Upcoming Anime Movies

Later this summer, they’re some good anime movies coming out I wanted to check out. Granted they are only in Japanese theaters, with the exception Miyaki’s Ponyo (coming to US theaters on 8/14), they may eventually come stateside. Most likely as dvd/blu-ray releases rather than theatrical releases.

But here are the trailers for upcoming anime movies:

Summer Wars (Japanese Release 8/1)



Synopsis: When timid eleventh-grader and math genius Kenji Koiso is asked by older student and secret crush Natsuki to come with her to her family’s Nagano home for a summer job, he agrees without hesitation. Natsuki’s family, the Jinnouchi clan, dates back to the Muromachi era (1336 to 1573), and they’ve all come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of the spunky matriarch of the family, Sakae. That’s when Kenji discovers his “summer job” is to pretend to be Natsuki’s fiance and dance with her at the birthday celebration. As Kenji attempts to keep up with Natsuki’s act around her family, he receives a strange math problem on his cell phone which, being a math genius, he can’t resist solving. As it turns out, the solution to the mysterious equation causes a bizarre parallel world to collide with Earth, and it’s up to Kenji and his new fake family to put reality back in order.


Ponyo (US release 8/14)



Synopsis: A young boy, Sōsuke, befriends a strange looking goldfish whom he names Ponyo. Unbeknownst to Sōsuke, Ponyo is a magic fish who has decided that she wants to live with Sōsuke and the other humans. Unfortunately, Ponyo's decision to give up her underwater life creates a crack in an ancient magic spell, and places the world in danger. Together, Sōsuke and Ponyo must set things right.

Cencoroll (Japanese Release 8/22)



Synopsis: A huge monster shows up on the top of a building of an ordinary city, prompting the Defense Forces to go into action and causing the citizens of the city to start an uproar. Yuki, a brave-hearted and naturally inquisitive girl, happens to know a secret. Her friend Tetsu has been keeping and raising a strange creature called Cenco. Instantly becoming fascinated by Tetsu and his pet, a mysterious boy appears with control over the huge monster threatening the town. With that, an unexpected battle begins.

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New episode of Haruhi

Kadokawa is putting up the episodes of Haruhi on a youtube channel. Currently the second season of Haruhi, isnt really a season. They are rebroadcasting the first season, with new episodes placed in between old ones.

They re-aired the first seven episodes of Haruhi, which can be watched on youtube with english subs. Episode 8 is the first new episode, and you can watch it below! Enjoy!

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Expedition Africa

History Channel’s new series is three episodes in and I’m officially hooked. I’m already a history channel freak, as it’s probably one of the few channels I only watch. In fact, the history channel is always on my TV.

The third episode had the expedition crew finally finished their trek over the Uluguru mountains and into the dangerous Mkata Plains. The Mkata plains are the typical image of what I have in my mind when I think of Africa. Flat plains with tall grass, lions, elephants, hippos, you know the whole shebang.

They had to hike through the plains while being surrounded by all sorts of predators out there. And what was insanely dangerous and scary was the fact that they camped at night near a watering hole without protecting the camp. The night vision cameras paned out into the darkness and you could see eyes of hyenas! Man what a show! You can catch Sunday nights on History Channel at 10 PM.

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Shangri-la Review

The first episode of Gonzo’s new anime series, Shangri-la aired this past Sunday and through the magic of Crunchyroll, I was able to watch it a couple of hours after it aired. Whats my consensus? Read on….

Shangri-la is set in Japan sometime in the future. Due to bad pollution and global warming (Al Gore was right!), Tokyo has been turned into a humongoloid forest. This is to help the air purification of the planet. Throughout the forest, small self governing towns, thrive and carefully monitor the carbon pollution.

The main character of this series is pink haired teenager, Kuniko, who is her town’s leader in training. If you are familiar with the world of Naruto, you know each clan has its own city, it seems Shangri-la is similar. Each town must have a leader and it seems that each leader has a weapon heirloom which has been passed down. Oddly they all seem to be small dagger type weapons, but they hold some sort of magical power of course.

Kuniko refuses to use her clan’s heirloom, much to the chagrin of her grandmother, but instead uses her metal boomerang weapon thing. Which is pretty cool, she can take out tanks with that thing.

The first episode started off strong, but I was a bit confused at the end. At first we are introduced to Kuniko and her village and her supporting cast. This was the best part of the episode. The supporting cast is a group of zany people. Like Kuni’s “father”, a cross-dressing man, who appears not to be Kuni’s birth parent, but rather her guardian.

They then try to introduce everything else to the viewer, like the setting, the circumstance of the pollution, the market of carbon, and all of rest of the characters. But it wasn’t done that well, it jumped to scene to scene, and I was left confused. The episode ending with great action and cliffhanger that makes sure to hook the viewer (the magical power I mentioned before).

Even though I scratched my head during the middle of the episode, I’m definitely sticking to this series. I really like Kuniko and her village and I want to see more of them. Plus as usual the animation was pretty dang good, as expected from Gonzo. And one of my favorite Japanese artists, Range Murata, designed these characters, so they all look fantastic.

Check out the opening theme of Shangri-La below.

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I'm on a boat! I'm on a boat!

The latest vid from Sandberg and crew is awesome! Its hilarious, well done, and a good song. Check the video below, but be warned F bombs are a dropping.

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Toradora! Anime Review

My taste in anime usually is pretty sappy. I prefer to watch slice of life anime series, which tend to be comedies, rom x coms (romantic comedy), dramas, or a conglomeration of all three. Not to say that I don’t like any other genres, I am a guy after all, and I need my dose of mayhem, explosions, and carnage just like any other red blooded male. But on occasion I like to relax and enjoy slice of life comedy. So naturally, I gave Toradora! a try.

Toradora! is about RyujiTakasu, a gentle high school student, with a scary delinquent face, due to his estranged gangster father. Upon first encounters, people are terrified of him, in fact they tend to throw their wallets at him and run away. So of course he is utterly hopeless about getting a girlfriend. He ends up being in the same homeroom with his best friend, Yusaku Kitamura and his mega crush, Minorin Kushieda. On his way to school, he encounters the “school's most dangerous animal of the highest risk level", Taiga Aisaka.

Taiga, who happens to also be in Ryuji’s class and is a good friend of Minorin’s. Taiga has a huge crush on Yusaku, and upon realization, Ryuji and Taiga form a pact. They vow to help each other confess their loves to their respected crushes.



Toradora! starts out with a good premise, granted it has been done before in other rom x coms. But here it somehow feels different in this series. I believe it’s the characters in this series. They’re all so well acted and written that it feels new and not “cut and paste.” Around the midway point, the drama gets more prevalent as the characters develop and we see more about their backgrounds and feelings. There are a couple of clichés in the series, and at times can be predictable, but Toradora does it so well, I didn’t care.



In fact the production of the series was fantastic throughout all of the episodes. Not once did I notice a dip in quality of the animation, music, or anything. I have to give major props to J.C. Staff, the animation studio, as they delivered top animation every week for twenty five straight weeks without any breaks.



While I thoroughly enjoyed this series, there is a couple of nitpicks I have to point out. The ending of the series seemed a bit rushed, which I could see coming as the pace of the earlier episodes was a bit slow. It seemed like around 20 episode mark, the creators realized they only have 5 episodes left to finish the story. So they quickly wrapped up the story.

In fact, I think they could have used one more episode and it wouldn’t have felt rushed. But regardless of this, the ending of the series gave me the usual melancholy feeling. I felt happy and sad at the same time, which to me is a good measure of a good anime. I got so caught up in this series; it pains me that I’m done.



I want more episodes! It is popular over in Japan, hopefully DVD sales there will warrant a second series. I would also love if a company will license Toradora for release in the states, this series is just too good for US fans of rom x coms to miss out. So in conclusion, I give Toradora! an 8/10!

Also check out the new video I put up. Its the second ending song for Toradora!.

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Gonzo's Shangri-la debuts 4/5

Gonzo’s new anime series, Shangri-La, has just released a short trailer. The new series is set to debut this Sunday, April 5th, and it looks amazing!

Shangri-La shows the story of what happens to Tokyo when global warming turns the city into a tropical city in the middle of the 21st century. To reduce the temperature at the heart of the city by 5°C (9°F), the city is being reborn as the world's largest forest city. However, despite the flow of refugees to the new city of Atlas, there are not many residents who can actually live in this sanctuary for the elite. Moreover, anti-government guerillas are attempting to stop the re-forestation. (taken from ANN)

There’s a short streaming commercial found here. Click on the green “CM” link in the corner to view. As expected from GONZO, the animation looks flawless! Let's hope the very high production holds up for the whole series.

You can also check the English official website for the series here. You can look up characters, see some screenshots, and check out the blog.

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