Died not from wounds inflicted on the battlefield, but from Prostate Cancer.

I speak, of course, of Robot Chicken, the new series on the Cartoon Network Adult Swim block. It’s a comedy show co-created by Seth Green and completely animated using stop motion with toys and action figures. Each episode is about 12 minutes long and is made up of all sorts of various bits and sketches of various lengths. One of the longer sketches, and the one that everyone seems to be talking about, is the Transformers parody where Optimus Prime is diagnosed with prostate cancer and dies.

Originally I wasn’t going to go out of my way to watch this, but after seeing some screen shots and hearing so much buzz around it after it had aired, I decided that I had to see what all the fuss was about and found a way to download it. Now that I have seen it, I have to admit that I did chuckle a bit. It was pretty well done, and as far as being a Transformers parody goes, the people responsible really seemed to know their stuff. It was a real Transformers parody and not just some vauge reference to the concept of Transformers. Some of the figures they used were actually highly customized to get different characters on the show. The voice acting was pretty close to the original Generation 1 cast, but the real gag came from seeing the Autobots in situations you’d never see them in, like in the showers after winning a battle, and Optimus Prime at the doctors office.

News of Prime’s death has been spreading, and even the National Prostate Cancer Coalition has issued a press release, both in the spirit of fun and to seriously raise awareness of this disease. So perhaps some good may come out of this silly cartoon.

Other, less moralistic skits involved swearing Pokemon, a smoking Teletubby, crude and violent TV show bloopers, and “The World’s Most One Sided Fistfights Caught on Film“. Some are funny, some are lame, but for the most part the show isn’t a complete waste of time. The humor is obviously not for everyone, and it’s certainly not for children, but it’s worth checking out.

Geeze, never thought I’d ever have to type the word “Prostate” so many times. Rather not have to do that again.

Sayonara.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done this, and I’ve got nothing else to write about now, so here are some of the shows that I’ve seen recently.

Air: A traveling puppeteer who seems to use magic takes his act to a town and is immediately surrounded by several very strange girls. Sounds like a crazy show, but it’s actually a very serious character study. I can’t put my finger on why, but after sampling a few episodes I got really interested in seeing how the story will turn out. Very nice animation with vivid colours too. I’ll recommend it for those looking for something different than a typical action series.

Major: A baseball anime. I’m not very interested in baseball, but I gave this show a shot and I find it very engaging. Like most sports anime, it’s not really about the topic at hand, but about the characters and what they go through. An aging and injured pitcher, left with his 5 year old son after his wife passed away, attempts to grab hold of the few remaining strands of his career by making a comeback… as a batter! Like most sports anime, this one piles the drama on very thickly, and does a damn good job of it too.

Black Jack: Some time ago I talked about watching the Black Jack special “4 Miracles of Life” episodes, and mentioned how there was going to be a new ongoing series. This series has easily become one of my most favorite anime shows of all time. Each episode presents a new situation in which Black Jack is creatively weaved into the story to use his amazing surgical abilities. Some episodes are real tearjerkers!

Mahoraba Heartful Days: I could tell you how this show is about a young guy who has left home and moved to the city to go to a special school for artists, and maybe that would sound interesting. But after watching the first episode I discovered that the aforementioned young guy has the hots for the girl who runs the building he’s living in. Oh, and she’s his cousin. Now, granted, the cousin is pretty cute, and perhaps the specifics of the situation may not be culturally taboo in this case, but I thought it was kind of creepy so I’m not watching anymore. Just say no, dude. Just say no.

Mahou Sensei Negima: A little boy is a teacher at an all girls school. Oh, and he also knows magic. For a show with so many girls, I was surprisingly bored while watching this.

Ultimate Girls: By the title, I thought that this was going to be some inane series about materialistic girls who go shopping and talk about their school lives while eating sweets. I was seriously wrong. This show is an Ultraman parody. It’s probably only funny if you know anything about Ultraman, but I do so I thought it was hilarious. A giant hero called “UFO Man” accidently steps on 3 girls while fighting a monster who looks like a vinyl collectable toy. He uses a portion of his powers to bring them back to life so that they may fight in his place. There’s tons and tons of fanservice. In fact, the whole show is just a hollow spectacle of fanservice and various transforming super hero jokes with a perverted edge. So, needless to say, I love it!

I’ve got a big pile of other shows to talk about, and even more that I haven’t gotten around to watching yet, but this will do for now.

Sayonara.

So, if you haven’t heard by now, Naruto, the ninja themed anime about the Nine-tailed fox demon, has been licensed for distribution in North America. This is big news. Naruto is one of the biggest franchises in Japan right now. The manga has been available for quite some time and is very popular, and a sizable fan base of die hards has already been established through the Internet via Bittorrent downloads. Any fool can see the money dripping off of this show. It has the potential to be the next Dragonball Z. But, of course, to the typical elitist anime fan on the Internet, this is not good news. It didn’t take long for the whole “OMG! They’re going to ruin it!” nonsense to start up. Why? Because they’re going to have to make edits to the show’s content in order to conform to broadcast standards. Geeze, aren’t we past this yet? Who cares? Does it really make that much of a difference? Besides, unedited DVDs will come out eventually. I’m sure much of the backlash has to do with people not being able to easily download episodes for free off the Internet anymore. I think that’s disgusting. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. If you’re a fan, then you should pay. It’s only fair.

Personally, I think the bigger story in the world of animation isn’t the international processing of Naruto, but the potential desecration of the Looney Tunes through this new project, Loonatics. They’re taking these classic characters and making them the basis for a completely unrecognizable, edgy, “extreme” sci-fi show out of them. I’m sorry, but no amount of editing to a Japanese show to make it palatable for an English speaking audience can possibly be as bad as pillaging the Looney Tunes, who are cultural icons that have been with us for half a century. But this is Warner Bros. we’re talking about, and they have proven that they are more than willing to ignore or even rewrite their own history in order to force feed the masses what they think should be popular. Then again, it’s too early to condemn the show outright, and it could end up being good. We’ll see. But the people responsible are working inside of an important and legendary universe of characters, and thus have an awful lot to live up to. I hope that they can see and respect that instead of just picking the bones of a franchise they’ve allowed to flounder in a vain attempt at cashing in.

Sayonara.

Yep.

Sayonara.

It is not the Year of the Monkey anymore, but I coincidentally made a monkey related purchase just before the Year of the Rooster began.

I bought Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 for the GameCube. They cost around $20 each. I had never played these games before, but I’d heard and read about how much fun they were since they came out. So I figured, at that price, why not? Besides, it’s got monkeys. Monkeys make everything better.

So far I’ve just been playing the first Monkey Ball, and will tackle the second when I’m done. It is as quirky and silly and fun as you’d expect from a game with the words “Super“, “Monkey“, and “Ball” in its title. Despite the game’s cute exterior, it takes a lot of skill to roll that monkey around without falling off the ledge. There have been a few frustrating spots, but like any good game should, it keeps me coming back for more.

The real treat of this game, however, are the Mini Game and Party Game options, specifically “Monkey Target“. The concept itself is so crazy that it could only originate from Japan. You take a monkey in a plastic ball, roll it down a huge ramp, launch it over the open sea, have the ball split into hemispherical wings, carefully maneuver it towards the targets, close it up back into a ball, and hope that the monkey lands on big points instead of in the water. It’s one of the most insane, difficult, hilarious, and addicting things I’ve ever played. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but once you do, you’ll keep on trying to beat your score. I think that, from now on, various conflicts and arguments should be solved with Monkey Target. It just makes perfect sense to me!

There was another game I saw available at that same budget price: Billy Hatcher. It’s about a little boy in a chicken costume who rolls an egg around. Yeah. How appropriate for the Year of the Rooster. Think I’ll have to pick that game up too. Between Monkey Ball, Pikmin, and Katamari Damashi, I’ll be developing a crazy collection of weird video games. Could be a future article in that, so if you know of any weird, silly, obscure video games that are worth looking into, let me know and I’ll keep it in mind.

Now I’m off to play with my Monkey Balls.

Sayonara.