I’m happy to review my favorite Lupin III TV special, Episode 0: First Contact. Actually, it’s one of my favorite Lupin features period, and one of my favorite anime movies. It’s got everything I’m looking for in a Lupin feature: a great heist, excellent character balance, spot-on action and comic beats, a living atmosphere, good tone, and enjoyable music. It’s a blast from start to finish, hitting all the right emotional notes. Fortunately, Discotek recently had this dubbed into English and put on Blu-Ray. I jumped at the chance to do a video on this.
Videos
Otaku Evolution Episode 216 – AD Police Files
I’m typing this in a particularly irate mood, because I’m sick, a package I’ve been waiting for is late (despite having paid extra to get it early), and several of my videos have been blocked on YouTube. There’s not a whole lot of good tidings to give today. I’m just as liable to put a cigarette out in your eye socket. And I don’t even smoke.
AD Police Files is an okay anime, and basically that’s it. Everything AD Police Files does has been done better in anime like Ghost in the Shell or it’s own predecessor, Bubblegum Crisis. If you’ve seen Blade Runner and Robocop, you’ve seen AD Police Files. It’s not unique in the same ways Bubblegum Crisis is, doesn’t have its own flavor to add to the remix of elements. I have zero motivation to revisit this anytime in the future. But hey, if you want to watch it, that’s just fine. It’s only three episodes. You could waste your time worse.
Otaku Evolution Episode 215 – Case Closed: Countdown to Heaven
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve attempted to cover a Detective Conan/Case Closed movie. TMS always finds a way to screw me. Sure, occasionally I can still use clips that are a tad longer than they ought to be, but I’ve shortened my clips so much at this point that they’re practically a series of screenshots. I decided to give Countdown to Heaven a chance, given that it actually involves the Black Organization… kind of, and I like that arc. I wish Discotek would pick up these early movies and redub them with the current cast and dub some of the ones in between the ones Funimation did and the ones they’re now doing. There’s plenty of them.
Otaku Evolution Episode 214 – Mobile Fighter G Gundam (Part 2)
I’ve been feeling a bit better these past few weeks, so I have more motivation and ideas for videos. In this part of the review, I wanted to get a little more philosophical about the anime I’m covering, even if it is a colorful and silly series like G Gundam which doesn’t exactly lean on sophisticated thinking and understanding. Sometimes even the dumbest and simplest things can jog the brain. And I wanted to be a little more creative about how I covered this.
Of course, I also had to acknowledge that I actually have the Devil Gundam in Penguinopolis’ lower levels. It’s used to protect the colossal city-fortress with its self-repairing nanomachines.
Otaku Evolution Episode 213 – Mobile Fighter G Gundam (Part 1)
I’m back, people! I usually take January off, but I happened to need February off, too, because of mental health issues. It’s one of the reasons I’m tackling my very real existential crisis in the opening bit of this video and probably throughout this season. But most importantly, I’m back to reviewing anime, and wanting to cheer myself up, I picked G Gundam, because it’s a deliriously fun show by that master craftsman Yasuhiro Imagawa (who you may remember is one of my favorite anime directors).
Otaku Evolution Episode 212 – Year End English Dub Review VIII
2021 wasn’t a lot better than 2020. There was an attempted coup in the U.S. which has so far gone largely unpunished in terms of its instigators. The COVID-19 pandemic continued. The Q people became even more deranged. China is looking to invade Taiwan and Russia is looking to invade Ukraine. And Elon Musk is still a fountain of bad ideas who still has a huge fanbase. I’ve personally found myself in an existential crisis as of late, and one of my few comforts is this series of anime review videos almost nobody watches. So, yeah, a real banner year.
Otaku Evolution Episode 211 – Favorite Anime Directors
So I sort of gave up on doing specifically Christmas-themed videos, because I couldn’t really find much more Christmas-related anime to review. And it was getting old, anyway. So here’s the new tradition: anime lists! This time around, it’ll be on my favorite anime directors. There’s no particular order or hierarchy here, just seven directors I especially appreciate.
Merry Christmas!
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Otaku Evolution Episode 210 – Lupin III: Dead or Alive
As we come close to the end of the year, I want to touch upon the Lupin III franchise again, this time covering something actually good. The theatrical anime, Dead or Alive, is hardly the greatest Lupin adventure, but it’s certainly one of the better ones, especially compared to the last one I reviewed, Farewell to Nostradamus. Monkey Punch himself directed this one! Well, kind of. He mostly just worked on the opening sequence and probably consulted through the rest of it, leaving the bulk of the work to the Chief Director, Hiroyujki Yano, and the rest. But it certainly has that somewhat darker, sharper Monkey Punch Lupin touch to it.
Otaku Evolution Episode 209 – Samurai Champloo
Ah, Samurai Champloo, Shinchiro Watanabe’s OTHER mash up of a genre (this time, samurai period piece) and a music type (hiphop). It lives in the shadow of Cowboy Bebop, but what doesn’t? It’s still a pretty solid show with colorful characters and great action. It doesn’t need to surpass Bebop to be good.
Since nobody’s watching these videos, anyway, I figured I might as well really kick in my storyline ideas, especially since we’re nearing the end of the year, and next year I’m doing less of it (and fewer videos, period). Here we have my unfortunately poor handling of the Lithos situation. We haven’t really seen me in action except in flashbacks. And frankly, we still won’t, because the Lithos are so much stronger than I am. I think you’ll see that my showing up will not help the situation at all.
Otaku Evolution Episode 208 – Voice Actor Appreciation 3
So, I’ve decided to do another of these videos that highlights various voice actors for anime, three Japanese, three English-language ones. I do this because it seems like I can be a little negative in my reviews and I wanted to talk about something I do enjoy, the talents of several voice actors. Here I highlight Masako Nozawa, Koichi Yamadera, Junichi Suwabe, Michelle Ruff, Crispin Freeman, and Colleen Clinkenbeard. Next time, I’ll get back to reviewing in my usual style, and with some storyline stuff, too.