Binge Sessions

The Binge Sessions

 

Time to sit down for more otaku time after all that couch can’t sit on itself. The question is on what or better yet the question is which one first. The Binge Sessions are lists sometimes themed, sometimes not, they’re when you want more than a single show like in our Take A Pick Tuesday spotlight, mixtures of news shows, old shows, those that are ongoing and ones you’ve just always wanted to get to. Instead of randomly choosing a show (it works sometimes) how about we dip into a few different things to get the blood pumping!

 

 

Detective Conan/Case Closed- Sure I throw this on many lists, probably for the reason that it fits everything! Seriously though this is the perfect anime to start a new year watching, it has something for anyone you might be surprised will sit next to you and it’s a great show to find yourself obsessed over, prepared to dive into its high episode count. Which is well worth it by the way.

 

       The show follows Shinichi Kudo or Jimmy Kudo in the American version, a teenage modern day Sherlock Holmes that has gained quite the reputation and has been aiding the police in some of their biggest investigations, his friend and love interest Ran Mori/ Rachel Moore reminds him of a promise that he made to take her to theme park. The perfect place to confess feelings for each other perhaps?

     Unfortunately the chance slips by as a murder happens in the theme park, soon after that Shinichi follows the trail of two suspicious characters in black and finds them making a deal with someone. Unbeknownst to him he’s spotted, attacked from behind and fed an experimental drug that was supposed to kill him. Instead it turns him into a child again. Now this genius trapped in a child’s body has to make up a new identity, Conan Edogawa, in order to keep those closest to him from suspecting who he is. As well as keeping them from being involved in something that he soon discovers is increasingly dangerous and larger than anything he’s ever encountered before.

     His newfound identity comes in handy real quick. Soon Shinchi or should we now say Conan finds himself living with Ran and her father Kogoro Mori/ Richard Moore a private detective in the hopes that the cases will lead to these mysterious men in black and give him the chance to return his body to normal. However as the show spotlights when everyone is scratching their head but a kid who may have the answer, whose going to listen to him, however Conan realizes this could also work in his favor.

        With the help of his neighbor Doctor Agasa, he uses the tools created for him to help solve the cases even if he’s using other people unconscious and their voices to do so. Boosting their reputations in the process. The series has everything, a long overwrapping storyline to keep you pulled in, unique mysteries each episode, constant growing characters that share similarities to famous detectives in fiction and popular TV from around the world, great character development in the large cast, meaningful romance humor and the thought process of people, what drives them to crime and sometimes what drives them to do the right thing.

 

       It’s a great show for anyone who might sit with you or just a fantastic show to enjoy by yourself. Some of the cases are pretty complex, it takes a genius like Conan to crack it. In the middle of the binge watching, you can also enjoy the movies that have been released every April for just about twenty years. This is also the 20^th anniversary of the series with lots of surprises coming to fans this year.  What are you waiting for!

 

Dragonball- Once in a while you wonder how far you’ve come. I’m writing about Dragonball, a little surreal, anyways, before there were battles of galactic proportions there were big hearted adventure stories called Dragonball.  Daughter of a famous scientist Bulma Briefs (quite the brain herself) is looking for the fabled Dragon Balls, seven mystical orbs that are said to grant any wish. While journeying she meets Goku, a strange boy with a monkey tail, and unusual strength with an even stranger living situation, one that hides the beginning of his most unique origins. Together along with travel companions they meet along the way they search for the dragon balls, encountering all sorts of strange things that eventually lead smack dab into Goku’s destiny.

    The first series had the sort of wonder we would find in series such as One Piece. Which isn’t too surprising considering Akira Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda are friends. The perfect starting point for a franchise you really have to go out of your way to ignore, you’ll find something to love here, there’s plenty of adventure and action but there’s also humor in a way completely different from the other series.

 

Great Teacher Onizuka- Great Teacher Onizuka follows Eikichi Onizuka former gang leader who wants to be the greatest teacher in Japan. To do so though he’ll have to fight every step of the way, even to get into the school to teach, to be assigned the trouble students, to be constantly on the receiving end of all these things that seem to come before his actual teaching, Onizuka employs his unique style of higher learning to actually help the people around him and changing their lives and his forever.

 

      Who would have thought, for a struggling virgin ex delinquent who is always struggling to make ends meet he’d have a heart of gold. Well it’s the sort of point of the series, everyone has a hidden side to them, not in an evil sinister way, just in a way that needs to be reach out toward, no one more so than students and you get it all in the series, the bullies, the bullied, the children ignored, the love, among the students and the teachers, the sledge hammers, the constant destroying of a certain character’s car, the bleeding out after being shot test taking. I told you this show has everything.

 

Beautiful Bones (Sakuarao’s Investigation)- What would be a list without some fairly recent anime and this one in particular having just concluded. Like the title suggests Beautiful Bones follows Shotoro who  is assistant to the knowledgable Sakuarao. When they are with each other they always seem to stumble upon bodies, which always seems to please Sakuarao because this young beautiful girl has a deep love for bones as well. Sakuarao’s vast knowledge of bones in living things helps her deduce what happened to the body and how it’s related to certain people in distress. People in their own lives are not immune to this and what happens is a showing of a very personal connection between these individuals and the victims. On the surface it seems like Sakuarao is a cold calculated indivivual but many things say otherwise and soon there are episodes that say the same thing. Leaving for some heartfelt or heartbreaking episodes, a grandma’s pudding, a previously owned pet and the darker story of friendship once had and the truth that had destroyed it.

     What are we, only bones that are left behind after we’re gone or do the story of bones tell us some thing different? Beautiful Bones explores this in a profound way to show that even the genius Sakuarao who seems happiest when finding a body or getting a new deceased animal is not unaffected by death. Shotaro is her personal connection to some of the personal aspects of her heart and sometimes offers a window to what means the most in her life, even if it’s obvious that he is definitely one of them. This also allows a certain theme that runs with the bodies they found and a possible dueling truth that lies underneath. Someone to connect them all and a possible past the two share. The unique quality of Beautiful Bones is all on its own and without trying surprises you in an episode when you least expect it, you find yourself heavily investing in characters even if you only saw them in a single episode.  While it’s a short and sweet one, we’ll keep out hope for a second season in the long run.

 

 

Gundam: Iron Blooded Oprhans – Many people have a hard time figuring out where to start on large franchises, often one of them is Mobile Suit Gundam. Understandable, it can be intimidating for the nearly 40 years of shows and with it’s massive film base and the scope it has is unbelievable. Yet that might be all the reasons you need to start, one of the newest of the Gundam series, Iron Blooded Orphans is set 300 years after a war between Earth and it’s colonies. Mars has now become a place for humans to live and though some of the colonies have won their freedom from Earth, they’re also dependent on it for its resources.

      The story picks up when a princess of one of the colonies is supposed to be escorted to Earth in the hopes to gain it’s freedom from Earth and is attacked by an Earth military section Gjallarhorn, those left to defend are sort of abandoned to fend for themselves, deciding to rebel from those that ditched them they still find themselves to be outnumbered and outgunned until Mikazuki Agus enters the fray, turning the tide with a Gundam that was in the midst of being repaired.

      The appealing thing about this series that maybe someone who isn’t familiar with the Gundam series, are the melding of common themes from the majority of the series and its sole unique flair. It deals with every political topic from slavery to war but triumphs to make it very personal, a thing that make the franchise stand out but in Orphans its characters are quite different from any other series and with the collaboration of director Tatsuyuki Naguri (Toradora, Anthem of The Heart) and writer Mari Okada (Toradora, Anthem of The Heart, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, Gosick) it makes Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans a very unique experience.

 

 

 

Space Brothers: A different sort of space story but one of the most heartwarming, heroic and inspiring series you could recommend to another person, Space Brothers is truly a show where to achieve your dreams, you have to reach for the stars. This is a must if you haven’t seen any of it or simply have heard about it. Now’s the time. Space Brothers gives a detailed look in the hopes of being an astronaut.

 

     The story is about two brothers who as children promise to reach Space. As adults though their lives taking very different paths. He isn’t sure when but at some point, older brother Mutta Namba, had found the dream to be an impossible one. Instead he had become quite the successful car designer, that is until Mutta head-butts his boss for laughing at a newspaper article about his brother Hibito. Ironically his brother Hibito never gave up being an astronaut and is set to be the first Japanese man on the moon. Completely blacklisted, Mutta reexamines his life, what it had meant to go to space and why hadn’t he ever tried.

 

      When Hibto catches wind of what happened, he and their mother submit an application to JAXA for Mutta to take the astronaut exam. When he gets accepted it gives a second chance for Mutta to follow his dreams and perhaps much like their idols be two brothers that reach space. The show paints Mutta as an awkward, very human person, who wonders things most people do and faces the dilemmas most do, the difficulty of following a path toward your dreams. It shows his talents that would make him completely qualified as he goes through the rigorous examinations along with other characters who have similar dreams, coming with different reasons from all sorts of places.

 

       The show is passionate as it is humorous and yes it shows the relationship between the brothers. At a 99 episode count it’s something you can enjoy for quite a while, fleshing out so many characters and so many storylines it has the power to really pull on the heart strings. This is an awakening I think for some, to see the power of storytelling, setting you down a truly fun path this year in anime. And yes I hope they make more too.

 

Yu Yu Hakusho – One of my all-time favorite series Yu Yu Hakusho transcended in so many ways its genre and the expectation of its storytelling. Instead it’s a phenomenal series that looks deep into the desires that drives people and the choices they make when recognizing or not recognizing them. Good and Evil are shattered lines and that is only the beginning, as they constantly are shifting to help add depth to the wonderful characters in the series. Matched with jaw dropping, emotionally, purposeful action Yu Yu Hakusho proves why it’s been a mainstay anime even decades after its release.

 

      We follow Yusuke Urameshi who is written off as delinquent and outsider, poorly misunderstood he does something that most won’t believe except those closest to him (some he was unaware were close at all) and risks his life to save a boy from a speeding car. His unexpected deed leaves him a ghost but one which Spirit World will give a second chance to return to his body. The catch, Yusuke’s nature allows him to be a spirit detective for them, to investigate issues between the human, demon and spirit world and sometimes hunt down demons that go astray. While this leads him into situations he shouldn’t be able to handle it also allows him to undergo a change inside and how he sees the world. Giving Yusuke the answer to what those around him mean to him.