The premise of the tale is that Detective Naru, after losing the girlfriend he loved, tries to drown his sorrows with alcohol and wakes up in his partner’s bed the next day, completely unaware of anything that may have happened between the two. It seemed like the sort of story that would have plenty of romance and drama and worth the thirteen dollars, but it really, really wasn’t.

There were so many loose ends, introduced characters that were completely unnecessary to the story, locations and situations that had no progress on the ‘drama’ that the way the story is told in an extremely broken and haphazard manner makes me almost want to bet money on the fact the manga was originally supposed to be several volumes and due to whatever reason, was cut to one. It’s that incomprehensible.

For example, since Naru and his partner, Kita, are detectives, the two obviously deal with bad guys and one who was introduced was a real creepy, sleazy murderer who was being interrogated by the two. Kita mutters absently about how deadly accurate Naru is with a weapon and how the killer had been bewildered by his ability when the detective pulled a gun on him while being arrested, but the reader never saw that scene. Even worse, this potential villain or at least, obstacle, for Naru and Kita to work through was completely discarded in a matter of a few pages and never mentioned again.

Why did I read that scene? Nothing useful came from it.

Even worse, there was an adorable flashback to Kita as a little boy and how he couldn’t figure out if his parents loved him. He had a butler growing up and was insecure even at a young age about his own inability to understand love and passion, but this again was never mentioned. Why? He works like a slave as a detective when he apparently had a rich childhood? Couldn’t there be some story to that? Shouldn’t the writer have expanded more on Kita’s inability to show affection towards Naru in a more normal manner?

Several times I was so at a loss as to what I was reading, I had to turn back just to make sure I didn’t accidently skip a page or something. The beginning had such potential, everything was lined up to be quirky, uncomfortable at moments, adorable, but then a whole heap of nothing happened. It was a very unfortunate conclusion for that manga and unless you have nothing better to do with your time, I’d recommend passing on this one.

Demon Detective

Maijin Tentei Nogami Neuro is exactly as the title suggests, a demon, named Neuro, comes to the human world and disguises himself as a detective. A on bit more explanative note, Neuro has come to Earth because he feeds on mysteries and puzzles and after sating himself in the demon realm, goes after the unanswerable that humans have to offer. He is portrayed as an extremely tall and slender man, acting as an assistant to a genius girl detective named, Yako. In reality, she’s his assistant, but Neuro does not like to make a scene and draw attention to himself when it is not necessary.

First Thoughts

Never judge a book by its cover. The saying should go for anime shows too. I watched the opening to this and laughed, thinking, oh this just looks a bit goofy, but the intriguing character design for Neuro kept me watching just a few minutes more and luckily, I didn’t let such a wicked story pass me by. Neuro is an amazing protagonist! He is essentially a cruel individual, seeing humans as lesser beings and often picks on Yako and Godai, another assistant. He calls them his slaves and when telling Godai where the food was for him while Neuro and Yako left for work, he points to a bag of dog kibble. Despite his treatment of the two humans, he is still a compelling and passionate character, being rewarded with the audience’s sympathy quite easily, I believe.

A Slow Start

The anime starts off a bit slow, where each episode portrays a typical mystery, which Yako and Neuro solve and then he eats the essence of, but frankly, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Sure, it was repetitive, but moments were absolutely hilarious, my favorite early episode being, Dog, which has a bathroom scene I laughed out loud at for an unreasonable amount of time. The mundane mysteries that the opening serves helps make the turning point in the story more intense and dramatic, so they are certainly with just cause.

Neuro Needs a Chance

The manga, written by Yusei Matsui, was released in 2005 and ended in 2009 with a total of twenty-three volumes. The anime is only twenty-five episodes, but I believe the changes they made were successful for a lesser amount of time in which to tell a compelling story and the essence of the original work is still there in volumes.

I certainly would recommend this show to anyone who has an interest in the supernatural detective stories that Japan has a unique talent for. Please, feel free to also share your opinion.

Those of you who have been following the manga since it was originally launched back in 2006 will be glad to hear a premiere date of April 23rd 2010 has been set. All of us at animemb.com are extremely excited about this announcement and will keep you updated.

Synopsis

Here is a quick synopsis of the series. A former deliquent named Adachi Hana, who has dreams of being a class representative, makes her friend Shinagawa Diachi go to school social events and interact with the other students. Diachi soon finds out that Hana, like him, used to be a deliquent and that she is trying to change Daichi for the better. Daichi does not want to socialize with his peers, and wants to be left to himself. Adachi only wants Diachi to do all of this so he won’t end up messing up his life and making the mistakes she did. This series will be about the adventures of Adachi and Diachi, and their peers.

The animation in the film was absolutely gorgeous, featured interesting and beautiful mech designs and impressive battles taking place in the sky. The movie also had a battle soundtrack that fit quite well with the overall tone and speed. The English voice acting was also one of the better dubs I’ve heard throughout my anime fandom, as Tony Oliver is a very good director who understands the need to keep the characters as close to their original Japanese counterparts as possible to appease the audience, but also creates a bit of room for the actors to experiment and grow as professionals, a tricky road to walk which I think he did very well. The movie also featured veteran anime voice actor, Crispin Freeman (Slayers, Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie, Hellsing, and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie) who has a wide range of vocal abilities and takes the time to understand his characters and shows. I am usually very against watching anime in English, as the dubbing is often absolutely horrendous, but every show that has Freeman as a cast member, I find I don’t mind and actually enjoy, a testament to his talent and respect for anime. In comparison to the awful Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone dubbing, this movie was genius.

What director, Kyoda wanted with this film was a retelling of Eureka Seven, featuring the same characters but set in an alternate time, different situations arising and causing characters to have to react and grow in different ways from the series. Kyoda said in his interview he hoped fans would appreciate his choice to make a movie that you didn’t need prior knowledge of the show to watch and enjoy and that they would realize, walking into the screening, this wasn’t going to be Eureka the series packed into two hours. It was Kyoda’s ability to change the story, again, unlike Evangelion: 1.0, that made me enjoy the movie and respect it. The audience seemed simply unable to accept the differences and many walked out frustrated or indifferent.

The only real weak aspect was that some of the translations were a bit strange, so when lines in a serious moment were said, we laughed, not because it was poorly acted, but because it was such an odd thing to say. For example, a very emotional and heavy moment featured a doctor saying, “I’m not a real medical doctor, but it is in my opinion…” The actors in the special after the movie even made fun of the translation, because of the English-speaking gag, “I’m not a real medical doctor, but I play one on tv.”

Overall, I think this is a film you should watch. If you didn’t enjoy the series, I say give it a chance and if you are worried about the movie ruining the show for you, remember, it’s simply a different telling of Eureka Seven, not some sort of continuation.

The festival had a terrific exhibition floor, dozens and dozens of tables full of anime, manga, j-rock, costumes, imported Lolita clothing, swords, food and an enormous array of toys for every show imaginable. Many of the sellers were having great sales and discounts, which could also be found in the artist alley, where some of the featured work included, posters, clothing, key chains, and jewelry.

The most fantastic part of an anime convention however, is the cosplay. I was simply out of energy by day three and combined with rain and poor subway service, I wasn’t able to gather photos on Sunday, but I did from the previous two days and there were some amazing costumes. Some of my favorites were the White Mage from Final Fantasy, Pain from Naruto, Sir Integra and Seras Victoria from Hellsing, and Kadaj and Yazoo from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Everyone was very friendly and always happy to stop and pose for photos, Pain especially popular on Friday and Seras Victoria on Saturday.

There was a hilarious dance competition on Friday, which starred, oddly enough, Spider-man, the Predator and the Chicken from Family Guy. They were all back the next day to continue the spontaneous dance tradition that seems to follow anime crowds, Chicken walking around with a boom box, playing Caramelldansen. Later in the day, when there was a wait between shows and panels, attendees decided to entertain themselves by starting a conga line. It began with only seven or eight people and the next time it ran by me, it was at least 100 people long with every sort of cosplay mixed in.

The masquerade skits featured characters from Death Note, Chobits, Vampire Hunter D, and Slayers, while some of the shows and movies screened at the event included, Eureka Seven, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, St. Frog, Gravitation, Gurren Lagann: The Movie, and the 20th Century Boys trilogy.

Who else attended the convention? Did you dress up, because there is a chance I saw or took a photo of you! With New York Anime Festival being combined with Comic Con next year, who’s looking to go?

The film is a revamp of the anime show, working with a much larger budget that does show, as the animation value is absolutely beautiful and the Eva mechs, Tokyo-3 and my favorite, the Third Angel, are all something to be desired by any mech fan and creator, but watching a movie that is pretty can’t make up for one that lacked any sort of sympathetic characters or deviation from the original work. The movie really offered no growth or new concepts in regards to the cast, it spent too much time following Shinji, who did nothing but complain and whine, exactly like in the show, which I was hoping from the bottom of my heart would change. What I suppose, from a character creating point of view, frustrated me the most was that Shinji kept crying that he was no good at being an Eva pilot, but took out three Angels in a row and did so without any severe bodily harm or devastating mechanical destruction, so he had no reason to keep singing that same tune, which came to be nearly unbearable by the end.

The story suffered terribly from the telling and not showing, notion, where Misato and Ritsuko would just narrate large chunks of the film, filling in the viewer with information they don’t need, which I feel if they had cut back on and actually shown the characters doing, would have been much more interesting. Their monologues became white noise by the debut of the Sixth Angel.

Besides those weaknesses in the plot itself, the English dub was absolutely terrible. I’ve been told it was regarded highly by the audience at Anime Expo, but no matter how I tilt my head, I can’t see how the English cast ever deserved the praise it received. The dubbing sounded like it had no direction, more like some various people were just put in front of microphones and read lines with absolutely no feeling, emotion or interest in the project itself. From the moment Shinji spoke his first line, I knew it couldn’t go anywhere but down and boy did it. Misato was flat, boring, Ritsuko was worse, as was Gendo Ikari. Frankly, the only actress that got away with sounding empty was Brina Palencia as Rei, because Rei is an emotionless girl at her introduction.

My New York City audience was quite small but dedicated and as the credits rolled, we all seemed equally disappointed. As a side note, here’s a funny story about my personal viewing experience, which has no negativity directed at the film itself, but the actual theatre. They played the entire movie with the wrong color tint, so skin was blue, blood was purple, Rei’s hair was orange, Angel cores were blue, and classmates all had a green tone to them. If that couldn’t be more of a kick in the face to the audience who paid over twelve dollars per ticket, in the middle of one of battles, the projector shut off and remained off for several minutes. Finally, after one of the viewers had complained and got them to turn it back on, they didn’t even rewind so we could find out what was missed! Luckily, all of us were given free movie passes to make up for their huge fault.

Has anyone else seen the film? Consensus?

For those who have yet to see Akira, I suggest you should, even if post-apocalypse, sci-fi isn’t your cup of tea. It’s the same as watching Citizen Kane. You don’t have to like it, but you should understand what an achievement the movie was and still is considered to be. Akira is a landmark film, making anime a popular form of entertainment outside of Japan and it also broke the habit of static facial expressions while characters speak. The movie was created under the Akira Committee, several companies brought together to bring Katsuhiro Otomo’s story to life on screen and have it live up to the grandeur and epic feel that resonated in his manga. Akira had no corners cut in production for the sake of its budget, creating a very fluid and beautiful style and offered constant and expressive faces for the cast, detailed backgrounds and scenes and wonderfully lip-synched dialogue, something today we take for granted but in 1988, was groundbreaking in anime work.

The film is very graphic in violence and disturbing imagery, especially near the climax, but again, remembering this was made over twenty years ago, it steals your breath while watching. The movie’s soundtrack is also quite famous, very dynamic, chilling and effective for the themes in Akira, which include social unrest, nuclear holocaust and delinquency, all touched with a hint of cyberpunk.

Akira is the story of a bike gang in Neo-Tokyo, thirty years after World War III. Kaneda’s childhood friend, Tetsuo goes missing after a run-in with a rival gang and it turns out he now has something to do with the government and a secret project involving children with mental abilities akin to Akira, a god-like figure responsible for so much destruction in the past. Kaneda, an unlikely and very human protagonist, goes in search to rescue Tetsuo, with the help of a young revolutionary named, Kei and one of his gang members, Kai.

I personally find the movie to be a slow and strange buildup, other critics complaining it was unable to get all of the manga into its allotted two hours, but overall, the film has received very high ratings. Please feel free to share your opinions on Akira.