Monthly Archives: March 2006

Manga Review: Angelic Layer – Score: 67%

By | March 30, 2006 at 12:03 am | 1 comment

The Essentials

Angelic LayerName: Angelic Layer, Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
Tankoubon: 5
Serialized In: Shonen Ace
Released: July 1, 1999 – October 1, 2001
Story & Art: CLAMP
Published By (Japan): Kadokawa Shoten
Published By (US): Tokyopop

Scores

Story: 6/10 (x3 = 18 pts)
Art: 7/10 (x3 = 21 pts)
Gut Score: 7/10 (x4 = 28 pts)

Total: 67/100 (67%)

Review

Angelic Layer, just like most of the manga series I have read or are in the process of reading, I watched the anime based off the manga series first. In this case, it is a good thing I did, because I’m not sure if I would have watched the anime version of Angelic Layer had I read the manga first.

The first thing to note is it’s length. Angelic Layer is only 5 volumes long, yet a 26 episode anime series was spawned from it. However, this is mostly from the anime series adding to the story in the manga. The content in manga series itself may have been enough for a 12 episode half-season. Maybe.

The story is basically the same: Misaki Suzuhara discovers a new game called Angelic Layer while coming to Tokyo to live with her aunt. Her mother is also in Tokyo, but she doesn’t see her because, her mother claims, she is too busy with work. Misaki starts to play Angelic Layer and gets entered into the Kanto regional games and the bulk of the rest of the story is based on Misaki’s battles both there and in the national tournament.

The story and art are both geared much more for smaller children, I thought. Characters are often drawn more as blobs than as actual people. It is perhaps best described as erratic, especially compared against other CLAMP series I’ve read. It takes on a much more cartoonish look than most manga series.

Meanwhile, the story is very simplistic in nature, with almost no story beyond the fights themselves and Mistaki’s battle, both internal and externally, to win them. Also, some things in the story seem to “just happen” with little or no explanation and with little regard to how likely such an event is to occur, to the point of severely straining any suspension of disbelief.

One serious hit on the manga series is that Misaki’s mother is hardly a sympathetic character at all. Basically she ran away to play angelic layer, leaving her kid behind. The manga series doesn’t even give the somewhat plausible excuses of working on the angelic layer project herself or having an illness she wants to hide. She just apparently went off to win Angelic Layer national championships at the expense of her daughter, yet the manga series seems to think nothing of it. They meet at the end and everyone is happy. Misaki doesn’t seem a bit perturbed that her mother was off having fun for 7 years while Misaki was living with her grandparents and aunt.

To add insult to injury, at the end of the manga series, the relationships that people end up in are pretty much announced, since there is really no development of those relationships during the course of the series. The last chapter almost quite litereally goes “here is who everyone gets with! the end!”

I think if you’ve seen the anime and expect the manga to be fulfilling, you’ll be disappointed. Also, if you’ve read the manga and think it stinks, try the anime out anyway, it is much better. Angelic Layer may be a good book…for kids, but even then it has serious flaws. I was expecting much more of it.

First Read: January, 2006 – February 2006
Do I Own: No (I sold it)
Do I recommend: No, unless your young (maybe)

Sorry for not posting

By | March 29, 2006 at 11:37 pm | No Comments

Sorry for not posting for, well, nearly a week. I was at my parents house from Friday to Sunday and didn’t get a chance to post there, and I’ve been busy with other things for the beginning part of this week, but I’m back. I’ll be posting a new review shortly.

How I Rate Manga

By | March 23, 2006 at 1:49 pm | No Comments

OK, I haven’t rated any manga yet, but I thought I would post this before I do. I’ve finished two manga series, and I’m 2 books away from finishing my third, 3 books away from a fourth, and 4 books away from a fifth, so I may be posting some of those soon.

As with my anime reviews, it’s not perfect, and rather subjective. Also, there is obviously not as much to rate on manga since there’s no animation, no music, etc.

Really, I’ll only have 3 ratings:

Story
Basically the same category as in my anime reviews. Is it creative? Can I believe the story (suspension of disbelief)? Is it something I’ve seen a million times before. Does there seem to be a coherent story or are people just doing whatever?

Art
The comparable category to the animation category in anime. Is the art clean? Does it match the feel of the story? Stuff like that.

Gut Score
And, of course, the gut score. Once again, if I had to give it a score off the top of my head, what it would be.

Story and Art will both be weighted with x 3, and gut score will be weighted x4. All three will, like anime reviews, be rated from 0 to 10, giving a maximum score of 100 pts.

As for percentages, they’re about the same for anime:

90s – excellent
80s – pretty good
70s – average
60s – not all that good
50s and below – trash

Unlike anime, all manga that I read I have purchased (though I may not currently own it anymore).

Anime DVD and Manga releses for Last Half of March

By | March 22, 2006 at 5:45 pm | No Comments

Since most days looks like they don’t have a lot and there are only a few days with large releases, I’m changing this to be bi-monthly, where I’ll post releases on the first and third tuesdays of the month. This list goes through the end of March.

Please note that some of these, especially the manga, may have already been released. These list the DVDs and manga for which today was the targeted release date.

Anime DVDs

Cowboy Bebop Remix Volume 6March 21, 2006

Dragon Ball Z – Saga 1 – Volume 8
Dragon Ball Z – Saga 1 Part 2 Starter Set
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – 2nd Gig – Volume 11

March 28, 2006
Ah! My Goddess – Volume 4
Cowboy Bebop Remix – Volume 6
Dragon Ball Z Movie 6: Return of Cooler (Re-Release)
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Hikaru no Go – Volume 2
Loveless – Volume 2
Madlax – Volume 7
Mai-HiME – Volume 1
Naruto – Volume 1
Samurai 7 – Volume 5

Manga

Full Metal Panic manga Volume 9March 21, 2006
Case Closed – Volume 10
Fullmetal Alchemist – Volume 6

March 27, 2006
Chrono Crusade – Volume 7
Full Metal Panic! – Volume 9
Full Metal Panic! – Overload! – Volume 4

March 28, 2006
The Wallflower – Volume 7

Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures – Anime Review

By | March 20, 2006 at 5:20 pm | No Comments

The Essentials

Dual! Parallel Trouble AdventuresName: Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures, Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari
Genre: Mecha, Comedy, Action, Fantasy
Episodes: 14 total – 13 TV, 1 OVA
Released: TV – April 8, 1999 – July 1, 1999, OVA – December 22, 1999
Based On: N/A
Director: Katsuhito Akiyama
Produced By: AIC
US Distribution By: Geneon

Cast

Character Japanese Cast English Cast
Kazuki Yotsuga: Takayuki Yamaguchi Joshua Seth
Mitsuki Sanada: Rie Tanaka Michelle Ruff
Ken Sanada: Ryunosuke Obayashi Sean Thorton
D: Ai Uchikawa Sherry Lynn
Yayoi Schwael: Chie Nakamura ?
Akane Yamano: Yuko Kobayashi Barbara Goodson
Mitsuki Rara: Megumi Toyoguchi Wendee Lee
Hiroshi Rara: Kenichi Ogata G. Gordon Baer
Ayuko Rara: Doi Mika Diva West

Review

The concept of this particular anime is actually pretty interesting to start with: while constructing a building in a Japanese City, an known artifact is stumbled upon by a construction worker. Not wanting any archaeologists to delay the construction, the boss tells the worker to destroy the artifact. At this point reality splits off into two dimensions – one where the worker obliged and destroyed the artifact, and one where he didn’t.

Move 22 years into the future, a boy, Kazuki Yotsuga, sees visions of giant robots fighting around the city. He sees them so often that he has named them as writes a webpage talking about what he sees. Perhaps not surprisingly, he is ridiculed by his classmates for his “visions.” That is until one day when the most popular girl in school, Mitsuki Sanada, invites him over to her house, saying how interesting his stories are. However, once there it is discovered that it is Mituski’s father, not Mitsuki herself, who is interested in Kazuki.

Upon entering his house, Kazuki is mistakenly transported to the other dimension, where he sees the robots he saw in his visions fighting for real. However, his favorite robot – Hartzenen – is in trouble and has the pilot are open up, revealing an injured woman. Kazuki goes inside to save her, but the opening closes on him. Not knowing what to do, he attempts to control Hartzenen in order to win the battle, and does surprisingly well. After the battle, he stumbles upon Mitsuki, who was also taken to the other dimension. She tells him that his piloting of the robot is a mystery since only women are able to pilot them.

From there, Kazuki fight a series of robot battles alongside Mitsuki and an alien life form found with the artifact – D – against the RaRa Army, who is trying to conquer the world in the name of making it peaceful, and who also happen to have mechas as well.

One of the things someone may notice immediately when watching Dual! is the influence that Evangelion has on the series. The designs on the robots are similar. How the robots are created is another similarity. The three main pilots of the robots is a third similarity. However, Dual! doesn’t go as far as mimicking the psychological ponderings of Evangelion, as Dual! is largely a Comedy.

I think the biggest problem, though, with Dual! is that there was a great potential to explore a great many things dealing with parallel universes, and while the show did some, it seemed to be more concerned with the mecha’s battling while throwing in some comedy here and there instead. There were also some things brought up that weren’t really ever answered that I could tell. For example, every time that Mitsuki and Kazuki get transported from one dimension to another, Kazuki always arrives on month later than Mituski. However, why this is the case is never really answered.

The animation was, on average – average. There were some areas where I thought the animation was pretty good. However, I thought character designs were only average, and the CGI sequences of the mechas being launched reminded me of some of the CGI I’ve seen in mid-1990 PC games. The story was slightly above average I’d say, and maintained a pretty coherent story line all the through the TV series.

I won’t really rate this a good anime. It has several good points and several bad points to it. It’s one that I may enjoy watching if I’m in the mood, but I doubt I’d go as far as buying it. Possibly it’s biggest flaw, though, is that Dual! tries to be too many different genres at the same time: action, romance, comedy, mecha, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. that it ends up not really being any of them very well (except mecha). Also, the additional OVA episode was pretty much unnecessary.

Scores

Animation: 3/5
Story: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Dub: 4/5

Overall: 3/5

First Watched: February, 2006 – March, 2006
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Indifferent

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