Hello to all those faithfully reading and hopefully enjoying this effort to make even the worst horror movie more watcha... aw, screw that - I'm not that good. If a movie makes you cringe because yet another batch of unlikable teens that are pushing 30 are inching toward their deaths, having a party no one does anywhere ever, a paranormal movie is boring you to tears with unending pans of empty rooms, or thanks to CGI technology when people finally bite it, their blood squirts everywhere except on the victim, the ground, the people next to them... you're in good company and this is the right place for you.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

ANIME'-NIACS




High School Of The Dead (2010) Japan 
Season One

When I named my new little kitty Akira it was because it means intelligent or high energy or... depending on what language you picked. It was a good name for her and still is. My cousin teased me that I named her after an anime' movie - I teased back that I wasn't interested in 12-year-old girls in white panties and short skirts. Akira is, I was told, a post-apocalyptic tale that was the most popular anime' ever - depending on who you talk to.

This is the elongated manga (Japanese for comic book series) of a group of high school kids and what they went through after a zombie apocalypse. Yes, it is yet another ZA series. And I've got to tell you, there are similarities between it and my beloved The Walking Dead. Not in the characters or settings of course, but that it started strong in just the slaughter of zombies, then shifted more into how the characters coped with their changed world and trying to survive somewhere, anywhere, without getting eaten.

This cartoon, like The Walking Dead, is not for children. Although it features high school students (and some children) this is not THAT kind of cartoon. Let them go back to watching cats blowing up mice and sticking forks in an electric socket. The characters in HOTD are typical Japanese anime' - that's not racist though I find it a bit sexist. The girls have huge gazongas and no bras and bounce in rhythm depending on what they're doing whether it's breathing, running, or playfully being naked in a bath house... umm yeah, I'm sure every pre-pubescent to grown man has just put this series on their playlist. Ooops. But it got almost comical (since I'm a woman not interested in tee-hees and bouncy bouncy) how many times and ways they got those girls to, um, show those goodies in between watching the brains and guts of multiple zombies get splashed all over the place.

And it goes on like this through this whole season of the telling of the death of the world. I found that I learned more about Japanese gun laws than anything else. I did not know that in Japan, only police have guns and that they are attached to their belts by cords so they cannot be taken away. I learned it was legal to buy gun parts, but it is illegal to put them together. A 20 bullet magazine is also illegal. And the only high school kid that could shoot worth a damn did so because he spent time in the United States and was trained.

I thought it small minded and crass that the two people that were the most violent, vicious (and had the most foul mouths) was a black man and a man covered in tattoos. Way to keep those negative stereotypes guys.

Funniest moment: As an Oregonian myself I found this particularly funny that it landed in a Japanese anime' cartoon. It's during Episode 6 which I dubbed the 'massive boobage' episode for obvious reasons and it overloads the circuits of one boy's mind to which he can only say with eyes glazed over, 'I like turtles.' Here's why I thought that particularly funny:




Poor kid. He's all grown up now but he'll forever be 'turtle boy'.

In summary, anime' may have cool stuff, I dunno, but I do know that there isn't a modestly dressed woman in any of them. If you're 8 years old and up you must wear skirts that do not cover your white panties. That is the law.





                              

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