Blog Archives

One Piece the Movie: Adventures in Alabasta (2007)

(from , dir: )
Posted on July 27, 2008 by Samson

As most of you would know, One Piece is a very popular manga and anime series. The main character is Monkey D. Luffy, the leader of a group of pirates known as the Straw Hats. Luffy’s dream is to find One Piece, the world’s greatest treasure, and become a pirate king. There have been a number of movies based on the manga/anime, Adventures in Alabasta being one of them. As the title suggests, it tells the story of the Straw … (read more)

Comments Off on One Piece the Movie: Adventures in Alabasta (2007)

Saiyuki Requiem (2001)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 12, 2007 by Deni

Today’s lesson: the pros and cons of the Original Animated Video, otherwise known as the OAV (or OVA – Original Video Animation – depending on your viewpoint), as exemplified by the Saiyuki movie, Requiem.

Originally, OAV was a term coined to describe the movie-length spin-offs that spawned from existing TV series. These days, they could be almost considered a rite of passage – you’re not a real series unless you’ve done a such-and-such-The-Movie. Well, maybe not, but from Cowboy … (read more)

Comments Off on Saiyuki Requiem (2001)

Saiyuki Reload (2003)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 12, 2007 by Deni

This is perhaps the second last time you’ll hear me harp on this subject, and actually, I’m sort of wondering what more I’ll be able to say about Saiyuki. With this new series – Reload – the Journey to the Max boys are back, mixing it up with a couple of story arcs from the manga (both Gensoumaden and the new, still on-going manga series, Reload) and a few anime-only episodes as per the standard manga-to-anime formula. The quality in … (read more)

Comments Off on Saiyuki Reload (2003)

Saiyuki (2000)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 12, 2007 by Deni

This is a completely biased review. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Everyone’s got their little secrets, their weaknesses, right? Well, mine’s Saiyuki.

Sometimes known as Gensoumaden Saiyuki, the anime is based on a manga series by Kazuya Minekura that started serialisation around 1996 (and is now published in the US by Tokyopop). It was inspired by the famous Chinese story Journey to the West, better known to Western audiences as Monkey, and it’s everything … (read more)

Comments Off on Saiyuki (2000)

Patlabor 3 – WXIII (2003)

(from , dir: )
Posted on January 25, 2006 by Deni

There was an excellent documentary on SBS a little while ago, about filmmaking in Japan. In it, for perhaps a tenth of the overall screen time along-side mention of the great Japanese directors — Ozu, Mizuguchi and Kurosawa — and the post-war cult films of Toho Studios, stood a single representative of the modern anime industry, one Satoshi Kon. What he had to say about anime, that it was not the industry’s ultimate goal and that animation was a means … (read more)

Comments Off on Patlabor 3 – WXIII (2003)

L/R – Licensed by Royalty (2003)

(from , dir: )
Posted on January 25, 2006 by Deni

Dust off your teacups and up your grooming standards, boys and girls. L/R – Licensed by Royalty is a swanky adventure that won’t have you thinking too hard. Smooth operator Jack Hefner and the roguish rebel Rowe Rickenbacher are field agents for the elite special operations group Cloud 7, and together they’re pretty much equipped to handle anything. Favoured by Ishtar’s royal family as spies-du-jour, they tackle sensitive cases with wit, style and classic James Bond aplomb, making it all … (read more)

Comments Off on L/R – Licensed by Royalty (2003)