It's unusual for me to review such an up to date series especially when it was only released in 2008, but I will break my rule today because I planned a review for Elf Princess Rane and I now have to watch it again because it made no sense in English, so instead I will review Kuragehime.
The show begins with an old fashioned dormitory consisting of a number of otaku girls of various ages and interests referring to themselves as "Amars" which translates as nuns. While on a routine walk home from the store, lead character Tsukimi notices a Jellyfish placed in the wrong tank with another deadlier Jellyfish in which she attempts to save despite the store closing, she is then helped out by a stylish looking woman named Kuranosuke who helps Tsukimi and saves the Jellyfish, however after spending the night at the apartment, Kuranosuke is revealed to be a cross-dressing man. (He definitely wins the award for most convincing cross-dresser)
A problem occurs when the apartment building is brought up for demolition, and not wanting to see a nice old building go down, Kuranosuke uses Tsukimi's knowledge of Jellyfish to make fashionable dresses in order to buy the building off the owner, all the while helping Tsukimi get in touch with her hidden beauty which results in an unusual relationship with Kuranosuke's brother.
Now as many know, I hate anime about otaku but this one does more than present us with a few otaku with poor social skills, it actually takes the word "Otaku" and applies it to everyone, so lets review.
Tsukimi: Jellyfish Otaku
Kuranosuke: Dress Otaku, (which is why he cross-dresses)
Chieko: Doll & Kimono Otaku
Mayaya: 3 Kingdoms Otaku (Good Choice)
Banba: Train Otaku (Although I challenge anyone to find me a female trainspotter)
Jiji: Old Man Otaku (Played better by Negima's Asuna)
Shoko: Sex Otaku
Shu: Unknown but seems obsessed with being boring
Hanamori: Mercedes Otaku (Only Reason for being a Chauffeur)
even the Prime Minister has some uncomfortable habits.
The point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't matter if you come from different sides of the spectrum whether it be normal things or geeky things at the end of the day we are only human.
Many times during the series and the manga the characters are frequently taken out of their comfort zone and seem to do just fine.
In fact the message I read is that normal people are just as fragile and nervous as the Amars, while the Amars are just as confident and popular as normal people. Knowing that message does make it frustrating to watch especially when it's 100% clear that Tsukimi is beautiful, and the ending doesn't quite give us what we want, the manga is still going though so we just have to wait.
Final Verdict: It's message is a powerful one and the characters keep things interesting but where the show falls down is a failure to give us the ending we so want. Other than that I'd say give it a try.
I seem to cover a lot of music based anime having reviewed items based on real bands and musicians, and later on will be digging up a shameless one for the cartoon vault, but to get me back in the swing following Gemucon I shall review Wandaba Style.
A late entry for ADV Films, Wandaba Style is about a boy genius named Dr Susumu Tsukumo who doesn't believe man really landed on the moon, so is out on a quest to get to the moon using the cleanest way possible from his strangely well funded island base that looks like a Disney World attraction.
Then we are joined by Micheal Hanagata, a poor mans Nabeshin who wants to use Tsukumo's ambition to get a mismatched pop group to perform on the moon.
This pop group consists of an Enka singer named Himawari Natsuwa, a rock singer named Yuri Fuyube, a deranged folk singer who can see macho green fairies named Ayame Akimo and a nursery singer named Sakura Haruno (No not that one)
The series runs as a wacky comedy with various failed attempts to get to the moon, followed by a strange afro-alien afterwards.
For it's time, it was very colorful and retro looking but doesn't seem to have spent an awful amount on animation quality saving the best art for DVD covers, promos and ending sequences.
The pop group Mix Juice, as their named in the series isn't a real band but consists of voice actors who are normally singers in real life.
Looking at the absurd plot, it can make for great laughs and the dubbing is top notch ADV at their best but I find a few things to be a little out of left field.
For starters it's explained that Dr Tsukumo made Kiku No.8 after building smaller prototype models as a child but it makes no sense how he got from simple inanimate objects to a little moe robot girl (sorry Satelite Girl) who is as bad at emotions as Tony Tony Chopper. And for a band consisting of different genre singers, each as different as the other, how come they can sing idol pop music so easily? I'm not even going to try and explain the afro-alien.
Tsukumo himself has a strange way of operating, he measures all his theories using the old Japanese Metric system and named all his experiments to the moon as Wandaba Styles, which fits the name of the anime but makes utterly no sense to anyone reading the title.
For all it's faults its still a fun series but quality wise it's less anime and more cartoon.
Final Verdict: With it's retro feel and high color count, it's an attractive series to watch and equally funny but forgettable as the quality is rather low for an early 00s anime and the title doesn't really strike you as being anything other than "what"
I'm back from my run at the 2013 Gemucon convention in Nottingham, UK.
I only need one good night's sleep before I start posting proper again, four hours sleep and traveling back don't mix with three nights of drinking and partying, big spending on more Anime and playing pretty much every games console possible.
Stay tuned for a feature on the convention itself and some more anime reviews.
Writer's Block, I will put a stop to you right now
Let it be said, that I'm not some critic that only picks shows that are so obscure that only the bare minimum have seen, so here's a treat for you guys.
This time it's Hanna-Barbera's most awesome show, Swat Kats.
The story goes that while on a routine mission as part of an enforcers squad in the Air Force, Chance Furlong & Jake Clawson accidentally cause massive amounts of damage to their own headquarters in pursuit of a criminal, despite not being there fault. They are court marshaled and forced to spend their community service in a military junkyard to pay off the damages, this proves to be more ideal as they then build their own fighter jet out of thrown away military parts. Disguising themselves under the nicknames T-Bone & Razor, they become vigilantes to Megakat city fighting off huge Godzilla like monsters and evil super villains that are usually saved for comic strips.
Originally created by two Canadians and syndicated by Hanna Barbera for Cartoon Network, Swat Kats gained instant success under the same banner as the likes of Batman the Animated Series & X-Men as part of the edgier early 90s era that created some of the best cartoons since the Golden Age.
Hanna Barbera barely survived the 80s as they struggled to sell their cartoons to the right audience but taking a chance on something edgier restored faith in the duo but Cartoon Network had other ideas, Swat Kats was the last series produced by Hanna Barbera that gained the same popularity as many of it's earlier franchises even to the point where it was the highest grossing cartoon of 1994, however the What-a-Cartoon project ended plans to extend the series further and Hanna Barbera were made to work on the What-a-Cartoon project as their last official work before their deaths in the early 00s.
It was a shame as the show was cancelled before it officially finished and remains to this day one of the most awesome shows of all time.
The idea of a fighter jet with custom missiles fighting monsters and villains was incredibly groundbreaking and a lack of executive meddling (Mostly) made sure that the themes they were aiming for were kept, after a while you over look the fact that you're watching cats and enjoy what it has to offer which is always a plus for any series that uses anthropomorphic animals.
It would be years before something like this was repeated again but in some cases like the horribly flawed Loonatics Unleashed, it's probably best not to try too hard.
Everyone has seen them at least once, even if you don't want to, they are the long running series that still entertain us long after the original concept became out of date, but by this point they probably should call it quits, so today I'll be showing the top 10 Animation franchise that should end.
This covers anime & cartoons, also to make it more fun I'll be putting in the year that each series started, so lets begin
10. Futurama - 1999
After being cancelled in 2003, most people assumed it would never come back but good news everyone, it did comeback in 2008. The only problem is, no one cares, in fact none of the new episodes are that memorable, so maybe it should've stayed cancelled.
9. Family Guy - 1999
Another show that got cancelled and reinstated but this show fared a little better than Futurama, but these days the jokes have gone from funny to down right stupid, South Park has been around longer and doesn't have any trouble with this as it offends everyone and is self aware that the animation is a crude showing of said victim and shouldn't be taken seriously, Family Guy cannot do that anymore and suffers as a result.
8. Pokemon - 1997
These days following Ash Ketchum seems like a chore; the franchise has seen varying degrees of fortune equivalent to the stock market and very much like the real life stock market is in permanent free fall with the only hope being it's successor (X & Y Series) to restore it's good name.
7. Naruto - 2000
What started as a charming series of ninja battles has turned into one of the most infamous anime of all time, the strain of keeping this series going is starting to show as the flashbacks seem to last forever, (we've had four in the last year) the so called big secrets revealed were worked out years ago and even a death of a certain character is less tragic, more WHAT! WHY!
6. Spongebob Squarepants - 1999
I'm starting to notice a trend here that most of these seem to have been made all around the same time but that's not entirely true, the later ones are much older. I have to wonder who this show is aimed at now; I can see why it's popular but if recent episodes are anything to come by, I'm starting to think that the show has been moldy for some time. A more terrifying thought is that according to the creator, Spongebob is 26 years old, that's right he's supposed to be the same age as me. I feel really insulted by that.
5. Transformers - 1984
Please end this franchise; stop making films, stop making horrible CGI cartoons, stop making toys and realize that the concept of the same two factions fighting each other in every single retelling of this tired story is no longer fun.
4. Scooby-Doo - 1969
This is the oldest franchise on this list, what started as a groundbreaking show about crime solving teenagers and their dog, has become the biggest zombie of the animation world, at times Scooby-Doo has had several bouts of identity crisis with Get-A-Clue and some of the more random movies skewing the formula, and urban legends are being reduced to dust with the Mystery Inc series destroying what little it has left to offer which seems to be what Warner Bros is good at these days.
3. Bleach - 2002
I've never known a series to go into such obscurity that they literally are making it up as they go along, at this point I've given up trying to follow anything it comes up with, to make things worst this franchise was earmarked for ending over a year ago, why hasn't it ended yet?
2. The Simpsons - 1987 (From the very first short)
I've come to hate the Simpsons in recent years with the writing being so stupid that I can't possibly enjoy the episode, there have been episodes so bad that I question why it was even aired, or why Matt Groening is allowing his creation to be seen in such a way. It's been on so long that they had to change the canon because apparently kids these days would consider the series too old if they found out that their favorite characters were born in the 80s. God I wish I could swear right now.
1. Dragonball - 1984
But this franchise wins the unwanted award of having it's story read so many times that I could recite every scene, but looking back, the story is terrible. Yeah Toriyama is a good artist and can do a good fight scene but his story telling is terrible. Juvenile humor, extending scenes for longer than it needed to be, unfunny jokes and allowing his series to become such a zombie that Vegeta has been reduced to doing silly dance moves.
(The youtube video containing that has been taken down)
It's not entirely Toriyama's fault but he should take responsibility for his creation and end it before we learn that Goku has a sister.
So that's your lot, if I've learned anything from this is that I worry for the health of Fairy Tail, My Little Pony & Adventure Time as they continue to entertain the masses.
