Studio GONZO, I miss you so.

I can’t think of anything else I really feel like ranting about this week, so I would just like to express some pent-up rant about the late great Studio GONZO. I freaking miss GONZO! They made so many great anime… and a few real stinkers. You might even call me a bit of a GONZO fanboy. There was a time where my list of great GONZO anime began with the phrase “All of them except…” I encourage all of you to watch the great anime from GONZO if you haven’t already. I will list some of my favorites here, to guide you in the right direction… as well as a few that you should just avoid.

 

Blue Submarine No. 6

Blue Sub is my sort of post-apocalyptic. It is beautifully constructed and beautifully animated. It is pretty as well as pretty powerful. It is the sort of thing that makes you ask deep questions about what it means to be human or what is really important in life. Blue Sub is almost like a dream, really. The juxtaposition of the familiar and unfamiliar makes it almost surreal at times. Also, one of my favorite mad scientists of all time resides here. Good stuff.

Vandread

A personal favorite of mine. Vandread has the right balance of comedy and action to keep you interested. The characters are well developed and likable. Visible character growth and bittersweet victories abound, which is always a plus in my book. The world is enjoyably science-fictiony with an interesting gender-based twist that will probably have you laughing 3 minutes into the first episode. Add in a fairly satisfying ending and you have a complete package. I enjoyed the fire out of it.

Hellsing

The original Hellsing isn’t as tightly bound to the manga as Hellsing Ultimate… but it still holds a special place in our hearts. GONZO did the great vampire justice in this one and it was an extremely enjoyable ride for the years before Ultimate came along. If you haven’t seen Hellsing, go watch Hellsing. If you are too lazy to watch Hellsing… here… have an abridged version of the first episode of Ultimate. If that doesn’t make you want to watch Hellsing… there is nothing to be done for you. Oh… uh… Warning: Language and mature content… and blood. Lots of blood. ^_^

Full Metal Panic!

The perfect blend of comedy and action. The balance that FMP had was just ideal. The series had the power to take things from noon to midnight and back again. Just when you think “Oh lord, it is all gone horribly wrong and it will never be right again!” the dawn comes. It is really great stuff, especially if you add on The Second Raid, though that one wasn’t GONZO.

Samurai 7

An anime re-envisioning of the Seven Samurai, which is an amazingly awesome movie that gets remade every few years. If you enjoyed the Magnificent Seven or A Bug’s Life, you might like this. If you have taste, you might like this. Oh, I should warn you though… they made this shit beautiful. Every episode is pretty except ONE. That episode had to suffer the pains of the animation budget… it isn’t pretty. It is right in the middle of the series and it will hit like a truck. That aside, this anime was absolutely awesome.

Welcome to the NHK

Welcome to the NHK is a journey. It is one man’s descent into madness… his recovery… his descent… his recovery… every time you think that Sato is on the right path, he will find a way to fall off the bandwagon. One great thing about this series is that if you watch the entire thing and then watch the first episode, your eyes will widen with understanding. The first episode foreshadows all the events of the series to come… not that any of the foreshadowing will make a lick of sense. This is an amazing, weird and wonderful anime. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Bokurano

Do you want to feel soul-rending anguish? Do you want to sit in front of your monitor weeping and whispering “It just isn’t fair…” Bokurano will do that. This is an amazingly deep story about the lives of children when they are thrust into the position of sacrificing their lives to save the earth. If they don’t pilot the giant robot, the earth will be destroyed. If they do pilot it, they will die after piloting… that would do terrible things to most adults… but when you see what it does to these kids… Oh, the divine pain! This is the best sort of tragedy. Bring a box of tissues and maybe a razor. I recommend it with all my heartstrings.

 

Warning: The following anime are bad. Really bad. Avoid them.

Gantz

Do you have that friend/coworker/family member who doesn’t really like anime and thinks you are some sort of strange pervert for watching any of it. Have you shown that person a few good anime and improved their opinion to the point where they are now willing to judge on a case-by-case basis? DON’T LET THEM EVER HEAR ABOUT GANTZ. Gantz is risque just for the sake of being risque and wrong for the sake of being wrong. It isn’t even enjoyable in the way it goes about it! It is just generally not good stuff.  If your friends ask about it, suggest anything else. Anything. Well… maybe anything except

Rosario to Vampire

I HEAR that RtV was a manga about one human surrounded by monsters. I HEAR that it is pretty edgy and deep. I HEAR that the manga is good stuff. Rosario to Vampire the anime, however, is just bad. Really bad. Horribly bad. Reused transformation sequences. Annyoing over-the-top gags. Painful running bits… I’ve seen one RtV manga fan scream at the monitor when the little bat mascot showed up on screen, such was his pain. It is the horrible, painful sort of re-imagining that makes fans shudder. Avoid it at all costs. If someone handcuffs you to a chair and starts playing it, gnaw off the hand.

History made fun and easy

So, I’ve been playing the daylights out of Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes for my PS3. It is a beautiful game, if you have ever enjoyed the Dynasty Warriors sort of game, and they put a LOT of effort into replay value. I spent an entire day as Maeda Keiji, it seems, beating up badguys, maxing levels, unlocking things… great fun.

It made me want to go back and watch the anime. I had passed Sengoku Basara over when it first came out. It looked interesting enough, like a silly version of Samurai Warriors. I knew enough waring states period history to fill in most of the gaps. I watched two episodes and then forgot it to watch something else. (Much like I’m doing to Eyeshield 21 to watch Basara now.) Let me break it down for those of you who don’t know.

The Waring States period was a time in Japan’s history of war and warriors  where a lot of kick-ass fighting occurred. The first units of riflemen began to appear on the Japanese battlefield and the face of war in Japan began to change. The local daimyo gathered armies under their banners and pushed forward against their rivals. Some wanted to conquer all of Japan. Some wanted to defend their homelands. It was great stuff, even before embelishment.

So, here we have Sengoku Basara. The name pretty much translates to “over-the-top waring states period”, or so I’ve been told. It is fitting. Historical figures have been distorted into characters. The brave and bold warrior Honda Tadakatsu, for instance. He was a brave warrior with a distinctive helmet that many legends have sprung up around because of his general awesomeness.

And now he’s a giant robot.

The thing is, putting the obvious distortions aside for a moment, if you watch the show, you learn the information. It isn’t as though they are really writing a new script, just altering parts. Spoiler alert, Honda died in 1610, after the battle of Sekigahara. Surely, when he gets blown up in episode 6, you haven’t seen the last of him.

The Japanese people LOVE historical dramas. A lot of awesome Japanese people have acted like awesome Japanese people throughout history. As such, a lot of awesome Japanese actors have acted like awesome Japanese people throughout history acting like awesome Japanese people… on TV!

Casting Gackt as Kenshin? I approve!

With that long history of taking long history and turning it into interesting television, I suppose Sengoku Basara was an inevitability. I mean, we have had anime that turned the classic movie The Seven Samurai into an anime (Samurai 7). We’ve had an anime that turned the Count of Monte Cristo into an anime (Gankutsuou). It was only a matter of time before the anime writers, much like Hollywood, began to turn to textbooks for badasses to populate the screen.

Now, I’m interested in what an American version of this would look like. Maybe something like REVOLUTION perhaps? George Washington crossing the Delaware on a jetski equipped with chainguns… I suppose the Civil War would probably be easier to work with. Nothing but Americans on either side, plenty of places for drama and GUN FU! I can see it now, Robert E. Lee wields 4 shotguns and rides a motorcycle. Epicness.

Of course… we might already be slowly walking down that path…