Animanga Nation

Review by: Edward Zacharias
Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
MSRP: $49.98 US
Running Time: 615 minutes
Genre: Mystery
Rating: TV PG
Release Date: Available Now

The real mystery is how this series remains to be brilliant.

I love Case Closed for many reasons, the principle reason being that, no matter how many times we watch Conan shoot Richard Moore with his darts to turn him into the “Sleeping Sleuth” in order to lay out all the dirty details of a case, this show remains considerably entertaining no matter what happens. Where other shows would have clearly become too repetitive to the point of being unwatchable, Case Closed remains to be thoroughly entertaining enough that the mysteries remain fresh and intriguing.

Sure, we would like to see Jimmy (as Conan, of course) move forward in the case that turned him into a little boy in the first place but what’s the fun in that? He does mention the reason why he continues to push Richard’s career forward into celebrity status but he doesn’t really push Richard into looking into the group that wanted him dead in the first place. It’s good to see that he hasn’t forgotten his real objectives, at least. As I said, though, where the fun in watching him chase the men that turned him into a pint-sized sleuth when he’s got so many interesting cases to solve.

In Season Five, bits of Jimmy’s life come into light as well as his relationship with Rachel. In the first episode of the set, Episode 106, an attractive young woman named Annette Peters comes to Jimmy’s house claiming to be Jimmy’s first love. She’s also a member of the Who Done It Club who came to invite Jimmy but ends up inviting Richard, Rachel, Conan and Rachel’s friend Serena. When a fire nearly kills Annette, it is Conan who jumps on the case to figure out what happened.

Thus begins a number of cases Conan tackles … some of which are elaborate enough that they require more than just one episode to solve such as the first episode. We follow Conan as he attempts to solve a crime involving a famous movie star on the verge of a divorce when his wife drops dead in front of him. Then follows a case where Rachel’s new culinary arts teacher ends up with a needle-sized hole in her back. Could it be one of her students? In another episode, two sisters who happen to be fans of Richard’s favorite pop star, Yoko, when one of the sisters ends up dead in her bathtub.

Like in past episodes, vacationing with Richard never results in the trio enjoying a peaceful holiday. When they go out snorkeling, they find a girl that went missing … in the bottom of a reef. In another beach trip, Richard finds himself getting some attention from some college girls that heard about him. When one of the college girls is bitten by a poisonous water snake, everyone begins to suspect that is was done in person. One of the interesting parts about this episode is that it features Rachel’s mother and Richard’s ex-wife.

Then there are the episodes that feature the Junior Detective League as Conan and his young friends solve a crime that involves a client who believes his sister was murdered and buried in the front yard of his sister’s client. In another case, the kids (as well as Richard and Rachel) are invited to a Masked Yaiba costume party when a partygoer ends up dead it’s the kids on the case. The children are even targeted by a man who runs Amy over with his car and then turns himself in after a body where this man works is discovered by the police. They even help a weather girl for a news channel who goes missing.

Speaking of the weather girl case, I won’t give it away but in this episode nobody ends up dead. It’s great to see episodes about murder but it’s also refreshing to see cases that don’t end with a corpse. For instance, one episode has Richard accepting a case from a client who hires him to investigate strange occurrences in the house he and his brother inherited from their grandfather. In another episode, Conan and his young friends think that their school might be haunted. In one of my favorite episodes, the daughter of a famous mystery writer might be kidnapped because something is wrong about the way he faxes the chapters of his latest work.

There are a few surprisingly smart episodes such as a case that involves rival sleuth Harley taking Conan along in a serial killer case or the case where Richard watches a former client drop to hear death in an expensive villa. Richard is invited to a banquet in another episode only to find out that a journalist for a tabloid rag is murdered. There are episodes that are actually quite better watching them in its original Japanese mainly due to the text in the episode. These episodes – such as the one with the weather girl – try hard to make the text clues work make sense.

Case Closed, Season Five, doesn’t do anything new but then again why fix what isn’t broken, right? Case Closed continues to be a brilliant and mesmerizing mystery series that – even after five seasons – remains to be one of the best in the genre. This is definitely another season fans will love to have in their collection.

DVD REVIEW BREAKDOWN

MOVIE/EPISODES: B+
Conan finds himself in danger in the fifth season but then again he has his young friends and even Harley as backup. Some of the cases are quite surprisingly complex while others are almost too obvious from the very beginning. Still, it’s always a blast watching Conan unravel the mystery in the end.

VIDEO QUALITY: B
FUNimation does a great job of transferring the original episodes on DVD and they really do look great like past season set releases.

AUDIO QUALITY: B+
The English dub voices do a great job and, once again, they do a good job of keeping up with the original Japanese. Personally, the original Japanese voices make more sense as far as some of the more elaborate episodes are concerned.

EXTRAS: C-
It’s good to see the Character Spotlight again (this time recognizing the Junior Detective League) and Conan’s Gadgets. There’s also the collection of trailers as well but the real treat comes in the original Japanese voice work.

OVERALL: B+
Season Five of Case Closed brings us more of the same and that’s fine with us considering how astonishingly creative the series is and how amusingly diverse the mysteries are in this set alone. It’s also good to see that a few of the mysteries aren’t too serious or somber making the fifth season yet another treat worth savoring.

Review by: Faith McAdams
Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
MSRP: $29.98 US
Running Time: 100 minutes
Genre: Sci-fi/ Action
Rating: TV MA
Release Date: Available Now

Things leading to the past, present and future.

You have to hand it to anime series like Darker Than Black that takes its time laying all its cards on the table. Little by little it shows the cards its been dealt to reveal a hand that has us by the throat. In other words, Darker Than Black is the kind of show that makes us savor the revelations of a mystery that had us hooked from the very first episode. Yes, this series is just that good but what did you expect from BONES and Tensai Okamura.

If Volume 4 of Darker Than Black revealed a little more about the young man named Hei and his alter Contractor ego known as the Dark Reaper then Volume 5 does more of the same but this time it reveals more about the mystery contact named Huang. Yes, the very same Huang who – for the past 18 episodes – has served as Hei’s backup as well as pass on orders from the Syndicate to him. What do we know about him except for the fact that he’s extremely loyal to his bosses and that the man seems permanently grumpy.

Interestingly enough, the first episode in Volume 5 begins with a younger Huang accepting a dinner invitation from his partner at the Public Safety Division of the local police department. Just as grumpy as he was when we first met him, Huang is a loner who sees himself as too ugly to have a woman and too stubborn to ever get drunk. As fate would have it, however, he meets a young girl he thinks was going to pick his pocket. Unexpectedly, Huang actually falls in love. All seems to be perfect until one night a tragic event changes Huang’s life forever.

I won’t tell you what happens but the girl he fell in love with was not who she seemed and disappeared until the present day when the Syndicate sends Huang a picture of a Contractor contact involved in the latest case. This case in question involves a recently formed Hell’s Gate cult called the Friends of the Gate. While many cults have formed as a result of the Gate’s appearance, this one seems to have caught the attention of the Syndicate as well as other familiar characters.

As Hei goes undercover, he realizes there’s definitely nothing right about the cult and its leader named Alma. Sent to assassinate her, Hei finds himself going up against the familiar foe he faced off against with Kirihara at a party at a hotel in a previous volume. Just as he is about to take out the woman named Alma, an unlikely source intervenes … thus leading us to believe that our friend Huang actually has a heart. In fact, the finale of this two-episode story arc leads to some surprising developments.

The final two episodes of Volume 5 we find Kirihara and her department investigating the Contractor group known as EPR and its connection with a Hell’s Gate scientist that disappeared thanks to a beautiful naked woman who has the ability to teleport. Word reaches Kirihara via MI6 agent, November 11, that the group’s next target might just be the U.S. Embassy. As Hei and the others investigate, another familiar face shows up during a melee in the embassy. Also, Mao is grabbed by another recognizable character I won’t mention here and is taken to the EPR headquarters where the scientist discloses some unsettling news. In the end, the wrong people end up winning and another shocking event takes place that really has to be seen.

I should add that the mysteries of this sci-fi action series are finally unraveling before our eyes as characters begin to question what they’re doing and why. Even the loyal Huang feels that things will never be the same again with the Syndicate while Hei’s past is finally catching up with him as well as the events that lead to an occurrence in South America. Even more interesting is that Kirihara and her division are finally coming closer to breaking the case behind the South American event.

Volume 5 of Darker Than Black is building up momentum for what is sure to be a grand finale for this action-packed sci-fi series. As various characters come to learn different things about each another and what they are going up against, the enemy is finally revealing themselves to all those involved and even win a victory. Things are definitely going to get very interesting in the next volume.

DVD REVIEW BREAKDOWN

MOVIE/EPISODES: A+
While we learn something about the mystery that is Huang and take a good glance at his past and what makes him tick, we discover that a person in his past is linked with a case involving a Hell’s Gate cult and its leader. Meanwhile, Mao is kidnapped (cat-knapped?) by some returning characters whose plans are slowly being revealed.

VIDEO QUALITY: A
The series consistently displays some really impressive animation and the blood does fly in this series as well.

AUDIO QUALITY: A
An Café’s opening theme song is starting to grow on me and so is the closing theme song as well. The voice acting in these four episodes are also great no matter what version you like to watch.

EXTRAS: C+
Once again, you just have to love the extras packaged in each disc that brings us production artwork, textless opening and closing songs and a few trailers. There’s even audio commentary for Episode 22 but it’s not as lively as past commentary tracks from this series.

OVERALL: A+
Things are really heating up in Darker Than Black and Volume 5 of this series is not only proof of this but it also makes for some of the more shocking episodes thus far. The end is definitely near as the Contractors face off against those whose agendas we are slowly coming to understand. In other words, the best is yet to come if the next volume is anything like these four episodes.

Review by: Brenda Gregson
Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
MSRP: $69.98 US
Running Time: 650 minutes
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV PG
Release Date: Available Now

Teaching class has never been this crazy or funny.

I have to admit that I missed out on Paniponi Dash when it was first released in separate volumes but everyone in the office swears by how nutty and genuinely funny this comedy is so I had to check it out for myself. It turns out that the Complete Collection of Paniponi Dash is exactly my brand of surreal comedy with blink-and-you-miss-it style sight gags that make this a rare treat for those who enjoy this type of comedy.

Paniponi Dash introduces us to Becky Miyamoto, a 10-year old child prodigy who is the product of a Japanese mother and an American father. She’s not only the youngest student ever to have graduated MIT but she’s also the youngest person ever to teach High school in Japan. Oh, and she just so happens to be late for her first day as a teacher, which has the students of Class 1-C wondering who is this kid and what exactly qualifies her to be a teacher in the first place. When she finally does arrive, she’s so intimidated by her class that she hides behind the curtains and thus making her the object of affection for some students (particularly one named Himeko) and the perfect target for manipulating for others … specifically the bitchy Rei and the nerdy Miyako.

Thus begins 26-episodes of a comedy that plays by its own rules without following the path of similar comedies like this one. Sure, there are episodes that feel familiar (hot springs episodes, anyone?) but even then Paniponi Dash adds its own brand of demented fun. While many of the stories featured in the set aren’t often related to each another, the central of attention if Becky and how her more vocal students see her and eventually come to accept the “little kid teacher.” Then there’s character, something the series handles with little depth because the students all seem to live up to their personality. The boring girl is called the boring girl and the nerdy girl is the calls nerd.

The rest of the series is made up of a series of jokes both visual and otherwise that involve space aliens spying on Becky because they think she’s downright adorable. Then there’s Mesousa, Becky’s talking rabbit that is the ongoing source of abuse from everyone including the weird Class President to a talking cat hiding inside a vending machine that might or might not be God. We also meet the students and faculty of the other classrooms that often interact with Becky’s classroom. There are always constant clashes between the members of the movie club and the drama geek named Akane. By far my favorite character is Behoimi who thinks she’s a Magical Girl for a good portion of the series until she wakes up to the fact that there’s nothing magical about her.

As I mentioned earlier, the stories don’t follow a linear path. There are very few times that characters would recall particular events, although there are reoccurring characters (Roboco) that keep showing up and some jokes that are played up until they get a wee bit tiresome. The good news is that the majority of the jokes are rapid-fire and funny. Most of the jokes even tip their hat to pop cultural icons (Super Mario Bros. and even Who Wants to be a Millionaire?) and even movies such as Planet of the Apes, James Bond flicks and even The Exorcist.

When it comes down to the original Japanese voice acting and the English dub, it’s good to see the English voice acting able to keep up with the more frantic dialogue as they get caught up in a field trip that goes bad, two rival classmates attempting to disarm a bomb in school or defending their school from a giant, a kenoichi (female ninja) and a half-man-half bull bully. There’s some light fan service that never gets out of hand and there are even episodes that are actually cute such as the time the girls of 1-C try to discover the identity of one of their classmate’s crush or why Ichijo, the quiet girl, is acting a lot more weirder than before.

The series does lose a bit of its charm in the final few episodes but not enough that it doesn’t lose its style of comedic timing. This, if anything, is one of the many reason we come to love Paniponi Dash and why you will too if you’re able to follow its fast pace.

Paniponi Dash, Complete Collection, is by far the best way to experience this hilarious and crazy comedy that is a rare series that delivers. While the series’ comedy style isn’t for everyone, you won’t be able to help but laugh at the many of the jokes that do manage to stand out among the outrageous activities that take place in this school. Trust me when I say that comedies this good don’t come along very often.

DVD REVIEW BREAKDOWN

MOVIE/EPISODES: B+
Becky Miyamoto has come to teach Class 1-C at Momotsuki Academy. The weird part is that Becky is only 10-years old and a graduate of MIT. Hilarity ensues when Becky realizes that her students aren’t normal and neither is her life filled with aliens, a depressed talking rabbit and a God who lives in a vending machine.

VIDEO QUALITY: B+
The animation is filled with more sight gags than your average comedy anime and you’ll even have a hard time catching them all. There are some really funny American pop cultural references tossed in as well.

AUDIO QUALITY: B
The English dub is actually just as in-your-face funny as the original Japanese voice work. Some of the jokes are actually funny enough to make you laugh out loud thanks to the great delivery. The music is just Ok and the opening theme songs – especially “Kiiroi Bakansu” – is super cute.

EXTRAS: D
Just about the only extras can be found on the fourth disc and it is made up of trailers. I do love the cute box set covers, though.

OVERALL: B+
Absolutely crazy and completely entertaining, The Complete Collection of Paniponi Dash is a comedy anime series you will not forget anytime soon. Whether it’s the outrageous characters or the insanity that ensues in all 26 episodes, this is a series that will certainly appeal to those that like their comedy a bit on the wacky side.