Japanophile Isle

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A new trend seems to be taking course here; High-Profile, Full-Featured RPGs for the DS. This new game comes pretty close to the announcement of Sigma Harmonics that we’ve seen earlier this week. It makes us wonder if this is temporary move to see on what console will the rpgs really move profits or if RPGs are here to stay on the little DS. If Japan is any indication though, things are looking grim for grandiose RPG lovers. Japan has spoken at length about it’s support for handhelds now, one look at sales charts will confirm this.

There is one last hope though, FFXIII, this game will have to sell like no final fantasy has sold before. That is, if the RPGs want to come back to their previous glory by attracting developers to home consoles.

As you may have heard, BestBuy has been pushing out their Anime DVD’s at 50% off now. We’ve got Elfen Lied for you at $15, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Platinum at $28.99

There’s also some other stuff like Tokko, FMA and DBZ if you follow this link

A new season is upon us. Is there anything worthwhile? At first glance I spotted Code Geass which is pretty high profile, some macross is also in there.

Looking at it some more, nothing sort of steps out as a must-watch. Last season we had Zetsubou Sensei’s second season and Clannad which were guaranteed value. This season though, something is definitely amiss, KyoAni (who brought us Haruhi, Lucky Star and Clannad) has nothing on paper! Disturbingly enough, it’s up to us to figure out what they are going to do. Some of have been expecting Haruhi, but that’s been canceled and nothing has been officially announced to take it’s space!

As much as we are disgruntled here at J-Isle, we’ll put on the working gloves and sort through the anime riff-raff this season and bring you the unexpected gems so you don’t have to.

There is one tip I can give you right now though, head over to one of our writer’s forum post with detailed information about the shows

*edit* It has come to my attention from my staff that xxxHolic is very worth your time so make sure you don’t miss it!

We’re now covering

• Kure-nai
• Code Geass R2
• Moonlight Mile
• Kanokon
• Alison and Lilia (Coming soon)
• More to come!

While browsing through Moetron I’ve stumbled upon the news that anime version of the slice of life manga Hyakko was announced at the Tokyo International Anime Fair. The manga is serialized in the web magazine FlexComix Blood.

It’s a pretty low profile manga and I doubt this announcement will set the net in flames, but personally I’m very interested. I’m a big fan of slice of life animes and every new one is good news for me. ^_^
But most of all because I’ve really enjoyed Haruaki Katō’s previous manga Yuuhi Romance . It only lasted one volume (and it’s not even fully translated), but it’s a blast to read and deals with pretty uncomfortable issue with lot of humor and charm. So I’m hoping Hyakko will deliver similar quality

Go visit the official site for first character designs.
And if you know japanese (I’m jealous, you lucky bastards!) the original version of manga is avaible for free on Flex’s website

Most notable this week was the Finale to True Tears. This episode 13 brought a close to one of my personal favorites this season. As with all things good that happen to end, it is always too unfortunate. Such a heartwarming series.

Episode 22 and 23 of Clannad have hit this week, some of us are happy that episodes keep coming but probably more of us are at the tip of their seats hoping for the fall of Clannad that will give birth to more of Haruhi, according to some prophets.

Spring season of anime is just about to start for good, but before it does I though it would be fun to share my feelings about some of the series that have just ended their run.

Rental Magica started it’s life as a series of light novels written by Makoto Sanda, of which 14 volumes have already been published:


plot summary:
Itsuki Iba’s father is a president of Astral Company: a magician dispatch service employing mages of various kinds and origins. When one day his father disappears, Itsuki is forced to take over as company’s president. The problem is: not only he isn’t a mage himself, but he isn’t exactly the bravest person in the world.
Not all is lost however, as Astral employs powerful and resourceful mages and Itsuki himself has glam sight; a supernatural eye that sees through all kinds of magic.

This isn’t a series that thrives on originality. We’ve already seen oh…so…many shows about magical teams fighting supernatural threats and aside from glam sight power Rental Magica hardly has anything we didn’t see before. What it lacks in originality though it makes up with sheer quantity of magic. There are so many types of magic in use here from celtic magic, through shinto, buddism, alchemy, poltergeists and even Solomon magic. It seems a bit of a mess early on, but once it all settles in it creates interesting combo.

Now, the problem with Rental Magica is that it feels like two different shows in one. First half of the series is simply average, with few good episodes. It lacks punch, the characters are flat as hell and the action is laughable. Then halfway through the series Rental Magica catches second breath. The second half is a lot better. Characters finally gain depth, enough that I actually cared for what was happening to them. Itsuki finally grows some balls, the action becomes much better and more engaging and the cases Astral handles finally are interesting to watch.
I must also say I was very happy how the love triangle (well…two girls falling for one clueless guy, typical anime cliche) was handled.It was filled with charm and humor and what’s best: it knew it’s place, it was merely a subplot and never tried to overshadow the whole show, which is refreshing after what happened with second season of Shana.

It’s a real shame the show couldn’t be this good since the start, to me the second half was worth watching through the average first half, but not everyone will have such patience. Still, at the very least it’s not bad enough to make anyone who likes this kind of anime stop watching it, especially since I’ve teased you so much about later improvements At the very least the first half delivers decent enjoyment and lots of educational value.

I must applaud Shinsen subs here, not only did they deliver quality translation, but they went above and beyond the call of duty with their translation notes. First episode has almost 7 minutes of post-credits explanation of various magic techniques and legends that appeared in the series and whenever something new showed up in later episodes Shinsen guys always did lengthy explanations. They really did great job and made the first episodes much more fun to watch

I’m hoping for second season, there’s plenty of novels material for at least another full length series and if they could continue on the same level as later half (or even improve) it would definitely be something on my “must watch” list, especially since despite all the problems with the show I did grew quite attached to those characters.

As for rating.. hmm… I would give first half of the series 5.0 and the second half 8.0. So it’s 6,5 on average, which I would rise a little since the show ended up on high note
rating: 7/10

^^ this monk owns so much

And one last thing. The cruel anime producers should start paying anime characters enough money, so that those poor hardworking 2d people won’t be forced to take part time jobs anymore: ^_^

Series synopsis:Gorou Saruwatari and Lostman are mountain climbers who have ascended some of the highest mountains around the world. At the peak of Mount Everest, they see the ISA Space Station in the sky above and become determined to go into space. At the same time, NASA begins a program to research and obtain a new energy source which has been discovered on the moon. Gorou and Lostman attempt to join the program through different approaches: Lostman becomes a pilot and Gorou takes a job as a construction worker.

Moonlight Mile was to me one of the highlights of 2007. We don’t often see this kind of anime. Ultra realistic hard sf , without typical anime conventions, with believable complex characters and real human conflicts. It was a story about taking first steps in conquering the space showing how it could really look like. There were no living mechs there, no 13 years old pilots with mysterious powers. The characters are all grown ups who achieve their dreams through hard work and dedication.
It’s not that I don’t like more fantastical approach, but seeing good old fashioned hard SF in anime was very refreshing. The series has won me after 5 minutes. In the very first scene of first episode we see a female astronaut on moon who’s landing craft was destroyed. The help from base will come in 12 hours, while the astronaut has enough oxygen to last only 5 hours. Fortunately on map she sees abandoned container with oxygen, 105 kilometers away. So astronaut starts running, she’s heavy ( her body mass plus the suit weighs 140kgs), but the running speed is 6 times faster than on Earth thanks to lower gravity. Unfortunately running in -150 degrees Celsius causes the legs to get severe frostbites. Now when was the last time we’ve seen SF anime with such realism?

I would even dare to say that Moonlight Mile is SF equivalent of Monster or for those older readers anime equivalent of Joe Haldeman’s Forever War.If that’s not a recommendation then I don’t know what could be.

First season (subtitled “Lift Off) ended at episode 12. The second season(14 episodes long in total) begins right where first one ended. In typical Moonlight Mile style the OP sequence is composed of images from events far ahead (most of which we won’t see in this season). It’s as nice as always, it teases the viewer and gives the series an epic feeling.
First episode is Lostman-centric. We’re shown his attempts to win the trust of his subordinates, which isn’t easy, because every one of them is much more experienced than him and they don’t like the idea of having a rookie as their captain. It’s action-packed episode with first real space combat we’ve seen in the series. It was a real blast to watch it. Combat is handled as realistically as everything else in the series, the space follows newtonian physics, so the battle is like a more tactical version of Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 space fights than what we saw in Star Wars.
Second episode jumps back to Gorou as he welcomes new astronaut onboard the space station. It might sound less exciting than Lostman episode, but trust me: there are plenty of thrills in this episode (getting into space without suit and taking shower in ZeroG FTW!)

To sum up it’s a very good start for second season. The quality of storytelling didn’t drop even a bit. Plus it’s fascinating to see just how different Lostman and Gorou are. And despite those differences (or maybe because of them) I still cheer for both of our heroes. Although from the future teasing it looks like sooner or later the viewer will have to choose where his loyalties lay.
It’s a shame big fansub groups avoid this series (it was announced as licensed, but that was a year ago and so far no news about release have been posted), so we have to wait a long time for new episodes (the series long ended airing in Japan). Still, it’s worth the wait. If you’re new to Moonlight Mile go download the first season and then join me and my fellow suffering souls in the agonising wait.

And hopefully somebody will scanlate manga in the future as there’s no word on third season yet and already 14 volumes of manga have been published.

ratings:
Episode 1 : 9/10
Episode 2 : 8/10

New trailer for the Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann movie from the ongoing Tokyo International Anime Fair

The floor capture and overbearing background noise aside, we can hear the familiar G-L music and the excitement in the air for one of the most successful animes of late.

Observant eyes surely spotted Lord Genome with his new body. So is this a retelling of the story, new development or a little bit of both? Was the first season enough for you?