Guests' Web Picks

Warning: The Following Picks contain minor spoilers for the series that they cover.

Who is Tenchiken?

      For a quick intro, I am Tenchiken <tenchiken@narf.com>. I run the "Spoiler Pages", and also am quite active on the TenchiML and various other fan forums. My first brush with Anime (other then Transformers) was through a high school friend, Ben Cantrick. Ben was then, and still is, a BGC nut. In fact, the High School I went to had a large number of Anime fans. Despite a large amount of kissing up to the Anime fans (who also happened to be the best programmers in the school), I never did see any. Even at this point, I had an extreme reaction to anything hyped.

      As time went on, I got hooked to my first Anime, Kimagure Orange Road. I was drawn instantly into the fun romantic comedy genre, and soon fell in love with Urusei Yatsura, Ranma and Tenchi Muyo. Another bad trend started here. I rooted for Hikaru. Thus would start a long tradition of any favorite character of mine being doomed to a lonely life. (Hikaru/Ukyou/Sypheel/Shinobu)

      At this point, Tenchi was my favorite series. This is due to the OVA series excellent combination of Epic Stories plus romantic comedy. When word came of the new 2nd TV series for Tenchi (Tenchi in Tokyo here in the states) and the new movie (Midsummer's Eve) I scoured the net and the ML's for information.

      It was at this point that I discovered how impossible it is to get any kind of good information about new series.

      As I got my hands on the newest Shin Tenchi episodes, or got a new Newtype (Japanese Anime trade rag) I would post them to a "Inside Tenchi" page. This page soon became known as the "Spoiler Pages" as it expanded beyond just Tenchi.

      Over time the page has grown to it's current size. Roughly 100,000 visitors have hit my pages. They have grown to the point that I have started to rewrite the pages via a database and CGI programming to keep the pages maintainable.

      When I was asked (Ok, I begged) to do a Guest Pick, the first thing that popped into my mind was a page dedicated to all of the neat little pages out there with new and interesting content.

Ani-bot note: Tenchiken was actually proposed as a guest. The invitation was a little late, *coughcough*, for some reason or other....

      I do have to say that I was surprised in my inability to find any decent pages for the following series. (*hint hint*) The over-hyped, yet still excellent, Cowboy Bebop ("Episode 11: Toys in the Attic" is IMHO, one of the best episodes in any Anime). I wasn't able to find any pages that contained good information about the Tenchi Novels (The "official" continuation of the OVA series), SMJ (although Ben Lang posted an excellent summary of SMJtoX in the newsgroups).

      I did find about 100 Ranma/Eva/Gundam/Ghibli pages that all said the same thing.

Anyway, without further ado:

Disclaimer: These sites spoil things. If you really want to know about your favorite series, go here, otherwise take off ^.^

Ok... So you think you know everything about the current most popular Fantasy/Comedy series Slayers. You may know that Ameria and Naga are sisters. If you are really good, you may know that Lina's sister Luna is Cepheed's Knight. But, do you know who Luke and Mirana are? If not check out these three pages:

The "Slayers Universe" is hands down my favorite web page. Here you will find summaries of the first novel, character descriptions, reviews of the games and many other cool, cool things.

QP's "Slayers Page" is one of the best pages I have ever come across for English Slayers Info. Written by a Japanese fan, the language can be a bit rough. However, the content (including descriptions of the novels, and an examination of the Bad Guys of Slayers, the Mazouko) is awesome.

This is the home of the excellent "Slayers Reflect/Rebirth and Chaos". These fics don't entirely work with the novels, but the characterization of everyone but Gourry is great.

If you like Dragon Half and you like Shoujo, then the following series is for you. Kodomo no Omocha is one of the most hilarious, fast paced and crazy Anime ever. It also has this habit of randomly slamming viewers into emotional walls. A touching story about growing up with broken families and lives.

Is a page I discovered searching for links. Great overview, great picture gallery, and the page captures the mood quite well.

http://www.kerris.com/anime/kodocha/
Would be great if it were updated more often. There are some details here that you can not find anywhere else.

Have you ever heard of KareKano? Kareshi Kanojo No Jijou is the newest series by GAINAX. Following Masami Tsuda's Shoujo Manga tale, KareKano is a wildly animated, but emotionally deep Anime that somewhat resembled Child's Toy. The series itself is a bit controversial due to Anno's somewhat heavy-handed portrayal of events from the Manga. Apparently, while he is still in the credits, he passed the series on to a different director before episode 16.

The Best site for KareKano is "Down With Arima". This page is not updated that often, but contains far more information then any other place I have seen. This series has not yet been picked up. I would love to see this (or Kodomo no Omocha) in Animerica Extra.

El Hazard is one of the more Popular AIC/Pioneer series. AIC/Pioneer second real romantic comedy. While Tenchi rots in a world of parallel universe, El Hazard has become my favorite AIC series. El Hazard's new TV series will be coming out in the states in a few months (without a rename, much to my surprise).

"El Hazard: The Indifferent World" is a poorly named and poorly organized site, but with some of the best El-Hazard info out there. The "Before They Were Stars!!" section in particular is wonderful.

Fushigi Yuugi is a fan favorite. Under the translation "Mysterious Play" it is finally hitting the shelves here as one of the first large Shoujo titles. One can only hope that Marmalade Boy and Kodomo no Omocha (Child's Toy) follow shortly.

"Tasuki No Miko's Fushigi Yuugi Page" is generally the page I hit when I get a chance. The Page contains a lot of information and is well laid out.

Most of you have probably never heard of LAIN. Serial Experiments Lain is a wonderfully twisted Anime from Pioneer that mixes cyberpunk elements with Eva-like presentation (think eps 25 & 26 only thought out). It also boasts the coolest OP music ever.

This is Lain's unofficial home page in the wired. This site hosts an intro to characters, scripts, and other critical things needed to watch Lain. Lain is really not fun to try and figure out unsubtitled. The Lain Pages that are out there now are all pretty good. I look forward to seeing how these web pages develop as the series is released over here by Pioneer.

Urusei Yatsura is as classic as it gets. Animeigo finally got vol. 20 out the door. One can only hope the distribution schedule speeds up at some point.

http://www.tomobiki.com/
"Tomobiki Cho" combines a great website design plus great content. This is my ideal site. Unfortunately, it has not been updated in a bit.

Of course, much of the information out there is not series specific, or not just from web pages:

OCAD:
"OCAD" is a very well set up and drawn Anime Artist directory. Well worth a look at for the various styles and drawing techniques.

TenchiML:
The TenchiML is prone to flames, personal egos (esp mine ^.^) but also some of the best information about Tenchi. Only place I know of where there is information about the Novels and TMiL2.

Spoiler Pages:
Is currently being rebuilt on a new server, but have no fear, it will return.
Meanwhile, try !