Some of Anime’s most notable Moms

…I did one for Dads two years ago so this should come as no surprise ^_^

As before, I only listed moms fron Anime I’ve seen myself. Warning, there be some spoilers.

 

 

Sakura Haruno

Anyone who’s seen Naruto and/or Naruto Shippuden knows who Sakura is so I’ll leave out her exploits as a kid and teenager. Shortly after the end of The Fourth Great Ninja War, Team 7 team mates Sakura and Sasuke Uchiha made the Ship official and got married. shortly after that, Sarada came along. Like Naruto, Sai and Kakashi, Sakura transitioned to civilian life as a Ninja Medic and being Sarada’s mother.

Having never met her father and only knowing him from pictures and stories about him, Sarada started to doubt Sasuke was her real mother. She decided to ask Naruto about it but then they get caught up up a battle with one of Orochimaru’s failed experiments from the past. Along the way she meets her father and activates the Sharingan for the first time. After the danger is dealt with, Sasuke confirms for his daughter that Sakura is her mother…as well as his wife.

By the time Boruto Next Generations begins, much time has passed. Everyone has grown up and almost everyone is a parent now. Since the focus is on Boruto and Sarada’s generation, the previous generation don’t appear as much outside supporting the newer ones.  Sakura is no exception. Her daughter has obviously inherited her father’s Sharingan. She has also inherited the superhuman strength of mother.

 

Chi-Chi

Chi-Chi is probably the…how should I put this…oldest person on the list. She is Goku’s wife but she is also the mother of Gohan and Goten as well as the grandmother of Gohan’s daughter Pan.

She is first introduced as a child in Dragonball. She is the only daughter of the fearsome Ox King. Ox Mountain is on fire and the only way it can be extinguished is with the Kamehameha. Goku meets Master Roshi, who teaches him the technique. After Goku uses the Kamehameha to put out the fire on Ox Mountain, Chi-Chi falls in love with him. Chi-Chi doesn’t appear again until the end of the Dragonball series as a young adult. She faces Goku in the World Martial Arts Tournament. The two marry shortly afterward and their son Gohan is born before the start of Dragonball Z.

After the birth of Gohan, Chi-Chi becomes a doting wife to Goku as well as as a doting mother to Gohan and later Goten as well. Gohan was trained by Piccolo but Goten was personally trained by Chi-Chi. Speaking of. Goten was born offscreen shortly after the end of the Cell Saga. It’s commonly believed Chi-Chi discovered she was pregnant shortly after the end of the Cell Saga. Goten is seven years old when he is introduced in the Great Saiyaman Saga and Trunks is a year older than him. So Chi-Chi was pregnant with him at the end of or just after the Cell Saga.

In Dragonball Super, Chi-Chi plays a recurring role as Goku’s wife and grandmother of Pan. Having saved the universe from Majin Buu, Chi-Chi FINALLY gets Goku to get a job…as a farmer! Having no personal need for it, Goku gives Chi-Chi the briefcase containing 100 Million Zenni he receives from Mr. Satan/Hercule to Chi-Chi as a gift…and a bribe to go train under Whis. Chi-Chi is present along with the others during the tournament between Universes 6 and 7, comforting Goku when he is eliminated early on.

Nagisa Furukawa/Okazaki

 

 

Anyone who’s seen Clannad or played the VN knows who Nagisa is. Plus, you should know if you’ve been reading my blog for at least the last three years. So, this will be short. For those who recently started reading my blog, she is the lead female protagonist in the Anime and the canon pairing for Tomoya Okazaki, the lead male protagonist. In the After Story Arc, she becomes pregnant with their daughter Ushio.

In the Alternate Storyline, Nagisa dies giving birth to Ushio. Get your tissues ready because here it is (English Dub):

At the end of the Alternate Timeline in the Anime, this happens instead (English Sub):

To get this ending in the VN, you must collect all of the orbs of Light. You will get a notification once this condition has been satisfied. Plus the Title Screen will be flashing to show you it’s time to see to True Ending ^_^

 

 

Hana (Wolf Children)

 

 

Wolf Children, which was created by Mamoru Hosoda is a tribute to single mothers worldwide. Hosoda himself was raised by a single mother and used his own life experiences as inspiration for this moving story. The obvious twist for Hana is her kids can turn into wolves. After the family moves out of the city and into the suburbs, Yuki and Ame start to drift apart and Hana must come to terms with her children going in different directions and pursuing two different worlds. Yuki decides to live as a human while Ame, who has trouble fitting in at school decides to live as a wolf. In the end, Hana accepts the choices of her children and especially Ame’s.

 

Trisha Elric

 

 

Another person on this list everyone here has at least heard of. After all, her death is what kicked off Ed and Al’s Excellent Adventure.

It is interesting to note Trisha first met Hoenheim when she was a child. Hoenheim kept returning to Risembool every few years until she was old enough to marry. It’s likely he didn’t tell her much about his past but they had Ed and Al. A few years later, he left and never returned. A disease that spread across the region claimed her life. Ed and Al attempted Human Transmutation in an effort to bring her back but of course, their efforts failed with disasterous results. Ed would realize much later the obvious truth: It’s impossible to bring the dead back to life.

Izayoi

She is the second of three mothers on this list who had a child born of two different worlds. In her case, she is the mother of Inuyasha. Izayoi is dead by the time the story begins but we learn about her later in the story.

She is the Lady of a distinguished clan though it appears she was not married when she meets Inutaisho (Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s father). We know from the events of the movie Swords of an Honorable Ruler that her relationship with a demon kept her at odds with the captain of the guard, who was smitten with her. he was so angry when it was discovered she became pregnant by a demon that he set the castle on fire and then impaled her with a spear shortly after she gave birth to Inuyasha. Inutaisho used Tenseiga to bring her back to life and gave her the Fire Rat Robe (now worn by Inuyasha), leading her to safely before he was consumed by the flames.

We know from Inuyasha’s early memories that she raised him in a nearby village after that until she died (It’s implied she died of illness) Having never known his father, Inuyasha was very close to his mother. Sesshomaru used this knowledge to set a trap for him early in the series.

Delia Ketchum

Everyone knows who she is. So we’ll leave it at that.

Delia Ketchum was a large part of the third Pokemon movie Spell of the Unown in which she is kidnapped by the legendary Pokemon Entei. Her appearances are few for obvious reasons but she does her best to encourage her son. While technically not a trainer herself, she does have a Pokemon partner in Mr. Mime.

One of the oldest unsolved mysteries is the answer to this question: Who is Ash’s father? All that’s known is he is or was likely a trainer.

Hild (Ah! My Goddess!)

 

And here we have the third Mother who broke a taboo and had a mixed race child. In her case, Hild is the mother of the Goddess Urd.

The Anime doesn’t get into this but once upon a time, Hild and The Almighty One were lovers. We also know they used the Gate of Destiny used to weight the strength of the bond between lovers from two worlds, which was a major plot device in The Movie. The two were forced apart but Hild beat the system to see The Almighty One for what would be final time. Urd was conveived from that final meeting and born after the Doublet System was put in place to end the war beween Gods and Demons. While Hild obviously still has feelings for The Almighty One, when asked by Belldandy she plainly states because she tricked the system once, trying a second time would cost her life.

Aside from being Urd’s Mother she is the Daimachaiko, or Ruler of Demonkind. Her power is equal to The Almighty One’s, hence all the jewelry you see in the video to seal most of her true power. Had she arrived at full power, probably most of the world would have been wiped out! After she returns to Nifelhiem (referredto as The Demon Realm in the Anime), she splits off a child version of herself to mess with Keiichi and the Goddesses for  a while. In the Manga, there is coup in Nifelheim and her main body is sealed by the Userper. Hild turns to Keiichi and the Goddesses for help, ultimately regaining her full power again.

…Ok that’s ir for this year. Most of you have probably seen AnimeKat’s post but if you haven’t, check it out ^_^

Next year, I’ll see about doing mothers and fathers in Video Games I’ve played.

Had your fill of Toonami’s Weekly Lineup? Looking for More Anime? Here’s a few places to start looking!

I’m at that age where I’m old enough to remember watching Gundam Wing, Dragonball and Sailor Moon in the early 1990s, Dragonball Z a few years later, Fullmetal Alchemist, Code geass and Death Note about twelve years ago and more recently, the likes of Soul Eater, Blue Exorcist, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Bleach. What all of these Anime have in common is at one time or another they all aired on Cartoon Network and/or its anime block, Toonami.

Back in the day, you only really had Toonami and 4Kids to get your Anime fix. Things are very different now. As an added incetive, outside TV and Hulu there are no commercial interruptions so…yeah. Here’s two places I reccommend to get started:

This should come as no surprise given I reviewed it in January. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it’s basically Netflix but just Anime and Korean Dramas. Like Netflix, programming is on demand but like Hulu, new episodes are made available right after they’ve aired on TV in Japan.  Even though I’m a Dub Man and the Anime CR provides is all Subbed, no other provider comes close to the sheer volume of Anime they have to offer.

Crunchyroll can be streamed through both Microsoft and Sony Consoles as well as the Vita, iOS/Android devices and of course, your computer’s browser. CR is 100% free to watch on your computer but if you want to stream it, it’ll cost you $7 a month which is a buck less than Netflix for prettymuch just Anime.  The original content is easily worth the monthly subscription in my book.

 

As the first streaming service I ever used and as much as I hate to admit it, Netflix has its usefulness in regards to Anime. While the streaming giant has been quietly making original content in recent months (Orange is the New Black and House of Cards), it has also been acquiring exclusive licensing deals with various media providers. One such deal brought the entire Pokemon series to Netflix. At the moment, The Indigo League and The Unova Saga as well as the Reshiram and Zekrom movies are the only Pokemon-related stuff they have so far but those ALONE will easily take a few weeks to go through. The rest are set to be added over the coming months.

Moving on, almost all of the Anime I now own I saw for the first time on Netflix: Clannad, School Rumble, Ouran High School Host Club and Samurai Champloo to name a few. The small but respectable selection of Anime they have is a great place for folks to cut their teeth on Dubs without having to deal with the Ads on Hulu. Netflix also has Attack on Titan Subbed, which recently started airing on Toonami.

Like Crunchyroll, Netflix streams on both Sony and Microsoft consoles as well as the Vita and the 3DS family handhelds and all the rest. It’s $8 a month which isn’t bad. I actually have both CR and Netflix so…yeah. As a reminder: When streaming both CR and Netflix there are NO ADS =D

 

That’s just to whet your appitite.

So now you wanna buy some Anime but not ready for the DVD/Blu-Ray sets yet? That’s ok. I know a few providers that can help you get your Anime fix and the prices are obscenely cheap:

 

 

These were the first places I bought Anime from starting about seven years ago with Xbox Live’s PC Client Zune. The first Anime I bought was Ah! My Goddess! Unsurprisingly, I went on to own both seasons, the movie and two thirds of the Manga volumes (LOL!). This brings up the all-important question of cost. It really depends on which route you go. If you wand Standard Definition (SD) it’s $2 per episode across the board and $3 for High Definition (HD) episodes. While yes, HD is better quality the files are also MUCH bigger and in the cases of the consoles they can really eat up your storage if you’re not careful. For movies, the cost is $8-$10 though with those that have HD versions available it’s $12 or $15.

Both iTunes and Xbox Live/Zune allow you to buy whole seasons if you want. If a season is airing, you can buy a Season Pass which gets you all the episodes of a season in progress so far plus the rest of the episodes made available for download as early as an hour after they’ve aired on TV. You can also just buy all the episodes of a season at a flat rate after all the episodes have aired.

I reccommend one or both personally in regards to Anime. Most Anime seasons are 12 to 13 or 24 to 26 episodes long so…yeah. On average, Buying a whole season on average runs between $18 to $32 on both Xbox Live/Zune and iTunes (the Playstation Network doesn’t currently offer whole season purchases). I wouldn’t pay more than $30 personally for a digital copy of an Anime season or series. The most I paid was $24 each for both seasons of Spice & Wolf, Ah! My Goddess!, and Rosario + Vampire as well as Shuffle! (I bought the DVD set last year at Anime Boston) which I bought on Xbox Live three years ago. Each episode (Standard Definition) was $2 so more often than not, I got a real good deal on a season package. I paid $24 for the Shuffle DVD set in case you’re wondering.

 

…I’ve talked about Xbox Live/Zune almost exclusively but there SEVERAL benefits to buying your Anime on iTunes and The Playstation Network, more so if like me you have quite a few of their portable devices =O

For starters, once you buy anything from iTunes you can download it on all of your devices right away. Cross-buy and cross-download is also possible so for example if you buy Wolf Children on your PS3, you can download it to your Vita or PSP at no extra cost. Don’t wanna wait for it to download? You can stream it while it’s downloading in the case of Xbox Live/Zune and iTunes. In all three cases, you can que multiple downloads simultaneously.

Of course, the smart way to distribute your stuff after you’ve bought and downloaded it to your PC/PS3 is to use a Sync cable so you can get it on Portable device in seconds and not minutes or hours.

Whew…now we’ree getting to the third and final layer. In case it isn’t obvious: I am only providing LEGAL OPTIONS to get your Anime. Of course, there are illegal means but if you wanted to go that route, you probably wouldn’t have read this much (LOL). Support your favorite anime and BUY it!

 

That said, the final layer is of course DVD and/or Blu-Ray. While yes, Digital Purchases are the future there’s nothing wrong with wanting to own a physical copy of your favorite anime and anime movies. I have 14 Anime DVD and Blu-Ray sets (I count multiple seasons as part of a set personally) and 6 Anime movies myself so…yeah. I got most of my Box Sets during Anime Boston and have actually made it a tradition to buy two Anime Box sets at Anime Boston. For example I got Ouran High School Host Club and Fate/ZERO this year and Samurai Champloo and Shuffle! last year.

You really can’t go wrong when you buy your Anime on DVD/Blu-Ray: No DRM, no internet connection, no monthly fees, no ads, nothing but the Anime. The best part is you can decide if you want to watch it with the English Audio (default setting) or the Japanese Audio. With the other layers you’re locked into one or the other.

As for the price, that depends on where you look and how rare the Anime you’re looking to buy is. For example, Code Geass Season 1 goes for $49 while Season 2 costs $72. Persona 4 Blu-Ray is about $27 for each season (they split it in half for the home release presumably to bring the price down and double profits at the same time). Samurai Champloo (complete series) goes for $28 on DVD and $30 on Blu Ray.

Some sets are simply rarer or more common than others. Much of it has to do with licensing and/or the original distributor going under, ending the production of new DVD/Blu-Ray Sets. This is what happened to Code Geass. Those who paid attention will have noticed this Anime never reaired on Cartoon Network/Toonami. The reason for that is the company that held the license went under while the series was wrapping up on Toonami so it was never reaired. It’s also the reason the DVD Sets are so rare and costly XD

 

Ok that’s it for now. Up next, I’ll throw out my reccommended picks for folks who are not fans of Anime =D

Review: Wolf Children/Urufu no Kodomo

 

I bought this movie on a whim from the Playstation Network during yesterday’s Snow Day in Boston. I watched it after work today and was thoroughly impressed with what I saw. At first I thought it was going to be 115 minutes of fan service to cater to the Furry/Cat/Wolf Ears/Tail crowd. Thankfully, it was anything but that =D

Wold Children is a feature film that tells the story of Hana, a young woman who falls in love with a human/wolf hyrbid and has two children him: a daughter named Yuki and a son named Ame. Dad accidently dies in freak accident shortly after Ame is born, leaving Hana to raise two half-wolf children on her own. Although the movie is about them obviously, it’s as much her story as it is theirs. To give her children a better chance to decide weather they want to live as a human or wolf, Hana moves her young family out of the city to the country. It is here the children grow into who they were meant to be.

Yuki with wolf-like face.

 

Ame in human form.

When Yuki starts going to school this is when you see them start to drift in different directions. It’s interesting given up to this point you’d have thought they were set in one path or the other. Yuki embraces her human side while Ame spends much of his time in the mountains learning the ways of the wild. The two worlds collide and Hana is caught in the middle. By the end of the movie it becomes clear the children have chosen the path they feel is best for them. I won’t spoil the ending but given Yuki narrates the movie, it’s not hard to figure out after a certain point what Ame decides.

I found out there is a Manga adaptation of the movie and a few sites are hosting translated copies of it. I won’t share where I found the translated Manga so look on your own if you want to read it. From the two chapters I did see it’s a literal transition from movie to manga.

Overall I give the Movie a 9/10. The movie was originally released in Japan two years ago, premiered in the U.S. in 2012 and was released on DVD/Blu-Ray/Playstation Network/iTunes last year (2013). I only wish the movie was a bit longer and that it didn’t make Ame so rigid when he drifted toward his choice. It’s a stark contrast to how he was in the beginning of the movie, especially when compared to Yuki. It doesn’t ruin my view of him but I liked him alot less for so easily discarding the family he grew up with.