Anime My Enemy

Watched a ton of television yesterday. Well, if three hours of time can be said to have a weight, then I'm assuming it would weigh close to a ton. For me, anyway. Watched Episode Two of Season Three of Spooks--which was superb. I then tried to become of a member of MI5 here--did well on the polygraph, not so good on the bomb defusion.

Then it was onto anime. Herein are my reviews. With lots of screaming and big eyes.

Slayers Try Episode One: Majestic? Set Sails For The Journey!

I'm not crazy about Slayers. This third season does seem better than the previous, especially in the action scenes. I always hated how they used to cheap out on fighting scenes by using a static shot and then slowly rotating it. Here, we have an actual not-bad sorcery battle at sea involving a golden dragon with a bowtie on its tail. Which rocks, come to think of it.

The story--are there stories in Slayers?--deals with the magical barrier falling that has kept the Slayers and everyone else cut off from the rest of their world. So now our screaming, dysfunctional heroes are off to investigate, and hopefully stave off any invasions.

I don't appreciate the humour in this anime--which is lots of screaming, slapstick, and did I mention screaming?--but it's hard to look away. It's such a staple of anime, you simply have to watch.

Gantz Episode Nine: I Will Kill You Without A Moment's Hesitation

Fuck, this is dark. The story here is that people who die violently find themselves reincorporated in a room with a giant black ball, which gives them missions to kill aliens in Tokyo. They are given no training, no real direction, and if they stray too far away from their target, their heads explode. Add to this that most of the people reincorporated are scumbags of the first order--even the lead character, Kei, is a pervert who buys a porn mag before he dies. He's spent most of the series staring at the large breasts of fellow revenant (courtesy of suicide) Kishimoto. And he's one of the nice ones.

This episode has a new bunch of revenants turning up in the black ball room, (since most of the previous ones are dead), including a bunch of would be rapist bikers, a grandmother and her grandson, and a goth girl. This episode deals with the revenants arguing with one another, as Kei shits himself because he's lost his Gantz suit, which means he'll probably die as well.

Yet again, Kishimoto's boobs play a role here, as she once again changes near the bikers, leading to yet another near rape.The distasteful joke of the dog (for some reason, a dog is among the revenants) runs and laps at Kishimoto's private areas, to which she just screams helplessly. This must be a cultural joke that just doesn't translate.

The episode ends with everyone being transported to the alien they have to kill, who looks like Pinocchio and has a thing for eggs.

Gantz is very dark, but has some of the best animation I've seen recently. The story is so non-heroic, so edgy, with characters that are just disgusting when they're not unlikeable. Again, I keep watching just wondering where it's going. Apparently, this show was hammered by Japanese censors when it aired in Japan. It's not hard to see why.

Dai-Guard Episode Twenty Six: Victory Song For Tomorrow

Damn. This is final episode of Dai-Guard. I loved this series, even though I seem to be in the minority. The story--a giant robot used as a publicity stunt by a corporation is brought in to fight evil aliens, manned by office workers who have to be careful not to damage the robot, since the corporation can't afford to keep repairing it--was just priceless. The series was both exciting, funny, with characters that were--unlike previous anime listed--you couldn't help liking. Unlike Neon Genesis Evangelion,, there was none of that angsty-angst and direness involved: everyone here just loved their giant robot Dai-Guard.

Now all I have left for my giant robot fix is Godannar. Now you see why I'm so sad, because everyone knows Godannar is crap unless you live alone in your parent's basement with piles upon piles of big boob pornography mags. Which may explain why it's so popular.