Gundam 00

Woohoo, it's official, the next Gundam series coming this fall is called Gundam 00, pronounced "double-O" (an object-oriented Gundam?? =)

Here's a trailer from YouTube. The main Gundam looks a bit like the force impulse.

Soukyuu の Fafner: Right of Left (OVA)

Last weekend I watched the Fafner OVA, called Right of Left. It is a prequel to the original series (review here). If you intend to watch the series at all, you should watch the OVA only after you have completed the original series, since there are plot elements here that you are not suppose to know about until later on in the series.

On the other hand, if you are not interested in watching the series, then I think that Right of Left has enough weight to be watched on its own (although having watched the series would certainly increase your enjoyment of the OVA). The key point is that Right of Left does not try to resolve the loose ends left in the series. Even more importantly it does not try to reveal any more information than what the fans of the show already knows, thus avoiding the pitfall of generating more questions than answers.

One thing that was done really well is that all the main characters in the series make a returning appearance... (hmm, I guess you don't really call it "returning" since this is a prequel). In other prequels, very often the scenes with the "returning" characters feels forcefully slotted in and makes you feel like life is just one coincident after another (as much as I love B5, I've to say its prequel "In the Beginning" comes to mind here). Right of Left felt very natural in the way it handled this.

The bottom line is, people who've watched the series will enjoy the revisit to the Fafner universe and seeing the main characters again, at the same time newbies can also enjoy it as a stand-alone story without being burdened with the background information on the series.

My rating: 8/10

Soukyuu の Fafner

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I have just finished watching a series called Soukyuu の Fafner, also known as Dead Aggressor. Fafner tells the story of a group of young kids living on Tatsumiyajima island somewhere off the coast of Japan. The island is a peaceful place where not much happens, and the kids attend to their daily lives without a care in the world. However, this all changes when one day, the island is attack by an alien life form known as a "Festum". The truth is slowly revealed; the rest of the world is already in ruins from the alien invasion and Tatsumiyajima island is the last paradise, and also the last line of defense of mankind. For this reason, Fafners were developed on the island, and only the children of Tatsumiyajima island can pilot these giant robots to fight against the festums.

Kazuki, the main character, aka Shin Asuka's part time role

I am sure that from the above description alone, Fafner is sounding like another series of the EVA genre. That would be a correct deduction. Fafner has all the necessary elements: 1) an incomprehensible alien enemy 2) robots that can only be piloted by children 3) and most importantly, an incomprehensible story line (for most part of the series anyways).

Yes, Fafner has its fair share of dialog that would stop abruptly, or dialog that sound like riddles, keeping the viewers guessing and scratching their heads throughout-out the series. However, I am glad to say that the Fafner manages to escape the pitfall of other animes of this kind, that is, at the end of the series, there is a sense of closure; there is a coherent and comprehensible story underneath all that wishy-washy EVA-ish fluff.

The Fafner Mark Elf	Kazuki and the other main character, Soushi (yaoi territory)	A Festum attacking

All in all, Fafner is an enjoyable series. It has a nice blend of 2-D and CG animation, you never feel that the CG animation is overdone. The cast of characters all have their own very unique and well rounded personalities, that's quite a feat considering the large cast. In a series such as this it's inevitable some characters will die and those moments are really well done; you can feel the pain an anguish that the rest of the characters are going through.

My rating: 8/10

Saikano Movie

I didn't mention that I actually found a subbed version of the Saikano movie a couple days ago. At first I didn't get it because it was in mkv format and I didn't know how to play it. But it turns out to be quite easy, I just need to grab the Combined Community Codec pack. It even plays ogm files, so no need for the Nimo Codec pack anymore.

The movie casts Aki Maeda in the role as Chise and some guy that looks like 古天樂 as Shuji (he doesn't look any way like his anime counter-part, at least they could have made him wear glasses!) The film opens up shortly before the Sapporo raid in the story.

Sapporo Air Raid	Chise, you are on the wrong swing!

Most differences between the movie and the anime are a result of fitting the storyline into the a format what works as a movie; such as fewer supporting characters and some that play slightly different roles. Also, the relationship between Chise and Shuji is not as well developed as in the anime, this is to be expected given the length of the movie. The most significant change is the ending though, which I find weakens the film. I like the anime ending much better.

The special effects in the film was sparse, but those that we do get are done quite well. Some parts of the movie is quite dark though, and I suspect it let's the director get away with doing less special effects.

I was disappointed with the BGM of the film though. I was looking foward to hearing some of the music from the anime. That just didn't happen.

Overall, the movie does a decent job of capturing the essence of the anime. But because of the weak ending and lack of a good soundtrack, I have to give it a lower review than the anime: 5/10

P.S. I changed the template on my blog. I really liked the last template but it had some bugs with rendering the side-bar (some links doesn't appear unless you hover over them).

Darken Skies

Well, this is how the sky looked on my way home today (the top right corner is the massive rain cloud and it's in the direction I was headed). This was just the prelude, within minutes it was pouring cats and more cats... I thought driving through a snow storm was bad, driving through tonight's thunder storm at the peak of it was worst. It was like getting slapped over and over again with sheets of water from every direction. Good thing it was a short drive home.

Finished downloading Saikano OST. There are a couple of tracks I really like, the others were ok... they are nice but I don't recall where I've heard them, so they don't jog my memory about the series at all. The 2 songs I like the most just happens to be the opening and ending songs (not really surprising considering I've heard them so many times). I've uploaded them to my webspace and you can download them from here:

• Koisuru Kimochi (OP)
• Sayonara (ED)

Since space is limited, I probably won't leave them up for a long time.

Saikano

So, recently I am finding a bit more free time on my hands, and hence starting this blog. I am also (finally) taking the time to finish an anime series which I started watching quite a while back, called Saikano (in English, "SHE, The Ultimate Weapon").

Saikano tells the story of the main characters Shuji and Chise in the days leading up to the end of the world. Chise is a small, fragile looking girl while Shuji is quite the opposite; tall and brawny looking. They are quite the unlikely pair. We soon discover that Japan is at war with an unknown enemy and Chise has a major part in it because she has been turned into the "Ultimate Weapon" of the Japanese defense force. As the story progress, we will see Shuji and Chise struggle with Chise's growing abilities and the pain and suffering of war.

This is essentially a love story, but I must say it's one sad and depressing one; definitely not light hearted stuff. I do think the story captures the emotions of the characters very well though, you can really feel the pain they are going through. And the series has some very nice background music too, one of its strong point. The animation is decent for a GONZO production, I don't personal like the style that much but I think it's because they are trying to be true to the manga. Also, GONZO tends to draw "lines" on character faces like scratch marks or wrinkles; it didn't bother me that much in FMP but in this series it is very noticeable because the lines are in red and makes everyone looks like they are blushing all the time (understandable for Chise, but *everyone* is a bit much).

This is still not a bad series, just not as enjoyable due to the grim nature of the story. There's a live action adaptation of the story at the beginning of this year too (http://www.saikano-movie.com/). I hope to see it if I have the chance.

My rating: 6/10