Category: Anime

‘Magical Girl Raising Project’: It’s Another One of THOSE Shows

Here we go again!

Magical Girl Raising Project, episode 1: “Welcome to a World of Dreams and Magic.” Genco, Studio Lerche. Available on Crunchyroll.

In my naïveté, I wanted to believe that the magical girl genre’s Goth phase, begun in 2011 by Puella Magi Madoka Magica, had come to an end with Yuki Yuna Is a Hero, which I discussed here.  Yuki Yuna replies to Madoka by giving it the finger, an audacious move that earned my admiration.

And, after all, the last few years after Yuki Yuna have seen titles like Wish Upon the Pleiades and Nurse Witch Komugi R, not all of which are good or likeable or decent, but which at least suggest that creators in the genre are looking back to a previous era when magical girls were about love and hope rather than about dying in a pool of blood after having been tricked by an amoral power. Perhaps, I told myself, the Day Break Illusions are behind us. Continue reading “‘Magical Girl Raising Project’: It’s Another One of THOSE Shows”

Parallels Between Buddhism and ‘Puella Magi Madoka Magica’

I stumbled upon this post from 2011 on Listless Ink, a post entitled “Birth of a Goddess, Madoka’s Path to Nirvana – A Study of Buddhism,” which examined parallels between the hugely successful and highly popular 2011 magical girl anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Buddhist doctrine. It’s a thoughtful and convincing essay.

It contains spoilers, of course, for the anime in question.

Let us stretch the parallels one step further. Before nirvana, all consciousness are born, die, and reborn as beings in the six domains of the Desire realm: God realm, Asura realm, Human realm, Animal realm, Preta realm, and Hell realm. This is the wheel of life, the place where Samsāra occurs.

It is surprisingly neat how the characters in Madoka Magica fit into these realms. For example, the deva that occupy the blissful God realm are way more powerful than beings in all other realms. Among their powers include a sort of telepathy and illusion construction. Moreover, one particular class of deva are passionless and sexless. Indeed, this seems a bit reminiscent of Kyubey. [more…]

History of Magical Girl Anime, Part 12

Once again, we have to skip a chapter of SourcererZZ’s extensive history of magical girl anime because of copyright claims. This time, Pony Canyon is the culprit. So we pass over the years 2002 to 2003 and head to 2004, a big year for the genre.

 

As an update on my end, chapter 19 of Jake and the Dynamo is drafted and I’m currently working on chapter 20. I’d like to have five chapters in draft form before I begin posting them again, but we’ll see how that goes.

My schedule is likely to get very busy very soon. I’m likely looking at two jobs plus schooling. I’ll keep writing, but I can promise nothing in regards to speed.

Anime Review: ‘Yuki Yuna Is a Hero’

Who deconstructs the deconstructionists?

This was originally posted in slightly different form on a different site in .

Yuki Yuna Is a Hero. Directed by Kishi Seiji. Starring Haruka Terui, Juri Nagatsuma, and Suzuko Mimori. Studio Gokumi, . Twelve episodes of 24 minutes (approx. 290 minutes). Unrated. Available online.

I am a confessed heroine addict, and thus I sometimes watch mahou shoujo, that peculiarly Japanese genre of fantasy translated as “magical girl.” I have just finished watching the recently completed twelve-part magical girl series Yuki Yuna Is a Hero, a mostly amusing but sometimes frustrating exercise in audience chain-yanking. Though it is a competent story in its own right, it can’t be fully appreciated without a general knowledge of what’s been happening in the magical girl genre of late, most especially 2011’s Puella Magi Madoka Magica, with which Yuki Yuna is in dialogue, so bear with me.  It is also impossible to give more than a cursory discussion of either Puella Magi Madoka Magica or Yuki Yuna Is a Hero without spoilers, so be warned: spoilers lie ahead.

Continue reading “Anime Review: ‘Yuki Yuna Is a Hero’”

Anime Review: ‘Sasami: Magical Girls Club’

Sasami: Magical Girls Club, directed by Takamoto Nobuhiro. Starring Mana Ogawa, Himeko Shimura, and Momoko Hatano. AIC Spirits Work Collaboration: BeSTACK. English language version by FUNimation. 26 episodes (approx. 640 minutes). Rated TV-PG.

What a weird little anime.

Where to start? The highly successful Tenchi Muyo! franchise is one of the best-known of the so-called “harem comedies” that came out of the 1990s; in fact, some consider it the original harem comedy (though it is not strictly speaking the earliest), or at least the codifier of the genre’s conventions. The franchise includes manga, light novels, OVA series, television shows, audio dramas, and probably other stuff, most of which are independent of one another. Because its history is convoluted and there isn’t really a central “canon,” trying to get a handle on Tenchi Muyo! is decidedly confusing.

I am not deeply knowledgeable of the Tenchi Muyo! franchise, but near as I can tell, it began with an OVA series that appeared in 1992 (OVA means straight to video, which doesn’t have the stigma in Japan that it has in the U.S.). Additional OVAs followed on its heels, with a fourth slated to appear later in 2016. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched the first OVA in the FUNimation dub: it’s awesomesauce for six episodes, featuring lightsaber duels, space battles, humongous mecha, miniature black holes, pocket universes, and explosions.

But after that, it settles down into harem mode, and then it pretty much sucks. Continue reading “Anime Review: ‘Sasami: Magical Girls Club’”

FUNimation Partners with Crunchyroll

In the world of anime fandom, this is really big news.

I hope that it is also good news, but that remains to be seen. I don’t follow the politics of fandom, but I sometimes hear murmurs of discontent with FUNimation. However, I personally have been generally happy with Crunchyroll, the anime streaming service, though I recently let my subscription lapse for economic reasons. A few years ago, Crunchy seemed to be mostly a motley collection of obscure titles and hentai crap, but more recently, I’ve been really impressed as they’ve added more and more classic titles to their catalogue.

In fact, I finally bought my subscription when they picked up a complete set of Cardcaptor Sakura, the inexplicably popular and undeservedly influential magical girl story from CLAMP about an innocent little girl trapped in a world full of perverts. But I’ll talk about that show and why I detest it with a passion at another time. Continue reading “FUNimation Partners with Crunchyroll”

History of Magical Girl Anime, Part 10

We continue with SourcererZZ’s nearly exhaustive history of magical girl anime. Unfortunately, copyright claims have once again made parts of this series unavailable in English. You’d think that a few clips used in a free online documentary would be considered fair use, but Victor Entertainment hates free advertisement, and thus has laid the smack down.

Here, SourcererZZ covers the years 2001 and 2002. I think I recognized a grand total of two titles in this one, so I got an education here.

I tried watching Magical Play once. It was so stupid, I gave up. I’ve probably killed enough brain cells with magical girl shows since then that I might give it another go. I don’t know a legal source for the other titles mentioned here, but they might exist.

By way of update, I’m presently out of work. That means I won’t be acquiring any new media in the near future, as I have to save my funds. But I have a backlog of things to discuss, and there’s always free stuff (I just have to watch it in low quality with ads).

I also need to spend time on some things more urgent than my hobbies, so there’s a possible brief hiatus on Jake and the Dynamo in the near future, as my buffer’s been shrinking dangerously. Chapter 13 will appear this weekend, and chapter 14 needs expanded and rewritten, but should appear the weekend after. Chapter 15 needs only slight alteration. Chapter 16 needs rewritten. Chapter 17 needs to be drafted. So I should have four weeks of material left if I get on the ball.

Cassidy Stone and the ‘Sailor Moon’ Puns

Go over to Geek and Sundry to see fan artist Cassidy Stone make the main characters of Sailor Moon look even goofier than they already did.

The jokes are deliberately lame, but the reactions and facial expressions really sell it.

Watch ‘Sailor Moon: The Movie’ Before It’s Gone!

Like many magical girl fans, I have sometimes daydreamed about what a live-action Sailor Moon movie might look like. My imaginary version would probably piss off most of the fans, because it’s a gritty Kung fu film directed by the same guy who did The Raid. No, I’m serious.

For some fans, daydreaming is not enough. They take it to the next level and actually make the movie. There have been several such projects, and even though they’re not-for-profit, they have a habit of disappearing because of copyright claims. In fact, when I stumbled across Sailor Moon: The Movie on YouTube, I mistakenly believed it was the 2011 short film starring Avery Danielle, but I was wrong. That one, sadly, is gone from the interwebs. No, this is the 2015 loooong film starring MaryBeth Schroeder, and it clocks in at a whopping two hours and twenty-two minutes. That’s the size of an epic-length feature film. Continue reading “Watch ‘Sailor Moon: The Movie’ Before It’s Gone!”

Review: Sailor Moon: Crystal, Season 3 Episode 7

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Crystal, Episode 33, “Three Guardians.” Toei Animation, May 2016. Approx. 24 minutes. Available on Crunchyroll.

I think I missed an episode in here somewhere. Hm.

Anyway, in this episode, the pace picks up as the story heads toward its climax. The three outer scouts, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, finally explain what they’re doing, though by this time the audience already knows: they were reborn on Earth for the purpose of taking down the Death Busters from the Tau Star System, who invaded Earth through a rift in space-time. Same thing most of us do on weekends. Continue reading “Review: Sailor Moon: Crystal, Season 3 Episode 7”