A weekly look into American otaku culture

I think one of the things that anime blogs don’t focus on enough is the US anime industry. These guys at companies like ADV, Geneon, FUNimation, and Bandai are working very hard at trying to bring these series on to our store shelves. This get anime out there into the mainstream, which gets more fans, which gets more support for bringing it to the fans. So I have great respect for them and I would like to help the industry grow in the US. That’s why I’m going to use this blog as a means to do so. I just so happened to have gotten a preview disk today from ADV that’s filled with some titles that haven’t been released yet. You’ll notice all the screen caps say “For Promotional Use Only” on top, and that’s exactly what this is. So I present to you my first review of an officially US licensed series.

Part1:

Fumoffu is the sequel to the very good Full Metal Panic series. The original series is about a giant-mech pilot who has been assigned to protect a particular high school girl, Chidori. Now while the series had a great storyline involving fighting and comradeship like many giant robot series do, what set FMP apart was the comedy aspect of it. The hero, Sousuke, is a devoted military guy, and he doesn’t do well at all at pretending to be a normal high school kid. He’s extremely paranoid and would do things like bring large amounts of ammunition to class, or constantly detonate anything that might pose any kind of threat to Chidori. But most of the time these suspicions are invalid, so the joke was how ridiculous and destructive his actions are. However, there were clearly episodes that focused more on the mech action and others that focused on the comedy. It was like two different series in one. So what Fumoffu does is focus on the part I liked better, the comedy. And man, it’s in full force in the first episode!

Each episode is broken into two parts. The first one is about a shy girl who has a crush on Sousuke, so she leaves a love letter in his shoe locker. Sousuke notices that his shoe locker has been tampered with, so he does the only safe and logical thing to do…

Blow it up!

And that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes this series so great. While the old “love letter in the shoe locker” trick a very clichéd in romance anime, the idea of it posing as a threat and therefore needing to be detonated is fricking hilarious. And so, he treats the little schoolgirl crush as some kind of terrorist plot against him the entire episode.

Part 2:

The second part starts off with Sousuke’s first experience playing a first-person shooting game in the arcade:

“Who in the hell would shoot a real gun into a video game screen?!?”
“I ran out of ammo.”
“I told you, to reload all you have to do is point your gun outside the screen and pull the trigger.”
“That’s not safe. What if the gun should go off?”

Funny, right? I think so. ^_^

On top of that, the artwork is significantly better with this series then the original. The dub cast from the first series returned, and they fit the roles very well. Yes, you heard me correctly, I like to watch my anime dubbed. Dubbed… subbed… it’s all the same! But after watching so many fansubs lately, I’m in the mood for a little dub.

So overall, Fumoffu takes everything I liked about the Full Metal Panic series, cuts out the stuff I didn’t, and made it look a whole lot more prettier. Contrary to tradition, this is one sequel that’s better then the original! ^_^

Please support this series by buying Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu at ADV films or any retail store. On sale 5/10/2005
Full Metal Panic? FUMOFFU © Gato Shoji · Shikitoji/Jindai High School Student Committee

It might not be my place to comment on such things, but I’m very disappointed on what’s been going on in the fansub community when it comes to the latest season of anime. I remember that back in January groups were ripping each other apart to provide fans the best quality translations in the shortest time possible. Those following Air or Negima could relax knowing that they will be able to see the newest episode in no time at all.

But getting into the blog community this season, I’ve been introduced to many cute and ecchi series made for guys that I know will be thrilled to watch. Here’s what I’m looking foward to:

Ichigo 100%
Koi Koi Seven
Gokujou Seitokai
He is My Master
Futakoi Alternative

That’s five different series for me to watch this season! Now, of course I’ve been a fan of Ichigo for a while now, but the other four are completely new to me and I can’t wait to check them out.

Unfortunately because of my school’s firewall, I must get all my videos 2nd hand from my very lovely girlfriend. Since that is such a pain on her part and mine, I almost never ask her to get raws for me. So we hold out for fansubs because at least we can both enjoy them to the fullest that way. That means I just have to hold out for a couple of days until I can see them. I mean, these shows look like the kind of stuff that fans would eat up. Fansub groups must be ripping each other apart to get “all up ons” these shows, right?

Wrong.

All of those series have been out for over a week now, and only two of them (Ichigo and Futakoi) have been released by only one group each! I know that it takes some time for groups to sub it and that they don’t come overnight. But now the 2nd episodes of these series are starting to air, and I don’t even know if anyone will pick it up!

Sure a number of people released the Ichigo OVA a couple of weeks after that raw showed up, but I’m pretty sure that only one group will bother with the TV show. OVAs require a lot less commitment then TV series. Just look at how many people put out “Club ‘em to Death” Angel. But Ichigo has such a huge fallowing! Did you check out the stats on how many people are downloading it, or how many other blogs have started reviewing it? I even showed it to my anime club yesterday and it completely won over all the guys in the room. I would think that other groups would want a piece of this action.

But my biggest surprise right now would have to be “He is My Master.” This series has been very heavily promoted in the past couple of months. The main reason for this is because it comes from Studio Gainax, or as many anime fans would call it, Studio “Holy s***, this f****ing rocks!” Gainax. Look at its track record: FLCL, Mahoromatic, Abenobashi, Ebichu, His and Her Circumstance, Eva… This studio knows how to make the hits. So this new series has been out for a week now, and it wasn’t until the other day that I saw it appear on AnimeSuki…

… but it was just a promo…

シ—-ン

So maybe I’m just being impatient and all of these fansubs will be out in the next couple of days. But I just want to say that current state of fansubs for ecchi fans like me is just not like it used to be.