Anime titles deciphered (My Anime Top-10 list)

I recently redid my Top-10 animes list on YouTube and in case you haven’t seen it you should click this link to it. However, this blog is about the wonderful world of anime (and manga) titles. A lot of times it seems a lot of them make absolutely no sense, but a lot of times you have to look closer at the series they’re about to understand what the name refers to. Some anime names are actually complete nonsense and picked because they sound fun, but here are examples from my own top-10, deciphered for your convenience and I hope entertainment…

Sandybell

This one would appear to be fairly self-explanatory. Sandybell is the heroine of the story and the series is named after her. However, I should note that this is only the name used in my and in some other non-Japanese territories. The original title of the series, Haro! Sandiberu, is actually “Hello! Sandybell”. The title conundrum gets even more interesting when I note that Sandybell is in fact an incorrect romanization of the name, which apparently is supposed to be Sandybelle (the anime series actually shows this spelling of the name at one point).

Azumanga Daioh!

Here’s probably the closest example of a gibberish title in my Top-10. The “Daioh” as I’m told means “Great King” but I’ve also heard explanations that it’s simply an exclamation and means nothing. However “Azumanga” is a compound of “Azu” and “manga”. A and zu are the first two syllables of the creator’s last name, Kiyohiko Azuma, and manga obviously refers to the comic-book. “Manga” when literally translated actually means “whimsical pictures”, which I guess isn’t far off.

Love Hina

The first half of this title is pretty obvious in what it refers to. “Hina” on the other hand refers to “Hinata Flats” or “Hinata Apartments” which is the all girls’ dorm where the series is set. I’m not sure why the title omits the final syllable of the name “ta”, but my suspicion maybe that it has something to do with the whole concept of a dormitory which could make the whole compound “Hinata Flats” redundant (kinda like ATM Machine or the Kamehameha wave [ha = wave Jap.]).

Ouran High School Host Club

Another title that’s fairly self-explanatory since the whole series is technically about the Host Club. However, I find it interesting that the title refers to Ouran High School, but in fact within the series they keep using the term “Ouran Academy”. A host club is an actual type of cafe in Japan where typically women serve men and provide conversation partners. These types of Host/Hostess Clubs are typically modelled after some sort of theme (the Ouran Club seems to switch themes depending on the season and what the writer finds particularly amusing dressing the characters as).

Fruits Basket

This one can seem a bit bizarre at first, but for anyone whose watched the series, its meaning is pretty obvious. “Fruits Basket” was a game that the main protagonist Tohru’s friends used to play (a sort of cross between Simon Says and Musical Chairs) where you only become part of the game when a fruit you’re assigned with gets called out. Tohru was always assigned as an origini (rice ball) which of course isn’t a fruit and so she was never able to play with the other children. This feeling of exclusion is probably why Tohru sympathises with Kyo, who despite carrying the Sohma curse is not considered part of the group since his animal isn’t part of the Chinese Zodiac.

Dragon Ball Z

Another fairly self-obvious title, though it bares mentioning that Dragon Ball Z only refers to the second anime series. The comic is all-throughout referred to as just “Dragon Ball”, though the later chapters of it, which correspond with the anime, have been occasionally released under the DBZ title. Within the series “dragon balls” are the seven magical orbs, which when brought together summon the Eternal Dragon, Shen Long / Shenron, who grants any wish. The dragon balls play an important part in most of the story-arcs in the series. The Z title was dreamed up by Akira Toriyama, ironically, to signify it as the end of the series (Z being the final letter of the alphabet), ironically since DBZ was eventually followed by the continuation series Dragon Ball GT.

Magic Knight Rayearth

This one is rather self-explanatory as well. Obviously the three heroines of the series (Hiraku, Umi and Fuu) are the Magic Knights. Rayearth refers to Hikaru’s rune-god who are the giant mecha like beings which the three girls ride into battle. It’s not inherently clear why Rayearth specifically is in the title, though Hikaru’s role does become more important in the second season, Rayearth really isn’t that important of a character. I guess putting all the girls’ rune-gods’ names in the title would have made it too long: Magic Knight Celeste Windom Rayearth. For the non-canonical OVA special the title, which is just Rayearth, is even more confusing and non-sensical since Hikaru’s rune-god in that one isn’t even called Rayearth, but instead Lexus. As a side-note: the Rayearth OVA sucks balls.

Tenchi Muyo! / Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki

Here is a genuine case of a series having more than one title in English and Japanese. The OVA series, which surprisingly is the main narrative of the Tenchi Muyo franchise (and not the TV series as in most similar cases), is commonly referred to as simply Tenchi Muyo! but which in its third run was added an extra title. Tenchi and Ryo-Ohki are both characters from the series, so those parts of the title is fairly self-explanatory. The Muyo part actually have several meanings, one being “Useless” (which would sound about right owing to the manga based on the series “No Need for Tenchi”). It also apparently means “This Way Up” which doesn’t really make a lot of sense and is probably why the series title has never been translated fully into English.

Baccano!

Well this is actually a fun case because the title isn’t even Japanese. Instead it’s Italian. It literally means “noise” or “racket” depending on the context. However, what noise within the series it actually refers to I have no idea, so this might be another gibberish title.

Ginga Nagareboshi Gin

Although the series is called “Silver Fang” in some countries, that is neither the official nor really an accurate translation of the title. Growing up in Finland, I knew the series by the name “Hopeanuoli” (Silver Arrow) which too isn’t accurate at all. What we have here is a really confusing title with a lot of bizarre elements. Firstly “Ginga” actually means Galaxy or specifically the Milky Way. “Nagareboshi” means a meteor or more commonly a shooting star. And finally “Gin” is the name of the hero of the series, his name meaning “silver”.

So compiled the The Milky Way’s Shooting Star Silver or The Shooting Star of the Galaxy: Gin (the title is sometimes written with a colon, though its usage seems very inconsistent). At any rate, the title attempts to convey the idea of Gin being fast as lightning and the Ginga (Galaxy) is just a grandiose intro to the title (plus it incidentally contains the hero’s name).

The spin-off titles of this series are collectively known as Ginga Dendetsu (GD Weed and GD Riki) which means “Galaxy Legend”. Dendetsu in general refers to side- and origin stories but is used in primary titles as well (Dendetsu no Zeruda for instance: The Legend of Zelda).

First Impressions: Naruto

So I finally decided to sit down and watch Naruto. Note, that I’ve seen an odd episode here and there, but I’ve never actually stopped to watch the series or try to make sense of its plot. I feel I’m in a comfy spot to watch the series since the worst of the hype subsided long ago.

So in case you have not seen or heard of this series here’s the gist of it. Naruto is a ninja-trainee who’s had an evil fox demon trapped in his body. His parents died as a result of the battle with the demon and now the boy wants to become the head ninja (Hokage) of his village. He’s taken under the tutelage of the unpredictable Kakashi (a dude who never reveals his face and keeps his ninja-headband over his right, freaky eye). Under Kakashi tutelage are also his crush, the pink-haired Sakura (= most over-used character name ever) and the token emo-kid, Sasuke. Though the three don’t get along at all (Naruto being in love with Sakura who despises him, her adoring Sasuke who couldn’t give two shits about her, Naruto and Sasuke both hating each other) they work surprisingly efficiently as a team.

I’m about 14 episodes into the series, so a little late for a First Impressions – but this is a long series so I’m probably gonna do another review blog somewhere down the line. So the essentials:

• Story: Not too shabby and at least it seems to move at a fair pace (that might change as I hear there’s quite a bit of filler later in the series). Nothing about the story has really grabbed me to be honest, there’s a lot of back-story given in the first few episodes which at this point still seems rather redundant.
• Animation: Excellent. Apart from the very first episode, the animation is consistently above average – which I have to give the creators credit for. There isn’t any still usage that I’ve seen either which is a positive sign. The colours used in places are a little wonky but I’m beginning to think this is a style choise.
• Music: Not my cup of tea, but not bad. The first opening theme is growing on me which is a shame since I hear the intro themes change quite a bit as the series goes on.
• Characters: There are no favorites as of yet – but I like the fact they’re giving the main cast time to develop before bringing in all the supporting actors. Naruto has brushes of likeability – he’s a “comedic hero” with the emphasis on comedic. He’s funny in places but at times it feels like they are overdoing his silliness a little bit. I don’t really care for Sasuke but Sakura is quite funny at times. Kakashi might have potential of becoming my favorite character at this point – he’s so unpredictable but clearly means good, plus he has that crazy eye which is pretty cool.

In the general areas Naruto is fair. Not the most awesome anime I’ve ever seen but interesting enough that I’d want to see where the story goes after the first couple of dozen episodes. However I’m noticing Naruto commit some massive anime faux pas‘s which I’d like to address here.

• Over-explaining the plot – This is something which I’m getting seriously sick of in anime and manga. It seems to me characters will take the time to relay every bit of backstory and mechanics of ninjitsu to the audience, but none of it is really interesting and most of it is derailing from the main point of the episode since I just want to see the plot move on. If you ask me, Dragon Ball (/Z) did these types of exposition pauses better. They were shorter and often in a few words.
• Over-using footage from the prior episode – As much as I hate recaps, when done well (Sandybell) they’ll serve the series and give you a clarifying explanation of what happened in the last episode. Naruto takes a different route where it seems that they reuse the last five minutes of the prior episode to move into the plot of the current episode. However when the whole episode is only 25 minutes that’s five minutes you’re robbing us of new stuff. If you’re going to use the last episode’s end as a pick-up point to the next, one-and-a-half-minutes is the absolute acceptable maximum amount of time and footage that should be used.
• Instant flashback – Another really poorly implemented plot-device is using a sudden flashback to something which happened not two minutes ago to explain something.
• Ending an episode on an action scene – Why would you do that? More over, why would you do that numerous times in a row. So many times it seems that as soon as something exciting is about to happen, the episode ends. But it’s not like the episodes end when “the fight” is about to start (like in most animes), usually the fight has already started and the episode will end on a seemingly arbitrary break in the fighting. That is just bad pacing (even Dragon Ball knew that if a fight was going to carry over they’d smooth the transition to the credits with that bad ass narration).

These are my personal nitpicks, however, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Hopefully the series dispenses at least with some of these elements – but still I’ll keep on watching to see where the story goes.

My Top-5 Dragon Ball villains

I’ve been a Dragon Ball fan for a long time but I’ve never really done anything Dragon Ballish on the blog (apart from the rant about We Gotta Power a while back) so I finally decided that just for kicks I’d list my Top-5 favorite villains from the series. And just to note, yes this will include both the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but not GT since I haven’t seen that one.

To avoid confusion I’m also not including any incarnation of Piccolo or Vegeta on the list because some people may not get that these guys eventually became goodguys. At the end I’ll list a few characters that were considered for the list but didn’t make it.

Top-5 Villains

1. Freeza (a.k.a. Frieza)

I’ve always loved Freeza. He’s just so frickin’ creepy. You see him and instantly you get the sense that you’re utterly fucked. The guy had four distinct transformations and has enough power in his pinky to blow up a planet. He’s a galatic conqueror with an interstellar army and several planets already under his rule. As well, he can take credit for nearly obliterating the Sayan race (except for Vegeta, Nappa, Raditz and Goku).

He was just an evil bastard, but the thing I hate is how – after Goku fought a long epic fight with him – every villain since has essentially undermined Freeza without ever being as memorable. People are free to have their own opinion but Freeza is still number one for me.

2. Ginyu Force

A group of interstellar mercenaries, all named after dairy products and striking insane poses at the drop of a hat. Who doesn’t love the Ginyu Force? Recoom was nasty as hell, Burter was a fast fucker, Guldo could stop time, Captain Ginyu was a body switcher and Jeice… well Jeice did dick honestly, but a five-man team is always more impressive than a four man one.

The Ginyu Force weren’t just hilariously over-the-top, they were also a surprisingly huge threat to the main characters. It’s a shame they all got dusted quite quickly when Goku finally showed up on Namek, but at least there was a little bit of ado about Ginyu switching bodies with Goku.

3. Tao Pai Pai

Easily the most memorable of the original Dragon Ball villains. Tao Pai Pai was a bad ass Muthafucka. This guy nearly killed Goku when he was little and pretty much would kill anyone who annoyed him. The fact that he did with such a callous attitude and with such ease made him a seriously threatening character.

And of course Tao had the best form of transportation of any Dragon Ball character, he’d take a huge pole or a tree-trunk, toss it in the air and then hop on for a ride to his destination.

That is just bad ass.

4. Cell

To be honest, I never really liked Cell all that much. For one thing he just looked stupid with his green spotty, lizard like skin. After becoming “Perfect” he had that dumb hat and in his near-to-perfect stage he looked very silly. Also, he’s just a massive copy-cat – using everyone’s powers and not having a lick of originality.

However, I did quite like his first phase look and he did actually give the heroes a week to prepare for the final showdown which was an interesting touch. Also, because he’s quite possibly the second most powerful villain in the Dragon Ball series he deserves to be somewhere on the list.

And let’s not forget that it took the combined strength of Goku and his son to finally oblitirate this guy. He may not be my favorite but the bastard is really resiliant.

5. Mr. Black

Though the guy looks like a bad joke, I always liked Mr. Black. Upon learning what the Red Ribbon army’s true purpose was for collecting the Dragon Balls (making Mr. Red taller so he’d get some chicks), Black shot his boss and decided to kick Goku’s ass.

Unfortunately Mr. Black didn’t survive which is a shame because I would have personally liked to have seen him come back (maybe as a cyborg like Tao Pai Pai did later in the series) to become a recurring villain. I think Mr. Black is one of the most overlooked figures in the Dragon Ball universe so just for that I wanted him to be on the list.

The Non Qualifiers

These are some of the characters I considered for the list but ultimately ended up dropping…

Babidi & Buu

Buu could have potentially been on the list but because of the whole no-bad-guys-who-became-good-guys rule I put into the list, it felt unfair to put him up there. Plus, I didn’t think much of Buu and with the Ginyu Force already on the list there’s technically five goofy villains on the list already.

I did consider putting Babidi in Buu’s place, but the guy is such a horrible failure as a villain, getting wasted within minutes after his plan to resurrect Buu succeeded. Babidi just couldn’t match the combined awesomeness of Tao Pai Pai, Cell and Mr. Black.

Raditz

Goku’s brother, although an opponent to be reconned with was never one of my favorite characters. Although he forced Goku to basically team-up with his arch-nemesis and even kill himself in order to get rid of Raditz, as a villain Raditz was just really annoying: bolstering and confident that he was going to win at the end.

Now yes, most Dragon Ball villains suffer from having a massive ego but Raditz didn’t even have an interesting personality to go with his. He’s a story-device character and essentially just a light-version of Nappa.

Prince Pilaf

I’m sure that at this point I’m the only Dragon Ball fan who even remembers who Pilaf is. Essentially he was the first recurring villain of the Dragon Ball series, the first to ever gather all seven Dragon Balls.

However, Pilaf dropped off the list for rather obvious reasons, mainly that he’s a short little wimp who never actually accomplished much (aside collecting all the Dragon Balls). He was entirely reliant on his two sidekicks (the girl and the ninja-dog) and wasn’t much of an opposing figure at all.

The most humorous aspect of him was that he was actually a bit of a prude – as I recall Bulma managed to offend him with her raunchy talk and manner. Pilaf would have been a fun character to throw at the end of the list but I wanted to acknowledge Mr. Black so unfortunately he was dropped.

Sandybell – My 10 Favorite Characters

In relation to my Sandybell review, here’s my Top-10 favorite characters from the series…

10. Ricky

I’d love to have my own child sidekick too who dresses up like Mario. Ricky really becomes Sandybell’s most steadfast companion after she arrives in London. Ricky plays several key parts in later adventures and even has his own cute little prepubescent romance ala Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday.

However, he has the least amount of character development despite being in a good two-thirds of all the episodes, so I can’t really place him any higher.

9. Jirobi

The scar-faced French gangster who looks Italian but seems to have a Japanese name is probably the most ethnically confused character from the series. He’d deserve a mention already on the merit that he nearly killed two of the series central characters, yet the heroine of the show still goes through the trouble of dragging him from his broken car.

I just think Jirobi is pretty badass, even if he got beaten by a pair of kids in a tricked-out van.

8. The Informant

I think a guy with hair that awesome would deserve to be on the list. Okay, the real reason he’s on here is that he’s the one other important character to die on-screen in the series. Just as it looks that Sandybell is about to get important information about her mother, some a-hole with a sniper-rifle takes this dude out.

My hats off to you Mr. Informant. You and your absolutely epic hair.

7. Edward

Edward is a cool guy. Sure, he did get saved from drowning by a fourteen-year-old girl and he did have a bit of pedo-creep look about him initially – but as the series progresses he turns out to be a pretty awesome dude.

He just always shows up when things are looking really crappy for Sandybell to cheer her up.

I wish I had my own Edward, dammit!

6. Leslie Christie

Epic Magnum-style ‘stash. Check. An understanding fatherly demeanor. Check. Saving a baby from drowning. Check. The cool-o-meter is really high on Sandybell’s dad. Even though he resorts to a few fatherly bitch-slaps he’s generally one of the best characters from the show and his death at the end of the first leg of the series is bound to bring the sniffles in full force.

However, keeping it a secret that he wasn’t Sandybell’s real dad for that long was a bit of d*ck move.

5. Kitty Shearer

Okay, let’s be honest here. At the beginning of the series Kitty is an up-stuck, horrible, whiney, possessive, stupid, heinous bitch. However, about half-way into the series she kind of just becomes the stock baddie and eventually its shown that she does have some human decency in her. In fact I genuinely felt bad for her when she totally breaks down in the third-to-last episode.

Plus, I have to say – she’s pretty damn hot at times and the series just wouldn’t have been as interesting without her causing trouble for the main characters.

4. Sandybell Christie

It’s really hard for me to rank the leads of an anime series like this because most of the time they are either the main reason to watch the series (Tenchi Muyo!, School Rumble etc.) or completely outshined by the rest of the supporting cast (Love Hina etc.). Sandybell definitely deserves to be in the top-5. She’s determined even if she cries a lot and she a character you genuinely sympathise with.

However, in the latter half of the series where she’s looking for clues and getting into trouble, she perhaps loses what made her so great in the first half of the series, where she always took initiative. Also, I would have really love to have seen her fly off the handle just once. Because of this she doesn’t come off quite as a fully developed character but at least her storyline remains interesting throughout the whole series.

3. Mark Branch Wellington

Poor Mark. He loses practically everything in the progress of the series: his parents, his fortune, his freedom in love. Mark goes on the road to become a true artist, he gets beat down and has brushes with the underworld. Mark goes through the most hardships throughout the series and he could have easily been the series lead.

Also, Mark experiences more loss and defeat but also joy and rage in the series than any other character and this is what I like about him. He’s not just a “tragic prince charming” that Sandybell and Kitty run after, this guy actually has his own well fleshed-out storyline.

I’ll admit that I tended to laugh a lot at Mark in the beginning due to the slight pedophilic vibe you get off him when Sandybell is still younger – not to mention his uncanny resemblance to Wheeler from Captain Planet and the Planeteers. But the guy eventually won me over which is why he’s so high up on the list.

2. Oliver

Oliver is the f***ing man. Some animal sidekicks are there to provide laughs, Oliver kicks ass and takes names. He’s probably saved Sandybell more times than any other character in the series. Lassie is f***ing pussy compared to Oliver. (And by pussy I of course mean cat ;-P ).

Now despite what the intro to the series might suggest, Oliver can’t fly – but he’s so awesome he might as well could have. There are so many redundant animal sidekicks in cartoons: the dog and orangutan from The Centurions, Mati’s monkey from Captain Planet, Panthor from He-Man (he’s a total pussy too), Altivo in The Road to El Dorado etc. Oliver just puts them all to shame.

1. Alec

There’s no two ways about it. Alec is a f***ing ninja. How else could he always beat the other characters to the next news story. He wears disguises, he kicks ass. He’s the only character in the series to slap Kitty clean across the face… thrice!!!

Plus, the guy is just incredibly cool. He doesn’t care that the other journalists laugh at him and despise him. He makes his own way and doesn’t take sh*t from anybody. Now, if I was a little creeped out by Sandybell and Mark’s relationship, I was even more creeped out when the series began to suggest Alec and Sandybell might have been a potential item. Thank god that by the end of the series it was clear that he had no creepy and disgusting plans for Sandybell.

Alec is just the coolest guy from the series and you can’t help but applaud every time he shows his face.

Sandybell – Series Review

I recently finished watching a 47 episode 1981 anime-series by Toei, called Sandybell (Hello! Sandybell!). This is an awesome cartoon series about a girl living in Scotland who falls in love with the heir of crumbling aristocrat family, named Mark. However, their happiness meets many obstacles including Mark’s parents dying, his half-forced marriage, his escape and abandonment of the engagement and finally Sandybell’s own father dying suddenly from a heart-attack.

The series has loads of drama and some sappy romance but it’s still an incredibly well put-together series. I’m once again going to approach this one from a division perspective…

Animation – On the over-all I have to say I was delightfully surprised by the quality of the animation. Considering it’s a TV-production the animation was almost universally above average and practically never below. I can’t even recall points where the animation would have irked me. The only consistent problem I noticed with the animation were some scenes where characters were laid out incorrectly on top of backgrounds, thus distorting the scale and making the characters look gigantic. But even this didn’t happen very often, so I tended to forget about it.

Characters – This series has an awesome and varied cast. However, it shifts dramatically depending where in the series you go. The first and second quarter leading up to the middle of the series have clearly different contrasting casts of supporting actors and from the middle-point onward the only constants are the five/six principal characters who meet a new lot of one-of characters every episode. Still, a good lot of the old characters thankfully make return appearances in the later series and, I have to say, even most of the one-ofs are pretty memorable.

This series is definitely going to warrant a Top-10 characters list, so wait for that one…

Music – It’s nice, cheery and very 80s sounding but thankfully with dark interludes in the mix for all the bad stuff that happens. I rather enjoyed the soundtrack myself even if I found the overt use of the mandolin a little cheezy at times. The only problem I have with the music is the opening theme which I feel is almost too cheery for the series, considering the over-all nature of the story. A word of advice is not to judge this series on the title theme.

Plot – I have to say my favorite aspect of the show. Especially in the first half of the series the writing was very tight and it seemed like every episode progressed the story a little bit. However, after the middle-point the series goes off on a bit of filler-fest with Sandybell and Ricky’s tour of Europe. However, most of the filler episodes were so good and at least developed the character dynamic between Sandybell, Ricky, Kitty and Alec to such a degree that it didn’t really bother me that much. Plus, the plot does get back on track by the last ten or so episodes.

Other fun notes:

• Because the series is 47 episodes my suspicion is that it’s actually two seasons of a single series. However, the only distinguishing factor between the two seasons is the change in title-card style. In season one, the title cards are changing colour backgrounds against musical notes with the title on them. The season two title cards have an animation of Sandybell taking a photo with episode title appearing afterwards. I liked the season one title cards because the changing colour made it easy to keep track which episodes you had watched even before the show title subtitles appeared, but I’ll admit the season one cards are a little lifeless. The season two cards, logically, are more lively but because they all have the same animation it might get a little repetitive.
• Mark’s parents die off-screen = Bullsh*t!!
• Alec became my favorite character after he started kicking ass in the series. I am 100% convinced that dude is a ninja.
• Ricky looks like Mario, totally random but awesome at the same time.
• You can tell that the original manga by Shiro Jinbo was made in the 70s from the fact how ridiculously big sideburns everyone’s got in this series. =D
• The Finnish DVD-box unfortunately has a few episodes with badly programmed subtitles. In one episode the subtitles all came on too early but most of the time they were still on-screen when the actual line was spoken. However, in a later episode the lines all came way too early on one part of an episode, although this problem seemed to get fixed a little into the episode. The third episode with bad subtitles was when all the dialogue for a part of a scene rushed by with the rest of the scene having no subtitles. Thankfully after the scene finished the subtitles got back on track.

In all, Sandybell is an excellent anime and definitely worth checking out. =)

Okay, stupid questions time:

Spoiler Alert!!!

• How did Sandybell learn to drive? No-one in her village had cars except for all the rich dudes and even they all got driven around.
• Where the heck did Ronwood get a nickname like “Can-can”? And do I really want to know?
• How did Sandybell and Ricky never get pulled over for any of their traffic violations?
• How did Sandybell not notice Kitty following her all those times? She drives the same car and doesn’t change her clothes for a good third of the series.
• How many news stories did Sandybell actually write after becoming a reporter? One, if I counted correctly. In other words, she’s the worst reporter I’ve ever seen.
• How come Alec is the only one in the series with enough balls to slap Kitty in the face? Seriously!? And of course they become a couple afterwards. =P
• What the hell kind of a name is Sandybell anyway? Everyone else in the series have perfectly normal names: Charles, Ricky, Mark, Leslie, Alec etc. Even her dog, Oliver. Why the hell? Sandybell (even more bizarrely it’s apparently supposed to be written as Sandybelle).

And finally, the episode where Mark is finally found out has too many plot-holes to even count, but here’s hopefully a run-down of how that episode makes absolutely no sense time-wise:

1. Sandybell and Ricky see Mark’s face in a news-paper after the post-delivery van disappears.
2. They have enough time to drive from Naples to the Pyrenees.
3. The police have combed the area but not found Mark who fell off the road.
4. All the witnesses have known to arrive at the police-station to testify against Mark.
5. And all of this happens during the same day!

Okay so the things that didn’t make sense:

1. Where did the police get the mug shot of Mark? And if they had a picture of him you’d think they’d all know who the hell he is.
2. What newspaper actually managed to beat Kitty and Alec to the punch and report the news… in Italy!?!
3. Even if it only took a day for Sandybell and Ricky to drive from Naples to the Pyrenees I think it’s quite far-fetched that they would have had time to participate in anything that happened there. Does the Idea Van have warp-speed?
4. Mark driving after the post-delivery van on a stolen motor-cycle is pretty flimsy evidence to have him be a suspect of the van heist to begin with. Wouldn’t that just make him a suspect (well, guilty actually) of stealing a motor-cycle?

Lupin III – A fan or not?

Lupin III is a popular comic-book and cartoon character created by manga-artist Monkey Punch and who has starred in numerous anime series and movies since his introduction in the 1960s. The three different anime series based on the character were made by Toei Animation and the most notable of his feature-length escapades is obviously the 1979 Castle of Cagliostro, directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

Cagliostro and especially the second Toei series served as my introduction to the character who is the descendant of fictional Arsène Lupin by the novelist Maurice Leblanc. Lupin can be summed up as a perverted gentleman thief with a heart of gold. He is not above having loads of sex and even killing people in order to acquire something – but he usually steals from the greedy and in some cases more evil characters and will usually help anyone innocent who gets caught in the crossfire.

It wasn’t until a little while ago that I finally had the chance to read some of the original Lupin III mangas by Monkey Punch and I was really surprised by what I found. Firstly, the artwork was quite sketchy and I might even go so far as to say sub-par for a manga-artist. I particularly felt that the early stories looked really messy and it wasn’t until second or third volume that the look of the manga began to be more refined. Even so, the stories were unimpressive.

Lupin’s TV-series and the manga itself of course rely on one-of caper stories but many of these I felt were too short and not handled with enough care for the narrative. Plus, Lupin was clearly a lot more ruthless in his early appearances. Now granted, this was the 1960s, but when in one of the early stories Lupin witnesses a rape going on in one of his surveillance monitors, he simply shrugs it off as if it wasn’t a big a deal. This just flat-out didn’t sit right with me.

Toei of course toned down the nudity and sex for the TV anime series (though Fujiko still slept around quite a lot) but even in it and especially the first anime series I always felt that characters were killed way too casually. You can be certain that almost anyone outside of Lupin’s stock cast of Jigen, Goeman, Fujiko and Inspector Zenigata is immediately expendable. Especially if they are villains, but sometimes even if they are just supporting characters on the sidelines. It wasn’t until the second anime series when the Lupin stories got really good since the focus was more on dialogue and cunning cons rather than flat-out action and violence.

I even have to be a little critical of the first anime series’ musical output, where in every other song the lyrics consist of the singer repearing “Lupin the Third!” over and over again, as well as the fractured nature of the dialogue and stories (though admittedly they got a bit better halfway through the series). But it does bother me how this early, more brutal and, in certain aspects, callous character of Lupin doesn’t appeal to me – but his later adaptions do. Afterall, this is where the character came from.

Fujiko Mine

Now that’s not to say there haven’t been any bad Lupin products after the second anime series or the Miyazaki film. On the contrary, I absolutely hated the Legend of the Gold of Babylon. That movie was messed up on so many levels, not just the story and the characters – but the general art-style, especially the depiction of blacks in this film (nevermind the motorcycle chase at the beginning).

So I am a bit conflicted about Lupin and I find things to criticise about him all the time. For instance, I’ve never understood why in none of the movie adaptions of Lupin does Fujiko actually look like herself. She’s one of the most iconic anime women in history, yet her appearance gets mangled in practically every movie she’s been in (even otherwise good films like Cagliostro and Fuma Conspiracy). So my love of Lupin is a little complicated. I consider myself a fan but I definitely don’t approve of everything that the character’s been depicted doing.

Translater’s Review – Digimon (the Agapio dub)

Reviewing an Agapio dub is like making fun of a kid with MS for not being able to run. But I just couldn’t pass an opportunity to discuss what is perhaps by far the most notorious Finnish dub of any cartoon ever made. Now, I say notorious which isn’t the same as “the worst” – but it’s pretty damn close.

Our culprit of the day is Agapio Nordic also sometimes known as Agapio Racing Team (what the hell kind of a name is that for a dubbing company anyway) but out of convenience, we’ll just refer to them as Agapio. It’s safe to say that no other Finnish dubbing company has ever received as much criticism as this one. Their dub of Digimon was actually pulled off the air on the insistence of viewer feedback (something which I can’t recall has ever happened in the history of Finnish Television).

Agapio’s resumé is impressive, if only for its size. Since the mid-1990s they did numerous dubs of cartoons for straight-to-video releases and also dubbed cartoons both for MTV3 and Nelonen (channel 4). Their resumé included the infamous dubs of Casper the Friendly Ghost, eXtreme Ghostbusters and Flipper & Lopaka.

Now I’ve never been a fan of Digimon. The first time I even saw the cartoon I thought as many others did, that it was just a Pokémon knock-off. However, even I wasn’t spared the awfulness of this dub because my sister actually liked the show. On with the review…

Character sync: 3/5

I can’t say that the character sync was horribly off, but the apathetic style of acting and the Agapio actors’ sloppy line reading is the main issue with the lack of voice-sync (at least Golden Voice were trying even if they didn’t always get it right). For reactions, like yells the sync wasn’t always off but you never got the feeling there was much effort involved.

Voice performance: 1/5

Agapio only gets a point here for actually having enough actors to make characters distinct from one another. But that’s about it. The Agapio actors sound like a bunch of druggies on triple dozes of diazepam. Apart from sometimes not having any emotion in their performances their attempt at faking emotion often comes off as dry and uninspired. I have absolutely no idea who gave these people the illusion that any of them could act – but it’s the people who were subjected to this garbage that paid the prize.

Translation: 5/5

Well, the one area where I can’t complain much about is the level of translation. I don’t honestly think it makes that big of a difference but at least we didn’t get a shitty translation on top of shitty acting.

Consistency: 2,5/5

I’m not sure if being consistently bad is something to be proud of.

Music: 2/5

The show went down-hill, already, with the opening theme. However, most people forget that Agapio didn’t actually dub the intro for the first few episodes, this happened a little later on. However, it’s safe to say no-one was pleased with this particular rendition of the intro song and Agapio themselves realised this and brought the original Japanese theme back a little while later.

This is why I’m giving them two points instead of one, and as awful as the Digimon theme was at least you only had to listen to it at the beginning (I still have traumas from the song sections in Casper).

Over-all score: 54%

The word ‘over-ambitious’ always comes to mind when I think of Agapio. How they managed to do so many horrible dubs is a puzzle I’ve never been able to solve. Perhaps the commercial TV-networks just didn’t give a fuck about who dubbed their cartoons (MTV3 is the only Finnish channel I know that had as many as three companies dubbing cartoon simultaneously).

Digimon was what broke the proverbial camel’s back. Parents were fed up of having to subject their children to such horrific voice-acting (where were you guys three years earlier when I had to listen to that god-awful Casper dub?). Agapio were never seen or heard from again and the dubbing duties of the cartoon were duly taken over by the alpha-dog dubbers of Werne.

Here at the end I’d like to provide you with a sample of Agapio’s horrible Digimon dub and to cleanse your ears of its horrific quality  afterwards, the Werne dubbed version of the intro song…

Final Thoughts: Wolf’s Rain

Hello! In case you missed my first impressions of this anime series then let me sum it up for you. When I started watching Wolf’s Rain I thought it was one of these overtly serious series where the plot makes about as much sense as making a robot that can dance the salsa. The opening was depressing, a little gay and I have to say that initially the only things I saw as worth-while about the series was how easy it was to make fun of it and how kick-ass the main theme song was.

Then around episode 7 things really got serious but in a good way. There were new characters, the old ones got fleshed out more, there was more comedy and in general I started to like the characters much more than I did. Tsume, or Leather Fag, stopped annoying me so much although there were still times his outfit would make me gag. Kiba, the Emo-Kid, wasn’t quite so Emo any more. Hige, or Generic Anime Hair dude, was the most likeable of the bunch from the start but once the drunk hunter-guy’s half-wolf hunting dog, Blue (called “B’ruu” by everyone in the series), began to take the form of a bootilicious babe he was given a wholly new character motivation.

Toboe, a.k.a. Ginger Bitch, never really grew on me because I really hate that kind of a whiney character. Still, I felt it was kinda unfair what happened to him at the end.

Okay break down of stuff…

• Characters – Though I made fun of them they’re actually what keeps the series going and they all went through some kind of a development arc as the series went on so I was really happy about that. Only Lady Jaguara or Jagala (whichever you prefer) came off as being a slightly under-developed character but at least she was hot. I have really conflicted feelings about Lord Darcia who comes off as being the series’ main villain at the beginning but his character goes deeper than that. Still, what he turned out as in the ending was a little unexpected.
• Animation – No problems here. The animation from episode to episode was almost consistently above average which is quite admirable.
• Music – A mixed bag in more ways then one. Definitely a lot of variety and most of the tracks were very memorable – but the thing that bugged me were the handful of really dopey and silly sounding tracks that were used. The Indian humming song was alright for the episodes where there were Indians but when it got used again later on it made very little sense (plus it sounded kinda inherently comical in a sense).
• Plot – I have very conflicted feelings about the plot. I thought the basic premise was a load of tripe and I can’t say seeing the series finale has changed that. Rather I enjoyed following the individual character arcs right up to the last four episodes but the actual main storyline was quite depressing on several levels. One of which was the fact that the show tricks you since you actually see how the series is going to end at the very beginning.
• Recap episodes – A major negative point right in the middle of the series. Four entire episodes were dedicated to showing shortened versions of prior episodes. I really hate these types of episodes and I wish that for DVD releases they’d actually throw episodes like these out the window because nobody wants to watch them. Same thing with beginning-of-an-episode recaps and end-of-episode teasers (the last thing I want is for the previous episode to spoil what’s gonna happen in the next one).
• The Final Four – I’m not gonna lie. The last four episodes of Wolf’s Rain have got to be the four most depressing final episodes of any anime. I wouldn’t really care if the series hadn’t actually turned out so good up to that point. On episode 26 I thought the major plot-developments were over and done with and that these last four were supposed to be a sort of wind down. Instead it just wrecked everything that happened up to that point and like I mentioned in the plot-section, the ending is one of the more depressing things about the whole thing.

Before we get to the more spoiler-laden section of this review I’ll give my final thoughts. Wolf’s Rain was in fact a good series but not an excellent one. The plot itself was shit in my view but the characters were likeable and their personal journeys were what made the series watchable. However, I think the series took too long to really get properly started (seven episodes in), it had four annoying recap episodes, four depressing final episodes and six which were just mediocre. 14 episodes or almost half of the entire series right there. I’d be willing to say the 16 others do make up for most of it but not all as I already said that the four last episodes are in that disappointing set of 14.

Who do I recommend Wolf’s Rain to? Anyone with a high threshold for standing angst, suffering and guys in tight leather jackets. I wish Wolf’s Rain’s ending would have been better because then I’d have the heart to call it worth-while anime. Right now it’s barely there.

Over-all Rating: 2.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS

Series prediction turn out…

• The others are gonna turn on Kiba at some point. – DIDN’T HAPPEN: Really only Tsume ever had any disagreements with Kiba which was surprising. I think it’s because Cheza’s, or the Girl in a Tank-Full of Unicorn Jizz, appearance made everybody so buddy-buddy towards the end.
• The Girl in a tank-full of unicorn jizz and the Ginger Bitch are gonna become friends – SORT OF DIDN’T HAPPENED: Really all the wolves liked Cheza but I guess it sort of did. On the other hand Kiba was clearly Cheza’s favorite, to the point where they are technically a couple. Stupid question of the day: Is it bestiality since Cheza is technically a plant? =P
• Leather Fag is gonna die which will lead to the Ginger Bitch to either manly up, commit suicide or go on a rampage – SORT OF DIDN’T HAPPEN: Because Ginger Bitch, or Toboe, was killed by the bad guy first. However, Toboe protected the old drunk hunter dude with his life and fought a fucking Walrus in a prior episode so I guess Toboe did manly up towards the end.
• Cher will die – DID HAPPEN: But now I wish it hadn’t. For a while Cher appeared to be a cold-hearted bitch and she showed all the signs of a scientist character whose gonna die. However, right up to the third to last episode she survived relatively unscathed and seemed for a bit like she and Hubby were gonna walk away from the series a-okay. Then she falls off a cliff in a car. =( I wouldn’t have minded if the series hadn’t made me care about her so much up to that point.
• Drunk hunter dude will get killed – DID HAPPEN: But a lot later than I expected. The guy survives a beating, getting left out on the frozen tundra, getting hit by a car and the main villain actually needs to get two shots at him before he croaks. That’s one resilient drunk guy…
• Hubb Lebowski will solve the mystery or die trying – SORT OF DID HAPPEN: Poor Hubby had to live long enough to see both Cher and the Drunk guy die. This one was playing it safe because the only way neither one of these would happen was that Hubby would be suddenly dropped from the series (as it turns out a lot of characters actually come back for reappearances in Wolf’s Rain). This is another Sort of-scenario, Hubby dies but doesn’t get to see the Book of the Red Moon’s final page turn into flowers which predicts what happens at the end. I feel sad for the man with a name too cool for word. Hubb Lebowski, we salute you. =’(

Gonna see Predators today!

Review forth-coming…

Also, seen 7 episodes of Wolf’s Rain now. It’s actually getting pretty good. =D

First impressions: Wolf’s Rain

So I’m watching an anime called Wolf’s Rain right now. It’s bleak, animal-oriented, rubbish sci-fi and even a little gay. However, I’ve been able to at least poke fun at it and it hasn’t been entirely boring either though four episodes in I still don’t really understand what the plot is about.

Well, it’s not so much that I don’t understand the plot but rather what the purpose of it is. The series hasn’t been manically depressing though the first episode was pretty bad. So it’s basically about four wolves who pose as humans in a future where wolves apparently have gone extinct (except that there’s a drunk hunter dude who knows the wolves are hiding and I don’t really know what his beef is with them).

Also there’s a hot blonde scientist chick called Cher who keeps a young girl in a tank full of unicorn jizz (well, that’s what it looks like) and who used to be married to a detective called Hubb “Dandy” Lebowski (a name too awesome for words).

The four wolves are as follows: Kiba – the emo-kid (white wolf), the guy with the generic anime hair (brown wolf), Toboe – the ginger bitch (brown wolf; a boy actually) and the leather-wearing grumpy fag (black wolf). Kiba’s sort of the main character who’s leading the other wolves to a “paradise”, whatever that is. The generic anime-hair dude’s been living in the city and for some reason sticks to him even though he thinks that he’s a little out there. The Ginger Bitch’s name is self-explanatory, he’s a ginger and a bitch – meaning he takes crap from everybody and is a little gay for the Leather Fag.

The Leather Fag doesn’t believe in paradise and doesn’t want to make friends but goes along with the rest of the wolves anyway because he’s being hunted by the police. Yes, apparently wolves are that feared – well okay, there was the semi-terrorist group he was leading at the beginning but I don’t even know what the hell they were doing. The Leather Fag had another Ginger Bitch tagging along with him in the first episode… then he died, explaining why he doesn’t want to make friends. The main thing I hate about the Leather Fag is his clothing, he wears a tight leather jacket that doesn’t cover his belly and his sleeves are sort of half-torn so that his shoulders are exposed. Blatant fan-service goes both ways it seems. =P

Right now my favorite thing about the series is actually the theme song which surprisingly enough is in English. And not in horribly mangled japanezed “Engrish”, but actual, clear, intelligible English. The theme is awesome enough that it actually makes watching the episodes worth while. And maybe after a few more episodes the plot will actually start to make sense. Who knows…

Right now here’s what I think will happen…

• The others are gonna turn on Kiba at some point. He just doesn’t give a fuck about anything, or at least appears not to give a fuck, except for finding paradise. I think either him and the GAH dude* or the Leather Fag are gonna come to blows at some point (*Generic Anime Hair dude)
• The Girl in a tank-full of unicorn jizz and the Ginger Bitch are gonna become friends. If they don’t I’ll be seriously disappointed and the series will be just a tad bit more boring.
• Leather Fag is gonna die which will lead to the Ginger Bitch to either manly up, commit suicide or go on a rampage. Okay, that’s more of me hoping the Leather Fag gets killed… either that or for god’s sake find some better clothes. =P
• Cher will die – she has all the signs of an anime woman who’ll get dusted somewhere down the line. If she doesn’t die it’s because Hubby is gonna take a bullet for her or something (don’t do it Hubb!!).
• Drunk hunter dude will get killed… it’s kinda inevitable, he’s piss drunk and shooting half the time.
• Hubb Lebowski will solve the mystery or die trying. I’m rooting for the former.