Reviews
.hack//Sekai no Mukou ni 3D Blu-ray Review
When .hack//Sekai no Mukou ni (or “.hack//Beyond the World” tentatively) came out short of a month ago it had big shoes to fill. Ever since the .hack//G.U. PS2 games the .hack multimedia franchise has been on a steady free-fall. The .hack//Trilogy movie, .hack//Link PSP game and .hack//Quantum OVA have all been failed attempts to fuel the franchise. They did contribute to the franchise in terms of plot, but failed to be a magnet for newcomers or to impressing the old fans who’ve been yarning for a new and exciting .hack experience. What the .hack franchise really needed to ascend from its poor state is something easy to define but hard to accomplish: a movie that will be easy enough for newcomers to follow, yet engrossing and rewarding enough for the older fans. A movie that will immerse us in The World like the first anime and games did. A new plot that does not replicate the old formula. Fortunately.hack//Sekai no Mukou ni does that, and much more. Continue reading
The R.O.D The Complete Blu-ray Box Review is now available
The R.O.D The Complete Blu-ray Box Review is now available in the reviews section and here. As this review is in fact a review of two titles (R.O.D The OVA and R.O.D The TV) I tried a different approach for reviewing it, making it a bit easier on the eye.
Since I haven’t done it recently I thought I’ll do a little trivia section for this OVA and series. See how many of these you already know!
- Yomiko Readman’s first name, Yomiko, is made up of the verb Yomu (“to read”) and the vowel ko, which is traditionally used in Japan as an ending in a girl’s name. So a literal translation of Yomiko Readman’s name in English would be “Readinggirl Readman”.
- The name of the Chinese company Dokusensha is written in Chinese. However the word Dokusensha, if written in Japanese with a different set of kanji, can be oddly translated as “the one who monopolizes [something]”.
- The Read or Die OVA’ opening theme shows several screens filled with English text. Most of this text is incoherent but there are some strangely coherent sentences. For example one sentence says “get 20 quiet cats at a student discount price“. Another interesting sentence would be “a gift from the emperor who doesn’t compensate even if he breaks something during a home run“.
- In episode 8, when Anita is in charge of writing a report on today’s school activities, she writes the following (in Japanese): “The principles’ lectures are always boring and make me sleepy. Rock and Roll“.
- The Midnight Liberation Zone movie poster in Hisami’s room feature pictures of real people (as opposed to drawn images).
The Blue Submarine No. 6 Special Edition DVD Review Is Now Available
The Blue Submarine No. 6 Special Edition DVD review is now available here and in the reviews section.
I’d like to use this post to talk a bit about the Blue Submarine No. 6: Antarctica PlayStation game that never made it outside of Japan. I always feel bad when a game that truly adds something to the anime/manga world it was based upon doesn’t get licensed in the U.S. Realistically speaking I can’t blame Bandai USA for not localizing this anime-based game. I mean, just look at the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex PS 2 game and the Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces Wii game. Both were genuinely good games and were released when anime was popular outside of Japan, and yet they still didn’t receive any attention from gamers. When I watched the animation clips taken from Antarctica and read some of the game’s scripts (all of which are available on the third DVD of Blue Submarine No. 6) I understood how much love went into making this game. In fact it made me feel that the OVA would have been much better if it was expended into 8 episodes to include the game’s plot. Antarctica had so many appealing main characters, none of which made it into the OVA. Antarctica also proved once and for all that Kino is in fact just a bystander whose purpose is mainly to ask questions and bug the other people around her 
Exaella – An Experimental Cyberpunk OVA
Exaella was supposed to be this week’s anime review. It’s a 4 episodes OVA co-produced by Russain director Andrew Oudot and Japanese director Isakawa Denisu. Exaella uses Japanese voice actors and one of the directors is of Japanese origin, but after watching it I can confirm it doesn’t exactly fall under the (strict) definition of anime. Continue reading
The Claymore Blu-ray Review Is Now Available
The Claymore Blu-ray Review is now available in the reviews section and here.
Claymore is different from other Shounen Jump titles in varies ways. Most of these are pointed out in the review. I’d like to mention one that isn’t. Despite being a popular manga in Shounen Jump magazine Claymore only had one TV season. This is very odd considering that Jump has a tendency to make seasons upon seasons for its franchises. So why didn’t Claymore get a second season?
My theory is that this stems from the non-filler nature of the Claymore anime. The first anime covered volumes 1-11 of the manga and had no fillers (although the two last episodes of the anime were not adapted from the manga). Usually Shounen Jump relies heavily on fillers to “stall” the anime versions of its franchises. This did not hold for Claymore (and most will agree that this is a good thing). Now, in japan the 22th volume of the manga will only be released June. If the first anime season is any indication then for a second season to be made at least 11 volumes are needed. In other words: when volume 22 comes out there will be enough materials for a second season. That is unless Shounen Jump decides to wait for the manga to end first (Norihiro Yagi is showing signs of wanting to end it soon). Would you like to see a second season of Claymore?
The Interstella 5555 DVD Review is Now Available
The Interstella 5555 DVD review is now available in the reviews section and here.
I remember how I found out about Interstella and Daft Punk for the first time. I was watching MTV when “One More Time” aired. I liked the animation and the visual style, but didn’t think much of it because there were other similar music videos at the time (like the music video for “I’m blue” and all the music videos from the Gorillaz). It wasn’t until I saw the two following clips on MTV that I began to understand that these were not individual music videos but a compilation of some sort. A few years later when the Interstella 5555 DVD came out I grabbed a copy.
I always prefer to review Blu-ray copies of serie/movies if these are available but I’ve made an exception in this case. This is because the Interstella 5555 Blu-ray (which came out in late 2011) is known to have varios issues which prevent me from recommending it over the DVD. Even ANN, which are known to be lenient when it comes to indicating DVD or Blu-ray authoring issus, have claimed that the Blu-ray is terrible (well, to be exact it was Zac Bertschy who claimed this and everyone followed suit). So because other reviewers claim that the Blu-ray is bad and I had the DVD at hand, I chose not to review the Blu-ray (or buy it for that matter).
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