Anime, Cartoons, Comics! Plight Vol. 3, no. 3: Like Tokusatsu, But Not

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How you like the header? I spend like, 10 minutes in Photoshop.

Seriously though, sorry for the crappy font, I am not a typographyman.


Featured Anime: Karas

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New York City has Spiderman, Gotham has Batman, Metropolis has Superman, and Karas, will be what Shinjuku has.

Imagine if every city and town has a will of their own, and the said will choose someone who is suitable to be the agent who protect the city, that selected individual is also known as Karas. While on the surface, every city seems to be filled with humans, beneath them, there is a different realm where yokai exist. One day, Eko, a Karas from a fictional version of Shinjuku, rebelled against the will of the city, and together with his band of minions known as Mikura, yokai who replace their body with machines, kill the current Karas of Shinjuku. Three years later, as the Mikura continue to feed off human blood in the shadow, the city had chosen a new Karas, Otoha. With Eko and the Mikura still lurking in the darkness, Otoha was granted with the new duty to defeat them in order to protect the city as the new Karas.

Well, I will be honest, while I enjoy the story, that's certainly not why you will watch Karas. The best way to describe its storytelling is that it only barely scratches the surface, it tells you what's going on, but never goes too deep into it, thus making it quite confusing at times. But that's totally fine, because it does a very good job at complementing and bringing out the fast paced action scenes in the show, which is what you are really here for, because the action scenes in Karas are fantastic. A little fun fact: While Tatsunoko spent huge amount of budget into it, they did not make much money with Karas, mostly because they didn't really intend to make it sells, but only to experiment and show what they are capable of with 3DCGs, and it shows, because Karas is the prime example of how to do 3DCGs right in anime, and probably has one of the best looking CGs in anime you have ever seen. Not to mention the soundtracks are excellent. In terms of visual and sound presentation, Karas is phenomenal.

So if you want to watch something with a excellent storytelling, while it's not bad, you might want to looks somewhere. However, you are a big fan of Japanese dark heroes like me, and like some exciting and extremely well-made action scenes, Karas is the anime.

Featured Comic Anime 2: Blassreiter

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Yep, the first anime of the now famous writer Urobuchi Gen wrote for, and it's a dark hero too, so you probably already know what to expect.

The story of Blassreiter takes place in Germany, and people live under the fear of the Demoniacs, a zombie like creature risen from dead bodies with the ability to fuse themselves with machines. The government's countermeasure for the Demoniacs are the Xenogensis Assault Team, or XAT, a military organization who specifically handle cases that involves Demoniacs. And between the two, there is Joseph Jobson, a man with a body of a Demoniac, but in the same time maintain his consciousness as a human. Soon after, there are more people like Joseph started to appear, with each of them fighting for their own cause.

Well, I probably should write about Blassreiter before Karas, since it has 3DCGs just like Karas, not saying it's bad, but it's obviously the inferior one in here. But with that said, it's a totally different show than Karas, less mythical, more sci-fi, and it has an actual story to tell. While not the darkest, the story is quite dark (surprise! /s), but quite enjoyable too, as you get to see how everyone fighting for a different reason, making them clashing their blades, and sometimes you just can't tell who's right or wrong. Though to me, the best part is also the worst part here. While it has a clear protagonist, Joseph, the whole story was divided into different arcs focusing on different characters, and because of that, the story keeps jumping back and forth between different sides, which makes it sort of hard to relate to the characters since you were just cheering for a different guy from a different side an episode ago. But other than that, it has all the stuff you want to see in a dark hero kind of shows along with a story that's full of suffering, and if that's what you are looking for, then you would want to check Blassreiter out.

Featured Cartoon Anime 3: Tekkaman Blade

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Now we are going back to 20 years ago. It's still dark hero, but also totally different show than the two above, you can say it's more "mecha" than Blassreiter and Karas.

Tekkaman Blade takes place in a more post-apocalyptic world after an alien race Radam had invaded the Earth and start planting mysterious plants for an unknown reason. While the humans have no effective way to fight the Radam, a mysterious savior, Tekkaman Blade, who had the power to fight off the Radam alone, had suddenly appear. However, not everything goes in their way, because soon after, they learn from Blade that there are also six other Tekkamans on Radam's side, and they will be an even greater threat than the Radam themselves. Being the only one capable to do it, even at the cost of sacrificing himself, Tekkaman Blade was determined to destroy the Radam and the six other Tekkamans, including his twin brother, Tekkaman Evil.

Unlike other heroes anime, rather than showing how the main character saves and protect people, Tekkaman Blade is more about how much the our hero is willing to sacrifice for the others, you can say it is the main draw of the series here. Throughout the story you will see how he achieves each victory as well as paying the cost that come with it. In a way, that's also an enjoyable form of heroism different from your usual heroes. But for me, the biggest part of the series is the rivalry between Blade and his twin brother Evil. If there is a thing Blade want to do other than saving the world, it will be beating the crap out of Evil, and Evil on the other hand, will try to prove himself to Blade that he is the superior one of the twin at any cost, even at his own sacrifice, like how Blade was determined to save the world. It's really one heck of a rivalry. Though if there is one thing that I want to complain about, it will be the pacing can be a bit off at times, there will be filler episode that serves no purpose to the story, and there will be fight scene that last more than an episode, it's kind of like they are stretching a 25 episode worth of story into 50 episodes long. Though personally, finishing it was worth my time. Overall, if you want some classic tragic heroism, as well as some epic rivalry, and if you don't mind a bit of a pacing problem, give Tekkaman Blade a try.

Plight Schedule.

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