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.

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.

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.

All in all, this is easily one of my favorite anime and if I made a top 10 list of most awesome anime characters, Kidd, Free, and Stein would all be up there. The ending was still bad and the ending credits left even more plot holes then if 4kids took over, but that’s what the manga’s for. If you want to stay more faithfully to the story I would read the manga though personally I like both. That’s the end of this Fedranime review, and don’t forget to leave a request in the comments. Catch you later.

Fedra reviews H.S.O.T.D.

Fedranime reviews

High school of the dead

Interesting fact about myself. I’m deathly afraid of horror movies and yet I pride myself on not getting scared by horror anime. I first noticed this when I was watching Hellsing Ultimate and my only thought on seeing Seras defeat her mortal enemy Zorin Blitz was by slaughtering her army, punching her in the throat several times, biting off her fingers, and then cheese grating her face against a wall. My only thought during this was “COOL! That’s what you get when you mess with Dracula’s servant!” After a while I figured if it was impossible for me to be scared if it was anime. High school of the dead immediately changed that opinion.

High school of the dead is an anime based off the manga by Daisuke and Shoji Sato and animated by Studio Madhouse, one of my favorite animators. The story follows Takashi, Rei, Saeko, Saya, and Kohta and one nurse as they try to survive in a Japan were undead civilians who they call  “Them” are appearing. Obviously they aren’t familiar with the word “Zombie” even though there are numerous references to zombie movies. The plot is basically about them all trying to survive, find out what caused the zombies (I will be calling them that for the rest of the review) to appear and find other survivors.

I haven’t really watched that much of H.S.O.T.D. so far, in fact right now I’m about halfway through episode 2, but it’s really good. The animation is just incredible, as to be expected from madhouse. This is also about the only time that CGI has worked in an anime in my opinion. Sorry One Piece, it just make the Thousand Sunny look really weird and sloppy. This is also an amazingly heart wrenching anime. In the first episode there were these 2 girls running away holding fingers from the zombies saying, “Oh unnamed character #1 were such great friends/sisters! Let’s use the power of friendship to save our self from the zombies!” Originally I thought, “Alright start the count down. They’re both going to be trapped and be symbolically dragged apart from each other screaming the other characters name until the zombies are done with them.” I then watched as the zombies came up the stairs and grabbed one of them. She then asked the other for help to which she then responded “LET GO OF ME!” and kicked her down the stairs only for the zombies to then be right behind her. This was easily on of the best scenes in the episode and left me emotionally satisfied as the sense of horror came across me. There’s also a scene where Takashi’s best friend gets bitten and slowly becomes a zombie forcing him to put him down. With scenes like this I really like this anime!

Unfortunately, there are a few problems. I’m just going to address the main one here, the fanservice. In anime there usually is mild fanservice and generally doesn’t make a big fuss about it. H.S.O.T.D. takes that principle and runs it’s face against a wall. Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure if they added this in the anime to kind of make fun of the fanservice in horror movies or if this was in the manga I never read. It really gets confusing when the school nurse, who oddly enough looks like Elesa from Pokémon, when the producers thought it was a good idea to have her make a sound affect every time she even takes a step. That also brings up my next problem, the school nurse. In first 5 minutes on screen with dialogue a student bravely sacrifices his life for her saying she needs to get help to which she then says, “Who are you?” You died in vane man. You died in vane. Aside from that there’s just a few issues like the profanity and how Kohta was able to turn a nail gun into an Uzi in about 5 seconds but it’s still pretty good.

All in all, High school of the dead is still very good. The animation is awesome, it has a very good dub, the soundtrack is really memorable and most of the characters are likeable. One thing I really like is the way the work in references to other horror works. In fact until I just looked up his name, I found out Kohta’s last name is Hirano, Kohta Hirano made Hellsing, one of my favorite anime. I can definitely recommend this to anyone who loves horror anime. That’s it for this edition of Fedranime reviews. Catch you later.