Reviews - by Ian - May 3, 2010 - 11:39 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
“The opening of the first few episodes gives a brief but detailed description of what is happening in a fictional world, where alien life forms known as the Genjyu have taken over control of the world and people have been living in fear of these creatures since the late 1940s. Rather than being intelligent life forms, the Genjyu are no more than parasites, spreading across the world at an incredible rate and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. To try and battle these creatures, all modern forms of warfare have been employed and it would appear that not even a nuclear bomb is able to disperse the creatures and prevent full invasion. As such the use of these powerful weapons has left the planet poisoned with radiation. Yet the aliens continue to live on whilst the human race struggles to live ordinary lives alongside them”.
Continuing from Gunparade March Volume 1.
By the end of the first volume the story seems pretty much explained and the characters are somewhat developed. The first episode of the second volumes opens with a very light hearted beginning with the main characters creating and organising a puppet show for some of the younger students at their school. Considering that these older students are meant to be training to destroy the Genjyu in super, high powered, monster fighting robot machines to put on a puppet show is a gentle touch to show some humour. This is also a nice twist away from the generic alight fighting animes in the market that don’t contain so much as a giggle; however, this first episode is not without its bloodshed.
Within the first episode a few more Genjyu are introduced, bigger and more dangerous than before. This danger becomes even more apparent when one of the best student fighters is taken down by one of the Genjyu and has toxins enter their body through an open wound. This leads to some gruesome scenes and by this point the character’s relationships are developed and their concern is projected very well. By the end of the first episode, several students have died which truly impacts where this anime is prepared to go. Unlike a lot of anime, Gunparade March is not afraid to actually kill off some characters.
In the following episode, life tries to resume as normal, but student’s deaths are still on everyone mind which makes for a very depressing episode and rightly so. In this second episode, another new Genjyu is introduced which emphasises that just because lives have already been lost, doesn’t mean to say that these foul beasts rest. It reminds viewers that the war is still on going and it is seemingly never ending. This new Genjyu is also referred to as ‘The Brain’ and it soon becomes clear that other Genjyu are it’s spawn and if The Brain is destroyed it can no longer produce new Genjyu.
As to be expected with any new breed of anything, the new breed is tougher and not as easy to destroy especially as this one can multiply. The students find themselves having to withdraw temporarily thus making things a little more interesting, leaving the viewer eager to know what the next move is going to be and just how will it pan out.
The animation quality hasn’t improved at all since the first volume and although it’s not bad, it’s just standard. The same can be said for the voice acting for the English cast, just a little bland and forgettable. However, credit must go to the storyline which is fast moving and glides swiftly between more relaxed, humorous scenes to serious fighting scenes. Most viewers are likely to have worked out by the end of the first volume whether this anime is something that they would want to continue with and the second volume really does just carry on from where it left off.
» Final Score
6
It’s good and so far that’s all it is. It hits all the right buttons with regards to the viewers who enjoy weapons, aliens, blood shed, comedy and the occasional adult humour. The only thing that really lets this anime down, again, is the voice acting. They are often over-the-top, exaggerated, forced and feel as though the actors themselves lack experience. The anime itself might have received a 7 if the voice acting wasn’t embarrassingly bad.
News - by Ian - April 5, 2010 - 08:46 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Not every week is a long weekend, for those of us who work outside of the service industry we’ve just had Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today off from work or school. Perfect long weekend, if only it was always like that! However, for some bizarre reason the anime world has got things the wrong way around!
Last week there was only two new DVD releases, although large box sets, this week, there are seven new anime releases and two further DVDs worth taking note of! So, without further adue, here are the releases:
The two that are noteworthy, non-anime but Japanese related DVDs are:
Geisha Assassin, also known as Geisha vs Ninja is being released by MVM Entertainment and is a light-hearted film where Geisha’s and Ninja’s clash.
Battle Royale looks like a license rescue as it my copy was released by Palisades Tartan. Battle Royale for those who don’t know it, is where a group of children are taken to an island and have to kill each other before they can escape.
All of the above DVDs have got links next to them to the cheapest place we could find to purchase them from, if there are two places the same both links have been given but extra information in brackets where needed.
Make sure that rather than pirating these items, or just downloading them that you purchase these DVDs to help support the growing anime industry in this country!
News - by Ian - April 4, 2010 - 21:55 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Finding anime on TV is always a rare thing, so when it’s noticed early enough it needs to be shouted about. Normally if it’s on the day News Anime will only announce it on Twitter or Facebook as it’s normally when we’ve actually flicked through the TV and found it ourselves showing.
This time around; however, there’s two anime films on and they are:
Pokemon 4 Ever – Celebi: Voice of the Forest
Ash Ketchum and his faithful companion Pikachu travel to an island to investigate especially rare species of Pokémon and the legendary Pokémon Celebi. Team Rocket manage to get themselves involved and Celebi, Ash and co get taken on a long adventure.
Channel: BBC2
When: Friday 9th April at 1230 (Dub)
Tales From Earthsea
The Studio Ghibli adaptation of Ursula Le Quin’s Earthsea series, Sparrowhawk the wizard must attempt to battle half of the world to try and save it from disaster.
Channel: Film4
When: Sunday 11th April at 1250 (Dub)
If any of you ever find any anime films that we’ve not told the world about, please let us know by going to the “About” page and filling in the contact form or messaging us via Twitter or Facebook.
News - by Ian - April 4, 2010 - 19:44 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
The online anime and manga figurines and merchandise retailer, Eye on Asia, have today announced a special offer that entitles everyone to 5% off of their order should that order be made between today and 11th April 2010.
Once you’ve browsed through their catalogue of goods and then added what you want to purchase to your shopping cart, add the promo code EASTEREGG in the coupon/special code area of the payment screen.
You can view Eye on Asia’s website here.
Source: Eye on Asia Twitter
News - by Ian - April 3, 2010 - 15:21 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Not a real Chinese Pirate...
It’s been published today in The Times newspaper that the Japanese animation industry estimated it lost $2.4 billion (227 billion yen or £1.6 billion) owing to piracy in China.
It has long be said that piracy in China is costing the anime industry across the world a significant amount of money; however, Japan have now managed to put an actual figure against everyone’s guesses. To put this into perspective, this is more than twice the amount that Japan made in profit from foreign exports of anime.
A spokesperson for Production IG (makers of Ghost in the Shell and many other huge hits) stated:
..that short of closing down the internet altogether, there was little the company could do to stop piracy.
Source: The Times
News - by Ian - March 29, 2010 - 09:00 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Eureka Seven Screenshot
It’s the beginning of the working week, this week is short thanks to Good Friday – so no work or school on Friday! As with almost every Monday there are some new releases for us to sink our teeth into and this week’s releases are all fairly lengthy and will help us all kill this holiday weekend. The two releases are:
The RRP of both is £24.99 so that’s a tenner off but title, which both happen to be 5 disc boxsets. We’ve linked through to the cheapest place we could find above, so that you can get the best deal.
Reviews - by Arctic Zora - March 27, 2010 - 18:14 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Initially a very successful twelve volume manga, Gravitation has now been adapted into an anime series that’s thirteen episodes. It’s been released as four separate volumes and now available as a single boxset. Directed by Bob Shirohata and distributed by MVM Entertainment in the UK, this anime is primarily about one young man keen to become Japan’s next successful Pop Idol in a band called Bad Luck. However, this simple plan runs into a few problems when the lead character meets another young, sexy, cool and bad tempered man who gets in the way of his plans.
Shuichi, the lead character, is a cute, ambitious young man with dreams of becoming a world renowned Pop Idol with his band: Bad Luck. Yet, in the first episode he finds himself in a bit of a rut, uninspired, struggling with his lyrics and on top of this, he’s got studio deadlines to meet. Bad Luck or good luck, whilst taking a walk with these lyrics he stumbles into a far darker, cooler and sexy young man named Eiri Yuki, who just so happens to be a famous and grumpy novelist. He sees these lyrics and has got plenty of things to say about them, and not all of his feedback is positive or seen as constructive. Despite this unfriendly start, Shuichi becomes a victim of the nasty side of Eiri and the clearly infatuated Shuichi has his emotions ripped apart by Eiri. Whilst all of this is happening, his music career isn’t exactly moving forward either. The storyline isn’t the first of its kind, but it still gets a thumbs up for originality due to its unusual love story.
There is a fairly large cast of characters, all ranging from humours to serious. A lot of the auxiliary characters are very generic and it’s mostly the main characters that have any form of character development and even that is on that slim side. Shuichi is a typical lolli-shota character, young looking, happy-go-lucky and wears his heart on his sleeve; whereas Eiri Yuki is a darker, more distant character, full of maturity and great one-liners. Their relationship could be compared in many ways to that of Hunni-chan and Mori from Ouran High School Host Club; except for the “adult” relationship between Eiri Yuki and Shuichi. The two are opposite ends of personalities yet form a confusing and unbreakable bond. Even by the third volume, Eiri Yuki’s personality is confusing. He never lets on what he is truly thinking and to make him all the more mysterious he has a hidden past that’s not revealed until later episodes, a hidden past that holds some very deep, dark secrets. The rest of the characters are completely forgettable and for a band that’s attempting to be the next big thing, the rest of Bad Luck are dull and characterless.
The quality of the voice acting cast in English isn’t too bad, the key characters have got good, somewhat-unique voices and they are easily understandable. The Japanese cast are much better in this situation, with their voices matching the characters in a better way; however, both tracks are watchable. The subtitles are also well done, the positioning is good and the majority of the “extra” bits of information, such as signs, are translated for the most part as well – something that’s being dropped from a lot of releases at the moment.
The character designs are fairly good. Each character is clear, distinct and almost glows. With plenty of costume changes, close up shots and singing there’s many chances to cost-save, but for the most part they’ve avoided this. The actual quality of the animation is just about average, with a few extended “sweeping” shots where nothing’s actually moving and it’s rare to see more than one character moving at the same time.
In reality it’s all about music, it’s about sexy men, big hair, soap opera worthy relationships, bright colours and sparkles. It’s very obvious whose attention this anime is trying to grab just by its imagery. It’s funny, filled with heart throbbing moments and the occasional adult humour.
» Final Score
6
Far from being the best anime in the world and although it can be a little slow, it’s certainly a watchable show. Gravitation is ideal for an audience that craves gorgeous men in love, music, love, teasing and something to giggle at.
Features - by Ian - March 22, 2010 - 20:51 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Yet another mecha style anime?
Reviews - by Arctic Zora - March 22, 2010 - 20:50 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
“Gunparade March” originally started out as ,a video game for Playstation. Due to its huge award winning success, it was later featured as a twelve episode anime series and also a three part manga. The anime version of Gunparade March was produced by J.C.Staff and broadcast on MBS in February 2003 and April 2003 in Japan and only recently made it’s way across to the UK. It is comparable with many other animes, such as: Gundamn Wing, Baldr Force EXE and bizarrely enough, Tenchi Muyo.
The opening of the first few episodes gives a brief but detailed description of what is happening in a fictional world, where alien life forms known as the Genjyu have taken over control of the world and people have been living in fear of these creatures since the late 1940s. Rather than being intelligent life forms, the Genjyu are no more than parasites, spreading across the world at an incredible rate and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. To try and battle these creatures, all modern forms of warfare have been employed and it would appear that not even a Nuclear bomb is able to disperse the creatures and prevent full invasion. As such the use of these powerful weapons have left the planet poisoned with radiation. Yet the aliens continue to live on whilst the human race struggles to live ordinary lives alongside them.
On first impression this anime is nothing special, it could even be described as cookie-cutter. The storyline, though interesting, would only appeal to one type of audience – the sort that love guns, machines and robots thrown in for good measure. Not to forget the Genjyu, who are huge, vicious aliens that can only be destroyed by a monster fighting-weapon-laden-robot, the Humanoid Unit AMTT-500, who incidentally looks a little like Metriod. This is all discovered in the first episode and not to mention a bit of bloodshed to seal the deal for those out there that judge an entire anime within the first twenty minutes.
However, by the second episode the story widens out a little and it can entice a much larger audience. It becomes humorous, with typical characters with similarities that can be found from across the Sci-fi genre and a few others to boot, such as a cute girl like Sasami from Tenchi Muyo. The storyline has pulled on inspiration from Tenchi Muyo with a lot of action, but with a lot of comical every day life moments thrown in. There is plenty of time to get to know the history and the lives of the characters, which the first few episodes spends a lot of time doing.
The main characters are actually young adults still in a Training school where they are taught to use the Humanoid Unit AMTT-500. These students treat the Genjyu invasion like an everyday thing, laughing and discussing more ordinary concerns such as having a boyfriends and homework. The characters seem to vary from very serious, to flirtatious, Lolashota to playful. As could be expected from teenagers, some of the subject matter isn’t always family friendly and the humour can be a little crude now and again.
The artwork is nothing out of the ordinary, with a pleasing look but the characters are all a little generic however the backgrounds and the characters themselves have enough detail. The animation quality is fairly good, although there are an awful lot of still shots of space, robots and a lot of close-ups of people talking but with little movement. The voice acting is very standard, almost forgettable on the whole and the Japanese cast isn’t much different either.
» Final Score
7
A good opening to a series, although the first episode will lead many fans away from the series who would probably end up liking later episodes in the volume.
News - by Ian - March 22, 2010 - 19:36 Europe/London - 1 Comment
AniMedia East is an anime and manga group based in East Anglia, due to the lack of anime and manga events in the region. A year later and AniMedia East is one of the larger anime and manga groups in that region. Each year they organise a number of different events for their members and non-members as well, the next thing on their list to do has only recently been announced.
AniMedia East Cosplay Picnic
When: Saturday the 17th of April 2010!
Where: Norwich at the Chapelfield Gardens from 1000
As stated above, this event will start at 1000 on the 17th April, so hope for good weather. The even is currently posted on Visit Norfolk and Norwich Events so there may be a lot more fans than usual attending.
Not all of the events are 100% confirmed; however, the events that are pending for this event are:
- Meet and greet
- Quiz and mini games
- Man-hunt
- Cinema
- Shopping
- LaserQuest
- Evening meal
AniMedia East are welcome to ideas and if you live in the area and know of any venues that would host a 50+ person event for free, or very little money then please contact Raye of AniMedia East as they’d love to hear from you.
You can find their official forum here, or go via the AnimeLeague, which is here.
News - by Ian - March 22, 2010 - 11:15 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
Sci-Fi-London frequently run a little event called the Anime All-Nighter. Each time the shows that are aired are different and this time around they’ve been confirmed as:
- Redline
- Musashi
- Bleach the Movie – The Diamond Dust Rebellion
- Fate/stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works
This is not a guarantee though as Sci-Fi-London have stated that the running order is subject to change and it’s not unusual for additions to be made last minute.
Running in conjunction with Manga Entertainment, this event is sure to be booked up very early on so make sure you check out Sci-Fi-London’s official website here.
Source: Sci-Fi-London forums via UK Anime Network
News - by Ian - March 22, 2010 - 09:00 Europe/London - 1 Comment
As with every Monday there are a number of new releases from the anime companies across the UK, some weeks we have a deluge of anime and other weeks it’s a little scarce on the ground. This week, we fall into the latter although the anime that is being released in of a great quality. Those two animes are:
These two animes are now out for you to purchase from all good retailers immediately, we have listed the best price available for these shows and a link to the retailer above.
News - by Ian - March 15, 2010 - 11:58 Europe/London - Be first to Comment!
The start of the week always feels like a huge downer, this week it needn’t be as there is a plethora of brilliant anime being made available for you to buy right now. These seven new shows are available right now:
- X – Volume 5
- The Slayers – The Complete First Season Box Set
- Rozen Maiden – Volume 1
- Romeo X Juliet – Volume 2
- Fate Stay Night – Volume 3
- Death Note Relight – Volume 2
At all good retailers.
News - by Ian - March 10, 2010 - 11:43 Europe/London - 1 Comment
It was recently announced that the Anime League’s Animeleague Club London, otherwise known as the ALCL has been expanded from a regular meet to a full blown Anime Convention. This years ALCL will be a convention for over 900 people and will run for literally 12 hours.
ALCL
Where: Saturday June 26th
When: The Rocket Complex, London Metropolitian University
Age?: 18 years and up
Price: £6 for early bookers, £8 on the door and £5 on the door after 1900 hrs
Watch Anime, Play Video Games, Show off your Artwork/chill with artists in the Artist Alley, dress up and enter our Cosplay Events, buy Anime & Manga from our dealers room, enter events like our DDR Tournament and pub quiz, learn Japanese Culture, and party away all night! In the evening we also have a cosplay ball! Entry to the ball is included as part of your ALCL ticket!
The convention will feature: Cosplay Auction, Yu Gi Oh Tournament, Pub Quiz, Cosplay Masquerade, DDR Tournament, Dub That Anime, Artists Showcase, AMV Showings, Cosplay Showdown, SIX Video Gaming tournaments, Japanese Culture Talks, Manga Workshop, Cosplay Ball, Cosplay Picnic, exposure to some of the best manga artists in the country, tons of videogames and much more to come.
So remember, that’s the 26th June 2010. You can pre-register and find out more information at the ALCL official website here.
News - by Ian - March 5, 2010 - 11:38 Europe/London - 2 Comments
Our friend’s over at the Anime League are always looking into new ways to try and expand the Anime market in the UK and this is generally done in the form of meet-ups throughout the year. Their ambition is to have some form of anime convention or event in every county in the country, this lofty goal will not be met without the help of people like us.
Anime League is a non-profit making entity and requires our help, they recently sent through a press release detailing their ambitions and goals and have asked it to be shared with you – the reader.
MEETS TO BE EXPANDED
We shall be expanding our meet-structure over the next few months. Our plan is to cover every single region in the UK. As you may be aware, we already run a lot of meets (approximately 30 last year). The new plans will see over 50 meetups be run per year. Crucially the meets will happen regularly in EVERY region of the country.
We have split the UK into seven regions – Scotland, North-East, North-West, Midlands, East-Anglia, Wales/South-West & London/South-East.
Each region will have it’s own head-organiser and up to six meetup organisers working underneath them.
These regions will have a meet every two months – Scotland, North-East, North-West, East-Anglia and Wales/South-West
These regions will have a meet every month – London/South-East and The Midlands
Official Meetups will be designed to have between 15 to 50 people attending them. We also welcome people to create their own smaller unofficial meetups.
COSPLAY PICNICS CONFIRMED AS REGULAR EVENTS
On top of all this, we will also be running four free Cosplay Picnics per year in London, and cosplay picnics taking place elsewhere as well (such as the upcoming Cosplay Picnic event in conjunction with AniMedia-East in East-Anglia). We will also be running regular monthly clubs in both London and Birmingham.
The next cosplay picnic for London will be announced within the next week. Expect it to be Easter-themed!
MONEY MADE FROM OUR EVENTS ARE PUT BACK INTO OUR FREE MEETS AND EVENTS
All of our cosplay picnics will have free food and drink (and are free entry), and we are looking toward doing other very fun events for anime fans as well. We can afford to do this thanks to our other larger events. AL is a non-profit making entity, so we always intend to give any money made back to the fans in subsequent events.
WE’RE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS! JOIN OUR CREW!
As part of our major expansion, we are looking for volunteers to help organise meets and events. If you have previously organised a meet/event or have an interest, please do get back to us! We are always looking for more people to bring into the fold, even if they’re currently uninvolved with AL. Signup in this topic here – http://www.animeleague.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=107086
MEETS TO BE PLACED ON THE ANIMELEAGUE MAIN-SITE
In future we will be placing links to all of our meetups on the Animeleague Front-page located at www.animeleague.net under Upcoming Meets on the left-hand side. This will be regularly updated, so make sure to regularly check our main site (and hopefully forums as well – we’re a very friendly and fun community) to see if there’s a meetup coming up in your local area!”
So if you’re interested, please contact Anime League directly.
