Category Archives: Anime

Bakacast – Chizuru vs Grizzly Bear

Posted on by
8

iTunes | Direct Download | RSS

Bakacast is back from our holiday vacation, and we hope you guys had a good holiday too! I got The Secret of Kells on Blu-ray, so you can expect me to review that sometime in the future.

In any case, we send off OreImo with tempered praise. This won’t be our last discussion of the series, though. We’re pretty much guaranteed to talk about the OVA’s when they come out (I’m crossing my fingers for a “nice boat” ending). After that, Glen and I lament how far Zakuro has fallen, Glen and Larry’s rant on Samurai Girls justifies my decision to drop it by the fifth episode, Glen confesses his love for Kanako of Star Driver fame, and I come up with a surefire way for Squid Girl to get a coveted 6 out of 5 Picards.

We cover:

  • OreImo #12 (finale)
  • Panty & Stocking #12
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #12
  • Samurai Girls #12 (finale)
  • Squid Girl #11
  • Star Driver #12

We’ll officially say goodbye to the fall season on the next episode and start bracing ourselves for winter. But until then, why don’t we gather around the yule log and enjoy the soothing strains of the Panty & Stocking soundtrack?

12 Days of Anime #1: Best Anime Scene of the Year

Posted on by
13

*For the full effect, read the following text aloud in the manner of a melodramatic old-time radio announcer.*

DANGER! The mighty electromaster MIKOTO MISAKA is being menaced by Telestina’s gargantuan robot! This high-speed freeway battle is not looking good for our young heroine! The fearsome war machine is impervious to all of Mikoto’s attacks, including her mighty railgun, and its deadly ROCKET FISTS are destroying everything in sight! With only seconds left before total annihilation, can Mikoto find a way to defeat this horrible menace and save the day?

12 Days of Anime #2: Fighting Evil by Moonlight

Posted on by
2

Sailor Moon is one of those quintessential anime that everybody has heard of, but almost nobody has actually seen. Old timers have vague memories of watching it on Toonami, and they’re plenty of Sailor Senshi fanart to be found, but only a few of us young’uns have bothered to sit down and learn what all the fuss was about. Well, as part of my rediscovery of retro anime, I decided to take the plunge. I was expecting something silly like Power Rangers, with a shallow story and a monster every week.

Funny thing is, Sailor Moon has a way of both fulfilling and subverting your expectations.

All the super sentai tropes are there, with great quantity and little deviation. Luna and Artemis, faced with a threat from the evil Dark Kingdom, recruit teenagers with attitude to form a team of color-coded warriors. These girls battle a neverending onslaught of weekly monsters using their stock-footage transformation scenes and elemental attacks, eventually challenging and defeating the ruler of the Dark Kingdom herself. In a nutshell, this is the show that defined the magical-girl tropes, for better or worse. It’s the pioneer, the trailblazer, the legendary matriarch whose influence is still felt today.

Continue reading →

12 Days of Anime #3: Yoko Littner

Posted on by
2

I mentioned in my previous 12 Days of Anime post that I watched Gurren Lagann for the first time this summer. You probably don’t need me to tell you it was awesome. So I’m not going to.

Instead, I’m going to tell you how awesome Yoko Littner is. Let’s get the obvious point out of the way first: that is one hell of a character design. She’s easily one of the best-looking females in anime. I also appreciate that she constantly carries a very large gun around. I’m not entirely sure why I developed such a strong attraction to girls with guns (I suspect it has something to do with Sigourney Weaver crafting that assault rifle/grenade launcher/flame thrower in Aliens), but Yoko appeals to that fetish in a hilariously exaggerated fashion. I mean, look at that railgun. It must be really heavy, yet she can carry and even aim it from the hip with ease. That’s fantastic.

But what I really like is that Gainax cared enough to give her a great personality, too. Her usual mood can be summed up as confident and fiery. But there’s more than that. She’s perfectly comfortable showing affection (unlike certain annoying tsunderes I can think of), she’s intelligent, she isn’t impulsive (unless she needs to be) and, as we see in the second half of the show, her fighting prowess is not her defining characteristic. Yoko can put on glasses and live the peaceful life of an elementary teacher and not lose what makes her a fun and likable character. You know what else is cool? We actually get to see her mature from a teenager into a young woman, and her personality changes to reflect that.

And, frankly, it was nice to see a supposedly strong female character actually be strong. She’s not like those pansies from Samurai Girls who fret about a simple kiss. Yoko’s the only character in the show who fights alongside Simon through the entire series, and she loses two boyfriends in the process. But does she ever blame him? Yell at him? Complain that it’s not fair? No. She mourns their deaths, but understands they sacrificed themselves for a higher purpose. And then she moves on with her life.

12 Days of Anime #5: Super Robot Revival

Posted on by
4

This will probably seem strange to those of you who know me as the super-robot apologist on Bakacast, but I didn’t watch Gurren Lagann until this year. Well, to be precise, I watched a couple episodes soon after it finished, but I never got farther until early in 2010. That was when I realized the entire series was on Hulu, so I plowed through it in a few days. Despite a few problems I had with certain aspects of the story, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Unfortunately, watching Gurren Lagann made me realize how rare it is to find any super-robot shows–much less good ones–being made today. It just isn’t the popular genre that it was once (that honor now belongs to slice-of-life). But, lo and behold, a new challenger approached: Star Driver. Both the series description and the first episode promised all the fabulousness of Code Geass with none of the angst. I was immediately intrigued. And while Star Driver has certainly had its low points, I’ve had a lot of fun watching it anyway.

But I’ve recently realized something. With a few notable episodes to serve as exceptions, I didn’t end up sticking with either of the shows for the robot fights. They became a secondary or even tertiary concern. A nice bonus, if you will. What really makes both Gurren Lagann and Star Driver shine like glittering stars are their characters.

Continue reading →

Bakacast – My Motorcycle Can’t Be This Sexy

Posted on by
5

iTunes | Direct Download | RSS

On this episode of Bakacast, we praise yet another one of Hasbro’s new TV shows, Transformers: Prime. But before that, we all discuss the details of the content-restriction bill that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed recently, also known as the “anime ban.” Not because we think we think we’re breaking the news, but because we’d like to help calm down all the people positing end-of-the-anime-world scenarios.

After that, we go to our normal reviews, which contain more rants than usual thanks to Kirino’s absurd “apology,” Samurai Girl‘s hilarious thoughts on love, and Iron Man‘s writing staff proving they have no idea how a plot is supposed to work. Oh, and I guess we answer a Twitter question wherein we reveal how terrible we are at casting live-action adaptations of anime.

We cover:

  • Transformers: Prime #1-5
  • OreImo #11
  • Panty & Stocking #11
  • Iron Man #11
  • Squid Girl #10
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #11
  • Star Driver #11

[This album art brought to you by ka-ju, who is very talented at drawing giant robots.]

12 Days of Anime #7: Battle of the Tsunderes

Posted on by
13

 

 

I have something of a love/hate relationship with A Certain Scientific Railgun. One the one hand, it was my favorite show of the previous fall and winter seasons, easily beating out dreck like Kampfer and Sora no Woto. On the other, it had some rather blatant and annoying flaws, two of which were the huge amount of filler and constant stream of hamfisted friendship speeches. Despite these problems, which have driven many a casual viewer away from Railgun, I still can’t help loving it.

Why? Because Railgun has absolutely fantastic characters.

Kuroko, Saten, Uiharu… I love ’em all. But the highlight is easily Mikoto Misaka, the mildly tsundere electromaster protagonist. Although I didn’t crush on her like I did with Maya, it still felt like Mikoto was a close, personal friend. After the show’s finale, I was sad to see her go; it’s not often I get that emotional about the end of an anime. That’s how vibrant and endearing her character was. She literally made Railgun worth watching.

Compare that with a certain other tsundere who has ruined an otherwise fantastic show, OreImo. Mikoto succeeded everywhere Kirino failed, and proved that the characters really do make or break anime. Story, pacing and art quality are all important, but the characters are the lynchpin that hold everything together.

More after the break.

Continue reading →

12 Days of Anime #10: Discovering Retro Anime

Posted on by
9

Ever since my earliest days of otakudom, I had intended to get into retro anime. I kept hearing about the awesome old classics like Tenchi Muyo and Sailor Moon, but I wasn’t really sure where to start. For a long time, the oldest show I had seen was 1999’s Crest of the Stars, not counting the odd Gundam series or Miyazaki film. I was just too absorbed in modern shows to bother with anything classic. Then, this February, I ran across an article on Mania.com called “10 Great Out of Print Anime We Want Back.” Despite being rather mundane in its own right, this article had one passage that particularly intrigued me.

9. Project A-Ko

Another ‘80s title that saw release in the West in the early ‘90s, Project A-Ko is an action comedy that actively parodies other action movies. The premise centers around the rivalry between Eiko (A-Ko) and Biko (B-Ko) who constantly fight over the affections of the bubbly Shiiko (C-Ko). The popularity of Project A-Ko spawned a few followup OAVs, though none were as well received as the original. But its irreverent humor and ridiculous premise are prime examples of the type of insanity anime was able to get away with in the 1980s.

Dusty is a huge fan of cheesy 80s action movies, and I’ll admit I somewhat enjoy their wacky, over-the-top nature. I mean, Schwarzenegger might be a horrid actor, but seeing him casually toss buzzsaws through people’s skulls is pretty epic. Upon hearing that Project A-Ko was a parody of these kinds of films, it jumped straight to the top of my must-watch list.

Continue reading →

Bakacast – My Little Panty

Posted on by
15

iTunes | Direct Download | RSS

On this belated episode of Bakacast, Jon, Larry and I take a quick diversion to share our thoughts on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. For those of you hoping to avoid diabetes, don’t worry; we’ll balance out the sugary sweetness next week when we tackle giant, transforming robots with a penchant for violence.

With our equestrian evaluation complete, we gallop on to our normal stuff (except for Zakuro, which was skipped because Glen was absent). Then we hit the Twitter questions, which, as usual, takes a turn for the bizarre. Will our listeners ever get sick of asking us about hentai and eroge?

Probably not.

We cover:

  • My Little Pony #1 & 2
  • OreImo #10
  • Panty & Stocking #10
  • Samurai Girls #9
  • Iron Man #10
  • Squid Girl #9
  • Star Driver #10

While you wait for the podcast to download, why not check out My Little Pony for yourself? You can find the pilot on YouTube in four parts.

Or check out Jon’s gender-swapped image of me, which actually gets mentioned on the podcast. See? I told you Twitter questions get weird.

Bakacast – Panty & Stocking with Top Gun

Posted on by
8

iTunes | Direct Download | RSS

Well, another episode of Bakacast is complete, but now is not a time for celebration. Jon is missing, and the only clue I have is a ransom note left under one of his Rei figurines. I’ll transcribe the whole thing here, so maybe you listeners can help us get him back.

To the pitiful human degenerates calling themselves Project Haruhi,

My dear sister, Kneesocks, and I have taken your leader hostage. Seeing as your minds are likely too clogged with filth to process why this has happened–a trait you share with certain angels I’m unfortunately acquainted with–I’ll explain in the simplest terms possible.

You are liars. You’ve repeatedly called me and my sister “villains” with no evidence to back up such claims. In fact, there’s far more evidence to suggest Panty and Stocking, the two “heroes” that so many brain-dead humans like yourselves slobber over, are the ones in the wrong. Wherever they go, they leave chaos and sewage in their wake. Their vulgar habits and language obliterate what little beauty was mercifully granted to them. And, worst of all, they flagrantly disregard the rrrrrrules of elegant society.

This is not the first time you’ve proven yourselves incapable of intelligent thought. First, we only lost our beach volleyball battle because the referee was biased toward the blonde bimbo, which was such a gross violation of the rrrrrrules that any sensible person would say we won by default. Second the characters in Iron Man shouldn’t be mocked for their idiocy, since they’re accurately mimicking how all humans behave. The fact that Squid Girl so easily entertained you with a story about a child playing with an umbrella proves it. Third, you created the word “bro-bath” out of wholecloth simply to describe the perceived homosexual undertones of Star Driver; our more refined minds, however, can tell you such things only exist within the confines of your perverted imaginations.

In fact, as Kneesocks and I thought about the podcast you just recorded (your communications were laughably easy to bug, by the way), we realized the only thing any of you got right was calling our theme song the best one on the upcoming Panty & Stocking soundtrack.

If you want your friend back, you will retract your false statements about me and my sister and publicly apologize for your insolence. Don’t worry, he’ll be kept safe until you inevitably accede to our request. Unlike those fallen angels, we care about our reputation.

~Scanty

While we figure out a way to save Jon, maybe you’d like to find out first-hand what we said about:

  • OreImo #9
  • Panty & Stocking #9
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #9
  • Iron Man #9
  • Squid Girl #8
  • Star Driver #9

You can find our written reviews of these shows here.

    Also, I should thank MLPnox (who was not, as I suggest in the episode, a Twitter account made up by Jon in the spur of the moment) for the My Little Pony question. Because of you, I managed to convince Glen and Larry to review the pilot episode with me on the next Bakacast.

    You’ve done well, my friend.