Ani Poetry:The Nameless Monster I : A Poem for Monster

The Nameless Monster I

 

A cold wind of death blows between a border as twins nearly collapse, once found so many would know the fear of having no name

The doctor sees his life is a sham, there are those that to find themselves equal with the rest of the world, the rest of the world to them shouldn’t have the opportunity to live

Screams and pleas are noiseless, they are in a world that hears or sees nothing, a world that is about to shatter

Unknown at the time as it watches the doctor’s world crumble, collapsed, forcing to believe his choice was wrong

The choice that all life is created equal, yet there are smiles that lift from the black abyss of sickness, injury and dangers of death

These things convince him that no loss of his is too great for the smiles he’s able to create

His choice is not wrong yet it brings him to the building of cement and emptiness, it brings him to a night where rain will burst like sadness upon the face of the world

It will bring him to the shadows of a young man, a man that was a boy once, the boy that helped him make his choice

As he watches the young man takes the choices away from others, is this his legacy? Believing in what’s right and it causes so many lives

Never mind that the smiling inspector with the hands that input cares not of the horror of this, never mind that you’re seen as the very thing you’ve witnessed

You must stop the monster that taunts with many names, many lives, that taunts with choices and takes them all away. You must stop this monster and yet what about their life, what about the choices that were taken away from them. Weren’t all lives equal? How will you face the truth, to the little girl, now the young woman, the twin that finds out her nightmare hasn’t ended only been shared because of you.

When she realizes you’re a victim and makes her choice how will you choose?

Aren’t all lives equal? To only you this question is asked, a stranger drifting in the country where you help those around you but none could ever hope to help you. To this question you will be constantly asked.

A Poem For Laboon: A Wave From A Distant Memory

Laboon

 

 

The mountain is unmoved but my eyes are closed, I do not see failure in the pain of the collision

I only feel the urge to continue, to break through this invincible wall and reunite with those whose waves are distant memories

Memories that play on my mind in unexpected times,

 Like visiting ghosts

 I do not wish to call the past

There are others that say I have scars but I do not believe them, surely I couldn’t be hurt, wounded means a prelude to defeat and I will not see them wave from a distant memory

The days move are so I assume, for every moment is the same for me, every moment is another attempt to break through

When a set of visitors appear one day, beyond the man that waits inside of me

They in different acts earn my trust, they in different acts show me a reflection

What I see should cause pain to me but it does not, a strange one has sworn a promise with paint upon my scars and a smile like one so very long ago

The rocks are unmoved but my eyes are closed, I no longer need to attempt to break through them

For what’s on the other side will return to me someday, I hear them already, waves from a distant memory

A-Sexual Characters in Anime

                                                 A-Sexual Characters in Anime

 

 

In this list will look at A-Sexual characters in the world of anime. Not to say it’s such a horrible thing or that there is anything wrong with it, to me one of the coolest characters ever is Sherlock Holmes and for all parts counted he’s A-Sexual, just a look at characters who seem to have other things on their mind other than someone they love. Maybe that’s not fair, all these characters have love whether the sea, food or their goals, it’s just not love in the sense that most would think.

 

Ash Ketchum- The eternal journey of Ash Ketchum to be a Pokémon Master has taken him far and wide, with all sorts of people who have other Pokémon goals.  Ash has commented several times that he didn’t know what everyone was talking about when the conversation turned to love, he himself had a possible love interest but he was just too oblivious to notice. Perhaps above all the other reasons that was why Misty left. Not to say she’s the only one there was or could have been, oh Ash you heartbreaker. Maybe though Ash does have love, one for his goal to become a Pokémon Master and his love for his best friend Pikachu. Although that has been slight shifts in X and Y for Ash with the connections to those he travels with linked a little closer to home so anything is possible. Are maybe what a lot of people my generation are rooting for will happen, Misty will come back full time and they'll finally hook up. Granted they're all supposed to be kids but for the future it would sure be a nice epilogue.

 

 

 

Luffy- Sure he might be made of rubber but that doesn’t mean he’s using it for those purposes. It’s not that Luffy is clueless about love or what it’s supposed to mean, it just doesn’t seem to be on his mind is all. If anything we can associate his love with those he cares about and as the name has suggested once upon a time, perhaps the romance is with the freedom, the ocean, the adventure and the desires that he has along his journey. Not to say Luffy doesn’t have those that are digging his stretch arm self, Boa Hancock one of the Seven Warlords comes across him, queen of an island of women or amazon if you will. Luffy manages to do something to her that no other man has ever been able to do, to the point that the others think she’s fallen sick, it’s only her falling for Luffy and at that point he would win her over without ever returning her feelings. Not to say she is the only one, maybe it’s just the romantic in me but there are a couple of other ladies I always thought might be interested in the boy with the straw hat.

 

Goku – While it’s true that Goku is married with children and understand the concept of the birds and the bees, it can also be said that he was a little clueless back in the day and considering his priorities sometimes, not to say the world isn’t a priority there is still the distinct possibility that Goku might be a little A-Sexual.  It’s hard to gloss over the fact that Chi Chi his wife had to kind of trick him into marrying her, when younger he saw it as more of a fighting challenge. Vegeta isn’t the most romantic man ever but considering he had tried to destroy the Earth before and was someone most of the Z fighters were scared of for some time then he must have done quite the wooing to get Bulma to marry him. Not to mention he’s around her a lot more than Goku has been around Bulma. I suppose being dead can prevent you from being with your wife but it still doesn’t stop Goku from saving the world!

 

Ichigo Kurosawki – Perhaps out of the bunch he would seem unlikely, he blushes at certain moments, he’s gone to rescue both Rukia and Orihime and even those both clearly care about him where is the advancement in the relationship. Could it be the dreaded love triangle or simply that giant stamped A on Ichigo’s head. I mean if having entire arcs to save someone doesn’t get you a date besides when you’re slaying hollows than what’s the problem. In truth I’ve always seen Ichigo and Rukia making far more progress in the show as a possible couple than they did. Whatever you do Ichigo don’t ask Rukia’s stepbrother for love advice, that might be a bit of a sore spot for him. I don’t know maybe the most frustrating thing is that in a way it’s focused on a lot, yet development often can be slow once the problems are resolved. Perhaps a gift of which your name means to them can get things rolling Ichigo, just saying.

 

Heiji Hattori – The detective of the west, some might even say the Kudo of the west from Detective Conan. While Shinichi Kudo has the obstacle of being a little boy’s body to prevent him to tell  Ran the truth, it hasn’t stopped him from confessing and while Ran seems a little slow on the uptake at time, she’s certainly more progress than Kazuha Toyama. Heiji seems far more interested in Conan’s love life than his own, in fact it seems like he’s unaware that he has a love life with his childhood friend, although she isn’t as oblivious. Which is awfully funny considering the seventh movie was dedicated to Heji’s past and who might have been his first true love, see the revelation in that and it’ll make you scratch you head on the progress on all things love for Heiji. If anything it might make him closer to Sherlock than Conan in that sense. Just another one that makes you scratch your head, see if you can find an episode where she’s talking to another boy and it upsets him, he isn’t even sure why, something he openly admits.

 

Of course there are plenty of other characters out there that seem to sort of miss the message or the hints at times but watching these guy’s, you feel better with your love life and if there isn’t one than you have learned the first valuable lesson, don’t be oblivious.

When You're Trying To Focus On Something

Take A Pick Tuesday : Monster

Take A Pick Tuesday: Monster

 

 

Whether A Fluke or Keaton’s winning smile, the Master Keaton Take A Pick Tuesday a couple of weeks had enough readers to make me give in to the urge to write about another anime by the same creator, Monster. Some shows are good, some shows are great, some shows are great and important; Monster falls under the category of the latter. With all the insight you get inside the human soul, what we as people are capable of, you would think it would be more than you could bear to see in another episode but also you see the compassion, redemption, love and hope that are also there within the show, not to mention the quiet moments and the wonderful scenery that breathes in between the dialogue of the show. In that sense there is similarities to Master Keaton and of course some of those moments are the show’s all on its own.  Monster is that good and while it may be a 70+ episode journey, it’s easy to find the episode count fly by.

 

      The story of Monster focuses on Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a brilliant neuroseurgon destined to rise to the top in Eisler Memorial Hospital in Dusseldorf, Germany. Tenma is not only the director’s favorite due in part to the amazing surgeries he performs but also that director’s daughter’s finace. An incident with a grieving Turkish woman blaming Tenma for not operating on her husband, sure that if he did he would have saved him, begins to shake him deeply. Suddenly the world he realizes he’s a part of looks to be a horrible empty void, where people find more value in reputation and money than they do in human lives. He remembers that at the moment of preparation for an operation on the Turkish man, he was asked to go into another room and operate on a famous Opera singer, which would help to boost the hospital’s reputation even more. When the director and his fiancé write off the suffering woman’s complaint as if it meant nothing, even saying that lives aren’t created equal, something begins to change within him. It just so happens that the next time he’s called in for an emergency operation it’s a boy found shot in the head, his sister cationic from witnessing the trauma and the parents, two high profile escapees from the other side of the Berlin Wall murdered. Once again as he preps for this dangerous surgery that he feels only he can perform to save the boy’s life, he’s asked to operate on the Mayor just brought in. However Tenma sticks to his guns and the true reason that doctors should help save lives because all lives are created equal. Tenma saves the boy but seems to lose everything else, his engagement with the director’s daughter, as well as his position getting demoted.

 

        When Monster shows people being not so nice, they don’t pull any punches and of course you think wow can people really be that messed up and the answer is of course. That’s one of the reasons Monster is such a heavy hitter you can always find truth to the when people seem to act horribly, it happens all the time. The director and two other doctors even try to turn the recovering boy and his sister into a media circus, before they can though they’re all found dead, poisoned by a candy they all ate, gifts for the boy from the public. The hospital turns a 360 and Tenma is promoted, ironically it seems believing in the reason he’s a doctor had proved to be the right path after all. Then ten years later, at this point the Berlin Wall is taken down, a lock picker is brought to the hospital, after Tenma saves him and finds out he was attached with others that were involved with a series of murders of middle age German couples, he helps to convince the man to choose the right path and redeem himself until one night, the guard by the man’s room is found dead by the same candy that killed the two doctors and the director. The lock picker is running from something and by the time Dr. Tenma reaches him he sees him begging for Tenma to run, the reason is the young man standing in front of him, the monster, the one that was responsible for the murders and who hired him. The young man, Johan had been his name when he was brought to the hospital as a child, yes he turns out to be the boy Tenma had saved. Johan executes the man and leaves Tenma in a world that turns upside down once again.

 

       His reason had been the child but the child he saved turned out to become a serial killer. The police would have their doubts including one Inspector of the BKA, Inspector Lunge. Positive that Johan is a part of Tenma’s mind and that he’s responsible for the murders as well as the director and the doctors all those years ago, it leaves Tenma on the run. Yet he had already chosen to leave anyways, feeling responsible for bringing back Johan to life, he might choose to kill him but what he finds out about Johann and his missing twist sister Ana is far more, far worse than he could imagine. This leaves to question who are the real monster, Johan are those that had turned him into this, more of a cause of concern than his well-being Tenma is consumed by this traveling as far as he can to try and right this wrong. It follows you into the darkest corners of what people are capable of and Tenma is one of the many moral scales when we visit these dilemmas of the human soul. Having described all that is really I kid you not the synopsis. Monster is a layered, suspenseful, moving drama that if you haven’t seen it yet than I highly recommend it to be the choice for you this week.

 

        Whether on the country side, with the fields and the sun high in the air on a hot day or sinking on a waiting couple out of gas in the middle of nowhere, in the city with large buildings or the small villages “like from a fairy tale” to the neon lit red light districts, the show is quite beautiful, the animation embraces the moments in the story that leave the mind no choice but to linger. Monster explores the different parts of Germany and Prague as well, just like with Master Keaton, the characters have very human faces, each different from the other. I’ve heard some say the manga is more detailed but I have to say if the manga could move, the anime would be it to the tee. Even characters that don’t return over and over again leave a lasting impression because they do explore many perspective and many paths of the characters moving down different paths that basically lead to the same place, at times intersecting before the final destination, still have memorable qualities to them and no they aren’t fillers, not just hey this character met them moments, they build on the dilemmas of the characters and reinforce who they are and what it is they want. Even in the calmer moments of the show, shadows play a big part in the animation techniques, the sinister things around every turn, shrouding characters until it is time to find out who they are.  A technique that Urasawa actually uses quite often in his manga, always leaving the impact desired. Like Master Keaton if you were ever curious about the countries involved than you might be more so afterwards and if you live in them whether it’s everything you can recall or not, you will see a pattern in Urasawa’s works, there’s a clear interest in the countries he often uses in his works.

 

   Not to shake a stick at the music either, well-orchestrated it lifts your spirits in the quiet moments, even some closer to being festive and keeps you on the edge of your seat in the suspenseful moments and chills your blood during the many revelations in the show. As for the release of Monster it’s actually an interesting thing, VIZ licensed it and have released the first box set, the first 13 episodes and that was it. Some red tape along with a few other reasons prevented them from ever releasing the rest, despite this it had aired in its entirety on both Chiller, a horror channel as well as SyFy. Not only that there was a time it was on Netflix, Hulu, the whole nine yards. These days it’s a little harder to find Monster yet it is there. One place to check is on VIZ’s website, they stream episodes on there though lately even that has changed and then there is the Australian brand Madman Entertainment had planned a release a while back. There’s always a chance that it’ll be rereleased and this time in its entirety.  Another strong reason for this is that Guillermo Del Toro, big time director of Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Devil’s Backbone, Chronos and Pacific Rim, had submitted the script for a first season of a live action adaption of Monster for HBO. The script was approved by Naoki Urasawa who these days always wants to see the scripts to his works being adapted and it’s been a little quiet on that front but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Wait there’s more, VIZ has started doing some releasing on one front, manga. The manga was released from beginning to end a while back but VIZ decided to release Monster in these larger collections, Perfect Editions that are quite beautiful, two volumes are out already with a third coming out in January. Speaking of his other works, Master Keaton is getting released in manga form for really and truly the first time state side, the first volume coming out in January. If you find a way to watch the show then do so, don’t be afraid of the English Dub it’s done quite well, the voice actors nailed those characters  Caitlin Glass as Nine/ Ana and of course Liam O’Brien as Dr. Tenma. Monster explores what we are as human beings in full, there are a lot of things lying in those shadows but through them and those wicked truths we find a lot of beauty in the light too.

A Podcast Companion

https://soundcloud.com/rats-on-a-plague-podcast

*Need more otaku time, well for more ideas why not hop on to the newly minted podcast Rats On A Plague Ship. A podcast that speaks on all matters of geekdom with yours truly and my fellow co-host Sal Almaraz. The true cure to when the hours feel like they drag!

 
 

Quote of the day- Passing it on

Holiday Binge Watching Lists Part 1

 Holiday Binge Watching Lists: Part 1 Introductions

Following a major holiday like Thanksgiving we all pretty much know what we’re in store for.  Lots of food during Christmas and yes unlike the holiday we just passed, present exchange but what about the time leading up to it and even the time afterwards. More likely than not it would mean a lot of time on the sofa whether alone or with friends or with family on some serious binge watching. Maybe even lots of traveling with major downtime, perhaps you can watch a few things on apps on your phone or watch things on your computer if you’re the lucky sort.

      Hey maybe your looking for a few things to buy and carry with you to watch. Even better!  If you’re wondering what might be a great choice, the 1-2 days off might be a good chance to start or catch up on Anime with high episodes count. If not high episode count than just something you’ve been meaning to watch. Maybe this means continuing what you’ve already started but perhaps the one to choose or continue just might be on this list.

Part 1 will incorporate shows, some with the holiday factors others just simply because though Part 2 will be a selection of holiday episodes, I'm sure it'll be hard to squeeze in everything so feel free to post your favorite holiday anime episode.

For this one where going high on the episode count but have no fear other shows with lower episode counts await, don’t let that deter you from some truly fantastic shows.

One Piece – There’s a lot of reasons this could be an ideal binge watch. Compelling characters, long arcs perhaps but they all go into each other and man is there foreshadowing. One of the unique things about One Piece is that it never repeats itself and you can watch something on episode 50 and find it coming back to it closer to episode 300. The show is long I mean really long and still ongoing but take heart, it isn’t the longest show ever and it’s not something anyone expects to finish in a day.

       The point of binge watching isn’t always to finish but the journey itself and to make a little headway with all the free time and sometimes waiting time we have.  Another great thing about the show is that it’s available at a click of the button from Cruncyroll to Hulu. It's American distributor Funimation also streams it and like other online services streams news episodes straight from Japan.

      Let’s not forget that Funimation has repacked the sets so far in several types of collections which is a nice way to get a jump start on the series and on the horizon is another set that will put even more episodes together if you want to make less purchases and get more episodes out of it. Not to mention it's the perfect gift idea for that Otaku you know, whether they're somewhere in the middle or just own it at all, choosing One Piece isn't a stretch, pun intended.

 

Rurouni Kenshin-  There are times when looking back is looking ahead. Why not get around to some shows you never had a chance to see. Rurouni Kenshin has a mythos to it that is all of it’s own and the show definitely transports you to a unique era for Japan so in some ways you get to see what life was sort of like back then. It’s not as long as some of the modern day long running shows but that isn’t always a bad thing. With the third live action trilogy officially out, this is one of those shows everyone knows about but doesn’t always mean everyone has seen. It’s great for those that have come into anime only a couple of years ago. 

        Kenshin Himura is also a very original main character, loosely based off of an actual historical character you can sympathize with his philosophic out view of the world, he’s seen the war, he’s seen humanity diminished on both sides of war and truly he wants a simpler life, one of atonement of the things he’d done in the past. His choice to do this has him kind of settle down around a cast of characters that truthfully need someone with that sort of out view. What exactly happened to him in the past, what’s to atone for and what connection does it have to the people around him, well that’s why you have to watch it.

       Sure those answers are in an OVA detailing Kenshin past before he was a humble wanderer but whether you see it or not you should still see the show. An assassin during the war before the Meiji era, he has become a rurouni, when he begins to live and assist a young girl trying to keep alive her father's discipline, it seems the perfect humble place to reach out to those affected by the war but for those around him they will see that Kenshin's past will become a part of all their futures. 

        Yes the show had other reasons for the series ending during it’s run but it shouldn’t take away the accomplishment that it established by breeding a legendary character from a legendary anime. For a great show doesn’t only show conflict but questions the conflict as well, you have that with Rurouni Kenshin.

 

Galaxy Express 999/ Captain Harlock-    Galaxy Express 999 is a classic and for good reason, in a near future a boy named Tetsuro Hoshino manages to get the usually impossible chance to ride the Galaxy Express 999 and decides to travel it in search of a way to turn his body into one that is mechanical, a direct influence from the way his mother was murdered, as if this would solve all his problems. In this future, brains can be transferred to a mechanized body, with this Testuro could live forever.  Accompanied him as a sort of motherly figure is the mysterious Maetel who seems to have a vast knowledge of the many planets they visit, she’s said in many ways that he would not be as pleased to live forever with a mechanical body although it seems a philosophical journey from planet to planet is better proof.

       Of course Maetel doesn’t seem to force the boy to understand it either, at times she’s passive in other respects she can be stern but in a silent way it does seem as though she’s guiding him.  Immortality is often a question that comes up in the show since it’s shown in other lights in front of Testuro that show it to not be a great as it seems, there's an extra dimension to the character's and you'll question morals, ambitions, with many endings bitter sweet but always leaving you to ponder. 

     So it goes that this boy and the mysterious Maetel travel through the stars, in search of the planet where he can change his body to a mechanized one, his determination unwavering. You also get to learn about the train itself and others trains that run through the galaxy.  Part of the inspiration for Galaxy Express stems from the novel Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa where a train also travels across space. Leji Matsumato has made many other creations that have been just as important to anime as Galaxy Express 999, all of them show a running theme that is constantly revisited, the value of life.

       That is why though some episodes go a dark route and seem hopeless, truly they are showing the value of life in them. We will ignore the one where Maetel blew up a set of duel planets because that doesn’t count. The animation is done in a different style having been made so many years ago, to some it will seem dated but the imagination within it has no bounds and any other show from Matsumato’s works has his easy to recognized style, long slender characters, males with hair on their face, determined eyes, woman with long faces and large eyelashes. A contrast with the small stubby, mash potato faces of some of the characters which mixes imperfection with the perfection, in fact Testuro is one of the stubby character designs.


      Galaxy Express 999 can be viewed surprisingly in a lot of places, among them is Crunchyroll and Hulu. Another classic show that can be viewed on those two sites by Leji Matsumato is Captain Harlock and Netflix has the recent CGI film interpretation of the character. So go to town. If that isn’t enough for you there has been remakes, live action adaptions and further expoloration of the characters and the worlds he’s created, although not all the ones he wasn’t behind himself have made him very happy.

 

Hunter X Hunter- The holidays are usually supposed to be filled with wonder. Hunter X Hunter has plenty of that and adventure and a moving story. The manga by Yoshihiro Togashi has been running for a long time, with his frequent breaks for health reasons, it’s still ongoing and has seen a show in the 90’s. Along with an OVA. However it wasn’t until the recent Hunter X Hunter anime a couple years back that it really hit it wide over here in the US anime wise in my opinion.

        Enough so to spawn two movies and about 148 episodes. I guess that means it had to become even more popular in Japan too. Needless to say the manga isn’t finished so there’s always a chance Hunter X Hunter will bring more to the anime world.  The story follows Gon who journeys to take the Hunter Exam in order to follow his father’s footsteps thus finding his father Gin one of the greatest hunters of them all. They don’t ignore the fact that it seems as though his father had left him when he was little, in fact they don’t ignore anything which is what I love about the show/manga.

       Which doesn’t come as a surprise for me because although the world is wide, filled with people and hunters of all sorts, the show can be very personal which reminds me of Yu Yu Hakusho, which I always thought had deep storytelling that set it apart from all the other mainstream shonen shows. Also not surprising since it's from the same creator.  What a Hunter is, where Gon‘s journey takes him are things you’ll just have to see for yourself. See you can too. Hunter X Hunter is on Cruncyroll, Netflix and many other places., while your at it see  the other Yoshihiro classic, Yu Yu Hakusho.

Salior Moon Crystal – It’s very hard to watch anime and not know what Salior Moon is or at least know the name, it’s about as big as they get. One chosen girl Usgai Tsukino seems to be just another ordinary awkward teen except that she transforms to become a defender of good against the forces of evil. Along the way she will meet other guardians as they unite in their effort. The manga has been coming out in droves and has been a bestseller ever since so it was obvious that there are plenty of people hungry for the girls that gave magical girls that extra bump up in cred to return.

           Need an extra reason then maybe consider your switching from time to time in your binge watching and maybe the other is Hunter X Hunter or Yu Yu Hakusho which would mean you’re keeping it all in the family since Yoshihiro Togashi and Naoko Takuechui are married. Two creative worlds that have colloberated on things, nothing released here except the first volume of Hunter X Hunter which she had for a short time helped behind the scene of things. However it’s interesting to see Salior Moon and Hunter X Hunter and know they are connected in some way.

    
Those are some of the stables  and of course there are other seemingly obvious shows that could be worthy binge watches  whether because of length or how massively popular they are. Something we'll dive into one the next parts of our Holiday Binge Watching Lists- Stay Tuned. 

A Podcast Companion

https://soundcloud.com/rats-on-a-plague-podcast

*Need more otaku time, well for more ideas why not hop on to the newly minted podcast Rats On A Plague Ship. A podcast that speaks on all matters of geekdom with yours truly and my fellow co-host Sal Almaraz. The true cure to when the hours feel like they drag!