Change Your Image
aw58
Reviews
Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2003)
My favorite Anime
I was sick last year (2005 this is '06) for three days straight. So as a result I ended up 'channel surfing' all day and all night. I didn't get ANY sleep.
Eventually I turned the channel onto Adult Swim. Mostly because I had seen the title Full Metal Alchemist and was drawn in. I remembered the myths about alchemy although vaguely mostly from random books I had read.
The episode I ended up watching was the exam episode which should've been the actual beginning to the series but is actually around the third or fourth episode.
And was hooked. I had thought that anime was a useless Japanese art form. Man was I wrong! Intriguing storyline AND amazing animation. This was an aspiring animators dream world.
I ended up spending the rest of the year watching all the episodes on Adult Swim...I'd even wake up in the morning and think Full Metal Alchemist's on tonight! And plan my day accordingly. I also ended up buying the Manga which if you have cash to burn and love the series you should do so.
The story itself is pretty straightforward at first and seems almost like Inu Yasha where there's the same premise behind every episode but that's only for a little while until you know the characters and than it starts adding to the background situations starts to show whats really going on and whats really behind their quest.
The animation in itself just adds to the story with the rich backgrounds and the amazing fights.
Overall this would be a good anime to start with if your looking for one. There's only 51 episodes, a movie -Full Metal Alchemist and the Conqueror of Shamballa- and a couple of games so it won't burn too big of a hole in your pocket.
Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004)
Loved this movie
Some of the things in the book weren't in the movie but if you've ever read a Diana Wynne Jones book you'll understand how hard it would be to animate. Her books always have more than ten things going on at once it seems and everything is always resolved at the end of the book never halfway through.
Anyway....
I have been a fan of Miyazaki's since last year really and fell in love with the movie Spirited Away thankfully TCM played most of his other movies as I am on a somewhat limited budget.
And I'd been a fan of Diana Wynne Jones for a couple of years. When I finally bought the book Howl's Moving Castle it had the promotional cover on it that simply said Now A Major Motion Picture (not with any artwork from the movie on the cover). I had a couple of days of wondering about that. I hadn't heard anything about Howl's Moving Castle being a movie. I thought maybe it was some sort of fluke and the printing press had accidentally gotten my hopes up.
And than by some mysterious force I found out who was doing the movie...Hayao Miyazaki! Imagine my surprise! I was ecstatic.
I love these movies more than the Disney movies I grew up with. My family has been doing art for years (in fact my dad told me that my great-grandfather worked on some backgrounds for Disney back in the day) And we've all been disgusted at the way Disney has become completely CGI and none of the original hand-drawn artwork.
So if you like the book or Hayao Miyazaki or even old time hand-drawn animation this would be the movie for you!