Trava: Fist Planet
I recently stumbled across this on youtube whilst looking at AMV's of Dead Leaves to get some inspiration to draw an action based image. What a surprise it was to find something else in the same intriguing block bold shaded and flat coloured style. I quickly without hesistation went straight to watching it.
At first i wasn't too sure about it, i liked that it was in japanese with subtitles and not a godawful dub as most dubs prove to be, don't get me wrong sometimes there are good ones but when it comes to adding the english dub it seems like hardly as much effort is put in compared to japanese voice casting.
As i carried on watching i suddenly began to get hooked, enjoying the characters and their quirky designs and the mystery of what they were doing led me on to watch more. Unfortunately there were only four episodes which made me sad that i was not yet able to witness what exactly the fist planet tournament was like but left me happy to have been able to watch something so fun.
I recommend this to anyone who has a similar taste in action packed cartoon fun as me. It follows a short story about Trava, an ex-military power user, and his mechanic, Shinkai, surveying a small planet to raise money for entry to the Fist Planet Tournament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqPRgMlWEUI&feature=channel_page
here is the link to the youtube upload of this
the links to the other ones will probably be easy to find down the side of the page.
Dead Leaves(デッド リーブス Deddo Rībusu)
Talking of Dead Leaves, this is another brilliant work of the same style. This is by far one of my most favourite anime movies. It is short and leaves you feeling mildly visually violated, in a good way.
There is not too much talking and plenty of action, fast fights and loads of brilliant effects to drive the senses wild. I have this on DVD which i was surprised to find sitting there on the shelf in HMV months back and quickly nabbed it as i had remembered hearing about it from somewhere. I was quick to fall in love with it.
I would say you should watch it in Japanese as i have tried to watch the dub but honestly Jaxon Lee does not sound good as the voice of Retro and there is alot more passion seemingly put into the voice acting by Kappei Yamaguchi, especially at a particular scene.
Unfortunately i have been unable to find anything but the dub on youtube so you may have to settle with that or by chance find and buy or rent it for yourself or hunt it down in torrents or websites to sate your need to watch it.
Until then have a good peek at this trailer to get a taste for it.
ALSO whilst on the subject
FLCL
(Aka フリクリ Furi Kuri / Fooly Cooly)
another action filled piece of greatness. It is not quite drawn in the same way but has a similar feel (i believe there were people who may have worked on all these things i have so far talked of).
This lasts longer then the others and has a bit more of a plot line though at first it may seem confusing and bizarre it soon makes sense if you think about it. Though it is still short in comparison to other more popular anime series it still manages to entertain and inspire me though still leaving you feeling like you're missing something as it finishes so soon. Throughout music by The Pillows is used, who i believe to be a fairly brilliant Japanese Band, which adds a great atmosphere to the series too.
It is a wierd tale of a 12 year old boy called Naota and his life which seems boring and the strange happenings that entail due to the arrival of a certain extra terrestrial known as Haruhara Haruko.
A link to the first part of the first episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3z_PtpqQ-s
ALSO
OvalXOver
i don't know much about this and i can't find anything with subtitles
but it sure as fuck looks smooth.
