Jushi~

Hansel Onii-san...

JUSHI!~

A couple pictures. I had some indecisiveness as to what picture of Gretel to post. I have ones with her in full costume and others… not so much. So I went with the one that didn’t look like all she was wearing was that apron thing she wears. >.>

Anyway I’ve had Otogi-jushi Akazukin kicking around on a DVD for a while now. I recall I was going to watch it a while back but I threw it into my player and it had some major a/v synch issues. (Yes, that implies it was xvid.) It’s got a lot of voice acting names in it. Kugimiya Rie, Tamura Yukari, Hiyama Nobuyuki. Yukari was in everything from Nanoha (Nanoha) to Higurashi (Rika) and Nobuyuki well… I recognized him right off the bat as being in Bleach (Ikkaku). I’m sure I don’t need to mention what Rie’s been in. :p

Anyway the shows a comedy/action/mahou. Well you could go mahou shoujo but… It really isn’t. It takes some elements from the genre though. The ‘Sweet Phone’ is used in tandem with some little card like things to summon weaponry or used to attack things, usually with magic/projectiles. But the rest of the magical girl genre doesn’t happen. Because anyone who has magic powers already had them when they appeared on the show. (So far). There’s no transformation sequences at all, which is not a complaint.

The storyline isn’t anything genius. Souta, the main male character,  lives by himself with his father. Not a bad way of putting it because his dad’s almost never around. He has a memory of his mother telling him a strange fairy tale about a brave hero and a king and some tasks that were given and ends with the world being split in two. One half for science the other half for magic.

Problem is no-one else knows this story and he’s never been able to find it in any books. On top of that he can talk to plants, and they talk back.  Not audibly for the viewer, just to him… So then all of a sudden he’s attack by a monster that calls him Elde’s Key. He’s then saved by a big blue wolf. A big blue talking wolf. Except there’s two monsters… and the wolf isn’t in the greatest shape. Enter a very badass looking Akazukin. Badass looking until A) she takes off the hooded cloak and B) You notice her foot step sound effects are way to freaking cute.  Akazukin translates as ‘red hood’ and as Akazukin is a loli erm I mean little… we’re to presume she is in fact little red riding hood. Or at least, the real version over in magical world. Oh did I mention she’s part of the three musketeers… whose symbol for some baffling reason is a four leafed clover?

Did I mention one of the bad guys is named Hansel, he has a sister, Gretel and his main minion is a cat person, I haven’t checked to see if this cat wears boots but… Oh and they all work for an evil witched named Cendrillon. Notice the theme? Ah, I forgot, Akazukin dual wields some swords called Grim Taler. Which is something else that kind of baffles the mind. Because if you notice, Akazukin wears a sort of half gauntlet on her left hand… yet she dual wields…  So either she’s a lefty and has a one handed weapon we haven’t seen yet, she fights predominantly left handed, or it’s just to look cool. Any, even all of which is entirely possible. Also; buttons, lots of buttons.

I mentioned the storyline is nothing epic. It isn’t, but it’s not bad. It’s good, but not great. It’s got some exciting moments and stuff but it’s not edge of your seat or anything.