Next Club Meeting: April 20, 2024, at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm

The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.

This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Anime Viewing Schedule for January 20, 2018

A N I M A T R I X   N E T W O R K
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Wood Dale Public Library
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
Main Meeting Room, 10:15 am to 5:00 pm
10:15 - 11:05   Gamers! 11-12 (End)
11:05 - 11:55   Knight's and Magic 9-10
11:55 - 12:45   Saga of Tanya the Evil 11-12 (End)
12:45 - 2:00     Made in Abyss 11-13 (End)
2:00 - 2:40       Club Meeting / Announcements
2:40 - 4:35       Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me [Movie]

All anime presented are fan-subtitled unless otherwise noted.
 
Don't miss the exciting anime series: Made in Abyss and Princess Principal!
ANIME DESCRIPTIONS ARE BELOW

10:15 - 11:05    Gamers! 11-12 (End)
G a M e R s !
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] One day, Keita Amano, a high school boy who has no friends and spends time playing video game, is approached by the beautiful Karen Tendō about joining their school's Game Club. Smitten by Karen's offer, Keita is slightly disappointed that he wasn't the only one Karen asked to join, but ends up having fun playing FPS games with the other members. Ultimately, however, Keita decides against joining the Game Club as he prefers to play games for enjoyment instead of competition. This rejection hits pretty hard with Karen, who runs off in tears. 


11:05 - 11:55    Knight's and Magic 9-10
Knight's and Magic
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] Knight's & Magic is set in a world where medieval knights use giant robots called Silhouette Knights to fight against demon beasts, magical ravenous animals that devour everything on sight. The protagonist is Tsubasa Kurata, a mecha otaku from Japan who gets killed in a car accident. Tsubasa is reincarnated in this new parallel world as Ernesti "Eru" Echavalier, a boy born into a noble family. Tsubasa's previous otaku memories inspire Ernesti into creating his own Silhouette Knights in order to defend his kingdom.


11:55 - 12:45    Saga of Tanya the Evil eps 11-12 (End)
Saga of Tanya the Evil
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] An atheist Japanese salaryman, in the moment of being murdered, is confronted by a self-righteous entity he refers to as "Being X" who condemns the man for not believing that "Being X" is God and sentences him to be reborn in a world that is similar to WWI Europe mixed with early aspects of World War II and magic, in an empire torn apart by countless wars with all nearby countries. The salaryman is reborn as a girl, Tanya Degurechaff. According to "Being X", if she's not able to die a natural death, or she refuses to have faith in Him, her soul will leave the circle and be sent to hell for the countless sins that Tanya has committed in her previous life. In search for an escape, Tanya decides to enter into the Empire's Mages Division and fight in the world war, hoping to reach a high enough rank as fast as possible to remain far from the battlefield and in this way avoid the risk of being killed. Even if she's now forced to speak with a young girl's lisp, Tanya soon turns into a ruthless soldier who prioritizes efficiency and her own career over anything else, even the lives of those beneath her, especially those that get on her bad side.


12:45 - 1:35    Made in Abyss 11-13 (End)
MADE in ABYSS
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] The story is centered around an orphan girl named Riko who lives in the town of Ōsu on an island in the sea of Beoluska. The city surrounds a strange, giant hole going deep into the earth, which is commonly called the Abyss. The Abyss harbors artefeacts and remnants of a civilisation long gone, and is therefore the popular hunting spot for so-called Cave Raiders, who undertake arduous and dangerous descends into the mist-filled pit to recover whatever relics they can find. However, the deeper one goes into the Abyss, the more he is afflicted by a progressively fatal malady called the Curse of the Abyss; few who have descended into the lower regions have returned to tell of their experiences. Riko's goal is to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a master Cave Raider (a White Whistle) and solve the mysteries of the Abyss. One day she explores the caves and discovers a robot who resembles a human boy.


1:35 - 2:15     Club Meeting / Announcements
Con Alt Delete
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Black Panther
Mary and the Witch's Flower
Godzilla: Monster Planet
Cosplay
Reviews


2:15 - 2:40    Little Witch Academia (TV series) ep 16
Little Witch Academia (TV Series)
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] Luna Nova hosts a welcoming party for the Earl of Hanbridge and his son, Andrew, who is an old acquaintance of Diana's. Meanwhile, as Akko is stuck having to practice her metamorphosis magic after giving herself animal ears, she decides to go and search for the Fountain of Polaris, which she believes can grant her great power. During her search, Akko comes across Andrew, who expresses a strong disinterest in magic, and she inadvertently gives him animal ears and a tail. Arriving at the location of the fountain, Akko and Andrew are chased by and (with the unseen aid of Ursula) evade its guardian, a giant polar bear named Arcas. Upon approaching the fountain, Akko is shown a vision of a young Chariot, who was unable to receive the fountain's power until she proved herself to be a capable witch through her own effort. Helping Akko to realize that acknowledgement is something that must be earned, Ursula encourages Akko to become stronger and restores Andrew, who promises to keep their encounter a secret.


2:40 - 4:35    Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me (Movie)
Napping Princess: 
The Story of the Unknown Me
(Ancien and the Magic Tablet) 
Plot Summary: [Source: Wikipedia] The plot of Napping Princess takes place in two concurrent settings: a near-future Japan and Heartland, a fantastical realm. The main character, Kokone Morikawa, has strange dreams of Heartland while taking naps. In these dreams, Heartland is a society entirely revolving around cars; the King's castle is a car factory, and his subjects all come to it to make a constant stream of new cars. His daughter, Ancien (who appears as a younger Kokone), has a "magic tablet" computer she uses to give life to various machines: notably, a blue toy bear named Joy, and a motorcycle named Heart. The king disapproves of this, however, and orders Ancien confined to her tower. Additionally, the society of Heartland is under threat from a gigantic monster of molten metal called the Colossus. The king builds giant robots to face the Colossus. Ancien, spying a motorcycle-driving subject of the king's named Peach, decides to ally with him and seek to defeat the Colossus together with him, while the king's chief adviser Bewan plots against the king and Ancien alike.

In normal Japan, Kokone is finishing up her school term, considering where to go to college, and reconnecting with old friend Morio who has returned from Tokyo from his first year in college. Kokone lives with her single father Momotarō; her mother perished in an accident while Kokone was still young, and Kokone complains that her father never told her much about her mother. Momotarō is an eccentric car mechanic and has a jacket similar to Peach's, a blue bear doll, a motorcycle, and a cracked tablet, all similar to the ones seen in Kokone's dreams. The situation takes a turn for the worse when Momotarō is unceremoniously arrested three days prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and accused of stealing the car company Shijima Motors' secrets. A suited figure who looks identical to the Heartland king's evil adviser visits the Morikawa home, and is overheard to be searching for both the tablet and Kokone. Via text message from jail, Momotarō warns his daughter not to trust the adviser, who is named Watanabe. The message includes a picture of a younger Momotarō, his wife, and Watanabe. With Morio's help, Kokone evades Watanabe and his men and recovers the stolen tablet and bear doll, driving away in the family's motorcycle. They also discover a business card for Isshin Shijima, the chairman of Shijima Motors, and consider visiting him for help after Kokone is told that her mother, Ikumi, was the daughter of the Chairman. The two take a nap in the motorcycle, visit Heartland where they dream of the motorcycle soaring through the sky, and are surprised to find on waking up that the motorcycle has driven itself to Osaka overnight before running out of gas. Kokone's attempts to contact her father via the tablet seemingly fail, but surprisingly enough, the "magic" seems to work in the real world when a request to the tablet's e-Heart chat for train tickets results in an attendant giving them paid-for Shinkansen tickets to Tokyo. There, Kokone seeks an audience with the Chairman, while Morio learns that mechanics from Shijima Motors were the ones who saw Kokone's message and had bought the tickets for the pair. The mechanics explain that after the chairman's daughter had a falling out with her father and eloped with Momotarō, they used this chat to keep in contact with Momotarō, who had been continuing his wife's self-driving car programming and research. Ikumi had run a project researching self-driving car technology years ago, but Ikumi's father, as chairman, refused her proposal at the time.

Kokone has a final dream of Ancien and Peach's adventures, but unlike earlier dreams, Kokone appears as a separate bystander rather than as Ancien. Ancien seeks to empower one of the giant robots with her magic tablet over the objections of the captain. While the empowered robot engages with the Colossus, the captain turns off the engines. Ancien frantically attempts to reignite the engines, but falls off the robot. Peach keeps her in his grip, but she loses her grasp. Appearing now as Ikumi (rather than a young Kokone), she swears to help out Peach one last time, then falls to her death and cracks the tablet's glass. Kokone understands that the bedtime stories she was told as a young girl of "Ancien and the Magic Tablet" by her father that she has been dreaming of were actually stories of her mother. Now, Shijima Motors has changed course and wants to use the once ignored technology to impress the world during the Olympics with self-driving cars, hence Watanabe's frantic hunt for the tablet. Kokone, prominently carrying Ikumi's old bear doll Joy, finds Chairman Shijima, who talks of his regrets. The action shifts to Heartland, where Bewan / Watanabe detains Kokone. He describes his plan to overthrow the King via letting the King's giant robots fail, and then to prominently save the kingdom with his own giant robot. The King orders Watanabe arrested, while Peach enters the remaining robot to do battle with the Colossus, which Kokone empowers with the tablet. Watanabe manages to emit a "curse" from his cell phone to sabotage the robot, and the kingdom is briefly engulfed in flames. Regardless, Peach and Kokone are able to prevail over the Colossus, albeit via flying into space and crashing back to Heartland. In the real world, Kokone and her father Momotarō are now stuck in the rafters of the building while Watanabe is carried off, and Momotarō is holding onto Kokone just as Peach once had for Ancien. The people beneath, and the self-driving motorcycle Heart, in seeming fulfillment of Ikumi's claim to be there for the family one more time when it is most needed, are able to drag a giant balloon into place; as the family falls, they hit every banner to slow their descent, and survive the fall thanks to the balloon. A safe Kokone, seeing the company's motto on the banners explains that her name must have been based on the company's motto, a combination of "heart" (kokoro) and "wing" (hane).

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