Denkyu: Anime Webzine

Well, the holidays are upon us once again and in full swing. This year I don’t feel as bogged down with stuff as I did last year. I guess it’s because I’m not doing as much charity work as the year before. Spread myself too thin. Or was it because I got frustrated with one of the guys working with me.. hmm…

The last guest at my anime club’s Christmas party just left. We had a great time. Ther was lots of food, anime, DDR, and getting to know each other. I’m going to definitely do this again next year, but with a bigger bang! Reminded me of when I was in high school and all the parties I went to around Christmas. It wasn’t the gift giving, but the merriment of the events that was so appealing, and still is.

After spending hours upon hours looking for and watching Christmas themed AMVs, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is just not that many good ones. So here’s my Christmas wish. I wish that a few people would be inspired by the season to make some great Christmas AMVs. There are more animes out there than I thought that have a Christmas episode or special. There are so many great songs that can be used other than the Trans Siberian Orchestra’s Carol of the Bells.

This month all the writers applied for vacation. They think I’m superwoman with a whip or something. So, if you think the issue is a little thin, I’m sorry. For most of us, this time of year isn’t just busy due to the holidays, but for those of us in college, it’s final exam time. I took mine last week. Boy am I glad they are over with. And with the cold weather, comes all the colds.

From all of us at Denkyu, we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

~Andromeda~

Great for those who like to have parties or entertain.

Makes 8 Shells
8 scallops with their shells
1 tbsp oil
juice and zest of ½ lime
1/3 quantity of freshly cooked sushi rice
handful of fresh cilantro leaves

To garnish
pickled ginger
wasabi paste
3 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise

Remove the scallops from their shells and clean and keep the shells for serving. Clean the scallops by pulling off the small, white shiny muscle and its membrane. Leave the roe attached, but check to see if there is a black vein that needs to be cut off – this is easiest with a pair of scissors. Heat the oil in the skillet and briefly sauté the scallops on both sides until they are lightly browned and cooked through. Squeeze a little of the lime juice over each scallop and let cool.

Mix the sushi rice with the remaining lime juice and zest.

Divide the rice between 8 scallop shells – make a small, neat mound on each one and flatten the top a little. Arrange a scallop along with a few cilantro leaves on top of the rice in each shell, then garnish with a piece of pickled ginger, a tiny mound of wasabi, and a spoonful of mayonnaise. Serve on a platter with a pile of chopsticks.

Scallops can be bought on the shell and the fish store may even be able to clean them for you. Packages of scallop shells can also be bought for decorative purposes.

Released by Global Fright Cinema
Written by Aragami Frog

Albeit, granted the Halloween season is long gone already but there’s always time to have the living daylights scared out of you. And that is exactly what this DVD will do to you.

It’s not really a movie for say but actually 5 short movies, with the longest being only a little over 25 minutes long. Most of the shorts are only 10-15 minutes long but that’s enough time to set up a plot and then administer the terror.

Famous Japanese horror movie directors direct each of these movies. Such as Norio Tsuruta who directed Ring 0: Birthday; and Takashi Shimizu who directed The Grudge, JUON: The Grudge, JUON: The Grudge 2.

What are the movies you may ask?

The macabre tales start with The Spiderwoman. The campy tale is about a local legend of a spider woman who is known to stock the area. A couple of tabloid journalists set out to cover the story of the spider woman and soon find themselves caught up in their story in the worst way. The special effects are a bit old but there is a decent enough story to salvage the movie somewhat.

Don’t let this first movie (The Spiderwoman) turn you off, as the movies only get better with the next movie. The next movie is one of the spookiest movies I’ve seen in my life and had me literally looking over my shoulder.

The second movie on this disk is Crevices, which is about…. well saying anything will be giving to much away but here goes nothing. This ten minute short movie is about a landlord who calls in someone to help him clean a tenant’s room and perhaps find clues as what happened to his tenant. The story is about the guy who is called in to help and he is freaked out by what he finds in the apartment. The previous tenant who has been missing for a while had taped up all of the crevices and seams of his apartment with bright red duct tape. The two set about removing the duct tape and searching for clues when they find that perhaps they should of left the tape alone….

This tale may just make you want take a roll of duct tape to your own home.

The third movie is called The Sacrifice and is about a young businesswoman who is plagued by a mysterious stalker who gives her dead insects. She quickly learns from a co-worker that a guy she recently turned down at work put a curse on another woman who turned him down and she quickly finds that he may of put a curse on her as well. To get away from her mysterious stalker and the thoughts of a curse she returns home to the countryside but she soon finds that even though she left her problems came with her. This story features nothing new and is an interesting watch.

Blonde Kwaidan (directed by Takashi Shimizu who is responsible for The Grudge, JUON: The Grudge and JUON: The Grudge 2) is the only movie set in the US. The movie is about a Japanese businessman who is a little too happy to be in Los Angles and a little to into Blonde women. His fixation with Blonde women however soon catches up to him in the worst way as he quickly finds he isn’t alone in the home that he’s staying in while it’s owners are out of town. This movie follows the classic device of not showing you the monster until the end but giving you brief glimpses here and there to spark your attention. This is easily the second best movie on this DVD in my opinion.

The Last tale is Presentiment which is about a businessman on edge as he is about to steal information from his company. He plans to steal the information to later sell and help support himself. He is about to run away, and leave his wife and kids behind, to live with a girlfriend who threatens to kill herself if he doesn’t leave his family to be with her.

His plans are interrupted when he is caught in an elevator with three other passengers. His fellow passengers, an elderly couple and a young woman, aren’t as they seem and the way they act drives the man who is already on edge to lose it completely. Hysterically the man searches to maintain some sense of sanity as he is in a hurry to be rescued and prevent the woman from killing herself.

This movie built up a decent amount of mystery and intrigue leaving one to wonder what is going but I felt the ending could of been better. A better ending I think would of made this movie a whole lot better as it does explain who his fellow passengers are but it doesn’t explain why they are doing what they are doing.

Still, this final movie was pretty good and all together this DVD is a great buy for anyone who loves horror movies. All of the movies on this disk are in subtitles only, so be forewarned all of you people who are turned off by the thought of having to read subtitles (They are out there).

One of the best parts of this whole DVD is the fact that you can pick up a copy for only $8.00 and a major department store that I won’t name here. Although if you had guessed Wal-Mart you would of been correct.

Japanese fans and horror movie buffs alike need to pick up this movie and prepare to be scared by the macabre tales to be found. The total running time of all the movies is 93 minutes. That’s an hour and a half’s worth of some of the best horror to be found from Japan for only $8.00.

How can one not love that? Pick this one up today!!!

Written by Sojian

Dragonhead focuses on Teru, a Japanese student that was riding on a train when calamity struck. Fortunately the train had just entered a tunnel when a red flash shot through the sky and the tunnel collapsed at both ends. Unfortunately everyone Teru knew on the train died in that instant. His mere luck at diving for a drink that had fallen underneath a seat had saved him. With the sudden realization that he is alone he tries to escape outside to run away from the images of his dead classmates. Traveling along the length of the train shouting for anyone else alive, he finds Nobuo.

Nobuo is still shaken from his dead classmates and rants about red lights. To Teru’s misfortune Nobuo displays increasing amounts of insanity as the back-story of how Nobuo survived the train wreck is shown. Finally threatening Teru with a knife, Nobuo kicks him out of the food car. Shortly after, Teru runs across Ako, one of Nobuo’s classmates. Ako has an injured knee and originally fears Teru is as crazy as Nobuo. Ako relates how she played dead as Nobuo beat a wounded teacher dead as the teacher pleads for help. Ako and Teru join up as Nobuo tries to kill them and eventually escape the train tunnel through a water pipe.

That is just the introduction to the story! When they finally get out of the pipe, Teru and Ako only see an apocalyptic landscape before them. From there, they try and make their way to Tokyo based on a radio transmission Teru heard, only to confront an entire populace of insane on their journey there. Teru also faces his fears of becoming insane, as he fights hallucinations of the now dead Nobuo.

Dragonhead is just over 2 hours long and is filled with visually stunning scenes. This is in part to make up for the lack of dialogue between the characters. The lack of dialogue though is purposefully done to convey the desolation and suspense of the movie, which seemed a good trade-off for the film. The special effects were also incredibly well done, including the CG for the apocalyptic vision of Tokyo along with the spouting lava and fireballs from the sky.

There are some scenes that seem too improbable to happen. For instance a doctor lobotomizes his own children so that they no longer fear. Also an emergency shelter that has food drugged to make people similarly lose their emotions to everything around them. Both situations boggle the mind, and seem far too surreal to be believed. For nitpicking purposes Teru falls out of a helicopter that is flying low to the ground and doesn’t seem in such bad shape when he gets up. Also people seem able to breath easily while volcanic activity is going off in the background (or trying to kill them), which seems questionable.

Overall, it was a worthwhile movie to watch. For an apocalypse movie it keeps you guessing at what exactly the catastrophe is. Once Teru and Ako figure it out they are left to explain the mass insanity. The difference is that most Hollywood apocalypse movies have the hero face and usually save humanity from the disaster. While in Dragonhead, humanity is pretty much helpless and Teru and Ako are left to simply survive it.        

Written by Orca Blademaster

When you watch anime, it’s likely that you imagine how two characters from two different anime would fight each other, and who would win. Uzumaki Naruto (Naruto) vs. Kenshin (Samurai X); Yusuke Uremeshi (Yu-Yu-Hakusho) vs. Goku (DBZ); Yugi (Yu-Gi-Oh!) vs. Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece). While before it was but a dream, now it is a possibility with Jump Superstars.

Jump Superstars is a fantastic game for the Nintendo DS. It incorporates many of Shonen Jump’s many characters into one nice fighting game. It includes over 150 characters, most of which are easily recognizable, while others will be complete strangers to those who don’t live in – or import from – Japan.

The game play is simple. First you get a block with a certain number of Koma (see below). It starts out with 20, but you can unlock additional panels, over 600 in total. You can fill the Koma with three types of characters; “Battle” – the character you use in combat, and cost the most Koma; “Support” – A character you can summon to do something for you (what they do depends on the character), they cost the mid-number of Koma; and “Help” – think of this as items or power-ups, they cost the least Koma.

Then you have to build your deck of Koma. Koma are little manga squares that reside in the touch-screen of the DS. They are used for attacking as well as switching panels and characters, or using your Support and Help. You have to arrange the coma in order to fit as many as you can. They are crucial to combat, and using them in combination with the regular buttons for normal attacks are the keys to victory.

The main core of this game is the Story mode. While there isn’t much of a story to tell, the main point of Story Mode is to complete missions from the mission map. These missions range from the simple (Break down the wall with your attacks) to the complex (beat three opponents without taking a single hit).

The graphics and music in this game are fantastic – the characters are mostly 2-D, but are fantastically colored and detailed, as if they were stripped right out of their manga pages. The attacks are a sight to behold, with most characters having their own, individual attack motions. The backgrounds and battle stages are diverse and good to play on. The music, while a bit lacking, works perfectly with the stages; some may be strikingly familiar, others are completely new. Combine that with the standard fighting sound effects and you’ve got yourself something special.

While the game has many good points, however, there are a few that may bring it down a bit. For one, while all the things and characters to unlock are pretty cool, playing the missions over and over to do so can get annoying. Also, the game is perfect for multiplayer, but you can only take full advantage of it with friends who also have the game. That doesn’t mean the single-pack multiplayer is bad, it’s just heavily limited to few characters and stages of choice. Also, the game isn’t available everywhere outside of Japan, so the only way to obtain it is via importing, something not everyone can do.

If you’re an anime fan, or hell, if you just own a DS, this is a must have game. If you can import games, then buy this game and enjoy one of the best handheld games ever.