Recently in anime about sports, games, competitions Category

With the new year just around the corner, I find myself mulling over anime I saw this year. Some were horrible, a few were excellent but most were entertaining enough.

I noticed many of the shows I watched had a supernatural or magical theme. I don't even remember seeing anything mecha-related. Sorry but giant robots leave me cold.

I have to feed the artsy fartsy side of moi now and then so I gravitate toward shows that look unique, tackle an unusual subject matter or tell a tale in a way I haven't seen before. "Mononoke", which deals with the adventures of an unusual medicine peddler, fit that bill. You should check out the show when you have the chance. I suppose you could say "Mononoke" was a spinoff of "Ayakashi" since the peddler was a character in one of the featured tales there.


Yes, I also saw my share of shonen anime from "Naruto Shippudden" to "D. Grayman" this year. The latter ended recently and was a letdown. Since the manga isn't finished, the animators decided to end the show just after the Black Order's headquarters get attacked. Lame. I hope they later come out with movies.

Do stay away from the mess that is "Le Chevalier D'eon". It is loosely based on a historical figure who was a spy for the king of France and who had a fondness for wearing women's clothing. In the anime, he dons dresses when the ghost of his murdered sister possesses him. The show is a mishmash of historical figures involved in conspiracies, secret societies and other arcane stuff. While the animation is beautiful, the plot is too convoluted and unbelievable. And anyone who loves history better steer clear of this anime which plays fast and loose with the facts.

There are days when I'm just not in the mood to follow a series. When a quick anime fix is all I need to get me through the day or week. Enter the short film.

"Kakurenbo" by Shuuhei Morita fits this bill. The movie is about a group of children playing hide-and-seek in an abandoned city. They all wear masks.

One of the characters is a boy named Hikora whose sister, Sorincha, disappeared while playing said game. I can't remember how long she's been missing though. Hikora thinks by participating in the game, he will find her.

But he will realize this particular hide-and-seek game comes with a sinister twist.

It's not a bad short film and actually won several awards.

So VIZ Media announced the new Pokemon movie is out on DVD today. Never been a fan of Ash and the gang although I do find Pikachu very cute and own a giant version of the yellow furball. It's a denizen of my room along with a stuffed version of Kon from "Bleach."

But I digress.

"PokÈmon: The Rise of Darkrai" will hit store shelves today. Price is $19.98.

The PokÈmon television series airs seven days a week on Cartoon Network and episodes can be viewed online on Toonami JetstreamT.

Here's a synopsis of the movie from the VIZ release: "While touring Alamos Town - home of the Space-Time Tower - with the beautiful Alice, Ash and his friends discover that the town's special garden has been decimated. Baron Alberto, a dashing but arrogant fellow, immediately blames the destruction on Darkrai.

As if it just overheard the accusation, Darkrai appears and confronts our heroes! Who is Darkrai? Is it a friend... or an enemy in disguise? And as a battle between Legendary PokÈmon Dialga and Palkia rages directly above Alamos Town, and threatens to tear a hole in the space-time continuum, will Ash and his friends survive this showdown and learn Darkrai's true nature?"

Here is the opening song to the anime "Shion No Ou" or "Shion's King" which combines a mystery with a sport anime. This is courtesy of YouTuber xAzakura. The show is also known as "Flowers of Hard Blood."

Shion Yasuoka is a sweet girl who plays shogi, a board game similar to chess, very well. She communicates via a notepad because she hasn't spoken a word after witnessing the stabbing deaths of her real parents at age five. Her neighbors, the Yasuokas, adopted her and raised her as their own. Her adoptive father is a professional shogi player and he nurtures her innate talent for the game.

At a young age, she is considered an excellent female shogi player.

Like any anime geared toward competitions, the show focuses on the players and the games. So the simple act of moving a game piece is overblown sometimes. But that's common in such shows.

What makes this anime interesting is the mystery of who killed Shion's parents. The show never loses sight of that main plot line so I have yet to see a wasted episode.

The conventions of shonen or boy's anime require that the hero improve his skills as the show goes on. This entails beating up challengers who later become pals or rivals. The conversation in these shows usually features such gems as, "I'll never forgive you!" and "I'll avenge my master." Expect simple or even crude-looking character designs and a color palette straight out of primary school.

Since this is not shoujo drama, you won't see teary-eyed girls sobbing out, "Why?" to the hero. If there is a love interest, she would either be too shy to confess her love to the lead character or be too bossy and tough that she routinely smacks him upside the head. Aaah young love.

"Law of Ueki" is a show that never strays from these conventions. The current ruler of the Heavens or Celestial World has decided that his successor is whoever wins a certain competition. But here's the catch. The candidates for ruler won't be duking it out. That honor falls to their representatives, junior high school students they selected and given one power or talent.

The candidates cannot interfere in the fights between their representatives or they will be disqualified from the running and sent to hell.

Our unlikely hero is a green-haired 13-year-old named Kosuke Ueki who acts simple but has a good heart. His teacher, Kobayashi, is actually one of the ruler candidates. He picks Ueki as his rep and gives the boy the power to turn trash into trees. As with most shonen shows, this master and pupil relationship is an important one for the hero.

The trick to enjoying "Law of Ueki" is not to think too much about the plot or take it seriously. Just keep in mind the rules of the contest. Reps who get knocked out lose their power and are gone from the competition. Winners earn a skill after each successful bout. In Ueki's case, it's usually some useless skill. Any rep who goes after someone without power loses a talent or skill. In our teen's case, he lost his ability to run fast and his math skills since he meted out justice to scummy people who abused those weaker than them. Cue the heroic music.

Ueki is not really human but the offspring of a Celestial Being who wanted a leg up on the competition. But this being's plan backfired since he wasn't picked to be a candidate for ruler of the Celestial World. Ueki gets adopted by a human family and raised to be a good kid. This background means Ueki can actually power up and have certain weapons only accessible to Celestial Beings. As he progresses in skills, he learns to wield these weapons. Obviously, a level two Celestial doesn't have the arsenal of a level eight Celestial. There are 10 levels.

Along the way, Ueki befriends other reps and ruler candidates as well as learns more rules. But since this is an action show, there's lots of fighting going on.

What gets old fast is the characters announcing their power every time they use it. For instance, one girl has the ability to turn beads into bombs so when she tosses the beads at her opponents, she has to yell out, "The power to turn beads into bombs!" Why do we have to know each and every time she does this? Last time I checked, I don't suffer from short term memory loss.

And whoever drew the characters must have dropped out of art class. With few exceptions, they all looked like they got beaten with the ugly stick as babies.

Change is inevitable. Who you are now isn't the person you were five, 10 or 15 years ago. But fear traps many folks from realizing their full potential. At least that seems to be the case with Shinichi Chiaki, a young man with exceptional music skills who harbors a deep fear of flying and sea travel. We meet the 22-year-old Momogaoka Music Academy student in "Nodame Cantabile", a 2007 anime series based on a popular and award-winning manga. There is also a live-action show that was shown in Japan last year.

Chiaki plays both violin and piano at a level beyond most of his peers, composes music and possesses an ear that knows when a piece is being played right or being massacred. He is well aware of his talents and doesn't suffer fools gladly. He walked out on his piano instructor and was dropped from a competition.

He yearns to become a conductor and study under the conductor Sebastino Viera whom he met as a child. But alas, our arrogant musical prodigy cannot leave Japan because he cannot ride an airplane. So he is stuck and seethes at his apparent misfortune as other music students head for greener pastures overseas. During a self-pitying bout at a bar, his girlfriend decided to drop him because he doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Chiaki drunkenly collapses outside the door of his next door neighbor, Megumi Noda, another piano student at the academy commonly known as Nodame. She lets him sleep it off inside her apartment which is unbelievably filthy. He is appalled at her abode when he wakes up and proceeds to clean it up. While she is smitten with him, he just wants out of the disgusting place. But he pauses when he hears piano music.

Nodame plays the piano in this freewheeling style that both annoys and fascinates Chiaki. She can listen to a piece once or twice and then play it note for note in her unique style. She gets so obsessed with playing a piece that she can be up for days focused on nothing else. Nodame, however, is a slob and often wears the same clothing for days, forgets to bathe daily and rarely cleans her apartment. She peppers her language with gibberish picked up from her favorite inane cartoon. She also tries to talk cute, acts a lot like a simpleton and mooches food from Chiaki daily. She makes no bones about her attraction to him while he constantly nags, scolds and insults her. Yet deep down, he doesn't really mind her hanging around.

She has her own fears to conquer. We see this weird couple overcome personal obstacles on the way to becoming better musicians. The series also features a great selection of music the different characters played. I love classical music a lot so I enjoyed most of the episodes of "Nodame Cantabile". Not all the pieces played are classical however.

Nodame, however, took a lot of getting used to. Her voice, mannerisms and subservience to Chiaki irritated me to no end. I longed to smack some sense into her or at least make her stop her inane exclamations. Although a lot of CGI is used in the musical parts, I've seen better animation. The characters are drawn simply. Was it beyond the skill of the manga artist to draw lips?? How about faces that don't look exactly the same?

Despite the annoying heroine and boring character designs, I think the show works because it doesn't lose sight of its heart. Love of music, friendship, believing in someone and overcoming one's personal fears are themes that weave in and out of this entertaining show.

I fancied myself a chess player when I was younger until a college editor demolished my ego by defeating me in 10 moves. It was a sad day for me. And if I were the heroine of some coming-of-age anime, I would have wept my eyes out while sitting on a swing at some playground with rain falling softly in the background. Cue appropriate sad music.

But of course I live in the real world so I dealt with it by admitting I really sucked at chess and the game was better off without me. The decision was bolstered by the fact I've never even beaten my brother at the game let alone won a school chess tournament.

Imagine how far I would have gone if I had a mentor like Hikaru Shindo did in "Hikaru no Go". It's a shonen or boy's show about a student, a Heian Go master and the ancient board game called Go. Hikaru finds a Go board at his grandfather's place and somehow the ghost of Go master Fujiwara-no-Sai awakens and appears before the boy.

Hikaru doesn't know how to play Go but wanders into a Go parlor where he ends up playing Akira Toya, the son of a high-ranking professional Go player and a whiz at the game. Hikaru beats Akira because Sai actually tells him what moves to make. Akira, who could easily turn pro, becomes obsessed with defeating Hikaru going so far as to join a middle school team so he could meet his rival again at a school meet. This time he beats Hikaru but he thinks the boy isn't playing seriously. Actually Hikaru could have won if he just let Sai play Akira again instead of playing by himself.

Hikaru isn't a good Go player but he's trying to improve his skill. He wants to catch up to Akira's level. In the fourth DVD volume, Hikaru lets Sai play Internet Go where he bests players all over the world and gains a reputation as being an excellent player. Everyone is looking for Sai.

I like watching the show despite the shonen cliches. I find the game interesting and Hikaru not a bad kid at all. Akira on the other hand, needs to lighten up.

There's a lot of anime cliches that appear in "Hikaru no Go". Players weep and clench their jaws, every game is treated like it's the battle to end all battles, the hero also learns new skills/moves as the show goes on and there's the rival always in the background. There's a lot of close ups of the Go board as each game is played perhaps to entice the viewer to play along.

Each DVD also contains a segment featuring a lady Go teacher and her two young pupils so the viewer can learn Go along with them. "Hikaru no Go" isn't a bad show and certainly kid-friendly. I even thought about learning the game at one point then reality hit me upside the head. I didn't want to lose anymore games by 10 moves and last time I looked, no ghostly Go master was trailing behind me.

"Hikaru no Go" is available on DVDs and via www.toonamijetstream.com