Oi, oi – it's been a month already and I'm back with volume 2 of Al's Anime Annex. As my postman will attest, there is plenty of Manga goodness to look forward to this May. I've watched the lot and am looking forward to telling you all about it – so let's stop gabbing and crack on. This month we've got ninjas, pint sized gunslingers, time travel and loads, loads more.
Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino Series 2: The Social Welfare Agency in the Italy of Gunslinger Girl is a front. They don't dish out dole money and they don't hand out soup to the homeless. They do look after orphans though, as long as they're little girls, and by “look after” I mean they wipe their memories and give them cybernetic bodies and as many AK's as they can fit into their Hello Kitty lunch box.
I'm not entirely sure why the Social Welfare Agency sway toward a lethal child cyborg workforce, perhaps it's because they're easier to control, maybe they cost less to feed or maybe it's because they look so darn cool leaping around in slo-mo emptying a clip into some terrorist scum bag.
But it's not all bullet time beauty, Gunslinger Girl is a surprisingly slow burn. As much as it initially appears that a lot of not very much is happening, you get drawn in deeper and deeper every episode. With each instalment, more secrets are revealed, the relationships get richer and things get more flashback-y.
As purdy as the shoot outs and chases look, and as intriguing as the intrigue is, it's not weighted quite right and you are left wanting more bang, bang and less blah, blah.
Corpse Princess Series 1: When Ouri moves out and gets his own place, he gets a lot more than just two crappy, part-time jobs. He gets embroiled in the machinations of the Shikabane Hime - pay attention, here comes the science bit. Shikabane are big, horrible, scary, undead monsters. They are created when somebody dies full of intense regret. When this happens they can gain an immortal body and come back - to be all big, horrible, scary, undead and such.
Shikabane HIME are the folk tasked with eradicating the Shikabane: by destroying the brain or shredding the body. Shikabane Hime are undead Shikabane too, but can go to heaven if they kill 108 Shikabane. And they are all pretty girls, with purple hair, short skirts and a pair of matching machine pistols. Still with me? Brilliant. As they're undead and their bodies usually get wrecked battling a Shikabane, each Shikabane Hime is assigned a Contract Monk to fix them up after battle. These Contract Monks can impart their life force to their Shikabane Hime by giving them a big hug and making them all better again.
Corpse Princess is actually a bit scary at times and the who, what and why of the Shikabane is not always clear from the off, lending it lots of lovely mystery and suspense. Wisely, with a rather complicated initial premise, we stay with a core group of characters for a while, before things get grander and wider reaching once you've gotten your head around everything. Dark, interesting, engaging and with flashes of humour, Corpse Princess comes highly recommended.
Naruto Shippuden Collection 5: I wasn't a fan of Naruto before, but it's funny how having to watch thirteen episodes of something can turn you around. Naruto is a blonde, spiky haired ninja with a penchant for orange clobber and a growly voice. It seems that since I last ran across him, Naruto has become a little less of a tosser and I actually really quite like him now.
This collection of thirteen episodes begins in the wake of Naruto and the rest of Team Kikashi having taken a good kicking from the red-bowling-ball-eyed-big-bad. Naruto needs to develop his own style of jitsu to stand a chance next time they face off, but there are also many side quests, in the form of secret missions, for him and the gang to embark on along the way.
Naruto Shippuden is fun, funny and I adored all of the ninja training stuff. Collection 5 of Naruto Shippuden comes on two discs containing episodes 53 to 65, English and Japanese audio and bare bones extras – some production art and trailers.
The Time Traveller: Bit of a cheat this one, but it's my column, I got sent it and I quite liked it, so I'm going to quickly slip it in anyways and it'll be our little secret. The Time Traveller is a live action (see why it's a cheat now?) version of one of my anime favourites – The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. As much as that initially put me off, all ended well.
I think it's a bit of a misnomer, and perhaps a mistake, to bandy around “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” in relation to Time Traveller. It is a very different beast and it wasn't until halfway through that I realised this WASN'T going to be a retread but rather a film that takes similar threads and ends up weaving something quite different and quite touching.
Schoolgirl Akari's scientist mum gets knocked down by a car and ends up comatose in a hospital bed. She comes 'round long enough to entrust Akari with a photo of herself and a young man taken in the 70's. Miss. Yoshiyama instructs her daughter to take a swig of home brewed time travel juice and go back to 1972 to locate the mystery man. Dopey Akari manages to pull an Ash and overshoot (not by as wide a margin as Ash) and wind up in '74.
Like I said, in spite of prior misgivings I ended up liking Time Traveller. The lame-ness of the travelling through time effect screams “TV movie”, but this story focusses on sweet and likeable characters, in relationships you actually give a monkeys about and suckers you into being moved and ever so slightly impressed come journey's end.