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For a while now, it’s been OK to come out of the closet in America. Somewhere between Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell, between Will and Grace, The L Word, and Queer as Folk, talking about homosexuality has become an acceptable thing on television. Kizuna is one of the few Japanese shows brought to the US [...]
Peanut butter and jelly. Bert and Ernie. Cake and ice cream. Whimsy and the apocalypse. Hmm…the last two just don’t go together the same way, do they? It’s stereotypical, but anime about the destruction of the world are usually filled with humongous explosions, carnage on an unprecedented scale, and somebody named Shinji whining about how [...]
While I definitely don’t love every title put out by ADV Films, I have to say that the spring of 2007 has been an especially noteworthy one for them in terms of “fantastic titles I’d never heard of before.” Coyote Ragtime Show has been a fun intergalactic romp, and Utawarerumono is an intriguing mystery set in [...]
If you’re aiming at the side of an elephant with a shotgun, likelihood is that you’ll hit it when you pull the trigger. However, it’s another thing to try and hit a small moving target…and even if you do, the shot won’t likely do much damage. This is, essentially, the problem with This Is Greenwood. [...]
Ryuichi Ikegami is one of the best-known artists in the manga community both in his homeland and the US. His photorealistic work is simply unmistakable; no one else draws characters like him. Because of the eye for detail and his own personal taste for violence and erotica (as he states in the back of some [...]
A little controversy goes a long way. Many years ago now, Kite made the rounds as the cool anime of the month. Director Yasuomi Umetsu had made a name for himself with his beautiful work from the “Presence” section of Robot Carnival, but the sexuality and ultraviolence on display in his Megazone 23 Part 2 were a foretaste of what [...]
Reality check: though I loved Robotech as a young teen, I’ve never watched the three series that made up that seminal show in their uncut Japanese versions. While I own them all and have watched bits over time, I’ve never found the opportunity to sit down and get through them. Part of that’s due to their age; [...]
Sometimes, shorter is better. At only 71 minutes, Big Wars is one of the shorter feature films one finds in anime. Nevertheless, this motion picture works because right from the title on down, it knows exactly what it is: a B-grade alien shootout. Big Wars has two distinct sections. It doubles as an oddball …
I grew up on big robots. From Battle of the Planets to Voltron, my childhood had them aplenty. And, of course, Robotech, the show that took transforming mecha to a whole new level, was the lynchpin to my anime addiction that now is seen weekly via this website. I also like film noir, …
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so the saying goes. If so, Battle Skipper is ninety minutes of genuine sycophancy towards the whole of the anime canon. This pretty-looking 3-OVA series (wrongly advertised as a movie in its DVD incarnation) has action, giggling teenagers, fan service, mecha, and girlpower galore. Problem is, …