An anime based on popular video game Xenosaga, titled Xenosaga: The Animation, premiered on TV Asahi in Japan on January 5, 2005. The anime itself follows the story of Xenosaga closely, albeit removing several scenes and adding others, and some scenes were entirely re-written for the show’s purposes. It is the year T.C. 4767, and mankind exists on distant planets and artificial colonies. Earth is seemingly gone; it has been erased from all known starmaps and renamed “Lost Jerusalem”. The capital of all known space is Fifth Jerusalem, where the Galaxy Federation supposedly keeps watch over mankind.

For the last ten years, a mysterious enemy known as the Gnosis has begun to attack man’s colonies seemingly indiscriminately. It is largely believed that the Gnosis were brought into the universe by a scientist named Joachim Mizrahi during the Miltian Conflict of T.C. 4753, but there is more to that story than the public really knows.

The pacing has the viewer running through the first ten to fifteen hours of gameplay of Episode I in the first five episodes. Jin Uzuki, Shion’s brother and a major character in Episode II, can be seen early on in episode eight of The Animation. Given the nature of the anime, it works best as a suppliment to Episode I; some points that the game explained poorly or didn’t explain at all are brought to light in the anime. Despite the changes, many fans prefer The Animation over the movie DVD of Episode I given with pre-orders of Episode II, saying that the DVD was a poorly assembled group of cutscenes; the quality of the DVD is significantly lower than that of the orginal PlayStation 2 cutscenes.

Source: Wikipedia

Official Website

MOON PHASE has reported news of an upcoming third Gundam SEED series, sourcing the February issue of Comic Gum. Considering how popular SEED/DESTINY were (just look at the listing of the Top Anime Theme Songs of 2005!) it probably shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but as far as I know it’s the first Gundam show to score this many sequels.

Source: Gunota Headlines

Full Metal Panic! (Katakana: フルメタルパニック!, often abbreviated to FMP!) is the name of an anime series which originally aired in 2002. It is based on a light novel series by author Shouji Gatou and arts illustrated by Shiki Doji. The anime was produced by GONZO Digimation.

The series is set in a modern, parallel world where the Cold War has yet to end and the KGB and other secret governmental agencies are running rampant. It follows the events of Sousuke Sagara, an unduly disciplined member of Mithril (an anti-terrorism organization which often operates under the guise of the UN), and Kaname Chidori, the schoolgirl whom he was assigned to protect. Chidori is considered to be one of the “Whispered”; that is, she possesses an inherent understanding of advanced Black Technology.

While carrying out his mission in an environment previously foreign to him, Sagara assumes the identity of a high school student at Jindai High School. His inability to “blend in with the crowd”, however, is quickly made transparent by his peers (though ultimately to no consequence as they merely regard him as being a military obsessed otaku). Chidori had initially mistaken him to be a stalker of sorts as he was always “coincidentally” nearby. The fish-out-of-water Sagara continues to pester Chidori — albeit with good intentions — until she finally realizes his purposes in doing so.

In 2003, a side-story to FMP! was released. Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, also known as FMP? Fumoffu, focuses (almost entirely) on the high school life of Sagara and Chidori. Although it does include more slapstick humor and randomness, it is not a complete spinoff of the series as its events develop the relationship between the two main characters.

The series continued in July 2005 with Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid, which continues the events of the original. It is an adaptation of the two “Full Metal Panic! End of Day By Day” novels.

Links:

ADV’s Official Website
Merida Island
FullMetal*Panic

Source:

Wikipedia

A Japanese Internet whiz is tipped to become the world’s fourth space tourist – and he wants to orbit the earth dressed as an ace pilot from a hit Japanese animation series.

Wow. Enomoto Daisuke, a Japanese investor, plans to make his first trip into space dressed as Char Aznable of Gundam fame. Check out the story here!

Hoshi no Koe ~Voice of a Distant Star~ saw a quiet OVA release in 2002 and is only 25 minutes long, but it is truly a compelling, thought-provoking story. Set in 2046, young student Nagamine Mikako is chosen to join a space expedition, leaving her friend Noboru behind. As the distance between them becomes greater, so does the time in between their messages, until both are truly alone.

Hoshi no Koe combines 2D and 3D animation for a unique experience and was created almost entirely by just one man, Shinkai Makoto. This anime was licensed by ADV and released on DVD in 2003.

Links:
ADV Films
Official Site
PointBlank: Hoshi no Koe

Like many of the Gundam series, Wing is an anime that far outshines its manga counterpart, though it is sometimes scorned for being so different from the preceding Gundam shows. Set in the AC (After Colony) universe, the stars are five pilots and their Gundam mechs – Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei. (The naming scheme of the main and many secondary characters refer to numbers.) They land on Earth separately, each coming from one of the space colonies above, with a common mission – Operation Meteor. Their encounters with each other, however, and with other allies and enemies, will force them to make choices they might have been unprepared for.

The series came to a total of 49 episodes and was very popular when it aired in North America in 2000, dubbed for Cartoon Network and YTV. An OAV (originally in three parts but grafted together for a movie for the English release) was also released, called Endless Waltz and following the pilots after the series end. It starred many famous voice actors (among them Midorikawa Hikaru as Heero, Toshishiko Seki as Duo, and Takehito Koyasu as Zechs) and was a landmark in North America as being the first dubbed series to air on regular cable with an intact, unsubtitled Japanese opening. As a result, Just Communication and the band that performed it, Two-Mix, gained great recognition among Western anime fans.

I already know, of course, but I was trying to think of a mecha series I’d seen recently enough to review…and there aren’t any. A lot of my friends love mecha – sometimes I wonder what exactly is it that makes certain types of anime appeal to different people? I’ll watch anything you put in front of me, but once the space battles start, I’m totally lost…

In some works of science fiction, mecha (singular or plural) or mechs (singular: mech) are piloted or remote-controlled limbed vehicles. The key difference between mecha and robots (in the English usage of these terms) is that a mecha has a pilot or controller. The term is derived from the Japanese abbreviation for the English term “mechanical,” although English speakers have repurposed the term to mean only the vehicles described above. The original Japanese term of mecha has the broader denotation of all mechanical objects, including cars, guns, computers, and other objects without pilots or limbs.

In anime, ‘mecha’ is a genre that features the vehicles and their pilots as the central characters. Here, the average mecha are usually twenty feet tall at the smallest, outfitted with a wide variety of weapons, and quite frequently have tie-ins with toy manufacturers. The Gundam franchise is an excellent example: Gundam toys and model kits (produced by the Japanese toymaker Bandai) are ubiquitous in Japan. In this genre teenage pilots are more common than would be feasible in real life.

-Wikipedia

I guess I’ll eventually take on Gundam Seed, Dai Guard, Transformers or something…I need to locate a decent mech show and watch it! Anybody have a recommendation?

Filed under mecha only because were talking about robotic pizza-making cats…

Nearly every anime fan knows this show’s dubbed name, and yet very few have had the privelege of seeing it in Japanese. No subtitled version was ever produced, and Saban never tried to hide that the show was never translated per se…they just made it up as they went along. As a result, it’s famed for being one of the best early-90s animes (and before we knew it was an anime, it was the best cartoon, to be sure) brought to North America.

The premise of the story is that Kon no Kami, a wily fox and member of the Royal Council, plots to overthrow the government of Edoropolis and take over the city. Without enough proof to have Kon no Kami removed from the Council, Wanko no Kami of the Royal Guard calls regularly upon the Nyankī, known in English as the Samurai Pizza Cats, to defend Edoropolis from takeover. These three aminaloid cats, Yattarou, Pururun and Sukashii, work in a pizza parlour in the city, and launch from a huge pistol on top of their store to fly into action.

54 episodes of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee ran in Japan, 48 of which were translated and dubbed for English audiences after 1991 in Canada. 40 of the 48 dubbed were aired in the U.S. due to censorship restrictions. It has also been dubbed into French, German, Hebrew, Italian and Dutch, but the show has not been seen in most countries since the late 1990s.

The word Kyatto (cat, obviously) is written with the kanji for surprising group. Ninden is short for Ninja Densetsu, meaning Ninja Legend, and Teyandee more or less translates into “What the &*^#@ are you talking about?!”, and is yelled at one’s opponent before battle. -Steve Waldon

Links:

The KNT Room
SPC Labs 2
Purr-Fection
Samurai Saving Time