Daywalker Reports Anime

Re-watching Hunter x Hunter and a number of other shonen anime I really find myself noticing interesting parallels between them. Namely the transformations of Zazan (Hunter X Hunter) and Zarbon (Dragon Ball Z). Zazan being a scorpion inspired Squadron leader of the Chimera Ant Queen's Army, she's vain, pompous, has massive tits, and is prone to turning her enemies into subservient mutated slaves. The impotence in the story at large is rather significant in a indirect, given the fact that it was through her capturing Pokkle leading to the chimera ants gaining a general knowledge of the nen system. As a character she has many parallels to Zarbon from Dragonball Z, vain and obsessed with his appearance. Who is Stronger?  However if there is one thing I feel Zarbon definitely has over Zazan is his plot significance and overall understanding of Intergalactic commerce. Both Zazan and Zarbon have transformations with similar abilities. Both increase their stamina...

I read an A.N.N (Anime News Network) article listing out the cinematic favorites of Masaaki Yuasa. A man whom I consider to easily be one of the best directors of the past decade and my favorite in T.V. anime. Now much can be said about the likes of Hiroshi Hamasaki the creator of Steins:Gate Technolyze and the current running Blade of the Immortal. All of which have an ambiance that's geared towards my taste in many ways.  Like the bizarre and surreal tone of the first few episodes of Steins:Gate, cut with photography and other elements to solidify itself as being a cross between Horror and thriller. A style that proliferates in Texhnolyze and Blade of the immortal, one of which is an agonizing watch (not for it's bad writing) but how he perfectly displays the pure nihilism of the world in which the characters inhabit. Through downtrodden backgrounds, to very interesting changes in the art style that all serve the purpose of drawing those emotions out.  Yuasa while he...

So I started watching Gunbuster the other day and it was fun, energetic and exciting. It’s main character Noriko Takaya symbolizes these elements incredibly with her fun and bubbly personality which is balanced out with her anxiety surrounding her efficiency as a pilot. They establish her goals early and her relation to Yuzo Takaya, her father. She wants to be a space pilot just like him and joins the Okinawa High School for Girls where they train young girls in piloting mechs. In the beginning while she has physical prowess she is very bad at piloting mechs. Even so she is chosen for the Gunbuster project by Koichiro Oota which further hightens her anxiety as she freaks out and goes to him imploring him to take her out of the program. He then in the episode points out the hard work Amano puts into her piloting of mechs which inspires her to work harder. I loved the fact that while the character did have issues surrounding her internal feelings of legitimacy it never effected her so ...

Kurogane is a fun manga, but it feels to familiar for me to consider it anything other then an abstract art book with a story that drags on in the middle of volume 1. While scrolling through the news feed on AnimeNewsNetwork I came across a peculiar article about a manga I've never heard of before, titled Kuro Gane. It talks about the sequel manga Kuro-Gane Kai going on a 3 month hiatus. It's cover was interesting and alluring seemingly done in oil paint, the character on the front a samurai with peering eyes. Apparently it was released by Del Rey Manga which is a publishing company that was the predecessor Kodansha that went out of business in 2010. It's Penned by artist Kei TOUME, who I haven't heard of until recently, but found out he worked on another manga title I liked when I was 13 called Lement of the Lamb. A series I all but forgot how much I enjoyed, and if there is one thing I have to thank the news article for is helping me find the title to a format...

If there is one thing anyone can recognize about a Hayao Miyazaki work is that he is incredible at mapping a setting. While I had an understanding of this looking at a number of his concept art books I have to give credit to Digibro for making an outstanding video on How Miyazaki Maps a Setting . Hayao Miyazaki always makes sure that each and every environment where the characters are located has a clear sense of scale, direction, design and functionality. For example in Mononoke Home (Princess Mononoke), by having our main character Ashitaka travel through the scene from the outside where they host the walls to when we go inside and we see the shops, spend time in the men’s quarters where they eat and later we see him in the women’s area where they work the bellows. Miyazaki has a knack for keeping the character walking in the same direction as a means to guide the audience through a location as we see in Spirited away with Chihiro and Haku running through the pig stys and whine c...

Returning to Fix The Ninja World  As a kid I was a huge fan of the Naruto anime and Manga. In the early 2000s I remember watching illegal downloads of it at my brother's friend's house and growing up it always enraptured me with it's aesthetic and approach to storytelling. While it wasn't my first exposure to anime, Princess Mononoke being the first thing of any relation to anime I have seen at the time, It definitely had the most impact and really sparked my interest in Shinobi and Ninja lore. Around 2007 or 2008 my parents banned me from watching anime and my love for the series faded into obscurity, it becoming a slight fever dream. Years later in 2010 I would pick the series back up again starting out with the manga and getting into the anime. I was and still am a huge fan of Kishimoto's artwork in the early part of Naruto and some of his writing is impressive, but the thing is that his storytelling capability and artistic prowess slowly descends over t...