Posts Tagged “review”

Every time a Haruhi character single comes out, I feel the need to review it. It’s almost like a tradition, one that I’m slowly starting to dislike. That said, I hope that the eighth and ninth volumes, Kyon and Itsuki respectively, will be the last ones because (i) the character pool is starting to look VERY thin if Lantis decides to publish a tenth volume (would Shimasen sing old samurai songs?) and (ii) Kyon’s sister underwhelmed me. Also, I enjoyed the Haruhi drama CD even though I couldn’t understand much of the spoken dialogue. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple weeks, doujin music albums from Comiket 71 have been surfacing and some of them are pretty good. I listened to about ten albums from Comiket 70 from last year and will probably listen to about the same number regarding ones from #71. Not all the music produced is anime- or game-related but that seems to be the case for most of them. After the jump: my three favorite doujin music works from each of the past two festivals.
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I have a soft spot for cute violence and the one-shot manga Yoki Koto Kiku has plenty of it. Apparently, the head of the Nekogami family has died and his grandson and rightful heir Sukekiyo is off at war in someplace unknown. This obviously creates a problem within the family and each of the family’s triplets Yoki, Koto, and Kiku are now scheming to off the other two siblings, as well as Sukekiyo’s fiancee and family maid Tamayo, with axes and traps because only one of the four can claim the inheritance.
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Imagine if a 70’s-era crime action show was animated using cel-shading and that the focus of the story was a Frank Sinatra tape. Two good buddies who are drug mules received the tape as a reward for a job and in pursuit of the duo are armed gunmen in shark masks, turtlenecks, and suits, commanded by a woman who smokes and wears sunglasses like a guard from “Cool Hand Luke”. Oh, and there’s a hip catgirl who is a crackshot with shooting with her tail AND can talk with the recently deceased.

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Almost five months ago, I picked up the first four volumes of Kaze no Yojimbo for cheap at Big Lots and now I’m slowly making my way through them. The series is based on the 1961 Akira Kurosawa film “Yojimbo” and I might have to see that some time because I’m digging what I’ve seen so far on this first disc. The setup of the anime is as follows: a man named George Kodama enters the small mining town of Kimujuku looking for a man’s house and, in doing so, stokes the fires of a conflict between the town’s two power brokers and their factions. He works as a “bodyguard” to put food in his stomach as he digs into the dark history of what happened fifteen years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Reading it on and off for the couple weeks, I finally finished the first volume of Nodame Cantabile today. Just in time for me to pick up the next couple volumes and read them over winter break before the anime begins airing in mid-January. Might have to check out the live-action drama as well…

Anyway, this initial volume started out slow for me (perhaps that was due to the bite-sized portions I took) but then I started to warm to it halfway through, about the time Mine was introduced. A quick re-read assured me that I enjoyed it enough to move on to the next volume, ready to become slightly more cultured in classical music while reading in the same way I picked up things about art from watching Honey & Clover.
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It seems that every month brings another Haruhi-related music release and this week it’s the character singles of two prominent supporting characters. In fact, the next singles due to come out in January 24th will feature Kyon’s sister (#6) and Emiri Kimidori (#7). [The seiyuu for those characters are Sayaka Aoki and Yuri Shiratori, respectively.] Now, they’re starting to get deeper into minor character territory since Emiri was only in one episode I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) - the one where they fought the cockroach in the desert, “Mysterique Sign”. Also, I wonder if Kyon’s sister’s album will have “KYON’S SISTER” on the cover or “KYON NO IMOUTO”. Hopefully Aoki-san will use her everyday voice and not her acting voice when singing. Futhermore, there will be a drama CD with Haruhi and the gang that is also coming out on January 24th. Yep, the Haruhi CD single train ain’t stopping any time soon…
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I finally got around to watching the Detective Conan oneshot J-drama this past Thanksgiving weekend and it made me realize how exaggerated the anime really is. For example, Mouri Kogoro’s passion was about as over-the-top in the drama as it was in the TV show. The special follows Shinichi’s final case before he gets shrinks into Conan Edogawa.
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One of the factors I consider in deciding whether to buy a DVD beside the movie itself is what kind of bonus features are packaged in with it. For example, I could have bought only the standard edition and saved ten bucks but I would have not received the talk session, the audio commentaries and portrait cards. The bound-in book had good material in it like interviews and sketches, although the placement of it between the two disc holders doesn’t seem optimal because it might start to fall out over time. That is my only major complaint with the extras as the other bonuses were definitely enjoyable.
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What better way to bring a popular series like Fullmetal Alchemist to a close than with a theatrical feature? “The Conqueror of Shamballa” attempts to resolve the cliffhanger of the TV series successfully and manages to do a pretty good job of that during its 104-minute runtime. I am sorry that the below review was a bit delayed (was busy with schoolwork yesterday) and a little disjointed. I have decided to review the extras and the movie in seperate posts so look for another entry on the two documentaries tomorrow along with those postcard scans I promised. Read the rest of this entry »