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14 February 2019
The Smallest Astronauts
1 of 1 found this helpful Suitable for all audiences is “Rocket Girls”, a living embodiment of one of Johnny Carson’s basics: “If you buy the premise, you buy the bit.” In this universe, in which Japan has its own space program (sort of, it’s a private company), the Solomon Space Association, they’ve struck a serious problem, potentially fatal to the whole business. The problem is that their latest rocket, the LS-7, large enough to carry an astronaut into orbit, tends to explode upon launching (like, every single time they’ve tried it); their backers are threatening to pull their funding if they don’t actually launch an astronaut… soon; and their very reliable older rocket, the LS-5, cannot lift a full grown man, unless they starve him down to the point where he flat out quits the program.
That’s where the premise comes in. While trying to recapture (but not kill) their one and only astronaut, the forces of the SSA encounter a short, skinny Japanese high school girl, Yukari Morita, arrived upon her own mission, seeking the father who conceived her, then disappeared on her parents’ honeymoon on Guadalcanal. Suddenly, during the yelling Yukari dishes out to all concerned afterwards, the man in charge of the SSA, Isao Nasuda, realizes that a short, skinny, female teenager might be able to do everything a fully grown man can do WITHOUT blowing the weight limit, and gets an idea,... an awful idea,... a wonderful, awful idea….
On the promise by Nasuda to start looking for the truth about her father (something at least in theory he can do better than she can), Yukari agrees to start training as an astronaut, and the bit is launched! What follows are an accelerated astronaut training program on a shoestring budget, the strange actions of all the assorted weirdos and loons willing to try so hard to achieve Japan’s first manned space program, a couple more short, skinny, Japanese or part Japanese teenage girl astronauts, and a couple of space missions: one at the halfway point and one at the ending that work about as safely and smoothly and routinely…
as Apollo 13 did. Definitely, a hoot and a half!
Note: This series is only subtitled in English; there is no English voice dubbing.
21 June 2017
Neon Genesis Tenchi Muyo
1 of 1 found this helpful If you know anything about anime, you’ve at least heard of Neon Genesis Evangelion; if you are more generally informed, you’ve at least heard of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, but it takes a particular level of knowledge to be aware of the Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure series. (I’d never heard of it until the leader of the NC Rowan County anime club showed me the first four episodes!)
22 years before the events of this series, the timeline splits apart over the discovery of a huge alien artifact at a construction site. In one world Kazuki’s future father tosses away the small piece of the artifact he has picked up; in the other he keeps it, leading to the discovery of extraterrestrial technology that changes history.
In the present Kazuki Yotsuga is an otaku laughed at by most other high school students due to his web site claims of battles between giant robots only he can see, but to his surprise (and suspicion) he is sought out by Mitsuki Sanada, the slightly older, most popular girl in high school, who tells him that she likes his stories. This is a ruse; she really seeks him out so that her father Ken Sanada can research his theories on the existence of parallel worlds, but due to a mishap both she and Kazuki are sent (separately) to this parallel world where thanks to research upon the alien artifact, the giant robots Kazuki has seen in fact are battling, and Kazuki demonstrates not only a superior ability to control and fight them, but an exclusively male one.
Finding that the Ken Sanada of this world (no relation to Mitsuki) is the commander of the Earth Defense Force, which means his research into travelling between the parallel worlds lags behind his other self’s, both Mitsuki and Kazuki end up becoming robot pilots battling the Rara army, headed by a man who is Ken Sanada’s scientific rival in the first world, and Kazuki in particular becomes the harem anime protagonist to end all harem animes, combining shy, quiet awkwardness, incredible fighting power, and illogical charisma, into something that attracts an ever growing bevy of beauties into going for him and living under the same roof with him. However, all of this fighting is unsteady-ing the parallel worlds, leading them towards merging or annihilation, and the key to survival seems likely to be the destruction of something that is found on one world but not on the other,...
like Kazuki Yotsuga….
Though at first thinking this would merely be silly, I was astonished by how well this series tells its version of the Neon Genesis Evangelion story (This has to be more than coincidence or ripping off of the popular!), though at a much lighter level (Instead of almost everybody dies, almost everybody lives.) In particular Neon Genesis Evangelion fans are encouraged to look at this quite deliberate response in order to understand and evaluate what it says. In addition Tenchi Muyo fans will enjoy this quite deliberate founding of the Tenchi Muyo universe.
Note: Episodes 1-13 constitute the TV series while the so-called 14th episode is in fact an OVA that cleans up a few loose ends and begins the protagonists down the path that leads to Tenchi Muyo.