2chan.us

I won a Gundam model in an OTAKU USA drawing.
Thanks, Patrick Macias. Thacias.

(Too bad I have no idea how you put it together.)

I’m back from Japan, much poorer in yens, much richer in useless wota crap, and with a horribly broken LCD on my laptop. While there, I met some cool guys (a post-doujin event trip to a bar with 400 kinds of whiskey and an actual beer selection and talking Nerd with a few hundred dollars of doujin and many times that of Dollfie present), some not as cool guys (NEW GAMES JOURNALISM), and enjoyed doing very little of substance during my summer break. I’m still working on that last one, by the way. However, my boring-ass summer is not what this post is about. This post is about anime for MEN. Unfortunately, I’m fairly sure that AWO has spoken at length about every show in the past 15 years that involves the fine things in life, like rape, heads exploding due to gunshots, and pissing in eyes, so my options are fairly limited.

If you’ve ever spoken to me for a moderate+ length about anime, I’ve more than likely mentioned the wonderful phenomenon of fansub burnout. Allow me to explain: when one works on a fansub, they end up watching an episode of the show that’s being subbed probably 3, 4, maybe even 10+ times before finishing whatever job they have in production. To be frank, I’d be hard-pressed to re-read, re-watch, or re-play 95% of any work of entertainment of my choice, and much more often than not, whatever I’m translating is often not in that wonderful 5% for one reason or another. So, it’d only be natural that somewhat negative thoughts become associated with a subbed show. For example, I can probably count the times that I’ve actually downloaded the finished product of something I translated on one hand. The fact that almost every series I translate, thinking, “oh, this will never get licensed in the states!” gets licensed probably contributes to this. Another manifestation of fansub burnout is never finishing a series that I drop, no matter how interesting the show looks. It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish up Ichigo Mashimaro, (not quite as embarrassing as having to download fansubs by a group called r0r1p0p) and I keep telling myself that I really, really need to buy Kamichu dvds. Don’t get me started on Gurren-Lagann, either.

One of the many shows that fell off my radar after subbing a whopping two episodes was Bartender. I had pretty mixed feelings about the show while subbing it. After watching the first two episodes, it was hard to tell how the show would go–I could dig the concept and style, but between some possibly nationalistic undertones and not quite knowing if they’d advocate drinking your pain away or not, I wasn’t completely comfortable with the series. Unsurprisingly, it went way on the back burner, to the point where I didn’t even keep up to date with the fansubs beyond some very minor drama over re-encoding some ridiculously sized fansub encodes.

Fast forward to about 10 months later, as I’m about 40 episodes through G Gundam, thinking that its burning shonen heart is in the right place, but it ultimately pales in comparison to GaoGaiGar pretty much across the board. Eyeing Mobile Suit Gundam as the next series I’m going to watch through, (no, I haven’t seen it, yes I am ashamed of myself) I start to realize that I’m getting pretty tired of really big robots, so I start to think about a potential short series to watch in between. After all, if I don’t take care of myself, I might get robo-exhausted again and end up not watching anything for two weeks like that time after I finished Ideon. But what to watch? I can’t go cold turkey on the GAR factor, but I don’t want any main characters taller than 30 feet. I need something to soothe my frayed yet manly nerves. Hold on a minute, I think I… Gar… Bar… TENDER! I quickly snapped up Lunar’s subs of Bartender and went to work after coming back from AFO, a Florida Con that ended up being worth the $50 for the weekend that either astrange or I ought to talk about soon but likely won’t.

Bartender (the anime, I won’t deal with the manga here–I skimmed it when I was subbing it, and it seemed a fair bit different) is an episodic show with a very simple premise: A troubled man (or woman) comes into Eden Hall, the bar tended by Sasakura Ryu, aka Bartender, aka “Glass of the Gods”, an extremely talented bartender. There’s a little bit of exposition, then Bartender serves them the exact drink they want need to soothe their souls and begin fixing their problems. Cue a few reaction shots, then an explanation of why he knew what drink, also known as the “Glass of the Gods” (yes, the exact same thing as what some people call him. I don’t know why they do this.) they needed. Cue a few ending lines and then cut to credits.

I remember hearing that “Bartender is Iyashi-kei for businessmen” when this show first came out, and I really couldn’t agree more. It’s like… 3 parts Aria to 2 parts Yakitate Japan to 1 part Golgo 13, just enough to kill the light-hearted fancy of Aria, with a splash of House, M.D. to taste. The issues that the customers have are pretty mundane for anime, mostly things like wondering if their salaryman lives have ultimately been spent well, trying to tell your wife that you see for 10 minutes a day that you love her in any sort of meaningful way, and just finding the strength to survive in the business world in general. Like I said, lots of themes that Japanese businessmen can relate to. In fact, one of the major themes of the entire show that the bartenders talk about is how the job of the bartender is a life of silent service to the customer, and how the man should never overshadow the craft. I’m honestly surprised that this didn’t turn me off from the series, since I can really get to hate a series when it gets too preachy and heavy-handed, but I ended up feeling more sympathetic and endeared to the show than anything. Maybe I’m destined for a life as an assistant manager in a cubicle for a trading company somewhere in Tokyo, who knows. The first and last episodes depart from the formula a little, and the last episode can feel like they kind of cobbled together half an episode with some recap and overarching story, but it’s nothing too egregious.

Two things in the series show up over and over, again probably mainly of interest to 30-50 year old males: Artistic, usually literary references, and lots of information about liquor. Naturally, as a 19-year-old college student, I loved it. The artistic references seem to be made so that pretty much anyone watching the show will get them, and even if you don’t, then they explain exactly where they came from anyway. It could be anything from a quick gimme quote from The Little Prince to an entire episode spent analogizing a stagnating man’s situation to Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea. Most of the time it was executed well, and at least they cited their sources, much unlike Kino no Tabi. (iceburn!!?!!) I’m not quite as up on my facts about liquor, but I’m always interested in studying fine spirits in one way or another, so I learned a lot of interesting new things there. ESPECIALLY that a bartender is named such because “he makes the bar tender.” Wait, no, that’s not right at all. Anyway, I don’t quite know if Bartender gets as hardcore or opinionated as Oishinbo or Sommelier, but there’s some neat facts in the show that normally get tied into the episode’s featured drink. I’d hate to sound like the guy at AFO that was trying to say how visual novels teach you lots of interesting things, like how the bends work, (!!) but nearly all the little facts in here were honestly entertaining for me.

The show is also pretty good as far as technical aspects go, too. The voice cast is mostly unremarkable in both name and performance. The women sound like women, the angry bitches sound like angry bitches, the super-suave bartender sounds super-suave, the old man narrator who is not Norio Wakamoto sounds like an old man narrator who is not Norio Wakamoto, and so on. Nothing stood out as particularly bad to me, so on the whole, it’s a perfectly serviceable cast. The animation was apparently done by the same company that did the Genshiken TV series, and was pretty hit-or-miss. There’s very little action, so most of the face shots and everything look great. Of course, there are a few instances of terrible, terrible faces, but that’s pretty par for the course for non-A list tv anime. There’s a bit of 3d work in there, mostly in the form of various real liquor bottles. I’m not very exacting when it comes to 3d, so I was happy with it. It was certainly better than Akagi, or the first ep of Bokurano.

According to ANN, Yasuhiro Imagawa, the Director/screenplay writer/story concept guy for Giant Robo did series composition and the screenplay for Bartender, and that should be more than enough for anyone important to at least give it a shot. Unfortunately, my kung-fu is not yet strong enough to judge how well the series composer did, but I’m just going to pretend that he was the magic ingredient that made the show work. The direction in the show is pretty unique. The fourth wall is flimsier than a late-20th century theater performance. In fact, a lot of the dialogue in general almost feels like a play, as characters that are nowhere near each other complete the other’s sentences or answer their questions, narrate stories, stuff like that. It might seem really lame in some settings, but once again, it seemed to work here. Maybe that’s the screenplay writer shining through, who knows. A few funny wipes and transitions here and there, but no real Shinboesque auteur-directorship here. Despite hating light jazz with every ounce of my being, I loved the pop-jazzy solo piano and drums soundtrack. The OP is kind of ridiculous but catchy, and the ED is fine, I guess, especially if you like goldfish exploding while a real bartender makes the featured drink of the show. I especially liked the live bartender doing the IMPOSSIBLE DOUBLE-HAND POUR THAT ONLY 5 BARTENDERS IN JAPAN COULD POSSIBLY DO pretty much effortlessly. I can’t tell if that speaks to the bartender’s ability or the ridiculous Initial D-style QUADRUPLE CLOSE-UP ON THE FACE REACTION SHOT move they do a few times in the show.

Lunar did a pretty good sub job on the show. I only had a few tiny nitpicks here and there on the subs, most of which are less mistakes and more stylistic disagreements, and the video quality is great, although they had a nasty habit of not being able to run without slowing down here and there on my 2.53ghz 1gb ram economy desktop. Hmm.

Overall, I liked this show a whole lot more than I thought I would. It has kind of a seinen cheesiness to it while still managing to be honestly entertaining and somewhat charming. The episodes are really easy to watch through and might not be the most original of scenarios, but whenever it might start to drag, the alcohol trivia that got tied into the situation saved it for me. The writing is backed up by fairly solid and somewhat unique direction and is all done in a subdued style that works well for the series. I’d strongly recommend this to any hard seinen fans (REAL MEN), slice-of-life fans that don’t require cute girls in their shows, and pretty much anyone in general that’s looking for a nice episodic series to watch to just chill out, kind of like Aria. Oh yeah, and anyone that wants to see practical applications of Navier-Stokes equations in anime. Now, off to find a barback position at a bar around here…

This is TEXHNOLYZE if it were a samurai show.

Director: same
People with limbs missing -> samurai with limbs missing
Juno Reactor OP -> abstract art and traditional drums OP
Woman licking a guy’s eyeball for several minutes -> guy driving sword into his foot for several minutes

Unfortunately,
Chiaki J. Konaka -> not Chiaki J. Konaka
ABe -> not ABe
All samurai shows not “Black Lion” or Musashi GUN-doh: boring

So, like, Anime Expo happened. I didn’t go because it’s a few too many thousand miles away, but I hear this stuff happened:

• Darker than Black, licensed by Funimation
• Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, licensed by ADV (including TV broadcast rights)
• Emma, a Victorian Romance (all of it!), licensed by Right Stuf

The aimlessness of some of DTB’s arcs is getting to me, but the writing really is surprisingly smart. Gurren-Lagann is great, of course, so it’s too bad that “TV broadcast” probably just means THE ANIME NETWORK, NOT FOR KIDS, TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.

I’m sure all sorts of people are going to complain that the production companies actually making a profit is depriving them of free cartoons by now, but I just want to point out the great arrangement for Emma: $37 a season, one box set per, no dub.

That makes it about $3 an episode! And you get your name in a meaningless special thanks list on the DVD if you preorder! Make this your daily recommended maid allowance.

This movie is pretty TOTALLY AWESOME.

I just saw Galaxy Express 999 last week, and I’m about to go see Paprika tomorrow, but I’m sure it could give either one of them a run for their money.

Would recommend to anyone with eyes.

Get this fansub: Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo [roxfan] (English & Russian – MKV)

The ANN reviewed it here; they’re mostly spot-on, but I don’t agree with them about the last third. It does suddenly introduce plot out of nowhere, but it was probably the best part of the whole movie. It’s the fault of the earlier section for not leading into it properly!

Besides, as you can see from any Captain Harlock movie, not explaining things is a proud anime movie tradition.

I didn’t really watch anything at all today. In fact, I don’t really know where most of today went, aside from burning a lot of DVDs and doing some reading. Anyway, since I threatened that I’d do it last post:

Episode 6:
A two pronged attack
Sayaka sucks again but
Has a panty shot

Not much meat here at all. Skim.

Episode 7:
Ashura turns female
Turns the town against Kouji
Zambot 3… again.

You don’t want to fight?
Sayaka, get your shit straight.
That bitch be trippin’.

Oh fuck it’s King Kong
Guess who gets set on fire
Guess who saves the day

This summary is longer, so the episode must be better. Some of the conflict in the episode is like what episode 5 touches on, except it goes a little more in-depth, and it actually affects Sayaka to the point where she doesn’t want to fight. Thankfully, grandpa and little kid deliver passionate burning speeches on why we must fight, and so the day is eventually saved. Overall, a solid episode of old robot animes. Watch.

Episode 8:

Sayaka goes out
Gets her ass kicked by robots
Kouji saves the day.

A girl wants to fight?
They should know better than that.
Chauvinistic pigs.

By this show’s standards, Sayaka might actually be more moé than your average anime girl: tsundere AND uneducated! She might get out of line every once in a while, but because everything she does is doomed to failure, you’ll win her heart in the end! Did I mention goggles and a one-piece pilot suit? Although, considering that the last episode was nothing but SAYAKA, YOU MUST FIGHT, it’s hard to figure out what they’re trying to say here. Oh well, I can’t help myself–Watch.

Episode 9:

Robot Devilman
The doctors get hypnotized
Kouji saves the day

I’ve got a couple of issues with this episode: First off, Dr. Hell’s plan. First make a robot that can re-assemble itself when it gets broken apart, then hypnotize the scientists into letting Mazinger out so that you can re-assemble the robot that’s lying in pieces on the ground to beat up Mazinger in open daylight. I mean, first of all, couldn’t you put Mazinger somewhere where Kouji couldn’t just fly up into it? Second of all, why make your robot with the ability to re-assemble itself when you could just do something like drive Mazinger into wherever your robot is waiting? Or maybe take some of the money you spent for that technology and oh, I don’t know, figure out how to not get killed by breast fire YET AGAIN?. Really, now, Dr. Hell. I’m starting to think that you got your degree in villainology from a diploma mill or something. Skim.

Episode 10

Disembodied hand
Ashura shows up again
Brother gets kidnapped

Oh no, time to fight
Lazily designed robot
Evil rocket punch?!

Now, I complain about the uninspired robot design here, but at least they didn’t do something ridiculous like make an entire series based on the robot. However, this episode is notable in that Sayaka actually does something useful! Since the evil robot this time around apparently doesn’t know that Sayaka’s missiles are completely useless, he uses one of his rocket hands to destroy one of her missiles, allowing Mazinger to FINGER MISSILE him into oblivion. Good job, Sayaka! (`-‘)b Skim.

I’m not entirely sure why people would still be reading this, because anyone that wants to watch Mazinger Z probably already has, and anyone who read the first installment of this series is probably never reading this blog again anyway.

Episode 3:

Summary: Sayaka wrangles up the local bunch of no-goodniks who freely sling insults at each other “You this guy!” to challenge the new hotshot in town, Kouji Kabuto. But first, she has them clean up the house he’s going to move into. Once Kouji gets there and steps out of his van, (I don’t think he’s 20 years old but we’ll let that slide), he walks up to the troublemakers and says “Excuse me”. Because the directors are that awesome, this causes some dramatic music to suddenly start up, accompanied with close-ups of everyone’s faces looking really shocked, like he just set a box of stray kittens on fire. Coincidentally, this is much like what talking to natives in Japan as a foriegner is like, just without the dramatic music. They then engage in some fisticuffs until Sayaka shows up and gets them to stop. Men are such pigs.

The action then cuts to Baron Ashura, who finds Dr. Hell destroying his robot army, because he has to build a new robot army to defeat Mazinger Z. Destroying all that recyclable metal? What an asshole villain. We’re then treated to Kouji not being able to control the Hover Pilder/Mazinger Z some more while Sayaka yells at him. He gets really confident once he figures out how to walk, then manages to injure himself in a fairly violent way while trying to stop running. It’s no Ideon-style toddler decapitation, but it’ll do. Ashura/Hell figure that now is their chance to attack, and send out the fearsome GROMAZEN R9. The bad guys send out their faceless generic evil dudes to distract Kouji in his home (featuring posters such as MODERN JAZZ, I hope he goes to John Zorn concerts and grows a goatee on the weekends) while Gromazen goes off to destroy the research lab. Kouji gets warned about the attack, then takes off in the Hover Pilder, confounding the generic evil guys. Kouji gets into Mazinger Z. Some time during all of this, Sayaka decides to get in the completely unarmed Aphrodite A and stop Gromazen. Shockingly, Gromazen literally disarms her and almost steps on her until Mazinger Z wrecks his shit with his rocket punch. This will not become a common theme, I swear to god. While rescuing Sayaka, Kouji unintentionally dodges a heat laser or something, and Aphrodite A gets damaged even more. Kouji presses buttons until he hits the BREAST FIRE button and then he wins. It’s then decided that Kouji needs a battle suit that’s straight out of the 80s to keep him from hurting himself some more. The episode then ends with another threatening message from the bad guys. (“Those dare to turn against Dr. Hill won’t have good end!” Perhaps this means they will have a BAD END.) I think they get the point, but whatever.

Closing Thoughts: This seems to be the point in every long kids show where you’re right on the cusp of the monster of the week episodes. Kouji pretty much has everything down, he’s got his battle suit, and he’s starting to figure out which buttons to press to deal massive damage to the giant enemy robots. However, at this point, it’s still kind of fresh, so Watch.

Episode 4:

Summary:We start off the episode with the robot of the week, GAIA Q5. It has ultramagnetic power, and with it, they can control other robots. Neato! Then we find out that some people want to put missiles on Aphrodite A so that it can defend itself from attacks. (Massive spoilers: THEY NEVER DO SHIT) Where will the missiles go? Oh, in her breasts. Duh. Cut to Kouji being introduced to a new school as a mysterious transfer student. All the troublemakers he dealt with last episode, including the ringleader known only as BOSS, also go to this school. How will they settle their differences? It’s so easy, Kouji answers, by a BIKE RIDING COMPETITION! And when is a better time to have this competition then during school? So immediately after being introduced to the class, Kouji walks out on class, along with everyone else in it. Kouji wins the competition because he can do flips with his motorcycle while jumping over a dumpster, and he can also jump off of a moving bike and then back onto it. Sayaka eventually comes along in Aphrodite A. Apparently, she dropped out of school after middle school. Good, girls don’t need education anyway! While she’s visiting the school, she suddenly gets controlled by Gaia Q5. Then she gets beat up. Good thing Kouji is there to save the day! Unfortunately for Kouji, Gaia is immune to rocket punches, and then starts to control Mazinger. Good thing the scientists have some sort of anti-magnetism gun that they can get Kouji’s brother and Boss to shoot at Mazinger! Kouji starts his ultimate “randomly press buttons” attack until a missle comes out of Mazinger’s stomach and blows Gaia up. The episode ends with Kouji and Boss getting in trouble for skipping class. Glad to see they got what’s coming to them.

Closing Thoughts: I’m pretty sure that we’re firmly into Monster of the Week territory at this point. But, between the various missiles and Boss, we get a tiny bit of plot/character development, so I’ll say Watch.

Episode 5:

Summary: Dr Hell has a new weapon! It makes lots of illusionary copies of things. His “Ghost Plan” is so perfect, he’s sure Mazinger will be defeated. Defeated by what, you ask? By Kingdan X10, that’s who! Stuff happens, like Kouji getting attacked by faceless guys who manage to commit suicide by climbing up an electric tower and electrocuting themselves when they get caught by Kouji. We then learn what the “Ghost Plan” actually entails, as a mysterious copy of Mazinger Z appears, which Dr. Hell tells the good guys that he created. The town-folk see fake Mazinger destroying things on TV and then get mad at Kouji and co when Baron Ashura starts to rouse some rabble. Oh no, what will they do without the support of the normal citizens? Get in their robots and blow things up! It’s just like a Zambot 3 episode! Anyway, the bad guys use the illusions to get Mazinger to waste all his energy while they plant a bunch of landmines. While this is going on, the supporting cast of children try to see what’s going on with all this fake Mazinger nonsense, but then get captured by the bad guys and promptly are crucified. Why don’t we do that here in America? As it turns out, this is all part of the trap to lure Mazinger into the landmines. That weakens Mazinger some more. Then, Kingdan comes out and makes a bunch of copies of himself, then does what every Japanese villain does when he makes a lot of copies of himself: Circle around the good guy really fast! This uses up some more energy. Oh no, now Mazinger is out of energy! What will he do now? He must destroy X10! (you knew the joke was coming.) Fortunately, he’s not so out of energy that he can’t use breast fire and melt Kingdan X10. Kouji shakes hands with Boss and they settle their misunderstanding. Dr. Hell gets mad at Ashura. Episode over.

Closing Thoughts: This Monster of the Week episode is somewhat unlike most other monster of the week episodes, mostly because Sayaka doesn’t get in nearly as much trouble as she normally gets into. However, breast fire is still incredibly imba. Nothing particularly great about this one, I have to say. Here begins what may be a long series of Skims. Make sure to watch the kids get crucified, though! Too bad they don’t get set on fire while on the cross, though, then I could accuse them of ripping off Drifting Classroom.

This takes entirely too long. Maybe I’ll do the next round of filler episodes in haiku format.

From MOON PHASE, who, being Japanese anime writers, have real journalistic standards.

TV ANIMES

06/09 Wangan Midnight – Muscle cars and ugly people

06/11 Treasure Gaust – lame kids show

06/14 Devil May Cry – Haha, video game anime.

06/24 Tetsuko no Tabi – A railroad otaku does his thing and a comic author follows him, drawing this anime as she goes. Meta!

OVAS

5/30-
Murder Princess ep 3
Marimite ep 4

06/06 Sakura Taisen New York ep 2

06/08 Tales of Symphonia – Haha, video game anime.

06/22 Gundam SEED SUPERNOVA

06/22 The Prince of Tennis National Convention ep 2

06/27 To Heart 2 ep 2

None of these shows are as good as Otokojuku, so you should watch that instead.

In upcoming news, I save Mac users forever.

Because he is a robot. Because he is a machine.

Before I start this post, I’d like to take the time to mourn the passing of youtube user Koike68, mentioned in the previous post. I assume that he was cut down in his prime by an overzealous PPGZ fan.

Anyway, while the rest of the internet was busy being outraged that a very minor manga publisher made a last-second business move by cancelling a series that at worst could have cause their own financial ruin, and at best could have lost them a modest amount of money, I was busy doing far nobler things. Namely, translating Sakigake!! Otokojuku and watching Mazinger Z. Who needs to keep current with one of the best seasons in recent memory when I could be watching rocket punche– scratch that, breast fires? Certainly not me. I’m only about 14 episodes in, but I already wish that one of these newfangled web blog 2.0 things had episode summaries so that I could know when to just skim through an episode and when to actually try to pay attention. I’m planning on having these posts go Summary, closing thoughts, and then a rating of either Watch or Skim for those who can’t really afford to watch all 200,000 episodes of this show. Note that paying attention is somewhat of a feat, since I’m normally playing WoW while watching Mazinger. (oh no my summer)

I’ve already talked too much for a post that’s supposed to be episode summaries/thoughts on each episode so here goes:

Episode 1:

Summary: The episode/show starts by introducing Intersexed (I will be noting awesome HK bootleg terminology in these posts whenever possible) demivillain Baron Ashura (Asla) and major plotting villain Dr. Hell (Dr. Hill, the HK version of this show must have propane-powered robots). Dr. Hell is the fairly standard hunched over supervillain that builds a lot of robots because he’s crazy while Baron Ashura is freaky as hell and is pretty much Herm Twoface. It’s very interesting to note that whichever side of the Baron’s face is shown on camera is the side that talks. This seems very impractical in real life, and I’m sure that if I was a film major that there would be a very interesting term for this camera technique. Many Giant Evil Robots are introduced. With such powerful army is equal to have the whole world. But one man is stumbling block.

Dr. Kabuto, with his newly discovered Japanium (Japanese Aluminum), only found in Mount Fuji (groan) can do all sorts of crazy shit with this metal, like shoot lasers at it and nothing happens. This is No.1 invention in the world. However, he gives up his lab, probably because he knows that 75% of important old professors in giant robot shows die before the second episode. Right as he does this, Baron Ashura is on the way over in a submarine to kill him. We then get introduced to Kabuto Koji, who has awesome hair and an awesome bike and if you can’t tell that he’s going to pilot the giant robot then you’re pretty dumb. Dr. Kabuto’s lab gets bombed, which is an excellent lead-in to one of the excellent insert songs. Also, Koji swims his motorcycle through the sky around town some more. Koji finds his grandfather (Who cause grandpa like this? he asks) who gives him Mazinger Z, the awesome robot that wears black briefs. Grandpa then promptly dies.

We then get introduced to the Hover Pilder, essentially the cockpit of Mazinger Z. Koji’s not very good at piloting it, and tries to beat it up. (It’s useless for his insignificant skill, his brother deftly notes. Don’t verbiage! Koji admonishes him.) Naturally, Koji figures out how to dock within a few minutes. Of course, he then figures out that he has no idea how to actually pilot Mazinger, and it runs around in a forest a lot and recycles a lot of footage. Right before Koji crushes his helpless, annoying brother, another giant robot appears and holds him back! It’s Aphrodite A(Afrota S), piloted by the foxy Sayaka. Koji gets mad at her for stopping his lack of piloting, and kicks her away. (You this guy! Sayaka curses.) After a bit of coaxing from her dad, she stops being mad at him. However, Dr. Hell has begun to destroy the city, and Mazinger Z is the only one who can save them! Too bad Koji still can’t keep it from doing anything but running in a straight line! What will happen next time on Mazinger Z?? Seriously, these robots are evil, they’re shooting missiles at tanks labeled “MOON OIL”. He’s gotta do something.

Closing Thoughts: For an introductory episode to a giant robot show, this was paced surprisingly well, and seemed to diverge at least slightly enough to make it interesting. Between the freakiness of Ashura, the immense moetic appeal of Sayaka, and the pure burning passion of Koji’s hair and motorcycle, the characters hold your attention. I’ve seen a pathetically small number of old robot shows, but the first episode here seemed pretty great for what it is. The HK subs help too. Naturally, Watch, it’d be pretty dumb not to watch an episode that probably has 20% of the entire show’s plot.

Episode 2:

Summary:The city burns while Koji tries to learn how to pilot Mazinger Z. Sayaka tries to teach Koji, but he’s too manly to learn things from others, for the most part. He starts to get it, then walks robot hand in robot hand with Aphrodite A. A dash of recap here, a sprinkle of predictable guy blushing in front of girl there, and then we get some more plot background: Dr. Hell was researching an ancient civilization when he found a mythical giant! No, not the Ideon. Anyway, Dr. Hell goes kind of crazy and builds himself an Evil Robot Army and turns on the other researchers. Dr. Kabuto was the only survivor, and thus decided to spend the rest of his life trying to figure out how to fight said Evil Robot Army. Oh, wait! They’re still attacking the city! Koji doesn’t know how to pilot Mazinger, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting! Devil Z”is powerful, butKouji’s control is so poor.He may lose in the fighting.

The robots face off and knock him down, then injure Sayaka. Sayaka gets beat up a lot in this show, and Koji saves her a lot, too. It gets kind of annoying after a while. Oh well! With a little help from Sayaka, his armor that his opponents can’t damage, the spirit of his dead grandfather, eye beams, hurricanes and ROCKET PUNCH (all unleashed by the secret Japanese martial arts technique of “press buttons on this panel until things happen”), he absolutely demolishes the bad guys. Mazinger carries weak, unarmed Aphrodite back to the lab, where Sayaka sits in a bed to recover. Then, all of a sudden, Dr. Hell calls them up on videoconference and tells them that he’s totally going to wreck their shit so they best watch how they step! Thanks for the heads-up, Dr. Hell.

Closing Thoughts: The show already begins to slow down, but thankfully we haven’t already hit filler. We’ve got a first fight scene here, as well as some great scenes of Mazinger Z spinning in circles because Koji is incompetent. We also have a little more backstory in the form of Dr. Hell’s flashback. The theme of Sayaka/Aphrodite A being in danger, then Koji saving her begins here, too. It’s kind of 70s-pleasant the first time it happens, but around the 10th time or so, it gets kind of ridiculous. As it stands, the only thing Sayaka has over Koji is the fact that she actually can pilot a giant robot. That, and her slim, sexy figure that’ll drive any man mad. MAD… MAD! er, Watch.

Well, originally this was going to be summaries of the first ten episodes, but it has taken me a good hour to do the first two episodes, so I’ll quit here. Since the filler starts to ramp up in the next few episodes, things should go faster from there. Hopefully.

It is this.

http://stage6.divx.com/AlphaHack/video/1212894/Radical_LuckyStar_Burst

All the other ones can be found by subscribing to Koike68 on Youtube, but they seriously aren’t as good as that one.

(Although I sort of like the RED FRACTION cover…)

thx mrpeabody