I watched the downloaded AVIs about three years ago and finally bought the DVD boxsets at a Forbidden Planet sale last October. Jotting down some notes of my third viewing of this series; hopefully this retro-blogging will be of interest to some of my readers.
Episode 1. Fateful Confession: Hundred metre sprinter Hitomi Kanzaki prepares to snag her first kiss from leavin’ on a jet plane team captain Amano. Swordsman Van Fanel appears on the track, followed by a proto- Kagutsuchi land dragon. Hitomi’s premonition saves the day but after Van harvests the Drag-energist from the slain beast, the pair are transported, pillar of light-style, to Gaea.
The earlier run-through vision of Van in the afternoon, the tarot cards and her grandma’s pendulum pendant indicate that Hitomi may be one of those espers that Haruhi-sama is searching for and that she may have a link to Van’s homeworld.
Continue reading ‘Vision of Escaflowne DVD 1: Dragons and Destiny’
I found Onegai Teacher appalling - I disliked the male and female leads, the story was kinda dumb with the Rip Van Winkle sickness and alien/UFO thing. In contrast I enjoyed Onegai Twins very much - I liked the three main characters and the simple, elegant way the story was built around their past, moving towards the future. As such, it passes the rewatchability test (aka as the Jeff Lawson test) which is my first condition for proceeding with a DVD purchase. RightStuf also offered a great price for it during their Twelve Days of Christmas sale - second condition, tick! (Currently they’re having a 20% off Spring Cleaning sale until 30 Mar 2008.)
Continue reading ‘Seeing Double: Onegai Twins DVD Review’
Although my good brother Stripey includes Mai HiME as one of top ten animes with botched endings, for a long time, his view was a much more considered and tempered one than mine. And he liked the series so much that he asked me to take advantage of RightStuf’s Twelve Days of Christmas sale and purchase the Mai HiME DVD bundle for him at USD 69.99 (works out to about SGD 18.50 a DVD, including S&H - what a bargain!).
I have to confess to being one of those who were bitterly disappointed by Mai HiME’s ending. But, at Stripey’s request (’Please check if the DVDs work, quality ok etc etc.’) I rewatched the series and have been converted to Mai HiME fanboyism. Just as that cunning eviiiiiil tanuki had foreseen! >_<
Continue reading ‘Mea Culpa on Mai HiME’
History repeats itself, Marx has said, first as tragedy, second as farce. Or as blood out of a stone of a venerable and much beloved anime franchise. I’m not saying that Solid State Society sucked, but it certainly did not live up to my astronomically high expectations. For Haruhi’s sake, this is Ghost in the Shell after all, Ghost in the Shell!
I went into it with my eyes open, informed, in equal parts, by Washi’s review *gentle poke for post-raw thoughts* and by a raw I downloaded. Bought the GITS:SSS DVD from Forbidden Planet. It was beautiful, it was well paced, it was entertaining, it built on the stories of GITS:SAC and 2nd Gig, it ended nicely with the major threads tied up but also with a big loose end hanging out there. That is, GITS.
But the formula seemed somewhat diminished. Still good, relative to many other anime OVAs or movies, but rather less good, relative to its own franchise. There’s only a certain number of times that the Major can leave. And then return. Likewise for the tachikomas. Or for stories, drawn from the original manga, retold in a different light, in a different context.
Continue reading ‘The Melancholies of Motoko Kusanagi’
Two orders from RightStuf arrived today. Over the three weeks it took them to make their trans-Atlantic journey, I’ve been brooding about the relative success of US-based anime distributors’ strategies vis-a-vis my wallet and how we, fansub-downloading anime fans, can better market ourselves.
The first shipment was a pre-order, made during the previous RightStuf Bandai sale, for the Haruhi Limited Edition boxsets 2-4 and joins the first Haruhi LE boxset in my anime DVD collection now. The second batch was a panicked order, a few weeks later as GENEON USA announced that they were closing down, for the first season of Black Lagoon, the Kannazuki no Miko and Kamichu! boxsets (with ADV’s 801 TTS Airbats and Bandai’s Onegai Twins also in this shipment).
Continue reading ‘Can the Church of Moyism bring salvation to animebloggers?’
I watched the downloaded AVIs about three years ago and finally bought the DVD boxsets at a Forbidden Planet sale last October. Jotting down some notes of my third viewing of this series; hopefully this retro-blogging will be of interest to some of my readers. 
