Early in the afternoon on April 14th I happened upon my email, and noticed that FUNimation had sent me a little "something", and discovered it was my official invite to finally cast off the shackles of standard site service, and join the all new FUNimation Beta. Not only is it nearing the end of its beta testing phase, it is now ready to handle the load of full usage.
This is not just a forum/message board either, it is a full service social site featuring integrated digital streaming, with community functionality. Think Facebook meets Hulu and you are getting close.
The launch of the site took place just a day before the announcement that the old FUNimation message board will be closing its doors April 28th, and while many of the fans of the forum are disheartened to see the old playground go the way of the dinosaur, it certainly didn't stop them from jumping ship as soon as the doors of the Beta were swung wide open on Thursday.
There are still many glitches and minute bugs that are being worked out, and there is a section dedicated to reporting those to the site builders. In addition, members of the site can make suggestions and offer advice on features, and things they feel will give the community boards a better feel.
It has been promised by the administration there, that the FUNi-Beta forums would also feature more involvement from the moderator team, but since the doors were opened we are still wondering where to spot them at, and how to really tell them apart from the casual members.
It isn't everyday that a new social site opens its doors, and I for one and still reeling from the notion that I have to abandon my 3000+ post count at the old site in exchange for this newbie one.
The video streams are not much of an improvement, though navigating them seems a little better. For those with a weak internet connection, you will not be satisfied in the least with the speed of the viewing, and will encounter stall and stall while watching your One Piece clips.
For those nerds interested in taking a peek at what the minds at Flower Mound have been up to, you can check out the new social site here:
FUNimation Beta
Showing posts with label FUNimation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FUNimation. Show all posts
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is definitely one such anime. Aside from the single greatest hunk of trash ever made -- I'm pointing at Suzuka here -- it isn't complete devil spawn, but it most certainly ranks in the top "Worst Anime" I've seen this year.
It isn't any surprise to know that Nanoha is actually a spin-off of a series of H-games and OVAs called Triangle Heart, in which Nanoha Takamachi plays a reletively average role. The anime was produced by Seven Arcs, which isn't any big shock considering they are also responsible for shows like "White Album" and the highly sexualized "Sekirei".
The premise of the series is obviously a complete rip-off of almost every other magical girl title released in Japan, and the characters are about as compelling as a sack full of dry, once wet, and deformed cardboard.
The plot is also very familiar, reminding me of Cardcaptor Sakura mixed with a little bit of Sailor Moon; but I'll explain why a bit later on. It's not to say that the plot doesn't have good potential, it's just that combined with the characters, and the story progression, it stalls in too many places.
The story of Nanoha revolves around middle-school girl Nanoha, and inter-dimensional traveler shapeshifting mage Yuno, who while in his own world accidentally let loose some powerful artifacts called "Jewel Seeds" which just so happened to come to Earth and start making a bother of themselves.
It's not very clear if the roman numeric gems are cognitive or not, but they manifest and start taking names, and conveniently start appearing one by one . Yuno being something of a better-than average magical boy, does his best but gets torn up, and summons the help of the first person who can hear his telepathic plea for assistance.
Now as soon as Nanoha arrives on the scene Yuno has exhausted his magic and becomes some sort of talking ferret, enter the Cardcaptor rip off of Kero, along with the premise of needing to capture something before the world is wrecked -- and you get the idea.
For the next several episodes it's pretty much business as usual, and Nanoha and ferret companion take on the daunting task of capturing all the Jewel Seeds. The transformation sequence is really un-necessary, and is rather embarrassing to watch, since Nanoha is reduced to a naked Barbie doll body in each one as she gets stripped and re-clothed with her battle costume. Insert face-palm here.
After about half of the series, there appears the token antagonist named Fate, along with Dog-girl familiar-slash-sidekick "Arf"; no, I'm not making that up, a Dog-girl named Arf, they should have just named her Woof!
So the first thing the two middle school girls do is fight. Yup, Fate is evil, and wants to collect the Jewel Seeds for her wicked cruel abusive mother Precia, and Nanoha just wants everyone to get along, and sure enough, she gets her pip-squeak ass handed to her. Jump ahead a few more episodes, they meet and fight, and Nanoha gets beaten. Jump ahead again -- they meet and fight, and after a while you get the feeling that it's going to be a long and bumpy ride.
Now I'm not trying to imply that Nanoha can't handle her own against Fate, but all her "I just want to be friends" chanting repeatedly makes her annoying and usually a sitting duck, for Fate's attacks. So for a good portion of this anime, you just sit and groan internally over the brutal treatment of Fate by her mother -- which includes S&M style beatings -- and the fact that Fate wants to get the Jewel Seeds for her, and the fact that Nanoha is losing her own friends to all her secret-keeping ways. Dear Lord, this show is an out right mess.
It gets further complicated when the "Time Space Administration Bureau" shows up and FINALLY breaks up Nanoha and Fate from wrecking the fabric of the cosmos with their magical tug-of-war over the seeds, and then she and Yuno get recruited by them to save the universe or some nonsense by helping them to officially collect the Jewel Seeds.
What started out as a cute and entertaining magical-girl show, quickly went sour very fast. It has too many gaps in the plot, not enough elaboration on the secondary characters, and things that -- were they added or expanded upon -- would have made it way more rounded of a story altogether.
In short, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha isn't just a bad series, it's a bad concept from start to finish. It isn't entertaining in the least, and has way too many slow moments that could be better spent offering the viewers anything other than what they are getting.
It seems that in their attempt to cash in on the Cardcaptor Sakura fanfare the creators of Nanoha failed to realize that Sakura & Co. had an equal balance of drama, comedy and cute. Nanoha has none of that, while crammed into a meager 13 episodes. It's no wonder the series seems convoluted and strangely warped by its own premise.
I can't say that I would recommend this show to anyone, as it only makes me regret having spent the cash for it.
Bottom line; this show is pointless, and accomplishes nothing. The only people that would really like this show are the ones that just have a pre-teen fetish and enjoy watching the transformation sequences; because it can't be because of the story or plot, or characters themselves.
Avoid this one at all costs.
SPOTLIGHT: Linebarrels of Iron
Ahhh, Linebarrels of Iron!
Back in 2008, for Anime Insider mag, I interviewed series producer Hiroyuki Birukawa and director Masamitsu Hidaka about the title; since that mag's now defunct, I'm guessing there's no problem sharing it here since FUNimation over in the US this month released the DVD box-set of the first 12 episodes.
Ask veteran Pokémon director, Hidaka, about his involvement helming the Gonzo series, Linebarrels of Iron (鉄のラインバレル, Kurogane no Rainbareru) and his response comes across as excited as it is free-wheeling.
“The story within the original comic consisted of exciting battle scenes and the fascinating stories of each character,” he explains. “So, I’ve placed a special value on those points when creating the animation version. I’m always trying to work out how I can showcase the cool and coquettish mecha battle scenes - both by employing a sharp sense of speed and presence, and by including contemplative action scenes in the animation. And while I’m aiming high for the twin ideals of beautiful and cool, it’s still, beneath it all, cute mecha-anime! I just hope you enjoy it, and that it’s fun for fans to watch.”
In most celluloid productions it’s the director who dreams, creates the art, and has his head in the clouds. The producer is the grounded financier who stabilizes the ship, handles the organizational side of things, and sees the big picture a little clearer. They’re often also the people who see the production through - from a scrap of note-paper to the screen version.
So it seems with Linebarrels of Iron series producer, Hiroyuki Birukawa, who has been with this particular anime title since Day One.
“I know the chief editor of the monthly magazine, Champion Red, published by Akita Shoten here in Japan,” Birukawa informs me.
“He and I have known each other for quite a long time, and one day he showed me the latest manga they did - and it was Linebarrels of Iron. The moment I saw that sample comic, I knew that this was something I wanted to create as an animation, and asked them for the rights to create it.”
Birukawa previously dabbled with another famous Gonzo production, Last Exile, and is quite clearly the man to talk to when you want a concise explanation of the storyline behind the studio’s new series.
“The main character, Kouichi Hayase, was an ordinary kid in high school, who was constantly teased but had a dream of someday becoming a hero,” recounts Birukawa, with the heroic patience of a man perhaps used to dealing with less focused types.
“The first cool point of this anime may be how this character develops through many events, including a parting with good friends, to become a true hero. The second cool point is the mecha action. As you may have seen in the past, all 3D robot-action scenes always had a rectilinear movement, which was quite unreal. The director, Hidaka-san, and I have talked about this quite extensively - and we’ve gone back to how 2D robot-action scenes were shown, in order to include that point within our 3D robot-action scenes for Linebarrels of Iron.”
Birukawa’s fascinating lesson, which threatens to put this writer out of a job, is far from over. He has more about the new series that he’s keen to share - and enlighten us with along the way.
“If you’ve seen the series trailer, Linebarrel strikes a particular pose, before stabbing ARMA, the enemy robot. It’s like kabuki, wherein you adopt one pose before you give it movement.
"We actually call it tame in Japanese. We believe tame and kire - fast action moves after tame - are the most important points when showing cool mecha action. And Hidaka is a pro at robot action.
“Also luckily for the 3D action scenes, we have Itano-san [Ichiro Itano, the director of Blassreiter and veteran planner of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross], who is fantastic at checking these kind of scenes and translating them into action.”
Adding to the superlative mecha developments is the teamwork involved in the series structure, scripts, and ideas.
“The creative producer, Goro Taniguchi, has so many excellent ideas about the animation he wants to include, while Kiyoko Yoshimura is fantastic at including these, as well as expressing character descriptions in the story.”
Despite his professional nature and assured eye on the whole production, you can almost see Birukawa blush when it comes to talking up his favourite character in the series.
“It’s Emi Kizaki,” he admits. “She is cute, sexy, and also smart! There’s a Japanese slang word, tsundere [meaning a volatile personality that ends up being good-willed] and she has that perfect tsundere factor...”
© 2008 Eiichi Shimizu,Tomohiro Shimoguchi, Akita Publishing/GONZO/Linebarrel Partners
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