I’ve been asked a couple of times for advice on visiting Japan and so I thought I’d just blog it and send everyone here.

I’m no expert, I’ve twice visited Japan, the first time was a hectic 9 day self-tour of Tokyo, Hakone, Kyota & Osaka. The second, a more leisurely 9 days in Tokyo as part of the Manga Tour of Japan which I definitely recommend although you should definitely have a few more days in Japan afterwards. http://www.japanjourneys.co.uk/manga.htm

Anyway, this isn’t a proper tourists guide to tokyo, more a anime/toy collectors guide and a memory jog for the next time I go but hopefully you may find it useful. Please feel free to let me know if anything has since closed down.

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One of the first robot anime I ever saw was Macron 1, shown rediculously early (5am) on the Super Channel back in the 80s. Of course I didn’t know it was an anime then. To me it was a cartoon with fighter jets that combined into a robot or more often, just docked into the legs and chest of an even larger super robot MacStar (GoShogun) that fired beams from its eyes, had a Photon Battle Axe, and Sword and a gigantic Bazooka that fired a huge energy beam, not to mention it’s trademark lazer bombardment (GoFlasher).

Accompanying the awesomeness of being one of the first super robot shows I saw, it was given a soundtrack comprised of covers of then contemporary music. To this day I still hear the voices of Kathy and Jason as they shoot robotic skeleton warriors whenever I hear “Hit me with your best shot”. Other 80s songs covered included Beat It, The Reflex, Electric Avenue and more.

Click to view Macron 1 European Intro

A Bit of History

At this point I will admit that Goshogun isn’t particularly well loved in Japan but they had had Mazinger Z and countless other super robot shows. Us UK cable TV viewers had Transformers, Voltron, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Macron-1 and Robotech and I’m not sure that some of those weren’t after Macron-1 (my memory sucked when I was 7 too).  Anyway, I loved and still love robot shows and being one of so few I saw in my highly impressionable youth definitely helped make this all the more memorable.

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If there is one anime I want to be released on blu-ray that won’t be in the UK or US for a long time if ever, it is 2008’s Macross Frontier, my next choice would be the 2009 remake of Mazinger Z.

Mazinger Z is the original, big giant robot piloted by a human. A world without Mazinger Z is unimaginable. And now, the king of big giant robots is back in this hi-def re-telling and it is seriously awesome. From the adrenalin pumping intro you know you are in for a treat and it does not disappoint in the action stakes.

Most Insane Begining Ever!

The first episode blew me away, it dumps you straight in the middle of the fight to end all fights.  I have to admit, I haven’t seen all of the original Mazinger Z and while I marked out like mad as everyone I recognized appeared in the first episode, I still didn’t know everyone and was left thinking there is no way anyone could just pick this up.  Then the episode ended, without finishing the epic battle and without telling us how we got to this point.  I was hooked, I wanted more, much more. (more…)

Street Fighter IV is out and I am loving it. I have no doubt the others will put a great review of it and I am looking forward to what they have to say. But with Street Fighter coming back into my life after a long absence it has made me realise 3 things:

1. The computer is a cheating git, pulling off moves you have no way of doing yourself. Proof
2. I was once good at this game, now I am nothing but a noob
3. Cammy remains the best character

Chun-Li and Ryu get all the attention but for me (and most fans I know) Cammy is always the stand out favorite. Maybe its because I am British, maybe its because she is a complete psycho. But she at least has a back story and some characters traits that make her a little more than the 2 dimensional Chun-li. (more…)

I’ve always enjoyed anime about big robots, I haven’t watched as many as some people *cough* (sideswipe) but I was very limited in what I could find before I had the Internet (yes there was a time before the Internet).

One of the first series I watched on VHS…yes VHS was “Kishin Heidan” a alternative timeline based story about Germans and giant robots, it was very good and had some great steampunk style giant robots who fought aliens who fell from the sky in weird egg shapes (sounds a bit crazy but was well done).

I then watched “Gundam Wing” one of the many iterations of the massively popular Gundam series. I could devote a whole post to Gundam but I need to get to the point of the post and that’s Macross.

I’d somehow missed Macross in all its forms, I knew it existed but for some reason had ignored/missed it which was probably down to not having any way to buy copies of it and the seasons tended to be quite long.

Macross like Gundam re-appears every now and again in a new updated form but unlike Gundam which reinvents and changes the universe in which its set Macross sets all its series within one universe and each series just takes a different time period to be set in.

Now if you completely new to Macross and want to watch the amazing new series “Macross Frontier” I’d recommend you watch the below in the order shown, I’ve marked which series are required (you’d be better off watching these as your enjoyment of later series would be effected without them) and which are optional. Feel free to disagree but this is the order I watched them in and is only my opinion.

To start off I’d highly recommend watching

Macross: Do you remember love? – A film version of the main events from the original TV series (called “Super Dimension Fortress Macross” which was later badly edited into Robotech). You could watch the entire series but it is quite long and I think the film is enough. The film itself is really nice and surprisingly holds up very well despite its age (was made in 1984). Without watching this or the series as a whole you’d find allot of future events a bit confusing (you’d be like “why is that farmer a giant?” etc).

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This is an interesting game, every magazine online and off gives it huge scores and yet apparently it hasn’t sold well at all outside of Japan. I have to admit, I played the demo and wasn’t that impressed.  I can tell Sega exactly what went wrong though, the demo was not focused on what should have been the main selling point – the phenomenal story. I haven’t got to sleep before 3am since getting this… (more…)

While Code Geass is only just being released in the US now, the Japanese and hundreds of thousands of fansub watchers like me have already seen the sequel Code Geass R2. Japan loves Geass, the R2 opening song by Orange Range was advertised EVERYWHERE when I was on holiday in Japan back in March (deservedly so too – an excellent song).

Even Tenchi and Shinji from NGE could take Le Louch in a fair fight. CC is Immortal though which obviously proves useful

The idea is actually pretty good, the “bad guys” are the awesomely named Holy Empire of Brittania (which actually doesn’t include Great Britain – go figure?). Anyway after taking over Japan and renaming it Area 11, and it’s people elevens, things don’t go to plan for the empire as anime’s most emo lead character has plans to overthrow them.Even Tenchi and Shinji from NGE could take Le Louch in a fair fight. CC is Immortal though which obviously proves useful

Luckily for him a) He is a genius and beats chess masters for fun and b) he meets a strange girl CC, who gives him the power of Geass. If he looks into the eye of someone, he can then give them an order to be carried out with absolute obedience. After ordering a soldier to give up his gundam-sized robot called a knightmare, he helps out the rebels and quickly becomes their leader and then it progresses quite entertainingly as he tries to lead a double life as normal school nerd and leader of the resistance. The robot designs are very good,with wheels on their feet so they can speed across town or zig zag through enemies in an instant. The battles while often tactical, never fail to have plenty of action.

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