Super-Dreadnought Girl 4946:

Well, here you go, a picture of the volume 1 cover. Don’t fall for the girl like some otaku do, she is 50 meters tall. It won’t work. Well, almost 50 meters, a point she is insistent on. Some girls are really sensitive about their height. Last time I checked, 48 or 49 meters was close enough to 50 that if somebody said “nearly 50 meters tall” the general impression would be had.

Well, the plot. The giant girl is some sort of…alien? youkai? and she fights other monsters that try to attack…something in the city for some reason. Well, she starts by living in a giant tent on a school campus, where she fights something at the school, and some boy from that school sees her. Then, later on, when the media are pestering her, he says something along the lines of ‘leave my girlfriend alone!’

Well, a rather absurd beginning, but what else can be expected from a series with a 50 meter tall girl?

Of course, there is some romantic tension to try to spice up the fights and such, sadly, it fails to build much depth in the characters. But, those extra scenes somewhat play up the differences and characters into a rather amusing light, such as the amusement park date that all mangas seem required by law to have if there is any romance in it. So they go to the generic amusement park that every other manga or anime couple go to, and ride the generic ferris wheel. Or, at least, he rides it while she stands alongside.

Genre, it is somewhat of a blend of sci-fi and fantasy. I wasn’t expecting any hardness of sci-fi, and most assuredly not the hardness being brought in and violating the rules that the series works by.

Let me explain further: A giant girl violates the square/cube law. Simply put, it is impossible. Okay, the viewers can suspend their disbelief for the sake of a story-that is what story is for. But, a giant sword would also violate the same law. You can’t have a giant sword, first, the weight would be immense, second, it would simply break if you hit anything, a point that the series makes.

Look, I’ll accept that the square/cube law doesn’t apply in your world, series. However, if you are going to make up things about how the laws of physics behave, all I ask is that you not then go back over your own laws with a contradiction. Choose one and be done with it.

Oh, and did I mention that she gains some sort of super strong magical power if she eats the guy? Of course, if she doesn’t spit him back out soon enough, she will absorb his soul permanently. It isn’t played in a fetishy way, which is a big plus, but it is fetish inspired. Any reader of the comedy website Cracked will be able to identify the fetishes that inspired this.

In the end though, it is an amusing read. Just do realize that they do break their own rules they set forth, and they do so quite obviously. It still is, well, just fun.

Too bad it is a scan, this series would be a worthwhile one to release in the U.S.

score: 4/5 ‘Good’

Pros: It is silly and fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and simply takes a concept and rolls with it. Worth reading for the amusement factor

Cons: can’t even consistently follow its own universe laws, utter lack of depth, utter lack of character interest or story interest. If it wasn’t for the fact it is somewhat fun to read, there would be no reason to continue reading it-the only thing that keeps the reader even slightly immersed is the humor.

And the promised mini-review of a current series. In keeping with the theme of the seires, my review will be proportional the the length of the episodes (available on Crunchyroll.)

Moritasan wa Mukuchi

Yeah, it’s alright.

So that brings us the newest site in town called Jmanga .  Jmanga is still currently in the beta stage so this semi-review is going to be just based off this beta site and what I have seen so far

What is good with Jmanga:

One of the big things that Jmanga has done right is the different types of manga that are listed on their site.  While there is a limited selection now, there are some titles on the site that would most likely never get an official English release otherwise.  Those who have an interest in these kinds of titles will be pleased.  What makes this even better is that you can view most titles in both English and Japanese (the option on the control panel in the view will have an option to change both even if the English version if the only one available).

The manga viewer itself is not too shabby.  It is Flash supported and has a few different views that you can use while reading the pages.  There is single page view, as well as two page view.  There is also guided view, which takes you through the manga panel by panel in the order it is supposed to be read, and that specific panel is the only one visible.  You can also zoom in and zoom out of each page (this does not work with guided view).

What needs fixing with Jmanga:

One of the biggest complains that people are making about Jmanga is their pricing for the site.  So here is how it breaks down.  You pay a $10 monthly subscription fee.  With each manga available you have two choices with regards to paying.  One you can pay per chapter or you can pay for the whole book.   Points are assigned as followed: 1 point = .01 USD.  So as it stands you can pay about $1.20 USD to read a chapter from a book (some chapters from some books are more but this is just for the sake of this write up) and a whole volume cost $8.99 USD.  So what this means is that I pay one to two dollars less for not having a physical copy of a manga, just based on the SRP.  If you buy when it is on sale from say Amazon.com or RightStuf.com then for some titles that do have a physical release it would just be cheaper just to get those.

To put it bluntly this pricing system needs to change.  I do not mind a points system, but the manga should be priced at about $5.00 or $6.00 a volume.   That brings me to the next part, what can be done as a better pricing model for Jmanga?  The points system can work but the pricing model needs to be more realistic.  If they choose to get away from the points system there are three ways that I think that this can be done.

Choice 1: The CR model:

This is exactly as it sounds.  Follow a model similar to what Crunchyroll has where you pay a specific amount of money each month and that gives you access to everything on the site right away.

Choice 2: A tiered system (like what Netflix or some video game rental services do):

The second choice could be a tiered pay system.  Where you pay x to read one manga volume a month or one volume at a time, y for two, z for three etc.  The pricing would need to make sense with in regards to the jump for each amount you can access at a time or how much you can access in a month.

Choice 3: A-La-Carte system:

This would be similar to the tiered system but it would be a lot more specific.  In this case you can pay a specific amount each month for each volume to you want to read.  However, instead of having the option to read everything available, you would only get a said number of choices for each month.  For example if I choose a one volume a month option and I only want to read Dragonball and nothing else I can do that.

So should it be just one payment system or multiple?  In my opinion, there should be a few different choices for consumers to use since not everyone falls under the same group purchasing wise.

There are two other things that need improved upon from inspection of Jmanga and that is the free membership option and the use on devices.

Right now, there is a free membership on Jmanga, but it does not allow you to do much with the site.  Right now you can view a few pages of a volume of manga and that is about it.  The free option is basically pointless the way it is now.  So how do we remedy this choice?  There should be some kind of difference between both membership options.  For example with the paid membership you have access to the manga as soon as the manga is uploaded to the site and is ad-free and watermark free.  The free membership people would have to wait some time before they get access to the manga volume.  The manga for the free membership user would have a JManga watermark or maybe a watermark from the publisher each page and every some many pages would have some type advertisement.

The last issue I see is the use on Apple devices.  As much as I do not like Apple, I do see their market share with handheld devices  as a huge area for potential customers.   Jmanga has stated because of the changes with Apple’s pricing system they were not able to roll out the platform for IOS at this moment.  Of course, since Jmanga is still in the beta stages they may be able to get it on IOS devices in the near future.

Final Thoughts:

Jmanga has the potential to be a successful site and take a chunk out of the scan aggressor site that cascade the internet.  That being said, the way the site is right now it is not going to be that huge of a success.  The pricing system needs to be changed to make it competitive and there needs to be some changes with the free membership option and the use of the site on mobile devices.

If you want to make any suggestions for Jmanga on how to improve their site please visit their contact us link.

Feel free to join and let’s collect stickers together! http://bit.ly/gk0xur@getglue #fb

-Tweet from @FuniChan (Funimation Channel)

So evident by this tweet, it seems that Funimation has decided to expand to GetGlue, a social networking site which allows users to earn points and stickers by checking into topics of entertainment, such as TV shows, movies, music and books. It is a site that has definitely been growing in popularity, as the incentive to earn stickers, which are mailed home free-of-charge, really drives people to check into many shows. While Funimation still yet has to actually create stickers for the shows they’ve licensed, if we subscribe to their profile on the website, then I think we can give them the incentive to actually start creating stickers for their show. Plus, I’m pretty sure that making stickers for anime on GetGlue would be a nice marketing opportunity.

Please Subscribe To Their Profile: http://getglue.com/FUNimationChannel

For More Information on GetGlue: http://getglue.com/about

To Join: http://getglue.com/signup

Also be sure to retweet the following to support Funimation’s efforts of getting stickers:

@GetGlue I love http://getglue.com/! Please make it recognize this show site: FUNimation Channel

Update: In a recent blogpost (http://blog.funimation.com/2011/02/vod-fridays-funimation-channel-24-when-frogs-attack/), Funimation has announced that they will create stickers for GetGlue in the future.

Shrill Cries of Summer (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Live-Action)
Review by: Fernando Ramos
Director: Ataru Oikawa

A great while back, I reviewed Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, released in the US as When They Cry, an anime that brought mixed feelings. It was a gimmicky mix of cutesy clichés and shock horror, but compellingly so thanks to its tightly woven narrative and high production values. Perhaps not all too surprisingly, some producers found value in the property for a live-action cash-in to sell to the J-Horror crowd. So, in 2008, we got a live action version, also entitled Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, renamed to Shrill Cries of Summer.

As mentioned earlier, the original franchise takes much of its appeal from the shocking contrasts of the cute girls and the bloody murder that they create or fall victim to. Oh, but Higurashi isn’t about cookie-cutter slasher film murder. No, it’s about cruel, sadistic torture complete with pleas for mercy and maniacal laughter. It’s all about the visuals and the audio drilling into your soul driving you insane until you see the scorpions stinging you to… I digress.

As our live-action version opens, its clear that director Ataru Oikawa has done his homework. Opening the trademark cry of summer cicada’s lifted straight from the anime, followed by a creepy techno tune by series mainstay Eiko Shimamiya. The basic set-up is much the same – in 1983, young Keiichi (Goki Maeda) comes to the sleepy hollow of Hanamizawa and discovers that not only are the four students over the age of 13 are girls, but they all seem to be into him. In particular, the voluptuous and playful Mion Sonozaki (Rin Asuka) and cute-obsessed Rena Ryugu (Airi Matsuyama) are just too eager to go out fishing, dumpster diving and playing “punishment games.” Then come the stories of a brutal dismemberment that occurred years ago and now everything starts to crumble into a huge bloody mess with the vengeful spirit Oyashiro-sama…

It’s all quite slavishly faithful to the anime adaptation of the first arc of the series, in fact. Oikawa does put his own spin on things and tones things down. The early comedy segments in particular are all but done away with in favor of more slice-of-life moments. Yet, unlike the anime, which would embrace its tone so as to almost become a different show altogether, Oikawa opts to drench every frame with a specter of dread. His is a world of abrupt slow-motion, unidentifiable droning and moody shadows everywhere.

It’s understandable when shifting from one medium to another that certain compromises and adjustments have to be made – who be to those who expected Mion to keep her D-cup figure and green hair or Rena’s cleaver to be anywhere as big. However, what is disagreeable is when a horror movie isn’t scary. The source material of Higurashi based its chills on constantly rocking the audience from zero to Warp 9. For all the gnashing of teeth it caused, it played us like a fiddle, constantly swiping our emotions up and down faster than we could keep up. Oikawa, on the other hand, treats the material like a cello – slow and stretched out. We see where he’s going and arrive way before he does, even if one isn’t familiar with the source material.

Plus, even when we finally hit the high notes, they are diluted and robbed of their power. A legendary scene in the original was when we finally see Rena’s darker side come out after suspecting something fishy about Keiichi’s investigations in the conspiracy of Hinamizawa. I’ll let the power of YouTube speak for itself:

Anime | Live-Action

Nice After Effects filters there guys. Adding insult to injury is how cheap everything looks despite being handsomely photographed. The vistas and skies bloom with unreal color, but the night scenes scream of low-budget blue filters or unnatural lighting set-ups. The theatrical lighting might be deliberate on Oikawa’s part to recall the franchise’s 2D roots. Sometimes it actually adds flavor – an otherwise dull café chat between Keiichi and a detective gets eerie reflections constantly running over their faces, presumably by passing cars. Those scenes are few and far between however.

Also bringing things down a notch is the acting by most of the cast, which feels hammy and overdone without the cartoon trappings of the original. The three leads pull their roles through decently, in particular Matsuyama pulls Rena’s psychosis convincingly in the finale, right down to replicating her trademark “Ka na? Ka na?” On the other hand, Asuka’s Mion feels off the mark when things start going to funky town and Maeda’s Keiichi doesn’t make us feel the potent combination of rage and love that drives so much of his character.

Even the gore scenes are underwhelming – the various scenes of people clawing their throats out look more like people smearing red paint over their necks, even if the sound department did some good work on it. Considering how much the franchise is based on its lovingly detailed depictions of brutal sadism, it feels like a lost opportunity for some truly squicky effects work.

To top it all off, the greatest asset of the series is missing, albeit by necessity – the whole idea of the time reset. Since this movie is only based off the first story arc, one that provides no resolution, at that. As such, there is little in the way of climax. Instead, it’s “here’s our characters, watch them die and see you next time.” I’m aware that there is a sequel, but as a standalone movie, it leaves a hollow taste in the mouth and gives little motivation to indeed fork out more of your hard-earned cash to see the sequel. Save that money to pick up a box-set of the entire series if you need your fix of schoolgirl torture.

Grade: C

First, the good stuff. The interface is sleek and easy to use. It doesn’t take much effort to find the show you’re looking for and begin watching within less than a minute. From what I have used of the app, I haven’t noticed any significant speed or buffering issues. The video quality looks great, and I especially like how the subtitles appear in a shaded box in the lower portion of the screen, making them easy to read. However, translation notes appear at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top, which can make things a little confusing when trying to follow the dialogue of the show.

Huh? Oh, that’s just a translation note.

The app is free, and does not require a paid subscription to Crunchyroll. If you have a paid subscription, you will not see any ads when using the app. Unfortunately, that’s the only advantage a paid subscription offers for the iPhone app. For paid members, the Crunchyroll website offers immediate access to simulcasts, whereas non-paying members normally have to wait a week before they can access. However, the Crunchyroll iPhone app does not offer this benefit to paying members. This may be a feature they plan to add in the future, but as of now, its absence is a big disappointment.

The biggest problem I have with the app, which effectively renders it useless for me, is the fact that it requires a Wi-Fi connection. This means that videos will not run over 3G. Kind of defeats the purpose of a mobile app, doesn’t it?

Well that sucks.

This restriction pretty much makes the app useful only when I’m at home, where I could just simply access the Crunchyroll website from my computer if I wanted to. If I wanted to watch an episode of Durarara!! while on the train, I wouldn’t be able to. Granted, Wi-Fi does exist in many places nowadays, but most Wi-Fi hotspots require some kind of fee/subscription or a password. In contrast, The Anime Network also recently launched an iPhone app which does allow streaming over 3G, proving that this is possible.

Overall, the Crunchyroll app does have some good points, but is overall disappointing. Hopefully the issues I have with it will be rectified in the future. Until then, I don’t see myself using the app all that much. Of course, it is a free app, so there’s no reason for you to not get it. Check it out and see if you find it useful.

UPDATE (01/21/2010): Crunchyroll has posted information about the app on their site, stating that the app is still in Alpha. They also state “For now, it is WiFi only” which seems to imply that they plan on making videos accessible via 3G. This would indeed be good news, as it would address my biggest complaint about the app.