“Did You Order Some Obari?” YouTube Video Roundup

If you’ve been an anime fan for long enough, you’ve probably heard the name Masami Obari. He’s what I’d call a polarizing individual. On one hand, super robots. He handled the design for super robots such as Dancouga, Fighbird, and the G Compatible Kaiser from SRW OG. On the other hand, boobs. Obari shows tend to go the extra mile in uncomfortable, weirdly proportioned, jiggly jello tits fanservice. It even leaks into his robot shows like Gravion and Dangaizer 3, a show I maintain is a not a robot show but a porn where the actual sex scenes have been replaced with a magic robot. He tends to do better in the mecha designer and animator chairs than the director chair.

For instance, Dangaioh. You may remember Dangaioh as a feature in Super Robot Awesome when we still did that. Part of the old, rare Manga UK dub was uploaded to YouTube by OldAnimeDubs. It’s worth checking out if you’d like some robots straddling the line between serious 80s future drama and super 70s punch bad guys in the face.

But you may also remember that there was a tweet by Obari that he’d like to direct a JoJo’s episode that would have some absurdly high number of animation frames. It never came to fruition because it would cost way too much money, but if you were curious about how Obari would handle directing a modern show, he’s also started directing this robot show Ziguruhazeru for Aniplex. It’s a toy driven show for these robots based on Journey to the West characters, but robot shows have almost always been at least somewhat merchandise driven. It premiered on Aniplex back on the 6th, though I can’t find an episode currently and it was weirdly not mentioned with other spring anime. If you happen to find a recording of the show and like the action you see, let out a small wish that maybe we can see that kind of spirit put into Stardust Crusaders when it happens.

Until then, you can stare infinitely into the one uncovered eye of imprisoned Jotaro Kujo. Someone clipped off and uploaded the brief Part 3 teaser from the end of Episode 26, so if you’d like to watch it in an infinite loop, I understand.

Discotek Media Releasing Diebuster in May

Discotek being a successful business while releasing almost nothing but shows I want to see is very encouraging.

Last time they came up it was because they were releasing the original 70s Mazinger Z and the original Gaiking. Since there’s no such thing as releasing too many super robot shows, now they’re going to be putting out the entirety of Diebuster or Aim for the Top 2!, the sequel to Gunbuster, according to their Facebook. Look forward to forward to the release this May.

Fall Anime Season 2012: GIFs! Uppercuts and exploding faces, all in GIF form!

Sometimes you see something in a show or game or what have you that you could just watch over and over in an endless loops. That’s probably not why .gifs were invented, but that’s what I find is their most valuable use.

Fall Anime 2012 has given us a few good .gif opportunities. You’re all probably familiar with this:

It’s like a windshield wiper blade.

There’s actually another JoJo’s .gif I want to share, but I’m saving it for the show notes under the next JoJo’s podcast.

Originally, I only had a passing interest in seeing the next show, ROBOTICS;NOTES, and then I saw this in passing:

Big or small, space metal or plastic, sweet robot moments are sweet robot moments.

Now I’m watching the show actively.

Lastly, for now at least, this was another show I wasn’t watching and had no intention of watching and have no intention to continue watching. Code Breakers is mostly a parade of annoying shonen stuff that I don’t care about from what I’ve seen, but every now and then, a show goes above and beyond to please me.

No talking. Just blow up.

It’s like the show delved into my deepest action desires. Face grab: Check. Exploding face grab: Check. Decently animated exploding face grab: oh, I’m loving every second of this. Unfortunately, it’s only this long, but that one shining moment was all I needed.

There’s probably going to be more .gifs, and if they’re good, I’ll put them up.

Fall Anime Season 2012: Super Sexy Edition

Fall season is most certainly still underway and there are just a few more shows that the public needs to know to avoid or watch depending upon your taste. Actually reading through the last reveiws made me just have this horrible thought, “Ya’ know, I’ve seen some bad shows so far, but nothing has made me want to kill myself.” As a result I went on a quest to find something awful. Also I watched the first two episodes of Robotics;Notes.

Robotics;Notes

Robotics;Notes is actually one of those shows that if the writing of it can stay at a consistent level, then it will be well worth any time put into it. Simply put, the story is about a rather energetic robot fan girl and her quiet, gamer friend trying to build a life sized super robot. Sounds simple, but it’s actually a nice idea because it ends up focusing more strongly on the hard process it would actually be if someone were building a super robot in real life. However, I’m not sure why this show tries to be more realistic since its pretty obvious that building a super robot would cost too much money, would take more than half a year, would be completely impractical, and there is no God damn way a group of two people would be able to pull this off without having the police getting involved. Seriously, they are building a super weapon and the school actively acknowledges this as a club activity. Hell, their school is even funding them to make this weapon!

Facts that disprove all realism aside, one of the things that makes me enjoy this show so far is the motivation for building a Super Robot. “Why the hell not?” At least that’s what the main hero thinks. The main heroine actually just thinks,”Well this robot show was really cool, so if I have a robot, then I will also be cool.” I can’t help but feel like the robot that is her inspiration is also a bit of a Gurren Lagann reference since it is supposedly the culmination of over 50 years of mecha animation with frequent referencing to older shows. Gunvarrel, as it is called, also had one missing episode, the final episode that everyone is curious about. If only Gurren Lagann had a missing episode…wait, then I’d just be pissed.

Despite all this, the show does have one significant draw back, It’s not Mazinkaiser nothing truly substantial has happened. It’s the same issue as From the New World, where the plot doesn’t really happen until a few episodes have passed. Then again, at least there is a plot as opposed to a long series of nonsequitor plot points stringed together by a long series of over saturated color schemes in an overly flashy show that doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, K. So in short, Robotics;Notes has more potential than it really should considering the simple ideas that are its backbone. The characters are likable, the story is decently told, and the main characters are doing exactly what I would do if I had more money, and a degree in electrical engineering, and a robot design, and a lot of other stuff.

Code:Breaker

In the apparently continuing trend of having a symbol splitting the name of your show, we have here Akimine Kamijyo’s Code:Breaker. Now, i’m going to be honest here, despite how I wanted to find piles of shit shows, Code:Breaker isn’t actually that bad. Don’t get me wrong, it has quite a few Shonen stereotypes in both characters and plot, but it does some things that are just rather well done. It has a rather normal shonen set up, girl meets boy, boy has magic powers and is a bit of a dick, girl wants to fix that. Rather normal set up for the demographic this is supposed to appeal to. However, the main character is actually what has made this show a bit decent. He has the rather simple power of making shit burst into flames, but his method for doing so is by grabbing someone’s face and then they explode into fire. I just love it.

It’s not even like he only does that on occasion, it happens all the time. The only times that he doesn’t do it are when it’s physically impossible for him to do so. Not only that, his constant air of being a dick is actually a bit enjoyable because it makes him very desensitized to the world around him. Instead of being all like,”Oh my God! I’m gonna have to kill this dog because it’s going to die anyway,” he’s more like, “I will end your misery.” That’s how you know he’s supposed to be dark, or at least shonen dark, which for some reason works for him. His dickishness is actually most prominent when he is in the presence of the main heroine who is quite a bitch and needs to learn how to shut the fuck up about justice and the proper way to punish criminals. It’s fun to actually watch a character be treated the way I would treat them, assholishly.

Unfortunately, he can’t be too good, afterall this is a shonen show we are talking about. The main character does have one verbal tick that royally pisses me off. “Eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth, an evil for an evil.” The real issue with him saying that, is that he does it every time he is about to kill some people, so the only saving grace I suppose is that the statement will always be followed by face grabbing and I’m always in the mood for a face being grabbed. Really I just want the show to be a looping gif of him grabbing faces in progressively cooler ways.

Onii-chan dakedo Ai sae Areba Kankei Naiyone!/

As Long as There’s Love, It Doesn’t Matter If He is My Brother, Right

Hahahahahaha. Pornography. What? This show has Onii-chan in it’s name, what did you expect it to be? It’s just another by the books harem where one of the girls is the main character’s twin sister. The only thing redeemable about this show is that the main character isn’t a complete dumbass seeing as how he reacts to everything in a calm way, and has created a system based on her little sister’s fucked-upedness that earns him money. If you don’t believe me about this show, watch the opening and tell me it’s not exactly what I just called it.

So yeah, I wanted to offend myself and as a result I watched porn, a rather good show, and a surprisingly ok show. I guess that’s just how anime works nowadays. It’s unfortunate, in the past, if you wanted to make porn you could just go and contact Go Nagai and he would make your porn cool, but now we just have to put up with this bullshit. It also used to be that if you wanted to make an all right shonen show, your name was Akira Toriyama and you made Dragon Ball, so maybe the past wasn’t that great.

Discotek Media Licenses the Original 1972 Mazinger Z Television Show for 2013

Yeah, I’m not really sure either. According to this Cruchyroll article, Discotek Media has licensed the original Mazinger Z show to be released in 2013 according to this post on Discotek’s Facebook account. To quote:

Discotek Media: “Mazinger Z. Complete Series 1-92. We’re aiming for the end of 2013 for first box set.”

Completely out of nowhere, we’re getting the original Mazinger Z show in full on DVD in the states. It’ll be the first official true translation of this series and the first attempt at it since the localization Tranzor Z. We’ll actually be able to see reasonable subtitles and not things about crabsticks and Tall God Z.

This could go on for hours.

No, no more of that. Just honest to goodness old style Mazinger.

Everyone back there is getting that punch right in the face.

You’ll learn more as we learn more.

Super Robot Awesome – Choudenji Machine Voltes V: Our Names are Kenichi, Daijirou, and Hiyoshi Go

If you crush the monster’s head, it won’t have a mouth to breathe fire at you. And then you just stab Gamera in the head. What’s he going to do? Be a turtle at you?

Episode 11 of Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltez V.

Getter Robo vs. Gurren Lagann.gif

Whoever made these gets the highest praise for the effort alone, and it’s cool on top of that. Somebody made me aware of this little series of .gifs where Ryoma and Simon duke it by turning into Getter 1 and Gurren Lagann. Check it out the album here, and check out the guy’s totally sweet Tumblr with this and other totally sweet things here.

Ryoma strikes me as a chamomile man.

The mystery creator of these has my thanks for letting me show them and may now step forward and claim their “Pretty Cool Dude” prize, because that’s totally sweet. Ideally, it’ll lead to increased interest in this idea and we’ll finally get that 70s style movie, “Getter Robo tai Gurren Lagann.”

It lives on, if only in my heart.

Happy Birthday Go Nagai!

Today is the birthday of the man we all owe so much too when it comes to the robot genre, the magical girl genre, the… well, anime and manga in general. Go Nagai turned 67 today, so let’s take a little time to honor the man.

Such an innocent face for the man who would go on to write Kekko Kamen.

We personally have a large amount of affection for Go Nagai and his company Dynamic Pro. If it wasn’t for him, anime would be a very different thing. Maoh Dante and Devilman were his first big contributions. It was violent, controversial, scary, and very influential for manga authors for years to come. They really opened up this idea that extreme violence can be shown in manga no matter how much the PTA wants to boycot your nonsensical demons that wear no pants.

No. Pants. Either of them.

Then we have Cutie Honey. While it’s not the first ever magical girl story, it created a lot of the magical girl staples you see in modern works. Transformation sequences, powers by costume, lesbian overtones and many other things, maybe most importantly that Girly doesn’t mean weak.

Pink is Power.

Now, as sexy as Devilman and Cutie Honey are, Mazinger Z has a special place in our hearts and a very wide range of influence. Tetsujin-28 started the “Big Robot Super Hero” genre, but Mazinger helped define giant robot tropes that we’ve been using since. Mazinger Z was the first giant robot machine to be piloted from a cockpit and not by remote or it just being autonomous. Mazinger grew into Great, Grendizer, Kaiser, but that little seed blossomed into more than just a series. It blossomed into the modern robot genre

Someone, somewhere is totally fucked.

I know, I know, it’s what you’ve heard about Go Nagai every time he’s ever been brought up, but it’s his birthday and we wanted to show our respects since we can’t send him a cake. It not much, but Happy Birthday, Go Nagai!

Super Robot Awesome – Getter Robo G: When I Say Tomahawk, I Mean Tomahawk!

I think this is 70s anime Ryoma’s soccer skills kicking in.

Episode 11 of Getter Robo G.

Shogun Warriors Coloring Book for Download! The Adventures of (Getter) Dragun

Ever heard of the Mattel Shogun Warriors toy line? They were a couple of action figures based around some of the popular 70s super robots, including Great Mazinger, “Combattra,” Tosho Daimos, “17 Robot,” and a few others. You may have heard of a Marvel comic set with Combattler, Raideen, and Danguard Ace, which has the Fantastic Four piloting Combattler at one point to my understanding. That came about because of that toy line.

Well, it wasn’t just toys that were introduced. There were also other products like “Dragun,” the Americanized Getter Dragon, Coloring Book.

So if you’ve ever wanted to get a taste of how Getter Robo would have fared with the Voltron treatment, here you go. Thanks one more time to the Nagai Again forum and member Gunleon for posting the download link. Now you too can experience classic moments like:

“Dragun” supporting his local paperboy union.

Shaking hands with the mayor.

And being showered with affection by dog and little girl.

Enjoy!