Anime in Focus: Rozen Maiden Episode 1

On my continuing journey to watch all of the unwatched anime sitting on my bookshelf, I decided to start watching this series, which grabs my attention with all of the pretty dresses.

Anyway, this anime takes us into the wonderful world of underground doll battling. This goes to show that if done correctly, anything can be made to be badass.

We start off by meeting our main character Jun, who lives in his room as a shut-in who doesn’t like doing things that involve leaving his room, such as ordering voodoo dolls online and answering chain letters. While normally staying in your room causes you to wither away and die, he has the help of his doormat sister to make sure he eats and that his weird packages get signed off, while taking his verbal abuse and not standing up for herself.

As luck would have it, one of Jun’s chain letters happens to actually work, and he winds up with a weird box containing an even weirder doll inside of it. After screwing around with it for a bit, he learns that the doll is in fact, alive, and believes herself to be the boss of the area.

Suddenly, Jun gets himself attacked by a killer clown doll. Normally, killer clown dolls are not very scary, since you can usually punt them out a window, but we have to realize that Jun has been sitting in his room making purchases off of websites instead of getting any form of exercise. This unfortunately means he has to make a pact with the creepy doll that was in the box in order to prevent himself from being stabbed to death by a killer clown doll.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to showing Jun’s relationship with his sister, and how he copes with owing his life to a weird doll that appeared in his room. Unfortunately, we don’t actually find out what being a servant to a creepy doll actually means, leaving stuff for the next episode.

This show doesn’t show many symptoms of first episode syndrome. It doesn’t spend much time on exposition, and instead gives the viewer an idea of what to expect in the rest of the series. I’m actually quite anticipating the next episode.

Coming soon! Next Episode

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Tron: Legacy Review

Watch the trailer here:

Released a while ago. If that doesn't sell you on the movie, nothing will.

I was incredibly exited for this movie. I was there at the recreation of Flynn’s arcade back in Comic Con 2009, and was exited ever since I saw the stuff there. I even dug up the shirt that I got from the arcade, proudly displaying the slogan “FLYNN LIVES.”

To whet my appetite even more, this movie combines just about everything I love into one nice package. This movie has motorcycles, people dressed up like ravers, video games, flashy lights, techno, and this:

I believe this counts as fan service

I hope this becomes a new fashion statement at this year’s Comic Con ANYWAY…

The original Tron came out back in the year 1982, and apparently making a sequel was entirely necessary. This is not to say that this is a bad thing, since it gives Disney a chance to take one of the pioneers of modern CGI and update it using the fancy techniques we’ve developed to make films look shiny. The overall imagery was like taking Ecstasy through your eyesockets.

THE PLOT: About 7 years after the original Tron, we see Kevin Flynn telling his son Sam about his adventures in the digital world known as “The Grid,” and tells us a bit of exposition about what happened between the previous Tron and this movie. A few days later, Flynn vanishes and is never seen again, with the video game company he founded left in chaos due to his disappearance.

Twenty years later, we see Sam pulling a prank on the now corrupt, thinly veiled Microsoft that old man Flynn’s company has become. This goes on to establish that Sam has become a 177t haxor in the time without his father, and that this company is totally against open source software. Thank god that this movie did not become a drama about digital rights. After this we get to see Sam’s place, where he learns that his father may be alive, and there is a clue hidden in his arcade.

Finally, this leads to Sam getting sucked into The Grid, where the real movie begins. He finds that this world inside of the computer in his dad’s arcade has been turned into a digital dystopia, run by a rogue program known as Clu, a clone of Sam’s dad. This causes him to be placed in “The game” where we are treated to the greatest sport ever invented, LIGHTCYCLE BATTLING!

After breaking out of the world of EXTREME combat motorcycling, Sam goes on a journey where he meets, Quarra (pictured above) and where he meets his old man, leading him on spiritual and physical journey transcending the digital world. With lots of fights and pretty explosions.

The story is acceptable for the type of movie, although there are a few nitpicks that I found that I’m not going to dabble in here. While there is nothing particularly deep about the plot, the trip through the digital world is quite the feast for the senses. I did not find this lack of plot to be a fault for the movie, since the scenery is so lovingly crafted that I cannot convince myself to not love it.

PREREQUISITES: I don’t really think you need to have seen the Tron movie from the 80’s to understand this movie. It will help you swallow the entire concept of The Grid, but even then, the titular character, Tron only makes a minor appearance in this movie. Almost no plot elements make a comeback in this movie, aside from people wearing glowing red suits being pure evil.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT? I would definitely recommend this movie to anybody who is not a total technophobe. The plot may not be the best, but I certainly was not bored with the movie at any point. Not the best movie of the year, but definitely quality entertainment. 

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