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 90^th 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.

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.