Anime Reviewed Podcasts
After a few suggestions and some thinking, we have decided to do a podcast. We are still in the process of doing this. My intentions are to do our first podcast on Bleach: Memories of Nobody opening in US Theaters on 6-11-2008.
Additionally, we are still looking for interested writers. If you like anime and love to write about it feel free to post a comment and let me know you are interested. I have been in the middle of moving so its been hard to write and post. My time has been spent fine tuning Wordpress. Finn keeps busy with all the anime and manga he is into. Soon, I will have more time to focus on the blog.
XxxHolic: Witches are drunks.
Nothing in this world happens by chance. The invisible hands of fate guide our actions, but that doesn’t mean that we can not change destiny. Kimihiro Watanuki is a person who is haunted by a dark fate. His one true wish was to have a normal life, and that wish brought him to a place where fates collide. Watanuki’s life was anything but normal. Haunted by a host of supernatural beings he spent everyday terrified by the prospect of being attacked. Then his strong wishes forced him to enter an odd building that he had never noticed before. The owner of the house tells him that fate had brought him into her shop. Yuuko, the witch of dimensions, runs a store that grants wishes, and she is willing to grant Watanuki’s wish for a price.
Having little of value he strikes a deal to be the witch’s part time employee. Watanuki’s tasks involve the normal maintenance of the store, cooking meals for Yuuko, and putting up with her her selfish drunken behavior. As you might imagine working for a witch brings Watanuki into contact with more supernatural occurrences than ever, but with his energetic personality and Yuuko’s guidance Watanuki becomes able to cope with his very abnormal destiny. Despite having mildly dark undertones XxxHolic manages to be enthusiastically comical. Watanuki’s behavior is so manic that it borders on bizarre. While Yuuko and her young servants jokingly torture their new friend incessantly by forcing him to perform all sorts of demeaning tasks at all times of day and night. Most episodes involve a customer buying
a wish from Yuuko and then not heeding her warnings and suffering dire consequences. The main difference between the anime and manga versions is the lacking correlations between Xxxholic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. So despite missing an integral part of the overall plot Xxxholic is still a wonderfully entertaining anime.
Elfen Lied is more than it first appears
When I watched the first episode of Elfen Lied I was genuinely shocked and delighted by the gratuitous violence, but as I continued watching the series it became increasingly difficult to classify this genre spanning anime. So here is simple description of the series.
On a small island, deep within a top secret lab, dangerous creatures called diclonius are suffering through torturous experiments. Diclonius look like normal human girls except for two horns protruding from the side of their heads resembling cat ears. They have also developed invisible arms referred to as vectors that can be used to manipulate objects or as potent weapons.
Lucy is an exceptionally dangerous diclonius as she harbors a deep hatred for humans resulting from years of torture and a lifetime of being ostracized. Given the fact that she has already killed numerous people extreme measures are taken to ensure her captivity. One day a clumsy security personal accidentally finds himself within reach of Lucy’s vectors. She does not hesitate to kill her guards and free herself. Stalking through the underground hallways Lucy massacres all who get between her and liberty. Using her vectors to deflect bullets she makes her way outside to a cliff when a sniper bullet hits home knocking the dangerous freak into the ocean.
The next day a young college student named Kohta waits to be reunited with his cousin Yuka in nearby Kamakura. They have not seen each other in ten years, but Kohta has little memory of his cousin or anything before ten years ago thanks to trauma he suffered from witnessing his father and sister’s deaths. The two decide to walk along the beach where they encounter the still naked and bewildered Lucy. She seems to have an extreme case of amnesia, but it seems more like an associative disorder to me. Lucy cant even remember how to speak instead she will only say “Nyu”. The cousins decide to let her stay with Kohta at the derelict inn where he is now living. Nyu, that is what they decide to name her, upon arriving home proceeds to urinate on the floor. She cant figure out how to wear clothing so Kohta tries to dress her only to have Yuka walk in and misunderstand the suggestive situation. Yuka becomes deeply jealous of Nyu so she moves in too.
After some fan service and sexual innuendo there will be more violence as Lucy takes over to fight off mercenaries sent by her former captors. Then she is injured again and Nyu is back with more fan service. Kohta invites a vagrant girl to live with them who brings a diclonius who had been hunting Lucy home with her. The young diclonius decides to live there too in order to keep an eye on Lucy since she is acting in such a harmless but bizarre manner. Thus Kohta completes his harem. More drama and extreme violence awaits the group, and later more sexual situations.
Elfen Lied is often shockingly violent like when Lucy splatters into tiny bits all the other children in an orphanage or instantly decapitates a clumsy secretary. It is also often very ecchi like when Nyu insists on bathing with the other girls, and wont stop fondling their privates. Elfen Lied is not an anime for children. The duality of Lucy’s mind is mirrored in the flavor of the show transitioning wildly from sweetly romantic or comically goofy to suddenly psychotic and frighteningly violent.
My Opinion of Bleach Anime
Back in early 2006 everyone was telling me about an anime series called Bleach. I had no clue what it was about. I was told that it was not available in English dubbs. It was being watched on various youtube type sites in with English subtitles.
Well then I am told its going to be premiering on Adultswim. I gave it a chance watched 1 episode and never continued to watch it.
One day in early 2008 I am over at my friend Joe’s house ( Joe is one of our other writers, who favors manga over anime). We watched about 10 episodes of Bleach. I admit I was kind of hooked but put off again watching it.
Just recently I found myself bored to death with the video games I have (I have both a PS3 and a Xbox 360). I used the PS3 web browser to watch Bleach. I had previously seen up to episode 12, so I started from there. Adultswim was already in the late 50’s and I knew I would be too confused to start there. Well in the matter of 2 days I watched over 50 episodes. I just couldn’t stop watching Bleach. That damn to be continued got the best of me every time. I had the power to keep going, to find out what was going to happen next. I did just that. Now I am at episode 102. Just a little over 3 weeks later.
Just recently I had the same encounter with 2 other anime series: DeathNote and Claymore. I managed to watch every episode of each of the series to the end. My reviews for each of these will come soon.
I really want to talk about Bleach right now. I want to avoid spoilers unless I am talking about a particular episode.
So all I am going to say is I once I started watching Bleach I could not stop. It is an excellent anime series (I am told the manga is great too). I will have more detail in other posts I put up about blocks of Bleach Episodes (I will prolly review them in 5 episode blocks). Stay tuned for more.