Fedranime reviewsDeadman WonderlandGod I really need to write these things more often. So yeah you know that whole argument over the death penalty where you got small states like Connecticut and Vermont where there’s only about twenty people on death row, but then there’s big states like Texas where every other persons on death row. Yeah? Well think of this (incredibly) awesome anime like that but mixed with the hunger games and is run by Terumi. Yeah it’s that awesome.Deadman wonderland is an anime by Studio Manglobe based of the manga by Jinsei Kataoka. The story follows Ganta, a Japanese highschooler in the year 2019 as he tries to survive high school and date his closest friend. At least that would have been the plot if Ken the Eagle didn’t show up and massacre his entire class. Ganta is now on trail, and is charged, for mass murder. He is then shipped off to the prison/amusement park (would love to see how that idea got passed) Deadman Wonderland with a life sentence. Here the prisoners are forced to pay for there crimes by helping with tourism and dressing up as park mascots. Doesn't sound that bad? Well the also have poison injected daily into them which requires you to eat a special candy which you have to buy. Still doesn't sound evil enough? Well Ken the emo gave Ganta a special ability called Branch of Sin (insert Final Fantasy X reference here) where he can control his blood as a weapon. Unfortunately in this prison everyone infected with Branch of Sin must enter a death battle called carnival corpse where if you lose and manage to survive you get to have one part of your body removed from a lottery without anesthetics. You know, fun for the whole family.This is a pretty good anime. First off this anime is awesome and features two of my favorite VA’s, Patrick Seitz and Colleen Clinkenbeard. Also the characters here are pretty compelling and 3 dimensional. On one hand you have Shiro (a friend of Ganta’s who follows him around constantly) who at first just seems all childish and innocent, but you see fairly early on that she is actually quite mature and loves Ganta. Then you have the badass that is, Nagi Kengamine. This is a guy who is on par with Whitebeard in terms of, awesome badass who you love and dies an awesome death. This is a man whose wife was also infected with the branch of sin and was transferred with him. They were forced to fight against each other in carnival corpse but since they wouldn’t kill each other Nagi had his vocal cords ripped out (though oddly enough he can still talk later on, Hell you can see the scars!) and his wife was killed. Also this anime follows the foolproof formula for awesome villain. First make the person where a nice suit. Bonus points if they rarely open there eyes and have a snake theme. The gut in charge of the prison, Tamaki, is a troll on par with Hazama levels, considering he had an undead (guards who can neutralize the branch of sin) kill Nagi’s pregnant wife in front of him, actually had the fetus preserved in a jar, and made the “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs” joke. It doesn't help that his Japanese seiyuu was RELIUS CLOVER.There are a few flaws with this series. First off it’s only twelve episodes. I here there are OVA’s but there’s no sign of them getting dubbed anytime soon. This leads to a few problems that almost make it seem like the directors forgot something they did in the last episode. For one, it’s revealed that Shiro is a deadman and when she wakes up in front of her grandpa he tells her he has some pudding for her but she responds “It’s Shiro who likes that stuff. Pudding makes me vomit.” I was thinking “Cool so maybe it will be revealed that Shiro has a split personality, one is innocent while one is mature.” End of the series, never addressed. Also Ganta can be a little annoying sometimes. Not on Shinji levels, god no. But you would think that after a while the guy would stop doubting himself and learn how to use his branch of sin in ways that doesn't mean throwing it, since one of the other deadmen points out that you lose blood when you do that.This is an awesome anime. It’s dark, it’s edgy and the animation kicks ass! It’s a little short but hey that’s what the manga’s for. Go watch it and love the characters. That’s it for this edition of Fedranime reviews. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook or leave a request in the comments. See ya!
Fedra
Friday, August 24, 2012
Fedra reviews Deadman Wonderland
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Fedra review Samurai Champloo
Fedranime reviews
Samurai Champloo
You might be wondering why I’m not reviewing Gurren Lagaan
like I said I would try to do in my Summer Wars review. Well my vacation was
great thanks for asking. Anyways as High School of the Dead taught me, I should
not review an anime until either I have watched the entirety or a reasonably
caught up in it. So excuse me for currently watching only 5 episodes but I
swear to god if I have to hear the black siblings yell “LALALALALA” while
throwing water balloons at mecha’s then someone will lose a limb tonight!
Anyway Samurai Champloo.
Samurai is an original anime made by studio Manglobe and
dubbed by Funimation. It follows the story of Fuu, a 15 year old girl with a
pet flying squirrel and the ability to pack away food that would make Goku cry
in shame, Mugen, a guy from Ryuku islands who fights by breakdancing with a
katana and metal soled geta sandals, and Jin, an aloof ronin with a mysterious
past. They are on the journey to find the samurai who smells of sunflowers, a mysterious
man who has something to do with Fuu’s past.
Samurai Champloo is a pretty good anime in my opinion, in
fact I really like how they have reversed the typical hot-shot loner and cold
chivalrous hero types with Mugen in Jin. In any other anime you would expect
Mugen to be kidnapping Fuu and tying threating her only for Jin to then break
down a wall and save her. Here every time something bad happens to Fuu, which
is ALOT since this is feudal Japan, Mugen actually gets up and save her while
Jin’s just “Eh didn't really like her anyway. To the Brothel!”(No seriously)
Each episode also introduces several characters of the day for each episode and
each one is memorable and always sticks with you, particularly Manzo the saw, a
detective spoofing popular Japanese movie series Hanzo the razor, and Isaac
Kitching, a Dutch man escaping to Japan so he can become bushido.
I think the main problem with this anime is that it has
little continuity and almost no story. Sure there’s the plot of how Fuu somehow
needs revenge on the Sunflower Samurai, but in a lot of episodes this barely
gets mentioned. Hell, in the last 1/3 of the series the guy barely gets mentioned.
There’s also how there’s rarely any continuity between episodes, the one major
exception being the last four. This is particularly glaring in the fifth to
last episode where Fuu, Mugen, and Jin eat mushrooms, hallucinate working in a
mine, and then Gosunkugi from Ranma ½ grabs a lute and just carpet bombs them
with a meteor. Next episode doesn't even acknowledge this happens and basically
goes “Oh crap! Our contracts almost expired and we don’t even know who the
samurai is! Quick summon awesome spear battle with an assassin and Mugen!”
There’s also a few minor(?) snarls such as Jin falling in love with a women who
tried to commit suicide and has to work at a brothel (are you noticing a
pattern with Jin here?) to pay off her husbands debts, they fall in love, and
Jin pays for her freedom and sends her to an island where she will be safe. Two
episodes later Jin is in a different brothel in a different town and no one
talks of her again.
So is Samurai Champloo good. Yes. This is an amazing anime,
as would be expected from the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop. Similar to
their predecessor they blend the amazing animation with music, in this case hip-hop.
I love the characters and despite the problems with the story, I can easily say
this is one of my favorite to anime. That's it for this edition of Fedranime
reviews, don’t forget to leave a request in the comment section and something
tells me to stop ending these reviews with “Catch you later” or MasakoX might
sue.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Fedra reviews Summer Wars
Fedranime reviews
Summer Wars
I should probably start out this review with a bit of a
schedule update. This is going to be my only review for a few weeks as I’m
going on a trip with my family and probably won’t be in a Wi-Fi hotspot long
enough for my to update consistently. Though on a different note I will try to
use my time in a Wi-Fi hotspot to catch up on Gurren Lagaan, so I’m hoping to
make that the subject of my next review. Also I’m happy to announce the all new
Fedranime reviews Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FedranimeReviewsofficial
! On this note I would like you to imagine if your Facebook, email, credit
card, and world of warcraft accounts were all on the same website with the
world economy and had been hacked, causing massive blackouts and world trauma.
Now imagine if you might have accidentally caused the global recession, all the
while pretending to be your friend’s fiancé at their family reunion. This is
probably the easiest way to some up the anime movie Summer Wars.
Summer Wars is a movie animated by studio Madhouse,
distributed by Warner Brothers international, and is dubbed by, who else,
Funimation Entertainment. The story follows Kenji, a high-school student and
math genius who is a programmer for OZ, a website which I suppose is like
having every major company and entire countries governments all stationed on a
website hat like a mix of every function your phone has, facebook, and world of
warcraft. His friend, Natsuki Shinohara, has asked him to do a favor for him,
pose as her fiancé so that she can show him to her grandmother on her 90th
birthday. One night at the Shinohara house, Kenji receives a text with a weird
algorithm which upon solving and sending back, releases a gigantic virus known
as Love Machine (it's a song) upon OZ that consumes others peoples avatars
until it looks like Enel from One Piece. Think of it kind of like Ranma ½ but
slightly more grounded in reality.
This is a good movie. I would say that one of the coolest
parts of the movie is the Shinohara family. You can tell that whoever was in
charge of scripting really fleshed out the entire family. Each member has their
own distinct personality and very few are unlikable, just Natsuki’s weird cousin
Shota who, I’m just going to say this, he’s like Jin from Blazblue only he
doesn't have a valid reason for his weird behavior and odd relationships with
his family. Still, that’s only one character that I didn’t like in the entire
movie, pretty good record they've got going for them. Also, OZ is amazingly
done. Remember how I said that High school of the dead had the best CG I’ve
ever seen in anime? Well since I was only about ten minutes into the second
episode I think my stupidity is forgiven. This movie has AMAZINGLY done
backgrounds and gives even the random avatars that are just cannon fodder for
love machine, each one has their own distinct look. That also brings up my next
good point; Love Machine is easily one of the best villains in anime history.
You remember the movie Game Over? Of course not that was a stupid low budget,
direct to VCR movie from the 90s. Well go watch the Spoony Experiment review
before reading the rest of this review, I’ll just sit here watching more crap
from studio Gainax. Done? Great think of Love Machine as the villain from that
movie done right. Love Machine does not talk, he does not care, he just sees
everything as a game and will blow up a nuclear power plant just for the lols.
There is one major flaw that I see with this movie. You
remember how I said that the family is one of the best parts of the movie? Well
good luck trying to remember every one of their names! Seriously I had to look
up the protagonist’s names before writing this; for the most part I just
remember them as Ninja Squid manly guy (don’t ask) and Evil
Mcamericanjapaneseilligitamatson. That also brings up my next problem; Love
Machine was developed by the American army. Why does everyone in Japan hate us
so much! I get that we have might not be the most accepting nation, but that’s
not all of us! It’s mostly the fault of the old people and big companies in
power that refuse to change! (Voted Obama, kinda prefer being a democrat)(Do
not hate) Also, you should be able to tell who the sort of antagonist is in
this movie right off the bat. Here’s a hint he claims to have forgotten Granny
Shinohara’s birthday and currently lives in America!
Is this a good movie? Yes! I can honestly say that after
watching this, it’s one of my favorite movies. Apparently the rest of America
thinks so to since this would have been nominated for an Oscar had the submissions
not been limited to about three movies in 2009. The animation is awesome and I
love how since this is technically a Warner Brothers movie, they actually got
the animators to have an anthropomorphic rabbit beat the ever loving crap out
of an annoying mouse! That’s it for this edition of Fedranime review, don’t
forget to leave suggestions and like the Facebook page. Catch you later.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Fedra reviews Ranma 1/2
Fedranime reviews
Ranma ½
I would like to start off this review by apologizing for not
posting anything last Thursday. I’m still in high school so last week gave me a
really big workload. But I’m here now so lets start this review off with a
classic, Ranma 1/2.
Ranma ½ half is an anime made by kitty films and is based on
a manga by the Queen of mangakka herself, Rumiku Takahashi! The story follows
Ranma Saotome, who is engaged to his fiancé Akane Tendo. This might seem
normal, but Ranma and his father are cursed. Every time Ranma is splashed with
cold water he becomes a girl, but if he is splashed with hot water he changes
back. Also Akane doesn’t really like him, due to how she first met his…er.. met
his guy form. Then more suitors show up who fall in love with one of the two,
some f them are cursed, then there’s a 500+ perverted master who... yeah its
one of THOSE kind of anime. Ranma ½ is easily one of my favorite manga and is
actually the thing that actually got me into anime in the first place. I mean I
still watched things like Yu Yu Hakusho on toonami but it was cancelled long
before I found this and all I remembered was that one screaming orange haired
guy. Still this is an amazing and well known anime so lets see what it’s got.
One of the best things Ranma ½ is all of the characters.
This is one of the few shounen anime where a lot of the time is used for
character development instead of “Lets have Kamina say something stupid again”
Though this is probably because it’s part romance anime. A lot of the
characters are really relatable to and you really feel for their struggles.
This is most evident with Ryoga and Moose. Ryoga has no sense of direction, has
a cursed form where his only attack strategy is “Run the crap away and find
Akane”, and his love interest barely acknowledges his existence. Moose on the
other hand can’t see 2 feet in front of him, his curse is stupid, and his love
interest acknowledges his existence by keeping him in his cursed duck form
chained to a chair, denies him food for days, and then holds the food just out
of his reach. That’s what you get for falling in love with an amazon man,
sorry. Takahashi also makes sure to do something that no other harem mangakka
would ever think of. Actually develop the main characters relationships and
give most of the other suitors perfect matches! OH. MY. GOD. This is the
craziest thing I have heard of! I really need to wrap up this part so I’m just
going to say this. The fighting is also good. Granted this is shounen, but it’s
not like that. A lot of the martial arts are incredibly creative and are the
definition of the trope, mundane made awesome. They range from things like
Martial arts figure skating, which granted does sound legit since if you do a
jump kick you can decapitate someone, to martial arts Chinese take out
delivery. Even the non hammy martial arts are awesome, particularly Ranma’s
finishing move the Hiryu Shouten Ha, essentially where if you have someone
chase you around in a spiral, turn around, put on a cold look and throw a screw
punch you can create your own tornado.
If you have not had a heart attack right now from the sheer awesomeness
then you can no longer consider yourself a part of the human race!
I hate to say this but unfortunately, this could use a few changes. My main problem is with the anime. About 2/3
through the series the anime got padded severely and there were entire seasons
made of nothing but filler. This wasn’t that big of a problem, since it did
give us Kogane Musashi, but it also meant that Mint and Saffron never got
screen time. Also quick word of warning. Course the filler did mean a few
alternate character interpretations. While in the anime Ranma was made out to
be an cocky unbeatable he-man, in the manga Ranma did get defeated occasionally
and that only made him realize his flaws and seek to try and defeat whoever
beat him, making him more human. As one would expect from a series about a guy
who becomes a girl with water, there will be some nudity. Best hide it before
your parents find it and then go over it in sharpie, and DEFINATLEY do
something for volume 6 when Happosai appears!
So is Ranma ½ good? Yes. This is an amazing anime and if you
ask anyone about it chances are they will have nothing but compliments for
this. All of the characters are amazing and even though I slightly prefer the
manga the anime is till amazing. I think that my favorite episode of all time
for this would probably be episode 45. Though non-canon, this was awesome
because due to Akane accidentally hitting Ranma on the head with a frying pan
(don’t ask that’s basically how they greet each other) Ranma forgets he’s a guy
and spends most of the episode as an overly femine girl or even an effeminate
guy. There’s also word of the series getting rebooted after a survey went
around so everyone needs to check it out. That’s it for this edition of
Fedranime reviews. Catch you later.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Fedra reviews Soul Eater
Fedranime reviews
Soul Eater
You might be wondering why I didn’t post a video game review
on Tuesday. Simply put, I realized that I am probably not the best person to
review video games as I only have Nintendo games and not a lot of them are that
current. On a completely different note, TOONAMI IS COMING BACK THIS
SATURDAY!!!!!! In honor of this occasion I am going to review one of my
favorite anime, Soul Eater.
Soul Eater is an anime based on a manga by Atsushi Okubo and
is animated by studio Bones, one of my favorite animation studios. The story
follows three teenagers Maka, Black*Star (seriously they spell it like that,
and one of my favorite anime characters Death the Kidd. They all are students
at the DWMA/Shibuusen headed by lord death himself, Shinigami-sama, also he’s
Kidd’s father. It is there job to protect the world from the resurrection of a
kishin, a being of pure madness. To do this they must feed their weapons 99
human souls and 1 witch soul to turn them into a Death Scythe, a weapon used by
Shinigami-sama. Did I mention that their weapons are specially gifted humans
who can turn into different weapons? Thus Maka teams up with Soul, a scythe.
Black*Star teams up with Tsubaki, a shadow (really she can transform into
different ninja weapons like chain scythes and shurikans but allows him to
control his shadow later), and Kidd teams up with Liz and Patty, dual pistols.
If you aren’t lured in by this baddasery than let me show you some more.
This series is really good. One of my favorite parts is the
soundtrack. Honestly this is what really first brought me in in the first few
minutes. The first opening theme, soul resonance by T.M revolution, was
amazing. It had really cool animation as well as nice sort of punk/gothic sound
to it. That also brings up the animation, as this is Bones it is really good.
While it is a bit cartoony compared to Bones’ other work like Brotherhood, its
still really good, especially considering the crappy quality and drawings the
manga started out as. A lot of the buildings have a gothic architecture look,
and it is really apparent in Italy and Shibuusen. I also really love how Soul’s
personal soul room looks. If you were a fan of the show twin peaks you
definitely are going to enjoy every scene with the red devil and the soul room.
This series also has one of the coolest and evilest villains in all of anime,
Medusa. Seriously this women gives friggen Father a run for his money in terms
of evilness. I hate to do this but I’m going to have to reveal a few spoilers.
There is this one character named Chrona who was a weapon that lives in its
(Chrona’s gender hasn’t been revealed yet) blood, which is black, called the
demon sword Ragnarok that slowly drains Chrona’s sanity when he’s activated.
Also Ragnarok is a bit of a jerk. Also Chrona is Medusa’s child. Lending to
this series long history of nightmare fuel, Ragnarok wasn’t originally in
Chrona’s body and Chrona has been shown to have Ragnarok inside it since about
it was 4. Think about that for a moment well I check to see if Lanipator has
updated. And he has not. Did you figure out how the two became an insanely
screaming sin against God? If you didn’t, Medusa drained Chrona of its original
blood, melted Ragnarok down in sword form, mixed him with black blood, put the
blood into the body of her own child ALL IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE. No I’m not
making this up, she is the female anime equivalent of DR. INSANEO! And on that
cheery not, the characters are really good. Maka’s father, Spirit is a death
scythe and a bit of an adulterer. Then again he did marry Maka’s mom at about
18 so what did you expect. Also a lot of the death scythes, like Marie and
Justin ARE JUST AWESOME, I mean Marie can transform into a hammer and Justin is
a freakin GUILOTEIN! Also, Shinigami is amazing! When your first introduced to
him he has this weird personality, a voice that makes Choppers Japanese seiyuu
sound bearable and this weird gag move called the reaper chop were he hits
someone over the head with his hand that always look like geometric foam fingers.
Then the kishin shows up he reveals that he only looks stupid because his
original Lovecraftian form scared his students, his voice drops down to
Alucard-level sexy and he breaks kishins face with the reaper chop. This was
honestly one of the most hilarious moments in the series and one of my personal
favorites. And on that note here’s all of the crap Soul Eater has.
I’m just going to go for the big one here, the ending. This
was a series that was in dire need of some filler but never used it. Around the
middle of the lost Island ark the anime got ahead of the manga and was forced
to draw it’s own ending, similar to H.S.O.T.D. or Fullmetal Alchemist. Some of
the changes were all right, such as more Chrona development about the struggle
with Medusa as his mom and Mifune living, but the ending was crap. Heck, the
actual manga isn’t over and it has things like a new death scythe and the book
of Eibon ark that I just love. Though there is talk about Bones redoing Soul
Eater and getting it right, after all it is the spiritual successor to
Fullmetal Alchemist, so this problem will be fixed with better animation and a
reason to not have filler. There are a few nitpicks, mostly Blair’s over
abundance of fanservice, but this is just the main one that a lot of the fans
hate.
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