Language :: English Dub
Runtime :: 15 Episodes (13x30 min. 2x90 min)
Genre :: Drama. Sci-Fi. Cyberpunk.
A truly great short anime series is the kind of thing you can bang out on a Sunday afternoon. It'll start with lunch and poppin' on a new title and before you realize it the final credits are rolling, it's dark outside, and you can't believe how quickly the day's gone by. I can remember sitting totally lost in the beautiful world of Kino's Journey or laying in bed with a cold but still enchanted by the whimsy of Jing: King of the Bandits. However, it seems like an entire lifetime has gone by in the time it's taken me to painstakingly drag myself through Key The Metal Idol. In fact, in some ways it has...
Since I first stepped into the world of Key, my dad's passed away, I've moved, and my best friend has gotten married. Albeit that those things just happened to all taken place over the span of a month, it really does feel like a significant amount of time has passed since I was first introduced to the little robot girl who spoke exclusively in the third person on her quest to become human.
In the first installment of Key, the leading robo-lady's grandfather passes away and in his final message to her he reveals that she only has a short time left on this world before her battery runs dry, but there is a way for Key to go on. If she can make 30,000 friends, Key can become a real girl. Upon learning the rules of the world I'd entered into, I sat at my computer with a gob struck look on my face and could only muster up a quiet "oh god" as I realized the fate I was doomed to for the next nine anime-hours of my life.
I can remember the first day I excitedly started the series just to realize that, what seemed like hours later, I'd actually only watched three episodes. I can also recall the joyous feeling I got when I assumed I was nearing the end only to find that I had completed a mere eight episodes. Now, I may be painting a grim picture of the series and it's not completely without some decent qualities. The world itself is inventive at times and the villain is a right dick who's well constructed and pretty haunting, and if you can stomach the pop idol worshiping nonsense that story itself isn't terrible, but the pacing. My god, the pacing. 
There's also the assault of very annoying quirks peppered throughout like Key's third-person speak and meanwhile-back-at-evil-headquarters cutaways that rarely make sense or serve a purpose other than to establish "yeah, these guys are jerks."
The most exciting episode, ironically, is the first feature-length one, "System" wherein two of the characters (one from the good camp and one from the baddies) deliver simultaneous monologues explaining all the story that the series had yet to bother with before the final confrontation. That might sound like an exaggeration, but I'm not kidding, the entire episode takes place in a park and the aforementioned evil headquarters. No development. No action. Nothin'. Just a conversation and a soliloquy. And, yes, it really is the best 90 minutes of the entire series. Mostly because after all that work making it to that point, you're finally rewarded with a glue-and-duct-tape together explanation of why everything you saw over the last seven hours mattered in any way. The final episode is the inevitable showdown at "the big concert" ...not to give too much away.
The decision to end with two feature-length mini-movies is something that I'd have loved were Key a more enjoyable experience. I can't imagine how fun it would have been to have FLCL or either season of Black Lagoon end with a couple of movies that close the story arc (as opposed to the usual anime move of tossing in an out-of-sequence unrelated movie at the end. ...I'm lookin' at you Cowboy Bebop.)
Despite coming together fairly well in the end and certainly not being the worst thing I've seen (or rated for Oh Tetsuo) I can't in good conscious recommend anyone go dig up this series simply for the sheer amount of time and will-power it takes to plow through.
Anime Review :: Key the Metal Idol
Music Leaks :: Say Anything "Hate Everyone"
Upcoming single from Say Anything hit interwebs. Good to see the boys fought the law and the law won...
Music Leaks :: New Weezer Single "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"
The first single off the mysterious new Weezer album has hit the internet and despite sounding almost entirely un-Weezer-like, seems to have their fanbase raving that after three premature declarations of "Weezer Are Back!" Weezer Are Back! I suppose time will tell. Maybe they'll finally have their fans stop hating their guts after almost a decade. The song itself is downright pop-punkish, but I have to admit it's quite the catchy little number. Enjoy..
Music News :: The Verve F**k Off for the Hundredth Time
The Mirror might be about as reliable source of music news as my uncle who's knee starts to hurt when it's going to rain, but given the sheer believability of this story, it's probably true.
Rumors are aflutter that Wigan's little britpop band that always almost was has decided to call it a day yet again as Nick McCabe and Simon Jones gear up their new project The Black Ships (not to be confused with Black Lips, or The Black Keys) and presumably Richard Ashcroft is locked in a studio somewhere looking at photographs of himself. Though no official word has been released about "The Big V" the story has been creeping around that a combination of McCabe's drinking and Ashcroft's ...Ashcroftness seem to have made the band's umpteenth reunion more short-lived than usual.
Still, if every ten years they insist on coming back to put out one good song and then go away again, I suppose that makes them better than most bands. So here's to you, The Verve.
Music Tidbit :: Say Anything Frontman Slams Lady Gaga Via Twitter
Sure, it's not really news. ...at all. ...in almost any way. But Say Anything frontman Max Bemis took a nice little shot at Lady Gaga on twitter tonight.
maxbemis: recording a cover of @eisley's "telescope eyes" for their new ep..... really curious if lady gaga indeed has a penis. i hate her.
HA! Okay, sure, it's mostly that I'm a closet Say Anything fan and I absolutely can not stand Lady Gaga, but I thought that'd be fun to share.
Maybe NME will post some super-frivolous headline about it to grab some attention for their upcoming self-titled full length coming in a couple months? Here's hopin'
Anime(ish) Review :: Dragonball Evolution [2009]
Runtime :: 82 Minutes
Genre :: Action.
Barring a handful of very well executed exclusions, comic book adaptations are always a hard pill to swallow. It's never an easy task to take decades of story and character development and jam them into the first ten minutes of a feature film so that the audience understands "well that guy with the visor is called 'cyclops' and he shoots beams out of his eyes." It's always hamfisted and it's usually terrible but we accept it anyway because we've got a talky to make it through. And, since as a culture we've totally run out of movies to make, it's a necessary evil.
As you'd probably expect, the same rules apply for the anime adaptation. When previews for Dragonball Evolution came down the pike I imagine every self-respecting anime fan took a deep breath and went "oh boy. this is gonna be a tough one."
...which of course it is.
But still, to take the piss out of Db:E almost seems detrimental to our cause. We're going to have to start suffering a lot of these americafied anime remakes and it's probably a good idea we start learning to live with them instead of screaming "not our fault" every time one shells out an unsuspecting theater (or... dvd rack.)
Now, that isn't to say I'm trying to defend it as good, and lets get that out of the way early. Dragonball appeals to no one, the action sequences range between par and bad, the special effects are dated, the acting is silly (but that means nothing in a comicbook adaptation), and the story is too convoluted for children and too ridiculous for adults. If this movie has a target demographic outside of "anime fans" then it's probably 13-15 year old boys who are a little too weinery to like the violent grown-up action flicks yet.
Still there are some decent points. Justin Chatwin plays a remarkably likable Goku. James Masters has less than ten lines as Lord Piccolo. There are bright colors.
Okay, so there's not much going for it even if you are an anime fan. But still, I never once sat watching it and wondered when it would be over, or laughed at how absurd anything was. I simply watched and did what I could to enjoy, taking it for what it is... a live-action movie about magical glowing space balls that summon a wish-granting dragon.
If you go in expecting The Shawshank Redemption, you're probably gonna want your money back.
(yet still sort of worth seeing once)
Music News :: Julian Casablancas is Making a Solo Album
Every member of The Strokes seems to be a pretty advantageous and prolific artist, so long as it doesn't happen to be in regards to the band itself. Recently NME reported that between his busy schedule of doing guest spots and shoe commercials, Julian Casablancas will soon be releasing a solo album, Phrazes For the Young, which came with an accompanying trailer. The album is produced by Jason Lader with additional production from Mike Mogis, who you may know from his work on... nearly every album saddle creek has ever released. The trailer itself appears to be more of the 70's Sci-Fi imagery that's grown ever present on The Strokes promotional material and videos. Gone are the days of the dirty New Yorkers hanging out in dive bars and shit-talkin' with Slash, it seems.
Meanwhile, it's also been announced that The Strokes have started thinking about considering work on a new album and they've written A new song. Strangely lackadaisical for a band once praised for their work ethic, but hey, not everyone can be Kings of Leon.
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