Xxxholic

This enjoyable anime series is by the four-woman collective Clamp.

Watanuki has been haunted by dark spirits his entire life, a curse flowing through his bloodline preventing peace. When his incessant demons drag him to the ornate door of the Dimensional Witch Yuko, he meets a mystical woman of insight and luxury, quick to help those in a bind… For a fee! One might very well end up paying with their soul! 

To be free of his visions, Watanuki will work in her shop of dreams and wishes. There is always a price to pay…

Watanuki spends his after school hours running errands, cooking, and fussing. Doumeki, the girl he adores, and Doumeki, the boy he loathes, join him to form a mismatched trio. 

The aura of sensual power that surrounds this version of Yukois broken by her outrageous demands for food and saké, and the squeaks of the obnoxiously cute mascot Mokona.

Although the animation is often very cartoony, XXXHolic has the vaguely decadent look of a Symbolist painting. Eerie and off-beat, the series will delight Clamp's many fans.

Summer Wars

Summer is over with, last week's bitter wet weather proved that with getting drenched the Wednesday and having put the fire on in the mornings as the downstairs is cold but there's nothing wrong with looking back.

I bought this awhile but but between the showers found time to rewatch it.

Available on blu ray and dvd as well as a double pack with The Girl Who Leaped Thru Time which is by by the same director Mamuro Hosoda, this is about romance, family life and a cautionary note on putting technologically speaking all your eggs in one basket.

 
We begin with timid eleventh-grader and math genius Kenji Koiso who is asked by older student and secret crush Natsuki to come with her to her family's Nagano home for a summer job.
Kenji agrees without hesitation. Natsuki's family, the Jinnouchi clan, dates back to the Muromachi era, and they've all come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of the driven matriarch of the family, Sakae. Kenji upon arriving discovers his summer job is to pretend to be Natsuki's fiancé and dance with her at the birthday celebration. 

As Kenji attempts to keep up with Natsuki's act around her family, he receives a strange math problem on his cell phone which, being a math genius, he can't resist solving.

 Little did he realize it turned out to be the solution to the mysterious equation that causes a hijacking of the social networking site through which most of the world's social and business traffic flows. 

 
Kenji and family have the difficult task of putting right this AI created situation.
This is one anime that never lets up to the last minute keeping you on the edge of your seat and is strongly recommended.

Prétear

I've been recently rewatching this complete Prétear collection four DVD set that presents the complete series for a total of 13 episodes.

Shin Shirayuki Hime Densetsu Pretear is a long title which translates into New Legend of Snow White Pretear. 

What makes Pretear anime special is the story. Its a magical girl show, but its part Cinderella plus part Snow White and a dash of bishounens! You will see a lot of fairy tale parallels with this anime series.Created by acclaimed animators Kaori Naruse and Junichi Sato (SAILOR MOON), the magical-girl anime series PRÉTEAR centres around 16-year-old Himeno, who's widowed father remarries and moves them to his new wife's palatial island estate.

On her way to school, Himeno meets a little boy who asks her to take his hand. When she does, she faints and later she wakes up staring up at a dark haired bishounen! The bishounen who helps revive her turns out to be Hayate, one of the seven knights of the earth. They were looking for Shin Shirayuki Hime Densetsu Pretear (the legendary magical girl that can help them save the earth from ruin and destruction). Hayate, the more temperamental of the seven believes that Himeno is the girl they are looking for.

The story is not just about Himeno and the seven knights. It is also about her home life and her father, Kaoru. Kaoru and Himeno are very close to each other. Natsue, Kaoru's new wife, is jealous of the closeness that Himeno and Kaoru share. 

Natsue also has two spoiled daughters, Mawate and Mayune. Her father, Kaoru, is quite enamored with his new wife and the life he lives that he assumes that Himeno is happy too.

With a stern new stepmother and two stepsisters who either taunt or ignore her, Himeno thinks that things can't get any worse--until she is visited by seven mysterious men called the Leafe Knights. Led by the handsome but disdainful Hayate, the knights inform Himeno that she is a magical being with the power to help them battle the evil Princess of Disaster, who is spreading demon larvae in an effort to destroy the world's life force.

Eschewing the genre's typical cutesiness for truly innovative storytelling bolstered by gorgeous animation and exciting action sequences, Prétear is the rare magical-girl anime that appeals to both female and male fans alike.

I quite enjoyed rewatching this as it deals with sadness, the need to be strong facing down one's demons and the magic of loving another.

Trigun!

They will be no doubt plenty of spooky stuff happening this weekend with it being Halloween and that.

We'll have some candy in small bags for local children who do dress up to take with them to make it as safe as possible

Meanwhile it's been raining for much of this week up on the dvd/blu ray player today and probably for next week and a half is this Trigun which a former best friend raved over so I thought I'd a get a copy.

 
In essence Set in the distant future on a desert planet, the anime follows Vash The Stampede who has a $60,000,000,000 reward on his head for destroying numerous towns, although he is yet to end a human life. 

 I like it a lot

Eden Of The East

Recently I bought Eden Of The East directed by Kenji Kamiyama that originally came out in 2010 on dvd but was able to get the Blu Ray double disc edition cheaply on Amazon

The story goes something like this:

On November 22nd, 2010, ten missiles strike Japan. Known as "Careless Monday," this attack does not result in any apparent victims, and is soon forgotten by almost everyone. Then, three months later... Saki Morimi, a young woman currently Washington D.C. on her graduation trip, is saved by a mysterious man, who has lost his memory, and has nothing except for a gun and a phone with 8.2 BILLION yen in digital cash. At the heart of the story is the fate of young disenfranchised Japanese people and their struggle against the conservative and traditional ruling establishment that holds them back from realising their true potential in a modern globalized world, represented here not only by Saki and her friends who are developing a revolutionary computer program, but by the existence and the role of NEETs or Shut-ins, young men who have dropped out of conventional society in favour of a locked-room, computer-oriented existence.

It's this that lifts this 11 part anime from being a run of the mill apocalypse story which is not uncommon as a subject.

More Clannad

It was a good while ago since I bought and wrote a review of the Anime Clannad which has two parts, a series that really moved me.

Thinking of that I thought I'd share a couple of images of a collectors figure ofTomoyo Sakagami.

Pawfect copies

Finally I think with this music recopying session we're getting more toward it's conclusion this week  tackling the huge back catalogue of David Bowie (Aladdin Sane is my favourite), literally pulling discs down from the shelves just in time for  a much needed break from it after carrying out this months chores for the community on foot undertaking quite a bit of exercise and dealing with the scoundrel that is Marmalade. 
He even slept in Mommies best coat before she was to put it on!
Cats, I ask you!!!

This a great peace of art from the School Idol anime I've been watching for a while, a kinda Japan high school talent show with groups working on dance moves and the like.
I just love the show.

Eviction time

Further to this post of 2012 (NEO: an end of an era ), Uncooked Media and NEO magazine announced with just 7 days notice it was to close the magazines old Forum on Friday February 22nd where some of us had accounts for quite a period, saying they hadn't anyone to look after it.
So not for the first time some us are forum hopping again and can be found found at UK Anime news's forum as most of us have agreed to move other there for now at least and nearly everyone bar me is keeping their old user names.
For posterity here's a picture of the forum for duoinchains, Shadowcat, max, demonix and the gang.

So long NEO Forums and raised glasses to our new home.

The changing face of computing

I just love this illustration  for the Microsoft Surface tablet that converts to a netbook although one hopes you can tweak the operating system to restore the Start button replace Internet Exploder 10 with Firefox or Chrome and install Foxit PDF reader rather than the bloated Adobe one that nags you every two to three weeks.
In 2012 we expect to keep up to speed with life online so products like this slot much better into our personal lives than old style desk top computers that still may have advantages for some types of work.
Having just visited one forum where this came up, I''ll end by saying online North American English is very prevalent and whatever your feelings around that might be, it's as well to get to grips with it.

An end of an era

This isn't a a post I personally felt like making earlier on but actually with some some redacts I shall.
As many of you are aware I enjoy anime and manga reading much about it, buying magazines and spending money on it.
Here in the UK there is a very good 4 weekly magazine, NEO, published by Uncooked Media that has played a big role in popularizing anime and it's subcultures such as cosplaying as well as Asian culture.
Well from the moment I first saw it, I bought every issue and one of the things it had was  a website that offered more up to the minute news and a lively forum where people talked about things, contributed to threads that influenced the magazine covering  suggestions for content, reviews.
Coming from a close involvement with a forum with more drama than Shakespeare could come up, with it was a forum where I felt everyone gelled well together sharing their mutual interests even if complaints about a prominent magazine advertiser stocking counterfeit goods tended to be ignored time after time and anything critical regarding this disappearing.
Then at the beginning of this year, there was a bombshell as the Magazine and by extension its owner ditched the forum for a Facebook page as its sole means of communicating with it's readership with not even an announcement to forum members, dropping of any mention of it in side the magazine.
Because it relied as some forums do on manual authorizing of accounts for a period new members couldn't use it and because no one with administrator privileges was dealing with this, it was ripe for spamming.
Somewhat belatedly a person was given responsibility for looking after it but without making any personal comments the impression one forms is it isn't really their priority and attempts to allow involvement by long standing responsible members stalled for reasons I'm not going into.
The problem as anyone who knows about these things are, your core members drift off  - and many have - and with the problem around authorizing, moderating and banning spammers not really solved and looking very much that it won't be  is simple: Over time the forum dies off.
Now I have no issue with using differing media to interact with readers but a forum is a very different beast than a Facebook page with 'likes' and entries to just reply to and treating a community you created like that comes over as very shabby.
I shall be at Anime UK news under a new username. If you're at CR too you can message me there for it.

Tv or not tv as we know it?

Isn't modern life surprising,eh?
Take Tv for instance in the UK we had four followed by Five free to air tv channels available by an antenna in the 1990's.
If you wanted more channels you'd either get cable which Cranford Central sure isn't an option or you'd subscribe to Sky TV a subscription based satellite service that provides packages which I had for several years changing from analogue to digital over that time.
The service wasn't bad, but it was expensive and you have to take all the subscription regular channels to get either sports or film channels. I wasn't in much to take full use of it.
I tried ONdigital which reception issues aside (believe you me I had to have the biggest most sensitive antenna fixed in the whole neighbourhood to get this part subscription digital tv via the antenna service with reasonable reception out here) wasn't bad as it gave most of the stuff I wanted at a reasonable price only to have it go in administration.
When the digital tv over the antenna service was reconfigured in 2002 to a very wide choice of free to watch channels from the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and five, I stuck with that, just keeping the old sky box for a select few satellite only free channels I  watch downstairs.
Imagine my surprise then to find it was possible to subscribe to the sports channel British Eurosport which I missed entirely online in HD widescreen for a mere £2.99 per month and having now gotten decent fibre broadband I had a fast clean connection to make it work.
Plus connection permitting I can use it on a tablet PC via Wifi anywhere!
With that I updated the M$Silverlight to the latest version on the laptop having deleted the old one and immediately set up an account paying via PayPal cos I don't like handing my card details out if I can help it.
It really works so with a combination of two British Europsport channels (with extra one offs) streamed HD anime from CR and my free to air tv channels I'm getting just the kind of tv I like at a price I feel is reasonable.

Angel Beats!

I had this about a month back as it came out in the States earlier which is why the cover is slightly different to the one shown on some sites which is listed to come out UK June 25th, I thought I'd write about it.

Produced by Clamp that brought us such series as Clannad, Diamond Daydreams, Lucky Star and a host of much loved fan favourites, the series embodies the same high production values.

We kick off with Otonashi appearing on the school grounds confused, without any memory of where and how he got there, he encounters a girl called Yuri who's gun aimed at 'Angel' he immediately springs into action not realizing he's dead, and in limbo.

In a quick attempt to deal with the situation he has found himself in, he joins a group of students who are fighting against God and 'Angel' called 'Afterlife Battlefront'

Otonashi's school is populated by what fellow students describe as NPCs, that's to say students created to populate the school but don't possess a soul or anything.

When you break it down this anime is more a slice of life centred one, but it is also very tragic in that each and every character in this series has a story to tell about how they died, and why they are there. All the characters have issues to deal with and this is where this anime really scores.

While initially you notice all the comedy and action scenes, there is also a 'rock' band called Girls Dead Monster, who perform extremely well too adding interest to this anime.

Although some of the stories in Angels Beats! are quite sad I really enjoyed watching it.

Naruto update 2012

I've been following the Naruto Shippuden anime series for a good while now and here's an update:

Volume 8

The starting off point for this editon is the end of volume 7 where having defeated the Akatsuki member Kakuzu with his new jutsu, the Rasen Shuriken, Naruto discovers the moves worrying side effects. In order to learn a less dangerous technique Naruto trains with Jiraiya to perform a move combining his abilities with one of his summoned frogs. Whilst all this is taking place, Orochimaru is beginning to move once more and Kakashi is assigned to lead a team to discover his hideout but come up against a ninja with a powerful and unique technique.

Bonds: Bonds is the latest release to date of the full length movie tie in releases this time centring around the Invasion of the Sky Ninja.

A group of mysterious flying ninja have arrived from overseas to launch a sudden attack against the Hidden Leaf Village, leaving behind a wake of destruction. The group is revealed to be the "Sky Ninja" from the Land of Sky, a nation thought to have been destroyed by the Hidden Leaf Village long ago. To save their village, Naruto and his friends set out to stop this new threat. During the course of the mission, Naruto crosses paths with Sasuke, his friend who has parted ways from the Leaf Village not realizing he is only wanted for his body parts.

The end of the movie sees Narutu and Sasuke reunite, it seems some bonds may be unbreakable.

Naruto Shippuden Vol.5 & 6

While some no doubt have been checking if they still have a neighbourhood after this weeks disturbances that I'll keep a dignified silence on least anyone get the wrong idea, apart from being pawley -again - which is why this entry is kinda short, I had a dvd come that I'd put off due to other much more expensive stuff I wanted to get a few months back.Such is life!

Naruto is a series I've enjoyed since starting the Shippendun series to which you'll find previous entries dotted about this blog, this volume No.5 which thankfully comes as 13 episodes on two discs in a single dvd case.
I really really dislike single volumes discs of the four episode types we used to get and some Japanese companies are forcing their overseas distributors to do as with Vampire knight and K-On!This Volume 5 follows Naruto our ninja, who is troubled by nightmares after his second failed attempt to bring Sasuke home. While recovering in the hospital Kakashi,, suggests a new training regime for Naruto that puts him in touch with his wind chakra nature.

Here we go to Volume 6 of this long running series. In the village Hidden in the Leaves, ninja reign supreme, and school is literally a battlefield. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura are teenage classmates and ninja in training, working together -of sorts! - under the instruction of their teacher, Kakashi. Sasuke is training to win revenge...Sakura is training to win Sasuke...And Naruto, the class clown, insists that he ll become the greatest nija in the World! Nothing like self belief now is there?

Bamboo Blade

I'm presently watching the shojo (girl's) sports series Bamboo Blade.
The story starts with perpetually broke part-time Muroe High School coach Toraji Ashida making a bet with an old school chum: if he can assemble a winning girl's kendo (Japanese fencing) team, then he'll get a year's free dinners at a sushi restaurant.As instructors go he's the laughing stock of all the others which is hardly inspiring.
Sounds corny but you have to hang the plot on something I guess! Ashida-sensei's motives may be less than altruistic, but he manages to recruit a few promising candidates. The wildcard in his hand is short of stature Tamaki Kawazoe, who's grown up in her family's dojo (training complex) and is a likely candidate for a national title. Tama-chan loves Super Sword Squadron Blade Bravers , a sci-fi anime spoof. By playing on her desire to emulate the champions of justice in the series, Ashida gets her to join the team, knowing her skill and speed will inspire the other girls to win.

5 CM Per Second

I recently bought this short anime movie.
Director Makoto Shinkai paints a breathtakingly vivid tableau of young love, desire, loss and hope. The movie begins with the lyrical image of cherry blossoms falling at five centimetres a second.
Told in three breathtaking chapters we follow the young dreamer Takaki through his life as cruel winters cold technology silence and finally adult obligations and responsibility converge to crush the delicate petals of true love. Finding beauty in everyday objects and moments Shinkai reveals he is a master of animation and haunting beautiful storytelling which is something I really appreciate in a movie.
In some respects it reminded me of Studio Ghilbi's Only Yesterday Fall in love for its beauty truth and innovation and thoughtfully reflective qualities.

Boxing Day Edition

Well it's Boxing Day Monday and I seem to have what some call the flu but never mind that will be dealt with on my terms.
I may add to this - don't know yet - but I guess the first things to say is as much as I have missed the company of other this year sadly, I had a enjoyable Christmas with freinds and people I know in the community here. It was minus 5Degrees outside !
The second is I decided around the time of the last post was I was going to open up and watch some anime sets I bought intending to view but during thru and immediately afterward my Uncles death I never felt up to.
I started off with Meoyo Ken which is a shortish Magical Girl series featuring monsters that disturb the balance of the community, a team that tracks down unlicensed monsters (the magical girls), a boy for added romantic interest with his pet monster cat and a few cat girls engaged in a battle.
Wildly funny in the best shoujo traditions with lots of in-jokes it brought a smile to my face.
Somewhat longer and more deeper intellectually I tackled Mushi-Shi which really a set of adventures narrated through Genki, a Mushi Meister about Mushi - primitive lifeforms - that have the potential for life and who live off the life that humans depend upon even to the point of taking human form. In many respects it touches on the need for man to understand all his environment, to recognize the difference between a liking of something and constitutes a danger to him and to learn to live with the whole natural world.
I had some money, vouchers a dvd and a recording of Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the Brahms Violin Concerts for Christmas all of which will come in handy for when the roads clear and it's possible to travel into town as the snow melts.

Let it snow, let it snow!

Yay! It's been snowing for two whole days over here and so far we've had just over an inch and a half - that's about 4 centimetres in new money - land in on our Estate.
The high school kids had today off as apparently their school bus couldn't leave its' depot to collect them and take them to the premises even though the local Primary school was open for business.
Sometimes you think this whole big thing as in big high schools, one big store and that isn't such a great idea when it comes to keeping a community on the move.
My mailman got through here okay and delivered the second instalment of Hip-O Selects Smokey Robinsons remasters series tackling the groundbreaking Quiet Storm and Smokey's Family Robinson albums with sleeve notes by Peter Doggett, Motown authority and writer to Record Collector magazine in England.
I have gotten the download from 7Digital of Progress the Take That reunion album reuniting Robbie Williams with the band, whose fortunes I followed since 1992 and the Take That and Party album which should keep me entertained.
As I wasn't moving today I watched the whole of Part three of the anime Soul Eater which I enjoyed although fight animes don't usually do it for me, cos the characters in this Studio Bones production have a lot of depth. Also I have ordered Vampire Knight 3 from Supermart which all being well will be with me in a couple of weeks time.

The "Unwell Edition" tm featuring Otomen 7

During this period when I've been off work with rotten cold and sore throat, I watched the Vampire Knight (series 1) set 2 which has episodes 5 through 8 which is currently out in the States.

Well, in the last few days the latest instalment of the adventures of Ryo and Askura has arrived and I should be getting around to reading it later on today.
Askura was left filling in for the lead vocalist of a Visual Kei rock band having arrived to accompany Ryo to the show. I wonder if Askura will ever get around to formally proposing to her.
I've been following this manga since it first came out and it's funny while at the same time as being thought provoking.

Coming any day soon should be the manga Otomen 8 that was scheduled for publication a month later. Continuing on from part 7 Ryo's grandfather became ill so she decide to move to Fukuoka to care for him. This means she needs to move schools which leaves us with the question" Does Asuka have to say farewell to this relationship just whens he's realized he needs to be more like a boyfriend to her"? Keep reading to hear more.

This week saw the issue on Monday of many Apple albums by artists outside The Beatles several of which have been out of print since the 1990's.
I bought the downloads of Badfinger's Magic Christian Music, No Dice and Straight Up a group from Swansea, Wales that sounded very much like the later Beatles when they performed Paul McCartney's songs.
On a technical level the downloads I bought from 7digital - a UK based digital music store - were of a very high technical quality aided their use of a bit rate of 320 kilo bits per second (Kbps) and the use of the LAME 3.98r2 Mp3 encoder producing results comparable to that of a type II (chromedioxide) home made tape copy which is more than good enough.
Also a friend sent me copies of their later albums for Warner Bros.

More Narutu

I'm presently near the end of watching this, the latest instalment of Narutu Shippuden as released over here where Gaara is restored to life and Narutu not for the first time has a major trust issue with a new team member.