Screenings
2012 was indeed the second year for Otakuthon to screen anything Space Battleship Yamato, and Otakuthon 2012’s SBY screening was that of the first two episodes of the 26-episode cut of Space Battleship Yamato 2199. Although I did not attend that screening because I already watched those episodes on online streaming video, it makes me glad to see that the con was making another effort in introducing the legendary franchise to the new North America-based anime fan generation.
The screening I watched on the Friday of Otakuthon 2012 was of Macross Frontier The Movie: The False Songtress (an alternate retelling of the first 13 episodes of Macross Frontier), though the convention itself listed it under its Japanese language title “Macros Frontier: Itsuwari no Utahime”. At first, I was not going to watch it after feeling turned off from watching an episode or so of Macross Frontier at the Otaku Concordia club room on Concordia University’s SGW campus to the point of feeling it made the whole Macross franchise jump the shark (at least for me), but out of love for anime mecha as well as curiosity about story changes, I decided to take a chance, and watching the movie turned out to be worth my time, although I did not like some of its fan service content. Therefore I gave this movie an 8/10 score.
As mentioned earlier in this post, I got to watch Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer on the Saturday of the convention. While not the among the best Gundam anime I have watched so far, it had a very good story plot involving man vs. alien. I scored this a 9/10.
On the Sunday of Otakuthon 2012, I checked out a screening of the first two episodes of the magical girl sentai T.V. series Smile PreCure!, one of several re-imaginings of the Pretty Cure saga. What I found to be ironic was that despite that the anime itself is a Sunday morning show for young girls with content that can well meet children’s T.V. standards in North America, no kids showed up at the screening. Anyway, I felt this anime had the appeal to attract both males and females of any age, and the villain (the Big Bad Wolf) was fun too. Perhaps a better watch than Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, not that I intend to judge an anime by age though. So if you’re the kind of anime fan who loves cute anime girls, superheroes, and a bit of fantasy with a lack of the lovey-lovey romance nonsense throughout the action, this magical girl anime is for you. Though I don’t when or if I will have the time to watch the rest of the series in streaming video, I scored this a 9/10 and started hoping that more magical girl anime T.V. series will come on Canadian T.V. since it’s been long since any magical girl anime ever showed up on the Canadian T.V. airwaves.
While Otakuthon includes anime screenings every year, it also includes tokustatsu screenings as well. This year, I watched the first two episodes Super Sentai parody Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger, which centers around a trio of heroes as they battle to protect otaku culture from the delusions of doom, with the help of illusions of a few red rangers from canon Super Sentai series. Though a live-action, the comedic content (including how the characters acted) was like an animated show being translated into live-action, except that Super Sentai was always live-action. Hopefully, this show will get a Region 1 DVD release in the future because this is something I find fans of Super Sentai and its U.S. counterpart Power Rangers (young and old) will want not want to miss out on watching. I gave this show a 10/10 score.
Lastly, I got my first watch of the Lucky Star anime, kinda’ as fun as reading the manga regardless of whether any continuity differences between them existed. And yes, the teenage characters had very cute voices in Japanese audio, though I was hoping to watch it dubbed in English from the start.
