Girls Can Pilot Giant Robots Too You Know

My sister is home for the holidays so I forced her to watch a few episodes of Gurren Lagann with me. I think she sort of enjoyed it although her first impressions were pretty funny, like calling Kamina an idiot and his dad an ass for abandoning him at an early age.

Then she turned to me and said, “so the robots are powered by testosterone… can girls pilot them too?” 

“Of course they can! It’s not testosterone, it’s fighting spirit” I said, desperate to keep her from forming a bad opinion of her first mecha show. But let’s be honest here, in Gurren Lagann piloting giant robots is a man’s job. Sure, Yoko and Kittan’s sisters pilot a couple of times but it still comes down to the girls providing backup for the guys. This is an important job – just look at how Nia was the catalyst for everything that happened after episode 8 – but it’s just not as cool as ripping a giant pair of sunglasses off your robot and cutting down the opponent with them.

Mind you, this doesn’t bother me. I love Gurren Lagann and frankly my tastes are so “manly” that I’m told people think I’m a guy (that’s probably what you get for thinking that the chauvinism in Golgo 13 is funny). Even so, there’s times when I really do wish there were more anime with girls in the cockpit. In fact I can only think of two with female pilots as main characters: Gunbuster and Gunbuster 2. I do love both of these but there’s only so many times I can re-watch them before hungering for more.

What I really want is a full length TV show revolving around a female mecha pilot, and she can’t just be a moeblob or fanservice character. Unless she’s cute and has a badass-goggle-wearing-planet-sized version like Nono. Have you seen through to what this post really is yet? Yes, it’s a shameless request for recommendations. So if you know, please tell me. Are there any anime that fit the bill?

Oh and I am somewhat optimistic about the upcoming Ride Back which has a girl riding a motorcycle mecha… or is it a mecha motorcycle?

One Piece Movie 6 – Not Your Typical Shonen Jump Fare

Most One Piece movies are nothing to write home about. That’s not to say that they’re bad – on the contrary I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve seen – but they don’t exactly break with convention. The sixth movie, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, is different. So much so that it may be worth seeing even if you are not a diehard One Piece fan (although some knowledge of the story is advisable lest you find yourself wondering if Luffy’s stretching ability makes him Gumby’s long lost relative).

Anime Music Has Taken Over, Please Send Help

I was reading 21stcenturydigitalboy’s post on top anime songs (a pretty good list) when a terrible thought occurred to me. When was the last time I listened to music that wasn’t from an anime? I wracked my brain until I remembered. Ah yes, a few weeks ago I went to see a friend and while driving around LA we listened to the radio… and I kept inwardly wishing that somebody would call the DJ and ask him to put on JAM Project.

Wait a minute. I couldn’t really be this far gone, right? There was only one way to find out so I went to my iTunes and did some quick calculations.

Total: 3,785 songs

Anime related: 3,118 = 82%

Non anime related: 667 = 18%

Definitely much worse than I thought but there’s still hope. I spend a lot of time driving around and I always have a CD playing. Let me check, I’m sure most of it is pretty normal…

Slot 1: Gurren Lagann, Slot 2: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Slot 3: JAM Project, Slot 4: Mix – all anime music, Slot 5: Macross Frontier, Slot 6: Eureka Seven.

I think I know defeat when I see it. I’d speculate on how I got this way but there’s only so much terrifying Truth I can handle in one day.

So the next time you’re in your car and you see somebody in the lane next to you chanting MOTTO MOTTO! you know who it is. Unless I’m not the only one…?

Time of Eve 3 – Koji and Rina

Finally the two month wait is over! I’ve been greatly looking forward to act 03 which dealt with human-robot love by focusing on Koji and Rina, a couple who are regulars at the café. I knew I could count on director/writer Yasuhiro Yoshiura to approach the issue differently than your typical magical robot girlfriend story and he did not disappoint.  

Oh and before I say anything else I want to point out that along with streaming the episode, Crunchyroll (not my favorite site, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to it) has facilitated this interview with Yoshiura. They’re also giving us the opportunity to ask questions in a follow up interview that’s going up on December 12. I believe that they’re only giving us until the 5th to post a question on their forum so if you want to be involved do that ASAP.

Shounen Jump Special – Letter Bee

This year is Weekly Shounen Jump’s 40th anniversary and as part of the celebration new episodes were animated for three of its series: One Piece, Letter Bee and Dragon Ball. These episodes are now up on Jump’s site where they can be watched subtitled and for free until January 31.

To watch them you need to download a media player which unfortunately only works for Windows XP or Vista. As a Mac user I was really bummed about this until I found I could download them from the usual place. I’m going to be doing separate entries for each one, starting with Letter Bee.