Fall Preview 4

    Taking place about 4 years after the end of Gundam 00 we have Gundam 00 Season 2, one of the titles I was highly anticipating for this season. The series picks up with the fallout from the destruction of the Celestial Beings. We find Setsuna F. Seiei alive, piloting Exia and all alone, on a mission to rescue prisoners in a prison colony. Unbeknownst to him is one of the prisoners is the Japanese kid he lived next to. He uses the cover of a conflict between the installation forces and a separate space borne military force to break into the installation. As the assaulters unleash unmanned killing drones into the installation, leaving everyone except for Setsuna’s old neighbor alive. Setsuna saves him from the drones and rescues him from the installation, only to reveal the fact that he was a Celestial Being. The kid’s European girlfriend lost her hand during an attack by the German Celestial Being siblings while her family was killed. It just so happens that the same girl is part of the force attacking the installation. She flips out when Exia starts to fight its way to freedom. The new Gundams are too much for the outdated equipment and Setsuna soon finds himself in peril when, he is saved at the last minute by Tierde, piloting a revamped Virtue. The true Celestial Beings are still operating and come to Setsuna’s rescue, there by strengthening their forces. Now they must rebuild their team and try to regain their goal of a world without war. 

    OK, so it’s season 2 and if you never watched the first season this isn’t going to mater to you. It’s Gundam, so there are a set of things that need to be covered, the mechs holding secret powers that come out at the bets time, moody male leads, lots of international political subterfuge and plenty of melodrama to fulfill the most hard core Emo kids. The animation is the same as the last season and we are being introduced to a whole new cast of shadowy world figures as well as catching up with people from the last season. If you liked Gundam 00 you are already watching this show. If you have not seen the first season and wish to watch this one then hop to it. For the most part people know if they like Gundam or not, but 00 is not a bad series to test the waters with.

     Chaos Head is a series that I know absolutely nothing about, and after watching the first episode I have only slightly grasped what its about. The first episode starts out like a male/female version of the end of the X movie. Then leads into the real world/present time where we meet our protagonist, a delusional otaku named Takumi, who resides in a corrugated metal shack on a building top in Shibuya. Takumi is a typical slacker, hikikomori otaku. He only prefers interaction with people if it’s digital or fictional all together. A number of times in the first episode he chants the otaku mantra of 2d girls are better then 3d ones. We find his illusionary version of his favorite anime heroine waking him up to go to school. He has taken his distaste for human interaction to the extreme in the fact that he has calculated and plotted out the minimum days he needs to attend school. In school he shuns contact with everyone and convinces himself that everyone around him finds him disgusting, which only helps him stick to his convictions about 2d over 3d. Through out the day he hears references to a series of bizarre and grizzly events that have taken place in Shibuya recently dubbed New Gen or New Generation. In the events people are killed or die in very grisly and message-laden ways. While online he also runs across a mysterious person who wants him to look at pictures related to New Gen. In a moment of hysteria he causes one of the images to open up and it shows the grisly image of a man crucified to a wall with dozens of daggers. 

    The next day he seeks refuge at an Internet café, in order to discreetly play his MMORPG. On his way home he stumbles upon the exact scene he saw in the image he opened up the previous night. This time he is witnessing the event happen as a number of cross shaped daggers are scattered around the ground as a blood soaked school girl has apparently just nailed the guy to the wall. She turns around and calls out to him, by his name, causing him to flee in terror. When he arrives home he finds that he still has one of the daggers in his hand and throws it into a corner. He breaks down some more and his imaginary idol convinces him it was an illusion. The day after that he is jittery and feels he is being followed and watched, only to find out it is somewhat true. A beautiful and timid schoolmate named Yua is actually following him, at least into school, but his over active imagination tells him otherwise. On his way home from school he runs into her again, dreams up something horrid and runs from her only to hurt him self in an alley. She comes to offer him assistance and takes him back to his house, all the while he is trying to convince himself that she is tricking him and this will end badly for him. In an awkward exchange he finds out she is somewhat of an otaku too. The events lead to a bit of embarrassment, some hallucinating and Taku filling himself, rationally or otherwise, with dread and fear. Yua leaves him be for the evening only for him to go to school the next day and find the girl who was crucifying the man to a wall sitting next to him in class. 

     So with the first episode this series didn’t know what to be. On one hand it was a typical high school harem leading anime and an expose on hardcore otaku. On the other hand it’s trying to be like a cross between Lain and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. In the least the show is interesting and I’m generally intrigued and entertained by crazy mystery pseudo-horror titles like this. The art is mid range, typical of something based off of an eroge. After doing so research this is based off of a game series that actually began earlier this year and appears to be along the same lines as Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. I didn’t want to read too much into the game it’s self, for fear of ruining anything I will find out in the anime. So for now I will continue to watch this series and see where it leads.

     Ga Rei Zero is a poorly drawn, poorly written, stereotypical shonen supernatural series. This series fits in right along with Guyver, Blue Seed or Bubblegum Crisis. For those of you who don’t know what any of these series are, don’t worry they all suck pretty bad. I didn’t even watch the entire episode all the way through but skipped around a bit. In the first episode we find a group of supernatural/undead creatures attacking a freeway. The military is called in to handle them, but are ineffective and only when 2 mysterious people show up on a crotch rocket, do the creatures begin to get hurt. The man and woman are members of a crack assault squad designed specifically to take on these supernatural beings with the use of rune laden magical weapons. The man dual wields pistols loaded with rune-covered bullets and the woman’s bike has runes on it. They kick the creatures collective assess in a flashy end battle that would make John Woo blush. By the end of the episode though they run into humans who are in cahoots with the creatures and end up meeting their demise, apparently. 

    I skimmed even quicker through episode two and found that dealt with entirely different characters, maybe episode 1 was a prequel or actually the final episode and we were now going to see all the back story. Either way I’m not going to find out. As stated earlier the animation is pretty shoddy, the story paper thin, and very unoriginal. The believability flew out the door the very instant the chick began using the motorcycle in Kung fu type attacks on the creatures. Before that even happened I was questioning what kind of physics engine this anime ran on, since the guy was easily capable of standing up on the back of the cycle, firing both pistols as it maneuvered at high speeds. I just don’t have any patience or fondness for this kind of pathetic crap that is designed for one thing and one thing only; to push stupid action sequences with a vehicle of a thin and over played plot of a band of virtuous freedom fighters going against a secret world dominating conspiracy. It’s like a Michael Bay movie.

     Kurozuka on the other hand is an interesting, beautifully drawn sleeper hit. After waiting a while after watching the raw I was very pleased to see that a sub group picked up this show. After watching only the first episode I am still a little sketchy on the details. It takes place, if my history serves me correctly, during the timer when the first Tokugawa shogun was beginning to take control of Japan. A young prince is fleeing his land in fear of being killed. He and his skilled servant are running from a supernaturally powered enemy, who has followed them into a remote mountain range. In the woods of the mountain they seek refuge at a home. The only person who lives there is an aloof and distant, beautiful woman. When the young prince falls ill she gladly takes the men in and begins caring for the sick man, warning them that they must never look into her bedroom. 

    After a few days the servant leaves the house to get medicine only to never return. Soon, however, the prince comes to and finds himself alone in this remote location with this woman. He quickly grows fond for her and lives a blissful and removed existence with her. Soon, though, he grows impatient and on a stormy night he sneaks to her room and peers inside to find her licking blood off of a man hanging from her ceiling. She discovers him at once and begins to ask him why he broke his promise. Before anything else can happen the people who have been chasing him attack them outside of the house down. In the fight both are gravely wounded, the woman ends the fight and brings the dying prince to a tree in the forest were she offers to grant him everlasting life. Vampires are usually not a favorite genre of mine, I find them mostly boring and annoying, like Black Blood Brothers or Vampire Hunter D. This series on the other hand appears to hold some promise. 

    The first episode was entertaining and gruesome. I’m not sure were the story will go and if it ends up with them wandering the world in eternal life, going from one mini plot to the next, I will probably get bored. It could also become a vampire revenge story as he kills all the people that are out to kill him and his history unfolds to the viewer. Either way it could suck or be good. So far I have some semi high hopes for it. I am always on the look out for interesting historical series. There have been a handful lately or varying quality. This one also stands out for me because it reminds me of Ninja Scroll, the movie not the crap TV series. With this, though, only time will tell.

     Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter is another of the series I have been highly anticipating. The story picks up a bit after the end of the first series and we find Nodame and Chiaki arriving in Paris as exchange students. If you have not seen the original series you might be a little out of the loop with this one, but you might not have to pick up the original to enjoy this series. So far they are introducing a new cast of characters along with our lead roles. Then again the original series was so entertaining that it doesn’t make sense not to watch it anyways. 

    What else can I say, the animation is the same, it’s all pretty much the same, we are just seeing more of the story that was already done in the manga and in the live action drama, which is also entertaining, why won’t someone sub more of that?? So if you liked any of the above variations of Nodame, watch this one too or if you like funny, silly slice of live romantic comedies, heavy on the comedy, then watch any and all you can. I recently also watched a DVD special from the original series that had a really funny side story about the characters road trip to the summer musical training camp they went to, find it if you can, it’s well worth it.