August 2009
Leaving Japan in two weeks :(
Bakemonogatari: I kind of wished this would be the show where Shinbo would exercise more creative control over the production (a la his older work) but this more collaborative effort between everyone (which I believe is how most SHAFTXSHINBO works are) shows just how far the team has come over the past couple of years. The writing is brilliant, even if I do miss out on some cultural ques. I probably don’t have to mention that Watanabe Akio’s designs are brilliant, but they are.
CANAAN: I haven’t seen an action based show this strong since Cowboy Bebop. I couldn’t really care less for the plot, but the character interactions are nice and the gunfights are some of best I’ve seen in a while.
Dragon Ball Kai: I guess they’ll be cutting out the episode where Piccolo and Goku get their driver’s licenses.
Fight, Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!!: Finally, a show which acknowledges the superiority of the pee-fetish. I enjoy fanservice romps when well done, and this is fairly good. Needs more exposed boobs, though.
Hayate no Gotoku!!: This show has really made me sour towards J.C. Staff. All they can really do right is softcore porn. It’s not bad, and at some points it’s quite good, but on the whole it’s simply not as strong as the first season. I’m also going to shove some blame onto Kenjirou Hata–dude, you should have serialized you comic in Comic High or something…
Saki: In the beginning I was watching this because I thought a lot of the cast was adorable, but at this point the Mahjong stuff is proving to be extremely riveting. I kind of want to re-watch Akagi now!
Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen: Even though this show is devilishly simple to understand raw, I had no idea what was going on in the last two episodes. The low budget really does hurt the show more than it should. Imagawa’s directorial talents can only go so far. However, when it’s good, it’s really good.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu: Fuck the haters, Endless Eight is great… provided it ends at eight episodes. I do hope they announce another series after this reboot of S1, though.
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Hm, I like a show by Bones. Something is wrong. Perhaps because it has a loli? Perhaps because I like seeing places where I’ve just visited get destroyed in a cartoon? Perhaps the realistic portrayal of lost and scared children? I dunno, but it works fairly well.
Umi Monogatari: I had no idea the pachinker game for this had been around for 10 years. The show itself is a fun diversion each week. Nothing extremely special, but nice.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni: I had no idea that the Japanese word for “seagull” literally meant “seacat” until I saw this show. A fine show, but it would be nice if Deen could learn how to make animation that wasn’t horribly muddy.
Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: I do like how each series distinguishes itself with its own quirks, with the new ones in this season being quite obvious if you have eyes and ears. Some of the rantings are a bit too Japanese culture centric for only-here-for-5-months-me to understand, but it continues to be a fine television show.
I was at some point watching Asura Cryin’ and stopped at episode 8. Should I finish it? I should I watch the sequel? I also saw the first episode of that GA show, but no one has subbed it, surprisingly enough.
Also caught one episode of Kanamemo on TV before infomercials on Teletama pushed Zetsubou Sensei to the same time as it. I liked the first episode, and should watch more…!
I still need to get through the DVD backlog. Working through it slowly, but surely. Eventually I’ll work out a routine for all of this.
Oh, I guess I’m struggling through the odd manga in Japanese.
if Umineko is anything like Higurashi it should be brlliant.
“CANAAN: I haven’t seen an action based show this strong since Cowboy Bebop. I couldn’t really care less for the plot, but the character interactions are nice and the gunfights are some of best I’ve seen in a while.”
Have you watched Black Lagoon? The gunfights in there are awesome.
The action in Black Lagoon is fine, but sometimes it’s kind of flat and static.
Kanamemo is quite funny. Continue watching that. The fourth episode is not just a fanservice bikini episode, but a fanservice bikini episode with SINGING!
What about Princess Lover?
Dont finish Asura cryin, In fact, dont even mention that trainwreck. Instead,I suggest you start NEEDLESS
Argh leaving Jp so soon… so u goin to Comic Market? buying Doujinshi before leaving?
Protip: learn mahjong before rewatching Akagi, it helps tremendously. Same goes for Saki.
Best place to learn rules is http://ofb.net/~whuang/ugcs/gp/mahjong/mahjong.html, and to practice, try http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/mahjong/mahjong_e.html. The MAL mahjong club is also helpful and has many experienced players.
I know the basic rules of mahjong, so it’s not as if Saki is incomprehensible. I don’t know any of the hands, though. Nor do I really understand the scoring.
not watching spice and wolf? :(
Nope. No interest.
“Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu: Fuck the haters, Endless Eight is great… provided it ends at eight episodes. I do hope they announce another series after this reboot of S1, though.”
Yeah, I agree. What really pisses me off of Endless Eight is that it seems like they are trying to NOT continue de series at any cost. I mean, how long did it take for this repeated chapters to air?? Six months? One year? THREE years??
One thing you notice about Umineko is that it isn’t Higurashi 2. It’s a decent series in it’s own right, but other than both of them being supernatural murder mysteries, they aren’t at all similar.
I’ve never watched Higurashi.
@wah you should watch Higurashi you would love the killer lolis, no seriously you would wah
“Dragon Ball Kai: I guess they’ll be cutting out the episode where Piccolo and Goku get their driver’s licenses.”
Fucking win wah best description of DB Kai I have heard
“Fight, Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!!: Finally, a show which acknowledges the superiority of the pee-fetish. I enjoy fanservice romps when well done, and this is fairly good. Needs more exposed boobs, though.”
You sir, are a brilliant man.
Thanks for your time
“kamome” is Japanese for seagull. “Umineko” is the name of a seagull species. Same holds true for higurashi, which likewise is the name of a cicada species (“Evening Cicada”), not generic Japanese for “cicada”.