Forum - View topicREVIEW: Air Master Episodes 13-27 Streaming
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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Air Master is one of the single best fighting anime ever made, which makes it all the more infuriating that the old Toei DVDs were so mishandled on pretty much every front. Death Note fans may be interested to know that Maximum the Hormone provided the end credits song for Air Master. It is one of the finest end credits sequences in anime history. My AIM icon for the last 6 years has been an animated GIF of Sakiyama screaming, and that it shall remain. Clearly this is Mika Doi's ultimate role. Misa Hayase from Macross has been bumped to "penultimate."
I can't remember whether or not the AWO review of Air Master is what inspired these Air Master cosplayers or not at this point. Whatever. I'm taking credit for being the pusher of that show on every single person I know, since I watched through this entire series raw as it was airing while singing its praises to all who would listen on account that nobody I encountered on the Internet really seemed to care about it at the time. I guess the same is true now, but hopefully the streaming release will allow for more people to give it a chance. English speakers, anyway; if memory serves, Air Master was the number one rated anime show of the season in Japan at the time (aside from the perennial mainstays), trouncing stuff like Wolf's Rain and Stellvia by like double or triple the ratings. |
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Mr. Toto
 Posts: 139 |
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Not only that, but Yoshihisa Hirano, the orchestral composer for Death Note, handles the music in this series too. |
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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Oh this sounds great! I Think I will go to Crunchyroll and- *region blocked*
Oh, well that's ok, I'll just watch it on Funi- *OP Killer Blocked* Drive 2-*Don't even think about it sonny* Godamnit! |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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I was fairly disappointed that this series fell into the tournament/ranking scheme cliche, especially since Maki doesn't seem to care about being stronger than anyone else as long as she can fight.
These things always come off to me as lazy excuses to cue up fight scenes without setting them up properly, as the first half of the series did for counter-example. Characters fight for no reason other than that they're in the tournament, characters exist for no reason other than to fight in the tournament, and some fights end up rather puzzle-like with no sense of danger or dynamism (again unlike the first half of this series), although I will admit that Maki's fight against the ninja, which is very guilty of that last one, was very entertaining for her unorthodox solution. This one thing has always struck me about Air Master: since Maki is seeking a feeling within herself rather than dominance over the strength of others…does that make it a shoujo fighting anime? Man, I wish there were competently-produced DVDs of this I could buy. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6172 Location: USA |
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Interesting. I didn't know that 'Maximum the Hormone' did the music for the 2nd season of 'Death Note' until after I saw their name appear. Though I'm pretty much familiar with their music after watching 'Air Master' some time back. You have to admit their ED theme for the series fits in all it's insanity. I bought the CD single of course. Didn't know that the composer for the soundtrack worked on 'DN' as well. Funny that we just finished reviewing 'DN' and now we're talking about 'AM'. As for Daisuke Nishio. He was definitely the man for the job. But let's not forget he also directed a good deal of the first 'Pretty Cure' series. Check out some of those fights. Never in my life have I ever seen a show aimed toward little girls kick SO MUCH enemy A$$. Loved it. I'll admit that the plot toward the end did take downward turn, but it was still entertaining. Again what happens when the comic finally finishes (as of last year) and you have to push the series for 27 episodes and come up with an "anime only ending". I really enjoyed 'Air Master' for what it was. An ex-gymnast turned street fighter...it doesn't get any more interesting than that. I enjoy shows of this nature. I'm really disappointed that the first release of this show was killed. I REALLY WANTED TO OWN THIS SERIES. I'd crossing my fingers hoping. When it finally happened I was overjoyed (what were the odds) until I heard the truth of how they were handled. I was highly disappointed. I really hope that 'Funimation' (now that's it's being streamed) will finally release the series in a boxset. *I'm a huge fan of female ass kickery. Now my only question is "does anyone know if the series was subbed fully but those episodes were never released. Or did Funimation completely re-sub series? I asked this in another post because based on some past reviews on Toei's releases like 'Interlude', they stated that the original sub work was "horrible". Not to mention a "no care" on DVD menus. Yet the case images were fine. So I'm curious to know if the subs from the stream are the original or were redone. Oh and to AWO, if you can post a link for that review I'd love to read it. 
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Taiyz
 Posts: 202 Location: Canada |
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I came across this series last summer while going through ANN's encyclopedia and ended up marathoning the whole thing. I'd love it if FUNi were to give it a new dub and get the whole series out on DVD.
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Maybe if you got a program to mask your ISP? They're not technically illegal (yet), and there's no huge harm in them. If not, just don't keep the fansubs; buy it whenever its available. |
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tankerboy
 Posts: 81 Location: Chicago |
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I'm not a fan of fighting anime so I can't really judge it but a lot of people I respect say the fight sequences are top shelf and, from what I've seen, I wouldn't dispute that. But I saw "Air Master" as way more than that, to me "Air Master" is an masterful satire on anime in general.
The reason I say this is that, outside of the fight sequences, there's not much in the way of decent animation, cohesive story or character design and since the fights were so strongly done I thought there had to be more to it. Unfortunately the old theater quote "Satire is what closes in New Haven" meaning that most people don't understand or "get" satire is fairly correct. It's common to understand isolated satirical remarks but not an entire work. I only came up with the idea about it being a satire after thinking about the series as a whole for quite awhile. Look at the cast of characters: an outsider lead character who's a stoic "badass normal" plagued with self-doubt and "a past"; a "psycho supporter" lesbian who's a yandere of absurd proportions, both physically and mentally; a dwarf tsundere who either escaped from "Spirted Away" or, more likely, was exiled; and, of course, "those two guys" (in this case female) who are always in the vicinity of the lead. Almost every humorous event is an excessive exaggeration of events that have happened in countless other anime, action-type or not. The antagonists (or bad guys) are stereotypes on steroids. Because the fighting sequences are well animated this might be a sports anime but there's a heckuva lot of shôjo-ai(ish) harem comedy vibes running around. On the other hand, I may have just overthought the thing and it's just a good fighting anime with some decent jokes. For now, though, I think I'll stick with it's a good fighting anime tucked into a very good anime satire. |
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Animehermit
 Posts: 964 Location: The Argama |
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yet your avatar is from bleach, a shounen fighting anime. |
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tankerboy
Posts: 81 Location: Chicago |
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<grin> Actually, I was looking for the image of an old, white guy (me) and it was the first one I came across - like the series, at least at the beginning, but never did care much for the character, should probably change it <grin>.
Until you mentioned it I never thought of Bleach as about fighting but of course it is. I always looked at it as more of a saga about a group of teenagers (who act like they're in their mid-twenties) killing time between meaningful story arcs. <grin> |
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