Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

I took a slight departure from my usual and watched this series. It's a comedy with lots of cute bishies. The story revolves around four high school boys, with personalities akin to every boy band in existence, tasked with turning their landlord's niece into a beauty in exchange for free rent. Since the four of them are what every woman want, they think this will be an easy assignment.

When they meet Sunako, their dreams are hopelessly shattered. Their new charge is into very grotesque things (she likes to hide in the science room at school and cuddle skulls and specimen jars containing organs) and loses half her body weight in blood anytime she looks them in the eye. She eventually gets into a love/hate relationship with Kyouhei, the angry/bad boy member of the bishi quartet. 


All in all the series is cute and fluffy. Since it's a comedy be prepared for random stick figure animations and chibi size cutouts. I couldn't help but see Sunako as a Mary Stu during most of the series. In a lot of the manga I've read the female mangaka tend to draw themselves similar to Sunako and some of the side comments are dead on with her personality. 


Now I want to dig out my copy of Weiss Kruez....

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger ended last weekend and a new series has begun. I loved this season and when I really love a season, I usually have a hard time liking the next. I can definitely see why, with waning interest in Power Rangers in general, Disney is not going to port over this series. The series is verify Japan centric, to westernize it would take higher caliber writers than they can afford to pay.

I'll be posting a season in review in the next few weeks on my thoughts about the season, but here's a snapshot of my impressions. The Red Ranger was definitely one of my favorites this past year, while the Blue and Gold rangers competed for the Most Over Acted Performance award. The Pink Ranger was very stereotypically calm and reserved, with the Yellow Ranger being a bit too timid for her color most of the time. The Green Ranger was just adorable with his contrary disposition.

A Look At Red #18

And Again...



Character: Casey
Actor: Jason Smith
Ranger: Red Tiger
Picture From: Power Rangers Jungle Fury





For those of you observant enough, yes. I skipped a number mainly because I wanted to break order and say how cute (wiggles fingers like she's cooing a newborn) the new Red Ranger is. So this is mostly a snippet of the current Red Ranger that may or may not be updated as the series continues.

Why was he chosen to be Red? (takes deep breath) Because he's just so adorable and a quick learner that one week after starting at the top secret kenpou school located in the middle of a dense jungle that may or may not be in New Zealand/California, (Ran out of breath) cowed a senior student that was being an ass.

So um... we'll see if this series is worth watching after seeing the cute and cuddly wuddly little ranger (they even address him as a cub at the beginning) ok I'm sure that the actor would like being called cuddly wuddly seeing as how he's 23... I think.

So, Gekiranger is a little more than half done in japan. I think the ' american' title is going to be jungle fury .. More tonight

A Look At Red #16

And to begin once again...

Character: Nick Russell (Bowen)
Actor: Firass Dirani
Ranger: Red Mystic Ranger, The Light
Picture From: Ranger Central



I've decided to return to my commentary on the Red Rangers with a continuing installment of the men in Red. At first I held no interest whatsoever in the current season. I don't believe the writers really quite knew what to do with the character of Nick. Firass is actually a decent actor but the role was flatter than a steamrolled pancake. There was great angst potential with him and it fell a bit short. Let's break down the angst module:

Heavy hinting from the very first episode (via a red blanket) that he is the long lost child of Udonna (Snow White at 40) when he does find out that Udonna is his mother its so anti-climatic... no grand declarations that "It's not true! That's in impossible" just a simple.. "You're my mom? Hi mom!"

Koragg, turning out to be his dad under a really powerful spell, would certainly be a cause for great angst. And that angle seemed to be the only avenue for his angst to vent. (Being psychically linked to your postal dad that's trying to kill you, tends to do that to a person)

Being the outsider from the big city to the small sleepy town (with a major shopping district for destroying massive amounts of buildings and property) and being the first accused of any deviant behavior (Ala stealing the daily deposit to the record store) was touched on mildly but later repercussions never thoroughly discussed.

All in all... Nick was a pretty bland character who might have been a slightly less mediocre Ranger had it not been for Richard Brancatisano's (Xander) show stealing presence.

Garo - The Fanged Wolf

This past weekend I finally sat down and watched Garo, a Tokusatsu, with a slightly different flavor. It aired from October through December 2005 (I think...) And the first episode made me say "hmm..." The main reason for this was the title character Saejima Kouga (His rank is Garo)played by Hiroki Konishi

His eyes and mouth and even his demeanor remind me of Rion from the first Galerians game. So I spent most of the series just looking at him. He's the kind of guy who's got a hot body (it's usually completely covered in the show, so only a few a few scant glimpses on those extremely rare moments he's knocked unconscious and bandaged up.) but not the normal definition of bishi.. mainly because his character is fustratingly sexless.


Enter... Kaoru played by Mika Hiji
She's the Plain Jane - Damsel in Distress of the series. Kouga obviously falls for her, but he's so emotionally detached from the world he doesn't realize it until late in the series (like all clueless heroes). What's worse is that when he finally admits that he likes her, he doesn't tell her. Not ever really. Other people in the series have to tell her that he's in love with her. The guy risks his soul for a girl, and doesn't tell her... yeah... real smart that one. When Kouga wants to take her somewhere, he usually just grabs her and drags her along without asking first. This is what you get for letting an enchanted ring, and a butler raise you for 10 years.


Enter Zero/Ginga played by Fujita Rei

He's the young upstart and wears the silver wolf armor... his territory is the West District where Kouga's District is the East. It's upon his introduction that you really get the sense that the sense that the Makai Knights are mostly solitary and extremely territorial... Almost as if each district is controlled by ONE alpha male and all others must leave. Zero's motives for intruding upon Kouga's territory is at first ambigouous (because it has to be you see... why give a full exposition in the intro for your motives when it's so much fun to guess?)

Kouga and Zero duke it out (the characters seriously try to kill each other while taking out a bad guy... it's very awesome stunt/wire work.

All in all this series is actually quite interesting, and worth the watch... Kaoru's scream makes me think of chimps, but that could just be me. Next time I'll actually talk about the plot... ^_^

Kamen Rider Kabuto

I've seen the first few eps of Kamen Rider Kabuto and I think I might like this series... it's definitely different from Kamen Rider Hibiki... but then I think Hibiki was the exception to the other Kamen Riders... That usually happens to me with a series such as this... I start with the one that's really different to get introduced to the series.

I started the Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy Legend for the gameboy and then years later played Final Fantasy VIII. When Advent Children came out I played VII for a time, I'll finish it eventually... I want make sure I can cross-dress Cloud properly ^_^

So with the Kamen Rider series, I started with the one that really diverged from the rest of the series... but still it was cool :)

Since I haven't watched an episode for a couple of weeks I can't remember their names anymore (I feel bad about that. I plan on watching more this week, so I can give my impressions of the eps) But I want the little guy to be able to transform one of these days... I wonder what his Kamen will look like? Saaa