Shameful Otaku Secret!

Double Oh Nineteen hundred seventy-nine AD. The One Year War begins. Char Aznable, the Red Comet, meets the Federation’s ultimate weapon, the Gundam, for the first time. And White Base begins its long journey.

At least, that’s what happened in the animated world.

In the third dimension, something somewhat less earth-shattering happened: I was born.

Fast forward thirty years. Gundam celebrates its anniversary with a new series announcement, international Tomino appearances, and of course a giant life-size Gundam in Tokyo, while my birthday goes by without so much as an whining post.

I have, however, set out to celebrate my thirtieth year in a truly Gundam-tastic way by finally starting my journey into the grandaddy real robot franchise. I am beginning, appropriately, with the 0079 movies.

Fifty episodes for the series is a bit of a stretch for me these days, and besides — mechafetish and ghostlightning pointed me to the movies with their helpful Gateway Gundam Chooser®.

I’m partially through the second movie, but rather than keep waiting to post, I thought I’d get out my impressions of the first.

(more…)

OK, I admit, I don’t necessarily see a lot of people worrying. But just for a minute, I had a few random distracting thoughts while watching Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen episode 3.

I’ve harped in the past on the issue of believability. You might remember that, it still stings. Of course, it’s a contextual issue – believability in one particular style of anime is a totally different matter in another. In the case of Clannad, where character relationships are pretty much the only thing going, I wanted some believable interactions between characters. Is it too much to ask?

In True Mazinger, I only ask for one thing as well. Robots. Giant robots. Giant robots fucking shit up. In fact, I don’t want to believe anything at all. I want to see a bunch of shit that I don’t believe.

Nevertheless, that old demon of realism rears its ugly head in spite of my attempts to quiet it down. For instance… Kouji on a motorcycle, with Grandpa yelling at him? Or Sayaka yelling from the top of her cockpit without any apparent radio to Kouji inside the locked-down Mazinger. Dear God, how do these people hear each other?

And what, pray tell, about THIS?

Where does Ashura get that kind of leverage, regardless of how strong s/he is?

But is that really important?

Of course not.

What’s important is that, while taking screencaps for this post, I watched the ROCKET PUNCH scene over and over again. And I realized that my ass was no longer in the chair. I was hunched over my computer, wide-eyed, with my heart pounding and tiny drops of sweat beginning to form around my hairline.

Somehow, I was transported back to the very first rocket punch I saw as a kid — what’s going on here might be really transparent manipulation, but I don’t care. I’m not going to worry about that either. I’m also not going to worry about, as ghostlightning calls it, “shitting bricks and calling it a post.” Because I am building a brick fortress right now, and by the time True Mazinger ends, I hope to have a metropolis.

Wow! Every one of my posts begins with something about how I haven’t been around, so I’ll just skip that and say hey… how about the new season? Lots of talk so far on these series, but so far I’m way more excited than I was last season. More legal streaming for US viewers, more remakes of popular series, and if all else fails, at least there’s more Nyoron Churuya-san.

K-ON

Pre-airing thoughts: The script writer from Aria, Ghost Hunt, and quite a few other fantastic light-hearted series adapts a musical manga. OK, I’m listening. But when it’s animated by Kyoto animation, whose beloved status comes at least partially from Haruhi’s Super Effective rock concert scene, even more ears start perking up. This information tells me I can expect: Cute girls, animation accuracy in musical scenes, and a solid script. Will it deliver? Dunno.

You get the idea.

First ep thoughts: Holy shit. If you want moe, you got it. Looks like our lead girl is the Ultimate Dojikko, constantly tripping, falling, failing, crying, being afraid, etc. I can’t tell if I want to squeal in delight or shoot myself. The art looks a lot more like Kyoto Animation defectors A-1 pictures than Kyoto themselves, which is interesting but I’m unsure why. I’m also not sure if I hate this or not, but I’ll continue for the moment. I’m not expecting another Lucky Star by any means (I think we have Haruhi-chan for that), but let’s hope it’s just more than “[insert series] plus music.”

Shangri-La

Pre-airing thoughts: Well, I think Range Murata’s designs are great. A weird mix of cute and hot that you can only get in anime. Of course, that goes for the post-apocalyptic setting as well, and the two should add up to the kind of sexy action adventure that Gonzo does best (when they don’t overdo it).

You get at least part of the idea.

First ep thoughts: Gonzo has taken the Murata designs and simplified them, Druaga-style, until they lack most of their imagination. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but the sweeping cinematic style of some of the opener’s scenes and setup is promising. The future based around the extreme but somewhat-logical conclusion of global warming is intriguing, but could go in either the “effective world-building” direction or the “overcomplicated nonsense” direction. A technical note: Crunchyroll shows TV Tokyo’s uninteresting (to me) offerings in 720p, but Gonzo’s simulcasts are in SD. What gives?

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Pre-airing thoughts: Wait, there’s a new Fullmetal Alchemist?

You get the idea.

First ep thoughts: I seriously noticed this 5 seconds before downloading. Oh wait, Funi’s streaming it? No wonder their video portal site is down. So I was surprised to find that it’s not really a sequel. Is it necessary to reuild FMA as a true-to-the-manga update with slightly more CG and different character design? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll sniff anything Bones shits out, but I’m not sold on this yet. The series isn’t even very old. I’ll continue for a while though, because episode one featured some familiar characters doing their thing, and the action was solid and fun.

Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z Hen

Pre-airing thoughts: So, it’s not a sequel. It’s not a remake. Right. Well, either way, it’s a trip down memory lane for me, with arguably the first robot I ever watched on TV. I’m not certain whether it was Voltron or Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z) but the Rocket Punch will forever stand out in my mind.

HOLY JESUS FUCK SHITSICLE

First ep thoughts: I… wh… um. It just… holy — motherfucker. FUCK. OH MY GOD.

11:14:23 PM otou-san: thanks for writing a half sensible post on mazinger
11:15:00 PM ghostlightning: lol thanks
11:15:14 PM otou-san: I was reduced to sputtering idiocy
11:15:39 PM ghostlightning: i did notice people were just shitting bricks and calling them posts
11:15:56 PM ghostlightning: but i don’t blame anyone
11:16:11 PM ghostlightning: awesome show is awesome

Here I am, calling this brick-shitting a post. Remember a few seasons ago when Soul Eater started? It was an insane ride from minute one of style and action. It was something new, and it was exciting. This, however, is something old and exciting. It drops you, the viewer, into the dead middle of a situation that you can’t possibly begin to handle and then throws as many robots, heroes, villains, explosions, and called-out attacks as it can at you until you’re reduced to a stuttering, drooling, mess of Super Robot lover. Again I’ll invoke ghostlightning, who led me to the conclusion that my beloved Gainax SR beasts like Gunbuster are made to bring about a child-like state, but reward your adult love with cleverness and references. This Mazinger, along with Imagawa’s Giant Robo OVA (which I’m in desperate need of seeing) are actually for the kids. That doesn’t mean you’re too old for it, though. Check this shit out, it’s so brutally amazing. I’m gonna go watch it again.