Fooly Cooly

To all of you who have seen the anime known as Fooly Cooly and understood over half of it, I salute you. To all of you who have yet to see it, don’t expect to understand half of it. I recall the first time I encountered Fooly Cooly it was at my local library in its manga form. To all of you who don’t know, the manga came after the anime and was done by a different artist, an artist who probably used MS paint and a track pad to do the art. Let’s just say I couldn’t tell the difference between characters in the manga. In the anime however, the art was nice and I could see the quality. The plot however, well it’s hazy at best.

                The main character is a high school boy named Naota Nandaba. His older brother Tasuku is a baseball player in America, and left him alone with their perverted father, Grandfather and his old girlfriend. His life is at best, boring. But one day, he meets a young woman riding a yellow Vespa. Actual, she literally runs into him. We later find out that her name is Haruko Haruhara, and that she loves guitars. She later becomes the Nandada household maid, tormenting Naota to no end with something about ‘Fooly Cooly.’ I’m not going to say much more, as that would be spoiling it, but I will say it involves fight scenes, Aliens, and robots.

                I personally was totally lost throughout most of the series, so it wasn’t really something I enjoyed in particular, to me it felt like drugs, lots of drugs. But I know many who enjoyed the series and found its lack of information lovely. I did like certain parts, as they made me laugh, but it just wasn’t really my kind of series.

                I would recommend the series to those of you who like up the skirt jokes and a bit of slap-stick. The character design and art were fine, and the colors used really stood out, making each scene vibrant. And the series itself is well known, and many others reference to it. It is defiantly something to see if you’re really in to anime.

                                                                                I wrote this in biology,

                                                                                                                PandaEatingATaco

Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Today my friends we are going to discuss the anime Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom.  I enjoyed this series in a way only understandable at the time I watched it, 1:00 in the morning. In all honesty I found it to be a new type of story which I greatly admired as it is rare for such creativity to be seen. But frankly I was not at all satisfied with the plot which changed rapid fire. And there was a bit of nudity and swearing I could have lived without too.

                The story is about a young man named who wakes up in a strange place with no memory of whom he was or what happened to him. He finds himself in an abandoned ware house; he also finds that he’s not alone. He’s being chase by a girl in a strange mask, who is trying to kill him. After a bit of evasion he finds that he is in fact being trained to become an assassin as part of an experiment and that the woman chasing him is named Ein. He meets a man that goes by the codename scythe master and is given the name Zwei. The story revolves around the missions both Ein and Zwei face as they become faceless killers known as Phantoms.

                Later in the series more characters are add and the story really unfolds. It becomes over whelming in how much changes in just seconds. It’s hard to tell who is working for whom and becomes impossible to always understand what is going on. And as the two assassins grab hold of their past, another is added and everything get rather messy.

                I enjoyed the story over all, and I’d say that for the 26 episodes the series gives you, they manage to cover a lot really well. It’s not perfect, and it’s not for those looking for a funny or calm series, it’s a straight up action drama. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a short, but more serious anime.  Just make sure you that if you cry a lot, you have a tissue box next to you, especial near the end.

                                Even if you don’t cry a lot you might want that tissue box,  

                                                                                PandaEatingATaco

Darker than Black

Hello all!

                I have noticed that I lack a good many reviews on anime, only having around 5 total. When I first started this blog, I wanted to make a blog filled with reviews, but I only wanted to review anime I had watched since I had started the blog. Since then, I have found that I cannot watch anime or read manga fast enough for this to be possible, so I’m going to go back to things I finished watching long ago.

                I fell in love with Darker than Black almost the instant I finished the first episode. I stayed up late watching it, and it would be one of the first things I did when I had free-time. I finished all 26 episodes of the first season in a few days, and set out in search of more.

The cast form left to right: Hung, Yin, Hei, Moa

The first season takes place in Tokyo, were, ten years ago an incident occurred and “Hells gate” showed up and all the stars in the sky disappeared to be placed with fake ones. With the appearance of Hells gate came a new type of being, people with supernatural ability’s known as contractors. Contractors are known only by the government and kept from the eyes of the general public; each contractor can be identified by their star, which will fall from the sky when they die. Every time they use their powers they must complete a task based on their ‘contract’, these tasks included origami, eating, turning someone’s shoe upside down, etc.  The other being that came to be were ‘Dolls’ and emotionless medium who are best known for their “observer spirits”, a small blob like creature that is able to be used as a camera for the doll.

                The story is about a young man named Hei, who at the time, appears to be a Chinese student namedLee. But, we shortly find out that Hei is a contractor, one who doesn’t make a payment. Hei has three companions, the first is a doll named Yin. Yin’s medium is water; she is quite and doesn’t seem to feel much emotion. Hei also works with Moa, a contractor who can change his body with those of animals. Moa is stuck in a cat body all throughout the first season. Hung is the field supervisor of the group, giving those missions and orders. He is very serious and doesn’t really like contractors.

Hei in his mask

                The story revolves around the mystery behind around “Hells gate” and Hei’s past. The plot was refreshing and new and I liked the way each character developed and interacted with each other. The art was beautiful and the action scenes were well done.  Each episode had something new to offer and I didn’t feel like any of it was filler. The amazing thing about this anime is the fact that it wasn’t adapted from a manga, it was a standalone.  The second season showed equal quality, but, I found both seasons endings to leave something desired.

                                                                The format always messes up,

                                                                                                PandaEatingATaco

The Pyro Project

Hey guys. I would like to announce now that this post has very little to do with anime and manga. Instead I’m going to write about a new project I am undertaking, one I have decided to call “The Pyro Project.”

                The images above are what is currently available of my MS paint based project. This project is a response to this blog post about TF2: http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=7254. So, I know what you’re thinking, you’re wondering why I’m showing you a blog post of a game that is not anime based, you’re wondering if the writers of such a post are mentally capable, and most importantly, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with my crappy MS paint drawings. Well, if you scroll down to the 3^rd picture and read the paragraph labeled “Last ‘Meet the team’ short” things might make more sense. You see this game releases small videos depicting each class in a comedic and theatrical way. We got videos for every class, all but one, the Pyro.

                I personally love the Pyro, the mystery, the gameplay, and even the character.  I have been waiting to see that video ever since I started Team fortress. And then Valve granted my wish, they presented me with a blog post telling me I’ll get to see meet the Pyro, and I intend to thank them for it. That why I started “The Pyro project.” Every day until the releases of meet the Pyro, I will draw a Pyro. Sometimes just the face, sometimes all of him, in different hats, in different colors, and maybe even with different people. But I have a good many other things to do, so most sketch are done quickly in paint, on weekends the quality will probably be better. But it doesn’t matter that they all look pretty bad, I put effort in it, and I wanted a way to say thank you.  When meet the Pyro is released, I’ll send them to Valve somehow, but until then I’ll try to keep them posted here.

                Sorry about such an off topic project, but it was important to me that these things were said. Next time I’ll go back on topic, I have gotten to watch some anime.

                                                                Watch the meet the team videos if you haven’t,

                                                                                                                                                Pandaeatingataco

Anime Withdrawal

So I normally watch anime and read manga regularly, but lately every time I sit down to watch it I seem to not be able to. It’s caused me serious problems, almost like withdrawal symptoms. I struggle to sleep, and can’t seem to stay with one thing for too long, I’ll stare at a blank screen and not know what to do. And I’ll draw, that’s almost normal, but with lack of a reference I keep getting worse. It’s a dieses with a cure so simple, but I can never seem to get it.

                I sat down the other day in hopes of watching some form of anime, something, anything. I hadn’t been able to do it earlier in the week due to school and an odd obsession with video games. I was prepped to watch it on my computer, all ready. But then, my brother’s friend came over, and asked to use my laptop as it is the best one for games in the house. I said yes and moved on to the Wii in hopes of using the Netflix feature, but to my horror it was beyond slow. I headed down stairs to find my brother and his friend playing Xbox and downloading some game on his friend’s computer (I later found that game to be Team fortress, which made it more okay). I got my computer back, but couldn’t use the internet without extreme lag, so I settled for minecraft.

                5 hours later, and the game was still downloading, and more news was to be heard. My uncle and Cousin were coming to fix a hole in the roof. I was a little disappointed knowing that I would not be able to watch any T.V with my uncle there (any form of anime would be a form of Satan). But I was happy to know that one of my favorite cousins was coming.

This is what I drew for my friend

The next day was spent waiting for Tristan to download yet another game, this one being known as APB: Reloaded. When it was finished we all played minecraft and waited for him to quite lagging up the internet with his game.  When both my cousin and him finally left, my brother had me download APB on to my own computer.  I spent the rest of the day drawing a picture in MS paint and messed with transparency.

                The point is, sometimes we don’t get to do what we want, but its best to just put up with it. I may be suffering now, but I now have several favors. I wrote this originally because I have been having this withdrawal and didn’t know what else to say, so it’s pretty cool my story now has an actual moral.

                                                                Something is finally going good this week,

                                                                                                                PandaEatingATaco