review

I don't review a lot of comedy anime, because a lot of anime tries really hard to be funny and truly isn't. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is even a bit of a mixed bag itself, in terms of funny, but it does get a few chuckles out of me, and besides which has a classic "coming of age" angle to it, though it takes a back seat to gags. It's kind of a Baby's First FLCL.

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- Penguin Truth
(2020)

Not a whole lot to say about this one, except that it has this weird "evil feminist conspiracy" angle to it that Chiaki Konaka must've dreamt up while he was in a paranoid state after too much cocaine. Honestly, other than that, Armitage III's a pretty straightforward cyberpunk action OVA with a little bit of a mystery in it. I do really like the character of Armitage, though Ross is a little dull. I don't know, maybe it's the fate of all people named Ross to be dull. It's a very dull name.

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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (two seasons) is 52 episodes long, making this the most episodes I've ever watched to review for these videos. Not only that, but it's definitely the most I've ever watched to review for a single video. I didn't even break this into two or three parts! I probably could have stretched the material, too. But I felt like one succinct video was enough to give the right impression of this classic anime.

Well, actually, it was a tiny bit longer, originally, but I had to edit it down because it was blocked in some areas. Always a pain in the ass, YouTube and Japanese companies. But you get the drift.

More wrap-around material in this one. This will be the last one for a while, though I have plenty of ideas for that stuff. I wanted to do something with Ambassador Morran and thought I'd throw in the assassin Ravex as well, since I've barely used him. Here they're visiting Golex's people, the Lithos, for some reason. I'll get to that another time. After this, I want to concentrate more on the reviews themselves.

Speaking of the reviews, I'm glad I didn't have to suffer through too many lousy dubs in this half of the year. I didn't plan based on dub studios, just based on what I felt like reviewing or what I had time to review when I scheduled everything. I only have a tenuous schedule for the second half of the year, though I did name drop some of the things I'll be doing at the end of this video.

The wraparound material this time covers some of the storyline I never completed in my Penguin Chronicles comic strip, involving Prince Cassus' previous airship, the Gaizu, among other things. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with completing it via these videos (as flashbacks), these are anime reviews, but I guess I just like toying around with the sprites and backgrounds. And the pre-opening credits bit is set to Shunsuke Kikuchi's "M742", or "The Suspensful Intermission".

DBZ Movie 9, Bojack Unbound, is probably my favorite of all the DBZ movies, or indeed DB movies overall. It's nothing deep or profound, but it features a lot of great elements, from its settings to the action to the music. It's not perfect, it's just my favorite.

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I have to be honest, there's not a whole lot to say about Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01. It's a very short, very straight-forward mecha action feature. And my approach to it? Basically a good, old-fashioned blow-by-blow of the unusual events that unfold. But I felt like I needed something relaxing and untaxing in the middle of 80s Month. Also, the 80s was so mecha-oriented, I had to put something mecha-related in this month.

You know, to get hyped to do this month's videos I watched a lot of 80s commercials on YouTube. There's a YouTube channel called Dave's Archives that has tons of collections of old commercials that are worth checking out. It had me singing that damn Mac Tonight song for nearly a week.

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It's 80s Month! I'm pretty fond of doing this theme month, even if this month's specific offerings aren't exactly the greatest anime of all time. Yeah, I kind of cornered myself by already having covered most of my favorite 80s anime previously (Bubblegum Crisis, Gundam 0080, Royal Space Force, Patlabor, Char's Counterattack, The Fuma Conspiracy, and Night on the Galactic Railroad). But hey, They Were Eleven is decent enough, and I get to put on my 80s aesthetics again! Bitchin'.

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Ah, Serial Experiments Lain. I still don't 100% know what's going on at all times in this one, though several watches has me getting the gist of it, or enough to speak on it as a reviewer. It's a noodle-scratcher, that's for sure, and was especially potent when I was still new to any anime that was more complicated than, say, Dragon Ball Z. It holds up pretty well, too, it's not just one of those shows that seemed complicated at the time and is now quaint. It still has things to say that are relevant to today's society. I like that. And I recommend seeing it or revisiting it.

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