Twelve Moments of Anime 2007 - #7: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4

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)

Artbook Check! Haruhi and Shuffle!

Another step towards complete anime geekery (one might say, to abuse more Japanese words, hikikomori-dom) is made with the purchase now of even more completely incomprehensible things from Japanese bookstores. The Haruhi Suzumiya artbook 'fanbook' and Shuffle! On the Stage artbook 'visual guide' were purchased for a combined total of less than 20 dollars, thanks to the awesome factor of a Los Angeles chain of stores called "Book Off", which I found had lots of cheap things (these), lots of really cheap things (a $1 section including English manga, random Japanese artbooks and magazines, and a Gran Turismo 2 guide. Old-school'd.), and lots of really strange things (a strange manga title I didn't bother to look into: "Rape+2πr"). That are cheap.

While I am unable to provide pictures for these two I can still review them and provide some information, of which was sorely lacking when I tried to research these two the day before. (when drooling over them at twice-the-price Kinokuniya.)

Jump!

The Haruhi Suzumiya Official Fanbook (Suzumiya Haruhi no Koushiki) undoubtedly, even for lesser Nagatoists Haruhi fans like me, was a good buy at $6 (Kinokuniya price $16). It comes with a pull-out poster, and being reversable it's your choice of the full cast in swimsuits or Yuki reading a book in the clubroom. Unsurprisingly I chose to bring my Nagato poster count to a whopping two. Insert fanboying.

The Haruhi book (the inside cover says "Haruhi's Formula", cryptically enough) features more information than you really need, which is strange considering that I don't even understand half of it. But when you flip to a page which has a picture of the entire seating layout of Kyon/Haruhi's class, including names and sentence blurbs about every member, you can tell there's a bit of detail put into it.

There's a good section on each character (unreadable, of course), in addition to interviews with the voice actors for the anime and the producers of the novel (artist + author, I believe). There's also another section which I think is terminology or something, but it's uber wall-of-text.

About 10, 20-odd pages consist of random illustrations as well; there are 3/4 page pictures of textless images that ran in magazines previous (if you have Haruhi wallpapers from the interwebs, you'll probably recognize quite a few), as well as some fanart by other artists (one was the core trio of girls in the Shuffle! art style) and a set of four 4-komas which, again, I don't get.

Someday I plan to get it though, which is my excuse for buying this kind of stuff.

There are also pages devoted to going through each episode (in addition to the OP/ED sequences) in full blog-post fashion, with more screencaps, more moonspeak, and apparently Haruhi's "tsundere" meter, which measures just how much she's either a) beating up or 2) melting over Kyon at that episode's time.

All in all a very worthy purchase, in my belief, doubly so if you actually understand any of this. Eheheh.

The Shuffle! On the Stage artbook was decent as well but at a comparatively whopping $13 (Kinokuniya: $30) and feeling a bit sparse on the art, I didn't think was as interesting. To be fair the Shuffle! book was a bit bigger (both clock in above 125 pages) but it didn't come with any nifty posters.

It too had a selection of art, from what I understand of the English-heavy Shuffle! was sourced from either game releases (the LE/SE versions of Shuffle!, Shuffle! On the Stage, and the DVDs, among others), but there weren't a massive amount of random artwork as well.

The bulk of the book came from the sections on the characters; there were about 6 pages devoted to each main heroine (7 in On the Stage, the core 5 plus Mayumi and Kareha), and a few less for each minor character (Itsuki, Kikyou, Tsubomi, the parents, etc). Each section displays most to all of the game CGs for that character, as well as a sketch or two and a Wall of Faces. No kidding - they took all the facial expressions and pasted them next to each other on a half-page; most clock in at about 30 or so. Walls of Text are, of course, very applicable throughout.

There is also a sketch section, where some unfinished art plus commentary from the artists are displayed; interesting perhaps, if you're interested in knowing how the process works or how to draw the characters; but most of the art is just uncolored/unfinished CG, so it's nothing new.

The interviews with the voice actors and the terminology section also exist in the Shuffle! book, and are still equally incomprenhensible.

If you're curious about the worksafe-ness of the artbook, since On the Stage was the PS2 version of the visual novel all ero content has been removed and as such the novel is relatively safe. There is no sex, no nudity (there are Barbie-style models in the sketch section, however, but everyone knows those don't count) and strangely enough no panty shots as well; although all the fanservice situations (Mayumi shoving her butt in Rin's face, etc) are relatively intact, although things have been censored to the standards stated.

What really weirds me out is that Mayumi and Kareha's scenarios still feature situations that look like they could have been lifted from the PC version, in that there is obvious censoring going on; one wonders why they even bother sort of leading the viewer on like that, pretending that they're seeing something.

An interesting bonus to the On the Stage artbook is that it features sheet music and lyrics for the OP and ED themes of both Shuffle! and Shuffle! On the Stage; however, being musically inept beyond DDR, I am not able to take advantage of these.

All in all both fanbooks feel like very good buys, although I personally prefer the Haruhi one, perhaps because it contains more content to the untrained eye. I would recommend both of them to any fan of the series, especially if they can be found this cheap.

-CCY

(Stock images from Animephile and Animebooks.com. This has not been an advertisement. XD)

Haruhi II: Are you watching closely?

You don't really want to know.

You want to be fooled.


But you wouldn't clap yet.

Because making something dissapear isn't enough...

you have to bring it back.
-Alfred Borden, The Prestige (2006)

Forgive me, it's a good movie for quotes. And I had to stick in the old image of the now infamous "Haruhi Returns" to fit the theme of the quote.

But, with any luck, this time it should be for real. According to the Animesuki forums, Newtype's advance copy of its August issue has that picture above that translates to something vaguely resembling 'the second period/season of Haruhi Suzumiya', or at least we hope.

The official word is supposed to be out July 7th (Tanabata, as I've heard), so, hold your breath for 48 hours or whatnot. But it seems reliable this time; you guys can trust Konata, right?



In any case, I know I want to be fooled.

-CCY
(Thanks to Heisei Democracy and Kurogane's Anime Blog for pictures)

Haruhi: The Game

(Generic Yuki-relevant pic)

So, Haruhi's got a video game now.

I could rant to fill up this section, but no one reads that, eh? I'm just sectioning off some vague spoilers for the two of you who have not watched Haruhi Suzumiya yet. If not, feel free to continue.

It's for the PSP and looks to be a visual novel, with some "revolutionary elements" according to Bandai Namco, the publisher. Not sure how many different ways one can mix up a ren'ai game though: somehow I could imagine it turning out like some of Navel's Really? Really! (a Shuffle series game), where the protagonist has to find and fix errors in the continuity of the universe, or something, i.e. Haruhi retcons the world and it's up to Kyon to fix it. Another possibility is Type-Moon's Kagetsu Tohya (Tsukihime series), where a single day is repeated over and over until the protagonist gets it right. This could be done, for example, with Haruhi's Endless Eight story (book 5), or perhaps a different time period (pretty much everything could work, to be honest). It would take most players, hopefully, less than 15,498 times to get through the path, though.

Not much to say on the game yet but I imagine it's about time for a Haruhi game, considering it's meteoric popularity in Japan (didn't the Hare Hare Yukai CD hit #2 or something on Amazon?) and rabid fanbase around the world. PSP seems like an odd choice, mainly because I don't have one, but it makes sense as it has picked up well in Japan (although a far second from the DS) and many other visual novels have been released on it. Plus, I guess, it could always spur sales of it. But the main reason to long for, say, a PC release or something, would be the facilitation of an English translation as despite its popularity among anime fans, the Haruhi R1 isn't exactly burning up Amazon at 4,140th in DVDs.

I'm hoping the main drawpoint, of course, is a possibility of a Yuki (OK, I'll be honest, I typed Nayuki first) ending. Or Mikuru, perhaps Tsuruya or Itsuki, if you're into those characters. It'd be interesting but also very difficult to make work within canon Haruhi storyline, i.e. Be with Haruhi or die.

Other than that it's time for the world to hold their collective breath on this game, although I have a feeling that it's going to be a 'love it or hate it' thing, in that fanboys will gush all over this game (and we'll leave that as that), while realists will condemn it as a cash-in. Expectations might be a bit high coming into this, kind of like Lucky Star (the anime), which is good and amusing but not laugh-a-minute like everyone expected.

It will be interesting though how the storywriting and planning is handled; and how much the game will fit into the canon Haruhi storyline. It's titled "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu" (where have we heard that before?), so it might be based on either the anime or the first book. I doubt Bandai Namco would base it entirely off the first book, as as much as the special powers of the characters could make for decent plot twists, everybody and their brother (and their brother's best friend's cousin's uncle's daughter's invisible friend) pretty much knows Haruhi - at least those that are going to buy the game. So "new" content might be on the way, after all - it remains to be seen whether it will be accepted into general continuity.

But in the end, there is plenty of time to pass judgment multiple times (I've only just gotten the news on this 3 hours ago), so the verdict still remains to be seen; but, so far, for noobs like me who speak English, English, and English with a mock British accent, I think I'll have to give this a pass.

-CCY
P.S. Yay for AnimeNano!

Combo Continue - Haruhi Threesome

Go ahead, shoot me.

Anyway, this is your typical Haven't Had Time To Form A Quality Post, But I Post Anyway blog post, in that it's 11:00 PM, I've been home for about 1 hour of the 16 I've been up, and I'm not about to let that stop me from continuing my chain of Posts Every Day. Which in retrospect is probably sort of a silly idea and it'd be better to put more time into each post but I'm happy with the way it is.

So, as the title states, after the jump is 3 sections of Haruhi awesomeness to replace your normal episode recap, and not at all any implied hot doujin action (or is there?). No, seriously. Go away, pervert.


Part 1, one of the more interesting Haruhi doujins out there, The Law of Tsuruya Family, which despite the horribly lame setup for a forced Tsuyura x Kyon pairing, is quite fascinating. Perhaps not the least because of the fact that some valid points are raised about Nyoro-chan, and also because of horribly win and/or scary Boxcutter Haruhi. Unfortunately it's still unfinished, but the first two chapters should get your attention at least.

Part 2, an amusing remix of the Mikururururururun Song. You remember it, right? The one, which despite being horribly sung (purposely), is scarily addictive and easy to remember? Now, picture it with a metallic rock soundtrack. And covered by a guy. Scary. Yet so, so awesome. Let's dance, baby!


Part 3, well, there is really no part 3, so have some more Yuki. Can't go wrong with Yuki. It's too bad Kyon wasn't a glasses girl or else we would have had a lot more meganekko Yuki fan art though. Still, nothing to complain about here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fanboy for a few minutes over Yuki and awesome, and then pass out.

-CCY

Amerikyon and the ASOS Brigade

So, what of Haruhi Suzumiya and - blasphemy of blasphemies - its English dubbing?

I've always been a staunch supporter of subs in the typical sub vs. dub war - although I wonder how many would support dubs unless it meant a wider audience for the anime. The last time I watched anime dubbed was probably sometime in the 20th century. But then again, I own very little anime with both English and Japanese soundtracks; the DNAngel and Cardcaptor Sakura DVDs I have seem to be Hong Kong imports (hopefully not bootlegs) with only a Japanese track.

But now I've got the Haruhi R1s! Yay!

Reaction to the Dubbing of Haruhi Suzumiya (yes, that's your obligatory Gag of Haruhi Suzumiya) has been pretty mixed all over the place, but there have been some uncharacteristic positive reactions to it, so this time I decided to give it a crack and give English a whirl.

The episode of choice was Melancholy II - probably not the best choice when there's a wider range of voices in Mikuru's Doublezero or a wider range of awesome in Melancholy III, but I'm rewatching this series, and this just happened to be up in order.

Wall of text (no pictures, how sad...) after the jump.

Well, the fans were right. It's a pretty mixed bag - there are some excellent casting choices, and some that could've been better. I don't speak voice actors - neither Japanese nor American, so I won't talk about the people themselves but rather the roles they played.

Starting with the starting character - or, if not the starring one, the titular one, Haruhi, I felt that Haruhi's dub really let the rest of the characters down. The dub overall is above par, but I'm just not feeling the Haruhi in EnglisHaruhi. She's definitely very enthusiastic and energetic, yes, but her eccentricity doesn't really come across. She sounds like she could be more of a cheerleader than a, uh, SOS Brigade leader (don't spoil the poor newbies...). Also, maybe it was really apparent in her close-up scene (talking with Kyon pre-OP), but voice != lips and body movement. The lines could have been better synched in that scene.

But let's move on to better things, shall we? Kyon is absolutely, top-notch ace. I am loving Amerikyon. His sarcasm is still in full force, and most of his lines come across very natural. The unusually intellectual speech at the beginning (although it was sourced from the original) comes to mind as an exception, but in his idle chat with MI-ku-ru (not Mi-KU-ru, hmm...) and NA-ga-to (and not Na-GA-to either) he sounds very natural, something that needs to be kept up in this sort of vaguely slice-of-life anime. The English spin on most of the lines works pretty well too, and I actually thought that he improved some lines - for example, "Are you out of your mind?" to Haruhi during the extortion scene, not to mention later, looking back on it: "Can you say extortion? ...Good!"

I cracked up laughing. *Konata thumbs up* Good job!

As for everyone's favorite squeaky girl, I'm on the fence regarding Mikuru. She is ungodly squeaky (at least when being costume raped, anyway, which is about all she does in Melancholy II), almost to the point of being hard to listen to. But, on the other side, that IS the essence of Mikuru; it completely suits her character, and really could have been done much worse. I'll give Mikuru With No Funny American Pun Name a passing grade.

Yuki's another tough one. General opinion is that her voice is too robotic, that there was just a hint of inflection in the Japanese version that is missing here. It's probably true, but I think English Patched Yuki is pretty well done as well. The test for her will really be Melancholy IV, though. Her lines seem stretched a bit in the American version, for example, from "Nothing" to "No, there's not," although this may be necessary to fill dead space. Well, it's Yuki. What am I going to do, hate her?

Itsuki doesn't appear in Melancholy II. Nyah nyah.

Now for side characters. Taniguchi's voice is decently done, as is Kyon's Other Friend (who sounds like Yukito Tsukishiro in the Japanese version, and close to his JP actor in the US version). Taniguchi's early lines rubbed me the wrong way, seeming a bit stiff for a casual lunch scene, but he made up for it the next day with "so, you've gone and become one of Suzumiya's weirdos."

Asakura (Ryoko, whatever) is still a side character at this point, and her voice is pretty well done. It fits her character pretty well, although her real test, even moreso than Yuki, is Melancholy IV.

Really I'm very ambiguous about all of the side characters, since they don't have many lines to be judged by. If you want to know about the Computer Club President, his voice is very forgettable, if anything, given by my lack of notes on him. Some of his lines have improved, though. It's nice to know they're trying to reinterpret the script a bit (given how much they stray from the subtitles at times).

As for more in general stuff:
* They swear a bit more in the English version, with Kyon and the President laying a couple choice words down more than their subtitled counterparts.
* "-san" is translated as Miss, which along with saying the full names of people really sounds weird in English, or at least in a supposedly English high school? But then again, everyone has Japanese names.
* Yuki's "I'd like to go to the library again" (or something to that extent) line in the opening wasn't translated for some odd reason. I bet a lot of readers are confused by that. I wonder how they'll handle Melancholy VI, to that regard.
* It remains to be seen if they mess with the credits or not a la the Japanese version - I forget exactly in what episodes it was, but keep an eye on it as we get further into the Melancholy series.

In conclusion, the English dub is pretty passable overall, and I would watch it if it hit public TV. Of course, I'd prefer Japanese, but this definitely isn't too bad. Perhaps when AIR and Shuffle! hit English stores I can do another dub comparison, to see if all English dubs are this passable - or if this just results from the popularity and importance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

-CCY

The search for aliens, time travelers, and espers

Suddenly I can feel Haruhi's pain. In today's episode of Real Life I spent over 2 hours driving around looking for the first DVD (Normal Edition, because I'm cheap). Perhaps the mass effect of Haruhiism was widely overrated by me; I expected normal retailers such as Target and Circuit City to carry it. Luckily, Fry's Electronics caters to the Japanophile niche.

So, how about the DVD itself, eh? Hit the jump (there's got to be one in every post, now. suckers).


The case could be worse; the first front cover features the shot of Haruhi dragging Kyon by the tie (some uniform North High has by the way, I'm glad American schools don't require 'pull here to choke' equipment) with the usual H superimposed in the background (set in what appears to be the SOS Brigade room?). The logo is pretty much the same as the Japanese with the vertical text, the swirly thing is on the 'O' in Of, and there's a little Haruhi silhouette (from the beginning of the ending credits) at the top of it to balance it out.

The back cover is horribly pastel, however. The little blurb features Kyon narrating general generic stuff about the weird girl named Haruhi, and the mysterious 3 other members of the strange SOS brigade. There's little pictures of awesome chibi Haruhi, 'You'll be right' OP credits Haruhi, Bunny Girl Haruhi, and oh yes, Yukiiiiiiiiiiiii (from the first episode, the introduction with the glasses fixing).

Right, right, but how about the content? I'm sure you've been glossing over all I what said. What's on the bloody DVD? That's what matters, of course.

We'll start with the extras first. There's a creditless opening and ending advertised on the box, although they may not be as advertised. The opening is actually from Ep. 00 - the Adventures of Mikuru Asahina opening. XD As much as I hate this song, it has an amazing ability to get stuck in one's head. The creditless ending actually is Hare Hare Yukai, although it's not the full dance version. There's some live action commercials and 'making of' for Haruhi, which are mildly amusing (and narrated by Yukiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii), some scary ASOS Brigade shorts, and Bandai anime ads. Lots of ads.

Not to mention, if you sit there and watch all the titles, it'll take you 2:45 to get to the title screen, whereupon you can nagivate to the extras section and watch...more ads. Yay.

The title menu is pretty slick, with a bunch of windows showing scenes from the episodes this disc contains; which, by the way, is The Asahina Mikurururururun Double Zero Special and the first 3 of the Melancholy Series. A lyricless version of Bouken Desho Desho plays in the background. It's so weird without lyrics, but it's good to feel familiar music.

Not much to comment on the dubs yet. From the 5 seconds of Ep. 00 I watched with the dub, I learned that 1) it's probably not too bad, and 2) there's no English cover of the Mahou Miracle Mikururururuuuuuuuun song, which would have been incredibly hilarious.

The subtitles are exactly the same style as the ones on my 20th-century Cardcaptor Sakura DVD's; color-coded, cheap-looking text (which, at least in Double Zero, covers up a lot of the action), which really bugs me. Sometimes I wonder why they can't switch to the slick fonts a lot of fansubbers use. Something similar to AFK's fonts would work wonders.

Now, to settle down and actually watch the anime, which is where I'll leave you off for tonight. It's my first time actually watching Double Zero (since it was too off-the-wall the first time). Perhaps impressions and Kanon-esque spoiler recaps will ensue at a later date.

-CCY