Fall ‘05 Anime

If you didn’t previously know, I’ve been watching anime (Japanese animation) for years. I first got hooked by Mike and Alan my freshman year of College, and since then I’ve sent off for VHS fansubs of Marmalade Boy and owned Here is Greenwood on Laser Disk. Like any media, there’s the good and the bad, and I tend toward the shoujo (for girls) genre, although I’ve got a huge soft spot for Sci-Fi shows and Initial D. If it’s come out in the last 8-10 years (and isn’t dirty), I’ve probably heard of or seen a bit of it, although my obsession has waned in the past few years - I’ve seen most of the backlog of things I’ve wanted to see, and most new shows aren’t catching my attention.

I got Amy kind of hooked a few months ago - we’ve watched Kokoro Toshyokan, Maria-sama ga Miteiru, Princess Tutu, and Rose of Versailles, and started in on Shoujo Kakumei Utena (until I ran out of DVD’s during the Black Rose arc), and some other random stuff (mainly Ghibili movies).

The new fall season is upon us, so we watched a few first episodes on fansub (links are to the japanese sites for each show):

Ginban Kaleidoscope - Figure skating girl who goes to catholic girls school has a hard fall on the ice and gets possessed by a dead Canadian boy. Go figure. It’s not as weird as it sounds. Amy and I made it all the way through this one. The animation quality is pretty poor but watchable.

Black Cat - Fighting show. Turned it off after about 30 seconds.

Aria - Sci-fi show, but very slow. Girl works for little alien, helping with a gondola business in a venice like city on a different planet. Goes faster than Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, but slower than Kokoro Toshyokan, and has a very nice color and character designs. We got about half way through before Amy decided it was too slow and I stopped it.

Prayers - Sci-fi fighting show with music. Lasted about 5 seconds longer than Black Cat.

Blood + - Watched this with Lucas a few weeks ago. It’s basically a remix of the Blood OVA, so it’s a vampiretastic mahou-shoujo horror show. The dialog needs work - if you think the main character is going to say “BLOOD”, she will. May possibly be interesting, depending on if a plot actually occurs.

Paradise Kiss - (also watched with Lucas) Studious high school girl is accosted by a bunch of fashion/design school students, and gets persuaded to model for them. Very high production values, and interesting characters. Quite possibly worth watching - I think I might try this out on Amy.

Mushishi - (watched with Lucas) Guy hunts forest spirit things called Mushishi, who only he can see. Pretty show with unusual character designs, but kind of creepy. May be interesting.

So, there you have it - a little slice of what I like and don’t like. As a note, I don’t really mind mech or fighting shows, provided they have a good plot. The problem is that’s a rare combination, found only in shows like RahXephon or Gundam 08 MS.

Overall, this season looks like it’ll be ok - 2 or 3 watchable shows is a pretty good ratio.