Nerima Daikon Brothers, an anime musical comedy brought to you by Nabeshin.    While not necessarily heavy on thought provoking plot or an examination of some great concept* this show is still more than worth the price of admission.  Following the two brothers, Hiideki and Ichiro from Nerima and their gold digging female cousin Mako, and pet panda (Pandaikon) as they scrape by farming Daikon (Hideki), working in a host club (Ichiro) while trying to make it big in the music business.  The humor is broad, the music catchy and uptempo.  The whole concept of  musical anime seems like something of a non sequitor.  Animated musicals always having been seen as a western genre, made famous by Disney.  Unlike the light and fluffy stuff from the house of the mouse this more like anime does Blues Brothers with a dash of Excel Saga.  Nabeshin appears as the owner of a rental shop which always has waht they need to escape from theor tight spot of the moment.  While a little episodic, the show never fails to deliver with the laughs and the commentaries by Nabeshin and some of the crast and crew are as funny as the shows themselves.

*But then has anything Nabeshin done been known for its plot?  I mean this the man that brought you both Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 05:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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    I love promo discs, you can check out new shows before they hit the stores, but even better you can stuble on to shows of which you are aware but if you hadn't seen a promo you would never have considered giving a chance.  Thus I sat down the other day with the promo DVD form the latest issue of Newtype USA and checked out a show with whose name and premise I was famillar but had always written off as not being my thing, KashiMashi Girl meets Girl.  Sure I had heard of this show, but after watching the episode and laughing my ass off at the humor and being genuinely impressed by the animators and writers abillity to convey emotion and humanity.  I wasn't famillar with the charcters or their individual stories but I was still able to find a connection with the story, which is damn hard to do in the span of thirty minutes.  That and the fact that I am a sucker for gender switching humor doesn't hurt either. (My favorite gender swap joke is in Oh! My Goddess when Keichi manages to basically turn himself into a pre-op transvetite, combined with the arrival of Urd's ex makes for some great humor.)

      The other great thing about promotional DVDs, at least those that come with magazines like Newtype and Otaku are that they have a wide range of shows from different companies.  From time to time Shonen Jump comes with free DVD's but they tend to contain a single episode of a single show, and invariably form Viz.  While that is understandable they could at least try for a little corporate cross promotion, it can't cost a whole lot more to put three episodes  on a DVD compared to one episode.  On the whole though promo DVDs are a great way to discover new and maybe not so new shows to fall for.

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From IGN.com

To Be, or High-Def DVD?
When will the anime companies jump on the high-def DVD bandwagon?
by Scott Collura
July 13, 2007 - When Bandai Entertainment announced that its brand new OVA series Freedom would be released on HD DVD, it got us at IGN thinking. When will the other anime companies out there get around to adopting a high-def DVD format, and when they do, which side in the format war will they choose -- HD DVD or Blu-ray?

Read the whole thing

     I know some people will take this as big news but it isn't.  It is clear that not only is anime to small to profitable in a HD format in North America, any type of media in HD is unprofitable.  While the technology is impressive all manufacture of HD software have overlooked the single biggest hole in their business plans, the pathetically low installed base of HD television sets in the U.S.  Combined with the fact that only in the past 2-3 years DVD has firmly replaced VHS as the dominate market force and two competing standards for HD optical discs most consumers are simply not interested in having to upgrade yet again.  Nearly everyone is holding off for one of two basic reasons, either the don't own an HD tv, or they're are afraid of choosing the loser and being left high and dry ala BETA.  Asking which HD format a company is running with is like asking if you want to be on the Titanic or the Andrea Dora.  Both ships sank at sea even though one was undeniably safer and better built than the other.

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     What makes something the best?  Is it popularity, profitability, quality, a combination of three?  Something else entirely?  This is one of those vexing subjective questions that can start long and heated debates just about anywhere when people have differing views on just what the best really is.  While some individual discs might be score better in reviews the three above are in competition for what I believe to be the best anime series.  Cowboy Bebop, Fooly Cooly and FullMetal Alchemist, all have strong writing, great animation and awesome music, and perhaps most importantly consistantly high quality writing  There are plenty of shows out there that have stand out episodes or story arcs but very few that manage to be simply great from beginning to end.  

     Each show has a lot make it a contender, and each has its drawbacks that make the debate all that much more interesting.  So let us take a look at the contenders in detail.

Contender #1 Cowboy Bebop.

  This show perhaps more than any pther typifies the growth of anime in the US more than any other, sure Akira was well known but Bebop was the first series to find sucess on tv while being aimed at adults rather than children or tweens.  Possibly the best scripted series ever shown on adult swim it stands out for its writing, pacing and wonderfully constructed plot that allows for every episode help be part of a larger story but still be built around its own unique plot.  No mean feat, this along with music that puts many hollywood movies to shame coupled with nearly flawless animation set in a familiar yet distinctly different world.  The only real downside to Cowboy Bebop is the sparsity of extras and lack of a sound mix higher than dolby 2.0.*

Contender #2 Fooly Cooly.

  Coolest Show Ever.  I don't know what it is but this show is almost without comparison.  It has a plot, but it seems to matter very little.  Moving from parody to humor, to drama and where ever else it feels like going this series does more in six episodes than many do in twenty four or fifty two.  Once more excellent animation and superlative music combine with top notch writing to  create something so much greater than the sum of its parts.  Downsides, none aside form its short length, by episode six you find that it suddenly really is over.

Contender #3 FULLMETAL Alchemist.

  FULLMETAL Alchemist is a show that epitimizes strong writing and character development, and it is a show that is not afraid to take risks like killing off a fan favorite character like Mayes Hughes I still remember seeing that episode for the first time and being shocked and in disbelief, but they had really done it.  With a score that simply leaves one in awe for its musicality and beauty it has most impressive score of any anime ever.  The charcaters are what makes this show, one is able to connect with them on a basic, human level that is very rare in televison or movies.  The story is gripping and exciting, yet able to capture the quiet moments that help gives life to the characters and their world.  FMA's only drawback is that it occassionaly gives in to the needs of its original fifty two week run with a handful of filler episodes that play very well but  leave you wanting to get back to the main plot threads and see them adavnced.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 08:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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     As I have said before I am a fan of Anime and Manga, but more than that I am an Otaku, and I am proud to be one.  While some people might associate the term with negative or derogatory meanings or connotative implications, not to me, it simply means that I am a fan, a fan who has seen the ups and downs and stuck with my passion.  I appreciate that bringing new fans to the table is important, and one of my hope for this humble blog is to be an ambassador to the world of the North American Otaku.

 How did, I, a seemingly normal, rational person become an otaku you ask, easy by accident.  In junior high I happened to see a couple of anime videos that my older brother had rented, while he remains a casual fan I got hooked.  The first two anime that I remember seeing all the way through was a subbed VHS of Plastic Little : The Adventures of Captain Tita and a sub of Royal Space Force : Wings of the Honemiese.  While Plastic Little came as a shock to me for its massive fanservice (I had no idea such things could even be done in animation, I truly was an innocent) Royal Space Force was, and remains one of my favorites with its tremendous storytelling, plot and art, it showed that animation could be so much more than Disney-esque animation or thirty minute toy commercials.

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