Anime Club Showing: September 5, 1997

The Anime Club at UT Austin will be presenting its second showing of the Fall 1997 semester on Friday, September 5th, at 7 pm in Welch 1.316. The showing is free and open to the public.

Please keep in mind that showing schedules are tentative, and are always subject to some changes. Programs are not necessarily listed here in the order they will be shown.

Unless otherwise noted, all scheduled programs are subtitled in English.

On the program are:

(Some listings are linked to the show's entry in the Anime Web Guide, or some other relevant web page; short-short summaries written by Rebecca Sims.)

• Fushigi Yuugi TV #30-31
  A quasi-magical-girls series about a young woman, Miaka, who is transported into the world of a book known as 'Four Gods' Earth and Sky'. As a foretold 'girl from another world', Miaka becomes Suzaku no Miko, a priestess-figure whose duty is to find the seven warriors of the god Suzaku, and then to summon the god. In these episodes, Miaka and company are heading to another country to get the Shinzaho of Genbu, one of the other gods. Since Suzaku's Scroll of 'Four Gods' Earth and Sky' was lost in the aborted summoning ceremony, having the Shinzaho is the only way Miaka can summon Suzaku.

• Yuu Yuu Hakusho TV #1
  Urameshi Yusuke is a high-school delinquent with a rough home life; his father is gone, and his mother is essentially a drunkard. He cuts class frequently, is disrespectful to his teachers, and is generally feared by most of his peers. However, deep down, he's not really that bad a guy. But the moment in which he chooses to display this heroic streak is a particularly unfortunate one, which will change his...life...forever. Heh.

• Rurouni Kenshin #15
  The adventures of a wandering samurai and former assassin, now defender of the downtrodden, and his friends who of course get into lots of trouble with local bullies and gangsters so he can rescue them. And the occasional warrior who wants to challenge him.

• City Hunter TV, series 1, #4
  Where it all began! Ryo Saeba is a famous gun-for-hire in Tokyo, not to mention a lech to rival Ataru Moroboshi; with his partner Hediyuki Makimura, he takes on various jobs ranging from protection to detection, cleaning up the international underground as necessary. This episode will be the introduction of Kaori Makimura, Hediyuki's sister who features prominently in the series later on.

• Gundam X #2
  Okay, now I have a better idea of what this series is about. It's another alternate-timeline Gundam series, a la Gundam Wing. It takes place 15 years after a great war between Earth and her colonies, in which both sides were decimated and the Earth was damaged severely. A daring young man, Garoad, who makes some of his living off of selling scrap from the war, rescues a young woman, Tifa Adil, from the pirates who kidnapped her. Everyone is after Tifa because she is a Newtype, a special sort of person with unique mental abilites. I'm still fuzzy as to who, exactly, the sides of this particular struggle are, but it seems like an interesting show, with a bit less Sturm und Drang than Gundam Wing.

• Child's Toy TV #6
  The insane, bordering on lunatic, story of an 11-year-old-girl who is a child TV star, going to a regular junior high school. Being cute and famous, she is of course the 'leader' of the girls, and as such is part of an ongoing battle with the boys in her class. Her chief opponent is Hayama Akito, the leader of the boys; however, as she finds out more about him, Sana is beginning to feel some sympathy. In this episode, Sana attempts to use her made-for-TV movie as a means to bring Hayama's family closer together.

• Fashionable Judo Girl Yawara #1 (time permitting)
  This is the story of Yawara Inokuma, a Japanese high-school student. She is typical in many ways, but this being anime, she of course also happens to be a highly-trained student of Judo. Her grandfather, a former national Judo champion, has high hopes for her as possibly even an Olympic-class Judo star. It sounds a bit Ranma-esque in some ways, including multiple suitors and impassioned enemies. The series seems to have been very popular in Japan, and the animation looks nice.

All members of the university and local community are welcome to attend this presentation of the latest and greatest in Japanese animation. The showing will run until roughly midnight, so please come when you can. We look forward to having you there!