Posted in Artworks, Random, tagged Amagami, Anime, Artworks, Christmas, Sketch on December 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Have a dangerous Haruka Morishima, and I hope you all enjoy the festivities!
Post Xmas Edit: It was a Waoh! celebration for Detarame too, since I realised that we just clipped 150 Thousand total hits in time for the end of Xmas Day. Heh, thankyou, everyone! Apparently Haruka must have won the Miss Santa contest again for the popularity she helped to garner us. 😀
Posted in Anime, First Impressions, tagged 7 Friends of Miss Wolf, Amagami, Anime, Boot to the Head!, Commentary, Hilarity, Romance, Thoughts, Truth and Conflict on July 2, 2010| 2 Comments »
Well, the summer season has begun, and these two are the first on the agenda.
A darn good performance from the first show of the season. I was rather impressed, and chuckled several times.
Anyway, pretty much as predicted, the show focuses on Ookami Ryouko and Akai Ringo, whose names are synonymous with Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, and their work for the Otagi Bank society at their school, which apparently offers loans of aid in return for a later favour (hence the Bank designation, I guess). They’re apparently a well known society that isn’t messed with too much.
During an assignment to stop a stalker, Ryouko acts as the muscle and Ringo the snoop.
It unfortunately devolves to him drawing a knife. Ryouko promptly beats him up with her hilarious matched Neko-Koneko gauntlets, and they get mysterious ranged support from our male protagonist, Ryoushi, whom shoots a light speed stone, but he’s not introduced at this stage.
Shortly afterwards, it becomes apparent, though, that he (Ryoushi) has some kind of obfuscation. He’s rather good at completely concealing his presence so that people don’t notice him even when they’re nearby. He manages, after several attempts due to being too quiet, to confess to Ryouko, whom he has been tailing (this show likes Stalkers… eh?). Unfortunately, when asked to explain why he likes her, he starts with all of the wrong reasons and he leaves. Still, despite his fear of being stared at, he’s actually got guts, which is always nice.
Anyway, after this situation, we hear that the club is looking for new male members, and Ringo, upon hearing about the confession, immediately goes into spy mode, and tries to bring Ryoushi on board.
The way they handled this scene was funny, as it looks like her giving a report, but it turns out he’s actually right next to her being introduced. Ryouko doesn’t want him in the society since she noticed him intervening in the fight before, but said she couldn’t trust her back to one who couldn’t show himself.
Fortunately, he’s just in time for another assignment which could be ideal for him, stopping a girl’s sempai from quitting the tennis club by stealing away the form (because she loves him and his ‘Prince of Tennis’ thing, reference probably intended):
Unfortunately, he manages to fail the assignment at every turn, most often due to people staring at him and triggering his strange phobia. All looks lost!
But then… it somehow manages to turn into a rendition of Cindarella. They chase after the guy in an honest to goodness pumpkin carriage, and the girl leaps off and accidently scissor kicks him in the face from 40 mph cartwheel…
Even managing a pantsu flash in the process.
Which somehow leads to a happy end where he gets all girls in the school to try on the lost shoe (glass slipper style) and kick him in the face. Naturally, she is only one who kicks him face over tit and this somehow this results in their relationship. Apparently he’s a masochist…eh?
Then, in a second fight against the original stalker (who brings mates, to absolutely no avail) Ryoushi manages to man up slightly, by taking a surprise attack meant for Ryouko. This leads her to having more respect for him, at last, and they upgrade to a first name basis (that was fast!).
Anyway, the entire romp was pretty well done. I did like its special tongue-in-cheek behavior; and the fact that the characters seemed to enjoy breaking the fourth wall (they especially liked doing this during the fanservice scenes). This humour was amp’ed up to 11 by the obvious voice of Kuroko from Railgun being the Narrator, whom is very ideal in this slightly sarcastic role.
The fact that Ryouko also looks remarkably like a grown up Taiga (and Ringo looks like a chibified Minorin) from Toradora is also pretty funny (if probably unintentional).
Finally, what’s also cool is all the fairy tale references (not Fairy Tail references, groan) if you’re looking for them. I look forward to the remainder of the series, and can say fairly confidently that this has secured itself a slot already.
Go romantic. I wasn’t expecting much here, to be honest, since its based on a game thats so popular, but it surprised me with a real nice bittersweet opening. As noted before, Junichi is a guy whom is reluctant to love after a bad experience during Christmas 2 years beforehand:
Although, one has to wonder why he STILL doesn’t know what happened. Did he not check with the lass at all? Did she never see or speak to him again? Pretty weird. But then, the guy is pretty weird. He sleeps in his closet. Admittedly, it has a painted black interior that has hand drawn stars, which is cute, but still…
We are introduced to the various girls by small cameos here and there, but the initial arc seems to be focusing on Haruka, the school idol, who really does seem like an awesum-cute-perfection type: shining blue eyes and lovely curls, etc.
What’s more, maybe its just me, but I can almost see the dating game here. I could almost see the decision boxes appearing just for a second, and the above scene actually made me cry out ‘up goes a flag’. Because it obviously was such a situation. Hehe…
Haruka picks up Kawaii points by the bucketload in basically every scene she’s in. It’s not really a surprise that our protagonist snaps out of his old reverie and falls for her immediately.
When a girl tries to play Jumping Jacks with you and has no hesitation in leaping on top of you, you know she’s a keeper!
Huh… I don’t think I ever played Jumping Jacks back in the day…
Anyway, after various cute scenes, including a pretty funny fanservice imagination scene where he imagines Haruka bathing with his sister (you wacko!) we eventually get to a scene where he goes right out and decides to confess to her (blimey, whats with all of the first episode confessions this season!). She is overjoyed, but sadly turns him down flat, due to an apparent preference for older guys. He falls into a depression fit and staggers home.
Although part of me felt sorry for him, one gets the impression that Haruka really wasn’t actually leading him on, but rather that it was just a natural part of her school persona. Her little section of contemplation near the pool suggests that there are actually deeper parts to her character besides buckets of cute, and it will be quite interesting to see where they go with that.
Though I’m not holding my breath quite yet; this show is showing some actual initial promise. The actual episode title states that this is part of the Haruka arc, so I think we can assume that they will do something like Kanon, with 3-4 episodes per heroine. This can often turn out well, though it can end ambigiously, so I guess we shall have to see.
And that just about finishes this initial post. Legendary Heroes of Legend should be next, when it is subbed and available. Most likely I’ll post it tommorow.
Posted in Anime, First Impressions, tagged 7 Friends of Miss Wolf, Amagami, Anime, Asobi ni Iku yo!, Commentary, High School of the Dead, Hilarity, Legendary Heroes of Legend, Mitsudomoe, Nurarihyon no Mago, Occult Academy, Previews, Rant, Shiki (series), Shukufuku no Campanella, Thoughts, Tono to Issho on June 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »
To clarify, this post covers the anime season that starts at the end of June and July 2010.
Hey guys, sorry to keep you waiting on this; this season has actually kind of crept up on me without me realising. Hehe.
Anyway, I’ve identified 11 shows this time that meet my usual criteria (no sequels, no OVAs, no Kiddie Shows) this season, and heck, there’s actually ALOT I’m interested in, which makes a nice change, as for me, the Spring/Summer season was a little vacant in general. The usual layout applies of Title, Promo Image, Thoughts, Anticipation Rating.
Tongue in cheek anti-fantasy. That’s not actually something you see too often, but in case its not evident from the title, here you have it.
Its about a lazy guy called Ryler Lute, whom, having lost a few too many comrades in arms in a war between kingdoms, agrees to go on a quest to aid his new liege rebuild and reform the decadent kingdom of Roland, by collecting artifacts of the past. He is joined by feisty (tsundere?) swordsgirl Eris Ferris (LOL, what a name, girl!).
Of course, despite Rylers wishes for a normal life, fate has other plans, and the two are swept up in another conflict; where Ryler shows an ability with a special eye, called Alpha Stigma, that lets him do FF style Blue Magic (learns a spell by watching it).
It feels a bit like Scrapped Princess or Wordsworth in style; which is always a good thing. Of course, it depends on where they take it; but any slightly edgy fantasy with comedy elements thrown in gets my attention. Also features Lelouch’s voice actor with another type of special eye (oh dear).
Anticipation: 8 complex spellbooks, 2 cliche plot dumps.
Wow, that’s one hell of a gobful of a title they’ve got themselves here…
A city, Ert’Aria, has some kind of festival for its magical energy sources every few years, which brings people, adventurers and merchants from all over to participate. It follows Leicester and Carina, whom are here at the city for the festival. They go on to find some kind of Magical Robot/Doll Loli, which proceeds to wake up and start calling Leicester her ‘papa’.
Strange adventures ensue. Based upon a fantasy visual novel. Those can go very well, as they often have interesting developments and weird circumstances. That is, assuming you can take the needlessly high female population and that they don’t fall too far into the cliche.
I guess we shall see, but I guess it’s initially got a small amount of promise.
Anticipation: 7 flawless androids, 3 squeaky doll joints.
Ah, this caught my attention, as I followed the Manga for quite some time.
Classic Zombie movie stuff, of course. A strange disease sweeps the globe that turns everyone into, you guessed it, zombies. Our protagonists are a bunch of high school students who manage to survive the outbreak; Takashi (our protagonist), Rei (his childhood friend/crush), Saeko (his sword swinging Sempai), Saya (the rich girl), Koota (the military otaku) and Shizuka (the token voluptous nurse).
Despite the title, the unlikely group don’t actually spend too long at the school; its just an escape scenario that leads from apparent bad to worse situation upon reaching the outside (the group slowly gathers new members) and lets just say it doesn’t pull any punches. Its rather gritty and gruesome, as you might imagine, so much so that the (sometimes pretty excessive) fanservice by the female cast almost goes un-noticed.
Anyway, its something that could do very well from an anime adaptation, so long as they don’t screw up the pacing.
Anticipation: 98% Mortality Rate
Based on a Light Novel, it follows the spread of mysterious disease in a small rural town that is full of traditions, which starts when the bodies of 3 of the small towns residents are found dead in their homes.
Interesting in that it apparently covers the perspective of quite alot of characters; up to 150, in fact. TThough the main star appears to be the doctor, Toshio, featured above, as he struggles to understand these sudden mystery deaths, trying to find out whether this is an epidemic or just some brutal coincidence.
So, its another dark horror show to go with the zombies; though this one seems more murder mystery like rather than bleak survival. Not usually my style of show, but it could interesting to look into at least.
Anticipation: 7 Mysterious Circumstances, 3 Unlogged Burials.
Based upon a series of romantic comedy light novels, this has main characters based upon the classic triangle that exists within Little Red Riding Hood (having Ringo, Ryoko and Ryoushi synonymous with Little Red, the Wolf, and the Hunter). The guy, Ryoushi, is afraid of social contact and people staring at him, but apparently confesses to the beautiful wolf like girl with exposed canine teeth. To add to the chaos, the two girls apparently run a society that helps people with their problems. The novels continue to cover this odd incidences and characters, one crazy issue at a time (and I imagine Ryoushi gets dragged into the mess?).
Again, Light Novels are usually good sources for material, and this looks to be no exception. Its a bizarre potential love triangle and character set-up, so if its done right could be a real treat indeed, especially for me, as I vacuum this sort of stuff up.
Anticipation: Grandmother, what a big 90% you have! All the better to rate you with, my dear!
Based upon a ludicrously popular dating game for the PS2 by Atlus, which is, I believe, occassionally referred to as Love Plus as well as Amagami. This thing seems to have generated alot of doujin, so it was inevitable to eventually see an anime.
It follows Junichi, a high school student who hates Christmas time due to a bad romantic experience in the past. Due to his fear of opening his heart to love, his school life is rather lonely. But one day, he decides this is not enough, and so sets aside his fears and resolutely decides that he will spend the coming Christmas with a girl. So begins his quest for love.
Naturally, they can either follow the Kanon styling here, and cover each girls story with some kind of eventual conclusion, or they can favour a singular heroine and follow her to the exclusion of all others. Since the latter may have some fans up in arms, I imagine they’ll try the former here, which whilst interesting, may not result in a good conclusion, per se.
But of course I’m a serious connoisseur for my romance, so I’ll likely end up watching it anyway.
Anticipation: 85 out 100 girls said they want a romantic christmas
A trio of loli terrorists attack a classroom. Err…maybe… anyway, taking calling cards from both Minami-Ke! and Kodomo no Jikan, it puts three strange sisters, sadistic girl Mitsuba, strongarm girl Futaba, and weird girl Hitoha, in a slice of life situation with their long suffering teacher Satoshi. The three sisters use the poor guy as their relentless plaything and target of abuse, so its very much a slapstick type of comedy, full of vicious lolis.
This kind of show really lives or dies based upon its gags, so it’ll require good delivery and execution. I’m not especially enthusiastic here, but you never know, it could be a sleeper hit like B Gata H Kei.
Anticipation: 5 spine snapping boots to the head
The new Shounen Series for the season, it covers a kid called Rikuo, who is part human and a quarter youkai, whom is living with his grandad in a house full of spirits. He is of destined to become a demon like the family tradition states (and his grandfather wants), but tries to escape this fate by doing good deeds all the time. However, with others after his title and many other strange circumstances, his hand may well be forced to follow his thread of destiny.
Since I guess I’m already following Fairy Tail on the side, I’m not entirely sure if I’ll have time to look into another Shounen unless this one turns out to be particularly awesome, since as we know, these kind of shows just go on and on and never seem to conclude…
Anyway, could be interesting, I guess, but probably not high on my list of priorities.
Anticipation: 50 % human, 50 % youkai
Seems to partially mix up some time travel between 1999 and 2012, mainly in the fact that the setting is the former time, but the main male character, Fumiaki, is chrono-shifted from the future. It is set in a strange private school, the Voltstein Academy. Paranormal activity are like the bread and butter of the place, and so it has become known on the sides as an Occult Academy, something which the dean decides to embrace and study (wheras everyone else would rather just work normally).
Things change when one day, the dean passes away and his occult-hating daughter, Maya visits the academy. There, she meets a self-proclaimed spoon-bending “time agent” from the year 2012, the aformentioned Fumiaki. And apparently, as the two encounter various weird phenomenon within the academy, the reason for Fumiaki’s timeslip steadily becomes apparent (the apocalypse in 2012 is caused by the millenium bug in 99?)
This is another brand new original Anime no Chikara production. Considering that I really liked what they did with Senkou no Night Raid (even though it seems the fan-translators have given up on it), I’m quite interested to see what they’ll do with this circumstance. Its nice that somebody is still trying to make anime original stories in an industry swamped with adaptations, so I’ll give them credit for that at least.
Anticipation: 99% chance of another world-bending apocalypse
What happens when you make an over the top manzai comedy about ancient Japanese feudal lords turned incompetant and their long suffering retainers? This series, apparently.
Think the anime version of Blackadder and I suppose you won’t be far off.
Includes piss-takes of all the famous figures of Japanese history, from Masamune to Nobunaga. Even includes Gackt playing as Kenshin, which will have to be seen to be believed, I suppose.
Naturally, the enjoyment of this show is relative of your actual knowledge of the Sengoku period (much like playing Sengoku Rance!) since otherwise you might not get the references and the characters of the classic lords being blown out proportion. Of course, I know a fair bit about Japanese history, so I might well look into having a few chuckles here, but your mileage may vary.
Anticipation: Six and Half corrupted historical documents
Attack of the spacefaring catgirls. Erm, well, not exactly, but… anyway, here is this seasons exotic girl from space franchise. Quite literally. During a memorial service in Okinawa, our protagonist, Kio, comes across a a girl with cat ears in a plugsuit. She calls herself Ellis, and claims to be an alien here on earth for some recreational and study activities (promptly shacking up with the protagonist, obviously).
Before long, fanatical alien worshippers and a mysterious government agency are in hot pursuit of Ellis, not to mention Kio’s childhood friend Manami, who wants to join the CIA. When Ellis’ alien buddies also join the picture, serious havoc ensues, and of course, Kio finds himself having to protect Ellis from everyone and his dog.
Probably the show I’m least interested in this season, since its leaning towards obvious harem fare. But still, I had the same reservations about Mayoi Neko Overrun, and that actually turned out to be quirkily entertaining (some of the time), so again, we shall see…
Anticipation: 3 Nyaas, 7 crashed UFOs.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Phew…apologies for the slight delay (its still a couple of weeks early, and just in time for the pre-season previews and promotions for the most part, so yeah). Hope this aids in your selection this season, and see ya all again soon.
Detarame 
Conquering the world! (should be a cinch, ne?)
Posted in Anime, Artworks, First Impressions, tagged Amagami, Anime, Commentary, Fortune Arterial, Hilarity, Legendary Heroes of Legend, Magical Index, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii, Samurai Girls, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Wallpapers, World God only knows on October 16, 2010| 1 Comment »
Whew, I’ve been beyond busy lately, especially with work, and haven’t had much time at all to post here since the new anime season started. In all likelihood, I’ll merely try to put up a midseason look in a few weeks rather than try to catch up with First Impressions posts.
In the meantime, thought I’d just throw out this quick filler post, with yet another new wallpaper!
It came from the sea, to conquer the world!
As always, click Ika-Musume to see her full size.
Of course, whether conquering the world can be a cinch when you’re as much of an idiot as Ika-chan is… well thats debatable. She can’t even conquer a seaside cafe. Lol. After seeing the above vector, I almost immediately envisaged this wallpaper design, and set to work on it straight away, though the initial version has the tentacle hair blowing through the world. Then I thought, actually, she doesn’t want to destroy it, evil genius style, just control for the sake the environs. So the wrap around was added instead.
From the new season, it seems likely that my lineup is:
Index Season II (well duh, I’m a total fanboy)
Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii (very pleased how well they’ve adapted the novel!)
Shinryaku Ika Musume (naturally, very amusing)
Samurai Girls (not normally my cuppa tea, but the art style has me all ‘oooh’)
World God Only Knows (Only barely holding its slot at the moment, not certain about the adaptation)
Amagami SS (still going from last season, with its awesome dose of Warm and Fuzzy)
Legend of Legendary Heroes (also still going, though sometimes I do wonder why)
And possibles:
Soredemo Machi ma Watteiru (weird, marginally funny, maybe it’ll improve)
Fortune Arterial (always wary of harem animes, but the main hero seems to at least have a spine)
Thats about it for now. Cya soon.
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