First Impressions - Mawaru Penguindrum

IMAGINE!

This is a review I have been looking forward to doing ever since I started this blog. I've been watching this show every week since the 3rd episode aired, and it is a big high point of my week. It has been, without a doubt, the strongest show this season that I have seen so far. The fact that it is so amazing is why I just wonder what in the heck websites like Chrunchyroll are thinking by not licensing it for simulcast! That being said, this show is not available for simulcast anywhere, so if you want to watch it, you are going to have to track down a fansub, which isn't actually too hard to do. I'd imagine most anime fans are familiar with where to look for them, and I won't be going into that on this blog. If you want to watch Mawaru Penguindrum, you'll need to find it yourself.

The show starts out introducing you to the girl on the left here, Himari, and her two brothers, Kanba and Shoma. During the first episode, you find out that Himari has an unspecified terminal illness (We can assume from the x-rays they are looking at that it's something in her brain, my guess is brain cancer.), and that she doesn't have long to live. Her brothers decide to help her live her life as fully as she can. They decide one day to taker her to the local aquarium to see the penguins, but she ends up dropping dead right there after picking out a penguin hat at the gift shop. After a tearful scene in the morgue, she suddenly rises up from the dead with the penguin hat on, her eyes glowing, and possessed by something.

The thing possessing her says it is going to extend her life, but in return, the brothers must locate a magical item known as the Penguin Drum. Himari will die if they can not find the Penguin Drum, but as long as they are searching, her life will be extended, and presumably once the drum is found, her life will be saved completely. The hat falls off, and then she returns to normal, unaware that she had been dead. The doctor later confirms that it's a miracle, and that her condition has been completely reversed, saying that there is no sign of her illness at all.

As the show progresses, we also meet three strange little penguins with numbers on their backs that no one but the three siblings can see, as well as Ringo, who I affectionately refer to as "Creepy Stalker Girl," and a few other characters of varying importance. What is important is that the penguin hat tells the brothers that Ringo either has, or has a clue to, the Penguin Drum. While we're not sure whether she does have it or not, what she does have is a mysterious diary, in which is written her fate. The diary seems to literally have the ability to predict what will happen to Ringo. Each day is already written out, and is fulfilled by her each day. The problem is that the destiny she is chasing with the help of this item is the creepy stalking of a teacher from Kanba and Shoma's school, Tabuki-Sensei. Without spoiling anything further, it seems Ringo is obsessed with something called Project M, which the diary is leading her on, and at the end of which she says "All the things she holds dear will become eternal." though we are not sure, at first, what she even means by this. It's also too bad for her that Tabuki-Sensei has a beautiful and popular stage actress girlfriend. Shoma ends up getting mixed up in her schemes, eventually admitting that he wants to see her strange diary, and she agrees as long as he helps her get hooked up with Tabuki-Sensei. I find it rather amusing that her diary, if you look at it in a vague sense, is having her fulfill her destiny with Shoma rather than Tabuki, but she is too blinded to see this.

Last, as far as Kanba is concerned, he is doing what appears to be some sort of illegal activity to fund the house they live in, as well as doing what appears to be dangerous things in his search for the Penguin Drum. He has close scrapes with a woman named Natsume Masako, who wields a slingshot with a laser sight that fires strange balls with a penguin mark on them, and have the ability to erase the memory of whoever gets hit. She also has a penguin just like the three siblings, but it's a black-colored emperor penguin, resembling the hat that resurrected Himari. Her goals so far are unclear, but she is presented as the show's antagonist, along with, perhaps, the Penguin Hat which torments our heroic brothers as they try to save their poor sis.

First impressions of
Mawaru Penguindrum
A really amazing show that gives me the same kind of feelings that Fruits Basket or Haruhi did. It has an air of mysteriousness, and you can never tell what's going to happen next. It also has funny moments, action, and drama. It's a really amazing show, and if it is done right for its whole run, could be one of the greatest of all time. It's also worth noting that it's an anime with no manga. It was created to be an anime from the beginning, and that may be part of why it seems to move along at a very good pace, not too fast and skipping details, and not too slow so as to drag on.

It should definitely be noted that the show is being co-written and directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, who was the director of the first four seasons of Sailor Moon before leaving that show and helping to create Revolutionary Girl Utena. This is his return after a bit of a hiatus from anime, and I must say, he is not disappointing! The anime is also, notably, being produced by Brain's Base, the animation studio responsible for other great shows of recent years, including Durarara!, Spice and Wolf II, Baccano!, and Natsume Yuujinchou. This team up had to produce something great, and it has so far!

First Impressions - Usagi Drop

I was sort of attracted to this show's premise when I first heard about it. It's about a man named Daikichi who learns that his grandfather had an illegitimate daughter, Rin, late in his life. Rin, who is now six years old, has lost her elderly father, and her mother has run out on her. At the funeral, the family is discussing what to do about Rin, and everyone is reluctant to take her in for various reasons, including their own prejudices since the child was born under questionable circumstances. Daikichi, disgusted by his family members' attitudes, announces that he will take the child in, even though he is a single 30-year-old office worker living in a one bedroom apartment.

In a way, the "single 30-year-old office worker" part really strikes a chord with me, because that's how I'd classify myself, except that I am a year older, and probably wouldn't take in a child... but the idea of being noble and proving something to your family really sounds cool, doesn't it? I think Daikichi is a pretty awesome guy.

Unfortunately, being awesome doesn't take care of the kid. He quickly learns there's a lot involved, even though his new family member is pretty mature for her age. He has to buy her clothes, take her to a nursery school while he is at work, somehow juggle his full-time job with taking care of her, and give up some things such as going out to get a drink with his co-workers. His struggles really express the kind of situation you can relate to if you're someone who has too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it in.

So, I think apart from the fact that Rin is probably a bit too mature for her age, which is a bit of a stereotype used in this kind of anime a lot (The "little adult"), but probably rarely manifested in actual children this age, the show has great promise to develop into a family life drama with lots of tender moments, and also I am predicting that somehow down the line, Rin's mother will re-appear and cause some sort of problem for the two of them, perhaps even the whole family. That's mere speculation on my part, though, but it seems like the kind of thing this type of story likes to do. It's like in Sand Chronicles when Ann's father suddenly appears in volume 2 just as she'd gotten used to her new life, and asks her to go to Tokyo with him. Or like in Kodomo no Omocha when Sana's mother comes back, and she's faced with the choice of her mother or her adopted mother.

In closing, I will say that I went into this anime expected something like "Aishiteruze Baby" but was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be nothing like it. Not that Aishiteruze Baby is bad, I am just glad Usagi Drop can stand apart from other stories of child adoption. So far, it definitely deserves your attention.



First Impression of Usagi Drop: It seems very good, and I look forward to watching more episodes. If you like Josei manga/anime (For those unfamiliar, this is the term used for more mature "shojo" manga, much like "seinen" is the more mature version of "shonen" - example Josei manga/anime would be Paradise Kiss or Nana.) with a touching feel, this is a good one so far!

Been very busy, new reviews tomorrow!

Just an update, as if anyone's reading this thing... but yeah, I had a heck of a day yesterday moving the last of my furniture from my ex-apartment, and then today I hung out with a friend and we watched the first two episodes of AO NO EKUSORSIIIIIIIISUTOOOOO... Blue Exorcist... and then I came home and found out MY XBOX LIVE ACCOUNT IS UNBLOCKED finally. (It was undergoing a fraud investigation because some mean people stole money from me by hacking the account.) so yeah I had to deal with that...

Fun fun, but tomorrow, I will do reviews on TWO shows!

The first review will be for Usagi Drop, and then...

The second will be for Mawaru Penguindrum!

BE EXCITED! :o

EDIT! Today was once again hectic! Moving takes a lot out of ya... but I am done now, and just getting everything situated. Spent too much money at Borders going out of business sale... got all of Sand Chronicles manga, some Bleach manga, some Trigun manga, and some out of print Tokyopop swag, woot! Ultimate Editions, Battle Royale and Furuba! Tomorrow I will do my best to bring you at least a review of SOMETHING I mentioned above...

First Impressions - Blue Exorcist

Okay, wow. So I went into this with a sort of closed mind. This is one of the top voted shows on Crunchyroll, along with Bleach and Naruto, among others. I am a fan of Bleach, I don't like Naruto all that much, and furthermore, other shows that are ranked highly on Crunchyroll include Reborn, which I can't stand, and yet Gintama which I think is great. So it's hit-and-miss with me as far as beloved anime, but I think I just read the premise for this show and thought it was going to be terrible...

From Wikipedia: "The story revolves arround Rin Okumura, a teenager posessing abnormal strength and endurance who was raised by Father Shiro Fujimoto along his younger twin brother Yukio. Soon after Yukio departs to study at the prestigious True Cross Academy, Rin learns that both he and his brother are sons of Satan, though Yukio did not inherit the demon blood."

I was just sitting there thinking "Really? The sons of Satan?" and I had a little facepalm moment, not even thinking that Christian mythology can make for some very awesome material. I am a huge fan of Hellsing and have been watching the OVA series ever since it started being released in Japan, so for me to just write off this show due to the fact that it's Christian mythos was not the best idea, because it kept me away from the show until just yesterday. Further, a comment I read on a forum somewhere induced more facepalm when a user said that they were so glad as a Christian that a show that wasn't so atheistic or anti-god had come around, and I honestly sat there and tried to think of shows that were anti-god or atheistic, and there's a few, but most of the time it's just that they sort of don't comment on the subject. I must admit, I sort of cheer when someone like Zoro from One Piece says he doesn't believe in any god or devil, only the power of man, but I am generally not antagonistic to those of faith, so I am a little upset at myself for letting the user's comment get to me in such a way that I further avoided the show since I had painted a picture of it in my mind as being some sort of overly religious shonen drivel. Think Naruto or Bleach mixed with that '80s cartoon "The Magic Book." That's how I pictured it. And yeah, Bleach is shonen drivel, but it's my shonen drivel, damn it! Oh, and also One Piece. Damn it!

Anyway.

I finally decided to check the show out so I could do a first impressions review, thinking that I would end up watching a couple episodes and then write up a report on how it's an overrated steaming pile. It is anything but that. The show starts out simple enough, introducing the characters. Rin has no idea that he is the son of Satan, but by the end of the first episode, he is aware of the fact and being chased by demons, led by Astaroth himself, who has possessed another boy that Rin knows. So suddenly, he barely has time to come to grips with it, Rin is told that he is not a human, and that he is the son of Satan, born of a human mother. He is also told that his brother Yukio is his twin, but did not inherit any of the demonic powers. A short time after this, due to a circumstance I won't go into too much or it would spoil the fun, Rin has to leave the church where he lived with Father Shiro. He is given a cell phone with a single contact in it, and that contact is Johan Faust, who is actually Mephisto Pheles, and is the chairman of True Cross Academy, which is a prestigious private school to which Rin's brother Yukio is going to be attending. Rin is told he can either kill Mephisto and run, or he can allow Mephisto to kill him, because leaving him alive is not an option. Rin proclaims that he wants to be an Exorcist, and that he is a human in heart, and wants nothing more than to "Beat the shit out of Satan." which is understandable since his life was pretty good and normal until recently, broken to shambles by Satan, and his own Satanic powers.

Mephisto, shocked by this, agrees to bring Rin to True Cross Academy, where he will learn to be an Exorcist. This is only the beginning of Rin's journey.

I am now three episodes in to the show, and plan to watch more, as in all of it. This review barely scratches the surface, and only gives a general plot summary, leaving out a lot of great details. The show's voice acting is good, the animation is fairly good, but lacks some quality in places, and the soundtrack is nice. You should go watch the show on Crunchyroll right away! You won't regret it!

First Impressions - YuruYuri

Despite the name of the show, it's hardly what I'd call a "Yuri" anime, although it does have some aspects of that genre, but mostly used for comedic purposes rather than romantic or dramatic purposes. The main character, Akari, with the red hair, is the subject of a running gag that she is very plain and easy to forget. She is, in fact, so underused that you wouldn't think she's the "main" character at all. But I suppose when it comes to these slice-of-life shows, there isn't really a main character, per se. Of the four main characters, there is blond-haired Kyouko who somehow has the best grades in the school, but is otherwise a ditzy and obtuse girl who makes perverted jokes. Then there is Yui, on the far left with the dark purple hair, who is more mature, and even lives on her own, which seems pretty weird for a middle school girl. She, Akari, and Kyouko have been friends for a long time, and seem a lot more like sisters than friends. The girl on the far right, Chinatsu, is in the same grade as Akari (The two of them are younger) and became friends with the three of them because she thought they were members of the Tea Club at school, which brings us to...

They have a club at the school called the "Amusement Club" where they are basically sitting around doing nothing, or whatever they want. Think the SOS Club from Haruhi, but way less interesting, with less aliens and such. And that's just the beginning of the amount of "not interesting" this show piles on.

The slice of life genre is becoming very crowded ever since hits like Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star popularized the genre, and there seems to be a very bad sort of formula brewing. Four characters who have various personality traits go to school, have some sort of activity together, or are friends somehow, live out their lives in front of us, with often exaggerated situations happening. Bonus points if they are cute girls, can evoke some sort of moé reaction, and then extra bonus points if any of them hit on each other or make panty jokes. This show is sadly falling right into this horrible new cliche, and it's sad to see, because some of the jokes are actually quite good. Unfortunately, though, the show will probably fail to catch the attention of most fans out there, especially ones who have already seen Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, or any of the other copy/paste jobs that have hit this genre in the past several years.

So, in closing...
First Impression of YuruYuri: Not impressed, but with some good moments. Completely average. In other words, only watch this if you really have nothing else to watch.

First Impressions - Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise

OK, so, I will have a full post when I get home from work around 7:30am tomorrow, but of the two shows I watched, one of them was "Twin Angel: Twinkle Paradise" and I really must recommend you keep away from it. It's like they took every cliche magical girl aspect, crammed them together with no storyline, and then added some ecchi in...

You know, I like Mahou Shoujo as a genre, even somewhat generic shows, and I am not against some ecchi content, but this shows does none of it well, and tries to do it all.

So yeah, I'll have a new and longer First Impressions post about the other show I watched, YuruYuri, which was better, later on... but right now, I just wanted to jot down how bad I thought Twin Angel was. I don't expect I will be watching any more of it, even though I have seen mention that it improves somewhat in the 4th or so episode, but still remains mediocre.

First Impressions - Hanasaku Iroha

So, I have begun a quest to watch some of the shows that are airing to get back into the swing of things, and that means getting caught up fast on shows airing on CrunchRoll's Simulcast service. I currently only use the service for Bleach, but I figure that's a waste, and watching new shows will give me something to blog at all two of you about.

So, I watched the first couple of episodes of this show, and so far it has been pretty good, actually! The story is about the girl you see in the middle up there, Ohana, who lives with her mother, who is apparently some sort of writer. However, this doesn't last long because Ohana comes home one night to her mother saying she and her boyfriend are going to elope to escape his debt, and she makes it quite clear that Ohana isn't going with them, and must instead go live with her grandmother (whom she's never met) at a hot springs inn. This is sort of surprising, and leads to a bit of a falling-out between Ohana and another character, a boy named Ko, whom upon hearing that Ohana is leaving, confesses that he loves her but, she has never noticed. I think the romance is important here, but more important is establishing Ohana's character as a bit oblivious.

But after all that, her gloomy trip to her grandmother's inn begins, and when she arrives, she is immediately put to work by her cranky, bossy grandmother, who smokes a pipe and takes no nonsense from anyone, always putting the customer first. From here, the story progressed naturally, with Ohana meeting the other people at the inn, who number quite a few. Noticably, a girl named Minko who is an apprentice chef under a very strict sempai, and a very shy girl named Nako, who is on the cleaning staff. Mino dislikes Ohana greatly, and has a habit of telling her to "die" whenever she is displeased. Nako, more friendly, seems to want to help Ohana adjust to the job, but has great difficulty in doing so.

After two episodes, it's a rather good drama, with a bit of slice-of-life elements thrown in for flavor. Small details are not ignored, but the episodes seem to be formulaic enough to be stand-alone, at least for now. I may edit in an update once I've seen more, but that won't be for another week because now it's Monday, and Monday means I will be checking out YuruYuri and Twin Angel for tomorrow's post.

If you want to check out Hanasaku Iroha, go watch it on CrunchyRoll! It's worth the time if you're a fan of Shoujo drama/comedy. Judging just by the first two episodes, I think it has great potential. There are currently 21 episodes, and new episodes go up for CrunchyRoll premium members every Sunday at 9:30am Central Time.

Summer Wars Review

I used to be a big-time anime otaku and I still am a bigger fan than most people I know, so when I heard about this film and the critical acclaim it had received, I was shocked that it had flown past me. Well, after watching it, I can say that the hype is, indeed, to be believed. From the high quality, high budget animaiton, to the amazing story-within-a-story presentation, everything about this film shines on the same level as any of the great anime films. It is certainly the most impressive and entertaining animated feature I have seen in the last 10 years since 2001's "Spirited Away" awed me similarly. (Miyazaki's more recent films, Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo, did not elicit such a response from me, as I am sort of a harsh critic.)

The story seems simple enough at first, with a school setting during summer vacation, and two guys doing a part-time internet job over summer vacation. They work for Oz, which is a big computer network that nearly everyone in the world uses. Imagine the world's biggest MMO, but it has very lenient sandbox-style rules, and it's even used by governments, religions, and businesses. Anyway, one of those two guys, out protaginist, gets invited out to a rural part of Japan to help one of the seniors from their school with something. Once there, he finds out that she wants him to pose as her fiancee in front of the family because of a promise she made with her grandmother, whose birthday they are celebrating.

This may sound very tame and cliche, but the next day, the Oz system gets hacked somehow, and it appears that the hacker is using his account as a front for the hacking, so he gets blamed! Havoc breaks loose as everyone's personal information gets compromised and all the systems across the world that Oz runs - road signs, GPS, telephone, emergency response - all go haywire, which leads us to the story within the story. Our protaganist, Keiji, must prove his innocence and stop the hacker before something really dangerous happens, like the hacker getting ahold of the ability to launch nuclear weapons!

To put it simply, if you are an anime fan, you absolutely MUST see the movie. I would say it should be added to anyone's "required viewing" list. And of course, if you decide to get it, you should really get the Blu Ray! I have not seen the DVD version of the movie, but I can say that the use of HD resolution was glorious, and I can not imagine watching it in SD! You must see it in High Definition for the true experience!

So, should you get this? In a word, YES!

FLCL BluRay Review

First of all, if you've never seen FLCL before, and you like anime that is strange and exciting, that doesn't take itself too seriously and has a lot of fun because of it, stop reading this and just buy it! I promise you will not regret your purchase! 


Now, as far as the review, what else can be said about FLCL itself except that it's a fantastic 6-episode OVA series that catches your eye with stunning visuals, now improved thanks to HD resolution, catches your heart with the character interactions and real emotions expressed, and captures your imagination with an outrageous story that could only be realized in an animated feature. It's got people getting smashed in the head with guitars that also happen to fire bullets and grenades like a rifle, it's got giant robots that somehow warp in by way of a portal in the head of a young boy, it's got crazy good music, and it's even got a yellow Vespa! And that's just skimming the surface! So, again, if you have never seen FLCL, just buy the darn thing, already! 


As for this release, well, it has similar problems to the original DVD releases. The subtitles are white with a very thin outline, which makes them hard to read in some scenes, especially the "manga style" scenes in two of the episodes, where the subtitles are nearly impossible to read. They could have been a bit more careful and changed the subtitle color for that scene, which involves a lot of black moving lines on a white background, but they just left them the same white text with a thin outline, thus very hard to read with all that black and white movement going on behind them. Other than that, the translation is also unchanged from the DVD release, mistakes and bad grammar and all. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly watchable, and readable, and definitely gets the job done, but in the end I think I expected a little more effort with this new release. That's why I give it 4 stars. It sadly loses a star for the lazy factor when it comes to the subtitles and translation/editing. 


Overall, this is the best version of FLCL you can buy, probably even including in Japan, since this includes the English dub and has subtitles. I highly recommend this item. You can buy it from Amazon by clicking here.

InuYasha: VizBig Edition Review

YE BE READIN' MANGA! ARRR!!
InuYasha... I first saw it way back in the day as some very crappy video files that a friend of mine had on a hard drive that he used to use for running a mirror for animedownload.com, or some such, back in the dark ages before BitTorrent, when most people used dial-up internet. But enough nostalgia, the show was cool, and I did enjoy it. I never quite got so into it to watch the entire thing. In fact, I am still only just recently watching all of InuYasha now that it's available subtitled on Netflix streaming.  So anyway, here's a video that goes with this review.

Well, anyway, some things I sort of left out from the video so as not to look like I was just nitpicking localization... other than the downsides I pointed out, I do like the romanized sound effects, but other than that, this is probably some of the worst work I've seen. I doubt Viz is getting any more of my money for this product, I recommend you check out volume 1 for yourself and see what you think. I think it's pretty poor.