K-On is a slice-of-life comedy series set in modern Japan, about four girls who join the pop music club at their school to keep it from being disbanded. Like Azumanga Daioh or Hidamari Sketch, it’s in a four panel comic format.
Ritsu, drummer and club president, is the one who sets everything in motion to ensure the club won’t be disbanded before she can join: she literally rips up her friend Mio’s application to the choir club and drags her into joining the pop music club as a bassist instead. Tsumugi, keyboardist and super-rich girl, joins them at the same time; but that leaves one space still blank. Enter Yui, who kind of gets sucked into the club. Yui doesn’t know how to play an instrument (other than the cymbals), so part of the club’s activities involve teaching her how to play the guitar.
The club continues to be plagued by troubles, however. The president isn’t really on the ball about things like turning in the official application, or engaging in visible activities; and they acquire a faculty sponsor by blackmailing a teacher into doing it: Sawako was a former member of the pop music club, back when it was a death metal band. Because she now presents herself as a mild-mannered woman, she doesn’t want her past to get out (plus, she likes having a place in the school where she can drop the act and show off her ability to thresh and play the guitar with her teeth. Seriously, she really does that). Plus, Yui has a bad habit of slacking off when studying for tests, so she’s often teetering on the edge of being kicked out of the club.
K-On is translated by Yen Press. It ran from 2007 to 2010 and wrapped up with 4 volumes, only 2 of which are currently translated. There’s also an anime series that ran for 13 episodes in 2009, which will be brought over in April by Bandai in with subtitles and a dub (maybe; the product details for the DVD are conflicting).
March 31, 2011
March 21, 2011
The Sky Crawlers
The Sky Crawlers is a 2008 anime movie, based off a book within a series of novels by Hiroshi Mori. It's a war movie, although in this case it's set in an alternate history, and the "war" is between two martial corporations. It's the story of a group of fighter pilots.
Although the world is (seemingly) at peace, the argument goes that people are unused to a world without wartime aggression and casualties, so corporations contract soldiers and fighter pilots to engage in real battle with one another to provide the necessary headlines. The companies have specific people who do this: the "Kildren," a group of genetically engineered young adults who neither age nor die--at least not of natural causes. Because they only die if killed, like in battle, it's the perfect solution to the companies' need to fill their pilots and tanks.
The main character of The Sky Crawlers is Yūichi Kannami, an ace pilot of the Rostock Corporation who transfers to a small rural base at the start of the movie. He works with three other pilots, and with Suito Kusanagi, the girl in charge of the base, who also flies when a pilot is injured/killed or when a plane is damaged. All the pilots and the commander are Kildren; the only people on the base who are not are the mechanics. In fact, there is only one pilot in the whole war who is an adult: The Teacher, a former Rostock pilot who joined its rivals. He is the main enemy of the Kannami and his fellow pilots, the one no one else has been able to beat. While the wider story involves plans of a siege attack on the rival corporation and the discovery of secrets surrounding the Kildren, it's really the battles with the Teacher that absorb Kannami, and all the pilots', attention. For a movie full of aerial dogfights, it's surprisingly slow.
An interesting aspect of the film is that all the characters typically speak Japanese in their daily lives; but when they're in the cockpit of their planes and flying, they speak in English. It raises some neat questions about the training the Rostock Corp. provides.
The film was produced by I.G. Production and the soundtrack was done by Kenji Kawai, so it has a similar feel to the Ghost in the Shell series (which was done by the same people). It was distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures, without an English dub. There is also a game for the Wii, Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, which has been translated into English; and a manga and the aforementioned novel series, which have not.
Although the world is (seemingly) at peace, the argument goes that people are unused to a world without wartime aggression and casualties, so corporations contract soldiers and fighter pilots to engage in real battle with one another to provide the necessary headlines. The companies have specific people who do this: the "Kildren," a group of genetically engineered young adults who neither age nor die--at least not of natural causes. Because they only die if killed, like in battle, it's the perfect solution to the companies' need to fill their pilots and tanks.
The main character of The Sky Crawlers is Yūichi Kannami, an ace pilot of the Rostock Corporation who transfers to a small rural base at the start of the movie. He works with three other pilots, and with Suito Kusanagi, the girl in charge of the base, who also flies when a pilot is injured/killed or when a plane is damaged. All the pilots and the commander are Kildren; the only people on the base who are not are the mechanics. In fact, there is only one pilot in the whole war who is an adult: The Teacher, a former Rostock pilot who joined its rivals. He is the main enemy of the Kannami and his fellow pilots, the one no one else has been able to beat. While the wider story involves plans of a siege attack on the rival corporation and the discovery of secrets surrounding the Kildren, it's really the battles with the Teacher that absorb Kannami, and all the pilots', attention. For a movie full of aerial dogfights, it's surprisingly slow.
An interesting aspect of the film is that all the characters typically speak Japanese in their daily lives; but when they're in the cockpit of their planes and flying, they speak in English. It raises some neat questions about the training the Rostock Corp. provides.
The film was produced by I.G. Production and the soundtrack was done by Kenji Kawai, so it has a similar feel to the Ghost in the Shell series (which was done by the same people). It was distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures, without an English dub. There is also a game for the Wii, Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, which has been translated into English; and a manga and the aforementioned novel series, which have not.
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