Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 10

In the last episode, Yomi turned into the Schoolgirl in Black after being abandoned by everybody close to her.  Of course, this was after she was turned into a pincushion by the Big Bad, who then healed and implanted a piece of the Death Stone into her.  Hell's comin' to breakfast, and it's hungry... so let's get cracking on Episode 10.

Tonight on CSI: Tokyo, Noriyuki appears to have shaken off his lethargy and angst (not that it was unwarranted) and is actively investigating at the site of Yomi's attack.

Yup, the old "stick in the hole" trick, so as to discover what direction the projectiles came from.  

Of course, they all came from the same direction... a source other than Yomi herself.  In Mr Laser Weasel's mind, this pretty much proves that she was attacked.  Putting away his camera, he mutters to himself, "I suppose she... got the point."

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 09

When last we met, Mei was taken over by a piece of death stone and got all "gimme your stuff" to Yomi, who replied with a "Oh no you dint!" and stabbed her in the face.  Which brings us to Episode 09, also known as "the Episode where everything goes kablooey."

Okay, so Mei lived through having her own naginata shoved into her sinus cavity?  That's the only thing it could be... it's sure not like Yomi needed medical attention after the fight, after all.

All right, never mind then.  Excuse me, Ga-Rei Zero?  Could you explain just what the hell is going on here, please?

I'll take that as a big "no," then.  Thank you very much.

And just how did The Gang get here anyway?  If you're anything like me, and god help you if you are, you're scratching your head right about now.  C'mon, show, explain yourself!  I demand to know what's going on.

Y'know what?  Fine.  Be that way about it.

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 08

In the last episode of Ga-Rei Zero, Mei, who was dead (she got better) appears to have killed Yomi's Dad (YDad) while Yomi herself was off courtin' and sparkin' with Mr Laser Weasel.  Kagura went through a high-end bout of the weepies after killing the brainsucker-controlled school nurse, and her friends decided to beat on her a little bit to boot.  One gets the feeling that things are about to get out of control... so let us see how out of control they get in Episode 08!

We begin with a voiceover from the Schoolgirl in White.

"It was a scene I had seen before.  It was an evening hazed in heavy rain.

"Drowned in the sadness of losing someone important to her, and frightened by the fate that has befallen her.  Unable to do anything, able only to cry and bear the cold passing of time.

"That was me three years ago."

They just keep finding ways to surprise me.  I never would have expected such emotional insight from Ga-Rei Zero...

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Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor Promo released!

It hasn't been a great weekend for yours truly.  In fact, it's been pretty lousy... but this went a good way towards making it better.  The promo for the upcoming Ikkitousen series came out tonight, and wow, it looks great!  Or awful, depending on your point of view.

It should go without saying that everything "below the fold" is NSFW, but I'll say it anyway:

EVERYTHING BELOW THE FOLD IS NSFW!

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 07

When last we left Ga-Rei Zero, the Big Bad (actually a small white-haired pretty boy) had skewered Mei on her own naginata, Kagura had just killed her friend the school nurse (who had been taken over by a brainsucker), and all is higgledy-piggledy.  What, pray tell, will the show that loves to kill its main characters off bring us in Episode 07?

Oh sure, rub it in, Ga-Rei Zero, rub it in.  You've offed one of the more interesting characters you've presented us with, and now you want to make it look all symbolic and stuff.  Nice, very nice.

Wait, what?  Mei's alive? Well that I didn't expect!  Okay, yeah, she's got Godzilla's Toothpick sticking out of where her heart should be, but...

Ah.  You know, I'm thinking that maybe this doesn't exactly fall into the category of "a good thing".

It does get your attention, though.

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 06

When last we watched Ga-Rei Zero, we got filler and lots of it.  In what may have been one of the greatest upsets of all time, what we didn't get was Pocky.  Chocolate-covered biscuit stick fans everywhere mourned.  Perhaps we will get Pocky and plot this episode?  One can only hope...

We open in that location of choice for wire-fu movies, a bamboo forest.  We don't usually get to see hordes of zombies swarming out of the forest, however.  Yeah, like Sammo Hung could deal with that!

Hung might not be able to, but sure as shootin' Kagura's father and Byakuei reckon they can.

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 05

Last time, Kagura's father saved the day, then smacked the crap out of his daughter for having a mental block about taking down human-based nasties.  What, then, does Episode 05 bring to us?

Yomi's dad calls her into his office... to give her a gift.  Y'know, right there's the difference between dads in this show: Yomi gets presents from hers, while Kagura's dad gives his daughter a scabbard across the back of the hands.  Anyway, the gift is one of his late wife's high-end kimonos.  After a few seconds of the Schoolgirl in Black making some of the most outrageous sounds ever heard outside of a bedroom, he brings up... Mr Laser Weasel himself, Noriyuki?  And if she still got along with him, and is she still okay with the arranged marriage?  Wait, the what now?  Turns out Noriyuki is the scion of another powerful family line of Exorcists, and yadda yadda stuff junk yadda. 

She gives a middlin'-long speech about how glad she is that he adopted her into the family, and because of that she's perfectly happy to still agree to the situation.  Well, whaddya know?



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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 04

In the last episode, we jumped back in time three years to see how Kagura, the Schoolgirl in White, first met Yomi, the Schoolgirl in Black.  We discovered that Yomi wasn't always a bad guy bent on driving the animation company into bankruptcy by forcing them to hire new voice actors for each episode because she killed off the entire cast.  So what does Episode 04 bring us?

We start off exactly where the last episode left off, with Kagura getting into The Agency's HMMWV and the group running off to deal with a new threat.

It's not the entire team, though.  Mr Laser Weasel, Nabuu and Nabuu seem to already be on site, leaving Iwahata and Kazuki to pick up the girls.  Considering that Yomi appears to be The Agency's heavy-hitter, and they seem to expect great things from Kagura,  I'd've thought more of an honor guard (perhaps with bosun's whistles) would have been appropriate.  Maybe they don't stand on ceremony much.

An episode of Ga-Rei Zero wouldn't be complete without Pocky.  But, oh-oh, there's only one stick left!  Yomi snags it with a whimsical "first come, first served."  Coming between Kagura and her Pocky, however, can be a dangerous proposition:

Yomi, though, will not be denied her delicious chocolate-covered biscuit stick.


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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 03

As you may remember, at the end of Episode 02 the Schoolgirl in Black, Yomi, seemed to have finished killing off Our (new) Heroes, including the Schoolgirl in White, her friend Kagura.  So just how in the world is Ga-Rei Zero going to continue?  Do we get another bunch of sacrificial heroes?  Nope. 

We get voiceovers:
Kagura: "On that day three years ago, I met someone important."

Yomi: "On that day three years ago, I met a girl lost in sadness."

The woman in the frame is Kagura's mom.  Yomi exorcised the nasty that killed her, while she died in her husband's arms.

Yomi: "That chance meeting was the destiny of two people who bear the burden of fate."
Both: "That is where it all began."

Flashback episode!

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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 02

So Episode 01 of Ga-Rei Zero ended with every character we'd been introduced to, including the two apparent leads, turned into cold cuts at the hands sword of a schoolgirl dressed in a black seifuku.  How can Episode 02 top that?

Well, first it pees all over the dismembered corpses of Our (fallen) Heroes by bringing the recently defeated (via Holy Water-based Aerial Bombing) Category B monster back to life, and putting the few remaining grunts in mortal peril because of it.  As if their day wasn't going poorly enough!  They're outclassed and outnumbered by one monster, and Our (fallen) Heroes' success turns to ashes to boot. 

 ...and then the Category Cs come back, too.  At this point, you just know the grunts are saying "F*ck you, Ga-Rei Zero, just f*ck you."


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Ga-Rei Zero, Episode 01

I d/l'd this show from BakaBT during their recent freeleech event, knowing nothing about it except for two things: one, there are cute girls in it, and two, the series is a prequel to the manga Ga-Rei... which I have never read.  So, in other words, I didn't know anything about it.  But, hey, cute girls!

So these individuals (L to R: Kudou, Tooru, Masaki and Natsuki) are part of a "special action" team, devoted to taking down supernatural forces that threaten Japan (and by extension, the entire world).  They're aided in this task by...

Mami, who's the comms experts.  They're all highly skilled in their individual talents, and they need to be.  They're called out whenever a supernatural disaster is too much for the grunts of their organization to handle... which is what's occurring in episode 01.

The supernaturals are mostly invisible to normal people (even the grunts need technological help to see them), but the heroes can see them easily.  The specters above are "Category C"-level, which is somewhere just above cannonfodder, but there's a lot of 'em in this attack.  They almost overwhelm the grunts, but one squad holds the line and seems to end the disaster.

Until this guy shows up.  It's a "Category B", and it's WAAAAY over the paygrade of the grunts.  Oh, and then the specters regenerate.  The squad is mangled, but our heroes arrive just in time to save the day!

Natsuki's a talented motorcyclist, and her tires are studded with spiritually-charged runes.  Tooru is a sniper, firing rune-encrusted bullets.  He's also good at striking a dramatic pose, no?  He starts plinking away at the Cat B, and she goes to work on the specters...

...first by laying down a protective circle of rune-embossed rubber...

...then by getting a little more in their phantom faces, making her cycle dance on their heads.  While their efforts are quite impressive, and they don't seem to be in any danger, they're not really getting anything accomplished.  Too many baddies, too few heroes.  Until Kudou and Masaki arrive...

...flying a tilt-rotor airplane fire-tanker filled with spiritually-charged holy water!  No more specters!  Tah-dahhhhh!  The Cat B is weakened by this run, and Tooru drops it with a boom headshot.  But there's ANOTHER one.  Our Heroes, guided by Mami, set a trap for it in Tokyo's water supply reservoir system.  But how to get it there?

Oh.  Right.  Natsuki plays bait, the Cat B chases her like a big flaming armadillo, rolling like a ball at high speed down the Tokyo highways and byways.  Eventually they get into the reservoir system, Tooru hits the monster with a sniper rifle, and Kudou and Masaki release the water, passing it through a spiritual filter to turn it into holy water and killing the creature.

Wet and tired, Our Heroes relax with nice hot coffee and witty repartee.



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My Favorite Moments In Anime

A few posts back, I put up a youtube of Funky Cat Maybe! and mentioned that "it's one of my favorite anime things ever."  Which got me to thinking... what are my favorite moments in my anime watching?  Those scenes that immediately jump to mind when somebody asks "why do you like anime?"  They aren't automatically from my favorite shows, though some are, but even a 'meh' show can have classic moments.

Below is my collection of those moments.  They're in no particular order, except for the very last; that's my favorite.  Click 'more' and let's take a look!  Warning: there may be spoilers ahead!

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Funky Cat Maybe and Hajikero! Iincho

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Brickmuppet Will Be In His Bunk

I was never a big fan of Star Blazers, but this looks pretty darn cool.  Brickmuppet, on the other hand, has just had his Wave Motion Gun go off in his shorts.

UPDATE:

(found here)

ANOTHER UPDATE:
Here's who's playing Nova in the movie:

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Sad Wonderduck In Snow

It's winter, and you know what that means to a Kyoto Animation fanboy, right?

It's Kanon '06 time again!  Oh, sure, I could watch this show whenever I feel like, no question.  But to truly feel right, it's gotta be watched during the cold and gray of wintertime.

Lucky for me, a couple of fansub groups have been 'subbing the recent Japanese Blu-Ray release of the show... and if there was one "killer app" that could force me to upgrade everything to BD, this show would be it.  It's from a time before KyoAni went... um... cartoony with their faces.  I mean, let's compare:

The picture on the left is from KyoAni's most recent show, K-On!.  More specifically, it's the main character from K-On!, in the OP sequence, which is where you find the best animation.  The picture on the right, however, is from Kanon '06, is of a tertiary character, and is from an unimportant scene in the first episode.  Which looks better to you?

It's things like this that make KyoAni fans all stabby.

Anyway, Kanon '06.  My second most favorite show.  Blu-Ray.  The final days of my vacation.  Bliss. 

Too bad my computer can't handle full BD resolution without choking...

Oh, and for all those people who say KyoAni can't do fanservice? 



Okay, I admit, it's the last fanservicey shot KyoAni does ever... but still!  I've always wondered just why they put this scene into Kanon '06, other than the obvious.  Nothing like it ever occurs again in the show.  I don't remember it being from the game, so it's not a shout-out.  It's just... there. 

Which is fine (more than fine!), but it's also kinda odd in context.

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Uiharu's Power

One of the few anime series I'm actively following this season, and the only one I consider "appointment viewing", is To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (or A Certain Scientific Railgun when translated to English).  In this show's world, psychic powers are common, and can range from teleportaion to the ability to bend light around one's self so as to appear to be somewhere else to the ability to nullify any other power to just about anything else you'd care to imagine.  I'd not be surprised to hear there's a super-speedster out in this world, for example.  I'm sure there are pretty useless abilities, too.

Our main characters are Mikoto, the eponymous Railgun of the title; Kuroko, a teleporter; Saten, who has no powers; and Uiharu, who does have a power, but we've not seen it in use. 

Or have we?  Over at Chizumatic, the question of Uiharu's ability came up recently when Ubu Roi wondered just what her power actually was.  Oddly enough, I came up with a theory to answer that very question a few episodes back, one that was confirmed just recently!

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When Anime & Formula 1 Collide... Part 3

Well, more like "Light Novel that became source material for an anime & Formula 1 collide," but that's too long to put in the post title.

"It seems other people aren't allowed to follow Suzumiya's train of thought.  She's an amazing person."

Follow her train of thought?  More like she's already lapped the rest of humanity multiple times.  A whole three laps even.  And you can feel the pressure as she creeps up from behind.  It's so intense that at first glance, a person in the stands might be confused and assume you were on the same lap.  That's something only people racing on the circuit would know, and Haruhi isn't going to ease on the pedal, be it an S-Curve, a Degner Curve, or a crisscrossing one.  And on top of all that, she's the only one with a Bussard ramjet engine, which allows her to keep going forever...

-The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa, trade paperback version, pg 125.

For reference:

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Why I Shop At RACS

There are plenty of reasons why any self-respecting anime fan should shop at Robert's: huge selection, a sense of humor, low shipping costs, speedy service, and a huge commitment to customer service are just some of them.

Here's another one.

A few days ago, I was at work when the folks from the mail desk came by and dropped a load of stuff in front of me.  Most of it was crap ("Junk, junk, invoice, junk, credit memo yay, invoice, invoice, junk..."), but there at the bottom was a small-ish box with the distinctive RACS shipping label on it.

"Huh?" said I, for I haven't placed an order there in a couple of months.  Using my handy-dandy boxcutter (we get a LOT of boxes at the Duck U. Bookstore, after all), I sliced it open and found... an envelope?

And underneath the envelope?

Robert had e-mailed me out of the blue back around that terrible day, extending his condolences and sharing some personal experiences that helped, but this was entirely unexpected.

I'm a customer for life.

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When Anime & Formula 1 Collide... Part 2

So in the previous post, Avatar mentioned a show entitled Yakitate Japan.  It seems it's an anime about competition bread-baking... and if you're not rolling your eyes or thinking "yeah, that's a good concept to base a show around, sure", you're just not telling the truth to yourself or others.

Anyway, the whole second half of the series takes place in Monaco... at the same time as the Grand Prix of Monte Carlo.  So of course, there must have been an episode showing F1 cars, right?  Well, right!  Episode 44 contains the relevant 26 minutes, and while I watched it for the F1 aspect, at least the first half of the ep was pretty decent if you like shonen-style shows. 

"But what about the visuals", I hear you asking.  A good question!  Here's an example:

...yep, not only is it pretty clearly a F1 car, it's from the timeperiod appropriate to the production date of the show (2004).  Not at all bad, actually.

But Avatar mentioned that David Coulthard's Chin makes an appearance, and while I'm sorry to say that he doesn't, there is a driver that does...


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Manimani's Best

Sora no Manimani isn't the best show of this season; that's a dead heat between Taishou Yakyuu Musume and Bakemonogatari.  But I'll be damned if it isn't my favorite show of the season, and maybe the whole year.

My favorite part of the show is Sayo Yarai, who's the brains behind the Astronomy Club.  She's also the steadying rock of the club, an excellent balance to the impulsive and frenetic Mihoshi.  If there's ever been an anime I've been drawn to because of a single character, Sora no Manimani would be it, and Sayo would be that character.

Which is not to say that SnM is a one-character show; far from it.  The whole gang is fun to be around (except for the Club President, who tends to pass out and bleed from the mouth if you look at him funny, or if the wind is blowing), the humor ranges from intelligent to slapstick, the art is pleasing to the eye, and the stargazing scenes look fantastic.

But I'd rather have Sayo be the main character.  She's just more interesting than Mihoshi and Saku, both of whom are pretty much cookie-cutter.  Saku's a bookworm and Mihoshi's on speed; we see them all the time in anime.  Sayo's quiet, but not a Rei or Yuki.  She can be goofy, smiles a lot, and people listen when she speaks.

And in ep05, we discover she has some other assets...

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