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ローゼンメイデン 
Geez, I finally managed to get my Haibane Renmei 3rd DVD after one and a half month wait. Thanks a lot Viz, for taking such a long time to send another batch of Inuyasha DVD to the e-tailers to the point that all of my other orders were suspended waiting for just that one DVD to arrive. It's a good thing The Right Stuf.Inc actually saved me the first press edition of this third DVD or I will completely missed out on the limited edition pencil boards. Anyway, back to the show itself, it's good to see this series again especially now the series has dished out more revelations and hints of Rakka's and Reki's past life. I also have to say I really like the color pallettes that are used on the show thus far. As you can see from the screen caps, ABe's decision to use bright colors sparingly produces some striking images that I rarely see on other anime titles.
January 27, 2004 | 
20 Comments
All right, this is for those of you who have been typing "Chiaki Kuriyama", "chigusa battle royale", "BR's Sousuke Takaoka" as well as other BR-type keyphrases into this blog's search engine. When I reviewed the Special Edition of Battle Royale back in December, I didn't say anything about the extras. Well, I just recently acquired the Limited Edition Tin version of the film and I now have the time to do review the extra.
Konami Entertainment Japan has just released a digitised version of a news piece (asx format, streaming) that features their Konami Gamers' Day which happened on the 9th of January this year. The news is entirely in Japanese and rather slow to download. So it's probably not worth it if you're on a dial-up connection. But those of you who are not on dial-up will probably be interested in this if you want to get a glimpse of some of their upcoming releases which includes but not limited to: Silent Hill 4 for PS2 and XBox.
January 22, 2004 | 46 Comments
I finally decided to watch this show after some recommendations from a friend. Created by Wataru Yoshizumi (Marmalade Boy), Ultra Maniac tells the story of a 2nd grade high school student called Ayu Tateishi, who befriends a young witch named Nina Sakura. Now, before you run in panic or rolled your eyes out after reading that description, I will say that I also had the same reaction at first. But I kind of liked Marmalade Boy so I figure it won't hurt to give this a try and I'm glad that I did since the show turns out to be quite entertaining and funny even though it doesn't break any new ground.
January 21, 2004 | 11 Comments
For those of you who are interested, this particular chapter of Fruits Basket manga can be found inside Hana to Yume issue 4/2004. Included with this chapter is a 2-pages color spread of Hiro (the Sheep) and Ritsu (the Monkey) trying out their New Year celebration clothing. I assume this is because we're closing in to the Lunar New Year, where the year of the Sheep will be replaced by the year of the Monkey in the Lunar calendar. So Happy New Year to those of you who celebrate it.
I didn't realise that Production IG has came up with the 3rd trailer for Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. The trailer looks nifty but it's not that different from the 2nd one which was also a lot longer. And once again there doesn't seem to be any sign of Major Kusanagi's presence in this film. In any case, the trailers are still quite interesting. Especially now that they've made all of the trailers available in Quicktime format instead of just limiting it to the Windows Media Player format.
One of the things that impresses me about this series is the part where it has always been able to introduce new characters on a regular basis while still manages to develop the existing characters as well as the story. Because of this, the world of Scrapped Princess feels vast and immense. There's a sense that the entire show is one big adventure for the three main protagonist, Pacifica, Shannon, and Raquel. On top of that, these new characters often shows another side of the main characters that we'll otherwise won't see if they only interact with one another.
January 17, 2004 | 25 Comments
Aint It Cool News has just released some pictures of the upcoming Evangelion live action movie as sketched by WETA Workshop (Lord of the Rings) artists. These pictures can also be found inside the Evangelion: Director's Cut DVD (contains the redone episodes 21-24) that is released by ADV film this week. There have been some controversy surrounding these drawings because some of the character names that accompanied the sketches are different from the character names in the anime version (Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Misato, etc). What we get on the sketches instead are names such as "Ray", "Kate Rose", and "Susan Whitnell".
Some people have suggested that the names are just either code names or the name of the designers who sketch those pictures. I hope that's the case. I want ADV film to have the guts to actually retain the original character names and cast Japanese actors/actress for most of the characters - with the exception of maybe Asuka (she's 3/4 German) and some SEELE members. I'm not even the most hardcore EVA fans out there but I have to say that Shinji, Asuka, and the other original characters are the ones whose stories I've followed, and whose plight I sympathise with. I can't say the same thing if the characters are now named Joe and Angie, or in this case, Susan Whitnell.
I have to admit that I'm not exactly a Gonzo studio (Hellsing, Gatekeepers) fan so I was a bit surprised to find myself enjoying Last Exile. I contribute this mostly to Range Murata's design works on the series. Last Exile contains some of the nicest characters/ships/environment designs that I've had the fortune to see, most of which are heavily based on the French and German style during the WWII era. The show also contains exceptionally attractive opening and ending sequences, which are accompanied by songs titled "Cloud Age Symphony" and "Over the Sky" respectively.
The only problem that I had with this series was that I found the first episode to be rather dull. And that is quite unfortunate since some people will probably got turned off by this episode and decided not to watch the rest. My suggestion is to keep watching because the show does become interesting in the second and third episodes. And once you watch these other episodes, rewatch the first episode and I think you'll find that not only that the first episode stops being dull, but it also turns out to have some significant informations which will be useful in the subsequent episodes.
January 14, 2004 | 16 Comments
It looks like I've become addicted to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle's artstyle after all. I ended up purchasing the Hardcover Edition vol.3 from Amazon Japan because I was afraid if I don't buy it now, it'll be out of stock before I have the chance to get one. Besides, I find the series' entire dimension-travel story to be quite interesting. It makes me wonder, however, if some of the scenarios in this other dimensions could be a possibility in other CLAMP's series. For example, there is a particular dimension in Tsubasa, where Sorata and Arashi (of X) live happily together in an apartment that doesn't look that different from the place where Hideki and Chii (from Chobits) lives. Because of this, I wonder if this is a hint that CLAMP gave to the readers in regards to Sorata and Arashii's future fate in X manga.
I'm glad to see that Konami has finally released a bunch of images for the next Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 4: The Room. The main character is a guy called Henry Townsend, who for some reason, has locked himself inside his apartment. After a week, he starts seeing some weird portals appearing inside his bathroom. What's worse is the fact that these portals apparently link his apartment to the world of Silent Hill.
The game seems to have upped the gore quota and I personally am not sure if this is a good or a bad idea. I prefer it if they make the game scarier on a psychological level since it'll leave an indelible impression a bit more than if they just increase the amount of the blood splatters. Because of that, I hope the game succeeds in maintaining the foreboding atmosphere that exists in the previous SH games. For more info on Silent Hill 4, check out the IGN site.
Heh. This one turns out to be quite an amusing series. It doesn't have much originality or thought-provoking story but it provides a lot of comic moments which did make me laugh quite a bit. This mostly comes from the characterisation of its heroine, Himeno Awayuki. Although this series is heavily based on the Snow White and Cinderella fairy tales, you won't see much similarity between Himeno and the fair maidens from those fairy tales as far as personality goes. And the truth is, I think it's kind of fun to see a heroine who's loud, annoying, and silly. The first DVD contains episode 1 to 4 , clean opening/ending, a 'behind the anime' doco, sketches, and an optional box (which is rather thin) to house the DVDs if you want one.
Since I haven't been to their website for a while, I didn't know that E.S. Posthumus has just released a remix of one of their 'Unearthed' tracks, Tikal, free to download. For those of you who are not aware of this group, E.S. Posthumus is basically an indie group fronted by two brothers, Franz & Helmut Von Lichten. Lately, their musics have been used on multitudes of movie trailers (Spiderman 1 trailer, xXx, etc). From the album itself, my favourite has to be Menouthis, which end bits was used in Planet of the Apes trailer (after the "get me the space man" dialogue). And then there's, Ebla, which was used for Matrix: Reloaded Japanese trailer. Their music has that old latin/gregorian feel to it, mixed with various percussions/synthesizers beats and often accompanied with complete orchestra.
If you like cool/wacky Japanese game ads, you should check out this site. It has a lot of game ads, including a cool one for the upcoming Ninja Gaiden. But if you're interested in 'Lost in Translation' style Japanese ads (where famous movie stars sell themselves out in Japan), then Gaijin a Go Go and Japander are must see sites for you. Most of these ads are highly amusing.
Japanese Playstation magazine has released some images of Final Fantasy: Advent Children, a made for DVD movie which will be released around Summer this year. They look quite impressive, especially the CG image of Barett. I wished this had been a game instead of just a DVD-only release
I did, however, find myself disliking like the new rendering of Cloud. I supposed that's because mostly I've always had him looking quite different in my mind if he's rendered in a life-like style. Ditto with Sephiroth. But Barett looks perfect! And I'm keen to see how they'll show Midgar/Midgul in the film.
After another long wait, Shounen Ace (issue 2/2004) finally presents a new chapter of the Evangelion manga. For those of you who like freebies, this edition of Shounen Ace also comes with a free Eva Shitajiki (pencil board) that features one of the two new illustrations created by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto for the Renewal project. As for the story itself, it's basically a retelling of the Eva units vs Armisael fight. In case you've forgotten about it, Armisael is the angel that looks like a chain of DNA linked together forming a ringband and then later on unchained itself to attack Rei and Shinji. Having said that, the manga shows a rather different take of the scene than the one that was presented in the anime.
Happy New Year to y'all! How was your New Year's Eve? Got Drunk? ;) Took that obligatory fireworks picture? I only went to a restaurant with a bunch of friends and then went home and watched Haibane Renmei second DVD. And I'm glad that I did because the story has finally started to unravel. In these three episodes, unexpected events and incidents happens to the various members of the Haibanes who live inside the old home, prompting Rakka to questions her own existence within the town of Glie.
