Anime Review: Persona 4

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Chris Biewer

I was able to get Persona 4 watched what seems like a long time ago now. I honestly don’t even recall around what time it was. So this is a little overdue, but I wanted to share it anyways, because I thoroughly enjoyed Persona 4.

For whatever reason I decided to give Persona 4 a watch. It was one of those franchises that I heard a little bit about but nothing major. I never played any of the games but regardless, I came cross the series for a pretty cheap price on a RightStuf sale and decided to give it watch.

The story starts out with our hero, Yu, moving in with his uncle and daughter while his parents are away for work and there is a rash of murders in the small town. Over the course of the first several episodes, Yu starts to build friendships and his alliance is built for the series. The introductory episodes are quite nice and do a pretty good job of giving each character some background.

My only complaint with the series from a story perspective is I feel like it loses track a little after the midway point. The first half of the series mixes these character introductions with some comedy but we also get a nice progression to the case to finding the murderer. The second half of the series seems to wander a little until we get to the final third or so of it. The story at that point starts to string together some solid episodes and brings a resolution to the series. At a story perspective, when Persona 4 stays on track with the main plot, it is a pretty engaging series that mixes action, comedy and character development since all of the characters are forced to confront their insecurities or things they don’t want people to know about them. But when the series starts to wander just past the half way point, it leaves you wondering. What could have they done if they took out a handful of the “wandering” episodes and replaced them with more impactful episodes towards the end of the series or even for the build up to the ending?

The art of Persona 4 doesn’t offer anything special. There are some fun and impactful animations when the characters are in the TV world, but if you are looking for new types of animation or something unique, you aren’t going to find it here. Which isn’t a knock on the series, because it is animated about the way you would expect. Not every show will be done in a certain studios style or risk-taking venture.

If you are a fan of video-game series or the perhaps the slice-of-life type series, Persona 4 may have enough of a cross over to find it appealing and worth a watch.

Personally, Persona 4 has introduced me to the franchise and I have been slowly starting to check out more areas. Most recently, the manga and one of the video games, Arena Ultimax. After I get my “to watch” stack watched more, I would like to check out the follow-up Persona 4 the Golden Animation.

Art book Review: Ping Pong

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Chris Biewer

A while ago I finished up watching Ping Pong the animated series. It was a fantastic series and the first sports series (outside of Initial D) I watched. The story was very compelling and the characters had very unique stories of their own. So of course I needed to check out the art book for Ping Pong.

First off, I have to admit that I am a sucker for art books that go in the landscape format instead of the traditional portrait style. Just something about them that I find much more enjoyable and more immersive.

The Complete Artworks book has a lot of the types of things you would see an your typical anime art book. The first segment breaks down each episode, complete with art and (assuming) a summary below, the book isn’t translated into English which isn’t a big deal since I buy them for the artwork.

The book goes into rough colored storyboard frames, the background environments and settings. One of my favorite “spreads” in the book is one with all of that characters laid out with all of their different clothing outfits on. You can see Smile and Peco (among other characters) in their ping pong attire, school attire, and even casual attire. It’s nice to see this since in most series characters wear the same clothing.

Beyond the character “spread”, is a wide range of character model sheets, expression sheets and notes on each character. These types of images are things I have always enjoyed looking at. You can see the characters in some of their earliest stages and also see how they look all the way around and their various expressions.

However, my absolute favorite part of this book is the following section. It is a very technical section on ping pong. It shows the different holds of the paddle the characters would have depending on their grip. There are sequential images for different types of hits with each grip as well. So if the animator needed to see how a pencil grip back hand looked, they have it as reference. Not only that, but they have it done in a couple styles so you can see exactly how the character moves from different perspectives. I really wish this portion was translated so I could read the notes on these pages. I can only assume they are gold.

The next section of the book contains key animation art for select shots, allowing you to see how the characters move for expressions and in some cases, the extreme perspective of some shots. There are even a few pages of characters playing ping pong against one another so you can see how they react to the other player when the ball is hit.

One of the final sections breaks down some of the use of computers. Using 3D animation and even Flash for the series. Again, I wish this section was translated because this would be gold to read and learn how they used these programs in this series since it has such a unique visual style.

If you’re into art books, you can pick up Ping Pong at Tokyo Otaku Mode online.

Recent Reading: Jaco the Galactic Patrolman

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Chris Biewer

Closing in on wrapping up my homework for my online class, but wanted to take a bit to write about some manga I recently read, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman from Viz Media. As you may know, I am a big Dragonball Z fan. I credit the show for inspiring me to get into animation and it has influenced my career path and when I found out that Viz was releasing Jaco, created by Akira Toriyama, earlier this month, I had to check it out. Here are my thoughts.

The cover is a little bit of a precursor into the story and some of the themes and comedy you will see in the story. That fellow on the cover, is our main character Jaco, he’s a galactic patrolman. He looks an awful lot like a former Dragonball Z villain too, down to the exact color scheme. Check out the trailer for the new Dragonball Z film, the Return of F, coincidentally that comes out in Japan later this year.

In the story we see some of the same elements we see in Dragonball Z, the story starts on a tiny island that is inhabited by an old man, Omori, sound familiar? Omori is a super smart scientist that is working on figuring out time travel. Jaco’s spaceship crash lands on Earth and decides he is going to live with Omori until it can be repaired. However, the ship requires an expensive material to fix so Jaco is stuck on Earth for a while.

Over the course of several chapters, we see some comedy that is straight out of Dragonball Z. Jaco saving the day when a stranger is in a bad situation against a group of bad guys. The story continues to follow some of the same Dragonball Z humor.

The book ended with a slight twist, but in hindsight I should have seen it a little sooner given the closeness to Dragonball Z. The book even ends with a small, unseen chapter of Dragonball Z, which makes sense considering the book was to get Toriyama’s work out there more before the new Dragonball Z movie in 2015.

The artwork of Jaco is Toriyama’s distinct style and it was nice to see it in a new story. However, I felt the overall story was a little lacking and in my opinion, was solely used as a piece of promotional material for 2015’s Dragonball Z film (not that there is anything wrong with that). With that said, I felt it was a little too promotional and felt a little too much as a spin-off. It is only a one volume story, so if you are looking for a light read it might be worth checking out.

Recent Reading: Flowers of Evil Volume 11

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Chris Biewer

The day has finally come, the release date for the final volume of Flowers of Evil by Shuzo Oshimi. For the duration of the series, I have been long praising it as a model for character development and emotional artwork. Volume 11 added a new reason to read the series, Oshimi’s amazing ability to tell a story without relying on dialogue. There is a phrase in the comic and manga world “Show, don’t tell” and the final installment of Flowers of Evil does just that.

There are chunks of pages where the character expressions and environments tell the story so well that words are not needed. Truly amazing and strongly suggested as a series from me.

I got into the manga series after I watched the anime series and since the series wasn’t getting an ending, I needed to dig into the manga to get a resolution. I will admit, there were a couple volumes that had me a little concerned with how the story was going to play out, but the resolution was solid and didn’t leave me with any regrets or empty hands.

Volume 11 of Flowers of Evil has a chapter with some fantastic artwork that is very stylized. The stylization of the artwork works well since it is the way of a character telling a story.

After wrapping up the Flowers of Evil, I can whole-heartedly recommend this title to anyone, volume 11 did nothing to change my feelings on the piece. You can pick up all the volumes from Vertical.

Recent Viewing: Terror in Resonance

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Chris Biewer

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FlvOXuT5WU&w=560&h=315]

The summer season of anime is wrapping up, so I thought I would recap the series that survived my cuts along the way, Terror in Resonance. One of the main reasons I wanted to watch this show was the duo of Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno, this duo has worked together on some noteworthy projects; Cowboy Bebop and Wolf’s Rain.

The series spans 11 episodes and follows our two main characters Nine and Twelve who are terrorists that are planting bombs. The two of them operate under the identity Sphinx and generally play some games with the police throughout the early part of the series, almost Riddler vs Batman-esque. Many of the riddles are based in mythology and mythological creatures.

The main police character is a detective named Shibazaki and a student by the name of Lisa Mishima gets mixed up with the group after an attack. Rounding out the characters is Five, a mysterious figure with a past link to Twelve and Nine.

The story becomes a cat and mouse game as three different motives are brought to light by the characters and their affiliates. From a pacing standpoint, I felt the series moved pretty well. The introductory episodes do a great job of keeping your attention and developing some of the characters. The middle lays out a bit more backstory to the characters as well as a story twist that leads to a solid payoff in the end.

I typically watch series several times over a period of time, that way I can get to know the series more and pick up on things I missed in the initial viewing. I bring that up, because I believe that there is a social or political commentary in Terror in Resonance. While I can’t go farther into detail on it since I don’t want to spoil such a new series, if you are into shows along those lines, it is a must see. Personally, I will be picking up this series when it comes out to add to my collection. Very good stuff from from the team of Watanabe and Kanno. You can watch Terror in Resonance on FUNimation’s site.

Did you watch Terror in Resonance? What were your thoughts?

Recent Viewing: A-Li-Ce

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Chris Biewer

I can’t recall if I mentioned that I recently bought some older anime or not, but I did. For the last several years I have been interested in the 3D animation scene in Japan, or lack thereof. A couple years ago, I presented some of the things I found and thought were interesting about it at the SGMS conference in Minneapolis (which is being held again at the end of September).

I thought it would be fun to expand on my presentation and dive a little deeper for AnimeFargo September 26-28th. The first thing I wanted to do was start digging into some of the early 3D titles to come out of Japan, which led me to the film A.Li.Ce.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a trailer to show you clips of the title, but here are a few links if you are curious. (IMDB) and (Anime News Network)

A.Li.Ce may be the first full 3D animated film to come out of Japan, which would have been around the time of Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc in the US.

Visually, the film looks like cutscenes from RPG games of the same period with some shots having aliasing issues (pixellation). I am not surprised about some of the visual quirks, it was a standard at the time for places not named Pixar.

The story of A.Li.Ce revolves around a girl named Alice and her travels in space and time. While traveling in space, she actually travels into the future and runs into Yuan, a young boy who fixes robots. The two embark on a journey that involves a ruler named Nero and a super computer.

The plot has some pretty big and sometimes awkward gaps. Which I felt was a little surprising considering the novelty of the 3D animation and the potential marketing tool of that alone, I would have expected a cleaner story. There is also a weird appearance change by one of the characters in the film, something you don’t see too often. I’m not talking about a hair cut or something small like that.

The film was dubbed by ArtsMagicDVD. I don’t mean to beat them up, but the dub for the film is really bad. I would like to think that if the dub was better, it would have made the film a little more tolerable. As it stands, the film doesn’t have much for replay value. On a positive side note though, ArtsMagicDVD is the facility that released the other 2 full 3D features I intend on watching this month yet. The A.Li.Ce DVD also has some nice extras that I haven’t fully made my way completely through yet either. If your a fan of full 3D features, it’s worth checking out just for the fact it may be the first 3D feature to come out of Japan.

Recent Viewings: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Chris Biewer

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhrKb11rEU&w=420&h=315]

Recently I have been checking out the local anime group and working on becoming a little more of an active member in the anime community and seeing if there is a way I can get involved in helping the con scene as well. It has been a couple weeks and I have met some fun people too. 🙂

Over the course of the last couple weeks, the club was finishing up a series called Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. I missed the first 3 episodes, but got a quick run down from the group on the story so far. It is a short series, spanning only 11 episodes.

One of the interesting facts about the show is the production life of it. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 was being produced as a show about what would happen in case of a large scale earthquake in Japan. How would major government entities react? The show was made because based on scientific data, a large earthquake was due.

When I got into the show, a brother and sister duo had recently met an adult. The older sister Mirai, her little brother Yuuki and Mari the adult, wee journeying through the city looking for each of their families together. Checking through schools, hospitals and area checkpoints, the three work their way back to their houses to try and locate family members.

The middle of the series (about episodes 4-8) seemed to be a little repetitive and follow the same formula of Yuuki and Mirai roaming around after Mari gets distracted. Personally, I don’t think the children would be out roaming around as much after such an event, but I understand that is needed for story progression.

The ending of the series is where I found value in the show. Having said that, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is not a series I would own, but it is worth a watch if you have the opportunity to.

Recent Viewing: Dragonball Z Battle of Gods

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Chris Biewer

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQJM963be_I&w=560&h=315]

For a night I felt like a kid again 🙂 It has been the first time in close to a decade where I was going to see new Dragonball Z, from FUNimation. I was super excited, the film was going to be a full length feature, meaning it would be almost twice as long as the previous 14 movies. So is the film worth your time?

I am going to do my best to avoid any major SPOILERS since it was only in select theaters. I also persuaded my girlfriend to go to the movie as well and she hasn’t seen more than the first 4 or 5 episodes of Dragonball Z. The film handled non-Dragonball Z fans pretty well, by laying out enough history so you had a basic groundwork of some of the characters and storyline.

There was several things that stuck out to me in the film. One of the things that really stuck out to me was the amount of comedy and throwback jokes that long-standing fans. Several times I was finding myself sitting in my seat with a smirk from the jokes and a few one-liners. If your a fan of Vegeta, he is in the film more so than I would have thought. From the trailers and previous Dragonball Z films, my assumption was that the film would primarily feature Goku as the main character/hero and the other characters would only have small portions. The dub version had a few curse words, which was a little surprising. The film probably had more curse words in it, than the rest of the series and films combined. Finally, the amount of CGI in the film was also surprising. It’s the way of the industry in Japan, going more into CGI or the 3D realm if you want to be specific. Several shots had some pretty heavy 3D camera work and environment work. I enjoyed it and think it could evolve pretty well with the DBZ universe. A few of the scenes were a little rough, but you can see that they skills or technical prowess is starting to develop.

On a final note, it has been announced that there will be another new film next year. I have a hunch there was a set up in this film for the future film, it is a personal belief, no spoiler or insider info. I am curious with the reboot of Sailor Moon, if this film and next years film are testing the waters of doing more on the series or if they will stick to films. I guess only the future will tell 😉

Recent Viewing: Godzilla

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Chris Biewer

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc&w=560&h=315]

I have been wanting to see Godzilla since it came out in May, but through the grapevine I heard bits and pieces of the film and decided I would wait to check out the film until it went to the cheap theater in town. I don’t want to get into some of the things I heard prior to the film, and I am going to do my best to avoid spoilers in the film since it has only been out for a couple months.

I also need to preface this review by saying I can’t recall watching any of the previous Godzilla movies or any other “kaiju” films for that matter, outside of Pacific Rim. So with that in mind, let’s jump in.

The opening credits to the film, did a nice job of setting up the film. It had a nice top secret government, “for your eyes only” feel and it had some old historic footage to add to it. The movie opens with some nice paced and well laid out scenes and doesn’t look back from there. The pacing of Godzilla was something that really left an impression on me leaving the theater. None of the scenes felt too long or unnecessary and the film did a great job of making sure that each scene progressed the story. This is my initial reaction of watching the film for the first time, I could change my position after watching the film a few more times. But that is what we go to theaters for, to watch a film and be entertained. For me the film moved right along and told it’s story with purpose.

I didn’t know much about the production of the film heading into it, like what studios worked on the CGI, which there was a lot of. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the CGI in the film and the scope of the CGI from monster creation to city destruction and more. Considering kaiju films are not a big thing in the US I figured the CGI would be pushed to the end of the film and the rest would all be live action, not the case. The CGI was consistently used in the film and nothing seemed out of place.

I don’t think one would need to be a fan of kaiju to enjoy Godzilla. In my opinion, it was set up as a thriller film that a fan of suspense would enjoy, as long as they don’t have a misconception about kaiju films.

Maybe once the film is released for DVD/Blu Ray I will go back and revisit it a little more in depth and I’ll share some more of the film. Very pleased with the film and I will for sure be adding it to my collection when it is released!

Recent Viewing: A Good Day to Die Hard

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Chris Biewer

Action movies have a special place in my movie realm, after all, I grew up on action movies as a kid. When we would go visit family we would watch whatever action movie my uncle had on tape, which mostly was made up of a collection of Lethal Weapons and Die Hards. I recently watched all of those films in the last month or so while I was working on Cosmic Rage. Of course every time I finish watching a franchise like that I have to go online and see when the next in the franchise is going to be released. For instance, rumors online are that Lethal Weapon will be rebooted in the coming years. However, I haven’t seen the latest film in the Die Hard franchise so I decided to remedy that.

The film has the premise of John McClane (Bruce Willis) goes to Moscow to rescue his son who is in prison, only to find out that his son is a spy and is protecting a political prisoner. While the premise of the film sounds like it could potentially be solid, there were certain things in the film that didn’t fit the series and it felt out of place. My main complaints with A Good Day to Die Hard had too much CGI and it really felt like bruce Willis was handing the franchise over to his son Jack character, Jai Courtney.

The film followed around the 2 McClane’s as they argue about what to do and past history that we never get a glimpse of. The two characters have a rift between them and we get nothing as a member of the audience and only get a resolution at the end that feels predictable. As they venture through Moscow and eventually out of the city, Willis’s character seems to pass on his knowledge to his son, which is why the film feels like they are introducing a new character to lead the franchise.

Bruce Willis’s character relies so much on knowledge of the previous films. This hurts the film in two areas. The first being character development; since his character is already developed and has been in the previous 4 films, there isn’t much left at this point for them to do considering the character’s age. The second is the character’s karma. We know his luck in situations and we know how his brain works, so when he has a gut reaction to certain situations, it really foreshadows the film because he is never wrong. The premise of the movie felt better suited for another franchise, not one with a well established character.