Monthly Archives: October 2002

Posters and Quality

Just had Anime Society film night, were we showed Mamoru Oshii’s “Avalon” and “Ghost in the Shell”. This is the first time that I realised that the posters in the background while Batou is chasing the Puppet-Master controlled ghost hacker are exacly the same ones that are seen in Avalon promoting the concert (obviously including dog and all ;))…
Also, there hasn’t been a movie that is as good as “Ghost in the Shell” in terms of visuals (backgrounds, eyes and especially mechanical design). And that’s saying a lot, considering it was done in 1995. I’m looking forward to (but will probably be disappointed by) the new “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex”, but it’s done by Production I.G, so there’s hope…
See you friday for the last 6 episodes of “Serial Experiments Lain” ^_^

Sucker for Wings

Kudos to bakaMX, who are now fansubbing Haibane-Renmei aka “Charcoal Feather Federation”; and it is just soooo good. clean art, nice music and tons of cute fluffy wings. created by Yoshitoshi ABe (lain, niea_7) and Tokoro Tomokazu (niea_7). I don’t have a clue where it’s going, but it doesn’t seem too happy (rather “subdued happy”): I really, really like it!

Watched quite a bit of anime over the weekend

Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai (up to ep11) is another GAINAX show which transports a boy + girl (just friends ;)) to alternate realities making parodies of just about anything (SF, Jurassic Park, Film Noir, Romance Games / High School Anime, Kung-Fu Films, …). After #6, I was quite sick of it, but just then they story returned to its core and dealt w/ the construction of the “Magical Shopping District”, which was an excellent move. I hope it manages to continue like that…
Mahoromatic (up to ep3, but 2nd half of ep1 was broken 🙁 ) OTOH I really, really like. GAINAX style, cute maid, some nice action / humor, tons of fan-service (nudity)… I just checked, Pioneer will start releasing that in January 2003, and knowing Pioneer it’ll most likely be on 4 discs.
Now and Then, Here and There (up to ep2) is done by Akitaroh Daichi, and heally, really hard to watch (because it’s so mean / brutal to basically nice people). Basically, boy transported into different world / universe / dimension and dropped inbetween two faction at war. Thinking hard about the box-set (which is $70).
RahXephon (up to ep13) still doesn’t grab me and seems even more Evangelion-like than it did after episode 3, i.e. Mecha controlled by boy who doesn’t / didn’t want to fight, female supervisor, odd / nearly emotionless comrade, … it’s all there.
Witch Hunter Robin (up to ep5) has a really nice, semi-Victorian darkish, angular style, very nice character design. Organisation (STN-J) hunting out so called witches with magical powers. Little humor, no fan-service (which is fine ;)), lots of ambience and interesting CG-backgrounds. Don’t know whether it’ll be interesting in the long run, but so far it’s been good.

Current (from this list, except #1 ;)) favourites:

  1. Seishu Heiki Kanojo (Saikano).
  2. Mahoromatic.
  3. Now and Then, Here and There.
  4. Witch Hunter Robin.