back at the Galaxy Patrol HQ planet (I guess), we get to meet the “adopted” sister of Justy, a completely dumb and ditzy redhead by the name of Astalis. To point out the facial expressions of this character in pretty much most of this show, she has the same two, dumb and “whaa?” We then get a random flashback of Justy fighting a man by the name of Magnum Vega, a wanted esper criminal, that Justy is able to take down with a powerful enough psychic blast to obliterate him in one shot. We then hear the cries of a child who is a younger version of Astalis, who is crying for her father Magnum. As Justy’s partner Bolba is holding her back, the flashback ends there, and Justy and Astalis decide to head back home. Back at home, Justy and his “other sister” Jelna, talk about Astalis condition in dealing with her being adopted by Justy after the events of the battle between him and Magnum. Then, we get another flashback of the mournful Astalis crying over her fathers lower half of his body, as she vows for revenge for her fathers death at Justy by saying “when I get older and bigger”… which, happens. Yea, who would have thought as a kid you can say to yourself “ I wanna be big and kill you” and within seconds actually happens. With the change taking in effect, she grows into the body of a teen girl, as pieces of rock around them start to crumble. We then see her in a rage mode and about to attack Justy when… the flashback ends again with current day Astalis running to Justy because she is in the mood to “go for a walk” like she is a dog of some kind.

"Gee Justy, whadda wanna do tonight, NARF!!!!"

 

While this is going on, we get scene from the bad guy esper in the beginning and his crew hijack a space shuttle. There reason for their actions, which is to get the daughter of Magnum Vega being their only request. While this is going on, we see Astalis having a difficult time trying to walk on a 4 foot wide platform that anyone with two working feet can do with no problem. While we see this display of special ed, Justy gets a call to report to HQ and tells Astalis to go on home. Once at HQ, Jusy is given his next assignment regarding the terrorist demands to hand over Astalis. This triggers yet ANOTHER FLASHBACK to Astalis literally stabbing Justy with a sword made of light in his chest, which then goes back to the current scene with Justy taking the mission, while bringing along Astalis with him. Once they reach the shuttle, Justy decides to send off Astalis to the shuttle with the security of him parking his butt in the cockpit and stating “holler if you need me” in a sense. But while in space, the villian esper is able to telepathically communicate with Astalis by using matter in space to play back Justy killing her father, which then triggers her to go all Hulk mode and shreds her helmet and space suit off her body. So then we get to the point of this show that, there must be freaking air in space, because guess what, she is completely fine. Justy sees this, and… goes out in space without a helmet on also. With the fate of the shuttle and Justy love to protect his adopted sister, how will Justy get out of this mess? That is something you will have to find out for your own.

 

So yea, that is our halfway point of describing Cosmo Police Justy for you guys. There are some things I do like about this as in the visuals and of course the ultra 80’s ending theme. The esper battles kinda reminds me a bit from Zone of the Enders how you can use Zero Shift to move your Runner around and get behind enemies like how Justy does with the espers he has to take down. Also, there is a reason why Astalis is so… handicap in the head which was caused by her having a mature body but the mind of a child, which they do show and you can tell off the bat why she acts that way. It’s got some dumb stuff, and the beginning is a bit slow, but it does pick up at the end for the final battle. There is very little story other than Justy fighting other espers and having a mentally challenged Astalis. I gotta tell you, her dumbness will get the better of you.

 

So yea, if you wanna check this out, be my guest, its over at Anime Classic Reviews as a Laserdisc rip. If you enjoyed this review, you can check out my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. Till next time folks!!!

 

Final Thoughts:

Lonely Hunter – Cosmo Police Justy

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.

cosmospinkshock

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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Survivor Series: Spotlight- Legend of the Galactic Heroes

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I’m a little annoyed at myself for not writing something sooner, but now I have time so I will crank out 2 or 3 entries and save the others for the coming days. Here I’m going to talk about one of the longest running anime out there and one that definitely should get more airplay, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It spans a 110 episodes in the main series, two movies, and two side stories(one with 52 episodes). Its based on the series novels by Yoshiki Tanaka of the same name and has a cult following. So let’s a explore the extremely complex world of LOGH.

The story is set in the far off time of the 35th century in which humanity has migrated out into the galaxy and terraformed thousands of worlds. For the past 150 years, two large star empires, the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance, have been at war without either side being able to gain the upper hand for very long. The story features two main characters from each side, Reinhard von Musel from the Galactic Empire, a brilliant strategist who is often looked down on by other officers because he is the brother of one the Kaiser’s concubines, and Wang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance, kind of a guy caught in the law of unintended consequences as he never wanted to a strategist and just wanted to be a military historian.  The story follows the lead up to a new war between the two powers, its eventually end, the aftermath and the manipulation of the conflict by Phezzan,a neutral third power, and the shadowy and very creep Earth Cult,  which is bend on having all humanity return to the nuclear war ravaged Earth.

There are several notable things about LOGH and enduring themes at play in the series. The entire franchise is either an original video animation or a film. There has never been a official English language version, sub or dub, released anywhere, but there are fansubs out there. LOGH has almost no female characters in the main cast, especially in the Empire as it appears that there is not one single women in the Empire armed forces, and because of that fact this show is often called a huge yaoi fest which is true to some extent I guess lol.  Commercialization of the series is very minimal outside of VHS\DVD\Blue ray releases and only a few model kits exist. Huge battles of tens of thousands of ships are the norm and something not seen in many series. The series has a massive cast with hundreds of named characters and the show helps keep track of them all by displacing the names when the characters appear on screen. This is a ultra violent series, maybe because it started in the 1980’s, but it none the less keeps on keeping on as evidence by the numerous close quarters combat battles and death scenes during ship to ship battles.  A discussion of which system of government is better, either a autocratic monarchy or a democracy, is the central theme.  The merit of a person is a persistence theme as Reinhard struggles against the familial connection system of the Empire to gain the power he seeks to save his sister and overthrow the Goldenbaum dynasty. Reinhard also recruits a lot of talented castoffs throughout the series, who for one reason or another angered the establishment. Personal ambition or lack there of enters a lot into the series and the consequences it has for a person and the people around them.

I really love this show, it just maybe the best space opera out there for its complex characters and very socially and politically conscience story lines.  I would recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of shows with political plots in them, like Code Geass for example, or anyone that is a fan of a show with good characters and good character development.

 

Cheers,

Devil_Survivor

 

 

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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.