Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? Anime Blog

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.”

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… 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?

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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Hey, DTZ. Wake up.

Zzzzzz- Buh-

HEY. WAKE UP.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! GEEZ. Microscopic thing, RIGHT in my face.

Wake up. We gotta do the awards show.

But we already did it.

We’ve already watched more series, and fans are requesting more reactions.

You lie. We have no fans.

But we still are scheduled for another awards show.

…Aw poo.
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A good evening to you all! A new season of anime is upon us, and with it a new start of madness in this blog! While we still have lots of stuff from the fall to clean out, mostly due to us falling behind when I dropped my hard drive while it was running, but that doesn’t preclude us from ignoring the new stuff as well.

Usually, it’s our laziness that causes us to do that.

But not this year! No, this year we’re getting the drop on all other bloggers! Mwahahahaha… for you see… we will be giving out season awards ONE EPISODE IN.

No, thats still laziness. Rather than work through the series you’re justrushing out the slipshod awards now.

IT IS A PROACTIVE MOVE, AND CERTAINLY NOT LAZY. On to the animes!

Fine, fine. I know better than to contradict you when you whine. So, whats first on the plate?

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For some random reason I’m in the mood to actually contribute to this blog for the first time in ages. Wait, who is this? This is Ruan. And what else might I talk about but the upcoming and now currently releasing spring anime season. I’m doing my standard ‘watch the first episode of everything that comes out’, and here are my thoughts.

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Two years ago on this day, an anime aired and confused the ever-living crap out of a large number of people. It was broadcast in High Definition, but the sidebars, grainy animation and poor voice acting all gave the impression of a low-quality work for a few seconds before it was realized that, wait, this is a parody of crappy student films. That episode was the first episode, eleventh chronologically and zeroth by official episode numbering, of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

We already know all this. What’s your point?

MY POINT, my little bacterial buddy, is that it has now been two years since the anime that converted me from Pastafarianism to Haruhi-ism started, and a year since the last Haruhi light novel was released. Do you know why this is a bad thing, aside from the whole “being deprived of good anime” business?

Everyone knows that. The fans go insane.

PRECISELY! And when people as absurdly rabid as Haruhi-ists go crazy…

THIS HAPPENS.

My god….what is that?

That is Haruhi and Kyon with their genders swapped. Meet Haruki and Kyon-chan.

I can see forever…

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Japan? We need to talk. Have a seat.

It has come to my attention that you have shown a… lack of appreciation for some of the finer members of your community. Among these is one Nobuhiro Watsuki. I’ve looked into the case of Busou Renkin, and my associate Dio Bravo has written up an excellent analysis of this issue, but it seems that there is an even earlier case of your disrespecting this man.

I speak, of course, of your strange reaction to Gun Blaze West.

I now have, in my possession, the first volume of three from this series, and I cannot find anything to complain about. So, I would very much like to ask: why do you favor Rurouni Kenshin and shun the equally good but in different ways Gun Blaze West and Busou Renkin?

(The above is a lead in to the essay, after the more.)

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While works like Dragonaut and Rosario + Vampire show us that Gonzo has definitely seen better days as a development house, their distribution section has suddenly grown a brain.

Gonzo to provide streaming internet video with subtitles for foreign viewers the same day the episode is released.

YES.

While not for reasons of apparent quality, Tower of Druaga and Blassreiter were still on my check-out list for this spring season. Now I get to support them legitimately, and if I like them I may even pay to download.

This is the solution that will break the industry out of its fansubbing rut. I really hope this idea works and that more animation houses see the potential in this, because this is probably the best idea Gonzo has had since taking The Count of Monte Cristo and putting it in space with mecha.

ZOMGWTFBBQ THE ANIME THAT GOT ME INTO ANIME IS COMING BACK.

I was so excited I typo’d several times just making the above statement.

Why the excitement?

SLAYERS IS COMING BACK.

Slayers was THE anime that got me into anime. After getting some gateway drugs from Toonami, watching just three episodes of Slayers Next cemented me into anime fanboyism. Seeing it coming back as another 26 episode series is like seeing my childhood (even if it was freshman year of high school) returning.

I HAVE AN ANIME TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

I’m KINDA upset that it’s a continuation as an anime-original story and not a revival, seeing as recently I’ve read the first eight novels and found them to be dramatically better than the first two seasons of the anime, which were semi-adaptations with some rearranged story elements and added characters. However, the third season was also anime-original, and in some ways it has some of the best plotlines of the anime series, and my personal favorite Slayers nemesis, Valgaav.

While they don’t say that the story will or won’t feature Lina, I think it’s damn stupid to assume that they would make a Slayers story that doesn’t feature the most awesome anime female ever. Lina IS Slayers, after all.

Emonaut - The Dragonaut Thumbnail Theatre
Episode 5: 2 EEE A Master?
(Warning: Long Post is Long.)

*Five years ago, at a Gillard Army Research Lab*

Butch Naked Lady: Nice egg… good egg…

Your breasts are too large to have resonance. Please try again in your next life. Have a nice day.

Butch Naked Lady: KANEDAAAAAAAAAAAA! *Explodes*

Hmph, another failure. Oh well, at least mars has no shortage of morons to volunteer for this kind of thing. One word about the possibility of being fondled by our great Prince as a reward for success and they just come on running. Send in the next victim.

*Gonzo? I question the need for exploding naked females. I don’t think they’ll help this series like you think they’ll help this series.*

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