Episode Reviewed In:Episode 100 Alternate Titles: Eiken Original Japanese Release Date: 2003 Episode Length/Run-time: 2 OVAs 30 Minutes each Summary:
This anime is a much older Manyuu Hikenchou set in a school. This anime is about a boy, Densuke Mifune, who comes to a school and is immediately recruited to be in a club, whose activities are yet to be known. Review: The anime consists of several very important things, involving Densuke; having girls with breasts bigger than their heads falling on him and having them land in a way that his hands on on their breasts, asses; random jokes about sexual activities, girls eating bananas, and of course having liquidy inappropriate liquids dumped on the girls.
During the school year, there is an intramural event where teams compete in different events, such as; bungee jumping, water slides full of liquid yogurt.
What else can I say? The anime is devoid of any kind of substance whatsoever. It’s basically porn but it’s too softcore to be useful as hentai, yet at the same time being too raunchy and goofy to actually merit any kind of serious discussion or thought. Therefore, this anime is stuck in a purgatory of shit. Nobody should watch this anime becuase I’m sure a scientific study will be released in 10 years that will determine that watching it strips your life of any ambition and your soul of any purity.
Episode Reviewed In:Episode 104 Alternate Titles: None Original Japanese Release Date: Summer 2011 Episode Length/Run-time: 12 Episodes Summary: Kamisama Dolls is the story of Kuga Kyouhei who moves to Tokyo to get away from his old hometown village. The village has a history of creating and managing these “gods” called Kakashi and those who control these Kakashi are called Seki. The town has a dark history and is very controlling of it’s villagers. Think the village, Hinamizawa, from Higurashi. It’s very similar to that. Kyouhei leaves the village and abandons his role as a Seki after an unfortunate turn of events that leave many of the villagers dead. Soon afterwards, a Seki and old friend of Kyouhei, Aki, whom was imprisoned within the village after the event, escapes and goes to Tokyo to find Kyouhei. Soon after this, Utao leaves the village, and commanding Kyouhei’s old Kakashi, seeks to bring Aki back to the village. He is apparently very dangerous.
Review: This anime is directed by Seiji Kishi who was the director of the recent Angel Beats. The production is done by Brain’s Base. I’m not quite sure what else to say about the creation about the show. The animation and art seemed pretty standard for current day anime and the show had good intro and outro themes, but that really isn’t the responsibility of the production team.
Kamisama Dolls isn’t a bad anime. The action sequences, which always involve battles between two different Kakashi are sometimes pretty interesting and at times the story can be fairly intriguing. The best part of the entire series are the couple of episodes that occur somewhere in the middle, where they give the back story about the events in the village. To be honest, most of the present day events aren’t nearly as interesting. There are a few moe type gags, some shallow love triangle action, a filler episode or two, and all in all the storyline of the present day events really does not amount to much. It seems to have a difficult time finding direction. In summary, as far as the story goes, the back story gets a thumbs up, and the present action is just so-so.
The main issue that this anime has are the “mecha”, the Kakashi. I felt that the designs of the Kakashi were not very interesting and unfortunately, they always make a really obnoxious singing noise which just drove me crazy. Each Kakashi has it’s own unique tune that it sings and each is equally annoying. They do it…all…the…time…
I sort of give this anime a pass, despite its actual plotline having not much direction because it was clear at the end that there will be a second season, which I assume will continue the story and hopefully get it moving. I would cautiously recommend this anime to people who like sci-fi series and like some light “mecha” battles.
Hey, what’s up you Anime addicts, Z-ComiX here to kick off a new post that’ll blow mind! Before I begin, I would just like to say that you should probably put some newspaper down so that you don’t get blood on your floor. And now, after all this exposition, for the First ever…
DAY on TOP 5 we discuss the top five things you NEED to have a Japan-awesome Halloween. With the end of October approaching, it time for you to prep your stash, get your goods and buy lots of toilet paper… you didn’t hear the last one from me though.
NUMBER 5
PUMPKIN CARVING
Think it’s childish to carve a pumpkin? I don’t. I’ve been caring pumpkins before pumpkin caring was a thing. To why not show your support for you’re favorite anime/manga series by making a pumpkin of it? Here are just a few of the one I found on the internet, I dare you to do better: make an AAAPodcast Pumpkin.
NUMBER 4
COSPLAY
Ahhh, cosplay. Or as some pronounce it “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! COSPLAY!!!” You think it’s a waste to only wear your costume at cons? Me too. So why not wear it on Halloween as a costume! Go to a Halloween costume contest or a party with friends! You probably look better than most of the costumes there. If anyone asks though, you’re someone popular… like Lady Gaga. Everyone is Lady Gaga on Halloween.
NUMBER 3
JAPANESE SWEETS
Aw man, if you have never had the Japanese sweets that I have, you gotta get on the interwebs right now and ship in some imported goods… or find you closest Japanese friend who you know has it. There are different types of sweets out there besides Pocky people… and I don’t think Pocky actually counts as a candy.
NUMBER 2
SCARY JAPANESE MOVIES
You know that you need a little horror on Halloween, so stop trying to watch the new-age movies that are basically people getting ripped into little pieces and watch something psychological like “The Ring,” or as the Japanese call it “RINGU.” Or, if you don’t like horror for some reason, pick up a cheesy vampire Kung-fu movie like “Spooky Encounters” or any of the “Mr Vampire” movies and laugh at some 80’s awesomeness (yes, they are Chinese movies, but they are still good).
NUMBER 1
HYAKUMONOGATARI KAIDANKAI
Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, or “A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales” is an old Japanese scary story event that kind of like letting stories over the campfire… except scary. The basic premise is that you and a group of friends go into a dark room at night light 100 candles and tell ghost stories. Now here is the twist. Every time someone tells a story you put out a candle and each time the stories get scarier and scarier until you tell the last story in the dark. Sounds like fun doesn’t it? No one knows where and when the ritual started, but some say by the last story, when the final candle goes out, a spirit is summoned amongst you in the dark…
Well, that’s all the time I have for this week! Please, if you enjoy the show rate a review at the bottom, share it, or just leave a comment! IF you have a suggestion for the next TOP 5 top me a line here, on the forums, or at ZDA@bigstring.com.
Today I’m starting a new feature which will deal with the worst of the worst of troll groups in anime fandom. The terms fanboy and troll are often used to describe devotees of a certain series, so I have decided for the sake of clarity to merge the two terms into new single one; fantroll. The definition of fantroll is a extremely devoted fanatic of a certain series or franchise to the point of delusion and who directs hatred towards fans of other series or franchises because they do not share the mindless devotion of the fantroll to the given series or franchise. For the inaugural entry I thought it would be most appropriate to start with the single greatest example of the fantroll; the Eva fantroll.
I had been aware of Neon Genesis Evangelion for some time, hearing all kinds of things about it, and when one of my friends lent me her copy of the show in 2005 and I sat down and watched it. My thoughts on the show at the time was that it was a average mech show. This was before I slowly become aware of the phenomena that is the holy status that some percentage of the Eva fandom hold the show in. As I heard more of ravings of the Eva fantrolls about how it was “the greatest anime of all time” (You can thank ADV for starting that nonsense), my enjoyment and opinion of the show went down considerably. Before I go into the things the hardcore fans of this show rant and rave about, I just want to be clear I do like this show.
Now I’m going to pick apart the show, and discuss some of the outlandish and outrageous claims that the fantrolls make about Eva. One of the most often cited aspects of this show is the use of Christian imagery and icons. While its a interesting element of the series, fans often read more into it then there is actually there. They forget that its a show made for a Japanese audience, and the presence of Christian symbols its just a weird novelty to the creators and not some deep, intertwined, and complex plot element. Moving on to the most annoying part of Eva; Shinji Ikari. Boy do the fantrolls even like to hype up Shinji , I once had someone claim to me that he was the greatest character in all of anime, wow that’s arrogance lol. Someone also wrote into Gundamn’s mailbag with badly butchered grammar and made a similar claim, but went a step further by saying that Shinji was the reason people watch mecha anime. Honestly, are you that caught up in your worship of this mediocre series that your so delusional and pretentious to try to say this guy is the single most influential character in the history of anime? I could probably think of a 100 characters that have had more of an influence on anime.Char Aznable and Lynn Minmay are just two off the top of my head, who have had much more of an impact on Japanse culture and anime than him. Shinji did nothing at all during the series to warrant being called iconic, in fact he’s just like almost every other mech lead character in recent memory. Another annoying aspect present in Eva is the disposable enemies that appear almost every episode for the first half of the show, this is also known as the monster of the week cliche. This gets old fast and really saps my enjoyment of the show during the first half. The constant remakes of Eva are also extremely annoying which serve just to devalue the series and are just a cheap way for Gainax to make money off the mindless cult that worships the series as the second coming.
What all this adds up to is a symptom of a larger ailment in the Western fandom that has to do with what shows are considered the greatest by Western fans. A lot of fans in the West only see a very limited amount of anime series from Japan and there is a tendency to automatically declare these series the best there is. When they find out about other shows they tend discount these shows and go on believing that what they hold dear is the greatest without evaluating the merits of the other shows, its cognitive dissidence at its finest.
Well that’s all for this post, I’m considering what group to profile next. It was suggested to me to talk about the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom so I might do them next.
Alright so the World Series is about to begin and the baseball world is anticipating an exciting end to the season. However, for those who don’t care and especially for those of you who have an interest in Japan, things are just about to heat up. Right now the buzz off the diamond is centered around free agency for next year. There’s a few big name pitchers that teams are looking to sign, but there’s clearly one man who will draw the most attention.
His name is Yu Darvish and if you watched a little tournament called in 2009 called the World Baseball Classic you’ve seen what he can do. If you’re unaware about him here’s the short story. He was born in Osaka to an Iranian father and Japanese mother. He became a dominant pitcher at the high school level and has continued to do so at the pro level in Japan. He’s been playing in what’s regarded as the second best baseball league in the world, NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball). Yu was drafted out of high school by the Hokkaido Nippon Ham FIGHTERS and has played with the team for seven seasons. In that time, he has become one of the most talented pitchers in the league. In terms of his personal life Darvish married the Japanese actress Saeko in 2007, the tabloids called it a shotgun wedding as the idol was pregnant with their first child at the time.
So, the twenty-five year old right-hander has been “teasing” major league scouts since his teens, but now it seems to be the time he finally arrives in North America. The news came out in August that Darvish had hired Don Namura, a baseball agent who has previously helped players move from Japan to the major leagues. A source said to be close to Darvish claimed that he was finding it hard to stay motivated by baseball in Japan. Honestly who could blame him? Take a look at his stats.
You can see that this year he set career highs in strikeouts, shut outs, and ERA. His numbers far are better than those of Daisuke Matsuzaka. Which is very comforting to MLB scouts and fans alike. Matsuzaka who plays for the Boston Red Sox is headed into the final year of his contract. And the 100+ million dollars spent on him is now considered to be huge waste due to his inability to stay healthy over the past few seasons. That being said, the consensus is that Darvish is indeed a better player, but how he’ll hold up to a MLB schedule is still unknown.
Over the past few months many MLB scouts have made the trip to Hokkaido to check out Darvish in person, and it seems as if this will be his last year in Japan. However, nothing is set just yet. Technically, players (Darvish included) in NPB aren’t free agents until after their ninth season. The process in which MLB teams can sign Japanese players who have played less than the nine years is the “posting system”. This agreement was signed in 1998 between the two leagues. It allows the Japanese teams to get compensated for they players they lose.
Here’s how it works roughly. A player, Yu Darvish in this instance, tells his team to “post” him. The team management can agree or they can refuse. If they agree to “post” they player, the process works like a silent auction. The MLB commissioner will notify teams of a player being posted, they then have four days to submit a sealed bid to him. After which, the commissioner tells the Japanese team what the highest bid is, not revealing the team. The NPB team then has four days to accept or reject the bid. If accepted, the winning team has thirty days to sign the player to a new contract. If they can’t, then the player stays with their team in Japan for at least one more year and the bid money is not lost.
Why is this important? Well it is and it isnt. The Fighters management have said that if Darvish asks to be posted following this season, they will comply. Interestingly enough though, Darvish spoke out on twitter saying that the news reports from the previous day (Oct 18th) of him saying he wants to be posted are false. So, what does this mean? I think that Yu doesn’t want to take away from the game. His team is in the playoffs, and as a natural competitor he probably wants to stay focused. I get the impression he will make the jump to the majors for the 2012 season. He’s said before that he wants to stay and pitch at home and be hero for the youth of Japan. That was all good well three years ago. Now there’s nothing for him to prove in NPB, and as history has shown Japanese players hit a new level of stardom once they make it to the majors.
Yu will take the mound in Game 1 of the First Stage of the Climax Series on October 29th.
The teams expected to bid high on Darvish are: The New York Yankees, The Texas Rangers and The Toronto Blue Jays. The bid to negotiate with him could be upwards of 50 million dollars and his annual salary could be in the 8-10 million range. From what I’ve seen it’s going to be money well spent. Yu Darvish will put butts in seats, and he will bring a new level of excitement back to the game of baseball.
If you guys have any questions about something I missed out on or want to know more about Japanese baseball let me know in the comments below.
Pretty boys, Bishounen, Bishies, call them whatever you like they are everywhere and seem to be creeping into each and every type of modern anime show being created. Why are they so popular, what makes them relevant to todays anime, why are they in all the shows I/we love and why am I writing an article that will further increase the belief that I am actually a fujoshi?
Original Demographic
For all the un-initiated Bishounen is a combination of the word Bijin which means beautiful and Shounen which means younger males, Bishounen refers to the pretty boys found in anime and manga. In western anime fandom bishonen or ‘Bishie’ for short would refer to any outrageously good-looking male character in anime. It should not come as a surprise that most of these characters are found in Shoujo manga/anime, Bishies are very popular with females and in a medium that is primarily dominated by male oriented material the addition of these characters in shows is often treated as icing on a cake for most fan-girls.
There have been a few shows that have taken a unique approach to the role of Bishies in female targeted anime. Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler is one such show, The series is a dark, Gothic, action drama with supernatural elements, the basic premise of the show is very fascinating and may seem like one that can appeal to a wide demographic but the twist comes when the humour and blatant pandering hits. The character designs are clearly meant to appeal to a female audience and the subject matter often gets lighter than the viewers may have preconceived.
Black Butler
Obviously the series as a whole is very popular, popular enough to have two seasons worth of anime and an ongoing manga series. Both males and females enjoy the series even if they may be for different reason all-together.
There have been more series that have turned this formula into a success, Hetalia and Ouran High School Host Club have had and increasing popularity and its fans are not only vocal about it, they are also loyal. The manga versions of these series is always in the top 10 best sellers list and the FUNimtion Brand Manager of Hetalia herself has announced to the public that the show has done incredibly well for them. Clearly these shows have something about them that must appeal to a wider audience than the desired niche female portion of the fandom.
However, there is always two sides to a coin and very recently there have been a few shows that have attempted to mimic the formula of the above shows and have failed terribly. No.6 was a story set in a futuristic, post apocalyptic sci-fi world and has some pretty cool action sequences and drama. They also had an ‘implied‘ Yaoi subtext that felt tacky and unnecessarily lengthy in most of the scenes that it was implemented. The writers of the show were clearly trying to reel in as wide an audience as they could and by adding some pretty boys and yaoi, they thought female fans would come flocking to this Sci-Fi Dystopia anime as well. Unfortunately for them the show as a whole just didn’t work, the story seemed to come to a screeching halt whenever the two leads had an opportunity to be together alone and to make matters worse this show aired on the noitaminA block meaning it only had 11 episodes in which to wrap itself up nicely, 11 episodes is not nearly enough for any mystery anime let alone a Sci-fi drama. The constant pandering just killed the show for me and many other viewers and proved that just having pretty boys in your anime is not a formula for isntant success no matter how hard you pander to the fujoshi.
Pretty Boys In My Manly Show??
I remember gong onto a forum to discuss this one show I had just finished watching, I thought it was amazing and assumed most other fans would as well, to my surprise the response I got was underwhelming, positive but underwhelming. I later noticed that only female fans seemed to talk about the show as much as I did and only females seemed to cosplay as these characters at conventions and such, it didn’t occur to me exactly why this was the case until I saw a Durarara!! panel at Anime Expo 2011 online. nearly 7/8 of the crowd was female and they all screamed and squeed whenever two characters were mentioned, Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima. Suddenly I got it, it was because this show, my manly show, my favourite cool characters…were actually bishies. I was a little shocked at first but soon came to terms with it, the show was successful and it definitely would not have been so well received had it not garnered such a massive female following.
Izaya Orihara PVC Figure. This line of male figures is meant to target female audiences
Another good example of such a phenomenon would be Sunrises’ super hero show Tiger and Bunny. A show meant to appeal primarily to an older male audience so much so that the protagonist was designed to be in his thirties and have a beard! ( believe it or not this is quite rare in modern anime)
Tiger and Bunny has such a Western feel to it so it came as a huge surprise when suddenly the show gained massive popularity in Japan and with its female audience. In a flash Pxiv was spammed with various fan art, fan fiction, figures, posters and all sorts of other related memorabilia soon followed, some more creepy than others.
Tiger and Bunny is one of the best selling titles of the year in Japan, with each volume selling over 25,000 copies. The Show has been licensed by VIZ in the States and Siren Visual in Australia and will undoubtedly do very well even in the west once it is released.
An Interesting article by Project Haruhis‘ Jon Snyder contained the results of a ‘most popular anime series by gender’ poll taken by an Otaku matchmaking service in Japan. The results showed that women watched more Mecha than men and men, well lets just say they liked Kyoto Animation works as a whole. In the top 5 of the Womens list were Gundam, Code Geass and Macross Frontier, on the surface these shows may not seem like they would appeal to massive female fanbase but taking a deeper look (or not so deep) into these series and we can all see why, lets take Gundam OO as an example.
Male Cast of the Gundam OO Movie
A story rife with political intrigue, war themes and lots and lots of action but it also has a predominantly good looking cast. Was this deliberate? Even if it wasn’t it worked well enough to gain itself two full anime seasons and a theatrical release. Gundam OO is not the best the franchise has to offer but it certainly has its fans no matter how convoluted the plot becomes, no matter how bad the writing gets, as long as there are pretty boys fighting in Giant sparkly robots it will sell.
Fujoshi Bait
If a formula has been tested and it succeeds why not go all the way and try to create something spectacular with it. The Producers at Sunrise must have known they were onto something special when they were penning the script for the Mecha Action Thriller Code Geass and to make sure they didn’t alienate the female fanbase from this soon-to-be-masterpiece they decided to let the artistic geniuses CLAMP create the character designs for their show. At least how it must have gone if it was planned that way.
Regardless of the fact of whether it was deliberate or not , the decision to use CLAMPs’ character designs was ingenious. Ofcourse this meant that nearly the entire cast of the show would be superficially attractive even by anime standards. The show was popular and ended up selling well, so well that the next season was big enough to air on prime time television in Japan.
A common trend in Shounen anime is to add a superficial romantic subplot in order to reel in as many female fans as possible. While this tactic has been proven to work a more effective and more common one is to add atleast one or two pretty boys in the show for the female fans to fawn over. A very good example would be Naruto Shippudens’ Sasuke Uchiha himself. After the series first time-skip the character who was already popular with the females because of his good looks was given an even more appealing look and his default costume rendered him shirtless, I’m not kidding. A more recent example would be Ichigos’ final transformation in Bleach, a design unashemadley meant to sell figurines and to pander to the female fanbase.
A Faboulous Future
With the increasing popularity of shows like Natsume Yujinchou and Tiger and Bunny and a sudden influx of more Josei anime, it will come as no surprise to me if we begin to see more and more Bishounen in anime genres that they initially were not found in. I personally don’t mind this but then again maybe that’s because I am secretly actually a fujoshi 🙂
Voice cast auditions have begun for the anime debut of popular all-girl band AKB48. Tabloid media reported Tuesday that more than 200 members of AKB48 and affiliated groups SKE48 and NMB48 have started auditioning for nine parts in the anime scheduled to air on TV next spring.
The lucky 30 will be decided in November and that number will be whittled down to the final nine parts in December.
The anime will be directed by Yasushi Akimoto, who is the producer and brains behind AKB48. Executive producer is Toshimichi Otsuki (“EVANGELION”). Details about the title, story and musical numbers have not been released yet, except that the story will be about nine girls vying to join a group like AKB48.
So it’s a bunch of AKB48 girls trying to win a chance to perform in an animated story about a bunch of girls trying to win a chance to join a group like AKB48. Yasushi Akimoto sure is funny, but i think he is onto something with this promotion. alomost as good as when he made the girls of all his groups compete in a rock-paper-scissors contest to see who would get to be on the next single lol.
If you do not know who akb48 (AK = Akihabara) is the worlds largest pop group, Currently, it consists of four teams: Team A, Team K, and Team B with 16 members each and Team 4 with 11 members, summing up to a total of 59 members. Thats alot of members of the group, i know it’s crazy but true. the group is largely popular in japan and and thier last nine songs topped the oricon weekly singles charts. though it is kinda sad that girls already in the group have to audition for a part in a band they’re already in, but hey thats what makes this group fun. I guess we will see if this upcoming anime will be as good as k-on.
Hello everyone and sorry it has been so long, but I am back finally!!!
So yesterday I went to the mall in order to purchase myself a new suit at Men’s Warehouse and while walking through the mall I noticed an anime store I had never seen before. My eyes lit up and I began to salivate (quite literally) as there have never been any anime stores near me till this time and I had to do all my shopping online (shipping and handling fees, yuck) or at a con (once a year…) so I walked in there with a spring in my step… only to be smacked in the face quite hard. The store’s merchandise mostly consisted of Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Hetalia, and DBZ junk, and I don’t say junk because I don’t like these shows but because it was literally junk. Boring wall scrolls, bad looking action figures and models, stickers, key chains, that lot of junk. Hell if didn’t even have any manga or anime in it (although it did have a few CDs but only Jpop and Kpop, no OSTs). To tell you the truth I was kind of shocked when I heard the place had still been in business having opened 6 months ago. This was the stuff I could have picked up from my friends and they would have paid me simply because it would have cost less then the shame of putting it out in the trash knowing they had bought it. At least with me they could pass it off as a gift. Now don’t get me wrong there were a few cool things in there. They did have a bunch of mugs which I’ve never seen for sale at a con before and one featured Hatsune Miku. There were also a few cosplays one again featuring Miku (but me being a 6’1” guy I would have had a hard time fitting into it) and they did have some cool but random unrelated to anime masks. I was walking into that store with at least $40.00 to spend and walked out without spending a penny. Now how did they manage that? No art books, the only pillows featuring Hetalia boys, Bleach boys, Naruto boys, and DBZ girls (yes I checked them all and that was what they had) some random rather ugly plushies facing the same offense as all the other products in the store. No interesting trinkets, games, collectibles (continue rant as you see fit). As I walked out of the store I analyzed what I had seen. This was a store for those who are just entering or have experimented with the anime realm, so why would you open a store based solely on that? Our world is not an inexpensive one and it is hard to get people to throw down those $30.00 for the face of Chibi Italy so you can sleep with it at night, but when I see something like Little Busters Special Edition (not the 18+ version) I throw down my $65.00 without a thought (my pride and joy from Sakura-Con this past year). I guess this is why stores operate mostly online, because they can sell these items to the niche markets around the world and the brick and mortar stores must sell to those on the line of otakus, but still at least carry some things that we anime addicts anonymous or not can grasp onto and love or else you will have failed your brothers and sisters who worship their anime in the Church of Mitsugi.
Sincerley and Trolly,
This is Folium ending his rant at the anime store he visited but thankfully recovered due to getting an awesome new suit.
Heya, guys and gals, it’s L Lawliet here for L Lawliet’s Movie Madness!
Hayao Miyazaki-even if you barely watch anime, you recognize the name. Miyazaki is one of the few directors to get an Academy Award for best animated picture outside of the United States, for his film Spirited Away. That’s not the only work he’s done, though. He’s made other influential films such as Princess Mononoke, a tale of nature and destruction, The Castle of Cagliostro, about Lupin the 3rd and his attempt to solve the mystery of the perfect counterfeit bills, and Howl’s Moving Castle, the story of-
Wait, what was that second one?
That’s right, the great Miyazaki worked on an anime film adaptation. That’s not all, though-this was actually the culmination of his work with Lupin the 3rd. He had previously worked on the first series, co-directing and storyboarding about half of the episodes in the show. It’s fitting that his first film is his last work with Lupin, and probably his best one for the franchise at that. In addition, it’s a damn good movie in general. It’s got action, romance, comedy; it’s got the whole shebang. It’s gotten shoutouts in everything from Batman: The Animated Series to The Simpsons Movie, and remains, to this day, one of the most classic animated films of all time. So, let’s not waste any time! Come along and let’s steal a look at The Castle of Cagliostro!
The Plot of the Century!
The story begins with a casino heist-a nice little introduction to our duo of thieves, Lupin and Jigen. Taking off after successfully completing their crime, as the police around them find their cars ineffective and falling apart, the two plot how to use their new millions…until Lupin notices a problem. The bills are fake. Every single one. And not just any fakes, but the perfect fakes-they’re called Goat Bills, and they come from a country called Cagliostro, and that’s where Lupin intends to go. So begins their latest escapade, but there’s puzzles abound. There’s more to Cagliostro, and Lupin’s experience with it, than meets the eye, and there’s an even bigger mystery lying in wait for the duo…
This review won’t be a recap-the movie’s got a couple of twists that I’d rather not spoil here, but I’m gonna give you a basic rundown of the cast, music, animation and overall entertainment value. Sound good? Good. Let’s sneak on ahead, shall we?
Crooks, Cops, Counts, and a Couple of Dames
Hold onto your wallets and keep an eye on your cash, folks, because here comes ArseneLupin the 3rd, speeding by in his signature yellow Fiat, stolen dollars abound. Lupin is a master thief, robber of countless treasures. artifacts and millions of dollars in cold hard cash. He’ll steal your heart, followed by your credit card, and you won’t notice either way. He can be anything from a smooth operator to a not-so-chivalrous pervert, but there’s one thing he consistently is-one hell of a guy.
What good’s being a thief without some partners-in-crime to back you up? Alongside him is his good old pal Daisuke Jigen, the sharpshooting marksman who’s the straight man to Lupin’s comedic foil. He’s not against a one-liner now and again, though, and he’s got some of the best lines in the movie. He’s been around the bend and knows how Lupin works, and has been his faithful companion for years upon years. Goemon Ishikawa, on the other hand, originally intended to kill Lupin, but is now one of his most valued cohorts. With sword in hand, he’ll literally cut through all obstacles, no matter how worthless they may be to his blade. Stoic and collected, he and Jigen are the voices of reason in the quartet of crime. Last, but certainly not least, we have the lovely Mine Fujiko, the object of Lupin’s affections and a deadly piece of work. She usually works with Lupin to achieve her own ends, but it’s obvious that she sees something in him, despite her repeated betrayals, and will always come to his aid in the end should he desperately need it.
What’s a robber without a cop? Hands in the air where Inspector Zenigata can see them, you punks! Hellbent on capturing Lupin and bringing him to justice, Zenigata’s hounded the gang across the world and on nearly every continent known to man, with a minimal success rate. He’s no bumbling office, however (though he has shades of it in many of the TV shows), as he’s captured many other criminals and rapscallions during his pursuit of the master thief. He and Lupin are engaged in an endless cat and mouse chase, and the film wouldn’t really work as well without his inclusion and his chemistry with Lupin.
Taking on double duty as a princess and love interest, we have Clarice, the Princess of the castle of Cagliostro. She’s no damsel in distress; she’s managed to escape confinement in the past, and is brave enough to assist others and fight back when she needs to. She’s forcibly engaged to the Count of Cagliostro, the big man in charge of the country, who wants to use her for his own nefarious needs-and that’s just one of his secrets. Both have a connection to Lupin, though less so with the Count as much as his actions, and both are interesting and engaging characters in their own rights.
Alright, we’ve met the cast, but is the world they live in just as colorful? Let’s find out!
Looking Mighty Fine (And the Pictures Ain’t Bad, Either)
Now, this is a Miyazaki movie, so you gotta expect it to look nice. But, some may be put off by how it looks compared to his other works. While films like Princess Mononoke have deftly made animation, with smooth transitions and designs, The Castle of Cagliostro is a bit more, well, cartoonish. While his other films are intended for the big screen and don’t have any set animation style to abide by, Lupin the 3rd was already a popular series, and it had one movie under its belt before this one. Plus, this was his first film, so this was one of the first times that he got to choose how things would appear. As a result, it looks less clean and more ridiculous than his other films, for the most part, as it’s intended to look that way from the get-go, to keep similar to Lupin’s first series. The scenes heavily involving the characters work well in regards to this, and improves upon the original show’s look with some slight modifications. Co-directing the series helped, to be sure.
Despite these setbacks, this film shows the beauty that would later become more apparent in his other works, via the background animation. The first shot of Lupin approaching the ruins shows intricate design, and an amazing attention to detail. Each tile, each section of grass, and each brick on the walls are given focus to, and this makes the scene a lot more effective. Even the Fiat isn’t left out, as you can see the dirt from the previous car chase scene in it. Miyazaki’s other movies may have perfected his background animation, but it was just a stone’s throw away, since The Castle of Cagliostro’s animation was already near-perfect.
Oh, and there’s the car chase scene, which to this day looks well drawn, with everything given detail, including the branch that hits Lupin in the face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGTxs2QeWJg
Gets me every time.
So, all in all, the movie looks great, with a few bumps in the road. But does it sound as good as it looks? We’re going to look at the music in this next section, so let’s get right to it!
The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Lupin~
In general, the music of Lupin the 3rd tends to fit the times. In the 70s, it was actionish, to fit with the era in which the show was made, and in the late 70s/early 80s, it had a pop/disco type feel to it, for the same reason. The Castle of Cagliostro, however, was an adventure movie, and the music suits that genre. It’s designed to make the viewer invested in whatever chase or fight sequence is going on, making sure they are hooked from the first note, while keeping the Lupin spirit. This is apparent in the first track we hear, during Lupin and Jigen’s escape from the casino they just robbed, and which makes recurring appearances throughout the film, Toward the Patrol Line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69ratTplrw
Along with this, during the film’s slower, more personal scenes, the music takes similar cues, letting the viewer float along, emphasizing the emotions on screen. This is heard through another recurring track, Fire Treasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MdKPYo0n0U
Of course, a Lupin movie wouldn’t be complete without the Lupin theme. In this variation, the theme is a jazzy, light-hearted tune used in some of the film’s best sequences, like the car chase and part of the film’s climax:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2ci_vr8o4
All of this music, and more, are used to great effect to create an impression on the watcher, making sure that the viewer isn’t just into the pretty pictures on the screen. It can be peppy, somber, or just downright crazy, making the soundtrack not just enjoyable for fans of Lupin, but people who like music in general.
Now, I’ve said all these things about it-but is it worth watching more than once? The answer: absolutely.
All Good Things Must Come To An End…
The Castle of Cagliostro is simply wonderful. It’s got a great story, well developed and likable characters, fantastic music, and superb animation. Some may be put off by it being a film of a show, but this is something that you can watch with no knowledge of Lupin and STILL enjoy to the highest degree. Without spoiling, I can say it doesn’t have any aesop, any lesson we need to learn as Miyazaki’s other works contain. What it has-what it is-is a tale of adventure and thrills, love and romance, good and evil, and the daring thief that brings it all together . Miyazaki has made some fine works, but his first, in this reviewer’s opinion, is his downright best. This is L Lawliet, signing off of this edition of L Lawliet’s Movie Madness. Let the good times roll, and believe in your thief.
So, here I am chilling out on a typical Friday night with no worries, no cares and above all, no date, as I happen to see how far down the whiskey bottle goes when it comes to pulling yet another boxy anime tape off the shelf. After some time in the darkness of “over exceeding” a bit to much, I came to in a world of a desolate Japanese city, filled with heavy smog of radiation and abandonment, as I happen to see far into the distance. I then hear a flute tune pierce my ears, with such beauty and sorrow as the tune danced in my eardrum. I look over to see a younger man in a camouflage poncho with a green leaf up to his mouth as he plays the peaceful tune and then looks up at me. He then begins to tell me his tale of how destiny seems to bring him from one Hell to another. This is the tale of Riki-Oh Saiga…
Ok, so for those of you who know what Riki-Oh’s about, you think I’m going to talk about the (overly) awesome live action movie based on the manga by Masahiko Takajo. Well, you would be half right. I am going to talk about Riki-Oh, but only the anime that is a condensed version of the movie, but you get the same story (only the movie is SO MUCH BETTER). Throughout this review, I’m going to use some captions in words to emphasize how crazy some of this stuff happens, and to use some pop/video game culture punching references, so try and keep up kids. So lets Hebrew Fist our way into the wild and crazy world of Riki-Oh: The Wall of Hell OVA.
The OVA starts us off in the year 199x in Yokohama (and it would not surprise me if this was the same 199x as Fist of the North Star series timeline) as the world in this “year” is full of “high radioactivity rain” and “magnetic field warnings” on a daily basis (these are in the OVA I kid you not) where we get to a man in a camo poncho on a stoop blowing into a leaf to make music that most people can play from any toy recorder flute (its all in the tongue kids) as we seem him suddenly stop playing and stands in the middle of the road. While this “mysterious” man does this, we cut to a Cadillac driving down the streets of Yokohama with a fat old guy in the back trying to score some boob action from two honeys on his lap, when the driver notices the man in the street. Before the car can come to a screeching halt, we see the stranger raise his fist to his face with the Star of David etched into his backhand and proceeds to PUNCH INTO THE FRONT OF THE CAR!! This “Falcon” of a punch is able to turn the caddy into an accordion with the driver halfway out the front of the car in a bloody and disfigured mess. The old guy and some bodyguard of his get out to take on this stranger where we see the man in camo punches the bodyguard hard enough in the jaw to RIP IT OFF!! The old guy tries to shoot the man but is stopped by a flying high kick to shatter one of the legs and gets another “Busta Wolf” to the skull to leave a fist impression, killing the old man. We then know who this mysterious man is, which he goes by the one and only name of Riki-Oh Saiga.
"THIS HAND OF MINE BURNS WITH A HOLY POWER!"
For Riki crimes of being a total bad mofo, he gets the hammer of the Japanese judicial system and gets sent to Koboku prison for 9 years. After some shots of prison life with the prisoners making shelves and having a sentence of continuous woodshop class, we cut to the washroom of Wakamatsu being harassed by another inmate Iwata due to Waka getting out on parole. Iwata throws Waka into a shelf for no reason other than to be (one of) the alpha male of the prison. Waka looses his cool and attacks Iwata with a wood scraper, only to be tripped by one of Iwata goons and Iwata using the scraper to leave a nasty scar on Waka face. The guards come in, Iwata says “oh its an accident” and carry off the injured Waka. With Iwata talking up his victory to his running crew, we then see him trip and fall on a plank of nails facing straight up and Iwata gets his hand and eye into swiss cheese. It was Riki who set this up for Iwata and tells him to watch his step, and walks off blowing on his leaf. Iwata, having his eye, hand and pride poked “full of holes”, gets one of the guards to set up an ambush for Riki by using the fattest man there, Bandoh. During this Riki decides to pay his respects to Waka, by breaking out of his cell the only way he wants to, BY PUNCHING THE CELL WALL TO GET OUTSIDE! Once out, he meets the guards who are carrying the corpse of Waka off the grounds handcuffed. Riki states that his freedom is granted when he died and breaks the cuffs off, then Riki gives Waka the wooden train he made for his son and walks off.
Next day in the showers, Riki is confronted by Bandoh who states he is promised all the food in the world for his fat self to eat if he defeats Riki. Riki gets a backhand from Bandoh, only to laugh it off and punches Bandoh once for the deathblow. Iwata decides to jump in with a nail being used as a weapon to stab Riki. Riki counters this by using his hand to catch the fist, which then the nail impales into his hand while he crushes Iwata stabbing hand and sends another Jew Death Fist to Iwata body with enough force to have his entrails BLOW OUT OF HIS BODY FROM THE OTHER SIDE! With Riki actions in check from the corrupt prison guards, he gets sent to isolation for 30 days. We then see a dream or flashback of Riki at a grave site for someone by the name of Bi-Rei with the image of the Swastika inside the Star of David. Yes, in the year 199x, the Jews and Germans have put aside there differences of what happened in WWII and join there two beliefs into one, for the purpose of making the martial “of-all” arts of this dreaded decade. With Riki about to take his life, an old man approaches Riki and tells him about his destiny, and to stop him from killing himself and the dream ends. So what will become of Riki? Can Riki get out of this “Hell” alive? Find out… for yourself.
Imagine the world today without the Holocaust
I am going to stop here in my review, because in this 45 minute OVA, I only talked about maybe 15 minutes of what happened. And boy, does it get crazier from there. Riki-Oh is about one of the many great things you will ever get to witness in your lifetime, and to me, it has one of the best stories you will ever get to know about (through the manga of course). I didn’t even get into the fights with the bosses of the “wings” in the prison Riki is at, or who the warden is, and the more ridiculous stuff that happens from there. Truth be told, the live action movie is actually better represented in the manga because the live action movie is SO MUCH MORE AWESOME than the OVA. I mean shoot, the Daily Show had a clip of the movie in their intros back in the day!!!!
So yes, I recommend EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET gets to witness Riki-Oh for the first and many times after the first time seeing this. Ill say watch the live action movie first, then the OVA. There is one more OVA after this that I have not seen, so I don’t know how insane that will get. If you have enjoyed this review and reading everything about Riki-Oh I care to mention, then feel free to comment, or bake me a cake, or a phone number for you ladies out there what want a Riki-Oh in there lives, its cool.
Thanks again for reading, and check my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. See yea next time…
