Angel's Anime Rating Guide

A few days ago, I stumbled into Hazbin Hotel ... Hazbin Hotel is the story of Charlie, the princess of Hell, as she pursues her seemingly impossible goal of rehabilitating demons to peacefully reduce overpopulation in her kingdom. She opens a hotel in hopes that patients will be "checking out" into Heaven. While most of Hell mocks her goal, her devoted partner Vaggie, and their first test subject, adult film-star Angel Dust, stick by her side. When a powerful entity known as the "Radio Demon" reaches out to Charlie to assist in her endeavors, her crazy dream is given a chance to become a reality. Hazbin Hotel is a pilot episode for a yet-to-be-produced animated series and is the brain child of visionary animator, Vivienne Medrano . Vivienne aka Vivziepop on YouTube has produced a handful of pilots for prospective series like Hazbin Hotel as well as animated shorts, a number of discussions about animation and of course, speed drawing sessions. While there are ...

While researching a handful of Dr. Seuss titles in my collection, I came across a live action trailer for Dr. Seuss' Butter Battle Book . I had to share... The Butter Battle Book, Dr. Seuss's classic cautionary tale, introduces us to the important lesson of respecting differences. The Yooks and Zooks share a love of buttered bread, but animosity brews between the two groups because they prefer to enjoy the tasty treat differently. According to Ben Reyes of Capital Arts Productions , the production company behind the short: [This is] a short trailer created for the Ottawa Public Library. It's a live action rendition of Dr Seuss' allegory to the Cold War: The Butter Battle Book. It also pays homage to Dr Strangelove. A huge thank you goes out the Diefenbunker for letting us film in their facility! ...The wall is part of a picture that I photoshopped into a bigger wall, and then using motion tracking software I was able to composite it into the shot. In the a...

Sometime ago, I noticed a post on the AnimeNation forum regarding an animated commercial --  Xi Avant ... Xi Avant, director Kenji Kamiyama’s (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society) three-and-a-half-minute short film is set in Spain and other locales in the near future, and features the NTT Docomo mobile phone network's next-generation Xi service. Xi Avant is a commercial for a data network, which in the short anime, is being used to do things like automatic scheduling and reservations, interacting with other systems like the computer in a car to automatically setup the vehicle for a given user's preferences and advanced tasks such as lip reading from a video with simultaneous translations and facial recognition using multiple video inputs. The story concerns a young man looking for someone somewhere in the world. Eventually, thanks to technology, the young man successfully completes his search. Xi Avant was originally released in four parts with...

Over the weekend, I saw the animated short, Scavengers on Cartoon Network ... According to Creator's Vice ... Stranded on an strange planet, two surviving crew members of a colonial starship perform a series of bizarre rituals using alien flora and fauna in Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner's short film, Scavengers. Each step in the mysterious ritual prompts more questions than the last, from... What are they doing?... to... How did they learn all this stuff?... and ending with... Will I ever understand this crazy world? Scavengers tells the story of two colonists stranded on a remote planet as they perform a complicated series of interconnected tasks to achieve their goal. At the outset, the viewer does not know what the colonists are trying to do, but, by the end, there is a sense of accomplishment. At about eight minutes, the feature is fairly short, but, manages to tell a story in its own way, and does so, without any spoken dialogue. I enjoyed the feature en...

Over the weekend, I had a peek at the crowd-funded anime, Under The Dog ... It is the year 2025, five years since devastating terrorist attacks put an end to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The UN has taken control of the former Olympic site on the edge of Tokyo Bay, placing it beyond Japan’s jurisdiction. Hana Togetsu is a seventeen-year-old high school student who lives in the area. Not your typical teen, she belongs to a special unit run by the UN. Hana is sent on a mission as a transfer student to a public high school on Enoshima Island. Her target: Shunichi Nanase, a boy in her class. As Hana is about to make contact with her target, a middle-aged man appears at the school asking for Shunichi. The situation turns critical when the American military arrives at the school in pursuit of the man. As the bloodshed escalates, another teenage girl begins to make her way to the island to break the deadlock. According to Wikipedia: Under the Dog was originally conceived in the l...

Sometime ago, I heard of a fan effort to produce a feature film set in the Star Trek universe. I let the thought drift away for a while. Then, recently, the project came back to the forefront after a lawsuit against the fan production came to light. Recently, I had a look at Prelude To Axanar ... According to IMDB ... Prelude to Axanar is an independent Star Trek project that tells the story of Captain Kirk's hero, Garth of Izar, during the war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. It is shot as a documentary and is the back story for the forthcoming feature 'Axanar'. Prelude to Axanar received $ 101,000 in a successful Kickstarter campaign and the finished film helped the Axanar team raise $ 638,000 in their second Kickstarter for the upcoming feature film. I've seen  Prelude To Axanar  and it is really quite impressive. Most of the film is in the form of a documentary with interviews from some of the survivors of the Battle of Axanar. Between th...

This Apprentice is NOT the reality TV show with THAT guy, but, an animated short of the same name made by animation studio, White Radish ... From days of long ago... Galen of Uxbridge, a young sorcerer in training comes to the door of Zima, a cunning sorceress eager for power, who's hell-bent on offering sacrifices to the Demon Bonglin. He's eager to learn, but when "Blinkie" the goat just won't do anymore, she offers HIM as a sacrifice. But, he won't go down without a fight. Features an original score by Vanilla Almond Creme. The Apprentice revolves around Galen, a sorcerer, and Zima, a sorceress and Zima's quest for power at any cost. The animated short was reasonably entertaining, but, felt a little rushed near the end. While this wasn't White Radish 's best work, in my humble opinion, it was a good effort. I gave the Apprentice a 3 out of 5. According to Anime News Network ... The Apprentice is circa 1998... "...[it's] cell a...

Recently, while poking around the AnimeNation news board, I came across a post for a new CG anime music video called Love Like Aliens ... Creator/director Rashad Haughton's original CG anime short film Love Like Aliens is now online. The short was animated by Shirogumi (Norageki, Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki) with production design by Studio 4°C and features character design by world renowned graphic designer Sorayama Hajime. According to an annonymous contributor to IMDB ... In a future not too far from now, Humanity has advanced to a point where the line between Homo sapiens and Androids have blurred completely. This has occurred so that the species could survive. Technology has allowed humans to travel into deep space to colonize other planets and galaxies deep in the universe because Earth has become uninhabitable. One of the many unfortunate results of this robotic Darwinism is that human behavior and consciousness has also changed over the years. Much of what ...

Join three cute girls as they fight monsters in order to get their hands on the Item ... "Behold the floating fortress of the Mighty Q'Thulu risen again from its slumber beneath the waves. Yeah... Let's kick some non-euclidean butt."... From the studios of White Radish comes a night in the life of three cute girls from all walks of life. As they face the forces of an unspeakable horror... Join Mecha, Jinx, and Bunni as they fight the unholy monstrosities in the twisted castle of the long-dead thing from ancient stars in order to get their hands on the Item... What is the Item? That's a surprise. With music by Vanilla Almond Creme. The Item centers on three girls, Mecha, Jinx and Bunni, as they fight monsters in an effort to reach the Item . What is the Item ? Take a peek and find out. The  Item  was made by animation studio, White Radish , using classic themes found in traditional anime. I was very impressed by the animators' effort. At approximately six m...

Sometime in the late-90s, I picked up the Satanika promotional music video on VHS... The popular Verotik comic character Satanika comes to life in full Japanese animation. Produced by Mad House Studios. ("X". Ninja Scroll, Wicked City) this beautiful anime pilot features story boards by the renowned Rintaro and character designs by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Also included are interviews with the series creator Glenn Danzig and Mad House staff Rintaro, Takuji Endoh and Mad House producer Masao Maruyarna. Plus a tour inside Mad House Studios. Japanese anime fans and Satanika fans alike will all want to own this fantastic and powerful video. ----- Essentially, Satanika is a promotional music video (about 2-3 minutes) featuring the talents of Mad House Studios (Ninja Scroll and Wicked City) and about 25 minutes worth of interviews. According to John , a contributor to the AnimeNation new blog... Satanika was an original character created by Danzig lead singer Glenn Danzig’s com...

Sometime ago, when the Lincoln "Luxury at Lightspeed" ad campaign was in full force, one of the ads featured a 30-second clip from Shiny Toy Guns rendition of Major Tom (Coming Home) . Youtube came through for me, yet again, and I was able to track down a roughly 4-minute version of the song, but, the video, such as it was, left a lot to be desired. Even, so, I added the video to the archive. Recently, while poking around the AnimeNation news board, I came across a post for a new CG music video created by IKEDA , employing the vocal talents of Vocaloid Luka Megurine singing the song Corruption Garden . For those of you who don't know, a vocaloid is a software package that can be used by talented individuals to produce music using the software's own vocal capabilities -- essentially a "singer in a box". The video is quite impressive and the music isn't half bad either. I added the music video to the archive and then took the time to marry the Corru...

According to Anime News Network ... The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's " Welcome to Tokyo " tourism promotion website has launched. The site features a map of Tokyo tourist spots, a quiz game about Tokyo sightseeing spots, and an original short anime titled " Honey Tokyo ." The streaming anime short film is viewable in high and standard quality in Japanese language with subtitles in English, Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish, and French. Yasuhiro Aoki, director of the "Kung-Fu Love" segment of Studio 4℃'s Amazing Nuts! music video collection and select episode director on 4℃'s Tweeny Witches and Kimagure Robot anime series, drafted the Honey Tokyo character designs, drew the film's storyboards, and directed the short at Studio 4℃. Reportedly the short was produced at a cost of around 50 million yen ($550,000 USD) funded by the Japanese government. I've been a bit leery of downloading anime on the web for two reasons. First...

During this year's Oscar ceremony, I happened to notice an nominee for an animated short called The Lady and the Reaper ... The Lady and the Reaper (La dama y la muerte) is a 3D imaging animated short film created by Javier Recio Gracia and produced by Kandoor Moon. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and won the Goya Award for Best Animated Short of 2009. An old lady, who lives alone in the countryside, is looking forward to death so that she can meet her dead husband. When the Reaper arrives and she is about to reach afterlife, she is pulled away from the Reaper by a smug doctor. The Reaper and the doctor fight fiercely, and eventually medicine wins. The Reaper leaves, but the lady is not willing to postpone the encounter with her husband. I was very fond of this short, so, went to the official site and eventually added it to the archive.

Late in December of last year, I happened to wander into one of my favorite anime hangouts and came across a post for Alma , by award-winning animation director, Rodrigo Blaas ... According to Wikipedia ... Alma is Rodrigo Blaas' first short film as a director. Originally from Spain, Rodrigo Blaas has worked in animation for more than ten years, in Spain and in the United States. Seizing the possibility of directing his first independent short film, Rodrigo Blaas asked some of the best artists in their field to take part in this independent project: French animator Bolhem Bouchiba, character designer Carlos Grangel and Sergio Pablos, art director Alfonso Blaas, music composer Mastretta and sound designer Tom Myers. I've seen Alma several times already and although it's not scary, Alma does exude an aura of creepiness. I like the animation and the story. I'd certainly purchase this title on DVD, but, it remains to be seen if it will be released on archival m...

Some time ago, I happened to see a music video on Cartoon Network featuring Betty Boop and music by Soul Coughing called " Rolling " from their " El Oso " album. I had meant to add this item to the archive, but, I waited too long and it disappeared from Cartoon Network before I could catch it. Once again YouTube  came to the rescue... I've always had a soft spot for Betty Boop and the music and animation fit nicely together. My first foray into the depths of the internet for this item had some issues, but, since then, the issues have been resolved. I liked this music video enough to add it to the archive. I would give Groovies: Rolling a 4 out of 5.

During this year's Oscar ceremony, I happened to notice a nominee for an animated short called Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty ... According to Wikipedia ... Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty is a six-minute-long CG/flash animated socially satirical black comedy short film, directed by Nicky Phelan and produced by Darragh O'Connell of Brown Bag Films in 2008. It was written by Kathleen O'Rourke. The plot centres on Granny O'Grimm, a seemingly sweet old lady, who loses the plotline as she tells her own version of Sleeping Beauty to her terrified granddaughter. I felt sorry for Granny O'Grimm's poor granddaughter, but, Granny O'Grimm is so deliciously wicked fun to watch. I played the video many times and even Mom liked the video. I had some issues adding this particular item to the archive, but, in the end Granny O'Grimm smacked me in the back of the head and shoved me in the right direction. I gave  Granny O'Grimm's Sle...

Recent discussions concerning the future of the anime industry and the industry's evolution into an online-only distribution model have prompted me to look into converting various file formats into a DVD format. I cobbled together some software and hardware in an effort to conduct an experiment to test the viability of transferring movie files on my computer to a DVD that will play in my older-model DVD player. The first candidate for my first foray into DVD authoring was a 2-minute-23-second teaser trailer for something titled: Babylon 5: Conflicts of Loyalty . Sometime in 2006, I happened to come across a teaser trailer for Babylon 5: Conflicts of Loyalty  (really more of a music video) for a game modification package for Nexus: The Jupiter Incident . The teaser trailer features scenes from in-game play set to a suitably melancholy soundtrack from the Babylon 5 TV series. A very talented team of artists and programmers recreated 3D models of the various ships featured in th...