But I found out some really cool stuff. First, there is a Star wars manga out there! Yeps, from all the movies. Kevin would like that a lot. There is a American style manga series of the clone wars books out too.
Another one that is good, is the legend of Zelda manga.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_from_The_Legend_of_Zelda_series

I picked up the one where he is a adult at the convention and it is really good.

My neighbor Totoro is also available as a manga, I think there are four books of it so far. the movie was really good.

i also heard about this place:

http://ask.metafilter.com/40850/Kidfriendly-manga

it has a lot of books that are good for kids 9 and up.

here are some more good web sites on manga:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/540000654/post/1450041145.html

http://www.mangaforkids.com/preview.php

http://www.manga4kids.com/

Okay on anime, i found some really good one you guys might want to check out. First off, did you know the Lion King was first done as a anime long before we got the Lion King here? Yeps. It was called Kimba the White Lion. and it was around back when Speed Racer was. Looks like same people drew it too. He’s got his own web site.

http://www.kimbawlion.com/

Another cool one to check out is Nadia, the secret of blue water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushigi_no_Umi_no_Nadia

The Robotech ones are pretty good, Kevin might like it more since he is into Star Wars. might have to wait until he is older, the story is kinda complicated and stuff.

And I am starting to watch one called, Fate: stay night. it is all about a group of knights sent out to find the Holy Grail, and one of them is a girl. It takes places back in the crusades, when they had made kids into knights. There is fighting, but nothing really icky so far, mostly war type stuff.

Dad also wanted me to mention, that if you want to get into Girl Genius. (which is wicked funny); go on itunes and get the radio drama. Think there was only a few of them, but Mr Wright plays one of the characters, and the husband and wife who came up with it do too. The only thing to warn you on the comic is that sometimes Agatha, the main girl in the story wakes up and she is in her underwear, but is is like old time 1800 type underwear, like long johns. So nothing bad and stuff. It is a funny running joke that she builds inventions in her sleep, then when she wakes up, she and her friends have to figure out what it is and what it does. One was a robot/alarm clock that was wicked funny. You will hear that one on itunes.

Dad also said for you guys to check out Asterix the Gaul. It has been around for ages, and is pretty cool. Has a lot about history, there are videos and games out on it too.

http://gb.asterix.com/

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=asterix+and+obelix&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=ManWSZyHLZPaMZ_EtPwO&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

Stay away from the live action ones, those are really dumb and bad.

Well hope that helps, i’ll do some reviews soon on ones i got at the convention.

Darcy

This week we listen to all the voicemail that has poured in about our Women Heroes show and our Anime show. Thanks to Tim, RapidEye, TJ and Arkle for calling in!

The Jodcast

Astroboy Trailer on Slice of Scifi

Kiki’s Delivery Service

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek – at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Bumpers: Short Cummings Audio

Promos:Variant Frequencies and The One Tree Hill Podcast

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

Hi everone! We begin with a voicemail from Tim commenting on women heroes, and how Col. Samantha Carter was so smart she even rescued McGuyver! Darcy picked out these women heroes, and I have to say I agree with her choice!

Then I talked about being aware that not all animation is for kids. Be it books, movies, games or television, you as parents and adults should be aware of the content, and know if it is appropriate for the kids to have.

I recommended the Miyazaki films Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and My Neighbor Totoro (and I forgot to mention Kiki’s Delivery Service) for kids, and the Girl Genius graphic novels for teens – one of Darcy’s faves!

Thanks for all the input, and keep it coming! And, if you have some time, I would appreciate a review on iTunes!

Don’t forget to check out the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast!

Please email me with your own comments at howtogrowyourgeek – at-gmail -dot-com, or call my voicemail number at 206-202-7309 and leave your thoughts. You can also visit our forum at the Farpoint Forums.And last but not least, you can follow me on Twitter!

Bumpers: The Geek Survival Guide

Promo: Dragon Page Cover to Cover and The Gmail Podcast

Theme music courtesy of Jonathan Coulton

Modern Japanese high school.  Three girls are taking turns telling ghost stories.  The room is dark except for the small lights they have.  After all the stories are done the girls count off to three, if someone says “four” that is a ghost.  Imagine their surprise when a male voice says “four.”  This guy Kazuya Shibuya is there and turns on the light.  He is handsome and cool and there is some swooning.
Mai Taniyama is suspicious though, who is this guy?  He is not a student, there is something wrong in look in his eyes. A regular Nancy Drew.

The next morning Mai sees a something in the old school building next door and investigates.  It is a video camera.  A noise behind her and she knocks over a shoe shelf and would be seriously hurt if not for the guy moves her out of the way.  It is not Kazuya from yesterday, but another guy working with Kazuya.  He is hurt by the falling shelving and the camera is broken.
Kazuya takes his friend to the hospital and Mai goes to class.  After school Mai and her friends are scolded by Kuroda, another student.  Telling ghost stories attract spirits and those spirits attract more spirits.  It is dangerous and should stop.  Kuroda is psychic you know.

Kazuya tells Mai that his assistant is bed-laid and the camera broken.  She shall work off her debt by being his assistant on the old schoolhouse job.  Suspicious, yes.  Particularly when he says he is a ghost hunter.  Mai helps Kazuya set up camera equipment in the old schoolhouse.  If there are any spirits the cameras will record them.  Kazuya is incredibly self-confidant, “my brain works differently than yours,” kind-of stuck up.
Mai is hating him more and more.
Kuroda shows up and is a bit creepy.

The next morning Kazuya and Mai encounter Ayako Matsusuaki a Shinto maiden, Hosho Takigawa a monk of the rogue Koyasan sect (look up apostate priest), and John Brown from Australia.  He does Catholic exorcisms.
All hired separately to clean the old schoolhouse of spirits by the principal.  Serious overkill.
Kuroda also shows up to help, but is immediately judged by Ayako to have no powers.  Kuroda gives a scary look and a curse in exchange.
Inside the old schoolhouse Ayako encounters something that makes her believe there are spirits here.  That is when Masako Hara says there are no spirits.  Masako is a medium with her own TV show.  She is about the same age as Mai.
Kuroda comes in a says there is a spirit and it just attacked her.  Kazuya checks the camera and finds only static.
Egos are running high in front of Mai.  We see the story from her point of view.

I like that the Unreliable Witness is used.  Is Masako lying to protect her reputation?  Is Ayako lying to protect her reputation?  Is Kuroda lying about sensing spirits?  There is too much happening for it to be a high school prank.

That is most of episode one.
Stories, called Files on the show usually take three or four episodes though there are shorter ones.
The cast of characters come together with their different skill to solve various hauntings.

The series answers the question: can spirits who were not Christian in life be affected by Holy Water and Bible rites?  “Yes” and “they will be peeved.”

A rarity is that the series does not run out of steam as it goes along.  The last two stories ramp up the blood and horror.
Ask a ghost “Who murdered you?”
Writes “Vlad”
“That is strange.  Vampires are not real.  I wonder what it means?”

Shameless plug: David volunteers for Connecticon.  If you are into anime, scifi, any form of gaming and are within traveling distance of Hartford, CT the last weekend of July – visit www.connecticon.org and register!

David Anderson
Marlborough, CT

I saw the anime movie “The Sword of the Stranger” Thursday and the theater messed up enough that I was upset for awhile. Now, the plot, the good, the bad.

Japan’s Warring States Period.  No country, just different Lords fighting.  A team of Chinese are paying for a special temple to be built by a lord in order to perform a ceremony for the Chinese Emperor.  This involves a specific boy to be sacrificed at a specific time.  The lord’s troops help the Chinese look for him.

The boy and his dog are living in an abandoned temple when the stranger arrives on his own way.  When the lord’s troops and one of the Chinese arrive the stranger is forced to fight defending the boy.  Without drawing his sword, he has it so he can’t pull it out.

Hide and seek and political machinations ensue.  It feels much the same as Clint Eastwood’s Stranger movies. I like how none of the characters behave strangely.  Once you know them they act the way you expect them to. All the different groups of bad guys are not flat characters.  There are some who do not seem all that bad.

The animation quality is not quite as high as I expect for a movie.  Better than most TV shows, but not the best I’ve ever seen.

Technically, unrated it was described as PG-13.  That is arguable.  The fights are of the fountains-of-blood variety.  The action is quick, but you can still follow that there are heads a-flying.

If you have not given up on shaping your teen this can be a fun action movie experience.  I saw at least one father-son duo bond. That blond-haired blue-eyed Chinese guy, we should not be rooting for the bad guy, but…

It is out of the theaters now, but should be on DVD from Bandai Entertainment soon.

Take care,
David

Something else I would like to see all of, but have not is “Giantic Formula.”  Giant stone heads of the Greek gods are found. They nearly destroy the world.  They have the human build them giant robot bodies and fight one another.

Each country in the world has its own god/robot.  It is not that messed up and should be find with middle schoolers. In a demoralizing start the Russian airforce runs rough-sod over the Japanese military, then the Russian god/robot shows up. Much time of the series is spent with the different pilots of the god/robots.

Enjoy!

David

I wanted to do something different this time and review one of most favorite things. Anime!!! I LOVE good anime. Like Pixar and other stuff, some can get kinda weird and not all of it is good for kids. I watch some that are, and some that aren’t. But for here I will review ones that everyone can see, because it’s always best when you get to share stuff with your whole family. Also I thought it best to review these in case someone saw them and wanted to buy them, and anime is expensive to buy. So it best to know what’s good and what’s not before you spend money on them. This first one I can tell you is one of the best. It was introduced by one of the Pixar guys who said, “what you are about to see is one of my all time favorite movies.” Dude, when a guy like that says something like that, you just know its good right?

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind –

from the back of the box:  from one of the most celebrated filmakers in the history of animation and the creator of the academy award winning Spirited Away, comes Hayao Miyazarki’s epic masterpiece Nausicaa of the valley of the wind.
A thousand years after a global war, a seaside kingdom known as the valley of the wind remains one of only a few areas still populated. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaa, the people of the valley are engaged in a constant struggle with powerful insects called Ohmu, who guard a poisonous jungle that is spreading across the earth. Nausicaa and her brave companions, together with the people of the valley; strive to restore the bond between humanity and the earth.

The movie takes place 1,000 years after a war has devastated the earth and forced those that survived to live on the edge of a poison filled forest, or fungus really; called the sea of corruption. The story itself is set in one place known as the valley of the wind, which is made safe because the constant wind blows the deadly spores from the forest away from them. The villagers have lived in peace as best they can, but they are also caught off and do not know what is going on elsewhere in the world. Which is very bad, because a war has broken out between the world’s remaining empires. The Torumekians and the Pejite over a old and powerful weapon called a god soldier. You would think with the world bring almost all covered in this poison fungi, they would stop fighting. But nopes. When the weapon is being transported to a safer spot, it crashes. Ten guesses where. Yeppers, the valley of the wind. Now Nausicaa and her friends are caught in the middle of two warring nations. And all the while the fungi just grows and grows.

I loved the main character, Nausicaa. She is smart, strong, and has a love for nature and the world around her. In the first scene we see her rescue a traveler from a maddened Ohmu. Not by killing it, or harming it in anyway; but by reasoning with it instead. That’s something new and it helped to show her love of nature. Now i should tell you, a Ohmu is a huge caterpillar like creature as big as a house! And she uses a flying witch like thing to fly in front and around it while it is chasing the traveler. Later we learn that when she was little, she keep a baby Ohmu as a pet. and she learns that they really arent dangerous. As long as people learn to live with them.

The valley becomes occupied by the Torumekians, and all the people are taken as prisoners. But on the way back to the empire, the ships are attacked by the Pejite, and Nausicaa, the princess of Torumekian, and the prince of Pejite crash land in the middle of the forest. They must work together to get out, and a romance also developes. hehe. But I won’t say more on that. I don’t want to spoil anything if I can help it.

The movie is just wow! It is so pretty in places, and the insects, although a little scarry, are really detailed. This is the first film by this director, and people still say it’s his best work. (see what I said above about the Pixar guys.) This also started out as a Magna. Now Magna is a lot like our comic books here, our or graphic novels. What is really cool is that everyone reads Magna over there. From young kids, to even grand parents. They, like anime movies in general, teach a great deal about morals, and how to treat people, nature and the world around us.

More on the Manga of this Movie can be found here:
http://www.ex.org/articles/2001/2001.07.14-rev_manga-us-nausicaa_of_the_valley_of_wind.html

This is a wicked good movie, and it is one of my very favorites! In fact I think this is the first one Uncle Dave gave me. I had never seen or heard of anime before, and after seeing this I was SOOOOOO hooked.

I managed to find some trailers of it on you tube, so here you go. check it out then look this up on net flicks. You will want to get this one guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_rtIcyqssA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXKl0oR5gjs&NR=1

This one is really cool, it shows how the music was recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hgyForitkQ

Really guys, this is the best movie ever!

Darcy