Videos

What happens when an anime studio, desperate to cash in on its properties, creates a so-called movie that's about the length of a single TV episode? What happens when an anime licensor snags a 20-something minute "movie" in a franchise completely alien to the North American public, dubs it, and that becomes the first and only representation of the whole thing? Well, you get Ninku: The Movie, a completely superfluous and brainlessly silly feature for a show based on a really, really poorly drawn manga. I mean, really. Just go look it up.

Really.

But hey, penguin farts. That's what the kids are into, right? At least the animation's good.

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In the final part of my look at Ronin Warriors (well, at least until I cover the OVAs, but let's give it a break for a while), I take a look at Lady Kayura, the excellent opening themes, shameless toy marketing, several episodes of just Ryo and Rowen, and one of my favorite concluding episodes in an anime.

But why stop there? Why not a lot of unasked-for drama to pad this sucker out that's just me screwing around with sprite characters? Nothing fancy, just me wasting your time and mine, for the sake of fulfilling some weird desire to do more comic strip storylines.

Enjoy!  

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The 2019 season of Otaku Evolution has started! I'm sure all four of you who watch these videos are jazzed about it. Just as I'm sure you're psyched to see one of my patented long introduction sequences wherein I'm just screwing around with the sprites. Nevermind the blatantly stupid perspective on that meeting room (it's worse if you look at the whole thing), I had this idea of a grief counseling scene where I would stumble in and just be really oblivious to everyone there in favor of the snacks. And yes, that was a dodgy attempt at a German accent for Herr Doktor.

I know nobody gives a crap about my dumb sprite padding material, most especially because if you hadn't ever read my comic strips, there's about zero context, and you can't even read them anymore, except the sparse amount I put up on my DeviantArt gallery. The whole "storyline" bullshit? It's for me. It's basically just for me to work out story ideas I had that I never got to in my strips. Hopefully it provides some kind of atmosphere, regardless of context. But that aside, while I am committed to doing *less* of it in 2019, you'll still see it. It's not like I get any more or less views in videos that have it.

This year's Christmas episode, subtitled A Hastily Prepared Otaku Evolution Christmas, is well-named, because I didn't get the chance to do a lot of the wrap-around atmosphere-setting like in the past years. The best I could do was the usual zoom into Penguinopolis. But I did create a whole new background, a comfy, Christmas-tinged setting from which to anchor my sprite avatar between clips, and I'm deeply satisfied with how it turned out. Yeah, I probably could have gone through the trouble of animating the fire in the fireplace, but it's such a small detail (just pretend it was a fake fire, a light bulb shaped like a fire for the set... besides which, Penguinopolis probably wouldn't have chimneys) and if you're eagle-eyed, you'll notice how appropriate that painting is for the decor.

As the year starts to wind down, I wanted to do a quick and easy review, so that means covering the Takeshi Koike visual feast that is Redline!

So... yeah, that's all I need to say. It's fucking Redline, folks. Wacky Races to the nth degree.

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I thought I'd take on an anime comedy, which I don't normally review. This one, Azumanga Daioh is based on a four panel comic, so naturally it's very episodic even within individual episodes, adapting little jokes into larger pictures. In other words, the basic plot is kind of basic (mostly just high school girls and their daily lives). However, it's anime comfort food. It makes you feel warm and lightens your spirit for a bit, like a fresh oatmeal cookie. It also helps that  English dub is reasonably good, not their best, but better than the average.

Though the Japanese version features Norio Wakamoto as a cat, so...

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So, yeah, Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy is a noteworthy feature. A single, long-formed OVA, basically a movie, it follows the Lupin gang's scramble to get to a family's hidden treasure before a group of ninjas do, all while Zenigata pursues them. Not very unlike your average Lupin feature in that regard, but very well constructed in terms of production values, settings, the chase scenes, and some of the action and comedy. I call it a spiritual successor to Castle of Cagliostro, because it shares a few of the same visual and emotional touchstones. Too bad the English dub is substandard, but I'll get into that at the end of the year. Just enjoy a short rundown and some highlights that illustrate why I think so highly of this title.

It's time again for my annual Halloween video! This time I took a page out of my first year's Halloween fare, Hellsing, with a review of Hellsing Ultimate, the 10-episode more-accurate-to-the-manga adaptation of Kouta Hirano's manga. It's big, it's loud, it's kind of silly, but it's oh so compelling, a monster mash with an operatic flair. So pour a bowl of mini Kit Kats, open a pumpkin beer, and let's watch an OP mega-vampire fight Nazis! Hey, if you're going to be a denizen of a undead horde, don't also be a bigot!

Happy Halloween!

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Ahhh... damn it. Action Channel Month is supposed to, you know, be in one month. September. But for some reason, this one took longer than usual. Well, it's not like I have enough of a following (or any) to dash expectations. If I do this again next year (though I may replace it with another kind of theme month), I'll try to get three videos done on time. I'm only doing a few more videos this year because of personal reasons, but I'll try my best.