Yet another review I have to add to Gum-Shoe January. It’s called the “Big-O” and if your a fan of noir and like Steven Blum’s voice, you’ll enjoy this show. Steve Blum has also been the voice actor behind other famous cartoon characters, such as Spike Spiegel (Cowboy Bebop) and Mugen (Samurai Champloo). Enough about him, the show itself has drawn up a pretty faithful fan base. The creators only planned to produce one (13-episode) season, but reaction to the show gave way to a second season. This 26 episode anime deals not only with mystery, but also with mecha (The “Big O” is a giant, Voltron-style robot).

The plot circles around Paradigm City, which is run by the Paradigm corporation. The town really seems to have only to social classes: The rich, who reside in domes (kinda like gated communities), and the poor who live outside those domes. Apparently, something that took place 40 years before the show, caused all the citizens within the city to lose their memories. Thats pretty much the plot for the entire series. The main protagonist is a negotiator/transporter , named Roger Smith. And no, he’s not the total bad ass like Jason Statham, but he does live a sort of Batman/Bruce Wayne lifestyle. He even has a resourceful butler! When things get hairy, Smith calls on the Big O to handle the more “delicate transactions” if you get my drift. As far as other characters within the series, I really don’t want to introduce anyone else. The majority of the characters are introduced within certain episodes (sort of like Cowboy bebop and Naruto).

Okay, maybe a little vague, but there really isn’t anything else tied to this plot. Besides, vague plots tend to have more creativity behind each episode (There were a lot of different ways the creators of this show could go).I will however try and post an episode on the blog’s tool bar for you guys to take a look at. We’ll see, but I’m not making any promises. See you guys lata!

-2wo

Beware english dub lovers, the english dub ends after episode 83. hope your willing to watch the rest in the original Japanese language (w/ subtitles, of course).

-2wo

(Thanks neo)

 (I’m jamming to whirlwind, check it out on my new music player)

Let me just start off by saying “wow. When my neighbor recommended this movie to me, I had know idea I was going to be seeing what I saw in Perfect Blue. Easily one of my all-time favorites, and I only have about 12 of them.

First off, the title, “Perfect Blue” is actually part of some saying. The whole saying itself is, “The color of illusion is perfect blue”. Kinda strange, I know, but this movie takes the words “strange” and “freaky” to a whole new height.

The film centers around Mima Kirigoe, an ex-pop singer, who aspires to become an actress. After a seemingly successful debut, things start to get a little hairy, and people close to Mima are turning up dead, or….are they. A lot of weird stuff goes down, and when you reach the final 15 minutes of the movie, you’ll really begin to wonder who’s really behind everything. And what’s with Mima seeing these….illusions?

It’s only right that I warn you guys. This movie is extreme in a number of ways. First off, the cussing: Although there isn’t very much at all, what is said is enough to make one cringe. Nothing gross, mind you, but watch for an early f-bomb or two. Secondly, the violence is off the charts, this is the only chick-flick I would pay money to go see! Which leads me to the third warning: There isn’t just nudity in this movie, there’s FULL FRONTAL nudity, albeit it comes in flashes. There is also a really detailed rape scene, even though its part of a show within the movie.

2wo’s MATURE CONTENT RATING!

This movie was made with adults in mind, so watch it with a mature miind. I didn’t, I kinda freaked, but that’s another story.

Here’s my official grade for the spectacular Perfect Blue:

Story: B+

Animation: A+

V.A. (English Dubbed): A-

Overall: A

It’s the month of January and you know what that means? Time for all of the really strange new anime to debut! Killer! But Yu Yu Hakusho isn’t a new anime, but it will hold your interest. Yusuke Urameshi is a street-brawling delinquent with a tough guy approach to everything. Yusuke’s mother Atsuko, an alcoholic, had him at the age of 15 and shows little interest in raising her son. He has a reserved seat in the guidance counselor’s office, and numerous other delinquents in the city are trying to take him on. Yusuke is pretty fed up with life. All this changes when he’s killed in an accident.

Oh wait, didn’t mean to leave you hanging there. Yeah, he is hit by a car while trying to save a child’s life. He does, but is struck and killed. Doesn’t end there, instead of dying, he appears in the clouds and meets the uppity grim reaper, Botan’.

After numerous tests to gauge his worth, Yusuke is eventually revived, and is assigned to work for the Spirit Realm as a detective investigating demonic cases in the human world.

Odd story isn’t it? The best are odd stories. Keep that in mind, and enjoy it.

LINK TO FIRST 25 EPISODES OF YU YU HAKUSHO (ENGLISH DUBBED)

Just a little heads up for you fans who like to view the show online. The 14th episode of Avatar will air this coming friday and will be added to watch-avatar.com!

I recently got the chance to sit down and watch a Detective Conan movie. And the good news about this one, fans of the show will be fans of this movie! The film itself is like a drawn out episode, but the typical format isn’t fully intact. I was able to watch both versions of the movie, subbed and dubbed, both were done really well. Once again, it’s hard for me to recommend one or the other. Here’s how I rated it:

Story: B- (typical detective conan style drama)

Animation: C+ (Not the most eye-catching piece of art, but it doesn’t take anything away from the overall experience)

V.A. (Voice Overs): B+ (Great job all across the board, dubbed and subbed, both were near perfect in this movie. Very little awkardness during the film.)

OVERALL GRADE: B

As I personally declared January “Mystery & Sci-fi” month, I’ve been hunting down all kinds of unique and seemingly underappreciated anime. This time, I’ve turned to the all-powerful Wikipedia, and it didn’t let me down. Case Closed fans might want to give The Mythical Detective Loki a chance. Yeah, the title is funny, but I’ll give you the reason behind it. The story revolves around Loki, the norse god of mischief. Apparently, Loki was quite the prankster, with many of his schemes upsetting other gods and goddess. For this, Loki is banished into the human world, and transformed into a “child” like form. This is win it gets strangerer (not a word), in order to return home, Loki has to collect evil “auras” or spirits. In order to do this, he opens up a sort of paranormal-themed detective agency. He’s partnerd with a pink-haired highschool student obsessed with mysteries, and the rest is history. Not being one to spoil anime (wink), I’ll just say that this 26-episode anime is english subbed. Enjoy! And remeber, when watching a new anime, watch the first TWO episodes before you make any descision on whether to stop watching it or not. Later.

-2wo

WATCH IT HERE

Anyone like really dark, mysterious anime? If so, I might have found something for you to take a look at: Sci-Fi Harry. Odd title, but the show itself is actually kind of intriguing. The gist of this 20-episode anime centers around a loser named, you guessed it, Harry. Harry is an outcast who is regulary picked on, with the exception of one girl. The relationship between Harry and the girl is very cliche’ and dull, but it fits snuggly within the anime’s plot. Anyway, back to what makes this anime worth giving a look. In a series of events, Harry discovers he has telekinetic powers. But…there is a twist. Every time he uses his newfound abilities, someone in the near vicinity dies (often violently). Thats the basis of this of the show, and the creators attempt to unwrap the mysteries surronding Harry. Since I don’t wanna spoil it for potential viewers I’ll leave it at that.

 I’ll leave a web address to connect you guys to the veoh channel here: Watch it here (it’s a english subbed anime)

Color Coding: How “Avatar the Last Airbender” Uses Color (Part 1) By Ed Liu 11-30-2007, 1:19 AM

As a rule, you can examine the use of color into “on-screen” reasons and “off-screen” reasons. “On-screen” uses of color are the instances where color has meaning or value to the characters in the show itself, such as when Suki explains her costume’s symbolism to Sokka in the episode “Warriors of Kyoshi Island” (right). These reasons are targeted at the characters, and detail what the color means to them. “Off-screen” reasons are targeted at the audience, and can have a variety of uses and purposes. For example, a classic film technique is to costume a character in a different color to make them visually distinct from other characters on-screen, often to provide subtle clues to their inner motivations or allegiances. These two broad categories are not mutually exclusive, but they will be identified here up-front to ensure that they don’t get confused with each other.

The first section of this article will cover the costume colors of the major nations of Avatar, while the second discusses the exceptions and any on-screen or off-screen explanations or interpretations. Whenever possible, discussions are kept in the abstract, but this article does contain multiple spoilers for the show thus far.

WATER TRIBES
The Northern and Souther Water Tribes live their lives in the Arctic climates at the poles of the Avatar world, and are clearly inspired by Inuit and other native peoples living at the North Pole. Their outfits are predominantly blue with white trim, matching blue water and white ice. Many different cultures associate blue and white with water and ice, so it is not surprising that they are associated with the Water Tribes of Avatar. It also seems that the members of the Northern Water Tribe favor darker blues than those of the Southern Water Tribe. We will consciously ignore the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe, since they don’t seem to wear much of anything.

Many of the whites used are fur, which matches the natural colors of many polar mammals, and the traditional association of white with sterility lines up with the vast, barren tracts of arctic climates. However, the choice of blue is very much for off-screen reasons over on-screen ones. Historically, blue was not an easy color to find or use, with the earliest sources being the indigo plant and minerals like cobalt. Neither one would be readily available to the pre-industrial Water Tribes. Interestingly, many icebergs have a sharp, electric blue that looks completely unnatural, but this is one of the only naturally occurring blue hues in many polar regions and would certainly not be usable to dye clothing.

In terms of Western color theory, blues are “cooling” colors, and are often associated with calming effects. This also makes it a good match for the Water Tribes, whose bending arts are modeled after Tai-chi. As a martial art, Tai-chi is often used as the embodiment of a “soft” martial-art, eschewing aggressive, strong, and assertive movements in favor of a more flexible and open responses to an attack. Thus, it requires the calm, relaxed attitudes that blue colors are meant to induce.

EARTH KINGDOM
The Earth Kingdom is the largest of the four Avatar nations, and their clothing is dominated by greens and yellows. Cross-culturally, green is most often associated with the Earth and environment, since it is the natural color of most vegetation. It can also be associated with safety and security, as with green traffic lights and Hollywood green rooms. Night vision goggles project their images in green because the human eye can distinguish more hues of green than any other color on the spectrum; this has little to do with Avatar, except to point out that Earth Kingdom costumes seem to have far more variations to the basic color scheme than the other nations.

Interestingly, darker hues of green can be associated with decay and putrefaction because the mental association shifts from vegetation to mold. The Dai Li agents of Ba Sing Se are colored in a much darker green than the rest of the citizens of the Earth Kingdom (left). The on-screen reason for this hue is just a uniform color, versus the lighter greens of regular soldiers. However, the fact that they are also the instruments of the inner decay affecting the city is an interesting coincidence.

“Hotter” yellows are used for warning signs, such as traffic lights or traffic signs. Warmer, desaturated yellows bring out the more calming, relaxing, and cheering effects. These softer yellows used also tend to be associated with the Earth in many different cultures due to the resemblance to rock or sand. Both of these psychological associations of yellow may be at work in the outfit of Joo Dee, the perpetually smiling handler in Ba Sing Se (right). Her function is to obstruct Aang and his friends while fulfilling the Dai Li’s mandate to keep the city passive and unaware of the war being waged outside its walls — the yellow of her outfit can be seen as an external manifestation of her job (to calm and soothe) and as a warning sign that she is not what she seems to be.

The specific greens and yellows used for the Earth Kingdom colors appear a lot in Chinese funerary ceramics (look for the Tri-color ceramic horse at this link). It is also worth mentioning the apocryphal Chinese historic figure of the Yellow Emperor, strongly associated with the establishment of Chinese culture. Yellow happened to be one of the five “orthodox” Confucian colors, but these associations and meanings seem to have little connection to the Avatar world.

FIRE NATION
The aggressive Fire Nation is one of the smaller nations of Avatar, and seems to be the most industrialized and dependent on machinery. The Fire Nation clothes itself in browns and reds, and the premiere of season 3 shows that jet black is incorporated for formal occasions. The color choices match the colors that are associated with fire — reds for the flames themselves, browns for burnable wood, and blacks for burning or burnt materials.

In contrast to all three of the other nations, the Fire Nation colors are dull and washed out. One potential on-screen explanation is that the fires of the nation’s benders, the volcanic dust and ash that seem to dominate the Fire Nation landscape, and their heavy reliance on coal-fired machinery has coated everybody in a layer of soot. The natural colors of Fire Nation costumes may be obscured by this soot, or the colors may have been selected simply because they would show the dirt less. Psychologically, though, these colors make this nation dour, serious, and weighty — appropriate considering their status as the primary antagonists of the Avatar world. It also happens to make everybody wearing the colors look slightly burnt.

Brown tends to be associated with strength, stability, and nature, largely due to its connection to wood and trees. In the case of the Fire Nation, the association is probably more with flammable materials, but there is an undeniable strength and solidity to be seen in the Fire Nation. Meanwhile, black is a striking color that often represents authority and power, and its use can be extremely intimidating. The Fire Nation armor worn for formal occasions is dominated by black (left), which lines up with modern fashion sensibilities (such as on “black-tie” occasions).

As a color, red has the largest number of psychological associations, although the duller hues used in Fire Nation costumes tend to partially defuse these associations. Still, the fact that red is associated with danger or extreme emotion matches well with the Fire Nation’s role as the designated villains of Avatar. Red is the iconic “hot” color, generating feelings of anxiety and strong emotion. The predominantly red rooms of Fire Nation ships can generate anxiety rather easily, such as when Aang realizes he is on a Fire Nation ship in the Book 3 premiere (right). It isn’t much of a surprise to see that calmer, more pensive moments on board Fire Nation ships happen in rooms that are dimmed or in all-metal cargo holds or command centers. Comments by Prince Zuko, Uncle Iroh, and the exiled Firebending master Jeong Jeong also suggest that Firebending derives much of its power through emotion, which can also make it the most difficult element to keep under control. Red has had a long-standing association with good luck in many Asian cultures, but this association is with a brighter, crimson red.

Japanese culture places multiple meanings on red colors. It is associated with several Shinto gods, and there also happens to be a strong association with red and smallpox. The latter association is a dual-edged sword, since red can indicate both disease and sickness as well as healing and protection. The affliction association is probably closer to the Fire Nation of Avatar, but as season 3 unfolds, we will see if the healing association comes to the fore.

AIR NOMADS
The Air Nomads were supposedly the smallest of the four nations of Avatar before they were exterminated by the Fire Nation at the start of the war that drives the show. Other than the title character of the show, we have only seen Air Nomads in flashback sequences depicting Aang’s life as a monk. Aang’s orange and saffron yellow robes and the accessories of his seniors at the Southern Air Temple are a dead match for the robes and paraphenalia of Buddhist monks of Southeast Asia. Orange and saffron robed monks are fairly common sights on the streets of countries like Vietnam, Nepal, Cambodia, and Thailand. The choice of these colors is clearly intended to parallel their real-world counterparts, marking Aang as a deeply spiritual character. Unfortunately, the lack of any scenes of non-monastic life among the Air Nomads limits any speculation on whether the orange and saffron colors can be generalized to the nation as a whole.

There are two different symbolic interpretations of the monastic colors. The Buddha himself supposedly selected the saffron yellow color, partially due to yellow’s association with the Earth. Interestingly, the shade of yellow was borrowed from Hindu color symbolism, which associates it with Agni (or fire) — a word familiar to Avatar fans from the “Agni Kai,” or Fire Nation challenge. In addition, yellow, orange, and brown were selected for as the major colors of the Buddhist monastic order to mirror leaves that are about to fall off the trees in autumn. The colors thus become symbolic reminders of the importance of not clinging to the world and of letting go when the time is right. Interestingly, in Book 3’s “The Day of Black Sun,” Aang has replaced his saffron yellow pants for brown ones from his Fire Nation disguise (right), thus adding the third traditional Buddhist monastic color to his costume color palette.

Although it is technically a “hot” color, orange tends to generate widely divergent psychological reactions. It tends to generate some of the same feelings of warmth and energy as red, but without the same connotations of danger or anxiety. There is still a sense of warning or alert with orange, but it is slightly different than the reactions of yellow or red. “Safety orange” seen on vests and traffic cones does not trigger the same reaction as either yellow or red traffic signals. In fashion, orange tends to signal fun and flamboyance, and Chinese and Japanese culture sometimes uses orange to symbolize happiness and love. All of these are well in keeping with Aang’s inner nature.

WHITE

Even though it’s technically one of the Water Tribe colors, Avatar has garbed a character primarily in white for at least three distinct reasons. The first is to show their neutrality, as with the nuns depicted in the Book 1 episode “Bato of the Water Tribe” (above). In this specific case, the color also associates the nuns with healing, in line with the assistance they provide for the recuperating Bato.

The second use of white is another real-world cultural borrowing, since white is the traditional color of mourning in many different Asian cultures. This is the reason why the Fire Nation royal family is all dressed in white at Firelord Azulon’s funeral in the last flashback of the Book 2 episode “Zuko Alone” (above). Also note how all the flashback segments of the episode are colored with a noticeable Fire Nation red-brown cast. This is a trick that the show uses elsewhere as well, as Sokka and Princess Yue’s flashbacks have a noticeable whitish or bluish-white cast to distinguish them from current events. Aang’s flashbacks seem to be done mostly by using softer focus, but there is a bit of an orange tint to his flashbacks as well (as in the image above with Aang and Monk Gyatso).

The last use of white is an association with the moon, and specifically with Princess Yue, the tragic figure of Book 1. Princess Yue is marked at first through her distinctive white hair color (above, left), explained on-screen as an association with the moon spirits that kept her alive as a child. Notice also that the mystic Koi fish in the Water Tribe sanctuary that represents the moon is the white one. That link eventually comes back as she sacrifices herself to save the mystic Koi fish to restore the moon at the end of Book 1. When she ascends to become the new moon spirit, she trades in her distinctive purple robes for a pure white dress (above, right). White’s association with innocence, purity, and wholesomeness is also quite relevant in regards to Princess Yue.

There is a fourth use of white in the finale of season 1, but this will be discussed in part 2, when we examine how exceptions to the color schemes outlined above can send subtle messages to the viewer. Go on to read part 2 of “Color Coding: How Avatar the Last Airbender Uses Color.”

Avatar: The Day of Black Sun debuts tonight, November 30, 2007, at 8:00 PM (Eastern/Pacific) on Nickelodeon.

Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a safe and happy holiday season! My holiday was great, family flew in from Florida and we partied the last of 2007 away. Well, I have a present for all who haven’t already recieved it. It’s a show that a friend of mine introduced to me too, and it could give old 90’s cartoons such as Sailor Moon and Pokemon a run for their money(Depending on what type of anime you prefer). Case Closed, or Detective Conan in Japan, is a detective show, drawn in the anime type art that we love. Before I tell you why you should love this show, here’s what it’s about: A 17-year old, detective lives in apparently the bloodiest, deadliest town on our planet. Fortunately for the city, genius-sleuth Jimmy Kudo never leaves a crime unsolved. Wait, before you fall asleep on me, the story gets alot more…interesting. After solving a murder case, a series of events leads Jimmy to some sort of big deal going down behind a church. Two shady characters are exchanging a large briefcase of money around. Not noticing a third shady figure creeping up behind him, Jimmy is knocked out, poisoned, and left to die. Instead of killing Jimmy, the experimental poison does something else…it shrinks him. Well okay, maybe de-age-ify him is a better term? No? Basically, 17-year old Jimmy Kudo is now a second grade version of himself. Lucky for him, and us, this change is only physical. Now, Jimmy has to find the people responsible for his dilemma and continue to keep the city he lives in safe. “With a keen eye for details, one truth prevails”

Here is a detailed look at the characters featured in this show, including Rachel and Richard Moore, the members of Jimmy/Conan’s “family”. (CLICK HERE)

Below is a URL to find and legally watch the show online:

Case Closed/Detective Conan: English Dubbed Version (Still Good!)