Giant Killing 13 – Giant Recapping

Well, not really, but I am laughing at how much recap Studio DEEN is starting to squeeze into these episodes. Someone at DEEN has been watching too much Kare Kano and Gundam SEED + Destiny lately.

Anyway, ETU’s first win comes to a close, and it turns out to be an enjoyable romp once the ETU players find their groove. It seems that Tsubaki is a fan of Twilight – or, perhaps, Gundam – judging from all the sparkles he emits when he is in the zone. Know what would have been a better effect? If he were on fire like in the old NBA Jam games. Tsubaki (speed) and the Prince (finesse) would be a pretty kickass offensive team. Because my Lakers kind of sucked when NBA Jam came out, I didn’t play as them as much as a good fan should. Instead, I most often opted for the Houston Rockets. Hakeem Olajuwon and Robert Horry were a deadly inside-out combo.

Anime Expo 2010: Saturday (July 3) Meet-Up Final Planning

One more post on this because I am an attention whore because I think it would be good to have a post with a definite plan. It would be good to get this solidified as soon as possible since I don’t know who will have Internet access at Anime Expo — we should have our plans in place at least by the time the con begins, yeah?

Judging from the comments in yesterday’s post, everyone seems relatively cool with initially meeting up at the Starbucks in the L.A. Convention Center’s West Hall around 5 p.m., hanging around a bit for introductions and a bit of talk and then going off to . . . somewhere to eat afterward. (Again, there’s a list of restaurants here.) The Levy Restaurants near the Staples Center are within a solid walking distance; everything else listed seems best reached via bus or rail. I’m definitely open to that, however. Not like it will be difficult to have the change needed to catch a couple of rides, after all.

Anime Expo 2010: Saturday (July 3) Meet-Up

There is a Friday meet-up for bloggers/Twitter folk/anime fans/whoever else planned by Deb Aoki, and I thought about hitting it up, myself (though it would involve a bit of juggling for me since I can attend just one day and planned on Saturday being it). Luckily for my selfish self, however, omo expressed some concern with how much stuff there is to do Friday, while CCY wondered how ginormous the whole affair would be.

With that in mind, CCY has started planning a smaller get-together for everyone on Saturday, and I wanted to help out by providing a concrete post to organize the planning, seeing as there are but a few precious days remaining until Anime Expo kicks off.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 63 – Nothing But the Truth

And, so, the main story of FMA: Brotherhood has come to a close. (As suspected, ep64 will mainly focus on the extended epilogue in the manga’s final chapter. It’s a solid postscript and not a total trainwreck like certain other epilogues, so the finale should be enjoyable.) As someone who is a relative bandwagon hopper to FMA (Brotherhood‘s debut was my first exposure to the series; I didn’t see the original anime or start reading the manga until last summer), it has been a hell of a ride keeping up with the story week-by-week (or month-by-month in the manga’s case :p). I’ll definitely miss FMA once the credits start rolling next week. (At least I’ll have the English dub to satiate me for a while longer.)

Durarara!! 24 – Simon the Puncher (END)

I always knew Simon would come through by the end of the series: The one time he decides to finally do something, it is for a perfectly worthy cause. Izaya isn’t really humiliated (save for a mocking laugh thrown his way by Namie), but a nice shiner — along with what has to be several bumps and bruises after flying through the sky courtesy of Air Simon — is some decent comeuppance for 24 episodes of dickery on Izaya’s part.

And yet it also shows a lot of what goes wrong in the second half of Durarara!! Characters with craploads of potential come and go without doing very much at all. Simon sells sushi without affecting the plot much at all, even though he can clearly make things happen. Shingen makes a cameo as if he is appearing in some low-rent sitcom. The cop’s appearance is great, but he probably could have been a more substantial character than he actually is. And on and on and on.

Giant Killing 12 – USA! USA! USA!

The title has nothing to do with the episode; I am just in an obnoxiously patriotic mood after America’s 1-0 victory against Algeria. Go, America! Also, try not to give me a heart attack before the World Cup’s conclusion. The Lakers already sent me close enough to the edge. Thanks.

Have to agree with the consensus that this episode has a predictable, sort of annoying structure but is nonetheless entertaining because it is at least pulled off well. Rakuen’s observation shows that there is at least a method to Tatsumi’s madness — Carlos has a large part in Nagoya’s defense (when the team actually has to defend, anyway). Really, it shouldn’t be surprising that Carlos is so good; the episodes have been focusing on Zelberto and Pepe so much that it was only a matter of time before Carlos stepped up and showed his stuff.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 62 – Soul Brother

Definitely a lot of fun to see this kickin’ final battle play out onscreen, though as Epi points out, it is kind of strange to see Father not fight back a bit more creatively. However, it seems as if it is not that he can’t fight back in a tougher way because he lacks the imagination to do so; rather, it’s more because Hohenheim’s plan has Father by the balls, and Father is desperately putting all his power into denying that truth, except his power is not enough to handle his business. He could unleash a ton of energy and vaporize all the characters in an instant, but to do so would require much more energy than he has on hand at the moment. Father would likely die along with everyone else.

Durarara!! 23 – Surgery Squick

Animated violence rarely grosses me out, because it does not often look real at all (and the more real violence seems, the more disturbing it is), but anything related to surgery is automatic squick material. There’s just something about opening up the human body and fiddling around that just creeps the hell out of me . . .

Anyway, it’s funny how anticlimactic Izaya’s plan has turned out to be, although at least part of that has to be because the anime has presented his plotting as if it is the be-all-end-all way for Izaya to awaken Celty’s head, whereas the events in the second half of the series are no doubt one part of a larger plot, because that is how these things work. Taken in that view, Izaya’s plan is slightly less dopey; however, it won’t make his inevitable smugness at the end of the series any less infuriating.

(By the way, it’s also funny how Izaya is already setting up Horada as a potential scapegoat if his plan fails. Maybe Izaya should choose a better representative than some creepy old dude (is he old? He sure looks old) who has risen in the ranks in a gang of middle- and high-schoolers.)

Berserk – In Mythology, Unmei Means Dickery

There’s a lot I like in Berserk, but it is the very end — where a desperate Griffith hands himself fully to a horde of demons and accepts the sacrifice of his comrades so that he can become one of the God Hand — that sucked me in the most, that had me feeling the cold power of this world and how everything moves like clockwork to its unavoidable end. Yeah, the ending clearly marks Berserk as an advertisement for the manga (but what an advertisement!), and the final seconds conclude at an awkward place, but damn it, that ending grabbed me by the head and wouldn’t let go.

Giant Killing 11 – The Wall

Well, this newbie fan officially has World Cup fever — Giant Killing encouraged me to give the World Cup a try, and it hasn’t been disappointing so far, even though the quality of play has not been the best early on. (Though as I am writing this, Spain and Switzerland just finished the game of the Cup so far; absolutely fantastic match, with a ton of close goals.) Being an American, I am rooting for the U.S., even though they realistically have a miniscule shot at taking the Cup, to say the least. But, hey, doesn’t mean I can’t root for ‘em, right?

Anyway, watching this episode was kind of funny for me because so many teams in the World Cup so far have taken an ETU-esque approach in concentrating on protecting the goal more so than attacking the opposition. (Which is part of the reason this Spain/Switzerland match was been so entertaining; Spain was vicious on the attack since going down 1-0 to the Swiss. It’s refreshing to see a team, you know, actively trying to score. :p) It’s fun to finally see ETU play with such an assured, confident air about them, though. They make a few mistakes (Murakoshi spends the first half getting used to Zelberto’s rhythm, etc.), but they recover pretty well, with even Tsubaki making some strong contributions with his reckless energy.