Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? Anime Blog

Dio, Dio! Look what I figured out!

What the… You’re all tiny and your text is in proper alignment! What the hell did you do?

I finally figured out how to make our talking with avatars not look like ass! Join me, it’s great! And get over on the right side!

Hey, you’re right! This is awesome!

Now we’ll never look crappy again!

Right you are, little buddy!

Greetings and welcome, humble viewer, to Anime Masterpiece Theatre. I am your host, Death to Zippermouth.

And I’m Dio Bravo, the guarantee that this won’t have one bit of class.

Quite. On today’s show, we are going to be looking into the history of a genre and making recommendations away from the mainstream of that genre.

What he means is, first we’ll talk your ear off about stuff you don’t care about, and then ram our opinions down the earhole.

So join us, humble viewer, as we take an in depth look into the genre… of Shounen Manga. (more…)

Well, since the cool kids are doing it, I think I’ll talk about the Gurren Lagann dub as well. Got little better to do while Dio is at work and my only other possible duty is to prepare for going to grad school.

Watching the first two episodes dubbed marks my estimated 19th and 20th times (yes, I watched them twice. Once with loud friends while playing Mutants and Masterminds and the other recorded off TiVo for me to watch without distractions,) and I’ve come to this conclusion: Gurren Lagann is timeless. No matter how many times I watch it, I can’t get bored of it. Even if I don’t find something new, it’s a blast and a half regardless.

Because it’s in a whole new language, there is something new to find, though. Namely, how different people interpret characters, and how being broadcast on American television impacts the flow of the episodes. Check it after the more. (more…)

World Confusion: The World Destruction Thumbnail Theatre
Episode 2: Can of Bluffing +3

3 o’ Clock! Time for random philosophy! Two kinds of worlds. Worlds where the laws of biology make sense, and worlds where apparently people drink sand.

Shut up and stop pretending you’re a badass, fuzzy.

They just don’t respect my awesome.

Sand, sand, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

You be quiet too, I’m asking the Magic Eight Ball where we should go next.

Whatever.

Huh. It’s mopey today.

Hey magic eight ball! Will you open this can for me? I promise to share!

SAND-WHALE, NOW AVAILABLE IN CANS!

…whatever.

Dammit, Kirie, stop trying to get the world destruction macguffin to do stupid things!

BUT I’M BOOOOOORED! And HUNGRY!

GODS my life sucks… and that thing coming from the sand probably isn’t going to make it better.

Thing from the sand? Food?

Unless you only consider Subs to be delicious sandwiches, no.

I do!

WRONG KIND OF SUB.

WALRUSES, PREPARE TO TAKE BACK TEH BUKKIT! …I mean, TAKE OUT THE WORLD DESTRUCTION COMMITTEE! FIRE THE SANDPEDOS!

ABANDON SANDBOAT!

Whut? And who am I? Maybe we’ll find out after the title card.

*Titlecard’d!*
(more…)

Hey, Dio, been keeping up with the summer season much? I know we’re both really in to Slayers Revolution, but I don’t think you’ve looked at much others.

There is no Sekirei… there is no Sekirei, there is no Sekirei…

That’s about what I expected. Well, I’ve only checked out two other series, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen. Birdy the Mighty Decode is actually alot better than I was expecting, and World Destruction, well… it’s just silly. But in a fun way.

Fun is good!

So, what do you want to check out first?

Lets go with the absurd one. Do you realize HOW silly it is?

Of course, I’ve seen it. It’s a video game anime, and while it isn’t as stupid off the bat as Shining Tears X Wind and it isn’t as completely retarded as Dragonaut, it really feels like it’s begging to be Thumbnailed. The world is completely absurd, despite having actually likable main characters. I really like that the two leads are voiced by Maaya Sakamoto and Mamoru Miyano, because it means that Fujioka Haruhi has become a badass wielding a huge doublebladed sword and Suoh Tamaki a hapless idiot dragged along on a crazy adventure to destroy the world.

So, we’re going to keep up with this one, right? Not happy we gave up on Emonaut, we missed some great gags.

Correct! We shall not fall behind on this! Ladies, Gentlemen and anthromorphs, I give you, episode one of our newest Thumbnail Theatre, World Confusion!

I give it two eps before we blow it.

World Confusion: The World Destruction Thumbnail Theatre
Episode 1: An action girl, a cat boy, and an evil artifact walk into a bar, and the bear says… (more…)

Since the first comment on the previous primer was one requesting a review of the first episode from someone who knows the series (presumably unlike, say, our friend psgels over at Star Crossed, who had mixed feelings about the first episode. At least he did enjoy our main characters after they got warmed up, I was worried he’d be turned off by their silliness) I feel more than obligated to oblige.

So, here it is. Episode 1 of Slayers Revolution from a fan perspective.

To put it mildly, I have never been happier watching a first episode of anime in my life. I was smiling the whole way through, smiling so much it hurt.

Ya know who is more badass than Captain Jack Sparrow?

Lina Mothafuckin’ Inverse, that’s who.

(more…)

Just a few days… only a few days remain until… heheheh… AH HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHA!

This is for your own good. *aims Mk22 Hush Puppy*

Oh come on, Dio! Surely I have every right to be excited! Slayers Revolution is mere days from launch!

Well, yes, but I’m sick of getting calls about whether or not we’re keeping a madman in here.

Surely you jest! Why, EVERYONE should be excited about this momentous occasion! It’s been ELEVEN YEARS since a proper season of Slayers aired!

And if anyone remembered Slayers well enough, that’d be important…

They… DON’T… remember Slayers?

You said it yourself. 11 years.

BUT IT’S A CLASSIC! It wasn’t groundbreaking or anything, but it should at LEAST be as well remembered as things like Cowboy Bebop or Neon Genesis Evangelion! It’s the series that GOT ME HOOKED ON ANIME FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Calm down, bud. I love the show too. The problem is the bloggers. Most of them, at least to my knowledge, are focused on new series, and often don’t go back to the old ones.

Are they so new to the gig that they completely missed it…? Were they introduced to anime through internet fansubs…? Dio, my brewing buddy, this is a CONUNDRUM. The best show of the summer is set to come out, and many bloggers may give it a pass because they have no clue what’s going on.

And?

This can mean only one thing… WE MUST PREPARE THE ANIME COMMUNITY OF TODAY FOR A REVOLUTION! COME, DIO! We must make a primer for the readers!

Do we have to? I want to see if I can replicate myself with the spore creature creator.

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. TO THE BLOGS! (more…)

Man, All the recent new anime has been cool, DTZ. What else is coming up?

Well, we’re up to the point where we’re looking forward to summer, where there’s alot of original series and a few manga adaptations… From the manga adaptations, I’m seeing a few things like Kurogane no Linebarrel and Sekirei. But I’m not so sure about-

Heh, Linebarrels is just odd. I read that one already. It might be bad, or good, cant tell. But if its bad, it’ll probably at least be fun to mock. Hrmmm, what did you say the other one is called?

Sekirei, but looking at the premise made me-

I’m there!

Have a headache because the premise looked so retarded aaaaaaaaaaaaaand you’ve already started reading it. (more…)

A few months ago, I saw the trailer for the Wachowski Brother’s latest Live Action CGI-overload film Speed Racer, based on the anime of the same name. I had never seen the Speed Racer anime, so a fanboy response was not elicited from me. Instead, I felt an urge to laugh at what I was seeing; the hairstyles, the CGI, the colors, everything felt like it was trying to be live action anime, something that I felt would never work well.

So I was anticipating the film to be a major trainwreck, and I wanted to see it for the humor value. One of my friends, for whom Speed Racer was part of his childhood when it was on network television, was expecting something entirely different: he was expecting a good film.

Flash forward to its opening night last night. I’d seen some extremely mixed reviews, but still wanted to see it anyway. The reviews pointing to it being good and the reviews pointing to it being bad said the exact same thing that made me think it would be a trainwreck: it was a live action cartoon, and felt like it.

So I went with a small group of friends, including the aforementioned friend who was expecting it to be good.

At the end of the film, I turned to said friend and said this.

“That was film had some of the cheesiest dialogue and plot I have ever seen. And I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.”

(more…)

… Excellent, excellent. Dio and DTZ are sleeping. They leave the door locked, but little do they know…

I HAVE THE KEY!

So, let us get down to business, shall we. Hm hmmm, yes… spendid. The business at hand is the spring anime season. So, let us start off, shall we?

(more…)