MIT Anime Club Showing #529 Friday 15 Februrary 2008 Spring Showing #2 Note: this showing is in room 6-120 at 7:00PM 7:10 Zegapain 1-2 8:00 Pizza token sales (for the first 5 minutes) 8:10 Zegapain 3-4 9:00 Intermission 9:20 Ergo Proxy 1-4 11:00 Short intermission 11:05 They Are My Noble Masters 1-2 *********************************************************************** Contents: Geneon going-out-of-business DVD donation drive Membership Pizza Pizza Ordering Procedure Library Silence Programme ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Spring Showing #2 This week we start with our second semester series, Ergo Proxy. We sampled this in the past, so many of you know that it's a great show so we encourage everyone to make this week a great start to a a fun semester of this show. Of course, sandwiching Ergo Proxy are two samplers of decidedly different genres so no matter what your personal tastes, you're bound to have a good time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Geneon going-out-of-business DVD donation drive So if you've been thinking about sponsoring a disc but haven't now's your chance, what better way to prove your love for a series than buying it for us. ^^ In late September, it was announced that Geneon, one of the largest US anime companies, is getting out of the DVD sales business. Unfortunately, there were still a lot of DVDs we wanted to buy from them! To supplement our normal acquisitions budget of money from the UA, memberships, and refreshments, we're also asking for your help in picking up good series that might be going away for good. For more information, see: http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/donations/geneon-oob-2007.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Membership Did your club membership expire in January? Renew now for continued library checkouts and other membership privileges. Or start a new membership for the term, the year, or a longer period. Ask for a form at the showing or print it in advance from our web site at: http://web.mit.edu/anime/register/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Pizza We'll be using the same token-based pizza sales system we have been using for awhile: we'll sell tokens two episodes before intermission that you can exchange for slices during intermission. This week's pizza options are: $1.50 Plain cheese $2.00 Pepperoni $2.00 Hamburger (this week's feature flavor) Future weeks will feature: - Pastrami - Salami - Sausage - Grilled Chicken - Hawaiian (ham + pineapple) - Hamburger ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Pizza Ordering Procedure To bring you a more reliable pizza experience, we're going to be taking orders using a new procedure. Instead of taking a poll on the blackboard and then selling slices for cash, we'll sell tokens early in the evening which can be exchanged for slices during intermission. If there are extra slices, we'll sell tokens for them at intermission, but advance orders will get priority. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Library The library is open for checkouts as usual this week; get your requests in by Thursday for the best service. The digisub sampler DVD+RW from a few weeks ago is still available. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Silence We'll be employing a team of Japanese butlers as ushers during the showing. If you're disruptive, they'll graciously escort you outside, and then use some of their special deadly butler techniques to make sure you're quiet in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Programme 7:10 Zegapain 1-4 Typical hot-headed shonen protagonist Kyo Sogoru is having trouble getting recruits for his high-school swim club: even though his school has an breathtaking pool, he's currently the only member. He hits on a possible solution, though, when he meets a mysterious transfer student Shizuno Misaki. She agrees to appear in a promotional video for the club (Kyo's childhood friend Ryoko Kaminagi directs), in return from Kyo's help with a project of her own: co-piloting a giant robot (the titular Zegapain) against some generic-looking enemies. At first, Kyo treats it just like a video game, but if that's all it is, why does it feel so realistic? A 2006 series co-created by Takehiko Ito (Outlaw Star) and Hajime Yatate. Yatate is credited with the creation of an amazing list of anime series, including The Big O, Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Gasaraki, just about everything Gundam, My-HiME, sCRYed, and Witch Hunter Robin, but he's never appeared at a US anime convention. That's because he isn't a real person: he's a pen name for collective works by the creative staff of animation studio Sunrise. (There's some grumbling that doing this is in part a way to avoid paying royalties to individual creators.) Like many of Sunrise's recent original series, this one manages to mix together a number of fan-friendly elements without straying too far from genre conventions, as is appropriate for something created (nominally) by a committee rather than a single author. The swim team is an excuse to show characters in bathing suits, though this fanservice is equal-opportunity: you'll see at least as much of Kyo in his Speedos as of Misaki. The giant robot battles are unabashedly CG, displaying a speed and use of translucent accents that would never be tried by hand. 9:20 Ergo Proxy 1-4 In a dystopian future domed city where robots and immigrants do all the hard work, a mysterious humanoid monster is on the loose, and the only one who can stop it is Re-l Mayer, an inspector of the Citizen Intelligence Bureau who also happens to be the granddaughter of the city's regent. This stylish sci-fi thriller has a distinguished pedigree, produced by Manglobe (Samurai Champloo), directed by Shukou Murase (Witch Hunter Robin), and written chiefly by Dai Sato (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, among others). Between the "Cogito" virus that's infecting the city's robots, and the "Ergo" in the title, you shouldn't be surprised to see philosophical themes of self-awareness under the action; a number of characters are also named after French post-structuralists. And, speaking of affectation, Re-l has a heavy touch with her blue eyeshadow. 11:05 They Are My Noble Masters 1-2 Here we present you a show about butlers (My) and the people (Noble Masters) they serve. This may seem boring to you if you've ever met any real butlers, but these butlers lend themselves to a more extreme system of doing their job; the kind of thing we've come to expect from anime seemingly about the mundane. This show is specifically about a brother and sister who have run away from home and now find themselves looking for work, luckily they're saved by a household of wealthy debutantes and the fun continues from there. The plot device is handled in a solid way, but it probably won't surprise you. The good side to that is you don't have to worry about it being surprisingly bad. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (This showing is made possible in part with funding from Finboard and the Undergraduate Association of MIT.) You have received this message because you are on the MIT Anime Club's email list for showing announcements. For a change in your subscription, please send mail to anime-inquiry at mit.edu.