Bee Train are at it again (requiem for the phantom)

I could swear that there's a "other girls with gun anime" thread out there but I can't find it,either I'm blind and don't know how to use the search fonction properly or it got deleted.

I thought that after the trilogy of "noir","madlax" and "el cazador de la bruja" bee train would be done with girls with gun.

But here comes requiem for the phantom in april







I guess the difference with the previous ones is that it's not an original story but an adaptation.

Anyone gonna watch it?

Toradora! and To Aru Majutsu no Index will both be done by then, so I'll give the first few episodes a shot...

Might be worth a looksee.

Okay, guess I was wrong about only the FMA remake seeming worthwhile for Spring 09.

From what I've researched on it, it's based on a visual novel game and there was even an OAV series made for it five years ago.

*shrug*
I'll try it out. Hopefully it's more of a Noir or El Caz than a Madlax. If only Madlax had possessed the same sense of humor as Kill Bill...

Am I right in saying that these Bee Train animes are the set distinguished by having "stylised" gunfights to avoid showing blood or bullet impacts, and so dodging strict censors on their broadcast channel?

I've browsed past the Noir and Madlax complete collections in Forbidden Planet's anime shelves a few times. Is there anything more to them than the gunplay? If not, is the gunplay enough to sustain interest in the series?

Noir is more about two assassins with a bunch of repressed memories rediscovering their sordid pasts than it is about the gunplay...

Madlax is about.. well, I couldn't tell ya the overarching plot, 'cause I never finished the series... but from what I saw, a really lonely supersoldier chick who loses more potential boyfriends than James Bond loses hussies... also, a lonely rich girl. Never got far enough to find out what part she played.

Robert Frazer wrote:Am I right in saying that these Bee Train animes are the set distinguished by having "stylised" gunfights to avoid showing blood or bullet impacts, and so dodging strict censors on their broadcast channel?

Yes,traditionaly that's what they do,what interests me is that in the pic i posted above,there's blood!

The director had said the previous ones were part of a trilogy and then he'd move on,that's why I was shocked when I saw this since it had another girl with a gun but now I realise there's a big difference:the previous ones always had 2 girls as main characters (and noir was basicly girls only) while in this one it seems like we have a girl and a guy.

So i'm expecting this to be a bit different from their previous productions.

Here's something intereresting.

Someone who we all know is singing the opening:

Opening Theme:
"Karma" by KOKIA

and wow,i wonder why i'm not surprised when I see who's doing the ending:

Ending Theme:
"Gates of Hell" by ALI PROJECT

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com.au/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=10541

Noir was a pretty decent ride as far as I was concerned. I thought El Cazador was highly entertaining. The humor of it hit me just right. Plus Blue-Eyes and Nadie were pretty easy on the eyes.

However, Madlax...I have a love/hate thing going on. I tried, I really tried to give that show a chance and finish it. I think I've attempted to watch it on nearly 5-7 attempts, and each time only make it 2-3 episodes then I quit out of protest from my overstretched brain. I did however, really like the music from it. Perhaps that's what kept me trying to go back and watch it. Especially Nowhere by FunctionJunction YUUKA.

Like LoC said, I'll be willing to give this a shot if it's not as abstract as Madlax.

LoC978 wrote:Noir is more about two assassins with a bunch of repressed memories rediscovering their sordid pasts than it is about the gunplay...

Madlax is about.. well, I couldn't tell ya the overarching plot, 'cause I never finished the series... but from what I saw, a really lonely supersoldier chick who loses more potential boyfriends than James Bond loses hussies... also, a lonely rich girl. Never got far enough to find out what part she played.

Madlax is about so much more than that!
It's got excellent lesbian undertones!
Was pretty abstract, but I still love it.
>>;
I actually really like both Madlax and Noir, but haven't seen any El Cazador.
This new show looks interesting though. Might give it a look

Mentionned it earlier

Here's an extract from the OP (from a japanese radio show)

Now,i've grown to like the il teatrino OP but wonder if this isn't a better fit for GG

http://kazado.blogsome.com/2009/03/13/el-karma-de-kokia/

Eh, I'm not so sure - it sounds too dreamy and evanescent, really. It might be suited for an questing epic with a far-ranging and all-encompassing scope, but Gunslinger Girl has always been the inverse - intense, small-scale and personal. For instance, there's only cursory treatment of the justification of the Agency's child assassins, and the story instead just focuses on the actual lives and characters of the girls themselves.

I wonder if its going to have yuri undertones again.

Madlax I like only because ADV had a blast making those extras like the sockpuppet show and converations with SSS.

I loved it so much I used one of those prank calls on my friend. And for some reason he fell for the joke the exact same way as in the clip.

In case anyone's interested in looking out for Phantom, don't go depending on Animesuki to figure out when episodes will be out. It seems one of the companies behind promoting the series, Media Factory, pressured the site not to feature links to any titles that they are promoting, even if unlicensed. I do know that there's a fansub group named Jade Fansubs that has the anime as one of their projects right now and they recently released the first episode subbed. Google for their web site and keep tabs on them to know when future episodes will be out.

Tokyo Toshodan is listing them, as well. I'm downloading Desire's 810p version since I like what they did with RideBack.

Kiskaloo wrote:Tokyo Toshodan is listing them, as well. I'm downloading Desire's 810p version since I like what they did with RideBack.

My comp can bearly handle 720p so 810p scares me.

BTW anyone know why it's 810p? first time i've seen it and i'd never heard of anything using that number of lines.

Oh and formula&chibi are planning to sub this


how do i know?

I use this link:
http://www.fansubwiki.com/Who_Subs_What:_SPRING_2009

does anybody know if Fullmetal Alchemist ep 2 a new story line or just a remake ?

Awinnell wrote:does anybody know if Fullmetal Alchemist ep 2 a new story line or just a remake ?

Remake that intends to stick sticks closer to the manga from what i've heard

Totoum wrote:My comp can barely handle 720p so 810p scares me. BTW anyone know why it's 810p?

The group FTP offered the second "Someday Dreamers" show in 1920x1080. Looks gorgeous, but it really maxes out my MacBook Pro's dual-core CPU (so I usually watch it on the Mac Pro which has four dual-cores).

1440x810p is a new one for me, as well. I am guessing it's an optional resolution for Japan's ISDB HD system since a number of shows appear to have been broadcast in that resolution as well as 720p. The ITU has a 1440x1152 HD standard (HDMAC).

Desire did note that a 720p version is broadcast after the 810p version.

Funimation's licensed FMA 2 and plan to launch the first ep with subtitles on their web site later this week.

Just finished Episode 01 and give it a "meh". Never saw the OAV so I am guessing this is just fleshing out the story over 13 episodes instead of 3?

I'll give it a second chance when #2 is released, but right now I'm thinking "K-On!" might well be my only "Spring" anime series.

Kiskaloo wrote: but it really maxes out my MacBook Pro's dual-core CPU (so I usually watch it on the Mac Pro which has four dual-cores)

I have to quit every app on my good old G5 imac in order to maybe be able to watch a 720p fansub release.

Thanks for the info on the 810p

Though that ITU standard seems a bit dated,looks like they just took a PAL image and made it 4 times bigger.

And out of nowhere: Funimation announced just today that they will be streaming episodes of Phantom on their sites with the fourth episode out all subbed as of today. Guess this means Funi has licensed the series.

After three episodes, I wasn't getting in to it so at best I was planning to just download the fansubs and try it as a "set", but now I can just ignore it and maybe down the road rent it from Netflix.

Looks like Funimation sent C&Ds to all the groups fan-subbing it, resulting in them all dropping it. So Funimation's site is the only place to get it going forward until they release the DVDs. I suppose the biggest drawback is that it's not in HD (which the fansubs were) so definitely will wait for the DVDs.

I would guess they did the same with FMA: Brotherhood, as well, though I dropped that show after Episode 2.

Kiskaloo wrote:Looks like Funimation sent C&Ds to all the groups fan-subbing it, resulting in them all dropping it. So Funimation's site is the only place to get it going forward until they release the DVDs. I suppose the biggest drawback is that it's not in HD (which the fansubs were) so definitely will wait for the DVDs.

Sending C&Ds out to fansub groups doesn't surprise me with Funi considering how they've responded to any of their licensed shows being torrented as fansubs. When I used to torrent my anime in college, one of my regular torrent sites didn't host Funimation or ADV-licensed material thanks to C&Ds from the distributors.

I would guess they did the same with FMA: Brotherhood, as well, though I dropped that show after Episode 2.

I'm not too keen on seeing an anime remake more based on the manga. I've been reading the later chapters to the FMA manga and it doesn't strike as well of a chord with me as the first anime series did, especially since Scar and the Homunculus aren't as sympathetic to connect with in the manga.

"This content is not available in your territory."

Thanks a lot funimation

I'm sure the licence will get picked up in france,just have to wait a bit,now if "eden of the east" were to get licenced i'd find waiting for dvds quite a bit harder.

Why not use an American proxy? That's what I normally do for this sort of thing, if I can be bothered to find one

Well is anyone still following this? I had dropped it,then gave it a second chance and ended up marathoning 8-13 ,was quite pleasantly surprised,and i'm waiting for the next episodes

Probably shouldn't say anything given I'm biased to the VN, but I dropped it the very moment I heard Ali Project start up at the end. Sorry, just don't like Ali Project (although if that's the case WHY I'm watching Sora Kake Girl eludes me).

sasahara17 wrote:Probably shouldn't say anything given I'm biased to the VN, but I dropped it the very moment I heard Ali Project start up at the end. Sorry, just don't like Ali Project (although if that's the case WHY I'm watching Sora Kake Girl eludes me).

And they're doing the new OP that will go from 14 until the end,thanks to chapters in mkv files i can just skip it it with the push of a button though

I am downloading it, but have yet to watch past #2.

Update:

Well, I'd pretty much given up on this after about six episodes. It really wasn't that good. It seemed like just more and more of Ein and Zwei carrying out hits for a ridiculously named crime syndicate headed by a guy with a taste for fabulous costumes. Plus wtf was with the Scythe guy molesting Ein?

But I ended up watching a bit more of the show with someone I know who is into anime, and somewhere around episode seven or eight or so, things actually got really good. The show finally developed an emotional hook, the shady maneuvering got more complicated, and we got some good action scenes. And it's stayed pretty good since then, despite some of the stuff with Cal having an uncomfortable hint of lolicon (there's one scene that can make one kind of uncomfortable once one remembers that Phantom is based on a game that had H scenes in at least one of its versions). That, and a couple episodes mixed an awful lot of recap clips in among their new footage.

And then I hit the episode 20. And while I haven't watched past the new OP yet, I have to say this:

Cluster. WTF. Bombs. Away.

Okay, I have a pretty decent idea of what's actually going on, it's more the fact that I didn't think Ein and Zwei were really young enough to pull of being part of the environment they're suddenly in here. That and the new OP. Plus the fact that if the blonde girl we saw in the OP is who I think she is, then puberty must have hit her like an express train considering this is only supposed to be a two year time skip.

Edit: Also, Claudia McCunnen is played by the same voice actress as Skuld from Ah! My Goddess. That's just... really wrong somehow.

The thing that makes the less sense in phantom is the ages

Ages:

Season 1 (episodes 1-10):
Ein: 14 (she looks too old... but since she can't grow, she will look to young for rest of her life tough)
Zwei: 15

Season 2 (12-19):
Ellen: 15
Reiji: 16
Cal: 14

Season 3 (20-26):
Ellen: 17
Reiji: 18
Cal: 16

Someone should make a version of that comparing the two Cals.

Ein/Ellen and Zwei/Ryuji were supposed to be that young? They seemed a heck of a lot older in the first two arcs, particularly Ryuji in the second story arc. And Cal looked like she was like... 10. Well, maybe you could push it up to 12 or something... but still... well, anyone whose seen the two versions should pretty much understand. It's like looking at the difference between a little kid and an adult, not a fourteen year old teenager and a sixteen year old teenager.

I have to admit though, I kind of like the new Cal (even if I think they went a bit too far with her bust size upgrade -and I don't mean that just in reference to the 'holy shit she filled out that much in two years' sense). Although I have to admit the idea of her as Phantom strains credibility a bit. She's got the skills, but she hasn't got the control. She's kind of like Black Lagoon's Revy in Whitman Fever mode. You'd think Inferno would have realised she was an unstable element before she really went off the wire.

But then really, the fact that she's deadly skilled and rather unstable is part of what makes her awesome.

Edit: Just figured out the proper description for the new Cal: deranged.

It appears that no fan-service anime girl can be taken seriously unless her bust size is in the triple digits.

Oh how I miss the 80's.

True enough.

Kei and Yuri, A-ko, Doris from Vampire Hunter D. All nominal bust sizes and STILL strong, believable characters. Yes, even A-ko is a believable character. If you've ever dated a red-headed woman with a baaaad temper and during 'that time of the month'; you can believe in a RL A-ko.

Personally, I think the main influence in the 90's was prolly due to someone saying that, "Hey, we can make porn out of this." And then someone else says, "F--K THAT!! Let's go for broke and make these women not just unbelievable...but unreal!"

And thus as in the US, one medium influences/effects the other and now we are where we are now. Although it looks like trends are currently changing if the Happy Lesson series and Ai Yori Aioshi are any indication.

Piero wrote:Although I have to admit the idea of her as Phantom strains credibility a bit. She's got the skills, but she hasn't got the control.

I do like elen's line at the start of episode 22 , something along the lines of "phantom now greets people?How cute" highlighting that Cal might not be deserving of the title,cal then says she can still kill whoever she wants.

I really like that line because it comes from elen,who as ein in the first arc would have been unable to say a line like that,so it shows she's progressed quite a bit