BONES held a conference with some cast and crew working on the project, also announcing who else was to be involved in the completion of this sequel. Luckily I was able to catch the livestream that morning, so I’ve got a few pictures saved in my folder from it!

And if that wasn’t enough, we got a PV at the end too.

February 16th was a very good day.

So let’s get to it!

Here we have three main characters: Ao (far right), Fleur (bottom) and Naru (far left). I believe they showed these particular characters because their Voice Actors showed up to talk at the Conference for a little while. Ao is the supposed son of Renton and Eureka (or some relation to them anyways), Naru is his childhood friend who has a strange power to apparently speak to the dead, and Fleur is a pilot on Team Pied Piper (who I assume fight the monsters that are the main antagonists in the show).

Yuutaro Motoshiro (left), Kanako Miyamoto (center, I think) and Ayaka Ohashi (I think that’s her anyways) (right). Motoshiro voices Ao, Miyamoto is Naru and Ohashi voices Fleur! I really didn’t recognize much of what they were saying besides mentioning a few names from Eureka seveN’s first show (I heard Jurgens, Stoner, Renton, Eureka and Anemone from them, though I’ve heard that they were simply gushing about how they liked the characters. In any case, heckyeah Stoner and Jurgens got mentioned!)

Hemenway was announced to perform the OP song! It’ll be ‘Escape’, which you can hear in the PV. I hadn’t heard of this band until now but I decided to check out some of their other stuff. Their style of music is slightly reminiscent of FLOW’s stuff, I thought, so this was a great choice on BONES’ part. I can’t get enough of ‘Escape’ from the PV, anyways!

Stereopony’s ‘Stand by Me’ will be the ED theme. This band I’ve heard of but haven’t heard a lot of. I’m not really sure what to think of this, so I guess I’ll be waiting to hear an ED version of ‘Stand by Me’.

THIS announcement got me goddamn excited!

Koji Nakamura’s music has always been involved in an animated E7 project thus far; he was the voice behind STORYWRITER for the TV series, as well as Space Rock for the movie. Now in most of these he’s either done a solo thing or something with his band, but either way, Koji Nakamura is on board once more and I cannot WAIT for his next song in AO!

Here they were just announcing television broadcasting companies that were to be involved. I mainly took this cap so people could see the huge, glorious Nirvash figurine next to the host though.

Seriously.

I want it.

Air dates! It looks like Astral Ocean episode 1 officially airs on April 12th 2012 (and a little later on in the week for other stations); I guess that means we can expect either a fansub or an official English sub around then!

After that they showed the PV, but I’ll save that for last because a few scans emerged a few days ago that I want to address.

So, there’s new Nirvash for you; different from the figurine they had at the Conference (and from the original artwork) but I guess that just means that Nirvash gets an upgrade back to its original colors at some point in the show! Naru and Ao look like they’re going to be the Renton and Eureka of the show, too; I’m more than ok with this. Also Naru has a pet sloth. Heckyeah.

Character pages! Unfortunately there has been a rumor that Team Pied Piper is a squadron of girls piloting mechs; its very Strike Witchy/Infinite Stratos-esque, and one of the things I’m really not looking forward to. I mean I have a feeling Ao and Naru are going to be the ultimate couple, but Fleur and Elena over on the left look like they could be his harem, which is…

Sorta not cool, and certainly not like Eureka seveN.

So yeah, you can definitely see it more here.

But I still have hope for the show, even if the monsters are totally lame and there’s a possibility of a harem with Tsundere!Fleur and Otaku!Elena. But that’s mainly because the PV was pretty dang cool.

I honestly must’ve watched this at least 5 times; it feels like something different from E7, but at the same time it feels like its presenting E7′s classic themes of love and kicking ass in a giant robot again! And dat song; dat awesome song.

I dunno, I’m pretty dang excited. If anyone wants to look into this more, the official website finally went up:

Eureka seveN: AO Official Website (JP)

Once April rolls around I just might have another BONES Buzz topic for AO again!~

YAY, I’M UNEMPLOYED!

Wait. Fuck. I’m unemployed.

Oh well, at least I can blog again. Even if I am two days late.

Anyway, time to resume my characters thing. Going from 10 through 6 this time.

10.

Shou Azama (Akumetsu)

Have you ever wondered if society would be better off by forgoing the justice system and just straight-up killing the corrupt? And whether we could save our world gone wrong by doing so? And what if one man was given the power to do this?

To those of you who are now calling this a Death Note ripoff, you're idiots.

Well, Shou “Akumetsu” Azama is one such person. His modus operandi is to kill off the corrupt politicians driving the Japan of the near future, a country already weighed down by debt, even further into the shitter. Each time he kills one, he takes one of himself with them (don’t ask), using his powers to – and I quote – “Not die when [he is] killed”.

BULLSHIT.

What separates him from Kira, his most obvious comparion, are a number of things. The most important being a tragic, mind-blowing,  and completely absurd backstory that takes Akumetsu from being a really good (if repetitive) series, to an amazing one. I daren’t spoil the details, but I will say that READ IT READ IT READ IT. Did I mention READ IT? His backstory is one of the best out there, not just for the story itself, but for just how well it explains Shou’s personality, his philosophy, and his extremist goals. I’m currently in the process of re-reading Akumetsu, and it’s obvious just how well thought-out Shou’s character was from the very beginning. His backstory is foreshadowed, and noticeable in his characterisation, long before it ever enters the picture.

Another is his philosophies. Not to say they’re actually correct (in fact, many aspects of the story strongly imply they aren’t), but the ideas and reasoning behind them are brilliant, especially in the way that Akumetsu is able to gain public support. Plus, let’s face it, who hasn’t wanted to just up and murder the government every now and then?

Well I certainly haven't. >_>

But above all that… Shou is just ridiculously fun. It’s a weird thing to say about a character who is essentially a psychotic terrorist, but the way he goes about all his killings is ridiculously, morbidly hilarious. His various cosplays, wacky antics, gameshow host persona, adorable mascot, and amusing speech patterns, all render him utterly, wackily crazy, as though he were an antihero version of The Joker.

9.

Youko Nakajima (Twelve Kingdoms)

Please bear in mind that I’m only halfway through the second arc at the moment.

Anyway. It’s very rare to find a character who you initially want to backhand into submission, who promptly develops so well that they scale the ranks of your favourite characters. Youko Nakajima is one of those characters. Early on, she is horrifically whiny, insecure, spineless, and self-pitying. And then she’s thrown into a strange world full of monsters and other strange creatures. She doesn’t take well to it, to say the least.

What’s weird is that, even before she truly develops, Twelve Kingdoms actually fleshes her out as one among that rare breed of characters who, despite being utterly hateable, is still a good character. It takes a few episodes, but we quickly come to understand that Youko is only the way she is due to a crippling fear of being judged. She’s constantly been acting up to the way everyone wants her to be, due to overly expectant parents.  She has been totally, and utterly repressed her entire life.

What’s even more interesting is that her development isn’t even a point A to point B thing. She only really starts to develop when she gets betrayed by her friend… at which point her cluelessness turns to cynicism, and then anger. It’s only after she finally comes to trust Rakushun, her new companion, that she really begins to adjust to her surroundings, and finally become a competent and adjusted individual, and then a confident warrior, poised to do what is right and take the throne that was rightfully hers. A masterclass in character development if ever there was one.

8.

Shinobu Morita (Honey & Clover)

I touched upon this with Poplan earlier, but it really is impressive when someone can make a comic relief character impressively well-developed in their own right.

Although, for starters, Shinobu is goddamn hilarious.  He’s wacky, he’s mental, he’s the life of the party. All of Honey & Clover’s cast are archetypes… not so much character archetypes, but more archetypes in the sense that you probably know, and have at least one of each of these guys within your circle of friends. Among them, Shinobu is that one guy. You know, the total jackass who you love and tolerate for reasons inexplicable to you. The goofy one. The utter fuckup.

Sounds familiar.

He provides total hilarity and hijinks constantly, frequently by means of being a total dick to everyone and/or stealing their food. However, there’s also a lot more to him than meets the eye.  He always seems to have something going on behind all the dickery.  In particular, he constantly disappears for multiple days on end and returns with a whole bunch of money, which raises quite a few questions.

There’s also a romantic subplot going on between him and Hagu. He doesn’t really know how to handle his emotions when it comes to this sort of thing, and just ends up fussing over her and generally driving her crazy (an amusing parallel is made to him fussing over cats as a child to the point that he drove them crazy).

But one thing that really drives Shinobu’s inner workings is talent. He has it. Everyone he knows focuses on it constantly. As the series goes on, he comes to resent his artistic talent, due to how everyone seems to think it’s the only side to his personality, and that everyone forgets what’s underneath it.

7.

Wolfgang Grimmer (Monster)

It’s a shame I can’t say much about Grimmer without spoiling the shit out of Monster. I mean, sure, Lunge had spoilers, but I gotta go into the specifics with Grimmer. I’ll try to stay vague where I can, but there are spoilers here.

Grimmer is a former Czechoslovakian spy, currently putting his skills from his former profession to good use as a journalist. In particular, a subject that interests him is the orphanage 511 Kinderheim, which, if you know anything about it, is something of a bad-news place with serious ties to Johan.

I think that Urasawa’s attention to detail really shines through with Grimmer. You can tell that Grimmer has excellent spy capabilities in the way that his words often don’t match his expressions. He can often be quite distinctly unsettling, by the sheer knowledge that you can never quite tell what he’s thinking. There are some serious psychological reasons in his backstory for this, but again, spoilers, so yeah. Nonetheless, he has one hell of a poker face.

Obligatory Gaga reference.

Grimmer does have a serious struggle with these psychological reasons, and while he often sees himself as inhuman as a result, you never get that impression. You always know that Grimmer really is an excellent person, he’s just incapable of portraying it.

It helps that Grimmer is easily the most likeable character in Monster. For most of the characters, they take the course of the entire series to really be as good as they are. Grimmer starts out being likeable, quirky and fascinating, and only ever gets better from there.

I really wish I could go into more detail than this… believe me, what I have posted here barely scratches the surface of why Grimmer is an amazing character. And for Arceus’ sake, unless you’ve seen the entire series, do not go near ANYTHING with his name on it. There are so many, many spoilers surrounding him.

Yang Wenli (Legend of the Galactic Herpes)

I suppose a number of you may have been expecting Yang Wenli to be my #1. Don’t get me wrong, there is a very strong argument for him being the best anime character of all time. It’s just that, rather than this being the absolute best anime characters of all time, this is just my personal favourites. It’s a subjective list. I could put anything I wanted in here and dismiss it as a non-objective opinion. Hell, count yourself lucky I’m even bothering to make any sense here.

I'm an astronaut.

But let’s see if I can’t make something resembling a reasonable opinion for three or four paragraphs anyway.

I think what makes LotGH’s cast work so fantastically is it’s sheer size, and how well all of it is used and WOW that did not sound nearly as Freudian in my head. Stepping back a bit. It works so well because there are so many cast members, and all of them are used to their full extent, with every single one being focused on and many of them fleshed out as wonderful, three dimensional characters, rather than just setting up a bunch of characters to build a plot around and totally forgetting half of them exist at any given time, or just turning most of them into plot devices, or [insert anything Bleach does with it's characters here].

This stops them from having to force a viewpoint on any given character, and lets a whole cast of fully developed characters play out against one another, rather than having the protagonist be a blank slate for exposition and to guide us all on how to think of the situation at hand. As such, Yang is quite possibly the only main character I’ve ever seen in an anime that is fully grounded, in reasonable control of their actions, understand everything that’s going on, hides nothing, has no forcibly hidden depths, and completely and utterly wears his heart on his sleeve. He isn’t so much the protagonist as he is simply the most significant character in the Free Planets Alliance.

Yang, as a military tactician, is nothing short of a genius… but quite ironically so, as he hates war and only joined to support his studies of history, his true passion. His love of history is one of the best aspects of his character, though, as he tends to view everything on a historic scale. His philosophies are all built from the repeated mistakes of history. He is all too aware that throughout history, many nations have risen and fallen. He has little devotion to his own nation, or even the concept of nations. While he is accused of being an anarchist for statements like these he makes it quite clear that he agrees that mankind does need society – just not nations. What does he really fight for? Democracy. His only allegiance to the FPA is that it is opposed to the Empire’s autocracy… despite that really, the FPA is a democracy in name only. However, he firmly sticks to the belief that even while Democracy is a flawed thing, “even the worst democracy is better than the best autocracy”, and that while the FPA is infringing upon the rights of the people even by an elected leader, “the right to take away the rights of the people belongs to the people”.

However, he’s far from just a walking symbol of democracy. Yang, as a person, is always conflicted between whether he is simply being an apt soldier in a war that must be fought, or a glorified mass murderer. He never wanted to be a part of the war – he wants nothing more than to net a nice pension for himself and settle down, content in his laziness.

Yang strikes a wonderful balance between being a brilliant military commander of amazing presence, and an incredibly humble, lovable human being. For this, I consider him one of the best anime characters of all time.

You know, ignoring the whole "possible racist" part.

And thar we go. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Dragonball Z Johan Joestar’s Top 25 Anime/Manga characters, which will see it’s final installment on the fourth Monday from now, assuming I’m not lazy and don’t end up delaying it two days again.

Hey, at least we’re updating again.

Start your engines, folks: this Monday is focusing on Takeshi Koike’s REDLINE!

Its… sort of mecha; I mean there’s tricked out cars and one is a giant magic fueled fanservice bot.

Close enough.

Amidst the boring work week of school and a part-time job, it’s always nice to be able to look forward to something outside of the daily routine. I don’t know about most people, but half of the time it’s DVDs/BDs and/or books in the mail for me.

Recently I had been waiting awhile for this anime film Redline to release on DVD/BD in North America since its been on preorder for awhile, and luckily it only arrived the day after it had released.

So I’m here to talk about this fast-paced testosterone-ridden concept of a film, from analyzing its storyline to stepping outside of the film’s borders and taking notice of small things which you may have just missed on the first watch-through.

With that being said, I’ve probably watched this movie about 5 times in the past 2 weeks.

Ayep. My vacation from studying for exams (last one tomorrow, thank God).

Redline is basically about this intergalactic race being held on this planet ‘Roboworld’ where its government is dead set against having the race. They’re willing to halt it entirely if only so that they won’t be at risk of having their militaristic secrets unveiled to the whole cosmos on live television.

The head of Roboworld’s Government (far right). He smiles maybe once in the entire movie, its great.

Our main character, JP, is the owner of a tricked out Trans Am and one of the participants of this race. He and his mechanic, Frisbee, are in a bit of trouble with the Space Mafia as they need to pay off a whole lot of debt they owe.

JP and his epic pompadour (right) and Frisbee (left).

We also have Sonoshee, JP’s love interest and inspiration for racing. At a young age she got involved in racing because of her Dad, who owned a junk shop. She’s her own mechanic and pilots the Crab Sonoshee, a hovercraft of sorts.

A.k.a my favorite character.

The plot is about as simple as you can get; there’s really nothing to it. It’s like Pod Racing in Star Wars except with gorgeous animation, techno beats and a small storyline to each contestant of the race. Sonoshee is racing on Redline because its a lifelong dream, JP wants to pay off his debt to the Mafia, and all of the other racers have their own sole reasons (though they serve as secondary characters). Despite this basic plot, I think the movie really brings a lot of good things to the table; namely in their characters. JP and Sonoshee may be the primary two characters, but the audience gets a pretty decent amount of information on the other racers at Redline. Enough for me to pick favorites, despite them being secondary characters anyways.

I’m just gonna focus on three specific other people in the film because I really think they need a mention. They’re a great example of what Redline accomplished.

Alright so here we have Trava (right) and Shinkai (left) doing some sort of mad battle cry

And Little Deyzuna!

This troupe of side characters are the most amusing bunch; apparently Trava and Shinkai used to be in Roboworld’s Army for awhile, but they left the army so that they could participate in Redline’s race. Little Deyzuna (I’m not sure if that’s his real name or not, as there is another Roboworld Military guy named Big Deyzuna) knew both Trava and Shinkai when they were a part of Roboworld’s Division, and stayed there while Trava and Shinkai left. Little Deyzuna now has this unrelenting hatred towards Trava because he and Shinkai left, and whenever he starts bawling he gets majorly strong. These three characters just have this on-again off-again battle throughout the movie, ending in Little Deyzuna abandoning his rank and joining the race to rip Trava’s and Shinkai’s Speedmaster car to shreds. Past that, we’re not given much information; yet I can’t help but smile every time they come onscreen. Where Redline’s plot lacks, I feel that its characters make up for. You can tell they weren’t aiming for a complex story, either; just something that got you pumped and excited because everything was so utterly over-the-top.

JP’s Trans Am, skipping across a large body of water at top speed while upside down. They achieved that alright!

And since I haven’t mentioned it yet, this film contains over 100,000 cels all hand-drawn. Redline took about 7 years to create, and 5 – 6 years to animate. If that doesn’t give it an honorable mention, I’m not sure what will.

The soundtrack is basically techno club beats every 5 minutes; everything’s glorious. I’m just gonna leave my favorite one in here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doEwWzMz99A

UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ

As great as this movie was, there was a lot of things I’d have liked changed; for one thing, there’s a lot of short clips in the film that you don’t really pay too much attention to because of their length.

For instance, there’s a shot of Sonoshee’s earring alongside a glowing flower left at her doorstep from JP. What I didn’t notice before was that he actually left a message with those two things.

The clip was about a second or two in length; in that time I was mostly engrossed in seeing what he returned to her. I was baffled that he actually wrote a message in there, and signed his name. Its basically an Easter Egg (unless other people noticed it on their first watch-through and I’m just unobservant).

There’s a few short scenes like this where you have to pause the movie if you’re that interested in deciphering something. Another issue I’d say would be a bit of an abrupt ending (though I still consider it one of my alltime favorites. Its illogical and adorable).

I’d really only call those nitpicks, though. Redline is definitely a movie that should not be missed.

Here, have the English Trailer (’cause the dub is actually quite enjoyable).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t26m_Q6ENo

Now seriously, go watch it.

December 22nd 2011:

1. Eka arrives to school for another boring first period class, suddenly learning that the class has a free period to get some work done. Thus, she pulls out her laptop to work as well as mindlessly browse the web.

2. Surfing around and remaining in a zombie-like trance as she scrolls through her dashboard on Tumblr, she comes across an article entitled ‘Eureka seveN Sequel Manga announced.’

3. Intrigued and pleasantly surprised by this news, she hunts down the source and posts about it on various other websites in order to spread the word and build up some hype. She can hardly keep a straight face with this news; it’s been over five years since the original anime, after all!

4. Period 2 begins and computers are once again allowed. Drifting back into that zombie-like state, she comes across quite the eye-catching picture online that is filed under the announcement of the E7 sequel.

This can’t possibly be for the manga; it looks good enough to be animated! And what’s this? ‘TV Series’?

On air?

APRIL 2012?!

If my avatar & character on the banner has not made it evident that the show Eureka seveN is one which I favor quite a bit, this blog posting certainly will. Although I am not here merely to rave about such news; analysis is absolutely necessary, and even a bit of natural worry. Regardless, this sequel, having been announced almost a whole six years after the original series ended, is something to talk about!

The 50-episode BONES-original anime series Eureka seveN is a mecha centering around a young 14-year old boy, Renton Thurston, and his partner, Eureka, who pilot the Nirvash together in the anti-government organization known as the Gekkostate. It tells the story of the Earth in danger and an alien species threatening to engulf all that surrounds them: of a man hell-bent on purging the land of humanity’s sins and creating an all-new Earth entirely! Young Renton and Eureka become wrapped up in this malevolent plot and through the proof of their love and determination, they must find a way for humans and Scub Corals to coexist and save the world!

There’s also sky-surfing giant robots. Can’t really go wrong there.

Needless to say the show is a favorite of mine. It’s not perfect, certainly (our main protagonist Renton is seriously a whiner for a good majority of the series, and the fleshed out plot really doesn’t fully get off the ground until a quarter into the series) but it’s something I hold real near and dear to me. The series wasn’t exactly massively popular in Japan, but about three years later the studio decided that they would make a movie for the show. The film was a lot similar to the EscaFlowne movie in that it took place in an alternate universe and while it presented the same characters, they really were different.

The movie didn’t do so hot in sales, and I’m really not surprised. There was reused animation, shoddy cliche love-dribble dialogue between Renton and Eureka and overall was pretty confusing. I’m one of the few who actually liked the movie quite a bit, but I acknowledge that it really wasn’t the sort of new project for E7 that I was hoping for.

Now BONES steps into the spotlight again with BIG news for the series: it’s actually going to be a legitimate continuation. At long last fans won’t have to wrack their brains over what truly happened at the end of the final episode! The only problem is… it took almost six years to actually announce the damn project.

Clearly the studio had about as much knowledge of how the series ended as the fans had; close to nothing.

So this means that this wasn’t intended; I mean really: they go and leave a slightly open-ended conclusion and they wait six years to try and make a quick buck? That’s really what this sounds like to me; and that’s the only reason why I feel a little cheated over this. In order to rid myself of these ideas, I know that I have to go into watching this show with the clear understanding that it will NOT be on the same level as the original series. I don’t think this will be a bad sequel, however, for one reason: Eureka seveN AO is not focusing on the main protagonists of the original series. Instead, and only based upon speculation, it looks like they’re focusing on their children instead!

And my massive inner fan just went wild; absolutely wild.

It was basically my moment of realization where a bunch of my OTPs of the series apparently, in the future, well… have a future! The child, supposedly named Ao, has a design which looks like a combination of Eureka and Renton. Similarly, we received this image:

Ao is on the left, and we are also given a young girl who looks like she could either be Holland and Talho’s child or Anemone and Dominic’s child.

So while its like six years later, the risk of BONES completely ruining the characters has been pretty much evaded. Good choice, BONES. And this will just rope in the fans for the sake of them being able to say ‘My OTP got married and had a kid.’ ‘Makes me a little giddy just thinking about everyone’s children and how much of an influence their parents had on them. It sounds so cool to sit back and think, ‘we got the story of how the parents fell in love, and now the story has shifted down to a new generation!’

Anyways, so basically I’m incredibly excited for this, but at the same time I’m not expecting a lot. I’d rather not be disappointed over certain factors (but I probably will in the end *sigh*) through comparison to the first TV series. Regardless, this is THE show I’m looking forward to watching in Spring 2012. April simply cannot come soon enough.

Currently there really isn’t a lot of information on Ao besides the news and images plastered over the web right now: the official website for the sequel has yet to launch and the only description we have for it right now is:

A sequel to Eureka seveN, centering around a boy named Ao who sets destiny into motion again.

…

Uh… yeah. … And… ?

‘Guess I’ll just have to keep checking the portal page for it until it officially opens. Blergh.

As a last interesting note: both of what I assume to be Nirvashes in the manga image and anime image look pretty different. Quite a bit of time has passed since the first series obviously (given the kids’ ages) but why would the manga Nirvash look designed differently yet with Spec 3 colors, and the anime Nirvash look like some upgraded version of Spec 2? Perhaps copies of the Nirvash’s archetype had been produced by that time? This is the one thing that I am just stumped upon, especially since Ao is set to be a direct sequel to the anime series.

BONES, this is not how the TypeZERO looked like in the end. You… do know that, right?

I guess I’m looking forward to another wild ride with sky-surfing and rainbow phenomena come April 2012!

]]> http://theotaku2anime.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/bones-buzz-gearing-up-for-more-sky-surfing-robots-in-a-matter-of-months/feed/ 0 ekakin bonesbuzz 40_71210_499a1cc11bbd251 let me die e1 not impressed do want d9ec7d0110d450fc485e4245449592241324578206_full yay joel Nirvash Type Zero. http://theotaku2anime.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/562/ http://theotaku2anime.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/562/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 06:08:47 +0000 Johan Joestar http://theotaku2anime.wordpress.com/?p=562 ]]>

Dear Real Life,

Stop it.

Sincerely, Johan Joestar.

So yeah, I got a job. At a chain store. In the center of one of the busiest shopping districts in the country. In December. You can probably see how I’ve not had the time to do this.

But rest assured, this blog is still updating, however slow. Everyone’s kinda busy at the moment. The blogs will eventually go through a reform when everyone’s got their shit together.

For now, though, characters 15 through 11. Enjoy.

15.

Balsa (Seirei no Moribito)

Balsa is many things. She’s an extremely dangerous warrior, rivaled in her skill with a spear by almost none. She’s a weary and experienced veteran of combat, whose only quest is to atone for the lives she’s taken. And as of taking in Chagum as her final life to save, she is now an adoptive mother.

Balsa is very much an unconventional take on her character archetype (The Atoner). Typically they’re teenage-ish, somewhat bishonen boys such as Kenshin or Vash. Balsa is a 30 year old woman. More importantly than that, though, is that she is probably the best character in this archetype. Partly, this is because of her personality being much more unique, being a weird balance of coolness, maturity, and warrior spirit… sort of like a fantasy setting Motoko Kusanagi, only better developed.

However… and I can’t really give details without spoiling you hard on not only Seirei no Moribito, but also Trigun and what little I’ve seen of Rurouni Kenshin… I find the way that Balsa’s goal is developed is much more believable than those of her peers.

Balsa really manages to succeed on every level. She’s well-developed, mold-breaking, instantly loveable, badass, and has an excellent motivation.

14.

Alucard (Hellsing)

This is how you do a God Mode Sue.

Seriously. It takes something to take a character archetype that is, by its very definition, a total waste of time, and then make them one of the most hellishly electrifying screen presences in all of anime.

Alucard is equal parts well-developed (manga/Ultimate version only), charismatic, terrifying, and unbelievably fun to watch. While I have only really glimpsed at/been spoiled on Alucard’s true character depth (the spoilers I’ve seen make the heavy foreshadowing in early episodes very clear), he is still this high up based largely on how ridiculously fun to watch he is. Were it not for him, the 2001 Hellsing series would have been worthless, but in spite of its serious faults it manages to remain devilishly entertaining because of him. Both Crispin Freeman and Jouji Nakata give the performance of their lifetimes with him.

You will taste the storm of his loyalty, and it will be delicious.

While Alucard is likely to shoot up several places once I see the full measure of his character, it’s already very easy to see just how nuanced a character is… there’s an alternate meaning behind half of his actions in what I’ve seen so far. But you don’t even need to understand Alucard to enjoy him. Alucard is just an irresistible presence, one way or another.

13.

Yoshikage Kira (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4)

I make no secret of it that I utterly love JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and along with it, many of its hundreds of characters. Among them, however, Yoshikage Kira sticks out as the single best character in all 8 arcs.

Kira’s characterisation revolves around an excellent paradox: his desire to live a perfect, normal life, in contrast to his carnal desire for women’s hands… forcibly separated from their bodies.

This is shown excellently by his various strange and meticulous habits, but more than anything by his stand. Killer Queen is one of the stands stated to have formed as a manifestation of its users will. Ignoring for a second that Killer Queen has an absolutely bitchin’ design and a brilliant name pun that works on god knows how many levels (listen to the song in question if you don’t get it), it’s a perfect representation of Kira. It suits him down to the personality, the appearance, and especially how well its ability suits both him and his needs. It’s probably the most perfect stand-to-user matchup in the entirety of JJBA.

GUARANTEED TO BLOW YOUR MIND

This even carries over to his afterlife as shown in the Deadman’s Questions arc of Under Execution, Under Jailbreak. While most of his previous life is a mystery to him, his drive for normalcy in the face of being born into deranged circumstances is what drives him. I think it’s a great reflection of his character.

It also helps that this is a great contrast to the usual JJBA Big Bads. Dio wants to continue raising his vampire minions and live like a king, feasting on virgin maidens. Cars wants immortality. Diavolo wants to maintain a gang of superpowered mobsters, and keep his identity hidden. Pucci wants the end of the world (sort of, it’s complicated). And Funny Valentine just wants his fucking napkins. Against all this, Kira just wants to hang around with his… girlfriends.

Also, fun fact: his design is based on David Bowie.

12.

Heinrich Lunge (Monster)

Heinrich Lunge is an extremely rare case: a character who, despite being very unusual, seems extremely real.

I think the best way to show why Lunge works so well as a character is to compare him to L from Death Note. Both are enigmatic genius detectives on the trail of a mass murderer. Both most likely suffer from some form of mental illness (probably something on the Autism Spectrum). Both also have notable physical quirks, like L’s way off holding stuff and Lunge’s air-typing. But the difference between them is that while L is a larger than life bishonen caricature, Heinrich Lunge is very human. Even if he is still extremely good at it, he has a regular job, and he has a wife and daughter. He is also, unfortunately, a complete workaholic.

Spoilers will now kick in, as there really isn’t any way to describe Lunge any further without giving major plot details. Do not read any further if you haven’t seen/read Monster yet, unless you have no plans to (in which case I hope the following can change your mind).

Unfortunately this workaholism kicks in hard when he’s presented with the case of Dr. Tenma, one in which he is, unfortunately for him, very mistaken about. And his desperate struggle to prove that he is right leads him through a downward spiral in which he loses everything. He becomes so devoted to the case that it even nearly costs him his life.

Eventually he degrades so much that he is forced to take a vacation. And in one of the best examples of characterisation I’ve ever seen, when given this vacation, he just doesn’t know what to do with it. He has to force himself to actually take a break. Of course, it doesn’t work, and he quickly manages to fall into the case again… but this time in the right direction.

Lunge finally coming to face his mistakes and what they have cost him, to me, is one of the best examples of character development I’ve ever seen.

11.

Spike Spiegel (Cowboy Bebop)

Shinichiro Watanabe is a genius.

Seriously. In Spike Spiegel, he has managed to create arguably the coolest character in existence, the best example of the badass with a dark and troubled past, and a brilliant landmark in characterisation techniques… and he makes it all look effortless.

As I’ve covered in a previous blog, in Spike Spiegel, Bebop displays a masterclass in the balance between telling us as little as possible whilst telling us just enough. The result of this is a character who is developed, but still leaves so many questions, all of which are better off not answered… Spike is the kind of character for whom this would just ruin the mystery.

Interestingly, unlike most didactic characters, you don’t even really need to understand Spike in order to enjoy him, seeing how he is the perfect mesh of historical pop-culture coolness, landing somewhere between Clint Eastwood and Arsene Lupin III and covering a vast array of badass coolness inbetween. He’s enjoyable on a level as simple as that, but is also extremely well-developed.

It’s really hard to name a character who just plain works as well as Spike does.

I will post the next blog whenever I have the free time to do so. Which will most likely be in 2012.

I come bearing more buzz of the BONES variety, and a good 4 weeks late at that. All of our lives have been exceptionally busy, so please bear with us.

I’ve returned to speak of UN-GO, BONES’ latest that is actually coming to an end in a matter of weeks. I discussed my suspicions two posts ago, believing that this was going to end up as a total bore. It wasn’t an original story by them, the character designs looked like something out of a Tim Burton claymation, and the characters… well… seemed like they didn’t even fit the description of their title. No ‘character’ whatsoever.

UN-GO is a nice 8 episodes into its story with only 3 episodes left to cover; they probably felt they didn’t have much confidence if they made this series long, and I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to sit through 25 episodes of mysteries being solved, thank you very much. Whether or not they’ll continue and make a second season is up to its popularity, and from what I’ve seen of the show… it’s quite the swing-and-a-miss. But, from its last two episodes that have aired… things could turn around.

My suspicions were right for the most part regarding the meat and potatoes of the series. Episode begins, mystery is presented and said mystery is solved by the end of the episode; basic in every meaning of the word. The animation, however, was something I was wrong about. With each new subbed episode I viewed, I found that the animation/character designs was the aspect of the show I most looked forward to. I think it must’ve been the original artwork of the series that put me off, because it looks like they stepped away from the spindly vibe of the main male role.

The main characters are Inga and… and… uh…

*Googles*

Ah yes! Shinjuuro.

(I’m not kidding, though. Inga is the most memorable character in the show. Shinjuuro might as well be a cardboard cut-out given the lead role in the show for reasons that fail to make sense to me).

They are the dynamic crime-solving duo, and Shinjuuro’s status as a Detective is pretty much a pile of poop. He’s known as the ‘Defeated Detective’ and Inga (for the sake of confusing Eka even further) is his partner who can transform himself into a woman with a bust the size of a watermelon (or two). In this form, (s)he can ask someone one question and they can only answer truthfully. After the question is answered, (s)he goes back to being a little boy.

You’ve already lost me.

Anyways, so there’s the two main characters in a nutshell. They go around solving crimes with Inga being their trump card in every situation, blabbed blah.

And then this dude is introduced.I don’t remember his name either.

I believe he was a prison inmate (or still is. Not sure). He was involved in a mystery Inga and Shinjuuro had to solve (big surprise) and then suddenly by the end of episode 6, his character actually became important. He calls himself a novelist who writes not with a pen, but with reality.

Suddenly this just got very cool to me.

He targets Shinjuuro and messes with his life in a matter of seconds. How? I’m not even sure. There was a girl behind him, who I suppose has mystical powers of some sort.

Still confused, but at least it’s a confusion over something that’s actually interesting in this show.

Episode 7 is just… messed. And awesome. Not exciting really, but it presents Shinjuuro in a different setting thanks to Mr. Novelist. I won’t go into details, but I will say that the end of episode 6 and the entirety of episode 7 have changed my view on the show.

For now, anyways.

The series itself is still nothing near amazing and I honestly don’t believe that the last few episodes will have much power over salvaging a shred of intrigue from the bomb that was the first five episodes; however it’s done something that I did not see coming, and that’s really interesting to me.

If they keep like this for the next 3 episodes and maybe throw in an explanation or two, I might just bump up my rating a little for this series!

We’ll see what happens.

Well. Real life happened, so I didn’t manage to get a blog out yesterday. And real life happened hard.

But anyway, I shall continue from where I left off. Now, we do numbers 20 through 16 of my 25 favourite anime and manga characters.

20.

Char Aznable (Mobile Suit Gundam UC)

Char Aznable is sort of like anime’s answer to Han Solo and Darth Vader combined into one character. He’s an enigmatic, masked antagonist, working for an oppressive empire, who also happens to the most ridiculously, effortlessly cool and charismatic being in existence.

Char simply oozes cool with every line of dialogue he speaks. It’s this kind of charisma that makes us able to still consider his character anything other than evil even when murdering his best friend. In fact, rather than being angry at him (which you logically should be), you’ll be more likely to be lauding Char for being such a magnificent bastard.

There really just isn’t anything to not love about Char. He’s just so freaking cool.

Kaiji Itou (Kaiji)

On the direct opposite end of the scale is a character for whom one of his most endearing traits is that he’s an utter fuckup: Kaiji Itou. Kaiji is extremely prone to being too trusting. He gets backstabbed more times than I can even remember. He goes through the same cycle so many times: gullibility, despair, and an awesome comeback.

But in the long run, Kaiji just does not learn from his mistakes… and that’s a part of why we love him. We’ve already had a character on here who is great because of how well his faults are developed, but here we have a character we actually enjoy for his faults. It’s very endearingly human of Kaiji to be so helpless.

Also, he cries like every episode. I think we've been over this before.

Of course the other half of why we love Kaiji is because when he makes his comeback then god have mercy on your soul.

It’s this exact combination that has formed the phrase “MoeGAR”. It’s a perfect description of Kaiji. Pure fucking adorable manliness.

ZAWA

ZAWA

ZA

WA

18.

Jean Pierre Polnareff (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Parts 3/5)

And here we have a very similar character to Kaiji, in the sense that we love him for his faults as much as his character qualities. In fact, it was very hard to pick which one should be higher up on here, but Polnareff won out because overall he’s a more dynamic character.

In this case, Jean-Pierre Polnareff is a character we love for being… well, an idiot. Polnareff is fucking stupid from start to finish. Amusingly so. It’s very much like how Kaiji is with being a total doormat, except it’s idiocy instead. Also he’s French. Which is normally unforgivable.

Fuck your delicious cheese and your beautiful architecture and your fine wines.

In a nutshell, Polnareff is comic relief, in the sense that he’s the Butt Monkey of the team. He also set the trend for a specific member of the cast to constantly be the first to get attacked by the stand user of the week (followed by Oyakusu and Narancia). However, on top of this, Polnareff actually has probably the most character development of anyone in Stardust Crusaders.

Initially, Polnareff was a distant, lone wolf (and in the anime version, he was also willingly working for Dio as opposed to having been brainwashed). He felt no loyalty to the team, and was only working with them out of convenience to try and find the man who killed his sister. By the end of it, he’s extremely loyal to, uh… the surviving members of the team, partly through the sacrifice of certain others.

You know what, I’m just going to stop there. I can’t really go into more detail without saying who dies. If you’re annoyed that I told you that anyone dies, don’t be, someone always dies in JJBA. It’s a given.

Anyway, short version is that he’s lovably stupid and has some pretty solid character development.

Duck (Princess Tutu)

Well, this is out of place. With the exception of a certain bisexual fashion designer we’ve had pretty much exclusively manly men here. What the hell is an adorable little girl doing here?

Well, thing is, while Duck is adorable, she’s not your standard moe-girl either. Although don’t get me wrong, about 90% or so of the reason she’s here is because she’s freaking adorable.

I'm pretty sure my heart is physically melting.

The other 10% comes down to what she does right that every other adorable moe-girl does not. For one, a very large number of attempts to make a character adorable just end up being saccharine-sweet.

On top of that, though, is the simple fact that she’s not a supporting character. She’s the lead. And I don’t mean she’s the lead in the same way as, say, Hitomi Kanzaki is the lead of Escaflowne, but I mean she actually drives plot threads by means of her own character strengths. She’s not a helpless, tacked-on aspect of the story. Well, OK, she sort of is, but not in that sense… in the whole story within a story sense. Just go watch the series.

It kind of says something about the typical shoujo lead that Duck’s strength of characterisation comes in part from being self-sufficient is actually refreshing, but nonetheless it really makes Duck stand out from the crowd.

16.

Akio Ohtori (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

-SPOILER WARNING-SPOILER WARNING-SPOILER WARNING-SPOILER WARNING-

Akio is effectively a metaphor for the adult world, personified. He symbolizes lust, power, adulthood, and corruption. Alongside his backstory (which, to be honest, is very subject to interpretation), he manages to be easily the best character in Utena, partly by being entertainingly villainous, but moreso by being incredibly, incredibly seductive.

Akio, for me, defines what the phrase “sex symbol” means. Almost every single aspect of him is dripping in absolute sex. The most obvious aspect of this is, of course, the car scenes, which I also happen to believe are a rather clever metaphor for sex. He takes in the characters at their weakest moment, and manages to bend them to his will.

Although it could just be that it's just that bitchin' of a car.

Frankly, I’d say it really says something about a villain when they end up sleeping with the (underage) protagonist. To my knowledge, Akio is the first to do this. He seems to make it his business to corrupt everything around him.

Also, I think that what is most likely the sole reason that the movie is worth watching is for the sake of a certain scene in which Akio loses his car keys, resulting in him going into a homicidal (and hilarious) panic, and eventually jumping off a building. Effectively, when you remove him from his power, he becomes nothing. This, I find to be an interesting side to his personality.

And that’s another day over. I’ll try not to miss tomorrow’s, if I can avoid it. If.

So… I’ve been mighty inactive lately. A lot of stuff has happened, but I’m kind of employed now and have less time for bloggings.

However, that does not mean I’m gonna neglect my duties any longer. So for the next 5 days, you’re going to be treated to my top 25 anime and manga characters, 5 characters at a time.

Keep in mind that while I try to use objective comparison where I can, this is obviously a subjective list, being my favourites and all. Yes, there are objectively better characters from anime I’ve seen that won’t be included here, simply for this being a far looser version than the lists I usually do.

So, without further delay, here are number 25 through 21 of my 25 favourite anime and manga characters ever.

25.

Funny Valentine (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run)

Funny Valentine is quite possibly the ultimate villain. He’s smart, he’s chivalrous, he’s evil, he’s charismatic, he’s unpredictable, he’s fabulous, he’s charming, he’s terrifying, and holy goddamn is he overpowered.

His fantastic combination of villainous traits is really a wonder to behold. He somehow manages to flip between them at the flip of a hair, without missing a beat. It’s quite hard to put into words just what kind of a presence he has because of this, as it really is something to be experienced rather than explained.

Did I mention he was fabulous?

He isn’t exactly the deepest of characters, which is why he’s far more likeable as an entertaining character than a deep one. But unlike, say, Dio, who is similar but more firmly evil for no given reason aside from a rather thin Freudian Excuse, and given no room to really give us much insight into him (except in flashbacks in Part 6), he at least gets a chance to explain the way he thinks, using a strange philosophy about being the one to “take the napkin”. It makes sense in context. While it doesn’t give him any more depth, it does make him an extremely enigmatic, dynamic character.

24.

George Koizumi (Paradise Kiss)

When I first started Paradise Kiss, I hated George. He was, put simply, a douchebag. He was vain, shallow, self-centered, materialistic, manipulative, and annoying. By the end of the series, though, George was a great character.

The weird thing is, he didn’t change. At all.

Unless you’re writing a villain, it really takes something special to make your character an utterly hateable person, and yet a really good character. George is just that. Rather than him developing, we come to understand why he acts the way he does, seeing much of it in a new light. In doing so, we also manage to see a fantastically well-written dysfunctional relationship unfold between him and Yukari.

Through all his dysfunction, his douchebaggery, and his mind games, George still manages to be a fantastic character. That, in of itself, makes George pretty damn laudable.

23.

Dusty Attenborough (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

It’s kind of weird to put Dusty Attenborough here. He’s not got any of the qualities of a character you’d expect from someone I put on my top 25 characters list. He’s not especially smart. He’s not really all that deep or anything. He’s not particularly charismatic, he’s not got much of a backstory or anything, he’s not even really centric to the plot. Why the hell is he here?

I think the fact that Dusty Attenborough is firmly a supporting character with very little significance, and yet manages to be popular within the LotGH fandom nonetheless, really speaks volumes.
Dusty’s charm, overall, is just that he’s a really nice, funny guy. His witty comments and casual yet somewhat insightful observations are a welcome change of pace to the walls of philosophy, tactics, history and the like given by Yang.

Having multiple catchphrases probably helps too.

Far from the amazing greatness of many of LotGH’s characters, Dusty is your everyday normal guy, and despite that this role should be dull he manages to be a highly loveable character.

22.

Olivier Poplan (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

On the flipside of this is Dusty Attenborough’s companion, Olivier Poplan. Unlike Dusty, it’s pretty obvious why Poplan is here: because he’s goddamn hilarious. Poplan is quite possibly the funniest comic relief character I’ve ever seen.

Poplan just never fails to be amusing. In a series with tendencies to be either depressing or rambling (neither to its fault, of course), Poplan’s brand of humour, equally well-written to any of the series’ serious dialogue, is always welcome. He also displays fantastic character interaction with just about everyone he regularly speaks to. While I do enjoy Dusty and Poplan equally, I have to give Poplan a slightly higher spot if only because without Poplan, Dusty would probably not have shone as well as he did.

On top of all this, though? Poplan is not a 1-dimensional character. He’s actually used to pretty damn good effect in this sense… if Poplan’s having to drink away his sorrows, you know that the shit has hit the fan.

Joseph Joestar (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Parts 2/3/4)

Man, if only Joseph Joestar’s involvement in JJBA had ended an arc sooner, he could have been about 5 or 6 places higher on this list. If it had ended with the first arc he was in he could have been a solid 15 places higher. Needless to say I was not happy with what they did with Joseph’s character in Diamond is Unbreakable. He was most certainly nerfed down in Stardust Crusaders/the OVAs, mostly due to a lack of screentime. When he had the screentime he still kicked ass, but Joseph from Battle Tendency would’ve taken that fucking screentime. Oh well, aging for 40 years or so will do that to you.

But more to the point. Joseph Joestar, as of Battle Tendency, is one of the most ridiculously brilliant protagonists I’ve ever seen. His characterisation was near-perfect. At face value he’s essentially a classic Idiot Hero, no more than the archetype displayed by the likes of Naruto Uzumaki and the like. But Joseph Joestar is more than that. In fact, he’s a goddamn combat pragmatist. He displays that weird habit common in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure of being ridiculously crafty. His strength in trickery and manipulation are the kind of thing more frequently seen in villainous characters, and if his enemies weren’t superhuman Aztec overlord vampire shapeshifter things bent on enslaving the human race then he might just have ended up with a villainous role.

Pictured: a real man.

Joseph Joestar is basically the personification of why JJBA is good. It’s incredibly, unabashedly, remorselessly dumb fun, but at the same time it’s really smart.

Joseph is a great example of characterisation by personality rather than depth. For a situation like this, depth would have been nothing more than unnecessary baggage for JoJo the 2nd. His natural charisma is more than enough.

Shame about the subsequent arcs…

On the upside, he still regularly wins the "World's Most Fuckable Grandpa" contest.

So that was numbers 25 through 21. Yeah, it was mostly LotGH and JJBA. So yeah, I hope you like LotGH and JJBA.

Numbers 20 through 16 will be up tomorrow. Wait, with bated breath. Wait for me.

Overall, the story seems pretty generic.

1. People with powers.

2. These ‘Attractors’ are viewed as a threat to humanity

3. The main heroine, Quon, is a strong and confident character with, what seems to be hinted, a dark past.

I like to think of Towa no Quon as a slightly lighter-hearted Darker Than BLACK, personally. You can also imagine it as if it’s an animated NBC’s Heroes series: that’s not to say that the unoriginality of Towa no Quon takes away from it as a series. I mean the concept is so generic that it can’t really be harped on, y’know? Regardless, the concept of a helpful community to Attractors was an interesting twist I think, and the Attractors’ powers themselves are pretty neat.

Kazuma Quon in his transformation.

Interwebs high fives to anyone who got the reference there.

Of the two movies that have been released so far, Towa no Quon has proven to be an interesting sort of show. Personally I thought episode 1 was far too predictable and cliche to be a remotely good introduction to the show, but episode 2 seemed much different to me. The animation may have been upped or perhaps the solution to the problem was a bit less obvious to me; whatever the case, episode 2 made me a lot more interested in the show.

I also can’t stress this enough, but the animation for Towa no Quon is gorgeous. BONES has never really failed in the animation department in my eyes personally; if anything, animation is probably their best quality (hah, unintended pun. *ba dum dsh*). The designs are generally original and slightly more realistic (none of that ‘eyes-without-pupils-that-take-up-three-quarters-of-their-face’ junk. Not to mention most of the hair colors aren’t entirely outlandish either) and the actions sequences are nice and smooth. Some derpy animated shots here and there, but nothing to cringe over.

If there was ever an artbook released for this show and was sold in stores, God help the poor customer who gets in my way of purchase.

Where Quon is at right now, I’m interested to see where the story goes. Unfortunately I think this ‘dark past’ of the main character that they hinted at is probably what I think it is (and in that case, 100% obvious) and it’s not going to be a giant shocker when they reveal it. :\ But who knows, BONES might have a trick up their sleeve.

So if you enjoy shows like Darker Than BLACK, Xam’d: Lost Memories, Birdy Decode and all that, I recommend considering these films.

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The blog WILL be here this week. I’m putting this placeholder here to force myself to do it.

It will be sometime Thursday or Friday. Whenever I can soonest watch an anime and then have a few spare hours to write. lol

So yeah. It’ll happen. It’s just gonna be late.

Peace out, True Believers.

The_Clothed_Man

The Clothed Man enjoys long walks on the beach and the first time. He’s not sure what he means by that, either.

He and his ilk can be found ilking at The Otaku 2.0 Forums.