** Notes on COUP's Fall 2005 schedule, this time from David Smith ** Regular features! Gankutsuou: AKA the Count of Monte Cristo. A sci-fi adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel, about a mysterious stranger on a mission of elaborate revenge. Substantially different from the book in many ways, so don't worry about knowing exactly what's gonna happen. Opulent art-nouveau-kinda 2D/3D computer-animated visuals and a bad-ass closing theme song. Once the Count gets his scheme rolling, the plot is marvelously gripping. 24 episodes total, so this will run into next year. Victorian Romance Emma: Nothing to do with the Jane Austen novel. Rather, this is a romance across class divisions against a backdrop of exacting period detail. Everything except the characters' faces is drawn quite realistically. A treat for Anglophiles and fans of a very earnest romantic plotline. Hakim the east Indian ex-pat and his entourage of elephants provide superb comic relief. 12 episodes total. Crest of the Stars: Hot-looking space opera as the last scion of a conquered planet meets his alien opposite number and sets off to play his part in galactic warfare. 13 episodes total, and we will probably hit the sequel, Banner of the Stars, next year. Irregular features! Weeks 1-4 will feature chunks of recent TV series: Bleach (Episodes 1-4): Because the kids these days dig it, high-school student Kurosaki Ichigo sees dead people and does extended battle with them, in the company of a charming lady Grim Reaper. Popular contemporary shonen slugfest action the way you demanded it. Loveless (Episodes 1-4): Two years ago, our hero lost his memory. A few weeks ago, his older brother was murdered. Now, he's transferring into a new school and wondering why a 20-something hot guy wizard won't mind his own damn business. Of course, all these things have SOMETHING to do with each other, but in the meantime, we have lots of teen angst, boy-love overtones, extremely pretty shoujoid artwork, and a nifty sort of poetic take on magic. Full Moon wo Sagashite (Episodes 1-2): Teenage singing magical girl who may be losing her voice to cancer. Real cute in a CLAMP-y kind of way and they insist it's not as typically melodramatic as it sounds. Gokusen Live Action (Episodes 9-10): The live TV drama version of the cartoon series about a yakuza capo and her classroom of teenage delinquents. We've already watched a lot, so watch this and find out why we love it. Week 5 will feature a movie! Mind Game: Intensely weird and experimental animation by Studio 4 Degrees C, the outfit run by Koji Morimoto, who did the "Magnetic Rose" short from Memories and the excellent "Beyond" short from the Animatrix collection. This is a collage of seemingly unconnected bits that eventually coalesce together. Fascinating stuff. Weeks 6 and 7 -- more episodes! Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo (Episodes 1-2): What happens when a magical girl grows up, gets married, and still tries to fit into the costume she wore when she was a kid? Charmingly cheesecakey in bits, but otherwise a lot more mature than you might think. This is being RE-SUBTITLED exclusively for your amusement, because the current subs suck. Oishinbo (Episodes 1-2): A late-'80s fave about a lazy, sleazy freelance journalist who moonlights as one of Japan's leading gourmet experts. His father is Japan's A-Number-One gourmet expert, and a real bastard meanwhile. If you liked Yakitate Japan from this summer, you'll like this too. Kamichu! (Episode 1): Very cute, sharply-animated story about an elementary-school girl who inadvertently comes upon godlike powers. Fun stuff ensues, even in just the one episode. Patarillo Saiyuki (Episodes 1-3): The heroes of the bizarro '70s comedy Patarillo are plugged right into the plot of the old Chinese classic. Three short eps, about nine minutes each. Week 8 we have two one-off features! Neo Tokyo: '80s anthology favorite that you might have seen some of on Liquid Television. No, wait, most of y'all were toddlers when Liquid TV was on the air. "The Running Man," by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll) is a cyberpunkety story about a suicidal race driver. "The Order to Stop Construction," by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) features artificially intelligent worker robots running amok. "Labyrinth" by Rin Taro (Metropolis) is a trippy little story about a little girl wandering in, well, a labyrinth. Cat Soup: We follow up with even MORE weird stuff. It's about cats in some fashion. Otherwise it's hard to explain. Week 9 we have a Lupin movie! Lupin the 3rd Tokyo Crisis: Another one of the new-school Lupin flicks, in an "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" type of hunt for a $20 billion treasure hidden in Tokyo. Weeks 10 and 11 have some more TV shows! Full Metal Panic The Second Raid (Episodes 1-2): Kicking off a new FMP series with a heavy emphasis on the mecha action and a little less of the character and comedy stuff. Previous familiarity with the franchise not required. Eureka Seven (Episodes 1-2): A boy leaves home to adventure with a crew of outlaw sky-surfing giant robot pirates. Gorgeous animation and freaky mecha action designed by Shoji Kawamori. Gallery Fake (Episodes 1-2): To balance the giant robots, we have two episodes of a nifty little light crime drama. Our hero deals admittedly forged artwork by day and quietly sells stolen masterpieces at night. Week 12 has another Studio Ghibli flick! Only Yesterday: A young career woman leaves her new home in Tokyo to revisit her folks back in the country, and we hop back and forth between adult life in the early '80s and youth in the mid-'60s. Quiet, nostalgic, and compelling, directed by Isao Takahata (the "other" Ghibli guy). Week 13 we have a mixed bag! Basilisk (Episode 1): Emma ends week 12, so its slot gets filled by the self-contained first episode of this nifty little ninja series with sharp animation by Studio Gonzo. It's pretty packed for one ep -- we get a generational Romeo and Juliet story set off by an engineered feud between two rival ninja clans. Shorts: Lots and lots of shorts. We'll watch a ton of animated and live-action bits, none of them more than 10 minutes. Week 14 we get another mix! Trinity Blood (Two episodes): Crest of the Stars finishes up week 13, so these two fit in the Crest/Emma slots. In the post-apocalyptic future the agents of the Vatican battle alien Russian vampires in a weirdly retro take on central Europe. Really pretty, and we'll be picking up a couple of the episodes that don't have boring draggity plots. Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam -- Heirs to the Stars: The first leg of the '80s mecha series retold with big chunks of gorgeous new animation. Char Aznable is the ultimate bad-ass and they cut out most of the stupid bits where Camille Vidan acts like a total goober. We finish the year with one of the classics of giant robot animation, compressed down into a reasonable running time.