Aug
31
Some shoujo anime
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There hasn’t been much shoujo anime in the recent seasons, but I managed to find some.
Shuurei (right)
Saiunkoku Monogatari is a story set in the imaginary country of Saiunkoku. In the first series of 39 episodes, Shuurei Kou, a girl from an educated family that has fallen on difficult times, aspires to join the administration, a job normally forbidden to women, but is offered instead a position with potentially great rewards, as consort to the young and irresponsible Emperor, charged with teaching him to be a responsible ruler.
In the second series (also 39 eps) Shuurei has a position as Governor of the Sa (Brown) province. There are suggestions that she be married to a member of another prominent clan in an advantageous political union.
Superficially, Saiunkoku looks startlingly like a 12 Kingdoms side-story, with similar buildings, similar costumes, and even similar-sounding province names. However it’s rather lighter in tone, with romance and comedy as well as political intrigue. Saiunkoku is based on 12 light novels by Sai Yukino. I have only seen a couple of episodes of series 2, but it looks like an interesting anime. The first series is being released in the US on DVD.
Pretty Cure Max Heart: I’m sure I’ve seen an earlier series of Precure… In this one the reset button has in effect been pressed and the two Precure girls are starting a third year at junior high. The Queen of Light passes over and the Dark King has a resurrection. There is a hilarious scene where a giant robot thing materalises and chases the two girls down the street till they get a chance to transform into “Pretty Cure” and start throwing the robot about, eventually defeating it. Nice dresses too.
I’m no sure if this is quite my sort of thing – the target audience looks to be younger girls, but the costumes look good, the lead character is rather cute and it’s very amusing.
Sugar Sugar Rune – two young witchlets, Chocola and Vanilla are friends and also rivals for the throne of the Demon Kingdom. After being given their wands, they are sent off to the human world to collect the hearts of unsuspecting humans – the one who collects the most being the winner. On arrival, they meet their demonic mentor, Rockin’ Robin (a pop star), who enrols them in a regular school, and shows them how heart-collecting is done. The duo have contrasting personalities.
SSR is an action filled comedy principally aimed at younger girls.
Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club As a Tenchimuyo spin-off, this is essentially shoujo-by-title. Sasami is a hereditary magical girl who lives un-noticed among the human population, having been forbidden by her parents to use her magical powers. Her life changes when an new red-haired teacher called Washu arrives.
I don’t know much about this series, but you ought to see the scene where Washu takes a live winged rabbit and two large knives out of a bag and announces that she is going to demonstrate a dissection. (Series now licensed by Funimation. )
Kaze no Shoujo Emily: Another case of shoujo-by-title, though in this case it’s adapted from the novel “Emily of New Moon” by Lucy Maud Montgomery. In this version, Emily is orphaned when her father dies, and is taken in, rather grudgingly, by her late mother’s eldest sister. Emily is a highly imaginative child with aspirations to be a writer (rather reminiscent of Montgomery’s better-known heroine, Anne), and has a tendency to be rather outspoken. She is also very fond of her cat, Saucy Sal. A clash is thus set up between her and her chilly aunt, who dislikes mouthy little girls and hates cats.
Promising.
Aug
30
Japanese -English translation software
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There does not seem to have been much development in this area in the past decade. Neocor has disappeared and Lernout & Hauspie spectacularly imploded. Kanjikit has been withdrawn. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Lernout & Hauspie’s Professional Translator Pro 7 at a supermarket.
There is some free software of the word-processor/dictionary variety (for example jwpce)
As for Japanese- enabled OCR (essential for speeding up translation work), there is little choice and none of it is shareware or freeware.
With translation software, the good news is that there are free Web translators available, the bad news is that if you require the convenience of a PC-based translator, there is little choice and again none of it is shareware or freeware.
more
Aug
18
Escaflowne – still great after all those years
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Hitomi
Just received 3 retail DVDs of Escaflowne, which I bought to complete my DVD set of the series. I hadn’t seen these episodes before other than in Japanese, so lost no time in checking DVD#5. First impression is that this is still a great series, and that story, character design, characterisation, and general designs still make the grade by today’s standards. It was a revelation in places to discover exactly what the characters were talking about!
Escaflowne was among a minority of anime in having an original script, rather than being adapted from a manga or novel. If one can altogether trust the interviews in the “Escaflowne Cafe” extras, the production team were aiming to make it a cutting-edge series.
I wonder what we would think of other well-known older anime if we looked at them today. I’m not so sure about the continuing merits of Fushigi Yuugi or Kimagure Orange Road, but I still have a high opinion of His and Her Circumstances (Karekano). KOR has been discontinued by AnimEigo, but other older US-released popular series can now be bought as budget sets that actually cost less to buy than the amount some people paid to collect the early fansub tapes. For instance a US slimpack Escaflowne costs around $50 (£25), not much more than the cost of a dodgy Oriental 3-DVD knockoff version.
Aug
18
anime-info.co.uk
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I have re-configured anime.info.co.uk to point here, with effect 18 Aug 2007. The lost material is largely duplicated in the www.sandg-anime-reviews.net Website, and the design was becoming outdated.
Aug
15
Rem
A few months ago I got a download of Dream Hunter Rem episode #1. Years ago I obtained VHS tapes of the Dream Hunter Rem OVAs 2,3, and 4. I was intrigued by the strange un-subtitled episodes and their dreamlike symbolism. Rem – obviously named for the dreaming part of human sleep – can’t ever sleep, but she can enter the dream world, so she uses her powers to be a private investigator of the dreamworld.
In episode 1, which is typical of the format, Rem is approached by an employee of a rich man whose daughter is seriously ill. Rem attends, and finds that the girl is possessed by a swarm of minor demons. Rem then enters the girl’s dream, and does battle with a very big and very ugly demon, which she does initially by transforming into her swords-and sorcery form, involving a big sword and a very brief costume. Eventually she defeats the demon by tricking it into entering the real world, and the girl is saved. Rem suggests that the girl’s well-being would be improved if she found a boyfriend.
It’s a privilege to be able to see Rem #1 at all, as AFAIR it was a limited edition when first released, and so rare that few got to see it. Now, one can still wonder at the bizarre content of these videos, which as well as some ugly monsters include demonic schoolgirls, & a clock tower that turns into a giant robot. For a private investigator, Rem looks quite young, and when dressed in the skimpy metal bikini obligatory for her swords-and sorcery transformation looks more wholesomely chubby than sexy. For some reason, the 1980’s period animation of the monsters is very static with immobile faces when they’re not actually fighting. Rem drives a reather sporty car equipped with a rocket launcher, and has two pets that can also enter the dreamworlds where they transform into larger and more dangerous beasts.