Death’s Notes and Thoughts

Posts Tagged ‘series’

Based on a 4-koma seinen manga by Kobako Totan, serialised in Comic Blade. Source ANN: Sora Kajiwara is a shy girl who enjoys drawing in her sketchbook. She joins the Art Club at her school, and meets many colorful and eccentric people. [And I stole it from AniDB as usual]. Its an anime which is hard to descripe but i think ANN’s one matches it more or less. Sora is kinda shy and always try to sketch moving things like bird, cats and random other stuff which relates to trouble. That combined with the people in the Art Club and the weird teacher with the chicken tick makes a funny not too long anime around drawing. It have its parallels with Hidamari but instead of concentrating on a group of 4 girls living and learning together here we concentrate on a art club. This results in a bit different fun, much they make over Sora’s expressions or her actions as she is kinda.. hmm… well her shyness and quietness combined with her attempts to draw moving stuff. That gets spiced by a bunch of different ppl, you have for example a dude that always get angry pretty easy, you have a girls with intrest (love?) for bugs and other funny weirdos. Dont expect any fanservice or romance stuff, here it follows Hidamaris ways, resulting in just a colorful and funny anime which concentrate on art und comedy. If u liked Hidamari you will probably enjoy this one too, it also a calm one which one can watch good aside to relax from those fast and high life animes . I have this time for you to get an idea how it is like the OP and the Intro with the OP. Through the Intro dont show enough i think, but there is no trailer, at least i didnt found it.

Sketch Book -full color’s- intro and OP

Sketchbook ~full color’s~ OP

Enjoy, Death-chan

Its the first series i spend the time i found in my week off from work on. It is based on a light novel series by Sanda Makoto, illustrated by pako. Itsuki Iba is the cowardly president of a ‘for hire’ magic company called Astral. Always in need of money, Itsuki’s company rents out magicians to perform misc jobs. His company features many magic schools such as Solomon (Demon Magic), Shinto (Prayer Magic), Onmyodou (Spirit Magic) and Celtic (Ritual/Paper Magic). Not the only company out there looking for work, but Itsuki’s company has an ‘ace’ in the hole which happens to be Itsuki himself. If things become more than they can handle, Itsuki will remove his eye patch. As a side note, most of these people are grade schoolers and 2 of them happen to be classmates of Itsuki’s. [description stolen as always from AniDB.] It was a good anime but with a little weak ending (sadly). What i quite liked was that we here got not only the typical japanese “magic” but also western stuff like Honamis Celtic Magic, which also is a type of magic i dont remember seeing before in any anime i watched. Also new to me was Adelicias Solomon magic, which is basically a type of demon magic but still different to the usual type. Through she need to have a special item i rather woudn’t it call demon magic but summoning magic as she calls her servants as she needs them. Also u get a little love triangle in this series but i guess that is used to add a little spice and comedy to this series. I hope they give us a 2nd Season as i still have some stuff that i want to know, most of it small things but well. The end was a bit weak to me as it was rather short and not well prepared enough as the story reveals. It feels a bit too sudden.

Trailer (net version):

Opening:

Ending:

I choose the net trailer, as it is longer and so shows more of the actual show.

-Death

Kasumi Kogen, the so called Village of Mist, is a town located somewhere in a tasteful and rural place in Japan. In this town, there is a training school. Surprisingly, it is the Sinobi Gakuen, a training school of kunoichi, or the female ninja. It gathers competent students from all over Japan to train them to become kunoichi. Needless to say, the villagers are alumni of the school, and they run and jump, appear and disappear, as if the whole town were a big ninja house. To this strange town, there came a girl and a man. The girl is Himawari who wants to be a ninja and respect “Ichikawa Raiso” as her master, and she came here to enter Shinobi Gakuen. The man is a new assigned teacher Marikoji Hayato. He was deceived into paying money and came here to repay his debts. They encounter in this Village of Myst. Whether their encounter is by chance or inevitable? A teacher and his student. Forbidden Love? Other students like Azami, Skimi, Himeji, Yusu wait and see their situation secretly. Whether can Himawari become a full-fledged Kunoichi? Whether can she protect her master? Well i must say usually i dont like ninja animes too much but this one was just hilarious. The mix between the characters is pretty good done as u have the stupid one, the “superpower” ones and the victim that gets targeted by the stupid one^^. It reminded me somehow on 2×2=Shinobuden! where u had a bit similar constellation (a ninja setting, a complete failed ninja, etc). Its quite enjoying to see what Himawari will undergo to please her “master”. I think if u like the ninja comedy type this should me a nice funny series. There is also a 2nd season coming as the first one i here speak about have 12 episodes and much stuff left to make fun of. Sadly it seems that the english fansub group that have picked the 2nd season dont really make progress… sigh. Well lets hope and see. Here is the opening since i couldnt get a hold of the promo yet, but it should help to give u an idea how the chars look like and stuff.

Enjoy, Death

ADV US removed several titles of their anime program from the website and had also removed them from their store. Its like they never existed, and so far there is no offical news on it. On a information request from ANN ADV Films declined to comment. The list of titles that have been removed includes:

• 009-01
• 5cm Per Second
• Ah! My Goddess: Flights of
• Fancy
• Air Gear
• Air Movie
• Air TV series
• Best Student Council
• Blade of the Phantom Master
• Comic Party Revolution
• Coyote Ragtime
• Devil May Cry
• Ghost Train
• Gurren Lagann
• Guyver
• Innocent Venus
• Jinki: Extend
• Kanon TV Series
• King of Bandit Jing: 7th Heaven
• Kurau Phantom Memory
• Le Chevalier D’Eon
• MagikanoMoeyo Ken TV Series
• Moonlight Mile
• Nerima Daikon Brothers
• Pani Pani Dash!
• Project Blue
• Pumpkin Scissors
• Red Garden
• Synethesia
• The Wallflower
• Tokyo Majin
• UFO Princess Valkyrie – Third and Fourth Seasons
• Utawarerumono
• Venus vs. Virus
• Welcome to the NHK
• Xenosaga

This list is based on the ANN News Article and what could be find in the google cache from the ICv2 webpage. If the cache fails i found also a screenshot of the news on anisuki. Here is it, see for yourself. The original ICv2 page seems to got taken down some hous later for a unkown reason.

This list practically includes all licences ADV got through the financial deal with the the Sojitz Corporation (more details on that deal can be found on ICv2 here) in late June of 2006. Since then all properties that was announced (and released) by ADV coming from various anime studios were all licensed through the ARM Corporation. The ARM Corporation itself is a subsidiary of Japan Contents Investment which is a investor group which consist of ojitz Corporation, the Development Bank of Japan and KlockWorx. In a letter to the retailers ADV said: “ADV has suspended certain elements of its former alliance with ARM Corporation, which financed the acquisition of these titles. ADV is working closely with various constituencies with the goal of restoring most if not all of these properties to our release schedule at a later date to the extent possible.” This do not only affect completed series like Nerima Daikon Brothers, Guyver, and 009-1 but also particular released series like Pumpkin Scissors, Kurau Phantom Memory, and Red Garden aswell as only announced series like Devil May Cry, Gurren Lagann and 5 Centimeters per Second. Well i says this is no good news. I hope i can archive more information about this matter soonish and keep u informed about it. Also this was the think i mentioned for ADV UK’s weird behavior, as this should also affect their programs.

-Death

It starts with some action by ADV UK division to move their anime release to a so called “yet to be named” local publisher [more here]. Why should they shutdown their label in UK ? Is it so unintresting to sell their licenced stuff in the UK on their own ??? Another worrying fact to your friends in the UK is that many of the sale pages on ADV UK’s site give an error message… Beside shouldnt one first handle the details of the deal with the local publisher before announcing such facts and having the publishing on ice ? Well this behavior could also a have a different background which i will review in detail in a seperate entry since it dont only affect UK anime publishing and distributing. But another fact is that is sad to me and on the other hand worry me is ADV Germany and Tokyopop are shutdown their anime publishing according to Japanator and AnimeOnDVD. Tokyopop says they leave the game cause of the high amount of illegal downloads in Germany even if there is “enormous interest on anime by young media consumers”. AoD points out that Tokyopop Germany had been releasing DVDs at high prices, with 8 discs for a two-season show (24-26 episodes). Another fact i want to add here to this is that here only younger ppl have intrest in anime/manga so the problems lies also in the target group they tried to have buying their stuff. Instead of trying to get older people interested in their products by having some series for more grown up people in their program they instead of series targeting on kids or too “girly” stuff. Beside they didnt do anything to improve the image of anime/manga so people would reconise it as more then just Sex/Gorefest as which most people think about it. So as parent thinking that would you support your kid in having such a hobby ? I guess not. The only anime the normal non-anime fan see’s around here is often some anime targeting at kids in the timeslot around from 1 pm to 5 pm or some really old anime in late night (around 1 am). And when the late night stuff runs u also having advertisment for so called “manga porno” or “anime porn” games for your mobile running alone which greatly improves the way of thinking people have about that theme. But its not only the price or the image anime have here, also its a matter of content. I for example buy rather the US/JP dvds instead of our local since they have bonus stuff like clean op/ed, interviews and more. Sometimes even T-Shirts, soundtrack packaged with it, and similar. But here ? If you’re lucky you maybe get the clean op/ed, and some trailers… Also i miss on newer DVDs the jp dub. I dont like your local dub voices but well thats a matter of taste i think (ok there is some rare stuff but that really rare). Beside they release often no boxsets like u have for example in the US when an anime is out for quite some time. If they would have released for example slim box sets for half the price of the big one they would have sold more then they did. Also to think on bashing the fansubbers for having their overpriced stuff not getting brough is lame. The fansubbers created the customers of them but they forget that. When I think back how small the anime scene was like 6 years ago and how big its now and also the intrest in anime… Rather than bashing the fansubbers they should have releasing faster, a bit cheaper and also better quality/more content. Maybe also some more efforts in direction of high quality digital content distribution they could also have drawn more people to their stores.

Think about it, also its sad… but what should i say ? In my eyes its not the fans fault, its the comanpys.

-Death

This is another future that the Cold War has continued for 140 years. The earth is divided into two worlds, the East Block and the West Block. Under the false peace keeps its balance by the meanance of nuclear, two worlds continued their war. What does Mylene Hoffman see in the conflicts of spies living in bloodless world? [taken from AnimeNFO] Lets get straight to the point, 009-1 is supposed to be an agent anime but it hardly feels like one. It starts with the design of it, its unusual. I wont say its bad just not suited in my eyes for a series and especially not for a agent/spy series. This kinda design would be intresting for a movie with some kinda deeper message and that kinda story, that looks first weird but if you think some on it become clear. Aside from the design of this series is the story a bit disappointing. I was expeciting some kinda thrilling episode story and maybe if we’re lucky a bigger thing behind that gets solved at the end or maybe is supposed to be a open end for another season. But actually we get some action but without the thrill, its not even a bit exciting, more its predictable what will happen or how it will end. Also the end wasnt too good, they tried to raise the speed and give the story a “BAM”-element to make a great end but the outcome was a merge “plop”. Sure a thread to human kind can make a intresting thing but still it gets kinda lame if the hide-and-seek and the big endfight are missing. No, this anime is definitly not what one would expect of it, so i suggest to leave it away. :getlost:

The trailers are maybe nice looking but the real thing isnt half as good, for those who like this kinda genere i suggest watching Detective Agency Q or Dirty Pair. Those have what they promise!

-Death

Once upon a time, in New York City in 1941… at this club open to all comers to play, night after night, at a club named “Minston`s Play” House in Harlem, they play jazz sessions competing with each other. Young jazz men with a new sense are gathering. At last they created a new genre itself. They are sick and tired of the conventional fixed style jazz. They`re eager to play jazz more freely as they wish then… in 2071 in the universe… The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship BEBOP, will play freely without fear of risky things. They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called… “COWBOY BEBOP” [stolen like always from AniDB] Hell, its quite a good anime. I mean i was seeing this one years back and was saying wtf… leave me alone, but now i got me. I’m not saying its great and perfect and stuff, but its good. Its the kind of Space/Action Anime i like and its rare. Its one of these non-space war but space-action animes like well it reminded me on Dirty Pair, which is also a space-action anime. I mean usually when u search for space action/adventure u get these WOW-WAR anime, where two sides fight against eachother and u find yourself with your hero inbetween these. But thats not it, sure i watch such but i like the different stuff more . What made me watching it, was the fact i got my hands on the 720p release of the Bepop Movie by THORA. And it made me want more. I just loved the character combination. U got the ex-police man Jet, a quite agressive but more strategic char, then u have Spike, the dude that can get quite hotheaded but still if he wants something he’s like his partner Jet, he dont let it go and catch it. The next that joins the party is Faye, a woman that loves the play and cause of this and other circumstance have her lil’ probs^^, she can be nice but inside she’s a devil. And last but not least we have Ed (Eddo), the hacker girl, she is quite crazy and if u see her u think she’s just a dumb kid but she have her skills. Beside her way of beeing cause a lot of fun. Also they got during the series Ein, a dog thats also special in his own ways. This party gets on bounty hunt and that is definitly quite entertaining. During the series they try to prepare the big end and do well… but in the ed they mess up. it should be some how dramatic but for the real deal in dramatic stuff u need more then 2 episodes. But well the rest of the series make quite up for this fact, maybe i’m not sensetive enought to get the ending in the right way !? who knows… me not :tongue: . What i liked at the ending of the series was the saying of that old indian: “Do not fear death. Death is always at your side. When you show fear, it will spring at you faster then light. If you do not show fear, it will only gently look over you…”. Its one of this worldly wisdoms u can find in anime. I like such stuff, that also the cause why i love xxxHolic. Also the music of this anime is extreme stylish and very good done. It matches most the time perfect and gives u that good feeling that i find most the time on older anime series (and with older i mean even older ones as this). Anyway i hope i could gave u some insight and raise your intrest for it. Here like usual u get the trailers, this time english dubbed, didnt found japanese dub/eng sub ones. First is for the series, 2nd is for the movie (and i like the dub for the movie trailer, the voices are matching… rare but with these i’m ok).

Enjoy…

-Death-chan

I found this lil’ bit weird british comedy series at youtube. Its named “Balls of Steel” and got around 12 Episodes. The Format: There are a total of 12 acts. In each episode, six acts compete with one of them being the winner from the previous episode. At the end of each episode the studio audience has to decide which act was the nerviest, or had the biggest ‘Balls of Steel’ by voting on a keypad. The winner is the contender with the most votes, and wins a trophy in the shape of testicle. [Stolen from Wikipedia]. Its pretty weird and remind me somehow on the good old jackass… i have fun with it^^ and i hope u too :-p .Here is the best of compilation:

Enjoy…

-Deathy

Renton Thurston is a 14-year-old boy who lived with his mechanic grandfather in a backwater town. Every day he dreamed of being with the mercenary “Light Finding Operation (LFO)” aircraft pilot group “Gekkostate” and riding “Trapar” particle waves (a sport called “reffing”) with their charismatic leader Holland, especially when faced with his father’s acclaimed past or his grandfather’s desire to protect him. When a young girl named Eureka riding the original LFO, the “Nirvash typeZERO”, asks his grandfather for a tune-up, she inadvertently brings the attention of the military to the garage; as a result, the garage is destroyed and Renton is forced to deliver a new type of interface (the “Amita Drive”) to the Nirvash. After a heated fight in which the Nirvash destroys the military LFOs by unleashing an immense amount of power, Renton is invited into Gekkostate. However, he quickly realizes that behind the facade of a traveling group of mercenaries is a very bitter reality. [stolen from ANN] Its a not too bad mecha with a quite intresting story and a extreme annoying enempy… i just hated that guy and his arrogant way of beeing. He gave me the feeling to want to punch him and punch him. The lovly-dovly parts sometimes made me also a bit annoyed but hell its part of the story… but on the other hand they’re liked it said needed cause thats what i liked on this series, the characters envolved. They envolve a new and different characters and ways of beeing unlike many other series where they character is in his way pretty stable and if you’re happy gets insane/evil due some circumstances. Also the relationship of Eureka and Renton develop pretty realistic, maybe its a bit more extreme but the basic ways are the same of a normal relationship which i miss sometimes also in other anime. The mechas are ok, there enemy mechas are the only where i miss difference they’re pretty much the same the whole series long as if they didnt have much different types/series of mecha but since the story isnt about their mechas its can be considered as a sidemark of me. All together it was a good and entertaining anime.

Enjoy…

-Death

Happy Seven is a 13 part TV-Series thats based on the manga by Kawasaki Hiroyuki. The story starts with Sakogami Amano, a high school girl that attends Shitennoji Academy. She is a pretty unlucky girl. Everything she does backfires at her. One day she have a weird dream, but when she wakes up she dont remember it anymore. When she enters next day by concidence the clubroom of the Kaiun Kenkyukai (A society for the study of improvement of one’s fortune) her life gets a turn. The members are seven girls who have power of Shichifukujin (Seven Fortune Gods). They give her the advice to pray to become happy. While she do so a monster appears and try to assault her. At this moment one she dreamed of the night before comes to help. Happy Seven is a really funny anime. They use often chibi-versions of the chars and that give extra fun to various scenes. Especially the scenes with Amano as chibi are wondeful, when she gets pissed again cause she couldnt do this or that… Ah yes i had much fun on it. Its a light magical girl anime with a wink and some slapstick.

Enjoy the fun,

-Deathy