Piczo

Animetown is getting link's to other website's. So when u click on and episode it will take u to another website. To watch the anime you clicked.

Anime (アニメ) is, in the simpilest term, animation from Japan. As you can imagine, this covers a whole heck of a lot of varying artistic styles, many of which differ quite drastically, yet the common thread through it all is exaggeration. Characters having large eyes or exuberant unnaturally colored hair are often the first features to stand out for a person new to anime, but there are also techniques such as colored lines or icons drawn over faces to indicate specific emoties or temporary physical deformations such as flattening a face when a character is struck hard or turning them into a "chibi", which is a short, super-cute version of the character with a really large head and small body.

Anime is produced in three basic forms, on television, as Original Video Animations (OVA), and as full length feature films. Of these three mediums, movies typically have the best art and animation, as they have more development time and a larger budget, whereas television anime has more time to delve deep into a story and develop the characters. Unlike a lot of Western cartoon where plots are created and concluded in a single episode, television anime tends to have stories that span across the entire season, making it important to watch the show in order and hopefully not miss any episodes!

Anime isn't just for kids or sci-fi and fantasy geeks either, as it spans every type of genre imaginable. Some are made for young children, where others are strictly for adults only. No matter who you are, there is sure to be anime out there melds with your desires, so please don't be turned off to anime as a whole if you happen to come across one or two series that you didn't care for. Try a different genre, or a different animation studio, because once you find that one show that emotionally touches you like no other before it, you will be hooked! So go find that anime, and experience the wonder of Japanese Animation!

Jan 30th 2009

Synopsis: Aboard a ship in 1711, a group of alchemists summoned a “demon” that gave them an immortality elixir, but they quickly realized that they posed a threat to one another and dispersed across the world. In Depression-era New York City the immortals gradually gather together again over attempts by some to replicate the original immortality formula, in the process accidentally either directly or indirectly involving numerous other individuals, including robbers, made men, Mafia bosses, cultists, psychopaths, and the female homunculus servant of one of the original alchemists. Events come to an early head in late 1930 on board the new transcontinental train Flying Pussyfoot when the crossing paths of the robbers, psychopath, cultists, other thieves, an immortal, a senator's wife and daughter, and agents secretly escorting a special bomb create a potentially grossly bloody situation, while in 1931 and 1932 a girl seeks information on her missing ruffian brother.

Review: The above synopsis only hints at how convoluted this series actually is, and indeed, the synopsis explains more about what's really going on than the first four episodes actually do. Knowing the basic outline about the immortals and the Elixir of Life goes a long way towards helping make sense of the first volume, but in the end it does not really matter much. The first volume is so much fun to watch that making full sense of it is not (yet) necessary for enjoying it.

In any lesser production the approach of jumping haphazardly around between the stories of nearly two dozen named characters (18 of which are introduced in the opener) and three different years (1930, 1931, and 1932) would come off as scatterbrained, but Baccano!'s producers show a deft talent for managing all of the disparate threads by hinting at ultimate results while showing how things developed in that direction and how these threads are all gradually becoming entwined. (Given that the director-writer team for this also produced the masterfully-written Koi Kaze, the quality level should be no surprise.) Watching the first four episodes is an experience in gradually assembling the story piece by piece in a vertical as well as horizontal direction, and it can be a fascinating exercise.

Treating this series as a primarily intellectual exercise misses its point, though. It is meant to be an entertaining romp, and that is precisely what it delivers. Like bloody fight scenes? These episodes won't disappoint. A fan of gangster action? Plenty of that going around. Enjoy watching whacked-out psychotics and their masochistic mistresses, or people coming back to life after being riddled with bullets? They offer that, too, as well as lively characters running the gamut from whiny scaredy-cats to the toughest of Mafia punks to everything in between. The most entertaining characters are the brains-light robber duo of Isaac and Miria, who offer much of the series' comedy relief in their silly dialogues, amusing costume-themed robbery schemes (they pull off one robbery dressed as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb where they use bats for weapons, for instance), and Maria's tendency to agree with Isaac no matter how lamebrained his comments are. Their glee in just about everything they do is infectious. The loopy psychopath Ladd, who skips down a hallway as he eagerly anticipates upcoming gunplay and promises his fiancée that he loves her so much that he will torture her to death last (as in, only after he's killed everyone else in the world) offers an entirely different kind of appeal, and there are many other options, too. The way much of the cast crosses paths on board the Flying Pussyfoot assures that future episodes will show an even livelier experience than the first four episodes, as that plot element is only starting to heat up as the volume ends.

For all the fun factor, though, this is actually a pretty brutal series. Its TV-MA rating is well-earned through occasional displays of intense graphic violence, including scenes of a seeming child's head being blown off, a rat smashed with a hammer, a man's face literally pummeled into a bloody pulp, characters riddled with bullets, and a man waving around an arm whose forearm has been reduced to its bones. Granted, these scenes are only flash points and not constant representations of content, but the series' ability to smoothly mix ugliness and light-heartedness without either seeming forced or awkward is amazing.

The style and plotting alone might carry the production, but the storytelling also finds support from a great jazz-based musical score. The opener “Gun's & Roses” by Paradise Lunch, whose visuals include key scenes from the previous episode starting with episode 3, is an up-tempo jazz number so much in the spirit of Cowboy Bebop's “Tank!” that it has a similar potential to be an anime classic. Closer “Calling” is a melodic Yuki Kajiura arrangement with more ordinary visuals. In between the score liberally sprinkles period jazz themes with harmonica pieces and more intense numbers to create a balanced, easily adaptable sound.

The artistry may not represent the finest of achievements in character or background design, but its style serves its purpose well, as it has little trouble crafting an easily distinguishable cast or depicting convincing blood splatters. Brain's Base, whose other work can be seen in titles like Demon Prince Enma, Innocent Venus, and Shin Getter Robo, gives its characters and setting a distinctive look heavily influenced by classic caricatures of mobsters and American Depression-era cities and mostly devoid of anachronistic elements, unlike the similar time period Chrono Crusade; it looks like character designer Takahiro Kishida (also from Koi Kaze) actually did his homework on appropriate period costuming. The artistry also uses a lightly muted color scheme that avoids any hint of typical anime garishness. The animation stands on the high end of the scale as TV series go, including a couple of impressive point-of-view shots in certain fight scenes, some nice fight choreography, and minimized short cuts.

Funimation's English dub cast represents a mix of long-time Funi stand-bys and fresh voices, as several important cast members are doing only their first or second prominent voice role. Aside from an occasional shaky accent, though, the dearth of experience in some roles does not hamper the dub at all. The casting is surprisingly close in sound to the Japanese originals and the performances follow the delivery styles of the originals while infusing them with accents and speech patterns more appropriate to the settings and time period, the lack of which are the biggest weaknesses in the Japanese dub. J. Michael Tatum and Caitlin Glass steal the show in every appearance as Isaac and Miria, but theirs are not the only good performances. The dub script also sticks surprisingly close to the original (by Funi standards) everywhere except in the Next Episode previews, with most modifications involving use of appropriate period/setting slang and even a couple of tricky translation issues being handled smoothly.

The first volume can be obtained separately or with the cardboard art box, with the cover of the DVD case offering an amusing attempt to use period speech patterns in the advertising. The inside liner includes similarly-styled brief profiles on four prominent characters, while textless songs and an audio commentary for episode 4 constitute the on-disk Extras. The latter features the English ADR director and English VAs Caitlin Glass and Brian “Ladd” Massey in a discussion mostly about series content, performance style issues, and inspirations for this effort, which include the mobster movie Miller's Crossing.

Sometimes humorous, occasionally brutal, and nearly always fun, the complex plotting and voluminous casting, combined with strong dubbing, animation, and musical score, make this a must-see series for fans of American mobster stories. If the remaining three volumes (space in the art box suggests that there will be four total, which presumably means that all three bonus episodes from the Japanese DVD releases will be included) are as sharp as this one then this could be one of the year's best series.

Apr 6th 2009

Synopsis: Akihabara@DEEP has less than forty eight hours before the chatterbot that DigiCap stole from them is to go live. Desperate for guidance, they seek out the founder of the company and their spirit mother, a mysterious personage known only as Yui. To find her, they must hack into the MMORPG world known as Aquila…which is also owned by DigiCap! Amata appears as an invincible black knight, determined to expel them from the game before they can make contact with Yui. He is only partially successful, and they are able to make a date for a meeting in the real world. That date happens at a fan convention, and the four current members of Akihabara@DEEP are joined by two new ones, Izumu and Dalma. Yui, though, is nowhere to be found…

Review: Much of volume two of Akihabara@DEEP takes place in the world of a fictionalized MMORPG world, but if you think you are merely in for a hackneyed version of .hack, you are in for the surprise of your life: One of the top manga series first published in English in 2008 is getting even better.

Page, Akira, Taiko, and Box have entered the world of Aquila, an online role-playing game which, ironically, is owned by the very corporation that they have entered the game in hopes of beating. So, needless to say, their quest to find Yui is pitted with DigiCap-created obstructions. Good thing they have master hacker Page with them to level them up enough to take on the so-called “Corridor of Ruin.” Now their race against time starts to ante up; Amata, in an “invincible” black knight player character incarnation, is determined to stop them in their tracks, while on the real world side, DigiCap appendages are fast on the heels of the annoying otaku who have hacked their servers.

Fortunately, the Akihabara@DEEP quartet is able to make contact with Yui in time, and she instructs them to meet up at a particular booth in the west wing of an otaku get-together that sounds a heck of a lot like the Comic Market. Two people who helped them in the game world, the one-time shut-in and lawyer Dalma and the albino hacker Izumu, show up in order to join the team…but Yui, who after all this build you will be as eager as Page to finally “meet” in the flesh, does not.

The so-called Mother of All Otaku, as it turns out, died the morning of their meeting. Although she looks like a cute little pixie in Aquila, she was really a young woman who spent her life helping others online when she could not even help herself, someone who accidentally overdoses on prescription meds and kills herself. The realization of her loss is a genuinely tragic, affective moment, and my hat off to writer Ira Ishida for taking the time to dig into the very real problems that social outcasts like otaku in Japan suffer. There is nothing flip about Yui's back story. A psychologically troubled teenager who has tried to commit suicide, she seems like a person you might actually know…or have met online before, never suspecting. It really makes you think, and though sometimes this manga makes you feel like you've been dropped headfirst into a freak show, minor characters like Yui position Akihabara@DEEP at its humanizing best.

Makoto Akane's artwork could not be better a better fit with the storyline. Clean and detailed, cute but not cloyingly so, the richness and visual unity of both foreground and background are unusual even of seinen manga series of this sort, which tend to set the bar high already. He takes you from the glorious hack'n slash fantasy world of Aquila and back to the sordid grime of a pay per hour internet café with the ease and grace of a consummate expert. The level of care devoted to each illustration is impressive, but not blindingly or distractingly so; everything you need to know is immediately clear even if you wish not to linger, which is not always the case when artists put a lot of effort into the little things. Everything Makoto does, it seems, is more evidence that he knows exactly what's what. For example, the ways in which the panels depicting the videogame world—but not the real one—seem inordinately focused on (ahem) the female characters' assets in the chest and groin areas are pitch-perfect.

And the cherry on top is Media Blasters' loving treatment of this title. The image reproduction, along with the inclusion of four pages in full color, is stellar, and the prose adaptation is both well edited and pleasingly readable. In short, this volume of Akihabara@DEEP is proud representative of a manga that knows itself and exactly what it needs to do. Then does it. If you are remotely interested in Japanese manga and otaku culture—heck, even if you are not—this is one series that you simply must not miss.

Grade:

+ A compelling cast of otaku and their world in precise, anthropological detail.
− Occasional--but brief--hints of appeal by freakshow spectacle.

Jun 12th 2009

Synopsis: Maki—AKA the Air Master; named such for her gymnastics-based fighting style—is on the rise. As a fighter that is. She's a terrible student; a perpetual delinquent who hangs out with a posse of fun-loving kogals (and one bazooka-breasted lesbian socialite). But she's an awe-inspiring fighter. After her pro-wrestling match with Kai Sampaguita, a mega-strong female wrestling up-and-comer, she finds herself under the scrutiny of Fukamichi, the guy with the laptop and dorky earmuff-things that occasionally sits in on her fights. He's scoping out new fighters for the Fukamichi Ranking, an elite free-form ranking of street fighters, and he wants Maki to join. He also contacts many of her former opponents, and the injection of new blood like Kinjiro, Kai and Julietta Sakamoto soon has the Ranking roiling with healthy pandemonium. As foes new and old vie for the chance to ground the Air Master, the streets of Tokyo become a battlefield, the ultimate testing ground for Maki's newfound abilities.

Review: Like its protagonist, Air Master has muscles for brains. Its plot is nothing but nonstop brawling, and its humor is vulgar and its characters cartoony. It's full of false starts, dead ends and side plots that never really go anywhere, and drops characters for long stretches only to pick them up again at the most random times. Visually it's all over the place. Characters go off model, the artificial and the gritty are slammed together with unbalanced glee, and the animation switches from stunning to sloppy with no apparent logic. It's a big, cross-eyed mess, with all the focus and intelligence of a gorilla on speed. And somehow, it works beautifully.

Air Master is a fighting show. Pure, with no dramatic baggage or unnecessary complexities to get in the way of its elbow-to-the-head thrills. The closest it gets to studied intent is to give the fights room to build up and expand out before exploding into acrobatic, face-smashing violence. Somewhere in the maze of comically crisscrossing characters, the fighters and their friends pick up enough personality to be fun and likeable, but only inasmuch as it's necessary to make the fights matter and the downtime enjoyable. Any structure the second half has comes from the Fukamichi Ranking (the first half was all independent fights separated by bizarre filler episodes), which does little more than provide a loose framework for chaining together as many all-out street-fights as possible.

As focused as the series is on its fights, the random mess of strange humor and post-Tarantino coincidences surrounding them is often just as fun. Characters boil around the city, meeting up in odd ways that sometimes result in unpredictable battles, sometimes in crazed slapstick, and often in both. One of the second half's best episodes has Maki and Sakiyama (dressed as a giant cockroach) beating the holy hell out of a series of unsuspecting actors at a sentai stage show in front of a thousand weeping children. Talk about pure gold.

But ultimately it's all about the fighting. Air Master's masterminds chose to do one thing exceedingly well and they chose early on. There was no doubt from episode one where Daisuke Nishio and his co-conspirators' energy was directed. The uneven character designs tighten up the minute they enter battle, becoming bold and oft beautiful dervishes. The animation evens out, growing smooth and detailed, timed with deadly precision. The music pushes at the action, spiraling upward along with its protagonist. Maki's fighting style is among the most cinematic ever to grace a fighting anime, and Nishio exploits its visual possibilities with the eye of a still-vital veteran (which he is—one doesn't direct ten years of Dragon Ball and not pick up anything). He taps into a huge and wild variety of fighting styles, smashing them against one another—gymnastics vs. pro-wrestling, qigong vs. kick-boxing, street brawling vs. precision throwing—to exhilarating, often deeply weird effect.

For all the seeming imbalance of it—with every resource it has being channeled into its action, often while badly neglecting less violent aspects—the series comes together strangely well. No matter how many pointless off-branches it follows, the series is always building to a new match; just when it seems to be flailing in place, some silly, fillerific plot twist will prove to be the onset of a skull-cracking match. Nishio blends humor and violence with a verve and skill seldom seen outside of the very best of One Piece, and with a hard, ruthless edge even more seldom seen. But never so ruthless that the action stops being slam-bang fun. You can thank both the off-the-wall humor and the strange mix of bloody violence and cartoony characters—with their half-moon eyes and hugely exaggerated expressions—for that. And all of those random meetings, dangling side-plots and rivalries that go nowhere? They do a remarkable job preventing you from guessing who will fight who. Plus they're an endless mine of goofy humor. Even the lopsided budget begins to make a strange kind of sense after a while: Like Maki, Air Master is only truly alive when it's fighting.

You can think of Air Master as a huge anime blender filled with whacked humor and action, set to liquefy. It looks and feels like chaos, and entertains like the love child of Mohammed Ali and Jerry Lewis. Renge, strange little creature that she is, often rubs raw nerves, and the emotions are blown so far over the top that they can easily trigger the snark alarms in viewers' heads, but by god knows what alchemy, in context it all dovetails nicely. The bad, the good, the overblown. The stupid and the even stupider, the goofy and the merciless, the lazy and the virtuosic. So nicely, in fact, that it's a bit of a shock to see it completely self-destruct in the final two episodes. But by then the damage is done. No lapse into bombastic fantasy-fu can erase the hours of runaway fun that preceded it.

Grade:

+ More high-flying martial-arts action than you can poke with pointy stick; great opening and closing themes.
− Comes across sloppy and haphazard, an impression that non-action-junkies are unlikely to shake; falls spectacularly apart in the final act.

Mar 15th 2009

Synopsis: 15 year-old Ikkou is a Buddhist monk in training at a temple which also has several teenage nuns in training, all under the supervision of the old priestess Jyotoku. Although normally a whiny, pathetic fellow, Ikkou has an unusual ability: when his libido is stimulated he can release immense amounts of spiritual energy, which can be quite useful given that the temple's denizens are often called upon to participate in exorcisms. All that the girls have to do is flash him a bit of flesh to get him worked up, with buxom country girl Chitose usually being the intentional or unintentional catalyst. (Calming down the horny young man afterwards is another matter entirely.) Hijinks ensue as Ikkou and the girls deal with one case of haunting after another, whether it be uppity dolls, an out-of-date arcade, or a ghostly undergarment thief.

Review: Few things in anime viewing are more satisfying than seeing an anime series live up to high expectations or exceed modest ones. Conversely, few things in anime viewing are more depressing than seeing a series sink into the depths of its bargain-basement expectations. Such is the case with the series known in Japanese as Amaenaideyo!!, a series which clearly wants to be an silly ecchi romp in the style of Ninja Nonsense but instead ends up being dull, lame, and brainless, with not even a sufficient quantity or quality of fan service to justify that as an excuse to watch it.

The corny premise is actually the least of the first volume's problems. The notion of a male character whose power increases with his arousal, and that he can be aroused by merely looking at the stripped-down forms of the girls around him, is an amusingly naughty one that sounds like it belongs in a hentai series instead. (Indeed, reverse the genders and the premise somewhat resembles that of the actual hentai title Beat Angel Escalayer.) It also allows a convenient excuse to work in lots of fan service and certainly seems abusable for all kinds of ribald jokes. With just a modicum of cleverness, such a concept could easily work.

As the first four episodes repeatedly prove, however, writing and execution matter even in lowbrow content like this. Jokes consistently fall flat as the same old boring gags and story set-ups recycle from numerous other anime series. A poor sense of timing hampers the humor, and when the series tries to be serious or establish some sort of threat level it never manages to induce any tension, resulting in most of its scenes being pale imitations of equivalents done vastly better elsewhere. (Ghost Hunt offers a far more effective haunted doll sequence, for instance.) Most of its attempts at originality fail even worse; the haunted arcade in episode 2, for instance, is only worthwhile because of the background cameo of sound effects from the original Donkey Kong arcade game. The fan service quotient is even surprisingly low for a series designed around it.

A pedestrian cast of common archetypes does not help. Ikkou looks like Tenchi Masaki and whines worse even than Shinji Ikari – no mean feat. Consistently playing him more like Inuyasha's Miroku, rather than like the typical hapless harem romantic comedy male lead, would have served the series so much better. Amongst the harem, innocent and upbeat Chitose gets the feature treatment, but her only claim to freshness is her unusually pragmatic attitude towards horror movies. Amongst the rest are the buxom tanned girl, the flaky blonde, the petite-built tomboy, the “girl with glasses,” and Hinata, the token Ruri-from-Nadesico rip-off; in other words, a typical harem mix. Naturally they have the tiny old lady priestess as their trainer/supervisor.

The English dub does the content no favors, either. Although generally fairly close to the original script (maybe too close at times, which could partly explain the stiff dialogue), its English script curiously rewrites around most of the strongest sexual innuendo, as if a deliberate effort were made to keep the English production PG-13-rated; if true, this would seem a self-defeating effort. It also changes a clear reference to cosplay to “dressing up,” something that English dubs generally have not done in the past decade. Many of the English acting performances suffer either from overkill – as in the whiny-overkill version of Ikkou – or awkward-sounding timing and delivery, which denies the smooth and consistent flow that even the more mediocre dubs have these days. The Japanese dub is hardly a stellar production, either, and the English actors do settle down some by episode 4, but this is still a detrimental effort.

Studio DEEN gives the teenage female character designs a rounded look not unlike that of Ninja Nonsense and very distinctively different appearances, allowing viewers to pick their own favorite depending on preferred style. (Do you like bigger or smaller breasts? Pigtails or short hair? Tanned or pale skin? The harem has all of the options covered.) By contrast, most one-shot and supporting characters have a very generic look. A vibrant coloring job and solid animation give the series an appealing look, albeit one decidedly different from most of the studio's other efforts. If only they had put equal effort into the boring and unimaginative soundtrack, which has a decent opening number and better country-themed closer but in between fails to generate much excitement or enthusiasm.

Extras are limited to only a clean opener. Media Blasters does continue their recent trend of printing cover art lengthwise, however.

Not everything in the first four episodes is a total failure. The artistry looks respectable, they do offer an occasional funny moment, the references to one of the longest-running American horror movie series in episode 4 actually get a little creative, and at least some of the fan service is sexy. Those plusses fall far short of balancing out all of the minuses stacked against them, however. Doubtless some will find this to their tastes, as the series was successful enough to warrant a second season, but for most this first volume, at least, is not worth the cost of the DVD.

Grade:

+ Generally sharp coloring, occasional funny moment.
− Weak English dub, flat writing, insufficient fan service given its focus.

Jan 27th 2009

Synopsis: After winning the legendary #1 headband (making him the most feared warrior in the land) in the first installment, this feature-length sequel finds Afro living a life of solitude, until the vengeful Lady Sio shows up with a gang of revenge-minded freaks, looking to exact vengeance on Afro for his past misdeeds in service of the headband.

Review: It's impossible to deny that a whole lot of time and money and talent went into the production of Afro Samurai: Resurrection. One of the few existing anime franchises backed by a big budget and genuine A-list voice talent, it's a gorgeous film, with incredible animation, spectacular action setpieces and a thumping score by The RZA; this is the closest thing to a big summer Hollywood-style blockbuster as could exist in the anime industry. It should come as no surprise, then, to those seasoned on what to expect from a big Hollywood blockbuster, that like those noisy, expensive cinematic confections we flock to every summer, it's a whole lot of time, money and talent dumped into a pretty terrible script. That doesn't mean it's a total waste, though.

Resurrection picks up what seems like a few years after the events of the original OVA (this time the story isn't split into TV-friendly chunks; it's just a 97-minute feature) and Afro has basically retreated into solitude, growing a beard and basically spending his days carving wood figurines of the movie's cast and fighting off would-be challengers who want to claim the legendary #1 headband for themselves. Along comes Jinnosuke, the teddy-bear-headed guy from the first one who takes Afro out pretty easily and introduces him to the movie's villain, Lady Boobs Sio, who wants to exact revenge on Afro for all the crimes of his past (there's some family history gobbedlygook in there somewhere too but the movie is far more focused on long shots of Sio's ridiculous chest). She takes his #1 headband, tells him she's going to resurrect his dead father so she can torture him, and then challenges him to find the #2 headband so he can track her (and, subsequently, her breasts) down.

That, of course, is all just window dressing; if Afro Samurai is “about” anything, it's about Cool. Everything in this film – every creative choice, every plot development, every character – is all executed in service to being and looking cool, in the sense of what everyone's inner teenage boy thinks is cool. Big bloody fights, motorcycles, sunglasses, hot chicks in skimpy outfits, samurai, Samuel L. Jackson, all of it. To that extent, the film works as kind of a modern cousin to all those ultra-violent high-budget OVAs that came out of Japan in the 80's, with a uniquely Western flavor added in and a metric ton of hip-hop culture. If that's all you're looking for, then you're going to extract some measure of entertainment out of this thing, which delivers very well on the big bloody fights and hot chicks and motorcycles. Make no mistake – this is a really good-looking film, with excellent production values and some really kinetic fight scenes. That's really all there is to recommend about it – which is fine, since for a big chunk of the audience for this film, that's all they're looking for. Unfortunately, while all those elements come together, they ultimately don't go anywhere thanks to the film's subpar script.

Initially the film feels like it's all business as usual – Afro Samurai is back, he's gonna kick some ass, yadda yadda – everyone knows to expect the story to be little more than an excuse to string fight scenes together. But as it goes along, it becomes clearer and clearer just how weak the writing is here. We're stuck watching Lady BREASTS Sio explain her motivations over and over again, sometimes to herself, sometimes to other people, slightly reworded each time. The plot is fairly thin and simply involves Afro retrieving the #2 headband – which includes a potentially interesting little B-plot that sucks up a fair amount of the middle of the film but ultimately exists just to provide a tiny little denouement at the end – and walking slowly across the country to meet Lady She has absurd breasts, get it Sio and his undead pops. The end of the film completely falls apart and, frankly, seems like it was stitched together by amateur writers – it is childish, chock full of deus ex machina moments, and ultra-convenient changes of heart. The climactic final battle (well, the final final battle, which happens after the final battle) is oddly rendered in hyper-stylized black and white stills and isn't fully animated. By then you probably won't care because the last 10 minutes are so preposterous and lazily written as to be insulting.

The worst thing about all this is that there isn't much for the characters to do in the stretches between fights, so what we get is a whole lot of Afro's ‘sidekick’ Ninja Ninja, an imaginary friend who represents his inner monologue and NEVER EVER STOPS TALKING.

EVER.

Anyone who's seen the first series will recognize this character as sort of the token zany jive-talkin' mega-stereotypical comedy relief black guy, who in most movies usually only has a handful of lines (examples include “dayum!” and “oh snap!” and the like) but in this film fills up the giant empty sections in between fight scenes. We watch Afro slowly trudge across the country while Ninja Ninja comments on both the story and the setting. “DAYUM IT IS WINDY UP IN THIS PIECE” “HEY AFRO WHEN WE GONNA FIND THAT BOOTYLICIOUS BITCH WHO TOOK YO FATHER'S SKULL” “OH SNAP NOW WE ON A MOUNTAIN DAYUM AFRO OH SNAP HELL NAW SAY WHAAAAAT”. After a few minutes of this it's pure torture because Ninja Ninja isn't funny, actually feels just a little racist, and seems to be always on screen and always jabbering on, especially when there isn't anything of interest happening, which is probably a good third of the film.

But, again, when Afro Samurai: Resurrection works, it works. The battles are cool and extremely well-animated and the look and sound of the film seems very well put-together; it's just a shame they couldn't back up all that amazing artistic talent with a decent script that would've put it all to better use. Perhaps when the inevitable Afro Samurai 3 comes out – which is guaranteed to happen, if not solely because they've come up with a formula that ensures the story never has to end – they'll spend as much time refining the script as they have the film's visual aesthetic. Until then, if you're looking for a good collection of fight scenes and some very cool visuals, check this out – just don't expect poetry.

Grade:

+ Great music, great animation, a unique visual flair not seen in any other anime production.
− Horrible script, Ninja Ninja.

Synopsis: Kenji Endo's childhood is coming back to haunt him. One of his former friends has died under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, other deaths and disapperances have been linked to a cult whose logo is identical to a symbol made up by Kenji's old gang. And the leader of that cult, who goes only by the name of "Friend," might be one of Kenji's acquaintances who went missing years ago. But how does one stop a megalomaniacal cult when even members of the police are involved? Kenji's hazy childhood memories—if only he could remember them—might be the key to unlocking a terrible secret that involves a deadly virus, a killer robot, and possibly the end of the world.

Review: The interwoven North American release schedule of 20th Century Boys and Pluto has created an unusual harmonic effect. In one work, Naoki Urasawa pays tribute to a boyhood hero; in the other, he deconstructs the very concept of boyhood heroes (and villains), twisting it into a tense conspiracy thriller. At least, that's what we'd like to believe about 20th Century Boys, but as it passes the two-volume mark, the thriller element still isn't delivering. Sure, this installment brings in a few more plot points, and the machinations of "Friend" are truly starting to take a sinister shape, but the flashbacks and reflections on childhood are still the most engaging part. So maybe it's time to sit back and think on those boyhood dreams a little more.

Those who choose to approach the series from a cultural angle—seeing it as Urasawa's personal nostalgia trip through the Japanese economic boom—will probably get the most satisfaction out of the story so far. With the overall plot still in fragments, it's much more rewarding to settle into the self-contained vignettes and stories-within-the-story, like how Kenji got his first guitar (and what better time than during the golden age of rock?), or the comical flashbacks about Yukiji, "the strongest girl who ever lived," and even more serious segments like the troubled history of Kenji's older sister. A sprinkling of pop-culture references also adds to the sense of time and place, and it's always done tastefully: maybe a casual mention of some old-school manga or a movie, or a youthful discourse on the super-powered struggle between good and evil.

That struggle, of course, is the whole reason this series exists in the first place—the last few chapters reveal a chilling hint that Kenji's hero-versus-villain fantasies may be coming back to haunt him in a totally new way. But even as the storyline starts to take shape and direction, Urasawa is still holding back far too much: hey, here's a cop who knows more than he ought to, and hey, here's a bunch of homeless guys predicting the future, and hey, here's the scary attack that's going to happen a year from now. Oh, and let's also waste dozens of pages where Kenji putzes around the convenience store where he works. Simply put, the main storyline is intriguing, but not yet gripping, and until these fragments become more coherently connected, the series is going to stay stuck at "pretty good."

Even the artwork seems to have fallen into a rut of "pretty good"—the strong, expressive faces are still there, along with the sure-handed linework that can render just about any scene and any situation, but genuinely stunning moments are hard to find here. The layouts move the story forward in a no-nonsense, businesslike manner—but perhaps too businesslike, as readers are more likely to remember the plot details rather than how the characters actually looked, or how they moved, or where they were standing. And really, that says it all about the story situation right now: what kind of visual narrative is this where the most memorable scene is the flashback of Kenji holding his first guitar? It may be fun drawing those scenes of youthful nostalgia, but the conspiracy-thriller side is clearly lacking, and will have to do a lot more than just throw up a mysterious symbol and let the talking heads do the rest.

There is, however, at least one area where being no-nonsense and businesslike proves to be an advantage: the dialogue, which often has to communicate the greatest amount of information in the least space possible. This is where storytelling talent really comes into play; it takes real skill to build a story as multi-layered as this one and still have it make sense as the characters explain things to each other through conversation or express themselves through internal monologue. A clear, straightforward translation helps as well. However, despite the premium page size and packaging, this edition is noticeably short on extras—even Pluto gets some cultural commentary on the importance of Astro Boy, but this volume just puts the story out there and nothing else.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with getting into 20th Century Boys purely for the story—after all, it's being crafted by one of the best in the business, and few others would be so daring as to write about the end of the world and a cult conspiracy and tie it into the crossing paths of childhood friends who are looking back on the last 40 years. But perhaps even a great talent can get in over his head: Urasawa still hasn't delivered any of the killer twists that are his trademark, choosing instead to reveal the conspiracy bit by bit and let things develop through a series of mini-twists. In the meantime, we can content ourselves with rich, nostalgic flashbacks of Kenji and his friends' youth, but the main storyline needs to hurry up and pick up the momentum too. How much longer until it crosses the line from good to great?

Grade:

+ Well-plotted flashbacks and vignettes fill out the characters and add depth to the story.
− The overall conspiracy—the whole point of the series—is taking too long to develop.

Synopsis: Though his classmates tease him unmercifully about being an orphan and a slave, Teito Klein is the elite Barsburg Academy's star pupil. His mastery of the magical art of Zaiphon is unmatched, and, along with his best friend Mikage, he passes the final exam with flying colors. Unfortunately, after a chance encounter with the sinister Ayanami, his long repressed memories start to return, and he realizes that his life has been a lie. He is actually heir to the throne of the now subjugated Ragg Kingdom! He flees and ends up taking refuge in a church, neutral territory known as “The Zone of God.” Although he gains a trio of new allies within those sacred walls, Barsburg will stop at nothing to get him back—even if that means making fell bargains with ancient demonic powers!

Review: Take a close look at the cover of the first volume of 07-Ghost. It features a frail pretty boy in chains draped around a smirking blond punk who is holding an enormous scythe protectively over the boy. Needless to say, this cover is sublime truth in advertising, and if the aforementioned description doesn't leave you drooling like a St. Bernard for more, don't bother with it for another second.

But if on the other hand you are drooling for more, I think it's safe to say that I know your type—and so does creative duo Yuki Amemiya and Yukino Ichihara. A brooding, superpowered bishounen in Prussian-inspired school uniform coming to grips with his dark past and uncertain, violent future? Sounds like CLAMP's X or Code Geass. As a matter of fact, it also looks a lot like an amalgamation of those two series with its panel busting action scenes and pseudo-European techno-fantasy setting. Although some of the transitions between panels are confusing, requiring too much of a leap in logic to be entirely easy to read, the mangaka visualize their world with assuredness—the Church, with its gothic architecture and elegantly garbed clerics, seems particularly magical—and move with delicious fluidity between the serious and the slapstick. Indeed, the professionalism evinced bellies 07-Ghost's status as their debut series.

The story does not immediately strike one as the work of rookies either. Although as suggested earlier, it is not the most original story premise to make it to print, not by a long stretch of the imagination, this is a story that knows it audience, knows what it needs to do, and then proceeds to do it. Teito is your typical magical boy: small, dark-haired, dour, short-tempered, and angst-ridden. And just in case you didn't think he was gloomy enough, he spends most of volume one in shackles; talk about the clang and bang of heavy-handed symbolism! At first, he thinks that he is an orphan, but he quickly discovers that he is actually a prince of a conquered kingdom who lost both his father and the priest who raised him to enemies that are still (shocker!) after him for as of yet unknown, nefarious ends. They will, naturally, stop at nothing to have him, sacrificing even his best friend Mikage to get him back, and if Teito is to have a prayer for the future he is going to need to the help of the Church…and one rather raunchy male priest improbably named Frau in particular.

Needless to say, like many female mangaka who come up from the doujinshi subculture, Amemiya and Ichihara lard their professional work with homoerotic subtext and “special” relationships. 07-Ghost might set a record, though, for sheer number of special relationships and sexually ambiguous villains. In the first volume alone, we see Teito losing two important people in his life to Barsburg goons, including one who says, “I love you” outright before trying to kill him. (Don't ask.) Then, of course, there is the oversexed Frau, who is certain to play a prominent sidekick/mentor role in future installments. Suffice it to say that creators might as well be groveling on their hands and knees for yaoi parody fanzines. There are also a handful of cute girls who show up here and there, as well as a priest who makes his own humanoid (female) dolls, but these by comparison seem mostly afterthought.

The world-building is intriguing. At first, the Church appears to be an apparatus of the typical fetishized Christianity so often seen in manga and anime, but over time it becomes clear that the God

Grade

+ An entertaining, intriguing storyline, handsome art, and boatloads of bishounen in suggestive situations.
− Fanservice that even fujoshi may find excessive and the occasional minor flaw of visualization or narration.