Can-Am Conversations: 03
By Anthony Logan and Kellen Scrivens
Hello and welcome to the third edition of the much beloved column Can-Am Conversations. While this one was rushed a bit so we could make sure it was published during Anime Week, we still feel it's another great edition to our ongoing series.
As a bit of a change from our previous editions, we decided to have preplanned topics for this one. So to steal a line from the Oratory’s John C.: without any further Apu (Nahasapeemapetilon), we bring you Can-Am Conversations.
Favorite anime TV series
Logan: My favorite anime is Naruto, an ongoing saga of a young boy's quest to become the Hokage of his village and the quests he and his teammates take on as they progress in their ninja training. Love it. Ninjas, special training, great animation, what's not to love?
Scrivens: I gotta agree there, I've read the manga about five episodes through and seen the first two episodes on YTV, and will continue to do so (that YTV Bionix lineup is the cause for my lack of a social life). I like everything you said there but you forgot to mention that there are times where it is incredibly hilarious.
Logan: Exactly. Naruto has this tendency to do annoying things, and usually he screws up enough to make the results hilarious.
Scrivens: Damn straight.
Scrivens: My personal favorite anime (and favorite TV show outright, to be honest) is Gundam SEED. It's a show about a teenage boy and his friends getting caught up in an interstellar war. Some of the reasons I love this show so much include the fact that there are so many underlying messages that I believe in, including how some wars are absolutely useless. Love stories, big time twists and shit blowing up are all here. I mark like a little schoolgirl watching an episode of this show. There are no comedy overtones to this; this is 100% serious and it pulls everything off to near-perfection.
Logan: Nice, I've taken the time to watch a short clip and I was blown away. Literally. Explosions exploding things BOOM!!! LOL
Scrivens: You should've seen my reaction to some of the explosions. You'd have no respect for me.
Logan: Respect? Canadian? What?
Scrivens: Heh. Go to the next topic.
Favorite anime character
Logan: My favorite character in an anime has got to be... Uchiha Itachi from Naruto. He's just so powerful. He's borderline unstoppable, and that's scary. He's such an evil character, too. It's just perfect.
Scrivens: For all the same reasons that you just listed, I am going to have to say Zeke Asakura from Shaman King. The guy was so much more powerful than everyone else and he knew it; he honestly didn't give a shit about anyone else and was bent on controlling the world. I might change my tune when I finally get to see Uchiha, but for now I gotta go with Zeke.
Logan: Fair enough, but Itachi is so ruthless; he'd slap his own mother... in fact, he did and killed the rest of his family.
Scrivens: Zeke was able to manipulate his family to the point that they were about to kill his twin brother.
Logan: That's pretty evil.
Scrivens: Fear was always Zeke's most powerful weapon. I'm going to see Itachi eventually, but you have to go watch Shaman King to find out about Zeke.
Logan: I shall have to try.
Favorite anime voice actor / actress
Logan: Voice acting is a field that requires a great deal of talent and the ability to manipulate your voice, and, really, I can't say that I have a favorite. But the entire Japanese cast of Naruto is stellar. Every character has their own distinctive voice, and each person interacts with the other characters in different ways. It's brilliant.
Scrivens: That's a cop out there, man. At least try to narrow it down a bit.
Logan: Fine. Unshô Ishizuka is my favorite voice actor for his portrayal of Momochi Zabuza, an early villain in Naruto. He brings a feel of arrogance to the character, and it fits.
Scrivens: To be perfectly honest, I (unlike some) am perfectly content to watch English dubs and only that and with that my favorite anime voice actor is without question Richard Ian Cox for his portrayal of InuYasha in the show of the same name. Cox demonstrates such a range of emotions, from being depressed and down on himself to nothing but pure, bitter rage. While certain other roles of his don't show the same range (Tolle from Gundam SEED comes to mind), his performance in InuYasha is enough to put him there.
Logan: Personally, I kind of think his performance comes off forced sometimes. InuYasha is good, just it seems like he's really cheesing it at times.
Scrivens: Some of his more emo moments might not be the greatest, but I still love to see him bust out his "super-angry" voice. It comes off a bit over the top, but then again so is the show, so it fits.
Logan: Agreed.
Favorite anime cliché
Logan: Favorite anime cliché? Hmm. It would have to be the nosebleed. An incredibly attractive female show up, and any nerd / perv nearby inexplicably suffers an explosive nosebleed.
Scrivens: Hah! Yeah, that's always a nice one. I know I've seen it in a few places, I just can't remember where. But they're always good for a laugh. For me personally, I like the super-exaggerated teardrop sigh.
Logan: Also nice. Exasperation is always funny.
Scrivens: That it is.
Favorite anime movie
Logan: Crap. I don't have one unless Advent Children counts.
Scrivens: Leave it at that; I don't want any spoilers! For me it has to be InuYasha: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass. All the goodness of two hours of InuYasha combined with the fact that it has an fucking incredible storyline, and the last twenty minutes are some of the greatest moments of anime I have ever seen. Far and away the best of the three InuYasha movies released in English thus far.
Logan: Sounds like fun.
Scrivens: Any parting words?
Logan: Yes. Advent Children. Sephiroth. DAMN!
Scrivens: I'd like to give the obligatory thanks to James and Yoda for putting Anime Week together.
Logan: Yeah, James rules for suggesting the idea, and Yoda for giving us the space to do it.
Scrivens: And we're out.
If you wish to contact us, you can get me at Kscriv@hotmail.com or Anthony at logan_am@yahoo.com.
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