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News Report Archive - Winter/Spring 2012 |  |
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News Report Archive - Winter/Spring 2012 | |
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Two months...two quiet months. Well, friends, sorry about that! There are lots of reasons for the break, the primary one being that shortly after Christmas, our television set blew up. Literally, with sparks and smoke and humming like a nuclear reactor. Having only one TV left in the house that's barely as big as a computer monitor, I'm on the road to a major upgrade. But that whole process, along with other developments in my real life, has put anime viewing on the backburner. I'm busy cleaning off my 11-year-old Tivo as the upgrade to HD comes ever closer, so I've been devouring my recordings of Durarara!, which I should have a complete review for in the near future. Once I get all the pieces of the new setup in place, I imagine I'll be back to the regular routine. In the meantime, when I do hang out with the anime crowd online, I do so over at THEM Anime under the screen name AkiraKaneda. I encourage you to pop by sometime for a conversation with me and some of the best anime reviewers on the planet.
In the midst of getting my new TV setup -- which is still not done yet -- I was able to pop to the theater with my family to catch the latest Studio Ghibli offering, The Secret World of Arrietty. If you're in a hurry, just take my word for it that you should catch it at your local cinema before it leaves. But please click on the review to find out why I believe this to be an excellent sign for the future of the studio Miyazaki built.
Thankfully, the new system is up and we're cooking with gas! As such, I was able to finish up watching Durarara!! in HD. It's a lovely-looking show, to be sure. But is this time-bending, slightly supernatural urban sprawl of a program worth your time? Read the review here to find out...
If you have recently upgraded to HD and BluRay, you owe it to yourself to see Redline. An amazing old-school extravagance with hand-drawn animation, it is the bleeding edge of cool. Does that mean that it's a great movie? Not exactly...depending on who you are, it might be a rental first. I don't think I'd own it, but that doesn't mean I didn't think it wasn't a visual extravaganza...click the link to see if Redline is driving down your alley.
Concepts come and go in waves. We used to have mecha anime by the scores; now you're lucky to see one or two a season. Supernatural mystery/horror shows are much the same -- the first one I can remember was the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA series in the 80s -- but they have their place in the anime canon. Recently, with the advent of Garden of Sinners, we've seen a number of dark serial killer shows with lead characters more bizarre than the criminals they catch. Electromagnetic Girlfriend is one such show from 2009. If you like the genre, is it worth your time? Read on to find out my take.
Patient readers know that I've been working my way through the Garden Of Sinners series of films, trying to put a little bit of space between then to experience the whole as many folks did when they were originally released in theaters. I'm not sure that was a great idea, considering that there's so much non-linear storytelling that it's easy to get confused...even bored. But after the third entry that nearly put me off completing the whole, the next film -- The Hollow -- gets back on track. Read the review to find out why I will keep on this dark and strange supernatural mystery train.