Sword of the Stranger is movie that came out in 2007, but it’ll have a lasting effect on anyone who has watched it. The anime is one of the few that’s described as having a good story that actually makes sense. Clearly that’s enough to win some awards. That it did at the International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre for Best Animated Feature. The animation by BONES studios remains very high for nearly all of the slightly over one hundred minutes it lasts. Backgrounds actually move a little!
The story starts off with a boy named Kotaro who must run away from the monastery he was staying at. The place was attacked and Kotaro was left by himself. After looking for food he returns to the old shrine he was staying at, but found a lone nameless assassin resting inside. Kotaro employs the assassin with a glass piece that was suppose to be of much worth, as he needs his dog companion to be treated for poisoning after they were both attacked. Their trip to save the dog and helping the kid to the other Buddhist monastery is successful, however the head of that monastery had other plans with the boy. This is where the Kotaro is special part comes in because everyone is after him. He’s then kidnapped and taken to where a special ceremony is to take place. The already paid and cheated assassin grew to care about the boy and tries to come to his rescue before it’s too late. Only thing keeping him from killing everyone in his way is himself. This is because he fought in previous wars and decided to never draw his sword again and he even went as far at to tie it from being pulled from. Kinda sounds like Rurouni Kenshin doesn’t it?
The pair really go well together. One is a quiet mellow guy who’s experienced enough trauma and the other a brave strong and caring child. If the two were to live normal lives together, they’d surely do something special. Kotaro may seem like a brat to some, but he is too smart and driven to work for someone else. Having hims a boy was wise because it gives his friend someone easier to relate and innocent enough to help him get over his guilt. Both are shown to be very well spirited the good use of animation conveyed it well. This anime almost feels Dororo inspired.
There’s quite a bit of action and most of it is animated well enough to be some of the best sword fighting you’ve seen in an anime. Many parts are pretty graphic as well. People are cut up, there’s blood, and a part when one guys arm wasn’t even cut off all the way. Much of this even happens with the kid and dog nearby. Much fighting is between the Japanese and a band of warriors from China. Only difference is that in this anime, neither are shown less evil than the other.
DVDs are already in stores from Bandai. If you liked Dororo, Peacemaker Kurogane, or Rurouni Kenshin, then you’ll like this. Hopefully this review was easy to read and gave enough reason to watch. There are more screenshots under the cut. more…
Anime blogging with videos instead of text isn’t the future. You would need higher than average speaking skills where you also get to the point and stick to it. Nobody enjoys watching you move the camera, hearing a dorky voice on the already poor sound quality, or hearing “um uh um” “I mean” and “epic.” Hearing the voice of the blogger can reveal that the person doesn’t know how to pronounce Japanese words properly. Reviewing is harder because you’re thinking as it’s recording. At this time anime video blogging isn’t able to influence others to watch something because you can’t take your time to describe and get all the information that would be needed. Getting to the point about getting to the point, get to the point. Many videos don’t have goals. They upload a video with a couple announcements that were made on other sites and listing off anime they will be watching. That’s nice and all, but that’s not good content for others who don’t know you. I don’t know you so I’ll be watching anime that already interests me. See?
Maybe blogging of this form just needs time and its own set of standards. There isn’t much of a community, interesting interaction outside video replies with rants, and spammy comments.
This new movie will be awesome if it’s based on the original movie by Production IG, not the TV series. Blood: The Last Vampire is an awesome anime which was ruined by the poor series Blood+ that came after. Nobody likes poor erratic animation with less dark atmosphere. The new adaptation will be out in Japan this year.
Blood: The Last Vampire the movie was about Saya, a slayer hired by the government to kill Teropterids (vampire like beasts). Saya is a vampire being herself and now one of a kind. She is sent to a military base to clean it of such human killing monsters. Swords are her weapon of choice. If you want more of the series, there’s a novel and manga. The manga is worth reading since it’s by Tamaoki Benkyo…who brought you Tokyo Akazukin, Necromanesque, and many twisted hentai series. This is the only licensed manga by him, but don’t think it won’t be bloody.
Just avoid any anime or manga with Blood+ in the title and you’ll be caught up enough.
Around the net there are a great many anime streaming, anime download, and ripped wallpaper sites. Many of them are either filled with ads or have ads placed in areas where they’re seen well. There’s nothing wrong with making profit from a site, but would it make a difference if the management of those sites don’t watch anime or even think positively of anime fans? There is likely a difference somewhere in having a site generate revenue from a subject they like and just using its users. These are a couple quotes from around the web and it’s just a hint of what is thought.
My anime site […] has been doing exceptionally well due to some members on my site. I embedded a chatango chat and I guess allot of “anime tards” got pretty addicted to it and swear by it, lol. So if you wanna get tons of traffic try finding some “nerds” with an addictive personality to run the forum/chats on your anime site and watch the revenue roll in.
getting anime nerds to run anime websites usually like getting free employees with no lives
Maybe this is okay and you’re fine with it. However, these countless manga viewing, download, and streaming sites aren’t helping the animanga industry or even to some extent fansubbers and scanlations groups. Nobody is going to pay attention to a 1-3 staffed manga scanning group when they request for their scans to be removed. …when it was added without permission or the series was licensed. A TV Tokyo executive has also recently commented on such sites for the decline of the anime industry in non-Japanese speaking countries. Fansub groups can stop fansubbing, but what good is that when the video has already spread to those unwilling to respect a licensing?
From volume six on forward Yen Press will be releasing Yotsuba&! They just picked up (bought) the licensing and the sixth volume will come out September 2009. This is a pretty interesting turn of events, but this just leaves one question, though. Without Yotsuba&!, is ADV Manga completely dead? They don’t really have much of anything unless they still have Gunslinger Girl, which isn’t really a popular read.
Wow, quite a mouthful of a title. Next month will be a great month for Gundam Kit fans who have a wad of cash to burn (me) with the release of perhaps the best looking Perfect Grade (PG from now on) so far. What’s so special about it you may ask? Take 1 part samurai, add it to the Strike Gundam kit, add a sleeker more battle ready look and you get something along the lines of these pictures. If you look closely you’ll also noticew that this seems to be the basic, unpainted, un-lined kit. And that is just downright awesome because 99% of kits shots you see are the finished product of someone who has all the gear ready to go. This is how awesome this beast will look seconds after fitting the last part together.
Please excuse the small pictures but since there are a few, it’ll save you time opening them.
However with all this awesomeness comes the only downside. The cost. While this isn’t an issue for me because i’m an idiot, at $170 US excluding shipping, it isn’t exactly something that everyone can afford. In Australian that equates to about $260 or so. If your interested, head over to HLJ.com and you can see how much it’d be for you.
