New Affiliated Blog!

If you don't pay particularly close attention to the main page (I'm guessing that would be most of my readers) you may have missed the new link we added to our list of affiliated sites recently. Brainstorm! is the anime review blog of Christina Soe, who eschews the more common format of episodic commentary for frequent full-series reviews - how she finds the time to watch so many series to completion is truly a mystery to me, but very admirable.

She includes a good selection of screencaps with each of her reviews, and employs a rating system based on how much she would recommend a series to others.

So go ahead and check her blog out at Brainstorm! and be sure to leave her some comments if you like what you see.

All Stopped-Up

So a few things have happened lately that have affected the timeliness of the reviews on the main site. Some of them are out of my hands and some of them are clearly my own issues and I figured I would outline some of them.

As far as the stuff that's out of my control, the main thing would be the review updates. There are some Summer series reviews that still haven't appeared. This can be attributed to Boris' laptop needing work and then an illness and what I assume is busy-ness with school (the time-consuming combination of work+school is something I definitely don't miss). It's also not his top priority, nor should it be, since it's mainly a repository for my own content and perhaps what one might call a vanity project, since I make no illusions of writing academic-level material here.

On my end, the fact that Summer has been left hanging has made my motivation to watch and write about the Fall season almost non-existent. That doesn't mean I haven't done any work; there are enough reviews finished to last for a few decent updates, but where I could normally crank out quite a few on an unoccupied weekend such as this, I've been very unable to focus and get enthusiastic about it. That doesn't mean I'm in an anime slump or anything; I've been watching plenty of shows and there are quite a few that I can enjoy, it's just getting to that next level and wanting to put words down that's getting to me. It's very frustrating.

Another issue that I've come across is that my obsessive following of the ANN Fall Preview Guide has left me feeling like I already know what to expect from most of the Fall's series, and when you already have an inkling that something's going to be pretty terrible, it's very tough to make yourself watch it. I think that reading other reviews is valuable in that you get a taste of other opinions and ways of approaching a particular subject, but I think from now on I'll try to keep my distance until more of my own work is completed.

In the meantime, I've been sort-of trying to keep this blog updated at least once a week with things, mostly links to AMVs but at least it's something. I don't honestly know how many visitors I have or how many people give a crap, but I like to believe that there are a few people who enjoy this stuff.

MAS Halloween AMV Show: The List

All right, here's the list and pertinent links to the AMVs from both the official AMV show, things that were shown throughout the night that I have access too, and whatever else I had in the folder that may or may not have been shown (I honestly can't remember everything). Some of these may be repeats from previous posts.

Main Show

Watchmanga by Ultimatetransfan

A multi-source video set to the Watchmen Trailer. I can usually take or leave trailers, but I found this one to be particularly well-done and it uses some sources that go together very well with the audio.

The Box of Sorrows by Bea$t

It combines footage from the Hellraiser movies and the Silent Hill 4: The Room video game to come up with something exceedingly creepy in addition to its technical accomplishment. It was difficult to see in the auditorium due to the stupid side-lights, but should be easier to see on a computer monitor.

Michiko Hurricane by Alternababe

An amusing portrait of Michiko from Michiko to Hatchin being badass. As a friend commented to me, there are very few videos with this anime as a source and it's surprising that a good one like this even exists. Very action-oriented and entertaining. Slight spoilers for the end of the series (but if you don't know what you're looking for you might miss it anyway).

Vehemence by VeeBee

A Bakemonogatari AMV, since we were watching it last night. The author manages to make the already beautiful footage look even better. The video focuses a lot on Senjougahara and lends her sort of a mysterious air.

To Serve Man by godix

A video set to "A Little Priest" from Sweeny Todd. A comedic video about eating people. The author doesn't seem to happy with it, but I thought it was very amusing and it used some good source choices.

Era by Tana-sama

Mononoke AMVs do exist! Even a couple of decent ones, as I found out recently. This one provides a good overview of the series, and highlights some of its unique visuals.

(This Is) MADNESS! by Creed_FR, Arcos

An up-tempo Soul-Eater AMV which manages to feature a shounen anime and not be complete garbage. Shown since we were watching the first episode of the show.

The Last HOPE by Pipian

Probably the only Dennou Coil AMV I've ever seen that hasn't been junk, and there are very few to begin with. It captures the spooky feeling certain parts of the show have, and serves as a nice trailer to boot.

Warrant on Murder by Archivist

A video that features stunning imagery from the Kara no Kyoukai series of films, the video screamed "Halloween" the moment that I first watched it. It's definitely eye-candy, and makes me interested in watching the movies (I have them sitting around, I just haven't gotten around to it yet).

Extras

De:Light by Aggressor

An action video that uses Shikabane Hime as a source. What I saw of the show was pretty so-so, but this is a very technically-sound production with a lot of intense visuals.

Belzenef's Awakening by Little Atari

A very cute mock-trailer for Ouran Host Club that utilizes the dub track well. Very silly but lots of fun.

Frozen Ayakashi Beach by y00_black

Short but intense vid using Ayakashi Japanese Horror and Mononoke. Still marvelling that vids using these sources exist and don't suck.

Curtain Call by Rider4Z, Stryyder

One of the few Death Note AMVs that I've been able to tolerate (having the anime set to a Queen song definitely helps). It plays up the theatricality of the series well.

Paradoxical Sleep by Paul Kievets

Definitely one of the most unsettling AMVs that I've ever seen in my life. It uses Spirited Away as its source and plays up the aspects of it that are truly frightening. Might give you nightmares.

Stop Killing Yourself by Hareoic

Truly funny AMV that combines Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei with Monty Python. "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life!"

Bonus:

Short Film: Kigeki (Comedy)

A short film by Studio 4degreesC about a lone swordsman who provides his services for a very unusual price. People seemed to really like this one, so here it is.

That's about it! I hope people had fun and that they enjoy these fun AMVs.

MAS Halloween AMVs

Hey all, it's late tonight, but I'll be linking to the AMVs that were shown during the MAS Halloween party at some point later in the day tomorrow (after I get home from work). I hope that you enjoyed them and had a good time!

AMV Recommendations 10/23/2009

Since it's getting close to Halloween, I thought I'd post some recs for spooky AMVs today.

The Box of Sorrows by Bea$t.

This video successfully combines scenes from the Silent Hill 4 video game with scenes and imagery from the Hellraiser film to create something that's creepy and a bit gory. I was never a huge fan of Silent Hill 4, but this video takes some of the creepier images from the game and uses them well.

Doombringer by KwAsEk56.

A lot of the imagery in Berserk is rife with the frightening and terrible. This video uses illustrations from the manga to effectively create a horrific feeling in the viewer. Don't discount manga music videos, there are some really awesome ones like this one.

So Very Tired by blabber.

Not scary so much as dark and weird, this video uses some weird homebrew musical track and the bizarre experimental anime Angel's Egg to create a very unsettling mood.

Twinkle by falconone.

Mnemosyne set to the trailer for the video game Dead Space. Blood and nudity warnings. Very creepy and dark.

What's he Building? by Ingow.

This video creeps the shit out of me. Ghost Hunt was surprisingly creepy at times on its own, but coupled with the audio it really sends shivers down my spine.

Macabre Serenade by Ileia.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei at its weirdest. Lots of Chiri-chan acting murderous and Itoshiki-sensei going insane.

Tokyo Demons by Jayn_Newell.

Kakurenbo set to a song from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Phantom of the Opera by Kevin Caldwell.

An oldie-but-a-goodie, set to the anime Memories. From an era when editing was done using a couple of tape decks and was much more labor-intensive than now.

Rozen Malinaby rei.andrea

More gothic than creepy per se, but appropriate for the season. Various seasons of Rozen Maiden set to some German gothic rock.

Hope that helps to get your creepy mood on at your next Halloween party.

AMV Recommendations 10/16/2009

More neat AMVs for your perusal.

Spin On, Simon by machina21

I'm not really a big fan of Gurren-Lagann, but I loved this video. Perhaps because it's one of the few that presents a clear character profile, progresses a story, and uses music that I like (Peter Gabriel!) rather than just stuffing a bunch of manic scenes into a blender. Very enjoyable and ambitious.

Hush by etherealqueen.

A game music video that manages to be very watchable in spite of the fact that the PS1 graphics are extremely dated, something which I consider to be a major accomplishment.

Focal Perspective by LantisEscudo.

Call me soft, but I was really crying by the end of this video, if only because it features Carl Sagan talking about how important our world is to us. I bet you might be moved a bit also. Scientific reality can be very potent in its own way.

Man, now I have to go and cry ;_;

AMV Recommendations 10/9/2009

Going through my AMV backlog, I'm finding that I'm afraid to rec a lot of the AMVs that I enjoy because I know others who make/enjoy AMVs and live-action vids and are probably pickier than I am. Oh well, I shouldn't be ashamed of what I like. At least I wouldn't lead anyone astray into some Linkin Park/DBZ emo-fest ;)

Modern Major Clusterf**k by Side Swipe.

Cute comedy video done to the song "Modern Major General" starring Roy Mustang from FMA. Nothing major to talk about, just an imperfect but very fun AMV.

Only Bob by Infinity Squared.

A curious video from the POV of a robot. Footage from tons of shows. Some original CG animation . The creator obviously put a lot of work in here.

Remember Me by Prodigi.

A sentimental video done to what is maybe not the most unique short in the Genius Party anthology, but one of the most relatable, I think. It's the story of two high school kids playing hooky and spending some time together like they did in the old days, before one of them moves away.

Fall Preview

So this was meant to be posted some days ago, but I came down with an illness and then my cat got really sick, so blog stuff fell to the wayside. Even though a lot of these shows have already started their broadcasts, I put a lot of work into cropping images so I'm posting this anyway ;)

***

Like just about any other anime blog out there, I decided to do a Fall Preview of the shows that are about to burst forth onto the scene. These previews aren't meant to be full-on judgments of these series - something which seems like it has a bad or unoriginal premise, or which has character designs that I might not really like, might end up to be a perfectly enjoyable series. Likewise, something that I anticipate to be interesting might turn out to be a miserable failure. Also, some of these series might not even end up getting fansubbed or otherwise released in English. But it's fun to get at least a little excited about series to come, especially since Fall is one of the big seasons and there are a lot of choices out there. Anyway, these are in Alphabetical order, based on info from Anime News Network:

11 Eyes



Official Site (Japanese): 11 Eyes

Story: Ordinary high school boy gets transported to an alternate world called "Red Night," and must fight dark spirits and black knights in order to return to his own world.

Thoughts: Looks like another bland eroge adaptation that probably won't interest me. Unappealing character designs abound including dumb, impractical school uniforms. My prediction is that it'll fade into the background like most of these series do.

Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzuu



Official Site (Japanese): Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzuu

Story: Three sisters enjoy cosplaying different animals. One day they get their hands (paws?) on a magical compact that allows them to transform into real animals.

Thoughts: The cute, it buuurnssss ussss! Seriously, this looks like fluff, pure and simple. Might have the side effect of rotting one's teeth. Apparently this is also being billed as a comedy, so I wonder just how funny it could be, or what type of humor it'll have (I'm guessing 4-koma-style gags, but who knows?).

Aoi Bungaku



Official Site (Japanese): Aoi Bungaku

Story: A series consisting of six short arcs based on various volumes of Japanese literature. The character designs for the various stories are provided by high-profile manga artists, including Tite Kubo (Bleach) and Takeshi Obata (Death Note).

Thoughts: The idea behind this intrigued me right away after hearing of it. The quality of the end result will obviously depend on the quality of the story adaptations - no high-profile artist could rescue something ill-suited for TV animation, but I'm optimistic that this will be something interesting to watch.

Asura Cryin' 2



Story: A high school boy is haunted by the ghost of his childhood friend. His life gets flipped/turned upside down when he gets a suitcase from his brother and there's a robot in it.

Thoughts: A sequel to a show that didn't interest me in the slightest, which is, unfortunately, how it seems to work most of the time. I can't imagine this continuation would be sufficiently different that it would be any more interesting than season 1. Will be broadcast on Crunchyroll for those of you enjoy your anime being of the streamed variety.

Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini



PV: Video will load on its own

Story: Takes place following the original series, where Hei and Yin travel to Russia and meet a mysterious girl names Suo.

Thoughts: The original series was something that most people I knew really enjoyed, but I was never that interested (never mind the fact that I stopped downloading it after it got licensed and everyone else I know kept watching it all the way through, so now I'd be watching it on my own if I decided to). It also doesn't look like the type of thing that one could jump into cold, but I'll see. If this seems promising I might go back and pick up the DVDs for season 1.

Fairy Tail



Website (Japanese): Fairy Tail

Story: The story of a girl who wants to be a mage and the boy she meets who happens to be one.

Thoughts: Apparently this is the next big shounen thing, which means it'll be about 50/50 whether I can stomach it at first, with my tolerance level going downhill the longer the show is drawn-out (I still haven't managed anything longer than 52 episodes, if that tells you anything). What might save it are the characters. If the hero is a d-bag, obnoxious shounen protagonist, then I'll be running for the hills really fast.

Gokyoudai Monogatari



Website (Japanese): Gokyoudai Monogatari

Story: The story of a twin sister and brother who have heartwarming encounters with the people they meet in Tokyo's lower-class neighborhoods.

Thoughts: Despite the girl's creepy forehead, this could be an interesting show depending on the quality of the humor and the stories. Don't know if anyone will sub this one, though (maybe Crunchyroll will grab it like they did Mainichi Kaasan?)

Himitsu Kessha Taka no Tsume Countdown



Story: I can't find info for this season, but Crunchyroll has the original and it's about an evil organization whose plans are continually foiled at the last minute by Deluxe Fighter, a meddling hero.

Thoughts: Sounds like a crappy version of Astro Fighter Sunred.

Inuyasha: The Final Act



Official Site (Japanese): Inuyasha Kanketsu-hen

Story: The tale finally comes to a close as the end of the Inuyasha manga is at last animated.

Thoughts: Did I mention that I don't dig long series? That especially goes for stuff like this, which shamelessly repeats itself and doesn't go anywhere meaningful. It'll be nice to see the story put to rest, but from what I've heard of the manga ending, not a whole lot is resolved anyway. I can't imagine that I'll be watching more than an ep of this. Viz media will be broadcasting the series on Hulu and their Shounen Sunday website soon after the Japanese broadcast.

Kaidan Restaurant



Official Site (Japanese): Kaidan Restaurant

Story: Classmates experience bizarre encounters, and tell ghost stories. Based on a series of books.

Thoughts: I can't say how creepy it'll end up being, but it looks like kind of a cute little ghost story anthology series. Might be fun for Halloween, of course, someone would have to be lined up to fansub it first -_-

Kampfer



PV: Click button to play

Story: A normal high school student is suddenly forced to become a Kampfer, someone who fights other Kampfers with guns, swords or magic, and who must have the body of a girl to utilize their powers.

Thoughts: So the main character is a trap, nice. The show looks completely goofy, by the way. It's series like this that make people lament the lack of quality in Japanese animation (I don't, personally, but it's difficult to look past such dumb premises sometimes).

Kiddy Girl-and



Official Site (Japanese): Kiddy Girl-and

Story: 50 years after the end of a conflict that decided the fate of the universe, it's again threatened and only two young girls, Ascoeur and Q-feuille, can defend it.

Thoughts:... and? And what? Seriously, what a dumb name for a sequel. In any case, this sequel was announced like two or three years ago and no one knew if it was actually coming out or if it had been canceled. I don't think I would have noticed if it had been canceled. Seems like a magical-girl premise with some sci-fi, but not a very interesting blend of either.

Kimi ni Todoke



Official Site (Japanese): Kimi ni Todoke

Story: Kuronuma Sawako often gets called "Sadako" because people find her odd and scary. She meets a guy named Kazehaya who becomes friends with her in spite of (or because of ) this.

Thoughts: Your average shoujo premise, though I've heard really good things about the manga and the adaptation is being animated by Production I.G. which means I'll probably be watching this.

Kobato



PV: At Youtube

Story: Kobato is a sweet girl, but naive about the world around her. She carries a bottle that she fills with the suffering in people's hearts so that she can go to the place she desires.

Thoughts: I'm extremely wary of anything CLAMP nowadays, especially since they forgot how to properly draw human anatomy (not that anime is especially accurate, but their style of bodily distortion has become highly unappealing). This looks like it could be cute, however.

Kotatsu Neko



Story: A series of five-minute shorts about a group of cats who live below a kotatsu (a table draped with a blanked with a heater underneath).

Thoughts: I seem to be kind of a sucker for these silly cat shows, so this might have some appeal to me if it gets subbed.

Kuuchuu Buranko



Official Site (Japanese): Kuuchuu Buranko

Story: Irabu Ichiro is a strange psychiatrist who puzzles his patients with his bizarre behavior.

Thoughts: This was originally an instant watch for me, since it brings back a lot of the Mononoke staff, it's a Noitamina show and it's an unusual-looking series. I've heard that there are live-action segments with an actress dressed up as the nurse character, and I'm not so sure about that. I'm still hoping that this features some good stories and I'm sure my worries are unfounded, but I don't know why that unusual choice was made.

Letter Bee



Official Site (Japanese): Letter Bee

Story: Gauche is a government employee who delivers any letter to its destination. He inspires a young boy to follow in his footsteps. Five years later, Lag is a letter bee, but now Gauche has gone missing.

Thoughts: This is the other big shounen series this season, but this one looks leaps and bounds more interesting to me than Fairy Tail. The only thing that might be a problem is the age of the protagonist. It's difficult to tell if he'll be more of the sweet kid type or a little shounen piece of crap. Crunchyroll has already snatched up this series.

Miracle Train - Ouedo sen e Youkosou



Official Site (Japanese): Miracle Train

Story: Stops on the Japanese Ouedo subway line are personified as young attractive men.

Thoughts: Man moe? No thanks. This series would have to be really good for me to watch much of it, but I have the distinct feeling that it's just a bunch of eye-candy.

Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-chu



Website (Japanese): Natsu no Arashi 2

Story: The second season of the show revolving around a young boy and his interaction with time travelers at his relative's cafe.

Thoughts: I seriously didn't like what I saw of season 1 of this show (which was two or three episodes) and in saying so managed to piss some people off (oh noes, a disagreement on the INTERNETS). This season doesn't look to be any better, it's major flaw being that the little d-bag protagonist is still present. Remove him and the show would be much easier for me to sit through.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza



Official Site (Japanese): Nogizaka Haruka 2

Story: More adventures with the popular girl who's a closeted otaku and the man who loves her.

Thoughts: I thought that the premise of season 1 was dumb and that hasn't changed here.

Nyan Koi



PV: Nyan Koi

Story: A guy who's allergic to cats has a crush on a girl who loves them. An unfortunate accident leaves the boy able to understand what cats are saying.

Thoughts: This show could go either way, I suppose. The premise is funny enough if not exactly cutting-edge. It'll depend on the characters and the comic timing.

Queen's Blade: Gyokuza no Tsugumono



PV: At Youtube

Story: The continuation of Queen's Blade season 1, where the characters actually fight in the Queen's Blade tournament.

Thoughts: Ugh. You probably know that I suffered through the first season of this series, mostly out of morbid curiosity. Then I got to the end and they didn't even get to the tournament. Not that I'm interested in seeing how things play out this season; I'm done.

The Sacred Blacksmith



PV: At Youtube

Story: Cecily is on a mission to find a blacksmith who can repair her father's sword. She meets a young man who can harness the Devil's Power - magic which has been banned since a great war. This is the beginning of her adventure.

Thoughts: Though the Manglobe studio's involvement promises some nice animation, the subject matter looks a little bit uninteresting to me. Standard fantasy stuff. Also the female characters are looking a bit too cutesy for my tastes.

Sasameki Koto



Website (Japanese): Sasameki Koto

Story: Murasame Sumika is popular but she harbors a secret - she's in love with her female classmate. And the feeling is mutual, though Kazama Ushio, the object of her affection, is nervous about confessing.

Thoughts: I've heard people say that this is a worthy successor to this Summer's yuri series Aoi Hana. Prove it. The premise seems way more goofy and juvenile to me, compared to Aoi Hana which had young characters but which didn't aim low.

Seitokai no Ichizon



PV: Seitokai no Ichizon

Story: The student council at Hekiyo is chosen entirely by popularity vote, and only members may enter the sacred sanctuary of the council meeting room. Their daily meetings seem to devolve into conversations about their daily lives.

Thoughts: Wow, talk about a boring premise. I don't want to sound like an ass (some may say that's too late) but there's a limit to how "slice-of-life" my slice-of-life anime should be, and this goes over the line. I'm not against fully character-driven series, but this doesn't strike me as interesting in the least. Perhaps the final product will turn out to be more than just a string of conversations, who knows.

Shin Koihime Musou: Otome Ryouran Sangokushi Engi



Shin Koihime Musou

Story: The moe-licious re-imagining of Romance of the Three Kingdoms receives another anime incarnation that is supposedly more accurate to the game on which it's based.

Thoughts: Didn't like the first series because it was all about the boobies (there was a bath scene in the first episode - not a good sign for my enjoyment) and I honestly don't know what could be very different about this incarnation.

Sora no Otoshimono



PV: At Youtube

Story: A boy has strange dreams about a girl asking for help. Suddenly one day, a girl falls from the sky who happens to be an angel.

Thoughts: An angel with giant titties, of course. I'm not gonna pass my final judgment from one piece of artwork, but when the promo art has a crappy little male character getting tits in the face, you know there's probably something wrong.

Tamagotchi



Website (in Japanese): Tamagotchi

Story: The daily lives of the Tamagotchi are laid bare in this series.

Thoughts: Sorry, it's silly to try and make a series like this sound serious. Sounds like a kids show and I doubt anyone will bother to sub it.

Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra



PV: Select the first option on the left hand menu

Story: The souls of the dead are kept in books in the Bantorra Library, where anyone can read about the past. The library is guarded by armed librarians.

Thoughts: I've heard people make story comparisons to Library War because of the armed librarians, but it sounds like this series involves more magic and fantasy elements. I've been curious about it. Crunchyroll has this one.

Tentai Senshi Sunred Season 2



Website (Japanese): Sunred

Story: More quirky comedy involving the jaded superhero Sunred and his persistent adversaries, Florsheim.

Thoughts: I loved the first season, and if the second is able to maintain a similar pacing and comedy style, then I think this will be great as well. Looking forward to it.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun



Website (Japanese): Railgun

Story: A story that takes place in Academy City, a location where most of the occupants are students, and starring a character from the To Aru Majutsu no Index.

Thoughts: I thought that To Aru Majutsu no Index was grossly overhyped; the first episode lost me when the main female character's clothing literally exploded from her body. I don't know if this will interest me any more, but it sounds like a completely different story so it's possible that it might be enjoyable (or at least different enough to distinguish itself).

Winter Sonata



PV: Winter Sonata

Story: An anime based on the super-popular Korean Drama from several years ago, starring the original male lead reprising his role.

Thoughts: I'm sort of torn on this one. I enjoy romance stories, but I understand that Korean drama is somewhat more melodramatic than I might have the stomach for. I'm definitely curious about the choice to use the Korean actor for the male lead. Does he speak Japanese? I guess it remains to be seen (or I could just go look it up, but I'm lazy).

Yumeiro Patissiere



Website (Japanese): Yumeiro Patissiere

Story: Overly-cute clumsy shoujo wants to become a pastry chef. She enrolls in culinary school and meets a spirit of sweets.

Thoughts: Too cute and the heroine seems vapid and uninteresting.

I guess that's it. Now to start with the reviewing!

AMV Recommendations 10/2/2009

Some more AMV recs for you today.

Naked Fairytale by FunStorm.

It's an Eden of the East video that looks at the relationship between the two main characters. I'm not quite sure exactly what I like about this video beyond the fact that it involves one of my favorite anime of the year, but it captures the epic feeling parts of the show have while also focusing on the main characters.

Big Blue by JCD.

Purely an eye-candy piece as far as I'm concerned, since I'm not familiar with the source material (Blue Submarine Number 6 - is it a good OVA or is it just really pretty? Someone out there must know). I think that it accomplished something in that it made me curious about seeking out the DVD release of the show.

Love Disconnected by NightMistress85.

A sad romance video set to the anime NANA. I really loved this AMV, even having not read the manga or watched much of the anime (I know, shame on me). It's really good at portraying a particular emotion. The lip-sync at points is a little uncalled for, but I consider that a minor complaint.

Stay tuned for more recs in the future!

Easy Japanese Food - Sukiyaki

Back when my husband and I lived in downtown Minneapolis, we loved to go to a restaurant called Kikugawa, which served authentic (and thus expensive) Japanese food, including tempura, sushi, various appetizers, and our favorite, sukiyaki. For those of you who aren't familiar with the dish, sukiyaki is one of various one-pot dishes that Japan has. Others are shabu-shabu and nabe. Essentially there's a hot plate in the middle of the table with a cast-iron pot, and people cook meat and various vegetables in a broth. At Kikugawa, diners had the option to cook their own sukiyaki at the table, and it was really fun. And expensive.

The other day it dawned on me that this favorite dish of ours could possibly be adapted to work in an electric fondue pot, of which we have two. Yesterday I picked up ingredients and tried it out, and it worked wonderfully. It might not be entirely authentic, but the taste was delicious, so I decided to share my success with you guys.

Here's what you'll need (This amt. of ingredients should serve about 4):
2C Beef Broth (either home-made or low-sodium from the store)
1C Soy Sauce (Make sure it's not some cheap brand! The taste is completely different. I used Kikkoman naturally brewed soy sauce).
1/2 C Granulated Sugar
1/4 C Sake or Mirin

Thinly-sliced steak (I bought two sirloin steaks and sliced them on a shallow angle very thinly)
1 package firm tofu, cubed
1 small can bamboo shoots, drained
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced into strips
1/2 Chinese nappa cabbage, sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 package mushrooms of your choice (I used baby portabello mushrooms, I think traditionally black and enoki mushrooms are used but I didn't have them)
Shirataki noodles (I didn't have these, so I cooked up some rice vermicelli and it worked pretty well)

Combine beef broth, soy sauce, sake/mirin and sugar in a medium sauce pan and heat until sugar is dissolved. Cool and set-aside until ready to use.

Prepare meat and vegetables according to instructions and arrange on a platter. When ready to eat, add sukiyaki broth to fondue pot (don't fill it too full, you can always reserve the extra and add it later on if it starts to run low). Bring the broth to a boil, and then turn the heat dial down to medium low. Add meat and vegetables and boil until they're cooked through and have absorbed the delicious sauce. Enjoy over bowls of Japanese rice.

This would be a great, easy meal in the Autumn when it starts to cool off (like the last couple of days here, coincidentally) or for a special day like a birthday.

Philosophical Differences

Some of you probably know that my husband and I have some people over on Sunday nights to hang out, have dinner, and watch some anime. Lately we've been having a dilemma over what to watch, because almost all of us attend at least one other anime viewing group. Some of us are members of the U of MN Manga Anime Society, a couple others host a separate viewing at their own home during the week. Often times things that we want to watch conflict with one or the other of these groups, other times there aren't enough good, group-friendly series currently being released. For example, I recently finished watching Aoi Hana, a series which I really enjoyed but which I don't think would interest the group very much (that, and I have the sneaking suspicion that a couple of people attending have this idea in their head that gay people are only appropriate for comedy relief, and a series that has lesbian romantic elements might break their brains).


ZOMG LESBIAN ROMANCE THAT'S NOT PLAYED FOR HUMOR!

Anyway, this has caused us to delve a bit into series which are somewhat older so that we can have something to watch that multiple people haven't seen already or aren't already watching. We're currently watching Basilisk, which my husband and I bought for cheap at the last big Rightstuf sale. It's not my favorite thing, but it's fun and entertaining in kind of a goofy, guilty-pleasure sort of way. I'm finding that I can at least enjoy it for what it is as long as I don't try to over-analyze it or act like the characters or story are so deep and intricate you don't even know. Looking through my anime files I realized that I had a show that might have the potential to tickle some peoples' fancies (actually, that sounds sort of gross...).

The series is called Gokinjo Monogatari, and it's based on a manga by Yazawa Ai, the author of Paradise Kiss and NANA. It's actually the forerunner of Parakiss, and features some of the same locales and related characters. A fairly good pedigree, especially since many of my friends have enjoyed those later works. However, I predicted that they would have a few issues with it. The first issue is that the show is from 1995, and it shows very prominently in the animation. This is not something I have an issue with because I've watched things much older and I have a soft spot for traditional cel animation anyway. The other issue is that the story is quite a bit sillier than the author's latter stuff, at least from what I've read and seen of it on my own. I tried to anticipate peoples' reactions to it so that I wouldn't be too pissed off when they reacted negatively.


A scene from Gokinjo Monogatari

My husband, appropriately, was the most straightforward. He told me that it wasn't something he would pick for himself but that he wouldn't mind seeing more. The guy who sits off to the side and mostly just plays his DS made some snarky comment that I didn't bother to make note of (if someone doesn't respect the show enough to give it an honest try, his/her opinion is nothing to me). My MAS friends were pretty much "..." which, to their credit, was probably due to my known history of getting pissy when people don't agree with me (I've tried to deal with that, though - I don't think I'm nearly as bad anymore). My other friend referred to one of my earlier posts here and said that it was a show that probably wasn't good for a group to watch. Honestly, I'm somewhat flattered that she referred to something that I had written, but I felt like a romantic comedy was probably the closest thing to "universally-enjoyable" that I could have suggested, and the comment was a more diplomatic way of saying "this is from 1995 and I think it's kind of goofy and it looks old and busted."

Aaaaaaaaaand that's about how I figured it would go down. After the initial sting in my pride I decided that it was more a problem of people not getting what I was trying to go for with the series, rather than any major issue with the series itself. To explain, I might seem like an extremely picky person, and based on my reviews one would think that I barely watch anything at all, which actually isn't true. I watch lots of stuff that I think has major flaws, because I find redeeming value in some other aspect. For example, I watched the first episode of Maria Holic and hated the two main characters. I mean really hated them. I thought that they were both really horrible people, and Mariya especially was needlessly mean and manipulative (even though he was given some reasoning later on). But despite this aspect of the series, I was wowed once again by the visual direction used by Akiyuki Shinbo and SHAFT, and there was some honestly funny humor courtesy of some of the secondary characters, and those aspects made the series worth watching for me. Ditto with stuff like Antique Bakery, which is silly but which also has great characters who I wanted to see succeed, and Bakemonogatari, which is cool-looking with interesting characters, but which is also prone to showing a lot of skin.


In Maria Holic, God pities unfortunate things like the Virtual Boy.

In the particular case of Gokinjo Monogatari, what drew me to it was its creator, Yazawa Ai, who was also responsible for the more well-known manga series Paradise Kiss and NANA. I had seen a few episodes of this series a couple of years ago when another fansub group began releasing it, and knew how it compared in quality to those later series, but to me I find a sort of, I don't know, academic interest in seeing how a favorite artist has progressed and evolved during his/her career. To me, even though the story is cheesy and the art hasn't aged well, Gokinjo Monogatari is interesting because of what it is - it's the story from which the ultra-successful Paradise Kiss was spun-off and so there are lots of really neat little connections there, and it's also the earlier creation of a very successful artist.

I think the eventual compromise that was reached after I went to bed (I had to be up at an ungodly time the next morning, so I was in bed by 9pm) was that we would watch NANA instead, which makes some sense because I know some other people I know would like to watch it and it's from the same creator, but the solution seemed like kind of a cop-out and still doesn't quite sit right with me even though I went ahead and ordered the first DVD set anyway.

I suppose I might sound like a dick for saying this, but it's probably too much to ask for everyone I know to be able to take a step back and see secondary value in something that is not immediately excellent or entertaining. Most people are not going to think about the evolution of the artist or be wowed by what they see as archaic animation, and while that's unfortunate for me it's something that I just have to live with. And so the quest for anime to watch on Sunday nights continues, though with the new Fall season coming up I'm hoping that a couple of prospects I'm eying might pan-out.

AMV Recommendations 9/25/09

Well, it's been quite a while since I last did one of these, probably because it's been this long since I've done a sweep of the new announcements on the AMV.org forums. I'll try to make this a more frequent thing, because I enjoy AMVs and I think it can sometimes be difficult for people to find the really good, unique ones. Here are a few recent ones (all links lead to entries on AMV.org - you'll need a free account there to access them):

The Dreamer by ExSphere.

FLCL is an extremely overused source, but I really enjoyed this video. Unlike so many others, it's low-key, has a definite focus on the relationship between two main characters, and doesn't resort to using many of the "tricks" I often see in FLCL amvs (namely the use of a lot of the manic action stuff and quirky visuals).

La Cane de Feu by Cyanna.

A Princess Tutu AMV set to Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird." It might seem almost too obvious to set an anime already steeped in classical music pieces to an orchestral suite, but this works by taking elements from the anime and shifting the focus slightly, altering the story enough to make it feel fresh. It's quite lengthy at nearly ten minutes, but it's worth it.

The Earth's Guardian by Atio.

This is a strange hybrid of Seirei no Moribito, The Lion King and Planet Earth, in which Chagum is portrayed as the Earth's savior. The concept seems a little bizarre, but it's executed well and very pretty to boot.

Gyah, watching these makes me really want to go and make some AMVs of my own!

Follow Up - Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 episodes 1-11 [END] - CONTAINS SPOILERS

Mirai and Yuuki's family, in happier times.

I'm writing this having just finished watching Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 a few hours ago. When I wrote my review for the first episode, I felt like this was the series that would impress me the most during Summer Season '09. Even though there was some stiff competition from Aoi Hana, which I also loved, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ended up being not only a very surprising series, but also much more emotionally-affecting than one might have expected from a disaster flick. Both the summary and my thoughts might contain major plot spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Series Summary
The story revolves around Mirai, a middle-school student who is unhappy with the way her family interacts. Her mother works long hours and never seems to have time to spend with her, her father doesn't seem motivated to help out around the house, and her little brother, Yuuki, annoys her with his consistently naive and optimistic attitude. On the first day of her Summer vacation, Mirai's mother tasks her with taking Yuuki to a robot exhibition at Odaiba Island, something she considers a chore. While the two are there, the ground begins to tremble and a massive earthquake causes buildings to collapse.

Mirai, with the help of Mari, a motorcycle courier, finds her brother trapped inside a convenience store. When they make their way outside they find that cell phone communication is down and that, in order to make their way back to the mainland and home again, they'll have to go on foot. The two children and Mari, who becomes their caretaker, survive the collapse of the Rainbow Bridge and a harrowing ferry ride. They witness the fall of Tokyo Tower, which the children narrowly escape alive. As the aftershock tremors die down, they also experience the emotional aftermath of the event, including watching people mourning in makeshift areas for the dead.


In one of the series' set pieces, the Rainbow Bridge collapses after burning overnight, as Mirai, Yuuki and Mari escape on the ferry.

All three companions experience physical ailments along the way. Mirai gets blisters from her sandals and injures her leg. Mari collapses from anemia. And Yuuki collapses in the middle of the street while walking, and Mirai and Mari rush him to the nearest hospital. Mirai experiences nightmares of worst-case scenarios regarding her brother's condition, and though she isn't able to come to terms with the fact at first, reaching Yuuki's classroom and seeing his friend causes her to finally realize that Yuuki passed away, and that she must make the final walk home on her own to reunite with her family.

A month after the event, Mirai and her family are still attempting to return to a feeling of normalcy, even though Yuuki is no longer with them. Mari comes for a visit and returns Yuuki's backpack, along with the birthday present the two bought for their mother and Mirai's cell phone. When she checks her email, she finds one from Yuuki, written on Mari's phone during their journey. Mirai begins to take care of the plant Yuuki and his friend planted at their elementary school, maintaining her brother's memory.


The plant that Yuuki and his friend planted.

Thoughts - Very Spoilery
Overall this series felt particularly well-constructed. There were certainly a couple of low points - Mari's collapse seemed contrived and ultimately that episode felt like it served no purpose, and their meeting with Kenta, a robot-otaku, also didn't seem to contribute anything to the story (well, other than an excuse to animate cute tachikoma-like rescue robots). But overall I felt that each episode, in addition to featuring some well-researched earthquake destruction, also contained a very real emotional element to it that connected with me, the second half especially.

Before I get into more of my specific reactions, I'd like to respond to a criticism I've been seeing in various internet locales. Many people seem to be stuck on the fact that the series creators have been emphasizing a commitment to research and realism, and yet Mirai's "hallucination" of her brother seems entirely unrealistic to them. I think this reflects a misunderstanding on the part of these viewers. Essentially, if I wanted an entirely sterile, factual account of an earthquake, I could probably watch any number of documentaries on the subject. Representing Mirai's inability to accept her brother's death by having her create an image of Yuuki to help herself cope seems like the best way to represent the situation in a visual medium like animation.


When Mirai can't come to terms with Yuuki's death, she copes by imagining him still alive.

I think the other purpose it serves is to increase the impact of his passing. While more observant viewers are presented with clues to the reality of the situation as early as episode 8, including Mari obtaining an unspecified "legal document" from the hospital and the fact that she doesn't speak directly to Yuuki at all from that point onward, more casual viewers might be more prone to be surprised by the "Sixth Sense" type reveal in episode 10. Either way, the situation is incredibly sad and surprising at the same time - normally one wouldn't expect a main character to get killed, let alone the youngest one.

All of this makes more sense, though, when you consider that this really isn't a series about a disaster at all; the shaking of Tokyo is really just a backdrop for the human drama taking place, specifically that of Mirai learning to appreciate what she has, including her imperfect family and the brother with whom she had trouble getting along. This series is a very good example of what I consider good character development. Whereas in a lot of shounen action type series, the hero can experience all sorts of life-altering situations including the deaths of other characters and other types of losses while almost never undergoing any sort of logical, permanent change in attitude or outlook, Mirai transforms from a sullen preteen to someone who is honestly able to express love for her brother and can eventually make peace with her family. In other words, over the course of 11 episodes she's able to mature in a more convincing way than many characters who exist in series much longer, and I see that as a triumph of this series. To those people who I saw complaining online about her "bitchy" and "selfish" attitude at the outset of the show, I would tell them to both try and remember themselves and their own awkwardness at the onset of puberty (and I assume that most anime fans have experienced that feeling being misunderstood and not belonging) and to watch the character's transformation from beginning to end. Personally, I saw a lot of my adolescent self in Mirai, and I connected with her story quite a bit.


Mirai can't tell if her brother's death is a nightmare or reality.

When I wrote my review, I commented on the maintenance of tension in the first episode, something which I think has carried through the series in various ways. In some ways this is done sort of cheaply; there are multiple instances where it appears that someone is lost or injured, but it's a fake-out and they're actually just fine. There are other times, however, where the feeling of tension is masterfully orchestrated. One scene that comes to mind is where the three main characters are trying to make their way to the ferry, and the mass of people begins to stampede. The confusion that arises, and the uncertainty about whether or not the three will be able to stay together and keep from being trampled made this scene one of the most frightening in the show for me. Though the latter half isn't populated with so many intense moments, I felt that waiting for Mirai to come to terms with her brother's death and what sort of aftermath would occur once she made the realization was enough to make a knot in my chest.


The crush of people rushing towards the ferry, one of the more tense and frightening moments in the series.

I think the only really minor overall criticism I could make at this point would be that the visuals suffer quite a bit in the middle portion of the show. While the character designs are pretty simplistic to begin with, there's a lot of inconsistency in the character animation at some points that is difficult to ignore. It also seems to be a growing trend for studios to use CG animation during crowd scenes, and there are a lot of scenes in this series with many CG background characters that stand out very obviously to me. I think the saving grace in this case is that this isn't a series reliant on flashy action animation for the most part. A lot of the very dramatically-animated portions are that of buildings collapsing, and those scenes are very convincing. Other than that, most of the subsequent parts of the series are more reliant upon the writing, and in that case I have very few complaints.

Needless to say, I recommend this series very highly. Though the "disaster movie" genre is done to death in Western live-action films, somehow the different setting and the focus on the characters rather than the special effects gives this series a certain freshness. For viewers who are scared off by series that are "too Japanese," there's nothing to fear here either - aside from discussion about a few Tokyo landmarks, there aren't too many cultural quirks to wrap one's head around. Noitamina has another excellent hit on its hands, and this is definitely one of the timeslot's better recent offerings.


A memorial left on Yuuki's empty school desk.

Toradora Week 2 - Episodes 3 and 4

Episode 3 - "Your Song"

Minori and Ryuji make the best of being trapped inside the storage shed.

Ryuji's rice cooker breaks, so he and Taiga go to the local "Johnny's" family restaurant to eat. Minori works there as a waitress, one of the many part-time jobs she apparently holds. Another is at a liquor store, and Ryuji offers to help her out, dragging Taiga along unwillingly. Ryuji and Minori get locked in the storehouse, and while inside Ryuji learns a bit more about her.

Episode 4 - "That Moment's Expression"

Ryuji finds out that Yusaku confessed his feelings to Taiga a year ago, and that she rejected him.

Ryuji finds Taiga's stash of blurry photographs of Yusaku, and offers to take some better ones for her to have. After getting her prizes, Ryuji offers to laminate the ones she likes the best, but she can't choose and leaves the photos with him. Yusaku finds out about them, and then reveals that he confessed his feelings to Taiga a year ago and was rejected.

Thoughts
While episode 3 garnered a lot of cheap laughs from Taiga's inability to ride a bicycle, it was redeemed by its focus on Minori who, despite being a little bit wacky and extremely enthusiastic, seems to have some hidden reasoning behind her upbeat attitude and her multiple part-time jobs. What's going on there isn't quite clear at this point, but having established her as having something of a hidden side has boosted my interest in the series a bit.

Of course, it becomes even more clear in episode 4 why tsunderekko are annoying to me - Taiga's tsundere rage appears to have quashed any chance at a relationship she could have had with Yusaku right from the start, since she rejected his confession a year ago. Yes, again I realize that if things worked logically and people behaved themselves, then there wouldn't be enough conflict to fill a series of this length. But it still grates on me to see people behaving in immature ways that are counter-productive to their own happiness. Doubly-so because I think that the tsundere character type is very unrealistic. At least, I've never met anyone who was so standoffish, but perhaps I'm just lucky.

Looks like next week the last of the five main characters gets a proper introduction (she appeared briefly in episode 4), complicating matters even further.

Toradora - Week 1 - Episodes 1 and 2

As I mentioned, due to the show's popularity and my original disinterest in it, I've made it a task of mine to blog about the episodes of Toradora that the anime club I attend shows each week, and see if and/or how my opinion of the show changes. I'm slightly behind, so I'll post the first two weeks' reactions back-to-back in order to catch up.

Episode 1 - "Tiger and Dragon"

Taiga surprises Ryuji at home in the middle of the night.

It's the first day of school and Ryuji, who unfortunately has the type of face that causes people to mistake him for a violent thug, meets up with Aisaka Taiga, the doll-like school spitfire. After a late day at school, Ryuji goes back to the classroom to retrieve his bag, only to find Taiga there. Later that night, he finds out why - Taiga's attempt to slip a love confession note to her crush, Kitamura Yusaku seems to have failed, since Ryuji now has it in his bookbag and the note isn't even in the envelope. Taiga confronts him in the middle of the night, and Ryuji, after convincing Taiga of his own patheticness (he nurses a major crush on Taiga's best friend, Minori), offers to help her do things correctly. They establish what they hope will be a mutually-beneficial relationship so that they both can achieve their romantic goals.

Episode 2 - "Ryuji and Taiga"

The oft-mentioned lamp-post scene unfolds as the two leads vent their frustrations at being mistaken for things that they're not.

The unlikely duo begin setting their plans in motion. Unfortunately, their recent closeness gives their classmates the wrong idea about their relationship with each-other, a situation counteractive to their goals. Taiga attempts to set the record straight with Yusaku and even confesses her feelings to him before school, but he politely declines and wishes to remain friends.

Thoughts
I had seen these two episodes before, back when everyone on the internet was singing the praises of the show. I watched episode 2 with anticipation, since I had been told that the "lamp post scene" was an example of how genuine the series was - how it conveyed the emotions of the characters and made them very relatable. At the time I was pretty underwhelmed, as I've stated before. What I had been told was "fresh" didn't feel as such, and I abandoned the series for other things that I found much more interesting.

One thing that has altered my perception a bit this time, however, is watching these episodes along with a fairly large audience; an audience which largely consists of people who just aren't very experienced in the fandom at all, or who don't have much viewing experience outside of R1 releases. They laugh at all the jokes I've heard a million times, and genuinely enjoy situations which I see as contrived, and it's difficult to sit in the same room with swells of laughter and not feel compelled to at least crack a smile. I may be extremely critical and I'm unapologetic about the fact that I probably wouldn't watch this series on my own, but I think that, given the environment, I can certainly keep along with it and possibly even enjoy it on some level, without fundamentally abandoning my opinion of it.

I think the one thing which may turn out to be a deal-breaker is the fact that the female lead is an obnoxious tsundere. I'm not a big fan of that character type and probably never will be except under very specific circumstances (I liked Kagami in Lucky Star, but since that series was so self-aware I see it as being a bit outside the norm anyway). Mostly, I just want to grab Taiga by the shoulders and tell her to quit acting like an obnoxious bitch all the time. But then, of course, the show would have no major conflict and it wouldn't take 26 episodes to untangle whatever misunderstandings are bound to happen. So we'll see if I'm able to put up with her the whole time.

So far, though, my feelings are fairly neutral. I have my annoying nitpicks about certain things, but so far the funny moments have kept those things in check. We'll see how this feeling changes as the weeks go on.

Americanization

A friend of mine sent me a link to an amusing image the other day. It's the cover art for the first volume of the American release of the Moyashimon manga, which is, one might say, drastically different from the Japanese version. See if you can tell which one is the original and which one is the American version. You get just one guess:



Okay, fine, obviously the US version has the English on it. But you'll notice that the cover art is strikingly different as well. Like I told my husband, my first reaction to this was "WHUT," but I got over it pretty quickly and now I actually think it's kind of amusing and charming. And considering that the subject matter of the manga was such that I figured it would never gain a foothold in the US, I feel like Del Rey can pretty much do whatever they please to the superficial cover artwork, as long as the content inside remains faithful. I've just pre-ordered the book, by the way, and I can't wait to be able to read it (I own the first six volumes in Japanese and it's kind of a difficult read, what with all the biological terminology and such).

Changing Tastes

Ugh, so I spent the last couple of days moping around in the evenings feeling crappy, thus no updating. Well, whatever; I can't be on top of things every day.

So I was thinking today about how much my taste in entertainment has changed dramatically between about the time I entered college (9 years ago!) to the present time. I used to be an avid gamer, but now you'd have to pay me to pick up the JRPGs that I once drooled over (honestly I don't have 60 hours to spend watching some spikey-haired hero angst about his village burning down or being made into a glorified science experiment or whatever the vogue storyline is nowadays). I don't watch much domestic TV anymore, either. Sometimes I'll catch online re-runs of really good stuff like "The Office," but other than that I rarely watch much beyond the Food Network and HGTV, which is more like background noise. This change has extended to my entertainment medium of choice, anime, as well. As in, I used to watch anything and everything animated in Japan and loved it for the simple reason that it was Japanese, but now I've become just as picky about anime as I would be about films or television if my entertainment interests had skewed more in that direction.

Looking back on some of the things that we watched and that I enjoyed early on in anime club, I can say without a doubt that there are plenty of things that I would definitely not enjoy a second time. Stuff like Fushigi Yuugi, which was funny at the time in a sort of "let's make the same jokes over and over again and not progress the story in any meaningful way" kind of way, or Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu which suffered from the same problem. I even have so much baggage about CLAMP's more recent stuff that watching X would be a chore for me. Yes, I am very picky and not shy about it, your point being?

Of course, there are some things that I saw years ago and still have a fondness for. I think I could watch Azumanga Daioh many times over and still enjoy it, because even though the characters fit very cleanly into your average slice-of-life character archetypes, there was something about them that really made the show fun, and sometimes even kind of heartwarming. Revolutionary Girl Utena grabbed me by the collar and smacked my brain around the first time I ever attended MAS, and it hasn't let go since. I could watch that show 50 times and probably still get something new from it. Haibane Renmei has also been a perennial favorite of mine. I want to stick my neck out and make a comment regarding the difference between "flash-in-the-pan" and "enduring quality," but I'm afraid of getting reamed-out by any overly-passionate fans rolling through.

What I will say is that all the series that have remained amongst my favorites have connected with me in some way. Whether it's because they portray an experience that I wish I had been through or because they touch on themes that ring true for me in my life, it's interesting how enduring certain series can be even when the audience grows up and moves on in so many other areas of their lives. Sometimes nostalgia isn't about looking back towards better times; it might be just about re-living fond memories in addition to creating new ones.

The New Face of the Anime Fandom

Last Thursday was the first Fall meeting of the Manga Anime Society, the college anime club which I've been attending as a regular member since October 2001. The first meeting of the year is usually pretty interesting since there are a lot of new faces and it's difficult to guess whether they'll remain for the rest of the semester, or if they're just kind of testing the waters. This time, though, I felt some distinct differences from previous years, and I'm curious whether this might signal some greater shifts in the anime fandom at large.

One of the biggest changes I saw was how outgoing a lot of the new people were. Speaking from personal experience and also years of observation, there seems to be a tendency amongst anime fans to be a little shy, at least at first. This year, the minute I walked into the room, I was met with a new member who immediately introduced himself and struck up a conversation with me. As more people filtered in, many of them new and unacquainted with each-other, they sat down next to others, introduced themselves, and were almost immediately talking about anime, games, their classes and whatever else came to mind. In this case I found the change in attitudes to be overwhelmingly positive. The more friends people make, the likelier they are to stay for the long haul, to participate in club activities, and to eventually take over the reigns - essentially, the future success of the club is more assured the more people are enjoying themselves from the outset.

Another shift is something that wasn't necessarily a surprise to me due to me hanging around some public anime forums, but which still surprised a couple of my friends is the attitude shift towards English dubs of anime. While the issue is a moot point this semester since all the series we're watching are unlicensed and in fansub form, I did hear a couple of complaints from new people about MAS's policy of watching all series in the original Japanese with subtitles. I think originally the reason for the policy was that a lot of old dubs were kind of terrible, and the policy remained because, if watching it in its original language, we can configure the club as not only interested in foreign entertainment for entertainment's sake, but also as an entity focused on more cultural items (I mean, yes, we're watching Japanese cartoons and having a good time and that's the main focus, but we're also at the mercy of the U of MN and want to seem at least partially academic). Personally, I'm not averse to modern dubs because most of them range from passable to pretty good. But having taken over three years of the Japanese language in college, I prefer to hear the Japanese.

I think that the attitude shift here might be due to the newer generation of fans having had lots of anime available on television and on the DVD racks during their formative years as fans. Being able to see anime in their native language was the rule rather than the exception, whereas for many people my age, in order to see shows that weren't Sailor Moon or the few things that weren't on Cartoon Network, fansubs were the rule rather than the exception and we all got used to reading our dialog.

I think an extension of this is some confusion I noticed regarding things that are very tied to Japanese culture. The three main showings this semester are all pretty straightforward without much cultural baggage, but our pre-showing, Astro Fighter Sunred, not only references a very Japanese genre of entertainment (sentai/tokusatsu) but involves many references to Japanese foods, entertainment and day-to-day issues. It's not really esoteric by any means, but it is a bit quirky and even though much of the humor relies on the personalities of the main characters, there are situations where someone who is unfamiliar with Japan might not get the full impact of the joke. The one comment from my new friends that stuck with me was "well this is never coming to the US, is it?" to which I might reply, "does it have to?"

I think part of the reason that I watch anime in the first place is that I'm interested in the peculiarities of Japanese culture itself, and so little interjections here and there in the case of this gag comedy, or even complete immersions in it in the case of something like Mononoke, aren't off-putting to me. But I suppose to someone who's used to a more Westernized translation and who hasn't done any research into the culture behind the entertainment might be confused and even turned-away by something that they aren't familiar with and can't wrap their heads around. What I find interesting is that when I started getting heavily into the fandom it seemed like my fellows in MAS, many of whom were involved in various different academic focuses, enjoyed the Japan-specific series just as much or more as the more Western ones. A show just being different or quirky was enough for it to provide some modicum of entertainment, and there seemed to be some inherent pleasure in uncovering something weird. Perhaps the negative in that situation is that these series, like Azumanga Daioh or Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade, might only be enjoyed by some people because of their "foreign-ness," rather than because of their other positive aspects, but at the very least the fact that a Japanese animation from Japan wasn't avoided for being too Japanese.

My hope is that people will ease into the weirder, less-licensable stuff after they see a bit more of it and become accustomed to the different pacing and intent. But the fact that the unusual stuff was met with apprehension rather than somewhat-confused glee worries me a bit.

CSI: The manga

The other day, my friend emailed me a link to the trailer for Tokyopop's OEL (Original English Language) manga interpretation of the popular CSI television franchise. She asked what I thought of it. I'm not entirely certain what specific part, if any, she was referring to. She might have been fishing for my views on the legitimacy of OEL manga, or what I thought about an American TV franchise being translated from screen to graphic novel. Or perhaps she was curious what I thought about the trailer itself or whether or not the manga might actually be good. I think I'll try to address all those points.

A lot of people get really irate regarding the nomenclature of manga-influenced comics, OEL manga, world manga or whatever the popular term nowadays is. My husband even refuses to use the term "manga" in reference to any graphic novel or comic that isn't Japanese, referring to them as simply "black and white backwards comics." Joking aside, though, I'm not particularly picky about the use of the word "manga," since from what I understand the Japanese use the word in reference to any comics, including international ones. Alternately, when someone says "manga-influenced" or "manga-style" I get a pretty clear picture in my head of characters drawn in the typical manga style, with stories collected into paperback volumes printed in black-and-white. On one hand, it is a copycat style, but having had artistic aspirations of that nature myself at one point, I understand the urge to ape the style itself as a form of admiration. To that end I see nothing inherently wrong with manga-influenced comics, whatever name they're currently called.

Of all the TV franchises that I can think of (which is honestly not that many since most of my TV-watching time is devoted to anime), the CSI franchise seems like one of the better choices to adapt. While there's probably not a whole lot of crossover between CSI fans and manga fans, the show itself is very episodic, a trait which has led itself to be spun-off into related adaptations. I told my friend that I was reminded of Detective Conan, in that they both involve crime investigations and tend to be more episodic than not. So it seems to me that there's some precedent with that sort of story.

As for the trailer/manga being any good, I can't quite say. The use of younger interns as the main characters in the manga sounds like an attempt to appeal more towards the younger manga readership, and perhaps translate whatever success the manga has into higher ratings for the parent TV show as the readers graduate into full-fledged viewers. I personally have become a little wary of the "youthification" formula, because I feel like it's a process that might adversely deduct from the sophistication of the story, but I obviously haven't read the manga and don't know whether that's a problem or not. I certainly don't think that the manga is doomed to be inherently bad, though, despite being written and drawn by "gaijin" and being written in English, which, for a certain sub-set of anime and manga fans are inexcusable traits.

My conclusion about the matter: I don't really care too much, and congratulations if they manage to make a few bucks.

Dance in the Vampire Boob

OH WAIT, I mean, Dance in the Vampire Bund, an anime set to premiere this Autumn. I'm sure you'll forgive my slip-of-the-keyboard.

The other day I was reading the Animenation news blog, where the maintainer had posted a link to the promo video for the series, a tale of vampires revealing themselves to society and the aftermath of their establishment of a settlement off the Japanese coast, called the "Bund." I'm not a very big fan of vampires myself - blame that on things like Interview With the Vampire and Twilight and the hordes of squealing fans that soon follow their mere mention - but I do tend to enjoy vampire stories more if they're more violent and less "boo-hoo I'm so sad about my immortality." This series seems like it'll have some blood and gore, which is fine by me.

One thing that's putting me off, though, is the nudity displayed by the main character throughout the preview. Really, I try not to be prudish and I understand that there's a difference between simple nudity and fanservicey pandering, but in this case it's more a combination of the main character's visual age, (her chronological age is supposedly much greater - see "really seven hundred years old") and her penchant for near-nudity. Seriously, she looks like a twelve-year-old hooker (image probably NSFW). Whatever the surrounding storyline may be, I can't help but think that characters like this are just an excuse to show a little underage titty, squeaking it through on a technicality.

Don't worry; if the show is genuinely good I'll try not to give it the Bakemonogatari treatment and become too focused on the nudity aspect. But I've seriously got my eye on the show now, and I'm hoping it won't tread too far into "ick" territory.

Here's the PV, for those of you who are curious (NSFW):

Book is God

Recently some friends and I got in a heated debate over the necessity, quality and ethics of turning books into films. The trigger for the conversation was the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation for the children's picture book Where the Wild Things Are which I had seen in the theater with these friends before our viewing of Ponyo. At the time, I was immediately struck by the natural beauty of the trailer, the realistic yet fantastic look of the creatures, and the overall earthy feel to the production. What I didn't know until last night was that the friends I was with had an overall negative view of production.

These friends are of the "Book is God" school of thought - any adaptation of an author's work taints the story unless it's 100 percent faithful. Movie adaptations are a scheme to make money on the coattails of an author's well-known or beloved book unless they're a direct translation of the book to the screen. Authorial intent is the alpha and the omega.

Another friend of mine who was present for this debate is somewhere on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was an English and Cultural Studies major and has an avid interest in things like fan fiction and vidding, activities which, by their nature, use an original work as a jumping-off point to explore other aspects of the text. Authorial intent isn't important in this school of thought, because it's more about what the reader gets out of the text.

I'm somewhere in the middle.

Truth be told, I was originally on the more conservative side of the argument. When I first learned about fanfiction, my gut reaction was to make statements like "why don't fanfiction authors put their talent towards creating their own characters and worlds instead of just using someone else's?" That, of course, is a statement that ignores the human tendency to see something and be inspired and to connect on some level with fictional characters, which, spoken from personal experience, can be a very strong desire if the characters are developed well. I have since embraced the fannish side of things a little bit more, and while I'm not big on reading fanfiction, I've done my share of fan art and daydreaming and feel like I understand the desire to want to expand on an existing fiction, to "read between the lines" as my friend put it.

As an extension of that, I don't see any inherent problems in translation a text from one medium to another. A good book might be competently translated into a good movie, or graphic novel, or even a game. Each medium has its own strengths and weaknesses, and a knowledgeable creative mind who is sensitive to those strengths and weaknesses can formulate the story into something that will shine. That doesn't mean that every attempt will be good - I'm sure we all have examples of a favorite book turned into a mediocre movie, or perhaps a TV show from our childhood incompetently reversioned to try and reap a few dollars from nostalgia, while losing the spirit of what made the original entertaining. In my opinion, though, the very act of wanting to bring a favorite story to a new audience isn't in itself a crime, or even a misguided action.

Of course, the question that my friends repeatedly asked of us was "why?" Why even bother "reading between the lines," finding alternate meanings in an author's work? Why not just explore those meanings in a completely original context?

Before I get into attempting to answer that question (which is a very difficult one), I should probably mention why I'm even bringing this up here, on my anime blog, rather than on my personal journal. The reason is that all of us, including these skeptical friends of ours, are anime fans. We're fans of a medium that draws probably 95% of its output from other sources, be it manga, light novels, tabletop games, visual novels, eroge... heck, there's even a currently-running anime based on a popular line of pachinko games. And not all series that are based on other media are good just because of their source material - there are some anime that, for whatever reasons, outshine the manga on which they are based. Nodame Cantabile, while based on a manga that's very good, really feels complete once music is added (and in addtion to that, there's an also-great live-action version - there's a slightly different focus but it's still wonderful and worth seeing as a companion to the manga and anime). Revolutionary Girl Utena is an anime with so much more depth and richness that the manga pales in comparison. I've heard anectdotally that the anime versions of Ouran Host Club and S-cry-ed are much better than their respective mangas (I've only seen the anime versions of these two series). And we don't speak of the Le Chevalier d'Eon manga (even though the anime and manga are actually both based on a book).

In any case, anime is a medium populated almost entirely by "ripped-off" ideas, and yet amongst the cheaply-produced crud that's created solely to make money off of established properties, there are still creators who can take from those established properties the elements that work. In turn producing wonderful, enthralling examples of animation based on those elements, retaining the spirit of the originals while working with the strengths of an alternate medium and perhaps drawing out alternate interpretations of the source text that might engage a new audience.

Again, though, the million-dollar question is "why bother?" That's extremely difficult to answer, because when I think about it, it's something that I just know. I feel like I just innately understand the urge to reinterpret an author's work and why there's value in that act, but it's not easy to put into words. Sometimes it's honestly just to make money, and in those cases I'm really not interested. But that's not always the case. For example, why keep making Batman movies? Sure, if no one had bothered to "rip off" the Batman comic book franchise, there never would have been a tragedy like Batman and Robin (which obviously was trying to cash in on name recognition without trying to be sensitive to the things that make Batman entertaining). But we also would never have had triumphs like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, arguably two of the best comic-book translations to film ever made. I think the existence of the latter two answer that tough question by their very existence.

An example that we actually discussed were the Lord of the Rings films, entities that our friends openly admitted to picking apart after viewing. Having read the books in middle school first and gotten a good feel for them, I also loved the movies. Why? To put it bluntly, Tolkien was an incredible world-builder, but his writing wasn't very good. The novels are difficult to understand, are rife with minutiae (that, while awesome in the context of a history book or encyclopedia, are TMI when sprinkled liberally into a story), aren't written in a way that clearly represents the passage of time and what things are happening when, and they end with an anti-climactic confrontation (when the hobbits return to the shire and Saruman has busted it up) that stands as just one example of how the pacing is weird and unnatural. And yet the film adaptation takes all these things and streamlines them, keeping the important details, leaving references to others for those who are looking, and creating a motion picture trilogy that feels like the best parts of the original while still being accessible to people who would never in their lives pick up and read a 1200 page tome. Leaving out Tom Bombadil or any number of the countless songs and poems Tolkien included in his original text are nitpicky complaints that represent a keen misunderstanding of what the most inspiring and beautiful parts of that story are - the multiple tales of people overcoming nearly impossible odds to accomplish great deeds of heroism. Or, at least, that's what I love about it - if you're into memorizing small details, piecing together chronology and poring over poems and songs, I apologize for your loss.

Finally, to put it simply, I would ask my own question. Assuming book-to-film and other adaptations are going to happen either way, why bother making the film a direct copy of the book? I've already read the book, so then why waste my time with the movie? The first two Harry Potter films were slavishly faithful to the books, whereas the most recent film left out a lot of items - yet the most recent film is probably what I would consider the best, or at least my favorite in the franchise. It had a lot of humor that, unexpectedly, just worked, and yet retained the gravity of the important scenes. As long as both versions work, why sweat the small things? How about just enjoying each version for what it is, and not immediately assuming the worst .

When I see the trailer for the film version of Where the Wild Things Are, I don't get that vibe of someone trying to cash in by making a cheap and quick version of a story beloved by so many people. I see an artist who probably read the book as a youngster and kept that with him through these years, his imagination running wild and expanding that world into a more complex narrative. Even if that scenario isn't quite true (and I may very well be applying some wishful-thinking to the situation), the trailer looks gorgeous and blends a sense of earthiness with that of childlike wonder, and, at least at this moment, I'm anticipating seeing more.

The Toradora Viewing Project

Hopefully I won't feel like this after watching the whole darned thing.

This isn't an uncommon occurrence by any means, but once again a show that didn't have any interest in in the least has since blown up into one of the more popular anime of recent memory. In this case, the series is last Fall's romantic comedy, Toradora. I would normally be content to keep ignoring the series and letting its gaggle of fans fawn over it on their own. Unsurprisingly, however, the anime club I'm a part of voted the show in to be viewed this semester, so I have less of a choice in the matter than I normally would.

I could just find something else to do for that hour every week, but I figure that I should make the best of the situation and see whether or not the show lives up to its enormous hype. Each week I'm going to try and blog about the two episodes I've seen at anime club (or, if my friends find something better to do during that time, I'll try to watch them on my own before the following week). Perhaps I can get some insight into why the series is so popular across the board.

I'm not going to lie, I'm going into my viewing having seen the first couple episodes already and being very underwhelmed by them, and I'm not expecting much, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. Or I'll get to rant every week, whatever works :)

Moe, Revisited

The characters of K-ON! a recent popular moe series.

Every once in a while a butthurt fanboy (there haven't been any fangirls that I know of, yet) will get on my case because I make it quite clear that I don't like moe. I'm not ashamed of that. I know it's sort of trendy to hate on moe these days, especially since it's become a genre in and of itself rather than an aspect of certain series. Honestly, though, I'm not trying to jump on some bandwagon just for the sake of slamming a certain (extremely vocal) section of the anime fan-base. I have my own good reasons.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about when I say "moe" (and no, I'm not talking about the barkeep on The Simpsons; the "e" is pronounced as well - mo-e), it's a Japanese term referring to the protective feeling one gets when presented with something small, cute and vulnerable. Like a little sister. At least, this is the traditional definition. As time went on, characters began to be boiled down to what traits made them moe. Things like cat ears (nekomimi), glasses (megane) and even personality traits (tsundere) were distinguished as being especially attractive.


Senjougahara defines her own personality with a common moe trait in a comedic moment.

The problem that I have now with moe is that, more often than not, characters are defined by their moe traits rather than actually undergoing character development, and just the idea of that completely grates on my nerves. Moe has become just a lazy shortcut to get people who are in love with a certain character type to watch the show and buy merch. I'm not going to fault a company for doing what it needs to do to make money, but on the other hand, I'm not going to congratulate an anime production or rate it highly for being artless and pandering and taking the lazy route as far as its characters are concerned.

Before I conclude the post, though, I will say that there are a few series that I would classify as "moe" that don't completely drive me insane. One is Lucky Star, which I enjoyed simply because it's very self-aware - Konata, the main character and otaku extraordinaire, sees the world (including her own friends) through moe-colored glasses and the humor comes from the fact that she's not really what one would call the "typical" moe fan. The venerable Azumanga Daioh, which many modern fans might not even classify as "moe" even though the main characters run the gamut of moe traits, still stands as one of the most charming and heartfelt slice-of-life comedies out there.


Lucky star, a comedic moe series that plays around with moe character types.

Unfortunately, most moe series remind me of that scene in Welcome to the NHK where Satou and his friend are trying to design a main character for their eroge and end up making her some sort of alien loli robot maid from the future - for the most part moe is an appeal to certain demographics for the purpose of attracting consumers, nothing more. And I don't have to be okay with it.

Haruhi - Endless 8

The girls buy the first of many sets of yukata.

I wanted to say a few words about the recent "Endless 8" controversy, and now that the whole thing is complete and I've watched it all, I feel comfortable doing so. For those of you who aren't aware of what I'm talking about when I utter that phrase, the quick-and-dirty answer is that it was a recent story arc in the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2/rebroadcast, and that it consisted of 8 full episodes - all of which covered the same events in the last two weeks of the S.O.S. Brigade's Summer vacation. The "time loop" was, of course, Haruhi's doing - she unconsciously felt that her Summer vacation was incomplete, and so the night before the first day back at school, time would reverse itself and the group would be back at August 17th all over again, to repeat themselves ad infinitum until a way out was discovered.

Many fans were quite unhappy with this set of episodes, to put things nicely.

To begin with, no one was sure (and still, no one really is sure) what this season's episodes would include, simply because no official schedule has really been posted. Once people realized that "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody," the first new episode to be broadcast, would be followed by more new episodes, speculation ran rampant and many speculative schedules appeared in forums across the internet. Most put the "Endless 8" story arc at one or two episodes - in the books, it was only a chapter long, so there was no reason to assume that it would consume so much air time. So when it went into a third and then a forth episode, fans began to get impatient, and then outright angry. Most of the internet chatter that resulted conveyed sentiments like, "Kyoto Animation is just pissing off the fans," or, "They're going to lose so much money over this." The same sort of "I-know-better-than-the-professionals" kind of chatter that tends to occur when ever a discussion arises about the state of the anime industry or the debate over subtitles versus dubs.

Honestly? I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

I'll admit right here: I was never a big fan of the original Haruhi series. I watched it after it had been hyped to me time and time again, and was particularly underwhelmed by it. I didn't like Haruhi as a main character, mostly because I don't find rude, bossy people very charming, and I especially didn't like the way she constantly molested Mikuru (especially since Mikuru would cry about it - victimization is hilarious, folks, especially when it's girl-on-girl! *eyeroll*). But I decided once I knew the second season was happening that it would be important for me to at least keep up on it, for the sake of keeping myself current on what was obviously going to be a huge hit. And while I witnessed the devotion of the pre-established fandom take a marked downturn, I actually found myself enjoying the story arc because of what it seemed to represent.


The clock ticks menacingly.

Ask John over at Animenation probably put this better already, but watching Endless 8 and the ensuing internet rage of its intended audience unfold, I got a sense that Kyoto Animation and Kadokawa were literally giving the fans exactly what they had begged for and harped about in the three years since the first season aired - more of the same. Imagine how frustrating it would be for a studio to release more series in the meantime, yet have the bulk of the fanbase whine about how the next season of Haruhi wasn't out yet. I'd certainly get fed up pretty darn fast, that's for sure. And, of course, things happened in an entirely predictable manner - having gotten what they had asked for, fans revolted on the studio, down-rated the series, and whined and cried online in protest.


Kyon surrenders to his fate.

I find it sort of funny how petty and ungrateful so many "fans" turn out to be when presented with what they want. I'm reminded of an anecdote told by Chris Ayers at Anime Detour last year. He mentioned how fans had been begging and pleading for anime DVDs to be released faster, and so when ADV released the DVDs, they released two episodes per disc for half the regular MSRP, so that the anime could come out more quickly. And "fans" pitched a fit, acting like the company was ripping them off somehow (the only issue I see would be shelf space, but big deal, right?). More recently, the licensing announcement of this Spring's Eden of the East had many people exclaiming that they wouldn't buy the series unless the theme song was kept intact, a matter which seems entirely petty and more like a shallow excuse to keep from spending the money on an otherwise great series.


Haruhi leaves the restaurant and Kyon stresses over the impending reset of the time loop.

So I wasn't too surprised to hear people rage on the internet about this. Unfortunately, their boorishness and short-sighted petty rage kept most of them from enjoying what was ultimately a pretty interesting experiment. Even though the events of the episodes were essentially the same, the tone underwent subtle changes each time. One episode put the focus more squarely on Yuki, who, unlike the others, was able to remember each and every time loop - this helped to create a lot of sympathy for the character. Others found different ways to highlight the direness of the characters' situations - eventually each scene where Haruhi left the restaurant for the last time became an exercise in the creation of mounting tension. One incarnation ended with a scene of Kyon's alarm clock ticking down to midnight on August 31st, each second a painful reminder that they hadn't solved the riddle of their dilemma yet. And when the cycle was finally broken, the sheer joy experienced by the characters (and the relief in myself, the viewer) was a feeling that simply couldn't have come about if the story arc had taken place over just a couple short episodes.


Yuki recounts the facts of the previous time loops in a particularly heavy moment.

Do I think that this method of storytelling was entirely necessary? No; I think that Endless 8 could have been perfectly serviceable, if forgettable, if it had just been another short story arc. But this is something that set the internet on fire and got people riled up, and I doubt that it will be forgotten very soon. And for me, personally, while I'm disappointed that so many people fell into the trap of acting like entitled brats, it was worth it for the entertainment value.

Manga Anime Society - Fall Semester 09

Just as a heads-up to anyone in the Twin Cities area, the University of Minnesota's resident anime club, the Manga Anime Society will be reconvening on Thursday, September 10th. The schedule is as follows:

6:30-7:00 - Astro Fighter Sunred
7:00-8:00 - Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief (the Daughter of Twenty-Faces)
8:00-9:00 - Toradora
9:00-10:00 - Michiko to Hatchin

Showings are free and open to the public, and take place in Moos Tower room 2-520 (it's below street level - take the staircase down and walk through the doors, the room will eventually be on the right side of the hallway). Showings are always free, but if you want to become a full-fledged member with voting rights and access to free snacks at all social nights, the membership fee is $6. Hope to see you there!

Group Mentality

Every once-in-a-while I find myself pondering the differences between watching anime (or anything, really) in a group and watching it by myself. Even though the content of a show is exactly the same either way, I find that my own reaction might be more or less dramatic depending on how many other people are around and might even even be colored who those people are.

This is a good reason why I try to watch the anime I intend to review on my own first before talking about it or watching it with other people. This has turned out to be a good personal policy, since I've ended up watching multiple things that friends have seen one or two episodes of and hated. It might surprise some people to know that there are quite a few series to which I give the benefit of the doubt and end up watching alone to little fanfare, whether other people I know have enjoyed it, panned it, or paid it little or no attention. I'm willing to believe that there are good, watchable examples of any genre, and try to watch series that fall into ones that many people I know dislike. I certainly wouldn't be watching any harem series, shounen action series or straight-up mecha anime if I let my friends influence what I was watching.


Despite its sometimes corny and melodramatic moments, I watched - and enjoyed - all of Antique Bakery.

Of course, it becomes more and more difficult to recommend series to people, because many tend to shut themselves down if one undesirable thing happens in an early episode. I've certainly been guilty of this too; my recent review of Bakemonogatari is proof of this, though I've since established much more positive feelings towards the series as a whole. But if I have to say to someone "just ignore this panty shot because the story is really good" I've already colored their reaction to a show - letting them know that they're not going to like something creates another hurdle to them being able to connect to it, whereas if the offending item occurred later in the series after they had established some connection to it, it would be easier to overlook. It's been a lot tougher for me lately to make recommendations to people with whom I interact with on a regular basis, because I've gotten into a mindset that so many series require excuses and even though I feel like I'm familiar with my friends' tastes, it's often surprising to me what they're willing to overlook and what might become an instant deal-breaker. With my online reviews that mainly reach people who I don't know personally, this personal aspect of trying to formulate my recommendations to personal acquaintances and the stress therein isn't really a factor.


Senjougahara taunts Araragi in a scene from episode 2 of Bakemonogatari - would my sensitive friends be able to look past this and enjoy the show?

Most of you know that I attend and am an active member of an honest-to-goodness, real-life anime club at the University of Minnesota. Watching anime in a group like this with ages that range from freshman to middle-age is an entirely different experience. With a group that has such a large number of members (attendance ranges between 30-60 members depending on the semester and the popularity of the series), reactions to certain series and certain aspects of said series tend to be very different than what I experience watching things alone. This can be both a positive and negative thing.

On the positive side, watching comedies and action series is generally a more fulfilling experience, because excitement is something that tends to build on itself the more people that are there to experience it. I felt kind of lukewarm about the original Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series because I felt that its jokes were a bit too Japanese-centric to connect with a Western audience, but when I watched it at anime club, I was proven wrong. The ability of the slapstick humor and quirkiness of the characters to override the Japanese cultural jokes was dramatic, and many people marked it as one of their favorites.


Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei often contains humor that a Western audience may not fully understand or appreciate.

On the negative side, though, shows with dramatic, sexual or otherwise controversial content seem to bring out the immaturity in many people. I think in some cases, content that someone might find emotionally-moving when viewed by themselves becomes uncomfortable in a group, and since the viewer doesn't want to appear weak or vulnerable in front of their acquaintances they hide their reactions behind obnoxious giggles or some other inappropriate response. I remember a particular occasion right at the end of Kaze no Yojimbo, when a character was dying, and one girl couldn't stifle her giggles during that dramatic moment because "OMG THIS PART IS SO YAOI!!!11one." She essentially ruined for the rest of the audience what was supposed to be a very dramatic, almost tragic moment with her inappropriate verbal ejaculation. Likewise, as far is as episode 18 people were still giggling over the male-to-female transformation of the main character in Le Chevalier d'Eon, even though by that time it was both old hat and inextricably linked to the plot, and had long since left "gimmicky" territory. This isn't to say that a large group can't share in being emotionally-affected - in a rare moment of maturity, the whole of MAS was silent the day we watched Voices of a Distant Star. But on the whole, I think that any group, even a smaller group, might suffer from bouts of this.


D'eon becomes possessed by his sister's spirit, which causes him to look more like her.

So why watch stuff with other people, especially when there's the potential to ruin your own viewing experience if the other people are unable to act like grown-ups? I think the reason that I keep participating in various anime viewing groups is a combination of various factors. In the past, when I was just branching out into anime fansubs, being amongst people who were more experienced in acquiring unusual anime and seeing things in anime club I would have never found on my own was a big factor in wanting to be in a group. Nowadays I feel like I'm on the other end, and as irritating as it can be to share series with others and have them completely miss the point, there are those times when something that I love is just as loved by others, and that's a high that just can't be replicated over the internet.

One is Enough

I've touched on this before from time-to-time, but I think it's a subject that bears repeating as often as possible until I stop getting flak for it (which will never happen, unfortunately). The mission of my method of reviewing, that being grabbing the first episode of all available anime series and basing an opinion off of them, is to get a good cross-section of what's out there each season and to get a good idea of whether or not each series is worth bothering with. It's a subjective process, but reviews of any kind always are; an objective review would be a recitation of stats like "number of episodes" or "members of the production staff," and I don't think many people would consider that a review worth reading.


Shin Mazinger Shougeki Z-Hen - I have no idea what is going on here.

I think the first episode of a series is a darned near perfect place from which to construct a review, because its purpose is to accomplish a particular task - the episode should get the viewer excited to see the rest of the show either through its presentation of story elements, the flashiness of its animation, demonstrating why the characters are worth following, or cultivating an element of mystery that makes the viewer want to see what happens next. Many series are successful at this to some degree, and it's really more a matter of my own taste as to whether I'd like to follow along. Unfortunately there are some series lately that make what are, in my opinion, major missteps with their introductory episodes. Sometimes the episode takes place in the middle or end of the story rather than at the beginning, sometimes it's purposely deceptive in some way, and still other times it may be intended more as a shout-out to fans of the original story (whether it occurred in manga or novel form) and may leave the uninitiated in the dust.


Mikuru Asahina - Reluctant Battle Waitress

Episodes like this certainly don't doom a series, and there are a few examples of shows that open in an unorthodox manner and do it well - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a good example. While episode 0 represented the finale of a story arc, the rest of which wasn't even animated until recently, it still managed to give a good feel for each of the main characters and was extremely funny due to its strikingly-accurate portrayal of a student film project. More often than not, however, shows that begin in the middle or end or contain too many fanservice-y in-jokes seem like attempts to cash-in on a trendy storytelling method and don't seem to have much thought put into whether this method actually makes sense for the series. The recent Shin-Mazinger Shougeki Z-Hen was a major offender, putting its last episode first and turning what would have been a climactic series-closer into a confusing train wreck of unintroduced characters and conflicts without context.


Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Instead of the beginning, let's just start with something completely unrelated.

So why not just set these episodes aside and watch a few subsequent episodes to get a clearer picture of the show's actual content? My main reason is because that ignores the reason why I started this amateur reviewing project in the first place. With a day job, a husband, a couple of cats, and other hobbies to worry about, I don't have time to watch more than one, maybe two episodes of most series, and my reviews are meant for people who have even less time than that. I also believe that the first episode is where creators need to put their best foot forward and showcase a series' strengths. If they waste that opportunity and try to manipulate me into watching a second episode by being confusing or overly-secretive, that's just a turn-off. I'm not a hikkikomori, a lonely otaku or someone with no other hobbies - my time to devote to anime isn't infinite and if I feel my time has been wasted in some way I'm especially irritated.

Additionally, I'd like to mention that first episode reviews are above-and-beyond what I see from most anime blogs and review sites on the web, especially sites with only one main blogger or reviewer. I've noticed that many other reviewers tend to pre-judge using synopses and concept artwork, eliminating many series from their plate before even seeing any actual footage. At the very least, I'm providing every series an equal opportunity to impress me, and I've been both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised more than once. It would be really helpful if naysayers would take that fact into account before slinging-mud in various other venues (of course, that's not the nature of internet discourse unfortunately).

Of course, this reasoning will never be enough for some people. Disagreement and complaints are inevitable with a public site such as this one, and I certainly don't expect complete agreement from everyone who stops by. It would be nice if everyone who had a snide remark also went to the lengths that I do to watch a bit of everything - I would be much more willing to listen, in that case.

Beauty Inside and Out

Recently I had the opportunity to watch two anime movies. The first, Miyazaki's Ponyo, I saw in the movie theater with some friends. The other, Sword of the Stranger, was a Blu-ray that a friend loaned to my husband and I, which we watched at home with our Sunday evening group. The films were pretty much on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of content; Ponyo is steeped in the innocence of childhood and its message is very simple and fairy-tale-like, whereas Sword of the Stranger is very obviously for adults since it contains copious amounts of violence and its story is much darker.

With two films that are so vastly different from each-other, it might seem like an exercise in foolishness to compare them. Their strengths and weaknesses are generally in different areas, they're aimed at different audiences, and in terms of visual style they obviously come from different schools of thought. But stepping back I think there's one area in which they can easily be compared - one has soul and the ability to draw forth emotional response in the viewer, and the other is nothing but a string of pretty pictures. I'm sure there will be people that disagree with me on this one, but Ponyo, flawed narrative and all, was easily the more emotionally-triumphant of the two films, whereas Sword of the Stranger was beautiful but empty and left me feeling completely neutral afterward.

From a writing standpoint, Ponyo had issues. It was unclear from the get-go whether or not Ponyo's father was to be considered a genuine baddy or just a concerned parent (he seems genuinely potent at the beginning of the film when he's dabbling in evolutionary magic and plotting his future revenge on the human race, but once Ponyo's mother, Grand Mamare, shows up, he seems relegated to being a grumbling father figure with little actual power over his rebellious child). There are obvious allusions to one of Miyazaki's pet issues - environmentalism. The story begins when Ponyo escapes her father's watchful eye and then gets trapped in some garbage being dredged from the bottom of the bay. However, this issue falls to the background as the film progresses and doesn't ever really return in full-force. And then the movie just kind of comes to a stopping point - rather than building tension and then coming to an epic climax, the characters never seem to be under any real threat and the movie concludes without them having undergone any major trials and tribulations (the test of true love that the adult characters talk-up near the end of the film is essentially Grand Mamare asking Sousuke, the little boy, whether he would love Ponyo even if she looked like a fish, the answer to which the audience knew the entire time).

But you know what? Despite some logical fallacies and some odd construction, this movie has one thing that trumps so many other films - it has a soul. That might sound like a cheesy claim to make, but the strength of this film is in its ability to get the audience to feel something. The two child leads, Sousuke and Ponyo, are charming, energetic, and above all, innocent - especially in Ponyo's case. It's difficult not to at least get a laugh out of her complete and utter joy of discovery, and I found myself welling up with emotion multiple times. Another factor that I loved which some might disagree on is the film's use of traditional animation techniques. The film employs no 3D CG effects (though I'm assuming until I know otherwise that the drawings were colored digitally rather than painted) and has a natural, painterly quality that many modern animated series and movies lack. While CG animation is certainly impressive in its own right, it lacks the fundamental human touch that traditional animation has - part of the charm of traditional animation is that it isn't perfect. One key animator might draw a character slightly off-model, or another might specialize in a certain type of movement and traditional animation is more reflective of this, whereas full CG or CG-aided productions seem to clean up and remove these calling cards, removing the human element. Ponyo stands as a triumph of this older methodology and it's a treat to see just what's still possible with this technique.

Sword of the Stranger is a departure from Ponyo in nearly every way. The visuals are, overall, much darker and more "grown-up" to fit with its darker story. It employs every modern trick in the book, including CG-aided set pieces, choreographed battle sequences, and oodles of blood and bone-breaking violence. It oozes "cool" from every pore. Unfortunately the creators seem to have concentrated too much on looking cool and not enough on developing sympathetic characters, because despite the flash and impressiveness of the animation, I found myself not caring much about the actual story.

The film is about a young boy named Kotaro who is hunted by a group of Chinese warriors since he holds the key to an immortality medicine their emperor desires. Kotaro is aided by Nanashi ("no-name"), a wandering samurai with a tragic past. Amongst their Chinese pursuers are a Westerner named Rarou who is after nothing other than a worthy opponent in battle. Nanashi makes it his duty to rescue Kotaro from the Chinese in order to atone for sins he committed while serving in the military (he killed some kids).

The production contains lots of samurai-movie stock characters, the most obvious of which is Nanashi, the nameless samurai who finds himself in the middle of someone else's problem and, due to a soft spot, ends up helping out. The major issue is that hardly any of the characters are sympathetic. Kotaro is, honestly, a little douche-bag, something which became problematic to me as the viewer. I didn't really care if he was captured and killed because his attitude was so snotty throughout much of the first 3/4 of the film. It was much more emotionally-affecting when his dog was poisoned by an errant enemy weapon. Rarou is just another violent Westerner out for a fight; a one-dimensional, robotic characature in place so that an epic boss battle can occur at the climax of the film. The Chinese are all on performance-enhancing drugs that dull their pain response, so they in turn become weapon-wielding maniacs that exist to be mangled before finally meeting their end. Nanashi's backstory provides him with a little bit of depth, but in turn it almost feels forced and emotionally-manipulative towards the viewer (what's one of the most horrible things someone could possibly do? Oh yeah, kill some kids).

The story seems like little more than an opportunity for Nanashi to get into a string of fights, and in this respect this plays to the film's major strength - the impressiveness of its battle choreography. Studio Bones is no slouch when it comes to impressive animation - even most of its TV animation has moments of cinematic-level visual quality - and this film serves as a showcase of what they're capable of. Each battle is a visual treat, topped of by the final confrontation between Nanashi and Rurou which, while it ends predictably in Nanashi's victory, is gripping from beginning to end.

Before I'm accused of hating on action anime, I should be clear that I don't believe that cool visuals necessarily preclude a shallow story. Shows like Casshern SINS and Samurai Champloo are good examples of shows with a strong action focus that actually have sympathetic characters and some depth in the story. However, while many probably disagree with me on this, a few striking battle sequences and some pretty artwork aren't enough to culminate in a satisfying viewing experience, a mistake that I feel many modern anime, and especially action anime, productions are too prone to making. Sword of the Stranger goes through the motions competently, but just doesn't have much soul behind it. After watching it, I pretty much just shrugged my shoulders and moved on to something else without feeling the need to meditate on it very much.

Don't take my dismissal as a complete condemnation of the film, though. I think that the movie is definitely worthy of a rental, especially if you have the capability of viewing the Blu-ray version on an HD television. It's certainly not a waste of time to watch, either. But I do think that there are better animated films out there that strive to provide visual entertainment and quality storytelling without sacrificing one for the other.

When Anime Breaks Into Song

You know what's kind of irritating? Having a song stuck in your head. It's even worse when the song isn't one that you really like all that much. I tend to get anime themes trapped in my mind, and they're often from series that I've seen maybe one episode of before dooming it to the recycle bin for all eternity. But this really takes the cake. My review for Taishou Yakyuu Musume hasn't been posted yet, but the first episode has an unexpected musical number in it that's been stuck in my head since I first watched it. It didn't help that I took the time to upload it to Youtube, and thus had to hear it more times while I was editing the video. So if you haven't heard it yet, here's the accursed thing for you. Share in my pain.



Please don't hate me too much.

Worst EVER!

...Or so one would think listening to forum chatter (which is a bad, bad idea, I tell you). Something that continues to amuse me no matter how many times I hear it and how many new anime seasons I sample is the enraged outcry of at least one person proclaiming that the current/upcoming season is "the worst ever" and how "anime continues to go downhill." To me this is mostly a case of what someone online cleverly deemed "rose-colored nostalgia glasses;" of course anime of the past seems better, because we've all forgotten the junk that was released alongside it. Can any average anime fan name even ten or even five other anime that came out the same year as something like Cowboy Bebop or Neon Genesis Evangelion? I would guess probably not.

The only thing that bothers me a bit (judging mostly from this image of upcoming series) is that there seem to be more sequels than usual, and many of them are sequels of series that I haven’t watched which makes them difficult to write about, and I don't really feel like doing the prerequisite "research" on Inu Yasha (and I think more Queen's Blade will turn me into mush).

Anyway, the moral of this story is to lighten up and just watch a few series. I'm sure just about anyone will find something that they enjoy, and maybe others will learn to broaden their horizons.

Excuses, Excuses

Naysayers... Just shut up and enjoy the glory of Akira's Johnny.

Saturday at Otakon, Funimation announced license acquisitions Casshern: Sins and Eden of the East, two titles that many people, including myself, have been anticipating. I immediately went into celebratory mode, but then made the poor decision to go read the ANN forum thread in connection with the news. It began innocently enough, with people being happy for the acquisition, and some people being happy that they could finally watch these shows (some people have much stricter ethics than I do regarding fansubs, which is fine - it just means they get to miss a lot of the cool stuff >:) ).

Of course, someone always has to piss on my parade.

There seems to be a small-but-vocal contingent of people who are more than willing to act like big fans of something, but when it comes time to pony up the cash, there's always some excuse as to why the American company ruined the release and they won't spend any money on it. This time around, the controversy is in regards to the opening theme, which is the song "Falling Down" by the British band Oasis. There are rumblings (not based on anything factual, mind you, just worried whispers based on a couple of past situations) that Funimation might not be able to secure rights to the opening song. I'm thinking to myself, "big deal, right?" I really like the opening song, but a minute-and-a-half of artful design elements coupled with an excerpt from a popular song is not enough to sway me one way or another in regards to a series that I already like. When I'm watching multiple episodes of a series at one time, I usually skip the theme songs anyway, no matter how much I like it.


Wow, they were right! Now that I've read this I totally understand the series! /sarcasm

Well, of course the thread blew up with people in agreement, with a few more rational people in between telling these people that they were being childish. One argument that really irritated me was that the opening theme was somehow integral to understanding the series itself. Hogwash, I say. While the opening pays lip service to a lot of the terms, concepts and ideas around which the series revolves, all of these things are explained within the context of the series itself. The opening is basically someone's very awesome graphic design project, but there's no reason anyone would need to watch it, and if these whiners were real fans of the series they would know better.

In case you were curious, here's a video of the show's opening:

Anime Expo 2009 - Reactions

Most of you, including those of you who were at CONvergence this past weekend, know that the anime world was also experiencing one of its biggest events of the year, Anime Expo in Los Angeles, CA. It attracts both industry reps and fans from all over, and it's where many announcements regarding licensing and releases are made. I thought that I would post some brief reactions to the various press conferences. I'm pretty much ganking most of the info from ANN, so credit should go to them for their hard work.

Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment
Aside from some re-releases of their previous acquisitions, the biggest surprise to me was the licensing announcement of the Antique Bakery series from last year. Honestly, I had considered the series to be too niche to warrant an American release, but I personally consider the show a guilty pleasure so I can't say that I'm upset.

As for the other announcements, Rental Magica seemed like a pretty lousy show when I first reviewed it (wow, I've certainly learned to polish my reviews since then, haven't I?) so I'm not really interested in this release. And I care even less about the fourth season of Maria-sama ga Miteru, a series which has continually managed to bore me.

Bandai Entertainment
Mostly a lot of "blah" stuff.

Probably the biggest upcoming release of interest (for most fans) is season 2 of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, as well as the second season of Gundam OO.

I might have been interested to hear about the release of the Lucky Star OVA if it hadn't been so darned disappointing compared to the TV series.

Along with some manga and light-novel acquisitions related to Code Geass and The Girl who Leapt Through Time, Bandai announced their acquisition of the Eureka Seven movie, as well as the streaming of the series on ANN, which has already begun.

Viz Media
I'm sort of amused by there being a release date for the first NANA boxed-set (September 8th!) because I recently lamented to a friend how Viz seemed to just be sitting on the license. Honey and Clover also has a solid release date, September 22nd, which makes me very happy.

Funimation
The only announcement of a newly-acquired series was Sengoku Basara, which just finished broadcast in Japan. I can't say that I'm surprised because it's both action-packed and pretty, with lots of dudes beating up on each-other and a heavy dose of subtext.

I'm sort of disappointed that Funimation didn't announce any other new goodies, since they recently had that survey up that included tons of great choices, but perhaps they're saving their announcements for another day or they're still in negotiations. I'll have my eyes peeled for future press-releases.

And that's about all the releases that personally concern me. Not a huge crop of goodies this time around, but I've been noticing that licensing announcements tend to trickle in throughout the year rather than at these big conventions lately, so it's not a huge surprise.

Shiny New Anime - CONvergence 2009

Thanks to everyone who attended the Shiny New Anime panel at CONvergence 2009! Even though it was directly opposite one of the big Mystery Science Theater panels, there was still a great turnout and we got some great comments/feedback. Props to the nice lady out in Forest Lake - I hope you can get high-speed internet soon and you and your daughter can enjoy all these great shows more easily.

In any case, I have uploaded the handout for the panel to my webspace for those who are interested but didn't receive one (I have a constant problem with not making enough of them - I printed at least ten more than last year and there still weren't enough).

Anyway, the handout is here. It's in RTF format, which should be compatible for most people.

A friend requested that I upload clips to Youtube; we'll see if that's feasible. If so, I'll update this post later on with more links.

ETA: Okay, I uploaded both the CONvergence clips and the Anime Detour clips to Youtube. I have no idea whether or not they'll get taken down, but here are links to them until they disappear:

Antique Bakery
Astro Fighter Sunred
Basquash
Casshern Sins
Chi's New Address
Detroit Metal City
Dragon Ball Kai
Eden of the East
Eve no Jikan
Kaiba
Kemono no Souja Erin
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora
Michiko to Hatchin
Natsume Yuujinchou
Nodame Cantabile: Paris
One Outs
Rideback
Ristorante Paradiso
Sengoku Basara
The Daughter of Twenty Faces
Toshokan Sensou

CONvergence 2009

Hi, all. Just as a note, I will be attending CONvergence, a Science-Fiction and Fantasy convention, this weekend, Thursday-Sunday. I'll be a presenter in one panel, Shiny New Anime which is Friday from 3:30-4:30pm in the multimedia room. Stop by and say hi if you're around. If you attended the same panel at Anime Detour this year, the presentation will be about the same, though I'm aiming to have some new clips this time around. After I get home I'll post the handout for those of you who are interested but didn't get to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Follow Up - Hanasakeru Seishonen - Episodes 1-12

This is one of those series that I continued following because the small fan base for it seemed particularly passionate. All indications were that the series would be pretty much your normal reverse-harem series, albeit with an especially spunky female protagonist (with a refreshing lack of weepy shoujo qualities, I might add) and an international flavor. Not a terrible series, but not something I was that eager to see more of. Instead, the series appears to take its silly-sounding setup in a stride and then gradually delves more into the financial and political interactions between the protagonist's family business and a fictional country called Laginay, leaving the major romantic aspects to the side (at least for the time being).

Kajika Barnesworth, the central character, is a 14-year-old who has lived a pretty sheltered life, growing up on an island with a leopard named Mustafa and a boy named Li-Ren as her closest companions. Just as Kajika travels to Japan to spend some time in a real public school and make some real friends, something that she's wished for, she's summoned to her father's side. He has a proposition - he has chosen three men from which Kajika can choose a husband. In doing so, he'll reveal to Kajika certain truths about her past which he has kept from her. Kajika, almost amused by this, agrees to the setup, despite some mixed feelings from Li-Ren (jealous, perhaps?).


Li-Ren, Mustafa and Kajika on the beach of their island home.

She meets the first candidate soon afterward, a beautiful but aloof man named Eugene. Kajika takes one look at him and decides that he's the reincarnation of her beloved snow leopard, Mustafa , an attitude which irritates Eugene to no end. It also turns out that Eugene is quite the ladykiller, literally - more than a few women associated with him have ended up committing suicide, a major red flag that sets the protective Li-Ren on edge. Kajika, ever goal-oriented, attends Eugene's private birthday celebration in spite of his protests to the contrary, and eventually learns of his tragic past. Eugene is on a mission to commit suicide like his mother, since he feels that he was merely a tool for his father's revenge against Eugene's grandmother, who favored her other, more beautiful son over Eugene's father. Kajika snaps him out of it and gets him to want to live his life again.


Eugene is quite the charmer and, at least to Kajika, resembles the noble leopard, Mustafa.

The second candidate appears at a dinner party Li-Ren's family is hosting. The second Prince of Laginay, a haughty boy named Lumati, appears, and Kajika is instantly drawn to him, calling him "Orient Blue" (after his striking blue eyes) until she learns his true name. When an attempt is made on his life, the two end up alone together and Kajika manages to temper his rude attitude. By the end of their ordeal, the two are unlikely friends, though Lumati must live with the fact that his older brother, the crown prince with a weak physical constitution, has tried to assassinate him. The attendant who made the attempt on his life is exiled from Laginay, but Kajika keeps the man on as a bodyguard.


Kajika meets Lumati, who she prevents from beating up an attacker.

After a brief visit to Japan where Kajika reconnects with Yui, her friend from school, and spends some time with Eugene, who inadvertently wows everyone with his beautiful appearance, the story time-jumps backwards to 1955, when a conference involving countries all over the world was held in New York. The Prince of Laginay at the time, Mahati, attends in his sick father's stead. He is also plagued by assassins, people who wish to destroy the Laginayan monarchy and turn rule over to Britain. Mahati is aided in his escape by a woman named Kathleen, who mistakenly thinks that he intends to attend a costume party at a local cabaret club. Mahati, only fifteen years old, gets a sip of champagne and wants more, but Kathleen won't allow it unless he's more forthcoming. Mahati rashly makes her his attendant, thus making her worthy to interact with him. Eventually the two fall in love, but even though Mahati wants to make Kathleen his wife, their positions make this difficult. Mahati returns to Laginay to try and convince his family to allow their relationship, while Kathleen remains, already pregnant, supported by her dear friend, Fred Barnesworth.


Mahati and Kathleen, two unlikely lovers.

We learn that this brief union produced Harry Barnesworth, Kajika's father, which of course begs the question: when Mahati returned to Laginay and became King, wouldn't the progression of heirs make Lumati Kajika's relative? If so, then why would Harry Barnesworth have chosen Lumati to be part of his "game"? While marriage between cousins is accepted in many countries, it seems like an odd thing to have happen in an anime (and yes, that even takes into account the fact that there have been anime about brother-sister incest).

While this could very well have been a fairly-decent reverse-harem series on its own, the questions that arise regarding Harry Barnesworth's motives in setting his daughter up, as well as the varied political and social entanglements involving the various families (including a third - the Fang family of Hong Kong, of which Li-Ren is a member) makes one wonder whether Kajika's marriage and the romantic elements leading up to it are really the focus of the series. I'm beginning to think that something else is going on here and that we really aren't going to spend 39(!) episodes sitting around and waiting for one person to confess their love to the other. A fact which suits me just fine, thank you.


A more lighthearted moment from the show - Kajika and Yui have dinner with a trio of attractive men, surprising Yui's family.

I have mixed feelings about Kajika as a character. I appreciate the fact that she's different from many other shoujo heroines. She's outgoing, forthcoming, and goes after the things that she wants, which is a definite plus. It's irritating to sit through a series and have to deal with a heroine who cries all the time and whose personal happiness seems to hinge on whether she can make the right chocolate for her love-interest on Valentine's Day or get him to walk her home from school. On the other hand, Kajika is very naive to the point of believing in silly things. Naming Eugene as "Mustafa" was nearly enough to get me to stop watching the show early on, since the concept was so silly and yet she believed in it so thoroughly (and to this point, she still calls him by that name).


Kajika innocently pesters Lumati for more info about himself.

I think at this point I'm still onboard with the story, though. Once it was clear that this wasn't going to be a bunch of guys doing nothing but trying to court a young lady (I had nightmares of various competitions taking place) I felt more comfortable watching it. I'm curious to see how the family politics play out, and I really want to learn about what's going through Harry Barnesworth's mind. And of course there's the fact that the third suitor hasn't been introduced yet. I'm curious to see how he fits into the picture, with Eugene serving the role of an old friend and Lumati unexpectedly being in the family.


Fred Barnesworth and Mahati - two men with ties to Kajika.

I'm not really into the whole shipping thing, either, but I'm kind of rooting for Li-Ren ;) While not one of the "chosen" suitors, it's kind of obvious that he holds a special place very close to Kajika, whether she realizes it or not.

*cough*

In any case, the show is more than what it appears to be on the surface. Much like the author's other manga-turned-anime Jyu-Oh-Sei, this series has some flaws but remains enjoyable and fairly unique in spite of them. It's certainly not just the eye-candy series it might seem like at first, and once more political aspects of the story start popping up, it becomes fairly engaging. For now, definitely a keeper.

Follow Up - Kemono no Souja Erin - Episodes 1-12

Note: This contains major plot spoilers for the series so far.

I've found that sometimes anime series aimed at children are great just because they're in the unique position to be accessible to a very wide audience, and can therefore present ideas that are meaningful in different ways to people of different ages. This isn't true with all or even the majority of kids anime - just as in the United States, there's an awful lot of animation for kids that amounts to nothing more than an extended toy advertisement or a serialized account of characters kicking each-others' asses for personal gain. But every once-in-a-while, there's a real gem to be had, and Kemono no Souja Erin definitely fits the bill.

The show begins with a bang, introducing the Toudas, mounted fighting lizards, then draws back to focus on the small town that raises the beasts. Erin is a young girl who lives with her mother Soyon, the head caretaker for the Toudas. I assumed at this point the series would be a standard coming-of-age story, with Erin learning how to care for the Touda while learning valuable life lessons and also having fun adventures. It's a kids' show, after all. What I didn't expect was for things to turn dark so quickly.


Soyon and Erin share a brief moment alone together before they're torn apart.

Throughout the opening six episodes or so, there are hints that Soyon might eventually find herself in deep trouble - the race of people to which she was born is mysterious and the people of Ake village distrust them to begin with; she is a woman in a major position of power, which is unusual; there are multiple mentions of Touda caretakers being executed for mistakes involving the sacred beasts; and a certain member of royalty appears to have sinister intentions with far-reaching consequences. By Episode 7, Soyon and the village have been held responsible for the death of the Duke's own Touda, and Soyon takes on the brunt of the blame in order to save her comrades.


Erin tries to save her mother, while Soyon uses the last of her strength to send her daughter to safety.

By the end of the 7th episode, Soyon is dead, having been judged by Touda Trial (a brutal form of execution where the accused is literally eaten alive by Touda) and Erin is set adrift, having been rescued one last time by her mother. She is taken in by Jone, a bee keeper, and a new chapter in her life is opened.


Jone plays a tune on the harp near the fireside.

One reason the show is successful is that Erin is both an energetic and smart character. She first learns numerous skills from her mother, and then absorbs more from Jone, surprising him at every turn. In other words, the series isn't focused on wacky, meaningless adventures. Rather, it focuses on character growth and hints that, eventually, Erin may be involved in a much larger conflict involving herself, members of royalty, and possibly members of the Mist people who have, thus far, been in the shadows.


The energetic and curious Erin questions a mysterious man about his music.

The animation and art direction so far has been deceptively simple; I say this because the bright, colorful backgrounds appear to also have a beautiful hand-drawn quality - it's difficult to speculate about what is drawn with physical media these days and what is created on a computer, but the backgrounds appear to be created using pastels and watercolors - that give the appearance of extra work having been done on them. The character designs are cute but not cutesy, which is a difficult balance to maintain.


Erin's vision of her mother's death sentence demonstrates some of the show's beautiful art direction.

The only things that have bothered me so far have been Nukku and Mukku, two comedy-relief characters that tend to take some of the impact away from the events of the series. They were even present during Soyon's execution, which I thought wasn't the best choice. It's probably the one really major reminder that this series is aimed at young people.

With the brief introduction of the Beast Lords in episode 12 (flying beasts that seem to be a cross between wolves or lions and birds), a new potential conflict may have arisen. The question is, what will Erin's role be?

Kaiji Film in Development

Yes indeed, the teaser trailer for a live-action version of Noboyuki Fukumoto's manga is streaming at this very time. While I was a big fan of the anime adaptation, I'm wondering if the subject matter might come across as altogether too silly for live-action. At least in anime it's much easier to utilize dramatic camera angles and portray unrealistic things like beams positioned 30 stories up in the air.

Follow Up - Dragon Ball Kai - Episodes 1-10

I decided to start posting some continuing thoughts on series, partly because some (not a ton, but a scattered few) people take issue with the fact that I seem to pass judgment based on one episode of a series. I'm busy and have a day job, so I have to be picky and value my time by not watching stuff that I get zero fulfillment from, but I've said that so many times I'm sounding like a broken record at this point. In any case, I don't have time to blog all the series I do watch episode-by-episode (I tried it once - it took too much of my time away once you took into account the time spent taking screenshots for each episode and that sort of thing), but I thought, why not post once or twice about the stuff that I did decide to watch, so that readers can get a more thorough impression?

I certainly can't do that for every series I review, and I do think, quite unapologetically in fact, that there are a good chunk of anime series not worth a second glance or suffer from such major flaws that I have no interest in seeing mroe, but I end up watching more than just my feature reviews, and even some series I was pretty iffy about. So here you go.

The first series on my "continuing to watch" list is Dragon Ball Kai, which is, as you'll remember, a more tightly-edited version of the Dragon Ball saga, though the story of the original Dragon Ball was condensed into a few minutes of narration and the story begins with the events of Dragon Ball Z. I suspect that many people were surprised that I picked this series up, since I am, unapologetically once again, not a fan of long-running shounen epics. Admittedly, it was partly a matter of curiosity on my part, since I missed out on a lot of those anime that are considered otaku common knowledge (no, I've never seen all of Evangeleon, Trigun or Cowboy Bebop either, save your shock for another time and place). The idea of being able to get out of 100 episodes what many other people spent nearly 300 episodes trudging through was appealing to me as well, as someone with, as stated previously, limited time to devote to anime that wasn't immediately appealing to me.


Gohan's Battle Power is... significantly less than 9000.

So how is it? Well, the fact that I generally watch each episode after it finishes downloading should tell you something. It's not that I find the series especially meaty or compelling, but, while I like watching series that I feel have a lot of depth, sometimes having something to watch that's simply a lot of fun works well to cleanse the palate, so to speak. There's something very amusing to me about watching dudes kicking the living crap out of each-other, judging each-other by some "power level" based on a mysteriously undefined set of numerical values that constantly increase. It's classic, it's corny, and it's as melodramatic as any shoujo anime, but it's a lot of fun.


Tenshinhan laments Chaozu's sacrificial demise.

The pacing has also moved along at a good clip so far. I think that if someone I know had loaned me DVDs of the original cut of the series, I would have given up already. Why? With extra episodes devoted to lengthening out fights, providing story filler and other such unnecessary activities, I'm positive I would have been bored very quickly. In the new cut, however, there's a fight every couple of episodes, tasks get accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, and it doesn't feel like much, if anything, is actually missing from the experience.


Goku mistakes Bubbles the Monkey for the venerable Kaio-sama.

My quibbles with the show are surprisingly few and very minor. The number one irritation I have is with Goku's voice, which is irritatingly shrill. It seems almost completely incongruous with the type of actions he's involved in. I also think that some of the reanimated segments don't fit in well with the obviously older original animation. There's a lot of telltale over-cleanliness in the new stuff that makes it very obvious. I almost would have preferred that they upgrade the whole thing rather than bits and pieces of it, because the visual difference is very jarring.

After ten episodes, I see no sign of me giving up on this show. The real test will come at about episode forty, since that's about the time I start getting bored of most series (even ones that I really like - I still haven't finished Hayate no Gotoku). But if I can continue to squeeze this in amongst more serious shows and continue to have fun with it, then I might just possibly watch the entire thing.

An excellent Kaiba Review

Ask John at Animenation links to a fabulous (and glowing) review of Kaiba, one of my favorites and one of the best series from 2008. Check it out here. It puts into concrete words some of the reasons why I thought Kaiba was, overall, a much better series than Masaaki Yuasa's other television anime, Kemonozume.

Early Thoughts for Summer 2009

Well, since many other blogs are doing it, I suppose I can jump on the Summer Preview Bandwagon and take a look at the new series set to premier in a few weeks. These are by no means full reviews (since I obviously haven't watched these shows yet - still working on getting that TARDIS), just a fun way to get excited for next season.

Note: Series and descriptions are summarized from Anime News Network's upcoming TV series guide, as well as Wikipedia and various other online sources.

Aoi Hana
Promo Video (click blue "play" button to view).



Description: Two childhood friends reconnect with each-other in high school, and support each-other through their romantic trials and tribulations (while also developing their feelings for each-other?).

Thoughts: I don't feel one way or the other about Yuri anime most of the time, but since this story comes from the same manga magazine as Ristorante Paradiso, a publication aimed at young-adult readers, and is featured in the same time slot (Fuji TV's "Noise" timeslot, which also broadcast Michiko to Hatchin), I have some preliminary interest in the series. The impression I get is that it'll be a slow-burner based mostly on character development, which is the kind of series I really like. My guess is that I'll probably end up watching this.

Bakemonogatari
Promo Video (click the link directly below the image; make sure you have flash player installed).



Description: Koyomi Araragi is a third-year high schooler who recently survived a vampire attack and finds himself mixed up with all sorts of unusual spirits, ghosts and apparitions.

Thoughts: I'm somewhat interested in this series for what might be not-so-great reasons. Firstly, it's animated by SHAFT, and while their series tend to be hit-or-miss with me, they're always chock-full of visual style, which is sometimes reason enough to watch. I'll admit it - I watched all of Maria Holic because it looked great, and was nearly tempted to watch more than two episodes of Natsu no Arashi despite not liking the characters at all. Secondly, and this may or may not come through in the anime, but supposedly the author of the light novel on which the show is based is fond of word-play and otaku humor, which I often enjoy. My impression is that I'll probably watch some of it, though it'll probably be put on the back-burner until later, and I'll only finish it if I find something more redeemable than its style to enjoy.

CANAAN
Commercial (it opens automatically in Windows Media Player).



Description: Based on a Wii visual novel with a scenario by Type-Moon, it features a group of people from all walks of life who are brought together in Shibuya by a series of bizarre events.

Thoughts: The game on which this series was based was awarded a rare perfect score by Famitsu magazine, which makes me hope that some of my initial skepticism might be unfounded. A lot of what I have a problem with is the fact that the girl (or who I assume is a girl) with the white hair in the promo pics has a really weird chest. Petty, yes, but I'm sort of wondering what look the designers were going for there. Otherwise, I have a hard time telling if this show is more mystery, or sci-fi, or action or whatever, so I'll have to wait for a first viewing to provide any more concrete thoughts.

Cobra the Animation: Rokunin no Yuushi



Description: A man named Johnson has an artificially-induced dream in which he is a space explorer with a psycho-gun who takes out evil aliens and space pirates. What he finds out is that these are actually repressed memories of his real life, and he becomes Cobra, a space hero.

Thoughts: The premise of the series definitely shows its age, and the overblown look of the characters kind of seals the deal. It doesn't really seem like anything I would like, due to its inherent cheesiness.

Elementhunters



Description: A joint effort between NHK and Korean HeeWon entertainment, this children's series is a science-fiction adventure which aims to teach about chemical elements.

Thoughts: From the description, this appears to be something of a "collection" series like Pokemon, only in this case the characters are collecting chemical elements rather than cute animals or cards. Of course, I could find very little information on this series, so I could be way off the mark. If it's too "kiddie", though, I probably won't be very interested, even though the art makes it look pretty stylish.

Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan



Description: Plug is a girl from an alternate world, who is able to "recharge" people who are depressed or down on their luck, spreading good cheer wherever she goes.

Thoughts: I think the picture says it all here. We've got an ecchi fanservice comedy series with tight outfits and things that look like tentacles. I'm sure we're not talking about a deep story or anything. Whether it falls into the "so-bad-it's-good" category remains to be seen at this point, but so far I'm not expecting too much.

Geijutsuka Art Design Class



Description: A slice-of-life series about five freshman girls in a high-school art class.

Thoughts: It sounds a lot like Hidamari Sketch to me, which left me a bit cold overall. Other than that, information is difficult to come by, so it remains to be seen what I ultimately think of this show. I suspect I'll find it sort of bland, which is how many slice-of-life comedies come across to me.

Kanamemo



Description: Kana is a middle school student who lost her parents, and then the grandmother who was taking care of her. She gets by by working in a newspaper office with other women.

Thoughts: It's difficult to say. Apparently this series has Yuri content, but it's difficult to say what sway that might have on the story. I'm also at a loss as to whether this is more of a comedy or a drama. The character designs seem a little iffy to me, especially the main character who looks like a tiny child rather than a middle school student. I say it has a 50-50 shot at being interesting, though I have the distinct feeling that it might turn out to be a very bland comedy with recycled characters.

Needless



Description: In the future, Tokyo becomes covered with contaminated areas called "blackspots", which are subsequently walled-off. The people who live there develop strange powers, abilities which separate them from society which deems them Needless.

Thoughts: The premise sounds pretty ho-hum to me, like it was ripped off from various shounen manga and parts of Darker than Black. I'm not a fan of how the characters look either. With two strikes against the series already, it would have to have some pretty stellar writing and animation to make up for it, and I'm not feeling that.

Princess Lover



Description: Arima Teppei lost both parents in a traffic accident, is then adopted by his grandfather and forced to succeed as head of his family's corporation. He attends a super-elite school for children of rich families and his life as a celebrity begins.

Thoughts: Based on an adult adventure game, this series has many ingredients that I just don't like. It's got a hapless guy thrust into circumstances he neither expects nor deserves, and he's surrounded by a bevy of women of various shapes, sizes, and occupations. I think we all know where this is going. You can guess that I probably won't be watching this one.

Sora no Manimani
Promo Video (click on the button with "PV" on it).



Description: Saku returns to his hometown and gets reqcquainted with Mihoshi, a childhood friend who he saved from falling out of a tree. They have a strained relationship which begins to improve once Saku joins the astronomy club that Mihoshi founded.

Thoughts: From the PV, it seems like this could be a cute romantic comedy series, though I'm not a huge fan of super-perky female leads so I personally might not have much investment in the show. I think it will depend on how much the astronomy club aspects play into the series, and whether or not the supporting character are interesting or not.

Spice and Wolf 2
Commercial (streams in Windows Media Player).



Description: The story of Horo, the female wolf deity, and the medieval world of economics and religion surrounding her and her companion, Lawrence, continues in this sequel.

Thoughts: I enjoyed the first Spice and Wolf series, but was unsatisfied with the ending since it didn't resolve any of the major plot points. I'm hoping that this season will incorporate more of the influence of the church that was hinted at in season one, and that perhaps the story will end in a more satisfying manner. I definitely plan to check it out, at the very least.

Taishou Yakyuu Musume (Taisho-era Baseball Girls)
Promo Video (click the play button).



Description: Koume goes to an all-girls school, and is asked by her friend if she would like to play on a baseball team. The Taishou-era, the titular era of the show, is 1912-1926.

Thoughts: I can't find much more info on the series. I have a hard time deciding whether it could be a lighthearted, fun series, or whether it might be too much like Bamboo Blade, which I found pretty lackluster and boring. I'm hoping the time period might add an interesting flavor to the show, but that remains to be seen. Feeling skeptical about this one.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Promo Video (click the button with "PV" on it)



Description: Mirai, a middle school freshman, takes a trip to an artificial island in Tokyo. Suddenly the city is hit by a monster earthquake, she must navigate the changed lanscape and make her way home.

Thoughts: Original Series? Check. Animated by Studio BONES? Check. Airing in Fuji TV's Noitamina timeslot? Check. I'm virtually guaranteed to watch and enjoy this series. I'm not aware of too many "disaster movie" plots in most anime (Tokyo certainly undergoes its share of destruction, but not necessarily by natural disasters of this nature) so I'm excited to see where this series goes. I imagine this will be one of my favorites.

Umi Monogatari
Promo Video



Description: Marin and Urin are two sisters who live under the sea but yearn to live up above the surface. One day a ring falls into the ocean, and the sisters leave the water in order to deliver it to its owner.

Thoughts: I believe this series is based on - get this - a pachinko machine. Just the thought of that would be laughable, except that it's Japan and I feel like they could turn anything into an anime with cute girls in it. Anyway, this seems like it could be a pleasant fantasy series, but I can't quite tell what the tone of the show is (there are some points that seem humorous, and I would prefer something more serious). I don't see anything in the promo really compelling me to follow this series beyond the first episode, but we'll see.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni



Description: In 1986, the head of a wealthy family, who owns the island Rokkenjima, is near death. Family members show up on the island to discuss the distribution of his wealth, but a Typhoon traps them there. Soon mysterious murders begin to occur.

Thoughts:While I wasn't a big fan of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, based on a game from the same game creators, I have some higher hopes for this series. The story itself sounds a bit more interesting to me, almost like a classic "whodunit", though I suspect some of the murders might turn out to be shockingly violent in ways that might turn me off the series.

Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou
Promo Video



Description: A small, clumsy high-school-student becomes the protege of a 25-year-old graduate student, one of the most powerful magicians of the modern age.

Thoughts: I can't say that I was particularly impressed by the PV, mostly because it makes the series feel very, I don't know, same-y. It's a cast of female characters (with what appears to be a token male, though I can't really speculate about what his role is yet) with special powers and overblown cutesy character designs. It's no magical-girl show, but the "stupid bishoujo hair", as my friend puts it, is rampant. It sounds really average.

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei



Description: Nozomu Itoshiki returns for a third season of depression and wacky social commentary with the rest of his wacky high-school class.

Thoughts: I wasn't as enamored with the first season of this series, but by the second season and the OVA's it had really grown on me. I'm looking forward to enjoying the third. I don't expect anything drastically different to happen this time around, but it should be a fun show as usual and I'm excited for more. Hopefully the subs will come out a bit faster this time around.

A Bit of Background

I thought some people might be interested in my review process and some of the things that influence how I rate a show. And if no one is interested, well, tough. I'm bored and wanted something to write about, and this is what came to mind :)

First, a bit of history. I've been an anime fan since I was a youngster, though my first big obsession was with Sailor Moon, when it arrived on these shores chopped-up and dubbed-over. Then there was Ronin Warriors and various other scattered series. I was, unfortunately, one of those kids who didn't have access to Cartoon Network at the appropriate time to see Gundam Wing, Cowboy Bebop, and various other iconic series first run on American television, so my education in that area is still lacking somewhat. However, things didn't really start getting kicked into high gear until I entered college and subsequently joined the University of Minnesota Manga Anime Society, a student-run anime club on campus. It was there that I first encountered fan subs, both VHS and digital. The first series I ever downloaded was Azumanga Daioh, and it only went forward from there.

Of course like many fans, after a period of intense fandom, I gained experience with various types of anime series and began to get more critical. I went through numerous dry spells where I felt like there was just nothing good to be seen. Finally, in probably February or March of 2007, I decided that I would make it my goal to preview new episodes of anything I could find for the new Spring season coming up, and write about them on my Live Journal, so that my friends could read the reviews and save themselves some time. I think from that season I ended up watching, in whole or in significant part, a good 8 or 9 series, and began to realize just how many potentially good shows were flying under my radar. So each season since I've entered into with renewed enthusiasm, and I generally take away at least a couple of new series to enjoy.

Late in 2007, my friend Boris came to me with a proposal - he wanted to work on web design, and I wanted a better way to get my reviews out there, so he though we could team up and do a website. It's worked out well ever since. He's good at the coding part of the website, which he does all by hand in a text editor, and my output of writing is pretty consistent, so there's a good stream of new content.

As for my review process, it goes something like this. Each new anime season, beginning in January, April, July and October with some stragglers scattered throughout, I spend a week or a week-and-a-half amassing a collection of first episodes, generally though bittorrent (though with the advent of more streaming options, I feel like that might change in the future). When I have a decent backlog, I start my writing. I do a bit of research on the general genre and plot of the series before I watch it (that's where the links in the reviews come from), because some of them get confusing and I have trouble remembering character names otherwise. I watch the episode, summarizing each half at the time of the viewing, and take a screencap from each half to include with the review. After the viewing, I write down my thoughts, which may focus on any number of aspects, including the story, the animation, comparisons to similar series, etc. I sum up the more important thoughts in the Pros and Cons section. After editing (which I do to varying degrees based on how busy I am), I email a batch of reviews off to Boris so that he can upload them to the site and include them in the archives and whatnot.

I think here I'll comment on/defend certain aspects of my reviews. First of all, I don't include numerical ratings in my reviews, and never really have. I think numbers are too arbitrary and don't really say anything in the end. I feel like, even if I don't like a series, if I give reasons why I didn't like it, even someone who disagrees with me could read the review and know if the show might be something that they like. For example, if I said something like "this series is gross because all the girls have gigantic tits", someone who's into gigantic tits would know that it was something they might like. Saying "This show is a 3/10" doesn't really give that kind of feedback.

I think that there are a lot of people out there who might take issue with the fact that I base my opinion on 1 episode, because that doesn't take into account the entire story or any potential character development that might happen throughout the series. While I see where they're coming from, I am also well aware of the fact that introductory episodes are often what get a decent budget and the most attention from the staff, since they have to get people interested in the series somehow. I can think of very few series that change significantly in tone or content enough to completely change my opinion of them. I also don't have time to research or watch every series from beginning to end since I have a day job and only have evenings and weekends free (and I *gasp* do things other than just watch anime in my free time). So first impressions are key with me.

I don't tend to like or dislike any particular genre. Actually, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that any genre can have good series and bad series. I haven't had particularly good luck with certain genres, including yaoi, harem and general fanservice series, but I'm making a solid attempt to at least try and find a couple series from each genre that I would feel comfortable recommending to a fan of that genre. I would like to be able to judge series more on how good they are as compared to the standards of their genre rather than my own personal objections to them, but I certainly won't stop pointing fingers at things that I think suck crap :)

I hope that provides some insight into what goes on around here. If anyone ever has any questions, feel free to email me (jessi at s1e1 dot com) and I would be happy to answer them here.

Haruhi - New Season or Just a Tease?

So by now just about every anime fan with a pulse is aware of the fact that, during a "rebroadcast" of the original series, a new episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aired, which was inserted into its appropriate place in the show's chronology. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether this was a one-time thing, a bonus episode, or whether this signals a whole new set of episodes that will air as the rest of the season unfolds. I myself am confused, because most reports that I've read on the matter haven't been very forthcoming or explanatory, and there are some decent reasons why either explanation could be possible.

On one hand, there was a report a few months ago about a new season of Haruhi, which was quickly retracted and explained as a "misunderstanding" regarding a rebroadcast of the original series. I believe that this was also accompanied by some concept and character art in a print magazine that featured characters that were not in the original series (though I don't feel like going through the trouble to personally verify this). Considering that this new Episode 08 of the show showed up so nonchalantly, people (including some very passionate fans who are friends of mine) are speculating that the whole rebroadcast was a ruse and that the new episodes are a surprise for fans.

Of course, that's what rubs me the wrong way about all this. One would think that a new season of one of the most popular anime series of the past few years would be paraded out with all the pomp and circumstance the studio and broadcaster could afford. It's almost an assured audience. Yet, the only foreknowledge people had of the new episode was the title listed on the TV schedule. Personally, I think this situation makes sense if the episode is simply a bonus for loyal fans watching the rebroadcast of the series, but I feel like the news of a new season would be all over the place by now if it were really happening.

Of course, the next few weeks will probably help to explain the situation further, and if the wishes of fans come true, there'll be more new content to drool over.

Update: Check the comments for news on the new schedule (thanks to BigFire). I guess it's true that the new season is worming its way into the rebroadcast.

For some reason I find this to be a very smug move by all involved, but people who are really intense fans of the original series should be deliriously happy right about now.

AMV Recommendations 5/6/09

One thing that I enjoy in addition to watching anime is watching, and very occasionally making, AMV's. Every once in a while I happen to come across some that I think are pretty good, and worth passing on. Hopefully I can make this a regular feature here. All links are to Anime Music Videos profile pages, so you will have to be a member of that site before being able to download them (it's a free membership).

A Melody of Memories by Kitty-Galia.

A crossover between Utena and Romeo x Juliet, which involves a love triangle between Romeo, Juliet, and Miki. Interesting idea, and I'm always sort of fascinated by effective crossovers.

He-Mon and the Masters of the Spiralverse by Ultimatetransfan.

An amusing parody using visuals from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and the audio from the old He-Man and the Masters of the Universe TV show.

Watchmanga, which I also just realized is by Ultimatetransfan.

Pretty decent interpretation of the Watchmen trailer, using footage from Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Darker than Black.

Next time maybe I'll post something other than just crossovers and parodies, hehe.

Central Park Media and Utena

So by now anyone who cares has heard the sad news that Central Park Media, American Licensor of such titles as Patlabor, Descendents of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei), Project A-Ko, to name a few, has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and closed its doors. As one of the trailblazers in the 1990's for releasing anime DVDs, it's definitely depressing to see them go. I fondly remember watching the various Project A-Ko OVAs with my friend in middle school. Of course, the most significant loss for me and many of my close friends is a little series called Revolutionary Girl Utena.

I might be revealing my age a bit by saying that, when I was first starting to get into anime fandom heavily in the early 2000's, Utena was one of the series my local anime club was screening. Only the first two DVDs were out at the time, so when we got to the second big story arc, we were reduced to suffering through some VHS fansubs that had something wrong with the tracking so the sound would buzz every couple of seconds. And you know what? The series was so good that we suffered through it willingly. Some years later, after Central Park Media had released the rest of the series, we watched it again, and even though the demographic of the club had altered itself quite a bit, people still demanded to watch it in its entirety.

Now that CPM has disappeared, the remaining stock of DVDs are probably going to become hot property. Luckily I completed my set sometime last year or the year before, and I have doubles of the movie (I swear those things keep asexually reproducing on my DVD shelf, since I always seem to have more than one no matter how many times I think I've given one copy away). I keep pondering whether or not someone will rescue the license for the show or not. On the one hand, the fanbase for the show is quite small, but on the other, they are passionate beyond belief. It's difficult to say whether Funimation will continue to act as Anime Jesus and keep saving shows like this, or whether the show will fade into eventual obscurity.

Of course, one positive development regarding the series is that it recently received a remastered release on R2 DVD. There's no news yet of this coming to R1, but some rips have been popping up on the internets as of late, and they look beautiful. I took the liberty of putting together some comparison screencaps from the first episode. The images on the left are from the CPM region 1 DVD release that I bought ages ago, and the images on the right are from an mp4 video encoded version of the remaster with subtitles applied. Click on the picture for a bigger version.



























I'm excited to watch the series again with color correction and decent video quality.

More on Re-makes

What a coincidence - today's Ask John at Animenation dealt with a question regarding the commonality of anime re-makes. John provides a few examples and briefly discusses the probable reasoning behind the new FMA re-make.

Short Answer:

The first FMA season ended with too much finality to leave options open for a second, so a remake was the best choice to open that avenue up again.

Also, $$$ (pretty obvious, but people seem to think that Japanese animation is somehow more artful and immune to financial interests, which is far from the case).

Now that I think of it, I wonder what anime I would like to have re-made so that it could be introduced to a new audience.

One that comes to mind is Rose of Versailles, a definite classic that still looks good despite its age, but could still benefit from a facelift. Considering how much I've enjoyed Le Chevalier d'Eon this semester at MAS, I think that the story of Rose of Versailles done in a similar style, that is to say a bit more serious and less flowery, could be really good. Not that the original wasn't emotionally involving or anything, but it contained a lot of the shoujo melodrama that a lot of people aren't fond of.

Other than that, most of the shows that I've watched are either too new in my opinion to warrant a re-make, or are great just the way that they are.

Astro Fighter Sunred - Second Season Planned

Great News for me and all you other fans of the amusing tokusatsu comedy Astro Fighter Sunred - a planned second season was announced at the end of a recent screening event.

While this series has proved to be much funnier than its original premise had suggested to me (seriously, how far could a joke about an over-powered, bored sentai hero and his incompetent enemies go? Very far, apparently), I actually didn't expect a follow-up season. I suppose its relative episodic-ness proves helpful in that even if manga material runs out (and I have no idea if this is the case or not) a competent writing team could keep it going indefinitely.

Librarians - Guardians of our Intellectual Freedom!

Iku Kasahara and Atsushi Dojo - Badass Librarians

It seems like whenever I try to describe the general setup of the series Toshokan Sensou (Library War), whoever I'm speaking to gets a case of the giggles. In case anyone who reads this is unfamiliar with the series, a brief explanation is that it takes place in an AU Japan where media censorship by the federal government has gotten so overbearing that local government entities, specifically libraries, have established a military response to this censorship, and the two sides frequently battle it out to censor books and other media from the public, or to defend the rights of the public to have access to these items, respectively.

I'm sure the laughter stems from the fact that people are shooting at each other over access to controversial books, and in a country where freedom of information is a well-established precedent, that situation seems so unreal and far away. Personally, despite the fact that something like that is unlikely to happen, I find it relatively easy to suspend my belief and just go with it, but perhaps this is a rare character attribute (judging from the response at my local anime club to Le Chevalier d'Eon, specifically the fact that for the majority of the series there were still giggles every time d'Eon's sister possessed his body, despite this fact being established early on in the series and the time for nervous chortling to be long gone, this might be true). In any case, I see it as a setup and a backdrop for an entertaining story, rather than something to pick apart and laugh about incessantly.

But people do need to realize that librarians are pretty badass people.

Case in point - I just watched a video detailing the exploits of a group of librarians who, after being ordered to give up information on the internet usage of their patrons and basically telling the FBI "hell no, that's unconstitutional," dealt with months of gag orders and weren't even allowed to attend their own trial. Spoiler - the case was dropped eventually. But even if they aren't wielding weapons and going through military drills, librarians can still defend the rights of the library patrons to have access to the information that they want without harassment and without the fear of being taken to jail for happening to look up information on something touchy (you know, like doing a Google search on "North Korea" or something).

Here's the video in question, which is about ten minutes long. It's a pretty entertaining story to listen to.

This Season's "It" Anime

Last week at a restaurant after attending my weekly anime club, I got into a discussion with a friend about what anime she was intending to watch this season. The conversation got to the point where I asserted that Eden of the East, the original production created and written by Kenji Kamiyama of Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex fame, was this season's show to look out for. She asked me, then, what about Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood? At the time it seemed as if she had got me. Since I wasn't a big fan of the original show, the sequel had been kind of flying low on my radar the whole time. However, after a week of reflection, I'm beginning to think that I was right in the first place.

To put it bluntly, reactions to the new Fullmetal Alchemist show have been mixed, at least in the places I've been reading. Part of it seems to be that many fans are attached to the original series, and in the (apparently) more manga-faithful remake, things from the original anime are missing or different, and this is seen in a negative light. Being faithful to the source material is often held up as an ideal for anime adaptations (or just book-to-film adaptations in general), though in some cases diverging from the source material might ultimately be better for the show or movie, which I think might be the case here (though not having seen or read it limits me on what I can really say regarding this).

There also seem to be many people who don't feel that a remake of the show was necessary at this point since the original show is only about five and a half years old. It does seem odd to me that Studio Bones decided to remake the show this soon in its life cycle, though if financial concerns are brought into the mix, it does seem like anything with the words Fullmetal Alchemist slapped on it would at the very least be a secure investment. Still, though, most shows that I can think of that are re-makes are either based on very old properties or are dramatically different in some way from previous incarnations. Casshern SINS is based on a property from the 1970's, and Hakaba Kitaro is a re-make of a long running kids' series made for an adult audience, so there's a major change in tone. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is not based on anything very old, nor does it feel like there's a major change in tone from the earlier adaptation, so it seems like it came about too quickly.

The anime itself was and is so popular, that I suspect it was many younger fans' introduction to the wonderful world of anime, and this remake may infringe on that sacred spot that the original inhabits. I know that if some studio decided to do a re-make of Sailor Moon, I would probably roll my eyes at the very least, since at the time I watched it it was just about the most awesome thing I had ever seen (perhaps another viewing might change my mind, haha). Any newfangled version that came out would just seem wrong to me, and I get a sense that the slightly different character designs and pacing of the new season might just seem a bit off to young fans of the original Fullmetal Alchemist.

As for me, having finally watched the first episode of Eden of the East and the second episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (I skipped episode 1 since I heard it was more of an "episode 0" or omake of some kind), I can safely say that, while Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a solid show and definitely worth following, Eden of the East is the anime to be watching this season. It's fresh, it's got a great hook, it's got English dialog that doesn't suck, and it has oodles of potential that I have hopes won't get wastedaway.

Twitter-er

Okay, I gave in and have joined the new big thing in internet thought-sharing, Twitter. If anyone reading this is interested in following me as I post short, hopefully humorous thoughts on anime and other stuff, my username is belindabird.

Also, I have a profile on My Anime List. You can see that here. From there you can see what I've watched, what I'm watching, and how I've rated the shows that I've seen. It's sort of fun, and if you sign up yourself it can be quite addictive.

Also, Slap up Party is the funniest name for a series I've seen since Hayate the Combat Butler. Seriously.

Zetsubou-shita!

No, not really. News is that there's going to be a third season of the hit anime Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei entitled, wait for it, Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. This should make many people I know (and many more who I don't know) extremely happy.

I was intrigued by the first season, but felt that the quality of the humor and writing was spotty at best. I liked the second season much better, though, so I hope the director will be retained. This news actually amuses me quite a bit, because in my soon-to-be-posted review of Natsu no Arashi (spoilers!) I mention that SHAFT needs to quit being so meta and putting references to SZS in all of their other shows and just make another season of SZS already. I guess it was a premonition.

With the manga recently beginning to hit US shores, I'm curious as to whether this series will ever follow suit. It would be quite the undertaking, should the licensing company decide to translate all the puns, little bits of text that appear everywhere, and all the references to Japanese cultural items that most US Americans probably wouldn't know up front. But from my experience, the show has been so popular with a large group of anime fans, so perhaps some of that stuff doesn't matter all that much.

Read the News at Anime News Network

Oh, Fansubs

The existence of fansubs has become an intensely debated subject within anime fandom for a while now. There was a big blowup in late 2007 regarding the state of the anime industry, the role of fansubs in the loss of Geneon as a US distributor, and the lack of legal options for people looking for speedy release schedule for their shows. I got into plenty of arguments with people on the subject at the time, but I think that the berserker rage has died down enough at this point and there have been enough recent developments that I feel comfortable touching on the subject again.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise that my opinion on the subject of fansubs is that of a moderate. When I started getting into anime fandom heavily (rather than just watching what was on TV or what looked good on the few DVDs available at the time) there was a definite code of ethics surrounding the fansubbing scene. Fansubs were meant to create US fan interest in a series, so that it could eventually be brought to the country in an official capacity. When a show was licensed, fansubbers actually stopped subbing it. I don't remember what group it was at the time, but there was a huge uproar within the fan community when a fansubbing group decided to continue subbing a show after it was licensed. Of course, just a few years later, the practice had become commonplace and the former uproar had died down to frustrated grumbling amongst a very small group of people.

I'm one of those grumblers, of course. While I admittedly rely on fansubs for the existence of this site (despite recent developments in online streaming, it's still the most reliable way to get new shows quickly so that my reviews can be somewhat timely, and it's an easy way to get screenshots), I still try to abide by that classic code of ethics. If something gets licensed, I would rather have the DVDs and I try to be appreciative of that, even if I have to wait a while to see the end of a series. I feel like they're still somewhat of a necessary evil.

I'm both annoyed and amused by the attitude change I've seen within the anime fan community in the past few years. To give an example of what I mean, once the news came out about Funimation's acquisition of the popular action anime Soul Eater, I happened to see this particularly entitled post in the Anime News Network forums regarding a particular fansub group's (and fan's) dismay over the matter. In short, this person's opinion was that Funimation shouldn't be so "greedy" for money that they send out Cease and Desist notices to fansub groups subbing the series and just allow them to finish subbing the show for free. What?

No seriously, WTH?

And, unfortunately, I've heard similar cries of dismay from people who I know in real life as well. It saddens me that a licensing announcement, something which, back when I was in college would have been cause for celebration, has turned into a lamentation about how much more difficult it will become to find good free fansubs for the series in question. It's one thing to be a poor student with not many financial options, but when I know people who have at least a bit of disposable income crying foul over having to pay for a DVD, I get a bit peeved.

Of course, since the whole matter of fansubs has boiled over, there have been quite a few developments regarding the desire for speedier releases, lower prices, and more options for watching anime legally. The most visible, in my opinion, is the fact that Crunchyroll, previously a streaming site filled with user-uploaded content, has not only gone legit, but this season has begun providing a significant number of anime simulcasts. Just this past Sunday (April 5th), Natsu no Arashi, Saki, Shangri-la and Kigurumikku premiered on the site, with the new season of Hayate no Gotoku and a show called Mainichi Kaasan having premiered not long before. Even two years ago, the prospect of simultaneous or near-simultaneous series premieres in Japan and the US would have been unheard of, yet since Gonzo began streaming their series on Youtube beginning in Spring 2008 with Blassreiter and Tower of Druaga, more series have followed suit.

Funimation, also utilizing Youtube as a streaming outlet and good at providing preview episodes of their acquisitions, scored a coup this year by gaining the rights to stream the new Fullmetal Alchemist series subtitled for free a mere 4 days after the Japanese broadcast. With all of these options available, the relevance and prevalence of fansubs should be beginning to fall by the wayside, right?

Unfortunately, after returning from Anime Detour yesterday, I saw no less than five fansubbing groups with subs up for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Before I go any further, I should note that fansubs have allowed me to see many series that would most likely never have seen the light of day here in the first place. Without Geneon around to license more of the niche stuff (which was probably part of their downfall in the first place, unfortunately) stuff like Kaiba or Akagi has little chance of getting an official release in the states. In an attempt not to sound too entitled, I feel that, while it's not a "right" by any means, in a world connected by the internet I would find it kind of sad to miss out on a really good show just because no American distribution company found it profitable enough to acquire.

But Fullmetal Alchemist? That series already had a pre-established audience coming in, and promises to be one of the biggest anime series this year. It's coming to the US for free within days of its Japanese premiere, being supported by ads. And people still can't be happy with an arrangement like that? it distresses me greatly to see this happening, as if even giving the fans exactly what they want still isn't good enough.

I know that there are probably a lot of people who wouldn't care one bit, but I personally think it would be kind of sad to see my favorite hobby disappear into obscurity just because some people felt so entitled to get something for nothing that they're not even willing to endure a few online ads and a few days wait in order to watch an anime episode legally. With so many free options and even some pay options via Xbox Live, iTunes and PSN, some of which offer High Def episodes, I find it perplexing why this continues to be such a huge issue.

Then again, I still know people who would rather watch a crummy cam version of a Hollywood movie rather than just paying for a ticket to see it in person. Apparently the word "free" still has a very tight hold on people, legal or not.

Anime Detour 2009

Hi all. In case you weren't aware (and I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't since I stupidly forgot to advertise the fact here before I left), I was an attendee and panelist at Anime Detour 2009 in St. Paul, MN. I headed up three panels, including "Manga for Grown-ups", "Anime for Grown-ups" and "Shiny New Anime". There have been some requests for the handouts from these panels since I never seem to have enough (I usually grossly underestimate what attendance will be every single time). So for the benefit of people who either couldn't attend the con or who didn't get a copy of the handouts, I've uploaded them for you.

Open Office Document Format:
Anime for Grown-ups
Manga for Grown-ups
Shiny New Anime

RTF Format:
Anime for Grown-ups
Manga for Grown-ups
Shiny New Anime

Hope everyone enjoyed the panels, and thanks for making them a success :)

Trying to Live up to Expectations

Since Boris' computer is in the shop and I'm here at work with nothing to do (including updating my anime awards since the master list is at home), here's some original blog content to keep you readers happy for a day or two.

Recently I was sitting in the car with some friends coming back from a movie, and of course the conversation turned towards anime as it inevitably does when we're together. They hold a small anime club at their house every week (much like the larger college one I attend the same day - they used to be members and I think it's become a routine for all of us to watch anime on Thursday nights). At their club they're watching Real Drive, which is a sci-fi series from Spring of 2008 which deals with a future incarnation of cyberspace and how it factors into aspects of future society. And they're loathing it. Rather than get into a discussion about it at the time (both of their feelings were so intense that to try and argue for the series would be like trudging up a very steep incline covered in mud), I lied and said that I'd only seen a few episodes of the series a long time ago and that I didn't really remember it.

The truth is that I've seen all but maybe 8 or 9 episodes of it and intend to finish it soon.

Why bring this up, though? Well, if you're not familiar with the series either through seeing it or reading my review of it, it might be helpful to know that the series is born from the creativity of Shirow Masamune, the mind behind Ghost in the Shell, and animated by Production I.G., responsible for the same series of movies and TV animation. I think part of the downfall of Real Drive (and I do only mean part; it has its flaws as well) is that it has huge shoes to fill. Based on a cursory look at the show's visual style and the fact that it's from the same genre as Ghost in the Shell, I think a lot of people began viewing it believing that it would be some sort of "second coming" of GitS:SAC, with the same focus on action, when in truth Real Drive focuses more on its subject matter in the way that it affects the Aoi family and Haru Masamichi, the central characters.

As I've watched more and more anime the past few years and learned more about the various animation companies, programming blocks, and anime auteurs, I've found myself falling victim more and more to the urge to judge new anime on the merits of its predecessors. The problem is, of course, this develops unrealistic expectations of series and it's difficult to then judge a show on its own merits. To be clear, I don't think it's altogether wrong for myself to say "well, I liked this person's other work so I'll definitely be checking their new show out," but to hold onto the idea that the new show should somehow hit all the same beats and demonstrate its strengths in all the same areas is a recipe for disappointment.

Of course, there's another side to this idea as well. If an original series was agreed to be pretty terrible, I think that this might hurt chances of success of an offshoot or sequel even if it's good. Case in point: years ago we watched the Casshan: Robot Hunter OVA at our anime club for the express purpose of making fun of it. It's a pretty terrible movie. This past Fall, when Casshern SINS was released, I know at least a couple of people who avoided it, or refused to register its good points simply because it was based on the same thing (despite the fact that the story has been completely overhauled and most online ratings seem to be positive).

It's been a difficult road for me to begin to try and get over my own prejudices so that I can judge a series on its own merits. I still anticipate every Noitamina series (and truthfully I haven't been burned yet - I even enjoyed Antique Bakery despite its cheesiness) and certain people's names attached to new productions might make me take notice, but for the most part I think I'm doing an okay job.

Oh, and to be clear, my thoughts on Real Drive are actually mostly positive. The pacing is a bit uneven and I get the feeling that the introduction about the burning ocean in episode one might have been kind of a fake-out (it might be addressed in the last couple of episodes, but I'm not there yet), but I think that it's an interesting (if more passive) look at how our use of cyberspace now might evolve into the future with the advent of more immersive technology. And that suits me fine.

The Continuation of Haruhi Suzumiya

In case you didn't hear, the sequel to the insanely popular series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is slated to begin this April, according to an ad for Newtype Magazine (link goes to an ANN article). I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people who are going to be very happy about this.

ETA: Unfortunately the news has come to light today that the magazine was referring to a rebroadcast, rather than a new season of the show. Back to waiting, folks.

Epic Anime Meme

Just for fun, I decided to complete this meme that a friend posted to her Livejournal earlier today. Slash mark indicates things I've seen but not finished (at least one episode), x mark is for things that I've finished. Supposedly a score of 80 means that I'm an anime freak, so let's see how many I come up with:

Action and Adventure
(-) .hack//SIGN
(-) Airmaster
() Battle Arena Toshinden
(-) Bleach
(-) Blood+
() Burst Angel
() City Hunter
(-) Cowboy Bebop
(-) Dragonball
() Flame of Recca
(-) GetBackers
(-) Inu Yasha (unfortunately. Though not very many episodes, just some here and there).
(-) Lupin III (any)
(-) Mai-HiME (if this includes the Mai-Otome offshoot then yes, since a new one came out after I started reviewing).
(-) Naruto
(-) One Piece
(-) Tenjou Tenge
(-) TRIGUN
() Saiyuki
() Yu Yu Hakusho
Total Here: 14/20

II. Comedy and Parody
(-) 2x2 = Shinobuden
() Adventures of the Mini Goddesses
(X) Azumanga Daioh
(-) Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan
(-) Di Gi Charat
(x) Dragon Half
(-) Excel Saga
(X) Fruits Basket
() Galaxy Angel
(-) Here is Greenwood (I think I might have seen the whole thing but I can't remember).
() Kodomo no Omocha
(-) Kyou Kara Maou!
(-) Midori Days
(X) Ouran Koukou Host Club
(-) Pani Poni Dash
(x) Project A-ko (a friend and I used to rent these all the damn time. I streamed the first one over Netflix recently and still had parts of the dub memorized).
(-) Ranma ½
(-) Tenchi Muyo
() Those Who Hunt Elves
() Urusei Yatsura
Total Here: 15/20
Total so far: 29

III. Drama and Miscellaneous
(x) Beck
() Full Moon wo Sagashite
(X) Gankutsuou
(-) Genshiken (haven't seen all of second season yet so I can't really mark as finished).
() Glass Mask (original or new)
(X) Haibane Renmei
() Hitsuji no Uta
(X) Honey & Clover
() Kaleido Star
(-) Last Exile
() Le Portrait de Petite Cossette
(-) Monster
(X) Paradise Kiss
(X) Princess Mononoke
(X) Read or Die OVA
(-) Speed Grapher
(-) Twin Spica
() Weiss Kreuz
() Wings of Honneamise
(-) Yakitate!! Japan
Total Here: 13/20
Total so far: 42

IV. Ecchi/Mature
() Agent AIKa
(-) Cutey Honey
(-) Ebichu
(-) Golden Boy
() Grenadier
() Hand Maid May
() He Is My Master
() Iketeru Futari
() La Blue Girl
() Lingerie Senshi Papillon Rose
(-) Mahoromatic
() Mezzo Forte (Just the part with the sex, so I don't think that counts).
(-) Miyuki-chan in Wonderland
() My Dear Marie
() Najica Blitz Tactics
(-) Negima
() Puni Puni Poemi
() Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend
() Yumeria
Total Here: 6/20
Total so far: 48

V. Fantasy and Supernatural
(-) Angel Sanctuary
() Aquarian Age
(x) Berserk
() El Hazard
(-) Final Fantasy Unlimited (unfortunately)
(-) Fullmetal Alchemist
() Howl's Moving Castle
(-) Magic Knight Rayearth
(-) Mushishi
(X) Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
(-) Record of Lodoss War
(-) Scrapped Princess
(-) Slayers
() Tales of Eternia
(-) Trinity Blood
() Tsubasa Chronicle
(X) Vampire Hunter D
(-) Violinist of Hameln
(-) Vision of Escaflowne
(x) X: TV
Total Here: 15/20
Total so far: 63

VI. Historical and Alternate History
() Anne of Green Gables
(-) Basilisk
() Barefoot Gen
(-) Chrono Crusade
(X) Grave of the Fireflies
() Fire Tripper
() Kaidomaru
() Legend of Condor Hero
() Millennium Actress
(-) Nadia - Secret of Blue Water
() Ninja Scroll
() Otogizoushi
(X) Peacemaker Kurogane
(x) Porco Rosso
(x) Rose of Versailles
(-) Rurouni Kenshin
(X) Samurai 7
(X) Samurai Champloo
() Steel Angel Kurumi
(-) Victorian Romance Emma (I'd like to watch more than the first couple episodes sometime)
Total Here: 11/20
Total so far: 74

VII. Kids and Family
(x) Angelic Layer
() Astro Boy
() Beyblade
(X) Castle in the Sky
(-) Detective Conan
(-) Digimon
(-) Doraemon (In Japanese class :) )
() Hamtaro
(X) Kiki's Delivery Service
() Kimba the White Lion
() Monster Rancher
(X) My Neighbor Totoro
(-) Pokemon
(-) Samurai Pizza Cats
() Sazae-san
() SD Gundam Force
() Sonic X
() Speed Racer
(X) Spirited Away
(-) Yu-Gi-Oh (for the lulz)
Total Here: 11/20
Total so far: 85

VIII. Magical Girls and Boys
(-) Cardcaptor Sakura
(-) DNAngel
(-) Earth Girl Arjuna
() Erementar Gerad
() Hime-chan no Ribbon
(-) Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (durr, I'm a thief and I'm gonna wear the most gaudy costume ever, tee hee!)
(-) Magic Users Club (baaack in the day)
() Magical Girl Pretty Sammy
() Magical Stage Fancy La La
() Mahou no Star Magical Emi
() Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
(-) Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok
() Ojamajo DoReMi
() Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo
() Pretear
(-) Sailor Moon
() Saint Tail
() Tokyo Mew Mew
(-) Ultra Maniac
() Wedding Peach
Total Here: 8/20
Total so far: 93

IX. Romance
() Ah! My Goddess (OVA)
() Ai Yori Aoshi
() Air
(x) Ayashi no Ceres (I'm embarrassed to admit... but it was at anime club).
() Boys Be
() Chobits
(-) Fushigi Yuugi (got sick as shit of this)
() Hana Yori Dango
(X) His and Her Circumstances
() Kimagure Orange Road
() Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
() Love Hina (hell no).
() Maison Ikkoku
() Marmalade Boy
() Peach Girl
() Piano
() Please Teacher!
() SaiKano
() To Heart
() Video Girl Ai
Total Here: 3/20
Total so far: 96

X. Science-Fiction
(x) Appleseed (Boooring)
() Blue Seed
() Bubblegum Crisis
(X) Crest of the Stars
(-) Galaxy Express 999
() Gundam
(-) Macross
(-) Outlaw Star
(-) Patlabor (Own Patlabor XIII, but haven't seen it yet.)
(-) Planetes
(x) Please Save My Earth (Wish the DVD wasn't out of print).
(x) RahXephon
() Saber Marionette
(x) s-CRY-ed
(-) Soukyuu no Fafner
() Space Battleship Yamato
(-) Stellvia
() Transformers
(X) Voices of a Distant Star
(-) Xenosaga: The Animation
Total Here: 14/20
Total so far: 110

XI. Shounen-Ai and Shoujo-Ai
() Ai no Kusabi (Though I downloaded it to watch at some later date).
(X) Descendants of Darkness
() Earthian
(X) FAKE
() Fish in the Trap
() Galaxy Fraulin Yuna
(X) Gravitation
() Haru wo Daiteita
(-) Kannazuki no Miko
() Kizuna
() Lesson XX
() Loveless
(-) Maria-sama ga Miteru (hard to not see this since there are about a billion seasons now).
() Mirage of Blaze
() Oniisama E
() Seikimatsu Darling
() Song of the Wind in the Trees
() Sukisho
() Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
() Zetsuai/Bronze
Total Here: 5/20
Total so far: 115

XII. Sports
(-) Ace wo Nerae
(-) Ashita no Joe
() Ayane's High Kick
() Baki the Grappler
() Battle Athletes
(-) Buzzer Beater
() Captain Tsubasa
() Eyeshield 21
() Ginban Kaleidoscope
(-) Hajime no Ippo
(-) Hikaru no Go (Hells yeah!)
(-) Initial D
() Major
(-) Monkey Turn (one episode raw back in the day).
() One Pound Gospel
(-) Prince of Tennis
(-) Princess Nine
(-) Slam Dunk
() Suzuka
() Wild Striker
Total Here: 10/20
Total so far: 125

XIII. Surreal and Psychological
(X) Akira
() Betterman
() Boogiepop Phantom
(-) Elfen Lied (Once she peed on the floor, I was right out).
(x) FLCL
(-) Gantz
(-) Ghost in the Shell (Haven't seen all of the second season of Stand Alone Complex yet).
(x) Hellsing
(-) Jigoku Shoujo
(-) Karas
() Madlax (Exlax?)
() Melody of Oblivion
(-) Neon Genesis Evangelion
(x) Noir
(x) Paranoia Agent
() Perfect Blue
(X) Princess Tutu
(X) Revolutionary Girl Utena
(X) Serial Experiments Lain
() Texhnolyze
Total Here: 14/20
Total so far: 139

So I guess I'm an anime freak, though really I've dropped a lot of stuff on that list due to thinking it was useless, so I suppose it's a little bit different.

Dropping Anime

I was surfing 4chan earlier today, and there was a thread in the Animu and Mango board about anime that people had dropped (essentially just stopped viewing without finishing). This might be a surprise to some people, but there are very few anime that I've actually viewed a significant portion of and then stopped before the end. I tend to be a good judge of what I'll like and only start shows that I feel have some potential, but there have been a few through the years that I just haven't finished for one reason or another. Sometimes life just gets in the way, and other times the show just turns sour partway through despite being promising at the outset. Here are a few examples drawn from memory:

Nabari no Ou: I watched a few episodes of this show and even had it as a suggestion on the handout for the "Shiny New Anime" panel I do at various local conventions. Heck, I even blogged a few episodes. I got bored fairly quickly, however, since it began to seem like a bishounen eye-candy version of Naruto. Many of my friends enjoyed it, I had just hoped for a little more, I guess. Pretty animation is great, but I need a little meatiness to go along with it.

Kemonozume: Don't get me wrong, I intend to finish this at some point. As a huge fan of Kaiba, I feel I need to view this other example of Masaaki Yuasa's work. I think what made me stop this show for the time being was its intense and adult portrayal of sexuality. I'm all for including this aspect of human interaction in art, but I think I wasn't prepared for it. The series doesn't lend itself well to watching multiple episodes too close together, either. Sometime I'll pick it back up and finish the second half, even though I've heard the ending might not be the greatest.

Hakaba Kitaro: This is one of those shows that I was almost convinced would get shown in the anime club I attend, so I decided to save the second half of it until that time. Unfortunately, interest in it seems to have trailed off and the likelihood of watching it is slim at this point. I only have maybe five episodes left of the show, so finishing it off shouldn't be a problem, I just have to make the time.

Hayate no Gotoku: I liken this show to Yakitate! Ja-Pan in that I really enjoyed what I watched of it, but I have almost zero desire to finish it for some reason. My tolerance for longer shows is very small even if the show itself remains entertaining. I enjoyed the comedic aspect of the show, but I think some part of me is worried that, if I finish it off, I'll be left disappointed.

The Daughter of Twenty Faces: This is something that I want to finish, but I'm waiting for the fansub group to release the last two episodes before I watch the second half. Knowing Live-Evil, this may take a while. I'm afraid if I watch what I have of it now, I'll get to some very intense bit of cliffhanger action and I'll have to wait an unreasonable amount of time to finish it, diminishing its impact.

So, as you can see, there are various reasons why I've stopped series. Rarely is it because the thing is outright terrible; sometimes I just lose interest or it wasn't what I expected based on the first couple of episodes.