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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
