“Kyon-kun denwa!”
Shin Godzilla is having a limited showing in Sydney, and as this film was directed by Hideaki Anno, the famed director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, I decided to go and watch it. I highly enjoyed the movie, but before I elaborate on what makes Shin Godzilla a great Godzilla movie, I will warn that there are spoilers below, though I will try to be vague about specific plot points.
It is no secret that I am a fan of the… genre? Category? Whatever it is, the group of anime known colloquially as ‘cute girls doing things’. Recently I realised that I had not discussed one of the greatest shows in this category, which was fortuitous as its movie recently came out. Girls und Panzer is one of the standouts in this burgeoning category of shows, and much of that can be attributed to the fact that the thing that the girls are doing is engaging in friendly tank battles.
Friendly tank battles with realistic live ammunition, where the girls are literally only protected by the fact of plot armour.
To elaborate, in this weird alternate world tank battles using WWII-era and prior tanks has become a martial art practiced solely by females, called sensha-do. The main cast attend a school that is located on an aircraft carrier (along with a small town), and to save their school from being shut down must win the high school sensha-do championship. The studio behind GuP have their priorities straight, as a huge cast of tanks are depicted, from the eponymous Panzer IV to the dependable M4 Sherman to the fearsome Maus. The sound design on these tanks is especially top notch, though I cannot say if it is actually accurate to the tank.
Not much room left, but I can’t help getting more.
On Saturday, at the Sydney Manga and Anime Show, there was a concert. It was pretty amazing. First though, I’m so happy that I managed to get stuff signed by both GARNiDELiA and (I’m super happy about this) yanaginagi (though it was just a signboard)!
Recently I’ve been slowly making my way through my anime backlog, and recently finished Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S (A Certain Scientific Railgun). That prompted me to catch up on the Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) light novels, which are on their second “season”, New Testament.
The first “season” of the light novels ended with a really epic arc featuring battles on an immense scale, which you would hope from an arc named the World War 3 arc. It’s why a third season of the anime is on my most wanted list.
But I would love even more an anime adaptation of the Othinus arc in New Testament, because I think it is one of the greatest and most epic arcs in Japanese media I’ve ever read. I’d highly recommend it if you have the time to watch through all of Index, then read from where the anime leaves off and through to New Testament. But given that Index is 23 novels and New Testament is 11 novels at this time (not to mention that Index is licensed now and it will take ages for all the novels to be published), I’ll give a spoiler filled description of why I think the Othinus arc is one of my favourite stories thus far.
Just to be sure, spoilers be ahead.
What have I become!?!?!
I FEEL YOUR SCORN!
Orihara Izaya’s sisters appear! Yay!
Later in the episode one of them shows off some neat combat skills and… wait, what?
The last two episodes have toned down the serious story elements, perhaps to compensate for the serious episode six. So the comedy levels have been increased dramatically, and a new girl joins the cast.
But firstly is the weekly highlight of Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, and that is the voices for Eucliwood. Episode seven gave us Yuki Matsuoka, voice of Osaka and Tsuruya, and thus bringing the number of Azumanga Daioh seiyuu voicing Yuu to two (Tomoko Kaneda voiced in episode 2).
Spring 2011 brings an unprecedented influx of anime series. I haven’t seen numbers like this in my (limited) time as an anime watcher. As far as I can tell, over 30 anime series will air in Spring, and this is EXCLUDING OVAs. Which is why I have termed it SPRINGPOCALYPSE.
SHAFT are doing two shows, and so is Production I.G. With the return of Gintama, Sunrise will also be doing two shows. In fact, Manglobe, Toei Animation, A-1 Pictures and MADHOUSE are all doing two shows. KyoAni returns after a well deserved break after the end of K-ON! Truly, this is SPRINGPOCALYPSE.
To help you decide what to watch, I’ve separated the shows into the following categories: unique and notable, slice of life and comedy, romance, action and mecha, and one last special category. Not every show is listed here, as I’ve skipped some I don’t think my normal readers will watch. At the end I’ll also be listing what I will probably be watching.
Disclaimer: some of this information may prove to be mistaken or false.
Note: abbreviations for show names are listed in brackets after the title if available.
Warning: very ero images.
Now normally when you start a gag humour anime episode with two girls sounding ero, it usually ends up being something far more innocent. Which is why it was such a surprise to see this.
