Congo Gum

What do you get if you mix a bunch of teenage bad assess, a Freddy Mercury look-a-like, a gorilla, a robot and a Japanese High School? The answer is Cromartie High School.

I’ve overlooked this show for quite a few months but after watching the first volume I have no idea why I did. Quite frankly this show is so much fun that I love it. When I sat down to watch this it was 11pm, I had a rough day and my brain was on standby. But it was the perfect show for that time.

CHS is a short 10 minute per episode series with a common one joke per episode theme. It follows the adventures of Takashi Kamiyama and his fellow delinquents through fights and the down right weird. The humor is simple but oh-so funny. The animation is basic but it carries its own style and is enough to get the job done. If anyone watches this show for its visuals they deserve to be slapped in the face.Cromartie strikes me as a watered down Beavis and Butthead, but can provide just as much satisfaction.

I haven’t checked out the sub yet. But to give credit where its due, the dub is bloody fantastic and even though the setting is distinctly Japanese you can easily see this in any school. The DVD is also chock full of extras. Unfortunately if you missed this series in ADV’s £1 a volume sale, then kick yourself. This is a fantastic buy.

At the moment my favourite character is tied between Takashi Kamiyama and Noboru Yamaguchi. Takashi’s stupidity and ignorance is just so funny to watch and Noboru’s pursuit of comic perfection is incredibly funny. So far the best seen is in the first episode while Takashi is reading the “How to be a bad ass”

While I’ve only had enough time to watch volume one, with three volumes left there is huge amount of episodes to plough through. And I look forward to each disc.

Let me start with my apologies. It has been almost two months since I’ve written anything at all. Anywhere. Life has gotten to that stage at the moment where days seem to be measured in seconds and I have no idea where it all goes. To say I’ve fallen out of the loop wouldn’t be too far off.

The last anime I watched was Kiki’s Delivery Service on channel 4 when it aired over Christmas. The last show I watched was Angelic Layer back in November, and I still haven’t finished that yet. I’m sure there is a smorgasbord of shows that I need to see. After all, I still have shows from 2006 to watch. But at the moment I just cant find the time to sit down for an hour, watch a few shows and then do something else. That’s not to say that I’ve fallen out of love with anime but rather, as time goes on, I have more things to do with less time to do them.

This leads me on to my next few points. 2008 is going to be a big year for my writing. I’ve got another project that I’m working on that, I hope, is going to be a huge success for the Tenchi Community. I’m also going to be making a few changes to this blog.

Style – To be fair, I like this layout. But I buggered around with the kubrick theme in wordpress and I’ve noticed that this page loads like crap. I’m going to ask some of my more theme friendly bloggers to design something better in exchange for beer tokens so that’s one improvement.

Writing – When I first started this blog I was aiming at delving into the deep, artistic beatuties of the anime environments. But as I look at them it turns into more case studies on the ideas of the show, and I’m not sure if I want to do that. I’m not going to drop the idea, but I’m changing my style. Instead of big, long winded posts (which are great and interesting to read, but a pain to write) I’m going to aim for a shorter, better written and more regular postings. Once a week is fine, but ideally I want to update it more with things on my mind.

So I’m still here, I’m still going to be posting. But boy, there are going to be some big changes around here.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty damn hectic for me. Now I don’t know about anyone else but this time of the year seems to bring out the worst in people, pretty ironic in the festive season. Finally most of the hustle and bustle in my life has simmered down so I can finally get back to the more important things such as writing, sitting on the sofa and stuffing my face with food.

This article isn’t all just random ramblings. I’m working my way up to a point, honest. But over the past month or so I’ve found very little time for anything really. What does that have to do with Anime? Well, a lot actually.

Ah the good old days.

When I was younger my parents were generous enough to get cable for our house. This was amazing for one reason, Cartoon Network. Now any anime fan in their early 20’s when as Read the rest of this entry »

“What more could you ask for than a bevy of beauties forced to put their lives on the line to answer the call of duty? Divergence Eve is a bold and imaginative voyage leading directly into the heart of evil. A dark tale enlivened by a shocking mystery which will have you guessing until the final fade out.”

** Post Edit Note - I Know that over the last two reviews the pictures have been a bit scarce. I must make it know that it is this series only that will have a lack of pictures in it’s reviews. I was simply in a rush at the time and this show is so horrid i couldn’t force myself to go and cap some more for you. My belated apologies. **

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the blurb on the back of the Divergence Eve Volume Two DVD case. This is also what is usually refered to as a big fat lie. i’ll apologise now, this is not my usual review.

Here we are with volume 2 of Divergence Eve, where Misaki and her busty buddies pick up the story from where we left off in the previous volume. Things are taking a turn for the worst, with the presence of the GHOULS becoming ever more persistent. It all gets a little too much for Cadet Susanna Bleustein and she can’t hack the training. Revealing to Misaki that her past about being forced into Seraphim, after promptly having her memory wiped she’s shipped back to earth. Moving on, our snoopy “reporter” Bernard Firestar ventures deep into the core with Misaki to find out the so called truth behind her father’s accident. Read the rest of this entry »

In the year 2317 humans can now travel across the universe at the speed of light by “tunneling” through different dimensions. Out in the depths of the universe is Watchers Nest, a space station built between a split planet and home to 10 million people. But recently mysterious accidents have been occurring on the station. Are these the effects of bad maintenance or a more sinister threat?

Over the course of this series we follow the adventures of Misaki Kureha and her crew of recruits for the military organization Seraphim. But we learn this after the first few episodes. I’ll go on the record here and say that the first episode of Divergence Eve was the most confusing starter I’ve seen. It threw me off more than the first episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The show starts off simple enough with it’s flashy intro with a thumping electro beat to boot but then we are lunged head first into madness. The first episode actually takes place between episodes 12 and 13, as a result this contains way too much techno talk and information about goings on that really I had no idea about. This was an attempt to create curiosity for the viewer in an attempt to hook you into watching more. Unfortunately it failed, badly, and really just left me confused more than anything.

Episode 2 is really the first episode and this is where we get the introduction Read the rest of this entry »