Anime Central 2015 Convention Report

For the second time in as many years, my sister and I drove to Chicago for the Midwest's largest convention last weekend. I'd abstained from conventions since June in financial anticipation, and it was worth it; even more fun than the first time around. Here were the highlights, both good and bad:

I got to experience the legendary Anime Hell, having been too far back in line last year to fit in the ballroom. I worried that I might miss it again thanks to what appeared to be a professional line-cutter and the fire alarm going off about ten minutes into the show. Despite high expectations, being tired, and having seen some clips before, I still laughed my ass off.

Seeing the guests I wanted to see was an ordeal. Many panels were left off the schedule, and even the Panel Programming staff were unsure of anything more than an hour or two in the future. I heard rumors of some miscommunication or other, but have not yet heard what went on behind the scenes. I missed all but one of Helen McCarthy's panels, and wasn't even aware that Carl Gustav Horn would be present.

On the plus side, still got to see Helen McCarthy. The icing on the cake to that experience was that she signed The Art of Osamu Tezuka for me, which I'd happened to steal at the dealer's room for just $25. And Richard Epcar signed my copy of The Mystery of Mamo, while admitting offhand which Lupin role he preferred to play.

Though I have considerable experience with Garzey's Wing (and you can see my thoughts in a previous post), I attended the late night viewing party along with my unfamiliar sister, and what a night it was! We both loved every minute of that train wreck as presented by the Bad Anime Group; you can find them on Facebook, apparently, and I'll certainly be keeping an eye on them now.

And how does all this concern you, who may not care about my personal take on this or any convention? Well, I blew about five buttloads of money on DVDs, which means a more reviews in the future. A few titles I've seen years ago and only vaguely remember, like Cyber City Oedo, Project A-ko, and The Dagger of Kamui. But the majority is blind purchases, a big change of pace from my old buying habits.

Black Lagoon, a longtime member of my pile of shame, is now part of my collection. So too is the original TV run of Dirty Pair, since I've had such a good experience with the franchise thus far. I made a conscious attempt to bone up on classic '70s with Go Nagai's Devilman and Leiji Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999 and Adieu Galaxy Express 999. Isao Takahata's early work is represented with Horus: Prince of the Sun, and I even managed to score Amazing Nuts!, which I expect to be just as pleasantly weird and experimental as its studio's entire body of work.

In short, I had a big fucking blast this year and would love to come back once again. Did anyone else out there attend this convention, and if so, what are your thoughts about it? Any conventions in general you want to share your opinions/experiences on? Now's the time, and the comments are the place!

Hello, Nurse!

As much as I may relish anime with intricate plots, compelling characters, and solid direction, at the start of each new season I usually pick at least one show to watch that looks awful. Sometimes, for instance, I'll pick up a show because of its overused premise in the hope that it'll somehow find a new way to explore it. Sometimes my lizard brain is entranced by big cartoon boobies in the promotional art despite knowing that's how they git ya! If reviewers pan a pilot for being incredibly sexist or racist, I'm intrigued; I can't change that about myself. The thing is, sometimes a seemingly crappy show can turn into a solid guilty pleasure. Like this season's Triage X.

The premise sounds simple enough: Mikami Arashi gives his life as a child in an attempt to save his best friend Mochizuki Ryu from an explosion. Ryu's mad father, Doctor Mochizuki, however, deems his own son as unlikely to survive, and sacrifices him for the limbs and heart necessary to restore Arashi to life. Years later, Arashi works with other resurrected patients as Docot Mochizuki's personal assassin, eliminating the criminal scum that infects the human population. Oh, and every other teammate happens to be a female nurse, idol, singer, or high school student with very improbable figures.

The reason for this is the source manga comes from the pen of Shoji Sato, illustrator of Highschool of the Dead. I'm proud to say I guessed such a connection before confirming it for a fact; something about the over-the-top action and fetishized proportions just gave me flashbacks. Those who go in expecting a retread of 2010's hit anime series will be let down, though. The animation budget is noticeably low, not quite to derpy-face levels, but low enough that highlights and shading are practically nonexistent. More tragically, Tetsuro Araki isn't directing. I get that he was probably too busy rolling in his Attack on Titan money to touch this work, but I'd just love to see what the man who gave us the infamous “bullet time boobs” sequence could do with this material.

Triage X's saving grace is that it doesn't really downplay its own outlandishness in the way Highschool of the Dead did by trying to make to relate to the characters, their suffering, or any similar bullshit. In that show we were expected to believe that your typical high schoolers could suddenly become badass zombie-killing machines. Here's your average teenager turned slayer of a hundred undead freaks; you can relate to them, right? In contrast, Triage X doesn't even try to earn your empathy with most of the cast. Here's Hitsugi, a sexy nurse by day. By night, she puts on an oni mask, punches through walls, and kills people with a minigun. Now here's Yuko, a doctor with JJ-cups magically changing her hair color and slicing through a Humvee with her katana. Turns out the tired character-building tropes Highschool of the Dead relied on aren't as effective as characters so bananas you accept them in spite of themselves.

Basically, this show is much more willing to have fun. Almost every mission ends with an abandoned building getting blown up, and the good guys always go to chillax at an onsen immediately afterwards. Sure, Arashi tends to question if what he's doing is right and angst over his Frankenstein-esque origins, but otherwise he's a pretty blandly agreeable guy. Compare that with Highschool of the Dead's combination of great action scenes with borderline uncomfortable perviness and bleak depression (it ends with a quote from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, for crying out loud), and I'll tend to choose the show that promises a less flashy but more unashamed good time.

Is Triage X for everyone? No, and maybe I'm overselling its appeal. It's still a fanservice show, and suffers from the stigma that go with that genre; namely average-to-middling animation and an obvious male gaze. However, the action is creative and engaging, as are a surprising number of storylines. If you're outright looking for a fanservice romp but have been burned by too many shitty entries, I'd definitely recommend this one. Odds are, it'll be just what the doctor ordered.

Busy & Late & Sorry

As the title implies, my posting has slowed down a lot because I've been super busy lately.  And I'm sorry.

A new article is coming soon, but in the meantime you might want to check out this link:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-04-24/yoshiyuki-tomino-admits-story-problems-in-gundam-reconguista/.87449

Now that's harsh.  To the best of my knowledge, Tomino never apologized like this for Garzey's Wing, thus cementing my claim that Garzey's Wing is in fact better than his latest Gundam show.