Anime Blog 43: Fooly Cooly

Wiki Page
FLCL World

Fooly Cooly is a 6 episode OVA series that I watched dubbed. I can't even begin to explain to you how excited I am about this blog post even though I may not have too much to say!

So to start I'm going to give a brief plot summary. Middle school boy Naota gets run over by space cop Haruko Haruhara and then weird robots keep popping out of his forehead. Things get VERY confusing after that and the word "fooly cooly" is used a lot. There's a detective that has stickers for eyebrows and his blonde subordinate who owns a GIANT gun. And more confusion follows culminating in the idea of a giant hand grabbing a giant iron and flattening the world.

Confused? Good.

This show really makes no sense. BUT that's what makes it AWESOME!

This was the first anime series I ever watched KNOWING it was anime. What happened was I was in Pennsylvania for a 4th of July party and was staying with a friend. We had stayed up really late and she fell asleep watching Rosanne re-runs. I grabbed the remote and turned it to Cartoon Network where I saw a moment of a show where some old guy in red falls off a cliff (unbeknownst to be, that was InuYasha...). I turned it back and finished the episode of Rosanne before going back to Cartoon Network to watch the debut of Fooly Cooly episode 1. I was fascinated. I didn't understand ANYTHING that happened in the episode but I absolutely LOVED it! I think I was like 12...(actually, just wiki-ed it and did the math, I had just turned 11).  I didn't watch the other 5 episodes until I was in high school but this show will always play an important role in my life because it really got me into anime (I watched Rave Master next!).

So now that that life story is over...ART!

(Alright from L to R going F to B: Mamimi with Takkun, Haruko, Naota, Eri, Masashi, Kamon, Canti, and Lt. Kitsurubami)

I think that's right...not sure about the car people but I think that's it.

Also One of my favorite endings:

So pros and cons:

Pros:

• This show is awesome
• Robots
• Confusion
• Hot chick
• Craziness
• Great music!

Cons:

• I find no cons in this show...HA!

So my suggestion? WATCH THIS SHOW!
Your life will never be the same :D

Thanks for reading, Until Next time!

~Kei

Anime Blog 42: Fish in the Trap

WARNING! CONSIDERED YAOI (by manga demographic) YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_in_the_Trap

Ok so Fish in the Trap is a 1 episode OVA that I watched subbed. It is apparently a prequel to the manga series.

So the basic story is: guy named Matsui falls in love with the swim team captain (Tsukamoto). That's about it...plus a jealous best friend (Eiichi). However the OVA seems more like: Matsui gets raped by Tsukamoto and then joins the swim team to discover that he's the team captain...and that's the end. Seriously. This is the WORST ending to an OVA I have EVER seen.

There's really nothing else I can say about this one, I mean I watched it because it was short and it was on Aarinfantasy.com and discovered I hated the ending. That's it in a nutshell. Maybe the manga is better.

Art:

 

 

(L: Tsukamoto, R: Matsui)

Yeah the art is kinda old too.

So pros and cons:

Pros:

• Yaoi (always)
• Short
• Swimming...ish

Cons:

• WTF ending
• Basically just raped the guy...(not a good thing in my world)
• Did I mention the ending?

Personally I wouldn't recommend this...it wasn't all that great. But if you're a die-hard Yaoi/Shonen-ai fan...it won't kill you and it's short :D

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

~Kei

Anime Blog 41: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy:_The_Spirits_Within

Alright. As most people know, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a CG movie made by the creators of Final Fantasy...it has NOTHING to do with the series itself.

I don't have too much to say about this film except that it was highly advanced for its time. It uses the same CG graphics that are seen in the FFX CG cutscenes and was highly praised for the realistic nature of its characters. The story line confused me a bit but it kind of all comes together in the end.
It's a movie worth watching at least once :D

So...ART!

 

(L-R: Aki, Gray, and Dr. Sid)

 

I was trying to find a picture with more than 1 character in it...this is what happened...lol

So Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Great CG
• Made by FF
• Alec Baldwin plays Gray

Cons:

• Story sort of falls flat...

Don't get me wrong, there may only be one con...but it's a big one. I still say watch it though.

Thanks for reading, Until Next Time!

~Kei

Anime Blog 40: Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children, Last Order, & On the Way to a Smile

I'm going to combine all 3 Final Fantasy 7 "anime" here instead of doing them separately because they are all connected of course :D

Advent Children:
Wiki Page

Alright, Advent Children is a CG film based 2 years after the events of the game Final Fantasy 7.
This time the action takes place in Edge, a city built, can you guess?, on the edge of the ruins of Midgar. There is a rampant disease called Geostigma that no one knows the cure for and there are 3 Sephiroth-clones causing trouble in the city trying to obtain Jenova's head.  (I'm not going to spoil the movie by telling you any more) XD Also...I watched it Dubbed.

I really liked this movie. Cloud was just as angsty as ever and the graphics were great! Plus, I HATED Reno in the game but OMG I LOVE him in this movie! It's a really good follow-up to the game and, in case you're wondering, is followed by FF7: Dirge of Cerberus.

The only thing that really confused me about this movie: Denzel. So now you're wondering who Denzel is right? Well, Cloud and Tifa sort of live together above her new 7th Heaven bar. (Mostly Cloud is using it now for his base of operations, he has a delivery service...lol). Marlene (Remember Barret's daughter?) lives with them and so does orphan Denzel. The movie NEVER explains who he is, or where he came from...more on this later.

So...art!

 

(Top (L:R): Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, and Aeris. Bottom (L:R): Vincent, Cid, Cait Sith (on Red XIII's Head), Barret)

Pros and cons!

Pros:

• Good sequel film
• Great graphics
• Vinny!
• Helps cure Cloud's angst??
• Reno!
• Awesome fight scenes

Cons:

• Haven't we played the "Sephiroth is the bad-guy" card too much?

But that's the only con I can think of.

Last Order:
Wiki Page

Last order is a single episode prequel OVA that I watched subbed.
Put quite simply...it's an OVA of the death of Zack and what happened in Nibelheim. It's pretty sad really. It has nice animation and it's basically what happens at the end of Crisis Core and right before the start of FF7.

Art!

 

(Top (L:R): Sephiroth and Tifa. Bottom (L:R): Cloud and Zack)

 







Alright, pros and cons:

Pros:

• Good animation of backstory
• Good art
• FF7

Cons:

• Sad...

That's kinda all I've got...

On the Way to a Smile:
Wiki Page (Generally)
Wiki Page (Specifically)

Ok so On the Way to a Smile is actually a collection of short stories. Only 1 of which was turned into an OVA: The Case of Denzel (HA! Told you we'd come back to this)

Alright, so this is simple. The story explains who Denzel is from the end of FF7 to Advent Children (basically). It also involves Reeve (remember Reeve? the guy inside the mog that Cait Sith rode on?). But only very briefly. (unfortunately there's not much to say because saying anything spoils the story...and since it was only 1 episode (subbed!)....)

Art!

 

(Denzel)

Since the story is told through Denzel's point of view, it's hard to find a picture of him with the people I want :D

 

(so there are Tons of people in this picture...I can only name some of them...At the very top are Cloud, Marlene, and Tifa. The guy with the bushy reddish hair is Gaskin. The old lady by him is related to Reeve (ha! no spoilers...riiiight). and the two people at the bottom are Denzel's dad and mom. All the other people are people Denzel met in the slums and worked with to find scraps)

 

If that wasn't enough typing....lol.

 

Alright Pros and Cons:

 

Pros:

• Explains who Denzel is
• Nice art
• Throws Reeve in there (I like Reeve)

Cons:

• ...no cons...

So there we go! We've made it through the Final Fantasy 7 anime bits!

 

Thanks for reading! Until Next Time,

 

~Kei