Preview clip for the 5th Yamato 2199 Movie.

This is different from the trailer below. It's the first 9 minutes of the 5th film (which translates to episode 15-18 of the series that airs this spring).
Spoilers abound so beware.

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As they say...ZOMG Sauce

I ran into a couple of intriguing animated .gifs that have defied my attempts to find a source.

Does anyone know what they are from and if said shows are any good?

They're a bit large so they're below the fold.

more...

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Girls und Panzer Ends

I must confess that in spite of everything, I like Kadotani a lot. She's enthusiastic, calm under pressure and has balls of brass.  She's a departure from the rest of the cast in that she was developed beyond the  trope she represents.

Girls und Panzer is in a lot of ways a collection of tired old tropes and annoying recent ones. There is no new ground here. It's a sports anime with mechs aimed at a demographic that is so insecure that they can't abide male characters in their anime potentially competing for their 'waifus'. The result is that we get the galling notion that the war on boys has been carried to its logical conclusion so that males aren't allowed to compete in the sport at all.

Given this set-up and an overly large cast that seems to have been concieved by 31 die rolls compared against a moe/tsundere stock character generator, the only real question about the show would seem  to be "To what depths of squalor will the panty shots descend?" But that is not the question I find myself asking. Instead I find myself grasping to figure out how this collection of mediocrities can have kicked so much ass that one can be forgiven for worrying about a trans-Pacific ass shortage.

What the HELL? How did they do that? This show is not refinement  of stale tropes. This was frickking alchemy. It was lead into gold. Oh, and the answer to the unasked question above is "None". I don't think there was a panty shot in the whole show...they get points just for that alone. However, this show is about way more than propriety. Girls und Panzer manages to deal with ethics, sportsmanship and honor in a way few shows have.

The show does this without being preachy. Furthermore, despite what ought to be a completely predictable storyline, it manages to keep the viewers on the edge of their seat. The use of WW2 tanks was inspired and the battles with them were thoroughly entertaining and well thought out. Even the fairly by the numbers characters were well written to the point that one actually cared about them. These girls are smart and make up for their vastly inferior equipment by being clever and audacious.

The few problems with the show did not stem from the writing, or the directing but with a subcontractor who flamed out requiring two 'clips' episodes be inserted and the last two episodes be delayed over three months. After the spectacular surprise hit the show had been nothing could live up to the anticipation the last two episodes engendered.

Despite this handicap the two episode finale is a thoroughly satisfying rollercoaster that still manages to surprise.
The fact that the final showdown ends up being fight between sisters in a schoolyard...with tanks....is a nice touch.


Everything about this worked. The mockery of the big clumsy Porche Tank turning into the sick realization that "It's a big immovable Tank!" was priceless. The only thing that stretched credulity was the method for taking out the Maus...and I'll let that slide for the sheer awesome involved.
 
I am in awe.

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"...Through all the fire and the smoke, we will never give up hope..."

Here is the extended trailer for the 5th Yamato 2199 Movie. It's about twice as long as the one on the DVDs.

Be advised; there appears to be much spoilage therein.

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Somebody Needs to Fund This

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I do miss this show

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GJ Club

I'd found a couple of cute animated .gifs and tracked down their source. When I read the premise for the show it did not excite me...at all. However, a bit of digging turned up the fact that despite the cast and premise it is based on a series of light novels...and not a dating sim.
So I gave an episode a whirl.


In a certain school with very garish uniforms four girls and a boy round out the membership of the mysterious GJ Club. The clubs purpose is unclear but within the tiny club room, the five young souls drink tea, play chess, change light-bulbs and have other such harrowing adventures....

This is an odd one.

Case in point....

This here is Kirara Bernstein. She's...well she's an exchange student...from someplace. She doesn't speak Japanese confidently and is generally very quiet.  She  seems to be on Atkins. Kirrara is also exceedingly tall and a bit awkward. She nearly died when bitten by a black widow at age 4 and this has left her with a terrible fear of spiders. Is there anything else I'm failing to mention here?



About 2/3 of the way through episode one, Mao the rather manic club president and Nebbish McOrdinary here notice that, yes, there is indeed something odd about the girl sitting by the window.


Which precipitates a conversation that ranges from how there is no cut of meat on any animal that looks like that to whether or not eating it will allow them to "increase their hit points" and speculation on just how the HELL that thing Kirara's eating was prepared.

The other club members are Shion, an elegant but slightly out of touch genius chess player and Mao's younger (and much taller) sister Megumi who is the absolute master of the club tea service. The dude is named Kyoya and serves mainly to be the butt of pranks. He prefers Josei and Shojo mamga because they tend to actually have character development.

Artwise, GJ Club has got quite detailed backgrounds with the animation itself being about average. There are occasionally some editing quirks that are fairly clever.

Although his show's cast seems to consist entirely of cliches it has a fairly offbeat feel to it in part because the pacing and humor is rather dry, though there is some slapstick as well as the oddness evidenced above. By the end of the first episode there are actual hints of personalities in some of the characters.  

I'm not sure what to make of this show...

However I laughed.. and it's cute so I'll probably watch at least a few more episodes to see where it goes.

Thus far it's way better than it ought to be.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that one of the things that seems so off center is that while it is cast like a harem show it's more a cute girls doing cute things sitcom with the caveat that one of them is a guy.

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Media Blasters Status / Other News

Media Blasters has posted an announcement on their website clarifying their situation. The rumor that they had no business liscence hit them hard as did an injury to the owner. Several titles are no longer in their possession and at least two are owned by them but with no plans for release. It seems that they intend to sell those rights to other companies.

The only labels MB will continue to acquire and release in for 2013 are AnimeWorks, Tokyo Shock and Kitty. In addition there will be a focus to produce and release original productions through Fever Dreams.

So they are not in fact dead, though they are limping. I find it strange that they are going all in on their hentai line with one title a month in the pipeline. I would have thought that that would have been the hardest to get sales for given current technological realities. Perhaps the licenses were very cheap.



This is true on the Meada Blasters PR page and their Facebook page.

I don't know if this omission means anything but I allow myself a tenuous hope as their dub of Squid Girl season 1 was superb.

In other news the High School of the Dead manga is re-starting in Dragon Age on April 9th.



Crunchyroll will be streaming the missing episodes of Girls und Panzer on March 28th.

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