Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

It was an ok episode. Overall the jokes were funny, but it all tied together kind of lame-like. Oh well, it was funny. Some bits of note.

lol american politics

so hot~

As usual, lifted from here.

Ok, since I’ve finally decided on what shows I’ll be watching, I guess I’ll list ‘em.

Current Shows
Clannad: KyoAni once again produces a beautiful looking Key adaptation. Liking it very much.
ef: Only 2 episodes in, but it seems pretty confused. Watching mainly for the SHAFT factor.
Genshiken 2: Looks like they’re really going to mix things up in episode 4. Also, it’s nice to see this getting the love and care it deserves in terms of production value.
Ghost Hound: I actually really like Production IG, but lately they’ve been making nothing but super boring shows (Seirei no Moribito, Reideen.) This, however, has all the right ingredients for something very interesting, and if episode 1 is any indication, it should be.
Hayate no Gotoku: Just plain fun. I’m so happy it’s running for 52 episodes, though I wouldn’t mind if it went on forever. Nagi is adorable.
Kaiji: Gambling anime is awesome. I need to see more than 5 minutes of Akagi, eventually.
Kodomo no Jikan: One problem I found with the manga was simply the fact that it was a manga. Simple things like colour and voice acting really gives this story the kind of life it needs.
Minami-ke: Oh so delightful! I love every minute of this show. That said, I’ve only seen 2 episodes. Chiaki is the best, though a Kana is fine too. Both at the same time would be ideal.
Moyashimon: I’ve only seen the first episode. So far the best part of this show is the opening, though it has what it takes to become quite good.
Shana II: I’m liking the tighter quality control on the character design this time around. Though, three episodes in may be a bit early to pass judgment on something like that, but overall it looks better than the first one. I’m liking it weekly, and I may have liked the first one more weekly. Not sure if I could ever marathon it, though. Kasumi is hot.
Sky Girls: Kind of becoming less entertaining, but still watchable. Perhaps 24 episodes is too much?

Chopping Board
Dragonaut: A “so bad it’s good” show, right down the shitty Beast Wars-styled CG. Not sure how long I’d feel like keeping up with it just for that and the character design, though.
Gundam 00: Too many pretty boys.

Not so current shows
Rocket Girls: Meant to watch this when it first came out, but the subs were severely lacking, so I gave up on it. Recently acquired a batch, and am about half-way through. I’m glad I decided to catch up on it. It’s quite good. Nothing totally impressive, but it’s nice to watch.
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2: Gets the corny space opera thing right, unlike the first series which just came off as kind of boring. It’s less “unpleasant situation of the week” and more “super crazy awesome manly thing of the week”.

Reading
Anything when I get the chance.

Original Post

This comic seems pretty lame looking at it now, but whatever. I wanted to give Tina a hint of insanity to balance out all the wish fulfillment. Then again, some guys get off to yanderes. I guess I’m one of them. Oops. The line art here was pretty horrible, but the colouring saves it, I think. For once there is no crazy lighting effects, so I focused on making darkness look as pretty as possible. I like how it turned out.

I watched 8 episodes of Nadesico with my friend Seiya this weekend. Since I had never seen the show, he took it upon himself to screen some of it for me. I like it, but watching a bunch of episodes all at once makes it come off as very fast, and almost rushed. The episodes are briskly paced, and I feel better suited for watching one at a time, with at least a day (or like, an hour or so) between episodes. That and I’m not very good with marathons. Lack of attention span and all that. But hey, I’ve been listening to YOU GET TO BURNING all day, so that means something.

The specifics for Gunslinger Girl season 2 have been released, and the production staff, seiyuu, and even the studio are completely different from the original series. This isn’t totally bad, as it’s been left to some talented individuals. My only problem is that it’ll feel like a completely different show. Even though Genshiken changed studios 3 times, the vocal cast stayed the same, giving the show some sense of continuity. Since even the voices have changed, it’ll be interesting to see how it works out. Guess it’s good that I haven’t seen the first one for a while?

Anyway, that’s it. This day has been kind of bad, so I just wanna relax for the remaining hour of the day to some animes. Later.

my world has just been turned upside-down

It’s like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real, or something.

I guess I should have known that this was going to be more or less a very long opening act for SSX. The movie had some good scenes, but overall it felt like watching a very dark screen for 2 hours while people died matched to beautiful music. I suppose the movie would be fine if I was going to move on to SSX, but only three episodes have been subbed, so that’s not happening. Also, it reminded me that I’m not in the mood for long over-done dramas at the moment. I guess I’ll try it again if/when all of SSX gets subbed.

I may pick up some episodes of the original series in the meantime, though.

http://www.otokojuku-the-movie.com/

Thanks to Randall for the tip.

I wondered why I was running low on disc. Now that I have space I’ll get My Youth in Arcadia and maybe even Space Adventure Cobra.

I still don’t have enough space to tackle Hokuto no Ken, though.

Plan for the first panel of a comic. Those random scribbles are meant to be bare trees.

This man haunts my dreams…

Alrighty, here goes! More fall season reviews!

Genshiken 2

Um, wow. Seems like they finally found the right people to adapt Genshiken into animation. NOT ONLY is the animation worlds better than that seen in the first series or the OVA, the production staff actually seem to get the subject-matter that they are dealing with. The show is peppered with small nods to various classic anime (thus far mostly Gundam) and the biggest of these nods is the opening itself. This season’s opening parodies newer Gundam openings, and features Madarame and Sasahara as Char and Amuro respectively. To make the deal even sweeter, super-otaku and ero illustrator Urushihara Satoshi himself, directs the opening complete with bouncy boob animation. His direction burns with the true spirit of the otaku– challenging the impossible and pushing forward into the future towards infinity (ok that’s not like otaku at all, but it sounds cool). This is Otaku-dom at its core. This 90 seconds, right here.

Moving on from the opening, the actual content isn’t that different from the manga, which is fine. Being faithful is better than making stupid shit up (unless you happen to be SHAFT.) One thing to note is that previous animated works brushed over a couple of fine details, those being Sasahara’s acquisition of a PC and Ohno and Tanaka being together as a couple. Sasahara’s thing is taken care of, because now he has a laptop (at the expense of not getting an animated version of that one hilarious manga chapter) and Ohno’s and Tanaka’s relationship is still hinted at subtly, as it was in the OVA and at the end of the first TV series. Another thing to note is that Studio Arms seems to be primarily a porn studio. This means the fanservice is like super good.

Minami-ke

This show is delightful. It hits me all my weak spots, leaving me as nothing more than a pile of goo. The design work is exactly to my liking, as it dances on the line between cartoony and realistic perfectly. The characters, while archetypal, are all realized well and play off each other in an amusing fashion. The gags aren’t laugh out loud funny, but they’re good for a light chuckle. The entertainment value found in this show isn’t really in the laughs-per-minute, but rather comes from one enjoying watching the characters just be who they are. It’s good fun done well, and I’m sure anyone who likes being happy can appreciate it.

ef -a tale of memories

SHAFT and Shinbo tackle an eroge adaptation, and the results are rather interesting. It’s important to note that Shinbo isn’t directing here, he’s only supervising, but his eccentric and surreal visuals are still there to some degree. However, the surrealism doesn’t really work that well. Its application seems a bit haphazard, and it’s not as skillfully woven in as it is a full on Shinbo work. Episode two is a little better in this respect, and also throws in some traditional Shinbo imagery and techniques.  As far as the proper content goes, I’m not that taken with either of the stories they’re telling here, or the characters. I like one story a little better than the other, but other than that, I’m only watching for the visuals. Hopefully the actually meat of the show will improve.