And with this post, I officially have caught up to the wonderful releases by two certain great fansub groups who have combined to do the series. Huge thanks to them. This episode, we take a look at the true history behind Kaiba and Neiro, and the role of Kichi, the supposed degenerate merchant, in all of this.Kichi, Hyo-Hyo and the currently comatose Warp.Kaiba 09 - Shoot Warp!Episode SummaryThe episode starts off with the fake Warp being questioned by what I believe to be the supercomputer helping to monitor the "kingdom". Having left something on the fake Warp, Popo manages to contact him and fool him into thinking that one of Warp's copies was the one who contacted him, thus leading him to his eventual termination later.Cheki, Popo's and Neiro's friend since young, also questions why Neiro suddenly changed, attributing it correctly to alteration of her memories. However she is foiled by the woman who likes Popo, and later has her memories of Popo and Neiro erased and only ones of admiration for Popo downloaded into her. Neiro somehow regains part of her altered memory through their conversation and later in her room, but with Cheki denying things, she is unable to gain a control of her memories before Popo appears and says a code word to set off her hatred for Warp.It would appear from her memories that Warp had caused much tyranny and Neiro's parents were direct victims of such tyranny, and that because of this, Dada gave her a new life after she was killed by Warp, in order to fight him and rid the world of a tyrant for the common good.The capture of Kichi and his comments before his capture reveal that Warp is indeed someone really amazing in this world. No drive in the universe could store such a tremendous amount of memories, lending credence to the statement at the end of episode 5 that Warp is the controller of memories and perhaps the protector of them.Warp is brought back in his original body by Popo, though most of the work was supposedly done by Kichi (whose sister, the woman who loves Popo, sold him out). However Warp has, by this time, regained all his memories and likely knew Popo was not true to his words. His question about what happened when Popo met him in episode 1 proved it.Neiro arrives in a machine known as the Carbile, with her hatred for Warp evident in her eyes. She fires off huge devastating beams but keeps missing. Hyo-Hyo and Kichi break free, and the former tries to rescue Warp the entire time while Kichi tries to stop Neiro from her madness.When down at what could only be called the suburbs, Kichi's revelation that her memories had been altered by him, and how Warp came to love Neiro and stop his tyranny, manages to keep Neiro from completely destroying the current Warp. Popo tries to stop it, but Warp shows off his power at this point. Indeed, from the scenes in this particular part, Warp certainly seems like the controller of memories.Neiro fires one last shot on Popo's instigation and perhaps the hatred instilled in her, but she is unable to stop crying after that. Popo leaves them to their own devices and exits the scene while Neiro moves down to Warp. Kichi keeps referring to Warp as Kaiba at this point, and mentions that Hyo-Hyo is indeed Neiro, and has her true memories, unaltered.The body Hyo-Hyo is in was also shown near the start when Popo's underlings try to catch Kichi, but this time, instead of one missing, there are two. I wonder if this could be a prelude to something later on.Kichi's sister in the foreground with two underlings.IssuesWhether or not this is a coincidence, episode 9 of Bartender also touched upon the same issue that this episode tried to put across, for perhaps at least half the episode - that of memories defining whether a person is alive at all. As Cheki put it, memories are living people, lives that should not be destroyed. In Bartender, Minegishi Ryuuichi also informs the Kami no Glass (Glass of the Gods, bartender Sasakura Ryu) that memories are proof that a person has lived, and was alive.This has implications for everyone in general. Indeed, how do you define someone as being alive when you have lived? In the world of Kaiba, memories are now alterable, in terms of chips, yet for those who have not converted, they are still living, albeit in the form of memory roes. Memories without a body, who keep on going, even if they are not truly alive, they are to be considered, as Cheki mentions, to be lives in themselves. Even the copies of Warp were indeed pained at how Popo kept destroying their old brothers' memories, shouting that Popo had no regard for memories. Indeed, what would you think, in such a situation? I certainly am with Minegishi, Warp's copies and Cheki on this one - that memories are to be treasured, proof that a person has lived.Hatred-filled Neiro on the Carbile.My ImpressionsOther than the issue on memories, we have finally gotten the back story to Kaiba and Neiro's past, along with confirmation that Hyo-Hyo is indeed Neiro. We also now know part of the plan of Popo, and shown the power of Kaiba. Indeed, the fact that Kichi keeps referring to the current Warp as Kaiba is of deep note as mentioned. I can only wonder, what we will be shown here from now on for the remaining 4 episodes.
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I was listening to some music of mine and heard the opening song to Bartender, which I decided to download on a whim and never got around to writing about. I realize the show is a bit old. I was on MAL one day and indulging in some ARIA obsessiveness and saw a “if you [...]
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After a break, thanks to certain blog stuff and other news and posts, we return to Kaiba, with a look at episode 4, Grandma's Room of Memories. I know I am rather behind, since the latest episode I watched was episode 7 already, but heck, I do rewatch these episodes to get a better understanding of them and to be able to give a clearer post as to what the episodes try to get across to the viewer. It is good to rewatch them to appreciate the beauty, just like I rewatched Bartender as well to absorb everything. Beautiful series are like that.Before I begin, I would like to thank the anonymous comment poster for correcting me regarding what Chroniko called Kaiba last episode. She called him "Hippo", "kaba" in Japanese and not Kaiba. Thanks. Anyway, here we go.Kaiba 04 - Grandma's Room of MemoriesThe Grandma that finds Kaiba and fixes his hippo body. Episode SummaryRather touching episode as well, though it did not make me as sad as the previous did. Episode starts off by showing Vanilla chasing after Kaiba (in Chroniko's body) on this light gravity planet, which looks more like a rotating asteroid, with a lighthouse on it. Kaiba switches to his hippo form to avoid Vanilla, and in so doing an old woman finds him and sees his wound sustained from episode 2. She brings him to her place, the only one on the entire planet, in front of the huge lighthouse.Because of this, Kaiba comes into contact with the old woman and her grandsons, and Vanilla also catches up. In an action-packed scene, Vanilla manages to get frozen, while the other twin brother returns and both start talking about their dead grandfather, the mention of which immediately threw the old woman into a deep sleep.Vanilla also manages to see inside Kaiba's memory bank, which is different from the norm, he mentions. This is a first look inside Kaiba's newly imprinted memory bank since he has officially lost all his memories. It may be that his old ones are hidden somewhere, as will be seen later.The kids then forced Kaiba into their grandmother's memories, afraid that Kaiba was after their treasure, which they wanted for themselves. Here is where it gets interesting. Apparently she has a memory bank in place, a fake one, full of blank books. On top is hidden an entry into the real memory bank, a vast room of books of the old lady's memories. She then sits at a table in the center of the room, and Kaiba advances to her. Seems he can talk in his hippo form in her memory bank, and thus he brings to her the reminder that her lover, the grandfather, is really dead, reviving old memories.The old man later appears in her memories, and explains why he died. The grandmother then decides to join him on the other side, and thus dies with Kaiba still in her memory bank. While running away, Kaiba hears her final words to him.Kaiba also manages to tell the kids where the supposed treasure is, but the treasure is nothing more than photos and memories of the old folks' past, as well as photos of the kids when they were infants. He then unfreezes Vanilla after returning to Chroniko's body and asks Vanilla to make a grave for the old lady. The part where the hochi flowers bloomed at the graves of both old folks was particularly beautiful.Kaiba also regains a fragment of his memories at the end when Vanilla shows him a sort of food that had a third "hair" growing on it. This is quite the hint that he might yet regain his memories.Kaiba at Grandma's table in her Room of Memories.IssuesNot surprisingly, the first issue we find is the one that the grandma mentions of her grandsons, that of not looking beneath and instead always setting their sights on something that they could not possibly obtain without first getting their foundation right, as well as seeing how they were affecting the world around them in a myriad of ways if only they would take a closer look. This is a prime example of mankind doing the same - affecting the world around them without bothering to take a closer look all the time, and setting their sights on the wrong things without a good foundation first to get them off the ground.The second is mentioned as the grandma moves to the other side. The world is the same over, no matter big or small, she said, because what truly matters is the size of your heart. Again, I wonder how many will keep this in mind.Lastly, the twins dying in the ship at the end of the episode and the dialogue between the two shiphands who found them is of worthy note. As they observed, it is hard to live elsewhere after you lived at a certain place for a long time, especially if the two places are worlds apart.The planet showing the lighthouse and the small house that the grandma and her grandsons live in.My ImpressionsI liked this episode. The focus though was not so much on the issues that were observed beforehand as much as the love between the two old folks. All the grandfather wanted to do was to give his wife a chance to smile again, and having found the rare flower that cemented their love in the first place, certainly he could not pass the chance to give her a reason yet again to smile. Unfortunately, the risk he took was too large and he died.The memory bank is an allusion to the subconscious side of us. This can be confirmed by the unlocking of the old woman's memories when she was reminded that her lover had died. I am sure many folks know by now that our subconscious, in an attempt to protect our minds, sometimes hide or "forget" traumatic events and incidents. But they can also be found or "unlocked", like in this episode, through various means and jolts.The old woman helping Kaiba with his wound was expecting some reward in return. Seems like it was telling me there is no free lunch in this world, though Kaiba certainly wanted to give her something in return, evident from the way he rubbed his newly patched part, when he was looking at the fake memory bank.I loved the way they presented the effects of the twins on the world around them, and how the old woman remembered it all and noted it down, yet she still feels sorry for them in the end because their parents left them in the lurch and made them what they were today.Great move on the part of the producers by making the old folks grow through the times in their conversation. If it was the same seiyuu throughout for each (I doubt it), I would have to say they did a fabulous job switching from young to old voices throughout.Finally, a hint has arisen as to Kaiba's memories being hidden or locked somewhere, and the fact that his memory bank is different from the norm seems to subtly tell the viewers that Kaiba is no ordinary person. Yet no further clues are available except to Neiro being his girlfriend in the past at the end of the episode.Overall, this was another fine episode. The next episode will have more issues connected to it though.
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This is Aya's second idol DVD. I guess the first one last fall sold well enough that Spacecraft and Pony Canyon went ahead and made a second. At the moment, a week after its release, it is sitting seventh in sales in the idol DVD category on 7 and Y, and tenth on amazon.co.jp. (click photos to enlarge) There are several separate sequences, each featuring Aya in a different outfit, two of which are bikinis. More flesh is on view than in the first DVD. There is a loose story, with Aya's voiceover, of her meeting someone and going out with him. She sometimes faces the camera as if the viewer were her date.But the most interesting parts of the DVD show Aya playing UNO with some girlfriends. The girls sit around playing cards and talking "girl talk" of various kinds with Aya: about what kind of boys attract her, etc. The camera is on Aya the whole time. Several-minute-long segments of this are used to divide the various sequences. If you've always wondered what her normal voice sounds like (if a seiyuu has a "normal voice"), this may be the place to find out. It isn't the high, speedy cute-girl voice she displays in TV appearances, but the voice of a normal Japanese college student and society girl, it seems to me.These bits are quite informal, and evidently unscripted -- although they probably had the basic direction of the conversation planned out ahead of time. But you see her thinking, and hear spur-of-the moment jokes from her and others. You never see any of the other girls, who may be her manager and stylist, etc.In any case, as usual, Aya comes across to me as a fairly smart, natural, and attractive person. Not a quick-thinking, sophisticated entertainer, but more like an ordinary college student (even though she did drop out in first year, probably due to work pressure). The topics are somewhat interesting and amusing, but nothing deep at all. My ability to understand rapid colloquial Japanese is highly imperfect, though, so I'd be glad to hear from others what impression they got from the talk. I enjoyed the whole DVD, including the bikini pics, but I admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable with the progressive uncovering. Some people on 2channel keep saying she will end up in adult videos. That won't happen, but I hope commercial pressures don't move her too close to it. The idol videos selling more than hers tend to be more uncovered, too. As in her blog, she is determined to show us that she is now an adult. One sequence has her as a stylish woman drinking at a bar -- and also as the bartender. The shooting was done in Guam. They flew her there for a weekend last winter.The region-free 41-minute DVD is available from Amazon Japan (US$28 + shipping) and other sources. But if you just want to hear her work as a seiyuu, I can't recommend too highly the current anime Nijuu-mensou no Musume (it's also called Chico, Daughter of the Phantom Thief, or The Daughter of Twenty-Faces). For me, this is among her best seiyuu work, especially from episode 3 on. Nothing could be more different from Konata. If anything, it's more like a young version of her voice as Layla in NANA.
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Forgive my misogynistic title. I just couldn’t resist. Araki Joe is a man who Knows Alcohol. Readers may know Araki from the anime adaptation of his manga Bartender, which tells the story about a man whose mixed drinks brighten the lives of his patrons. He’s also responsible for Sommelier, which tells the story about a man [...]
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Absolute BoyfriendEpisode 1 The Flawless Robot Lover Namikiri Gaku played by Sasaki Kuranosuke (Shikaotoko Aoniyoshi, Bambino!) and his boss are talking about love as they look at the completed robot played by Hayami Mokomichi (Hataraki Man, Rondo), and discuss finding a suitable test subject. Izawa Riko played by Aibu Saki (Utahime, Attention Please) sneezes and Ishizek played by Kyo Nobuo (Kamen Rider Kiva, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e) hands her a pocket warmer. Just as she’s about to confess to him, he gets a phone call and hurries away. She’s discussing her encounter with her co-worker in a bar, when she too gets called away. But the bartender gives her a free drink, telling her she has a gloomy face that’ll never get her a boyfriend. Then the bartender tells her unless the perfect man shows up she won’t find someone. Namikiri sits by her at the bar, telling her he’s going to change her life. Then he takes her back to the Kronos Heaven offices and begins questioning her on her preferences in men. Telling her that for free Kronos Heaven would find her the ideal boyfriend.Co-starring with Aibu Saki is Mizushima Hiro (Kamen Rider Kabuto, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e) as Asamoto Soshi her boss. I really enjoyed this first episode, I love romantic comedies and science fiction so it’s pretty much a given that this show would appeal to me, also I was really impressed with Mizushima Hiro last summer in Hanazakari no Kimitachi e as the dorm leader and even more so as Kabuto which I’d just recently watched. Hayami Mokomichi was terrific as the robot and I think he and Mizushima Hiro are going to become rivals for Saki’s attention, that’s not a spoiler it’s just my guess. In one respect I think this is like Densha Otoko in reverse, except Saki is nowhere near as pathetic as Yamada was. I’d highly recommend this to fans of romantic comedies like Hotaru no Hikari or Proposal Daisakusen. This drama is based on a manga of the same title by Watase Yu, I haven't read it yet, but after watching this I'm going to. Download the first episode English hardsub bit torrent release from SARS fansubs here.
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Shin's nightmare at the start of the episode.For this second episode, the most part was about murasaki's antics while shinkurou was busy with school.She's trying to feed the cat, I was terrified.We saw that shinkurou's school life is kind of bland and that his social life is suffering these days. The relationship with that girl he hangs out with seems really strange, they don't look comfortable together. She doesn't want to hear about his job but it's all that's on Shin's mind. Understandably so, I must add.The scene where Shin brings Murasaki to the public bath is really uncomfortable for pretty much any westerner I believe. She happens to have got shampoo in her eyes and won't stop being noisy. That right there would have to top all of the embarrassment I've accumulated in my whole damn life. I mean how would you feel giving a bath to a seven year old in front of everybody?Now the scene with the milk! Hilarious, cute, slightly violent but still charming. Shinkurou knocks her on the head every time she tries to tell him that not thanking the lady for giving her milk is acceptable. She has trouble understanding who is a servant and who is an everyday person you see.She finally gives a really long winded apology to the lady, shinkurou is satisfied and tells her "thank you" is just fine from now on. It's all good and everyone's happy.Things get a little less easy going from now, we get to see more of the true nature of Shin's work. Dispute mediator is quite the euphemism; see for yourself!"Is there a problem gentlemen?""Let me take care of that for you."They didn't stand a chance. The poor bartender is shitting his pants.This second episode didn't tone things down at all, every bit as interesting as the first. I'm beginning to lose interest in what happens at his school though. Maybe they'll spice things up soon. Those scenes don't last too long so it's ok.Finally, the appeal of this show is seeing the story develop and watch the little princess going about her business.4/5, very recommended once again.
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Happy New Year to all of you and I’m sure most of you had it yesterday considering the wackiness of time zones, but I myself had it only thirty minutes ago. It was okay, actually rather normal since my mom tends to work every New Years because she is a bartender, and it is the [...]
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On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: twelve I CAN’T BELIEVE IT TASTES LIKE BLACK VELVET!’s, eleven HYPER CLOCK UP’s, ten EVERYTHING FOR BIG FIRE’s, nine SKULL MAN’s, eight SYNAPSE ATTACK’s, seven GARO’s, six OH GAWDS YUNO IS MOE!, five ZERO!, four VOLTEKKA!, three PRIMAL SCREAMS OF HOT BLOODED FURY!, [...]
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seriously, one day I’ll stop writing about things that awo hasn’t talked about that aren’t bartender but Project A-Ko: excellently animated popcorn action/comedy that exudes 80s with tits and missiles and explosions and shit for less than what a movie ticket costs, you should probably buy this if you haven’t already Mononoke: okay, well I just finished my intro [...]
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