MIT Anime Club Showing #531 Friday 29 Februrary 2008 Spring Showing #4 Note: this showing is in room 3-270 at 7:00PM 7:10 El Cazador de la Bruja 1-2 8:00 Pizza token sales (for the first 5 minutes) 8:10 El Cazador de la Bruja 3-4 9:00 Intermission 9:20 Ergo Proxy 5-8 11:00 Short intermission 11:05 Gunbuster 2 (Diebuster) 3-4 *********************************************************************** Contents: New Meeting place this week!! Geneon going-out-of-business DVD donation drive Karaoke Membership Pizza Pizza Ordering Procedure Library Silence Programme ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Spring Showing #4 This is a fun week. Most of it should be familiar of course. The next set of Ergo Proxy will be on display for you, as well as the next two episodes of Gunbuster 2 which we premiered last week. As a special treat our sampler will be something very close to home to anybody who's a fan of Noir (or Madlax) plots and settings are nearly identical. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ New Place It turns out that the scheduling office messed up and 6-120 is being used by another group. This means for tonight the showing will be in 3-270. The directions to this room are on our website: http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/Showings/directions-3-270.shtml ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Karaoke Karaoke is back, and will be held on Saturday, May 3 this time around. It'll likely run from 2-5pm, room TBA. All are welcome. If you have a special request or two, please fill out a request form (available at the showing or at http://web.mit.edu/anime/Events/karaoke_May08.pdf) and drop it off at a showing or during office hours. You may also e-mail your requests to anime-inquiry at mit.edu. Songs will be timed and romaji lyrics provided. Whenever available, the karaoke or instrumental versions of songs will be used. Requests are due by March 28. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Grilled Chicken (this week's feature flavor) Future weeks will feature: - Pastrami - Salami - Hawaiian (ham + pineapple) - Hamburger - Sausage - Grilled Chicken ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Maxwell's demon likes to watch his anime without disruption, so if you make noise during the showing, he'll torment you by making the left half of your body unusually hot and the right half unusually cold. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Programme 7:10 El Cazador de la Bruja 1-4 Two young women. One, a bit older with long hair, is a professional who shoots her way out of trouble for a living. The other, younger and a bit more moe-styled, has amnesia and a mysterious past that makes her a target, but also unusual powers that are revealed when she's in a tight spot. Together they journey through exotic locales to discover the truth, encountering wave after wave of generic goons who they take down with excellent marksmanship (though because of TV standards, the bullet wounds are always bloodless). All to a soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura. Director Koichi Mashimo (.hack, Irresponsible Captain Tylor) and his Bee Train studio had a hit with that formula in 2001's Noir. After the disappointment of Avenger, they returned to following it closely with 2004's Madlax (DVDs coming soon to the library). And in 2007 they made it a trilogy with this series. The exotic locale is (apparently) Mexico. The older main character is Nadie, a somewhat feckless bounty hunter, and the younger one is Ellis, on the run as a murder suspect. 9:20 Ergo Proxy 5-8 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 Gunbuster 2 (Diebuster) 3-4 Our main character Nono left her rural Martian hometown with dreams of becoming a space pilot, and she's convinced that her hard work and dedication will eventually pay off, even if her current job is just as a waitress in a seedy diner. She gets her foot in the door, though, with a chance encounter with Lal'C, one of the most skilled of a group of elite teenaged giant robot pilots named "Topless". Though Nono's hero worship can be grating (she calls Lal'C "onee-sama", a reverential and honorary "big sister"), she shows some potential after getting caught in the middle of a battle with one of the Space Monsters that plague the solar system. It turns out, though, that Nono is something other than what she originally appears. This 2004-2006 OVA series is Gainax's weird kind of sequel to their classic 1988 OVA series Gunbuster: it stars a completely different cast, and has a very different art style, but there are thematic echos and deliberate homages everywhere. The other clear ancestor is FLCL, which shared a number of key staff: both the character designs and the general atmosphere of weirdness are very similar (no soundtrack by The Pillows, alas). (A naming note: the Japanese title of the original series was "Top o Nerae: Gunbuster" ("Aim for the Top: Gunbuster"), shortened just to "Gunbuster" in the US release. This one is "Top o Nerae 2: Diebuster", so there's some disagreement as to whether the more logical English title should be "Gunbuster 2", as the US distributor eventually chose, or "Diebuster".) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (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.