Recap of the Final Meeting of 2010! Farewell to a Grand Year!

Man, last night was quite the way to end the Propeller Anime Club's meetings for 2010! In true fashion, we had to find a new room yet again, and we also had a casualty in lacking Sword of the Stranger to show!

However, we were lucky to have seen instead Trava Fist Planet, four animated shorts directed by Takeshi Koike, set in the same universe as the recently released Redline! In addition to Trava Fist Planet and Redline, Koike has notable credits as Key Animator in Dead Leaves and Animatrix's World Record. Trava Fist Planet was light on plot but heavy on style and action. Needless to say, it's a nice warm-up for Redline.

We also finished Bastard!!, which pretty much ended like any big battle in Dragonball Z. There was plenty of monologuing and bigass energy attacks and explosions. Luckily the characters have a little more personality, but you've got to wonder about Dark Schneider and his insatiable lust for the ladies. Granted, he's not humping toilets like Kentaro from Golden Boy, but we're all pretty sure that after the fact he will try to get some action with his own daughter. Yup.

And then there was Tokyo Godfathers! What a fun way to end the final club meeting! Leave it to Satoshi Kon to turn the homeless that society looks down upon or ignores into heroes of Christmas. With that, we have seen all four of his movies. Unfortunately, he passed away in August with Dream Machine unfinished. I'm glad that we were able to enjoy his films this year.

I do want to shed some news before I give my final words of the year. We had a raffle with two tickets to the live-action film showing of Gantz on January 20th. I want to give congratulations to Althea and Izzy for winning those!

We also had a flyer and t-shirt design contest. Erik B., Jean Louis, and Izzy entered those! Jean-Louis did win both contest but Erik and Izzy gave an impressive showing as well! We will use part of Izzy's t-shirt design for the back of the flyers we'll make because it's pretty cool. Good job, guys!

Next year will be pretty awesome! At the end of the meeting, we picked our series and features for the first quarter of 2011. After finally doing club democracy correctly, we ended choosing Cromartie High, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, and Mobile Suit Gundam: The 8th M.S. Team! So we have a manly comedy, a crazy chick with guns, and epic war drama with mecha; that sounds like a winning team to me!

This past year has been crazy. We've seen a lot of cool anime and have leveled up considerably as fans! We've had some great hangouts, we've made friends and lost some along the way. We've even shown some duds at meetings. Nothing is perfect and this past year has been a very good learning experience for me. Hopefully, lessons learned and some time to rest will make for an even better club experience next year!

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for attending the meetings and gatherings we've had and supporting the club with great excitement. While there were some rough bumps this year, I think how we finished last night has really shown how well we have done as an anime club. I truly think we set the bar of what other anime clubs should try to achieve and I want us to keep doing that.

Here's to a grand 2011!

Kent Ward

Founder of the Propeller Anime Club

Final Anime Club Meeting of the Year on Sunday, December 12th!

Last meeting was definitely fun and had some unexpected happenings! We actually ended up finishing both Golden Boy and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, leaving Bastard!! as the only series left to wrap up this final meeting of the year! A lot of fun has been had, and with finals in progress and holiday travels coming up, it will be time to say our goodbyes until next year.

The final Propeller Anime Club meeting of 2010 will be Sunday, December 12th at 4:00pm in FS3B-112 of Building 3B at Full Sail University. There are no classrooms open from 1pm. unfortunately.

It's later than usual, so I will bribe you all with raffle tickets! Everyone who shows up gets a ticket and two will be drawn. Both winners will recieve a movie theater ticket to the live-action film screening of Gantz on Thursday, January 20th at 8:00pm at Regal Waterford Stadium 20! That is awesome!

In addition to finishing Bastard!!, we will have a double feature. That would be Sword of the Stranger, which we did not get to show last time, and the late Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers. We've seen Perfect Blue, Paprika, and Millenium Actress this year, thus making it the perfect way to end our 2010!

Planned Schedule:

4:00pm - Final Introduction and News

4:10pm - Bastard!!

5:10pm - Sword of the Stranger

6:50pm- Intermission

7:05pm - Tokyo Godfathers

8:35pm - Planning for Q1 2011,  Contest Showcases, and Gantz raffle

That last part is important. Because of last meeting's unexpected ending due to the crazy December schedule of Full Sail University, we never got around to our contests, so they will be extended to this final meeting. We will also use this time to discuss anime we will watch and hangouts we will have during Q1 2011.

Rules for both the flyer contest and the t-shirt contest can be found here. The more submissions we have, the more likely that there will be other contests in the future.

For those who unfortunately can't join us, We hope you have an excellent Holiday break. Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter as well as this blog for announcements!

Recap of today's meeting! 12/5/10 edition!

Let's try a simpler recap! This meeting was fun, though there were a couple hiccups! Here are the notes!

• It turns out classes are being schedule on Sundays at Full Sail this month. This will make finding room space even more difficult!
• We had to move to a different room for this reason.
• This also means that we never got to see Sword of the Stranger or handle the contests we have been discussing.
• Sword of the Stranger and the contests will be on our final meeting of December 12th.
• That debate event I want to try will be pushed back to January.
• Meeting room and time for the final meeting to be determined. If it comes down to it, my place will be used!
• Golden Boy and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure are finished! Both ended in a very awesome way!
• Golden Boy was VERY educational! Students learned the importance of networking in the final episode, among other things!
• In Bastard!!, Dark Schneider became for broken than Shin Akuma and Omega Rugal put together and beat Ninja Master Gara.
• Enzian Theater is trying to get Summer Wars but it won't be shown this month or in January. Hopefully in February!
• Orlando Anime Day will happen again on January 22nd. It's a small dealers' room and a video room but they might have some cool stuff to buy! It's on 3 bucks to get in!
• We'll be Ice Skating with Anime Spot at Light Up UCF on Saturday. If you are able to make it out, meet at Full Sail in front of Building 3B at 5:30pm and we can carpool from there!

Okay, one more meeting this year. It will be on December 12th, either at Full Sail or my place! Stay tuned!

Next meeting on Sunday, December 5th! Contest entries due!

The next meeting of Propeller Anime Club will be on Sunday, December 5th in FS3B-130 at Full Sail University! That room is on the opposite end of FS3B-113, where we noticed that someone got marker on the projector screen. Meeting time will be at 1:00 pm!

We've watched a lot of the essential classic anime movies this past year and many of you who have attended meetings regularly have leveled up considerably as anime fans! Now, we show some of the best of the new school in anime. We actually went on a field trip to see this at a movie theater long ago. Our feature will be Sword of the Stranger, a super-slick samurai action film.

The story is about a nameless samurai who refuses to kill again happening upon a young boy that is needing a bodyguard from assassins sent by the Ming dynasty. One of those assassins is Luo-Lang, a blonde European raised and trained as a ruthless eastern swordsman who craves fighting equally strong enemies so that he may get stronger. As the Ming dynasty tries to capture the young boy, Kotaro, the nameless samurai and Luo-Lang will clash!

Another exciting aspect of the meeting will be the results of the T-shirt contest and the flyer contest! That's right, entries will be due on this meeting and we will pick the respective winners! Remember, this is your chance to step up and make the club even more awesome and win Japanese dinner on me! Make sure you are at the meeting around 4:00pm so you can have a say!

So what else is there!? We finish Golden Boy! We've seen Kintaro solve problems and fight injustices while getting himself in trouble due to his insatiable lust for the female flesh. How will his story end?

In Bastard!!, Dark Schneider takes on Ninja Master Gara to rescue the lovely - and currently very naked - Yoko! Dark Scheider is able to weird the fire sword of Efreet and Gara is a REAL ninja. Oh snap!

Last, but certainly not least, Jotaro Kujo and the rest of the gang from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure finally make their way to Dio Brando's lair. They've gone through so many assassins and other obstacles. Now it's time to see if they can take on the deadliest and most fabulous vampire of them all!

As a bonus, the second of the two episodes we'll be showing is directed by the legendary Satoshi Kon! It's an early job of his, however, there will be a scene that you'll know is his for sure! Be on the lookout for it!

Planned Schedule:

1:00pm - Intoduction and News
1:15pm - Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
2:15pm - Golden Boy
3:10pm - Bastard!!
4:05pm - T-Shirt and Flyer Contest!
4:25pm - Sword of the Stranger

That's it for now! Hope to see you guys there! Once again, make sure you enter the contests or at least show up so you can have a say!

Recap of Yesterday's Meeting! 11/21/10 edition!

Did you miss yesterday's fantastic meeting? Or do you want to have a recap of what you saw? GUUUUUUD! Well here is everything that happened last meeting, with both news and showings covered!

NEWS 

• Fooly Cooly, Summer Wars, and Redline will be released on BluRay in February!
• Evangelion 2.22, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Tales of Earthsea will be released on BluRay in March!
• I'll will try to convince the Enzian Theater to show Summer Wars this weekend! Wish me luck!
• Our next meeting is December 5th, when entries for flyer and t-shirts designs are due for those contests! Details, rules, and prize information can be found here. Feature showing will be Sword of the Stranger!
• We're going Ice Skating with Anime Spot at Light Up UCF on December 11th! RSVP here!
• Our last meeting of the year will be on December 12th! Our feature showing will be Tokyo Godfathers! You guys will also help guinea pig a new convention event I am putting together!

 RECAPS

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

• Jotaro and Iggy teamed up to take out Geb, the blind stand user who can track by sound and kill with water! It was very intense!
• Then they challenged Darby the Gambler, whose stand takes souls of those he beats in games of chance.
• After taking Polnaref and Joseph's souls, Darby challenges the mighty Jotaro who deals the MANLIEST bluff, puts everything on the line(including his mother's soul), and owns Darby!
• Where'd Jotaro get DAT JUICE!?
• They see DIO next time and things start to get FABULOUS!

Golden Boy

• Kintaro wrecked a shady dude with some Kenpo he spent a week learning. Might have to do with the corkscrew kiss he gave Kintaro...
• Series is episodic, however, Golden Boy taught us to never swim close to the sun!
• We finish Golden Boy next time!

Bastard!!

• POWERFUL wizard Dark Scheider was sealed into the body of a little boy and can only be unsealed and sealed again with the kiss of a virgin girl.
• Dark Schneider owns the first of the Four Lords of Havok and then gets naked and takes on fire elemental Efreet and shows him what for as well.
• Dark Scheider's love interest, Yoko, was kidnapped by a ninja master named Gara who does not carry around sand or listen to Linkin Park. Instead, he uses slime to dissolve her clothes. It's for the lulz.

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise

• Our feature is definitely more beautiful than ever on BluRay and possibly the greatest contribution to anime Gainax has ever made!
• Club dug the movie. Great discussions on the attempted rape scene(did it belong in the movie or was it there to illustrate the weakness humans give in to?) and the featuring the escape from the assasssin disguised as a hobo!
• That spider toy Manna had was awesome too!
• Anime World Order goes into great detail on the movie and the former scene we disussed and their thought on it. It's pretty interesting commentary.

Overall, we saw a well-animated piece that featured incredible world building, along with strong commentary on politics, religion, and economic crisis provided as a backdrop to an unexpected hero who goes from a slacker to a man determined to launch into both space and history books.

Next meeting on Sunday, November 21st!

The next Propeller Anime Club meeting will be on Sunday, November 21st at 1pm in FS3B-113 at Full Sail University! This meeting will be most exciting because a mostly overlooked classic will be our feature! Not only that, but we start another short OVA series while continuing some others!

I didn't do a recap for the last meeting but fun was had! We finished Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and nobody laughed that time! Not only that, we ventured from the 2000 OVA of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to the 1993 one, and it was awesome!

Next meeting, our feature will be Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise! This is actually the first commercial work of Gainax and perhaps their greatest. It is set in an alternate world during a space race starring an unmotivated young man who is billed as a hero when he becomes the next candidate astronaut to be sent into space. (All others have died.) Here's a good trailer!

The animation is beautiful and a lot of attention is put into building the unique world this movie takes place in. Moreover, many of the things done in the movie have never been done before in anime and have yet to be duplicated.

It's almost hard to believe that a lot of the work done on this movie was done by college students and recent graduates who got funding because they made an animated short for science fiction convention in Japan. With that said, this movie will be shown as a means to inspire many of you who are students right now because it is never too early to make something awesome!

What else are we showing? We'll continue Golden Boy, the story of a young man who is a genius that travels Japan solving critical problems on his journeys as a student of life. He'll get into trouble many times since he is a pervert and there will be fanservice, but not of 12 year old girls like you would see in modern anime. If you missed it last meeting, do not worry because the show is very episodic and you don't even need to see the first episode to get any of the others.

Also, we will be showing Jojo's Bizarre Adventure!!!!! Why all the exclamation points, you wonder? Well, we get to see Jotaro and Iggy - who is a dog AND a powerful stand user - team up to take on Geb, the latest of obstacles set by Dio. But that is not all! The episode after that has one of the MANLIEST moments in all of anime. Everyone MUST see it! You can bet your life that it will be awesome.

Last but not least is the final new series we will show this year, Bastard!! It's a dark fantasy tale about a strong wizard who was sealed in the body of a 14 year old boy who is unsealed to fight the Four Lords of Havok that he once led! The wizard Dark Schneider is such a pimp and a badass that it's hard to believe that this anime was based on a Shonen Jump manga.

Planned Schedule:

1:00pm: Introduction and News

1:20pm: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

2:25pm: Golden Boy

3:20pm: Bastard!!

4:20pm: Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise

That's it for now, see you all soon! Maybe sooner than you think since we are getting together to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight!