Category: Animé

Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Linda Linda Linda

Eric’s first non-Anime contemporary Japanese movie pick was the winning romantic comedy Train Man. Now he has us watching another winner. We haven’t finished Linda Linda Linda yet, but already we can recommend it with confidence. Below is a review from The Boston Globe. And here’s a clip from the movie.

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Schoolgirl charm rocks sweetly funny ‘Linda’

By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff | January 12, 2007

Don’t let the lack of punctuation fool you. “Linda Linda Linda” is a peachy two-hour delight that ends with a flurry of exclamation points. If the Beatles were teen girls starring in a John Hughes picture made with a distinctly Japanese attention to the comedy of everyday life, the movie showcasing it all would go something like this.

The members of an all-girl punk quartet have about three days to learn a number for the spring rock show at their high school. The new lead singer, Son (Doona Bae ), is a solemn Korean exchange student whose face contains limitless ways to touch you with its sleepiness. The group’s chosen song is a fuzzy firecracker called “Linda Linda,” an ’80s classic (in Japan) by the Japanese group the Blue Hearts. I’m still singing it.
Continue reading Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Linda Linda Linda

Anime On Long Beach

Back in April we attended the Anime Boston convention. Unfortunately, my post about it was lost in the database disaster in early June. This weekend in Long Beach, CA is the big one — AX, The Anime Expo. A bit too far away for us to take Eric and his fellow Anime fan cousins!
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Eric’s Anime Pick — Kurau

Kurau Phantom Memory is about a girl with extraordinary powers who’s a secret agent; but not for the government, which is out to get her. At least that’s what’s happening in the story as far as we’ve seen it. Kurau has a kid sister named Christmas to protect, who is actually a younger version of herself. Where this is heading, I don’t know!

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The video has the “clean” (captionless) versions of the opening and closing to Kurau, along with a clip from episode 6.

Eric’s Anime Pick — Paniponi Dash

Paniponi Dash! is a little of this, and a little of that, with some obvious inspiration from Azumanga Daioh. The video includes the DVD menu (because the music is fun), then the lead-in with the opening credits, the closing credits, and a trademark false preview that has nothing whatsoever to do with the next episode.
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Eric’s non-Anime Pick — Train Man (Densha Otoko)

A highly-popular recent manga/movie/TV series in Japan is Train Man or, as it’s known there, Densha Otoko. It’s a romantic comedy that is supposed to be based on a true Internet bulletin board thread about an ultra-nerd who helps a girl that is accosted by a drunk on a subway.
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This movie is all heart, with none of the mean-spirited macho posturing tone that afflicts The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Another nod to honorable Eric from his humble parents!

Kamichu, the Girl-Child God

Eric had written a special guest blog entry for Kamichu, an Anime series about a girl who somehow becomes a god. Not a great god, but a good one. The text was lost in the Great Database Debacle, but here’s the video…

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As Eric pointed out, this sequence is atypical for the show, which is mostly slice-of-life vignettes, sometimes featuring little spirit creatures.