Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Sunday Morning Anime – 2

This post is a bit late, but I'm trying to catch up after all of the craziness that was .



So, for Sunday, June 30, I decided to waver a bit and dive into a different anime for the weekend. I did watch an episode of , but I also marathoned three episodes of .




Beast King GoLion (hereafter referred to as BKGL) was one of the anime series used to create the American Voltron series. After watching the first three episodes of BKGL, I can see why they edited it for American audiences. It is violent and brutal with themes of mass execution, consumption of humans, dark magic, and other nasty bits that would not sit well with the American public, even nowadays.



The animation is about what you'd expect for the time period. Of course, I love the hand drawn style, so I had no problem immersing myself into the series. The adult nature of the series was a bit unexpected, but also a nice change. I don't know if I would even necessarily call it a shonen series (although I'm sure it's classified as such) as much as something like . There are some elements of giant robot combat in it too, but that doesn't feel like the main theme. Of course, I've only watched the first three episodes so far. I have 69 left to watch, things could change.



I'd say this series is worth watching if you're interested in the origin of , enjoy older animation styles, or just want something that is not the latest and greatest. It's extremely violent and brutal, but it also has a lot of good themes like familial devotion, friendship, and bravery. This is earning a spot in my collection and will probably be the next series I finish after The Rose of Versailles.



On to The Rose of Versailles. Oscar's identification with the common man's plight in revolutionary France is becoming more pronounced. More wheels are turning as a new player comes to the stage. I enjoy this series for it's story depth and character development. At this time, though, I am seeing a dropped storyline, that of Rosalie's sister. We spent a couple of episodes on her after the initial story arc, but we haven't seen or heard from her since. I keep expecting to see her pop up after her murderous social climbing. There is still plenty of the series left to watch, so she might make more appearances in the future.



I keep scouring websites and news feeds for new series. I attended a panel at Convergence over the weekend that profiled a handful of new anime series that premiered this last year. I'm looking forward to checking some of them out. Although I did notice that I still haven't seen any DVD or licensing announcements for . And that's just a tragedy. Fortunately it's still available for free on , although I am really surprised that it hasn't been released in North America yet. In fact, as far as I can tell, it hasn't even been licensed for release in North America except for the streaming episodes.
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