Filed under: Anime
I had another (in my opinion, better) image made, but then I got a BSOD and it got sent to oblivion ... Enjoy the ass shot though.
Filed under: Anime | Tags: bored, Didn't proofread, no, Review, tsukaima, Zero
Once again I welcome you to one of my review posts. The title is once again really lame because I failed to think up anything good, so I just used that. Today I will be writing about magical anime Zero no Tsukaima. (more…)
Filed under: Anime | Tags: Adaptation, Basara, Game, GAR, Masamune, Nobunaga, Norio, Sengoku, Video, Wakamoto
I know I listed a few series in my last entry that I was going to review next, but I happened to finish this series today (after some delay) and thought I should review it.
Sengoku Basara is one of the latest games to receive an anime adaptation. Set in a time reminiscent of the warring states in Japan, the series focuses on various armies and their generals. The only general in the vast array of antagonists however is Date Masamune (a name you may recognise from various JRPGs as one ultimate sword), who weilds 6 Katana. Called the “One Eyed Dragon” because he only has his left eye, he relies on his second in command, Kojuro, the Right Eye of the Dragon to support him.
Speaking a lot of the time in English – where quite often it’s good English, and other times it’s Engrish, Date Masamune is shown to be the rival of another main character – Sanada Yukimura. He is the second in command of Takeda Shingen and wields two spears. Where Date Masamune fights in blue (which shall be covered later on in the review), Sanada Yukimura fights with a red glow. Juxtaposed against each other for most of the series, it is great to see them team up for the final battle.
The opening theme is a song by one of my favourite J-Bands of the moment, Abingdon Boys School. At first I was opposed to the opening, but I grew to love it. The video for the opening shows lots of CG samurai doing something similar to tai chi in the background (all in perfect unison – most likely copy and paste clones of each other). We get some nicely stylized introductions of most of the characters in the opening, which is a great introduction to the series. The ending theme is much more subtle in terms of action where instead the usual slideshow if images is used, with some animation in parts. I also like the song for the ending, and it’s nice to be introduced to a group that I don’t know about so I might find some more music.
The battle scenes in the series utilise a LOT of manly roaring, and the animation style changes slightly. The artwork is more saturised and each of the main characters get their own glow (mentioned earlier where Yukimura is red and Masamune is Blue). It isn’t really explained in the series what the glowing is, or where it comes from, or what each colour represents – I presume the studio are relying on the people who are watching to have played the game and understand. This doesn’t stop you from enjoying the series however, it’s just a little sloppy. I presume that it had something to do with fighting spirit, and that each colour represented an element – obvious but should really have still been explained.
While the antagonist is rarely seen in this series, he is voiced by the wonderful Norio Wakamoto. This is almost enough of a reason to watch a series as he is one of the few seiyuu who I actually bother to learn the name and voice of. He has a nack for the evil overlords and his voice just booms dominance. While Oda Nobunaga himself isn’t shown to do very much, with many of his deeds just explained, when he does appear he is very sinister – killing his allies, using them as bait before destroying them. His army is the only one in the series to utilise guns.
I don’t know enough about Japanese History to talk about the historical accuracy of this series, and neither can I compare it to the game since I have never played it. But overall my conclusion is that Sengoku Basara, through all of it’s “GAR-ness” is a fairly good, but fairly simple series. It seems to only focus on the few main characters, with some new ones I don’t even remember suddenly showing up at the end to save the day, appearing for only a short while. I do think people should watch this show, but I think there are many out there which are better that you should watch first.
That’s it for this review, see you all next time!
Recently I have been watching a lot of mecha-based anime. More specifically I have watched Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Gundam 00 and Full Metal Panic. While all three are of the mecha genre, they are all very different.
Gundam 00 is set in it’s own timeline (separate from other Gundam series). As you could expect from a Mobile Suit Gundam series, the main mecha has that tell-tale design so you know it is a Gundam series. Set in a world where three super states exist, the mysterious organisation known as Celestial Being strives to complete their objective – to eradicate war. They do this, ironically, by fighting those who seek to start war. After two series of the show, Celestial Being seemingly triumph over everyone only for us to get a little teaser of a movie that is yet to come out. In terms of all of the mecha anime I have watched recently, this is definitely the more serious one, with only slight amounts of humour. Eventually it got to the point where I REALLY wanted to watch the next episode, and I think I watched the entire second series in two or three days. I rate Gundam 00 the top out of the three series mentioned in this post.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (which I shall now just write as “TTGL” to save time) is almost the complete opposite to Gundam 00. I watched it first (out of the three I have mentioned) and it is what made me want to get in to the mecha genre more (although this should really go to Code Geass, which was a much more serious and overall better series, but isn’t mentioned here because I watched it last year). TTGL is very comical, while still maintaing seriousness at the right moments. The first half of the series revolves around the humans attempting to overthrow the Helix King and his Beastmen, ending with a great coup d’état. The latter half of the series (after an annoying recap episode) is set in the future and shows the Humans fighting against a new enemy – the Anti-Spirals, who believe spiral beings (who humans are) will evolve eventually at such a rate that it will destroy the universe. Overall I found the humour fairly good, lots of slapstick moments, while the storyline was compelling. The art style was very nice and refreshing compared to the standard that every other production seems to follow. It did, however, take me about a year to watch it. I suspended it because the early episodes really did nothing to make me watch it. It wasn’t until I was about ten episodes in that I got really in to it and ended up watching the rest within a couple of days. TTGL gets second place in this ranking, due to not being good enough in the early episodes to spur me on to watch the rest!
Finally, Full Metal Panic (which will now be written as FMP for short) is the latest series I’m watching. I’ve finished the inital series (which is just called Full Metal Panic) and am now in the middle of watching Full Metal Panic – The Second Raid. The first series really didn’t interest me much, and apart from the final few episodes I really wasn’t all that interested at all. There were a few moments where it ended on a cliffhanger (of sorts) and made me want to know what happened next, but the rest of the episode was unsatisfactory. I feel like dropping the whole thing now! The Second Raid I thought would be better – new studio, it’s widescreen, great! Not so. I’m 3 episodes in (of the 13 episodes the series is made of) and it has not grabbed me at all. There are the occasional good bits in the middle of the episode this time, but there is nothing grabbing me to watch the next episode. There’s also Full Metal Panic – Fumoffu to watch, which is the comic side-story, which I am not sure whether I will bother watching! Overall (so far) this series is not as good as the first two, and I don’t know whether I’ll even finish it. The comedy moments which occasionally occur are funny, but the storyline just seems boring. Thus I rate this third in this three series review.
So there we have it, short reviews of the three mecha series I am watching at the moment. Next time I will be reviewing whichever series I watch next, which could me Zero no Tsukaima (the first two series at the moment, since I seem unable to acquire the third), Yami no Matsuei or Black Lagoon (the first two series, since the third doesn’t come out until this Autumn).
See you later everyone!
