Mnemosyne – Daughters of Mnemosyne

I have no idea how to pronounce the show’s name properly in English, but the katakana used for the name are pronounced ‘mu ne mo syu ne’. Which is funny, since the ‘mune’ part taken on its own means ‘breast’ in Japanese. Haha, tits. I’ll get back to that later.

The structure of the show is pretty interesting. It’s a 6 episode series and each episode runs for an hour (45 minutes without commercials). Starting Feb. 3rd, they’re airing one episode per month. Pretty weird. It’s like an OVA, but on Satellite.

I’ve only seen the first episode raw (I don’t think there are any subs yet), and my Japanese is hardly at the level where I can ‘get’ everything, but I have the general idea of the show. Taking place in 1990, it centers around the green haired lady in the image above. She’s Rin Asougi, the central character who runs a sort of detective agency along with a loli chick named Mimi. Rin strikes me as a cross between Yomiko Readman of Read or Die and Motoko Kusanagi of Ghost in the Shell. She’s highly skilled and pretty ruthless at times, but when she’s not fighting someone she’s playful, compassionate and even a little clumsy.

Now let’s get back to the boobs. This is definitely an Adult show. Rin doesn’t have any problems rolling around unclothed with nary a puff of steam or strategic prop placement to be found. Putting aside the nudity, there’s some pretty disturbing violence in one extended scene involving a chick with a piercing fetish. It’s actually worse when the piercings are taken out. Yikes. Rin actually dies 3 times in this episode. This was being advertised as having ‘erotic violence’, and it certainly lives up to that advertisement.

If you’re the type that follows seiyuu, this show has a few big names to it. Mamiko Noto, Rie Kugimiya and Rie Tanaka all play major roles in this show. Nobuyuki Hiyama is in it as well, but I didn’t recognize his voice at all. The opening and ending songs are done by the Japanese metal band Galneryus

Looky here for a 3 minute trailer to have an idea of what the show looks like.

I’d imagine Mnemosyne would be more interesting if I understood what they were saying. It did hold my attention through its entire 45 minutes, so this is something I’ll be following during its run. It wasn’t anything particularly spectacular, but it is one of the more exciting programs this season. Hope someone subs it!

Loot for Oct 29-Nov 5

It probably seems like I don’t actually watch much anime or play much games. I certainly haven’t been keeping a steady flow of content here. However I figured I’d post what I’ve acquired within the last week alone to show that I do, in fact, enjoy and purchase anime and games. Scrubs too.

Click for full-size.

I’ll list what these actually are:
Row 1
-The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Special Editions vol 3 & 4 (Complete)
-Eureka 7 Special Editions vols 9 & 10
Row2
-Fighting Spirit/Hajime no Ippo Complete Collections vol 1 & 2 (Complete)
-Gundam the Movie: Char’s Counterattack
-Scrubs season 6 (one of these things is not like the others…)
Row 3
-Virtua Fighter 5 for 360
-Ace Combat 6 for 360
-Zack & Wiki for Wii (this game is all kinds of good. I’m thinking of making a post about it in the future)
-Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations for DS
-Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a day for DS(I really like these games. Once I get bored of them, I can give them to my mom as a gift…if she doesn’t go out and buy it herself)
-Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP

So there. Eight of these items I have already seen/played to completion in previous forms. Suzumiya, Eureka 7, Ippo I’ve seen on fansub. Virtua Fighter 5 I already had for PS3. I had already played the Japanese/English version of Gyakuten Saiban 3.

Please don’t ask how much all of this cost me. I really don’t want to think about it…

Nabeshin’s thoughts on fansubs

Shinichi Watanabe (also known as Nabeshin), director of comedy anime Excel Saga and Nerima Daikon Brothers, was at a convention in the US last week. There was a panel in particular about Anime Bootlegging that he requested to contribute to and share his opinions on.

You can watch video clips of the panel at this site.

Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou 5

Alright, I originally started this blog to practice writing, mostly through anime blogging. It’s been about 3 months since I started this thing, and not one dedicated anime post yet. So, I figured I’d start.

I haven’t decided on a format for these things yet, I’m just feeling it out. Keep in mind that since these are going to be single episode (and maybe sometimes movie) blogs, there may be unmarked spoilers. As things go on I might do some fancy stuff to hide the spoilers or whatever, so bear with me.

The first anime I will be blogging is: Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou. Don’t ask me what it means. I’m 5 episodes in and I’m going to assume you have the same level of knowledge about the show as I do for the time being, so beware if you’re expecting some kind of explanation on background story up to this point.

There are several pictures following this, so be forewarned in that regard as well.

Trix’s Anime Reccomendations

The following shows I’ll call the prerequisite pillars for anime in general. These are shows you should do your best to watch as soon as possible. Even if you can’t watch the entire show, watch at least an entire story arc. These are not neccessarily the ‘Best Shows’, but serve as a reference and foundation for many anime afterwards.

Dragon Ball Z
Mobile Suit Gundam (The original)
Neon Genesis Evangelion

Those are probably the three pillars of modern anime. Cowboy Bebop is another show you should watch ASAP, but it is not as important overall as those three shows.

It’s fine for you to think that “Naruto is the Best Thing EVER”, but if you’ve never watched DBZ you’re really missing out on a lot. A good number of today’s action shows are inspired by DBZ, in fact the creator of Naruto directly credits DBZ and its creator for inspiring him. While I wouldn’t argue that Naruto may be a better show, once you see DBZ you can draw a lot of similarities to the core elements.

Mobile Suit Gundam/First Gundam is undoubtedly the single most popular franchise in Japan. The Big Mech genre existed before Gundam of course, but Gundam really made it explode. The Gundam series is still going strong today, with many different seasons and spinoffs of the show with varying themes, some better than others. Still, it is best to go back to the original, and see where it all began.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is much more recent than Gundam, but it serves as a significant milestone in anime. (In fact, the creator of Evangelion actually worked on a Gundam series). Eva was a very different kind of action/mech show, and it dove much more into the psychological thinking and behaviours of the characters, and humanity itself. After Evangelion, there were many more ‘psychological thriller’ types of shows about. While many of them may not have been directly inspired by it, Eva created a clear path for those shows to reach a wide audience.

Ultimately, you cannot deny that there have been shows since DBZ, Gundam and Eva who have surpassed them in terms of overall quality. But you also cannot deny that they had to start somewhere. Without DBZ, there may not have been a Naruto or a Bleach. Without Gundam, there may not have even been an Evangelion. Without Evangelion, we may have never seen Serial Experiments Lain or Paranoia Agent. These three shows all have their own culture around them that has been ingrained with the anime community. Ask any casual fan of anime what a Kamehameha is, and he could probably tell you. Go to anime discussions and you’ll inevitably see some whiny, sissy hero be compared to “Shinji”. Find out why one blonde man with a mask fetish goes by at least three different names.

Now, on to the list.

My thoughts on the Death Note licensing

It’s been licensed by Viz, who seems to be picking up all of the Shonen Jump anime. Details/official press release here.

http://www.animeondvd.com/news/pr.php?pr_view=915

I think it’s great. Sure, you have to pay for it, but I don’t see it being very expensive (how much do TV shows cost on iTunes?).

It’s significant because they will be starting to do this while Death Note is still airing in Japan. This means you get it a lot sooner, it’s subtitled and you don’t have to worry about potentially crappy dubs. They will still be releasing DVDs in the future, with a dub on it and whatever other special features.

Several places have been making anime available online, most notably Bandai and Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, but they are always streaming versions (i.e., nondownloadable) of the English dub, and the show has often already been available on DVD for some time. I welcome this ‘innovation’.

Animation has changed my life on more than one occasion.

I honestly can’t remember the first time I saw a Disney movie, but whatever it was it was the beginning spark of my creativity. Disney movies back then were so different from the stuff that was on TV it was mindblowing at the time. Ninja Turtles was my first exposure to an action show, and Inspector Gadget is another of my childhood favourites.

After I got a little older and entered high school at 11, this was around the time when the internet was starting to become mainstream. I was exposed to Dragon Ball Z. I had never seen the show before then, but friends of mine would always talk about it. In later years, my friends and I would go on to download every single Dragonball/Z/GT episode onto the school’s computers, and we watched every one of them.

Soon after graduating and starting college, I was exposed to fansubs. And this really expanded my animation horizons to a much wider range of what’s out there. RahXephon was one of the first few anime I was into on fansubs, but up until that point I was just under the impression that anime was ‘cool’. After all, all I had seen up until then was Cartoon Network/kid’s WB stuff. When I got into college, a new friend exposed me to fansubs, and I started out with RahXephon, Zone of the Enders and another show I can’t remember. RahXephon in particular blasted open my view and appreciation of anime, and remains at the top of my all-time favourite list. I have a gorgeous box set that contains all the DVDs and the movie, possibly my most prized DVDs.

So my growing-by-the-gigabyte anime collection, and even some of the non-Japanese animated shows on TV are really fascinating with their quality and the range of emotions/genres they stretch across. If I didn’t have the exposure that I had now, I would probably think that animation could never be as deep or emotionally involving as watching real people or reading something, but I know from experience that is not the case at all.

Trix is here.

I’m just a guy living in the middle of nowhere (Bermuda), who loves video games and anime. I’m also into technology related stuff, but games and anime are more of my expertise.

It was in late 2001 when I really started getting deep into video games and anime: I had some income so I bought a Gamecube, and I started downloading unlicensed fansubs of some anime. I’ve actually missed most things gaming-and-anime-related that happened before 2001.

Gaming-wise, I like to say that the NES came out the same year I did. My dad got one a few months after I was born, for himself, and that was the only console I had up until 2001, when I bought myself a Gamecube. I have had all of the gameboys, but no SNES, Genesis, PS1… you get the deal. So this means I had never played any Final Fantasy, never played Zelda, or most other big old-school games.

On the anime front, I had *seen* anime before, but didn’t know what exactly it was. There was a religious program called ‘Superbook’, that was probably my first anime. My parents didn’t let me get into Transformers, because at the time there was a big stink about Evolution and religion, and Transformers were the devil. Later on in life, I saw Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network, and that is what sparked my true interest in anime. It wasn’t until 2001 that my world was blasted open by the internet, and digital fansubs became a part of my life.

Still, before 2001 all I had was what was on Cartoon Network. To put into perspective how much stuff I missed, I only watched Evangelion for the first time in November of 2006.

My game/anime fandom is stronger than ever now. I actually went to Japan, by myself, in September 2006. I participated in the Tokyo Game Show (there were more people in those 3 warehouses than there were in my entire country), watched some raw anime on local TV, and took in a few of the historical sites in and around Tokyo. A few highlights were: visiting Toshogu Shrine, meeting Hideo Kojima, and beating some Japanese people in Virtua Fighter 5.
So there’s a brief history of my history. Please pardon any future comments on stuff that I may think is the newest, most innovative best-thing-ever, but has actually been around for a long time. Because I probably missed it. Your comments will definitely be appreciated, and will aid in my own education in these fields as well.