New Anime for the week of 6/28/2004

Every now and then a title comes along that manages to strike a cord with its audience. These titles get little fan fare, but manage to create a buzz thanks to their unique method of story telling and the themes that get explored. Kino's Journey falls squarely in this category. With the final volume now out, fans get another chance to follow Kino and Hermes as they explore the world they live in. Even if you haven't had a chance to watch this series yet, you can easily jump in and follow the story with the understanding of this basic premise: Kino and her motorcycle, Hermes, are travelers in a world where each city has its own traditions and customs. Each episode is self contained, and each story very introspective. This is a thought provoking series that shouldn't be missed.

As each story is independent of the other, the only characters that carry over are Kino and her bike, Hermes. Kino is voiced by Kelli Cousins, who is probably best remembers as Kurumi in Steel Angel Kurumi. Kino is the exact polar opposite of Kurumi, very subdued and terse in her speech. Kelli's performance fits well with Kino's role of observer as Kino moves from place to place. Working well off of Kelli's performance is Cynthia Martinez as Hermes. In this world, a motorcycle can talk, and Hermes often reflects on how foolish humans can be. Being a bit more talkative and often a lot more honest, Hermes plays the devil's advocate for what the pair sees. In the end, Kino's Journey is one of those must-see series. It is well crafted and definitely stands out as one of the best in anime.

In an industry that seems to be overflowing with magical girl shows, you often need a breath of fresh air. Sometimes to do that you just need to have a bit of fun with the genre; enter Magical Play. Magical Play follows the adventures of young Padudu who wants to be a magical girl. Of course, it turns out, she's not very good at it, and just manages to squeak by through shear luck with her first battle. But don't get too hung up on the whole striving for greatness thing. Magical Play quickly shows its true colors as a bit of a parody on the magical girl genre and just a fun romp through the strange world that Padudu and her friends occupy. With the short episode times, the show moves quickly from setup to punch line, and doesn't waste a lot of time as the craziness happens. Magical Play is a fun show that simply has to be experienced to understand what it has to offer.

With such a fun show, it's probably a good thing the cast sounds like they are having a lot of fun as well. Larissa Wolcott sounds at ease in the role of Padudu. Appropriately dingy and naïve, Padudu stays upbeat and carefree. Samantha Inoue-Harte is well cast in the role of Pipin, the bunny girl who sees Padudu as her life long rival after Padudu interrupts a battle and steals Pipin's flower mark. Pipin is often exasperated with Padudu's reaction to things, and Samantha does a good job of bringing that out. With the wackiness of this show, there's only one thing left to do, throw in a wild commentary track from some voice actors. There's a bit of a twist to that one, so you'll just have to check it out yourself!

After fighting to save Shaori, Seiya is near death. Hyoga and Shun come to his aid, but have a hard time of it. It's up to Ikki, the Phoenix, to save the day. The Bronze Saints have little time to relax though as Ikki faces his own past and the other Bronze Saints are spread thin as Pope Ares moves in with a new plan to defeat them. A classic from the golden era of anime, Saint Seiya does a solid job of standing up to the test of time and shows it has the kind of story that can still entertain.

Despite his character spending the first episode of this disc unconscious, Illich Guardiola continues to shine as Seiya. Not to be outdone, the rest of the cast does a solid job of fitting into their roles. Jason Douglas as Hyoga and Chris Patton as Shun do well backing up the main character and get quite a few moments of their own in these episodes to stand out. Of course, saving the day in the story is Ikki voiced by Mike McRae. With much of his back-story coming out in these episodes, Ikki faces a lot of inner turmoil that Mike does well to push in his performance.