Sometimes I hear theme music or soundtracks for anime series re-purposed or played in odd places. This time it was at the Olympics. Watching the swimming events tonight I heard a snippet from the Naruto soundtrack, a song called “The Raising Fighting Spirit”. It was weird to hear that on NBC…

You can listen to the song here.

A few weeks ago I finished watching yet another great show produced by studio BONES; famous for other great movies and series such as the Cowboy Bebop Movie, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Wolf’s Rain. The series is called Darker Than BLACK and is set in a world where certain people have special powers (a lot like every other anime series out there).

The cool part about this show—the twist that keeps things interesting—is that the people with special powers (called “contractors”, or 契約者 in Japanese) have to pay a price for being able to do what they do. That price is called a “remuneration”, basically the “fine print” on their special powers contract that sort of screws them over. Each character has a different price, from having to smoke a cigarette to eating flowers or breaking their fingers (or even worse, but I won’t ruin some of the better stories).

Amidst all this is a pretty decent mystery, a damn cool main character, and a pretty good supporting cast to back him up. The show was a blast, and just so happened to be the replacement for Code Geass in the schedule this past season. That time slot seems to be kind of golden right now (at least in my perspective).

If you’re interested, the two opening animations are here and here. The show should be hitting the states this upcoming spring from Funimation. I’ll definitely be picking it up!

I just finished watching the first season of Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion last night. This series was not at all what I expected. I was anticipating a typical run-of-the-mill mecha show with the usual teenagers piloting the robots. While there is a mecha component, it is way more deep in terms of plot and characterization. The protagonist, Lelouch Lamperouge is perhaps the most morally-ambiguous character to appear in anime in quite some time. The plot twists and ramifications wrought from some of the characters actions were at-times quite visceral.

Code Geass was recently licensed for distribution in the US, and I will definitely be picking it up. Give this show a shot if you get the chance. Here’s my favorite opening sequence (of the 3 songs, and about 5 animations used throughout the show).

The band is slowly coming together now! I think Hachi’s relationship with Shoji is going to start to fall apart too. Who would have believed it (except Ai Yazawa, the mangaka, of course) that a REAL Sachiko would show up to get Shoji’s attention? While Hachi is busy ignoring Shoji and being way too focused on her new life, Shoji happens to have a girl named Sachiko land squarely in front of him. This does not bode well.

Shoji meets Sachiko with patented anime awkward
moment motif in the background.

On the up side, it seems Nobu and Nana have found themselves a bass player named Shin. He’s apparently very young, but incredibly good. There was a pretty tense moment when he mentioned who his idol was, but I’ll leave you all to actually watch the episode to find out what happened.

Nana pulls a crazy move and kisses Hachi, which is making for confusing yet sentimental times for Hachi as well (this happens towards the end of the episode). It seems as if Nana and Hachi oscillate between being almost too close with each other and sometimes they treat each other as if they’re from different planets.

Either way, I’m still enjoying the show 10 episodes in, so I’m definitely going to stick with it. Somebody else should actually try watching and commenting as well!

This episode, to me, finally ushered in the main theme that’s been running in the background of all the relationships: music. I mean, Nana’s band was always the focus of her story, but it always seemed like a backdrop to push the interpersonal stuff forward.

The impromptu concert goes on into the night,
on the kitchen table no less.

That’s not to say that’s not the case in this episode as well, but very little music was actually played by the characters or talked about in previous episodes. Now, music has become Nana’s essence and she bears it for Hachi. As a result, Hachi and Nana are starting to get a lot closer and their social circles start to blend a little more.

Nobu’s back too! His arrival is what kick starts all of this music business. He’s been mulling some ideas over and demos a tune he thinks would be great for the new band (actually the opening song to the show, “rose”). Nana improvises some lyrics and they put on an impromptu concert for Hachi (much to their neighbor’s chagrin).

With Nobu back, I think this episode really marks the start of things heating up for the main characters, they’ve finally got some traction.

Girls are crazy, Hachi proves it, I mean what the hell is up with that whole Sachiko thing she keeps bringing up with Shoji?! Anyways, more hilarity ensues with Yasu as Hachi is convinced that Nana is in secretly in love with him. They both decide to go shopping together as neither has any household items to even make tea with.

Nana asleep, with her tattoo exposed.
The tattoo is of a lotus, pronounced “Ren no Hana” in Japanese
and thus a memento of the man Ren.

While shopping, Nana comes up with the nickname Hachiko (after a famous Japanese dog, Hachi for short) for the other Nana (who from this episode henceforth becomes officially named Hachi). Nana sees Hachi as a little puppy who can be cute to hang out with but mostly trouble. This comes into play especially in this episode as Hachi has another one of those “love at first sight” moments with her new boss (yes, she finally got a job).

Hachi is still sticking with Shoji though, who is perplexed as ever at Hachi’s friendly devotion to Nana.

The sevens rule in this episode. However, the first seven minutes are kind of wasted by recapping the last little bits that the last episode didn’t cover (primarily the whole apartment rental thing between Hachi, Nana, and their two respective real estate agents). Did I ever mention that the word “nana” (なな or numerically/in kanji as 七) in Japanese can mean the number 7? If I didn’t, then some of the puns throughout the series might be missed (particularly the whole room number thing).

Left to Right: Hachi, Junko, Shoji, Kyosuke, and Yasu
(Nana’s lawyer friend and fellow bandmate).

After the recap, we find out Hachi’s friends’ (namely Junko, Kyousuke, and of course Shoji) reaction to her decision to live with Nana. Both Junko and Shoji are perplexed that Hachi would choose to live with a —as far as they know— complete stranger. I was worried for a while, but Hachi showed enough guts to stick with her decision even after Shoji finally makes a standing offer to have her live permanently with him. Did I mention Shoji’s intentions to eventually marry Hachi? Watch the episode to find out more! You know you want to!

I’m not going to bother writing too much for this episode as it’s a recap of the first episode’s events. I guess the real value in this episode is that the viewer gets to revisit them after learning about our two heroines’ backgrounds and motivations for moving to Tokyo. While they couldn’t exactly start the show with episode 2, they probably could have planned things better so they wouldn’t have had to rehash an entire episode about a quarter of the way through the season.

I guess your mileage may vary depending on how much you remember from episode 1.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately on NANA, see the last entry for excuses. As far as episode 5 goes, it picks up right where episode 4 left off. Ren and Nana are in bed where Ren breaks the news that he’s moving to Tokyo to join a new band, effectively abandoning Nana and the rest of BLAST (short for Black Stones, their band). The majority of the episode is spent visiting the rest of the band members’ reaction to Ren’s decision (with Ren pretty much already off to Tokyo after the first 2 minutes of the show). The heart and soul of the band was Ren, and now he’s gone, what will they do?

Nana and fellow bandmate Nobu talk
about what to do now that Ren is gone.

Well, Hachi got two episodes and now Nana got her two, effectively bringing the audience up to speed with her motivations for moving to Tokyo and thus her fateful meeting up with Hachi on the train. This episode solidified my preference Nana’s character over Hachi’s. Nana seems more introspective, and I think we see her vulnerable side more often than we do Hachi’s. Hachi always seems to cover it up with prissy behavior.

Nana essentially replaces Ren as the soul of the band after all the turmoil over him leaving is more or less resolved (I guess resolved in an open-ended way is the best way to put it, it is only the fifth episode you know). While anyone watching the episode would expect this, the journey to that position is a lot more human and less contrived than I’ve seen in other shoujo anime. Now that we’re caught up with both the main characters’ lives, I guess it’s back to the “present day” to see where they go from there.

This episode splits its time evenly between the two main characters. We first have to wrap up the previous story arc with Hachi and Shoji. Shoji eventually catches up to Hachi and plays his whole angry overture as if he was just kidding around and got out of control. Kind of retarded, although Hachi drags the real reason out of him later on in their hotel room (you’ll just have to watch the episode to see how).

Nana takes a smoke by the ocean before the concert
that would change her life forever.

We then shift to NANA (which I will be spelling as Nana from now on as it’s too much of a pain to keep spelling it with capital letters). Nana’s story seems much more interesting, mainly because she’s so much tougher than Hachi right from the get-go. Nana’s had a lot of tragedy in her life, and ends up without any living family by the time she’s 18. Luckily, she encounters Ren, a proud-to-be-an-orphan up and coming rock star in her little town (which I assume is in the North of Japan by all of the snow).

Nana’s love/admiration/jealousy of Ren consumes her entirely (as she describes much more poignantly in the episode). So far the ending song seems to always come in at the perfect time with each episode. The somber musical tone the song opens with fits the ending narrative tone of each episode incredibly well.