Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
Now lets dive into something different with a visual novel anime called We Without Wings.
We Without Wings or Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai if you prefer, focuses on the lives of three male protagonists named Takashi, Shusuke & Hayato respectively.
Takashi is a shy student whose illness seems to send him to a fantasy world where he's a noble knight.
Shusuke is a part timer for the Alexander restaurant as well as a freelance book reviewer.
And finally Hayato is a so called fixer, who is part of a night time gang, although he doesn't exactly choose to be with them they just seem to turn up.
Each story seems to progress normally as Takashi tries to get by with a high functioning girlfriend as well as getting over his own shyness, Shusuke gets dragged into the struggles of an amateur writer of whom he wrote a review about, while Hayato gets reluctantly dragged into a gang warfare while locating a girl's bike. Despite the stories being very different to each other, they are somehow connected as all three characters seem to know a young girl who they seem to all live with.
The anime was originally a visual novel from the makers of Shuffle which tells us very quickly what kind of anime to expect but what it doesn't tell you is how well the story works; the individual stories worked on their own and could've continued working that way without the big twist mid series or the forced fan service which at times borders on uncomfortable.
I find that a shame, at the moment I'm at a crossroads with anime in general, as I believe 80% of anime have run out of ideas and popular shows are over hyped but the other 20% which includes this anime still keep me going and while it did end up throwing logic out the window, I still came away with a good experience which I can take to future shows.
Final Verdict: If you can stomach the poor attempts at fan service then you'll enjoy the story We Without Wings has to offer. The dub is normal and the art is incredible as is standard with a visual novel anime and you even get some decent comedy even if some of it is a bit random.
Okay, back to some really serious reviewing, no more distractions, except I want more hot apple Drambuie. No! Reviewing time and I shouldn't encourage drinking.
(Respect your country's drinking laws and drink responsibly)
Now for some Rugrats.
Rugrats was one of the starter titles for Nickelodeon's Nicktoons, a show told from the point of view of a group of infants if they were actually speaking and a secondary plot often featuring their parents. A typical episode would feature a problem that only a baby would understand or a situation where one of the parents does something and the babies get involved or the antagonist of the group Angelica trying to get her way, the show was a long runner for Nickelodeon until Spongebob began and even went beyond with a spinoff tween show.
Rugrats as a concept is nothing new, especially when you consider that the Muppets did the whole babies thing years earlier but the main fundamental difference is that the adults are not only shown but are often involved with an episode plot, and it's the adults that really sell the show to a higher audience when you consider the amount of hidden adult jokes within the series; this one below as an example.
I'll let the viewers work that one out.
The point is Rugrats sold so well to an adult audience, particularly those who are parents because they can understand every joke being said and have probably dealt with the situations on show, and with my generation becoming parents themselves, they now have a new appreciation for Rugrats as they now understand what their parents found so funny.
It's that special kind of generation link that makes Rugrats one of the best cartoons of all time and even if the content of the show is heavily dated, the situations and plots aren't.
So if you think today's Nickelodeon is a mess of mindless shows with no redeeming qualities and toilet jokes with it's only decent showing being Legend of Korra, then take a trip back in time and remember when Nicktoons actually did a good job.
It seems inevitable I would review this eventually given that it's come up a few times, so lets dive into Sailor Moon's only decent rival, Wedding Peach.
The Angel World is under attack by devils so it's up to the Goddess Aphrodite to call upon the Love Angels to stop them, this brings us to Momoko and her friends who get selected to perform this task whose families happen to be part of the Wedding business in Photography, Dress Making and Flowers respectively. This proves to be convenient as Momoko, Yuri & Hinagiku don their Wedding Gowns and become the Love Angels, although at full power they switch the Gowns for mini-skirts of power and the rest pretty much sells itself.
This anime is very cheesy but surprisingly successful during it's run and still stands as Sailor Moon's only decent rival, mainly because the show was a lot simpler and easier to digest as the cast stayed fairly small and the story was very easy to follow and while it took a lot of pages from the book of Moon, it still felt fresh and original, mainly because of how well the costumes were designed for the Angels; a lot of shojo works, especially Magical Girl shows are often defined by the costumes it's lead characters wear and having not just one but two iconic costumes instantly makes the show more marketable, a trick later picked up by future shows and even shows of today.
Sailor Moon will always be on top in the Magical Girl stable but how it's descendants follow is more defined by what the first rival does and a show like Wedding Peach has enough content to deliver but makes enough mistakes to know what doesn't work which proves more useful than what you can learn from Sailor Moon.
As for the dub.............................Yeah it's one of the worst dubs ever, don't even try and watch it, just stick to the Japanese.
Final Verdict: Ignore the dub and you should be fine, Wedding Peach does serve as a guilty pleasure but it's not as embarrassing as you might be thinking, give it a try you might be surprised.
Now we review a show with a bit of culture as we dive into Victorian Romance Emma.
The show is about title character Emma who works as a maid for a Governess who ends up falling in love with a member of the Gentry named William Jones, the son of a wealthy merchant family, however class lines are drawn and fate tries to drive the two lovers apart, will their love cross the borders of the social class?
Without sounding like a cheesy narrator, this show is an honest historical romance story that tells it as it is; it never gets too strange or surreal nor does it get really dramatic; writer Kaoru Mori, a self proclaimed Anglophile, went to great lengths to recreate 1895 London in it's purest form and insisted on not tainting it with anything from the realms of steampunk or the dark undergrounds of horror, it's just a love story and that's all you get, and that's okay if you enjoy that sort of thing; I went into this anime thinking about trying something different and coming out of it reminded me why I hate novels like Pride and Prejudice. It's pace is so slow that one episode feels as long as a movie and when you realize you got 23 more episodes it becomes a real chore to finish. There's nothing really wrong with the story and keeping the setting grounded into the realms of realism gives it a unique edge against other anime, backed up well by the beautiful art style and music
But there is one fault that isn't the fault of the anime itself but rather the Western distributors; it doesn't have an English dub and with it being set in London, it really needed it for immersion; the Japanese speech is distracting and doesn't work in this setting.
You see a dub works when the setting is a Western country like the States or Great Britain, it doesn't work when said show is spoken in Japanese because it's not only distracting but also discredits the work especially with the amount of effort that was put into making Emma purely Victorian Britain. It's the same in reverse as well, you can't dub into English an anime that relies on Japanese culture and mannerisms to tell it's story, a good example being Azumanga Daioh.
Final Verdict: I'd recommend Emma if you enjoy historical romance dramas and have read Jane Austen books. You'll lose some immersion with it being subbed only but if you're okay with that then it shouldn't distract you too much.
After 15 years of serialization, Naruto has finally come to an end, another Shonen Jump juggernaut has closed it's pages for good following the likes of Dragonball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Death Note and Rurouni Kenshin into the archives of history. This entry dives into how the Orange Ninja ended his story and what kind of legacy we can expect.
Sequel Confirmed
Literally hours ago, a news report doing the rounds is that Shippuden will get a sequel, in what form this takes is anyone's guess but may relate to the events between the last two chapters or like Dragonball GT, follow a new story which may or may not be canon.
How Did It End?
Spoilers, if you don't want to know then skip to the next paragraph. After a grueling battle between leads Naruto and Sasuke, the battle ends in a draw leaving both combatants missing an arm; after the war ends, Kakashi becomes 6th Hokage and Sasuke is spared a death sentence but then he goes off traveling in which Naruto says his goodbyes. Final chapter takes place 15 years later as we see the young ninjas grown up as Hinata is now married to Naruto with two kids while Sakura married Sasuke and has one kid, (I can already hear one half of the fanbase squeeing while the other half are crying) but the major event is that Naruto is now the 7th Hokage and the series comes full circle as Naruto's son paints graffiti on his father's head statue much like Naruto himself did in the very first chapter to the 3rd Hokage and to be honest, I wouldn't have ended it any other way
Is The Ending Satisfying?
It ended at the right time, popularity was starting to drop as the final battles were getting harder and harder to follow and eventually it would've been a choice between "Bleach style make up random crap" or "Dragonball GT bow out while you still have same dignity left", as for how it ended, this is probably how most people would've predicted it. I have been critical of some of Naruto's shortcomings such as it's reliance on fillers to pad the universe, the constant emo motives shoved down your throat, making the most predictable plot twists, resorting to gods and other worldly powers overshadowing the ninja parts of a "ninja" anime; But despite all it's issues, the ending reminded us why we enjoyed Naruto in the first place and I'm going to miss it.
What Now For Shonen Jump?
What came as unexpected was that Naruto was the first of the big three to finish when many predicted it would be the last or at least the second. Equally Bleach has been looking at finishing for a while and will probably follow Naruto out next year, leaving only One Piece still going, so who could succeed Naruto?
Well three titles are lined up for 2015 Shonen Jump, two of which are debuts greenlit from successful one shots. Takujo no Ageha
By Furuya Itsuki, described as a hi-tension ping pong manga. E-Robot
By Ryōhei Yamamoto, about a sexy and powerful robot girl. Gakkyuu Houtei (School Investigation Court)
By Takeshi Obata of Death Note fame and Enoki Nobuaki, which looks like Shonen Jump's answer to Phoenix Wright.
Failing that, Toriko has gained enough popularity to sit amongst the best and will likely stay there for a good couple of years.
How Does It Rank Amongst Other Long Running Manga?
Not very high, at time of writing it's only the 36th longest running manga and since it's ended it will likely drop, even One Piece is only 27th. Kochikame is still the longest running manga of all time being active and still going for 38 years of who ironically is a Shonen Jump title, against Japan's regular manga that have been running longer than I've been alive? Doesn't even compare; but Naruto is still popular and will likely get a worthwhile legacy especially over in the west where the headbands and kunai will keep flying for years to come, so it's time we say thanks to 15 years of Naruto and to play us out, Naruto's 1st opening.
