Take one part Cowboy Bebop, mix it with an ounce of Trigun then drink 23 cups of coffee and you're ready to go.

It's a sci-fi/western/cat and mouse huckjam which follows the adventures of an elite pseudo space pirate named "Mister"... Mister? Really? That's the best you could do? Mister is searching for a lost fortune left by the now deceased Pirate King "Bruce"... BRUCE? Are you for real? Bruce is the name of my garbage man, not a Pirate King!

Anyway, moving along. The animation is amongst the best I have seen for a while. The colour and sharpness of picture is excellent. The character designs are overall very good. Madame Marciano's 12 sisters, named after each month of a calendar year, are similar yet distinguishable and some of them are just plain saucy!

Considering that I have only viewed volume 1 of the series it is hard to say where the story line will go. I can only assume from what I viewed that the series although shallow in depth of story would be a great series for action, purdy pictures and even purdier lasses.

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Only one reel of the latest anime from Studio Ghibli is in Australia and making the rounds. Next destination, and running for the next ten days, Tales from Earthsea at the Dendy Newtown.

Glamorous and lush visuals from the very start, a hint of shouting across the crashing waves and subtitles are good. Not so good to do this much reading in the morning however. Drowsy takes hold and a nice slumber slots in early after the start. Enough to gather the flow of the story, not too late to miss out entirely on the world.

With a world in despair it's the ancient and true which leaves for hope and the dying truth of life and the end with death. A tale of acceptance and fighting for the best parts of life and leaving the rule of giving and receiving to the heart. Heads will only complicate matters when the desire out rules and out gasps the sheer audacity of what befalls those who chase the light.

Magic and sorcery, the stuff of mystics, plays heavy in the background with a clean swipe as the human emotions stand at the fore. Truly a beautiful film to soak in and marvel at the expanse and closeness.

Playing at Dendy Newtown from May 17 until 27 for an extremely limited season.

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Early morning into lunch on Thursday morning and out from the media preview screening of Tales from Earthsea at the Dendy Newtown with Ryano,, lunch was on stomach.

Along King Street, it's a good sort and variety if Thai and Indian are the flavour on the tongue. And for the money's worth, something affordable during the lunch period.

One stop not that far from Dendy Cinemas is Newtown Thai. Six dollars a plate and it's quite the menu to choose from. Sure, most of it is stir fried, but them's the deals in Thai food. If you don't like stir fry, you don't like flash fry, which is the same thing and rambling moot.



Stir fried garlic and pepper with rice and chicken. Clean and quick and it's a nice tasty lunch to have one day, any day, but not so many days in a row that the others on the menu miss out.

Tales from Earthsea is a beautiful and warm film. Gorgeous really, nothing less to be expected from Studio Ghibli.

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Closing out the final part of this three part chapter in Spider-Man's life, the whole gang returns with a party of others in the mix. Quite the busload really, fitting them in takes a lot of switching back and forth. Not unlike web slinging through the city scape as the New Goblin and Spider-Man duke it out.

From there, it's just quite certain that watching Spider-Man 3 at the IMAX is the game of those with loose necks and even looser eyeballs. Eyeballs which may operate independently if given the scope of the action sequences Spidey swings through.

And such swinging, all in a flavour of style which deliberately signals just how much more fluid his actions are, how more in touch he is within. Touch too much and it's a case of emo reflux, comedic in all its glory.



Bruce Campbell is as ever a nugget of gold. Bryce Dallas Howard looking the way she does, really spot on perfect for Gwen Stacy, perfect as the foil and flip to what Mary Jane proposes in the life of Peter Parker. Still, hard to beat the chops of James Franco (Harry Osborn) across the spread of these first three movies. And Stan Lee? Yeah, well...

Forget about those who came in late, they'll always come in late. This is a movie at speed in which things move is quick, no let up save for the pauses to squeeze in the comedy. Sure, things such as characterization blaze right through with an apparent chasm between logic and motives.

Venom and Sandman, things move fast with these two as they develop during the course of the film. Not a hard task at all to follow their stories in this whole scheme of things. So many plots, so many characters, and Sam Raimi delivers it with a punch to the side of the face that keeps you asking for more.

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Spawning from the pages of CMX's manga comes Tenjho Tenge. An anime series chock full of fan service, a strong story and awesome martial arts action as well as sharp line work and purdy colours synonymous with all of Madhouses forays.

Aya and Maya Natsume sisters and their Juuken Club battle two new students, Souichiro and Bob, at their school to maintain supremacy in the fighting club ladder. To make things even more complicated, younger sibling Aya is courting Souichiro by trying to feed him all sorts of home cooked goodies. Throw into the mix the Student Executive Council, a group that sends out "Executioners" to make sure all students are kept in line.



It would be rather easy for someone to mistake Tenjho for a cheap clone of Ikki Tousen where in fact these two series are like chalk and cheese. They may have the same motif, pretty ladies fighting for pride and supremacy in a high school. Thankfully, Tenjho takes it one step further by introducing interesting and well designed characters. Although the character design isn't the best I've ever seen, it's well and truly good enough to be able to differentiate the characters albeit while keeping faithful to the shoujo/shonen archetype.

Don't get too carried away with the wonderfully animated hip-hop inspired opening sequence, it is as good as the animation gets. That's not to say that the rest of the animation is sub-standard, it's just that the opening sequence is of better quality than the animation in the majority of series' out there.

Judging from volume one, Tenjho Tenje looks rather promising. The animation is great, the story is solid, the characters are put together well and the action is top notch.

Tenjho Tenge is available through the Comic Shop.

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One thing that comes from taking in the art and information from the exhibition, Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga at the Art Gallery of NSW, is that Osamu Tezuka, creator of Black Jack, Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, really did have a thing for the metamorphosis angle in life. Or just his stories. Whatever.

Either way, it's not without the next manga work and the next after that, displayed clearly and well with information and sample finishes, that the line between the underlying theme beneath that underlying theme is apparent. Or perhaps this is all a matter of transference.



Up close to his original art, all the mistakes and corrections are spot on clear. Liquid paper collaring the stray and changes, his work is super fine and so easy to read and understand.

All the focus is on the manga, so there are no moving visuals, no animations playing alongside the original creations. Flat, but then the anime is not the donut here.

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