This Weekend...Just a little bit of magic

Anime of the Week: Bokurano

Email Content:

• This Weekend's Meetings
• Officer Positions (IMPORTANT!)
  
• Blog Updates
• Anime of the Week

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

Friday February 24, 2012
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos
A side story to the 2009 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime series. A prisoner who had a few weeks remaining in his sentence suddenly breaks free from Central City's prison and the Elric brothers set off to track him down. Their search leads them to Table City where Alphonse rescues Julia from the very prisoner they are attempting to capture. However, little did they know, this skirmish leads to the slums of Milos Valley where a fierce rebellion was taking place. Edward and Alphonse Elric are voiced by Romi Paku (Toushirou Hitsugaya in Bleach, Ganta Igarashi in Deadman Wonderland) and Rie Kugimiya (Shana in Shakugan no Shana, Kagura in Gintama) with Julia voiced by Maaya Sakamoto (Shinobu Oshino in Nisemonogatari, Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji). Kazuya Maruta (Code Geass) directed, Hiromu Arakawa (original author of Fullmetal Alchemist manga) composed the script, and Bones (Soul Eater, Eureka Seven) provided the animation.

Saturday February 25, 2012
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
Episodes 1-6
Also known as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the 2011 hit anime title will be the first of two major titles shown at JHAC this semester! While the show includes the name "magical girl" we encourage as many people to come as this may not be the "ordinary" type of magical girl show you may be thinking of (e.g. Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, etc... toss all of that out the window). In 2011, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica received the awards for Best Television, Best Anime Series, Director, Screenplay, and Design.
Madoka Kaname is an ordinary second-year middle school student. This normal life only holds until a mysterious encounter. Whether this encounter is a coincidence or because of fate is unknown. However, this encounter does result in two events: 1) the changing of her destiny and 2) the start of a new magical girl story! Madoka will be voiced by Aoi Yuuki (Victorique de Blois in GOSICK, Murasaki Kuhouin in Kure-nai) with Akiyuki Shinbou (Bakemonogatari, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha) as director, Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~) as screenwriter, Yuki Kajiura (Tsubasa Chronicle, Kara no Kyoukai ~The Garden of Sinners~) as music composer, and SHAFT (Bakemonogatari, ef ~A Tale of Memories/Melodies~) as the animation studio.


Officer Positions
As May approaches closer and closer, JHAC is looking for at least 2 undergraduates who will be willing to take on the President and Treasurer positions of the JHAC board for next year. While elections will not be held until the end of the semester, if you are interested or would like to learn more please email waw2@jhu.edu or come to one of our regular meetings to inquire. Do note, that if no one takes on these two positions, JHAC will lose its ability to fund our regular convention trips and other activities in the future and it will be difficult to regain status that has been lost.


Blog Updates
For those who are unaware, our website can be found at: http://jhu-anime.blogspot.com/
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.

To change up the pace a little, I present to all of you the 2007 series, Bokurano. Bokurano likely slipped under the radar of many viewers mostly because it was "yet another Gonzo title." Furthermore, the show was deemed with the reputation of having an "altered ending" after the author of the original manga and staff members of the show publicly announced the change midway through the series. This likely turned more people off when it became known for "not following the source material." How you view the ending will depend on how you looked at the series to begin with and I leave that up to the rest of you to decide. Personally, however, I think while the show was far from perfect, it's a nice change of pace in the sci-fi genre, especially given its unique premise. Furthermore, if you enjoyed titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Narutaru, or Infinite Ryvius, this show is likely up your alley.
During a summer vacation, a group of 15 children discovered a mysterious man living in a seashore cave. The man claimed to be a game developer and was creating a video game with 15 giant robots to defend the Earth from alien invaders. Their meeting led to the man's request of having these children test the game for him. While the kids agreed happily at first, they soon realized the game was far more horrifying and traumatic than any of them could potentially imagine. Worse yet, they had no idea how to stop or leave the game once it had began.