Hey there, folks! Well, over the past few months, I've managed to amass a goodly collection of anime on home video. Fansubs, store-bought, you name it, I've got stacks of it. From GHOST IN THE SHELL STAND ALONE COMPLEX, to EVANGELION, to ESCAFLOWNE, to LUPIN III, to GATCHAMAN, to... you get the point. In fact, I have enough 30 minute episodes of anime shows to watch one episode a day for the next year and never run out of episodes. (Did I mention COWBOY BEBOP, URUSEI YATSURA, BUBBLEGUM CRISIS, MACROSS and SOUTHERN CROSS?)
Anyway, when I was in college, I really loved anime. I couldn't afford to get into it as much as I wanted to back then because I was in film school and what little money I had went into my films and, well, eating. Now that I am an adult, I can afford more, anime is much more common and, well, there are other ways to get your hands on anime these days. ;)
Back in college, we were so desperate for anime we'd watch it in Japanese with no subtitles. We loved the medium that much. We saw movies that we didn't know the titles to, but enjoyed watching them nonetheless. In fact, I remember Ray Caddy, one of the guys in my comic club, would visit Japan and bring back laser discs and play them for us. He'd try to translate for us, which was worked fine sometimes, other times, not so much. Regardless, we'd just figure out what was going on when Ray's knowledge of Japanese couldn't tell us. The first time I saw AKIRA and CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO, it was this way. I even stumbled across a fandubbed episode of a show called DIRTY PAIR DOES THE DISHES. The people behind the fandub were like my friends and I were, only they got more creative. Not only did they piece together what they thought was going on in the non-subbed Japanese episode, they wrote a script, made it funny and dubbed it themselves. Go fig! In fact, I think I still have a copy of it on VHS, I hope the tape hasn't given out on me!
In short, I am a fan of TheAnime. This column will feature news and reviews all pertaining to TheAnime that I enjoy and watch. The reviews will come from the anime I'll be watching daily until I run out of shows to watch. I'll try to review every episode I watch regardless of the show and I'll begin watching episodes on August 1, 2004. That's in just 3 days. My first review will post the next day.
Now, when I watch an anime movie, that gets me off the hook for a day, but only one day, regardless of how long that movie is. I also may do marathons with TheFiancee as we like to do from time-to-time where we go ballistic and watch four hours of anime in one sitting. (We did this with EVANGELION AND GHOST IN THE SHELL STAND ALONE COMPLEX and it ROCKED.) In those cases, again, the entire marathon will count as one episode. However, I will review the episodes we watch as a whole, so don't expect specific episode details for marathons.
My reviews will have three sections. Info, spoilers and opinion. The info section will be title, description and other information if I can find it. The spoiler section will describe the events of the episode and opinion will be strictly my opinion, spoiler free.
So, there ya have it!! Got some anime you want to review? Perhaps you want to recommend I check out some anime you like? Perhaps you'd like to donate your entire collection of NARUTO to me ;)? Send me an email through my contact page (find the link under the "interact" popup, under the giant ThePete.Com logo).
The first anime episodes I'll be reviewing starting next week will be from the series CUTEY HONEY. They are off of a double-disk DVD set I got from Best Buy for just $13 on my birthday last month and are a remake of a classic anime series about a woman who is some sort of female android that can transfrom into various different types of women depending on the needs of the situation. So, if she needs to make a quick getaway, she can turn into a race-car driver. If she needs to beat the crap out of some female sexpot-badguy, she turns into an S&M dominatrix. The nice thing for us heterosexual males (as well as all you lesbians out there) is that whenever she transforms, her clothes tear off and are replaced seconds later. Otaku (Japanese for fanboy) call this "fan service." Actually, in the case of CUTEY HONEY, they call this very GOOD fan service!
Obviously, not all anime is kid-safe. It is animation, but it ain't always for kids. In fact, that's what's so great about anime. You can watch hours of episodes from many different series and never feel like it's talking down to you. Sure, there is anime for kids (like Tetsuwan Atom/Astroboy) but most of the stuff I'll be watching will be more for the adult (probably male) crowd.
Class begins August 2nd. Don't be late or you might miss something that will be on the final!! :rolleyes:
On a sidenote, on October 19, 2006, I received an email from a woman Ray Caddy, my old anime buddy, had dated. She explained how she had visited him for last time "at Fred Hutchinson Hospital in Seattle, where he passed away from a failed bone marrow transplant for cancer."
ReplyDeleteToo sad.
His memory will live on--in fact, almost every time I watch anime, I think about him. He's really what kept me into anime as an adult. It's pretty sad that he went so young and from something like cancer. He had it when I knew him in college and he had beaten it. Too sad. He missed a lot of great animation and we missed him.
Banzai Ray Caddy.