Samurai Seven

I haven't posted in a week or two. Mainly because I have been either busy or watching movies/anime.. So I will present to you, an anime which I finished in the past week. I originally started watching it a year ago, on VoD, but the channel stopped showing it. I wasn't interested enough at the time so, I didn't bother looking around for it. Fortunately, I found it on Netflix, got really into it and watched through the whole series in one or two days.

Samurai Seven is based off of the old classic Samuai move, Seven Samurai, if you watch both, you can see quite a few links between it. For one, all the samurai in this anime carry the same name as their real movie counter parts. They are banded together in a similar fashion, and they all at the same type of character; Wise Old Man, Infatuated Young Man seeking greatness, Silent Swordsman, Loud mouth Belligerent swordsman, and then there was Shoroichiroji who didn't really have much of a character in the movie but did in the anime.
Many of the scenes are also the same, but adapted somewhat.

The basic story of the anime follows an impoverished and oppressed village of farmers that is close to their next harvest. Their problem is former Samurai bandits that are taking their rice. The farmers have no defenses, and the bandits have an array of machines and weapons to fight with. Knowing that they may not survive without their next harvest, the village sends their priestess and a few other members of the village to hire Samurai in hopes that a Samurai could defeat the bandits and they would be left to live in peace.

I really did enjoy the entire 26 episodes of this series. As they go through, the action is very nice to watch.. Which includes quite a few duels between samurai, and fights against the machine bandits. Along with an impressive story, unique characters it's worth a watch in my opinion.

It follows the general movie and then branchs off a bit on its own story.. But if you like old movie, and are interested in anime, you would probably appreciate how it is brought to life in an animated form.

Yu Yu Hakusho.. What a classic.

What can I say about YYH? Unless you're very young, this is probably something you have heard of. It's an old 80s anime in Japan that was revived by Adult Swim back with AS first premiered and was completely awesome (now half awesome). I watched quite a few seasons on TV every night on Saturday as a young (pre)teen. Eventually I think they stopped showing it, at which point I had started to buy over priced DVDs to finish it.


Looking back on it, I don't even remember if it was good. It's kind of an old comic book style anime, that is sort of like an incredibly refined dragon ball (z) that doesn't go completely crazy with pointless flash backs. But I still love it. It was one of the first Animes I had seen alongside Cowboy Bebop.. So I'll always have fond memories of this one.

They did stop showing it on TV. But I eventually did see the end of several seasons of this show. The story starts out with Yusuke Urameshi saving a child from a driver that swerves and nearly hits the child in the streeth, but Yusuke pushes him out of the way and saves the child at the cost of his own life. Yusuke, like any character at the time was a well known street fighter, and bully.. And you can guess it, generally apathetic towards just about everything in life. During the first episodes it follows his journey as a spirit where he is offered a way to be re-given his life, in exchange that he work a Spirit Detective for the Spirit world, tracking down demons that get out of control and prevent them doing damage to the human world. It's a long watch, with several seasons.. It's not the best but it's a classic. That's all I can say about it.

Aquarion

So, I started watching this when it popped up On Demand. Mainly because I needed something to watch while I ate my lunch, and I usually watched the Escaflowne episode releases right away in the morning, because they were amazing. At first glance, this seems like the most cliche anime you will ever see. In the first episode we observe: In this order; Post Apocalyptic world,Wild Boy Character who hates authority and denies social standards, Japanesse interpretation of christianity, giant robots, wild boy character has special hidden powers, giant robots, pop music, the day is saved.

Truly, at first look from the first couple of episodes, it was the most un-unique or interesting anime I have ever seen. But I still kept watching it, and it eventually blossomed into it's own little gem as some of the story was revealed it even became good.

The whole idea of Aquarion, is that there are these three large ancient ( i think) jets, and the three of them can merge together to become a giant robot to fight the Shadow Angels (Yeah, thats unique)... But they usually fight the Shadow Angels mechanical peons called Cheribum soldiers, which are also large robots that have varying abilities so different pilots of Aquarion are needed. It eventually goes on to combine christianity and buddhism, with a little Shinto to murder all of their religions in concept. Which usually happens whenever the japanese apply a religion to an anime.

Full Metal Alchemist vs. FMA: Brotherhood

You know I really loved Full Metal Alchemist when it first came out. I watched it all the way through on adult swim.. I must have been 15 or 16 years old at the time. But I loved it back then. As I got older it became less of a favorite. Mainly because I came to realize a lot was left un-explained in it. I'm told it deviates heavily from the manga, but I haven't read the manga so.. I wouldn't know about that.

What I can tell you is. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood was a much more intriguing experience. It's developing is full of twists and turns that.. Often shock you, especially if you watched the first series that came out. There's a lot more of the story that is placed right out in the open within the first ten episodes that didn't happen until the end of FMA. By the way, Full Metal Alchemist will be referred to as FMA, and Full Metal Alchemist will be FMA: Brotherhood, or maybe FMA B.. but probably not because then that sounds like a medical certification.

In terms of the story, it just evolves much better, and keeps giving new information gradually in FMA Brotherhood, where as FMA left you at the end saying "Oh.. ok.." So it's not as confusing.

In terms of animation and music, they were pretty much the same. But the big difference was a more complex and evolving storyline.

I will note that I believe currently that FMA Brotherhood can be watched on Hulu, which is where I saw it several weeks ago.. That's all I can think to post for now.. If you want some questions answered, just leave a comment.