Stay up all night with Insomniacs After School by Bob Johnson
The three lead characters: Isaki, Ganta, and the Night Sky
Have you ever sat up all night contemplating that the weight of the universe is coming down on you, personally? Sadboy Ganta Nakami has. Living in Nanao and drowsing through the oceanic sunsets, the one thing he’s got going for him is a fancy camera. Yet he doesn’t have anything to take pictures of. At first anyway.
Unable to sleep at night, Ganta finds himself napping at school in its quiet, out-of-the-way places. Rumour has it that the abandoned observatory is haunted, but it’s quiet, dark, and has interesting stuff just sitting there. And, tempted to nap himself, he is shocked to meet Isaki Magari, sleeping like a zombie in some abandoned furniture!
Any good hangout space needs remodelling.
It doesn’t take long for them to realize that both have the same problem: they can’t get decent sleep. As they commiserate and fix up their shared snooze pad, they’re also on a collision course with the school powers-that-be: If they don’t get the astronomy club back up and running, the observatory will turn into permanent storage.
What ensues over the 13 episodes is a voyage to drum up club members, and then visit the best night photography spots in Japan in search of a shot that can win a photo contest and keep the club funded. Along the way, we learn some of the psychological stress our leads have been under, and why these two, most of all, need a healing anime and something beautiful in their lives.
A shared moment in space-time.
Plus a beach episode, because a show this fluffy always has one! Indeed, Isaki falls into the sudden girlfriend appearance category, and her default wardrobe is from the Zettai Ryouiki catalog. Between her and her athlete friends, the show doesn’t lack for genki-girl energy. And that’s just the characters! The real fanservice is that the art in this show is just dazzlingly beautiful. The background shots of sunsets and the night sky go beyond Makoto Shinkai territory. But even the dejected, dismal grey of a rained-out event day pops with every raindrop and tear. It wasn’t so long ago that a show like this would just pan across stills during the kinds of shots that Linden Films renders with full motion and shading. So kudos to the production team!
Insomniacs lingers at Bus Stops and F-Stops
I will gladly take a chill, compassionate show like this over a lot of the shows out there that mistake shock factor for plot development. Shows that rely on explosions or fast talking to juice engagement, instead of hooking folks on the characters. Even among “romance” shows – it’s rare to find anything that captures the nerd experience that isn’t focused squarely on making “oops, awkward!” jokes every 35 seconds. I hear the latest anime pairing trend is “rivals-to-lovers” – stories that substitute tsundere and conflict where the intimacy and growth should be. Maybe that’s fun, but is it realistic? It’s impossible to recommend that nonsense over a more healthy relationship like this.
I can be a sucker for this sort of thing, despite being pretty far from my usual scifi comedy action adventure comfort zone. Could you accuse this story of recycling a lot of well-used fanfic tropes – save-the-club meets hurt-comfort, with a dash of sports and harem? Is it a little too fluffy and unfocused at times, is it perhaps too indulgent? Maybe that’s fair to say, but it never feels hectic, choppy, or contrived, as it might be if they were simply throwing the kitchen sink at the fanbase’s every impulse. Every episode is a journey of its own, always smooth and patient. Some of my co-fans toss shows like this over the side for being ‘boring’ – but in this case, the slow pace is really a feature, not a bug.
Insomniacs After School is the perfect antidote to the endless fucking rush. Slow down, take a break, hold hands, watch the sunset, and wait for the stars to glitter into view.
Fuck Yeah, Check it Out: Insomniacs After School(Kimi wa Houkago Insomunia) 13 episode anime Based on the manga by Makoto Ojiro Produced by Linden Films, Licenced by Sentai Streaming (press time): HiDive
Denver’s destination event for otaku is worth a visit
by Bob Johnson
Holy Hell, did I ever need to go to Daku Con. Nestled in the open plains of the grand city of Denver, there is an airport and a Crowne Plaza Convention Center thereby. For three days, this hotel is a mecca for weebs and weirdoes from the American West, a bishi bacchanalia at the dawn of winter.
It stands pleasantly unmoved by the trends at other cons that have turned what once were college-level cultural experiences into fluffy, insubstantive Demolition Man shells of themselves, where the organizers spout weak-tea “we have kids now” nonsense as they cancel everyone’s offcolour comedy panels. Well, just how did you hypocritical weebs meet in the first place, hmmm? Some of us still need a con that “goes there”.
In a perfect world, we would all have perfect choices. There would be an easy response to bowdlerization at the con: simply go to something else that is 18+. But there’s only a handful of cons that are really committed to staying 18+, and of these, many are in the South or East Coast, far from our neck of the woods. Yet Daku Con is in Denver, just one flight away from anywhere. It’s not so far west as to be troublesome to get to from the remainder of our continent, and it is still an easier sell than, say, Chicago, when courting a potential guest from Japan or Korea.
Wandering the halls enjoying the peoplewatching, peering at the panel rooms and wandering off when something else catches my eyes, Daku Con really strikes me as being in the Goldilocks zone: despite having a lot of Big Con energy, it also evokes this very neighbourly, small-town-but-in-a-good-way vibe. You get the feeling of being one of the Big People On Campus pretty soon, in part because the stars of this thing are lingering and mingling instead of being whisked back up to the Green Room.
There are several genres represented at the con, with anime roughly being in first place. You could argue that it is a full-blown multi-genre con with its attention to video, tabletop, and gambler-style gaming and special focus on adult entertainment. There’s a lot of comics and some wordy books being slung on the sidelines, but far less of that Marvel Movie Mook energy, and I’m 100% okay with that. The odds that the panel topics will be Hentai or Victorian Erotica are through the roof. And the primetime event is not one, but two nights of burlesque! I mean, it’s one thing to see your favourite cosplays, but seeing these wonderful folks creatively un-cosplay is a remarkable twist on a con favourite.
There’s more of course: The dealer’s room and artist alley are phenomenal and need not hide their most bountiful wares behind painter’s tape or dark curtains. As for how my con was personally spent, well “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” – but suffice it to say, by the end of each day there will be plenty of meaningful events to discuss with the entourage, whether over pink frosted Little Debbies in the manga library, or over a beer at the indoor waterfall lounge.
Thanks, Daku Con: being a nerd is cool and underground again. Hope to see everyone again next November!
Fuck Yeah, Check it out: Daku Con 2023 anime and multi-genre convention Returns November 1 – 3, 2024 in Denver, CO https://dakucon.org/
Moyashimon tastes better than it smells! By Bob Johnson
IDK My BFF Jill, sure this isn’t Hetalia: Tales of Portugal ?
This one really takes me back. Way way back, to before I even cared about anime all that much, when it was just kind of a sideshow to the tabletop and computer gaming circles that were my main jam. My university’s anime club watched this one almost right away, when “right away” meant waiting for Geneon to release a DVD box set, have someone in the club bring it over, and have everyone say, “ya sure you betcha” when the idea of watching it for the club was floated.
I was amused from the beginning to watch this university school life show called “Tales of Agriculture” in a university lecture hall, from the same projectors that handled the daily powerpoint slides mere hours before – and actually learn something! It is just as informative, and certainly more entertaining, than the average introductory microbiology course, and now… whoa, 16 years already since its release?? Well, it still holds up.
The show’s about a brewers’ son, Tadayasu Sawaki, whose folks send him to cow college to get his degree. Along the way, we meet a few colourful characters that help drive the plot forward, as well as a special situation that requires Sawaki to risk revealing his superpower: he can see and hear microbes, which appear to him as cute little anime chibis. Along the way, there’s much done to explain the science of fermentation and spoilage in food and beverages.
Our lead characters are a short-stacked, short-tempered Anime Protagonist, supported by a lackadaisical, weird-food loving professor, permagrads in three flavours, and some love interests for our superhero that are obvious but perenially and humourously deflected.
A lab is only as good as its staph… er, staff…
The real stars of the show are the chibi microbes, though. All of them are vaguely shaped like the real microbe and have a silly smile on their face unless they need to be in another broadly brushed mood. Generally they just sit there or float around, but occasionally they talk directly to or about Sawaki, or to each other. It’s a somewhat different approach than say, Cells at Work, which also turned bacteria into characters. But unlike the scary germs in that show, most of the microbes we see here are just little derps who actually help humans out, doing things like making sake boozy or cheese taste good.
The real MVPs.
I hate to call it “Old School” – as Moyashimon is available today as it was originally shown – in full HD – but it still harkens back to an older era, before moé took over everything, when vampy milfs could still be Best Girl, and CG was still pretty bad but could be put to effective use in certain situations. The mid-2000s still had a lively market for odd manga with a semi-educational message, and interesting shows could still make it to the US even without a dub.
Other folks saw Moyashimon and said “eh, that’s kinda weird” – I went and made Natto and Sake for real, because that’s muh freedom. Apparently that’s a bit lacking in Japan, which (as the show mentions) has strict limits on home and microbrewing, something that America rolled back in the ’70s. Thanks, Jimmy Carter! Homemade sake is awesome, and it’s easier to make than beer… I should do another batch sometime. Natto, on the other hand, well let’s be generous and say it’s just not going to happen indoors at my place. But hey, watch Episode 8 if you want to learn the recipe for yourself.
NO U
If you’re still thinking, ‘eww gross! germs!’ Well sure, Moyashimon won’t please everyone. It’s cute and silly and nerdy as all get out, with just a dash of spice, and that is certainly better than you would expect from a biology textbook masquerading as an anime. What this show is not (thank god!) is a shonen action adventure isekai, which is why I strongly, strongly recommend thoughtful, genuinely nice shows like this as an antidote to the braindead, same-y, copy-paste, slime mold matting every surface of the modern anime quarterly release schedule.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a chip off the code block. Scroll it, choom!
by Bob Johnson
Don’t wait for me to rant about it. No need to invest 100 hours in the video game first. If you are even vaguely interested in gaming, computers, guns, science fiction, or metamodern romance, it’s time to chip in. That’s Edgerunner lingo for Watch! This! Show!
I can’t believe my eyes! It’s a half-decent game adaptation!!
New crew, same old Night City. Moments before V explodes on the scene in 2077, we take a close look at David Martinez, a kid who gets his pocket change selling exotic VR replays to smarmy corpo kids. The closest thing he has to a friend at school is some choomba who beats him up for being poor. His mom, Gloria, pays his school tuition with black-market implants she scrapes off carcasses as an EMT.
Dave’s life kinda sucks, and it pretty much doesn’t stop sucking, though it does happen to change when a certain high-grade military implant shows up in his life. Pretty soon, he’s bouncing off the walls with lightning speed, attracting the attention of a certain fatally cute edgerunner, who opens David’s eyes to subway scams and the world of merc work. It doesn’t take long for a job or two to get over his head, but as luck would have it, he lives to fight another day.
Lucy’s idea of a meet cute involves a deadly monowire whip.
For a while, anyway. As true as it’s been since the first edition of Cyberpunk in 1988, a runner in Night City doesn’t last long. If you honestly had the choice, would you let the bullets or the daemons take you?
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is in fact a good show, a show made by the best people, that evokes the gaming experience in just the best way. Even though I’ve heard a fair set of arguments that this show is ‘just an ad’ for the game, this is not remotely in the same category as your average dime-novel Halo Reacharound cash-grab. This is real art. It is completely cohesive, whether you choose to see it as a fully fledged anime or a glorified video game cutscene. And I’d strongly argue the former over the latter.
Speaking of art, I should mention how well done the animation is, 2D first with mostly seamless 3D elements, all steeped or borrowed heavily from the game’s aesthetic and art assets, with some wall-breaking Triggerisms tossed in that work amazingly well. 10 years ago, it might have been tempting to do a work like this as some low-grade machinima. They absolutely don’t do that here.
Gotta go fast!
Ultimately, the measure of a show is not how 2D or 3D it is, it’s the whether it was made with real, human emotions, and asks real, human questions. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has tons of those little zen moments that meditate on the nature of experience. In this glitzy, near-future, artificially-enhanced surreality, what does it even mean to be human?
This OVA is something of an oddity, and not just in a FLCL/Dead Leaves, “WTF is going on here?” sense (though there is no shortage of that). I’m honestly not sure whether Apocalypse Zero is supposed to be taken seriously or not. It’s like someone took elements of both Fist of the North Star and Neon Genesis Evangelion and mashed them together, but didn’t really care all that much about little details like plot structure.
What, you thought the fact there was an apocalypse meant you wouldn’t have to go to school?
The story follows a Gary Stu named Kakugo Hagakure, who poses as a transfer student so he can protect students and other innocent civilians living in the ruins of Tokyo. He wears the “Zero Armor” that gives this OVA and the manga it’s based on its name, which is a living exoskeleton made from the souls of deceased warriors. His main foe is actually his older brother, Harara Hagakure. They were both given armor by their father, but while Kakugo is able to keep the damned souls powering his armor in check, Harara isn’t, and turns evil, and also into a woman for some reason that’s never really explained all that well. Harara also turned into an environmentalist, which is why s/he has vowed to finish what the unexplained apocalypse started by wiping out all of humanity with his/her army of mutants and demons. Of course, in spite of having an entire army at his/her disposal, s/he insists on sending them one at a time. Worked for Rita Repulsa, right?
That being said, this OVA is a great example of weird old anime that is just so damn entertaining to watch. It is filled to the brim with graphic violence which includes things like a monster that is a literal man-eater, who will grab random guys off the streets and kill any woman who happens to be with him by squeezing them until their insides squirt out like toothpaste out of a tube.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
It also doesn’t shy away from gratuitous nudity, which is just as likely to be fan dis-service, like the six-breasted bear seen in the opening of the OVA, or really the majority of the monsters sent after Kukugo and his classmates. Most are dressed in very little, and one of them even uses his dick as his main weapon.
The weird visual design only adds to the oddness of this anime, and with the complete lack of story and plot structure it is very riffable. It is one of the most absurd animes I’ve watched, and it manages to keep just on the right side of funny while it indulges in its own stupidity. I would still recommend this anime, though, as long as you understand the dark weirdness you’re getting into. This is the kind of thing you watch with friends to get drunk and make fun of together.
Fuck Yeah! Check it Out!
Apocalypse Zero (2 episode OVA) Based on the manga by Takayuki Yamaguchi Animated by Ashi Productions and AIC Produced by Big West Advertising, Victor Entertainment, and Tomy
You only get to experience having a first love once, and for me, the first anime I loved was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I had seen other anime first, but I still consider this series to be my gateway anime, because it is the one that really made me take anime seriously as a storytelling medium. The first time I saw it was in the last part of its second season airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, way back in the spring of 2006, and even though I had no idea of what was going on, I was instantly drawn in by the drama and intrigue I saw and hooked. Thankfully, the series was re-run a short time later, and I was finally able to watch the entire series, and I soon found myself enthralled with it. Not long afterwards, I was invited to join my local university’s anime club by some friends, and I had begun my journey to become a Maximum Weeaboo. But while I have watched many animes since then, including some very good ones, this series still remains my favorite.
Based on a manga by Masamune Shirow and produced by Production I.G, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex follows the secretive and elite Section 9 of Japan’s Public Security, made up entirely of former members of the military and police and tasked with solving and preventing cybercrime. All of its members are cyborgs, running the spectrum of Togisa, the rookie of the group who only has an implant which allows him to interface electronically as well as to communicate using a kind of cybernetic telepathy with his teammates, to the mysterious and aloof leader of the group, known mainly as “The Major,” whose entire body is prosthetic.
Like Voltaire, I cannot help but wonder if it’s fully functional and anatomically correct.
While they run into a number of interesting cases that make the series semi-episodic in nature, they soon stumble upon a conspiracy that involves a major corporation and the government which begins to move into the forefront. One of the things I liked about this was that the main story arc started out as just another investigation into something kind of weird that was going on, in this case involving a super-hacker known as “The Laughing Man,” and slowly evolved into the main plot of the show.
While hackers can already be a headache thanks to utilities and infrastructure being connected to the internet, this series expands on that through the premise that advancing technology has allowed people to become cyborgs, and even become commonplace, such that most people can connect their brains to the internet, which in turn allows them to be “ghost-hacked.” This allows a hacker to do everything from altering a person’s perceptions, to remotely controlling their body. This is just one of the themes explored by this show which asks exactly what makes a human, since literally every part of a person can be replaced but their brain, and leaves them vulnerable to having their memories altered or erased, the way they sense the world around them being corrupted, or even having their minds and bodies taken over completely, and used like a puppet. There’s also a question of trans-humanism hanging there, with the possibility that humans might be able to live as a consciousness on “the net,” entirely free of a body. At the same time, AI has advanced to the point that it might be argued they actually do represent a form of life themselves.
As a sci-fi fan, this kind of stuff really appealed to me, and I can’t help but feel completely in love with this show in spite of its flaws, like how it takes a bit of time to randomly bash the United States because someone at Production I.G apparently has an axe to grind. But this aside, the series has an interesting premise and plot, with characters I can care about and root for, as well as a beautiful semi-realistic visual design. While I know some people might complain about fan service (check out the original manga sometime), it’s clear that the story is first and foremost, unlike so many shows that have come out since this one.
.hack// is a full immersion isekai experience twenty years ahead of its time by Perot LeFou
The leads of .hack//Sign
The two great loves of my life have been anime and video games. I could wax on about how formative to my comprehension of ethics the Ultima series was, or that Slayers brought me to appreciate dramatic high-concepts explored mostly with irreverence. But I’m here to extol my love for something that combines both: .hack. Most US based anime fans enjoying Toonami’s offerings would know about this series. .hack//Sign showing all the hallmarks of a prototypical isekai: the setting is a massively popular MMO follows a player who has fallen into a coma and become stuck in the game.
Yet unlike quite a few other anime about playing or being trapped in MMOs or just handwaving world logic or systems as vaguely akin to a video game: this was developed to be a companion series to an actual video game series. .hack//Sign, the first anime started airing alongside the first of four game releases over two years. Less a game series and more like the multi-part discs of the same single-player RPG, released on the PlayStation 2. .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and .hack//Quarantine, referred together as “.hack//Game”. Each disc of which each came with an OVA episode of another series .hack//Liminality. Showing IRL events concurrent to the in-universe in-game events away from the game’s VR terminals. .hack//Sign chronologically takes place first. That is between it and .hack//Game, the .hack franchise has so much media it’s easier for the sake of brevity to say I forget the precise number of prequels. However, something I can’t help but appreciate, looking back on the series after nearly two decades, is how well these first entries’ metatext about The World holds up as a theoretical videogame and MMO.
.hack//Sign is a series that follows a partially amnesiac Wavemaster Tsukasa. Who very early is shown to command a neigh indestructible unnatural looking creature “The Guardian”. Between this and other reports of Tsukasa seeming to know secrets or actively be hacking the game to have this and other powers. In short order a guild of PKers at attempt to destroy this guardian and fail. Not because Tsukasa is the most skilled player ever, or simply winning the RNG lottery to get “unkillable monster” as a character specific power, which no self-respecting game designer should ever make part of an MMO. Rather, it’s because The Guardian is no uncertain terms not part of The World as a conceived, developed or released game, and certainly was not intended for players to gain control of. Explaining how this is better justified, would be the most concise possible way to spoil the overarching plotline of .hack//Sign.
Tsukasa summons his Twilight Guardian
Yet if you were sitting across the table from me and had asked about my favorite anime: I’d be willing to do just that. That is what resonates with me, if I didn’t make this clear is exactly how well the series captures the sense of MMOs, certainly of and well after its time. A lot of .hack//Sign is dialog about philosophy. Which I know is a holding point to some entrants. However, for my part I’m focusing less on the high-concepts explored: the player mentalities ring true. I’ll try to avoid spoiling it so much, so I’ll omit names. One player in .hack//Sign is a professional with an adult son they’re trying to reconnect with who makes friends with newbies and mentors taking on a rule of a surrogate parent. Another is a shut in who purely uses The World to socialize with others, never leveling up at all despite having many equally or less-tenured powerful friends. Another is a 10 year old that loves Player Killer and griefing: but is also just entertained by the game. Said PKer becomes obsessed with Tsukasa not because he possesses an indomitable monster that can wipe out high leveled characters, but rather because Tsukasa’s able to evade being PKed. Two players start to have a romantic relationship and it combined with other ongoing social events basically destroys their player guild. Anyone out there who has played MMOs has seen some of these play out.
Yet on a more basic level the depiction of how players interact with the game are simplistically obvious, but also show cognition of game mechanics and design on part of the series creators. When players leave their VR terminals to go and talk to someone or grab a snack: their models freeze in whatever pose they were last, not pausing their game just removing any of their input. When players can’t find a friend that knows something they can’t figure out: they post to the game’s BBS about it. Though this is specifically called out in .hack//Sign: a simulated BBS is one of the cornerstones of .hack//Game, accessible after logging out of the World. This does have players inquiring about special in-game events, opportunities to meet new partymembers, but also just links to off-site news articles and people complaining about everyday things. Some players, like the Root Town dwellers in the .hack//Game want functionless collectible items and will trade items of in-game items for them.
To go further I’d say .hack captures the a believable experience of the experience of a game. In fact if you were to start the .hack franchise and go through it in release order; you would watch .hack//Sign and then play .hack//Game. You’d probably notice player-killing isn’t possible in .hack//Game. A discrepancy? Game and story segregation? No: it’s because PKing had been deemed a problem by the game designers and the ability to PK has been patched out. This isn’t the only patch: you can read the patch notes about it and other changing to incremental releases to The World. Which continues to receive patches throughout .hack//game. Another tactile point, is a realistic feeling of unreality. Looking broadly at the characters. Players have only a fixed number of classes to choose from. Secondary and lead characters of .hack//Sign and .hack//Game are Mimiru and Black Rose; both female Heavy Blade characters, the male Blademasters Bear and Orca, and even the lead male Wavemasters Tsukasa with Elk. However instead of being strikingly unique stand out characters: they’re basically palette swaps of one another. With a single accessory and coloration difference. A point of discussion in several series is that player skins are limited, with unique ones being awarded in in-game events. This is one of the many reasons hackers that make The World interesting since they use their own custom skins, the other being that they find unique accessible hidden fragments of The World to reveal and explore.
Kite, the player character in .hack// video games
The World functionally has infinite gameplay content. Something the player of .hack//Game will notice early is that means random generated dungeons. The series’ characters: who are the players, who play characters in The World, will complain about the sameness of The World’s procedurally generated content. Levels are generated using collectible keywords as random seeds. Which again just makes so much sense in emulating the limits of videogames. There aren’t millions of hand-crafted levels, there are not hundreds of thousands of programmers working at ALTIMIT, the fictional company that runs The World. Less than .00002% of the accessible fields or dungeons across the five servers in .hack//Game are special. Eight themed worlds and dungeon sets, paired with a few weather effects to make about thirty stock worlds, and only a handful of curated levels. There’d be even fewer if it wasn’t for the non-intentional corruption visual landscape of worlds. More standard game-term limits of The World are of course on display in .hack//Game: you can meet players with bad ping, easily hit the level cap using exploitative or limited use items, exploit free to use Spring of Mysts to upgrade your starting equipment into maxed leveled equipment for each server in about 30 minutes from gaining control at the start of each disc.
These anime and game rewards the viewer/player’s attention to detail. As a showcase, you will notice reoccurring characters throughout the series. A unique main character from .hack//Game, and most storied character in the eventually developed franchise is among the protagonist’s team in .hack//Sign’s climactic battle without pomp or preamble. Not to keep harping on this one note: but that really feels real to me: I don’t think everyone gives their life story out on every raid. While watching the anime will let you pick up keywords for locations visited in .hack//Sign, or special ones to access in .hack//Liminality for your use in .hack//Game, usually important locations or the home to unique treasure.
Balmung comes out of nowhere
Now I’ve started onto the path of praising the franchise as a whole. I haven’t even started on any anime, manga, novel, or games including a TCG and an ARG, or really material from a series started after 2002. However, this isn’t without any faults. I had once managed to hear complaints about .hack//Sign. These monsters would say true things like “It’s just a bunch of people sitting around and talking”, and “It takes forever to get to too little good stuff”. With the action-based contemporary anime it shared its broadcast block with: I could see how someone in the wrong frame of mind could form these and other terrible conclusions. Two reasons this shouldn’t dissuade you. First the OST for .hack//Sign is my favorite of any anime series, and not something I’ve ever heard a single complaint about. Some electronic otherwise a lot of festive or sedate Celtic sounds stand out a fair bit. I’m not a huge audiophile but that OST has been on every one of my computers, MP3 players, and phones that could have it for the last 17 years and it’ll take some kind of EMP to change that. Second: anyone who now has the faintest interest doesn’t need to wait half a year for a no-longer existent once-a-week broadcast cycle. It’s on Funimation’s streaming service. The main 25 episodes are free, with another two OVAs and the totally extraneous recap episode “Evidence” as subscription-only. One could easily finish this first anime in three sittings.
Recommended listening: .hack//Sign OST
However, for .hack//Game it’s less fortunate. Bandai’s and CyberConnect2’s negligence, the second game series .hack//GU received a collected, remastered. and expanded re-release in Last Recode. .hack//Game has not. This makes recommending the game hard. One would need to track down a physical set to play it in its entirety. Which is awkward to recommend since the final title .hack//Quarantine has always been among the most expensive resale PS2 games. Ranging above $200. Once-upon-a-time it was solidly, now merely vying for the second most expensive PS2 game behind the infamous Rule of Rose. All I can say is that if you want to stop by my place: I’ll lend you my copies. If that’s too steep, and if anything I said has piqued your gaming interest in the franchise as a whole? .hack//GU Last Recode is available on digital storefronts PSN and Steam. Incidentally it’s $8 on Steam the day this will post. Unfortunately, that doesn’t pair with .hack//Sign as well. No, that has its own anime mate: .hack//Roots. Which is also a great show, but I’ll have to save exploring those in depth for another time I contribute.
Fuck yeah, look it up!
.hack// multimedia franchise Starts with .hack//Sign (2002 anime) and .hack//Infection (2002 video game) Overall concept and games produced by CyberConnect2, Anime produced by Bee Train Anime licenced in North America by Funimation, Games available on PSN and Steam
The Area 88 TV Series’ Story of Survival by Punch Rockgroin
The household of my youth provided me with easy access to plenty of books on information concerning the jets of the Cold War. My dad used these for research purposes, both out of interest and the need to make sure he was staying ahead of his wargaming buddies. A steady diet of perusing the pictures of aircraft in these tomes, plus watching shows like “Wings of the Red Star” and so forth only heightened my interest in jet aircraft. The first airshow I remember was with the Thunderbirds; I could not believe how loud the jets were, but their garish paint scheme and feats of daring entranced me. I purchased Area 88 by chance back when I was in high school, having seen the jets on the cover and recently played through the “Ace Combat” games on the PlayStation 2. Surely, this was up my alley…my MiG Alley.
Area 88 takes place some time in the late 70s to early 80s and follows the unfortunate tale of Shin Kazama, once an up-and-coming airline pilot, who was backstabbed by his “friend” Satoru Kanzaki. Satoru knows Shin is engaged to the daughter of Yamato Air, so Satoru gets Shin drunk and has him sign what Shin thinks is a form to confirm he “spent the night”; in reality, it’s a contract signing him up as a mercenary for the Kingdom of Aslan. Shin then must fight for Aslan for 3 years, or earn $1.5 million in bounties to pay off the contract. Since desertion means capital punishment, Shin goes for option 2.
Cold War feelin’
The eponymous Area 88 is staffed by a number of shady characters. The local merchant is McCoy, who sells everything from planes and armament, to film and information. Shin’s best friend at Area 88 is Mickey Simon, a former US Navy pilot and Vietnam veteran who was unable to adjust to civilian life. Another staple of the base is Shinjou Makoto, a war photographer who documents the exploits of the pilots, though has an ulterior motive for being there. The base is run by Prince Saki Vashutal, who constantly sports a set of aviators and a X-shaped scar from when X delivered it to him.
The series is mostly focused on air combat, with some drama on the side. The drama provides us with the story elements, but the animation studio seemed to figure that the more interesting parts were the dogfights. Given that the aircraft are all 3D renders, this probably saved on the budget as well. When I was in high school, this was what I was primarily interested in, and the series certainly delivers. The combat is much more “Ace Combat” than “Digital Combat Simulator”, so expect a distinct lack of BVR engagements and Sidewinders that miss when they lose sight of the plot. Still, there’s plenty of explosions and high-G maneuvers to keep you entertained, and is generally not a crash-and-burn affair. The series only really strays from the combat-centric formula in the last couple episodes.
Other than Shin’s plight of knowing a former friend has stolen both his career and his girl, some background is provided on the other characters, but these are just for an episode. Some more information is provided on Mickey’s days in Vietnam, or on Shinjou’s true mission at Area 88. Many more characters seem to exist for story, as they tend to appear and die in the same episode.
I’m thinking Mickey didn’t go home for… other reasons
The fanservice is in the jets themselves. Shin pilots both an F-8 Crusader and an F-5E, while Mickey has an F-14 (possibly stolen from Iran?). Their opponents are all variety of MiGs, primarily the MiG-21 and MiG-23. The 3D models are relatively detailed, though given that this show is from 2004, the animation feels a little stiff at times.
Before this series, there was also a 3-episode OVA released in 1985. The plot is more or less the same, but is more focused on Shin dealing with killing people in order to survive, as well as some of the horrors he witnesses. The series and OVA deviate most greatly in the ending: The TV series gives the viewer a sense of hope at the end, while the OVA is far less certain. In the TV series, Shin suffers a setback that prevents him from leaving when he initially planned, but is convinced to fight on after hearing word on his girlfriend. In the OVA, Shin actually makes it home, but has become addicted to the adrenaline rush of combat, and finds that civilian life no longer suits him; as a result he returns to Area 88, and the OVA ends with him going into combat against ferocious odds.
The OVA’s ending, though depressing, had more of an impact on me. Shin didn’t even want to be there in the first place, but his will to get back home morphed into a desire to fight. I have to pause a bit and think about what it means to be a soldier, and how hard it can be to adjust to normal life after something as bracing as war. The TV series’ ending isn’t bad, and in some respects is still uncertain. It has a brighter outlook, with Shin’s vigor to survive and get out of Area 88 renewed, yet he must practically start over. It’s a coin toss for me as to preference.
Overall, the series is a relatively quick run at 12 episodes, and can be watched in an afternoon if so desired. If you’re a jet jockey looking for some animated fighter combat, this is one of the few gigs in town. In some ways the OVA is the better watch, since the story has more weight to it. But if you watch the OVA and want more combat, then I would recommend the TV series. As someone who loves the feeling I get in my chest when a fighter roars by with its afterburner on, I will recommend the series to any fighter jockey, virtual or otherwise.
Fuck yeah, look it up! Area 88 (2012) Directed by Isamu Imakake Produced by Ryosuke Takahashi and Group TAC Licenced in North America by ADV Films
Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love brings more battles, more beef by Bob Johnson
In many ways, Space Battleship Yamato is Japan’s answer to Star Trek. Though anime and the space age have gone together since the dawn of the industry (i.e., Astro Boy) – the 1974 Yamato series was a landmark that solidified science fiction anime into a cultural force and famously influenced the art team for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
As the 2010s, the age of the remake and the simuldub, dragged on, it was inevitable that the Yamato would rise again. Yet, every year between 2013 and 2017, Space Battleship Yamato 2199 was the go-to example of “Why isn’t there a dub for this?” — a major franchise that should have been snapped up for a licence above any number of moéshit school life clones. But that didn’t happen, at least, not right away. What do we have to thank for the dub? Why, the second season of the remake – Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love. When this follow-on was announced, Funimation finally fired up the wave motion cannon, dubbing both shows in back-to-back releases in 2017 and 2018.
A new adventure awaits the Yamato
In the year 2202, things are looking up for humanity. But even though Earth’s oceans are restored, and the planet has deployed a fleet of ships with the latest in wave-motion technology, a new threat appears in the form of Gatlantis, an evil empire with a deadly space fleet, threatening the far-off world of Telezart. Ordered to stay home by the powers that be, but haunted by strange dreams, the crew of the Yamato mutinies and takes her out for a new season of adventures in space, fighting for galactic love and peace.
Constantly threading the needle between a rapacious enemy on one side, and an Earth government on the brink of fascism on the other, Yamato‘s crew is often called upon to set the example. By necessity, they are required to compromise their high moral values, but in the end, still manage to save the galaxy without sacrificing all of their integrity.
Lt. Klaus Keyman (left) and Todo Katsuragi – Yamato outsiders with questionable motives.
The death of Captain Okita looms over the crew, leaving Kodai to command the Yamato. Whereas Okita was ever the chessmaster, ensuring the enemy fell into his plot, Kodai is decent enough in the Captain’s chair, but lacks confidence. Kodai also has relationship issues, particularly with Yuki. Actually, nearly *everyone* has interpersonal drama in this anime, most notably Lieutenant Keyman, a Garmilan pilot constantly getting into intrigues, and Kasturagi, a medtech who slips aboard Yamato and increasingly plays the role of femme fatale. How will they bring peace to the galaxy if they can’t get along with each other? Well, saving each others’ skins in battle goes a long way to rebuilding trust.
Would you care for some drama in a can, sir?
If you’ve never seen Space Battleship Yamato, it’s high time you saw 2199: it’s a well paced gauntlet run, where nearly every moment is desperate and vital to the future of humanity. 2202, while also quite solid, backs the stakes off a little. It lets other heroes take a bit of the limelight, and frees up the Yamato to dart back and forth between hotspots in a larger war. Both seasons deal with existential issues, not solely of survival in the face of the enemy, but also how to go about fighting, and what is and is not worth fighting for.
I will have to disagree with anyone who claims that the second go was able to wholly recapture the epic grandeur that was Space Battleship Yamato 2199 – but in all fairness, that is an *extremely* high metric. Space Battleship Yamato 2202, despite all of its spaghetti-wall character drama and sudden plot twists, is well within the halls of truly awesome anime.
Fuck Yeah, Look It Up: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 (aka Star Blazers 2202) Original concept by Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto Produced by Xebec, Licenced by Funimation
Or, How I Learned to Just Embrace the Corn by Bolt Vanderhuge
In spite of being something akin to an old classic, I feel like Fist of the North Star tends to get forgotten by modern audiences, or just mocked by them if they are made aware of it. Yet if one can overlook the poor animation quality, visual inconsistencies, and simplistic plot, it really is a strangely watchable show.
First, though, you should be aware of the fact that you have essentially two options, as I’m highlighting both a movie released in 1986 and a series which aired from 1984-1987, which were both produced by the same creative staff. The series was pretty obviously made for a younger crowd, and is toned down accordingly, often through the use of silhouette or recoloring blood to either black or white for the gorier scenes, while the movie revels in goriness, being sure to show you as much of the insides of the victims of the various styles of martial arts (referred to as fists) used by protagonist Kenshiro and a few other characters he comes across on his journey to rescue his fiancé. Ironically, there’s a lot more random nudity in the series than there is in the movie.
Nudity has no place in my gory movie
In any case, this is a post-apocalyptic story, set in the ruins of a nuclear holocaust that has claimed most of humanity and left the entire planet a ruin. The movie leave the nature of this apocalypse something of a mystery, but the series explicitly spells it out and even shows it a few times in flashback. While most of what remains of humanity has fallen into anarchy and lives off what they can salvage from the remains of civilization (and is very much inspired by Mad Max), there are still martial art masters keeping their traditions alive. Most of them, such as the titular “Fist of the North Star,” are seen as so powerful that there can be only one legitimate practitioner of them at a time. Kenshiro is but one of three adopted sons of the master of the Fist of the North Star, and undergoes trials with them so the master can decide which to choose as heir to his Fist. He ends up going with Kenshiro, and this ends up making the others rather upset. One of them just takes what he has learned so far and kills the master before leaving on a quest to take over the world so he can bring order to the chaos. As it happens, Kenshiro was set to marry a woman named Yuria, and is best friends with the man who has learned the Fist of the Southern Cross, Shin, at this time, and his other jealous brother decides to screw him over by convincing Shin that Yuria would be better off with him. So the first part of both the movie and the series consists of Shin betraying Kenshiro and almost killing him in order to get him to give Yuria up, giving him the signature Big Dipper scar on his chest in the process, with Kenshiro seeking to rescue Yuria and take revenge on Shin after he has recovered. This then ultimately culminates in a conflict with his oldest adoptive brother, Ken-Oh/Roah, and him never quite getting Yuria back.
No matter which version of this story you decide to watch, you are going to be bombarded by cheesy ’80s action goodness combined with all the anime clichés you can think of. The series does tell a much more coherent story than the movie, and actually adds more than one dimension to the main antagonists, but it does really draw the story out and take its time to get to the point, but it makes up for this by being strangely watchable, with just enough interesting points to keep one watching. The movie is basically just a massive dose of the good ol’ ultra-violent – the product of a style that has become a thing of the past, much to my disappointment. The downside to both versions is that it involves a couple of kids joining up with Kenshiro, essentially to become audience proxies so that things can be explained to them. But as with most child characters, they tend to be rather annoying and get used to generate melodrama thanks to their stupidity. One of them, Lynn, is like a moéblob even though that trope had yet to be a thing, and is so clingy she would give Overly Attached Girlfriend a run for her money.
Strictly speaking, I would not call this a “good” show per se, as Kenshiro really epitomizes the Gary Stu trope, and the story is quite simplistic, but it is still a lot of fun to watch Kenshiro’s arms blur as he pushes his enemies’ secret pressure points to make them all explode, and even does crazy things like beat up a WWII Panzer tank, so I’d still recommend it to fans of the ’80s action genre.
Fuck Yeah! Look It Up: Fist of the North Star [Hokuto no Ken] 109 episode anime (1984), and film (1987) Based on the manga by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara Produced by Toei, Licenced by Discotek
