Anime Review Roundup (Updated)
(Update) The Next Big Thing From Beez Is
Beez Entertainment certainly bring the choicest of anime to these shores, last year it was Haruhi Suzumiya, this year it has been Gundam 00 and Gurren Lagann. But wandering past the BBFC this afternoon I happened to spot 13 episodes of Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion has been rated. You may commence your excited squealling now.
Addendum: Andrew Partridge from Beez has added clarification on the Anime UK News forum.
Quote:
Details are as follows:
Format: We'll be releasing Season 1 of Code Geass in two box-sets, box 1 with 13 episodes, box 2 with 12.
Price point: To be confirmed.
Extras: TBC - we're experimenting with a different release style so the box quality etc will still be high but in this case there may be no LE edition.
I'll update this with fixed details when I have the product entry set up for next month.
Since I'm here our lineup for October so far also includes:
- Code Geass - Box 1 of 2
- Sword of the Stranger, 2 DVD Special Edition (details to follow)
- Gurren Lagann - Volume 3 (tentatively October so far)
- Gundam 00 -Volume 3 (tentatively October til I get the schedule locked tdown this week)
- One title yet to be revealed, I want full confirmation before I post it up
Hope this helps!
Funimation Licence News
It will be 2010 before it streets in America, and obviously there's no news yet of any UK release, but this is still enough to put a grin on my face. Funimation have Eden of the East. This is the eleven-episode series that has just finished airing in Japan, directed by Kenji Kamiyama of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex fame, and one of the best anime shows to come out in a long while. It's a Bourne Identity style cyberpunk thriller, with a lot of social comment to make, and it is absolutely brilliant. Oasis provide the theme song, but there's no word as yet whether Funimation's pockets are deep enough for that. Also, the show isn't complete, with the story to be wrapped up in two cinema feature films, and there's no word as to whether Funimation have licensed those as well. Yet I'm still grinning from ear to ear. And Funi have apparently licensed something called Casshern Sins? I hear that's quite popular.
News from ANN.
Details about Black Lagoon's Third Barrage emerge
Black Lagoon's Third Barrage will be a direct to disc OVA. Which is a very good thing. Black Lagoon's tale of modern piracy in the South China Seas is full of violence, swearing, and more swearing. It's a hard-edged, full-on eighties movie of a show, which I love tremendously. By going straight to OVA means that it doesn't have to conform with those pesky broadcast rules, and can be even meaner and nastier. There's also no set limit to the OVA in terms of running time and episode length, and the budget can be significantly higher. It's true that most OVA series run shorter, but there's no reason why an OVA can't be twelve episodes in length. Boundlessly optimistic, that's me. Read more about this, and Blu-ray Black Lagoon at ANN.
Online anime updates
Manga have run through the Gurren Lagann series, so that link vanishes. I hope you managed to catch them all. Kadokawa aren't currently showing any new Haruhi, but I'll leave that link up and update it when the next batch does appear.
However, Crunchyroll's new season of anime has begun, and they have plenty of new stuff to offer. It also seems as if they are going all out to bait the Daily Mail crowd, with a self-professed summer of Loli and Yuri. That's little girls and lesbians for those who can't be asked to Google. There's something to offend everyone here, but there's also plenty of entertainment as well. The two new shows this week that I bring to you are Aoi Hana and Kanamemo.
From Crunchyroll's descriptions…
Aoi Hana
Quote:
Fumi Manjoume enters Kamakura's accelerated high school - Matsuoka All-Girls High School. While waiting at the Kamakura station on the day of her entrance ceremony, she runs into an old childhood friend whom she had not seen in 10 years: Akira Okudaira. As their friendship is rekindled and they start falling back into the rhythm of friends again, it starts a delicate love story...
We start off with the shojo-ai, but this isn't the sort of show to have anyone up in arms. In fact there will probably be a chorus of 'Ahhs' at this really quite sweet and tender love story between two high school girls. Fumi is tall, elegant, and apt to burst into tears at the slightest provocation, while Akira is bright and energetic. Aoi Hana is tender, soapy, and filled with melodrama, and I'm enjoying it immensely. 4/5
Kanamemo
Quote:
Kana Nakamichi had already lost both her parents when she suddenly loses her only remaining relative, her grandmother. Her home is intruded by movers who take away her grandmother's belongings but no one thinks where Kana will go. Therefore, she ends up looking for a part-time job in order to support herself and the only one she finds with room and board is at a newspaper delivery office. Everyone there are all charming, self-assertive bishojo. The story follows Kana's daily life in this fast-paced yet joyous environment.
This is more like it, just the sort of thing to poke 'irate of Tunbridge Wells' with. It's a wonderful fantasy world where newspaper delivery can be a business that a group of girls can make a living from, and it's a deep end of a bizarre swimming pool that Kana finds herself in when her grandmother passes away. It's a fast paced, zany comedy, full of bizarre characters. The owner of the business is a practically morose girl who is younger than all the others, there are a couple of over the top stereotypical lesbians, and one downright scary college girl who has a preference for underage girls in particular. If you stop laughing long enough, you'll remember to be shocked and offended. I may stick with this for a few more episodes. Just to see how offended I should be, mind. 3/5
Reviews last week began with Shigurui: Death Frenzy. If you think that the Crunchyroll offerings will raise eyebrows, wait till you get a load of this! Harking back to the good old days of anime as video nasties, this is a brutal affair set at the dawn of the Edo period in Japan, replete with Samurai, sword fighting, and morally repugnant characters. It has sex, violence, and on several occasions combines the two. Surprisingly, it has made it through the BBFC unscathed. And all of these are positive selling points. You can read the review now, and you have until the end of the article to guess who is releasing it in the UK.
It was something a tad more family friendly next, as I ventured into the back catalogue once more, to look at Stratos 4: Volume 1. If you've been brought up on tales of Armageddon and Deep Impact, then this is the anime for you. Only this time there are countless meteors heading for Earth, and a space force that must fly regular missions to destroy them before they can destroy us. In typical anime fashion, these saviours of the world are all teenage girls, and who can blame the animated cameraman for lingering over their form fitting uniforms a little too closely.
I finished the week with Disgaea: Volume 2. It's fair to say that I wasn't all that impressed with volume 1, with its tale of a trainee angel meeting a young demon, and then helping him become the Overlord of the Underworld. It was childish, silly, clichéd, and simplistic, with one eye on the Pokemon generation, adapted as it was from a Playstation 2 game. None of that has changed for volume 2, except that I realise that you can actually be in the mood for childish, silly, clichéd, and simplistic.
That isn't all though, as last month Manga Entertainment released the Streetfighter anime collection, collecting all the movies on five discs. But that wasn't enough for our David Beckett, he needed a harder challenge, something that would test his very mettle as a reviewer. Fool that he is, he took on the Blu-ray release of the original, live action Street Fighter movie, the one with Kylie Minogue. Spare a thought for the poor guy as he recuperates in a psychiatric ward, when you're reading his review.
Did you guess that it would be Manga Entertainment releasing Shigurui? Who else? Shigurui: Death Frenzy, both DVD and Blu-Ray, has been delayed until the 17th of August. Incidentally, that is the new confirmed date for Negima Series 2 Part 1 as well. Beez Entertainment's Stratos 4: Volume 1 has been available for years, and Disgaea: Volume 2 comes out courtesy of MVM on the 3rd of August. You'll be able to avoid the Blu-ray of Street Fighter from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, starting today.
Beez Entertainment certainly bring the choicest of anime to these shores, last year it was Haruhi Suzumiya, this year it has been Gundam 00 and Gurren Lagann. But wandering past the BBFC this afternoon I happened to spot 13 episodes of Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion has been rated. You may commence your excited squealling now.
Addendum: Andrew Partridge from Beez has added clarification on the Anime UK News forum.
Quote:
Details are as follows:
Format: We'll be releasing Season 1 of Code Geass in two box-sets, box 1 with 13 episodes, box 2 with 12.
Price point: To be confirmed.
Extras: TBC - we're experimenting with a different release style so the box quality etc will still be high but in this case there may be no LE edition.
I'll update this with fixed details when I have the product entry set up for next month.
Since I'm here our lineup for October so far also includes:
- Code Geass - Box 1 of 2
- Sword of the Stranger, 2 DVD Special Edition (details to follow)
- Gurren Lagann - Volume 3 (tentatively October so far)
- Gundam 00 -Volume 3 (tentatively October til I get the schedule locked tdown this week)
- One title yet to be revealed, I want full confirmation before I post it up
Hope this helps!
Funimation Licence News
It will be 2010 before it streets in America, and obviously there's no news yet of any UK release, but this is still enough to put a grin on my face. Funimation have Eden of the East. This is the eleven-episode series that has just finished airing in Japan, directed by Kenji Kamiyama of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex fame, and one of the best anime shows to come out in a long while. It's a Bourne Identity style cyberpunk thriller, with a lot of social comment to make, and it is absolutely brilliant. Oasis provide the theme song, but there's no word as yet whether Funimation's pockets are deep enough for that. Also, the show isn't complete, with the story to be wrapped up in two cinema feature films, and there's no word as to whether Funimation have licensed those as well. Yet I'm still grinning from ear to ear. And Funi have apparently licensed something called Casshern Sins? I hear that's quite popular.
News from ANN.
Details about Black Lagoon's Third Barrage emerge
Black Lagoon's Third Barrage will be a direct to disc OVA. Which is a very good thing. Black Lagoon's tale of modern piracy in the South China Seas is full of violence, swearing, and more swearing. It's a hard-edged, full-on eighties movie of a show, which I love tremendously. By going straight to OVA means that it doesn't have to conform with those pesky broadcast rules, and can be even meaner and nastier. There's also no set limit to the OVA in terms of running time and episode length, and the budget can be significantly higher. It's true that most OVA series run shorter, but there's no reason why an OVA can't be twelve episodes in length. Boundlessly optimistic, that's me. Read more about this, and Blu-ray Black Lagoon at ANN.
Online anime updates
Manga have run through the Gurren Lagann series, so that link vanishes. I hope you managed to catch them all. Kadokawa aren't currently showing any new Haruhi, but I'll leave that link up and update it when the next batch does appear.
However, Crunchyroll's new season of anime has begun, and they have plenty of new stuff to offer. It also seems as if they are going all out to bait the Daily Mail crowd, with a self-professed summer of Loli and Yuri. That's little girls and lesbians for those who can't be asked to Google. There's something to offend everyone here, but there's also plenty of entertainment as well. The two new shows this week that I bring to you are Aoi Hana and Kanamemo.
From Crunchyroll's descriptions…
Aoi Hana
Quote:
Fumi Manjoume enters Kamakura's accelerated high school - Matsuoka All-Girls High School. While waiting at the Kamakura station on the day of her entrance ceremony, she runs into an old childhood friend whom she had not seen in 10 years: Akira Okudaira. As their friendship is rekindled and they start falling back into the rhythm of friends again, it starts a delicate love story...
We start off with the shojo-ai, but this isn't the sort of show to have anyone up in arms. In fact there will probably be a chorus of 'Ahhs' at this really quite sweet and tender love story between two high school girls. Fumi is tall, elegant, and apt to burst into tears at the slightest provocation, while Akira is bright and energetic. Aoi Hana is tender, soapy, and filled with melodrama, and I'm enjoying it immensely. 4/5
Kanamemo
Quote:
Kana Nakamichi had already lost both her parents when she suddenly loses her only remaining relative, her grandmother. Her home is intruded by movers who take away her grandmother's belongings but no one thinks where Kana will go. Therefore, she ends up looking for a part-time job in order to support herself and the only one she finds with room and board is at a newspaper delivery office. Everyone there are all charming, self-assertive bishojo. The story follows Kana's daily life in this fast-paced yet joyous environment.
This is more like it, just the sort of thing to poke 'irate of Tunbridge Wells' with. It's a wonderful fantasy world where newspaper delivery can be a business that a group of girls can make a living from, and it's a deep end of a bizarre swimming pool that Kana finds herself in when her grandmother passes away. It's a fast paced, zany comedy, full of bizarre characters. The owner of the business is a practically morose girl who is younger than all the others, there are a couple of over the top stereotypical lesbians, and one downright scary college girl who has a preference for underage girls in particular. If you stop laughing long enough, you'll remember to be shocked and offended. I may stick with this for a few more episodes. Just to see how offended I should be, mind. 3/5
Did you guess that it would be Manga Entertainment releasing Shigurui? Who else? Shigurui: Death Frenzy, both DVD and Blu-Ray, has been delayed until the 17th of August. Incidentally, that is the new confirmed date for Negima Series 2 Part 1 as well. Beez Entertainment's Stratos 4: Volume 1 has been available for years, and Disgaea: Volume 2 comes out courtesy of MVM on the 3rd of August. You'll be able to avoid the Blu-ray of Street Fighter from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, starting today.
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