Iwa ni Hana

'Tokyo Marble Chocolate (東京マーブルチョコレート)': Where is the X-factor?

So I watched Tokyo Marble Chocolate (東京マーブルチョコレート). This anime is... well-meaning but not exactly the sort of thing that gets me excited. In fact, I have only three things to say about it:

i) This is J-drama animated;
ii) The characters sure have a ton of free time; and
iii) Somehow the X-factor just seems to be missing.

In a way, i) is related to ii) and iii) in that:

• J-drama characters all seem to have all the free time in the world.
• J-drama tend to be formulaic stories that inevitably have happy endings... so why me worry?

So there you have it. Perhaps I am just not sold that easily to anything billed as a romance.

Impressions of the second episode of 'Hakaba Kitaro (墓場鬼太郎)'

[Spoilers ahead]

There is a neat symmetry in the episode, which is all about material gain and survival at large. It begins with Kitaro falling behind his electricity bills and wondering why money is so important. It ends with Kitaro taking money from a dead man and having the same money stolen from him by the Mouse Man. In between, there were also:

• A business chief who worries about what will happen to his company after he dies (which Kitaro finds funny)

• A descendent of the Dracula line fighting for food with a newly awakened yasha.

• Kitaro's father who gets eaten (this is a particularly macabre thing which seems to be peculiar to old-school anime/manga)

The thing with a non-generic show like Hakaba Kitaro is that I still cannot predict how the story will develop by this point, and I am open to surprises.

The Manganimation.net blog

I suppose those of you who speak French would already be familiar with Manganimation.net, a rich source of  the latest news in anime. Recently I just learned that Manuloz (who manages Manganimation.net) also has a blog here. Be sure to check it out.

Russian fansub of 'Toku wo Kakeru Shoujo' to be used in the official R5 DVD release

Do you remember the legendary Roxfan who fansubbed Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo in Russian and English? I just learned from his email that his fansub is to be used in the official R5 DVD release. Here is the link in Russian.

Many congratulations to that! If you know Russian, be sure to check it out!

(Are there Russian lurkers reading this blog? If so, please do not hesitate to speak up. I would love to learn more about the Russian anime fandom.)

'The Apple Incident' and 'Fantasy': from the director of 'The Diary of Tortove Roddle'

Do you remember that little gem The Diary of Tortov Roddle? Apparently, two fantastic animation shorts by the director Kato Kunio (加藤久仁生) are included in the DVD:

The Apple Incident

You may check it out here at Stage6. While I do not purport to understand the idea behind this surreal animation short, my educated guess is that it speaks of how the abnormal gradually becomes normal. The short begins with apples of various sizes falling from the sky and rolling out from nowhere etc. People are amazed. Then they consume the apples. Before long, apples grow on their heads. The apples have become part of their system, so to speak.

Fantasy

A charming little short. I have no word to describe it, except that this is what animation would look like if animation were poetry. You can check it out here on Stage6.

Impressions of the first episode of 'Hakaba Kitaro (墓場鬼太郎)'

Further to my introductory post on Hakaba Kitaro, here are my random impressions on the first episode:

[Massive spoilers ahead]

1) The moral ambiguity was quite a bite to chew and I was initially shocked at the ending. To all appearances, Kitaro would seem to be the cause of these tragedies. However, Kitaro did warn his foster father about the 'ticket to hell' (albeit in vain because of the foster father's curosity). As for the foster grandmother hallucinating that she avenged her son's death by pushing Kitaro off the cliff - I believe there can be two interpretations:

• Kitaro created the illusion for her to see.
• Kitaro did nothing and the illusion was created by herself.

It is not clear whether her sanity is 'restored' afterwards.

2) What is Kitaro laughing at towards the end of the episode? (Great voice-acting with the creepy laugh there.) We know that he says 'these humans are interesting'. But what did he find interesting about these humans? I hope we will find out more about his Weltanschauung later on. (Whatever it is, it sure is not your typical shounen evil-busting Weltanschauung there.)

[Newsflash] Yuasa Masaaki's new anime series 'Kaiba (カイバ )'

Breaking news! Master Yuasa (of Mind Game and Kemonozume fame) has an upcoming new TV series called Kaiba (カイバ ). This is what we know so far:

• It is billed as a refreshing SF love story.
• It will begin to air in April on WOWOW.
• The slogan reads: 'I shall love you even if I have lost my memory.'
• The anime studio involved is Madhouse.

It seems that my wishlist for 2008 is one step to becoming fulfilled!

(Source: ttp://www.madhouse.co.jp/news/news_2008_01.html)

The power and hair of anime characters

An interesting idea appeared during a recent discussion of Mononoke here - namely, that when some anime characters going on power mode, their hair may also magically grows longer. Think the Medicine Seller in Mononoke (though I am sure there are countless other examples out there).

I have always said that anime and manga are akin to folklores and myths, in the sense that certain psychological motifs appear time after time. This example indeed reminds one of the Biblical story of Samson.

'Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi (まんが 日本 昔ばなし)' at Stage6

I believe this post at AniPages pretty much says the last word about Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi (まんが 日本 昔ばなし), but I can't resist pointing out one particular episode in this series called Oshino to Hiwarashi (おしのと火童子). The reason is that it features what I think is the quintessentially Japanese colour combination of white, black and red. (I raved about this colour combination in Otogizoushiand Kemonozume as well. I love this colour combination.)

Be sure to check it out at Stage6.

'Ghiblies (ギブリーズ)': 2-episode anime about everyday life at Studio Ghibli

1) I watched Ghiblies, a 2-episode anime produced by Studio Ghibli about the daily lives of Ghibli staff members. I am not sure if all the characters who appear in this series are cameos of actual Ghibli staff. (Some of the character portrayals are quite scathing - and I don't imagine that it would be a 'Japanese' thing to be so upfront with criticism.)

2) I like the soft colours and lines in Ghiblies, and most of all pictures of food produced in those soft colours and lines. It reminds me of how I am more receptive to the visual stimulation of drawn food instead real food (ie. I get more hungry looking at drawn food than looking at real food). I also have a weakness for eating scenes in anime, and Ghiblies has a quite top-notch eating scene in the the second episode where three staff members visit a curry restaurant for lunch.

An introduction to the new Noitamina series: 'Hakaba Kitaro' (墓場鬼太郎)

Hakaba Kitaro is not only the successor to Moyashimon in the Noitamina timeslot, it is also my most anticipated series in the January 2008 line-up. Anyway, here is my translation of the plot summary from the official site:

It is the 30s of the Showa Era and it has been 10 years since the Second World War ended. With neckbreaking speed of economic development, the rich got richer, but those who struggle to survive at the bottom strata of society continue to increase. Kitaro, the last of the Tribe of Spirits, was born in a grave in such a society. Based on the observations of Mizuki Shibaru of what is hell, what is the human world and what is happiness, the original Kitaro satirizes the human world and expresses the joy of being alive.

In my translation, I was a bit puzzled at to what 元祖・鬼太郎 means. My guess is that it means the original Kitaro before he evolved into the typical evil-beating action hero in shounen manga/anime he later came to be best known as. According to Wikipedia Japan, apparently Hakaba Kitaro was originally a title of a type of paper play called kamishibai (紙芝居) in the 1930s, and in the 1950s it became a series of paper plays. Later, Kitaro became more popularized as his stories were adapted into manga and a number of TV anime series from the 1960s to the present (at least 6 of them including this Noitamina one).

Very little is revealed about the Noitamina version yet, but I don't detect any shounen action vibes so far, so this may turn out to be a unique series after all. I will be sure to write more about this when it goes on air.

(Source: ttp://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/hakaba/)