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

The anime calendar has been something of an addiction of mine for the past five years. It has gotten better over time–what was once four calendars a year has now turned into one–but I still love these things as much as I did when my set of coveted anime calendars arrived at my door during my senior year of high school.

For those who don’t know, the made-in-Japan anime calendars don’t really function as calendars. They’re giant B2 pads that contain seven pages illustrations; a cover page, and six other pages that cover two months each. Dates are shoved into a small area of each page, and aren’t easy to mark off to make a notes or something. These calendars are in effect a set of very nice posters that you change every two months, and what makes or breaks a calendar is obviously the quality of the illustrations at hand.

Generally the illustrations aren’t anything ambitious, but they tend to be a step up from generic stock artwork and sit more on level with anime magazine pinups. In the case of an otaku-oriented program like Sora Kake Girl, the pages of its respective calendar are all about the girls looking cute–often times in very little clothing.

The girls in Sora Kake Girl all sparkle with their own unique brand of cuteness, and each page does well to make sure their good sides are showing. These good sides are of course their breasts, butts and legs. Whether it’s Nami thrusting out her tight body while grinning maniacally, Itsuki adjusting her bikini bottom with her butt to the camera, or simply Akiha striking Japan’s favourite V-sign, each illustration is executed with professionalism.

It goes without saying that the quality of these illustrations is better than a random screencap. What’s on display here happily occupies the realm of DVD cover or Megami poster illustrations. The colours are rich and bright, and extra care is taken with the shading and lighting effects. The highlights glow, and the shades are made deeper with choice use of gradients. Dirty pencil lines are obvious up close, but that becomes a given when one’s room is filled with Megami posters. It’s nothing ambitious–like I said before–but it’s all well done.

There are some issues, however. Firstly, only five of the seven illustrations are originals (to my knowledge) and the remaining two are simply re-used Megami posters. They aren’t bad illustrations, but it is rather lazy. That said, the images are printed in the calendar’s larger dimensions, and their colouring comes out more brilliant than their respective Megami pinups’. Secondly, the paper isn’t really strong stuff. My Hayate no Gotoku and Zettai Karen Children posters from years previous were printed on more resilient stock. Because of this, the pages took something of a beating during shipping, and it shows if you look closely.

Putting those nagging issues aside, however, this calendar is a great buy if you’re both a fan of Sora Kake Girl and need a calendar for the year. It’s not the gold standard of anime calendars that Kyoto Animation calendars are, but it’s a nice set of cute T&A pictures to compliment all the others hanging up on your wall.

And since I couldn’t think of a good place to dump these, here’s some bad photos of each page. There’s no scan of this calendar to my knowledge, so if you want it, you have to buy it! Don’t worry! You still have until the end of February before that first page becomes useless!

Asura Cryin’: The entertaining part has kind of gone away and now it’s just bad. If this episode I have sitting here doesn’t blow my mind I’ll drop it, even if I am past the point of no return.
Dragon Ball Kai: I guess I should feel embarrassed about this or something, but this recut reminds me that shounen fight anime can be good when all the characters don’t look like emo J-rock stars. I should probably watch Hokuto no Ken though.
Hatsukoi Limited: While this started off pretty slowly, it has since developed into a good–but throwaway– high school romcom.
Hayate no Gotoku!!: I kind of wrote 700 words about what’s wrong with this, but to keep it short: J.C. Staff doesn’t know what creativity is.
Higashi no Eden: What a weird show.
K-ON!: Not BREAKING MY FACE, but a well executed, heartful and entertaining high school comedy with a unique musical twist.
Natsu no Arashi!: I’m still not quite sure if it’s consistently entertaining, and it is pretty noticeably cheap, but it’s a nice calm before the storm which’ll be… Bakemonogatari. Well, I guess Natsu no Arashi! IS the storm, if one is to take the title into consideration. Also, best opening song of the season. Maybe best ending song, too.
Saki: There’s doujin where all the dudes from Akagi fuck all the girls from this show. It’s WEIRD, dude.
Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen on television: Really wish this had a budget/real opening. But stuff always happens, so it’s cool.
Sora Kake Girl: Watching it on TV, am somewhat behind on subs. Episode 23 looks nuts!
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu re-air: Wow some of those random comments don’t seem so random anymore.

Asura Cryin: Moments of expert storyboarding and directing, but the writing really isn’t that stellar.
Dragon Ball Kai: Wow, is Goku really getting across Snake Road in like… three episodes? Man, DBZ with all the fat trimmed is actually pretty cool, but a lot of those fillers were endearing in their own way. I’ll probably keep watching this until the nostalgia dries up.
Hatsukoi Limited: Dances between entertaining and boring. I feel like dropping it.
Hayate no Gotoku!!: It’s kind of sad that J.C. Staff saw it fit to cut all the humour from one of the most hilarious comedies ever, but if they keep pushing out episodes like episode 5 I really won’t care.
Higashi no Eden: I didn’t know that I watched things for plot anymore. The character interaction is ok, too, I guess.
K-ON!: Really starting to dig this show. Not sure if it’ll stick with me far into the future, but it channels good energy, and controls it expertly.
Natsu no Arashi!: The entertainment value varies between episodes, but it’s generally quite good. Probably one of SHAFT’s better outings as of late. Love the opening and ending, as usual.
Saki: The Mahjong parts lack the same tension found in Akagi, but I’ll be damned if these girls aren’t adorable. I’m watching this just to see girls be cute.
Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-Hen on television: They sure are dragging out this first night, but it’s working well to ease us into the world. I suspect it’ll speed up soon. Pretty good show, and definitely the greatest first episode I’ve seen in a long while.
Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo: Still very enjoyable. I like how the plot is developing.

Casshern Sins: I’m actually starting to enjoy it as it nears the end. Kind of feels pointless, though.
Clannad ~After Story~: It’s kind of gotten to the point where I really don’t care, but it’s not that bad. Still very pretty.
Jigoku Shoujo Mistuganae: Episodes alternate between being very good twists on the normal formula, to very… weird. It’s really troubling when the first half of an episode is really happy, because you just know things are going to go south. They’ve been laying off of the damning to hell sequences as of late, which is good.
Kurogane no Linebarrels: My disposable guilty pleasure show. I watch this for the soap opera youth drama, as well as the tits. When the animation gets crappy, it doesn’t really matter because the style is already pretty quick and dirty.
Maria†Holic: While not the best SHAFTXSHINBO combo, I’m starting to find this entry into the team’s resumé to be quite entertaining. The girls don’t really have any moé charms, but I find them rather beautiful.
Michiko and Hatchin: This show continues to be of fairly high quality, but would really shine if Watanabe was actually on direction. The episodes have been getting a bit weak, but still good.
Minami-ke Okaeri: Better than Okawari, but still falls short of the original. If I ever get around to re-watching Minami-ke, I’ll probably just stick to season 1. You did well asread, but not well enough!!
Shikabane Hime: Kuro: For some reason this show is becoming really cheap looking, but I still enjoy it. I hope it ends strongly.
Sora Kake Girl: I’m tempted to label this as my favourite of the season. It’s a wonderful combination of fanservice, science fiction antics, and well-realized moé characters. I smell some fanart coming on.
Sora Wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai: Since this is only going to be nine episodes (according to MyAnimeList), I guess KyoAni only has to animate one or two new episodes. Or maybe they can stretch the last OVA all the way to episode 9. Who knows. I like it.
To Aru Majutsu no Kinsho Mokuroku: If I put my desire for more Index screentime aside, this has become a pretty decent collection of SF/fantasy centered stories. With some pacing issues, of course, but it’s developed into a pretty good show.
Toradora!: This show is rare case. I think it’s quite good, but I’m not moé towards any of the characters. It slipped up a bit after episode 16, but it’s gotten back on track. It’s pretty good, but I don’t think it’s really worthy of BEST SHOW OF THE YEAR or anything like that.
Tytania: The writing in this show is ever so cheesy, but I love it. It has the Death Note/Code Geass appeal, in which I actually watch it for the ridiculous plot as opposed to other things like character interaction. The characters are quite crap, I think, except for the moé princess and Fan Hyulick.
Zettai Karen Children: It’s ending so soon? Say it ain’t so! I want a second season! A third, even! This could run for 200+ episodes and I’d be totally cool with that.

Kind of started on my 30 disc DVD backlog, and am half-way through a Shuffle! disc. Hoping to burn through my Shuffle! and Air discs before I head off to Japan. I’ll probably bring Gao Gai Gar and Nanoha along with me to Japan.

Original Post

I don’t like explaining my jokes (speaking of which, I need to get around to updating the reference guide) but since no-one for some reason watches Zettai “The Best Show Ever” Karen Children I figure I should explain myself. A trio of young girls called Karen Girl’s (yes, there is an apostrophe) sing the opening themes to Zettai Karen Children. In episode forty of Zettai Karen Children, they make an animated cameo, which is what’s pictured in the opening panel. The rest is pretty self explanatory. Next week I’ll stop with the lolita jokes, I promise. I have one great script left I want to use, then that’ll hopefully be the end of it… for a while.

I’m pretty happy with the art here. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s nice and clean. It devolves into closeups, but I think it works. The more astute of you may notice that I’ve signed this comic simply as “wah”, and that over the past week I’ve changed my nick in various places to just “wah”. Why? President Obama said to put away childish things, so I figure I should put away my childish screenname I made when I was thirteen years old! Also, all the classy moe aficionados like my colleagues mt-i and pkjd have short, cryptic names, so I figure I’ll force my way into the club, too! Oh, and let’s not forget our dearly departed abq. No, he isn’t dead. I don’t think.

I’m giving the doujinshi orders another week before we just give up and distribute them digitally to the people who want them. We’re actually half-way there, but I doubt we’ll get fifteen requests over the next week. Like I said last week, this was an experiment by a friend and I, so we weren’t expecting much. But on the other hand, the doujin has loli jokes, gay jokes and violence! People like that stuff, right? It’s highbrow stuff. Oh, and I’d like to thank the warlocks on 4chan for advertising this. Your kind words of encouragement mean so much! Ever so much!

One show I’ve started to enjoy is Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo, or Sora Kake Girl. It took a while to get going, but by episode three I was pretty hooked. I love the design work, both on the characters and the world, and the plot is dumb enough to work. So far it’s about ten times better than Code Geass. I’m going to get to watching episode four in a bit!

That’s all for this week. Hopefully I can come up with some not-pedo related scripts to break monotony of the past couple of weeks.

Instead of doing three at a time, I’m just going to blaze through all of these at once.

Akikan

Oh Akikan! What could have been! You had such a wonderfully dumb concept! If handled correctly, you could have been immensely entertaining! It was, however, not meant to be. If episode two is any indication, the staff doesn’t even care about this show. I haven’t seen something this ugly since that time I watched ten episodes of Soul Link, which is quite hilarious, since Suzuhira Hiro did the designs for that show as well. To make matters even worse, this show is by Brains Base. I thought better of you guys! I mean, Natsume Yuujinchou was boring as shit, but at least it looked good. This is just an abomination. Do not watch it.

Maria†Holic

The dastardly combination of Akiyuki Shinbo and Studio SHAFT (AKA: SHAFTXSHINBO) are at it again, this time with the amazingly sassy and abusive Maria†Holic. Though, quite frankly, I’m a little disappointed. The show carries itself on its witty writing more than anything else, and when that happens in a Shinbo show you know something is wrong. Him and his cohorts have boiled the signature SHAFTXSHINBO style down to a science, while at the same time bringing nothing new to the table. The show is playing it pretty straight, and is more on the Negima!? side than the Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~ side as far as directorial eccentricity goes. I like it, but I expect a lot more. The opening sequence does more or less make up for all of the show’s shortcomings, though. And the writing really is great–Maria is such a dickhead.

Minami-ke ~Okaeri~

Well, that feels a lot better. After stumbling around a bit with the slightly deformed baby that was Minami-ke Okawari, our good friends at asread have done their homework, and figured out just what makes Minami-ke good. Okaeri is a step back into the snappy direction and quirky writing that made the very first Minami-ke a joy to watch. Instead of trying to force their own stylings onto the production, asread is keeping to the spirit of the first series as much as possible, and are doing a fairly good job. The colour scheme is set back to the warm tones that brought the first series to life, and the character designs are a fair compromise between asread’s style and the style used in Doumo’s series. While not as horrible as bloggers make it out to be, the artwork in the series ranges from having moments of greatness, to simply being okay. It’s rough, but it’s still pretty good.

Rideback

This one fooled me. I came in expecting mecha warfare, but instead I got some seinen college story with strangely girly character designs. I don’t really know if this’ll hold my interest, but episode one didn’t totally suck. The story of a girl losing her talent for ballet then finding herself again on some random robot motorcycle is dumb, but it didn’t weigh things down too much.

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo (Sora Kake Girl)

I was unable to tell if this first episode was a mess of cliché on purpose or not, but once you’re half-way into episode two it’s pretty clear that this is Sunrise parodying themselves. This is another one where I’m not sure if it’ll be able to hold my interest, but it has nice character designs on its side, and pretty solid Sunrise production values. It’s probably better than Code Geass, but lacks the entertainment value.

Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (Munto TV)

Munto is kind of like Kyoto Animation’s Daicon IV opening animation, except much longer. It’s a pretty generic fantasy story, but you can tell the staff’s heart is in it. This first episode is just the original 2003 OVA with some slight touch-up work, so naturally it looks pretty dated. While not as shiny and bright as modern day Kyoto Animation titles, everything moves well, and some shots look like really good pictures you’d see on pixiv, just animated. The female character designs are all great, with a couple of especially cute lolis in the cast.

Not doing Shikabane Hime Kuro since I’m not done with Aka yet.