Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and may 2009 be a better year.

Vocaloid’s Kagamine Len figures singing Silent Night in German.

Project ICE is a science fiction OVA with a possible hint of yuri. It came out 2007, but it seems it’s already forgotten. This anime could have been so much more, but there’s a constant feeling that the story was meant to be more. That feeling of being unfinished and limited is why you’ll never read many positive views about Project ICE.

So there’s three episodes that lead up to a confusing Neon Genesis Evangelion like ending. Some tragic event lead to human males to die out, but it wasn’t completely told or talked about. Bioterrorism and genetic engineering were possible so…make of that as you wish. With that said you know men were blamed for creating wars. Right about now you’re asking why is there action in this anime then? The surviving women cluster together and still deal with such threats. Then humanity decides engineering is the only since there’s no way for children to be born.

What happens afterward and the fall apart really deserves it’s own thoughts. The very being (or tool) that is created to save humanity is also a weapon and a virus of thought. Without fully spoiling it I can say it’s big and able to destroy everything.

Characters and animation are a bit mixed. None of the characters will grow on you and several were either annoying or poorly voice acted. There were some fairly impressive long distance shots of various events and the character design styled changed often. Expect anything from Revolutionary Girl Utena, shoujo, to a much more serious look. Hiromi reminds me of Kaze from Final Fantasy Unlimited, but at least she talks. Both of them have a cape, carry a fancy gun, and an eye patch.

Oh, hey. Final Fantasy Unlimited was like ICE in where you didn’t have enough budget. More images under the cut! more…

This really could work out. Letter Bee (Tegami Bachi) the manga has already been licensed by Viz and the special short has been shown earlier in the Shounen Jump road tour in Japan. This new anime adaptation is not official yet, but it’s likely.

You can watch the Letter Bee special mentioned above here. It is sub-titled already, but you will need to download the special Shounen Jump player to watch. After that hit watch and then open/save. You may want wait a bit before playing the file.

Letter Bee has been compared to D.Gray-Man and there are some similarities, but this series is really styled well and the characters are more likable, though. There are five volumes of the manga published in Japan, so there will be enough material for at least a good season (or two). Just hope it does not go so long as D.Gray-Man. The voice acting is very pleasent in the special, even Lag’s.

Cool points are scored by Lag’s name, his gun (which clearly looks like it was meant to be much longer), and the abuse of various shades of purple with blue colors.

There’s this current on going manga called Tamashii no Futago (The Twin Souls). This series is pretty amazing with two messed up kids (Rita and Alex) and magical turn of events. The two died at the same time separately. They travel closer together and screw with the poor humans who are able to see them. Some pretty wacky stuff with Rika being kicked under a sink cupboard. There’s two volumes out and a scanlation group who have a couple chapters translated. The mangaka has had some licensed works like Beutiful People and Haunted House by Tokyopop. You can find Mitsukazu Mihara’s (author and artist) strong gothic lolita style artwork on her site.

Tamashii no Futago would have been a good Halloween recommendation. A good read regardless, but there are some mature parts.

Being serious here. The things Rika does with her feet.

Anime and manga reviews are quite common. The more popular series get the most and smaller series sometimes get really passionate reviewers. A good example of this would be solanin which was linked on Manga Blog to this review. This review and ones like it stick with someone. Good (in this case manga) reviews give information about the volume they read, style, and descriptive points about the story. A good review also is honest and don’t give pointless scores or grades. Oh hey, this manga is scored .3 points more than this. Buy it! Not having such an silly system tacked on to the end is what made Newtype USA reviews great. They tapped in to the hearts of people who would be interested in that franchise. If someone wouldn’t like something then chances are they wouldn’t get more than half way into the review. Other then that a reviewer should work on descriptions. Just saying an anime or manga looks great won’t make a lot of people buy something. If only becoming skilled at such was easier said then done.

The one thing to remember about reviews before moving on: They’re almost always of a series the reviewer really hated or loved. Why write when you have no connection or care of something?

Crediting of sources (graphic, information, or other) is another issue. Many times on sites like LiveJournal or forums you have people crediting the wrong person or a large site without crediting. Saying you have image stock from Photobucket, 4chan, or some awful manga reader site. The online reader site is obviously wrong to credit when they did nothing with the scanning or translation. Thanking an image hosting site isn’t giving any thanks to the person who created whatever fanart, artbook scan, or screenshot. As for large sites like Anime News Network or others…people thought out and typed those descriptions. >:3

These should be the basics, but maybe once and a while something like this should be mentioned or discussed. Never hurts.

This is where someone would say sorry for the lack of blogging, but it’s best to blog instead. Just a series of unhelpful events and uncertainty of life. There’s been a lot of good things this year.

Moon Boy returns – Yen Press took off as it announced many new series along with the manhwa picked up from ICEkunion. One of them being this adventure of rabbit and wolf people. Volume four had a September release and it can be found on Amazon for a fairly cheaper price.

The basic idea of the story is that these rabbit like people once lived on the moon, but were forced off and came to earth. It’s either that or be eaten. These people fit in society like normal, but many have no knowledge of this or their power. Myung-Ee Joo is the (loud…) main character who’s…okay stop. She’s not really the main character. The story pretty much drags her along with it.

Back to the basic idea. You have these loose rabbit people along with a fighting force called Rabbit Tribe who helps Myung-Ee Joo and protects Yu-Da Lee. Their goal is to save Yu-Da Lee from the foxes who believe they’ve completely wiped his mind and surround him everyday. Both sides are able to form swords either from fox claws or by the will of a rabbit.

Each volume comes with a small folded poster, the art is always styled, and the series gets straight into the fun and drama. There’s not really any character development minus learning about what one capable of and their different ways of not being serious. Publishers Yen Press and Orbit are now under one roof so now there’s going to be volumes of the Moon Boy series with three different logos and companies on it…

ADV and Tokyopop – Tokyopop licensed Mirai Nikki as Future Diary with the first volume in May 11, 2009. Other than that ADV and Tokyopop have been more of a pain than good. Tokyopop dropped Lagoon Engine, Beyond the Beyond, and others. ADV dropped Sergeant Frog and gave up after releasing 5 Centimeters per Second.

More? Yes and who knows what ADV Manga will do when and if volume two of Lagoon Engine Lagoon Engine Einsatz comes out. With Yotsuba&! being on hold and the big list of canceled manga from ages ago…Gamerz Heaven, The First King Adventure, and Rise R to the Second Power as examples. ADV tossing out both the profiting Newtype USA and the poorly thought PiQ anime magazines.

Mirai Nikki from Tokyopop? No thanks.
———————————————————-
Kaiba was a crazy adventure, Yozakura Quartet is animated, Kyo no Gononi has a new series, a cosplay magazine comes to the US with a large massive hard cover, and Soul Eater became popular.

Where’s the hard cover of Q Ko-chan volume two, though?

Next year maybe Geneon will return, Lolifox the web browser will make a come back, Letter Bee has a TV series announcement, and more Japan based comic publishers will cross the sea themselves to other countries. Guess this entry serves more of what to expect in future writings (but hopefully easier to read and coherent).