With the Wimbledon tournament in full swing this week, what better import anime to dig out of the closet than the early-’70s classic Ace wo Nerae!, or Aim for the Ace!, the story of a young rookie tennis player under direction of a strict coach. While the animation was picked up in Europe for French, Spanish, and Italian translations, it never received an English one for the UK or US, though fan groups have subtitled copies. Official copies of the imports seem out of print as well, so it’s become increasingly difficult to find, though in 2004 the story was revisited in a live-action version as well.
Story Intro
New to high school and an elite tennis team, Hiromi is awed by the shool’s top players and scared of the new coach Munakata-san, whose strictness and apparent mean streaks prompt the nickname Oni-Coach (Demon-Coach). But Munakata-san, a former tournament player himself, senses something in Hiromi’s rookie ways and chooses her to be among the top players to play in tournaments. Hiromi must deal with the entitlement issues and revenge tactics of unchosen seniors, strenuous training while losing early tournament matches, and romantic distractions in order to become an ace player herself.
The anime version of Yuzo Takada’s 3×3 Eyes was released as two OVA series: four animated episodes in 1991 skip a few years of plot to a final three episodes in 1995. DVD editions here in the states are now out of print, and the translated manga stopped after nine volumes of the original forty.
Story Intro
Late for work one day, Yakumo speeds on his scooter and knocks over a pretty girl, Pai. Turns out this girl was looking for him, as she’s carrying a letter from his late father asking him to help her become human. She’s the last of an ancient race of immortal demons, though he doesn’t believe this until she saves him from death by absorbing his soul. Yakumo has become her immortal servant warrior, so long as she lives. Trouble is, he’s not much of a fighter, and the cute naive Pai has a deadly alternate personality that doesn’t approve of him as her servant unless he proves himself.
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Anime’s version of The Right Stuff, a nation struggles to launch the first man into space in the epic The Wings of Honneamise (aka The Royal Space Force).
Story Intro
As a boy, Shiro dreamed of flying the fast jets he watched take off from a nearby airfield. Low grades and a slacker attitude kept him out of the military, and his only chance was a branch everyone looked down on for accepting almost anyone: the Royal Space Force. Politicians and warring neighbors threaten to stop the plans of the space force after many failed tests and lost pilots.
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The U.S. has Superman, brought to the Earth by a destroyed alien civilization and granted super powers based on the color of our sun, but he’s a perpetual bachelor. Japan has Dragon Ball, a manga-and-anime series about an alien superhero named Goku, and eventually his extended family. Superman never had kids, let alone those that could kick his butt.
Story Intro
(Dragon Ball) In an Earth with both science gadgets and dinosaurs, there was a young boy named Son-Goku (later just Goku) who lived alone in the forest. Hunting with his staff and fishing (with his tail) were his favorite things to while away the days, until he met a loud demon racing through the forest. This “demon” turned out to be a girl named Bulma on a motorcycle, searching for something called Dragon Balls — looking for such a strange part of dragon anatomy only served to convince Goku of her weirdness — so Goku brought her home to visit “Grandpa” and help her find them. “Grandpa” was not the old man who raised him in the forest, but a small sphere that was left to his care: a Dragon Ball.
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To help give the new blog a more standard schedule, I’ve setup a few more “Favorites” for Friday posting, and not a moment too soon. I’ll get a few more things going for more than once-a-week postings, but it’s certainly been better than the once-a-year (or less) updates from the old version of the site.
Last weekend, a few friends and I went out for a cosplay photoshoot at Gasworks Park, a local industrial complex-turned-city-park, part of which is suitably painted in cartoon colors. See if you can identify tomorrow’s “Favorite” anime from the few photos shown here. Of course, following down to full gallery link will give it away, too.
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Bridging the gap between man and God didn’t work so well for Victor Frankenstein, but that won’t stop the folks at NERV in GAINAX’s Shinseiki Evangelion (or here in the US, Neon Genesis Evangelion) from trying their hand at it.
Story Intro
Commander Ikari and his defense-department corporation NERV lead a battle against invading aliens with large robots controlled by fourteen year olds, children born the last time the aliens attacked. Rei (quiet and unemotional), Shinji (Ikari’s shy son), and Asuka (spoiled rotten) pilot these huge “Eva” bio-mechanical robots, at the command and care of Misato and Ritsuko, among others. While the show has plenty of action in each episode, the relationships between the various characters and the feelings brought out by battle and unknown forces really takes the center stage.
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How is it that I had the blog on auto-pilot shortly before the convention, and it’s been quiet ever since? I still have plenty of former pages to repost with updated info, but figured I’d have at least a few “teaser” shots to post. They can’t all be “Favorites” reposts, though some like the following will foreshadow some of them to come. ^_^
Eva Unit 02 and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion
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From some of the anime staff behind Serial Experiments Lain and at times including similar sort of “other-worldly” seffects, Boogiepop Phantom is coming to get you.
Story Intro
Five years ago, a series of disappearances and murders took place, affecting a group of people surrounding a high school in different ways. An urban legend began as well: that strange feeling of being watched on dark evening streets just might be Boogiepop Phantom coming for you.
Like the classic Kurosawa film Rashomon, each episode follows a different character’s point of view of the events, which links their stories and different styles into one story arc across twelve episodes. At times an episode will show a scene and bring about assumptions in the viewer, then another episode will show things from another character’s point of view that collapses any preconception about the same scene.
Created by celebrated manga-ka Yoshitoshi ABe, Serial Experiments Lain (or simply Lain) opens up a world of science-based philosophy and history of both the real and alternate sort.
Story Intro
The show follows a shy junior-high-school girl as her world is shocked after receiving an email from a recently-deceased friend. Intrigued by the timing, and part of the message itself, Lain gets a new “Navi” online computer and begins upgrading it for better access to the “Wired”, the world of the Internet. She then comes to be often confused with another Lain, an extroverted, take-no-pity girl who looks, but certainly doesn’t act, just like her.
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While the blog is on auto-pilot for a while, as we convention staff are in the mad-dash final week before Sakura-Con, I’m also playing catch-up for older review/recommendation entries here porting them to the blog.
In the meantime, here’s a brief glimpse into such a final-prep week: stuffing the Bags-O-Swag that members receive when they pick up their pre-registered badges or register at the door.
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