I've never really been left unsettled by an anime, but last weekend would change that forever. One of the new shows for the Easter season which has just started is Speed-Grapher. From Gonzo, you can expect it to look like a million dollars; they've gone for an ultra-realistic look to the show, not dis-similar to Witch Hunter Robin. The premise for it seems ordinary enough; a freelance photographer (where the "Grapher" part of the title comes from I guess) is asked to investigate a strange undergound cult in Tokyo where only the richest of the rich are allowed to join. Becoming a member guarantees your every desire, no matter how unconventional or illegal; their meeting place resembled that of an S & M dungeon and can only be reached by a private subway system.
Later on in the episode, we meet a male ballet dancer who's clearly quite stressed with his day-to-day life. After a show, he's in his dressing room where a mother requests that he takes her daughter on as his apprentice. He asks her to dance to see what she's capable of and from the look on his face, he's clearly not impressed. He grabs the girl's arm and tells her to be more limber and to loosen up and goes on to break it in two. We then see the mother and daughter running away from the dressing room screaming for an ambulance... As if this wasn't shocking enough, in the next scene, we see the dancer donning a rubber gimp suit on top of a sky scraper (similar to the opening minutes of Ghost in the Shell). He then grabs the side of the building, walks back and his arms appear to stretch, catapaulting him into a hotel room on the other side of the street. Here, he discovers a shady deal between two distinguished gentlemen and he goes on to assassinate them by wrapping his arms around their heads and squeezing. Ah yes, I also forgot to mention that he appears to be bulletproof in that all bullets fired at him get absorbed, and then pushed out again by his flexible body... The look of disbelief on Khang's face as I described all of this to him last night sums up this show rather well I find. Duran Duran also feature on the soundtrack...
And what of the truly ecchi? Ichigo 100% appears to be a harem anime deeply grounded in a realistic world. A junior-high kid goes on to the roof of his school only to discover a rather pretty girl falling right before him. She's also wearing strawberry patterned panties which seems to the be theme running through the show (ichigo #1 or straberries in this case). She leaves her notebook behind after running away and he decides to return it to her the next day, though the girl he meets doesn't appear to the be same as before. She now looks more reserved, wearing glasses and her hair in braids.
We're then introduced to the most popular girl at school, who also happens to wear strawberry patterned panties. This same guy decides to confess his undying love to her and surprisingly, she accepts and promptly goes out with him. There are two more girls who've yet to be introduced making up the harem, though one of them is the childhood friend archtype and the other, is the sexually frivolous type with no shame; in the words of Borat, "I LIKE!". All the girls are drawn beautifully, features perfectly accentuated. To be expected when the animation has been outsourced to Gainax.
Well, the latest and final term of this academic year is finally upon us and I've already handed in one essay, with another one due in next Monday. The weather's improving quite dramatically which I'm pleased about; since returning on Thursday, it's been rather windy and miserable.
I visited the gym for the first time in three weeks yesterday and sadly, my stamima has dropped quite severely; I was only capable of half of what I can usually do in a normal session. Hopefully, I'll be able to work back up to my previous levels by the end of the week.
My black DS should be arriving from New York either tomorrow or the day after. Expect to see a detailed hardware review here soon after.
Nicked shamelessly from Kate's blog:
I actually did this one a few days ago but because it was around 3am in the morning, the question about showering had to be changed to yesterday and thus, I ended up as Debian that time.
Badass!
That's all from me for now, need to head off to a lecture.
