Yesterday was fun! Between spending 45 minutes figuring out why logins wouldn't work only to discover that someone messed around with network cables along with a power outage halfway through club meeting, I think things went well! Right?
With the late start, I dropped the super awesome
Fist of the North Star movie that featured Souther as a villain in an attempt to keep meetings under 4 hours. It will come back someday.
We finished
Baccano! In the last three episodes, we get acquainted with Graham Spector, who is Ladd Russo's psychotic protege. He kidnaps Chane Laforet thinking her to be Eve Genoard and holds her for a ransom that Jacuzzi has to pay up. The rail tracer also shows up because he LOVES Chane and wants to marry her. It's very romantic!
The last three episodes are interesting as they were not part of the television airings. They got added in on the DVD release in Japan. The final episode of the original television airing has a more defined ending whereas these last three episodes leave things very open for the series. Baccano! is based on a light novel series that has even more stories to tell. A couple of other works written by Ryohgo Narita that you may want to check out include
Vamp! and
Durarara!!
We started on
Black Lagoon which is totally awesome so far. Within two episodes, a timid Japanese salaryman is kidnapped by mercenaries and then becomes a hard-boiled badass. Revy, a foul-mouth woman who can use two pistols like she's in a John Woo movie pretty much makes this anime awesome.
The club caught up on
Dragonball Z: Abridged. It took some of the blander moments of the Namek saga and made them fun. Lots of terrible homoerotic innuendo occurred in the two episodes we watched. The Ginyu Force is coming next!
Some more of
Samurai 7 was shown after a hiatus. There's a new samurai that looks more steampunk than anything. His name of Hayashida Heihachi and he was a combat engineer during the Great War. (Deja vu cometh.) I don't think anything important happened in these episodes. What do you guys think?
Last but not least, we decided on our next anime(since Baccano! is
finished) and discussed what we will do for the club's four year anniversary in October.
This time, I organized members who stuck around until the end of the meeting into teams of four in an attempt to get certain club members talking to each other about what kind of anime they like and determine what should be their group nomination. After 15 minutes of discussion, they would present their choices and I would pick the best sounding pitch.
The four groups selected
Air Gear,
Genshinken,
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, and
High School of the Dead as their choices. I must inform you all that I picked High School of the Dead. It happens to be the one I want to watch the least but is probably the most likely one that will be watched by the club members. However, if that is not the case, I will be double tapping this series to our giant anime graveyard.
I thought the experiment was interesting. I think it's good for the club members to get to know each other better and share the passion for the anime they love during the talks. But after this, it's time for a long break from a selection process as we need to eventually dive into the Fuji TV's noitaminA block of anime. From what I have gathered, it looks like the series of that late night block is not the typical anime that most be people would be familiar with. Sounds like another experiment!
As for the fourth year anniversary in October? Horror anime marathon and a costume party were discussed as ideas. We shall talk more in two weeks when we meet again!
