What are you Watching?

[greg]

Weird city! I've never heard of Happy Science. It sounds more like an educational kids' program on NHK or something. Thanks for the link. I would say it is definitely a cult! There's no way I would give my money to something like that, even if it is for shits & giggles.

Then again, I bought Birdemic on DVD for a good laugh. Granted, it's not a cult, but the guy who made the movie is still an extreme environmentalist wacko.

[danth]

If you want to see an anime that treats both Buddhism and Christianity with respect, may I suggest Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman?

[usamimi]

Started re-watching Rurouni Kenshin subtitled now that it's on Crunchyroll. Ah, the nostalgia~
Also finished watching gdgd Fairies, which was super ridiculous (in a good way). Finally starting to watch the second season of Kaiji. It's not starting out as strong as the first, but I'm still looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[greg]

I watched the first episode of Macross F this morning. Curse you Japan, there is only one episode on the DVD! I sometimes called this show Macross B ("B" for "bewbs") because merchandising for the show (other than the Valkyries) seems to focus on bewbage.

So, I gave it a shot and rented the first DVD at Tsutaya. First strike against it was the lead male does his hair all girly-style and the waitress girl thought he was a woman at first. Then he got upset with her. Well duh, you dumb toenail. When you do your hair up like a girl with a ponytail, you should expect to get that a lot! Anyhow, towards the end of the episode, once the (so far) uninteresting characters have been established, the action starts. The enemy aliens are designed pretty neatly, looking rather organic in style and somewhat remind me of the aliens in Mospeada in that regard. Character design is sorely missing my beloved Mikimoto, but they seem okay, I guess. Anyhow, the first episode ended rather abruptly, making me rather excited to see the next episode. Unfortunately, there's only one episode on the DVD! GRR! So then I noticed that there's actually three versions of episode 1 on it: the TV broadcast version, the "De Culture" version, and the "Yack De Culture" version. I can only imagine that these are directors' cuts or something for each episode.

Anyhow, with one episode per DVD (I assume the others are like that, too), I'm not too keen on renting more. I'll maybe wait for it to air on Animax or something. My friend has fansubs of it, so I may hit him up for those.

[davemerrill]

There's a storefront religious outfit here in Toronto that advertised a screening of one of Happy Science's anime films. I did not have the guts to attend. Cults scare me.

I got the latest all-of-Robotech DVD set for Xmas - it has all 85 episodes of the TV series, the Sentinels, the Shadow Chronicles, an edited version of "Robotech The Movie", the Macross English pilot (the one with the great theme song), the Mospeada English pilot, and "Love Live Alive" both in a subtitled original release and in a "Robotech" version. The set also includes TV ads for Robotech toys and promotional videos shot by Matchbox and Harmony Gold for the toy and TV industry. It's a huge set that I bought mostly for the promotional videos and "Love Live Alive", which I'd never seen.

The Harmony Gold version of "Love Live Alive" is edited and put together almost exactly like vintage 80s Robotech material - animation used and re-used and re-re-re-used with new dialog laid on top, over-written dialog, totally new soundtrack. If you like that shot of Lancer walking across his dressing room, you're in luck because you'll get to see it at least five times. I suppose it's the kind of thing Robotech fans either love or put up with. It's amazing to see this kind of intrusive re-working of a property in this day and age, but the Robotech people seem to believe they have some kind of actual stands-on-its-own franchise, instead of a license whose strengths came from everything the Americans DIDN'T write.

[SteveH]

There's a storefront religious outfit here in Toronto that advertised a screening of one of Happy Science's anime films. I did not have the guts to attend. Cults scare me.

I got the latest all-of-Robotech DVD set for Xmas - it has all 85 episodes of the TV series, the Sentinels, the Shadow Chronicles, an edited version of "Robotech The Movie", the Macross English pilot (the one with the great theme song), the Mospeada English pilot, and "Love Live Alive" both in a subtitled original release and in a "Robotech" version. The set also includes TV ads for Robotech toys and promotional videos shot by Matchbox and Harmony Gold for the toy and TV industry. It's a huge set that I bought mostly for the promotional videos and "Love Live Alive", which I'd never seen.

The Harmony Gold version of "Love Live Alive" is edited and put together almost exactly like vintage 80s Robotech material - animation used and re-used and re-re-re-used with new dialog laid on top, over-written dialog, totally new soundtrack. If you like that shot of Lancer walking across his dressing room, you're in luck because you'll get to see it at least five times. I suppose it's the kind of thing Robotech fans either love or put up with. It's amazing to see this kind of intrusive re-working of a property in this day and age, but the Robotech people seem to believe they have some kind of actual stands-on-its-own franchise, instead of a license whose strengths came from everything the Americans DIDN'T write.

I don't think I've ever seen the Mospeada English pilot. Is it done in the same vein as the Macross attempt (which I paid GOOD MONEY for, Carl Macek!) or was it more in tone with the latter HG attempts like Zillion?

I have no understanding why they did a mangled version of Love,Live, Alive. It sounds truly horrible.

[Boite Diabolique]

It's amazing to see this kind of intrusive re-working of a property in this day and age, but the Robotech people seem to believe they have some kind of actual stands-on-its-own franchise, instead of a license whose strengths came from everything the Americans DIDN'T write.

I'm really not sure why they bothered with it to be honest. I though it was going to be a straight dub of the original "Mospeada: Love Live Alive" with some new Yellow Dancer songs, but what we got is a clip show with some new DR Movie animation (I assume, don't think Tatsunoko did the animation). The new animation is kinda cool and links the second and third arcs of Robotech together, but it's not worth the pain of the rest of it. How many shots of that tape recorder were there?

The worst part of it all was how it was released; coupled with a rerelease of the Shadow Chronicles. HG said they'd release "Mospeada: Love Live Alive" subtitled, but only did so on a new 2013 Robotech box set which cost around $90. Totally annoying as they previously released a "complete" box set not two years earlier (that arguably had worse extras and missing extras that previously featured on ADV's 2001 boxes. Plus that 2004 remaster ain't that great - just louder and intrusive audio and more nudie shots and violence). I went the cheaper route and got Beyond's single disc release, but hasn't got "Mospeada: Love Live Alive". Not sure if Revelation's version has it. The product description is vague; it does list "Mospeada".

[davemerrill]

The new box set is what I picked up - it was at DeepDiscount.com for about $45, which isn't a bad price.

And yeah, that tape recorder, over and over and over....

[llj]

There's a storefront religious outfit here in Toronto that advertised a screening of one of Happy Science's anime films. I did not have the guts to attend. Cults scare me.

Yeah, I remember reading that they screened Mystical Laws for a week or so at the Yonge/Dundas theatres. Pretty impressive they got it into a mainstream theatre.

[greg]

I've been sick in bed the past two days. I've been sick since Monday, but I didn't start fevers until Wednesday, so I've stayed in bed since then. Earlier this week, I rented Yamato DVD 6. Hoh-lee crap, MOAR! I can't wait to see #7. So is this getting an English, non-"Starblazers" release, subbed and everything? I sure hope so.

So tonight we watched the other DVD I rented, "Girls And Pander." Oops, I mean, Girls Und Panzer. It was only two episodes. Afterwards, my wife and I looked at each other, and rolled our eyes. All I could say was, "Well, that's one way to sell plastic models." The only good part of that show was seeing the tanks. Anybody who refuses to believe how anime hasn't gone downhill in modern days owes it to himself to watch this one. How did they think this up?

"Man, moeblobs are great."
"Yeah. You know what else is great? Tanks."
"Yeah, totally. But you know what's better than that?"
"Huh. What?"
"Moeblobs crawling all over tanks."
"Whoah, I've totally got a boner now."

I first heard about this at the Shizuoka Hobby Show when I saw the models. At first, I just thought it was just a series of tank models that they came up with some cute girl mascots for. I'm fine with that. Then I discovered that there's actually an anime series for it. There's no way I will rent volume 2 of this crap. The only one this show impressed was my 5 year old daughter. Of course, any anime featuring cute girls doing stuff will get her approval. This is otaku pandering through and through. These students at an all-girl junior high join a tank club (as if any school would have such a club when they aren't even old enough to drive cars). All the girls are typical moeblob-types with no real personality to them. In regards to our recent eye patch conversation, one girl wears a single eyeglass. Like she's wearing glasses, but half of them are gone. Not even just a frame with the lens popped out. No, it's half of a set of glasses that by all rights should fall off her face. I couldn't really understand the show much, other than that they're joining a club. The big Shyamalan reveal at the end of episode one is that they all live on a ginormous, city-sized aircraft carrier. Ooooh, deep.

So as marketing, it's fine. But as an actual show, it's dumb. I really dig Hasegawa's line of Eggplane plastic models, and the cute girls on the boxes are just there for decoration. They don't even come as actual pilots included in the kits. If they were to make an anime based on those characters, however, I imagine it would be stupid like this.

I got the latest all-of-Robotech DVD set for Xmas - it has all 85 episodes of the TV series, the Sentinels, the Shadow Chronicles, an edited version of "Robotech The Movie", the Macross English pilot (the one with the great theme song), the Mospeada English pilot, and "Love Live Alive" both in a subtitled original release and in a "Robotech" version. The set also includes TV ads for Robotech toys and promotional videos shot by Matchbox and Harmony Gold for the toy and TV industry. It's a huge set that I bought mostly for the promotional videos and "Love Live Alive", which I'd never seen.

Gosh, I'd like to see that old Macross English pilot. I am surprised that the Robotech movie made it to DVD! Maybe it's because Macek died? He was as ashamed of that one as George Lucas is of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Those Matchbox toy commercials are great fun. They had those commercials in a supplemental DVD for the old Robotech box sets. I love the Barbie-style doll commercials of Minmay and Dana. One girl held a Minmay doll and said, "Isn't she NEAT? And then she and her friend giggled. My friend and I rewound that scene to watch it over and over and laughed every time. It made such an impression on me that often when I grab my daughter, that's what I say: "Isn't she NEAT?"

I didn't like how they redid the sound effects for Robotech, by trying to make them sound more "realistic" or whatever. It was just an excuse to make the shows in surround sound.