You know what I really like, though? Air Master. It's a wonderful fight manga/anime about a giant Amazon gymnast girl named Maki. Maki thirsts for battle and is loved by a rapist and a tit-monster. She kicks a lot of people in the face.
Most people got to know know Air Master through the anime, which has a couple of dubious distinctions-- botched DVD release by Toei Animation, Tomoko Kaneda's ear-splitting performance as Renge-- that led it to become widely either loved or hated (predominantly hated) among anime fans. I want you to know that the people who hated Air Master are, while reasonable, completely fucking wrong. The Air Master anime-- I promise we'll get to the manga-- is brilliant entertainment, and it's largely because of director and obvious cool guy Daisuke Nishio.
Nishio's primary credit is having directed the Dragon Ball Z anime, and for the most part I'm just going to have to ask you to forget about that. Instead, I'm going to tell you that the fight scenes in Pretty Cure (a fight show, like Air Master, about lesbians) were totally sick, and you should use those for an example instead. MEDIA CONVERGENCE: 13 minutes into this, you're going to see my favorite DBZ gag ever.
Anyway, what's important about the Air Master TV series is that nearly every episode, however lousy, has a great god damn fight scene somewhere in it, going from alright at the beginning to peaking at holy-shit-amazing in the middle and all over the map thereafter. Even an average Air Master fight scene beats the hell out of the vast majority of the stuff in this genre, though. There's real motion here, and genuine "owwww" impact. It is worlds away from the genre standard, "Man glides, immobile, alongside speed lines."
Honestly, you don't even really have to watch the parts where Maki and her friends talk to one another. In fact, you probably shouldn't, so as to avoid Renge, Maki's little buddy who speaks in what can only be described as the shrieks of the damned. Imagine if, I dunno, a couple years from now Shin-chan knocked up Chiyo-chan and left town. She sounds like the kid. If somebody had stabbed the kid. And the kid was a dying cat.
While Maki's friends are all lame, her enemies are all totally awesome. Ranging from the dude who was a construction worker for so long he learned how to jackhammer punch people, to the obligatory Luchamaster, to Billy Kane, to the guy who fights with lights or some silly shit, the kick-in-face targets are all pretty cool, particularly the show-stealing Sakiyama Kaori.
This show's a pain in the ass to find though (this is why you have no screenshots today). Toei's DVD release was aborted at about the third disc, and it was a botched release all around anyway. Don't pay more than two bucks. Here's the first episode online, but the only full torrent you can get nowadays is the French-subbed version. Somebody needs to do something about this situation. Next post is the manga! Expect lousy digital camera pictures of its pages! I ain't got no scanner!
I found Air Master for direct download on http://www.anime-eden.com/ back when I couldn't use torrents because of my old school's network ;)
I agree with you for the most part, it does have some really good action and martial arts parts. There are some parts inbetween that are unbearable, some that are hilarious, and then there is the ending for it, that story arc was so abrupt and didn't feel like it fit, even though it was a cool climax.
Since there aren't a lot of martial arts anime, this one by default is at the top of the list, and I would like to see some better ones in the years to come (like an adaptation of the manwha Change Guy).
Posted by: Kristoffer | January 14, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Sub, as you are the most knowledgeable fighting game enthusiast whom I read regularly, I am wondering if you would recommend purchasing a Japanese PS2. I'm mostly excited about HnK, Melty Blood (SRW as well) and SS Tenka. I am also wondering about arcade sticks. Which would you recommend?
Posted by: Seryogin | January 15, 2008 at 10:49 AM
http://www.mininova.org/tor/304408
This is complete and Eng-subbed-- enjoy.
Posted by: A samaritan | January 21, 2008 at 12:59 AM