Furries - Furries Everywhere!

All-Purpose Cultural Cat-girl Nuku-nuku, Outlaw Star, Escaflowne, Darkstalkers…

Anime fans are always ready for cat-girls; it’s just part of the territory. Recently, however, the cats have been devoured by anime’s newest popular rush: anthropomorphic foxes. It seems ever since Naruto emerged, companies have been milking this hairy teat by using more and more fox furries instead of cat-girls.

The fundamental paradox is that there isn’t much of a difference in the final product.

The Kitsune, or fox spirit, has a rich history in Japanese folklore of being wise and powerful tricksters who often fall in love with humans. For this season of anime, two new series have emerged which share the theme of “domestic furry:” Kanokon and Wagaya no Oinarisama. In both series, a girl who is secretly a fox spirit with elemental powers becomes attached to a younger boy and dedicates him/herself to the boy’s protection.

For me, these two series express the duality of a decent series, and a painful series. Kanokon is about a fox-girl whose dream is simply to have sex with a 13?-year-old boy, merge inside his body, and become a more powerful being. There was quite a bit of hate circulating when Kanokon first emerged, and it is quite well deserved. This is a flat series of fan-service, panty shots and themes that make me more uncomfortable than Elfen Lied, and that is explicit child nudity and disembowelment!

On the other hand, Wagaya no Oinarisama has become my cleanser for this season, meaning it’s my average series driven by light humor and a decent fight per episode which wipes my mind clean from the mature and intense series. In it, a venerable fox spirit, nicknamed Kuu, attaches herself to two young brothers who happen to be the target of constant demon harassment. Kuu is wise, unquestionably powerful and selfish, and ignorant of the modern world. Episode three, for example, sends Kuu wandering through and dominating the male students of a high school, which was pretty funny. Another interesting spin is that Kuu’s human form swaps genders, thus confusing all archetypes I use to judge characters. Nothing spectacular, but Wagaya non Oinarisama is a fun, easy-to-watch series that I recommend using to introduce friends into new anime.

Nevertheless, I will point out, for those of us grieving the loss of our calico cuties, the foxes are not fundamentally different from cat-girls. Either case, you have an immature, sexually charged “cute” girl who invades a passive, young boy’s life. And, if I may point out, Spice and Wolf didn’t change the character type at all because the wolf ears looked exactly the same as a cat’s.

Cat-girls, fox-girls, oh my. Y’know what I’m waiting for? Bear-girls! Why bother with cute and risqué when you can be destructive and over-bearing?

~Yo out.

Bastard! Epic-Haired Fantasy for Metal Fans

When I see a 6-episode mini-series sitting alone in the pre-watched $10 bin at my local EA Games and I’ve got a free Friday night, I like to take a chance. When I brought Bastard! before my tribunal of friends at both high school and college, it was met with overwhelming approval for being one of those shows so bad, but so reluctant to take itself seriously, it’s amazing!

Bastard! is an epic big-haired, high-fantasy anime with occasional nudity and imposing sexuality, hence its mature rating. It follows the very basic plot of “evil group seeking to resurrect god of destruction” until the greater evil, the wizard Dark Schneider is released from his imprisonment within a small boy. Dark Schneider is Chaotic Neutral and has the imposing sexual drive and uncompromising ego of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones combined. And he shoots out lightning from his hands! And gets it on with almost every female character. What’s not to love?!

During his quest to re-conquer the world (as he was about to do before his imprisonment) Dark Schneider and the young girl who released him, Yoko, set off to reunite his Four Lords of Havoc (including a ninja master and a high-level half-elf lightning sorceress). Along the way, they encounter epic-level beasts such as Beholders, minotaurs, vampire, werewolves, and the greatest slime of all time. Gary Gygax would be proud.

While not a super-deep anime (which it never claims to be), Bastard! is unparalleled in its hilarity and heavy metal references: all the spell names are heavy metal bands or at least references to a more metal time. Bastard! is the illegitimate child of the music Dragon Force and The Darkness.

It’s Slayers for boys! It’s Vampire Hunter D with a sense of humor! It’s everything horrible and amazing about early ‘90’s anime. Bastard! being just as over-the-top as anything from the fantasy genre, rolls a critical hit for cultic awesomeness!

Night Wizard Reviewed

Night Wizard – Series Review

~Uncle Yo

The last time Japan made an anime out of a tabletop role-playing game, they gave us Record of Lodoss War, which to this day is still my means to break friends into both anime and Dungeons and Dragons. So, naturally, I entered Night Wizard with high expectations.

Early last October Hal Film Maker Studio released the stand-alone, thirteen episode series about a team of modern day wizards (teenagers with custom weaponry) who fight to gather seven jewels of virtue and save the world from darkness: your basic action/comedy/fantasy mad lib plot. Despite following a basic formula, however, Night Wizard is clever for reversing your expectations.

We meet our basic main character, hard-fighting and hard-lucked Renji Hiiragi as he unveils his giant sword (naturally) and lays waste on an army of skeletons dressed as clowns. Renji and a small assortment of wizards use their flashy weaponry to stave off an invasion of Emulators, or monsters, from marching into our world and resurrecting their god of destruction. By the end of episode one our rules are easily established: wizards smash Emulators. In a predictable twist, our newfound friend, kind-hearted loner and supposed orphan Elis Shiho, is unveiled to be a wizard too. Her bracelet has seven open materia - whoops, I meant jewel - slots for seven jewels of virtue. Within moments, a new team of wizards featuring Elis, Renji and crossbow-wielding Shinto priestess Kureha is formed.

Every episode takes the characters to a unique location that surprised even me: places like Elis’ subconscious, ancient Babylon, the moon, and various others. For a short series of thirteen episodes, it covers a lot of ground. The comedy is standard character-based while Renji is always poised to provide slapstick and “that’s-gotta-hurt” humor. Do not expect any direct manga symbols; director Yusuke Yamamoto (Welcome to NHK) keeps a very consistent world, and quite a colorful one too. The animation is seamless, bright and even the surreal moments are eye candy.

Though the series is generic, magical-team-boss-fight-per-episode format, it does plant several issues of Machiavellian loyalty early on and pays off every loose end, a credit to series writer Ayuna Fujisaki (Aria the Animation). I did not see the ending as ridiculous, rather more of a satisfying puzzle that fit perfectly.

Thought by no means the next big thing in anime, Night Wizards is action-packed and humorous, and the toddler-level message of friendship-conquers-all is played off in a mature manner. I recommend this series to any Inuysha, Rune Soldier, or Slayers fans. This series works great among friends rather than a personal viewing. A statement about friendship, an altogether satisfying ride, Night Wizard earns a borderline four-out-of-five.