© theotherpress

 
 
  
  

OP Game Guy V.20

Culture

February 18, 2004

 

 

Saiyuki Volume 7

For some of you who are collect-
ing Saiyuki, volume seven is a
turning point. You get to buy
another box to hold the five more
DVDs you have to buy to finish
the story. Although like a lot of the
other box sets that ADV has
released this comes without a free
t-shirt, I mean what do they
expect me to do, actually go out
and buy t-shirts? The contents also
reveal a huge turning point in the
story and a completely new much
darker story arc that opens up in
this volume.

It’s standard that we take a look
at what the DVD itself is like, but
I've got a better chance of winning
the lottery than having something
change on the DVD. Now as in
every other volume the video qual-
ity is excellent, it’s pretty much a
new standard we expect these
days. As for the sound, it comes in
two flavours, the original Japanese
2.0-channel sound and the 5.1-
channel English tracks. As well we
get ultra-standard clean open-and-
close animations, although this
time they are the new open-and-
close animations for this half of
the series, which is a nice change
of pace. As always the cultural
background notes are provided,
these prove to be extremely inter-
esting as they fill you in on the
original Saiyuki novel. Finally, if
you bought the box to house the
first six DVDs you'll definitely be
wanting to get the box for the next
six, it's a different red box with
character art on it and it’s of fairly
sturdy construction. Although this
time no free t-shirt—although you

do get four free pencil boards each
with a different member of the
Sanzo party on them.

As for those big plot changes I
was mentioning earlier, the mood
is best described by the Buddhist
saying mentioned in episode 27
“If you meet the Buddha, kill the
Buddha, if you meet your father
kill your father, free of everything,
tied to nothing.” It pretty much
follows the lines of “be true to
yourself,” and don’t have precon-
ceived notions of what is going to
happen or what things should be
like. So far what’s going on is that

 

the gods have decided to send
down the current War Prince to
Earth to stop the Gyumaoh resur-
rection.

But there are two problems with
that—firstly, the Sanzo party is
already well prepared to do that,
secondly that’s only stage one of
their plan. Stage two of the sup-
posed plan seems to be colleting
the five found scriptures of

 

Heaven and Earth, and using
them to destroy the Heavens. And
to make matters more interesting
the War Prince knew each of the
Sanzo party in their previous lives
as Heavenly deities. I’m rather
pleased to see how their past lives’
connection explains the kind of
group dynamic they have in the
present, it’s also going to allow for
probably a few episodes of yet
more back story, which is a Saiyuki
trademark it seems.

The darker tone I mention also
manifests itself through the three
heavenly beings that appear, and
their complete disregard for any
sort to life. The demons at least
seemed to have some decency
when concerning life, but
Homura the War Prince seems to
have no regard for life, either
human or demon. I find it an
interesting twist for Homura, the
very deity sent to stop the chaos
on earth, to be the one causing
further chaos. Not to mention the
fact that he will also be fighting
with old comrades in what basical-
ly seems like an attempt to prove a
400-year-old point.

It’s quite a change of pace but a
welcome one, while there are still
the choice bits of immature ban-
ter, there is a much deeper philo-
sophical story happening. So what
started as a simple trip to India to
stop the resurrection of a demon
has turned into a fight against the
heavens to stop the destruction of
the heavens. This series is definate-
ly going to end up being on quite
a few anime purists best-of lists.

In the tradition of Excel Sagas weird

 

for the sake of being weird, we have
Abenobashi, which is—well, weird.
Now much like Excel Saga there is the
one parody an episode taking on dif-
ferent types of anime, and it
does its best to push the
envelope. I assure you I’m
done with comparing it to
Excel Saga, but it is part of
this slowly growing genre of
weird stuff.

As for the video quality
I’m almost getting tired say-
ing how good it is, it’s not
like the old days where
youd see a bad DVD trans-
fer or cross colouration. We
even get Abenobashiinalet-
ter-boxed form, which real-
ly makes me wonder why I bother to
mention picture quality every week. I
guess it’s for the off chance that some-
thing bad slips through the quality
cracks. And, in what's ADV standard,
is the 5.1 channel sound for the
English voice tracks; the original
Japanese tracks are in 2.0 channel
sound. Now as everyone already
knows I like to watch my anime with
the English dub, but this is one anime
I refuse to watch in English. I can’t
quite fault the actors; it’s more of a
directors choice on this fault. The
thing is, in the original Japanese the
main characters in Abenboshi are from
Osaka, and in Osaka people have an
accent. So for the English version they
decided to be authentic and make a
close approximation in English terms,
so they gave the main characters a
“Texan” accent.

We also have a return of the AD Vid
notes, which were pioneered on the
Excel Saga DVDs, and this is not
another comparison to Excel Saga—
just to a feature on the DVD. This set
of AD Vid notes I found fairly useless
and they seemed too forced to be
funny, but it could just be that
I never really needed any of them

 

7 The Breakfast Club

   

Amanda Aikman

a
ae

Culture Editor

 

 

 

 

to get the joke.

Abenobashi is done by everyone's
favorite production company, Ganix,
and that usually means you're in store
for a deeply confused story with lots of
shots of power
lines, written by
people who were
drinking _ heavily.
But this is their
take on the parody
genre, and a rather
entertaining one at
that. As for overall
story substance or
plot, well in the
first volume there
seems to be almost
none, other than
what has set up the
basic premise. And the basics of this
premise are Satoshi and Arumi, who
are currently stuck jumping between
alternate versions of their hometown,
with each version playing out like a
different anime stereotype. The first
so-called world was a take on RPGs,
which was rather funny, and had
Satoshi suffering the fate of any
under-leveled RPG character. Another
choice episode is their giant robot sci-
fi episode, in which Ganix reused their
classic Eva battle music, although this
is only funny if you've seen Neon
Genesis Evaengelion.

As always I’m going to sum up what
I've just said in a quick and easy-to-
read format since I think assigning a
numerical rating is pointless. You cer-
tainly won't be buying this for the
English dub, well unless you're a fan of
Texan accents. And if you're looking
for a multi-layered look into the
human experience, with lots of shots
of power lines and those damn cricket
thingies they got in Japan, youre in
the wrong place. But if you're looking
for something that was quite obvious-
ly inspired by Excel Saga and heavy
drinking, then by all means, run out
and buy this.

 

 

 

I care about you. Your health
and happiness means every-
thing to me. That’s why I
want to make sure that you
are eating a hearty breakfast,
it is the most important meal
of the day after all. Of course
the best breakfast is the kind
you don’t actually have to
make (or clean up after) your-
self, so put away that spatula
and go ahead and hit the
snooze button one more
time—we're eatin’ out this
morning my friends.

There are many venues
vying for your breakfast dol-
lar around town, so if you
don’t know where to get start-
ed try checking out one of my
personal faves (which I have
graciously listed for you
below). Whether youre after

value, quantity, — service,

atmosphere, or just some-
place to drown your hangover
in coffee refills, you can’t go
wrong with one of these
morning stars.

Slickety Jim’s Chat’ N Chew
(Corner of Main and
Broadway, Vancouver)
Mmm... marble rye toast.
This place is very yummy,
very friendly, and very small.
Get there early and be pre-
pared to wait awhile. The
decor is your typical 70s-tele-
vision-memorabilia~and-mis-
matched-furniture-type deal
that is so popular with the
cool kids these days. The
breakfast special is a heck of a
deal—$3.50 gets you two
eggs, pan-fried potatoes, and
the aforementioned marble
rye toast with homemade pre-

serves. If you are feeling
slightly more adventurous,
and slightly less cheap, the
eclectic menu boasts many
other scrumptious breakfast
options to choose from. And
they all have really cool names
like “Society Made Me What
I Am” (vegetarian breakfast
burrito).

Cafe Deux Soleil (2906
Commercial Drive, Vancouver)
Remember the marble rye
toast from Slickety Jim’s?
Well, forget about it—this is
the shit. I have been searching
for a bakery that will provide
me with my very own version
of this heavenly manna, but
have had no success. Oh well,
I guess that means I'll have to
keep visiting this comfy vege-
tarian eatery to get my fix. No

wee. Page 16 e http://www.otherpress.ca

big sacrifice there. The best
bargain is “The Basic,” for
$4.95 you get two eggs, heaps
of yummy home-style pota-
toes, and two big slices of that
fabulous marble rye toast. Or,
if youre hankering for a fresh-
baked muffin, there’s always a
mouth-watering selection on
hand. Very family friendly
and they make a divine cup of
Americano to boot.

The Elbow Room Cafe (560
Davie St., Vancouver)

If you prefer to be served a lit-
tle abuse with your breakfast,
this is the place for you. A lit-
tle pricier than the rest of the
restaurants on this list, but all
that attitude doesn’t come
cheap. Looking for a refill on
your coffee? Don’t ask your
server, the standard response

here is “Whatsamatter, your
legs broke? Get it yourselfl”
And if you don’t clean your
plate you'll be faced with a
lecture and a donation jar for
the Food Bank. The ultimate
destination for the hungry
morning masochist.

Mom’s Cafe (821, 12th Street,
New Westminster)

So youd rather stumble out
of bed and head to a local
joint than journey into
Vancouver? Why not try
Mom’s Cafe right here in
New Westminster? Incredibly
friendly staff, great prices, and
perfect pan-fried potatoes to
rival the ones your own Mom
used to make.

Bon’s Off Broadway (2451

Nanaimo St., Vancouver)

Ding, ding, ding—we have a
winner!

This popular East Van insti-
tution is home to the all-day
$2.95 breakfast special. Two
eggs, a generous serving of
hash browns, toast, and your
choice of “breakfast meats,”
served by a friendly and
attentive staff (including Bon
himself) in a relaxed yet
bustling atmosphere. Perfect
for those late risers who
always get to
McDonalds ten minutes after

seem to

they've switched to their
lunch menu. Go on a week-
end and be prepared to wait
in line, but on weekday
mornings you can usually sit
yourself right down and start
sucking back the free coffee
refills.