Month: February 2007

Yumi & Sachiko

You’ve probably encountered the popular shoujo TV series “Maria-sama ga Miteru” – if not there has been plenty written about it elsewhere, and there’s a review on my website. Now it has spawned a six-part OAV series, of which the first and second parts have appeared.

OAV1 is a treat, as it opens with the main characters, Yumi and Sachiko having a girly squabble. The dialogue in this scene is a delight, and the faces seem drawn with a peculiar intensity. Yumi gets invited to rich-girl Sachiko’s summer residence, but has to contend with the ill-intentioned machinations of other girls of Sachiko’s circle who are jealous of Yumi because of her closeness to the alpha princess. Yumi’s simple honesty enables her to turn the situation around.
OVA2 was a disappointment for me, for the scenario seemed unconvincing, and the treatment weak. Essentially, the girls on the school council want to arrange some meetings with the council at a nearby boys’ school with whom they hold a joint school festival. They have a problem with Sachiko, who dislikes men so much that she can’t bear to be near a boy.

Tickle

I checked last night on a Polish TV website to see what anime was showing on Polonia1 (a satellite channel) in the early-morning slot. Nowadays there is little anime on satellite TV that would interest those who have access to digisubs, or subtitled anime DVDs. However the obscure low-budget channels from countries like Poland are the exception, for that is where the rare old stuff turns up, some dating form the ’60s and ’70s.
Anyone seen “Magic Girl Tickle” (Majokko Tikkuru)? I thought not. It’s interesting to see this, both for the period animation style, and for the cultural values the animators bring to their work. This one has a scene where a disagreement about love-letters ends in a classroom riot where all the boys are trying to grab the girls’ breasts. Not quite what one would expect in an anime for schoolgirls!

Also running, apparently, are “Yattaman” a long-running fantastic comedy, now forgotten, and “General Daimos” (Tosho Daimos) an old, but rather good alien invasion anime, which is full of cool stuff – aliens with angelic wings, inter-racial romance, giant robot battles, a flying city, robotic monsters, ugly aliens, never a dull moment.

To get this material, you need to be in the satellite “footprint” (i.e. it’s above the horizon and in range), and have the right sort of digital satellite receiving gear. There is information in the satellite section of my website.

Classroom scene

A short 6 minute amateur anime by the CG artist calling himself “Imperial Boy”.
Katari, a young girl who dreams of becoming a novelist, writes a love letter to a boy at her school. This is a remarkable anime with a vision of a quite different-looking world. The clip shows a school classroom, with an arched ceiling and a video screen above the blackboard. The dialog is mostly in voice-over. This short anime impressed me for its originality more than many a full-length pro anime. Watch this guy.
Worth checking out Imperial Boy’s website, which contains some remarkable images, as well as his “Rain” page.