Had to share this one which was posted on the Vertical blog today:

Now the kids can kampai, too!



Thanks, Anne!

What's My Name?
BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo
Sometimes you get a DVD in the mail and it sits in your "To See" box for a week, or two, or eight. And then you pop it in to watch as a distraction from whatever is going on in your house. Most of the time that DVD I so wisely avoided lulls me to sleep.


Not this time.


"BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo" could raise the dead. This is hands down one of the funniest anime DVDs I have seen...ever. Clever is clever, and idiotic is idiotic. Idiotic tends to disguise itself as clever, but it is not so often that clever disguises itself as idiotic.

This is the (ack...I hate to overuse the word) genius of "BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo". I won't go deep into the story, because the story doesn't go deep into the story. In a nutshell, Bo-bobo the muscled blonde-afro hero, hooks up with Beauty, the theoretical "voice of reason", and Don Patch, a ... well ... he looks like an orange ghost from Pac-Man sent through a wind-tunnel. They are fighting Csar Baldy Bald the 4th (not the greatest translation of a character name) who is anti-hair.


Not only does the goldy-locked Bo-bobo have more hair on his head than should be allowed, his secret weapon is his Indiana Jones-inspired whip-like nose hair, which can be commanded to do a series of attacks.

This is where reason ends, and the pure unadulterated fun of "BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo" begins. It's more than a laugh a minute. It's a laugh every 10 seconds. From non-sequitur to non-sequitur, it's visual gag after visual gag.

What I really enjoyed about the first two volumes of "BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo" is that I could watch them with my young son, and he enjoyed it one one level (so much that he requests it often for pre-sleep viewing) and I can see the deeper meaning behind the gags.

But at the same time we are both laughing.

Ping Pong bounces into Portland

A few years ago I took the chance to see Uzumaki in an old, low ceiling theater which was showing the movie, and had just a great time. Even though Ping Pong has been out on video and DVD for a little while now (the movie came out in Japan in 2002), I love the fact that Viz Pictures is touring it around to the art house cinemas. It arrives in Seattle at the end of this month, I beleive, and in Portland on June 8 (At the Hollywood Theatre). It's a fun movie, based on a Taiyo Matumoto comic. Take a date. Take a friend. Tell me what you thought.

I realized that I didn't post last month's Mecha Mecha Media article. So here it is. I'll put up this month's column very soon. In June I review Kurosagi Corpse Delviery Service, Mail, Puri Puri, To Heart DVD, Black Lagoon DVD and horror novel Birthday. It should be on newsstands in the first week of June.

Which reminds me... I was recently asked "How do you pronounce your column's title?" I do more communication through email than face to face with the publishers, but when I do, probably 99% of the time people say "Mecha Mecha" as "Mekka Mekka" which is totally OK, as that is how the "mechanical" giant-robot anime way to say it would be. I kind of figured that would happen, but my real intention was to call it "Mecha Mecha Media" with the soft "ch" (めちゃめちゃ) which is a mostly West-Japan-area word meaning "super-duper" (to use an outdated term) or "totally". One of my favorite shows from Japan was the Kansai manzai duo 99's variety and sketch-comedy tv show "Mecha Mecha Iketeiru" (のめちゃめちゃ生けている) which I guess could translate as "Livin' Large". Thinking about it, both pronunciations fit perfectly... but if you ever meet me, I would love to hear you say it with the soft "ch". It feels a little more super-duper.

I would like to give a hardy CONGRATULATIONS to Wilson Huff. He was the first person (after several failed attempts by other faithful readers) to correctly identify Ultra Scott, Ultra Chuck, and Ultra Beth as the three members of Ultra U.S.A. (aka Ultra Team). It seems there were some alternative names out there in English translations (Ultra Woman?!?) but this is the right answer, straight from the Japanese source (see pic).

Wilson is a big poster on the Snowblood Apple forums, which have become the premiere review and forum site for Extreme Japanese film, but with forums and threads covering all Asian and world cinema. They even got a credit in the recent Vertical release J-Horror, so seriously interested parties should take a gander. (Thankfully there are strict rules against spam and flaming, so it is a real fans forum.)

The May and June issues of Eiga Hiho are out, and I will give you a look at the May issue. They LOVE Tarantino and are (justifiably) excited about the Grindhouse releases, which will come out in Japan (as well as other parts of the world) as two separate movies, according to Harvey Weinstein There are also an in-depth articles on Paul Verhoeven, Rocky Balboa, and Noboru Tanaka as well as some of the extreme American movie of the 60s and 70s.

I am going to feature it in the issue of Yuuyake Shimbun, but I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed the entire (and too short!) MAIL series. There are 18 short stories spread over the three volumes, and almost every story plays upon a stereotypical or classic Japanese ghost story theme. The few that don't give the back story of our hero, ghost detective Akiba, who's days are not over, as he will appear in a future issue of Kurosagi Ghost Delivery Service (HOORAY!). The pics tell the story better, and it really is a must for fans of modern manga horror.

The new issue of The Yuuyake Shimbun is out now, and it is a really great issue, so if you live in the Great Northwest, I encourage to pick up a copy.

The folks at Dragon Dynasty have been very nice to us, and if you can answer this month's TRIVIA QUESTION you can win a free copy of the 2-disc DVD "Born to Fight". This comes from the same producers as "The Protector" and "Ong-Bak, Mui-Tai Warrior".

This is a really cool straight-up action movie, and it's nice to know that there are still studios making no-CGI, no-stuntmen, no-wire kick-ass action movies. Bruce Lee is dead, and Jackie Chan is getting a little too old, but the spirit of those greats are here.

So here is the TRIVIA QUESTION:

What are the names of the trio of heroes that make up ULTRAMAN U.S.A. ?

Thanks to the Internet, I won't give any more hints than that. The first person who can name them (in Japanese or in English) will get sent a copy of "Born to Fight". No strings, no obligations, no baloney. I have a brand-new, unopened copy to give, and why not make a contest out of it? (email to mechamechamedia.at.gmail.dot.com)

Free Comic Book Day

I hadn't talked about this in the past because there usually aren't manga titles available, but today, Cinco de Mayo was also annual Free Comics Day, and I was happy to see that TokyoPop put together a nicely done, bound title to give away.

As you can guess, I tend to read more manga than American comics (though I was and am a big fan of a lot of superhero comic books) but it was really cool seeing so many people show up for the events, especially dads (like me) bringing their young kids to get their first taste of the "comic-book shop" and all the delights hidden inside.