Let’s go steal us a blog

By Rebecca

Hi guys, when Dan asked me to guest post for the BT blog (Hi Dan!) one of the first shows to come to mind was Leverage. I never caught this show during its run (2008 – 2012) and never even heard of it until recently, but I love it! The great thing about finding a show when it’s already wrapped is that you can mainline that sucker. And mainline I did. I finished the complete five seasons in a couple of weeks. Granted, they’re mostly short seasons (13-15 eps) but that’s some kind of record for me. If you've never watched it, or only caught a later episode here and there, get on it. All five seasons are out on DVD here in Australia (which I assume means other English-speaking countries had them ages ago, probably on Bluray with loads of extras).

But what is Leverage about? Well, I’ll let Nate answer:

The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys. We provide... "leverage".

It’s heists, and cons and hollywood hacking and Robin Hood. Since I was a kid I've loved heist movies and hacker movies. Leverage has thieves! Hackers! Thieves that hack! Yeah, there was always a good chance I was going to like this show.

The basis of the show is that Nate Ford (former insurance guy) sets up a team of criminals who traditionally work alone for ‘just one job.’ You can probably guess where it goes from there, but predictability doesn't make the show less fun. Every episode, they’re approached by a new client who’s been burned by someone otherwise untouchable. With each job, we learn more about the characters and see their relationships change.

Here’s our team: Hardison (Hacker), Parker (Thief), Nate (Brains), Sophie (Grifter), Eliot (Hitter).

I loved the whole team but, as I may have hinted, it’s Hardison and Parker who stole my heart. Parker (whose name can’t be a coincidence), the amazing super thief and there’s nothing Hardison can’t hack with a smartphone (hell, he’d probably manage with an old Nokia and some foil). No, this isn't realistic. Yes, it’s fun.

I have to admit that my geek heart near burst when Wil Wheaton turned up as a rival hacker called “Chaos” and he and Hardison had a HACKING DUEL. A showdown with laptops. If you watch one episode, make it that one (The Two Live Crew Job).

The rest of the team have their roles, but one of the interesting things about the show is seeing the characters learn from each other. Yes, Eliot is the team’s heavy, the hitter, but that doesn't stop him from playing the grifter. In one scene, we have Eliot teaching Parker some hits and holds (training on Hardison, poor guy). The progress Sophie makes in teaching Parker to grift is on-going throughout the series, while Nate plays mentor for Hardison. However, nothing beats the Parker-Hardison team ups, especially when she makes him play thief:

[While preparing to repel off a building]

Hardison: I gotta go back to the office, I just remembered something.

Parker: What?

Hardison: I just remembered gravity. And the squishiness of all my manly bits.

If you love the team of Parker, Hardison and Eliot, there’s even a Leverage boardgame (which I crave, but will probably not be easy to find in Australia):

Look, I'm just going to cut the bullshit and accept that this is whole post has been a thinly veiled Parker-Hardison love-fest. Just go watch the show, ok? Meanwhile, look at these guys. Aww yeah

What have I been watching? Tons of anime, that's what!

By Dan Pua

Someone on the 11 O'Clock Comics forum recently asked what anime to look out for and I ended up giving a longer response than I intended. Probably because we've been watching a ton of anime at our place lately. We went from watching one anime series week to week (and a few that we pile up) to at least five per week. Not to mention the odd anime movie plus the backlog on various anime series.

So. Much. Anime!

Below is my reply to the guy plus a couple of additions. I'll probably talk about a bunch of these on future BoobToob eps, maybe I can convince Bobgar to do an all anime ep!

Please note that with most of the anime series I mention, I've included a link to where you can watch it streaming.

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Attack on Titan (check out the main pic above) is crazy good! Titans (giant human looking creatures) show up out of nowhere and kill off most of the human population. The remaining survivors build a giant walled city and they all live there since the titans can't get to them. 100 years pass and things seem okay. And then the fun starts.

Get on it now cos it's the new hotness! There's a couple of mysteries like where did the titans come from, how did the walls even get built in the first place, etc. They don't give it to you all right away like with some anime where the opening narration tells you everything. I found myself asking lots of questions early on but the show gives me enough meat to chew on each episode. They reveal bits and pieces about the characters and the back story of the world as time goes on.

If you have 20 mins to spare, please check out the first episode and let me know what you think (either comment here, grab me on Twitter, come up to me if you see me on the street, whatever). It's available streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu. I love all the grappling hook action, they're zipping around the place like Spidey.

The Devil is a Part Timer: The big bad villain from some fantasy world escapes through a portal and he gets stuck on Earth with no powers and he ends up working at McDonalds. (Well on the show it's MgRonalds, but we know it's McDonalds.) Freaking hilarious. The day to day adventures of the big bad devil guy and his lieutenant are the best. It's available on Hulu and Funimation.

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet (not sure what those words mean) is another anime that we're watching week by week. It's off to a really good start. The white haired dude below and his robot come from space and crash land on future Earth which is mostly covered in water and people live on giant floating vessels. There's more to it than that but you can find out for yourself if you watch it. We learn about this world along with the white haired guy and I'm curious to see more of the world and how he adjusts to it. The show isn't so much good vs bad but more world building and I hope it stays on that course.

Flowers of Evil is some creepy stuff. The animation style is different (the characters are rotoscoped) but it grew on me. My wife likes it a lot and I initially wasn't into it (anime set in high school featuring high school characters are a big turn off) but I'm watching this week by week too. 13 eps total so it's not a massive commitment. The topic isn't something that I'd usually find interesting but they've hooked me with the way they tell the story and the atmosphere. Definitely worth a look.

The new Hunter X Hunter series is solid but with 70+ eps in, it might seem too overwhelming for someone wanting to jump in. Yikes, 70+ eps. So me and my wife have been watching it week by week for 70+ weeks. It doesn't seem that long. The story arcs can be a bit long but they don't drag on and the show does a good job of making you want to see the next ep so you can probably watch several eps a day easy (assuming you don't have to go to work or do chose or other boring old people crap).

It's a lot of fun but not just for kids despite the look of certain characters. The show isn't afraid to kill off people. It's set in a world where I guess killing people isn't as big a deal as it is in our society. Most of the characters in the show, even the kids, are willing to kill. In fact, one of the main characters, the white haired kid named Killua, actually comes from a family of world renowned assassins but most people treat him like a normal kid (even though they know he's an assassin).

This show also has my favourite clown ever (see second pic below) and I'm not even a fan of clowns). He's a bit like the Joker if the Joker actually stood a chance against Batman in hand to hand combat. The cast of characters is really cool and there's a bunch of neat character designs. Feels like X-Men back when I was getting into comics. I'm asking questions like "Who are these guys?" and "What's their back story?" and "What are their powers?" That sort of thing. The powers they come up with for their characters are unique and it makes you want to see them get into a fight just to see what kinds of cool stuff they can do with their powers. This show is bad ass.

Gintama is super hilarious but they're nearing 300 eps. I've only actually seen less than 10 eps, what I've done is watch the recent eps that have a C at the end of the episode number. They're 'classic' episodes and are mostly standalones so you don't need to know anything although feel free to read the Wikipedia entry if you want some background info on who these characters are.

This series feels like a "what if Deadpool made an anime" series. Fouth wall breaking is in full effect. It's even funnier if you know about the manga/videogame/pop culture stuff they reference. This episode about smoking which heavily references a popular anime is probably my fave but most of those classis eps are a blast.

I saw the 3rd Evangelion movie, Evangelion 3.33, a few days ago. It didn't wow me overall like the first two although they had some scenes that really wow-ed me (one of which is reminiscent of the helicarrier lift off scene in Avengers). I don't think I can properly judge it until I see the 4th and final installment. It doesn't work as well on its own like the first two. Plus there are a lot of characters being jerks just to serve the story. But I do appreciate that they're taking a different direction with the movie and they're not just rehashing the series. Unless they totally screw up the 4th, I think this series of movies is well worth a watch.

I also recently saw 009-1. It's a 12 episode series about cybernetic female secret agents. Based on a manga from the late 60s by Shotaro Ishinomori. I'll say more about the series in the next Boob Toob episode but I will say that I don't remember the last time I found myself watching a show where there's lotsa boobage and yet my brain was being satisfied intellectually. Totally unexpected since I thought it was going to be just cheesecake. I liked it way more than I thought I would and I want to revisit this series at some point.

At the moment, it's all Attack on Titan, Hunter X Hunter, The Devil is a Part Timer, Flowers of Evil and Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet at our place week by week. We have a backlog of One Piece episodes to get through and we're waiting for the non filler Naruto episodes to start back up. There are a few anime movies that we still need to watch. Some Studio Ghibli movies (From Up On Poppy Hill, Tales from Earthsea, Arietty), the newest Fullmetal Alchemist movie (Sacred Star of Milos), One Piece Film Z & something by Madhouse called Death Billiards.

E2P The Boob Toob- 12 (Two Months Later)

http://earth2network.podbean.com/2013/05/07/e2p-the-boob-toob-12-two-months-later/

 

E2P The Boob Toob- 12 Two Months Later

(0:00:00) Introductions

(0:02:58) Bravest Warriors

(0:16:16) Raising Hope

(0:27:47) Interlude: Dune

(0:28:39) Paperman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM6cLnscmO8

(0:37:09)              J. Edgar

(0:54:21)              Dredd

(1:08:30)              Harry Brown

(1:12:54) Interlude: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

(1:14:04) Wrap Up: Sherlock, Logan’s Run, (Marvel’s) The Avengers and more.

(1:25:26) Credits/Outtakes

1:27:33

Boob Toob Supplemental: Cancelling the Apocalypse Edition

By Dan Pua

2 bloogs in a week? What's happening to me? Ehh, whatever. Here goes nothing...

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Pacific Rim - Official Japanese trailer

Check out Guillermo del Toro do some promotion in Japan for Pacific Rim. (Via Crunchyroll)

Giant monsters love Sydney (or love destroying them)

Check out the above pic for this bloog. Sweet pic but c'mon! What did Sydney ever do to kaiju? I haven't forgotten about the time when crappy US Godzilla came to town and caused havoc. It's all good though, the original Gojira had our backs!

Eu Sou Ciclope

And yet another sign of the apocalypse... check out Scott Summers' music video. "I got the moves like Cyclops..."

Mega Man... is that you?

Music video by Japanese pop girl group Perfume called 未来のミュージアム (or 'Museum of the Future' according to Google Translate). Very comic booky (or manga-y) and also somewhat Mega Man-ish, maybe cos of the music and the Dr Light looking guy at the start.

Giant God Warrior

More giant creatures, more cities getting smashed, and more stuff getting blowed up! I'm talking about Giant God Warrior, Studio Ghibli's new live action Evangelion short film. Yes, the Totoro guys made a live action Evangelion short film. Didn't see that coming! It came as part of the Evangelion 3.33 home release (those animated movies are top notch by the way). No video embeds this time but it's up on Dailymotion if you want to do a search. Below are a couple of screen grabs.

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman!

Check out what I won from the file folks (or folk, I've only ever seen one guy) at GeekOfOz (courtesy of Madman Entertainment).

It's the Battle of the Planets Complete Collection! 85 episodes of goodness spread over 15 discs! Woo hoo! In a nutshell, Battle of the Planets (or Science Ninja Team Gatchaman as it is known in Japan) is about five young 'superhero ninja' who dress up like birds and fight giant monsters and doomsday devices and other nasties that the evil guys threw at them. But that's an oversimplification of the series. According to Wikipedia, the show is "a science fiction action anime" and "recurring themes of Gatchaman involve conservation of nature, environmentalism, and responsible use of technology for progress and advancement." I'm referring a lot to the original anime but they've made numerous changes when they adapted it and I'm looking forward to comparing the two.

For any comic book peeps, there's been a few Battle of the Planets comics which featured covers by Alex Ross. I believe that image above as well as the artwork inside the box are also by Alex Ross and they were probably the images they used as the covers of the comics.

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Well that's enough for this installment of Boob Toob Supplemental. See you guys later! Same kaiju time, same kaiju channel.