Anime DVDs January 29, 2008 BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad - Volume 6 Naruto - Volume 20 (dub) Ragnarok The Animation - Volumes 2 (2 disc) Ranma ½ - Season 5 Box Set The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye - Volume 4 Witchblade - Volume 4 Manga January 29, 2008 Coyote Ragtime Show - Volume 3 Family Complex - Single Hell Girl - Volume 1 Infinite Ryvius [...]
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First things first, if you haven’t viewed Witchblade Vol. 3 yet, you might want to skip this review. The episodes presented here are impossible to talk about without spoiling the end of that last disc. Still with me? Okay. Let’s move on. Picking up exactly where the 12th episode ended, Witchblade Vol. 4 sees child services attempting [...]
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By now you know the Witchblade storyline (if you don’t, check out my reviews of the first and second Witchblade volumes), so I’m just going to cut to the chase. Episodes 9 through 12 see Masane as Takayama’s date to an elegant defense dinner, Riko befriending an X-Con (and new revelations regarding such friends. ie: [...]
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You might want to catch up with my reviews of Witchblade, Volumes One and Two before reading my review of Volume Three! Things get interesting as Masane proves she is dumber than a pile of rocks and the series finally takes a cold shower… plot summary Masane has tentatively teamed up with her neighbor and freelance journalist, Tozawa. [...]
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Amiami snuck a late update in tonight, presenting at long last a pair of Witchblade PVCs from Toranoana that we've had our eye on here since August: Masane and Shiori. Both are due out in early February at 1/10 scale and 5,040 yen each; sculpt is from Koyama Kou, who seems to have done some work for Namco in the past and had a kit featured at Wonder Festival but is otherwise under the radar. Based on the sample images I'm a bit skeptical of the quality on these, but the price is certainly reasonable; along with Orchid Seed's Shiori these may be the last Witchblade kits we ever see, so here's hoping Tora can do them justice. (no more)
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So I've got a confession to make. I'm evidently not otaku enough. Well at least in comparision to some of the stuff I've been reading and listening to. I try. I don't go out much. In my free time, I either write, blog or watch anime and movies - all of which are solitary activities. The majority of my free money goes to buying DVDs.But according to here or here and it's even hinted at here, I'm missing the boat somewhere. And what that boat might that be? The wanting an anime character girlfriend boat. I don't get it. Really, I don't. Maybe it's the fact that anime girls, well, aren't that attractive. Ocassionally there's one or two where the artwork is enough to catch my eye, but in comparison to the earlier issues of Witchblade or Danger Girl, they don't even rate. In most cases, I can't suspend my disbelief far enough to make them sexual objects. Occasionally a show manages to come close (like the shower scene with Aya at the beginning of Tenjo Tenje), but for the most part even the most blatant fanservice doesn't really do anything for me.But for some people, well they just take it too far. In the rant on Anime Diet (the first link I posted), the guy just went on and on with misconception after misconception (I'm still hoping he was joking). And that's what I've been hearing out of the hardcore otaku culture, is a lot of assuming that women are shallow golddiggers. It's like they've taken all of those stereotypes from off the television and superimposed those on real women.All I have to say is they aren't real. Seriously, you can't reach through the television screen and touch them. I don't get it at all.But then again, I don't understand skydiving either. So I'm willing to give their fetish a little bit of leeway. If that's what get's their rocks off, I'll look the other way.Except that it's getting worse. A quick trip around the blogs and I'm finding that not only is there a subculture of anime fans like that, but a really loud subculture of anime fans. With fetishes so unrealistic that it makes me shake my head. It's starting to make me wonder. Am I the only anime fan out there that doesn't have a fetish for anime girls? Are there other people who feel that anime is great entertainment but taking it beyond that is a little, well, creepy?Occasionally, I'll see or hear older fans that say the same things I do, but I wonder if we aren't the minority. Or am I just not otaku enough to understand.
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I'll be damned if the news doesn't just keep coming tonight... Figure maker Orchid Seed has just put up an official page and preorder listing for their prodigiously endowed Tsuzuki Shiori (bikini ver.) PVC figure from Witchblade that we've been tracking here for the past few weeks! As previously reported she is scheduled for release in March of next year at 6,800 yen, 1/7 scale (revised downward from 1/6), and 23 cm tall. The sculpt is from Orchid regular Ishiyama Satoshi, and based on the visual information thus far her castoff status is still in limbo; here's hoping. She does come with a replaceable mutant arm, which is kinda cool... Orchid's gallery reproduced below:
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So, I’ve now seen Witchblade Volume 2. In my review of the previous disc I was a little nonplussed with the series, but intended to withhold judgment until I saw at least the second disc. And now that I have, does the future of Witchblade look any brighter? Note: If you haven’t already, go back and [...]
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We've already scooped the bulk of what was new in this month's issue of Hobby Japan, but after getting my hands on an actual copy of the magazine last night I noticed a few other odds and ends that might be of interest. Includes updates from Witchblade, Kimikiss, Code Geass, Queen's Blade, Bible Black, and Nitro+ character designer Niθ; details below:
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Witchblade, the anime, is the bestselling anime of the year, “According to analysis of Nielsen VideoScan data after its September 25th release date…” Well, if what made volume one a success was its “sexy protagonist and antagonists dueling each other”, then Volume Two will blow its predecessor out of the water since it has [...]
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