CARTOONS: The Pokemon Plot: How One Cartoon Inspired the Army to Dream Up a Seizure Gun | Danger Room | Wired.com

CARTOONS: The Pokemon Plot: How One Cartoon Inspired the Army to Dream Up a Seizure Gun | Danger Room | Wired.com

Cartoons! FOR WAR!!

Really… A better weapon would be the 3-D Jonas Brothers concert video.

But anyway… Why the hell can’t I find the seizure-inducing Pokemon clip for watching?

Surely someone must have videotaped it… And uploaded it somewhere. LiveLeak?  I’ve looked for torrents and never found it.

I WOULD LIKE TO TEST MY VIEWING MIGHT.

I mean, I gotta be able to take more than a japanese schoolkids, right? How bad can some fucking flickering cartoons really be? I want to judge their wussiness by seeing it myself.

LINK URL: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/seizure-fever-dazzler/

UPDATE! FOUND IT! WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK! But really…. pffft if this hurts you..

 

VIDEO: List of TV shows watched in 2010

Yes, I keep track of this stuff!

We watched over 174 movies in 2010. This was a 28% drop from 2009 (241 movies), so our TV-series viewing was up in 2010. We watched 69 series, 12 pilots, 4 specials, 5 one-offs, and 2 documentaries.

Note that I try to list the more obscure stuff first, to the extent it’s possible. NOTE!!! Most links point to reviews I’ve written.

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AWARDS:

MOST FUCKED UP SHOW OF THE YEAR: Still Food Party and Tim And Eric Awesome Show,Great Job! — just like last year. HONORABLE MENTION: South Park, Kevin Spencer, Check It Out With Steve Brule.
BEST NEW ADULT CARTOONS ADDITIONS: Archer, Neighbors From Hell, Ugly Americans, Where My Dogs At?
BEST COMEDY CARTOON: Metalocalypse / South Park / American Dad / Robot Chicken / Family Guy. Really hard to choose one!
BEST ANIME: Higurashi (honorable mention: Planetes)
BEST PSYCHEDELIC CARTOON: Adventure Time, but it’s very subtle.
BEST LIVE-ACTION COMEDY: Food Party, Sarah Silverman Program, The Office
BEST LIVE-ACTION, OVERALL: The Walking Dead, 24, Weeds
BEST SUPERHERO CARTOON: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
MOST IMPROVED SERIES, COMPARED TO LAST YEAR: Batman:The Brave And The Bold
WORST COMEDY CARTOON: Muddle Earth
WORST LIVE-ACTION COMEDY: Shit My Dad Says
WATCHED THE MOST TIMES IN 2011: PILOT: Totally For Teens – watched three times
MOST DISAGREED ON:  Horribly Slow Murderer With The Extremely Inefficient Weapon, The: Clint: 5/5 stars, 8.4/10. Carolyn: 2/5 stars, 6/10

Series Genres: (comedy=69/78%, superhero/scifi=11/12%, anime: 4/4%, drama 2/2%, horror: 2/2%, action 1/1%):

Cartoons (61/69%) Vs. Live (28/31%):

Quality: 45% in HD this year:

Ratings (includes all rated videos, even shorts): (5-star=39/43%, 4-star=28/30%, 3-star=20/22%, 2-star=4/4%, 1-star=0%):

Read on for the full list.

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“+” indicates series watched in HD.
Netflix ratings (out of 5) are based on: 1=hate,2=didn’t like,3=like,4=really like,5= love.
IMDB ratings (out of 10) are based on: 0=nothing enjoyable, 5=neutral, 6=generic pass, 10=perfect.

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VIDEO: CARTOONS: ANIME: REVIEW: Ghost Stories aka Gakko No Kaidan – of SUPER MILK CHAN interest – shitty anime turned into comic gold

[IMDB link] [Netflix link (get all 5 discs!)] [Wikipedia link talking about the dubbing] Super Milk Chan! One of the most brilliant adult cartoons ever created, and the only one whose brilliance only shines in the *second* English dub, not the original Japanes audio OR the first English dub found on Cartoon Network (For Netflixers, Disc 2s are good, Disc 1s are bad).

Why is Super Milk Chan so brilliant? ADV Films (R.I.P.!). They sometimes take artist license, and create a localized dub where they re-write jokes to be funny instead of stupid. Super Milk Chan isn’t actually that funny in Japanese (or in the literal/1st English dubs). It is ADV‘s sense of humor in rewriting the jokes that made this show a triumph. The Super Milk Chan ADV 2nd/Adult dubs can actually be considered a “remix” of the original cartoon. One that’s actually funny. (Similarly, some of Sealab 2021 can be considered a remix of Sealab 2020.)

After re-watching all of Super Milk Chan for the 2nd time in a decade, I realized that these localized funny-dubs are a rare thing indeed. One must actually do some digging to find out if anything else has been done like this. I read up a lot on Super Milk Chan and ADV films to see if they had ever given the “Super Milk Chan treatment”. From what I could gather, the only other series to receive as through of a treatment from its dubbing process as Super Milk Chan — is GHOST STORIES, the series that this post is about.

So we got it, and we watched all 20 episodes! Rather quickly!

PEOPLE: Mostly a Japanese production involving people nobody’s heard of… But the ADV dubs involve a few voice actors we know:

Hilary Haag (Milk of Super Milk Chan) stars as Satsuki, one of the main characters. Rob Mungle (Milk’s gay landlord from Super Milk Chan) plays Amanojaku. There was a character named Amano Jyaku in Urotsukidoji (Legend Of The Overfiend), and it was not until watching Ghost Stories that I realized that an Amanojaku is actually a class of Japanese mythical beast. It’s weird to watch an anime in 2011 that teaches me something about anime I watched in the 1990s…

Here’s a strange thing: BOTH Tetsuko’s from Super Milk Chan star in Ghost Stories. Marcy Bannor, voice of the gritty, funny Tetsuko from the 2nd/Americanized dubs plays Satsuki’s and Keiichirou’s deceased mother. But Monica Rial, voice of the gentle, not-really-funny Tetsko from the 1st/literal dubs played Momoko. Hearing both Tetsukos in a single episode?! Priceless.

PLOT SUMMARY: High school kids deal with ghosts in their haunted school. Plot-wise, this series is actually lame. “Ghosts” and “cartoons about kids” have rarely been a good pairing. At least Scooby Doo was kind of unique. BUT THEN THEY RE-WROTE THE DIALOG TO THE SERIES, MAKING IT GOOD IN SPITE OF THIS PLOT.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ School district endangers students’ lives.

QUIRKS: Horror anime re-dubbed with American humor.

In Episode 1, their cat gets possessed by a demon that wants to kill them. So yes, one of the main characters is a talking cat. And he’s a pretty good character too. His character evolves over the course of the series.

“Short Bus”, the kid who is re-dubbed as possibly being retarded (at the very least, being *called* retarded), doesn’t really talk until several episodes in. He just cries in this crazy, high-pitched, whiny cry that is HILARIOUS HILARIOUS HILARIOUS. Carolyn & I have spent many minutes trying to imitate “Short Bus”. I am normally excellent in mimicry, but it was a sound I could not make until I had some practice. Carolyn’s still better than me at it. He is hilarious though. Especially at the beginning.

The one girl — they re-wrote her as a devout Christian. Her dialog is hilarious. The only flaw here is that she is more of a supporting character than a main character, so there’s not as many chances for Christian-bullshit hilarity as there could be.

They break the 4th wall a lot, especially near the end of the series. With some of the later episodes, the dialogue involves directly talking about how the show makes no fucking sense at all. I’m sure this is a lot easier to swallow than watching the original Japanese audio, because the original series just looks awful. Just awful.

VISUALS: Indistinguishable from any other generic anime.

MORALS/POLITICS: Devoid of morals and politics. This is just some kids trying to get through their day. Perhaps there is a stupid ghost-related moral: Don’t lock ghosts up in schoolbuildings. Think of the children. Use on of those boxes from Ghost Busters instead. Or a Pokemon pokeball.

GOOD STUFF: My God… No anime on the face of the planet would ever have these kids saying what they are saying. But ADV is quite willing to dub this over someone else’s shitty anime, resulting in hilarity that is far more mature than the original series. THIS IS NOT FOR KIDS!

BAD STUFF: This series failed in Japan. It was poorly written and full of plot holes. It was just poor television.

CONCLUSION: Brilliantly hilarious and irreverent, this series was redubbed in such a way as to make fun of itself, and make it better than it originally was. It’s a remix cartoon, like Space Ghost Coast To Coast, SeaLab 2021, or Super Milk Chan. Any fan of the Super Milk Chan 2nd/Amercanized/funnier dubs should automatically and by default love the ADV dub of this series. They rewrote a character to be a devout Christian, they rewrote a character to be retarded (“Short Bus”, they call him), they rewrote everything because the original series is actually awful. ADV made it brillint. Too bad ADV went out of busines last year — after 17 years of dubbing anime :/

RATINGS:

Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 9/10. Starts with 7/10 episodes, reaches its stride with 8/10 and 9/10 episodes, and ends with 10/10 episodes.

Carolyn: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. “But the last 25% of episodes were 10/10. I must be a fan of breaking the 4th wall, because I always find it funny. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and Toxic Crusaders comes to mind.”

The native public rating for this series is: IMDB: 7.5/10, Netflix: 3.7/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.9/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: It’s kind of hard to find DVDs of the ADV Americanized Dub — but Netflix [see link at top] appears to have them in stock. The first few episodes aren’t as outrageously funny because it takes them a bit to hit their stride. But once they hit it, they hit it hard.

SIMILAR SHOWS: Super Milk Chan (Americanized 2nd Dub).

SHOW QUOTES:

Satsuki Miyanoshita: You can mess with me… you can pick on little brother and friends… but don’t FUCK with my cat!

Satsuki Miyanoshita: [after realizing they've traveled back in time] HOLY TIME MACHINE BATMAN! It’s 1973!
Hajime Aoyama: Holy pre-Parkinson’s Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd Back To The Future plot ripoff device! where’s my DeLorean?
Satsuki Miyanoshita: Pre-Parkinson’s? You are so shockingly hateful.
Hajime Aoyama: I don’t feel sorry for him, he was in “Light Of Day”. [*shudders*]

Phone Recording: [Satsuki attempts to call the Ski Lodge] The number you have dialed is no longer in service. HEY! MAYBE IF THEY PAID THEIR FUCKIN’ PHONE BILL YOU COULD CALL AGAIN!
Satsuki Miyanoshita: Asian trash, can’t pay the phone bill.

Satsuki: [answers phone] “Milk speaking! … I love doing that.” (a direct homage of Milk-Chan answering the phone in Super Milk Chan)

^ Hilary Haag, voice of Super Milk Chan. More like Hilary Hotttttt.

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Memories (1995) (anime) (Satoshi Kon)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PEOPLE: Part 1 is written by renowned master animator Satoshi Kon — but NOT animated by him! (What a twist!) That is how we came to watch this film; his 2010 death prompted us to watch everything with his name on it, since we loved Perfect Blue so much.

The three sequences (this is a collection of 3 30-to-40-minute ‘shorts’) are directed by Koji Morimoto (animator; director of of 1 Animatrix segment; producer of .hack//Roots), Tensai Okamura (animator:Cowboy Bebop the movie, 2 eps of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell), and Katsuhiro Otomo (director:Steamboy; writer:Akira, Metropolis, Steamboy). Well-known Japanese voice actors were used for many of the parts in this movie, but I won’t go into too much detail there.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): It’s like Ghost Ship mixed with Planetes, but without the science, politics, or smoking chambers. And maybe with a sprinkle of Firefly and The Matrix.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): A man unwittingly becomes a living biological weapon, killing everyone around him.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): A militarized society seemingly revolves around the act of firing cannons at the enemy. But does this enemy even really exist?

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARIES (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Garbagemen left to die in space (one exploded, one left drifting alive with limited oxygen).
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): World’s luckiest and most clueless man kills hundreds, humiliates military.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism’s inefficiencies fail to protect children from night raids.

QUIRKS: Three different anime stories with three different looks and feels.

VISUALS: Three different styles. Part 1 is in space, and just looks like mostly generic anime. That is to say, better than American animation coming out at the same time. Part 2 is on earth, and has interesting painting-like backgrounds… A concept quite familiar to Samurai Jack fans. Part 3 reminds me a lot of Rene Laloux‘s unique animation style. Everybody is green and a bit inhuman looking. Plus, they used a really interesting English font, where certain letters also look a lot like runes. It’s just different enough to slow you down reading it, but just same enough to still be readable. Nice touch.

MORALS:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Beware of mind tricks.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): Try not to be as stupid as this guy. Get a clue.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism sucks.

POLITICS:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): None.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): The military-industrial complex engages in all kinds of idiotic behavior. Created to protect us, they make even more money if they endanger us. We should not trust them to work in our best interest. This is why forces like Wikileaks need to exist.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism sucks. (Actually, I think every system can be run in a completely inefficient way, and a better political moral would be that authoritarianism sucks. Communism gets lots of bad rap for the fact that its leaders tend to be brutal authoritarians. However, Part 3 is most squarely aimed at communism and not authoritarianism, so this critique is more about anti-communism sentiment than Part 3 itself.) Also: The threat of war is often manufactured to be worse than it is. See also: 1984 and American Foreign Policy (especially 2000-2010).

GOOD STUFF:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Very creepy and suspenseful, until the mind-tricks start. Space garbage collectors, like in Planetes, end up getting into a Ghost Ship level creepiness. Salvaging inside of an EPICly large spaceship combines claustrophobia and agoraphobia into one giant fearfest. But then, it stops being as good by the end.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): Very funny to watch a military humiliate itself so badly.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): This part actually isn’t nearly as good. The best thing about it is simultaneously the worst thing about it: Longest canon-launching scene EVER in any movie EVER. But it’s a commentary on communism, so people, especially in Asia, should understand this. The cannon is red; could it be any more obvious?

BAD STUFF:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): The ending isn’t nearly as good as the beginning.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): After all that, the only way he is saved is by [highlight for spoilers]→ Marines wearing Nasa suits? THAT’S how you win? But wait! It’s the guy! WTF! D-d-dumbass. And he’s STILL clueless?!?! . This guy has to be one of the stupidest people in existence (yes, even fictional existence!) That ending is a bit of a cop-out.
Parts 2 & 3: What did these have to do with memories, anyway?!?!?
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Longest and most boring cannon sequence in any movie EVER. And the ending is kind of a cop-out. Much like part 2, it’s a twist one way, and then a twist back to where you think it’s going, to create a sort of “fake twist” cop-out ending. Two twists that cancel each other out. [highlight for spoilers]→ Oh look! It turns out there’s no enemy! But oh look #2! It turns out there IS actually an enemy! And communism didn’t save its own citizens from it!

CONCLUSIONS: Even though I didn’t like them individually as much as I had hoped, I really liked the offering of several miscellaneous animated treats that were all interesting.

RATINGS:

Part 1 (Magnetic Rose):
Clint: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars. IMDB: 8.4/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.

Part 2 (Stink Bomb):
Clint: Netflix: 3.2/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

Part 3 (Cannon Fodder):
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.6/10 (a low 7).

OVERALL:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.6/10, Netflix: 3.6/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.5/5 stars–the exact average of our two ratings, as well as the exact average of the 3 ratings I gave individually. However, I actually scored the movie as a whole at 4/5 stars; greater than the sum of its parts).

RECOMMENDATION: Anime-lovers should definitely check this out, what with Satoshi Kon‘s name being on it.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Part 1 reminded me of Planetes meets Ghost Ship!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Tripp loved it.

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: ANIME: REVIEW: Tokyo Godfathers (2003) (anim) (anime) (Satoshi Kon)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: Three bums find a baby on New Year’s Eve.

HAIKU REVIEW: Holiday caper.
Lighthearted optimism,
Homeless heroics.

This movie actually had about 3 haikus IN the film itself. They were used as comedy; it was cool seeing them used as such.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Crazy bitch, bums, steal baby.

PEOPLE: Satoshi Kon just died recently (as of the writing of this review), and as such, we are trying to watch all his movies.

QUIRKS: An anime Christmas story. Kind of rare, since Japan isn’t Christian at all. But they love celebrations and holidays, so they celebrate Christmas in a secular fashion — like many Americans. We have 3 bums — one of which is a transsexual — finding a baby, and trying to return it to its owner. All kinds of incredibly unlikely coincidences drive the story.

VISUALS: Definitely way more anchored in reality than Satoshi Kon’s other movies that we’ve seen so far. (And not just visually so.)

SOUNDTRACK: Weird hearing Christmas songs in Japanese — I really think so.

MORALS: Don’t steal babies. Oh, and probably some deeper spiritual bullshit that I’m not interested in. Allegory about the Three Wise Men, blah blah Jesus blah blah blah.

GOOD STUFF: Satoshi Kon is a master director and animator, so the movie is done quite well.

BAD STUFF: Some people will complain that the Spanish parts [one scene really] were not subtitled, but this is the director’s intention, so quit your bellyaching.

CONCLUSION: A quirky, upbeat, light-hearted New Year’s Eve adventure/mystery/caper, full of hope and unlikely coincidences. Definitely some humor sandwiched within.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. She’s more into sentimental movies than I.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.7/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars. A good guess–it’s the average of our two ratings!).

RECOMMENDATION: People who want good anime — and dislike shitty anime — should check this out.

MOVIE QUOTE: Gin: You can’t get milk from an old queer’s tits, no matter how hard you think.

COINCIDENCES: This movie is full of ‘em!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Some people liked this one. Some liked it even better than Paprika!

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: ANIME: REVIEW: Millenium Actress (2001) (Satoshi Kon)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PEOPLE: A film directed by Satoshi Kon, who died this year — so we’re watching all his stuff.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Old lady wastes life chasing after man who was actually dead most of the time. Filmmakers exploit her dying moments; dementia hallucinations ensue.

VISUALS: There is a surreal element, as the characters interviewing this elderly movie star end up being drawn into her story — much like what happened in The Last Action Hero. And various time periods look different — the stuff that happens in the 40s/50s is very desaturated, almost black and white. Lots of care was taken by Satoshi Kun to get things to look right.

MORALS: Learn when to give up! That’s what I got out of it. [highlight for spoilers]→ She may have enjoyed the chase, but she wasted her whole life on unrequited love. Lame.

CONCLUSION: Too random. Felt like ‘what was the point’ a lot of the time. Seems to be more of an emotional string puller. Reminded me of The Last Action Hero if it were a sappy romance. Carolyn actually liked it, and thought it was an interesting story, but thought it was not as well-executed as Satoshi Kon‘s other movies.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 2/5 stars. IMDB: 5/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.6/10 (a low 7).

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.9/10, Netflix: 3.6/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars–well, at least they knew we’d like this less than average).

RECOMMENDATION: Satoshi Kun completists and hopeless romantics might want to check this out.

SIMILAR MOVIES: I can’t help but say The Last Action Hero, even though the characters and plot are completely dissimilar. It has the same gimmicky “being sucked into movies” kind of feel.

MOVIE QUOTE: “The part I really loved, was chasing him.”

 

VIDEO: CARTOONS: ANIME: REVIEW: When They Cry aka When Cicadas Cry aka Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (2006) / Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai (2007) / Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Rei (2009)

[IMDB link (S1) S2/Kai s3/5 OVAs each have separate IMDB pages] [Netflix link (6 S1 discs only, S2-S3 may not yet be available)] [live action movie that we haven't seen] Found this series by cruising the adult animation tag on IMDB for the highest rated *series* [not movie or short] I had not yet seen. Of course this meant going past the first 20 entries…

PLOT SUMMARY: Oh man, where do I begin? The story happens over and over, but different each time. Some members of town are proponents of a dam that would destroy the town. A cotton drifting festival is held every year, and someone gets killed each year. It’s not even the same killer each time. And yet, everything, by episode 52, makes perfect sense. And you won’t see it coming. Any of it.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, retcon, [highlight for spoilers]→ everybody dies.

QUIRKS: Survival thriller anime masked by cuteness — You think it’s some cutesey schoolkid anime show. By episode 3 or 4, you’re totally creeped out. Even scared. Then the violence begins. Then it gets REAL confusing. In fact, you have to watch the 26 episode first season just to know all of the questions — you don’t get all the answers until the NEXT 26 episode season (“Kai”).

It’s like this, in great part due to the fact that it is based on a doujin (fan created) sound novel game. The “game” has no real interaction, players simply read. The original “game” had 8 chapters: 4 question chapters and 4 answer chapters. The alternate-worlds in the series are a result of transforming this from a “game” to an anime.

VISUALS: Standard anime appearance.

SOUNDTRACK: Standard anime j-pop.

MORALS: Friendship is so important — that it can help you get through the problems of multiple worlds.

POLITICS: As usual, don’t expect the government to look out for you. As usual, small towns are not always the best place for outsiders to be.

GOOD STUFF: The plot and story. Just…wow. Although they aren’t alike, the experience is similar to that of watching Twin Peaks: You’re addicted, the story is always changing, you’re not sure where you came from or where you’re going, questions get answered slowly, and answers beg more questions. The story itself is not surreal like Twin Peaks, but it does have small town demonic elements. You could say that Oyashiro’s curse is analogous to the curse of “Bob” from Twin Peaks. Really, though, I pulled the Twin Peaks comparison out of my ass. It’s just my way of saying DAMN this is a good series. We actually kept notes [which I've included below] as we watched the series, as my pre-watching research indicated that this was going to be complicated.

BAD STUFF: The main characters being school students. But then, this is anime, and that’s how anime typically rolls. And the very nature of the medium of this series is that a lot of things are going to be retconned. You’re going to find out who the killer is in one arc, then in another arc they won’t be the killer, then in another arc things might be completely different. And yet, everything is still amazingly consistent. Even with Hanyuu appearing out of thin air for the 2nd series.

CONCLUSION: This very well may be the favorite anime series out of all the anime series I’ve ever seen.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 9/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 9/10.
This is top grade anime.

The native public rating for this series is: IMDB: 8.6/10 (S1), 8.3/10 (S2), S3 OVAs: 7.9/10, 8.0/10, 7.8/10, 7.1/10, 7.7/10.
The native public rating for this series (Season 1 only) on Netflix is: 3.9/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.6/5 stars–WRONG!).

The 1st series is rated VERY high on IMDB – 52% rating 10/10, 72.5% rating 9-10/10, only 8% rating less than 7.
Yes, the 2nd series is rated VERY high on IMDB – 45% rating 10/10, 65% rating 9-10/10, only 9% rating less than 7.

RECOMMENDATION: OMG! One of my favorite animes ever! Watch it on Hulu or something. But for Kai and Rei, you’re going to have to look on bittorrent. IT’S WORTH IT. Even if you hate anime, the story here is excellent. Excellent!

SIMILAR MOVIES: When The Seagulls Cry aka Umineko No Naku Koro Ni — is considered a “season 3″ or “series 3″ to this, although none of the events or characters have anything to do with the 57 episodes of When They Cry / Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni / Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai / Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Rei.

COINCIDENCES: (Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni #13, Escaflowne manga vision#2) After a [highlight for spoilers]→ volcano killing a whole village in an anime, Clint went to bed, and read some manga with a [highlight for spoilers]→ volcano that killed everyone. Them Japanese sure hate volcanoes!
+(real life, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai #9) They talked about Satako missing school for 3 days and never showing up to the clinic, much like Clint who was in his 3rd day of what was quite likely swine flu, and he, too, hadn’t gone to the doctor.

PLOT SUMMARIES OF EACH EPISODE, TO KEEP THE STORY STRAIGHT: (STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS)

S1:
Spirited Away By The Demon: 1=Rena is creepy (wielding axe), 2=murders introduced,Rena is MORE creepy (eavesdropping on call with cop), 3=OMG more creepy girls,needle in cake+van murder attempts, 4=Rena+Mion did it,Keeichi beats them both to death,leaves note behind clock,claws throat out,piece of note was missing,
The Cotton Drifting[not as creepy as Spirited Away By The Demon]: 5=Reset!?!? Mion/Shion(greenhair) is twins?!, 6=going into shrine they aren’t supposed to,cotton drifting festival deaths are different this time:2, 7=Mion(but really Shion,see#19,but they hint at it) did it. “Too many walking corpses in this case”
Curse Killing: 9=Reset! Pedo-guy wants Satoko(blonde little girl),Rena was cursed once, 10=Satoko’s abuse,pedo-guy’s good,cop’s bad,vomit in the classroom, 11=Keiichi kills Satoko’s uncle (her older bro Satoshi previously killed the aunt), 12=No he didn’t, 13=He killed everyone (whole village). Keiichi did it.
Time Wasting: 14=Reset! About cops now,national safety Akasaka(“Tamitake #2″),town elders revealed, 15=whole village already died,way past 1983;flashbacks,Rika knew it all. Major note with future spoilers: Rika is actually the main character, which is not revealed until the second series.
Eye Opening: 16=Reset! 1981 instead of 1983. Shion has to pretend to be Mion to stay alive,Satoshi introduced(saves Shion from bikers),Shion(Mion?) curses Satoshi+aunt, 17=Shion’s fingernails ripped out to save 3 lives;Satoshi disappears anyway, 18=Shion strangles then forgives Mion,time passes,going into shrine they aren’t supposed to,cotton drifting festival, 19=Shion switches places with Mion[relates to #7],puts Mion in dungeon w/granny(died),abducts grandad, 20=Shion interrogates grandad,Rika fails to kill Shion,killed, 21=basically #7 again,Sonozaki(Mion) family *didn’t* do it all,Shion goes splat,
Atonement: 22=Reset! Rena’s parents explained,her father’s in the process of being duped by a blackmailing whore, 23=Rena kills whore+pimp, 24=they’re after Rena,the curse is simply a virus!,redefining everything, 25=Rena’s infected,Keeichi was a serial child shooter,Keeichi remembers the Spirited Away By The Demon plot above and recognizes Rena is going through the same thing,Rika is mature and understands,Mion’s family not involved but willing to provide lawyer for Rena if they find her, 26=Rena takes schoolkids hostage

S2 (Kai):
Intro: 1=30yrs later(i.e. “now”,2008),still in Atonement chronology,Tokyo detective Asaka[i.e. 'Tamatake #2' in S1E14{Time Wasting}],Rena survived,alien theory probably bunk,the 3 families researched an old virus,f’ed up,accidentally killed everybody,creepy Rika is looking for the next Hinimazawa
Disaster Awakening: 2=cutesey,Mion/Shion both present simultaneously always,Rika is still the same Rika aware of multi-worlds [and is actually the main character, soon-to-be-revealed], 3=Rika wallowing in her misery,basically,She tells Satoko she’s gonna be killed but then denies it, 4=Dr. Irie/Tamitake died,Satoko wants to protect Rika,Rika’s noticing new differences in events,creepy men following her,cop killed, 5=Satoko’s parents killed,Rika killed,Satoko chased,falls in river,disaster happens again,Satoko survives instead of Keiichi,but can’t speak,Rena survived too,Satoko killed(by nurse?)once she could speak,Rena chased by “army” men who killed others,
Massacre: 6=Rika quite aware she’s been repeating things for 100 yrs,ghost/demon horn girl(Hanyuu)shows up and it’s like she’s always been here,Satoko has some weird terminal disease, 7=everyone is remembering alternate lives,Rika must save Tamitake+Takano to save herself,Akasaka thanks Rika for saving his wife[he didn't listen to her in S1:Time Wasting],Rika gets bodyguards that save her from the bikers, 8=must save Satako from abuse,Rika says fuck it to life,Shion wants to kill abusing uncle but Keiichi stops her,they appeal to child services,Keiichi then says fuck it but Rika dis-disenheartens him, 9=increasing #s of ppl appeal to child services for Satako,Sonozaki family now aware of this(Satoko’s of the Houjou/dam-proponent/cursed family),Rika must convince Satako to confess the abuse, 10=granny convinced to help and now likes Keiichi,protest at main office,they finally give in but Satoko’s already bleeding, 11=Satoko saved,back to saving Tamitake+Takano,holy shit Takano has been working with the ones who killed the whole village every frickin’ time!,24 hour ‘walking corpse’ from S1E7 explained, 12=Irie being framed,Rika brings everyone in w/best explanation of everything that’s happened yet,Oishi killed, 13=”Tokyo” trying to kill Rika[+Satako],everyone saves her at first,but then they all get killed,team up for the next world,Takano kills all the villagers,the volcano was just some zyclon-b type shit,wow,
Festival Accompanying: 14=Reset! Takano nightmareish childhood orphanage mass escape(then she’s begging to die in the woods),establishment of Tokyo organization, 15=Worst. Orphanage. Ever. Takano recaptured,Hifumi Takano[her dad's sensei]saves her,has his research rejected,she grows up wanting revenge,now it’s Takano vs. Hanyuu, 16=flashing back between the Dam War['78ish] and when Satoshi was around['82ish?]and Satako’s abuse had already started,Takano is gonna examine live brain for parasite,Rika finally back in epilogue, 17=Rika gets examined,Satoko dying,govt-sponsored killing of town set up by Takano,Takano kills Rika’s parents,revealed that Satoko killed her own parents,research project now shut down with 3 yrs left,mysterious woman, 18=Satoshi affected,getting job,quit baseball,Rena no longer Reina,tried to suicide when mom left,origin of gaming club,granny set stage for Keiichi to move in, 19=Hanyuu’s real,joins club,everyone’s brought in again but only thinking it’s manga,govt involved, 20=now they’re brought in for real,decide to fake Rika’s death,Oishi+Akasaka in, 21=Operation 48 hrs commences:Takano freaking out that 48hrs of passed since Rika’s “death”,evil ones starting to come out of the woodwork,Oishi+Sonozaki cockblock Tokyo exec trying to identify Rika’s body for Takano, 22=things falling apart,Tamitake captured,Irie hurt,Sonozaki safe house,going down to the well,defeat,Akasaka saves the day, 23=attack in the mountains,raid to save Satoshi from clinic but oh hey he’s vegetative,enemy starting to realize they’re losing, 24=Takano defeated,told to kill self but runs away,arrested,treated for the syndrome,cotton drifting festival finally happens without incident! …. A better explanation of the end can be found here.

S3/OVA (Rei):
1=comedy:magic underwear WTF!!!!!!!!!!,
Dice Killing: 2=Rika dies,Reset!,everything the most different ever,no dam war/Tokyo/H-Syndrome/Keiichi/Takano/Irie, 3=Rika must kill mother to return, 4=Rika chooses old world,returns,now appreciates life,Hanyuu made her have the dream out of spite, haha,
Day Crushing: 5=comedy:Demon love charms

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kira (2011 OVAs):
1=Love Penalty Chapter: Bliss=Irie(pedo-doc)/Tamitake(photographer)/Oishi(cop)/Keichii have a pedophile brainstorming party, ultimate 10-year-anniversary fan-service fetish scenes, but oh shit, things take a turn for the dark, call the cops, it was all a dream, no it wasn’t, new Hinamizawa syndrome – use your power of delusions, Keichii!
2=Specter Battling Chapter: Effort: Parallel world, Tokyo Magica four generals, fog making people homicidal.
3=Intertwined Destiny Chapter: Love: Mion crushing on Keichii, then Shion, then Rena…But he has to take the grandma for a girlfriend instead.
4=Daydreaming Chapter: Ease: Rika from past ends up in future, Hanyuu helps her, others join, Keiichi finds out how to return Rika, Hanyuu now accepted as one of them. For real real.

Alas, these last 4 were not intertwined. Specter Battling in particular seemed to be a huge loose end. I think I’d only give these 2011 OVAs 3/5 stars on Netflix (3.4 from Carolyn), 7/10 on IMDB.

 

VIDEO: CARTOONS: ANIME: REVIEW: Planetes aka “Wanderers” (2003)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] [Ryan S's excellent review] Time to watch an anime series again. It’s been awhile.

PLOT SUMMARY: Space garbage is a problem in the future, requiring full-time garbage collection of debris in Earth orbit. Meanwhile, selfish capitalist corporations are trying a land-grab at claiming all the space resources as the property of whoever invests (rich get richer), while terrorist groups pit innumerable lives against their desire to have space resources divided up for the benefit of all humanity. But that’s just the back story: This series, like most anime, is quite character driven, and about the relationships between the various characters. But again, I direct the reader to Ryan S’s excellent review of this series, as I am too lazy to write full reviews, because I try to review EVERYTHING I watch. It’s too much :)

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Corporations selfishly grab space resources; terrorists do good things.

QUIRKS: Based on a comic. Space. Politics. Terrorism. Capitalism. Smoking. Personal relationships. Love. Loss. It’s a 26 episode series, so there are many different kinds of episodes… Depressing ones, funny ones, dramatic ones, etc.

This is often heralded as the most realistic space-based anime ever made. They consulted with the Japanese equivalent of NASA to make sure things were accurate. Also, for example, space is dead silent. If they show a ship exploding — there will be no sound. Finally, paste-eating nerds won’t have to complain in a Comic Book Guy voice: “You can’t really hear explosions in space.”

VISUALS: Nothing special, but anime visuals are almost always superior to their American-animated counterparts.

POLITICS: Tons of politics in this movie. They don’t take the central stage; Most anime is about a guy and a girl falling in love, with the characters in the foreground, and the plot in the background. But politics permeate many of the episodes, as well as the series’s climax. This improves the show by making it more thought-provoking than a non-political show would be. Also, they amazingly don’t take sides. One could argue that the terrorists in this series are the good guys, making sure that space exploration benefits ALL of humanity, not just the rich capitalists. You could also argue that the terrorists are the bad guys, threatening to set space travel back decades by killing innumerable people. This moral ambiguity makes the series that much more enjoyable.

BAD STUFF: The one issue I had with smoking was the smoking booth: If they’d really done their research, they would probably have been able to more accurately depict smoking in the future by having Fee use an e-cigarette to vaporize nicotine, instead of smoking cigarettes with fire. Since no combustion occurs with vaporization, no precious oxygen is wasted. Though I’m not sure what the byproduct of that is like, and what its effects on space instrumentation would be, I would assume for purposes of space vehicle safety, that vapor > smoke.

CONCLUSION: An excellent anime series that doesn’t fall into the boring tropes that most anime series fall into.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 8.8/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.6/5 stars. It’s true, we don’t like anime as much as “true” anime fans do).

RECOMMENDATION: Even if you hate anime, this is a very “non-anime” anime series worth checking out. Again, read Ryan S’s excellent review of this series. It says more than I will ever bother to.

COINCIDENCES: (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Planetes #24) 2 videos in 2 days where someone had to *temporarily* be in a wheelchair due to hypothermia. Space or time travel’ll do that to ya.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: I’m going to assume, based on Ryan S’s excellent review, that he loved it. Ben W also chimed in on Facebook, with good things to say about it.

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Girl Who Lept Through Time aka Toki o kakeru shojo (2006)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] The first movie we watched in 2009. After noticing we had hardly watched any anime in 2008 (2-5 movies, 0 series), we decided to kick off the new year with an anime movie.

QUIRKS: Time travel. Anime.

BAD STUFF: Like most anime, the middle is good, and the ending is unsatisfying.

CONCLUSION: Generic pass. If I could, I’d rate it like 2.5-2.75 stars on Netflix, so it will scrape by with 3 stars via rounding up. 5-6/10 on IMDB. Just another anime. This is why I don’t watch anime. Carolyn says it was more interesting than the average anime. With the time travel, it definitely was. But there were no huge robots or tentacle-laden monsters raping women until they explode. It was basically a highschool romance anime, with a sci-fi angle.

RECOMMENDATION: See it if you like highschool romance animes. If you’re only watching it for time travel, it will be kind of disappointing.

MOVIE QUOTE: “Time waits for no one.”

 

VIDEO: List of shows watched in 2004

After this, I’ll only have one more old watching list to post, and then I will be caught up to 2008. But expect a new list of shows in January :)
Cartoons listed first, then live/reality shows.

When people suggest stuff to us, I often say that our plate is full in terms of watching stuff. Know that not only did we watch everything in this post in 2004, but we also watched 94 movies. :)

 

VIDEO: List of shows watched in 2007

This post is quite long, but chock full of good recommendations — especially for animation lovers. Plenty of live shows too. If I had time, I’d post each one of these as a separate review. But I’ll never have that kind of time.

I’ve started to move towards listing weirdest/rarest stuff first, and more common stuff later… After all, everyone can guess that I watch South Park…

As far as awards go? Not sure. Best superhero endeavor is definitely Heroes. Best drama is Weeds. Funniest show is Tim & Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job!. Funniest cartoon is South Park — but Xavier:Renegade Angel has South Park completely beaten in ridiculousness, and Code Monkeys has South Park beaten in terms of freshness. As for live comedy, Sarah Silverman is funnier than Human Giant. Barely. But most of the good cartoons were funnier than anything live-action would have to offer.

 

VIDEO: List of shows watched in 2003

We started keeping our watching lists long before we started blogging them. Periodically, I will post an old, un-posted watching list. Here are all the shows we watched in 2003. Yes, this is a tad late. :)

 

LINKS: Celebrity D&D stats! Ancient anime. ISPs spying on you. 14yo felon took apart camera.

Particularly funny are the D&D stats! Did you know George W. Bush constitution is really high? I think it should be 0. (There’s a joke that exactly 3 readers got.)

 

LINKS: Comcast sending dubious DMCA notices, and many Abuses Of Authority

In Chicago, despite $27M in taxpayer money for lawsuit payouts from cops shooting civilians – zero cops have lost their job, EVER, for an improper on-duty shooting. License to kill with impunity, plain and simple. Meanwhile, as if Comcast couldn’t suck even more, they succeed. And, as usual, cops: beat the fuck out a of hispanic kid in his own driveway (and threaten to taser his mom), and pepper-spray a late-night Church group while shooting Church video. Do Americans care? In Canada, one improper death (the RCMP airport tasering of a foreigner there to visit his mother) has caused people to egg egg cop cars. Where’s the backlash here?

 

LINKS: Anime-Style Simpsons & Futurama, Rammstein is an asteroid, Khalid El-Masri not being allowed to sue the CIA for kidnapping and torturing him, and a plea to Laszlo.

An asteroid named after Rammstein, a plea to a hard-to-reach friend, Simpsons and Futurama characters drawn ANIME STYLE, and tortured innocent man not being allowed to sue the CIA for bullshit reasons. Read on for clickable links.

 

CARTOONS: After 23 years, Robotech finally continuing!

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles.  Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes are in it.  We’ve all been waiting 23 years for this story to actually be finished.  I wont say where, but you can get it on p2p right now.  Holy shit — it’s about friggin’ time.

 

VIDEO: List of TV shows watched in 2006.

Every year, Carolyn & I post a list of what we watched. This year, I am breaking it into sections. Read on to see what TV SHOWS we watched in 2006. (Most of these were skimmed; few were watched in their entiretly.) This is a time consuming post to read, but I’d like people to comment on them if possible and willing.

The anime chick on the right is Haydee, a character in Gankutsuo, an anime adaptation of The Count Of Monte Cristo. It was the most artistically animated show we watched all year. It was also, uncoincidentally, the only anime we watched this year. Read on for the full list of shows, and more Gankutsuo pictures.

*** AWARDS ***
BEST SITCOM: The Office, Arrested Development
BEST TOON, COMEDY: South Park, Drawn Together, Metalocalypse
BEST TOON, COMEDY: HONORABLE MENTION: Tripping The Rift
BEST TOON, DRAMATIC: Gankutsuo – The Count Of Monte Cristo
BEST TOON, SUPERHERO: Justice League Unlimited
BEST TOON, NEW: Metalocalypse
MOST EPISODES WATCHED OF ANY SINGLE SHOW: Frasier. All 265. That’s a lifetime record.

 

VIDEO: List of TV shows we watched in 2005

So…

Here is the list of TV shows Carolyn & I watched in 2005.

First off, the awards:

Best Drama: Twin Peaks
Best Comedy, Animated: Drawn Together,
runners-up: South Park, Invader Zim, Aqua Teen, Family Guy, American Dad
Best Comedy, Anime: Super Milk Chan / Oruchiban Ebichu
Best Comedy, Live: Arrested Development
Best Superhero: Justice League
Best Reality TV: Andy Dick’s “The Assistant”

Finally, the list of all shows watched in 2005: …

 

Mind Game: The Best movie I’ve seen in a long long long time?!?!?

Carolyn & I watched another movie last night (the 56th of the year).

I think it damn well may be the best I’ve seen this year.

80% of people on IMDB gave it a 9 or a 10! (50% gave it a 10. That’s unheard of.)

Definitely the most unique movie I have seen in a very long time.

It is called “Mind Game’.

IMDB the plot and style at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452039/combined

It’s an anime that just won Japan’s most prestigous award for animated films
(which no one in america, including myself, has ever heard of).

IT’S NOT YOUR TYPICAL ANIME. AS IN, IT’S GOOD.

And even compared to other good anime, like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, or even Cowboy Bebop — I think it BLOWS THEM THE FUCK AWAY.

The animation is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. (and not a cgi-fest, not at ALL)
The plot is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
The emotion leaves you feeling refreshed and optimistic.

It’s trippy as hell and I wish I could smoke Timothy Leary’s ashes while watching this.

There’s really nothing bad about it at all, except the end is very slightly tedious, and they make no attempt to be realistic (which I view as an asset, not a flaw).

You wont see this on DVD in america anytime soon, but JAP-DVDs are going for $50.
Not worth it.

So……. um….. Find it another way.

I wouldn’t go through this much work if it wasn’t mind-blowingly good.

 

VIDEO: CARTOONS: ANIME: Oruchuban Ebichu

Oh… My… God…

I didn’t think anime could be this twisted… And I’ve seen both a lot of anime, and a lot of twisted shows… But this one takes the take…. You see, my latest and greatest find had been the ADV dubs of Super Milk Chan (completely different from the shitty Cartoon Network version!)…. But this… This is just outrageous…. Sex scenes and hampster violence…. Disturbing hampster violence… Followed by hampster cuteness and more sex…. Or a hampster in heat asking her owner if she can use her dildo… I could go on… The show is so absurdly unique and outrageous that, for the first time ever, I can honestly say I like a hamster anime (Note: Hamtaro sucks!).

You can download the show using these torrents here using BitTorrent.
If that link is dead, Search for Oruchuban Ebichu torrents here, or try ScrapeTorrent or YouTorrents.
(Everyone recommends Azureus uTorrent for a bittorrent client.)

Or if you’re lazy, just watch some full length episodes here on youtube — of course it’s better to click into youtube, and watch it full-screen, than to watch the tiny window here in this blog:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

6:

7:

(Spanish subs only, sorry — but you can get english subs via torrent sites)

8-9: Not available on YouTube.

MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE LAST 30 SECONDS OF THIS ONE (explanation below):

10:

(French subs only, sorry — but you can get english subs via torrent sites)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE LAST 30 SECONDS OF EPISODE #10!!!!! A MAN HAS A CRUCH ON EBICHU, the hamster, AND HIS FUCKING HIS WIFE — SHE IS VERY HAPPY AND TELLING HIM HE’S ON FIRE TONIGHT. TURNS OUT, HE’S FANTASIZING ABOUT THE HAMSTER!!!! ONLY IN JAPAN!!!!

11: Not available on YouTube.

12:

13:

14:

15:

16:

(Spanish subs only, sorry — but you can get english subs via torrent sites)

17:

18:

19:

20:

(Spanish subs only, sorry — but you can get english subs via torrent sites)

21:

22:

23:

24:

There. I practically put it into your brain for you. Now go digest.