Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Hellsing Ultimate

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

So… many… characters…

I am a huge fan of the original anime series Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s a near-perfect vision of what anime should be. It has drama, humor, love, action, suspense, you name it, it has it. It was so good, in fact, I proclaimed it to be one of the greatest anime of the 2000-2009 decade.

Something very common in anime is for a popular manga to be animated before it has concluded. This happened with the original Fullmetal Alchemist series. Once the animators hit episode 34, they had caught up to the manga. They then had to create a brand new ending to finish the series. Fast forwarding several years, the manga has been completed. Not wanting to miss any chance at milking a cash-cow, the series was remade, from the beginning, to tell the entire story.

This, unfortunately, was a huge mistake. The first 34 episodes of the TV series (I don’t know how many books of the manga it took) is compressed into a mere 13 episodes. The content is told in an extremely hurried fashion. While the previous series used these episodes to introduce us to the characters and to slowly build the drama, the new series rushes through everything so quickly it doesn’t have a chance to breathe.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

Prepare to see this image reused... a lot.

Whenever I think of Studio Gonzo, positive reviews do not come to mind. They have an amazing ability to take great source material, animate it, and, without fail, fuck it up. For example, Hellsing and Chrono Crusade were great series ruined by horrible endings. Of course, Gonzo also creates terrible series that are unsalvageable messes from episode one, like Gantz or Strike Witches. Once in a while they create unintentional comedy gold like they did with Speed Grapher. The lesson from all this is that Studio Gonzo is trash. They have terrible writers, shoddy animation, and use extremely outdated CGI. To date, the only Gonzo series that could even remotely be considered good are Last Exile and Welcome to the NHK. Then I watched Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a sprawling, epic adventure, a tale of heartbreak and revenge. It is a novel so intricate it requires multiple readings to appreciate it to its fullest. It stars one of literature’s most complex and intriguing (anti) heroes, Edmond Dantes. I’ve read the book and seen a number of Hollywood adaptations. To me, it is one of the greatest stories ever told. And since Gonzo is known for making non-sensical shit, I figured there was no chance in hell this would be any good.

Pani Poni Dash – Real-Time Blogging Episode 1

My thoughts on this series.

I’ve read a lot of good things about Pani Poni Dash. Of course, I read a lot of good things about Planetes, and we all know how that turned out. Anyway, I decided to give the show a shot. Now, a famous movie-star/male-model like myself doesn’t have a lot of time to scour the internet for this shit, so I just watched the first copy I could find. It happened to be a streaming version from Funimation’s Youtube channel. The video quality was good, but the audio was dubbed. OK, fine, whatever, that doesn’t bother me. After all, the dubs for plenty of other shows have been good. So I hit play, sat back, and started to watch. If you want to watch and read my comments, click this link to see the episode. Here’s how it went:

00:27 – OK, interesting title screen, seems more subdued than I expected.

00:41 – Let me guess, Planet of the Apes parody?

1:00 – Yep.

1:27 – Why would someone who graduated from MIT go into education? MIT doesn’t even offer degrees in education. Wait, sorry, this is anime so logic doesn’t factor into it.

1:38 – Oh, here is the crazy, super-moe opening, as expected.

2:15 – Kind of a catchy song, but not amazing. At least it’s better than that fucking Lucky Star opening. That thing was an audio holocaust.

3:00 – In the toilet? Where this show belongs, probably.

True Blood – Season 1

A long time ago, vampires used to kick ass. Spanning centuries of folklore and leading to modern times, vampire stories have always picqued my interest. Old classics like Dracula and Nosferatu as well as newer fare like Blade and Hellsing have given me countless hours of entertainment. Sadly, though, the street rep of the vampire has really been dragged through the mud in recent years. It has become so bad that I have almost completely given up on the vampire genre as a whole.

One trend that pissed me off in particular is the one that showed the vampire looking normal until they reveal their fangs, and then their faces get all scrunched up and evil looking. Probably the worst offender of this was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series and its spin-off Angel. Vampires are 10,000% more terrifying when they look like everybody else. I think that is kind of the point of why vampires are scary. The vampire could be anyone. When that aspect is taken away, then part of the fascinating vampire mythos is lost.

Top 30 Anime Openings (with Video Evidence): Part 3

I’m back with the third and final entry in this three part series. This week, the next ten openings will be revealed. There probably aren’t a lot of surprises here, and most are lauded amongst the anime fan community as great openings. There will be, however, a few that I imagine are a bit unexpected. Once you’re done watching, feel free to leave a comment about the entire 30 entry list. Anyway, on to the openings.

Note: Sometimes after watching so many embedded files, Youtube audio files will stop working, or the entire file will load incredibly slowly. If that happens, reload the page, and everything will work again.

10.) Hellsing – A World Without Logos by Yasushi Ishii

Songs just really don’t get much cooler than this one. The jazzy theme melds nicely with the crazy visuals, making for a very surreal experience. It also manages to fit the tone of the series perfectly.

9.) The Big O – Big O! by Rui Nagai

A very catchy song, an homage to Queen, and awesome retro visuals. This is certainly an incredibly memorable opening.

8.) Berserk – Tell Me Why by PenPals

With so much Engrish, how could anyone not like this opening? It’s short, has a scratchy guitar, and just plain rocks. Plus, anything having to do with Berserk is cool in my book.