review

It actually took a couple of weeks to make this (all things considered) pretty short Halloween episode that might be a bit padded, but I'm otherwise pretty satisfied with. Like last year, I didn't want to go with a ghouls and monsters title, I wanted something more psychological, and while there are, in fact, supernatural boogie(pop)men in this, it's very much in the same vein as Serial Experiments Lain in the way it gets you to think about the social commentary as much as the characters and plot, if not more. So enjoy my review of Boogiepop Phantom, a veritable Russian nesting doll of a narrative, and form a few memory butterflies as you watch.

 
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This episode always was a bit of a lull for me. Like the last two there is quite a bit of whirlwind action taking place within the runtime, however it feels like a bit too much time is spent in transit. After putting the kybosh on their nighttime assailants, Hilda and the gang make off for the mysterious ship she spoke to Gene of last week. Obviously this means more space battles…

In the fight for gender equality, I believe women have a more pressing group to compete towards than men: The waifu. You may wonder: “Yo, aren’t waifus women? What makes them different and treated better?” Well, it’s a matter of this.

When you stick a woman in a refrigerator, chances are she’s dead. When you stick a waifu in one, it’s for the purpose of waking her up again for some story element a bit of a ways away. The argument has an issue however in that River Tam was NOT a waifu, nor should be considered one. However, that is another story for another day (That will never come). Let’s get back to Outlaw Star.

I’ve a confession. I never really finished Outlaw Star. I watched the first half until the midpoint of what I remember is the Space Race, and then lost interest after that, except for the then-taboo “Hot Springs Planet Tenrei”. However, thanks to FUNimation and an evolved animu home media market which does not sell 25 to 26 episode series in three-volume two-disc sets with an MSRP of $44.99 each, I have decided to take the plunge once more. It’ll not only be great finishing this, but it’ll also be great having a full opinion on the complete product instead of one where I’m “Oh, what I saw was good but I didn’t finish it.”

Let’s fix this, shall we?

Action Channel bled into October this year, but that's fine, because I'm taking a week or two off to work on the Halloween episode!

Patlabor 3 is a strange beast. It's barely a Patlabor movie, it's barely a mecha movie, it's barely an adaptation of its source material, and it's... well, it's kind of all over the place. It's a kaiju horror film, it's a hardboiled detective noir, it's a thriller, it's a buddy cop film, a tragedy, etc. I'm surprised that Wasted 13 didn't end up being an interdimensional alien. But all in all, still compelling enough to rewatch without trouble.

I just wished Unit 2 was in it a little more. But you can kind of even say that about Patlabor 2, and that's my favorite Patlabor feature.

Yikes, September was supposed to be Action Channel Month, but this is going to bleed into October! Ah well, I can move some things around.

Let's take a look at New Dominion Tank Police!

I know this is a short video, but most of what I can say about this in terms of themes and such I basically already said when I reviewed the original OVA. Here I concentrated on some of the newer things happening to our favorite ragtag tank maniacs. Well, they do seem a tad less impulsive, but there's plenty of collateral damage, nevertheless. But what I've done here is just a basic overview type of review without bells and whistles.

Honestly, I'm not getting enough feedback to keep doing the bookend material in every video.

It's September, so naturally it's time for another Action Channel Month (though I've fallen behind a bit, so expect some delays/bleeding into October). The Encore Action Channel provided me with a lot of anime to chew on in the early aughts, just when my anime fandom was kicking in highest gear, but they weren't all Macross Plus and Metropolis. Some of them were just Vandread, a show that's... well, somewhat memorable, at least, if just for the premise alone.

Sometimes anime titles slip through the cracks of my fandom, even titles that are fairly well known and appreciated. Back in the day, Key the Metal Idol was one of those titles that I'd always heard of and read about, but I never got around to actually watching it. Since it's part of the zeitgeist of my formative years as an anime fan, I thought I'd watch to review here.

SPOILERS

These final few episodes go out as you would expect them to if you’ve been paying attention to how I’ve been writing these. I’ll just laundry list some key points, make an additional comment, and get to the real meat of this article: looking back at the entire series and what happens moments after the crux of the finale.

Here we go:

SPOILERS

We’re getting somewhere here. Going to a place where all series have gone before, the continued build up to series finale fraught with intensity and uncertainty.