Final fall meeting(?): Some shining men, the butterfly, the flower, and the will of Steins Gate...and more of that flower

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• This Weekend's Meetings
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This Weekend:
Time: 7pm
Location: Maryland 109 (Friday), Maryland 110 (Saturday)

Friday November 11, 2011
Steins;Gate Episodes 17-24 [END]
Steins;Gate is based off the 2009 Xbox 360 visual novel, which was later ported to the Windows PC in 2010 and the PSP and iOS in 2011. Set in the heated summer of 2010, which takes place approximately one year after the events of spin-off Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate deals with the mysteries of the John Titor pseudonym. A group of friends living in Akihabara managed to customize their microwave into a machine that can send text messages into the past. Little did they know, however, each one of their messages began to distort reality and is eventually caught on by SERN, an organization that had been performing research on time travel. Steins;Gate premiered in Japan as part of the Spring 2011 anime season and unlike its counterpart, Chaos;Head, it has become deemed not only as one of the top anime titles for 2011 but also one of the best series in history. In addition, Steins;Gate recently receive the reward for Best Male Protagonist in 2011. Hiroshi Hamasaki (Texhnolyze, Shigurui) and Takuya Satou (Seitokai no Ichizon, Ichigo Mashimaro) co-directed, Jukki Hanada (Rozen Maiden, Level E) composed the script, and White Fox (Katanagatari, Tears to Tiara) provided the animation. Mamoru Miyano (Light Yagami from Death Note, Setsuna F. Seiei from Gundam 00) voices male protagonist, Hououin Kyouma Rintarou Okabe.

Saturday November 12, 2011
Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (Ano Hana) Episodes 8-11 [END]
In contrast to Steins;Gate as well as much of what we've shown this semester, Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (or Ano Hana for short) is an original anime put together by the Toradora! director Tatsuyuki Nagai (To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Honey to Clover II) and animator and character designer Masayoshi Tanaka (Highschool of the Dead, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!), with A-1 Pictures (Fairy Tail, Working!!) as the primary animation studio. Using Yoshida Town and Chichibu City, in Saitama, Japan as the primary setting, there was once a group of six close childhood friends. Over the course of 10 years, however, the six had grown dramatically apart from each other:

• Jinta Yadomi, voiced by Miyu Irino (Syaoran in Tsubasa Chronicle, Ko Kitamura in Cross Game), is now a hikikomori;
• Naruko Anjou, voiced by Haruka Tomatsu (Aoba Tsukushima in Cross Game, Corticarte Apa Lagranges in Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica), is obsessed with fashion and hanging out with her girl friends;
• Atsumu Matsuyuki and Chiriko Tsurumi, voiced by Takahiro Sakurai (Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Meme Oshino in Bakemonogatari) and Saori Hayami (Ayase Aragaki in Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai, Haqua du Lot Herminium in The World God Only Knows), respectively, are two "proper" high school students;
• Tetsudou Hisakawa, voiced by Takayuki Kondou (Eita Tanaka in Shakugan no Shana, Hiroto Honda in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters), decided to explore the world instead of attending high school;
• and Meiko Honma, voiced by Ai Kayano (Inori Yuzuriha in Guilty Crown, Hibino Shiba in Kamisama Dolls), remains as the unchanged constant of the six.

One day, however, Meiko comes to visit Jinta and asks him to fulfill her unmemorable wish. To do so, Jinta and Meiko are required to reunite their once so-called "friends."
Ano Hana ran during the Spring 2011 anime season and like Steins;Gate, it is deemed as not only one of the best anime titles for 2011 but also one of the best series in history. Similar to our Moyashimon showing earlier this semester, Ano Hana also premiered on the  relatively new NoitaminA time slot in Japan, a channel that attempt to "defy" the current anime archetypes that had taken form over the past 7-8 years.

The Special Duty Combat Unit: Shinesman
A two-episode original video animation released in 1996, Hiroya Matsumoto has a dream of becoming a great employee like his late father. Hiroya is recently hired at Raito, a top trading company, but unbeknownst to him, he is actually recruited for the Special Duty Combat Unit: Shinesman, a part of the company that fights aliens from Planet Voice. Hiroya Matsumoto is voiced by Yasunori Matsumoto (Gourry Gabriev in Slayers, Guy Cecil in Tales of the Abyss) in the Japanese dub while voiced by Scott Simpson (Keiichi Morisato in Oh My Goddess! 1993 OVA, Verg in Blue Submarine No. 6) in the English dub. The showing of Shinesman will be the English dub.

AnimeUSA:
If you did not receive an email from me asking within the last two days, let me know at waw2@jhu.edu ASAP. Please respond by this Saturday so that I can finalize plans for when we will leave and return to campus.

Blog Updates
For those who are unaware, our website can be found at: http://jhu-anime.blogspot.com/
More updates soon...Intersession plans coming soon...
Comments are open to all for suggestions, recommendations and the like. We encourage members to share their thoughts on topics regarding the posts as well as anything anime, manga, visual novel, light novel, and video game related. Thoughts on current titles or past titles are also welcome. As usual, any suggestions for the blog itself or how meetings are run are greatly appreciated.