Day: January 2, 2011

Did someone dial 1800-M-Z-R-O-B-O-T?

Death Caprice is not an exotic pizza

The best tourist guides bring the attraction TO you

Tired of your Gundam lead moaning his head off? Then this should be therapeutic.

Mazinkaiser returns, just seemingly shorn of the previous continuity in this OVA. What little plot there is involves a colony of Amazons in skimpy garb (predictably useless like most others from the Land of Nagai(tm)) and handwaving about a gravity curtain and somesuch threatening world devastation, but I’m sure the fans aren’t too bothered about all that. With a giant robot that’s a walking Equilibrium advertisement, dramatic rising from a flaming chasm and a suitably battle-crazed leading duo going by the squad name of Death Caprice, you know you’re in for a madcap ride. Other amusing notables include the greatest use and commentary on rocket punches EVER, and Satoshi Hino and Shintaro Asanuma being the 2 male leads, last seen in such roles as Tsuchida from Hanamaru Kindergarten and Junpei from Nyan Koi! respectively. People suffering from withdrawal syndrome post Shin Mazinger Z should be ecstatic about this new offering.

(Is it some some kind of seiyuu joke that Shiraishi Ryoko (everyone’s favorite butler with the poor face) is cast as the Hurricane character?)

There’s a reason they call it Badlands

STEALTH APPROACH

The price of collateral damage

For a 12 year wait, that was certainly very underwhelming.

I don’t wish to spoil anything (but that’s probably more because of apathy than a real desire not to ruin a film for others), but the entire feel of the film felt like it was a short arc transposed from the first half of the TV run. Which, to put it delicately, isn’t really the part of Trigun the majority of fans love the most. As a homage film it only did its job semi-adequately, as a genuine addition to the Trigun franchise, my honest opinion is that it failed. The film ghosted in and out of pre-production for a while, so I’m disappointed that after all this time, Nishimura Satoshi didn’t close out the franchise with a serious bang. Now, I also understand the movie is caught in the same quagmire that the Conqueror of Shamballa film from FMA (which coincidentally, was dire) found itself in, since Trigun Maximum doesn’t really play well with its anime counterparts, but you still have to set your expectations pretty low for this film not to give you a mixed feeling at best.