Violinist of Hameln: Slideshow, Slideshow #9, on the Imagawa Line...

Generally when a manga is made into an anime it's meant to be as accurate to the original source material as possible; on rare occasion it's a radical departure. On even rarer occasions, though, the anime is accurate yet a radical departure at the same time. The TV series adaptation of Violinist of Hameln is one of these super-rare cases, as it's nothing like the movie that came a few months before it. From a production standpoint 99.9% is different, from director to animation studio to even the entire voice cast, only Kouhei Tanaka returns for the music, but even from a storytelling perspective the TV series is radically altered from Michiaki Watanabe's original manga. Whereas the manga was a comical fantasy gag adventure, the TV series is a generally darker & dead serious tale, though it apparently is still accurate to the general plot of the manga; the anime adapts roughly the first 10 volumes. With something so radically altered yet still accurate does that mean it's bad or good? Well, when you have an iconic director making his debut as series composer with this show the end result should be worth watching regardless, right?

Fifteen years ago, Queen Horn of the Duchy of Sforzando was able to end the war between humans & demons by creating a magical barrier that turned all demons within it to stone, forcing them to retreat to the Northern Capital. Hell King Bass, one of the demon's Warlords, even beheaded himself when his body started petrifying, though he still lives by possessing a young boy. As a precaution, though, Horn had her baby daughter sent away so that she could live a normal life should anything go wrong. Unfortunately, Horn's barrier has finally weakened & Bass decides to go after her daughter, who has grown up to be the young girl Flute in the village of Staccato. To protect Flute, though, is her friend Hamel, who can use musical magic by way of his giant violin. The two decide to journey to Sforzando, Flute to reunite with her estranged mother & Hamel to learn more about his past, as he suffers from amnesia & has started growing a horn on his head.

Violinist of Hameln The Movie: Can an Anime Give an Encore?

Last year I celebrated Classical Music Month, every September by order of President Bill Clinton, by talking about a ton of anime OPs, EDs, INs, & BGM that doesn't get the appreciation that they deserve; it was kind of crazy to do. This year, though, I'll be celebrating this month of musicality by reviewing a series that is partially defined by it. Like I mentioned last year, however, I will not be covering any part of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes franchise; I reviewed the two movies & the Golden Wings OVA back in May of 2012. Luckily, there are other anime out there that utilize classical music, with probably the most beloved one (that got released in North America, at least) being Princess Tutu; maybe I'll do that one next year. For this year, however, I'm going to into the world of fantasy, a favorite genre of mine, and look at a certain group of instrument-toting warriors.

(The) Violinist of Hameln by Michiaki Watanabe (not to be confused with the anime music composer of the same romanized name [the sole difference in their names is literally a single kanji!]) was one of the first titles to appear in Enix's then-debuting Monthly Shonen GanGan magazine back in 1991, and it seemed to be an iconic title for the magazine's first decade as it ended in early 2001, lasting 37 volumes. The manga was a bit of an odd duck in that it was modeled as a fantasy adventure to save the world from destruction but the actual execution, at least early on, was almost a gag manga featuring a jerk of a hero & fourth-wall-breaking jokes. In 1996 the manga was adapted into a TV anime series that is notorious for changing the entire mood & feel of the story... But that's not what I'm starting with. A few months prior to the TV series debut there was a 30-minute theatrical movie that was part of the "GW Anime Festival '96" triple-billing with Mahoujin Guru Guru & Dragon Quest: The Emblem of Roto. This movie is more in line with the style of the original manga & generally gets ignored in place of the more-infamous weekly production. Let's see how it turned out.

The land is in turmoil due to monsters under the command of Hell King Bass. The kingdom of Antiphonal in particular is under attack by a squadron of skeletons & all looks lost. Luckily, the arrival of the legendary troupe of warriors lead by Hamel the Brave, who fights evil with the music of his gigantic violin, manage to drive away the monsters. The King & Queen ask Hamel & his friends Flute, Raiel, Sizer, & guide bird Oboe to rescue their daughter, who was transformed into a kitten & taken to the giant Medusa, the monster in charge of the area's demonic forces.

Karneval: Who's Kafka?! Tell Me!!

The subject of this review kind of breaks the basic idea of The Land of Obscusion in that I'm going off of a recent BD/DVD combo release of a show that originally aired last year & was brought over by the biggest name in the anime business here in North America, FUNimation. In fact, this is the first time I've ever reviewed an anime that "FUNi" released over here; the closest I ever got before was Fullmetal Alchemist Reflections, which they didn't bring over. Still, this was a show that didn't really get too much talk back when it aired, and didn't seem to have any real anticipation when the home video release was coming up. Now, since release, it's been reviewed by others, especially over at ANN (twice, even), but this anime was one that had my interest when it was announced, mainly because I had heard of the manga before & was interested in checking it out. So allow me to break away from my norm, in a sense, and let's take a look at Manglobe's 2013 anime adaptation of Touya Mikanagi's Karneval.

Gareki is a thief who robs from the rich, but during an attempt at stealing from Lady Miné's mansion he comes across an odd boy named Nai, who is handcuffed. Feeling bad for him, Gareki decides to help free Nai, but Miné herself transforms into a monster that hunts after the two, though they manage to escape with help from Gareki's bombs. Stowing away onto a train to escape, the two wind up getting involved in helping rescue an old businessman & his granddaughter from some hostage takers. On the train as well are Tsukumo & Hirato, two members of the government's Central Defense Agency, Circus. Finding an interest in Nai's super-hearing ability, Circus takes in the two boys & agrees to help Nai look for Karoku, who had lived with Nai until recently. Unknown to Gareki & Nai at the moment, though, is that they & Circus have more in common than they thought, as all of them have a connection to the mysterious organization Kafka, who claim to be following the path of evolution with their beings called Varuga.

AWOL Compression Re-MIX: Not Quite The Anime Expendables, But I'll Take It

The image you see below is a short prequel manga for AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave- titled Lady Steady Go! (get it?) that was drawn by character designer Isamu Imakake. It tells the story of how main character Jim Hyatt met future team member Rachel Hurst, as she was already with Hyatt when she debuted in the anime. According to production assistance studio Ehrgeiz (who in fact helped out with AWOL and, yes, Next Senki Ehrgeiz), this manga released on April 30, 1999 was only available as a bonus to people who bought all of the anime on home video when it was released in Japan; naturally, it's now intensely rare (I've never seen it for sale online, at least). 

Why do I bring it up? No real reason, honestly, other than to say that I've now covered everything AWOL with this review. Speaking of which, let's recap a little with the subject of Review #150... You know, the anime that's a son of a pitch.

The AWOL that ran on TV Tokyo in late-night from January 7 to April 1 of 1998 can be described in many different ways. Justin Sevakis called it "unwatchable", I called it "lopsided", and its sheer difference in quality between the non-existent pace of the the first half & the more focused second half was a true blue instance of an anime pulling a Dr. Jekly & Mr. Hyde, only in reverse. The end result felt more like a short OVA series that was forced to be turned into a weekly TV series, which is kind of the opposite of what usually happened during the OVA boom (i.e. aborted TV series got turned into OVAs). This TV series really felt like the equivalent of a professional runner doing a false start yet still kept running, simply because that's all this specific runner is good at. Eventually, everyone just lets this runner finish the race that never even got started simply because they feel sorry for him/her; they might even play "Chatiots of Fire" by Vangelis just to make the runner feel special. Japan's only interaction with the original TV version of AWOL would be via the airwaves, because the staff involved knew that no one would buy this show on home video in the form it originally aired in; that didn't stop d-rights from licensing the TV version to AnimeVillage.com, though. What Japan got instead was something called AWOL Compression Re-MIX, which truncated the entire production from twelve 24-minute episodes into four OVAs which were released on VHS & LD from August to December the same year; episodes 1-3 are around 53 minutes long, while episode 4 is around 43 minutes. Taking into consideration the fact that the OP & ED are only used four times instead of twelve, roughly four episodes worth of content was removed to compress everything! Does that make AWOL actually watchable now? Hell, is it as "speedy & powerful" as it's claimed to have been made into?

AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave-: You Inglorious Bastards, You Read No Book!

It's finally time for Review #150! When I did Gundoh Musashi for #50 I knew it was bad (oh so bad), but I wanted to give it the full, complete review that it never had, and when I did Robotech the Movie for #100 I had heard of how bad it was but I didn't actually know, first hand, how poor the final product ended up. For #150 I'm tackling a series that I have had some minor experience with prior, but I never wanted to spend money to see all of. Due to some circumstances though, specifically its odd release history in both Japan & North America, I broke down & bought all of the VHS tapes needed to see the show in full. I worry I have outright wasted money that could have gone to much better things in life...

"原作/Gensaku (Original Work/Concept): et" is such an enigma to me when it comes to anime, & not just because I have no idea how to actually pronounce it ("ette"? "ee-tee"? Why do I even care?). Who or what is et, exactly? It's nigh impossible to research because of how short & simple a name it is, not to mention you have to ignore all of the results that talk about a certain Steven Spielberg classic. One thing I can confirm about et, though, is this: Only two anime have ever had this credit, and they were made one after another. The first was Next Senki/Record of Next War Ehrgeiz, which was the third review I ever wrote for this blog & is an anime that I still am completely willing to defend and admit that I really enjoy. It's also still one of my ten most viewed posts, with my absurd "battle" between it & the video game of the same name recently making it into the Top 10 as well. The other production to be conceived by et, on the other hand, is just about as super-obscure as Ehrgeiz but has no one to defend it; aside from me, Ehrgeiz at least has a Japanese fansite. Hell, those who live in Japan can at least watch Ehrgeiz online via the Bandai Channel, since it doesn't have a DVD release (VHS & LD only); can't say that about this other et anime. At the same time, though, there aren't any reviews online that actually talk about this anime in detail and explain why it's so bad; most out there either only cover a couple of episodes or are little more than a blurb. Therefore, I will bite the bullet & review the entirety of this series, even if it may rob me of my sanity. I have seen the first two episodes before, so I have some vague idea what I'm going into, but I wonder if even that will be enough to prepare me...

This is AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave-, and may God have mercy on my soul.

The Allied Nations watches over a small system of planets, each of which is involved in the Planet Link Project, or PLP for short, a series of satellites outfitted with lasers to defend the planets from enemies. When the PLP system for the peaceful Cyress shuts down for four seconds, though, a mysterious ship sneaks into the planet & causes mayhem. They steal seven PDB missile carriers for their own use, each one capable of destroying a planet. This terrorist group, calling themselves Solomon, is lead by Duran Gash and has one more surprise for the Allied Nations: Peat Culten, the only man who can control the PLP, has gone AWOL & joined the terrorists. This now means that Solomon not only has the power to destroy multiple planets, but they also can use the AN's PLP against them at any time! Major Jim Hyatt is chosen to lead a small group to bring back Culten, & stop Solomon if possible, and with no options left he is given the go to recruit whoever he chooses for his team, which includes relying on a couple of AAA-grade criminals who are presently incarcerated. Unfortunately, Solomon's defenses seem impenetrable & the government itself has its own ideas for stopping these terrorists, leaving Hyatt & his team in a much trickier conundrum.