Hazuma finds himself observing a surgery in Chicago and gets himself involved with a young civil rights protestor named Johnny who has no sensation of pain. After getting his arm mangled in a fight, the severity of Johnny’s case becomes apparent. Just as Hazuma and Eri think Johnny will have to live with the condition he was born with, a childhood friend reveals that Johnny used to cry from pain. This means something else is causing his body not to feel pain instead of a genetic condition.
Any long time fan knows Anime’s take on world events and history is not always handled with seriousness. Often fans have witnessed giant robots being placed into history or figures from history becoming sword wielding warriors. Few shows actually take the time to look at events from history in a serious dramatic fashion. This is another reason why Young Black Jack is such a great show. The show started by showcasing Japan’s unrest in the 1960s, dropped Hazuma right smack dab into the Vietnam war, and now has placed him in American to dealing with the serious racial tension the country experienced after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. This is the kind of show which makes a fan feel good about the content they are watching because it offers a lesson in history and really gives them something to think about.
Sadly, this show will no doubt win the award for “Best Anime no one watched all year.” There has been little to no discussion about the series despite the great art, story, and music the series provides. One can only hope the series will have a resurgence once the show makes its way to America with a physical release.
The first set photos from the upcoming Wonder Woman film have been released by actor Saïd Taghmaoui (American Hustle, My Brother the Devil). The photos offer us a first look at Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, one of Wonder Woman’s most important supporting characters. An American military intelligence pilot and love interest, Trevor first appeared in All Star Comics #8 and was created by William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter back in 1942. Pine and Taghmaoui appear to be wearing early twentieth century era clothing, suggesting that the film will in fact take place across time periods, as previous reports have indicated.
Wonder Woman, staring Gal Gadot, is set to premiere 2017.
Summer camp has never been scarier… or has it? Over 35 years have passed since the release of this horror classic, but the last movie of the franchise only came out in 2009. While Friday the 13th quickly became a hit, the quality of its sequels seemed to demise. However, a character that appears briefly during the original, Jason Voorhees, became one of the most recognized masked-baddies in horror history. There’s also been announced that a tv series is in the works for 2016.
In short, Friday the 13th (1980) tells the story of a group of camp counselors who are being murdered one by one by a mysterious attacker. Crystal Lake Camp is being re-opened after a child drowned and two counselors were murdered, but things don’t go as planned.
The film was developed by Sean S. Cunningham and inspired by Halloween. Cunningham worked as a producer in Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left and wanted Friday the 13th to be impactful to the audience, making use of jump-scares.
Overall, this is not the best slasher film ever made, but it’s possibly the best one of the whole franchise. Written by Victor Miller, the story is very simple and every scene is constructed in a direct way, to the point. With a young Kevin Bacon in the cast, the acting is reasonably decent for a bunch of unknown actors, as is now expected from these kind of movies. The music and special (bloody) effects are my favorite part, with a distinctive sound when the killer appears and graphic throat slashing.
The ending, inspired by that of Carrie, sets a breaking point for the franchise, having Jason as the protagonist in the sequels, something that Miller didn’t appreciate.
Very recently, the meta-horror film The Final Girls depicted fairly accurately Friday the 13th with a twist. Well worth watching.
The girls of the school finally get a chance to see how commoners live. Not by actually going out and meeting everyday working class people and interacting with them. Instead, the school pays to have an actual amusement park set up to be just like a regular section of a normal city complete with arcades and fast food, something these girls have never experienced before. Ah, the problems of the 1%.
Aika is hesitant to showcase all she has learned from Kimito and freezes up and its Reika who shines at first. Later though, Aika is able to recover by showcasing how epic her skills are at a dancing game. It looks like she might be finally getting the popularity she has been craving.
The humor is a bit better in this episode compared to the previous one. Hakua isn’t in it for very long so there’s no nudity jokes, but there is a very amusing “press my buttons just right way” joke in the arcade which was particularly amusing. The scene with girls having trouble ordering fast food is also amusing but jokes such as this have already been done in better anime.
This episode is an improvement from the previous episode but not enough to change my overall feelings of this show. Shomin Sample isn’t terrible by any means but it just keeps proving, over and over again, that it really isn’t bringing anything new to the table. Still, for Harem fans, this is still the show they should be watching for the falls season.
Shomin sample is simulcast streaming from Funimation.
After a week’s hiatus we have returned to Glass Mask! And this episode, Glass Mask Episode 3 shows us Maya’s greatest talent, greatest weakness, and her arch-rival. But is this episode any good? Yes, yes it is. All 51 of them are, don’t bother asking that question again.
Review of Glass Mask Episode 3
The big focus of this episode was foreshadowing. Lots and lots of foreshadowing, like, tons of it. But before we get to that, I’d like to cover the inconsistencies I had found this episode, because there were a few.
The first one, that was pretty strange, was right at the beginning. Remember that the play we see on stage here is the “Country’s Top Bride”, where, in this moment, the Prince disguises himself as a prisoner, and whatever woman gives herself to the prisoner in order to save his life he will marry. The Prince is looking for more than just a pretty woman, he’s looking for someone who is fundamentally kind. Yet when Vivi gives up her singlehood, he flat-out refuses while the crowd muses that “It’d be better to die!” (How is that funny? I don’t get it) Furthermore, when you consider how Vivi must have felt after the Prince reveals his identity, how she was mocked by the ruler of the kingdom, it’s not wouldn’t be surprising to see her end her own life due to the distress that would cause. Dang, Vivi really is a depressing character. Overall this seems out of the Prince’s character, and is pretty counter-intuitive to the stories themes and morals, especially if played for laughs.
Secondly, Maya’s transition into the real Vivi is pretty drastic, enough to pull me out of it. Maya changed how she talked, moved, and felt about everything, the real Vivi was a totally different character out of nowhere. You could make the argument that this is a school play and the parents expected that kind of poor acting, but these are the same parents that cried and gave standing ovations after Maya’s impromptu monologue.
Moving on to towards the end of the episode, Hayami really should have put Maya in the troupe. If only because Tsukikage took interest in her. If he’s as dead set on The Scarlet Angel as he claims, that would have been enough, especially after Tsukikage claims she’s found someone worthy of playing The Scarlet Angel. Come on Hayami, think harder!
In the scene that The Scarlet Angel is introduced we are given witness to one of the worst screenwriting sins I have seen. Director Onodera goes into some obvious exposition for about twenty seconds and the narrator picks up from there. The narration ends and Onodera spews some more exposition. For about a minute we go back and forth from exposition to narration and back again without any sort of pause in between. It’s like Onodera and the narrator were interrupting each other to be the one to deliver this terrible line.
That’s enough mistakes for now (but if you want to read more and have seen the show, read the spoilers section!), the reason I’ve put such a negative focus this week is really due to how little of it there is, even this I’ve written about isn’t that bad, Glass Mask has this way of making itself seems almost perfect. There are a few key moments I’d like to bring mention of, because of how great they are.
In this episode we are introduced to Sakurakouji, a young actor in the Ondine troupe. I wouldn’t consider this spoilers considering just how obvious it is, but I love how the first time we see him he’s rescuing Maya, and a bit later defending her. I love how the show gets straight to the point. “Yes, he is the love interest, let’s move on.”
When Maya is pantomiming, I love the choppy animation of the bird and the grayed out surroundings, not only does it add a lot of character to this scene, but it also serves as a wonderful symbol of both Maya and Ayumi’s technique and focus, which I’ll touch on later.
It might seem confusing at first why Ayumi would be shocked that Maya can’t reach the bird. “The bird is out of reach?” The reason that this is a powerful choice that Maya made is really interesting. When pantomiming like this, you are in complete power over the story and how it goes. Often people will abuse that power and have the bird come right to them, (just like Ayumi does later) but Maya is fully invested in the story, and allow to bird to fly as it really would, and doesn’t give herself any additional power to get it. Maya isn’t thinking about herself while pantomiming, and that’s powerful. This is also said by Ayumi later, but I figured some further elaboration would be beneficial.
The real meat of the episode is when Ayumi steps into Maya’s pantomime. It’s short, sweet, and loads a crazy amount of information about these two actress’s and how they act. It’s actually pretty impressive, but it’s a bit spoilery so read about it in the spoilers section at your own risk.
Another thing to note, I love the music. I’ve mentioned this before, but it is tied for my favorite OST of all time, I freaking love it so much.
There’s a lot more in this episode, namely the foreshadowing, but a majority of it require knowledge of what happens later in the series, so I have separated them in a spoilers section, like I said there’s a lot there, so perhaps check back on this article later, once you’ve finished the show.
Spoilers
Back to the inconsistencies, when playing as Vivi, Maya broke character. Right when she imagines her mom laughing at her, of course this break in character caused her to fall even deeper into Vivi, but considering the focus Tsukikage puts on not breaking your ‘Glass Mask’ that’s pretty important.
Another huge one was just how off script Maya went. Maya is later known for being able to improvise as her character quite well, but she never does this unless necessary. For Maya to blatantly ignore the script like that is pretty shocking. It’s possible Maya just learned not to do that at a later point, but because we never see this happen I’m willing to call it an inconsistency.
Moving on to the good stuff once more I have quite a bit. The line delivered by the teacher “The stage isn’t your sole property” is an amazing line. Maya is later known as “The Stage Storm,” wherever she is she dominates the stage. Even when she does literally nothing on stage for the entirety of the play, she’s the main focus and the audience gravitates towards her. Even in this episode, Maya was in such control of the stage, the lighting guy put the spotlight on her, breaking the stage directions given to him. It reveals both Maya’s biggest strength weakness, which is her presence on stage.
It’s her strength, she automatically captivates the audience, and pulls them in, heavily investing them emotionally. She perform entire plays without anyone else and still remain entertaining and relevant to the viewers. But it’s also her weakness, she basically cannot play any supporting character without staging a mutiny of sorts, and she will lose multiple jobs because of it. While on stage Maya is unintentionally greedy, she steals the spotlight from anyone and everyone, and we can see this in just the third episode.
Another great moment in the episode is when Sakurakouji is introduced. I discussed above how it jumps right in with why he’s introduced. But another key aspect of this scene that really elevates it is Hayami. Even in the scene Sakurakouji is introduced we see a love triangle of sorts. Both Sakurakouji and Hayami working to save Maya. But what really makes this scene is another fact, the role reversal. In this scene, Sakurakouji stops the dog while Hayami attends to Maya, Sakurakouji did the dirty work but Hayami gets the credit. But throughout the rest of the show, it’s Hayami that does the dirty work and protect Maya, while Sakurakouji gets her affection.
I also love how throughout the first few episodes Tsukikage is portrayed as almost the villain, she’s creepy, we get evil music when she appears, she stalks Maya, and she even has an amazing evil laugh. While Onodera, the closest this show has for a villain, is painted as a nice guy who just wants to work on this masterpiece. It’s a reminder that no one in this show is fully good or bad. That they’re all just different people with different goals that might conflict.
But the best part of this episode, as I said before, is definitely the pantomime scene between Maya and Ayumi, and I’d really like to dive in and try to explain why. When Maya is pantomiming, everything but her is choppy and grey. While when Ayumi is pantomiming, everything is in color (a reference to the skill gap) but she is the one who is choppy.
Let’s work on the assumption that the colorful fluid animation represents where the audience’s attention is being drawn. It’s obvious that the choppy animation is a deliberate decision, and this is what I think it represents. As discussed above, while Maya is fully invested in the story and character, the audience is fully invested in her. No one walks away from a Maya Kitajima performance raving about the story, it’s all about Maya. Whereas Ayumi has this balance (the full color palette), but realizes her acting is only to serve the story. So while Ayumi’s performance is notably well done, your attention is on the story she’s acting in, unlike Maya who almost demands your attention. So this scene is beautiful, it tells something major about Maya, and it defines the contrast between Ayumi and Maya, perfectly setting up their rivalry.
Finally I’d like to mention the last thing in the episode. The narrator tells us, “Seeing Ayumi’s vivid acting has put Maya in a gloomy mood” Throughout the rest of the series Maya is inspired by Ayumi’s abilities, but now it only bums her because she doesn’t’ have the drive to act quite yet. She hasn’t started the race, and now sees herself as just an onlooker. This gives us an insight into Maya’s mind. She’s determined to act, but she hasn’t begun yet, and her mindset is fundamentally different now.
Plenty of other things were done in this episode, The Scarlet Angel is introduced, Tsukikage’s heart condition is introduced, and Gendo’s motivations are foreshadowed.
Conclusion
This episode got a lot of things done, it introduced characters, plotlines, and revealed some core aspects of our main characters. Not to mention this episode set up the rivalry between Maya and Ayumi. Episode 3 got a lot of things done, and it did those things flawlessly, for the most part. I hope the Magic I discussed in the introductory article has come to your attention, this is when I fell in love with this show. From here on you are hooked, you cannot escape the wonderfulness of Glass Mask. Now go watch another episode, just click this link, and watch the show on Crunchyroll for free!
But what did you think of Glass Mask Episode 3? Are you loving it? Or are you loving it? Should McDonald’s sponsor Glass Mask? Do you agree with my analysis? Let me know all this and more down in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.
This week we get the typical filler episode, this time is Festival time. Yup, an entire festival episode, and not even a single murder…
Review of Sakurako-san Episode 6
This episode was pretty boring, it was pretty, it had a ‘mystery’ (if you could call it that). It introduced a character or two, and cemented Yuriko’s place in the ‘main’ roster, along Utsumi.
Yuriko herself got a bit of development, confirmed crush on Shoutaro, single, the type that flirts with teachers, ETC. Speaking of teachers, Isozaki-sensei, the new character introduced, reminds me a lot of Oreki from Hyouka, but annoying. Utsumi was annoying as ever, and while Shoutaro and Sakurako where pretty entertaining, they didn’t get much screen time.
An interesting component of this episode is Yuriko’s friend Chika, a clearly jealous friend, going so far as to give Yuriko a dirty look when her boyfriend jokingly made a pass. Chika is later seen having also ditched the group, and a text regarding her disappearance with her boyfriend focused on multiple times. The only problem is other than the above sentences, this is never brought up, no pay-off, nothing. Perhaps it’s possible that it will be brought up later, but Sakurako-san has been episodic up until this point, and a filler episode seems like an odd start to change that.
The Sakurako-san Episode 6 may have been pretty boring and unnecessary, but there was one, shining moment that legitimately got me to laugh. When Yuriko is talking with Sakurako and the child announcement over the intercom calling for “Kojou Sakurako” was great. Particularity, the “Your guardian is waiting for you,” I’d probably say this is the best moment in the entirety of the show so far. Which is not super impressive.
She opened for Lady Gaga‘s Artpop tour, got remixed by Pharrell and landed a performance on The Late Show. Now Japan’s beloved digital diva Hatsune Miku will embark on her first North American tour in 2016.
Hatsune Miku will be embarking on her eight stop American tour spring of 2016, her biggest American tour yet. And if your nearest venue doesn’t happen to be hosting the virtual pop star don’t count yourself out just yet.
Crypton Future Media—the company that created and promotes Hatsune Miku—said in a press release:
“Miku Expo 2016 will be more focused on concerts, but we plan on holding several surprise events in cities with performances and maybe even some cities between tour stops. They will feature collaborations with special guests and new songs, including the winner of a song contest organized during the tour’s build-up.”
So there is still hope for all the Miku/Vocaloid fans who aren’t so lucky to live near any of her tour venues.
As of now here is her tour schedule
March 23-24 – Fukuoka, Japan – Zepp Fukuoka
March 29 – Osaka, Japan – Zepp Namba
March 31 – Nagoya, Japan – Zepp Nagoya
April 5 – Sapporo, Japan – Zepp Sapporo
April 9-10 – Tokyo, Japan – Zepp Tokyo
April 23 – Seattle, WA – WaMu Theater
April 30 San Francisco, CA – The Warfield (two shows)
May 6 – Los Angeles, CA – Microsoft Theater
May 14 – Dallas, TX – The Bomb Factory
May 20 – Toronto, Ontario – Sony Centre for the Performing Arts
May 28 – New York, NY – Hammerstein Ballroom (two shows)
In addition to the upcoming release of Dark Knight III: The Master Race, Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello, and John Romita Jr. will be releasing a prequel to the original Dark Knight Returns titled The Last Crusade. The story, set to be released as a 64-page prestige one-shot in February of next year, will reveal the fate of Jason Todd at the hands of the Joker in the ‘Dark Knight Universe,’ an event only alluded to in the original 1986 miniseries. Speaking with DC, Romita said that he is excited to work with Miller again, and that he will strive to strike a balance between staying true to the original work while adding in his own artistic voice to the growing ‘Dark Knight Universe.’
What happens when you combine an artist, a writer, a six-pack of beer? The answer is Arcade Brewery 6-Pack Stories, one comic across six bottles of beer.
The Chicago craft brewery, Arcade Brewery, announced Friday that it is releasing a second volume to their series, 6-Pack Stories™ on November 18.
Last year the brewery teamed with Jason Aaron and Tony Moore to created Festus Rotgut: a Black Wheat Ale paired with a zombie western tale.
This year, Arcade partnered with Jimmy Palmiotti and Darwyn Cooke to create The Adventures of Dutch Courage, a Session Ale brewed with juniper berries and lemon peel.
“When we first saw the comic, the beach setting seemed to demand an easy drinking beer while the retro feel inspired us to add subtle classic cocktail flavors of juniper and lemon peel. A easy drinking, malt-forward beer with a subtle gin cocktail quality, we hope the flavor profile mimics the twists and turns of the story. It should be an unexpected journey on both sides of the glass,” said Arcade Brewery Co-Owner Chris Tourre.
“I had a blast working on this with my good friend Darwyn and feel Dutch Courage making his first appearance on the side of a beer bottle is oneof the best ways ever to launch a character,” said Palmiotti.
“If you stop and think about all the beer Jimmy and I have consumed over the years, it’s about time we did something like this,” said Cooke.
The Adventures of Dutch Courage, a Session Ale will be available at four locations in Chicago on the 18th; The Beer Temple, Capones Liquor, Prestige Liquors (Westmont), and Binny’s (Lincoln Park).
Arcade Brewery has a “beer map” on their website, displaying all of their retailers. If you don’t live in Chicago you can purchase the beer online from The Beer Temple and West Lakeview Liquors.
