Ani-Monday on September 4

Well, as promised, I watched AniMonday last night. What started out as an amusing way to break into commercials from the shows has now been repeated until they're no longer funny. Additionally, I still hate their freaky mascots.

Yet, their choice of flagship anime still rocks.

Noein aired the episode "Out of Sync" last night, and we have some much needed character development for old Yuu (Karasu) and old Isami (Fukurou). Additionally, this character development stumbles over to the younger versions of themselves. And yes, time travel is still giving me headaches. Unfortunately, outside of character development, we don't see a whole lot happen in this episode. The main thing is that Fukurou is now ready to fight Karasu for the Dragon Torque, despite the recognition that they've been friends.

Tokko continues on torturing its lead characters. In the episode "Prison - 'No Woman, No Cry'" Sakura's little brother woke up from his coma, with his phantom active, aiming to kill the members of Tokko. It's surprisingly like Kureha's character background (she too had to kill her brother because of a phantom). Of course it is made "more" tragic because we are supposed to care for Sakura more than Kureha. Not a lot of character development, but that's too be expected, this show is not as intellectually driven as Noein. Which sometimes is a good thing.

Street Fighter II I still ignored last night. I'm ecstatic that they're playing those things two a night, because that means they will be gone faster, and we can get something I'm actually interested in seeing in that time slot.

Next Monday night we get the truly awesome film, Ghost in the Shell. For those not in the know, Ghost in the Shell is a cyberpunk film that philosophizes on just what it means to be human. It's an intriguing and thought provoking film, one which I first watched way back in 1996 or 1997 when it was first released. Back then it confused me, and it was only when I watched it again a year or so ago that I truly learned to appreciate what the story is trying to say.

One utterly uninteresting note, is that it was the second anime that I had ever intentionally watched. The first being Akira. Of course, I had seen other animes before that (Transformers, Voltron, Speed Racer, etc) but those two were the first that I had gone in and watched knowing that they were anime's. Sad to say, back then I was not overly impressed, and went back to reading my Stephen King novels and X-Men comic books.

Hey, I was a dumb, know-it-all teenager, I can be forgiven.

Anyways, if you're looking for a good start to the philosophical side of anime, Ghost in the Shell is a great place to start. Additionally, it looks good, and has a great story. Check back here next week for a more succinct review.