Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by ur mum)

Previously…

Second three!

Strike Witches: My first reaction was, “Sky Girls, except better.” The characters are cuter, the setting is nicer and the fanservice is plentiful. Gonzo has really been letting me down lately, but they may have a winner here. The first episode wasn’t totally great, but this show could really go places. Like in my pants.

I was naughty and downloaded a torrent of the BOST file, but I’m seriously considering supporting this now. It’s better than paying for Blassreiter!

Tetsuwan Birdy Decode: I’ve never seen the original OVA, nor have I read the manga. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by this tasty slice of SF action. The production values sure are something– I hope this A1 Pictures Inc. studio can keep up the quality.

Zero no Tsukaima: Princesses no Rondo: This first episode was business as usual for 0nT, and naturally I ate it all up and wanted more. In contrast to the second season, this first episode of season three actually progresses the plot somewhat. I kind of hope they continue on in this vein, but I’d be fine with more stupid fanservice, too. However, it seriously needs more Siesta.

Also, the opening and ending songs are great!

Time to review three short series that all ended recently!

Kure-nai: I wanted the Hollywood ending. That said, the show did do well to stick true to its sense of realism right down the end, but they could have at least indulged us a bit, right? I guess they did that with episode six, though.

Kure-nai was a very good show. I can’t say it was perfect, but it certainly lived up to my expectations, and at times surpassed them. The show sold itself on character interaction, but what I really liked was the atmosphere and the underlying plot. Being a fan of Gunslinger Girl, I enjoy it when small children are thrown into situations involving The Underworld and Violence, and Kure-nai delivered that somewhat decently. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy the character interaction, because that was awesome– I just wish that they hit more on The Darkness throughout the show.

Kanokon: Uh, I guess the only notable thing about Kanokon was how it was a fanservice show with a really high budget. I mean seriously, every episode of this was crazy beautiful and looked movie quality. I’m not going to ask why, because I enjoyed it as well done softcore porn. GJ, Xebec.

Toshokan Sensou: This won points simply for being the first Production IG show in something like, what, two years? that I actually really liked. They almost won me over with Blood+, but that went sour near the end. However, Toshokan Sensou was by no means perfect. The story was pretty shoddily developed, and the show only really carried itself on character interaction. That’s fine though, since the characters were pretty decent, and I don’t care much for plot anyways.

For some reason I wrote these all in the past tense!

In the midsts of my Shuffle! merch buying frenzy some months ago, I came across this “Clear Sheet Collection” over at CDJapan. I noticed that of the fifteen “clear sheets” available, two of them were rare images that I really wanted highres copies of (Kaede in naked apron and Kaede in maid outfit) and a quite a few others were images I liked but didn’t have highres versions of. Though, there was a catch: of the fifteen images available, the most you could get from each set was twelve, so you’d be missing out on three of the images no matter what. But despite that little hang up, I snatched this up without a thought and hoped for the best. After a few weeks, it finally arrived at my doorstep (gogo SAL shipping.)

Turns out my luck wasn’t totally horrible like it always is, and I at least got one of the two rare images I wanted. Alas, Kaede in a maid outfit seems forever out of reach, save for bad Yahoo auction pics. If anyone has that one, I’d love a scan of it. Anyways, on to the review…

This “Clear Sheet Collection” is really just a set of transparent pencil boards with various pieces of Really? Really! promotional art on them. Of the fifteen offered, only five of them are the same old recycled art you’ve seen everywhere, with the other ten being rarer images. So, no matter what kind of batch you get, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get some good stuff.

And what good stuff this is! Aoi Nishimata is in top form here with a bunch of cute Kaede renderings along some hot Primula, Mayumi and Sakura action for good measure. Hiro Suzuhira makes some brief appearances with a few Asa and Ama pics, but is mostly absent from this collection considering she apparently left Navel a while ago due to health issues. If I had to say anything negative about this set (aside from the fact that you miss three of the images >:((( ) is that the transparency thing seems pretty pointless. All it really does is make the art look faded, which isn’t a good thing. However, if you’re like me and tape up pencil boards, these look decent against a white surface. They’re also good to collect in an album of some sort!

I’d recommend these to any serious Shuffle! fan such as myself, but good luck finding them now. CDJapan is out, and I have no idea where else they’d sell these. Your best bet is Yahoo auctions, probably. In fact, I should go there right now and see if anyone is selling the Kaede maid “clear sheet”!

Bonus

As a distinguished member of the interwebs, I’ve decided to scan some of the rare images for my fellow otaku. I’ve uploaded all of these to danbooru (18+), but this blog post has a better scan of Naked Apron Kaede. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Yeah, I know this is an anime blog, but this is like the only movie I’ve watched in a cinema since like 2004.

So, Indy 4. It was pretty good. Captured a lot of the magic of the originals while mixing it up a bit with some wacky shit. As far as plot goes, it’s probably the most ridiculous one out of the four, but that doesn’t really hurt it at all. Though, as a Jones movie, it kind of falls flat. While all the chases and fights are good, it feels like it’s going through the motions now.

This one kind of falls between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade for me. It’s a lot better than Temple (not a difficult thing to do) but not quite as epic Last Crusade. It doesn’t even touch Raiders, which will forever be my favourite.

Also, it really suffered from lack of Sallah!

I’ve never had a good relationship with Type-Moon. My first run-in with them was in the form of the Fate/Stay Night anime over two years ago, and I went into that with the bar set quite high due to the original’s high level of praise. I came out of it severely disappointed. The fans did, too, but that doesn’t change the fact that this was my first impression of Type-Moon, and first impressions are everything. Since then, I’ve had something of a bias against them. So naturally, when Kara no Kyoukai was announced, I hardly even cared.

My fanboy ears did perk up a bit when I heard UFOTable was on the job, though. While I’m not a fan of everything UFOTable puts out, they’re a good studio and I was confident they’d do justice to Type-Moon’s allegedly legendary brand of writing and produce something that wasn’t an insult to my intelligence. They almost did it, too! If only they had more than 50 minutes…

I’ll get the ugly stuff out of the way first: this writing is pretty bad. I understand that this one movie is the first in a series of seven, but a complete lack of introduction and/or exposition about these characters is pretty unacceptable. The movie should spend less time talking about flying and floating and more time establishing who these characters are and just what the fuck it is they do. The plot progression is pretty choppy, too, but I think that actually works. They way they present the story makes it seem more complicated than it actually is, but it works decently. Aside from that, though, this writing sucks. Too much wishy washy BS and pretentious musings about nothing for my tastes. Give me Eva over this any day.

Thankfully, the movie is just about perfect in every other way. UFOTable can put out some pretty good TV animation, so them plus a sexy movie budget is quite the site to see. It’s almost GITS:Innocence level, except for with less bad 3D graphics. Lighting effects, backgrounds and character animation are all top notch. The cinematography is great, too– the movie has a lot of great, well composed shots that almost distract me from the silly dialogue. Sure, they’re not Shinbo or Anno level, but what is? As far as music goes, the soundtrack doesn’t especially grab me but it works well in the context of the film. I’m not really a Yuki Kajiura fan anyway.

I know I sound like I’m taking a crap on this movie, but in retrospect it wasn’t an all together unpleasant experience, I just wasn’t all that impressed. The visuals and the rest are captivating, but the story is just so stupid that it leaves something of a giant stain on the whole affair. Type-Moon fans will eat it up, but I guess guys like me will still wonder just what all the fuss is about.

also: badass female leads suck. women should fate/stay in the kitchen

I finished Dennou Coil tonight by way of one of MIT’s anime screenings, and boy it certainly was something.

Dennou Coil was really one of those shows were I just kicked back and enjoyed it for the spectacle. I didn’t pay close attention to the story or the characters, opting to instead just relax and marvel at the animation and the direction. Because that stuff was good. That isn’t to say the story stuff wasn’t good either, since there certainly were moments when I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. Though, the problem is, when I actually force my self to think about how the story flowed, it feels very uneven and rough. I dunno, maybe I just can’t decipher wacky technobabble so there’s probably holes in my understanding, but some moments felt too “lol anime” in a show that seemed to want to separate itself from that kind of thing.

I’m not sure how to feel about the characters. Yasako was serviceably moe and Isako was, for the most part, annoyingly emo and DON’T TALK TO ME-ish. The rest were decent in their own ways, but none struck me as particularly interesting. Honestly, my favourite is probably Mega Baa, since she’s just nuts. Her or Densuke. What a fucking legend Densuke was.

The soundtrack was pretty good. They used a lot of the same tracks over and over and OVER again, so eventually they stuck in my head as Pretty Good Stuff. Also, as classics like Gunbuster and End of Evangelion prove, dramatic scenes matched to overly dramatic piano pieces WIN. So yeah, I guess I’ll be downloading buying this OST.

In the end I liked Dennou Coil, but mostly for the Flashy Special Effects and stuff like that. It had some plot points that really interested me, but on the whole the show kind of fell flat when it came to the things that mattered. This is kind of fine though, since the mid-series filler was pretty entertaining. Not really sure about rewatchability as of yet.

BONUS: After the showing I approached rikchik (you can find him lurking in the comment sections from time to time) with my theory– that being, Dennou Coil is a message to otaku telling them not to get too engrossed in eroge and 2ch flame wars. They of course totally fuck this up with the Yasako x Isako yuri at the ending, as it encourages us otaku to go back to our  computers and fap to pics of Yasako and Isako doing it.

I watched all these a couple of days ago so these aren’t immediate reactions like the last few posts.

Kamen no Maid Guy

This was a real disappointment. I expected quality gags in the vein of Hayate, but instead I got some really badly designed and poorly scripted bunk. All this show has going for it is boobs, and even those are poorly done. I’m sure there’s an audience out there for this stuff, though– the same audience that loved Magikano, probably.

Golgo 13

Japan’s number 1 stone cold killer finally makes his way onto the small screen after 40+ years of being mostly restricted to the pages of his 140+ volumes of manga. None of this stuff is really original, but it’s proper no-nonsense Adult Anime, and the medium could probably do with more of it. People have been complaining that the animation is stiff– while it is, it doesn’t really bother me. When stuff actually needs to move, it moves well, and the scenes with little to no movement don’t really feel cheap. The production is about as good as your average Death Note epsiode, which is to say pretty good. There’s going to be 50 episodes of this, so I hope the subbers can keep up/don’t loose interest.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

This show almost has my favourite character designs of the season if it wasn’t for Kure-nai and Kanokon. Fuka especially is quite fuckable. That stuff aside, the first episode of this show is humour scenes mixed with trying-to-be-serious-but-this-is-not-a-serious-show scenes. This one has potential to be real fun, but the final shot of episode 1 coupled with the small bits of “seriousness” sprinkled throughout this episode make me worry that it’ll take its silly self seriously. Kyouko, the main girl, is the kind of character I don’t really like, but she’s cute enough so that’s all well and good. I’ll probably be keeping up with this one.

And that’s it for this series of posts. There are still a few other shows I’ve seen and want to see, but the spring rush is pretty much over now. Hope you all chose your spring viewing wisely!

A month and a bit ago, Seven Seas was giving away books in exchange for reviews to various anime blogging personalities. I signed up on a whim, but didn’t expect much out of it, given I’ve been quite vocal about my displeasure with Seven Seas in the past. Yet, upon coming back from my spring break, I found a little book in my mailbox. Yes, I was one of the ten lucky, lucky men to get Ballad of a Shinigami. Reviews had to be in by March 31st. It is now April 12th. I was too busy watching Kodomo no Jikan DVD rips, sorry. Anyways, review time.

Ballad of a Shinigami focuses around an adorable loli called Momo. If you haven’t already guessed, she’s a shinigami (aka god of death.) Accompanying her is a wise-cracking servant demon called Daniel who is really just a cat with bat wings. The book is sectioned off into four standalone stories that all have something to do with death. Each story has its own set of characters, and Momo and Daniel usually take a backseat to most of the action. Story 1 brightens our lives by getting us acquainted with a talented high school painter who stands in the shadow of his overbearing father who just happens to be a famous artist himself. Story 2 shows us what happens when two young love-struck kids, one with a horrible case of asthma, try to care for a kitten in secret. Story 3 is about curry, child abuse and ESP. Lastly, story 4 centers around a little girl stuck in a room filled with stuffed toys. Momo, being a “meddler” usually ends up interacting with some of these characters. However, such behaviour is against Shinigami rules, which drives Daniel into fits of rage since these actions result in a good yelling at from their superiors.

I was first introduced to Ballad of a Shinigami by way of the 6-episode anime adaptation that aired some years ago. I liked that well enough, so I figured I’d give the book a spin. I won’t necessarily say the book suffers from being a book, but reading this reminds me of just how dependent the cartoon was on atmosphere. Use of music, creative storyboarding and voice acting is really what sold me on it. In book form, all you’re left with is K-Ske Hasegawa’s words to do all that for you. In the afterword Hasegawa admits he’s not the greatest writer, and I’m inclined to agree with him. His writing style “does the job” but when I first cracked this thing open and read the first 10 or so pages I felt as if I was reading a fanfiction. I think he tries too hard to evoke a certain kind of feel, but after a while I either got used to it or he got better at what he was doing. But even when the writing got to that point, it wasn’t especially inspiring or imaginative.

The stories themselves seem to be fresh out of the Visual Art’s/Key Academy for Emotional Manipulation. As I said before, they all tend to revolve around death, and read like your typical anime sob-story, just in book form. Actually, one thing that struck me about this book was how it read like an average anime script. Maybe such qualities are just characteristic of Japanese fiction writing, but then again Yukio Mishima sure didn’t read like this when I read one of his collections of stories, Death in Midsummer, in high school. But I’m getting off track. That said, I think Hasegawa does create some very sympathetic characters, and you do feel pretty bummed when one of them bites it. I teared up a bit at some moments, I’ll admit. I think his stories go a bit overboard with how cruel they are to some of the characters, but it works well in bringing about the tears… like any given Key story.

My favourite story has to be story 3, mostly because it’s the most lighthearted, but at the same time one of the darkest. The same could be said for story 4, which is probably my second favourite. I guess I like how they contrast lightheartedness with heaping helpings of darkness underneath. I prefer that to the first two stories, which are just coated with a thick layer of melancholy– especially the opening number.

Like any good light novel, this one comes with the odd illustration every now and again. A person called Nanakusa does the artwork here, and it’s all very MOEEEE. He doesn’t really know how to do backgrounds, but the characters are all appropriately cute and appealing. I want this artbook now, so that says something.

Seven Seas’ work on this title seems decent enough. I can’t really comment on the translation since unlike Kransom down at Welcome Datacomp, I lack both a JLPT-2 and the original Japanese novel. There were however spots that felt rather awkward to read, and perhaps more effort could have been put in to making the English read more like normal English rather than a fansub-esque translation of Japanese. As far as the quality of the book itself goes, it’s pretty well put together. I carried it around in my pocket a lot, and it managed to survive that with only a very minimal amount damage, so it’s pretty tough. The colour illustrations inside the book look fine, and the black and white ones look ok, too.

Overall Ballad of a Shinigami is a pretty decent read. There were some parts which felt like a chore to get through, but in the end I enjoyed it. Provided K-Ske Hasegawa’s improves in subsequent volumes, I’ll keep reading. Not sure how much re-read value this one volume has, though. I guess we’ll see in time. But anyway, buy this if you want support more light novels coming the US. It’s certianly worth your time, more so than Pita-Ten and, god forbid, Strawberry Panic.

You can also find this review on Culture Junkies

three is a magic number~~

Macross Frontier

I’m a Macross nub, I’ll admit. I only just saw Do You Remember Love a month or so ago and have yet to see the original series. I did see one or two episodes of that Macross Zero thing a few years back, but I guess that doesn’t count. Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is Macross Frontier is my first proper Macross series. I put off watching the original airing of episode one (the “Deculture” Edition) until after my viewing of DYRL because I didn’t want to be like a new Gundam fan who only watches 00 and forgets the original series and movies exist. But I digress.

I watched the Deculture Edition and the proper TV airing back to back, so I got the whole story of episode one down. I’m pretty fucking impressed. I’ve had this fucking annoying itch for well produced and engaging SF anime for a while now, and Macross F does a fucking good job of scratching that itch. The world design alone would have been satisfactory, but Macross F goes above and beyond by delivering dogfights that are actually exciting. A rarity in anime. Not only that, but they were rendered in 3D and actually looked not shitty. Sure, it’s not fucking Pixar grade or anything, and the movements did look awkward at times (you cannot reproduce the Itano Circus faithfully in 3D, I am sorry), but damn. I was fucking on the edge of my seat. I should note that this hardly ever fucking happens to me.

Anyway, aside from violence and spaceships, the character animation is pretty good and everything else in general is well rendered. The character designs are apparently done by a porno-game designer, and I’m not sure how I feel about them. Nyan Nyan girl is cute, but her eyes aren’t big enough so she’s not MOEEEEEEE. But the dance is nice.

So yeah, watch it.

Zettai Karen Children

…or Absolutely Lovely Children, in our archaic and simple Engrish ranguage. Though you may just want to keep it Zettai Karen for when you’re speaking in public, to attract less suspicious looks.

Yeah, this one is a big ol’ “I GUESS IT WAS OK.” This first episode had a crazy Hard Gay wannabe as the main villain. I dunno, maybe I’m just too old to appreciate a gay man shooting lasers out of his dick, but this wasn’t really funny or not funny. It was just there. Anyway, gay men shooting lasers out of their dicks aside, the show features some psychic lolis, which are clearly better than normal lolis, because they’re psychic. They could probably jerk you off with their minds, or something. One is voiced by Hirano Aya doing her Konata voice, and her character basically is Konata except more perverted. I’m not sure what to make of the character designs here. On one hand they’re kind of cute, but on the other hand they look like the stepped out of some show made in that awkward period where anime was becoming moe but was still not moe. Like 1999 or early 2000, or something.

This show is apparently directed by the Hayate director, which is confusing since that same directorial brilliance isn’t here. However, a quick gander at this guy’s other credits almost convinces me that Hayate’s brilliance doesn’t really lie in the direction so much anymore. I guess that guy just does lol otaku shows. Also, this is meant to run for a year. Not sure if I’ll be able to stick with it.

Allison to Lillia

Uh, I’m not really sure what to say about this one. Episode 1 was well done, but I’m not really sure if this kind of show is my thing or not. It certainly was fun and had a great sense of adventure helped by an ambitious musical score, but it’s so not-anime that I’m almost put off. I guess I’ll watch it until I get sick of it.

The animation is pretty good. I really like the use of colour.

Three more

Chi’s Sweet Home

Boy is this show a breath of fresh air. A step back to a simpler type of cartoon making, Chi’s Sweet Home is three minutes of pure, simple and adorable entertainment. How can you not be delighted by a cute little kitten doing cute little kitten things?

Code Geass 2

It seems a Japanese tradition, or at least an anime tradition, to follow up an unforgiving cliffhanger with a total reset or a shift in focus to something else entirely in the next installment. This is often times extremely frustrating, but Code Geass R2 (as it likes to call itself) wastes little time with the BS and gets back to being wonderfully trashy and insane in short order. The episode actually plays out similarly to the opener of Space Adventure Cobra, except for with more gay CLAMP design work and less Psychoguns. It also only manages to create more questions instead of answering any posed by the previous series. However, I have faith in Sunrise’s writers that everything will make sense in the end. Wait, never mind. So long as they explain what Jupiter is all about, I’m cool.

Also, I never really had a thing for Kallen but… bunny suit.

To Love Ru

I’ve always held an interest in To Love Ru ever since I came across some scans on 2chan some years ago, but passed on reading it since it’s a Shounen Jump title and Shounen Jump titles have a nasty habit of running for Too Long. That being the case, I decided to hold out for the eventual bite-size anime adaptation, if such a thing were to materialize. Well, here it is, brought to you by way of Studio Xebec, who incidentally happen to be working on another show about boobs. It’s clear which of these projects is taking priority down in the ol’ animation house, but To Rabu Ru doesn’t look bad by any means. It seems in attempt to the stretch the budget, backgrounds are simplified to not-very-detailed watercolour pieces and character movement and design take priority. The characters generally stay on model, and the animation isn’t jerky and/or awkward. The fanservice, which is the entire reason why you’re watching this thing in the first place, is standard fare but does the job. Shit like this isn’t high art, but this sure has more entertainment value than Rosario + Vampire!

The opening scene remindes me of a 90s anime for some reason, but that 90s feeling is quickly done away with once you see the post-2000 design work. Nothing bad, just an observation.

Three’s a good number.

Kure-nai

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I was kind of looking forward to this show, but had no real expectations. The character designs and atmosphere are all very well done, and the voice work seems solid enough. I can’t comment much on the script since it hasn’t been subbed yet, but if it’s as good as the rest of the show is, this should be a real winner. I just hope Brains Base keeps up this Baccano!/Kamichu! quality and doesn’t slip into Innocent Venus territory. Hm, maybe Kure-nai just needs an exclamation point at the end just to be safe…

Even if this does slip into suckage, I enjoy dark serious stories focused around small children, so I’d probably keep watching anyway.

Kanokon

The first thing that came to my mind while I was watching this was, “wow, it’s Rosario + Vampire done right!” It’s not exactly the same as the R+V setup though, but somewhat similar. Rather than a boy going to a school full of monsters, it centers around a fox spirit attending a normal school, and her struggles with keeping her identity secret. But she doesn’t really struggle at all… and that shit isn’t important anyway. This show has pretty good production values, nice character designs, and an appealing brand of raunchiness that I can get behind. So long as it keeps up with the quality fanservice, I’ll keep coming back. Great cast helps.

Blassreiter

You know, after Gonzo’s last two masterpieces I’ve become, erm, quite fucking tired of their goddamn motherfucking shit. But, nonetheless, I decided to give Blassreiter a whirl. The preview looked kind of cool, and I wanted to see how Gonzo’s in-house sub work was. The show really goes all out on the CG (lol gonzo), and I’m not sure if it looks bad just because of the YouTube quality, but this shit is all up in the uncanny valley. That said, it actually looks better than Dragonaut’s 3D work, which is saying, uh, something. The first episode was a clusterfuck of plot elements that’ll probably never make sense, and unlike Dragonaut, these character designs are butt ugly, so I probably won’t stick with this one for very long.

Currently waiting for subs of TO RABU RU, Macross and uh… Maid Guy, I guess.

I ain’t going to sugarcoat things here, but Minami-ke Okawari just isn’t as hot as the show that came before it. It’s inferior in about every way to the studio Doumo produced predecessor from the animation quality to the script writing. That said, I found the show to be at least enjoyable for what it was, and also found it quite fascinating. What makes the show fascinating is the fact that it’s studio asread’s second work. The studio caught my interest with Shuffle!, and since then I’ve been keeping something of an eye on them. If I was this guy then I’d probably keep track of the individual animators, but I can’t read kanjis nor can I identify individual animators’ styles.

I’ll get the boring details out of the way first. The script writing in this series was noticeably weaker than that of the first Minami-ke. It seems the writers at asread can handle a harem well, but tackling slightly more realistic personalties proved to be a challenge for them. By virtue of that fact, a lot of the characters were simplified– boiled down to their core traits, and they worked from there. Some characters were even written off entirely. This was servicable, but because of this dumbing down Okawari lacks the genius found in the first iteration of Minami-ke.

The direction tried its best to be unique, and worked to some degree. The use of question marks or exclamation marks popping from characters’ heads was charming, but other than that it just seemed like another case of asread not really being up to the task of slice of life comedy. The direction is competent, but lacks the energy and flow that made the first series such a smooth operator.

As far as animation goes, it’s noticeably worst than asread’s first work, Shuffle! I haven’t seen Shuffle! in a bit, save the first DVD just recently, but I remember the animation being quite fluid. However, in just the first four episodes that I re-watched recently, there was definitely a consistency issue when it came to art style. Okawari’s animation, from what I can remember, looked consistent the whole way through, it just wasn’t really fluid. Asread doesn’t quite have that Shaft-like dexterity when it comes to stretching the budget, so there were a lot of cuts that just looked awkward, but they made good use of pretty still images when they could.

Alright, now that all that crap is out of the way, time for the good stuff. One thing that struck me here and in Shuffle! was asread’s quirky sense of humour. In Shuffle! it manifested in the form of the girls’ “Defense Forces” and various other small details here and there (the fact that bald old guys attend high school, the first eye-catches.) In Okawari, from what I can remember, it mostly took shape in the opening and ending animations. That strange creative spirit is part of why asread interests me as a studio.

Minami-ke ~Okawari~ is probably an ok-to-good slice of life show at best, and suffers because it was thrown the giant shoes of the previous work and tried its best to fit into them. I won’t say asread didn’t give it the good old college try, but what they eventually churned out here was certainly lacking. That said, I appreciate their ambitious approach to things, and expect greater works in the future!

To be honest, I was quite worried about watching Shuffle! again for the first time in almost three years. If you’re not already aware, I have something of an adamant fanaticism towards the franchise, but since the show’s conclusion back in early 2006, my passion for it has been kept alive through buying merch of questionable taste, playing the games with little knowledge of Japanese, and generally fanboying over it. Shuffle! Memories, a short recap of the show which aired in 2007 brought it all back to me in digest form, but I actually stopped watching that because I wasn’t a fan of how it was cut together. That, and I also called into question whether or not I still liked the series. Thankfully, upon completing this first disc, I can gladly say this show is just as wonderful as a I remember it being.

Story is, Rin Tsuchimi is the object of many a girl’s affection. His adoring childhood friend Kaede pampers him daily; his senior Asa teases him lovingly at every turn; the princesses of the World of Gods and World of Demons, Sia and Nerine, want to be his bride and a certain deadpan loli called Primula is inexplicably attached to him. In other words, he has quite the harem on his hands. These early episodes focus on introducing the cast, the world in which they inhabit and then they get started on fleshing out each girl one-by-one come episode three. It’s pretty standard harem/bishoujo game adaptation fare, but its beauty lies in the execution.

(more…)

The first episode is as good as I remember it, which is to say it’s just that– good. See, I wasn’t completely taken with the show until they got to the episode where Kaede gets sick (SO MOE.) The first episode doesn’t really need to be much more than that though, as it does a good job of easing you into the world and the characters. Asread’s animation is very good here– nice and fluid, but as usual in some cuts you can tell they really are green behind the ears. It does however move a lot better than Minami-ke ~Okawari~.

Funimation’s work on the DVD is a mix of QUALITY and quality. The first sign of QUALITY is when you see KyoAni’s name pop up in the opening logos. Looks like Kadokawa sent them the same sequence of logos Bandai uses on the Haruhi DVDs, but they forgot to cut out the KyoAni logo! Aside from that, the sub work is fine, if not a bit robotic. It seems there were more than a couple of occasions where things like “it is” and “this is” could have stood to be contracted for the sake of flow. Also, for the first time, Funi overlayed the Japanese credits and titles with English ones. They usually do a multi-angel thing, so that when you watch it in Japanese, you get the Japanese text and vice-versa. This could just be because Power DVD may not like multi-angle things? I don’t know. Then again, my Tsukuyomi DVDs work fine on PDVD… I should test this on a real DVD player. The extras are minimal– trailers and textless opening/ending. Menus work well. Besides the QUALITY subs and the bit with the logos, the DVD is fine.

A better review will follow. This is just a first impressions of sorts. Will end this post with a digest version of the best scene in the episode. Incidentally, it’s also the opening scene.

WHY IS SHE SO PERFECT?!

Three years ago Nono Nekomiya and her friends Makoto Yuuki, Iori Yuzuki and Matsuri Amachi all buried a time capsule at their old school and promised to meet back on the same day three years later. Fast forward those three years, they all meet up again, then scriptwriter/director Hiroshi Nishikiori whips out his checklist of boring harem cliches and applies them with little effort or thought for about 30+ minutes. He tops it all off with the classic “main girl walks in on main guy hugging another girl but not out of love but it’s misunderstood since anime characters love jumping to conclusions” bit ending episode 1 on a thrilling cliffhanger, leaving its viewers waiting with bated breath for the next and final 40-minute masterpiece.

This show is so incredibly bland. I have nothing against harem shows, but if you’re going to give me one, it needs to have some teeth. Tenchi has spaceships, Key things have KyoAni and Shuffle! has MAGIC. Hell, even craptastic shows like They Are My Noble Masters still get by on the odd G-Gundam reference. As far as writing goes, this show has absolutely nothing going for it. You’ve seen all this shit before, and probably done better.

I’m not one to totally shit on a show though (no wait who am I kidding) so I’ll give credit where credit’s due. This show looks good. It’s apparently by Hal Film Maker, a studio I’ve never heard about since all they make is crap. As such, I’ve not really seen their stuff, but this is fucking beautiful from the backgrounds to the character animation. I only remember a few QUALITY shots here and there, but for the most part it’s solid work. It also has Yuuko Goto in it. She plays the blissful nee-san. It’s cute.

What is not cute is Nono’s voice. I remember hearing her give me a Valentine’s Day greeting last year, and pretended to like her voice so I could get lost in the sensation of a girl speaking to me at all, but after listening to this kid go on and on for nearly 40 minutes, I wanted to throw myself into the Charles River. GUYS. HER VOICE ISN’T CUTE. With each breath she sounds like she’s about to die, or something. I mean, I like weak girls a lot but… this NHK level moe-girl. Put her in a wheelchair or something.

Uh, so yeah. I guess if you like formulaic harem stuff with good production values, this’ll be up your alley. Otherwise, give it a miss.

The second, and probably last round of reviews for the winter season. Only two this time– probably not going to watch much more than this unless someone decides to sub the new Gegege no Kitarou and/or Noramimi.

• Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-: And I thought they were over-reacting. Then I saw it. I haven’t seen the first one in a bit, so the voice changes didn’t bother me so much, however just about everything else did. Gone is the well thought out cinematic presentation of the original, and instead we are treated to kwality anniemay. This isn’t even average, it’s below average. The animation is stiff, the direction is generic, and the BGM doesn’t work at all. So far the only saving grace for this one may be that I will watch just to see how the story progresses, but in that case I should just shell out for the manga instead. It’s so funny how Artland was able to take a work of art which stood out from the crowd and turn into something that blends far too well into the sea of mediocre anime. Though, I will admit, that one scene with Henrietta hugging Jose’s shirt was quite moe. I need me a job at the Social Welfare Agency!
• Minami-ke ~Okawari~: After I found out that Ayako wasn’t planning on subbing this, I just went for the raws. I’ve only seen one episode so far, but I honestly don’t see why people angry at it. Beyond the opening, the contents of the show are basically the same. I can’t say I understand many of the jokes, but the direction seems similar, the characters appear to be consistent, and it even looks like it picks up where the last one left off! Asread does a fairly good job with the animation, but the odd shot here and there reminds us of the fact that they’re still newbies. Anyway, I like it. Hopefully someone will pick this up, since most of Minami-ke’s charm lies in the dialogue.

That’s it. Considering the titles this season has to offer, I may just end up watching Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Minami-ke ~Okawari~. Rosario + Vampire is pretty insipid and poorly animated, and Spicy Wolf could go up or down for me. I guess the good part is that I’ll have time to catch up with some older shows.

The winter season has started, but unlike every other blog I’ve come across, I am in fact not watching every show that rears its poorly animated head. I am a very discerning creature, and after about four or so years of seriously watching anime I can tell just from various promotional materials what would probably interest me. Thusly, out of all the current offerings that have aired up to this point, I have only watched three shows, all of which I will cover now.

• Rosario + Vampire: Stupid fanservice show– based on a Jump title and animated by studio Gonzo. I can’t really say that this combination is one that produces anything of respectable quality, but so long as Gonzo doesn’t screw up the animation, I could watch this for 13 episodes. If it starts looking like Soul Link then I’ll stop, since poorly rendered fanservice is just retarded.
• Wolf and Spices: Cheap but not ugly animation mixed with a boring premise and as of right now boring characters. Yes, I find it boring, even if Cunningham loves the book to pieces.
• Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: More of the same, which isn’t a bad thing at all. The show has the same clean minimalism that defined the first series, but steps up the key-frames for more fluid sequences. Soundtrack is a mixture of old and new (mostly new) so it’s not like they decided to cheap-out on anything. It’s hard to tell if the humour will remain the same. This episode was mostly bizarre, but only because the first eight or so minutes were based around the nonsensical stories found on the dust-jacket flaps of the original manga. The normal part of the show also has weirder moments too, so it’s hard to tell where this new season will go. Anyway, it’s the best thing I’ve seen so far.

That’s all. Apart from those three, I’m waiting for subs of Minami-ke ~Okawari~ and Gunslinger Girl 2. Yeah, I know they’ve gotten mixed reviews, but I need to see them for myself. I’d watch Hakaba Kitarou and Noramimi if people actually subbed them, though.

This post will have spoilers. Just so you know.

Saw that new Eva movie. Something like the first 50 or so minutes are just prettier scenes from the TV show cut together. The cutting probably feels a little jerky to someone like me who’s seen the show something like 50 billion times, but I guess to a newcomer it’d be ok. The only cut that really struck me as really rough was how they introduce Toji with him punching Shinji in the face. Maybe it was just because I was watching the movie raw, but it still didn’t seem like there was much of a segue to that scene. In any case, it’s a lot smoother than the Zeta movies, but that’s not saying much at all.

After they rush through episodes 1, 2 and 3, and cut episode 4 down to a mere scene, the movie ends with completely redone versions of episodes 5 and 6. I swear to god, basically none of the shots are the same as in the TV series, save one or two. Everyone’s heard about how they made Diamond-Angel (I can never remember their fucking names) shape-shift so I won’t go on about that. Basically they just made those two episodes a lot better than they already were.

While the movie is mostly recap, they do mix some stuff up which could make for interesting plot changes in the coming films. Like how there is one Lilith down in Central Dogma, but its mask is like Sachiel’s face, and there’s another one on the moon hanging out with Kaworu. Also, why did Misato bring Shinji down there so early in the game? Maybe I missed it because it was raw, but it seems somewhat less shocking seeing that so early on, whereas in the TV series it was like “WHOA ZOMG WUT.” I dunno, like I said, it could just be because I’ve seen it already so it doesn’t really shock me anymore. Maybe it shocked the two people who were seeing Eva for the first time, I dunno.

I watched a cam of the movie, but it was surprisingly good. Scenes with lots of lighting looked good, and scenes that were dark looked like that bad copy I have of My Youth in Arcadia. Sound is kind of tinny, and it’s hard to make out a number of lines. Not like it matters, none of you know Japanese anyway.

For recap, it was pretty good. It nice to see Eva presented in the kind of epic format it truly deserved. The animation is great, and for a show in which the scenes were all 4:3, they make the transition to 16:9 pretty well. Music is mostly the same, with some additions. Some scenes had completely redone pieces, and I’m not sure how I feel about them at the moment. I’ll have to see it again, which will probably be after I preorder the DVD from CD Japan with the money I don’t have.

The movie ended with a preview for the second movie, and it seems like it’ll cover up to episode 18-ish based on what they show, and if I remember the TV show correctly.  There’s some old stuff, some new stuff and a lot of shit that leaves me scratching my head, hoping it’ll all make sense in the end. But yeah, it’s a lot better than the poopy Zeta movies, so WATCH IT.

2007 was really fucking uneven. The first few months got by on the better titles that carried over from 2006, but between April and August it was something of a wasteland. I managed to get my fix for good modern anime by way of genius works such as Gurren Lagann and Hayate no Gotoku, but all the other offerings during that period of time where somewhere between mildly amusing to plain bad. Thankfully, August saw the debut of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Zero No Tsukaima 2, both of which restored my faith in the industry somewhat. October once again impressed with Minami-ke, Kaiji and Clannad.

What follows will be something similar to my monthly posts, but for the Year In Review, I’ll be ordering things by quality using letter grades, starting from the worst to the VERY BEST. I cover a lot of shows in the post, but it’s not everything I watched during the year.

Here’s my rankings.

(more…)

Cobra- The Movie: Released in July of ‘82, covers the first story arc. TV series was released later that year.
Cobra US Pilot: Cut together scenes from various episodes plus new animation, dubbed in English.

Cobra- The Movie

I don’t know much about the history of Cobra in Japan, but I can tell it was kind of a big deal. The manga ran for six years in Shounen Jump, spawned a classy theatrical film, a big-budget TV series, and its influence still runs subtly through the anime of today. I’m just guessing here, but it’s clear why things get made into movies: to cash in on a franchise. Cobra must have been big, and this is a pretty big movie. Now, Cobra’s a big guy, but I think this movie was too big for even him.

The Cobra movie is set in a different continuity than the TV series, but contains similar plot elements to the first arc and has the same characters. However, the only characters who actually look the same as they do in the TV show are Cobra and Lady, with the rest of the designs being either slightly similar or wildly different. The characters aren’t the only ones who had their designs changed, a lot of the mechanical designs are also different, and finer details are altered as well (for instance, in the movie, Cobra’s arm just changes into the Psycho-Gun, rather than the gun being covered by a fake arm.) I’m not sure if the movie designs are truer to the manga than the TV seires or vice versa, simply because I’ve not read the manga.

It’s hard to really write out the general plot of this movie, since it’s all revealed in this spot of expositional dialogue near the middle, and at that point it’s a spoiler, so there’s not much I can say. The movie starts with Jane, a bounty hunter, who asks Cobra for his help to do something. Cobra agrees because she’s pretty, and the movie gets under way. Basically the film takes the treasure hunt arc with the three sisters and turns it into something about saving the galaxy. A lot of the same plot points are there, but are all handled totally differently, and the ending isn’t nearly as good as the one in the TV show (which was actually the high point of the entire series for me.)

One thing that really works against this movie is that it tries to be an action movie, a drama, and an art film all at once. Chase scenes and shootouts are sprinkled between dramatic deaths and arty sequences, and as one can imagine, such a combination is not conducive to a film flowing well. The movie opens with fun SF action, but slowly begins to take itself too seriously, and this is really where the movie’s main flaw lies. Now, I’m not familiar with the original manga, but the Cobra TV series’ biggest draw is the balance between action, humour, and how generally unbelievable it is. The movie certainly is unbelievable (it’s SF, after all) but it takes its silliness too seriously, and thusly doesn’t feel fun. This isn’t to say it’s a bad movie by any means, but given what I expect out of Cobra, I’m a little disappointed.

On the technical side of things, about everything is at it should be. This is your typical big-budget ’80s film, so it’s real nice to look at. I’d say the animation quality is slightly above that of the already very nice looking TV series. As far as music goes, it starts off as synth stuff but as the movie gets more and more serious it brings in the proper orchestra for some competent but uninspiring tracks. The opening and ending numbers are pop songs from the time and do their job well.

From what I could tell, the voice cast is completely different from that of the TV series. Instead of TV’s Nachi Nozawa as Cobra, we have big shot singer Shigeuru Matsuzaki as the man in red. I was quite fond of Nozawa’s rendition of Cobra, but Matsuzaki does a good job. He cuts down on the goofy and plays it smooth, which works in the context of this movie, but I have a thing for Nozawa’s dumb laugh.

Despite all the shit I’m giving this movie, it’s really not bad at all. As a normal movie, it’s fine, but as a Cobra movie, it leaves something to be desired.

Cobra US Pilot

I guess TMS tried to sell Cobra to the US at one point in the ’80s. They really play up the “THIS IS LIKE STAR WARS” angle by calling the Pirate’s Guild “The Dark Side Clan”, having Cobra as the leader of some resistance movement and even giving cameos to robots who look too much like a certain duo from the original trilogy.

The pilot episode runs at about 22 minutes, and is really just footage from episodes 1 and 13 cut together with bits of new animation added where needed. It’s clear TMS tried to dumb this down for US audiences, what with the goofy synth BGM, changing Cobra from a lone wanderer to an underground hero of the people, and in general whitewashing the story to make it more kids-show-ish. The funny part is how badly they FAIL. Sure, while aspects of what they had could run alongside Robotech or G-Force, they still left in all the scantily clad women, the gambling and the deaths! At one point, funnily enough, in the new animation made for this pilot, a child gets shot. Sure, it’s robot child, but it’s still child getting shot. He doesn’t only get shot, but his skin burns away to reveal a flaming robot skeleton. Japan had some things down, but they were clearly unfamiliar with the US TV standards of the time.

This being made for English audiences, it’s dubbed into English. The dub sounds like your typical ’80s cartoon, but recorded on some really bad equipment. The episode ends with an instrumental version of Secret Desire, clearly in an attempt to wipe any hint of Japanese influence from the show. But the funny thing is the instrumental version still has the backup singers singing in Japanese. Hah!

I figure since this is an anime blog I should do things like review anime and not go on for hours on how various aspects of fandom bother me. So, here we are, a review of the Renkin 3-Kyuu Magical? Pokaan DVD specials. These are little OVAs that were extras with the DVD release, if they weren’t I guess they wouldn’t be called DVD specials.

MagiPokaa is a show about four princesses (actually five, one is invisible) who have come from the World of Magic to the human world in order to adapt to human life for one reason or another. The show is mostly episodic, with each plot being cute, charming and all that other shit. You can read more on Wikipedia, if you want.

Anyway, these specials each clock in about half episode length– around 12 minutes and are really just no more that extra fun and wacky adventures. The first episode is based around the story of Momotarou, using the girls as the main characters; the second one is a series of “what if” situations showing what the girls would do as doctors; and the third one is about Valentine’s Day and misunderstandings. I won’t say any of these are really laugh out loud funny, but they’re cute, entertaining diversions, which are perfect after a long day of Harsh Adult Life. Laughs come when they need to, and are evenly spread throughout each episode.

Animation quality is below average, with a lot of cheap tricks being applied, but it’s fine since the character are always rendered nicely and the simplistic animation style works fairly well considering these are just DVD extras. It’s a lot better than the same studio’s abortion of a Doujin Work anime, but I suppose that isn’t saying much.

If you liked the original MagiPokaa series, you’ll like this as it’s really just more of the same. MagiPokaa always struck me as pointless otaku garbage done right and is one of the most inoffensive shows I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s never bad, but always entertaining with a few really good moments here and there. If you like a good time, you’ll get a kick out of it. However if you’re the kind of individual who only enjoys pretentious, mainstream BS like Gundam 00 then look elsewhere because this isn’t for twats like you.

Not just the usual LAWLS LOOK WHAT WEIRD THING I BOUGHT post. This is a proper review, somewhat influenced by Shingo’s recent review.

Anime dakimakura covers are truly wondrous things. They provide for us, the lonely otaku, companionship in the form of our favourite characters. I was sucked into these things about a year ago, when I bought my first dakimakura cover of Kaede Fuyou. The cover was a freebie that came with the game Really? Really! if you had bought it at a certain store, and featured Kaede on a bed with her clothes scattered and her bra pulled up, revealing a cute pair of breasts. I got it off Yahoo auctions for about 5000 yen. Since then, I’ve been addicted. I don’t have quite as much as certain individuals out there (the right people will know who I’m referring to) but my collection of waifu is steadily growing, with this second Kaede dakimakura being the newest member in the family.

(more…)

Hahaha, oh my god. This is something else. Ok, the plot is an evil organization called the Plutos are out destroy the human race because the human population is approaching TEN BILLION and the world will run out of food and resources! By their logic, humans will and fight and kill each other when times are tough, and they’re probably right. So, the solution? Kill the human race so the Plutos will be all that remain. Wow, very clever guys. So basically what they do is go around TOKIO PLUS (I’m guessing Tokyo Plus, but who am I to argue with Urban Vision’s spectacular subtitles?) setting bombs everywhere to do what bombs do, which is explode and kill people. Also they go around to science labs destroying all the latest technology. I don’t really know why they do this, but I think it’s so their technology will remain superior. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make more sense not to destroy it and just use it for themselves? Whatever. Anyway, the main character, Takeshi, through some horribly contrived plot device comes across the POLY-HELMET which allows him to transform into HURRICANE POLYMAR and teach these baddies and thing or two about JUSTICE. Oh, he works under some dumb third rate detective in a house over water, which is literally falling apart under their feet. A lot of jokes are centered around this fact. Also a lot of jokes are centered around the landlady who always comes around trying to evict them because they haven’t payed their rent in a year. There is also a talking dog. Or something.

Yeah, Hurricane Polymar has next to nothing going for it when it comes down to the normal things that make stories work. All the characters have about one personality trait, the plot is similar to something I wrote in third grade, and the humour and action elements mesh so awkwardly, resulting in a hilariously bad 60 minutes. However, the animation is absolutely wonderful. Extremely fluid and well rendered, especially the fight scenes. The direction also shines, too. This being an early Shinbo work (this is why I watched it, after all), it has a lot crazy colour schemes, hard blacks and dramatic lighting. We get a good helping of odd camera angles and experimental animation techniques too (some of which includes horribly superimposing LENS FLARES fucking everywhere.) Unfortunately the characters designs are pretty bad. By the guy who did Kite, and his stuff just doesn’t appeal to me. It just looks funny.

In the end, Hurricane Polymar is a pretty hilariously bad OVA. It’s good to watch once, but you probably don’t want to watch it again. However, from the point of view of Shinbo scholar, it’s quite interesting. It’s cool to see a lot of the things he does now taking shape in this OVA, from the strange use of colour to the extremely dramatic lighting. Most of this stuff is delegated to the first episode though. About half way through episode 2 Shinbo kind of stops trying. But still, if you watch it from that perspective, it’s a little fulfilling.

This entry will have spoilers for FAREWELL SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO. But spoiling Yamato is like spoiling King Kong so no one should care.

(more…)

In which wildarms tries his hand at an anime review. Let’s see how it goes. If it goes well we’ll see more, but I probably won’t review any bad shows given I only watch shows I like. This is to help my writing more than anything, but if it helps someone then that’s cool, I guess. Anyway, on with the review.

(more…)