Just got a bent up March 2008 issue of Megami from J-List…
I got this issue for the poster of Kokonoe covered in chocolate, but me being at home, I couldn’t really put that up. Luckily, on the other side is that hot SZS pic.
Not much now. Will update when new things have started.
Current
Chii’s Sweet Home: Three minutes of stuff.
Ghost Hound: I don’t really care about this one anymore. Almost over.
Hakaba Kitarou: Subs have slowed down. Still decent entertainment with above-average art direction.
Kaiji: HOLY SHIT TISSUE BOXES THIS SHIT IS WILD
They Are My Noble Masters: Bleh.
Finished/Almost Finished
Clannad: Rushed but acceptable ending. I hope this after-story thing won’t be too long… but I suppose having questions answered would be nice.
Dragonaut: One episode to go. As horrible as this show was, I don’t regret watching it, since it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.
Hayate no Gotoku: I’d welcome 50 more episodes. Nagi~
Minami-ke ~Okawari~: Yeah, I’m thinking asread didn’t get their Shuffle! budget for this one. Looks good, but moves awkwardly. Ending was fine.
Rosario + Vampire: One episode left. Decent for a crappy show.
Shakugan no Shana II: lol
Wolfy Spices: Well thank god that’s over!!
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: Waiting for Strato to sub the rest, but finished it raw. Very difficult to understand raw ;__;
Reading
Shinigami no Ballad: Past the deadline for the review, so trying to finish this one up. Works better as a cartoon.
Reading some KnJ chapters when they surface, and just finished another wonderfully confusing volume of Trigun MAXIMUM. I still have volumes of GSG unread, am almost caught up on OTAKU USA issues and have lots of unread Macias books from Christmas.
Can anyone recommend me any manga series that aren’t adaptations/have been adapted into an anime that I may like? I kind of wanna be an elitist manga reader, hur. Extra points if it’s not shoujo and not over 10 volumes.
Current
Clannad: Fine. Last arc killed two birds with one stone, I guess, so now we’re on to Nagisa.
Dragonaut: Yes, I’m still watching this, 21 episodes in. It’s so horrible, but it’s so bad it goes full circle and becomes good again.
Ghost Hound: Each episode is well done, but as a whole it leaves a lot to be desired.
Hakaba Kitarou: Carries itself on art direction, but is still enjoyably dark and mischievous. Makes me want a US release of the Gegege no Kitarou manga.
Hayate no Gotoku: Coming to a close. I wouldn’t mind a second season after something of a break. This last batch of episodes is pretty strong.
Kaiji: Working off shock value now. About six more episodes to go.
Minami-ke ~Okawari~: Not really funny, but an enjoyable watch. Asread’s animation doesn’t seem as good this time around, but I don’t remember much of what Shuffle! looked like past that one Memories episode I skimmed through for screencaps.
Rosario + Vampire: I should drop this crap, but I guess eight episodes is past the point of no return?
Shakugan no Shana II: Stuff is finally happening… four episodes until the end!
Spicy Wulf: Boring but watchable.
They Are My Noble Masters: Kind of want to drop this one too, but it’s not as bad as Rosario + Vampire. Carries itself of references.
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: Only good winter season show that’s not Hakaba Kitarou (and I guess Okawari). For serious. ZETSUBOU FAITO.
Not So Current
Dennou Coil: Watching this again for some reason. Still pretty boring, but I’ve gotten past the point where I dropped it last time.
Reading
Trying to get through back issues of OTAKU USA. Have stacks up unread manga sitting about. Should read those Macias books I got months ago.
I actually had this one drawn and done for a bit. The idea was to get this one done real early, then have the one for next week done already. That didn’t really pan out since I’ve been in something of a funk all week. No matter. This comic was real easy, and looks fairly good, I guess. I dunno why Rets has such a messed up expression that last panel, I guess I thought it would be funny. You know, the greatest thing about this comic is that you can probably put any kind of dialogue in and it could be funny. Probably funnier than what I have here. As you can see the comic is something of a joke on anime writing, highlighting two examples of QUALITY. Honesty, do girls really go “I WON’T LOSE!!!” all the time?
Winter season is still fairly lame, and a lot of shows from Fall are concluding. Hayate seems to be going out with a bang, with a strong set of final episodes (manga-based?) and Clannad is ending well. I kind of wished I’d just stayed with the widescreen releases of Clannad instead of watching both 4:3 and 16:9 versions. I kept up with the 4:3 mostly because I didn’t want to miss any discussion on it, but about 19 episodes in, there’s not much to talk abut. Yes, I do appreciate that Clannad was trying to be different in not telling overdone sob-stories, but as a result it comes off as rather boring. Well, boring isn’t the right word. Maybe not as memorable and engaging. I guess it’s not good that I don’t really dig the characters all too much (well, it’s more I don’t like Kyou and to a lesser degree Tomoyo.) Nagisa, however, is cute as a button, so I guess that’s fine. This last arc is shaping up to be a good one, but I doubt Clannad will leave much of an impression in my mind.
I’ve been catching episodes of Diebuster at MIT lately. Diebuster gets a lot of flack for various reasons, but I like it well enough. I think it lacks the punch of its predecessor, but is in turn a more competently structured story. The first two episodes are rather weak, I’ll admit, but the show settles into its groove at around the midpoint, and then does nothing but impress from there (splitting of planets etc). Maybe one of the problems people see with Diebuster is the lack of too much overdone drama. Sure, there’s drama, but Gunbuster was pouring that stuff on at episode 2. Personally, I like Diebuster’s approach better. Makes the show easier the watch.
Another thing I’ve caught snippets of at MIT was Ergo Proxy. For those who don’t know, back when Ergo Proxy hit I was kind of looking forward to it as a fan of Witch Hunter Robin. I dropped the show after nine episodes. I caught the first four episodes again a few weeks ago, and episode 8 last night (was trying to get there in time for Diebuster, but ended up watching an entire episode of EP, too.) The show is beautiful. I love dark, grey colour schemes. Always have. The show puts together a nice, if not somewhat generic, futuristic dystopian world. I think it looks great. The praise stops there though. The actual content is kind of meh, and the only good character is Pino. No, not because I’m a lolicon, because she’s genuinely entertaining.
That’s all I got for today. Let’s hope I can get something out by next week. I sure do have plenty of scripts to work off of…
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m always like “official translations are better than fansubs” but…
Fansubs win this time.
Current
Clannad: It’s good. I think it has nice characters and a number of good scenes, but thus far the main stories have been kind of weak.
Dragonaut: I don’t even know why anymore…
Ghost Hound: Still moves at a snail’s pace, but that doesn’t really bother me at all. Something of a plot seems to be developing, and I’m hoping it involves more Miyako screentime.
Hakaba Kitarou: Deliciously dark and enjoyable. Needs Nekomusume :3
Hayate no Gotoku: Nearly over, and I shed HOT TEARS OF SHAME. Another year-long season, please?
Kaiji: Show kind of got weaker after GAMBLEBOAT but it’s still fairly enjoyable. I hope E-Card is more complicated than it looks.
Minami-ke ~Okawari~: Most certainly different, but that’s not a bad thing. It looks good, but you can tell Asread is still a bit green with some cuts here and there. Probably not as funny as the last one, but still enjoyable. You can tell they’re trying.
Rosario + Vampire: Apparently has no inbetweening. Yeah, this animation is super cheapo, but the characters are always on model, so that’s good. I could probably stand it for another nine episodes.
Shana II: Stuff happens.
Wolf and Spices: Pretty good, but not totally awesome. Probably a step above a lot of stuff airing right now, though.
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: EXTREME. Shinbo and Co. play with original manga material, usually with hilarious results.
Mr. Sunshine used some underhanded marketing tactics and got me into watching They Are My Noble Masters. I’ll check it out soon.
Not so current
Baccano!: Finishing the rest tonight. Just plain fun, but I hope all the stupid commotion makes sense in the end.
Devil Hunter Yohko: Finally finishing this after many years. Lots of nudity, action and dirty jokes– so basically good stuff for growing boys.
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.
Not much right now. Waiting for the new stuff to start.
Current
Clannad: Coming off as the weakest amongst the Key/KyoAni trilogy. Fuuko’s arc was fine, but nothing much past that. Kotomi’s story seems to be kind of interesting, though. I just can’t shake the feeling of “been there, done that” after Air and Kanon.
Dragonaut: The “so bad it’s good” thing is wearing off. Not sure if I’ll be able to finish this one just for the lulz alone, but it has nice production values for the most part…
Ghost Hound: Each episode is interesting and mildly entertaining, but it doesn’t go out of its way to make want to love it.
Hayate no Gotoku: Still consistently funny. This needs to run forever.
Kaiji: Shifted from Death Note JUST AS PLANNED episodes to NHK-esque examinations of people who have hit rock-bottom. I still like it.
Moyashimon: Unfortunately, quite boring. The microbe designs and opening are so great, but the show itself is a yawn-fest. I’ll probably finish it since it’s short.
Shana II: Will all the fanboys stop whining about the lack of action now? You get to see your loli engage in badly animated battles again! YAY! Whatever, it’s fine.
Will finish Minami-ke and Sky Girls once the subs hit.
Not So Current
Just watching a bunch of DVDs I got for Christmas. Air is nice a second time around. I haven’t seen it for so long, so it’s mostly all new to me. Will start on Soul Taker when I get a chance, and maybe Nadesico after that.
Will probably update when the new stuff hits.
Recent Tracks
