review

Akira Toriyama, creator of manga like Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, and Sand Land, sadly passed away on March 1, 2024. He left behind a legacy of colorful work, worlds of wonder that continues to impact people the world over. Since I review anime, and not manga, I wanted to pay tribute to Toriyama in a way that reflected his own personal efforts, so I chose a Dragon Ball Z movie that he actually had influence over, Battle of Gods, whose story he constructed. Of course, I also mentioned his work in video games.

I reviewed Space Battleship Yamato 2199 partly because I wanted to discuss the original series (which I also rewatched for this video), but also because the remake is pretty damn good on its own. The Yamato franchise is almost iconic as Gundam, at least to me. I just recently discovered a whole 8-episode series, 2205 (The New Voyage) was released a few years ago as a sequel to 2202 and Crunchyroll still hasn't licensed it! And there's more Yamato coming out! What else am I missing out on?!

Ah, City Hunter. It reminds me a lot of Lupin III. Except, you know, not as good. Sure, the TV series is pretty fun and has a variety of different stories and situations for Ryo to get into, but when they try to extend it beyond that, it can be painful. Take this special, Secret Service, for instance: the movie-only characters are dull and the story drags unnecessarily. Could it be that City Hunter is better in small doses? Ryo certainly is.

Shinjuku Private Eyes, now that's a worthwhile City Hunter feature! Maybe I should have reviewed that.

One final video for 2023, folks! As usual with my last video of the year, I go over the various English dubs of the anime I've covered in roughly the second half of the year. The strongest dubs were probably Gundam Unicorn and One Piece: Episode of East Blue, though I think most of the dubs I covered in this half of the year were at least decent. ADV's dub of Macross notwithstanding. (Yikes.)

I've been meaning to get to The Irresponsible Captain Tylor for a while now and it seems like kind of a tragedy that I'm only getting to it when The Right Stuf is going away. This is a show Rob really likes, and I can see the charm. It's not as much a biting satire as, say, Patlabor, but it does have a similar spirit of comedy, where you have a fun ensemble cast and comedy-of-error hijinks. It's more of a parody of space operas, but with enough of its own character to not just be a collage of references. It's a really fun show!

My Dailymotion page

I've been meaning to get to the One Piece in some form for quite a while, and Episode of East Blue seems like as good as any a place to start, or maybe even better, since it encapsulates a lot of the early One Piece adventures and character backgrounds. And fortunately, this also coincides with the Netflix live-action TV series, which, as I say, is miraculously good. Well, maybe it's less a miracle and more really hard work from the cast, writers, set designers, and others. It's really, really good. Go watch it!

My Anime News Network review of Gundam UC Episode 1

Dragon Ball Z has one of those dubs that's extremely popular despite it being such an affront to the original material. Why is that, I wonder? I'm guessing it's mostly nostalgia. The same people who rave about how you have to watch DBZ dubbed are the ones who rant when there's a slight translation difference in any other anime. Hypocrites, in other words. If a company did today to an anime what Funimation did to DBZ decades ago, there would be a huge controversy over it, and you know it.