What is eternity doing tonight? - an anime blog

Track Two: In Syndication

2008-01-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Aside from Danbooru and other image boards, Owen is probably my next best source of images

Crunched for time on posting today, and these Track Twos have been burning a hole in my hard drive (luckily, only figuratively) ever since Ikimashou went down, so I'll post up a couple of them here.

For those unfamiliar with my Track Two feature, it's essentially my form of "episode impressions", a miniblog updated periodically with shorter entries. Not so much summary so much as Mystery Science Theater 3000. Or, alternatively, episode-by-episode analysis. Enjoy.

(credible spoilers for KimiKiss through 14, Kaiji through 15 and Clannad through 14, and if you're really dense, Shana II through 14 and Shugo Chara through 15)

(will reply to comments on the Lolipop article in the near future, as well)

1/19/08: Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Episode 02
SHAFT, you drive me so crazy~

Zetsubou Sensei is back in full force, and I'm a believer in its insanity all over again. There was some random fanservice in this episode with Chii, but overall it still feels more like what it really should be, a boundary-pushing, nudge-nudge-wink-wink show that is a blast to watch.

This episode, as usual, was amazingly over-the-top. Three language tracks in the first segment - one, gibberish language, two, inaccurate (and DBZ-referential) Japanese subtitles, and three, original speech from the manga. It's brilliant, especially when they differ - although, I do wonder, since a.f.k. inserted the third track, how do people unfamiliar with the manga stand this scene?

The second and third segments are solid, but not standout compared to the first. Some of the new members of the Itoshiki family look to be funny. Kiri's getting more screentime, which makes me happy, although I worry that her character's being warped to be too evil. But, maybe I'm used to the soft characters of shows like Kanon, and so I grew to like the catchphrase of "Sen~sei~".

The OP/ED of SZS are solid as ever, I think Rumba tops Bure, but as good as Romanesque is, Zessei Bijin is the king of, y'know, everything. Just found a remix, Oironaoshi Mode, of Zessei, and it's the best thing since sliced vanilla ice cream.

1/19/08: Kaiji Episode 15
Well, I was a bit off-put by the HAAADO GAYness of Sahara and Kaiji screaming at each other in last episode, but Kaiji's definitely back in top form in this episode.

I can't help but think that this Brave Men Arc needs some serious comparison to AIR, what with my remark about Ishida's death being worthy of Aozora, and now all the "Goal~"ing this episode. Followed by dying, of course.

Sahara's death really threw me off, though, it was so sudden that I didn't see it coming, even with Kaiji's tension. I didn't think he could die right on the spot, after all. Definitely shocking, and representative of the nature of this show.

Although, I did wish that either Sahara or Ishida would have had a happy ending, because I knew Kaiji wasn't going to get any cash here. The way which they stripped him of it seemed fitting, and not-too-horribly deux-ex. It's the kind of logic which makes you hate Tonegawa: it's evil, yet it makes sense.

Likewise with all the real-world truths that he and his supervisor spout. They're very chilling in a sense, because although they go against all the good things and warmth every show has taught you, you can't help but ponder their truth. In a sense Kafuka's Super Positive Attitude in me has prevented me from being left in despair, so although I end up viewing this more objectively than anything else, it's still interesting as all hell.

E Card is the next game, and it looks deceptively simple so far, which is strange. I don't know if they're going to stretch this out for ten episodes or not, since I don't see any more games in the ED. And is Kaiji going to play Tonegawa? Not to mention, what is that thing sticking out of his head in the preview? Only time will tell...

1/20/08: Clannad Episode 14
Every passing episode of Clannad only confirms that I'm a heartless bastard.

I don't know. Maybe it's because I watch with friends, so I joke more during the show, but I've really yet to get really emotional during Clannad. Fuuko got me on the verge but I was essentially cracking wise throughout the whole of Kotomi's arc.

My sentiments are pretty much the same as most on Kotomi: she's a drop-dead moe character, but her story isn't up to scratch. I can't help but think these two are related somehow.

The closure to her arc continued a bit of the ridiculousness, with her parents throwing away the future of science for their daughter and her teddy bear. Sweet, yes, but touching, no. As a rational person, I just can't see why.

There were still some good moments, definitely, and it turned out better than I hoped it would (in the end, the party was kind of superfluous), but it just didn't reach me. I think it was put well by DS over at Daijoubu in that it was a good arc, but one that wasn't really emotional.

Next episode looks very interesting though, as it's either Tomoya or Nagisa centric. I can't help but feel that the preview implies some sort of confession, romantic or otherwise, from Tomoya to Nagisa, and that has my interest peaked. On that note, I hope that they go back into Tomoya's backstory soon; they've been ignoring his father a bit too easily for the last arc or two.

P.S. Kotomi would make a lousy model on Deal or No Deal.

1/21/08: Shakugan no Shana II Episode 14
Yeah, Shana II is definitely moving a lot faster now, and it's the strong show everyone is hoping it would be.

Apparently a lot of people disliked most of this episode, because Pheles was being out-of-character, but that was all explained at the end with the double (and change) shock twists. It wasn't a real Pheles! Something funny and - yup - silver comes out of Yuuji and gut-punches her! And Konoe's not just an average girl! No way!

Well, the first two caught me, anyway. Good to see this show actually do something unpredictable for once.

Shana and Kazumi's DBZ-like love fest (talk a lot about how you're going to win, heart powaaaaaah up, rinse repeat) isn't too grating personally, just because there's some sense of things happening; Kazumi is definitely on the offensive now, although if Yuuji isn't aware of his feelings by now, he's a bloody idiot.

Looking forward to 15 and KONOE'S SHOCKING SECRET, among other things.

Also, that one Ogata girl, the one that's with the other side character, she's not a Torch, is she? I'm reading the signs wrong, right? Two of them in one season might be too much for me.

1/22/08: Minami-ke ~Okawari~ Episode 1
Wow, that IS weird walking. Also, in the OP, I expected Haruka to change into Superman or something when she stepped into the phone booth, because, uh, she's amazing, or something; pardon me, I like Chiaki, but I also like riding the catch-phrase train. Am I not supposed to get the OP? Reminds me of the way they did Genshiken 2's OP.

Would have to agree with many sentiments that it feels like Minami-ke on fast-forward, which doesn't work quite as well. Somehow I feel Special Talent Haruka would have been a show-stopper in the other version.

Also, Kana cries.
Also, Haruka's chest now qualifies as an underseat floation devices.
Also, Fujioka goes all depressed when he sees the girl he likes naked.
And now, for the number one reason why everyone thinks Okawari sucks...no Sensei!! or NINOMIYA-KUN!!

Well, it wasn't horrible, to be honest. First half didn't really click but once it got into the second half it started to hit its stride. There were good moments (overflowing spring, ping-pong, "what's your relationship with Chiaki"), gender swapping Touma and Makoto (plus bonus Fujioka) is still gold, and Kana proved that long hair is always win. Did they take three baths in one day, though? Must be a really comfortable onsen.

1/23/08: Shugo Chara! Episodes 14 + 15
Yeah, like everyone said, it's filler, and it has no Ikuto (and thus no Utau, and really barely any Easter), so there was a distinct lack of caring for this, but since Shugo Chara has a large timeframe to fill, we might have to get used to this.

The filler wasn't horrible as a whole, but it got a bit silly at times; Shugo Chara did a reasonable job of not breaking reality but as much as I think stalker Suzuka (or whatever the second-grader is called) is a cute character, his inclusion in this story kind of broke the disbelief suspension.

Yes, ignore the fact that I think in this world glowing purple snowman is a-OK.

Mihuyu was a bit annoying (being a reserved social retard, I tend to not go for the uber-over-exuberant types as much; Asa is OK, Tomo is a no.) but I could sympathize with her plight of cracking under pressure. Kisaragi-sensei...uh...that's the messy-haired teacher for NanaDrops, I can't remember the similar one for this show, interesting villain, I like the psychological manipulation he used on Mihuyu, very clever. Random technology stuff, less interesting.

That makes three potentially entertaining 'villains' for Easter, each with, I imagine, different motives and morale: Ikuto, Utau, and...Evil Teacher Guy. They are really making and breaking this show, along with Amu. Tadase is kind of typical prettyboy (although his Shugo Chara is amusing), and the other guardians and/or characters are kind of background. Well, except for yandere-style Nadeshiko, who is bloody awesome.

1/23/08: KimiKiss Episode 15
This episode was absolutely huge in terms of the plot, I believe.

I can really see where Stripey and Usagijen were getting at with their dislike of Eriko and Kazuki in general. They were nice enough characters up to this episode but here they're almost evil. Eriko with the "this is my jealous look" nearly erasing Kazuki - what, time for a more willing experiment - and Kazuki getting disgusted every time it wasn't Eriko calling.

"It's just Asuka." Yeah, let me wipe that dissapointed look off your face.

Interesting developments are happening on the Kouichi side as well. It was a bit typical of the whole 'let's leave them alone' segment followed by the 'just kidding interruption', but the end more than made up for it. It's still strange seeing a beach episode without all the fanservice lollygagging; what worries me about this segment is that Kouichi and Yuumi really seemed like a couple already in this episode, holding hands at the beach and all.

It's good, but allow me to exercise Nozomu's "Too Perfect" rule - it's too good, too soon, and with the preview of Sad Mao in...Guys'..Arms, I'm sensing a shift over to Mao, not to mention the whole 'now she's the one that gets confessed to and kissed in the play" thing. I mean, the play talks about childhood friends - that should set off flags!

I'm really, really hoping that Mao's melancholy over Kouichi and Yuumi kissing (perfectly OK to yell "Victory!" at this moment, by the way) is just her introspective about how Kouichi is more successful in love than she is. On the other hand, she's got Kai in the palm of her hand, if she chooses to play that card, which she is teasing so badly.

I think my 'perfect pairings' for this show are beginning to take shape; we will see whether my slow conversion to a flaming fanboy will affect my love for this show as we begin to hit the rocky patch of the relationships...

1/24/08: Shana II / Sign that You're a Hopeless Weeaboo #1
You're watching The Simpsons, and when Bart says "Shut up, shut up, shut up!", it mentally translates into another show before clicking back.

1/24/08: H2O ~footprints in the sand~ Episode 1
SHE IS WAITING IN THE AIR wait no. Well, they started with a shot of the clouds a la the AIR OP. Not to mention, some monologue slash poem thingy that I would put money on it being repeated in 11 episodes, or 23, or whenever the show's epilogue rolls around.

A bit of liveblogging this time around, just to go back to roots. Having fun with this feature. And hey, it seems that the much-talked-about 'weird features' of H2O are kept in the anime, given by the weird...animal...things in the "Presented By" segment. I wonder why more shows don't put animated stuff here; that was one thing I liked about Doujin Work.

Can't decide whether this show is taking itself seriously or not. The beginning says yes, the wild animal chase says no. Should I put "smothered by a girl, entirely not on purpose" on the drinking list? I'll get the root beer.

At least blind kid went for her face when groping instead of her - wait, never mind. Somehow, I have a feeling if I sarcastic my way through this it will take longer than an episode of Zetsubou Sensei.

Do blind people really walk around with their eyes closed? Ah well, realism in anime, who am I kidding.

Also, they're middle schoolers. I suppose this is an eroge, so they all failed numerous times so that they are all 18? Or, perhaps, they're really thousand-year-old artificial life forms? I never fail to amuse myself with that.

Hmm, I think I always start out hating an anime, but then I go all tsundere for it and start liking it; at least, that is what I hope for H2O. None of the characters are particularly likable at the moment, except for maybe the clumsy, spacey Hinata.

Alright, so we've established that they like fanservice. And they're not afraid of panty shots. Good job. Well, Shuffle! still turned out well.

I think we're supposed to pity Kohinata because the bratty school idol and her stupid followers beat the living tar out of her. Oh, she just smashed some dishes and snapped at the male lead. That's because she's just being tsundere, a rebel, and a cold person, who just needs love! No worries!

...Right.

Ooh, y'know what would be fun? If Hinata is actually some evil contract killer out to get Hirose, which is why she's being so nice and sucking up to him. At least, that's my crackpot theory of why her grandfather knows his name already, and calls him Hirose-sama. Always talk good about your "clients".

There's clearly some supernatural aspect to this...I wonder how much emphasis will be put on this. Additionally, how much of this feel-good "you can do it if you try!" stuff will we get. Way to empower those closet otaku, anime.

Extremely nonplussed about H2O so far, but it's long and far between shows that really grab me from the first episode. Doubly so for harem shows, simply because the logistics of character introduction and the concept of 'light-hearted intro segueing into something more interesting' hold pretty firm. The animation quality worries me though, it's a bit behind the times; but I'm not ruling this show down yet.

OK, that chibi section at the end of the show was really cute and made the overall taste left in my mouth a lot better. How simple I am, eh? That concludes tonight's Mystery H2O Theater 3000.

1/24/08: True Tears Episode 1
Let me preface this impression by saying that it is really cool that True Tears is in HD-huge size, yet still only 170 MB in size. I enjoyed watching shows like Shana II this big, but hated the extra 50 MB tacked on. Maybe I'm behind the times with encoding advancements, but more of this would be awesome.

Back-to-backing this with H2O ~footprints in the sand~; with that one, I blogged it live. This one, I'm doing my summaries after watching the show.

My best summary of True Tears is that it's another show that I'm far too happy to be irrational about. In many senses it was the same kind of intro episode as H2O. Same 'show all the characters', same 'let's have something almost important happen', even some mild fanservice - c'mon, the typical 'peeking in the bath' thing.

And yet, it was So Much Better.

It's probably because I'm shallow. True Tears is a looker, especially compared to H2O. It's characters appeal, perhaps, to a different subset; while H2O has mostly submissive characters that are drawn to the male lead (with one notable exception), True Tears has a few that are decidedly far apart, either emotionally or mentally distant from the male lead. This insight would probably explain a lot as to why I like Eriko in KimiKiss so much; for some reason, the female characters that are cold, distant, unfeeling, in appearance, have always been more appealing. You could even stretch the definition to Mai (Kanon) or Nagato.

It's weird. Maybe it has to do with the American ideal of working hard for your dream, and that allure of "being able to open up a person to the world, to make them smile." Odd, considering that anime fans like me probably need a lot of opening up to the Real World.

And so, despite True Tears admittedly being built on a few choice cliches (chance meeting, childhood friend, dirty commentary male friend, etc), it really has a good feel to it so far. I hope it can live up to the expectations now established by people like Owen.

-CCY

Loli Pop Culture: The great divide

2008-01-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

Twice now I've been called on my labeling of anime characters as lolis, when I thought I was near-certain that they were.

And aside from launching me off on awkwardly and one might say disturbingly statistical arguments - if you look at the Primula one - it set me off to thinking?

What in the heck really is a loli?

It's kind of anime's "weapons of mass destruction". A term that sends a lot of people recoiling, without them knowing really what it is. I could point to a character very easily, much like I could point to a nuclear missile, and say "This is a loli."

The character, not the missile. Please don't tell me I'm wrong this time.

And I could point to a piece of styrofoam, and say "this is not a weapon of mass destruction," much like I could wield Akiko Minase as an example that yes, there are girls in anime over 18 and decidedly non-loli.

Then, y'know, there's the in-betweens. Those that are young in age but old in looks, or those that are young in looks but old in age. What really counts as a loli, anyway? A lot of people have a sort of shudder, knee-jerk "BAD!" reaction to the term, evidenced much by the Kodomo no Jikan manga scandal, but there are many varied forms of lolis out there, some pure, some perverted, and far too many borderline to count.

This ends up so that when one starts thinking about why they hate lolis, it's difficult to come up with an argument other than "they are bad," because nobody knows what they really are.

So here's another editorial, an impromptu second part to the Moe Rising article from last time, about what a loli really is.

As always when I'm busy looking up something often considered as disturbing by the anime fandom or the real world, I head to my favorite harem-master over at Hontou ni Taihen Desu for some balanced, level-headed commentary on things that would raise quite a few eyebrows in other, perhaps more sane places.

I had remembered an old post of his, now celebrating its one-year anniversary, regarding his definition of what a loli was. As pure as his child-loving nature is (feel free to cough suspiciously) he does note that loli has taken on a highly sexualized connotation, and I can't help but agree.

If you've ever wondered what loli meant before, you've probably asked around and gotten the canned answer that it was spawned from that one Russian novel Lolita about, in short, some old guy sexually interested in some young girl named, yup, Lolita. I'm not sure how exactly it started getting thrown around in anime circles so much - I've rarely-to-never seen it used outside of an anime context - but the link to this book has never really been lost, as the use of the word 'loli' by some people has always had some dirty undertones to it, like "I see, you're watching a loli show."

And probably there's something to be said about the two character I claimed as loli - Ayu (Kanon) and Primula (Shuffle!) - not to mention 95% of most I could think could clearly fit the bill stemming from either eroge or visual novels. I will always stand behind the visual novel genre as a great combination of appealing characters, dramatic storytelling, and strong emotional appeal, but when the majority of your target audience is guys there is, admittedly, a lot of pandering going on sometimes, even if that is just so that the characters can break the mold.

Which leads to the second common way I've seen loli be thrown about, and that's in more of a physical context. A literal measuring stick like the ones you would see at an amusement park, that read "you must be shorter than this hand to be loli". Some might weigh the Delicious Flat Chest factor of a character as equally or more important than the height, as well. It's certainly easier to measure characters this way, as physical characteristics are typically more objective than subjective characteristics.

But yet, it's not foolproof. Exhibit A: Lucky Star.

How many lolis do you see in this picture?

There's that issue of art style playing up or down a character's physical portrayal. Lucky Star has this issue especially, drawing all its characters in a somewhat-deformed fashion, de-emphasizing physical characteristics. For instance, Miyuki is one of the 'larger' characters in the show, yet she is portrayed modestly, especially compared to cow-fests like Dragonaut. This has the side-effect of making most of the high school characters, right around 18 in age, look like short washboards.

Obviously there are a few for-certain lolis in the bunch - Konata wears it with pride, and Yutaka, I think, actually IS of young age relative to the cast - but there are one or two more of the cast in question. Most of the characters are mature enough to not seem childish, but the lovable Tsukasa certainly is on the borderline if anything else.

Or flip over to Shakugan no Shana - the titular Shana, for example. Short, flat, and immature. Undoubtedly she's actually pretty old, and she doesn't exactly fit the loli mold, but when you compare her to other females such as Kazumi or Ogata (?), a trend becomes apparent.

Take the other side of the coin; Aoi Oribe from Myself;Yourself. Mentally and vocally, she might as well be a ten-year-old, with a voice lifted straight from Chiyo (Azumanga). Physically, she's probably the most built of the cast. What's your verdict?

I doubt you'll find anyone who will call Aoi a loli, which gives a bit of preference for physical over mental characteristics in the loli definition, but also brings to mind an interesting concept I believe in; relative loli.

Lolis nowadays are all over the map; they are, believe it or not, not just sexualized little kids meant to make church pastors happy in the pants, but also, an excellent way to portray the concept of maturing in characters. As Owen has professed over Hinako from the same series, they can be surprising when they act like adults, or try to, and break the typical stereotype of little kids. Quite often they are childlike only in look, hiding a deeper personality inside, as Fuuko from Clannad could attest to (well, most of the time). They can hide great insights that more 'adult' characters overlook, as is the case of Koyori in sola.

And as such, the word 'loli' a lot of time has shed its sexualized meaning and become more of a general descriptor, in the same vein as 'tsundere'; there are many variations of it, and the term serves only as a sort of starting point for a character, a quick way to point viewers in the right direction, that doesn't really pin a lot of who they are down.

I say 'relative' loli because a lot of characters I label loli, might not be as such, but are clearly so compared to the rest of the cast. Primula, of Shuffle, may, apparently, be too tall and too busted for a canon loli, but when you compare her to Sia, Asa, Nerine, Kaede, and all, it's pretty clear-cut to me. Not to mention, the role she fits as the 'pseudo-adopted child' certainly fits in that loli section as well, right down to the way she acts.

Ayu, may be too mature, too old for loli status outright, but considering her easily amused, cheerful demeanor, and her being a head down on most characters, she can easily be described with the word 'loli'. (Not to mention, any spoilery reasons about why she is so.) It's not like Yuuichi is going to get busted for being a pedobear any time soon, but Ayu is definitely one that could be recgonized as 'the loli one' if I were to off-hand it, just as if I called Mai 'the quiet one' or Sayuri 'the laughing one'.

Is this diluting the word? Probably. But it seems to be used more and more as a casual word, at least to describe characters. It's not a positive nor a negative connotation - most of the time - but more widely used as a 'of this type' descriptor, kind of like the visual novel genre as a whole.

Not all visual novels may be the same - some are more dirty than others, some are slightly different in approach - but you know the gist of what you're getting when you get into one.

Likewise, a 'loli' has become a mix of characteristics, mostly physical, but also reflecting on the mental side as well; the physique will make or break a 'loli' status, but the state of mind is reserved for judging characters that are more borderline (Konoe, from Shana II, might be a good example). It doesn't always imply sexuality - although there are some that use it in such a way, that I reserve the 'lolicon' branding for - although it usually has at least a slight undertone of physical attractiveness.

(For instance, the cast of Cardcaptor Sakura is not loli, because they are not built to be physically, but rather emotionally, attractive. Many magical girl heroines, like Amu Hinamori, fall into this category.)

Will 'loli' ever lose its negative stigma? Probably not - the issue of pedophilia is a touchy one, especially in the United States, and when this name crossed the wrong people, it really became sort of a 'brand of evil' to stamp on things. Kind of like how some people brand things "moe trash", they call things "blatant lolicon pandering". Of course, neither is true, as there are good parts to both sides, and not just to dirty minds, either.

To be honest, I cannot vouch personally, but I am venturing out to try Kodomo no Jikan, the manga, as an experiment (one that, unfortunately, does not involve a lot of kissing). We will see whether I will come back with sanity and libido unscathed.

-CCY

One more - you make the call.

(Incidentally, at my age, being a lolicon probably isn't illegal if I'm on the upper edge of shota myself. For the record, though, I don't have any bias towards or against loli characters, barring those that are over-sexualized.)

(Yes, that KimiKiss link was random, but there's a lot of ace discussion going on about this 'unpredictably predictable' - am I allowed to quote myself? - romance anime.)

Moé Rising: The line between cute and characterization

2008-01-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

Ikimashou, Mega Megane Moe's host, is going through some hard times, and until these get resolved, posting will continue here at Eternity.

(I like Hisui, but the ol' line about "So moe I might die" comes to mind)

Moe: is it in your anime, killing your enjoyment?

Recently I've been in a bit of despair over Clannad, the third installment in Key's sad-girls-in-noun series that has been animated by high-quality animation studio Kyoto Animation. By all means, I like to consider myself a Key fanboy (I believe the official term for this is "kagikko") like the best of them; look up at my banner (might need a couple refreshes, admittedly) or down at my posts, and you'll see a whole lot of raving, ranting, and allusions to vanilla ice cream, among other catchfoods.

But with the advent of decidedly more real, down-to-earth visual-novel type stories in anime, for example, the highly lauded KimiKiss, it seems that some of Key's works could almost be growing stagnant. Even other shows with what could be considered mildly moe characters, take a more realistic, balanced view, as the infamous quote in ef - a tale of memories goes: "If the girl is thought to be cute, it means she isn't being described properly."

There are a lot of instances of concentrated moe in anime nowadays, but Key works are generally among the genre-leaders in this regard. Just look at Kanon, and Yuuichi's four childhood friends. Clannad is a bit more even-keeled in terms of characters, but Kotomi's recent arc is what really tipped the scale for me, and led me to this post.

It made me wonder - is there a sort of divide between moe characters and strong characters? Is a moe character, by definition, one that has to be shallow? Or is this just a false dichotomy?

Now, as you may surmise, I'm going to be one to stand by the Kanon characters until the end of time. Whether it's the persistent, fight-o attitude of Nayuki, Mai's deceptively kind demeanor lying behind her silent personality, or Shiori's strange, worldly poetic monologues, they all strike a chord somewhere deep inside.

But one has to wonder whether this emotion results from a liking of a strong characteristic or personality they have, or just what many people label as "moe", what has been described as a sort of 'protective urge', a sort of "wanting to be there for them" of like.

I say this because if you think about it, what exactly would happen if you removed the main character (and projection of many a viewer), Yuuichi, from the puzzle. Would they all come crashing down? Would Shiori ever have been happy? Would Mai ever have stopped fighting those demons, internal and external? Would Makoto and Ayu even exist?

It's a sort of grown-up fantasy for people to idolize guys like Yuuichi and situations like his, more than just a simple lust that people feel towards swimsuit models and front-page pin-ups, more of a wanting to "be the only one that can help them", an ironically selfish motive.

And in order for this situation to exist, the girls' characters have to be intentionally flawed, they have to be incomplete, one might say 'broken'. Of course, that's not to say that any flawed character is bad - a character in fiction shouldn't be perfect by any means, and entire Shakespearean works have been built around characters - and stories - gone horribly wrong.

But I think the key to a character is to make them functional enough so that they can live on their own. Kaiji, from his self-titled series, I think, is an example of one such character; he lives a rather poverished, lacking life, but there's no question that he could survive in his tiny apartment on his gas station pay. He may not be happy with his current life, but he is capable in every way, and so when he gets offered these deceptive opportunities by the yakuza to step up into a greater life, the audience can really feel for the torture, the human emotion that he has to go through.

However, the case really does seem different in many a visual novel, and Kotomi's one such unfortunate example. As blog feedback has been indicating, Kotomi's a sort of mixed bag: she's one of the most adorable characters since the history of ever, but her story just doesn't click as Jeff Lawson in one of the above posts puts it:

"I also have this gnawing feeling her story will turn out to be the weakest of the entire show. She’s hot moe infused with essence of sweet moe with a side helping of refined moe served on a dish made of moe mined in the moe mines of ancient Moetopia."

And somehow, I can't help but think that these two facts were linked.

For example, if you walk down to your local Moe dealership to purchase one of the latest 2008 models, you'll be greeted with a customization list that reads off like a list of some of the biggest cliches in anime. Childhood friend? Traumatic childhood incident that caused mental impairment? Unable to make friends with anyone but one person? Check those boxes.

It's sort of a left-brain, right-brain thing. The subjective right half eats it all up, loves the characters and their emotional ploys and the world be damned if anything come between them. But the logical left half notes that they've seen it all before, notes that it's all been done to death, hates it and wishes there was something more creative.

Are these 'moe triggers' always cliched? Maybe that's part of what it is - you really can't get that sense of comfort with a character without really knowing who they are, and the easiest way to do that is to pigeonhole them into at least a partially stereotyped character. If you have a character that breaks bounds, that isn't cut and dry, it's admittedly harder for them to be moe. Why? Because they're new, because they're different, and for a lot of situations, different is scary.

This is where ef goes, in taking a different path - the characters can't wholly be sympathized with, and they can't wholly be hated either. Miyako's 99 Missed Calls is a perfect example of this; you really feel sorry for the girl, for trying so hard and getting shut down, but on the other hand, you get really creeped out by her persistence and desperation.

And while this sounds like a bad thing, I enjoy this style a lot, because it really invokes a lot of thinking, really makes you consider the character more than a simple black and white portrayal.

Once again I want to hark back to Stripey's post on fanservice in anime, and argue that moe is largely the same way. Logically, you could probably argue that moe is essentially a subset of fanservice, for a more 'pure' type of fan.

And it functions the same way, on a character-by-character basis. If you take a blank character as a plain ice cream sundae, and lather it in moe syrup and dip it in moe chocolate and sprinkle moe candy all over it and put sliced moe on it with a moe cherry on top, it may look tasty to the eye but the fact of the matter is you'll probably be gagging by the second bite.

Moe functions well as a garnish, a way to accentuate an otherwise strong character. It shouldn't replace a character's true personality and strengths but rather add to them, show a kind of contrast.

To speak in character terms, it's similar to the theory of why tsunderes are so widely loved by many anime viewers. If a character was only tsuntsun (cold, mean, etc) or only deredere (loving, affectionate, etc), it wouldn't be half as effective, because the viewer would not get that feeling of 'seeing the side of a character that not everyone sees'.

Similarly, in visual-novel-type shows, having a character that's all moe, or conversely, not moe at all, doesn't work quite as well. If a character looks weak on the outside, but really has a strong inner drive (Nagisa), or if a character looks mean on the outside but has a soft spot inside (Tomoyo), it really works better, provided that one doesn't overpower the other. And as you may have guessed by the parentheses there, that's why I'm still liking Clannad, why I look forward to the arcs of the other characters. (Aside from the comedy, of course.)

And that's probably why I still continue to idolize Kanon; even though the character structure is very weak in spots, the characters, at least some of them, do fit this concept quite well. I know I described Mai to a T last paragraph. Other characters, like Ayu, may not work quite the same, as her clumsiness, loli-ness, and uguu~power generally overwhelm her serious aspects, but deep down, they are there somewhere, so I can't say that I could truly hate on any of the Key games. Such is the tint of the rose-colored glasses.

Kotomi, I should hope is just a holdback of the older days of visual novels, when characters were perhaps a bit weaker, a bit more stereotypical. Since a lot of her story is so cliched, so moe-engined, she lacks that 'other side' to her, that something that makes her more than an cute 2D (in both senses) character. Certainly I see potential in a lot of other Clannad characters to break the mold and balance the opposite scales of rational appeal and emotional appeal, so don't count me disenchanted yet.

Sometimes, there just needs to be a bit of stepping back for a minute and seeing how this new trend for moe is and isn't changing things...

-CCY

(Hopefully not in this direction, for one...I apologize.)

(This post should rank pretty high on the incoherency scale, the analytical articles are always tough to write. Especially when you're arguing against every anime you've ever watched. I still have no regrets in liking moe characters, I'm just surprised at how much of my viewing lineup is tilting away from stereotypical moe offerings - the ef rewatch (in case you were wondering what was holding the review), Kaiji, ARIA, SZS Zoku, even KimiKiss is on the lighter side of moe)

Looking Both Ways: The Fall Season Carryovers

2008-01-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

Mega Megane Moe @ Ikimashou is messed up something fierce on my end, so until that gets fixed, I'll post here.

Looking back...

And now for the Slowpoke news: we're in the winter season.

I'm still stuck in the past, not because of any traumatic accidents which have permanently scarred me and/or my memory, but because the fall season is arguably a much more robust season than the winter ones, at least in terms of new shows.

Especially for a visual novel slash romance slash restricted rock-paper-scissors fan like me, there were a lot of shows that were very appealing; many of them, despite being in tried and tired genres, brought a lot of fresh concepts to the table.

And what's interesting about this, is that unlike in the summer season, a lot of the most promising shows didn't close out at twelve episodes. Those that did, were strong shows, no doubt, but many more than that have been promised at least 20-odd episodes, double the goodness if they can keep the pace up.

As such, the winter watchlist is turning out to be strangely familiar. There are plenty of carryover shows on the list, and those that are new shows to 2008 are mostly sequels in some way or form (Zoku SZS, Minami Okawari). Not to leave a bad impression of the winter season - but there aren't any names of new shows that really stand out from it.

This doesn't equate with 'no good shows', per se - some of my favorite fall shows have been ones that have been completely off the radar - but going off the blog reactions so far, there hasn't been a standout show that absolutely blows people away, that came out of nowhere and delivered the awesome. Undoubtedly there probably will be, but for now I'm content with surviving off both fresh old shows, and some true classics that are burning a hole in my DVD collection. Today, I'll take a look at what we have to expect from some of the shows coming into their second cour in 2008.

Shugo Chara!
Understandably, Shugo Chara! was a show that wasn't exactly on my radar when the season started. Even if I was born and raised on Cardcaptor Sakura, magical girl shows aren't always my cup of tea, and I usually rely on feedback from other blogs to pick out the subsets of this genre that would be my type. In that sense, I'm a sort of elitist for magical girls - I tend to prefer only the ones that have an appeal to both genders, those that carry 'feminine' traits such as romance and a lowered focus on action, yet don't come off as too girly. I do have a pink tolerance still, despite all these years of anime watching.

Anyway, Shugo Chara! got a surprising amount of good feedback from placed that I read a lot, namely Jeff Lawson's and Owen's locales, and so it was an essential "here goes nothing" while I was scraping the bottom of the barrel one day. As has been detailed, the first few episodes were a bit too pink for my tastes, but contained enough interesting stuff to keep my interest, so I forged on; and man, am I glad I did.

It seems a bit pretentious to both proclaim it the next Cardcaptor Sakura or even compare it to that show at all, considering how times have changed a lot in the 21st century, but there's no doubt that Shugo Chara! has the potential to be THE magical girl show of this decade. I can't speak for other popular shows, such as the PreCure series or whatnot, but certainly SC seems to have the wide appeal and fanbase to make it big.

The animators seem to know this too, as the show has been slated for one of the longer continuous runs in recent memory, topping 50 episodes, and this is something that, naturally, is good and bad. The good is of course more of what we love, more of this show and it's entertaining character dynamics. The bad is that, since there doesn't appear to be a huge amount of content for the manga, there's going to end up being a lot of filler in the show, ergo, not as much of the entertaining character dynamics. (Not to mention, it'd be a pain to blog.)

What, personally, deserves the most focus is the quickly-shaping romance tetrahedron of sorts, forming between Amu, Tadase, Ikuto, and Utau. Of course, saying this is a bit simplified; Amu's torn between the goodly Tadase and the dark Ikuto, Tadase's smitted with Amu's transformed self, Ikuto's busy being the guy equivalent of tsundere (Shiraishi's "cool-dere" comes to mind), and Utau is mysteriously possesive a la Primula (that suddenly explains a lot for Stripey's fandom of Utau), and all these facts add up to make the romance side of this story a bit more appealing than your standard 'will-she-won't-she' love story.

The magical girl elements of SC are a bit overdone, personally, as Amu seems to be able to hax any X Character into submission without barely breaking a sweat, but this might just be the show's way of deemphasizing these aspects in favor of it's stronger romantic and slice-of-life elements.

So what's to look for in the upcoming episodes of Shugo Chara? To be honest, I'm worried that the answer is 'not much' - different shows handle their mid-sections in different ways, but Shugo Chara! has a lot of time to burn, and so it might not be doing much in the way of developing character relations in the near future. Hopefully it will be like many recent shows and not delay the love confessions until the end.

Although, regarding that, what's really keeping me interested in this anime (aside from denying cute traps) is that I can't really decide who Amu's going to 'win' at the end...presuming she does at all. Both Tadase and Ikuto have their appeals, both to Amu and to the viewer, and it's not as clear-cut as other shows which one will end up being the 'main' guy. Tadase is undoubtedly the more traditional choice, being the good guy who fights along her, but Ikuto's been getting a lot of attention recently, and being the somewhat rebellious yet soft-hearted personality he is, I can't help but root for him.

Oh, and the mysterious evil motives of Easter, I suppose I have a little vested interest in; who knows if it will be some typical "parents vs. kids" endeavor or not. I can't get a lock on this either.

Shakugan no Shana II
Shana II was not exactly the most popular anime around the blogosphere recently, having eschewed it's action and love-triangle aspects for more of a repetitive drama that failed to be really engaging. But with the recent episodes having kicked the series full throttle ahead, it might be time to pick up interest in the show again.

For me, Shana II has always been a show that was sort of a bread-and-butter watch - something it would be a little painful, other times a little more intriguing, but most of the time it was relatively typical supernatural-action-romance fare, with the action part just getting into gear now. However, with some of the plot points that I think lie ahead, both involving a few Torches (accidental spoilers, whee) and the story of Pheles and the Reiji Maigo, Shana II might have an opportunity to prove itself more than that, and show that the hype for this show isn't just irrational love for melon-bread-eating tsunderes.

In that regard, it might have actually been a wise decision in the end for the beginning parts of Shana II to be so slow; it could be considered that the animation team was merely getting the filler out of the way so that the rest of the show can be exciting from here on out. Maybe not a good business decision, but if it holds true it will be promising for the second half of Shana.

As for what will happen in what episodes remain, I don't really know. I'm really unfamiliar with this series as a whole, and so what I can say is that there will be a lot of fighting, a few romantic scenes, and a lot of terminology spamming to come. It's pretty cut-and-dry that Shana and Yuuji are into each other, but I can't decide whether we'll get true confessions and conclusion with this season, considering the retcon we got this time. If there is enough material for Shana III, that aspect might just be held back on. Kazumi doesn't look like she has much to go on; we already know she likes Yuuji, and now she's in that limbo between backing off and going on the attack, neither which would really suit her. As such, I think all she's good for so far is some romantic insights, what with her virtues of patience and all.

And so my hopes for this show lie with Ike for reasons too numerous to count. He's your glasses-sporting "just as planned" smart guy, he's gotten shafted through the whole cultural festival arc, and he seems pretty level-headed and likable as a whole. Not to mention, he's shooting for the moon in going after Kazumi, who even he knows prefers Yuuji; he's effective working off a rationale of 'well Yuuji likes Shana, so someone's got to be there to catch Kazumi'.

I really hope he gets his fair share of screentime considering how much he's been made fun of recently, as I think he could be a really strong character. I'm hoping they have time to fit him in among all the more standard storyline fun with the green-haired ladies.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji
I think I will forever tout this as the reason why blog hype is important; I would not go within a million miles of a show featuring ugly men (and no moe girls) fighting it out in rock-paper-scissors, yet undoubtedly some of the latest arcs of this show have been nothing short of stunning.

It's funny; what makes this show work is that it's not pure macho, nor pure mindgames, but sort of a mix of both, and then some. There are moments that make you think, there are moments that make your blood boil, and sometimes, there are even moments that make you tear up. Sometimes, there are all three at once. I mean, for the love of whatever deity I worship now, I thought Aozora was going to start playing during Ishida's scene in episode fourteen. It was absolutely wrecking, in that way that made you contemplate the nature of man while crying manly tears and shouting "ISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA".

Kaiji rivals the best of the visual novel genre in having disturbingly touching insights; while those deal more with the romantic irrationality of man, Kaiji goes more into the nitty-gritty stuff. The difference between the haves and have-nots, the wants and want-nots, how everyone is selfish in being kind and kind in being selfish. (A bit of a stretch, but I heart parallelism)

And it's a great mix of predictability and unpredictability as well. You know that Kaiji isn't going to win millions every time soon, but you know they can't quite kill him off either. You know that he's going to work his way out of this hole somehow, but fall back into another. It keeps the mind racing, and to be honest, I still don't know how the Brave Men Road is going to come out. We know he's not doing to die. So what is he going to do to get rid of the money? I'm guessing give it all to Ishida's wife, because there's got to be another yakuza-sponsored game on the horizon; the other aspect that keeps it interesting. It's that 'what will they think of next?', both in the fourth-wall and in the storyline sense.

It's that strange mix of disgust and delight when you see the shoving in Brave Men Road, that puts you disturbingly close to the action, in a similar position as the 'rich bastards'. It's eerie in a sense, how unwittingly we are becoming like them, being the viewers watching something like this for pleasure. It ties you into the show like what nearly no other show can do, and so that's why I can reccomend Kaiji as one of the top shows - especially if you hate moe - of the fall season.

KimiKiss Pure Rouge
For as many times as I've used this phrase, KimiKiss is one of the shows that I think could most fit the idea of being 'unpredictably predictable.' It's a very vanilla show in a sense, one that's refreshingly down-to-earth and real, and at first the romance seemed pretty much a straight shot. It could be easily seen how Kouichi will be with Yuumi, how Mao will end up with Mai, and how Kazuki will snag Eriko.

But, since this show is so multi-threaded, it's easy to see how these threads will intertwine as well. The show seems to be dropping plenty of hits of possibly tying Mao and Kouichi together. Plus, it's tough to tell whether Asuka or Eriko is the true girl for Kazuki.

Let's go with the latter first. Eriko is probably the more likely shot - on-screen kisses aren't taken lightly these days, and it seems all too sensible to have the romance with Kazuki be the thing to introduce Eriko to the world of emotion - I would say break her out of her shell, but Owen has another way of putting that.

Still, like in Shugo Chara's similar dilemma, I can't help but root for Asuka, the underdog here. It just seems wrong that the one who seems to be more passionate will lose, although I think that instead of Asuka winning here, she will just get some major development instead. She seems the strong, fiercely independent type, and she could definitely learn how to fly on her own with her love for soccer instead of Kazuki.

Mao and Kouichi's situation is even tougher to call. Certainly it seems like it would be impossible to break the romantic bonds between Kouichi and Yuumi, given the collective amount of time they've stared at each other. And certainly it seems hard to split Kai and Mao, who seem the reverse of the Eriko - Kazuki situation; Kai is an interesting character, the 'frequently misunderstood delinquent' type that's cold, but has a big heart.

But there still remains that possibility that Mao and Kouichi will in the end, be together; after all, she had to come back from France for a reason, and the anime has certainly dropped more than a few hints. I could see how Kai could live independently, like how Azuka could. And Yuumi could - could, the imperative word - be removed from the story with her moving away.

But that's the catching point, that it would just seem too sad for her to be alone; she doesn't look like she has a fallback, she seems much more emotionally invested in Kouichi. Enough to nearly clinch the 'with enough effort, you'll win' romance award, but not enough to go yandere. So somehow I think Kouichi and Yuumi is the most likely combo, which will probably set Mao up with Kai. I wonder, if maybe Mao will be the one who has to understand who her true feelings are for.

(Oh, and don't leave Hiiragi and Mamiko Noto out of the picture, either.)

There's a lot to think about for such a simple-looking show, which is why KimiKiss is one of the strongest romances running so far. I look forward to seeing how it can do so much with so little in the future.

Clannad
Visual novels are probably the toughest shows to predict for, which is why I enjoy them so much. Others may not be as fond of the wild, rampant plot twists and overly idealized characters that these shows frequently make use of, but this is probably an issue of cliche more than anything else.

The visual novel genre is full of them, with childhood friends left and right throwing themselves at some undoubtedly bland guy. That's probably part of the reason why I've always been a fan of the Key shows - AIR, Kanon, and now Clannad - because they do things differently.

Yeah, a lot of things are the same. Everyone's still love-love toward one guy, and most of them have a history with him, but it's not always about that. Clannad is a show that feels more balanced - it's not just romance, but it's comedy, it's not just about the girls, it's about Tomoya as well, and when it is about the girls, it's more about them discovering themselves rather than their affections for Tomoya. In that sense it really is a show that anybody can enjoy.

The beginning episodes and the Fuuko arc were a great representation of this; people left and right both enjoyed the comedy, and when it came down to things, spouted fountains of tears at her story. Despite its somewhat derivate roots of Ayu, Fuuko's arc managed to work well because it wasn't just straight Tomoya - Fuuko interaction, but since it also involved Nagisa both helping them and helping herself.

Nagisa's probably the reason why Clannad works, in that despite her soft, pushover personality she's a very strong character all her own, and a great complement to Tomoya. She's not one-tenth as adorable as Kotomi or Ryou, but that might be exactly the reason why: she's more of a real character, with real thoughts and emotions, instead of a cardboard moe cutout. Yet she doesn't renounce those roots either.

Recently I think the anime has slumped a bit with Kotomi's arc - I love her character, her story's interesting and all, but it's just so typical. I think any visual novel anime could pull the 'reclusive childhood friend with dead parents' concept off, since it just seems so perfect storm, the sort of dream that any lonely guy would wish to have, to be the only one there for a girl like that. Clannad needs to be different.

Luckily, I think we're getting into the best parts of the show, with what arcs we have left. Despite not knowing anything about the show, I have high hopes that Fuuko and Kotomi, as interesting as their arcs may be, will be utterly shamed by the powers of the three (four) girls remaining.

Tomoyo's always been a riot in character, and she looks to have the story to back it up, if it involves her trying to change the way she's seen, like it sounds so far. It's definitely potential for her to develop a lot on her own, into a strong person.

Kyou and Ryou are perhaps a more typical bunch but one I'm much more willing to fall for than Kotomi. Kyou is a great personality, with her light-hearted, flirtatious attiude absolutely captivating, combined with more of a sisterly love for Ryou, equaling something fierce. Ryou, well, she's a mix of Shiori and Tsukasa, and that I'm willing to overcome any sense of logic for. I just wonder what their story could be about, and that's what really interests me.

And of course, we'll close with Nagisa, where it really could go any way in the world. Whether they expand more on her story or Tomoya's story, them or their parents, the real world or the imaginary one, time can only tell. I can only hope it will be legendary like everyone is making it out to be - right now, it is a good show, but the potential astounds me.

-CCY

Looking forward...

The End of Eternity // Let's Go to Ikimashou!

2008-01-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well, if you think about it, I could have been more of a jerk by leaving out the last part of the title. I wonder how many of you I fooled, if only for a few words.

---

Well...Blogger...it's been good, you helped me get my start in anime blogging and all...but I just don't think we should see each other any more. I mean...it's not like I don't like you, you're simple to understand, you're user-friendly, you've got a lot of connections...but...there's this one girl called WordPress, and, I think I'd like to get to know her a lot better. Y'know...it's not you, it's me. I want to try different blogs, see how it goes, I think we both can do better than each other.

Look, don't cry, you know what we both go through when you cry?

You've got plenty of other bloggers out there, so don't take it personally. I'm sure you'll be fine. Don't worry about me, I can handle myself. Thanks for the memories, I'll make sure to take them with me wherever I go.

Stay strong.

---

So, uh, yeah, I'm moving over to Ikimashou thanks to Randall, the host, and Owen, the one who suggested the idea. There's a lot more features there and stuff, so I think you'll enjoy what you see, and I think it'll be great for my posting in the future.

And with a break-up comes a new makeover, as I get a reskinning and a name change to Mega Megane Moé. The new link is http://m3.ikimashou.net, so update your links accordingly and head on over there for more info. I will cease posting on here shortly, so make sure to make the jump.

Hope to see you all on the other side!

-CCY

I'm pretty sure I used this image before, but hey, it's Sacchin waving goodbye, so it's entirely fitting.

What kind of cocky last words were that? How many times do I have to get that right?

~fin~

I like that.

...damn.

Here we go...as you think of the blogs of the past, wonder:

"Do you have any memories you don't want to forget?"

Series Review: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

2008-01-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

"You were...trying to make yourself taller, weren't you?"

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a funny kind of show.

Naturally, I mean that in both senses of the word. First off, it's a 'funny' show in the same way that someone like me might smell 'funny', with a style far removed from most slice-of-life shows. You come to SZS expecting a standard bright, cheerful school-life comedy and what you get is something you might expect from the British and their flying circuses.

It's a type of show that's insulting and off-the-wall, with continuity thrown to the winds in favor of sheer insanity in numerous disconnected sketches. And compounding this is that distinct SHAFT style, with the plentiful camera cuts, the occasional strangely-framed shot, and parody after parody of every aspect of both anime and society.

It's quite simply, an anime that you're unlikely to see the likes of again (barring its sequel, Zoku SZS), in style and in concept, for good and for bad. A show like this feels highly experimental in nature (at least for me, who is used to comparatively sane slice-of-lives), a kind of 'what happens if I press this?' on a six-hour scale, and naturally as a result it has its great moments and it has its annoying moments.

Luckily enough, for the most part Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is 'funny' in the gut-busting sense of the word as well.

(Unless you're prepared for spoilers, that is.)

I can only guess that all three are here because they are SHAFT show heroines.

As has been expounded on all of forty-eight hours ago, characters are what make slice-of-life shows great, and SZS looks to deliver with a quite large core cast that keeps on growing, with each newly introduced member of Nozomu Itoshiki's class. But what's interesting about SZS is that it takes a different approach than shows like Minami-ke, in that it focuses more on cast-plusplus-ing (er, adding new characters) than really developing the existing ones.

Most of SZS's half-episode sketches involve introducing the next member on Itoshiki's roll-call, and each one is done quite well. Each character in the story has their own distinct personality trait, one might say defect, and over the course of 10-odd minutes we usually see that personality evolve as the character comes in contact with the equally demented world of Itoshiki.

The best part of the cast is the wonderful way in which pretty much all of them are messed-up or out-of-place in some way, from Fujiyoshi (first name?) the yaoi fangirl to Meru the internet troll to the incredibly normal girl (whose name, naturally, I forgot) and ever so many more. Their interactions are even better, when the frequently closed-minded personalities clash, whether it be Chiri's OCD perfectionism forcing itself on other characters, or Kafuka's optimism radiating out. Words don't really describe the amount of humor that seeing Chiri trying to evenly divide a 4-strawberry cake for 5, 6, and eventually 7 people, and finally resorting to liquefying the whole thing in a blender.

Additionally, an aspect of SZS touched on in a few episodes, but perhaps not fully realized is the deliciously anti-harem style of it. Your standard harem show with a bunch of cute, happy, pleasant girls (no doubt childhood friends from X years ago) going hardcore deredere over some nondescript male is entirely dime-a-dozen (especially around these parts of the internet), and the ridiculous way in which SZS turns a cliche like this on its head is 110% awesome. Here, a pessimistic, insane, and slightly suicidal teacher racks up a bunch of love interests including a stalker, an OCD perfectionist, and a shut-in (hikikomori), who all pursue him with almost disturbing enthusiasm. (Don't forget, they're his students, too.) It's a concept that is all too enjoyable, and I wish that SZS had poked more fun in this area.

Still, what the show does do will generally leave you on the floor, rolling with laughter. With nearly every half-episode being a character introduction, and with every character being drastically different or strange in a new way, there are a lot of winners in the bunch.

Not to mention, the show has a simply obscene level of depth to it, one that can stretch a 25-minute show to 30 or 35 with the sheer amount of pausing needed to catch all the in-jokes.

SZS features what apparently is the SHAFT trademark Mighty Morphing Chalkboard, with a changing message written on it each scene. These range from in-character notes, to random commentary, to subtle pokes at other anime; it's a great way to extend the viewing life of a show in seeing things you didn't see before - as long as you don't mind breaking up the flow of the episode a bit to pause.

Not to mention, SZS does some not-so-subtle pokes as well. Whole minutes of the show are devoted to parodies of TV shows, commercials, and pretty much anything you can think of. If you don't get it, it's probably a reference.

Which herein lies one of the minor flaws of SZS. One would think that not understanding a show would be a major flaw, but here it's just a manner of getting in the right mindset. Honestly, if you're trying to 'get' SZS, you're probably watching it wrong. On the incomprehensible scale from 1 to 10, with Cardcaptor Sakura being a 1, and Lucky Star a 10, SZS would solidly smash through the glass ceiling with something on the high side of twenty.

It's the full package; when it's not doing random references to Japanese commercials, it's slapping together scenes in a disconnected manner, and when it's not doing that, it's busy being discontinuous. I think the epitome of this is when Itoshiki gets utterly flattened by a runaway trolley at the end of the penultimate episode, only to return perfectly fine in the final episode (which, incidentally, acted exactly like a normal episode, introducing two characters with next-to-no sense of conclusion).

I really did wish that sometimes the show would at least pretend that past events had happened - if only because I wanted to see a 'sketch with no punchline' - but overall the show still manages to make it work with the sheer over-the-top-ness of the show. Taking it seriously is taking it the wrong way. It's not the 'brain in park' level of fanservice shows, but more of a 'clutch disengaged', where you kind of coast downhill and let the show take you where it wants.

Something that's more worrying about SZS is when the humor goes wrong; there are many absolutely brilliant moments in the shows that wouldn't be possible without the dark style of it, but sometimes in trying to be funny it trips over its own shoelaces.

This is usually apparent in characters like Maria, the illegal immigrant. A lot of her humor revolves around her combination of poverty and enthusiasm about the country. She's kind of the pitiable character, the poor beggar that everyone in the show can't help but love. But often times a lot of the jokes regarding her backwardness come off as more 'social commentary' than true humor. It's tough to draw the line between comedy and straight xenophobia sometimes.

Likewise, SZS started going down to the Fanservice Mart when it realized halfway through, that panty shots were a lot cheaper than the joke over at the Funnies-R-Us; however, those who are less sexually repressed find that these gags contain only about a quarter of the taste, and, unlike what the back of the box says, aren't just as filling.

Kae[d/r]e the pseudo-yandere flipped back-and-forth between her Japanese nice-girl and foreign lawsuit-threatening persona (another touchy gag) almost as much as her skirt flipped up, which only occasionally was part of an actual joke, instead of the far more common 'dead space / transition panties.'

Kiri the shut-in and Chie the actually kind-of-level-headed character also succumbed to the same form of random sexualization usually confined to fanfiction, bookending funnier jokes with spontaneous yuri. Maybe it's the sunlight-fearing geek in myself, but Kiri really had a lot more potential than that, which was only realized at the start and end of the series.

Barring these pratfalls, though, SZS's humor largely works well, with enough redeeming moments, and enough of a different feel from the norm, to earn a solid Konata thumbs up (Good job!) in this category.

Visually it's a treat as well, and while it's not the most graphically stunning piece, it does enough tricks and has enough fun to stand out in an above average way. The art style of SZS feels very distinctive - one might say much more traditionally Japanese - and the way that SHAFT mixes it up as usual with crazy camera shots, graphical style changes, and especially the visual gags, makes it enjoyable to watch.

The OP sequences in particular deserve special mention. the first OP, made solely of black title cards, feels cheap, but the mixing up of the 2ch copypasta in the lightning-fast text segment warranted a second look (especially with a bunch of censored words that made it feel like a puzzle to understand). The second OP was ADHD central and showed a lot of that distinctive SZS edge, from the flashes of yuri bondage (among other entendres), to the faces with kanji on them, to the random real-life shots superimposed, it's a lot to take in. And the third OP, shown for only two episodes, was a bit cheap in the animation department but had enough text to make it all worth it, with joke upon joke that could only be discovered though master subtitling and frame-by-frame viewing.

The songs were plenty worth it too; the SZS soundtrack had a couple songs that were memorable, although not MP3-player worthy, but the OP / ED were absolutely fantastic. "Damn Twisted Person", the first OP, was a demented hard-rock song, while the second, "Gouin ni Mai Yeah", was more typical, yet still listenable, J-pop-style stuff. "Zessei Bijin", the ED theme, as you may remember, is one of my all-time favorite songs, with a jazzy, swinging beat that's infectiously catchy, and the lyrics, like Damn Twisted Person, fit the show and its amusingly twisted feel very well.

Sayonara Zetusbou Sensei is a show that probably turned a lot of a people off. The subbing was (understandably) slow, the humor was a bit questionable in the middle, and the insanity might be a bit too much to bear. But overall, I think it's a stand-out slice-of-life show that deserves at least a peek.

It doesn't have that universal appeal of shows like Azumanga, doesn't have the great cast of Minami-ke, doesn't have the charm of Lucky Star. But what it does do right is that it is unmistakably its own type of show. It's different, it's provocative, and it still has a great, funny cast. Try it, and see just how much fun being left in despair can be.

-CCY

Since it was inherently hard to find Kiri with anything more than her trademark blanket on, we'll go for #2.

(If Minami-ke is a "better than good", Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a "not quite great.")

(For some reason, I'm finding a lot of slice-of-life casts to be head-and-shoulders above many of the harem shows I watch. Is it because they're flatter, so that I can't really see their flaws? Or is it just that they're just less tailor made for moe, and more for funny?)

The Path to the Post:
A few posts around the anime blogging networks that I browsed through in order to help make this post possible, which didn't really have a place in the de facto post to be cited.
* Concrete Badger's final episode post at The End of the World mentions the Britcom element of SZS as well as providing some other interesting analysis on the show, the final episode, and apologetic culture.
* Ascaloth at Riuva touches on the amusingly discontinuous nature of the show, the parody elements, and more.
* Don't forget, there is a second season; first episode post courtesy of recap blog Tenka Seiha.

Series Review: Minami-ke

2008-01-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

~~"Haruka-neesama IS amazing."~~

Actually, wait, that's not a quote, nor is that Haruka. Have your pick of catch-phrases for the obligatory quote to kick off the post, then:
"NINOMIYA-KUN!!"
"Bakayarou!" (spelling brutalized)
"SENSEI!!"
"Rare expression!"
"*Hosaka's extremely strange laugh*"

And I'm sure I'm missing very many. It's a slice-of-life show that, like many, is simply filled with personality.

One of the shows that many have named as one of the better school life comedies in recent times, what Minami-ke does best is both embracing and breaking the bounds of slice-of-life shows.

Like many, the focus of the show revolves around a bunch of female characters in one place, and their adventures both at school and at home.

Unlike many, there actually are guys in this show, and even if they do get abused all the time like the uncommon male in a slice-of-life, their presence is very real and very central to the show.

Like many, the show relies quite a bit on repeated gags, both of the 'in rapid succession' and 'in every episode' types; some of which work well, others which do not.

Unlike many, Minami-ke doesn't shy away from the romance side of things, frequently left unexplored in slice-of-lives. Rather, it makes great fun of it.

Probably the best aspect of this show is the breadth of it. It has a bit of physical comedy, a bit of verbal comedy, a bit of disturbing comedy, and even a few Lucky-Star style sympathetic moments. Characters are introduced nearly on an episode-by-episode basis, and they nearly always come bearing new gags. Minami-ke does a great job of feeling like a contained snapshot of a limitless universe, where the characters were not the only ones in the world.

(And thus, neither did that make them the gods of that world. That review is coming later, I swear, officer!)

It's tough to gauge whether Minami-ke is truly the best comedy of recent memory, especially because the genre itself seems to be spreading out - there's dark humor (Zetsubou), the connective shows (Lucky Star), the relaxing shows (ARIA), and so on. Minami-ke feels the closest to what one might call the original school-life comedy roots, with the likes of Azumanga Daioh, and in that slot it functions quite well as a show.

Maybe it's a bit of a put-down to call it 'yet another good show from the fall season', but that's what it is; not forgettable, by any rates, but not legendary, either. The kind of show that lives on in catchphrases more than moments. And that's fine.

Oh dear, I've concluded the post already, what to do after the jump?

(Oh, and SPOILERS ARE BOSS, even though it's tough to spoil a show like this.)

The most important part of a show like this is definitely the characters, for in a comedy they serve two purposes.

They deliver the jokes, first and foremost; a good character can build up a stereotype around themselves, carve themselves a niche, so that when you see a half-naked guy cradling a fish you can laugh and go "Oh, that Hosaka."

Secondly, a great character will develop themselves by occasionally breaking out of that stereotype, by being actual, developed characters. Slice-of-life shows don't have to have the same rapid, smooth-flowing pace that other shows, like visual-novel adaptations, tend to maintain, but it's important that there be at least some sense of continuity as the show travels along.

Shows like Azumanga work because of this factor, that helps to achieve the same goal as any other anime; to make the viewer feel like they're really there with the character. Since slice-of-lives don't carry the same dramatic impact as others, in this case it's that sense of growing up with a friend; you learn about them and get to know them very well, and you can sense the little changes in them, you can be surprised when you see a side of them that doesn't appear very often.

While it doesn't seem like this happens very much in this type of show, it's quite essential and it tends to happen a lot more than you think (Plot? In MY slice-of-life?) - very few shows get away without a sense of major continuity, and that's because they're so insane and off the wall that they don't need it.

Minami-ke is one of the shows that works the 'constant evolution' factor quite well, in doing it in two ways. The first one is the easy one to do, that many shows do, and that is by introducing more characters. Minami-ke has a simply huge cast, from both pairs of the three Minami siblings, to the two-plus classroom friends that each girl has (one 'normal' character and one insane one, amusingly), to even a few token adults that show up. Not to mention, the legendary Sensei and Ninomiya-kun.

New characters can add a lot to the show, freshening it up with their new personalities and with the relationships they form with the other characters, romantic, comedic, or otherwise. And Minami-ke works it well in making so it doesn't feel like forced introductions; the characters have always been there, you just haven't seen them, or something of the like. Each character has their merit, and that's what makes it work.

Likewise, the main characters of Minami-ke aren't stagnant either. At first glance, Chiaki's the sarcastic, sharp-witted child, Kana's the energetic dunce, and Haruka's the wise, kind lady. They could easily be distilled down to their essences and pronounced near-copies of other, similar characters (in order: Tsuyuri [Doujin Work], Tomo [AzuDai], Alicia [ARIA]). But, you'd find out you'd be wrong.

Chiaki is a manipulative character less on purpoes, but more out of her childhood innocence. She doesn't know a lot about romance, or about people in general, and so her strange reactions to, for example, Fujioka's love letter, or the gender-bending Mako and Touma (?) are made even more amusing. Not to mention, of course, her sisterly love for Haruka, a key weak point.

And one that Kana's all too happy to strike. Taking a look back at her, she seems like the type of character that would appear in a murder mystery: the happy-go-lucky person that no one would expect of being the mastermind behind everything. Quite often, Kana is very air-headed and gullible, but she's shown great flashes of genius, of being able to deftly manipulative those with romantic or otherwise logical weakness. She is an entertainingly curious character, a "what if I do this?" type with no regards for sanity.

Haruka is actually much the same way, except in a more reserved manner. Her kind demeanor really feels close to her true self and not forced at all, yet she can play mafia boss like the best of them. She's well-meaning with her friends and siblings, and always tries to be kind to everyone, but even she shows lapses of judgment and mind. And a bit of skin too.

Minami-ke's fanservice (does shouting "cheap transition!" make it more so?) is actually pretty survivable, for someone who reacts to breasts in anime with the attitude of a 6-year-old scared of cooties. A few shows have left me in despair (now that's subtle) in how when the comedy well began to run dry, they replaced it with cheap fanservice instead, but the rare undergarment shot or otherwise exposure in Minami-ke is more productive than anything else. It's used as the means instead of the ends, as part of a joke or gag, and that's when fanservice works best, for risque laughs.

Aside from having a enjoyable and quite large cast of characters, the other thing that Minami-ke really deserves accolades for, as hinted at, is its approach to romance, and of the female-male interaction in general. Most slice-of-lives, at best, give these kind of jokes a glancing blow, with an occasional "you ever wonder why there are no guys in our lives?" non-sequitur, but Minami-ke tackles the issue in style.

There aren't many heart-pounding, blush-inducing moments that one would expect from a romance, naturally, but rather there are plenty of comedic scenes - or rather, characters - that revolve around romance.

Fujioka is probably the one that plays it the straightest, as he fills the role of well-intentioned guy that can't get a move in edgewise on Kana; effectively his tactics of trying to sell screen doors to submarines (it just doesn't work the same) are smirk-inducing alone, but when he's followed up by his own equally-lost stalker, things get great, like in the four-way busy-signal-fest in the final episode.

Hosaka's on the other end of the scale, with a creepily-obsessive-guy demeanor that's played both to his benefit and his expense, or maybe both at the same time. His devotion is awe-inspiring but laughably aimed, as he frequently lapses into entertaining stereotypical daydream sequences involving him, wife material Haruka, and miniature Kana and Chiaki kids, who are funny all their own, such as when they pop up from under Haruka's clothes during a romantic moment, demanding food.

Makoto (if anyone doesn't call him Mako-cakes by now) is the true idiot of this show, upstaging even Kana. As the elementary school kid he's extremely gullible, especially combined with a strange crush on Haruka (out of your league, kiddo) that makes him susceptible to both much Chiaki hate and Kana manipulation. As such he spends most of his time in drag, as he gets much closer to Haruka in his female form, to the point where everyone thinks he's kidding when he announces he's a guy.

In fact, great amounts of literature could be written for the amount of disturbing but downright hilarious cross-dressing that goes on in Minami-ke, with not just Mako but Touma, the other-family Minami who wants to be a guy. As such, 'gender swapping' is taken to new heights, with the enthusiastic efforts the two of them put together, in their own way, and with the amount of confusion that both they and their fellow characters have about their true identity.

The final thing that really stands out about Minami-ke is that it's a show with quite a bit of full-circling going on. I like nothing more than seeing a thread opened at the start and closed at the end, perhaps because it makes me feel smart or perhaps because it's a good way of establishing the previously-defined continuity.

There are a few examples of this - such as Kana kiss-attacking Chiaki in episode one, and a Minami relative returning the favor to Kana in the final episode - but none probably more distinctive than the legendary adventures of Sensei and Ninomiya-kun.

The two of them fulfill numerous purposes in this show. First off, it's an amusing parody of overdramatic soap operas, with more than a fair bit of ridiculousness to their adventures. This is evident in their second power, the strength of their running gag; whether it be the cries of "Ninomiya-kun! / Sensei!" or the speeding black car, it's repeated enough times to be hilarious, while still retaining some freshness in just how (and who) gets owned by a car this time. Not to mention, the epic video game in episode 4.

Finally, the show mirrors Minami-ke in coming to an end in the final episode as well; it's kind of a show within a show in that regard. Who didn't feel a mixture of amusement and delight when the speeding car drove right by Sensei in the final episode? It's a great example of how to start, maintain, and conclude a running gag in a show like this.

Moving away from characters, the more sensual aspects of the show were relatively average, although not in a negative way. The graphics were a bit better than the norm at least, with a few things that stood out; the tear-drops faces and dramatic eyes were distinctive, and occasionally the show would break out some downright stunning camera angles. And while the soundtrack didn't have anything memorable, it was nothing ear-rending, and the OP and ED were repeatable, if not a bit typical, songs.

It's tough for a slice-and-life to strike it big, if only because funny moments tend to be less impression-making, less memorable than dramatic, emotional ones. Double so since those elite slice-of-lives tend to be the ones setting the bar for every other one out there. Minami-ke has it tough in a sense, as even though it's really the only kind of its type for the fall 2007 season, it's got that big looming shadow of Azumanga over it.

Luckily, it was smart enough to step out from under that shadow; instead of trying to climb the back of giants it went ahead and made its own mountain, carved a path that, while familiar, was unmistakably its own. It tried to be different and it worked; I doubt that it will be a trend-setter nor a champion for other shows to knock off, but Minami-ke is definitely what could be filed as a "better-than-good" show. One that won't ~~rock~~ shake your soul, but one that will make you definitely feel like your time was well spent.

But as you know, Minami-ke's going into overtime with MK Okawari, where we'll see if the quick second season serves to heighten or tarnish its glory, while the hype for Haruka is still hot.

-CCY

(If there's one thing that bugs me, it's that I didn't devote a single other post to Minami-ke.)
(Seriously! ef! It's coming soon! As long as I review within 13 days it should be fine...)

The Path to the Post:
A few posts around the anime blogging networks that I browsed through in order to help make this post possible, which didn't really have a place in the de facto post to be cited.
* An extremely in-depth review - two parts! - over at neko's thinkbox, which shares a few of the viewpoints I held.
* Jason's many Minami-ke posts over at AoMM, which are funny as always, catchphrase-coining as always, and contain a few astute observations too.
* Stripey's post on fanservice and it's right place, which pretty much is dead on the money.
* And of course IKnight (random post linked), for pioneering this trend in blog citing.

But wait, there's more! Tokimeki Memorial 17.5

2008-01-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

That's right! Call now and we'll throw in a bonus episode of Tokimeki Memorial absolutely free! We're talking a full-length, 25-minute, OP-to-ED piece of TokiMemo side character goodness at no extra cost! Click in the next five minutes and we'll even throw in some Mina fanart and a blog post!

Infomercials aside, C1 released a DVD-only episode of TokiMemo recently, and having seen ef through to conclusion, I'm taking a post to do some light episode reviewing so I can take some time to gather my thoughts about such a show like ef, which I can't say yet is 'great' or 'ok', but merely 'important'.

A bit of a tangent, to throw another question out there; which approach do you believe is better to reviewing a show? Would you rather get your thoughts out right when the series is done, so that all the material is hot, fresh, and emotionally charged? Or is a cooler approach, waiting for some time to pass so that the show can be reviewed more objectively, better?

Is it even possible to review a show objectively the first time around? It's tough, considering how I tend to envelop and immerse myself in the show's atmosphere, which lets a lot of minor flaws float right on by. Is it even necessary to review objectively, considering very few of us watch objectively?

All right. That's enough thinking, I think I've cleared you for some Koayu fanservice. But don't be fooled - the 17-and-a-half-th episode of TokiMemo is quite enjoyable still, bringing that typical TokiMemo charm to the table.

(Maybe in the future I'll answer these questions, but until then I ask them with the curiosity of some mix of a philosophy professor and a existentially challenged - to mince words - teenager. Not that I plan to be either.)

This bonus episode, like a few of the episodes in the main series, focuses on a specific side character; this time, it is the swimming captain, Koayu Utsumi. She's the one known throughout the show for being the requisite Body by Jello girl (i.e. fanservice central), putting together a voluptuous figure and a swimsuit for maximum fan-attracting power - although it seems a lot of girls in TokiMemo have their own fans, especially inside the show's canon.

Koayu actually showed up outside of her swimsuit in the anime, something that amusingly - and sadly - I didn't realize until this episode. She's actually the blue-haired girl on the left in the above screenshot; you might recgonize her from the over-enthusiastic fish-catching contest Mina and Tsukasa participated in during the cultural festival. I guess the anime was a bit too realistic by shielding the identities of the swim teams with their swim caps - hair really is one of the easiest way to identify someone in a show like this.

Anyway, this episode revolves a lot about how Perverted Guys Have Left Koayu in Despair, replete with a couple "I'm so embarrassed of my breasts. There's so huge. Here, look, audience at home" moments to kick off the episode.

The story, in a sense, kicks into gear when Koayu accidentally knocks a soccer ball into the pond, infuriating the team members and causing her even more guilt and agony. She attempts to resolve this by transforming into Superman, but unfortunately she only has a swimsuit on under her school outfit.

Incidentally, there was actually a reason behind this, as Koayu states later, "having a swimsuit on at all times makes her look smaller". And quite badass when she throws her outfit open. Nothing like a sensible transformation sequence.

Anyway, Koayu is paralyzed by the drooling fanboys that crawl out of the woodworks to gawk at her slightly-more-curved swimsuit figure - it's silly, kind of like adding horsepower to an SLR McLaren, I must note - but never fear! Shiny Bishonen Guy is here!

Actually, he's the soccer team captain, and he dives into the river in dramatic fashion to retrieve the ball. And I mean dramatic fashion. He puts a lot of effort into retrieving it, which makes me wonder how he is working so hard when he's going with the current.

He gets the ball back and swims to shore, whereupon he shortly dies. Koayu runs to his side, proving that he really is unconscious by the sheer fact that he didn't pop open an eye to steal a glance at her.

Yes, that was funny, and entirely untrue.

Actually, him dying was apparently not too far off the truth, as the hospital scene explains, especially since he can't swim. The two of them talk for a bit and Koayu is promptly smitten with the man's try-your-best attitude ("If I'm not good at something, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try and change that"), a stark contrast to her own.

Not to mention the fact that he doesn't try to sneak a glance at her assets at all, and, y'know, he's shiny. Dang, if life was this easy I'd cover myself in sparklers and just go around staring at people's faces.

We cut to the swimming scene where Koayu is looking incredibly distracted, a mood that she will continue to keep up for most of the episode. It seems that love has affected her in a strange way - instead of going straight to happy squealy hanyaa~n mode, she's more pensive, maybe contemplative. One can only wonder what thoughts are going through their head. It's certainly a different take.

Koayu's spacey looks confused and worry the swim team, primarily Mina, who looks absolutely swoon-inducing with her hair down. I have no shame in saying the episode earns it's Certification of Time Well Spent right here.

Koayu spends a few scenes walking past all the sports officers with a confused look, so that they too may act confused, except at her confusion. It's revealed that the four sports club leaders are actually quite good friends, and already have plans to go to a sports college together and become world dominators in their sports. It's a case of like minds binding together.

See, this is what you call "side characters with story". Even if it's just a little bit of depth, what it brings to their otherwise lighthearted antics is really something.

They call a meeting at the local maid cafe - or at least, a cafe where maids work - and discuss what to do about Koayu, over "exciting glasses of low-fat milk", which they promptly pour entire cans of energy/vitamin supplements into. What we don't see here is the "exciting syringes of clear liquid".

Incidentally, if Koayu would look to her friends, she would find two more likable - or at least amusing - guys who don't care about her size...or at the very least, misinterpret it in their athletics-orientated ways. "Muscle is more important than fat!" I can only imagine the equivalent is a anime fan walking up to someone concerned about small chest size, patting her on the shoulder, and going "it's a status symbol."

Eyecatch, and then it's to the exciting bit of the show where the main characters get some screentime! Tsukasa and Mina, both sports players, are consulting Riku about what to do to cheer up Koayu, when Sayuri walks by. Riku immediately begins making a big deal out of nothing in that typical harem lead fashion, but Sayuri just wishes him 'good luck' and walks off. Such a contrast from the Sayuri that will show up later...

Riku, Tsukasa, and Mina eventually resolve to cook a grand feast for Koayu and co.. After all, the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach, which is great, except for the fact that Koayu's a girl. Still, I've seen proof that both genders are equally partial to food.

If you've been here at Eternity long enough (that probably deserves a pun all its own), you know why I screencapped this.

Anyway, the food for Koayu deal is your typical well-intentioned thing that goes wrong, as the home ec teacher pictured about cooks some fish for the final dish, which sends Koayu, naturally a fish lover as an extent of her swimming fanaticism, into a panic.

The next step is the three sports friends taking Koayu on a trip to visit their dream college, Japan Athletics University. I have no idea if this sort of thing actually exists, but it's certainly an amusing thought for an academics-orientated student like me. I just can't picture it.

Koayu still isn't convinced of much, and continues around in her funk until she stops by the soccer field at the university, where she meets...

Yup, it's him again, and his name is revealed to be Ken Syuto. They share a talk typical of a one-sided crush, where one person does all the blushing and the other person does all the useful talking. Ken talks a lot about his love for soccer, and reinforces his "never-give-up" viewpoint from earlier. Finally, this message seeps down to Koayu, who realizes what a strange reaction she's had to meeting him, and how much she's pushed away what she really loves.

She contemplates on this in a Not Gratuitous At All, No Sir shower scene (here's a hint: not what's pictured above). I can sympathize with the shower being a nice private place to think in comfort, but somehow I'm disappointed with how the episode threw its fanservice balance out of whack. Many male viewers will find a lot to do that involves whacking here, but I stick to my strangely impersonal note that apparently full moon shots are less of a no-no than topless shots, given this scene. The more you know.

Fast-forward to the next day or so, where the three males in this story are relaxing on the hillside talking about the upcoming school trip to Hokkaido, which, uh, actually is upcoming in the next episode or two. I take note of this because lying on a hillside, watching the sunset with no worries seems like endless amounts of carefree fun, something that I would like to enjoy sometime, kind of like riding a gondola on Mars.

Koayu walks by, and Riku notes the fact that she doesn't look much better in terms of mood than before, while completely missing the choice angle that he has. That's why we like you Riku - you're naive. And stupid, but mostly naive. After this episode, I almost want to elect Ken as Riku-for-a-day and see what magic he can work with Mina, Tsukasa, and Sayuri.

As Koayu passes by the soccer place again, the kids are in another uproar, this time over a cat that is floating down the river; to its untold demise, if you listen to them talk.

Koayu, who seems like a natural defender of cute things everywhere, steps up to the proverbial phonebooth for SuperSwimmer transformation part two. The perverts show up again, but with the face and advice of Ken running through her mind, Koayu ignores them all and makes a dramatic rescue of the cat, all while that awesome violin music is playing. It's so awesome that even the perverts can't help but be moved by Koayu's action.

We flash forward to Japan Sports U again, to show that Koayu has become a confident person again, just in time for the swim tests. Roll credits.

Overall, it's probably a pretty cookie-cutter episode as far as character exposition goes. Introducer character, introduce recurring scene, develop character and fix their problem, conclude recurring scene, cut, edit, ship.

It's not something that I dislike, though, because it kind of gives off that warm, slice-of-life feel, which fits nicely in the gap between harder-hitting, more emotional shows. It's simple viewing, and that's fun for me.

Plus, like Nagato fanboys the world around, I'm all over any little piece of development for the things I like, for example this series, and seeing that C1 is going to translate some of the TokiMemo bonuses was a pleasant surprise that I'll continue to look forward too.

The TokiMemo cast continues to expand and be developed into a larger and larger group, and that's something I enjoy.

-CCY

(So many Series Review posts stacking up at the end of the sea-

uh, I mean, Mina is awesome. Shy yet confident, win win win.)

Series Review: Myself;Yourself

2008-01-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

"What are you saying? In love, age and gender does not matter."

Myself;Yourself is a strange show. It's kind of like a do-it-yourself visual-novel show would look like.

You know, the kind you see in magazines and TV ads. Quick to set up, easy to assemble, and cheaper than a name-brand. Certainly, a lot of Myself;Yourself is almost cookie-cutter harem/visual novel fare, and a lot of it is put together following the simple included instruction manuals and diagrams.

An appealing female cast outnumbering the males? Check. Replete with the loli, the tsundere, the dojikko, the nice girl, and the older woman? Double-check.

Light-hearted opening episodes leading into serious drama and conflict? Yup. Revolving door of characters getting their turn in the spotlights? Got it. Myself;Yourself is, largely, by the numbers, at first glance.

But like a well-assembled kit car, it has that special touch that makes it more than the sum of its parts. The show has a shiny finish to its paint, a personal touch, that sense of caring that most machine-assembled shows lack. The drama's a bit more dramatic, the characters a bit more fleshed-out, it's more enjoyable and fun a show than one would believe.

Unfortunately, there are flaws by this same hand-assembled approach. It's not as professional as the ones the pros make; the pieces of the show don't always fit together exactly, and some of the parts show clear signs of a rush job, of time suddenly running out.

And for this reason it's tough for me to pass a judgement on Myself;Yourself. It's a good show - definitely one of the better in a season full of visual novel conversions - but not top tier, and it struggles to compete with the Shuffle!s and solas. I don't regret my time spent watching it, but really wish that it had been just a bit longer - Myself;Yourself pushes the boundaries of a 1-cour show, but in the end is dragged back to reality by the physical limitations of time.

(Listen to Aoi.)

One of the elements, that will likely be one of the polarizing elements of M;Y, is the drama element. The show, like many recent ones, evoked cries of School Days upon the shots of a bloody knife, and this is one case that I'm willing to say it's not too far off the mark. Myself;Yourself, while it doesn't push itself to the same ridiculous levels, definitely has some intense character-vs-character conflict (although of a slightly different kind), and I consider it a sort of barometer for these types of shows as a whole, a sort of Dorama Lite.

The drama itself, as some have said, was a little unrealistic at times; Asami's personal story, I'm willing to forgive, but the amount of trauma that heaped up on the Wakatsuki twins, from the parental mess to the school troubles to what Asami added, was simple insane. You have to admire them for staying sane through it all but you have to wonder how much drama is too much for a show like this.

I enjoy shows that can make me angry, that can shock me, that can make me laugh in insanity, and so Myself;Yourself worked well for me in this regard. It really gave me a reason to anticipate Wednesday evenings for thirteen weeks, really was one of the few shows that I could simply not wait for the next episode. Some may call it melodrama, some may call it bad storytelling, and I don't blame them. But in this case, for me, it was a hit, and not a miss.

Probably the second stand-out thing about Myself;Yourself is the broad scope it has, doubly shocking for a 13-episode show. It devotes time to nearly every one of its characters; while it could have gotten away, maybe, with just the main paths of both Sana and Shuu (and thus, Nanaka and Shuri), M;Y instead gave a lot of screenspace to Asami, her side characters (Grandma Kaji among others), the teacher, Yuzuki, and what seemed to be the throwaway loli, Hinako.

What results, on the most part, is a well-developed cast full of likable characters. Nearly everyone has a story, a defined personality, and if not an appeal a plea for sympathy. Nanaka seems to be the ice queen, but she's just a girl recoiling from trauma, willing herself into a normal life. Shuri seems happy all the time, but she's hiding away her true feelings. Yuzuki's outreaching personality stems from her desperation to be recgonized. Hinako's mix of maturity and childness is surprising for someone of her type. And Asami's double personalities, one of jealousy and one of kindness, simply astound. Only Aoi is truly left out, and that is something that I cannot decide is a good thing or a bad thing, considering how Asami factored into the story at the end.

Somehow, due to how the show is spread out, the cast seems quite memorable. They're a standout bunch, and I enjoy the fact that none of them particularly stand out as a "good character" or a "bad character". Certainly, Asami is more the villain, and Nanaka more the victim, but all of them have two sides to them, at least subtly, which makes for a cast which isn't spearheaded by one or two main girls stealing the show.

On the other side, of course, the plot suffers as a result. Part of the reason that the drama bounced so harmlessly off many viewers was the fact that it was, pretty much, out of left field. There was a definite crush for time near the end of the show, with multiple stories needing to be resolved, and so there wasn't as much foreshadowing as would have been liked; I bow down to anyone who even had a hint of Asami's shock twist without spoilers.

Instead, a lot of time was devoted to side threads which arguably went nowhere. Two and then some episodes spent on Hinako, who really had no appearance beyond that in the climax final three episodes of the show. A plot involving Crazy Grandma Kaji that fizzled out, a cheap lead-in to Asami's reveal. And, of course, all the light-hearted time-wasting in the early parts of the show. Why?

For good reason, of course. Myself;Yourself, despite its looks, is a show that isn't afraid to be different - Owen calls it "post-harem" - and its free-roaming plot is just but part of this concept. Without the side storylines, Myself;Yourself would be very streamlined, very no-nonsense; certainly the Sana/Nanaka is quite intense at points, but it does fall on the predictable side, and the added side stories allow for more mystigue, more intrigue, and in the case of some of them, a sort of mellow break. Hinako's story of discovering love versus a simple crush, is warm and pleasant, while not being boring, a good example of how loli-style characters can work without setting off the pedo siren.

Additionally, the multiple-plotline style of M;Y, while not as apparent as other shows in the same season, allowed for all this to go on without horribly compromising the show. Sana and Nanaka might be the 'main' couple, but arguably they didn't really feel that way overbearingly. Hinako's development was aided by not just Sana, but also Aoi and Shuu, and the Wakatsukis had an arc to their own, with the focus on Shuu instead.

Speaking of the Wakatsukis, the subtle elements of their relationship, which others might label siscon, are refreshingly done as well. Instead of leaping over the line hand-in-hand like many have been apt to do, Shuu's caring for Shuri blurs the line between brotherly love, and true romance. It's definitely well-done, and brings more of a warm sensation to the show; whether they are lovers or not, the bond that they share is admirable.

But, on the other side, there are chances that Myself;Yourself takes that don't pan out so well.

As much as I hail the side plots of this show as something essential, I do wish, sometimes, that we had cut back on them a little bit, if not only so that the last episode was not so rushed. Even if we had just cut out the OP or ED in the final episode, it might have been enough. But the rushed conclusion that M;Y had to pull in its closing moments left bad tastes in many a viewer's mouths.

As far as time jumps go, it wasn't a horrible one. But M;Y seems to stretch the "leave some ends open" thing a bit far. It's never really revealed what happened to Asami to have her turn into a good character, nor is the Wakatsuki's relationship, 10 years on, expounded on. (We don't even see their faces...) Sana proposes to Nanaka, but they cut out the actual reveal - blasphemous in a show that, ironically, lacks in romantic aspects itself.

Confessions, kisses, you name it; Myself;Yourself is surprisingly devoid of the kind of thing you would expect in a show like this. It might just be a different approach to the genre - Mike at Anime Diet calls it a story "more about self-realization and discovery", and this is enjoyable too, but, after all that effort to get Nanaka to open up, Sana must be at least a little dissapointed.

Still, I think the ending was passably done. Given how quickly the sand was sinking through the hourglass, I was pleasantly surprised with how M;Y managed to conclude most of the stories, in one way or another. Certainly it could have been done in a better way, but given what it did, it's a closure, one that felt at least moderately fulfilling.

I think Myself;Yourself is stuck in kind of a hard place in regarding to scheduling; there isn't quite enough storyline among all the characters for a full 24-episode show, but the main plots can't fill 13 episodes alone; as such, instead of trying to drag out the main stories to silly length, trimmed versions of the other characters' stories were added. It seems the better choice of the two, at least.

Touching on the sense elements briefly, the music of Myself;Yourself wasn't spectacularly memorable, being your typical visual novel fare. There were one or two ace violin pieces, especially the arrangement of the OP/ED themes, though, and the OP and ED were both musically enjoyable and upbeat if not that powerful.

Graphics were equally kind of 'there', with no glaring defects nor shining moments. Picky viewers may take offense to the fact that everyone bleeds WD-40, but that doesn't concern me a whole lot.

Voice acting was above average - Asami managed to make her monologue emotionally affecting, despite being, well, entirely random, Shuu and Shuri managed to put impact to their powerful moments, Nanaka and Sana I don't remember much about, in either way. Aoi's childish Chiyo-voice was survivable by me, and was kind of cute at times, but the way she screams is pretty awkward.

Fanservice in the show was delivered courtesy of Miss Aoi as well, although it only lasted a few episodes and was quickly faded out. The show managed to make it kind of amusing as well, if not in delivery but in concept (it surprises me when I see a new way to do fanservice, in this case, chopstick groping), so this doesn't affect the show adversely.

A dramatic visual-novel-type show like this warrants the obvious comparisons to School Days, but personally it seems uncannily similar to sola in the way it goes about. Both shows are extremely intense, with plot and emotions, at the expense of a smooth flow. Depending on who you ask, both shows' conclusions are great full-circle exercises, if not a bit ambiguous. sola is arguably the more well-timed series, while Myself;Yourself is more all over the place, but the two shows have a lot of differences as well, the latter being much brighter, much more unabashedly harem-alike.

For reasons like this Myself;Yourself is probably not going to appear out of nowhere and win Japan's vote for best 2008 anime, but I have no doubt in calling this anime one that's vital for those who enjoy visual novel conversions or harem-slash-romances. It's not a harem show in the typical sense but only in the cast sense, as Myself;Yourself revolves more around the individual story of each character, and tying these stories together, than around how each character ties to the main character.

It's a kind of a restyling of the well-worn model of visual-novel/harem; it retains enough similarity to the ways of old, but changes enough aspects to liven things up. Some changes might be unnecessary or unwanted, but given the resources and timeframe available, the amount of freshness that Myself;Yourself brings to the table makes it a highly recommended watch for fans of the genre.

-CCY

(Not much extra to say for once...well, in retrospect, it sounds like Aoi's story doesn't intertwine well with everyone else's, so there's another reason.

Also, here's an incredibly thought-provoking if not unrelated paragraph I came across while researching, courtesy of the defunct Like Water:
In the end, anime is a hugely personal entertainment medium. It caters to individual fantasies, and makes you believe that you are the center of the fantasy (exemplified by harem anime). This makes it very difficult to "dialogue" on anime the way you might a good fiction novel, or the way you would a great movie. You wrap so much of yourself into the story and the characters that you feel like you have your own private world with these people, and it's something that others can't take from you. This is why anime is so addicting, and why people who enjoy it tend to watch so much of it. Who doesn't want their own special world that others can't even comprehend or touch? We can share it to the extent that we say what characters we like, or what particular moments touch us, but we can't really share the depth of feeling that draws us to anime because it's something that lies deep in us, something that we let few people touch.

It seems to be a blog that was frequented by 'older' names in the anime blogging circles, but I reccomend anyone to check it out for the frequently introspective articles taking a close look inside the anime fan themself.)

Artbook Check! II: Da Capo / Cardcaptor Sakura

2008-01-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last - not to mention only - artbook post, not in the least because I don't do much purchasing of obscure anime goods; somehow, my sense of reason has managed to continue outstripping the little anime fan in my head that screams "moeeeeee~" at every figurine, pencil board, and plushie that I see.

This may be a result of the fact that these novelty goods are, to be subtle, ridiculously expensive at times. Probably mostly because I'm a student on an overly cheap budget, first and foremost, but secondly because, well, I don't see what you can do with a figurine outside of taking pictures of it, playing Smash Bros. with it, or making disturbing 4chan gifs with it.

Artbooks, though, have been a fondness of mine, if only because they tend to give some semblance of value to me - after all, you can browse them over and over, they have lots of pretty pictures, and if I ever actually manage to learn Japanese they might just be good reading material.

Additionally, I've recently become figuratively married to a little bookstore chain in southern California called Book Off, which offers a lot of new and used books (of which I can hardly tell the difference), ranging from standard English novels, to manga in both languages, to magazines, and - as you may have guessed - quite a few anime artbooks. Depending on the chain, you might even find some DVDs of both regions (spotted some Japanese Shuffle! LEs and AIR and Tsukihime boxsets), or import video games.And all at great prices too - my previous purchase of the Shuffle! On the Stage artbook was half the price I saw at Kinokuniya. Good stuff.

Unfortunately however I am not getting paid royalty fees for this post so I'll move on to the two latest artbooks I added to my meager collection, and that would be that of Cardcaptor Sakura and Da Capo.

(Note this post actually has pictures, so those of you stuck under a 56K rock still, look out. And for those wondering about the camera work, well, let's say my house was undergoing a small earthquake during the five minutes I was filming. Or maybe my camera hand was drunk. Maybe you need glasses. Or maybe it was a rush job and I was using a borrowed camera.)

Actually, both of these shows, being the monoliths they are, span multiple artbooks, but resources afforded only a small peek at the rabbit hole.

First up, the Cardcaptor Sakura artbook was a veritable steal at $4, half off of its normal price (although the other ones were normal price, mysteriously). The artbooks look to be split up into the show's respective sections, with one covering the Clow Card arc and one covering the Sakura Card arc. There was an additional one for the second movie, The Sealed Card, and presumably one for the first one as well, which I didn't spot.

The one I picked up was the Sakura Card artbook, which handily says on the back in English, "The Complete Book of TV Animation 'Cardcaptor Sakura' Part 2", so I'll take that as the title for it.

It's a pretty comprehensive artbook as well, with an episode overview of each episode of the Sakura Card arc, from 47-70, in the "story digest" section taking up about half of the 120-page book. Each episode summary spans two pages, the front of one and the back of the other, featuring about 20 commented screencaps from the show with a long paragraph below it. It seems to be pretty in-depth, although, since I'm illiterate outside of spotting Sakura's name, all I can really say is that the pictures are a great throwback and that chibi Sakura is incredibly adorable.

There are additional screencap segments for the third-season OP/ED, Platinum and Fruits Candy, with lyrics. Later on in the book there is an interesting segment which displays some of the storyboard planning behind the two sequences, as well.

What follows in the second section is the traditional black-and-white character sketches, featuring six pages of Sakura costumes (Tomoyo's busy, y'know.), and a page devoted to all the other main characters (Tomoyo, Syaoran, Meilin, Eriol, etc), with the remaining few pages in this section devoted to background scenery and side characters, and the aforementioned storyboarding. It's cute and heavily commented stuff but the black-and-white sketches have never really been a main draw for me.

Likewise with the cast interview segments, which are almost entirely if not completely illegible, although I did learn interesting things, like how just about bloody everyone in CCS is voiced by a girl. Yukito I figured, Kero I remembered (since her VA did Haruko from AIR), but I didn't figure on Syaoran. Touya and Eriol are the only guys from the main cast.

Also, there was more liberal sprinkling of chibi characters here (although admittedly sourced from the orginal animation), which was always a plus. The interviews give two pages at least to all main characters, and half a page to a lot of 'side' characters, right down to Nakuru / Ruby Moon and Fujitaka. Even the directors (I assume) get interviewed.

This about wraps up the content in the book, outside of the advertising for other CCS stuff, such as the Tetris spin-off which heads the 'games I irrationally want' list, and the 18 DVDs - or, if you're feeling retro, videotapes (this is circa 2000, after all), at a cheap 6800 yen. No worries - the first volume is a wallet-sipping 5000 yen. Almost makes the remastered set look cheap.

Extras are sparse but there, as the book includes two postcards (which I can't imagine that anyone would actually use) and a small poster (bigger than standard paper but smaller than a Megami pullout) featuring a shocked-looking Sakura against a black backdrop with Eriol and his minions in the background. Overall, CCS The Complete TV Animation Pt. 2 is still a steal at $4, and would still probably be worth it at it's standard $8 - especially since it's listed at 1500 yen on the back of the book.

My second purchase is what can only be described as the Da Capo Box, as that's pretty much when I went on when buying it. It was shrink-wrapped, so it was pretty much a prayer purchase. It was formally called "D.C. Collaboration Stories", and the fact that it was big, thick, and didn't look to be H seemed to make it a good deal for $13. And while I may not be doing backflips like more striped Da Capo fans might upon such a steal, I still consider it a fairly reasonable purchase.

It's a three-part set, which would explain why it comes in a box, for one. The first part, and the most important, naturally, is the flipping huge book. It's 300 Spartaaaaaaaan pages long (that joke stopped being abused fast, as an aside). That's a lot.

It opens promisingly - once I figured out that it read right to left - with a bunch of stunning fanart by what I can only assume are other famous artists. I say this because I recgonize the Shuffle style of Aoi Nishimata. There are 9 full-page (and note that a page here, as opposed to CCS's A4 size, is roughly 8.5" by 12") illustrations, most of them worthy of being pulled out and pinned to the wall, if that's your sort of thing.

What follows is a roughly 100-page collection of a bunch of manga stories drawn by different artists. Each is about 10-20 pages, and what I could glisten from the pictures they span:

- Magical costume dress-up Sakura
- Some flashback involving loli Sakura and Junichi, plus Miharu

- Nemu being typically clingy tsundere after Junichi runs around with some large meganekko in what can only be a giant misunderstanding
- Something involving Kotori, which should be enough for her fans

- Something involving Moe, which gives her more development than two seasons of anime despite me not being able to read Japanese
- Miharu x Junichi adventures
- Something involving Suginami, Mako, and a possible pairing of the two. Second only to Mayumi and Itsuki in 'best comedy duo that needs romance'.
- Nemu reminscing about Junichi and their amusement park trips in the past and present
- NekoNemu. No one knows why.

Plus a few 4koma.

It's a pretty ~~lame collection because there's no Yoriko~~ vast range of manga by a bunch of people with different art styles, and since they give time to nearly everyone ~~except Yoriko~~, fans of Da Capo ~~who don't mind Yoriko getting the shaft~~, especially those who can read Japanese, will enjoy this segment ~~unless they have any pity for Yoriko~~.

(Well, she did get one 4koma.)

What follows after this is the game CG collection ~~with 100% more Yoriko~~, which is always a fun read (and by read I mean look) for people like me who are wholly unfamiliar with the original source game. I lucked out in that this section is entirely non-ero; it barely misses work-safe due to containing the 'pre ero-scene' CGs where the heroines are in a state of vague undress.

Each character has their own section here averaging from 5 to 10 pages. Each section includes a large character portrait, a list of character sprites (interestingly, Kotori has more than double anyone else's at nearly 70 poses, while most have 30-odd), and the game CGs at about quarter-page size. Of course, everything is annotated by a bunch of flavor text which I'm sure says...something.

It's informative since you can glean a lot from the images (such as Yoriko's ending, which apparently involves either her or Misaki coming to school as a real girl), and, failing that, you can roll on the floor and/or agonize over why there's a CG of Suginami in a half-naked maid outfit.

After this, there's about 20 pages of straight text, interrupted by scarce CGs; I'm assuming this is a sort of mini-story of its own; it's titled "Another Story", and each character gets their own section. I'm not sure if this is just copy-paste from the game(s), or original content, but either way, reading material right here.

Then there's few short sections, one being a walkthrough for each of the characters, another being a corner for fanart (of the postcard kind), the third being the 'buy stuff please' segment, ~~(Note they sell shirts for every character but Yoriko.)~~ , and the final segment closes off the book with some sheet music for what I presume are the game OP and ED themes.

Additionally, there is a CD that comes in the Da Capo Box, but unfortunately I seem to have been ripped off as my box did not come with a copy of it. It looked to have some game (of, I imagine, token value) on it, along with what I'm guessing is a short visual novel and perhaps some bonus images or something.

The third item in the box is a vintage 2003 calendar, which I imagine was more useful back in the day. It features 7 images (2 months apiece, plus one image for the entire 2004 year) which cover all the main characters. I guess, since it's old, it can be cannibalized for more art posters, since the art here is quite good ~~except for Yoriko who of course has the only NWS shot in the calendar. Stupid cat maids..~~

In the end, essentially I did just buy a $13 book in a box, but it was a fairly 'worth-it' purchase, given the size of the book and the appeal of its contents, both in comprehensible and incomprehensible form. I'd recommend it to any D.C. fan, especially if you can actually get it with the CD. The back of the box says that D.C. Recollection Stories retails for 3200 yen.

These were the two purchases that I felt were worth covering - Book Off also has random $1 books like the 500-page Gran Turismo 2 guide I found, and I snagged a $5 copy of Megami 90, but the former is only tangentially related and the second is covered far too well by Kurogane, so there you go.

Also, I have no idea what these Kanon trading cards are, but they're ten cents apiece, and, well, Kanon.

-CCY
(We apologize for the fault in the rampant Yoriko fanboying. Those responsible have been sacked.)

(We apologize again for the fault in the excessively bitter Yoriko fanboying. Those responsible for the sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.)

(The directors of the blog hired to continue the post after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they also think highly of the characters of Kotori and the Mizukoshis. Also, they have been sacked. The post has been completed in a entirely different, raving fanboy style, at great expense and at the last minute.)

eh about ef? (Episodes 4-7)

2008-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

By all means, I should be entirely smitted with ef, like most of the otakusphere (to steal a term) seems to be.

It's got what seems to be it all: a unique animation style, characters ripped straight from a storyline I dreamed up, parallel plots that look to tie together smoothly, and personalities that are appealing without being overly moe. Not to mention, a green-haired meganekko.

I've spent a lot of my time with my hands plugged in my ears not just because I'm trying to get the earwax out, but to avoid the spoiler-tastic raving that everybody has been going on about for ef. It encouraged me to catch up with the show over the last few days of vacation as part of the "My God, it's Winter 2007/8 season already!?" watching panic.

So I was quite surprised when ef turned out not to be the gripping, awe-inspiring wonder that it's been made out to be, but merely a show that's good. Funnily enough, popular recommendations as to shows in off-center genres such as magical girl (Shugo Chara!) and GARmbling (Kaiji) have worked wonders for me, and I can't say enough superlatives about those, but for a visual novel show that's pretty much straight up my alley, it's not working out quite the same.

I could attest this to any number of things. First off would probably be that I've just seen too many of these damn shows. I love the visual-novel-slash-harem genre to death but in terms of bringing new concepts to the table it takes a lot to impress me. Perhaps because I'm an 'expert' in this genre I expect more, and it's quite easy for shows in this genre to fall into a cliche pattern.

It's a bit amusing, in that I try to avoid blatant escapism in my harem shows, which is kind of like trying to avoid the cream filling in an Oreo. It's there and it's going to be there, because that's a core part to a lot of shows in this genre.

ef has stayed out of this trap pretty well, but there are parts where it stumbles a bit; Chihiro's spontaneous lapsing into uber-dere-dere mode with the "you can kiss me if you want" for one, and the quick transitioning of the Kei - Hirono - Miyako plot into a sort of love triangle of the jealous regard.

This bugs me, probably the most because it was doing pretty well while giving the romance part a backseat, while making the story a tale of character discovery, and when the love-love part gets center stage it's just sort of flat and been-there compared to the rest.

It's a bit early to be refuting my argument but I suppose the counter is that this kind of stuff could just be working to develop the characters; yeah, Miyako's just working herself into either the lonely girl or yandere corner, where things will get interesting, and Chihiro's "kiss me nao plz" thing is kind of tacky but it sets Renji on a hardcore monologue.

Maybe this post as a whole is kind of ironic, in that it does mirror Renji's thoughts a lot. That feeling of "gee, I should be loving this, but something's wrong" is very prevalent in my viewing of ef so far.

The predictability factor is beginning to rise in the show as well, continuing on with the 'story is looking kind of weak' worry. Soon enough, if it hasn't already, it will hit Renji that Chihiro's story, like most, is a quite un-subtle narrative reflecting on her own tragic life, and their story will continue on their heartwarming if not kind of straightforward style of "someone reaching out to the lonely person". Eventually it will hit Kei that she's being a Class-A Jealous "Friend" and being entirely unfair to Miyako. At that point, they'll have a My Story Is Sadder Than Yours duel and Miyako will probably claim Hirono, while Kei either gives up on her feelings or puts out to that photographer guy.

It's all entirely speculation of course, and most of you who have actually already finished ef (which, I suppose, is all of you reading this) are laughing in that evil-villain-with-a-monocle way at my foolishness, but that's the way the story is feeling to me. It just seems like ef has played most of its cards already.

We have Chihiro's backstory, have most of her inner feelings exposed. We've seen Kei's light and dark side, seen her relation to her sister and her guilt, her true relation to "onii-chan" Hirono. Miyako, we now know her past, and her desperation to be recgonized, to be loved by someone again.

It's just sort of at a 'what now?' point. Maybe there's something good to be said about this, how ef is up-front with its characters and doesn't take the entire time beating around the bush saving up for a shock that should have been obvious. But I'm just kind of lost with what this show is planning to do; it was moving so solidly earlier and is now kind of bogging down a bit, with sequences which are moving, yes, but damn long.

You know what I mean, with Miyako's now-famous 99 Missed Calls (take that, American movies). It was a touching moment, one that isn't easily forgettable, but the little Mystery Science Theater voice in the back of the head spoiled everything. "They used like 4 frames over 15 minutes, you know," it says. "They didn't have to drag it on so long, we know that she's desperate." it says. "Why couldn't it have spent more time on her backstory instead of throwing it out there and going straight to the voice mails?"

This is my problem with ef as a whole, as as much good as it is on paper, it's just not clicking, not getting that connection with the viewer for me. I see Miyako rant on and on for 5 minutes to Hirono's phone, and I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to feel sorry for her or scared of her. I see Renji struggle with whether he should Just Kiss Her Already, and I'm not sure whether he's doing what any person would do or is just being a standard romantic coward.

It's this unease about the story that gets to me, that it's very ambiguous in terms of characters and morality. This is probably what a lot of people love about this show, in that it's different from every moe-fest visual novel; like Chihiro says, "if the characters are thought to be cute, that means they aren't described properly."

And don't get me wrong; I don't hate anything more than a story that is very black and white, good vs. evil. But the characters of ef just aren't hitting any special shade of grey; they don't really inspire, at least not yet, a lot of discussion about their actions and thoughts. They're just, there, to me. And that hurts.

Undoubtedly, the judgment is not final yet. I've still got five episodes to go and that could make all the difference for this show; even though I cannot see how yet, ef might pull an ace out of its sleeves. There might be an intriguing twist, or more revelations on a character's train of thought. But right now, it's just kind of a dissapointment.

Like Chihiro's "you can kiss me" scene, what it says and how it looks are two different things. It's on paper, visual novel gold, a show with the dual plotlines of a KimiKiss, the balanced characters of a sola, the character discovery of a Myself;Yourself, but in reality, it just doesn't have the feel that it should. It's just not lining up, and that's something that worries me.

Clearly, the intent to like ef is there, by the tone of those words and the references to the show itself. In the end, although it really sounds like I dislike the show, maybe the underlying meanings of this rant tell more - I try to hate the show so that when it turns out good, it's all the better. We shall see.

-CCY

Any show with Cardcaptor Sakura, Touhou, and Lucky Star has to be good, right?

(Incidentally, I don't have much to say about the SHAFT-itude of it all.)
(One more random thought: all the red-flash-heart-beating parts of episode 7 were a real throwback to Tsukihime the visual novel. Hehehe.)
(Finally, Chihiro's analogizing of her own problems to the sheep math problem, with the "if the chain is 13 years long" and all, was much more chill-inducing than Miyako's 99 Missed Calls.)

The 19th Day Hangover: Feedback

2008-01-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

And that's that. Welcome to 2008, everyone.

Now before I pass out and take a break from blogging for a few days (or just go light on the posting), it's time to talk a walk on the meta side and have a little reflection on the blogging part of the 'anime blogging' concept now.

Through 150+ entries and nine months, my posting schedule and content has changed a few times to settle on the plan of posts every other day, about anything and everything, as long as I can rant about it at sufficient length.

I'm self-centered and so I blog about whatever the heck I want - which usually entails a lot of complex deconstructing of simple shows - but I'm curious as to what the people on the other side of the glass think.

What features did you enjoy this year? What would you want to see more of? Less of? Please do note that I'm referring mainly to things that went on this year - I, too, think it would be something fresh and new to drop everything and start writing yaoi dango lemons, or something equally non-sequitor, but chances are that visual novel shows are going to remain the forte of this blog for times to come.

How are the non-post aspects of the blog? Is the layout too blue? Too wordy? Too Blogger?

Any other thoughts? Don't feel obligated to answer this like a questionnaire - answer what you feel about the most. If you want to spend your comment criticizing my irrational Nagato fandom, so be it.

(But don't be surprised if you see men in black suits at your door the next day.)

All input is appreciated, and I hope that both I, the writer, and you, the readers, can continue to enjoy your time spent at Eternity for many...eternities to come.

-CCY
(And you always wondered why the doors were locked behind you.)

And in case you were wondering about the guards...

The 18th (and Final) Day of Christmas - Resolutions for 2008

2007-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'd like to hear a song put to the Eighteen Days of Christmas, especially with a random smorgasboard of themes like this.

Unfortunately, like all features, this one has to eventually come to an end, especially with a growing list of harem (among other) shows begging to be put to the microscope.

Oddly enough, blogging an average of 1,300 words a day for eighteen straight days has not been as incredibly exhausting as I imagined, partly because of the raw fanboy adrenaline that drives these posts. It's certainly been a fun experience to go over all the shows and moments of my first year of serious anime fandom, especially since I uncovered a few shows again that were beginning to fade into the mists of time. Hopefully it's been the same enjoyable, sentimental experience for the readers as well.

And now it's time to point the fancannon towards the future, as we take a look at what next year has in store - at least from the perspective of a relatively new romance/harem fan. There are promising shows from the fall season, the winter season, and even beyond, with intriguing releases on both sides of the Pacific.

No doubt, though, that some of the most interesting things to happen haven't been revealed yet - perhaps another random show will blindside its way to a top spot on the list, or maybe some exciting news involving an old favorite. You never know.

And so, here are some of my resolutions for the year 2008 in anime...

I resolve to figure out what the hell Byousoku 5cm, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Honey & Clover are, and why they are so awesome.
I'm pretty sure this one is self-explanatory. These three shows are romance-types that have been praised to heaven and back a few times, that I've just missed the boat on thanks to licensing. Indeed, I downloaded the first episode of H&C, and didn't even get to watch it before the license was announced. Such is the way of fansub fandom.

In any case, I don't plan on complaining about shelling out an extra hundred dollars or so blind for these shows combined if they turn out to be half as good as the hype. There's only one way to find out~

I resolve to fall into a seven-year coma over the sheer beauty that only sad girls on DVD can impart. (Kanon R1)
Kanon has, and will always be, my personal fanboy weak spot. I watched Kanon once streaming, watched it again on fansubs burned to DVD again, and now it looks like it's going to be the third time, except this time in real DVD quality on the big screen.

Rewatching a show has never been my thing, with so much new content still available, but given that Kanon just looks better every time I watch it (if you follow the progression above), and that it will appease my guilt about cheaping out on anime, I don't think I'll mind that much. After all, I did say on a forum that I would buy "any box with a picture of Shiori" on it...

(But they gave a cover to Kaori? Pfft.)

I resolve to believe in the fanbase that believes in the Gurren Lagann.
Similar to the triple threat above in the first resolution, Gurren Lagann has pierced the heavens with the praise heaped upon it by fans large and wide, and I figure with ADV going beyond the impossible and offering free streaming of the first few episodes, I should kick my reasoning to the curb and see what the hell Gurren Lagann thinks it is.

I'm not a mecha person personally, but I have been pleasantly surprised before (look down one resolution), and, well, if it has this many quotable phrases, I'm sold on it.

I resolve to figure out how to pronounce 'zawa zawa'. (Kaiji continues)
Seriously...it's not computing, no matter how many times they say it in the show - which, considering the situation Kaiji is getting to, is quite a lot. Kaiji has been probably the one shock show of the year for me; something with one token-appearance girl over thirteen episodes, with really ugly art, and a mere 50-second opening song wasn't going to end up on my watch list by any means of my own resolve, but I'll have to thank the Kaiji fans out there (Orion, among others) for tuning me on to this show.

It's mindgame central, with an anti-protagonist who alternates between incredibly stupid and ingenious fighting with a bunch of morally-ambigious characters in a yakuza-sanctioned last-chance 'gamble' for debtors. And from there, it only gets better, with an emotionally-intense rooftop tightwalking challenge that leaves everybody questioning themselves, and leaves the audience wondering and wanting more. It's a show with a real sense of danger and tension, and it's pretty intriguing to follow analytically as well too, at times. If you have even a hint of hair on your chest, or want some, drop whatever you're doing and watch Kaiji. Now. You won't regret it.

I resolve to fanboy 200% more over any humanoid interface with purple hair, yellow eyes, and glasses. (Haruhi II)
And now for the other end of the spectrum...the fourth book in the popular Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, titled "The Dissaperance of Haruhi Suzumiya", is getting animated sometime in 2008 by Kyoto Animation. This book focuses on and develops the character of Yuki Nagato, a humanoid interface who shows little emotion on the inside but may harbor internal desires. Additionally, a mysteriously related girl, thought to be removed from the story, named Ryoko Asakura, returns, in a time-bending plot that will leave readers on the edge of their seats.

Is that enough sanity for you? I really want to go to town with the potential of this anime. (Can you take me to...mo~e town?! Can you take me to...) Nagato's my favorite character in Haruhi by leaps and bounds, and the fourth book was intriguing in its plot and head-hurty time travel aspects...not to mention, talking, blushing Nagato! (plus cold, rational Nagato for maximum fanboyism) Plus, the many potential side-stories KyoAni could throw in leaves the imagination wondering of the possibilities. It's easily one of my most anticipated anime of 2008, and I don't care if that makes me a slavering fanboy.

The only thing that worries me about this show is the stratospheric hype that people like me will pile on top of it. We'll see if KyoAni can clear the bar that has been set even higher than before.

I resolve to actually pick one consistent Shuffle! girl to fanboy this time around.
Well...first it was Nerine for a brief stint, then Mayumi, and now Sia resides in the spot of 'most adorably awesome Shuffle! character', but one thing's for sure...I'm looking forward to the R1 release of Shuffle.

It was probably one of the ecchi-er shows I watched this year but it more than redeemed itself with a gripping second half, with Sia's, Asa's, and Kaede's stories all resonating on different levels and making for great dramatic stuff. It's been a while since I've seen it in full (considering I couldn't even make it through Shuffle! Memories), and so I'll see if it stands up to the test of time. I certainly hope so - Shuffle! has both a stunning cast and storyline, definitely a good mixture.

I resolve to make the producers of Code-E's second season resolve to actually resolve the story this time.
Easy enough to understand. I think I may be one of a dozen or so English fans actually anticipating the remainder of this show, considering even the first season went over lukewarm, but apparently someone in Japan likes this show...or is threatening the studio.

It's kind of understandable why the first season of Code-E was so understated in terms of popularity - it was a very slow-paced, relaxed show, and didn't really offer a lot to grab viewers (not to mention the infamous lack of noses). But it was a slice-of-life with a fair amount of romance, and even a little bit of action and intrigue, and was a good show for kicking back - the pace was in-between Aria and KimiKiss, being relatively laid-back most of the time, but occasionally sitting up and doing something.

In any case, I look forward to the second season, as with the recent revelation of NanaDrops and sola as some of Japan's top 10 anime of 2007, Code-E might be left as my only show I've liked that I can trumpet as 'something not a lot of people have seen, but probably should.'

I resolve to figure out what the hell is with this whole 'dango' thing. (Clannad continues)
It's Clannad! What am I going to do, drop it? Unsuprisingly, dango fever has overtaken a lot of English blogs, with some affected more than others, and it seems overall that the third Key anime to be produced is being recieved a lot more warmly than Kanon or AIR. Perhaps this is due to the larger emphasis on comedy, and the surprisingly strong female lead that Nagisa is turning out to be. She's a character who's weak in emotion but strong in resolve, and has the feeling of being mostly believable with just a dash of escapism attached. The way I like it.

Kotomi's still a wildcard at this point as to how she's going to turn out, Tomoyo looks to be a lot of fun when her arc comes around, and Ryou and Kyou are comedic, awesome, and adorable all at once, and nearly threaten the Hisui and Kohaku deadlock on 'best twins in anime'. We'll see if Clannad can keep up this strong pace as it looks to head into some more of the supernatural, visual-novel-type stuff in its second half.

I resolve to be in despair again. (Zetsubou II)
Even though it lost a little steam (and a few fansubbers) near the end of its first season, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was still a hilariously fresh comedy that was an entertaining blend of Monty Python, the anime reference database, and a couple thousand monkeys on typewriters.

That is, black humor, random parodies, and random...random, put in a blender, and set to awesome. Oh yeah, and add a dash of Shaft for maximum head-churning - certainly, with all the blackboard scribblings and references, I could see why it takes so long to translate - after all, it usually takes 30 to 35 minutes for me just to get through a 25-minute episode!

Although SZS did take a turn for the repetitive and fanservicey toward the final episodes of its first run, the characters are great twists on the norm, and I look forward to seeing Itoshiki and his anti-harem pull off some amusing antics again in winter 2007/8.

I resolve to learn how to manipulate people to cross-dress. (Minami-ke II)
Minami-ke is the second comedy sequel in the winter 2007/8 season, and it's also got my attention, with an equally vast and hilarious cast of characters, from the romantic stalkers, to the countless traps, to the scheming sisters behind the whole slice-of-life show. Certainly I was counting on only Chiaki being the manipulative one, but with the advent of Banchou Haruka and the revealing of Kana to be much brighter than she looks (when she chooses, anyway), it seems all the characters have a lot of potential for having 'fun' with the others, intentionally or not.

The nature of this Minami-ke confuses me however, as I'm not sure whether it's a second season, a remake, an alternate retelling, or all of the above, but if it stays close to the adapted formula used in the anime, it should be plenty good.

I resolve to get back in touch with my Dark (and Krad) side. (DNAngel manga continues)
Some interesting news that nearly slipped by the radar near the end of this year was the quiet announcement that the DNAngel manga was to continue serialization soon. Having stalled out for few years, the hype for a popular fantasy-romance manga like this has probably subsided a bit, but it's enough for me to still raise at least one eyebrow.

I enjoyed the DNAngel anime and what existed of the manga in my early years of anime watching, and although I've moved on to much bigger and better romances and adaptations, I still look forward to seeing this - hopefully - finish, or at least progress. An unfinished story is one of the things I detest the most, even more than a sloppily finished one.

Which, incidentally, probably means I should finish watching To Heart 2 (nine months in the watchlist, and six episodes still to go) ... but it's not interesting enough at this point to deserve a resolution in itself.

I resolve to continue watching shows targeted at an audience younger than the anime itself...and female. (Marmalade Boy)
Marmalade Boy was another blast-from-the-past manga I re-encountered this year, in the form of a 4-DVD boxset in the public library. It's vintage 1994, and it shows in every form, from the different character design, to the purely animated (no CG) graphics, to the old-school music, to the lack of...well...moe.

It's really a pure shoujo romance, right down to the sparkly pan shots of the blond-hair bishonen, and yet it's still not too bad. I can't determine whether it's the sentimental factor of the manga, of old anime in general, or just my tastes in romance overall, but it's still a fun watch, and one I'm hoping I'll get to stumble across more of in the next year. And hopefully soon - with roughly 50 episodes to go, there's a lot left...

I resolve to say something interesting about KimiKiss, and why I'm going to keep watching it. KimiKiss is a tough show to crack funny about, if only because it is rather, almost plain at times - but you know what else is plain? Vanilla ice cream. You know what vanilla ice cream is? Awesome.

KimiKiss is refreshing in its take on visual novel romance in many ways - the first, hinted at above, is that it's very down-to-earth, simple in a way compared to the other starfish-carving, memory-erasing, house-burning dramatic visual-novel anime featured recently. And secondly, there are three, maybe four threads going at the same time - it's not just everyone loves one guy, but rather, Kouichi and Kazuki, the main guys, have two potential characters each, Mao has Kai and maybe Kouichi, and even the third guy, the film club president, and High-Class Girl Voiced By Mamiko Noto (considering Kotomi and Konoe, that narrows it down, doesn't it?) might factor in. The ways in which the many independant threads of KimiKiss could intertwine, are certainly intriguing.

I resolve to double my yandere view-count. (Higurashi R1)
Higurashi is another anime that's somehow passed me by, and with Geneon in trouble, the window for me to watch this show without shelling out hundreds may be shrinking into the distance.

Still, I hope someone manages to pick up this show, if only because I've heard many interesting things about this show; it's a visual novel adaptation and it's got cute girls that are apparently ALL yanderes, and that sounds like a good enough reason to keep me on the edge of my seat. Also, I've got the first ten seconds of the "Auau~" song stuck in my head.

I resolve to say "Magical Beretta" with a straight face. (School Days OVA)
Seriously, what the hell? That's all I can say about this.

Apparently School Days is cashing in on its popularity just like Makoto seemed to have done within the show, with not one but two OVAs being produced in the near future for it, and with 0verflow's reaction to the end of the anime (here's a hint: they're selling "Nice Items" at Comiket) there's no bounds as to where these OVAs could end up going. Especially since this one's adapted from an essential April Fool's Joke. It's going to be - what's the word - interesting...

I resolve to say something eye-catching about Shira Oka, a true English-produced school-life visual novel.
I believe this is what they in the business call "name-dropping".

This is something I've got an eye on with that enthusiasm that only an anime fan could have: I'm not sure if this visual novel will sell, or even avoid becoming vaporware, but with the powers of hope I look forward to this product, just to see what could become of the possibilities.

Additionally, I have a vested interest in this company, Okashi Studios, because they're California-based, so there you go. Apaprently this game has been going around a while, making shows at some anime conventions, so we'll see what comes of it.

I resolve to actually watch through Shugo Chara's transformation scenes, at least once.
Shugo Chara was the show that made me wonder where I'd been without my magical girl fix. The answer was probably Nanatsuiro Drops, but these two shows really piqued my interest in the 'pure magical girl' genre again. They offer an interesting blend of slice-of-life and romance, and don't always devolve into the cutesy pink-fests that many believe this kind of shows to be.

Rather, Shugo Chara has a large amount of intriguing characters for both genders; Amu herself is a character with realistic fears, hopes, and struggles, and Ikuto is an interesting flirt with that slight touch of rebellious character. The plot has promise of becoming something in-depth, instead of monster-of-the-week as well.

One thing I have to say from the spoilers, though, is: Nadeshiko, say it's not so. I don't care what you take from me. My dignity, my pride, my sense of sanity, anything, just tell me this isn't true. It can't be, it won't be, it'll never be. I'll never accept it, never, ever! Never I tell you!

I resolve to power through ef in a 15-hour span, lest I forget about it.
I think that was how the plot went, in any case. Although I usually watch shows one-episode-per-night, I might have to step up the pace, since between all the other shows, the disjointed Shaft style of ef, combined with the dual plots, makes it very hard to watch.

Which really bugs me, since everyone is heralding it as a true work of genius, and so far I can see why. I really like a lot of it, from the touching story of the main heroines, to the motto of the male leads wanting to be the 'knight in shining armor for someone', and I can't wait to see how it all ties together. I just hope I can make sense of it.

I resolve to fall in love with Sakura and Syaoran falling in love all over again.
This is something that's a long time coming. A Cardcaptor Sakura rewatch is something I've been meaning to do one of these days as a blog mini-special, with a little episode recap blurb, maybe a half, quarter size of a normal post, on each episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. Just because I want to see if my fanboyism for this show knows any bounds - and to see if it's still as gold as it first was.

It may not happen the beginning of the year, it may not finish before 2009 - but I just have to find the drive, and the time. Rest assured, it WILL happen. Long live hanyaa~n.

-CCY

Sacchin waves bye-bye to 2007.

(Wow, I sound like an old crochety anime fan with all my ridiculous passion for old shows like Marmalade Boy, Cardcaptor Sakura, and DNAngel. Even my harping for Code-E, who knows.)

(Oh my God, nearly 3300 words. This pips at the post by a dozen words or so the fall 2007 mid-season review post as the longest post ever on Eternity - yes, without this addendum. Hope you haven't fallen asleep during reading this. Happy New Year, and here's to another great year of anime~)

The 17th Day of Christmas - Ten Neglected Hero(in)es

2007-12-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

'Rooting for the underdog' is something that a lot of people can sympathize with. There's something enchanting about watching a scrappy little fighter defy all the odds to come out on top - no one likes a winner, winning.

This is highly applicable to anime as well - take a look at the premise to nearly any shonen action anime out there. One boy sets out to be the Master of X. But he's just a kid, how possibly could he defeat the established professionals at whatever creature phenonema / children's card game / etc. has enraptured the world? The answer, of course, is through many, many episodes.

Or in harem anime, the same concept pops up. Quite often the fans will rally behind the girls who seem to be 'losing' - the girl who gathers the largest fanbase is often the one who doesn't get the guy at the end.

If you've been here a while, it should be no surprise that I subscribe to this theory as well. I enjoy fighting for the shows I think are underrated, for the characters I think are underloved. Are they? Maybe not. When great amounts of like-minded people like me come together you end up with something resembling Sacchin's (Tsukihime) fanbase. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if her arc ever actually gets released.

Still, there are quite a few characters out there who truly have gotten the shaft in their anime, and today I hope to bring to light some of the characters with a lot of potential and not half as much screentime, or development, as they deserved.

(Spoilers: Myself;Yourself, sola, Da Capo, Code-E, Tokimeki Memorial...kind of)

Kiri Komori (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei)
Kicking off with a character I ranted about well enough yesterday in the Facepalm List. Kiri the hikikomori appeals to me for the same reason that Konata of Lucky Star hit it big - no, not because she's a loli - because of that fleeting, ever-so-pathetically-adorable "hey look, it's something like me, except cute" sensation of seeing a fellow geek-type in anime.

Kiri had a strong start in SZS episode 2, with an entertaining segment, a quick obsession developed with Itoshiki-sensei, and lots of random pop-up "Sen-sei~" cameos. Unfortunately, SZS populated its main cast with other crazy characters, such as the OCD perfectionist Chiri or the flamer Meru. And so Kiri got left mostly to the shadows from which she arose from, popping up only to cue a random fanservice transition - a demeaning job for any character.

Itsuki / Mayumi - Shuffle!
This comic duo wasn't incredibly neglected, making many side-character appearances over the span of Shuffle!, but this is one of those instances where one could almost imagine them deserving a spin-off show of their own. Simply put, their manic personalities solo combine to form a side-splitting pair with a relationship that's almost Calvin-and-Susie in nature.

What really inspired this pair's nomination is the unearthing of a few insights into Mayumi's path from Shuffle! On The Stage (the PS2 port), which hinted that the two of them go way back; certainly the energetic manner in which they tease each other could hint at more than a hint of affection, although neither of them will live up to it. This element just enhances their already comedic, exaggerated antics together, and it's something that I'd want to see more of.

Aoi - Myself;Yourself
This one, I'm tentative about. From the raw data readout, Aoi is one of the most appealing characters to ever be penned, at least from my perspective. I just don't think it's possible to go wrong with a glasses girl who likes to read and is very clumsy; perhaps because I'm more than a bit of that myself.

Still, when such a character remains static and two-dimensional while the rest of her friends get gripping, epically dramatic stories, it's kind of dissapointing that Aoi never really played much of a role in anything.

I really wish she had seen a more central role to the plot, but there's a little voice in the back of my head saying otherwise; given all the uberdrama that characters like Asami and the Wakatsukis had, maybe it's a good thing that Aoi wasn't expounded on.Still, I'd rather take the chance.

Moe - Da Capo
Actually, whenever a character gets relegated to Random Fanservice Girl, it's kind of dissapointing for me. Both the Mizukoshis get the short end of the stick in Da Capo - Mako's affections go more unsaid than that of any other character - but Moe set the bar the lowest in terms of plot, since she didn't really have any to speak of.

A quick Wikipedia perusual does confirm that Moe does have a story behind her and she does have a reason she's so sleepy-sounding all the time, but if you were just a viewer of the anime, you'd never know, since all she really does is jiggle around a lot.

Mikuru - Haruhi
Forgive me if I'm behind on the novels a bit, as I haven't read them in a while, but it certainly feels like Mikuru's getting a bit left out in the rain, especially compared to the other Haruhi characters.

Haruhi speaks for herself, we know her, her fears, and her uber-hax powers far too well. Nagato, although she doesn't express herself that much, has had a book and probably more devoted to her. Even the inner workings of Kyon have been pretty exposed. Most of the characters in Haruhi have very developed personalities and inner conflicts, but the SOS Brigade's mascot doesn't have much other than a lot of costumes.

Maybe it's the fault of her being a time-traveler (Kyon figuring out anything about her might paradox us into the ground), but certainly it's a shame that the series's most developed character is also one of the least developed.

There's Itsuki as well, but who really likes him? ...Even when he's not getting into pseudoyaoi relationships with Kyon?

Hanepin - Tsukihime
Y'know, I look at the last four characters and I think I'm onto something here. There is something about characters with a large rack not having much character development. Is this the power of mascot fanservice characters at work?

To be fair the lack of Hanepin is mainly because she's a side character in a side story in Kagetsu Tohya, though. Side characters are often a lost cause, but fools like me rally behind them; perhaps it's easier to proclaim a victory for the cause of one of these characters, where even a small appearance or bit of fanart means something. It's similar to why Nagato is so widely adorable (and awesome).

That said, Hanepin's an adorable and underutilized character not because of Tsukihime Fun Fact #49: she beats Arcueid in chest size but because she's kind of an Osaka beta-version, being a very kind and spacey person.

Miyuki / Minami - Lucky Star
Two different characters here, but I'll lump them together since they're part of the same series.

Miyuki pretty much echoes everything I said about Aoi above; glasses, brains, classy, and a bit clumsy, I don't really see where she could go wrong. Unfortunately, she got excluded from the main group pretty quick, with the show preferring to focus on either Konata and the Hiiragis or some of the many other numerous side characters. The show could almost make a spin-off out of the second group - it's probably the only way that all the characters, even the ones not mentioned, could get justice.

Minami was cool because she was the stereotypical 'quiet cool girl', but she got shoved down the DFC track pretty quick. There's probably something hypocritical about being mad that a character is one cliche instead of another, but I enjoy the strong and silent characters, so there you have it. I thought Konata had a much better 'flat chest is a status symbol!' act anyway.

The Spies - Code-E
I've lost track of how many times I've said it by now (and how many times I've opened a segment like that), but - Code-E needs more everything. The twin German spies took on a variety of roles, some comical, and some serious, and it was never really revealed who they were or what their purpose was.

Additionally, the female one was randomly crushed under a collapsing building at the end of the season, a strange shift from their mostly lighthearted antics, and something that the show never got back to. Here's to hoping that we can find out more about them (among other people) in the second season.

Mo-chan - TokiMemo
Rooting for Mina to win over Riku was a heartwarming if not mostly futile fight; but luckily, with the depth of TokiMemo's side cast, there were plenty of alternative relationships to look out for as well. That between Mina's friend, Mo-chan (whose full name, if it exists, I can't recall) and the class delinquent Inukai was another battle, that, ironically, was almost as difficult as Mina's.

Mo-chan got shot down time and time again by the far-too-cool-for-love Inukai, and got up every single time, always ready to offer a helping hand to Mina in her fight as well. I certainly hoped that he was just being stubborn, the typical cold-exterior soft-interior character, but right down to the very end he didn't change, leaving Mo-chan out in the cold with her friend Mina. I think, more than any other character in TokiMemo, she was the one that deserved to get her guy. And she didn't~

Mana - sola
It would be hard to say that Mana didn't get a lot of attention over the span of sola, since she even gets the last scene and line of the show (pre-credits, anyway), but somehow it still feels like she didn't get as much storyline love as she deserved.

Maybe it makes sense from a story perspective to have Mana be the character out of the loop, but she's up there with Mo-chan in the 'it makes sense how it is but I still want more!' department. I think I have a weakness for characters who don't even make it to something resembling the confession stage.

After all, her tearful forgetting of Yorito circa episode ten or so seemed like something that the show would come back to before the end, but instead she ended up moving on, remembering Yorito more in his beliefs than in his person itself. It's something that, like the ending of AIR, probably is the 'better' ending in the long run, but still is kind of sad to a simple mind like mine.

-CCY

The 16th Day of Christmas - Ten Facepalm Moments

2007-12-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

"I have no idea if Hisui is saying anything relevant, but she looks angry...and hey, it's Hisui."

Now that the last fifteen days have convinced you that that the last year in anime has been nothing but pure awesome, let me bring some concepts slightly closer to Earth.

On the whole I'm still pretty optomistic about anime as a whole, for sure, but there never fail to be moments where I just wonder...what were they thinking?

And so, I've picked out a few of the moments over the course of the last year that deserved a nice hearty facepalm. Thankfully, it was a bit harder than coming up with enough moments to fill the twelve-best list.

Let me note that these moments of annoyance don't often reflect on an anime as a whole; as always, the greatest dissapointments come from the things you expect the most from, and as such many of these moments come from shows that are otherwise fantastic...except for one little pet peeve that gets to me every time.

(Spoilers: Tsukihime, School Days, Code-E, Tokimeki - oh, who I am I kidding - Memorial)

Lunar Legend Tsukihime
Nrvnsqrnasndflkahgodmykeyboard Fight (Or lack thereof)
Bad spelling aside, Nero's 'fight scene' in Tsukihime, the anime, was probably one of the first major signs that something was funny with the adaptation. There were other minor aspects that the anime got wrong, naturally, but the fact that they took a dramatic, drawn-out fight and condensed it into three minutes really got me.

I kept looking at the clock as the Nero fight started at the end of episode three (four?). Thinking, "OK, they'll cliffhang it here. No...here. Here. They can't possibly fit it all into the ending of one episode!?"

Well, they did, and all without animated a single attack by Shiki. I can almost understand WHY they did this, to show the raw power of Nanaya Shiki in belittleing a seemingly major villain, but, come on. We had plenty of proof with him going to town on Arcueid anyway. Nero deserves a bigger send-off.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Random Kiri x Chii yuri
Kiri Komori was looking to be a pretty promising character. Maybe it's the geek's natural disposition towards others of their kind, but Kiri the beautiful hikikomori (shut-in), when introduced in episode two, looked to be an entertaining and interesting character.

But gradually, through the course of the show, her role faded out, to random cameo appearances, popping up in random places with that delightful "Sen-sei~". Eventually, she didn't even get that.

Along with Chii, the vaguely sane counselor, Kiri got demoted to 'random fanservice girl', breaking up other, apparently more important, scenes with spontaneous yuri action. It's demeaning to see such a good character go to waste.

Shugo Chara
"DO YOU HAAAAAAEEET ENGLIIIIISSHHHH?"
Yes, random X Egg character, yes I do. When you use it and draw it out like that, especially.

Engrish is probably one of the things that grates upon any English-speaking anime viewer (like how I imagine a Japanese speaker would react if they saw some of our fanbase talking), and Shugo Chara's monster-of-the-week fight with an X Egg centered around a personified fear of English takes the cake for most egregious abuse of English in recent memory.

Actually, the English isn't incredibly bad, but the squeaky, high-pitched voice that draws out each syllable to incredible length gets really grating, really fast. Luckily, it's a one-time deal.

School Days
Makoto knocks another one up
Somehow I have a feeling this one was done on purpose to make us gag, or at the least, roll our eyes...with contempt!

As I've probably said too many times, those of us who came into School Days with even the slightest hope that something would go right, were proven horribly, even hilariously, wrong again and again.

Perhaps most of us saw the progression from a pure romance to a complicated love-triangle; perhaps Setsuna joining the fight was acceptable. But near the end of the show, the writers just began to throw girls at Makoto left and right. There was Otome, the random childhood friend. Hikari, the one who seemed all for Taisuke at the beginning. Otome's wicked followers, all three of them at once!

It all seems rather tailored to put a final condeming note on Makoto, to make the audience go "gee, anyone who has sex this much MUST be a bad character" (if not out of pure disgust, maybe a little of jealousy as well), and for once, I'm happy to agree with the path the writers have put us down. School Days was ridiculous down to the last drop of black oil wrung from the characters, and I don't think it would work any other way.

Da Capo Second Season
Aisia will fix it with MAGIC!
Sure, Aisia, you tell yourself that. Da Capo seems to be a formula that has been fixed far too many times over the years - and it was never really broken in the first place.

The first season was outstanding - maybe not the best visual novel adaptation out there, but very solid in character development, conflict, and drama, enough to put it on par, or close to. with second-tier shows like Shuffle! and Myself;Yourself.

The second season featured more of the same, except with a bunch of new characters added in a futile attempt to mix up the show (imagine any recent corporation that tried to look 'kool' or 'x-treme' to capture the youth crowd). And the sequel, Da Capo II takes the whole thing and chucks it out the window.

But the fact is, the central conflict between Nemu, Kotori, and Sakura, three strong, well-rounded characters, has always been what has made Da Capo good, and Aisia, on the other hand, is one of the things that really threw the second season for a loop in the wrong direction.

A character doesn't have to be intensely dislikable at first to develop into an appealing character at the end; while it's true that Aisia got more palatable as the show went on, that's no excuse for her annoyingly dense mindset at the beginning of the show.

(Suddenly, I had a flash that I could change a few names and make this a rant about the Sonic games, and no one could tell the difference. But that's another story.)

Code-E
What, that's it?
Code-E really did nothing wrong. It was just the equivalent of a student's poorly-planned essay on a timed test. The intro was intriguing, the first body paragraph were well-developed, and right halfway through the second when things start getting explain, time runs out. So they rush to write a half-baked conclusion, and we're left with a piece of work that has incredible promise, but never gets around to acting on it.

Likewise, the ending to Code-E leaves more questions than it answers. Pretty much everything except the main relationship between Chinami and Kotaro is left unresolved, from the origin/purpose of the German spies, to the intentions behind Evil Pocketwatch Man, who I'm pretty sure never got a name, to even a fulfilling conclusion to the third side of the love triangle with Sonomi.

The saving grace of this is that there is a second season of the anime planned for Code-E - a drastic change from the original announcement of 'we're all done here, go read the manga', and thankfully so.

Shakugan no Shana II
It's always the green haired lolis that mess things up
The character that singlehandly killed thousand of viewers.

If I had one romance trope to get rid of, it would be the one that results in all the proclamations of "Oh look, some possessive girl has come onto my object of undying affection, time to call it quits". Because, honestly, it's really frustrating, when Shana and Kazumi had been fighting over Yuuji for a whole season, and one random girl who is not a plot object At All comes in and pretty much knocks them both for a loop? The least they could do it tag-team Konoe into the ground.

Konoe's character as a whole, actually, is kind of annoying, if only because really dense characters tend to grate on my nerves (except in comedy situations, usually).

To be fair, I never saw the first season of Shana outside of summary, and the second season is steadily improving, but the faulty start that Shana II had seems to have done quite a number on its fanbase.

Tokimeki Memorial ~only love~
Y'know I really have no idea that Sayuri has the hots for me, no, none at all
Did I say if I had one romance trope to get rid of? Scratch that, make that two.

An equally frustrating cliche used to drag out shows is "I'm entirely blind to the fact that the girl of my dreams is all over me". Riku actually manages to wield both this one and the above cliche from Shana II (oh no, some other guy is TALKING to Sayuri! I'm a loser tee-underscore-tee) to attempt to inject some drama into his relationship with the school idol, Sayuri.

This does have the positive benefit of giving Tsukasa and Mina an almost infintesimal chance of winning (which, as fans know, is more than enough chance to give an excuse to root for them), but...seriously, Riku, get a clue. As many shy, uncertain teenagers as you may attract to your side by being wishy-washy and unsure of yourself, it's just not very interesting to watch the same train of thought over and over, especially when love doesn't get more drop-dead connect-the-dots obvious than this.

KimiKiss
The frogs
Oh God, the frogs. You'd think the personification of some psuedo yuri relationship between two loli-looking (or at the least, imouto-style) girls would have people jumping all over them, but Romeo and Juliet aren't doing much better than their Shakespearean counterparts in earning lots of disdain (from the characters in the story of R&J, anyway).

It probably falls under the same category as the Shugo Chara! complaint in that the girls and their frogs are very loud and very squeaky, not to mention shoved in our faces all the time. KimiKiss likes to draw the viewer's focus in a blunt manner, as it does with the girl's lips all the time, something that's also kind of awkward, but given that two stuffed amphibians don't have a fraction of the appeal of Eriko Futami, it's obvious who the award has to go to here.

Also, the way in which 'oh my God the frogs are kissing and/or acting otherwise in a romantic manner' never fails to unsettle Kazuki and Kouichi is equally frustrating, in that 'oh so romantically tense' cliche manner.

Shuffle! Memories
Upon realizing it's all recap
I think this one speaks far, far too much for itself.

-CCY
(Episode 12 was totally worth it for Yandere II: Boxcutter Boogaloo and Mayumi's Haruhi parody, though.)

The 15th Day of Christmas - 10 Anisongs

2007-12-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

"Yes, I was really frustrated they took Nagato's SG out of Guitar Hero III. And Eddie Knox."

I like to rant a lot about music in anime, first because I've been a Dance Dance Revolution addict since the original PSX port, and second because I can't play it with any resemblance of much more than a cacophony that could have come from Kotomi Ichinose's violin itself.

And while I've said a few times in the 12 (and running) Days countdown that insert songs, or background music can really make a moment in an anime, equally important to a show is the opening and ending themes.

It may not be as important as the in-show music, but the fact is you're going to hear these themes at least twelve times over the course of a show's run, and so they better be good. Sometimes it's all right to get away with skipping a show's ending theme, but to jump over the opening seems almost heretical.

This is because the the OP / ED animations, and the songs themselves, do a lot for setting the mood of a show. A contemplative, deep-thinking show might have a slow, mood-filled theme, while a action-packed comedy might have a more hyperactive, high-energy song.

Thusly I've picked out ten of my favorite songs for bookending anime I've seen this year. They range from the fast-paced to the melancholy, from the lyrical to the instrumental, but they're all songs that I wouldn't sniff twice at putting on my MP3 player.

Y'know, because anime fans like me were born with no shame.

Most Inexplicably Catchy Song
Zetsubou ED - Zessei Bijin
Normally I go for either the slow-paced piano/violin songs with drawn-out vocals or the high-energy, typically rock songs, but the jazzy ending theme to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is surprising finger-snapping fun. It has lyrics and an overall feel that captures perfectly the almost humorously sadistic feel of the show, and the rhythm of the vocals is enjoyable as well.

In the full version, the multiple singers are used to maximum effect, with each line of 'I got to hear their screaming voices again' (the penultimate line in each chorus) sung by a different singer. Incidentally, the way they sing that line every time is simply stunning. The instrumental solo in the full version is pleasant as well, and really captures that pseudo-horror feel of the song and the lyrics.

Best Song Pair
SHUFFLE! OP - YOU and SHUFFLE! ED - Innocence
Shuffle!, like most visual novel shows of the harem type, is a show that blends both light-hearted comedy and serious drama, and this is reflected great in the two contrasting themes in its opening and ending. Typically, most anime have a 'fast' and a 'slow' song split among the OP and ED, but Shuffle!'s are top-notch in both regards.

YOU is an example of the strong singing and guitar-work typical of the Shuffle! series; Mirage Lullaby and Remember Memories are equally rocking yet still emotional songs sung by YURIA for the Shuffle! eroges. The guitar work is catchy, and the vocals are sung with power.

Innocence is the flip side of the coin, an almost melancholy song with a lighter guitar note to it and some sweet-sounding vocals. It's good both as a song on its own and as a contrast to the upbeat YOU, and these two songs go together well to form the dual face of Shuffle!, a surprisingly serious (and seriously enjoyable) eroge conversion.

Most Incomprehensibly Meme-Worthy Song
Lucky Star OP - Motteke! Seerafuku!
It was a coin flip between this and Hare Hare Yukai, but I felt determined to acknowledge at least one song that has been mimicked (if not beaten into the ground) by the fan community innumerable times by either parodies or dance-offs. Motteke! Seerafuku! is kind of like Hare Hare Yukai on crack, in that it features more dancing, the lyrics make even less sense, and it's even faster-paced.

Actually, the lyrics make no sense at all, but there's a certain enjoyability to random English nonsense like "Let's get cherry pie!". As well, the incredibly quick speed of the lyrics makes me wonder why they don't have more rapping Japanese schoolgirls. The first lyric part (from the end of the instrumental intro to the saxophone segment) is far too catchy for something I can't comprehend at all, even with subtitles.

It's a pretty fitting random song for a pretty random anime; sometimes I don't get either of them, sometimes they both seem kind of overhyped, but they're both a lot of fun.

Most Rocking Song
Myself;Yourself OP - Tears Infection
I like songs with guitar. A lot of guitar. In that sense, I should probably be picking Shana II's JOINT for this then, but Tears Infection is an equally enjoyable song that really wants you to break out the air guitar.

Which is a bit of a lie, as Tears Infection actually doesn't have too many guitar pieces, much less complicated ones - there's the 8-note riff repeated throughout the intro and any instrumental space, and the slow notes played during the vocal parts. But what's fun about this song is that there's a lot of energetic fast parts (any time you can see the band playing in the OP) and a few moments that focus on intense vocals instead (the part with Sana / Nanaka visible). And, of course, there's the choruses, with a little bit of both. It's a pretty good mix overall that's great for four-minutes of head-bobbing.

Most Able to Be Actually Performed by a White Guy (but not really)
Kanon OP - Last Regrets
Last Regrets is a perfect example of the 'slow, moody songs' that I was mentioning earlier, featuring mostly piano backing, and deep, slow lyrics. So slow, actually, that I was able to memorize them. Not to mention the first thirty seconds of the piano piece as well.

In conclusion, fandom is scary and you should never ask me to sing Last Regrets, because I will. The song itself, male voices aside, is quite great, starting slowly and building to a sort of powerful crescendo. The Key songs have always been kind of like this, with songs clocking on the slower side, although Tori no Uta and Megumeru were both a bit faster-paced, they definitely enjoyed their slow instrumental and powerful lyric parts. Sad songs in slow like this are perfect for these largely own-pace, character-driven shows of discovery.

And one more bonus point: the Kanon OP on DVD on a high-definition TV is simply jaw-dropping.

Most Amusing Use of Side Vocals
Minami-ke OP - Keikenchi Joshouchuu
First off, I hate this song for being the only one on the list which wasn't easily transcribed Japanese or Engrish. But otherwise, this song is just brimming with the sort of energetic, peppy, carefree attitude that a slice-of-life show like Minami-ke has. It's fun, right down to the last touches.

These last touches, as the title may hint, are the heavy use of side vocals, or whatever I should be calling them; the little voices, personified by chibi characters in the OP, shouting 'Whoo!' and 'Hai hai hai hai!'. It's cute, and it really captures that kind of playful feel of the song. 'Kuru kuru!' is one of the catchiest for me. I suppose this sort of thing goes to show why Japan can spin an entire culture (or, at least, a few brands) based on random cute chibi things.

The rest of the song, for no other way to put it, is 'fun' as well, and really feels like the kind of song you'd bounce around, or at the least, clap energetically too. Amusing to me though, is the fact that even a song like this has a wicked guitar solo. They're everywhere in anisongs.

Most Mellow Melody
sola ED - mellow melody
Actually, there were other songs in contention for the second slow song slot (say that ten times fast, and whatnot), but having settled with sola's ending song, I had to name it this.

It's a great relaxing, yet emotional song (which I've said ten times, but it's still true) that works well to soothe after another dramatic, cliffhanging episode of sola. I can't count the amount of times that something exciting would happen, then it would cut to black and this song would start playing. The vocals are nicely done in this song, and the visuals in the animation are an alluring mix of real-life sky shots, in theme with the show, and conceptual art of the characters. It's worth watching for the stills alone, probably, and the song is pretty sweet too.

Most Ironic Song
School Days OP - Innocent Blue
I'd easily take many of School Days's various ending themes over the opening theme, but given that this song gets twelve times as much exposure, it deserves a bit of recgonition for being what it is - completely unrelated to the anime.

One has to imagine the composers had their tongues firmly in cheek when creating a peppy song like this, that wouldn't be out of place in any normal harem or romance show. It's a catchy song made all the more amusing by the knowledge that School Days isn't normal in the slightest, and the thematic and lyrical use of 'angels', not to mention all the happy, innocent characters in the opening, are a great joke played on non-suspecting viewers. Those of us who have endured this show can smirk at this song as others try to piece the upbeat music with the downbeat story.

Most Embarassingly Awesome Song
Shugo Chara! OP - Kokoro no Tamago
Magical girl songs - I don't know what it is about them. Cardcaptor Sakura had three great openings. Nanatsuiro Drops came along with Shining Stars Bless. And now Shugo Chara! pulls one of its own out of the hat.

It's exactly as you'd expect a song from a show like this, and somehow I don't find that to be a problem. It's smile-inducing to a fault, from the cheery lyrics to the sugary animation. It oozes pink and J-pop and just plain happiness from every pore, and for some reason the slightly techno-sounding voice is incredibly catchy. I don't even find a fault with the Englishy 'hop step jump' or 'drew draw drawn' (?), although my favorite part of this song would have to be the last few lines building up to the chorus, ending in 'my own heart, unlock!'. It's a strangely addictive song that I've rewatched probably more than the show itself so far.

Most Touching Song From a Show I've Never Watched
Bokurano OP - Uninstall
I have no idea what Bokurano is, but I have a strong desire to find out now. Uninstall very well might be the king of slow-paced, emotional songs. The lyrics are sung in a very melodic fashion, with a great range of pitch that produces a great sense of feeling in the song. It just flows good.

What I really like about this song are the lyrics. They support the song in terms of power and depth, and are very touching in their somewhat existential tone. I think I can really claim a song is good, like this one, when I can really enjoy it without having any sentimental memories of a show to back it up.

-CCY

sola heads Japan's list of favorite 2007 anime?!

2007-12-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

Matsuri, YOU'RE WINNER!

Yeah, it's so shocking it's worth stealing and reposting from Danny Choo's barely five-minute-old post. I happen to get on the internet at just the right time, I suppose.

Anyways, according to Danny Choo the results from about 2 million Japanese ballots are in, and everyone's favorite tomato-juice-drinking, sky-photographing show apparently grabbed the top spot by an overwhelming margin, with over 340,000 votes to runner-up Lucky Star's 140,000. The full standings are as follows:

1) sola
2) Lucky Star
3) Katei Kyoshi Hitman Reborn
4) Ookiku Furi Kabutte
5) Higurashi
6) Gintama
7) Nanoha StrikerS
8) Nanatsuiro Drops
9) Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
10) Hidamari Sketch

Really curious, if you ask me. It makes me wonder (as I commented on over there) what the criteria were to be eligible, as many big-name shows that ended this year, like Kanon and Gurren Lagann among other things, are nowhere to be seen.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see sola up there at the top - it was one of the shows I enjoyed greatly this season, despite it having a few glaring flaws. Still, to have it top all with nary a moe show (or even very many manly shows) in sight is quite perplexing. Makes you curious what the polling audience was in Japan - random people off the street? 2ch visitors? Any certain demographic?

It makes me wonder again of the divides present in anime fandom; it's apparent to many that anime that casual or inexperienced U.S. fans watch (typically shonen), and anime that hardcore English bloggers watch (all over the board, but a lot more moe, mecha, and dramatic) are worlds apart, but is there a second difference in taste between the anime fanatics on both sides of the Pacific? And is there a similar, 'casual' anime division in Japan that is looked down upon?

And which one was the most vocal in this vote? All food for thought, speaking as a relatively new member to the anime community.

Regarding that and the rest of the list, I guess this means I can't tout sola and NanaDrops as 'underrated anime that no one's heard of', as I've been out to do of recently. I do enjoy playing a show's (advertising) knight in shining armor too much.

Lucky Star was popular, as expected from a slice-of-life on moe crack (lemme tell you, them's good crack too), and I'm happy to see SZS up there on the list as well. This list also reinforces my idiocy as the only person left on Earth who hasn't waxed poetic about Hidamari Sketch as well...time to put that back on the list.

Would like to see the rest of the list, but that's probably not possible.

-CCY
(Obvious thanks to Danny Choo for the news.)

The 14th Day of Christmas - The Runners-Up

2007-12-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

~~"I have to wait how long before getting to rant about Myself;Yourself!?"~~
"And now, a sad violin song for those who didn't make it..."

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is was a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. As you may guess, I'm going to be dragging this feature out a while with a bunch of random lists. Hope you're still enjoying it.

Who left this thing running? Oh well, I'll just let it finish.

...if you are reading this post, then something terrible has befallen - oh, wait, that's next week's script. Here we go.

Thought it was over that time? Not quite. I've got a couple more series that didn't quite make the list; I'm too much of an Annoyingly Stereotypical Nice Guy to pick just twelve moments.

So why not have a few more, to top off this year (and then some) of anime?

(Spoilers: Tsukihime, Shuffle, Kaiji, Kanon.)

Clannad 03: Sunohara, you're in the future.
Clannad is really a promising show, not just because it's Key and I'm a 'sad girls in x' sucker but because it looks to blend the usual mix of drama with some ace humor this time as well. AIR had some funny moments, Kanon had the brilliant sarcastic Kyon'ichi and now in Clannad a lot of characters are firing on all funny cylinders.

The gullibility of Sunohara as Tomoya stretches a simple joke far beyond belief is really amusing - not only does Sunohara belive he's time-warped into the future, but he also believed that the world had ended, that Tomoya was a hologram - wait, make that a cyborg. There is a nice animation touch with a green, semi-futuristic overlay is on the screen for the time being while Sunohara is believing the illusion. Amusing stuff.

Clannad 04: Ryou is bi?
That can't be, the anime is prodding her as 'girl with mad crush on Tomoya', yet still she accepted Nagisa's 'feelings' so easily.

Maybe the reason Clannad is so funny is because it's full of gullible people and amusing masterminds willing to manipulate them. Tomoya's scheme to get people to sign up for Nagisa's theater club got out of hand, and the resulting 'confession' by Nagisa asking Ryou ~~out~~ to join the club was hilarious, from Sunohara's over-enthusiastic reaction, to Ryou's nervous, confused looks, to the not-quite-subtle spying on them by Kyou.

And of course, y'know, Ryou's "Yes...wait, what?". Ryou takes on all challengers!

Shana II 07: Just as (not) planned!
That's right, Shana II was cool this year! Sometimes it sounds like people have never seen filler episodes at the start of an anime before (although, it did get mildly out of hand).

Actually, the seventh episode of Shana was pretty filler as well, being an early visit to the amusement park trope, but it was a pretty amusing episode. Maybe because of the purposely over-dramatic aspect of it, or the two, three eyecatches, or maybe because Ike, as the resident over-planning glasses guy, doesn't get enough attention normally.

Ah, it's a simple love story episode with Ike being affected by Kazumi so easily, and it's amusing and relatable at the same time.

Kagetsu Tohya VN: Ganbatte, Ciel-Senpai!
The ultimate lampshade hanging for Tsukihime fans is this fourth-wall smashing, gut-busting side story in Kagetsu Tohya, complete with not-so-subtle pokes at pretty much every character in the story. It's a great bookend after such a serious, touching visual novel.

Shuffle! Memories 12: Kaede II: Boxcutter Boogaloo
A similarly funny parody of Kaede's yandere times, in the final episode of Shuffle! memories...which was, admittedly, the only new episode of the series.

Still, it was a relatively redeeming watch. Kaede's overly paranoid side, contrasting with increasingly-sane-looking Asa, was amusing, as the search Rin and his dissapearing harem took a turn for the hilariously serious. Kaede's slow, ominous knocking on the door, while holding a butcher knife in the other hand, was straight out of a horror movie...until she realizes the door opens side-to-side, instead of out, reverting her to Housewife Kaede. As such, a tip to remember next time you're running from a psycho killer: hide in a closet door. They'll be perplexed, if Kaede is a benchmark.

Kanon 2002 13: Nayuki wins, if only for a second
Do I need to say it again. I need to say it again. Nayuki ending!

In all honesty I'd rather root for someone like Shiori or Mai, but as those two are side characters to the two main childhood friend contenders, Ayu and Nayu, I'm forced (and I use force in the loosest sense) to root for the blue-haired sleepy sensation.

And, having seen the 2006 version first, the closing moments of Kanon 2002 were certainly a shock. Nayuki got a lot 'farther' in this version, with both a confession and a kiss; certainly it's more apparent here that she's really being selfless and giving up her feelings. It's really touching, although I must admit that it was more of a 'VICTOLY!' moment than a 'aww' one for me.

Minami-ke 04: Ninomiya-kun!!
Easily the best 'show inside a show' this year, aside from maybe Lucky Channel. The soap-tastic adventures of Sensei and Ninomiya-kun are amusing in their own way - that 'how are they going to get hit by a car this time?' joke - and when they get turned into a video game, it's even better.

Kana and Chiaki play as Sensei and Ninomiya-kun as they travel through a bunch of different game parodies, including platformer, RPG, fighting, and horror games. The monotonic sounds of "SENSEI!" and "NINOMIYA-KUN!" are hilarious, not to mention the fact that, every time, the game somehow ends in a Bad End.

It's like a twisted, strung-out WarioWare. I'd buy it.

Doujin Work 03: Najimi made a what?
Misunderstandings are the birth of comedy, or something.

And birth is what was...not going on here. Apparently it's some Japanese word gag, in that Najimi talks a lot about making her first doujin comic, but enough words are left out for Tsuyuri to twist it to sounding like Najimi gave birth to a child.

For the extremely protective Justice, them's fighting words, and the gag grows greater in strength as Najimi refers to her 'customer'. Connect the dots. It's a funny joke on it's own, and it's only made better by Tsuyuri's full knowledge of the truth beforehand. Mmm, humorously manipulative characters are awesome.

Wangan Midnight 04: So a Ferrari, a GT-R, and a 240Z walk onto a highway...
If there's one thing that I don't think I ever saw in Initial D (speaking off manga experience), it was a three-way battle. One of Wangan Midnight's first was rather intense, and highlighted a lot of the things that I like about a show like this.

First off, the music was solid, and worked with the scene well, something that I've found to be the case in the WM games and anime. And secondly, there was a real sense of danger in this anime, as opposed to Initial D, where very few cars actually crashed.

I don't understand why a random Red Shirt Car could just step on the accelerator and waltz past the Testa and Devil Z, but like many cars before it in this series, it ended up sliding into a wall in spectacular fashion just the same. Nobody is safe in this intense, high-energy world of street racing.

Lucky Star 08: Track & Field
The sports festival was drop-dead funny start to finish, with nearly every character pulling off a different kind of funny, in a great show of Lucky Star's diversity.

There was Konata's demonstration of 'picturing' an event, as a 8-bit, NES-styled 100m sprint like that of Konami's old Track & Field game. It turns out she knows all the tricks, including rubbing a coin back and forth and using a ruler. Actually, I've never tried that last one. See, anime is educational!

Then there was Tsukasa, and her hilariously clumsy stumbling through the 110m hurdles. It's similar to Osaka's 'keep it together' in Azumanga, in that she focuses so hard on Miyuki's advice that she's never prepared for a hurdle when it comes up. Much hurdle smashing and cute panicking ensues. Tsukasa, you never fail us.

Miyuki's segment was great as well - it was a rare moment where we got to see the dramatically competitive side of her, complete with pumping Eurobeat music (from the Initial D parody scene 2 episodes ago), and it was a nice topper to a great scene.

Kaiji 11: I MUST PUSH!
Kaiji has always struck me as an anime that has a lot of raw emotion in it, especially compared to a lot of the romance / ren'ai stuff I usually watch. When I mentioned this to a fellow anime viewer, he replied "Isn't Kaiji just all despair though?"

Which was true, but in that case, Kaiji does a good job at conveying a lot that raw despair. The narrator's constant explanations of Kaiji's thought processes, combined with Kaiji's own intense monologues, really do a lot for making him a sympathetic character, and as such it's really powerful, in a dramatic way. Kaiji's battle between conscience and greed in the Brave Men Road segment, as such, was really something to watch. It really is turning out to be the stunning surprise show of the season.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei 4: Meru Meru
Maybe it's a fault of the slow release schedule of the show, but SZS, despite being a scathingly funny show at times, with all the British, off-color, and referential humor, hasn't really had a lot of memorable moments to it. The show as a whole is very enjoyable...there's just no parts that stick out incredibly. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.

Still, the character introduction segment for Meru, the quiet text-messaging troll, was one of the better parts of the show that I could think of. Maybe it's because I could totally see myself underestimating a seemingly cute, shy girl like Nozomu did, or maybe it was because of all the amusing flames Meru tossed out (not to mention the Rambo-style cell-phone reload, followed by "You saw them. Pay up."), or maybe the clincher with Kafuka beating the living crap out of Meru with a oversized cross. But either way, it was a great example of SZS's unique brand of humor.

Tsukihime 12: Roa vs. Shiki
It exists. Believe it.

Music is one of the strong points of Lunar Legend Tsukihime, with a fully instrumental soundtrack with a lot of great uses of slow, moody music. One exception is the 'Justice' theme, an energetic violin slash some-other-stuff (that's where the music knowledge ends, kids) song which is great battle music.

It's synced quite well with the climatic fight of the anime, of Shiki facing off versus the real Shiki Tohno (slash Roa), which was actually one of the series' better battles, although still a bit confusing in places (i.e. why didn't Roa/Shiki finish off Shiki? Evil villain complex?).

Although most of the Tsukihime anime was substandard, at least when compared to the visual novel, there were some good points to the show, and I'm sure that if I didn't know of the original, it would hold up quite well on its own.

-CCY

Hmmm...Melty Blood anime...

The 13th Day of Christmas - The Alternates

2007-12-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

"More moments? Nandeyanen!?"

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is was a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Yeah, I know it's over, but I'm still going because ~~I'm crazy~~ I love you all that much. Stay in school, random lists are cool!

Hey wait, who put this on the script?

Picking twelve moments from all the shows I watched this year was quite the difficult task. Many of the high-quality shows didn't just have one awe-inspiring moment but many.

As such, I devised a set of rules for my 12 Days countdown, the first of which being which that each series could only have one moment but many.

These are some of those scenes left on the cutting room floor as a result, some of the secondary moments that are excellent in their own right, but were just topped some moments even greater.

(Spoilers: Myself;Yourself, School Days, Shuffle!, AIR, Kanon, sola, Haruhi, Tsukihime)

Myself;Yourself 08: The mailbox
The mailbox with all the bloody (or messy, at least) letters in it was probably one of the first signs that Myself;Yourself was heading towards a dramatic path. As Sana opens the mailbox and all the letters with "HELP ME!" written out on it, there was nary a viewer that didn't utter a 'oh s***' or at least felt a few chills going down their spine.

Myself;Yourself 10: The love letter
The ninth episode of Myself;Yourself was a bit of a lull, focusing mainly on Hinako, the enjoyable character that unfortunately was fairly irrelevant to the plot. There was some hints at drama inside the Wakatsuki family, though, and it all hit the fan in episode 10, first and foremost being the love letter rumoring of an extremely incestous relationship between the Wakatsuki twins.

It was where the drama level of M;Y really shot through the roof, making it probably second only to School Days as the most ridiculous - if not entertaining - soap-slash-harem of the year. It remains to be seen just how exactly it will end.

AIR 6: Michiru on the roof
Michiru's goodbye to Minagi at the end of the sixth episode is probably the first truly emotional moment of AIR, and likewise, a sentimental moment in my anime viewership. If it wasn't for Misuzu, this moment would probably be right up there near the top.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a complete sucker for tearful goodbye scenes, and Michiru's was done very well with the back-to-back against-the-fence framing of the Tohno sisters. That one emotion, that 'smile-so-you-won't-cry' feeling, gets me every time.

School Days 10: Setsuna proves it to Kotonoha
School Days is unpredictable. Isn't that a shocker by now?

It continued to prove that motto over and over throughout the series, and one of the more memorable instances of this was during Kotonoha's confronting of Setsuna. She was suspicious that Setsuna had something for Makoto as well, and was manipulating Sekai in line with her feelings.

At this point in every other romantic story ever done, it would probably be Setsuna's cue to deny these allegations, especially with the subtitles showing Kotonoha's speech cutting off midway.

I assumed that it was because of Setsuna shouting "You're wrong!" or "It's not true," but in actuality it was because of Setsuna grabbing Makoto by the shoulders and laying a kiss on him. Another spine-tingling moment that I didn't see coming, that continues to show how School Days dares to be different.

School Days Not-12: Nice meme
School Days is unpredictable. Isn't that a shocker by now?

With the fury against Makoto at its highest following episode 11 and the seeming happy reconcilation between him and Kotonoha, hype for the final, twelfth episode was phenomeonal.

And for the episode to be replaced with a completely non-related scenery show depicting nature and other not-stabby images, that was the biggest shock of all. It may not be a moment many like to remember, but this moment was an important one. If not for giving birth to a meme, but for showing the worst side of many anime fans, and adding yet another piece to the legacy that is School Days.

School Days 12: To my bloody children conclusion?
School Days is unpredictable. Isn't that a shocker by now?

The fans wanted blood. The fans got blood. In fact, two of the bad ends were combined into one, with both Sekai stabbing Makoto and Kotonoha slitting Sekai's throat. It almost pulled off a three-peat, but Kotonoha instead stuck with going insane, on a boat that almost seemed like a homage to the above moment, over jumping off the roof.

It's a moment that I still question the sanity of, with that sense of guilt of the "oh God, what have I done?" variety. But for a show like School Days, it wouldn't work any other way.

Kanon 2006 18: Shiori's arc
Mai may have my favorite storyline in Kanon, but Shiori is easily my favorite character by far.

Although being a stereotype sick girl with magical AIDS, Shiori's personality shone like no others in Kanon. That optomism of hers was almost heartwrenching, as she smiled until the end, hiding all her fears and worries in favor of living like a normal girl. And she seemed the most poetic of the lot, too. Fear the cute and smart ones.

Her arc, cliche as it was, was executed quite well too. The final fountain scene was quite emotional - the tearful goodbye rule wins again? It never fails. All hail vanilla ice cream.

Kanon 2006 23: Nayuki ending! ...almost
Yeah, I was one of THEM. One of the people who stuck with Nayuki until the end over Ms. Uguu, one that held out for the underdog victory.

Naturally, it never came, but we got a bit of consolation as Nayuki got her moment right at the climax of the 'final' episode of Kanon. Where emotions were the highest from Ayu's goodbye, we transitioned into a scene with Nayuki consoling a dejected Yuuichi, urging the both of them to fight together.

She may never get the victory, but Nayuki's fight will always bright a smile to my face.

sola 7: Wait, Matsuri got stabbed
sola was pretty good with the drama and the surprise twists, the first major one being Matsuri's dissapearance in the previous episode. And when Yorito finally reunited with her at the end of this episode, one would expect a more romantic or surprised reaction. Instead, the audience was the one that was stunned.

It's a bit fuzzy, and a bit physically absurd, but Aono's mind-control powers appear to have overtaken Yorito and embodied Aono's hate into his stabbing of Matsuri. It's a key setup for the main conflict of the story, not Matsuri vs. Takeshi, but between Yorito, Matsuri, and Aono, with three characters that weren't exactly villains nor heroes. It's the entertaining blurring of black and white that allows for all characters to have a realistic side to them.

sola 13: Yorito gone, just like that
sola's ending probably only comes to second to AIR's in terms of bittersweetness. When all is said and done, only one of the main three characters makes it out alive, although the ambiguous ending allows for other interpretations.

Yorito had a surprisingly quick death for who appeared to be the main character for 12 episodes, being stabbed by Aono by accident and dissapearing into a flurry of paper within seconds, Aono clawing at the remains.

It's one of sola's final surprises, proving that it too is a show that can be different, that shies away from lengthy dying monologues, that isn't afraid to be disturbingly real with its characters and its deaths sometimes.

In the end, it's kind of a superseding of normal human bounds again, as the ending shows, for while Yorito was gone in a flash, he won't be forgotten for a long time, if not forever.

Haruhi Suzumiya 6: The build-up
"Ponytails turn me on."

What can I say? It's the best line ever. This moment is one of the ones more commonly cited by Haruhiists as one of the great moments of the show, and I can see why.

It's epic in so many way, from the choral Latin music, to the camera shots of thousands of thousands of Haruhis, to that one moment where one realizes how to put Sleeping Beauty and Snow White together. A great 'conclusion' to a great show.

Shuffle! 19: Give Rin back to me!
This is where character vs. character conflict was truly born. Kaede Fuyou, first of the yanderes, made her legacy here in one of the unforgettable harem fights of last.

That one haunting moment, where you suddenly realize Kaede is stirring an empty pot, is chill-inducing. The following two episodes that follow this saga are very powerful, and almost mirror Sia's conflict in Kaede wondering when she's overstepping her bounds in fighting for Rin.

These are the moments when harem shows truly work, in providing moments that very few simple romances can match.

Tsukihime VN: Satsuki's 'arc'
Would Satsuki be as popular as she is now if she had a storyline of her own? We may never know, but as it is she remains one of the communities' and one of my favorite characters in Tsukihime.

It's almost impossible not to be touched by her sad story, her fruitless struggle, the moral dilemma that Shiki has to face in 'saving' Satsuki. It goes to show that not every harem character has a happy ending in the heart-rending stories of Tsukihime, where there are very few black and white characters.

Azumanga 24: The end
Azumanga, a school-life show, is unlike a lot of slice-of-life comedies in that it has quite a sense of progression. You first see the characters in their first year, and you watch them grow together throughout their high school life.
Still, somehow it's impossible to picture a show like this 'ending'. The characters are separated as they head off to university, yet they still say that 'they'll be together forever'. Maybe they will be; it's a question that, as a high-school student, is one that's quite relevant. That's probably why this is such a touching moment, in that it strikes home, and is quite 'deep' for a comedy.

-CCY

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #1: AIR 12

2007-12-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

It's been one heck of a year of anime watching; especially for my first real year of true fandom.

There were the funny moments, the head-chopping ad infinitum, the gung-ho bread ladies.

There were the dramatic moments, the silence against a sky background, the stunning developments at the school festival, the climatic battle in school at night.

There were the sweet moments, the happy ending for a magical girl and her lover.

There were the touching moments, the feelings of a cat-eared maid, the romantic epiphanies of a god princess.

There were the stunning moments, the battle between two data entities, the revelations of a spurned lover on her hospital bed, the story of the girl in the cage.

But there were two emotions I can say that I never really felt this year in regards to anime.

The first would be a sense of wasted time. Yes, it would be too optomistic, even for me, to say that all the anime this year were equally great. Clearly there were some that stood above the others, and for those shows to do that, they had to be standing on the shoulders of the lesser.

But the worst it ever got in a show was not anger, but merely dissapointment. Dissapointment that a show didn't live up to its full potential. Every show had a moment, had a scene, had a fleeting period where it, too, was a great. Where it was at its finest. It was longer for some shows than others, yes, but when picking out one moment for each show, I had no trouble at least picking one spot where I can genuinely say I smiled or laughed.

The other emotion would be true sadness, and that's something, in my near-masochistic manner, that distresses me a bit more. I've watched many a sad show, seen many a tearful moment, in this year.

Yet most of the time, it only warranted a deep sigh. Perhaps a melancholy introspective, an uncomfortable glance away from the screen, maybe watery eyes like I had just yawned.

In thirty-plus anime this year, I cried once.

AIR 12.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#1 AIR - 12
"Goal~"

By whether I cried Manly Tears or not for a show seems a strange measure of its worth.

Certainly there are better things to judge an anime by; an anime that can get me enraptured or enraged can be every bit as good, since either way it's just toying with one emotion or another.

And AIR has a bit of an unfair advantage, in that being the first truly serious anime I watched, it caught me off-guard in comparison. Like what was said yesterday by Mike at Anime Diet, the first time is always the strongest.

Not to mention, AIR wasn't exactly the strongest of the 'sad girls in X' genre. Crammed into just 12 episodes, the storyline was cut pretty hard, with girls getting fed through the revolving door at mach speed, and the summer arc condensed to just two episodes (not counting the OVAs).

The final arc, Misuzu's, wasn't one to catch people off guard either. It was choreographed pretty well in advance. And it was pretty dramatized too - the rivers that Haruko unleashed post-moment were almost of hilarious proportion.

So, why AIR? Why AIR 12?

Simply because, it was the first, the beginning of everything in so many ways, and the power of sentimental memories still trumps all.

As mentioned, it was the first anime with true, emotional plot that I saw, prior viewing being TokiMemo, DNAngel, and Cardcaptor Sakura.

There had been plenty for the show to build off of itself; Kano's arc may have been a sort of soft intro, but Minagi and Michiru's story hammered home hard. I have no real reason to relate to it, but the goodbye season was a powerful moment just the same. Having an important character dissapear like this, For Good, was something surprising, and the storyline played it perfectly to hit every sad cue in the book.

The summer arc was much the same - a mix of both humor and emotion. The happy times that Ryuuya, Uraha, and Kanna shared weren't meant to last for long, as we experienced the loss of Kanna's mother, and the eventual separation of Kanna from everyone she loved. The futile, repetitive struggle of her story, as we returned to the present, was one that touched the heartstrings, for the only thing worse than a sad story is one with (seemingly) no way out.

And then came Misuzu.

Anyone with a bit of common sense would figure that her number was up. That she was destined to be sacrificed, in a sense, for the greater good. But, as a greenhorn to anime, it seemed impossible to 'kill off' the two main characters of a show at the end, no matter what the outcome.

And so I held on to that faint thought, that slight chance that Misuzu might pull a deux ex - any deux ex - and pull through, even as the writing on the wall became more and more apparent.

Then came that final walk.

It's probably my fault that I ended up in Haruko's shoes at the end. That I believed, up until the end, that she would be able to spend the rest of her days with Misuzu. That I got stuck in that state between belief and disbelief, between dreams and reality.

And there was Aozora. Oh my God, Aozora.

Like yesterday, it's proof that music transcends all. Aozora is a powerful song like no other. Maybe that's the fault of it being linked with this scene. Maybe it's the song; the trance-inducingly slow, slightly mournful, yet still hopeful lyrics, the piano backing.

But it's a spellbinding song. It will wreck thought trains. If you stop thinking, it will enrapture you. I listened to the song to research again while writing this post.

I got 40 seconds before nearly getting overcome.

Above all, the one thing that really gets to me about this moment is that, like all 'sad' moments, it's not a truly depressing one. It's meant to be one that's bittersweet, one that mixes elatement and sorrow.

It's not just that Misuzu dies, it's that she's freed from her worldly bonds, it's that Kanna's curse is broken. It's that despite her illness, her death, she was truly happy.

It's tear-inducing simply because it's something that's incomprehensible by narrow-minded humans like me. It's something that I can't understand, how Misuzu in the end, enjoyed her life and passed on smiling. I can't understand how Haruko can accept it, how Yukito sacrificed himself to further his search for the girl in the sky.

It's something beyond the span of a single human life, a single mind. I know it's not sad, but that's why it's sad. I cried the tears not just for the sad ending but for the happy ending, that feeling that, despite it all, it's all right.

Maybe this moment blew by those who can watch their anime a little more detached. If you look at it objectively, it's overblown, overdramatic, and unrealistic.

But as one who lives with the show, who connects with characters, who wants to feel the joy, the tension, the emotion, AIR 12 will always stand above all other.

Maybe there have been equally emotional moments since then - Kanon and Clannad are what they are, Da Capo's Yoriko came close, even Shuffle! and sola might be considered - but my first encounter with truly powerful emotion induced from anime came here, and it's been something that still hasn't been matched.

It's been a ride through these twelve days and this year, but these emotions, with the sadness, the anger, and the happiness combined, are something that I don't regret a minute of feeling. I can only hope that my passion for anime is not a fleeting one, and that I get to experience this sort of connection again for many years to come.

-CCY
(It still doesn't explain why I am a bit of a cynic; Makoto and Fuuko's arcs make me feel like a heartless bastard in comparison to Misuzu.)

~Merry Christmas, everyone, it continues tommorow~

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #2: School Days 9

2007-12-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

I've said it once, I've said it again, and now I'll say it three times: music is what can make a show great.

A story is the framework an anime is based on. With no foundation, the entire thing will collapse in on itself. With a cliche story, or flat characters, there will be nothing for an anime to build off of.

But there's only so far you can go with a base. A show with a good story might have logical appeal, might be interesting in theory, but like a socially inept savant, won't express itself to its full potential to others.

One might think that good looks, great graphics, might be the key to an anime being top-notch. Certainly there have been a lot of great anime that are drop-dead gorgeous. But really, graphics are only a fresh coat of paint; only really good for a first impression.

As long as it's not a horribly shoddy job, the graphics don't noticeably affect perception of an anime. They say, looks are only skin deep. Maybe a naive view, but one that holds relatively true in anime; pictures typically will not stick in memory quite as well as a poignant moment.

Or as well as music.

I'm not sure what it is about music that makes it a direct path to a viewer's heartstrings. There is something about the notes that a piano, a violin can make, that instinctively cues a certain reaction.

But no matter what it is, a good music track is what can make an anime stand out from the crowd. A theme that's infectiously catchy is something that a lot of people have come into contact with, and certainly a good OP / ED song, being heard 12+ times over a series' length, is important to get right.

Greater than that, though, is a memorable soundtrack, one that can take great moments and burn them into the mind, linking the two together.

School Days may be remembered for many other things, but for this reason, the ninth episode is what stands out from the series most.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#2 School Days 09
"Sad Girls in School"

If School Days could be boiled down to two words, it would probably still be 'nice boat'.

Certainly the character-vs-character uber-drama elements of School Days, finally culminating in the bloody conclusion (and To My Children, I suppose I should add), is something that makes School Days stand out.

It's very doubtful, despite all the talk going around the anime community at every harem show, that we'll ever see such rampant sexuality and character conflict in an anime again. The yandere might have been pioneered by other shows like Shuffle! and Higurashi, but the 'nobody-is-safe' attitude that School Days has takes it beyond the safety lines that every other anime stays behind.

Those of us who tried to back a character, tried to believe that anyone was pure of heart - even simply relative to the rest of the characters - were proven wrong, to say the least.

School Days's reputation came and will continue to come from this element of drama, the fact that it went where nearly no other show had gone before in screwing 'em all, screwing the audience, and staying with it's twisted-fable-like-story until the very end.

And it only barely got away with it. The only reason that fans didn't turn out to burn the animation studio, those responsible in droves, was that School Days had an established pedigree, that it was famous for being 'that one eroge where she slit that other girl's throat'.

They were expecting it, they wanted it, they demanded it. Any newcomer who came to the show fresh, would be at least a little hesitant at demanding Makoto's blood, if only because it's a little extreme. A ridiculous cap to a ridiculously dramatic show.

Make no bones, I enjoyed watching School Days. I hated the characters. I hated everyone in it. But the strange mix of both hoping for the characters to improve and hoping for them to die allowed for enough reasons to watch the show and to be enraptued by every dramatic moment. There was just enough hope to leave one attached, rooting for certain characters, but little enough so that when one was wronged, they could easily turn against the show, asking for it all to go down in flames.

And verily, when it did, life was good. Personally, I was not one hoping for a bloody end - perhaps a fate worse or more demeaning than death would fit - but that is something irrelevant to the topic. (Best transition ever coming up.)

The topic is how School Days managed to keep my attention, managed to really inflame the emotions. And a lot of that, beyond just simple shock value, was due to School Days's excellent soundtrack.

There was a lot of work put into the music, I believe. Maybe it wasn't evident in the show itself, but one thing that seems unique to the show is how a different vocal theme was used for the ending theme for each episode. It's something that adds a nice touch to the show.

Additionally, there are a couple well-placed insert songs as well, and where these two works intersect at their finest is at the end of School Days 9.

A typical high-intensity moment to cliffhang another episode, we are concluding the school festival with an insert song as Makoto and Sekai (his current girl, for those keeping score) dance at the typical end-festival bonfire. It fades as the two of them twirl around, and Sekai asks, taking Makoto's hand,

"I'm your girlfriend, right?"

Makoto can only look stunned as another song, Anata ga Itai (if I recall correctly) cues in, slowly. We cut to a ribbon falling slowly into a dark pool, symbolizing another important event happening, which would be Kotonoha being raped by Taisuke (a fun show, I know, I know).

The music builds to a crescendo as we get an extreme close-up of Kotonoha's glassy eye, and lulls for a moment of silence.

The screen goes black. "Makoto..." she utters.

Then the music kicks back in as the title card, "School Days: After Evening", displays, and we get launched into the credits, the music continuing in the background.

It's a pretty emotional song, slow-paced but sung with a lot of heart, almost sad-feeling (although I can't interpret the lyrics), perfectly fitting for a scene in the show like this.

The credits continue scrolling, the same as always, as the song continues into it's powerful chorus; but it's not over yet. Exactly in time with the cut to the 'next episode' preview, the backing instruments cut out, leaving the melancholy singer's voice with only a piano behind her, as the next episode title, "Heart and Body" are typed out on the phone.

It's never failed to give me goosebumps.

The synthesis between music and visuals in School Days here is something I've never really seen in my days, the perfect match of sight and sound, and it even transcends the typical boundaries of the 'end' of an episode as well.

It's really a sealing touch to add to a series that's already unforgettable - one way or another.

School Days is one of those shows that won't dissapear from the public eye - maybe for it's content, maybe for it's ending, maybe for it's meme. It may not be one of those things that people want to see a lot of, and something that we probably won't see a lot of; this is one of those shock value shows that only works as the exception, not the norm.

Without all the other nice, happy harem shows to lull us into complacency, School Days's senseless sexuality and violent ending would be nothing. But since harem anime is, so often, what it is - more than a touch unrealistic escapism, School Days excels by looking to be another one of the same - if only for a bit - and breaking those expectations. (Admittedly, by being more than a touch unrealistic, except on the other end of the scale.)

You can say you saw it coming. You can say you knew it was going to happen a mile away. But there's believing, and then there's seeing - especially with such a misleading first episode, it was surprising how wrong School Days got and how fast it added it up, like a harmless prank gone horribly wrong.

School Days as such is my pick, hands down, for the most overall influential anime this year in the anime community - like it or not, it's become the bar for every harem anime to be set against in terms of drama and conflict, even if very few anime dare to approach that bar.

It may not be a comparison that I'm in favor of making, but I won't lie in saying School Days isn't indelibly printed on my mind, or at least the anime-orientated part of it. It's not just the characters, not just the drama, not just the conflict, but also the emotionally charged music that made it what it is, more than a simple harem meltdown and more of a wrenching, disturbingly serious (maybe real) romantic apocalypse that you can't turn away from if you wanted to.

A public service announcement by Makoto Itou and all his 'special' friends.

-CCY

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #3: Tsukihime Hisui True

2007-12-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

With all the hype I've piled on to the visual novel anime, it's only fitting that the third step on the podium belong to a visual novel itself.

Although, it'd be - unsuprisingly - wrong to call visual novels and visual novel anime similar. One being animated and one being in mostly still form, the two have to take entirely different approaches to grabbing a viewer's heart.

Anime can rely entirely on actions, on visuals, on stunning effects. Visual novels, being of the written form, naturally have to actually use words a lot to paint the picture.

It's different from normal books, as visual novels do get still images, and perhaps more important, mood-setting music, but it's still tough to get the reader right where you want them.

Which is strange, because in visual novels, the author pretty much leads the reader by the hand. It's tough to visualize what the author does not describe, to hear what sounds are not made, to find the details not presented. It's essentially, up to the author to create their world, down to every last detail and foreshadowing. The pictures, here, serve as supplements rather than the main course.

Naturally, visual novels typically have a slower pace as well; you can read at your own speed, pause and put it down anytime, or even go back and read previous scenes. Yeah, the same theory is true for anime, but somehow it seems wrong in a sense to rewind a moving picture, rather than going backwards in a book. There's a sense of broken continuity, to me.

But for some reason, one of the things that has affected me most in my year of anime, and now, anime-likes, has been a visual novel.

Tsukihime's a stellar read all around, and I'd have to put Hisui's True Ending as one of the most powerful moments of it.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#3 Tsukihime (Visual Novel) - Hisui's True Ending
"So moe a lot of people did die..."

The one thing that surprises me the most about Tsukihime is that I powered through the whole thing without music. I've always said that sound is one of the most important things to me to establishing the feel of an anime - a good soundtrack, a good insert song, can really make a mood.

So, conversely, a lack of sound, not just silence but meaningless silence, should do a lot to detract from it. Yet, somehow, I managed to really be touched by Tsukihime relying solely on text and sporadic CGs.

There are a bunch of reasons I could probably cite for this, most of them irrational. Tsukihime was a visual novel I read in my greenhorn days of anime watching, before Kanon, before almost all of the anime I consider important.

Likewise, Hisui's path was the second one I followed, after Arcueid's action-packed but somewhat less shocking adventures.

In a sense, I was pretty much unprepared for what hit me, for both on a micro and a macro level, I wasn't as experienced and hardened in the realm of Manly Tears. It seems to be a strange thing to say, but when you go into an anime expecting it to be sad girls in stuff, no matter how shocking the outcome, you still have a sense of 'seeing it coming.'

That's not to say that preparing for the worst will do you much good at times - take a look at the progressively growing hatred for an unnamed Boat-related series of the Nice variety - but getting completely blindsided by a shocking story (see Self, My/Your) can usually produce emotions far greater than what the former can do.

Funnily enough, unlike every other anime character in existence who picks up the boxcutter upon being stunned into the ground by the world turning upside down, I am of the type that almost masochistically enjoys inane plot twists, surprise developments, and complete 90-degree turns of story, provided that there's some semblance of foreshadowing.

Funnily enough, my version of 'enjoy' typically doesn't have so much to do with 'enjoying' and more to do with 'being completely slack-jawed'.

That said, I spent a lot of time picking my mouth up off the ground over the course of Tsukihime, which was a few parts epic, a few parts dramatic, a few parts meltingly moe, and a few parts Kinoku Nasu. (This text. This text. This text this text this text this text this text this text. This text is confusing~)

Perhaps this blend is something that also works in the favor of Tsukihime. I consider myself notorious for being unable to stomach raw amounts of anything en masse (raw magical girlitude, raw fanservice, raw drama, so on), and so Tsukihime's flips back and forth between character self-development, character relationship-development, and character conflict.

Occasionally we get all of those mashed together, in what can only be considered a combination of riveting proportions.

The final moments of the Hisui scenario is one of those moments.

It'd probably start at the Roa fight. It's actually a scene where Shiki, the protagonist, is not fighting. Rather, it's the two true Tohnos, Akiha and Roa/Shiki facing off. They exchange some charged monologues, about how this whole thing is how Roa/Shiki is the forgotten brother, while the player's Shiki is an imposter who stole his life, stole his sister, stole everything.

It eventually culminates in one strike on Akiha's essential power source, her maid Kohaku. The first twist is when Akiha steps in front to take the blow, which drives Roa/Shiki insane (remember, they're siblings, and she's what he's been fighting 'for'). He flees the scene temporarily while Player Shiki dashes over and shares in Akiha's dying monologue.

It's a dying monologue of the concluding (rather than plot device) type, do I need to say more?

Eventually everyone comes back to what passes for their senses, and Shiki goes and completely wipes Roa/Shiki, who's by now long-gone crazy.

Ending!

Which is, actually, not just 'and they all (minus the dead people) lived happily ever after', but also a bit of exposition on Kohaku, the tragic mastermind behind the series. More plot revelations, revelations, and shock ensues culminating in Kohaku stabbing herself, her vengeful life 'complete'.

Unfortunately there is no loli-bunny-ears-girl hidden inside her (see yesterday) to save the day, and so we are subject to the death of the second main character in two scenes.

You'd think this would leave the two remaining important people - the couple in this arc, Shiki and Hisui - in quite a wrecked situation, and again, you'd be wrong. Rather, it's sort of a cutting-of-ties from the messy, gritty Tohno life, and all its varied and mildly insane characters.

It's an ending of the bittersweet type, where although a lot of the characters are permanently gone, Hisui, as essentially the remaining tie to the Tohno family at this point, vows to open up and truly live the life that her sister could not live, for her sake.

All these last moments are incredibly powerful, what's impressive about this ending is that it doesn't just focus on the two 'main characters'. Rather, Shiki and Hisui are essentially spectators to the whole moment. A lot of development is focused on the 'side characters' Kohaku and Akiha, and even the 'villain' Roa/Shiki.

They're fleshed out and given suprising amounts of realism. None of them can really be called truly villain nor truly hero; Roa/Shiki acts a lot in revenge and sure comes across as crazy, but he has an almost tragic side to him. Kohaku's whole new levels of gray.

This kind of story with no blacks and whites, only grays, are the most intriguing and touching types. It's more realistic, more thought-provoking.

Tsukihime is a visual novel with a surprising amount of depth that very few six or twelve-hour anime can come up with. The characters, as fantastical and magical as they are, have very distinct personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and are surprising well-rounded out. Perhaps that's the draw of it - not just the action, not just the drama, not just the moe - but the fact that every character can have an appeal, every character touches the heartstrings in their own way.

Maybe it's something about the maids after all.

-CCY

(For research, I cracked open the Tsukihime game again. I had one save file, at the exact moment I was describing.

It still nearly wrecked me. In the best way possible.)

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #4: Kanon (2006) 15

2007-12-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

One can write off the harem genre, upon hearing of it, as something that's light, fluffy, and quite cliched.

While a lot of the time that is true, I've found that a specific subset of harem has proven time and time again to be the most interesting and surprising genre in anime - the visual novel adaptation.

Maybe my tastes are biased. But rather it seems that the visual novel anime can combine the best of the two worlds that quite a lot of males can enjoy.

One, there's a lot of girls, ranging from the buxom for those who prefer physical appeal to the moe for those with a more emotional, personality-based taste.

And two, the plots in said stories quite often are quite gripping - with no evil villain overlord for everyone to join forces against, the main storylines are often character-based, whether it be pitting two people against each other or revealing the story of a mysterious character.

Some may condemn such stories for being overly dramatic and "forced emotion" if not a little repetitive at times, but as one who enjoys heartwarmingly cute characters and touching stories, there really is no better genre than the visual novel.

And there is no more show I can say more superlatives about than Kanon, no arc more than Mai's.

(Credit to AutumnDark for this awesome wallpaper.)

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#4 Kanon (2006) - 15
"My My Mai"

Kanon is like an expensive sports car.

Some people won't understand the point of it. Some might think that it lacks in usability in the everyday world, that it's overpriced, overblown, and unnecessary.

Likewise, Kanon and the harem genre as a whole are rather ignored by a large amount of people. These types of shows are inherently unrealistic in a fetishizing, escapist way, saturated with moe, and liked by enough people that it becomes cool to hate it. Why watch something like Kanon when you could be seeing something that's less ridiculous and more practical, a simple slice-of-life or a comedy?

And yeah, I don't mind having something like Minami-ke as a daily driver. But to me, all it takes is one turn of the key to convince me that it's worth mortgaging the house, selling my soul for a sleek machine like Kanon. That roar of the engine, the engine that screams "Uguu~", is enough to make me and many guys weak in the knees, make the heart race with a sort of moe adrenaline.

There will be people who don't understand. Those who can't see the merit in having a machine that runs off of tears. Maybe they are the ones who are right. But as a visual-novel / harem fan, I live for this, and I can't imagine seeing otherwise.

So, now you've herd I liek kanons. Now it's time for a justification.

As much as I melt like vanilla ice cream over Shiori Misaka, Mai's arc is arguably one of the strongest of Kanon, and goes far towards showing just why I love this genre.

Mai Kawasumi is your average strong and silent girl - although I could never call that just average - who sits around with her typically polar-opposite friend Sayuri Kurata. We find their interests are head-chopping, laughing, and eating lunch, in no order.

Naturally, however, since this is a visual novel adaptation and something interesting has to happen, our protagonist Yuuichi stumbles upon Mai standing around school at night with a sword, which she uses to slice random almost-invisible demons that appear from nowhere to haunt the school.

It's a strange thing for a somewhat strange girl to do, and we get to know Mai a little bit better over the course of the next few episodes so that when Makoto finally gets up and offs herself, we can move on to the intriguing story of the silent girl in snow.

It turns out that Mai has had a feud of undefinable length with the school and the demons that haunt it - a struggle that she has always battled solo, until Yuuichi comes along. Then all the demons turn on him, or so it's said.

Mai is also revealed to be less of a 'unfeeling' person and more of a 'reserved' one, made cold by the passage of time and her stigmatized reputation. Once Sayuri gets beaten over the head one too many times, we see the side of Mai she's been struggling to ignore for years, the side that feels and cries and wants to love and be loved.

It's the part of Mai that has been driving her to be the protector-type she is, trying to help the people she cares about the most (all one, maybe twoof them) through her unique way of acting, which often involves her taking too much blame on herself for the common good.

And so you would imagine a lot of Mai's arc involves some sword-swinging and some opening up of Mai to becoming a warm, feeling person. You'd be kind of right, but on the whole mostly wrong, because the 15th episode of Kanon comes along and flips things on its head a few times before all is said and done.

The long night starts with Yuuichi and Mai fighting the demons in school at night. It's been already stated to be The Night, where the threat is eliminated once and for all.

And for the first ten-odd minutes it's pretty much that, as we get some sword-slashing, some smashing through windows, and general action stuff. And then the final blurry CG demon is vanquished. Rejoice, all is well!

Wait, no it isn't.

Actually, it turns out there were more demons, and one of them sends Yuuichi into the way-back machine where he learns that Mai's mother is dying.

Wait, no she isn't.

Actually, it turns out that Mai's magical power is to heal things with her tears, a power that sounds great but gets her ostracized by the typically conservative community. She lives a sad life until some random kid named U1 or something comes along and makes everything great until he has to leave to go be pimp with some taiyaki-eating girl.

Yuuichi figures out eventually that that person is him, and takes it upon himself to connect the dots for Mai, so that they can live peacefully and happily again. Mai, in fact, is so joyful that she stabs herself to death.

Wait, no she doesn't.

It turns out her inner character, Hope, was living inside her all along, trapped inside her stone-cold attitude. Deep down she was still a real, feeling girl who wished for things, that hoped for things, that wanted to have fun, that wanted to laugh, that wanted to smile.

This girl, is what stops ~~me from throwing my computer out the window~~ Kanon from becoming a tragedy, and instead paints it as an extremely emotional, intense story.

Maybe it's something that can't be conveyed in a half-humorous, five paragraph summary, but this episode and Mai's arc are really something to me.

It has all the little elements in it, all the little touches of steady foreshadowing and character development. The lines like Mai's "stay close to me...you'll work as bait" that serve as humor but also get played off of as signs of how much Mai has grown as a person who can trust others, the hints of the underlying ability of Mai (with the sword, the demons, and finally, the graying skin), and above all, that sense that you have all the pieces of the puzzle, you just can't put it together.

I mean, it's a testament to the dramatic power of a show that Kanon can convince me that Mai's mom was going to die, despite the fact that Sayuri mentioned that "Mai lives with her mom" just two episodes back. The small details like that that make it sound so obvious, make second rewatches that much more enjoyable.

This episode was wall-to-wall edge-of-your-seat watching in one way or another, from the high-energy action sequences, to the intriguing reveal of Mai's hidden power, to the absolute double-stunner at the end. I don't think I breathed more than twice.

And Kanon opens itself up to questions, discussions too. It's not the kind of glaring omissions that break a show but rather smaller details, that could be debated on endlessly, that give a testament to the underlying depth of the show, the motivations of a character.

Does Mai remember Yuuichi? Is she secretly hiding a grudge against the man who doesn't seem to remember the past, or is she honestly experiencing being cared about for the second time (Sayuri aside)?

How long have the demons been around? Has Mai really been fighting all these years? Or is it something that's resurfaced with the reappearance of Yuuichi?

What 'control' does Mai have over her demons? Why do they attack Yuuichi - or do they? Is it intentional? Could Mai just want to be the hero that protects Yuuichi, protects Sayuri, that saves the day?

Don't feel forced to answer these; a large amount are hypothetical. After all, a lot of these questions can never be truly answered outside of community agreement. But the fact that a somewhat simple storyline, with a few twists, can spark such almost high-level discussion - especially if you start talking about Mai's actions and her reasoning behind them - is something that really endears me to these kinds of shows.

These character-driven shows, with personalities that are part dynamic and part adorable, offer a feast for the inner analyst, the romantic, and the viewer who just wants a enrapturing story, all in one.

And Kanon, one of the original character-driven (rather than hormone-driven) visual novels, is brought to new heights in its 2006 adaptation. I can not really say enough about it other than "watch it" if you like sweet and emotional romance / drama anime.

If I had one show to unabashedly rave about for the rest of my life, it would be Kanon, the first love that encompassed me.

-CCY
(Wait, a reference to THAT show again? You bet.)
(Also, 2 fanboy rants in 3 posts. I'm enjoying this a lot, and it only gets better~)

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #5: Da Capo 22

2007-12-21T12:58:00.001-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

"There is no coincidence. There is nothing but the inevitable."

Ah, but what is the inevitable, Kaho-sensei? Sometimes one has to wonder just how the pieces manage to fall in just the right place to make a moment legendary.

It's those moments that you just can't reproduce, when it goes beyond the anime itself. A series of events where the stars line up just right, creating an image that's like none ever seen.

Again, in a sense, it's connection. A character, a moment manages to hit just the right nerve, hits the resonant frequency, and that is when the powerful moments happen.

It's when every conception you had of a character gets reversed, when a character you wrote off as scratch comes off to hit you with a story, a moment like you would never believe.

Maybe I'm a sucker for tear-jerkers. Maybe I'm a sucker for these plots. Maybe I'm just a giant sap inside.

But I never thought I would like cat-eared maids as much as I did when watching Da Capo 22.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#5 Da Capo 22
"Isn't it sad, Yoriko?"

Let me get things straight: us harem freaks are not all crazy.

Siscon isn't incredibly appealing, I like girls whose chests don't generate their own gravitational field, and I've never been one for maids.

Although there have been amazing examples (Hisui) of characters (Hisui) done right (Hisui) who happen to be maids (and Kohaku, I suppose), as a whole the maid stereotype is a disturbing representative of what most people see in the harem genre; unabashed, blatant pandering.

Because for every good maid there is out there, there's a couple dozen more ones that live only to shout "Welcome back, master" and get into awkward fanserivce situations. Being one who prefers to live by perhaps more subtle appeals than obvious sexualization and escapism, it's always frustrating seeing a character wasted or a bit of belief suspended for an essential doormat (and usually a very idealized one at that) for fanboys to drool over.

Unsuprisingly then, when Yoriko, not just a maid, but one with cat-ears (another strange fetish, to me), was revealed in Da Capo, I was less than enthusiastic. I mean, I've never seen a clumsy but well-intentioned (and proportioned) French maid in anime appear out of nowhere before.

As usual, however, my massive sarcasm turned out to betray me in the end.

Da Capo, while seeming to have some pretty stereotypical harem characters initially, didn't fare too bad in the character development department (Moe's rule of Why Can't Characters Have Breasts AND A Story? beside).

The double siscon trouble of Nemu and Sakura showed a lot of sides to the two that wouldn't be expected; Sakura at the least struggled with her subconscious jealousy of Nemu, and Nemu wasn't too bad in herself, with a sharp (if not mean) wit hiding a worrisome, shy personality.

Kotori, the school idol and fan favorite, had an enjoyable little piece about the ever-intriguing ability to read minds - sometimes willingly, sometimes not. And her story dealt not just with the massive power an ability provides but also the massive reliance that having such a skill causes, and the vulnerability felt when the ability fades and she feels like a fish out of water.

Mako took up the role of the enjoyable character that should get more screentime in the story than she ended up getting; her tsundere act was like Nemu's except with less edge to it, and so watching her struggle to express her feelings for at least one episode was heartwarming. It's a shame that Kotori was already there to take up the president's role in the D.C. wing of the Nayuki Club.

And, well, Suginami had me at "hey, I'm another half-witty, half-scheming, nigh-on-invicible and damn hilarious friend of the main character."

One of the strengths of Da Capo, I felt, was the way in which it tied everything together. While Nemu and Sakura did take center stage, their plot was connected to the ever-blooming cherry blossom tree, which was in turn connected to the special abilities of all the characters. And so, the storyline with Sakura killing the sakura tree set off repercussions throughout the anime.

Yoriko was one of those affected. She wasn't an overly important character to the story before, perhaps staring in a few fanservice moments. There was a small subplot revolving around her fear of going outside - tied to her true nature as a cat, and whatnot.

Still, she served mostly as a background character, or maybe a catalyst to the relationship of Junichi and Nemu.

But, for one episode, all of that changed.

In retrospect, it was another one of those things I should've seen coming. The fact that a random neko-mimi maid popped out of nowhere was certainly suspicious, combined with all the mystery surrounding Misaki the sheltered girl and her dissapeared cat.

But I wrote it off as simple Harem Circumstances - one of those things that should be accepted, rather than explained. And so, I didn't really expect Yoriko to get a huge moment in the spotlight.

And if I did, certainly not like this. Goodbye scenes are pretty common in a lot of visual novel anime, and they're not much for fazing me, but this one caught me flat-footed and came with a bunch of special circumstances that really made it top-notch.

There was a point in the episode, one which I'm very familiar with, that "Oh don't tell me" moment where it suddenly occurs to me that I'm not going to be seeing Yoriko beyond this episode. A change in speech, a sudden amount of attention brought to a character never seen before, a different music, atmosphere, it all added up to one thing and that was a tearful farewell.

And, as common as these things are nowadays, it really worked wonders this time around. Watching Yoriko build up the courage and tell Junichi her true story was a really touching moment, especially as she managed to keep a smile on her face when telling Junichi about all the daily errands, like she would still be there tommorow.

Maybe that's a weakness of mine, watching people trying to put on a different face from what they're truly feeling. It's a kind of strength that few characters exhibit.

BUt the seal on the deal was just how far Yoriko managed to push herself in her confession; the final goodbye kiss was one that was completely unexpected and the final emotionally powerful touch on a charged scene.

Being one that fights for the underdogs in harem romance all the time, it always touches me to see someone realize their unrequited (or perhaps, in this case, impossible) love, if only for a moment.

And, as shown in the picture above, sometimes the outside circumstances really put the cherry on top of the sundae of awesomeness. Satsuki Yumizuka is a similar character, one of my personal favorites and popular with fans for her sad and never-resolved story; it's completely impossible to land a good end with her in the Tsukihime visual novel.

The background pictured, of Satsuki delivering her true feelings, is incredibly fitting for a moment like this, with incredible parallels that makes me wonder what divine force is behind my background rotating program. These two characters are ones that grab me strongly with their tearfully touching stories, with goodbye scenes that rank up there with the most touching of moments.

And so, to see the two of their plots juxtaposed on each others', at least on my computer screen, for a fleeting minute, is something incredibly powerful. I guess, in the end, when a maid's story is good, a maid's story is good.

-CCY

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #6: sola 12

2007-12-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

Twelve Moments of Anime 2007 - #7: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4

2007-12-19T16:22:00.000-08:00

The "12 Days of Christmas" series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we've enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

Some things just can't be denied in this world.

No matter how much of a soft-hearted, romance-loving, magical-girl-watching anime viewer I become, there are some things that just work every time with me, that just resonate strongly as a Great Moment.

It's like sports to the average male. I don't claim to watch football or baseball passionately, or even on a weekly basis, but when it's bases-loaded with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game, the raw energy that such a moment can emit can be felt and enjoyed by just about any person.

Such is the case with a well-done fight scene in anime. Conflict is a key part to any show - whether action or romance, it be physical or emotional conflict - and when that conflict builds to a head, that's when the real exciting stuff happens.

Physical conflict between characters is tough to do right. There's a fine line of disbelief not to be crossed. But when a fight is made correctly - replete with exciting animation and high-energy - soundtrack, it's something to be seen, even for the most avid harem lover like me.

And so enters another reason for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4 (chronological) to become legendary.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#7 - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4 (10)
"The Literal Definition of Hax"

The Overratedness of Haruhi Suzumiya? Quite likely.

Make no misinterpretation of it, SHnY was definitely one of my most enjoyed anime this year, and I am nothing short of melting into a puddle over the second season announcement, but the way a lot of the community speaking, you'd think Haruhi was God herself or something.

Wait, I see what you did there.

But really, there reaches a point of stardom for a show that it becomes nearly impossible for it to live up to its reputation. For some it may be the epitome of all that is good and right in the anime world, but for the rest of us with less tinted glasses, SHnY will have to settle for being very good.

It's not a life-changing anime.
It's not a seat-of-your-pants thriller anime.
It's not any one thing.

And that's the strength of it. It has the moe, has the romance, has the action, has the existential technobabble, and it all. It may be the jack of all trades but the master of none, but somehow that doesn't seem so bad.

It doesn't really come across as spreading itself very thin; with a few exceptions, pretty much element you could look for gets a bit of attention.

The show treads the ever-important shipper line masterfully, throwing each female lead a piece of bait and letting the viewers decide for themselves who Kyon tilts toward; since, if Shuffle! has proven anything, it's that the wrong choice can be very controversial. And so, in SHnY, there really is none.

The technospeak can be glazed over or drooled over as well; those who can actually figure out what the hell Fabulous Esper Itsuki is going on about will love his ranting speeches, will love the paradoxes presented by the concept of time traveling, of having done something, yet having not actually done it, yet being forced to do it in the future in order to preserve the continuum.

And those who can't handle all this can sympathize with the main character Kyon, who's equally clueless in these situations. And there's always adult Mikuru.

And the fight scenes are enthralling without being overbearing, important without becoming all-encompassing. A sort of "and now for some action", except without that feeling of being disjointed with the rest of the show. Yeah, it's confusing at first, but it's damn good looking and eventually some character will come along and make sense of it all.

(And then another character will come along and make sense of that, and so on, but I digress.)

The clash of the humanoid interfaces in chronological episode four is probably one of those moments that could personify the above statements and the series as a whole.

Yeah, it's more than a touch unrealistic at times.
Yeah, it kind of has that 'just trust what I say' mentality to it.
Yeah, you could probably deconstruct it as a way of showing what's wrong with the show.

But really, you'll probably be busy getting your jaw off the floor first.

Perhaps a bit of a understatement but one can't deny that a scene like this really is made with high-quality values. Maybe I'm just distracted by all the fast motion, jumping, and projectile-throwing, but the fight scene definitely looks impressive, and the high-energy soundtrack fits and is timed great to the visuals.

The scene is a good capping piece to a mound of revelations, a sort of "You think we're kidding? Well, here's the truth" response to all the sci-fi aspects that Ryoko and Yuki threw out there.

There's that sense of power there, from Ryoko's wanton destruction of the environment around her (not to mention the eerie, otherworldly background itself), to Yuki's space-warping physics-defying jumps and so forth.

And it's enough to fool you too - maybe those with more common sense could remember that, chronologically, Yuki and Kyon both live through the fight. But who didn't hold their breath when Yuki got impaled like that?

Too many fight scenes are amusingly one-sided, with the most damage a protagonist taking be a few bruise marks that do nothing, but the damage here was quite real, even if it was healed easily.

Attention to detail is another thing that I can't help but love. Hidden messages encoded backwards at a high rate of speed in all that 'computer speak' of theirs? Maybe it's a bit esoteric, but it's the kind of thing that adds a personal touch, a metaphorical wink from studio to audience.

And the simple details, such as Yuki losing her glasses; one of those details that seems like it would be blaring but really didn't stand out until it was cleverly brought to light at the end of the scene.

Maybe other people have less of a tolerance for feeling like an idiot but I really like this style of foreshadowing, in a sense; that sense of having all the pieces to put the puzzle together, but just not knowing the right picture. A lot of anime are either rather blunt with their clues or don't use them at all (or, in some cases, both), and so the coy style in which SHnY drops the little hints for you - a line here, an object there, is something that I can really enjoy.

In the end I haven't done a lot of explaining as to why the Nagato vs. Asakura fight scene is number seven on 2007's list aside from "it's pretty and the music is awesome", and at the risk of a cop-out, I'd like to argue that there's not a lot that needs to be said.

Everyone has their weakness in anime. Some like the crying shows, some like a good straight-up machofest, others a sweet romance. Maybe even a subset of the genre; a particular brand of love might resonate strongly with a person, while it bounces harmlessly off the other.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya seems to be something that's struck a lot of people the right way, and being one of those who can attest to this at least in part, it's kind of a matter of 'getting it' or not - and I don't blame you if you don't. Haruhiism is polarizing like that.

And picking this moment out of the many quite appealing moments that SHnY has is pretty much down to a matter of taste. Haruhi fans might take the climax of the show at episode six as their number one. The musically inclined, the God Knows concert. Mikuru supporters, perhaps the appearance of Adult Mikuru at the end of episode four.

As a Nagatoist to the end, there can be none other than this scene.

-CCY
(and his scary fanboy side)

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #8: Tokimeki Memorial 25

2007-12-18T16:27:00.000-08:00

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #9: Shuffle! 16

2007-12-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #10: Azumanga Daioh 8

2007-12-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

Twelve Moments of Anime 2007 - #11: Nanatsuiro Drops 12

2007-12-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

Twelve Moments in Anime 2007 - #12: Myself;Yourself 11

2007-12-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

Skip a Few Beats (Image post - no writing posts until 14th)

2007-12-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

~~OH MY GOD A HIATUS WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE~~

Um.

Excuse me.

Gearing up for some super special ~~awesome~~ features here at Eternity to close out December, so no posts until the 14th. That's two posts' worth of ~~Shiori raving~~ anime ranting, so to make up for it I'll post some random images that I've culled from imageboards and the AnimeSuki forums after the jump. (21 images. Isn't it sad, 56K?)

~~Also more crossed out stuff.~~

One (or two) pictures from each of my main image folders. I have far too many anime images but you have to have a good stash of pictures in order to dig up something completely irrelevant to a blog post.

All credit to the original fanartists, wallpaper makers, etc.; all I do is drool and pass it on to you. The images, that is. So:

Whoever invented this crossover is a genius. Genius, I tell you.

Yotsubato anime. Possible? I think it'd be good.

I'm really lacking in Tomoyo and Eriol images to be honest.

Ryou needs an arc in Clannad, or else there is no justice in this world. Well, aside from the Justice in Doujin Work.

I still feel vaguely wrong that my favorite Da Capo character is a cat-girl maid, but then the feeling passes. Maybe it was gas.

This is Hanepin, not Mikuru. Although they are surprisingly similar...

Best Ryoko mod so far. I don't care anymore. Just shoot me. There's no way she's got a knife behind her - ah, I don't even know the original reference of this, I just steal it from AoMM.

Ayu isn't my favorite character, but this is a drop dead sexy camera angle.

I actually do like vanilla ice cream, and ever since Kanon I've had an urge to find a tongue depresser and eat ice cream with it.

If Hiyori was in this picture I could have distilled Lucky Star's awesomeness down to one picture. Or at least my favorite characters from it.

Nothing to say about Aoi, yet...not until her evil mastermind plot is revealed in the closing episodes! Right! Right!? ;_;

Yuuki from Nanatsuiro Drops, that one magical girl show I won't shut up about. Has some amusing magical-girl-for-dummies moments, and, well...megane override makes her auto-win. Although I consider Sumomo the better character.

If I had one background (as opposed to 100. Seriously.), it would be this one. It's absolutely perfect as far as I'm concerned.

It was hard to find a spoiler-safe School Days image. Is this a Lucky Star parody? I can't read the text.

So I heard you like crossovers. Mm, all we need in here is Haruhi.

Oh where, oh where are all the Sia images? Oh where, oh where can they be? I like the color arrangement on this one, at least. Was tempted to post up a megane-Nerine but realized I was going a bit overboard in that fanboy department.

The full cast! I'm still looking forward to the second OVA of sola getting subbed. And wasn't there a visual novel as well?

Lacking in images for this too because AnimeSuki thread for TokiMemo is huge and Danbooru has stupid porn ads. (hello, hit counter)

More Spell Cards need to look this awesome in the Touhou games. I want to say this is Master Spark but it's Alice doing the attack; probably some yuri-induced training thing thing. My entire Touhou fanbase knowledge is based of IOSYS, so don't kill me too hard for all the mistakes in the last three lines.

For some reason, Tsukihime has the most awesome character set. I can hardly think of one female I dislike - Arcueid comes the close. But Sacchin and Hisui are godly tier puddle-meltingly cute, Kohaku and Ciel are alternatingly intriguing and funny, and even Akiha manages to overcome her siscon tsundere status. I mean, wow.

And close it out with a little Nagato. Perhaps not the best image but I just like the way this looks - the pensive look, the grass background, the realistic style, it seems to work pretty well.

Well, so much for a short post.
-CCY

Survival of the Moe-est?

2007-12-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

Where did all the shoujo shows go?

This question came across me as I popped in Marmalade Boy into the DVD player last night. It should be apparent to most people that old anime are unmistakably different than new anime in all sorts of regards.

Perhaps it's a fault of the genre Marmalade Boy (girls' romance) is compared to most shows I watch today (guys' harem), but there really is no such thing as 'moe' in a lot of the old shows, and even if there was, it probably wasn't by design. Likewise, other cutesy things such as the 'chibi' form, present in the 'shoujo' shows of today like Shugo Chara, don't exist.

Things are simpler looking, without fancy 3D CGI effects; everything is done with simple animation trickery. There is, unsurpisingly, a retro feel to all these retro anime, from the animation to the music and more.

Now I'm not one to harp on how one era of anime is better than the other, having known very little of the 199X years of anime outside of English dubs and Cardcaptor Sakura, but it seems quite apparent to me that there has been a mass shift of sorts of the types of shows presented for consumption.

Quite simply, there are next-to-no real 'shoujo' shows left today.

Now, I will admit that I don't go out seeking girls' shows, but perusing a list of all the fall 2007 shows there seems to be a great dearth in feminine fare.

All that's really left is the ever-resilient 'magical girl' strand, which I doubt will ever die, but even this is becoming increasingly infiltrated by male-orientated shows. What seems to be missing is the Marmalade Boys of today, the girls' romance shows.

Certainly there are romances today that girls could enjoy, such as KimiKiss, but most of these still have a decidedly masculine audience that they pursue most of the time, what with the full body pans and the focus on the male leads and the girls throwing themselves at them.

The days of those shiny stills of guys' faces, of the bishonen and all the squee-ing involved, seem all but assimilated by other shows. They still show up, yes, but they cannot survive on their own, it seems.

Whether this is a good thing or not, it's uncertain. Being a guy I am not fond of seeing 'dreamy guys' in anime but there does seem to be a growing discontent among some places about how females in anime are becoming increasing stereotyped, true or not, and girls' shows, being aimed at girls, tend to have the most well-fleshed-out female characters.

There are guys' romance shows that can do a reasonable job of this at well (one could almost argue a case for Clannad) but in the end there's only so much one can do before the largely male fanbase starts complaining about how they are being cheated; for example, KimiKiss had a bit of a backlash when in the start it felt more like a girls' romance than anything, but it's lapsed pretty much back into its original, mostly-guy-orientated (although not overbearingly so) genre.

The unsuprisingly male anime fanbase - if you can picture the stereotypical geek for a moment - probably does more for this situation than anything else; as many dissenting voices that we hear against moe and against cliched characters, they are still drowned out by what I imagine is a large mass of people demanding their tsunderes and their childhood friends and their ridiculous harems.

One would think I am part of the mass, but being a typical "counterculture" teenager who doesn't like to agree with anything I find myself preferring a more balanced view, as I've argued time and time again. Yes, I find shy, deredere girls to be adorable, and yes, I'm a sucker for a sad story, no matter how contrived, but even I can't survive on a diet of this alone. Which is why I don't just watch the harems by themselves but also dabble in a bit of the Very Manly Shows, and the magical girl shows as well.

Which is why I personally thing it's a little alarming that there are very few of the girls' romance shows out there; those that are left are usually of the magical girl variety, which is very good and all, but somehow I find myself missing a simple love story without frills, without relatively unrealistic characters. Old-school girls' romance like Marmalade Boy may be a little melodramatic at times with all the drama that has to come out of a love triangle (or, quite often, a larger polygon) but it's refreshing, with typically a balanced view from both sides of the gender divide.

It's not to say that magical girl shows are inferior - rather, I've seen many of them put together an interesting premise - but sometimes it just gives off a contrived feel, the whole "let's fix everything with magic" concept. Undoubtedly the magic is just training wheels for a character to develop themselves, which is good in the end, but sometimes it's nice to watch a character learn to walk on their own.

Y'know, without the three minutes of stock footage every episode, and all.

It probably just boils down to my packrat nature in that I'm sad to let anything go or see anything end, and so despite the oh-so-cheesy nature of something like Marmalade Boy (which I must say, was spoiled pretty well in the OP sequence) it's still something that I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit more of these days.

I like all sorts of variety...in the one genre I watch.
-CCY
(A closing thought...could this also be because the girls' tastes are changing as well, away from the stereotypical romance shows towards other genres I wouldn't identify as 'shoujo'?)

Myself;Yourself 10 - PLOT Just Kicked In, Yo

2007-12-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

And, like every good street racer in anime, Myself;Yourself has jumped four gears from second to sixth and is accelerating at about the speed of a jumbo jet.

As the guy in the shotgun seat all we can do is sit there, whiplashed, and stare agape at how fast things are whizzing by us. And with the end of the road coming up quick it's definitely possible for panic to set in.

There's no way he could make the turn. No way that I'll survive this alive.

Only one thing is sure, and that's that they're not going to let up on the gas any time soon.

Car references aside, Myself;Yourself really did take a turn for the holy shit in its last episode, number 10. It's a combination of plot developments that left many people polishing up their Nice Boats in anticipation.

In all truthfulness, the rumors of impending death, most likely, have been greatly exaggerated, but that doesn't stop the fact that some very interesting and dramatic things are likely to come up soon as Myself;Yourself rushes towards the cliff, Kaiji style, ready to make a flying leap.

Whether it'll make it remains to be seen, but until then let's take a look at the situation, as there's still quite a lot to play for in this story.

The tenth episode introduced a lot of burning questions that with any luck will be answered later on, the first one being "why are all the adults such assholes?" It's something that's contributed to part of the subtle contempt I held for the tenth episode, as the show approaches almost-School-Days levels of "all the characters are jerks", at least with the older group.

Yuzuki-sensei pretty much is the only person standing up for the students. The principal / vice-principal seem to have watched one too many seasons of Da Capo in immediately assuming the Wakatsukis guilty of love-hotel incest.

The Wakatsuki's second mother is a dirty-playing villain who probably contributed to that whole situation - it's quite likely she was the one who wrote in the letter (since she was "tired of the kids")...not to mention, was that another guy she slept with, aside from the Watatsuki father? Who, in himself, is a self-centered person who won't let anything - such as morals or the truth - stand in his way.

Or what of Grandma Kaji? The predictions about her were relatively on-the-ball; the bird and Poe fell to her, and she turned to Shuri, instead of Nanaka, next. While she's not quite the most brilliant criminal - her arc seemed to flash before our eyes in episode 10 - she still managed to make her mark, with a chair, on Asami. Pro wrestler style.

Even Nanaka's uncle is still under deep suspicion. All the signs point to him being a factor in the supposed arson of Nanaka's house five years ago, and I doubt we're going to be proven wrong.

The second question is "Just how messed up is everyone going to end up?" The amount of stress that everyone is undergoing is simply incredible, reaching nearly soap-opera levels at times. Sana's still going berserk at the sign of anything pointy and bloody and probably family problems, Nanaka's got mental trauma and probably family problems, and the Wakatsukis have boarding school, siscon issues, and definitely family problems.

And Asami's busy getting the Sayuri Hospital Makeover.

Only Aoi and Hinako are relatively safe, and that's because we're busy wondering "why aren't they in the plot?" Aoi doesn't seem to have any coherent story in the anime - unless she turns out to be some sort of overarching villain ("I was trying to kill everyone off to get to you, Sana!" *annoying Chiyo screeching*), and Hinako's busy getting Token Appearance Episodes.

And, "whose arc is it anyways?" With time ticking down faster than a speeding 240Z, it still remains to be seen how all the plot will be tied up. Certainly there is a lot being done to consolidate the "side character" plots (Asami and the Wakatsukis), but Nanaka and Sana still have a lot of explaining to do. Even if that explaining is very obvious.

So let's take a look at some of the answers. Or at least what I believe to be so.

Although everyone in Myself;Yourself is thoroughly drama-filled at this point, I have no doubt that Myself;Yourself is going to be end well. As has been stated time and time again it's very rare that a show decides to go 'eff the viewers' and have a bad end; especially so if a show 1) doesn't have a reputation for being gritty and 2) starts so pleasantly and frilly like M;Y did.

As impossible as it seems I'm going to maintain the 'zettai daijoubu' attitude that it's all going to wrap up well in the end. The only question is how and why?

With only three episodes left, it will be tough to conclude everything in a meaningful manner without deux ex'ing or resorting to "go buy the game to find out". But it won't be impossible - if there's anything episode ten proved it's that this show can go very fast and very strong if it wants to.

Where did Aoi and Hinako go? I'm afraid they might be sacrifices for the greater good; with a 1-cour show like this it's very difficult to cram all the arcs in (a difficulty I've heard Da Capo II is experiencing) and so the 'lesser' character had to be shafted in order for the other side characters to be developed.

And I don't regret more time being spent on Shuu and Shuri at all - Shuu is portrayed on the rarely-seen line between "caring brother" and "siscon", and Shuri's character is admirable as well.

It's still a bit sad that Hinako, with an episode and half of solid development as a mature character despite her age, will probably go to waste or only have bit appearances; such is the fate of a character that goes to a different school (and wasn't part of the original 'party'). And it's far too late for Aoi to be anything more than a support to the supporting characters now. Isn't it sad, Aoi?

In the end I'd much rather the time be spent on fully fleshing out the ending and main/side character development. Shuu and Shuri look set for a closing episode, and Sana and Nanaka will pick up the last two. With any luck Asami will get some final thoughts in as well.

So what's to keep in mind as we reach The Bloody Conclusion of Myself;Yourself? (Admittedly it's not going to be the same sense of 'bloody' as the reference would suggest)

The preview sounds like the Wakatsukis might be heading away after all - likely they'll be back before the end of the series, but with the imagery of Sana being manly and chasing someone to a train station, someone's leaving, and Sana and Shuri look to be the best bet.

Doubly so since this could bring up some interesting parallelism between the past, where Shuu ran and screamed something to Sana when he was leaving (episode one, flashback), and the present, where Sana could return the favor, and perhaps remember some things in the process.

"Confession" could mean all sorts of things for the next episode, and if M;Y has any intentions of being misleading it WON'T be the Sana x Nanaka that I'm expecting (since they need to get a move on, even if they aren't stealing the show anymore). It's quite possible that it could be Shuu making the siscon move (he came close, last episode), or Asami trying to grab the spotlight again.

Or it could be a confession in the criminal sense. I doubt that we'll see more of Kaji, but the Wakatsuki family has got bad guys all over the place and it remains to be seen which one of them will crack first.

Sana's family is one aspect that was brought up early in the show and seems to have faded out, a clue that it'll come blaring to front when we least expect it; it's likely to have ties to the whole wristwatch fiasco (/wrists, etc), but the fact that Sana's living alone now just doesn't seem to add up. There's a piece missing here somewhere, and I have no idea what it is.

That's the big question mark for most of the unresolved plot in Myself;Yourself. It's been a predictable show. It's been one that foreshadows a lot. But there's that feeling of unease. That things aren't right, that we're not right.

It looks like Nanaka's uncle burned down the house, it looks like Sana's a cutter, it looks like Asami and Kaji's plot are done, it looks like the Wakatsuki parents are utter assholes...but it's not over until the tsundere girl plays the violin. (Which we should also see a full-circling of later, with any luck.)

Myself;Yourself doesn't pull off a lot of plot twists, which only makes it more shocking when it actually does. It's a very good show for lulling people into a sense of complacency with a light-hearted start, and then it turns the world upside-down with a dramatic second half.

That's what the tenth episode in sense did, except by now it was full-bore drama the whole way. It's something that was a bit jarring and perhaps overdone; but I won't lie in saying that it only increased my interest in the show.

In that lies the biggest parallel I believe can be made to School Days, which was the last anime to emotionally charge me like this. That sense of disbelief, that "it cannot possibly be happening" thought, while it may turn off some viewers, is something that keeps me drawn in, if only because it's so rare for shows to be this raw, this over-the-top.

It's a delicate balancing act that Myself;Yourself is pulling off, that line between gripping and ridiculous.

Somehow, it does feel like auto racing. Some people enjoy the crashing, and some enjoy the displays of talent and skill. Which one Myself;Yourself will end up being, remains to be seen.

-CCY

(Last you're going to see of her. ;_;)

Of Men and Magical Girls

2007-12-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Who watches these shows anyway?

Apparently, we do. Magical girl shows have a surprising reputation and an even more surprising fanbase - at least gauging the English anime blog opinion, there seems to be a lot of positive reviews of the genre, or at least microcosms of it - Cardcaptor Sakura is the classic, some of us (me) stand by more recent ones such as Nanatsuiro Drops, and now the latest hit, Shugo Chara.

Admittedly the middle one was originally an eroge but what all three of these have in common, which is why I find this trend surprising, is that they are all 'pure' magical girl shows, unlike what I would like to dub "magical lolicon" shows which pander to more directly of a male base.

Somehow, 'pure' magical girl shows have managed to gather quite the male audience themselves, despite being aimed at an audience half (a third, one-fourth, etc) the age and with twice the X chromosomes. I mean, look at it. (Link through Canned Dogs)

Why is this?

I know they say that fiction warps your views, but I swear I never saw this many girls with purple hair and yellow eyes before I become a Nagatoist.

Despite the stereotypical viewpoint of most magical girl shows as overly feminine and simplistic, this genre is one that could theoretically appeal to a lot of people.

Many viewers watch anime as a way to relax, and shows this sweet and happy-go-lucky fit the bill perfectly. Those looking for a show to relax about will enjoy the genre's easy-to-follow, contained (in a single episode) feel.

Yet it's not beating you over the head with obvious in any case. More likely the carrot is dangling just out of sight. Perhaps there is more plot foreshadowing than the average out-of-left-field visual novel adaptation, but never is everything fully revealed.

At least, that is the case with shows like Shugo Chara, where a large part of the picture is revealed, but all the important bits are still covered up. It's a sort of plot striptease, except with less negative connotations. You know that the clumsy teacher is actually a villain, you know Ikuto's a disgruntled gothic guy who just wants be loved, you know that an embryo does something magic and awesome, but there always are more questions. Why? Who's Utau and why is she so clingy to Ikuto? How will it all play out?

Likewise, those looking for a touch of escapism won't find a world more pleasant, more happy-go-lucky than those of magical girl shows.

It's almost impossible not to crack a smile sometimes with these shows. The fluffy, sugary, and teeth-cracking atmosphere in the magical girl genre may seem a bit excessive at times, but there always seems to be something to enjoy about the show.

Maybe it's the comedy that many of the character provide, another staple of a genre that's close to slice-of-life at times. Maybe it's the feel-good atmosphere that the typical confident and/or optomistic ('zettai daijoubu!') projects. Maybe it's just the sheer ridiculousness of the 30-second transformation sequences and the incredibly hax "time to win" attacks and battles. Maybe it's all of that.

But it's like the tackiest cliches; smile, and the world smiles with you. Maybe people are more critical of shows that want you to cry with them, but the bright attitude of magical girl shows is quite permeating, permitting that it gets past any defenses one might erect against "cheesy" feeling-shows.

In that regard it's almost ironic that Shugo Chara's life lesson is to 'just be yourself' and to ignore what others think of who you are, how you act, and what mahou shoujo anime you watch.

A third, more subjective aspect to the appeal of this sort of genre is the 'inner child' draw of these kind of things. If American movie remakes are anything to go by, going into the way-back machine and seeing what was entertaining as a youth done again, many years later, is something that appeals to many people.

It's not always that these stand up to the tests of time; sometimes the newest version just doesn't capture the same magic, or sometimes one's passion has faded. But quite often these retro trips at least tilt the odds in favor of one enjoying something. I'm already, in my late teens, having cravings for Cardcaptor Sakura days of yore, and the spiritual successors in the magical girl genre as such are a good fix for me, offering some of the old with a bit of a new flavor as well.

I wouldn't say in any case that I could survive solely off the cotton-candy-like substance that is magical girl, but it's something that I won't deny enjoying quite a bit - not for the stereotypical aspects that one expects from these shows, but for the spice; a different romantic premise here, an anti-villain there, a resonant message somewhere along the line, I find the genre as a whole to be a great mix of carrot (foreshadowing) and stick (plot).

Not every anime has to be completely intellectually or dramatically engaging - as I commented elsewhere, as much as I like Key and as I like Clannad, 52 episodes would simply be too much of it for me to stand. Either the show would lose steam or I would die of tear duct exhaustion* before the end of the series. It's just too much to handle.

And that's why I watch magical girl shows and can consider myself proud of it. Balance.

Balance, I tell you!

One thing, however, that makes me wonder. This could very well be a misguided thought; perhaps the large male, non-ten-year-old audience I percieve is due to the fact that There Are No Girls on The Internet (well, almost). Or that those that blog tend to be a pretty forgiving bunch; or that people don't talk about shows they don't watch.

Maybe an ulterior motive, in that those who swear by Rule 34 can still find something loli to obsess about, even in 'pure' shows? Never doubt the fans...

So an informal poll. What do you think of magical girl shows? Would you openly recommend them to other people? Are they as widely appealing as I believe they can be - or is this madness induced by one too many peppy, sugary J-pop songs?**

-CCY
* I didn't cry at the end of the Fuuko arc, actually. Or Ayu's. Not even Makoto's. I'm a godless communist, I know, I know.
** Damn you, Shugo Chara OP. I swore I would not get addicted to you.

Schrodinger's Anime, and other bad scientific parallels

2007-12-03T14:26:00.000-08:00

The experiment would never go through with this cat.

Scientific analysis of anime strikes back.

Unfortunately none of the shows I watch are complex enough to involve any actual scientific theory beyond the hand-waving "if I say a bunch of fancy terms I can confuse you into submission" stuff, so what little knowledge I can derive from the shows I watch is of the humorous kind, which will probably send physics majors into convulsions.

Most of the theories are based off evidence from the current season, so consider it as you will a sort of praise for all the enjoyable shows of fall 2007; although, there are a few classics in the bunch as well.

So get out your pencil and get ready to take notes, there will be a quiz on this at the end of the - you in front! I see you reaching for that 'read more' link...

(Relative spoilers for Myself;Yourself, Clannad, and KimiKiss, and major spoilers for Kanon.)

Or this one.
Ayu's Backpack:
Let us take a hypothetical situation where a taiyaki-loving girl is placed in a coma with an angel doll. When seven years are allowed to pass, there is the possibility that she may astrally project herself relative to the viewpoint of a returning male protagonist. Whether she is a projection or real is subject to the contents of her winged backpack, which may or may not be empty, proving either conclusion. However, if the backpack is not opened it can be stated that the girl may perhaps be in a state of flux between astral and non-astral, existing as a sort of 'uguu'-form.

Sometimes I wonder if the teacher's mentioning of Schrodinger's Cat in Kanon 20-odd was on purpose or not; as a conspiracy theory, I can't overlook it. The implications of Ayu existing, or rather, not-existing are very open-ended at times; where does she go when Yuuichi is not looking? Does she still exist at those times? And why is she wearing the red hairband? These are the questions that fans that dig too deep - like me - love to ask, even if we know there is no answer.

This theory comes in many popular flavors as well:
Kaiji-obasan's Cat: An object belonging to a creepy old lady which may or may not be a cat is placed in a box and buried by two high school students. At a point later in the plot, the contents of the box may be revealed to be one or the other, but until then, the main protagonist gets slapped around a lot.

Again, another case of 'ridiculously amusing parallels'. Although, with the way Myself;Yourself is mostly choreographing itself, the contents of the box should be obvious...

Fuuko's Starfish: A girl astrally projects herself from a coma, again, except different and much more well-received by fans. She carves starfish and passes them out to students, but all the while, her physical condition is worsening. When she reaches the point where only certain students can recgonize her, her state can be claimed to be in a state of flux, where she neither is completely real nor completely astral.

Trying to think about Fuuko's arc made my head hurt in the end; how she managed to carve and give away the starfish without, being, well, physical, was confusing, especially near the end when she was only able to be seen (and physically recgonized?) by Nagisa and Tomoya. Not to mention the ninth episode, where she's kind of there in spirit but not in body for a lot of the time.

The second half of Fuuko's existential crisis was the fact that I couldn't decide whether the story was going to kill her off or have her make a miracle recovery. In the end, neither happened, and it's probably for the better; this way it does not have the cheese factor of Kanon's 'all better!' nor of AIR's 'look, she died! it's sad!'. I'm still not fully sold on Clannad being the best thing since ~~sliced~~ sad girls in snow, but it definitely presents itself in a more realistic manner.

Three Laws of Minami:
1st: Every train of thought continues in its current state, until acted upon by another train of thought.
One of those things that always seems to work well as comedy is when a character's imagination completely runs away from them. Moments like Chiaki manipulating Kana to think Fujioka's out to get her, or pretty much anything involving Hosaka, I think are genius. Maybe that's a bit of my evil puppetmaster side showing.

2nd: The hilarity produced by a particular character is directly proportional to the Idiocy Rating of the character and thus inversely proportional to the character's brain size.
This is essentially the same as above, since this one usually leads to the first law. Note that one's idiot rating can have spontaneous spikes (cue Haruka biting into a onigiri wrapper), so it's not like one character is consistency more amusing than the other; just that masterminds like Chiaki often do more in setting jokes up for other characters than anything else.

3rd: For each sister there is an equal and opposite male foil.
Part of what I think sets Minami-ke apart, aside from awesome camera angles (at least in ep. 1), is how it Actually Has Guys in it; at least relative to most slice-of-life shows. You look at Lucky Star, or Azumanga, there's one guy, two, tops, and they really only play a bit role. But the guys in Minami-ke star in a lot of gags, mainly because they've proven they can be every bit as idiotic - and thus, funny - as the girls.

I mean, come on. Mako's made traps funny.

Conservation of Manliness:
The total amount of manliness - and conversely, moeness - in an anime watchlist always remains constant, although said constant will vary from viewer to viewer.

I used to consider myself to be one who watches a lot of female-orientated shows, since my list contains a lot of romance. But now realizing that a lot of said shows are actually male-orientated harem romances - something mostly unheard of in America, land of the action - I realized that I have a surprisingly low tolerance for genuinely feminine shows, even though I can stand a lot of moe shows.

Therefore, when I watch something that breaks the pink-o-meter like Shugo Chara (ballet, minute-long transformations, negaaative haaato, etc), I need something adrenaline-filled to restore the balance of the world. Something like Kaiji. You can draw your own mental pictures of me injecting Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors straight into my veins.

(Although, do I need a countermeasure for all the naked guy-ness of episode 8?)

Laws of Haremdynamics:
0th: Two characters in love with one character are at war with each other.
And if their names are Sekai Saionji, Kotonoha Katsura, and Makoto Itou, you're going to get some serious forces resulting from this equation.

But for some reason, it does seem like the most interesting conflicts in harem romances come from one-on-one duels, instead of the five-girl free-for-alls (since, in the end, only Setsuna could be considered the other bit player). For some reason girls in anime are incredibly good at taking a number and waiting for their arc. Perhaps this is because it would be hard to create such an epic fight without it becoming incredibly, ridiculously, soap-opera-dramatic. Still, I'd like to see someone try it.

1st: The change in two character's relationship is equal to the work done on the relationship by its surroundings.
One dedicated to KimiKiss; it certainly seems that Mao is doing all the work in setting up Kouichi and Yuumi. Perhaps, combined with the fact that their relationship is a virtual lock, that's why I find their relationship the most uninteresting, despite the fact that said "oh look I'm too shy to confess to a girl" love stories should be the most endearing to people of my age. Who knows.

Nevertheless, Kazuki's and especially Mao's stories seem to be quite the interesting ones, although these two relationships are self-sufficient enough that they break this rule.

2nd: Love flows from hotter objects to less attractive ones.
A humorous poke at the basis of harem shows. Seriously, if I see one more brown/black-haired, easily-flustered Incredibly Nice Guy surrounded by a bunch of beauties - as much as that might appeal to any potential viewers - I will have to make vague promises of revolting. There's a reason people like Tomoya work so well, because they have an edge in addition to their soft side.

3rd: It is impossible to create a male lead that is perfectly efficient.
See above. You can't have your cake - er, harem - and eat it too, but so many characters are simply horrible at harem managing, or even just seeing the writing on the wall. Yuuji and Sana are bright enough characters, except where it counts in noticing that their Designated Love Tsunderes are completely jealous due to some misunderstanding involving another girl. Or the aforementioned Kouichi, who just might take three-quarters of KimiKiss waiting to ask Yuumi out. Maybe I'm asking too much of characters that I'm supposed to pretend are "just like me" (since a lot of harem makes no bones about being escapist), but I'd at least like to think I could do a better job in their shoes.

Ah well. I don't plan on turning my back on a genre that's been so moe to me any time soon. I complain because it takes forever for the gears to be set in motion; like a car with really bad turbo lag, it just takes a while before the awesome hits.

-CCY
Bonus observations:
* I can now officially say I am watching Shugo Chara mainly for the nekomimi bishies, since Ikuto and Amu's personalities are the real interesting ones of the bunch.
* Konoe and Shijou, two girls this season with no sense of the world around them, are voiced by the same VA. Coincidence? Or something far more sinister?
* Why does Key have no love for the glasses girl!?

Here's a cat I could never forget.