dtstratovarius (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dtstratovarius) wrote,@ 2008-09-24 01:24:00 |
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Matt's Anime Review: "Coyote Ragtime Show" series
Hey all, again,
Time for another anime review, as I picked this series up right before I went to Bloomington, as our favorite anime Dark Lord, Shawne Kleckner of Right Stuf International, had a 3-day Dark Lord special on this series, and since it was a nice $20 less than my employee discount at work, I immediately jumped on this, after reading/hearing about how good this was. I was NOT disappointed in the least. I've heard many compare this anime as "Ocean's 11" meets "Outlaw Star" with a touch of "Cowboy Bebop," and honestly, those comparisons are pretty damn accurate.
Let's go to ANN's encyclopedia for the storyline, shall we:
-----"Mister is a "coyote" or space faring outlaw who has been sitting in prison for a year for a traffic offense. Ten days from release, he breaks out with the help of his old partners Bishop and Katana. He then seeks out Franka who has been left in his care by her dead father, the Pirate King Bruce, and takes her on a journey to find her father's treasure. On their heels are the federal investigators Angelica and Chelsea as well as the android assassins of the Criminal Guild, Madame Marciano's 'Twelve Sisters.'"
PRODUCTION:
This series really had a lot of things going for it, as all 12 episodes just meshed and clicked extremely well. Handling the series direction was newcomer Matsuri Ouse, while the directing reigns were given to veteran Takuya Nonaka (director: "Armitage: Dual-Matrix," "Hanaukyo Maid Team: La Verite;" key animator for a lot of the Tenchi shows/movies) who did the job extremely well. One of the real underrated and extremely well-done parts of the series was done by series music composer, Koichiro Kameyama ("Mirage of Blaze," "Kirameki Project"). The music was done to just fit all the action and some of the comedy that happened in the series. The music just flowed perfectly in tune with everything. The writing was done episodicially by series director Ouse (handling most of the bulk of the show), comedy writing veteran Ryunosuke Kingetsu ("Ninja Nonsense," "Dokkoida!?"), and Kazuharu Sato ("Arjuna," "Noein," "Colorful"). The character designs were very well done, and handled by the team of Jun Shibata (character design for "Ninja Nonsense," "The Skull-Man," key animator for "Eureka Seven") and Tomonori Sudou (animation for shows such as "R.O.D.-TV," "Naruto," and "NieA7"). And the really good mechanical designs for the guns and ships (which did have a bit of an omage to "Outlaw Star," with Mister's ship) were handled by Satoshi Takahashi (key animation on a lot of Tenchi shows, and "You're Under Arrest" TV). All-in-all, a TOP NOTCH job by all involved.
DUB:
Well, this one had one of AD Vision's second-string ADR directors, who's been solid to above-average on everything he's done in Don Rush ("Full Metal Panic," FMP:Fumoffu, and more). However, Rush went with an interesting mix of ADV veterans for this dub, including relative newcomer/voice actor George Manley, assisting him on the ADR script.
Starring in this action-filled short-series is ADV veteran John Swasey (Gates in "Full Metal Panic: Second Raid," Mickey Simon in "Area 88," Ken Robbins in "Kaleido Star") as the mysterious criminal/pirate, "Mister" (we don't really get his real name in this). Swasey brings out a new side to himself, as he hasn't really had a full lead role in a series, and really ran with this, at times going over-the-top at the right times for Mister, and showing Mister's compassionate side for Franca.
Rounding out the very-solid dubbing of Mister's crew are:
-usual ADR director, Lowell Bartholomee (Tetsuro Segawa in the new "Guyver" series, and ADR director of many shows including "Happy Lesson" and "Sakura Wars") pulling out a surprising performance as Mister's technical expert, Bishop. Bartholomee isn't really KNOWN as a voice actor (more as an ADR director and a pretty good one), but this performance should give thoughts about casting Lowell more in a voice acting role. Bishop's whole "It's always up to me" and his bickering with Swamp Gordon were just spot-on.
-typical ADV lead Chris Patton (Sousuke in the "Full Metal Panic" series, Ichiro in "Nerima Daikon Brothers," Ayato in "RahXephon") doing his "action role" voice as ship pilot, Katana.
-Brittney Karbowski (Momoko in "Godannar," Mone in "Yumeria") did a great job with a lead as the Pirate King Bruce's daughter, Franca.
-Andrew Love (Masaki Murakami in the new "Guyver" series, Spot in "UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie") really had a great time doing Pirate King Bruce's former right-hand-man, Swamp Gordon.
Other parts to point out were the interesting "Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040" team reunion of Christine Auten and Monica Rial doing Federal Investigators Angelica Burns and Chelsea Moore, respectively. Auten was doing a blend of her Priss from BGC with her normal voice, while Monica just went for constant whiney-ness here, as the smart former police officer, who's pretty much become Angelica's lackey. Also, I bet Auten had a field day with the foley for the role, as Angelica eats....A LOT! Also, very interesting to see veteran Kira Vincent-Davis (many, many ADV series) as the villian, Criminal Guild boss Madame Maricano, a former Coyote/pirate herself. At first, I couldn't tell that it was Kira (as typically you can tell if it's her or not).
OVERALL:
This was probably the best and most-underrated "short" (6-13 episode) series that I've seen since "King of Bandit Jing." The comparison of "Ocean's Eleven meets Outlaw Star" is dead on, with a great script, pacing, music, and everything else to make this a must-watch series. DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED.
GRADE: A
Hey all, again,
Time for another anime review, as I picked this series up right before I went to Bloomington, as our favorite anime Dark Lord, Shawne Kleckner of Right Stuf International, had a 3-day Dark Lord special on this series, and since it was a nice $20 less than my employee discount at work, I immediately jumped on this, after reading/hearing about how good this was. I was NOT disappointed in the least. I've heard many compare this anime as "Ocean's 11" meets "Outlaw Star" with a touch of "Cowboy Bebop," and honestly, those comparisons are pretty damn accurate.
Let's go to ANN's encyclopedia for the storyline, shall we:
-----"Mister is a "coyote" or space faring outlaw who has been sitting in prison for a year for a traffic offense. Ten days from release, he breaks out with the help of his old partners Bishop and Katana. He then seeks out Franka who has been left in his care by her dead father, the Pirate King Bruce, and takes her on a journey to find her father's treasure. On their heels are the federal investigators Angelica and Chelsea as well as the android assassins of the Criminal Guild, Madame Marciano's 'Twelve Sisters.'"
PRODUCTION:
This series really had a lot of things going for it, as all 12 episodes just meshed and clicked extremely well. Handling the series direction was newcomer Matsuri Ouse, while the directing reigns were given to veteran Takuya Nonaka (director: "Armitage: Dual-Matrix," "Hanaukyo Maid Team: La Verite;" key animator for a lot of the Tenchi shows/movies) who did the job extremely well. One of the real underrated and extremely well-done parts of the series was done by series music composer, Koichiro Kameyama ("Mirage of Blaze," "Kirameki Project"). The music was done to just fit all the action and some of the comedy that happened in the series. The music just flowed perfectly in tune with everything. The writing was done episodicially by series director Ouse (handling most of the bulk of the show), comedy writing veteran Ryunosuke Kingetsu ("Ninja Nonsense," "Dokkoida!?"), and Kazuharu Sato ("Arjuna," "Noein," "Colorful"). The character designs were very well done, and handled by the team of Jun Shibata (character design for "Ninja Nonsense," "The Skull-Man," key animator for "Eureka Seven") and Tomonori Sudou (animation for shows such as "R.O.D.-TV," "Naruto," and "NieA7"). And the really good mechanical designs for the guns and ships (which did have a bit of an omage to "Outlaw Star," with Mister's ship) were handled by Satoshi Takahashi (key animation on a lot of Tenchi shows, and "You're Under Arrest" TV). All-in-all, a TOP NOTCH job by all involved.
DUB:
Well, this one had one of AD Vision's second-string ADR directors, who's been solid to above-average on everything he's done in Don Rush ("Full Metal Panic," FMP:Fumoffu, and more). However, Rush went with an interesting mix of ADV veterans for this dub, including relative newcomer/voice actor George Manley, assisting him on the ADR script.
Starring in this action-filled short-series is ADV veteran John Swasey (Gates in "Full Metal Panic: Second Raid," Mickey Simon in "Area 88," Ken Robbins in "Kaleido Star") as the mysterious criminal/pirate, "Mister" (we don't really get his real name in this). Swasey brings out a new side to himself, as he hasn't really had a full lead role in a series, and really ran with this, at times going over-the-top at the right times for Mister, and showing Mister's compassionate side for Franca.
Rounding out the very-solid dubbing of Mister's crew are:
-usual ADR director, Lowell Bartholomee (Tetsuro Segawa in the new "Guyver" series, and ADR director of many shows including "Happy Lesson" and "Sakura Wars") pulling out a surprising performance as Mister's technical expert, Bishop. Bartholomee isn't really KNOWN as a voice actor (more as an ADR director and a pretty good one), but this performance should give thoughts about casting Lowell more in a voice acting role. Bishop's whole "It's always up to me" and his bickering with Swamp Gordon were just spot-on.
-typical ADV lead Chris Patton (Sousuke in the "Full Metal Panic" series, Ichiro in "Nerima Daikon Brothers," Ayato in "RahXephon") doing his "action role" voice as ship pilot, Katana.
-Brittney Karbowski (Momoko in "Godannar," Mone in "Yumeria") did a great job with a lead as the Pirate King Bruce's daughter, Franca.
-Andrew Love (Masaki Murakami in the new "Guyver" series, Spot in "UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie") really had a great time doing Pirate King Bruce's former right-hand-man, Swamp Gordon.
Other parts to point out were the interesting "Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040" team reunion of Christine Auten and Monica Rial doing Federal Investigators Angelica Burns and Chelsea Moore, respectively. Auten was doing a blend of her Priss from BGC with her normal voice, while Monica just went for constant whiney-ness here, as the smart former police officer, who's pretty much become Angelica's lackey. Also, I bet Auten had a field day with the foley for the role, as Angelica eats....A LOT! Also, very interesting to see veteran Kira Vincent-Davis (many, many ADV series) as the villian, Criminal Guild boss Madame Maricano, a former Coyote/pirate herself. At first, I couldn't tell that it was Kira (as typically you can tell if it's her or not).
OVERALL:
This was probably the best and most-underrated "short" (6-13 episode) series that I've seen since "King of Bandit Jing." The comparison of "Ocean's Eleven meets Outlaw Star" is dead on, with a great script, pacing, music, and everything else to make this a must-watch series. DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED.
GRADE: A
