Recap of yesterday's meeting! 8/5/10 edition!

Yesterday was a lot of fun! We had more than half a dozen new faces that will hopefully return to future club meetings! I know at least a couple got to see their first Satoshi Kon film, which is always a good thing!

NEWS

Not much going on in convention land in town, but Anime Weekend Atlanta is less than two weeks away and EXPcon is in a month. Make plans accordingly if you want to go!

We talked of our fourth year anniversary plans and it looks like the weekend of October 23rd might be the time to celebrate! (The real anniversary is October 22nd, a Friday.) We'll figure that out soon enough. Ideas for the party consist of dressing up in costume, eating sweets, watching horror anime, and going to Rocky's Replay. Any other ideas would be appreciated! (Costumes are optional, by the way.)

We have about eight more meetings left in the year, which will hopefully be enough time to finish all of our current series and start fresh next year! We discussed what features will show in those meetings, and My Neighbor Totoro, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, Sword of the Stranger, Memories, Metropolis will be in there. If we can get Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Lupin III: The Last Job, that will round up our feature showings for the year!

Order of showings are still being worked out but Totoro and Eva 2.22 will be the next ones we will watch.

SHOWING RECAP

First off, High School of the Dead was not shown. There are several reasons as to why it was not shown. It may have not been a good idea to select it for showing in the first place. There's not anything said or done in the show that hasn't already been done hundreds of times and it's unknown whether a zombie survival show like this could stay interesting for more than a few episodes, let alone sixteen.

With that said, a club member gave me a really interesting suggestion after the end of the previous meeting. His concerns were that we have been lacking a series that has that drama and tension along the lines of something like Grave of Fireflies. He told me of a 2008 anime that was in the noitaminA block on Fuji TV.

The block is interesting because they don't show stereotypical anime with magical girls, giant robots, or shonen fighters. Rather, they focus on normal characters in imaginitive situations that are coming of age and much of the anime they air in that block tend to be dramas.

The anime he recommended was Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. In the first two episodes of the show, we are introduced to a young girl named Mirai who lives a very ordinary life as a middle school student and has a family she cannot relate to. It's a very typical family that can be seen in any modern country. She desires for her life to have more in it as she has friends who are of higher privilege. At first, it seems like another boring anime about kids in school, but the opening scene in the first episode paints a tale of disaster and tragedy that will soon come.

One day, she takes her younger brother Yuki to a robot exposition(part of which features robots whose jobs are to rescue victims trapped under rubble), and she steps outside while her brother uses the bathroom and after a series of events that leads her to feel very negative, she wishes the world would just end. Immediately after she says that, her wish gets granted as an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude destroys Tokyo.

During the initial aftermath, Mirai desperately tries to find her brother in the collapsed building the expo was held. There are fires and aftershocks with parts of the building continuing to collapse as she searches for him, all the while incredibly worried and fearful of the worst outcome happening. It's very touching and her feelings are expressed very sincerely. Eventually, Mirai and and Yuki are reunited, but it is still unknown if they have a home and if their parents and friends are still alive. Many people are dead and much of Tokyo is on fire. To pour more salt on the wounds, the threats of tidal waves are impending.

It sounds depressing, much like Grave of the Fireflies, however, hope remains and that may be the theme of the remaining nine episodes of the series.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 was well received by the club and it will remain on the schedule. Before we showed that, we watched more Black Lagoon. In-between missions, we learn that Revy has always lived a dark life of killing and stealing, which gives a sharp contrast to this everyday salaryman life that Rock used to lead and that Revy finds disgusting. She asks at one point how people could live like that, which may be a commentary the author has on what traditional Japanese society has been for quite some time.

On their next mission, they are to go into the deep seem to salvage The Twelve Knights Led by Brunhilda, a painting from a sunken Nazi U-boat. The painting was supposed to represent and celebrate Adolf Hitler's coming as the victor in the war; however, that never happened and the submarine sank, never to rise again. A group of neo-Nazis find out about the mission the Lagoon company is on and plan to take them out. We will see what happens at the next meeting!

In Samurai 7, Shichiroji, an old commrade of Kambei's during The Great War, joins the party as they make their journey to Kirara's rice village. Kambei finally refers to Katsuhiro as one of the samurai in the party, totaling to six. All that is left is the silent Kyuzo who fought against Kambei earlier.

The group is currently in Metal City to rescue a girl or something. The Guardians that inhabit the city have a treaty and the the samurai can't intervene. However, Kikuchiyo tries to play hero and gets captured. The show is moving along and in a few episodes, it will get to the part in the story that is most relevant to the Akria Kurosawa film the series was based on.

Our feature was Millenium Actress, a fine movie directed by the late Satoshi Kon. It was not as upbeat as Tokyo Godfathers or Paprika, but a moving film nonetheless. Through the movies Chiyoko acted in during her younger days, we see the tragic and futile journey she embarks on to chase an old love that she will never see again. A lot of the scenes in the movie are surreal, almost like a dream. It's a trademark of Satoshi Kon's style and he will be missed.

To make up for my trip to Anime Weekend Atlanta, we will be meeting this upcoming Sunday! Time and location to be determined due to the Behind the Scenes Tour taking place at Full Sail University that day. See you all there!

Next Propeller Aniime Club meeting on Sunday, September 5th

I have terrible news. Satoshi Kon, director of films such as Perfect Blue and Paprika- which the club has seen before -has passed away at the age of 46. This is a huge loss for the anime industry and the world. Every work he has directed has been nothing short of beautiful and amazing. He will truly be missed.

With that said, we are showing Millenium Actress, which some say is his finest film. This will be the main feature of the next meeting, taking place on Sunday, September 5th at 1:00pm at Full Sail University in FS3B-113. I would appreciate it if anyone in town could make it. We show our features last and the movie should start inbetween 3:30pm and 4:00pm.

In addition to that, we will show episodes 7 and 8 of Saumrai 7, episodes 3 and 4 of Black Lagoon, and episodes 1 and 2 of a new series, High School of the Dead. If you aren't tired of zombies being in everything for the past 10 years, then here is some more!

Hope to see you all at the meeting!

Recap of Yesterday's Meeting! 8/22/10 edition!

Yesterday was fun! Between spending 45 minutes figuring out why logins wouldn't work only to discover that someone messed around with network cables along with a power outage halfway through club meeting, I think things went well! Right?

With the late start, I dropped the super awesome Fist of the North Star movie that featured Souther as a villain in an attempt to keep meetings under 4 hours. It will come back someday.

We finished Baccano! In the last three episodes, we get acquainted with Graham Spector, who is Ladd Russo's psychotic protege. He kidnaps Chane Laforet thinking her to be Eve Genoard and holds her for a ransom that Jacuzzi has to pay up. The rail tracer also shows up because he LOVES Chane and wants to marry her. It's very romantic!

The last three episodes are interesting as they were not part of the television airings. They got added in on the DVD release in Japan. The final episode of the original television airing has a more defined ending whereas these last three episodes leave things very open for the series. Baccano! is based on a light novel series that has even more stories to tell. A couple of other works written by Ryohgo Narita that you may want to check out include Vamp! and Durarara!!

We started on Black Lagoon which is totally awesome so far. Within two episodes, a timid Japanese salaryman is kidnapped by mercenaries and then becomes a hard-boiled badass. Revy, a foul-mouth woman who can use two pistols like she's in a John Woo movie pretty much makes this anime awesome.

The club caught up on Dragonball Z: Abridged. It took some of the blander moments of the Namek saga and made them fun. Lots of terrible homoerotic innuendo occurred in the two episodes we watched. The Ginyu Force is coming next!

Some more of Samurai 7 was shown after a hiatus. There's a new samurai that looks more steampunk than anything. His name of Hayashida Heihachi and he was a combat engineer during the Great War. (Deja vu cometh.) I don't think anything important happened in these episodes. What do you guys think?

Last but not least, we decided on our next anime(since Baccano! is finished) and discussed what we will do for the club's four year anniversary in October.

This time, I organized members who stuck around until the end of the meeting into teams of four in an attempt to get certain club members talking to each other about what kind of anime they like and determine what should be their group nomination. After 15 minutes of discussion, they would present their choices and I would pick the best sounding pitch.

The four groups selected Air Gear, Genshinken, Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, and High School of the Dead as their choices. I must inform you all that I picked High School of the Dead. It happens to be the one I want to watch the least but is probably the most likely one that will be watched by the club members. However, if that is not the case, I will be double tapping this series to our giant anime graveyard.

I thought the experiment was interesting. I think it's good for the club members to get to know each other better and share the passion for the anime they love during the talks. But after this, it's time for a long break from a selection process as we need to eventually dive into the Fuji TV's noitaminA block of anime. From what I have gathered, it looks like the series of that late night block is not the typical anime that most be people would be familiar with. Sounds like another experiment!

As for the fourth year anniversary in October? Horror anime marathon and a costume party were discussed as ideas. We shall talk more in two weeks when we meet again!