This Weekend: A certain sci-fi show about nobody winning, but I!

Anime of the Week: Kimagure Orange Road

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This Weekend:
Time: Friday and Saturday 7pm
Location: Maryland 110

Friday February 10, 2012
Crest of the Stars (Seikai no Monshou)
Episodes 1-6
Based on a popular ongoing space opera science fiction novel originally published in 1996, Crest of the Stars (Seikai no Monshou) was originally adapted into an anime in 1999. The story follows Jinto Linn, whose life changes forever when his world, Martine, is taken over by the Abh, which is the largest empire in the galaxy. Jinto's father, the prime minister of Martine, peacefully surrenders Martine in exchange to be a noble in the Abh empire. As a result, Jinto is now a prince and forced to leave home to study the Abh culture and language in order to maintain his family's noble status. At Abh Education, he meets and somehow befriends Abh's ice princess, Lafiel. However, Jinto's new life was only beginning as he learns that Lafiel is more than who she appears to be and that they will have to fight for their very lives together. Yuka Imai (Renamon in Digimon Tamers, Yu Hayakawa in Final Fantasy: Unlimited) and Ayako Kawasumi (Saber in Fate/Stay Night, Megumi Noda in Nodame Cantabile) voices Jinto and Lafiel, respectively. Yasuchika Nagaoka (Seikai no Senki/Banner of the Stars, Godannar) directs, Aya Yoshinaga (Witch Hunter Robin, KURAU Phantom Memory) composes, and Sunrise (Gundam, Tiger & Bunny) animates.

Saturday February 11, 2012
One Outs
Episodes 10-17
43 year old Hiromichi Kojima is the cleanup batter of Lycaons in Japan's Pacific Baseball League. His constant training and practice eventually leads him to Okinawa where he meets Toua Tokuchi, a pitcher who can throw a 134 km/h (83 mph) ball and the king of baseball gambling. The gambling game is known as One Outs. Seeing Toua's skill, Hiromichi begs Toua to join Lycaons under the condition that Toua earns 5 million yen (about $45,000 to $50,000 US) for every out he pitches and loses 50 million yen (about $45,000,000 to $50,000,000 US) for every point he gives up. Hiromichi and Toua are voiced by Tsutomu Isobe (Dutch in Black Lagoon, Heinrich Lunge in Monster) and Masato Hagiwara (Akagi Shigeru in Akagi, Kaiji Itou in Kaiji), respectively. The show is directed by Yuuzou Satou (Akagi, Kaiji), composed by Hideo Takayashiki (Rainbow, Maison Ikkoku), and animated by Madhouse (Death Note, Card Captor Sakura).


Blog Updates
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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.

Anime of the Week
To make this section more useful, Image of the Week has been changed to Anime of the Week where a different anime title will be featured in each week's email. The point of this is to discover what may be lost gems, obscure titles, underrated titles, or buried treasure in the anime world. These titles may or may not necessarily be shown at future meetings. Each title will come with a brief background.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day weekend part 1, here's a romance show that many of you probably may not have heard, and if you have, you've probably never seen it. Kimagure Orange Road is one of the first major titles to be licensed in the US by AnimEigo. Since its start in 1985 and up until the movie in 1996, Kimagure Orange Road has had 2 movies and 8 OVA episodes in addition to its 48 episode series that ran between 1987 and 1988. The show is based off an 18 volume manga that was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump between 1984 and 1987. A beautiful gem that makes many romantic comedies nowadays look more terrible than they already are. An incredibly strong and nice mix of laughter and drama.
The show at first seems like a simplistic high school romantic comedy and love triangle, but the story is much more complicated. 15 year old Kyousuke Kasuga has just moved to a new town upon his former peers finding out about his ESP powers. In this new town, he meets delinquents, Madoka Ayukawa and Hikaru Hiyama, whom together develop a strong love triangle that will create an unforgettable high school life. Furthermore, Kyousuke becomes all the more desperate to now keep his and his family's ESP powers a secret even though the rest of his family have no problems revealing it to the public.