Archive for the 'TOKYOPOP' Category

GTO Vol. 1

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Synopsis
Meet Eikichi Onizuka, a 22-year-old virgin and ex-biker. He’s crude, foul-mouthed, and has a hair-trigger temper. His goal: to be the greatest high school teacher in the world. Unfortunately, the only teaching job available is at Holy Forest Academy (no certification requiered) There he uses his street smarts to deal with colleagues and students alike. GTO is the runaway hit from Japan based on the hugely popluar manga series by Tohru Fujisawa. The finale of the live action version of GTO was the most watched TV program ever in Japan.

Review
When I first heard about GTO, I thought it was something to do with cars, simply because of the Mitsubishi GTO and such. Turns out that GTO is about a man who was in a biker gang and later on left it to fulfill his dream to become a high school teacher. Of course this task isn’t going to be easy with the troublesome kids that play pranks on their teachers.

Overall, this is a pretty enjoyable series. I liked the values it taught. Onizuka has made an impact on his students, students who hated him at first, later on liked him as a teacher because of the things he did to get them out of trouble or the things he did to stop bad students continue doing their bad things (Getting his biker gang to teach those kids a lesson ^_^). I’d recommend the Japanese Drama series more than the anime series though. I just think, the Jdrama and the anime series both are similar in ways but the Jdrama is live which was, obviously, more realistic.

The Breakdown
GTO, Get iT Otherwise you’re missing out on an excellent dose of Anime. TokyoPOP has licensed GTO and it is currently available in both Manga and Animation.

Initial D: 1st Stage, 2nd Stage, and 3rd Stage

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Synopsis
Initial D 1st Stage, 2nd Stage, and 3rd Stage: Lets start off by knowing what INITIAL D stands for shall we? Initial D - Initial Drive: Initial is the beginning of a word or something so when it all comes together, Initial D stands for the beginning to drive. Exactly what the series is about. This anime shows you how technology is used in anime and as newer technology is produced the better the quality is. OK…, You’re probably confused right now, but if you have seen the series you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t see the series then I’ll explain what I’m talking about in the review.

Review
1st Stage - First off, any Import cars fan will love this anime and if you’re not an import cars fan then you’ll not enjoy this anime as much as the people that are. The story starts off with this dude named Takumi Fujiwara. He’s a high school student and a part time worker at a gas station. At first Takumi, didn’t like to race or should I say he had no idea what was the point of racing. After his first race with his father’s customized Toyota AE86 Trueno (Thunder in Spanish) he was being hooked to racing little by little. As the story goes on its about his racing to find himself. Personally I loved the last race the RX-7 FC against the AE86, because its the last race for the 1st season (stage)

2nd Stage - A continuation of the 1st Stage, still Takumi has a 0 loss record, but now a new racing team has formed known as EMPEROR, of course they want to beat Takumi and … (can’t spoil the races). Any way that’s almost it for 2nd Stage.

3rd Stage - Is known as ‘The Movie’. This is the best out of all the Initial D’s. It’s the final chapter to Takumi’s quest to find himself through racing. The main race in 3rd Stage is the MR2 and the AE86. After that race Takumi finally showed his love for Natsuki Mogi (the main female character in Initial D). The quality of the 3D CGs are the best (after all its the last chapter for Takumi) Also Ryousuke Takahashi (driver of the RX-7 FC) has made a new racing team formed by the best of the best racers and he asked Takumi if he wanted to join…(hehe, getting annoyed?). OK, 3rd Stage is the best out of the 3 Stages, I know you’ll say, ‘What happened to Extra Stage?’ Well I didn’t see it because its about the girls that drove the Sil 80. I’ll see it once I have a chance to get it and write a review for it too. Until then here are the scores for all the Initial D’s.

The Breakdown
I can’t make you watch any thing, but it’s good to try out new things once in a while.