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In recent years, there have been many attempts to cash in on the popularity of mahou shoujo anime with the otaku crowd by balancing the ordinarily shoujo genre with moe and fanservice elements. With this wave of magical girl shows aimed at an older demographic, several anime have decided to play a darker take on the genre, as seen in the likes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and Uta Kata. Kaitu Tenshi Twin Angel could be said to have an almost notoriously adult background, being based on a pachisuro game-cum-fanservice manga. The anime rides the ‘dark magical girl’ bus and does so to great results.
Continue reading Mahou Shoujo Batman – Plot, Writing, and Music in Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel
Of all the TV shows and franchises of my childhood, the one I’d consider myself to have ‘gown up on’ is Pokemon. I was in second grade when the craze hit and was obsessed with it by my eight birthday when I had the biggest Charizard cake you’ve ever seen and received a Game Boy Color with my copies of Pokemon Red and Blue. Somehow, I can’t remember who my first ever favorite Pokemon was, though the cake leads me to believe it was Charizard. However, the first truly important one came to me that Christmas.
Continue reading What’s Your Favorite Pokemon?
Tatsuyaki Nagai is quickly solidifying himself as one of my favorite new directors. His work on Toradora was superb, but with it having been my first experience with his work, I wasn’t sure how much I could attest to him when I watched it. He is currently directing the excellent To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, which shares a lot of visual commonality with Toradora, leading me to believe that he has a lot to do with the visual style. Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel confirms my suspicions as his style is carried through once again.
Continue reading Tatsuyaki Nagai Shows His Chops – Directing, Art, and Animation in Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel
For a while now, I have thought that I don’t get enough into the bones of my appreciation for the various elements of anime. In my reviews, I try to cover every single facet of a show, but even as my word count rises, it’s not like I’m saying THAT much about the elements. Sure, I’ve told you that X and X gave excellent performances, but I haven’t told you what made those performances so great or what moments sold me on them, etc. So I’m going to try breaking things down a little more, starting with a 2-episode OVA I watched today called Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel. (I highly recommend it!) This OVA had a lot of great elements, from directing to music to animation and voice acting, so I’ll be posting about each element separately.
Continue reading Yukari Tamura and Mamiko Noto At Their Very Best – Voice Acting in Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel
This is Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Record: Avant-Title, a 7-minute animated short that is with the new Battlefield Record game for the PS3. As you can see, it is 7 minutes of awesome and would be totally easy to sub, so there’s no excuse for it not to be! The short is directed, storyboarded, and written by one of my favorite directors, storyboarders, and writers, Matsuo Kou, and it certainly shows that his gold touch was on it!
I think it’s becoming increasingly true that people are not as willing to suspend their beliefs as they used to be. Modern movies all have this forced sense of ‘realism’ and we pump as much power into our CG and effects as possible to create something more believable. When something is produced that doesn’t look realistic, it is now considered ‘poorly made’. I have a lot of fun looking back at movies that came out in the 80s and 90s that were completely ridiculous and in no way believable, but were awesome for that very reason. I think there is a mistake being made by modern filmmakers who are too dead-set on realism (or maybe it’s more a fault of the audience demanding it), which is that they think they have to be realistic. In truth, realism and abreality are just two means to the same end and should only be considered in the name of style. Let me show you what I mean using episode 1 of Futago Hime.
Continue reading Why Slip When You Can Slide? (OR Realism and Abreality as Means to the Same End) [As Expressed Through Futago Hime]
 She asked me why~ I'm just a magical girly guy~ Most of the guys my age probably, like anyone else, had their early childhood steeped in Disney movies, then moved on to whatever action show was popular (Power Rangers?), and soon found themselves with Dragon Ball Z and other like shows. (We are just a couple years too young for Ninja Turtles.) However, as a young child, I always hated most of the Disney movies (and I still do). There are some I’ve come to appreciate (Aladdin, for instance) but I didn’t like them as a child (with the exception, apparently, of The Lion King, probably just for Timoun and Pumba) and I’ve been told that it was for the simple reason that I didn’t like ‘bad guys.’
Continue reading Why I Love Magical Girls Shows (OR Nostalgia For Digital Boy)
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