The end of Gundam 00 on AniMonday?

This kawai enjeru (lovely angel) is Rankuku the lieutenat of Squad 5 of the 13 Court Guard Squad of the Seretai sector of the Soul Society (Bleach) and this pix is my profile pix at the boards http://www.adultswim.com/ where I posed a query.

Who is the guy who croons Cie L'Amour (It's Love) on AS during one of its 'bumps' (fill ins between programs and commercials on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim segments are called bumps. Why? Ask them. I have no idea!) for Valentine's Day. They run pretty constantly all week and have for a month now. The guys and gals in the video portion of the 'bump' are in various forms of er hanky panky shall we say? The deep voiced crooner sounds like well it sure ain't Frank Sinatra! Vaughn Monroe, Matt Munro (the English FS), Dick Haynes, Julius LaRosa, Dan Martin, the Boss even have been guessed. Anyone know the answer? AS sure doesn't!

Fanatics of Anime, can it be true? Will tomorrow evening's AniMonday (11 PM ET- Sci Fi Channel) be the last we will see of Gundam 00 aka Mobile Suit Gundam 000? I know that the second season (Episodes 25/26) will end tomorrow but will SFC continue with the next arc of this wondrous series?

SPOILER ALERT-

If you have missed any of the previous 24 episodes and/or don't wantto spoil your viewing pleasures read no further. Otherwise here's the news:

Vega the supergenius computer program originated by Gundams' creator over two centuries ago controls 'Celestial Being' which is the Gundam organization. The guy whose family has been attempting to gain control of Vega ever since its conception 200 years ago has finally succeeded- or has he? Vega has a failsafe built into it and CB is once more accessing it.

Despite this the Gundams' losses have been heavy. The Trinity gundams- both brothers and sister- dead.

Felpsce- one of the gundam team's young female controllers- dead.

Lockon- the gundam railgun marksman a la Saito on 'Ghost in the Shell'- dead.

Keeneshau Crossroads- the feisty young female reporter- dead.

Half of the remaining gundam crew- injured.

Their HQ spacecraft- split in twain and crippled. Will she ever soar again?

I hope Allelujah Kurio the super soldier mutant with two personalities (superbly voiced by Richard Ian Cox- InuYasha himself) will survive. He is the toughest and most determined of the GundamMeisters (Masters of Gundams) in my opinion.

I think their female leader must take drinking lessons from our own Keirran O'Halloran (Lovely Angel Kei of the 3WA) although she rarely finishes a bottle. I'd love to see the two of them in a 'Countdown' or 'Blast Off' drinking game. Wonder who would win? I'd bank on Kei- hands down.

Why? Easy. Nobody can outdrink an Angel! Except, of course, another Angel unless that first Angel is a firebrand Amazon Hellcat redhead!

Vega is familiar from another big giant robots series- 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'. Oro (What)? You don't remember the 'Magi'? Named after the three wisemen from Christianity they are supercomputers created by the Mama of one of the female captains and they control the 'Evas'. The 'Evas' are very similar to Gundams except that they must be flown by kids and those children fly them while encased in a virulent but breatheable waterlike solution. The 'Evas' are the heroes of course. Who are the villains?

Why the 'Angels' if you have forgotten. Hai (Yeah) 'Angels' in this case are the bad guys or are they? There are 18 of them named after Angels of the Christian hierarchy. Wikipedia has a full list of them and a great deal on the series itself which is semi-historical being based on one man's interpretation of the 'Dead Sea Scrolls'. Seems the 'Angels' may just be the next stage of human evolution.

NGE is sort of weird like 'Code Geass' which I will discuss in another blog post. Oro (What)? Oh the 'Magi' names. Surely. They are 'Gaspar', 'Balthazaar' and 'Melchiorre'- the three Kings.

Although I have just added 'gundams' to my 'Angel Wings' fanfiction I just cannot seem to see how to fit in anyone or anything from NGE except that I did use Captain Kasaragi (her Mama designed the 'Magi' before her untimely death) in my first fanfiction 'Christmas with the Dirty Pair'. She is Suba (Subaltern- an officer in old British Army circa the old Khyber Pass wars of the mid 1800's in India) Marina Oki's roommate. Marina was Captain (Zack) Zero's (Nai (No) not named after the 'Zero' in 'Code Geass'. ZZ is a United Earth Federation captain from 'Cosmic Warrior Zero' and he sometimes showed up in the 'Harlock Saga' and 'Queen Emeraldas' both of whom were characters in both fanfictions) exec on his ship 'Liberator'. OK I borrowed the name from 'Blake's Seven' an old SF live action series of which I have three of its 52 episodes recorded on an old analog VHS tape along with the Canadian 'Grey Cup' game (Canada's SuperBowl but much olderthan ours) when Doug Flutie became the first American QB to win not only the cup but also 'Athlete of the Year' up there to boot. Nai (No) I have not forgotten the Houston Oilers' own QB- Warren Moon. He won several GCs before Dougie but he was never as cool as DF was.

Anyway ZZ agrees to aid the 3WA hoping to woo his ex-exec Marina Oki back to the UEF. Since she left him she has been Andre Gooley's secretary and is now an attache of some sort. Gooley? He's Supreme Chief of the Aquarian Galaxy and former unit chief of Section 237- 3WA. Kei and Yuri's old stomping grounds. Now he's based on 'Alderaan 7' and thought he'd seen the last of his pesky Angels. To quote Steinbeck- 'The best laid plans of mice and men so oft they go awry' and such is his sad case as well.

OK here's a pix of the 'NGE' hazu (gang, team or group):

Tonight us anime freaks are SOL (Sorry I cannot say it but it is an old term everyone should know. Kids read blogs too you know) as far as tv anime viewing is concerned. Nothing at all!

Wait! If you have ComcastOnDemand go to Cutting Edge. Under Adult Swim/Action you can watch Big O, Death Note, InuYasha or two others.

Under Anime Select/Wicked Anime we have the final two episodes of 'Ninja Nonsense' which I have described at great length on my other blog at today.com. It's link? Sure.

http://doyouloveanime.today.com/

Wicked Anime features a few others as well but none too intersting and their titles escape me at the moment. Here's a pix of Shinobu and Kaede and tomos (friends) from NN. Oh hai (yeah)- the blog title at DYLA at today is 'Shinobu vs Shinobi'. Here's their pix. Enjoy.
Anime Select/SciFi offers Tsubasa Chronicles and a few others like Escaflowne which features Kelly Sheridan (Sango the demon slayer from InuYasha) and Kirby Morrow (Miroku the rogue monk from InuYasha) as Van the Escaflowne knight and his kawaii (lovely) lady love in an alternate world. Like Kagome Higurashi of InuYasha she is a 15 year old schoolgirl and Van, her knight in shining armour is 16 or 17.

Anime Select/Drama gives us the continuing adventures of an onibaka biker turned teacher Ekichi Onizuka in GTO. Ekichi's an ex-motorcycle leader and one day he decides to become a teacher! He goes to college and almost graduates with his pal Ryugi Danma who accompanies EO (Onizuka is named after one of the Challenger's ill fated astronauts by the way) to Tokyo. Ryugi becomes a motorcycle shop seller/repairman while his big goofy tomo (friend) manages to get through a year of student teaching befoe applying for a teaching job at a 'public' school. Of course he was politely turned down. Undaunted by his failure Ekichi gets loaded with Ryugi who steers him towads 'private' school teaching.

Strange although it may seem to us in the West someone who did not complete teaching college, has no degree whatsoever and can barely read himself and has been refused a teaching job at a 'public' school can actually be hired at a higher salary to teach at a 'private' school or academy! That is just oro (what) happened to our hero. He is hired by 'Holy Forest Academy'- a junior high school for rich kids!

Think he can't teach? Surprise! Onizuka teaches them things the schools don't usually teach- lessons of life itself. This 52 episode series with a kicker ending has been running as a live tv drama series in Japan since the late 1970s and is a must see. You can buy the tv drama episodes too (it's still running along with its female heroine companion series 'Gokusen'- Gangster Teacher in which 'Ojou' the teacher is really a 'Yakuzza' (Japanese Mafia) princess and in fact she's running one of the biggest 'Yakuzza' gangs in the country for her aging grandfather! Of course 'Shirokin School' does not know about her 'other' life) although it is not dubbed only subbed in English.

Anime Select/Drama has BECK a drama/comedy anime series about the rock guy or group. I am not really into rock music although like the anime rock music especially 'Young Ectasy' one of the 'Witchblade' themes which is sung in Japanese by 'Duran Duran'. Be warned by the way. Most anime music is sung in Japanese with English words thrown in hereand there. Some of the older animes like the Angels, 'S-Cry-Ed' and some others have themes sung in English with English subtitles for the lyrics. In fact the end theme of 'S-Cry-Ed' is that 'Old Blue Eyes' (Frank Sinatra) chestnut 'Fly Me to the Moon' and the female singer is so danged familiar I could scream. Maybe I'll check out

www.msn.com/yahoogroups/animelyrics or http://www.animelyrics.com/ and find out.

Incidentally a good source for voiceactors/seiyuu (Japanese voiceactors) is http://www.voicechasers.com/ or http://voices.fuzzy.com/ or http://www.crystalacids.com/ or http://www.tv.com/ or http://www.wikipedia.org/ or well er just ask the Keiman here. PM me at keiman0@yahoo.com if you prefer.

Where the oni er devil was I? Oh hai (yeah) Cutting Edge/Anime Network has a few goodies like 'Valkyrie' (Forget Tom Cruise's Von Stautenburg role. Valkyrie is a princess from another planet who meets Rika a 15 year old schoolgirl at a bath house and well this kid has issues like you wouldn't believe!) and 'King of Bandits Jing' who will steal anything for a price sort of like a weird Nick Velvet. Unlike Nicky though on occasion Jing will kill if necessary. His wisenheimer parrot demon pal/boss steals the show. After all he's voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. Remember when GG voiced Aladdin's parrot in the Disney cartoon movies and series? There are a few more and anata (you ) know oro (what)? Go here for the l

http://www.comcast.com/ and search for On Demand titles.

Anime listings are published monthly at http://www.animeontv.com/ under tv listings.

While you're there check out their series information pages too. Good stuff here and Kitana the foxy avatar babe too. Her name's a pun. A 'katana' is a meter length one sided flat sword squared off at the tip used by Ninja and Samurai alike with devastating accuracy! Kitana is so cute that I just had to have her pix. Here it is:

Ah! A red-headed vision in violet. The best of both worlds eh? The fiery red hair of Kei and the violet top the colour of Yuri's mane. Her violet aizu (eyes) are the same as Kenshin Himura the Samurai ronin (A wandering Samurai without a clan or sensei/teacher/mentor/father figure was called a ronin or a rurouni) warrior circa 1870s Japan from 'Rurouni Kenshin'.

I mentioned 'Witchblade' and under CE/IFC/anime you can find Episodes 20 and 21 for awhile longer. OK er forget Sarah Pezzini the tough NY/Chicago cop detective from the Yancy Butler USA tv series of several years ago. Masane is an ex cop detective from Tokyo but there the resemblance ends and Sarah pales in comparison to this gal! Shielding a child during the Great Quake Masane is entrusted with the bracelet 'Witchblade'. When she comes to her 'daughter' Ryosko is waiting for her. Masane has amnesia and does not realize (she usually doesn't) the blade has activated and been used for defense. When Sarah used the blade presto! a long sword is in her fist and she uses it but does not kill anyone. Uh uh, not Masane. When the blade activates BOOM! Masane's physical structure changes and she morphs into a ravenous dark-haired beauty whose right arm much like Ed Elric's (Fullmetal Alchemist) automail arm transforms into a huge deadly sword! She is very scantily clad and awakens someplace strange with absolutely no idea where she is or oro (what) she has done that night! Takayama to the rescue and-- watch it or get the DVD set like I did for Mama.

Seven DVDs for less than $115 at http://www.dvdpacific.com/ . Sorry but that's all we have on IFC On Demand.

IFC does air HellGirl a couple of nights a week and Witchblade late night Tuesdays too.

If you search OnDemand diligently and you like to 'pay for view' rent you can find good anime. There's quite a few free anime there too. Look for it folks.

OK. Here is Masane in all her glory:

And now for something completely different- Jo(h)nny Yong Bosch from the old Power Rangers is a prolific voiceactor in anime. One of his many roles was as this guy. He is my brother's favorite anime character. He's this post's mystery pix. Who is he and oro (what) is the series? One clue- Gunsmoke: Well that'll do it for this pot tomos all. SFN/SYS/JM/KBYA/KYSOTI/Toodles-K&K