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

Before I get underway, I’d like to note that I have very little idea as to what I’m talking about. My contact with Real Japanese Otaku is limited only to this one guy I talked to when I was 13, and this random girl on Mixi who is more of a Shounen Jump reading fujoshi than anything else. I do however have the power of fanart, popularity surveys, and the slightly retarded cries of English speaking fans on my side, so hopefully my rantings will have some bearing on what’s actually going on. THE TRUTH, if you will.

Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed something most peculiar. It is a tendency amongst anime fans to prefer characters who come off to me as naggy, annoying and generally not very attractive personality-wise. I’m talking about characters like Kagami (Lucky Star), Hinagiku (Hayate no Gotoku!), Kyou (Clannad), Asuna (Negima!) and hell, Asa (Shuffle!). These characters tend to be tomboyish, naggy, and some of them are pretty generic and poorly handled tsundere girls. I don’t like these sorts of characters, as they posses traits which are not desirable to me as an otaku. However, these characters are wildly popular amongst the majority of otaku, and I have really difficult time understanding why.

As an otaku, aren’t you supposed to embrace fantasy? Where’s the fantasy in girls who are, more or less, like girls you’d run across in the real world? What’s attractive about a girl with the personality of a boy?  Similarly, what’s attractive about a girl who punches you straight into sky in order to hide her feelings, instead of telling you straight out that she likes you? I’ve asked people why they like such characters, and time and time again they can never give me a straight answer. The typical answers are, “you just don’t understand” or “well, she has a nice seiyuu.” My friends, these are not reasons. These answers are what we call “dodging the issue”, with the issue being wholly unpleasant personality traits.

I have a theory– these fans are terribly shallow people who like these characters just for their designs. How many times have you heard about a guy sticking with an unpleasant girl simply because she was hot? It’s a sad story, and unfortunately such a mindset has now manifested in otaku culture.

My friends, my brothers, my sisters, I beg of you; don’t be fooled! This is all a conspiracy by The Industry to turn us into normal people! Don’t let them have their way! Embrace the few shreds of sanity left in otaku entertainment! Embrace the loli! Embrace the doting childhood friend! Embrace otaku girl! These are all characters you should like! Don’t you want to stand proud and say, “Yes! I love Kaede because she loves Rin unconditionally and would do anything for him” or “I love Nagi because she can name every single Zeon MS without breaking a sweat” as opposed to finding ways to hide your horribly shallow personality by saying this character “has a good seiyuu.”

It’s not too late for salvation, my friends!

For some reason, a lot of current OVAs don’t have good openings. All attention is put on making the show proper, so openings just tend to be an afterthought. What you usually see is just reused footage from the show matched to a song, or sometimes there simply won’t be an opening animation at all. There are rare cases where this doesn’t happen, but in my experience such things are few and far between. Negima Ala Alba’s opening animation is much like a Polish movie poster– it takes one random aspect of the show– the number 31– and just runs with it. Shaft is known for making amazing somethings out of nothing, and this opening does just that.

Like I said, it simply takes the numbers up through 31, sticks them in little circles, and has spectacularly sexy English credits bounce them around. It’s a 2D designer’s wet dream. Each and every cut of this is just so professionally composed– not mention well-timed with the hot opening theme– that I find myself watching this opening over and over… yet there’s only one real frame of character art across the whole thing!

Good on you, Shaft.

It wasn’t until I saw a sub out for Lucky Tousen*: Great Guardians did I realize that the summer season had already started. So, before anything else starts, I guess I’ll list out my picks like I normally do!

You know, since the list of shows playing this season was so short, I assumed I’d only walk out of it with something like three or four shows, but after I went through and picked out everything, I came out with seventeen! Good thing some of those are short OVAs.

GOTTA WATCH IT EVEN IF I HAVE TO KILL A MAN

• Cobra (OVA): The mighty space returns to the small screen after 30 years to kick more ass. I love Space Adventure Cobra, and if this OVA can capture the magic of the original series, I’ll be in love. COBURAAAA~
• DETROIT METAL CITY (OVA): I’ve always been interested in the manga, but never read it. Hopefully Studio 4C will do a good enough job with their adaptation that I won’t have to!
• Hidamari Sketch x365 (TV): Honestly, I find Hidamari only works for me if I’m in the right mood. Otherwise, it’s boring. But, this is another Shaft/SHINBO combo, so it’s worth watching just for that.
• Lucky Star (OVA): More Lucky Star can’t be a bad thing. I liked the TV show well enough.
• Zero no Tsukaima ~Three Princesses’ Rondo~ (TV): Hey, fuck you guys, 0nT 2 was great and I don’t care what you say. I’m watching this one without a second thought. So long as they keep delivering more fanservice than plot, I’ll be happy!

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もっとSparking Now! 強くタフなハート
磨いたら世界は見違える
Sparking Now! 高くかざしたソウル
力の限り 目指せ1000%

When this single hit something like, what, almost two years ago? I was all over it. But, like most things on my huge anime playlist I forgot about it for newer tunes, and only rediscovered it recently because I have it set to play right after the Zettai Karen Children ending theme single. I’ve fallen in love all over again! This song is so fucking amazing in how it combines moe and hot-blooded passion all in one crazy amazing package. I mean, look at those lyrics! MOTTO SPARKING NOW! TSUYOKU TOUGH NA HEART!! Doesn’t it just make you wanna go outside and do something!? Seriously.

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.

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