MISC. MANGA, *Dragon Crown

Based on the sword and sorcery side-scrolling RPG fantasy Atlus video game, Street Fighter arist Yuztan put together this 2-volume manga series released in English by Udon Entertainment. It takes the idea of the game, and translates it into a series of missions featuring the playable characters.

A group of heroes consisting of by name: Fighter, Amazon, Sorceress, Elf, Wizard, and Dwarf all decide to band together and use their skills in the service of the noble local prince. These include rescue missions, treasure hunts, and monster fighting. The strange part is that like in the game, you can only use four characters at a time, so they show the remaining two characters at the end of each chapter in a short SD strip hanging out at the local tavern waiting for their teammates to return. This leads ultimately to quest for a mystical artifact known as the Dragon Crown which gives its user the power to control any dragon, with which to take over the kingdom.

Yuztan does an exceptional job showing the outrageous fan service-filled features of the characters, especially the Red Sonja-like Amazon and voluptuous Sorceress. Even if you've never played the game, this manga is enjoyable to fans of Dungeons and Dragons or old school action titles like Golden Axe.

Cap's new "shield".

J. Jonah Jameson wants SPOILERS!

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Karas

Like most up-and-coming American comic book creators, they seriously want to get their title turned into a genuine anime series, as in actually being made in Japan and produced for the Japanese market. So Dark Horse Comics really bagged a biggie when their one-shot comic Karas was adapted into a 6-episode OVA series. The original comic written by Phil Amara(Spyboy)received moderate success in 2004, and then became a full-on superhero anime by Tatsunoko Production, who already have a history of superhero anime like Speed Racer, Gatchaman Casshern, and Teknoman. So they mixed on some flawless cel-shaded animation to create this "Batman meets The Crow" hybrid!

In modern day Japan, sections of Tokyo major city have their own guardian spirit known as a Karas guarding it. Each Karas makes a contract with a cat-like spirit called Yurine who all share a similar appearance(except in hair color), however Eko, the Karas of Shinjuku, rebels and takes over his city. Three years later, Eko has amassed a mafia of demonic "mikura" to control Shinjuku, but a new Yurine is born and contracts the comatose ex-Yakuza swordsman Otoha to be the new Karas to take Eko down. Along with this, we see how the lives of common people effected by the supernatural happenings going on, including a special two-man police investigation unit, a hapless mascot girl, and the local yokai who try to survive in the ensuing chaos. Most notable is the outcasted mikura Nue who seeks to free his brother from Eko's control, but both brothers are part Eko's scheme to separate Shinjuku into its own kingdom. When the mikuru start branching out all over the city, Otoha reemerges as Karas to fight the Eko, along with a female Karas from another part of Tokyo. Each Karas takes on the appearance of a crow-like samurai with the ability to turn into a miniature saber jet, or a juiced-up Batmobile, so the final battle between this trio of Karas makes for an incredible showdown.

The OVA series was release in English by Manga Entertainment, but as two separate compilation films, Karas: The Prophecy and Karas: The Revelation, which was probably a bit confusing for anyone who picked up one of these titles on their own without knowing it was part of a series. Karas obtained enough popularity in Japan to include the actual Karas character in Capcom Vs. Tatsunoko, but its release in America didn't have as much lasting power, slightly due to a serious lack of exposition involving the nature of these supernatural beings and how their existence is interwoven with the common human world. The dub is exceptional with Jay Hernandez and Mathew Lillard, plus Piper Perabo and Cree Summer both voicing Yurine with Summer replacing Perabo for the second film. The anime has been released in America as two DVD volumes, and a 2-disc DVD set, but so far no English Blu-Ray has been made available outside of the U.K.

Eternity Gems?

ANI-MOVIES, *Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole

Zack Snyder's films might have most superhero fans seriously divided concerning his works, but Legend Of The Guardians(no relation to the Rise Of The Guardians), which was based on the Guardians Of Ga'Hoole children's book series by Kathryn Lasky usually gets positive reviews. This fully CGI animated filmn collects the first three books in the series into a single timeline, and was an American/Australian production done mostly by the outback's own Animal Logic, which also created alot of the effects for The Great Gatsby.

A family of owls dwells in peace in their forest in Australia, but the two sons Soren and Kludd are kidnapped by thug owls working for the Pure Ones, an army of renegade owls lead by the scarred Metal Beak amassing numbers in their efforts to conquer the lands. Soren befriends the smaller owlet Gylfie, and the two manage to escape the Pure Ones, while Kludd is seduced by Metal Beak's consort, the malevolent Nyra. The two escapees run into a duo of stray owls, Digger and Twilight, and they all head for the great tree of The Guardians, the ruling kingdom of owls that maintains peace throughout the region. The young heroes tell their story the The Guardians, which leads into an epic battle of owl vs. owl with talon daggers, battle armor, and a magnetic sonic boom!

The film works surprisingly good considering it ties together three whole books, even though your average children's novel isn't more than 100 pages, but it also carries out as an exciting fantasy/adventure. It captures the essence of Don Bluth's The Secret Of Nimh, along with the style of fantasy in a Tolkien story. The animation is even beyond Pixar standards, and truly excels by making the owls appear as actual owls while still taking on human personalities. Despite alot of conflicting criticism on his works after this, Zack Snyder put together a well crafted production, both in story and development. The voice cast is top-notch too, with stars like Hugo Weaving and Helen Mirren. Forget the DVD, and just get the Blu-Ray to enjoy the pure visual glory!

I, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, am officially leaving Channel Awesome.

What is a cosplay girl's purpose?

ANI-MOVIES, *Your Name

What surprisingly became the #1 selling blockbuster anime movie of all time(so far!), Your Name is a romantic sci-fi comedy directed by Makoto Shinkai. Given his work on other titles like Voices Of A Distant Star and The Place Promised In Our Early Days dealing with starcrossed lovers separated by some otherworldly element.

Teenager Mitsuha lives out in the country, and helps maintain her family's shrine while hoping someday to move to the big city. Meanwhile, Taki is a loner high schooler who works part-time as a waiter in Tokyo. For some mostly unexplained reason, the two keep waking up in other's bodies, periodically switching their lives for a day at a time. Mitsuha keeps trying to help Taki with his interest in a waitress co-worker, while Taki learns more about being the troubled daughter of the pushy mayor of a small town. The two of them communicate with each other either through texting, or leaving notes to each other via notes, and sometimes on each other's hands. Taki then comes to realize he has feelings for Mitsuha when the body-swapping , and keeps trying to text her, but nothing gets through, so he sets off to find her mountain village. However, it turns out Mitsuha's village had been destroyed by a comet three years ago, and the body-swapping and texting taking place in real time during their own individual timelines. Now that he learns of her fate, Taki begins to loose his memories of Mitsuha, but one last body-swap sends him back to her body just before the comet was supposed to hit, giving him the chance to rescue the residents of town, including Mitsuha. This however sets up a new timeline where Taki and Mitsuha don't remember each other's prior experiences as "each other", but seem destined to recognizing themselves as they keep frequently meeting up nearing the finale.

Despite it's overwhelming success, and enchanting animation, the movie itself doesn't seem to play out like an actual feature-length film. It appears to be more like an OVA series compilation movie, including it's own episode intro theme. It works as an ongoing story, but putting it all into a single three-act film slightly works against it as alot of the mechanics behind the body-swapping and time dilation don't match up that well. You could just label the continuity flaws as "time magic", but considering that this is coming from Makoto Shinkai whose prior works paid particular attention to synchronizing alternate perspectives on time and space. Your Name is however an engaging modern day romantic fantasy, and sure to appeal to even non-otaku.

NO STOPS ON THE HYPE TRAIN!

MLP Season 8 is weird!