Kami-Kaze

Although Shiki Satoshi’s Kami-Kaze is marketed as “blood and guts” manga, I find the symbolical side of the story a lot more fascinating and that’s something I want to talk about. But before that, let’s take a look at the story itself:

Everything begins one thousand years ago when monsters known as 88 Beasts threaten humanity. The beasts were defeated by chiefs of five tribes of Kegai no Tami. However, the beasts placed a curse, which would make them to resurrect the 88 Beasts, on two of the tribes. The story begins in the present day where the tribes of fire and wind have took actions to begin the resurrection. The tribes of water and earth have chosen to prevent the resurrection and fight the Kegai no Tami from tribes of fire and wind.

The first volume begins with Kegai no Tami from tribes of fire and wind searching for Mikogami Misao, the chief of the water tribe, in Tokyo. The chief the earth tribe, Ishigami Kamuro, is also searching for Misao, but his intention is to protect her and prevent the other tribes from resurrecting the 88 Beasts.

While Kami-Kaze is an action manga with detailed and well-drawn action scenes, there’s also deeper side to the story. And I don’t use the word “deep” just because some think that calling things “deep” instantly makes them better. Perish the thought. First of all, the battle between humanity and the 88 Beasts is not just a battle between good and evil. Instead, it’s a perfectly natural conflict between two separate parts of the nature that simply cannot coexist. And as the natural selection goes, only the most fit survive. Stuff like this happens in the real nature as well.

Another thing I like a lot is how the protagonists and antagonists are virtually the same. Like I already said, there is no evil on the either side. They’re both Kegai no Tami and only their goals separate them from each other. I find it refreshing that Kami-Kaze doesn’t simply divide it’s characters into good guys and bad guys. Actually, one could say that there aren’t really protagonists and antagonists, just people with different beliefs, which causes conflicts between them. This is much like real life as well.

Kami-Kaze is obviously a work of fiction and it doesn’t even try to be realistic, but these two concepts, the survival of the fittest and the conflicts of beliefs, are stuff everyone faces in their lives. While I’d hardly call Kami-Kaze thought-invoking, saying it’s just “blood and guts” with no depth at all wouldn’t be right either. Instead it’s an action manga, with an interesting story that actually has a meaning. Such stories have become rare in the flood of all the action mangas with their meaningless stories.

If you’re interested in action manga that’s more than just “blood and guts”, Kami-Kaze is exactly what you’re looking for.

Hosaka advances to the finals of SaiGar 2008!

Is this awesome? (y/n)

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – An intelligent action manga

Since I’m not watching any animes at the moment, I decided to write a little about one of my favourite mangas, Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. With 92 and more volumes yet to come, it’s Shonen Jump’s 2nd longest running manga. The story arcs in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are separated into different parts and the current part, Steel Ball Run, is the seventh part of JoJo series. Compared to other action mangas in shonen category, there is something in JoJo that you see far, far too rarely: Fighting that rewards brains over brawn.

In JoJo, all the characters have their unique phychic powers that manifest as beings known as Stands. The first Stands appear in the Stardust Crusaders, the third part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (and the one that is currently being published in English by VIZ), and have been a mainstay ever since their debut. In the beginning most of stands have rather simple powers (strength, speed, range and so on), but soon enough Araki comes up with more interesting Stands, such as J. Gail’s Hanged Man that moves and attacks via mirrors and N’Dour’s water stand Geb.

Spoilers ahead!

The battles in JoJo aren’t about who’s got the strongest Stand, instead one should think of Stands as tools; even good tools are useless if you don’t know how to use them. Let’s take N’Dour’s Geb for example. Jotaro, the main character of the 3rd part, and the company meet him in a desert. Now, one would think that a Stand made of water would be useless in a place like desert. However, that’s so far from the truth. Due to the thin nature of sand, Geb can easily travel silently underground and attack his enemies before they realize what’s going on. But N’Dour has one fatal weakness: he is blind and has to rely on his hearing. While he can detect footsteps miles away, he can’t detect something that moves without making a sound, for example something gliding through the air. With this in mind, Jotaro is able to defeat him helped by Iggy’s Stand’s, the Fool’s, ability to glide.

Spoilers end here!

The reason why JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure isn’t very popular outside Japan is because there is no market for mangas like it here. First of all, most readers of action manga seem to prefer generic action manga where fights are decided by sheer power with no strategy involved. Secondly, there is virtually no fanservice in JoJo. There is hardly any female characters to begin with. Another reason would be Ariki’s unique artwork where the male characters are portrayed as somewhat fabulous, but not bishonen by the common standards, which turns away lot of female bishie-lovers, and the violence is over-the-top and sometimes sort of cartoonish, though not very graphic. While some, such as me, like Araki’s artwork, some consider it a turn-off and don’t get to know JoJo better because of that.

The stories in JoJo usually have lots of fighting and from little to no debth to them, but that’s not the point. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is very entertaining to read because of the battles that make the reader think how the characters can use their Stand to defeat their seemingly invincible enemies. If you’re fed up with action mangas, where the winner is the one with the most strength, the highest power level or the best techniques, give JoJo a chance. You’ll be surprised to see that fighting could be made so interesting with such little effort. Remember to give it some time, though, since the Stands won’t show up until 12th volume, unless you pick up Viz’s version which skips the first two parts.

Melty Blood Actress Again and Roa

Michael Roa Valdamjong, one of the main antagonists of Tsukihime, has been confirmed to make an appearance in the new Melty Blood Actress Again arcade fighting game. While it would’ve been even cooler to see CAPSLOCK-kun featured in Actress Again, getting to play with Roa sounds almost as awesome. There’s also another new character called Riesbyfe Stridberg that seems to be an original character designed for the game.

So far, only a little is known about Melty Blood Actress Again. More information about the game will most likely be revealed in the AOU 2008 show.

Yawaraka Sangokushi Tsukisase!! Ryofuko-chan – Episodes 1 & 2

In the beginning, Ryofu Housen finds himself falling towards an island that looks like a dragon, Japan. When he comes to, he realizes that he and his assisntant Chinkyuu have been turned into little girls. So far, there hasn’t been any development in the plot, but the series seems to focus on Ryofuku and Chinkyuu’s everday life in modern Japan, which is somewhat interesting and cute.

In short Yawaraka Sangokushi Tsukisase!! Ryofuko-chan is another of those moeblob animes that you either love or hate. Depending on which way you think about them, Ryofuku-chan is either a must-see or ignoreable. The humour is pretty good as well, though it’s mostly fanservice related. The frequent refenrences to Kusu Miso Technique are hilarious to say the least.

G-On Riders

People often wonder, if it would be nice to be able to eat one’s favourite food all the time. But the problem is that no matter how much one likes something, one gets bored eventually. Eating good food every now and then sure is nice, but eating the same food from day to day gets boring pretty soon, even if it was really good in the beginning. Now what does this have to do with G-On Riders. In short, everything.

I’ve watched several anime that could be simply called “fanservice animes”. For every type of fanservice, there is an anime that does it better than any other. For example, Eiken has the biggest and jiggliest boobs, Hanaukyo Maid Team animes have more maids than you can imagine and Cosplay Complex is, like the name says, all about cosplay. And for girls with glasses, G-On Riders.

You could say that I have a glasses-fetish and I wouldn’t deny it. I love girls with glasses and the idea of an anime where all the girls wear glasses sounded amazing. And now we’re finally getting to the matter at hand.

At first G-On Riders was nice. There were lots of cute girls and they all wore glasses. The first few episodes were pretty fun to watch until I realized what was going on: Yes, all the characters in fact do wear glasses, but so what? Is that all?

It’s often said that you can’t save a bad story with fanservice, no matter how good the fanservice is. After seeing G-On Riders, I can truly agree with that. The story is something on the level of the cartoons I watched when I was in day school. The character designs are dull and it feels really forced how they’re all made to wear glasses. The quality of animation was bad and apparently the staff ran out of money in last episode and they had to use load of stills and shots from older episodes without worrying about the coherence of the scenes. There was also an OVA episode with some full frontal nudity and other kinds fanservice.

I’d like to rant a bit more about the characters, since it is often the characters that make animes good. Too bad all the characters in G-On Riders were stupid and annoying. The main character, Yuuki, is a tomboy which is actually to my liking, but there’s a limit to how tomboy one can be. I wouldn’t notice any difference in Yuuki’s character, if she was a boy instead. Tomboys are great, but if you strip the character completely of her feminine traits, that’s not a tomboy anymore and certainly not any cute either. And her glasses! All the other characters in this anime had cool and cute glasses, so why must her glasses be as nerdy as possible? It doesn’t fit her boy-ish character at all. Seriously! Does the character designer want the watcher to dislike Yuuki? Her being totally clueless about everything doesn’t help me like her either.

And a few words of the other characters. There is this guy called Ichiro, who falls in love with Yuuki for no reason. Of course she never gets the hint, even when Ichiro confessed to her. There also two other girls who both fall in love with Ichiro for no reason. Why!? I’ve seen set-ups like this for millions of times and they don’t work. The worst is that there is absolutely no development and it stays the same till the end. Actually, the “villains” of this anime are rather interesting characters and I’m glad they got pretty much screen time.

What? You want to hear something about the story? Well, if you ask so: The main characters are magic girls who get their powers by wearing glasses. They fight aliens that are trying to invade the Earth with mascot-like robots. There’s also the pointless love set-up between the main characters. In the end, the Earth is saved by everyone’s love or something cheesy like that.

Even though I like girls with glasses a lot, I can’t think of any reason why anyone should bother to watch G-On Riders. The story is childish, the characters are stupid, the action is cliched, the animation is far below average. It’s like a school book example of a bad anime.

tl; dr: If there is an anime to be avoided like a plague, it’s name is G-On Riders.

Oh! Edo Rocket

Oh! Edo Rocket would easily be one of the most ignored animes of 2007. While there was a certain action anime that no other such anime could be compared to, that doesn’t mean all of them should’ve been ignored. Oh! Edo Rocket is one of those animes that deserve a lot of more attention than they’re given.

It’s year 1842 in Edo. The story begins with Sora, an alien, landing on Earth to capture an alien fugitive. However, she has no means to return back, so she must find someone who could help her return to the Moon, to her fellow aliens’ base. She asks Seikichi Tamaya, a firework maker, to make her a firework that would fly all the way to the Moon.

Basically the story can be split into two semi-separate sides: Sora and some people from the Earth seeking for the fugitive (referred to as the “Blue Beast”) and Seikichi making a rocket that would fly to the Moon. At the beginning both sides of the story are in focus, but at some point the focus starts to shift on the hunt for the Blue Beast. After that’s done with, rest of the episodes focus on finishing and launching the rocket. There are also some episodes that focus on various subplots that have little or nothing to do with the main plot.

What caught my attention the most in Oh! Edo Rocket was the background art. Instead of being realistic, the backgrounds look more like paintings which gives this anime an unique touch. Also, the music isn’t typical “anime music” or classic Japanese music, but jazzy and blues-ish music. While it might feel out of place, the music grows on you and soon you couldn’t imagine there to be any other kind of music in Oh! Edo Rocket.

Most of the jokes are also out of time and place. There are things like televisions and Internet featured every now and then and the way the characters talk reveals that, at least some of them, realize that they’re characters in an anime. Well, I still wouldn’t consider Oh! Edo Rocket a comedy, though it’s not even meant to be one, but the humour is pretty good at times.

The characters on the other hand aren’t that unique. They’re likeable, but not very interesting. Well, the main character Seikichi sort of stood out for being a non-combatant in an action anime, which is rare for the main character, but not something new. I was kinda expecting Seikichi to develop into a combatant character who would protect Sora, but that never happened. However, Seikichi does change as the anime progresses. In the beginning, he wants to make fireworks for a reason, which would be to send Sora back to the Moon. But in the end, he realizes that fireworks don’t have any meaning, but it doesn’t matter. The message of the story would be “It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing what you like to do”.

Oh! Edo Rocket is not the best action anime of 2007, nor it’s even near to be the funniest anime or anything of such. If anything, Oh! Edo Rocket is just an ordinary anime in every way, but it doesn’t deserve to be ignored the way it is. Sure there are better animes to watch, but there are lots and lots of way worse animes that are still watched by many people.

So, the bottom line is, there isn’t any particular reason to watch Oh! Edo Rocket, but I can’t see any reason why someone shouldn’t watch it.

Tunes from Comiket 73

Since doujin music from Comiket 73 is most likely going to be all I listen to for the next month or so. Thus, I might as well write something about the stuff I’ve listened to so far.

COOL&CREATE – スーパーあまねりお (suupaa amanerio)
All-vocal Touhou arrange album with six songs with karaoke versions of them and a special version of one the 6th track. The first and sixth track are pretty good, but the rest are forgetable. And I’ve probably said this before, but karaoke versions of songs are the biggest waste of CDs I can think of.

MyonMyon – Mountain of Faith 〜神々への信仰〜 (Mountain of Faith ~kamitahe no shinkou~)
If you’re into metal and dig the soundtrack of Mountain of Faith, this is the album for you. One of the C73 I’ve liked the most so far.

Kota-rocK – 真遠の夜 (matou no yoru)
Another compilation of metal arranges of Touhou music. I’m not really ito synthetic metal, but it’s not too awful. People who can deal with the synthetic sound better than I do might like this album. Track 9 and 10 are pretty good in my opinion.

CROW’SCLAW – FROZEN FROG
CROW’SCLAW is one of my favourite groups of doujin musicians and their very first Touhou arrange album is pretty awesome. If you like heavy metal, FROZEN FROG is worth checking out.

Iemitsu./A – F³
I’d describe this album as ambient electric music, though that’s probably not quite right. What I mean is that for the most of time this album is really laid-back. Pretty nice album nonetheless.

MINAMOTRANCE – LEGEND of SQUARE
Arranges of music from older Square games. While I’ve played most of these games and liked the soundtracks, I can’t remember most of these tracks. What I recognized right away the sixth track, which is from Secret of Mana, one of the Square games I haven’t played that much. Guess I liked that song. Anyways, it’s pretty decent album if you’re into hardcore and such.

首楞厳神呪 – Rock ‘n’ Roll Over Dose
The songs on this album are supposedly video game arranges, but I can’t recognize any of them. Doesn’t really matter, though, ’cause I like instrumental rock music a lot.

ALiCE’S EMOTiON – Angel Rings
Fans of Tori no Uta, get this album to add two more arranges of the song to your collection. Otherwise a nice album, too.

I’ll probably write more after I’ve listened to more stuff from C73.

PatchCon ~Defend the library!~

PatchCon came totally out of the blue. It was announced a little while before Comiket 73 and most of the fans of Tasogare Frontier were disappointed to find out that full verson of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody isn’t still going to be released. However, this new game, PatchCon, is actually rather interesting.

PatchCon is a RTS-game that uses characters from various Touhou games as the units. There are three types of units, melee, danmaku and flight, and 32 different units in total. There are six teams of five different units and two extra units for custom teams.

The purpose of the game is, like the title says, to defend Patchouli’s library. In order to win, you must survive waves of enemy attacks for roughly 10-40 minutes (if you’re able to run the game on 60FPS, that is), depending on the difficulty you’re playing. As the game goes on, the enemies become stronger so you need use gold to train more units and/or upgrade them to survive.

The basics of PatchCon are rather simple and easy to comprehend, but winning the game on Lunatic requires solid planning and a good strategy. What I like the best about this game is that every unit is unique with their own pros and cons. I find it fun to play using different teams to see if I could beat the game with them as well. So far, I’ve beaten Lunatic with only two teams.

Along with the default mode, there are various extra modes to provide futher challenges for more experienced players. This makes PatchCon a game that will provide new challenges one after another. And players, who like to experiment using different tactics to win, will surely enjoy playing PatchCon a lot because you can win in many ways.

I don’t really play RTS-games that much, but I’m having lots of fun playing PatchCon and I suggest everyone should give it a try.

Let the SaiGar 2008 begin!

SaiGar 2008, the tournament to decide the most GAR anime character of 2007, has begun. Unlike last year, this time only characters from animes of 2007 can compete. That means there are 144 characters competing of which some of them aren’t that GAR, but that goes pretty well with the parody-ish nature of SaiGar.

The tournament begins with a battle between Dio Brando, Kenshiro and Yoko and a battle between Aihara Kazuki, Emperor of Britannia and Motsu. No predictions of who the winner will be, but I’m voting for Kenshiro and Emperor of Britannia.