Bugs in his eyeballs or why I will never eat again

Thanks to The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service volume 4 I am probably going to starve to death. Why? Because I have been put off from food forever… or at least until I learn how to block my mind of unpleasant memories.

You see, TKCDS is a horror manga not because it’s scary but because it does it’s best to gross the reader out. It usually attempts this through perversions of the human body: mangled corpses, bloody stumps, heads in bags, that sort of thing. All of which I can handle with ease.

What I can not handle is pulsating, wriggling snail parasites POPPING OUT OF PEOPLE’S EYEBALLS while they’re still alive. But words cannot do this page justice, you must see it for yourself.

One Outs 1 and 2 – it’s not really about baseball

There’s been very little talk about One Outs which shouldn’t surprise me but does. Somehow I really thought there were more Kaiji and Akagi fans out there and that like me they too would be counting down the days until they could get their gambling anime fix. After all I’ve been doing everything I can to convince bishie fangirls that One Outs is about beautiful guys, manly anime watchers that it’s about badass dudes crushing their opponents and everyone else that “baseball” is just a euphemism for “better than sex” in a pitiful attempt to drum up interest and therefore fansubs.

In fact, let me clear up something right now. ONE OUTS IS NOT ABOUT BASEBALL. Okay, that’s not entirely true. It is about baseball but only as a means of getting to the edge-of-your-seat gambling goodness. 

But does it live up to its predecessors? After only 2 episodes it’s too early to say however it definitely has potential.

Oi Hayaku!, now with manly eyebrows

So if you haven’t heard already, there’s a new group blog called Oi Hayaku! which is being touted as a force that’s going to revolutionize the blogging world through the power of Dios hard work and guts. Now as evidenced by how little effort I put into promoting my own blog I’m hardly one to hype things* but I really think it’s worth adding Oi Hayaku to your RSS reader because

1) there’s a really interesting mix of writers

2) it’s different than most group blogs in that the content is quite varied with absolutely no episodic summaries and

3) I’m writing for them.

That last point’s the real clincher, I know. 

I was originally going to write about something nice for my first post, like Kappa no Coo to Natsuyasumi, but then Golgo 13 came to me in a dream and, well, he didn’t actually say anything because anybody who has read the manga knows that his favorite phrase is “…” but he looked at me with that stone-cold face and I knew I had to write about Golgo 13: The Professional. So I did and now you can read it and find out why I’m crazy about this movie.

And someday I’m going to have to use my own blog to write about the Golgo 13 manga because it’s so great. Hell, there’s even a volume where he’s involved in Princess Diana’s death not to mention that story about fake Pope John Paul II. Or how about the time when he’s hired during the 2000 elections to shoot the ballots that would’ve made Al Gore president. Remember that whole recount fiasco? Yeah, now you know the real story.

* this should read: things other than Golgo 13

Ponyo Storyboards

 

This is one of those filler posts where I gloat about an artbook I recently bought and you laugh at how much more I paid than somebody who got it in a store in Japan. Well, actually I just wanted an excuse to make a Ponyo post because I absolutely love this movie.

The cool thing about the Ponyo storyboard book is that it’s in color which as far as I know is pretty rare. The watercolors here look really beautiful. Click on the pictures to see them in a larger resolution.

Intermission – Xam’d musings

I was going to write a post about how episode 13 was temporarily pulled from the PSN and Xam’d won’t be back until Japan can catch up but then Omonomono did it for me.

In the meantime this gives me a chance to write about something I’ve been thinking about – the pacing. When reading other blogger’s entries on Xam’d I tend to see many of the episodes described as “build up” and I’d say that’s pretty accurate. If most of the narrative has been a steady build up, like climbing a mountain, then we’ve only reached a couple of peaks or pay off episodes. One such episode was episode 8, when after leading up to it so much Haru and Akiyuki finally met. Yet for the most part Xam’d has spent more time developing the characters or the world rather than having a contained build up, conflict and resolution in each episode.

So what does that mean? It’s not that the storytelling is unusual, it’s just that with Xam’d I have even less of an idea where it’s all heading than normal. With most series even if I can’t predict what will happen I still know the general direction it will take. For instance In Eureka Seven I knew that Renton’s story would be about him growing up or after the first arc of Kaiji I knew he’d go through hell in an attempt to gamble his way to the top. But where is Xam’d heading? I really don’t know. Akiyuki’s declaration to live alongside others is a pretty vague character motivation and could take him in nearly any direction.

I suppose if I view Xam’d as a character drama then this doesn’t really matter because it’s the character interactions that are driving the story. With that in mind I’m just going to sit back, relax, and let the story take me where it will. I’ve yet to be bored or underwhelmed by an episode of Xam’d so even if it’s unconventional whatever they’re doing is working just fine for me. Though I’m very curious to hear what the rest of you watching think so far.

Kuroshitsuji 1 – Unexpectedly delectable but…

I wasn’t going to write anything about the new season just yet but I have to post about Kuroshitsuji because episode 1 was almost the best first episode I’ve seen so far. It was so very close to blowing nearly everything else out of the water.

So what bumped this show from amazing down to just pretty good?

Read on and be spoiled.

Lady Snowblood – if she sees your xxxx you’re dead already

In the Meiji era a kimono-clad woman enters a brothel. Hanging on the wall is, get this, an altar enshrining two penis-shaped ornaments. The woman speaks with the brothel’s owner who wishes to hire her to kill his business rival. She demands an extraordinary sum of money in advance and the man balks. With lightning speed she grabs a pair of fire pokers and, without even glancing behind her, hurls one over each shoulder. They zip through the air and pierce the penis ornaments straight through, causing them to tumble to the ground in front of the horrified man. Naturally he pays up.

This is how Lady Snowblood begins and it’s only a small taste of what’s to come. If you’ve ever heard of Lone Wolf and Cub you may be under the impression that Kazuo Koike is some kind of well-respected writer of historical manga. Perhaps you’ve heard that his work has influenced the likes of Frank Miller or that famous graduates from his program for aspiring mangaka include Tetsuo Hara (Fist of the North Star) and Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma 1/2). This is all true. Yet what nobody bothered to tell you is that Koike writes pulpy manga full of sex, violence and more sex with historical accuracy mixed in just to make you feel like this could be educational if you weren’t so distracted by the blood and tits.

The premise of Lady Snowblood is simple. Oyuki, which comes from “yuki” the Japanese word for snow, is out for revenge. Her sole purpose in life is to utterly destroy the three people who took part in killing her family and raping her mother. Ever since infancy she has been primed for this task and now she is a master assassin who takes on jobs while slowly tracking down her real targets. Oyuki is beautiful, heartless and extremely cunning. She’s been to hell and back; she’s the kind of woman you don’t want to cross. Ever.

Time of Eve 1 and 2

 

Forget about the new season for a moment because episode two confirms it, Time of Eve is absolutely one of the best things airing right now. Each episode is only a 15 minute long ONA (original net animation) yet somehow it has given me more reasons to be excited than the entirety of some series I finished recently.

Time of Eve takes place sometime in the future when androids have become so common that nearly every household owns them. The main character Rikuo discovers that his android, Sammy, has been visiting somewhere of “her” own accord. After school he and his friend Masaki follow the route she took and discover a café. This unusual café has but one rule: “no discrimination between humans and robots”. The androids are so human-like in appearance that with their only distinguishing feature, a ring around their head, switched off Rikuo finds it impossible to know who is human and who is not.

Xam’d Lost Memories 11 and 12

This post is really, really late. I was going to make up a legitimate excuse as to why I didn’t have time to post about 11 last week but truth be told I was too lazy too busy watching Eureka Seven and getting into internet fist fights over the ending of a certain other show. Just for the record, I’ve concluded that if he is alive he’s not the cart driver nor is he hiding in the hay or the bag. He’s in the horse (disclaimer: I didn’t draw this page so don’t report me to PETA or complain because your boss or mom doesn’t understand how awesome Jojo’s is). 

Okay, enough about that. This post is about Xam’d. Really.

Fantasy meets reality, or Japan you promised robots

I was going to post about Eve no Jikan but then this happened. So all I’m saying for now is, go watch the second episode.