Absolutely Tsundere

Is Anime becoming stale?

2010-07-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

Katanagatari's Latest Episode featured a different art style and direction, and a beautiful one at that.

So it's been a while since my last post, honestly I didn't feel up to posting thoughts and impressions on anime every week, for some it may be easy but I have to juggle around with my real life and I'm also in a manga group in which I do editing, so this was something I simply had to drop :P

However the latest episode of Katanagatari that I thoroughly enjoyed got me thinking, is anime becoming stale?

No I'll say this from the start, I'm not implying or saying that anime these days is boring or bad, and we still get some real gems each year. However I still can't help but feel that it's slowly going bland a bit. It's full of cloned harem comedy ecchi series which does little to impress but instead focuses it's efforts onto getting it's viewers excited (in more ways than one.)

Perhaps this is what Japan's audience wants so of course I'm coming from a Western point of view here but for me anime was something that could be animation but pass on an adult story, something we rarely get over here, animation these days is mainly used for children's tv.

So it saddens me to see that there are some series with so little effort put in, no new ideas, just the same mess of ecch-ness. Admittedly these series can be fun from time to time but to see it plague our screen's so often is frustrating.

This is one of the main reasons why I love so many of SHAFT's work, although you may argue they do fanservice here and there what I love about their work is that they go against the norm, they challenge what we as an audience are use to and present us with new different ideas. This is partly the reason why I loved Bakemonogatari so much, it was unlike anything we had seen and actually gave us something to be interested in, rather than just something pretty to look at.

Call it weird or stupid looking but it's the unusual style and scenes like this that I appreciate now and then.

I also like that SHAFT's visual or art direction is different from other studio's, this being most prominent in Bakemonogatari or Hidamari, inserting real life images here and there, perhaps you can argue this is due to lazy animating (which SHAFT is famous for) but it's the weirdness and different ideas that helps SHAFT's work separate from any other anime. Giving us a fresh experience.

Of course this doesn't mean that every other studio isn't doing something new or different, Gainax I'm rather fond of, famous of course for their series Evangelion eventually went on to giving us another popular series Gurren Lagann, it was crazy, silly, funny and over the top, and we loved it! And despite that it wasn't always too serious it managed to give us a story and characters worth being interested in.

I would give other examples but I think you've gotten my point, I think the anime industry needs to focus less on making anime with pretty girls and fanservice, I understand this sells well to a certain audience but there's no reason why they can't give us pretty girls with a decent story sugared in.

However one other thing I want to talk about is the art direction or style if you will for anime. Now really this isn't a complaint, but more of a wish.

I want more anime series to use a different style instead the usual manga and anime style, you may instantly flame me for this but the latest episode of Katanagatari showed how well it could work and it really was an enjoyable experience.

The opening of the latest episode was a stirring and inspiring piece of work.

I'm not saying every other anime should uphold this since it's style is what makes it dynamic and set apart from western cartoons and such, I just don't see why they can't shake things up a little bit.

Well thats my thoughts on the matter, I apologize if it seems jumbled or badly structured but it's 5am for me and I'm too tired to go over this properly :P

Feel free to post your thoughts!

Having a change of things

2010-05-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

So I haven't reviewed anything for a while, the main reason being is that my job is getting in the way of things, leaving me exhausted in which I can barely feel like writing anything up.

However I do continue to follow this Spring Season's Line-Up, so I've decided instead of reviewing each episode each week, instead I'll review each series as a whole once it's finished, this will make things a lot easier for me and I'll find it a lot more fun to write about.

However I will write about my thoughts with new series, covering the first episode, just to get my impression's of it out there.

Whether I'll continue to blog about manga I do not know, I might blog about a month's worth of chapter's or just entirely drop it. Right now talking about manga is not on my priority's.

Other than that I haven't much else to say, I'm looking forward to reviewing my first full series and I hope you guys out there enjoy it, again if anyone wants to join me let me know! Thanks for reading :) Josh~

Arakawa under the Bridge 04 - Yep it's official, I'm in love...(with this anime.)

2010-04-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

I also run away after reading Bleach's latest chapter's, a common reaction among all of us.

Thoughts -

I don't know what I can say in this review that wouldn't differ from last week's, basically I'm going to be praising this episode like a mad fan boy all over again.

This week's episode surprised me actually, whilst the comedy was most certainly still there the first half of this episode had some interesting development between Nino and Ric in which they shared some touching and hilarious scenes together.

It continued from where last week ended, we see how Nino and Ric's date played out (unfortunately Nino did not continue to wear the beautiful dress, perhaps Shaft were too lazy to animate it?). It was pretty cute and funny to see their odd efforts in making a perfect date, with making the correct distance with each other and Ric holding Nino like attempting to hold Nino like a princess, but ultimately doing it entirely wrong.

Cinderella would be a lot less romantic if she had been carried like this.

Of course these odd efforts led to them both being very tired out, it's here Ric decides to ask the question that was burning in his head from the last episode, from when he saw Nino in a dress. Did she wear anything like that in the past? The question however gave off an odd sad reaction off Nino, and what Ric said about her bringing up the topic about being from Venus when not wanting to answer a question appears to be true.

I find this pretty interesting myself as to whether Nino really is from Venus or not, you could call me a complete idiot and say she obviously isn't but this is an anime series we're talking about here, not reality. However assuming of course it isn't true then it'll be interesting if her true past is touched upon.

We actually got to see many different faces and sides of Nino in the first half due to Rics efforts and action's. She was rather touched by the fact he jumped into the river just to let one of her grass boats to flow to the sea. She even blushed! Unfortunately we didn't get a full face shot of it but we could still see that she was blushing.

I really really enjoyed this first half of the episode, and it was wonderful to see that even Nino has a bit of a girly embarrassed side to her, and that perhaps something will grow and blossom between the two. I really hope it does as they can be very cute together, and the two seem to be growing fond of each other.

She's so cute..even when we can only see the bottom half of her blushing face.

So the rest of the episode introduced us to a new character, a little girl named Stella, who knows Sister all the way from England. She is extremely cute and I'm sure many Lolicon's will love her.

However someone has to look after her, many people are busy, and the few that aren't run away before Ric can. So it's up to Ric to look after the cute little Stella. However he soon finds himself warming up to her and she says that she wants a one-on-one, this is her idea of 'playing'.

Poor Ric didn't see what was coming to him, Stella basically almost beat him to death, something I'm sure she learned off Sister. I think she should be added to Street Fighter, trust me she'd fit in fine.

Anyway it's after Ric's beating that we see she's rather demonic underneath the cute little girl appearance and she now regards Ric as someone who is even lower than him. How many more resident's will hate this guy?

Her stare is enough to make Armstrong break into tear's, that's how powerful she is!

We also get to meet Maria, who appears to be a cute farm like lady. However we soon see she's as twisted as all the other resident's. Viciously verbally abusing Ric and Sister whilst maintaining her calm cheerful demeanour is an impressive feat and is pretty funny in it's self. Sister appeared to be able to keep his cool when he was being insulted, saying he was sorry each time she abused him. However in the end his scar ended up bursting with blood blasting out. Even Sister isn't invincible!

This was another great episode and made me like this anime even more than I already did. I'm hoping we get even more development between Ric and Nino as it creates some golden comedy moments and some heart warming scenes.

Now lets hope the next person Ric meets doesn't traumatize him.

Just a quick update!

2010-04-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

For the few who read this blog just a small heads up I'm dropping a few things that I've been reviewing. B Gata H Kei, Kaichou Wa Maid Sama, Naruto (manga) and Bleach (manga).

The reason being that I need less things to review since despite the fact I may be a huge Otaku nerd I still have a life :P

I'm currently having problems with the people that I work with and I'm having to sort out the new college I wish to learn at. Life's a bit hectic for me right now so I'm having to drop quite a few of these things. Also because they are the ones that I do not enjoy reviewing as much as other series.

If however anyone is interested in joining this blog then send me an email at Joshsapple@googlemail.com

Attach a sample of your writing (Preferably an anime or manga review.) so I can decide on whether I'd like you or not.

Anyway small update is over and thank you to anyone out there who perhaps visited this blog, I'm hoping to steadily improve :)

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 54 - Oh the manliness!

2010-04-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

I would love to be hugged by this man.

Thoughts -

Well this was a very solid fantastic episode. I enjoyed myself from start till end with this one. We got to see the conclusion between Mustang Vs Envy, obviously Envy was still unable to put up a fight and the fact he hurt Hawkeye a bit must of furthered Mustang's rage.

It was extremely cool to watch Mustang repeatedly click away and burn Envy relentlessly, and you could really feel a difference from the time where he was killing Lust. This time round you can really see and feel a lot of rage from him. He clearly wasn't holding back.

Lord almighty, I feel my temperature rising.. Higher, higher, it's burning through to my soul! ...I'll stop >.>

I do love seeing how easy it was for Mustang to over-power Envy and as I've said before I hope he's able to burn at least one more person epically before the series ends.

Of course Mustang was stopped from killing Envy, in a way it felt a bit cliché from the speeches Mustang was given about revenge, but they made a good point of that if he intends to become the leader of the country, he cannot let his emotion's sway him so easily.

Envy yet again tried to stir them up, taunting them. But Ed realize's when Envy taunts these people and insults them, secretly he's jealous of humans, that they all have each other to support one another.

In the end he decides to kill himself. It was quite a sad scene and for me I almost felt like Envy gained a bit of humanity, since at his ultimate end, someone was able to understand him.

Armstrong puts his bones back in their socket the manly way!

Also this episode we went back to seeing how the Armstrong twins were doing, Olivia is doing a good job of ordering around the soldier's and taking down the puppet zombie things. However the man who truly shined in this episode of course was Alex Armstrong!

He took a fair beat of beatings from Sloth and it was impressive to see he was still able to stand after such a beating. He even took Sloth's deadly hit just so he could put his shoulder back into place! If that isn't manly or epic I don't know what is.

This lead to a very exciting scene in which Armstrong now was clearly able to overpower Sloth, and the music that was played along with this helped make the scene and character equally epic. If after this episode you still don't like Armstrong then you are insane dear reader!

Superman looks like a little girl compared to Armstrong.

I'm excited to see that Izumi our most cool Housewife is back in the scene of things, read to kick some ass! It was pretty funny to see that this time she decided to introduce herself as an Alchemist rather than just a Housewife. I look forward to seeing what havoc she shall be giving to Central.

Oddly in this weeks episode the ED was gone, well the music was still present but we got a few more extra scenes that mainly focused on us seeing the lead up to Hohenhiem facing Father, very exciting!

Another great episode in which Bones continue to prove their worth! This series really is a delight to watch and I can't wait for next weeks episode! I only hope we get a bit more manly Armstrong >.>

Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei 01 - Have I been smoking weed?

2010-04-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

It's pretty clear which one of them are on drugs here.

Story Premise -

When a college dropout stops for a late night bite at a mysterious ramen stand, he crosses paths with a self-proclaimed deity of matrimony. This bizarre meeting sends the young man hurtling through a horrifying flashback to his not-so-glorious college days when the influence of a cruel new friend turned him from a hopeless romantic into a mischievous “black cupid.”

Thoughts -

I've got to say without a doubt this is the weirdest thing I've seen this season, and most likely the weirdest thing you'll see this season as well.

I wasn't aware of this series until I came across a topic about it on a forum I frequently browse, it sounded interesting and it's made by Mad House, good enough reason for me to watch it!

From the start you'll notice the art direction is very very different and unique from other anime series, even more different than House of Five Leave's art style. The Character designs and the backgrounds are vastly different to what we're use to, and for some it may put you off. However I usually thrive on things like this so it hardly bothered me.

However the animation did look a bit off at times, but then other times it was quite impressive, it certainly is all over the place this anime.

Couple's in Japan are frequently attacked by Fairy's.

The premise it's self is a bit weird as well, as are the two main characters. One thing I struggled with was that they were talking so damn fast that it was difficult to keep up, the dialogue and characters were good enough to interest me though so I'll let the speed rate of speech pass for now.

I'm not sure if these series is going to go down a love genre route or not, or perhaps a love comedy route. That prospect may turn you off but this series does it very differently, it's all so very weirdly wonderful that I'm surprised SHAFT aren't the people behind this series.

She's actually kind of cute, in a weird way that is.

One rare thing that I found with this series is that I like both the OP music and ED music, both just like the anime are very unique. I especially love the ED music, the visuals sort of remind me of tetris and the music is very video game retro in my view.

But in the end what's important is that did the starting episode draw me in? Did it make me want the next episode? And yes I suppose it did manage to draw me in rather well and I'm certainly looking forward to the next episode.

When I had finished watching I was left with an odd feeling which was like 'What the hell did I just watch?' It's so incredibly strange and perplexing and it feels like it'll almost become a genre of it's own.

This is probably the most unique series we've gotten from this season, and I urge anyone with a thirst for something different to check it out, it may not be up to your tastes, and it may be hard to follow, but I'm personally hoping it'll end up being something very special!

One Piece 582 - Trying to hold back the tears myself

2010-04-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

A side of Luffy we've never seen, quite a heartbreaking sight.

Thoughts -

So we got a two week time skip for this chapter, which surprised me since I thought the manga would focus on other characters for the time being during Luffy's recovery. However I have no problem with the skip, I sort of prefer it in a way.

However one thing that confused me was that Law was still around? I thought he was off to the New World, I suppose he intended to over-see Luffy's full recovery. I gotta say I really like Law and I'm hoping him and the Straw Hats continue to have a good relationship or rivalry, perhaps Law will end up being Luffy's pirate rival?

We saw Iva leave along with the other Okama's, another thing that surprised me if i'm honest. I thought Iva would stick around till Luffy was fully healed, not just the injury's but also stick around to make sure his mind would not remain so broken and distraught. I suppose he has other things to attend to though, I wonder if we'll see Iva and Sanji meet?

However of course the big part of this chapter was Luffy going on a rampage around the forest, over-come with despair due to Ace's death. It actually managed to bring a few tears to my eyes when he started to cry, and poor Jinbei seems at loss with how to handle Luffy. My best bet is that Jinbei will eventually be able to turn Luffy around, to properly help him, he'll eventually find the right words for Luffy.

The rest of the chapter gave us a flashback to Luffy's childhood, to be accurate, the time where he first met Ace. We also finally got to see Dadan who doesn't appear to be too fond of having to raise the two. I wonder if we'll see Dadan in any future chapters? I assume we will.

Luffy's mouth continue's to defy the laws of physics... as does most of the story.. (>.>)

All in all it was a decent chapter for me, and I'm still enjoying the refreshing change of pace. I'm looking forward to seeing how Luffy will bring himself back up and where he will go from there regarding his lost crew. But I'm also looking forward to seeing those two's childhood together, I do enjoy getting some light shed on a character's past.

Unfortunately I believe there is no chapter next week due to Golden Week, I may be wrong though it may be the week after we get no chapter...well don't take my word for it :P

Arakawa under the Bridge 03 - Brilliance unfolding beautifully for us viewers

2010-04-20T16:31:00.001-07:00

I think we can all agree that this is one girl we'd like to wake up with, even if she does claim to be from Venus.

Thoughts -

Oh man, episode 2 made me have a much more positive view of this series, but this episode has truly captivated me. I do love SHAFT but they have an annoying habit of giving us a plateful of brilliance and then to our horror the dessert is a plateful of steaming crap.

Dance in the Vampire Bund showed how to take a story and adapt it horribly and take everything that was good and exciting about the manga and suck it dry.

Luckily SHAFT have managed to renew my love for them, this episode continued with the great laughs and also provided us with somewhat touching scenes.

Cuteness becomes effortless for Nino.

The first half of the episode mainly focused on Hoshi (Starhead-Dude) trying to find out why Nino has been sleeping at Riku's lately. Of course anyone would assume they've been having sex the past few days, the truth simply is that Nino sleep walks to places that are more comfortable.

It's hilarious to see the many question's Hoshi asks Riku, and also to see that Sister is basically a lie detector. Something this show does well that Bakemonogatari did well was funny and interesting dialogue, something that can at times be better than any action scene.

I'm hoping and betting that Riku and Hoshi clash once more since it produces some really funny results and there wasn't a minute where I wasn't chuckling or smiling.

For some reason this scene gave me flashbacks to the terrible Matrix revolutions film.

The rest of the episode was spent on Riku trying to go out on a date with Nino, this being his first. Although he was popular with the ladies Valentine's day proved to be torture for him as he sent them all back so he wouldn't be in debt to them, amazing how far that OCD goes huh?

He had a pretty funny plan for a date though, but through it all no matter how romantic it seemed we all knew it wasn't something that Nino would go far. (And personally dining with Japan's Prime Minister doesn't sound all that romantic either.)

It appears that she doesn't want to leave the Riverbank, something that isn't fully explained but in the end she decides she wants to go the River Mouth with him.

To see the grass ships she had sailed down earlier. We didn't actually get to see them do this together unfortunately, which was a shame since it could of been a really touching scene, but we did get something..... which you may argue to be better..

Unfortunately there no words to describe how beautiful she looks in this shot, so I'll just end the sentence now.

Heck Riku should give Nino more dresses since she looks stunning in this one, as he said she was already 'perfect'. It made him wonder whether she wore anything like it in her past, perhaps her past will be something touched upon in future episode's? Who knows.

This was a very funny episode thankfully and I hope SHAFT are able to keep the laughs up, but I'm also hoping we get some development between Riku and Nino, I'm not expecting anything too dramatic, but it'd be interesting to see them walking down the Riverbank holding hands now and then.

But hey if this show doesn't deliver romance related developments I won't hate it for it.

I can only hope that SHAFT manage to turn this into something truly spectacular, because so far I'm loving it and I'm hoping you are as well!

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 53 - Mustang turns up the heat

2010-04-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

'No I do not want any of your products, stop phoning me!'

Thoughts -

So this was an episode I was really looking forward to, and of course once you've seen it you'll understand. it was full Mustang flame madness goodness! Envy really taunted him a lot but he soon realized Mustang wasn't going to be easily swayed or distracted, Mustang appears to be dead set on burning Envy to death!

Now while this was a good episode I did feel a little let down. I was hoping it would match episode 19, the one where Mustang burns Lust to death, probably one of the best and most exciting episode's of the series. But really it was only the last half of the episode that focused on Mustang burning Envy. I have no problem with this though, next week we'll most likely get more burning fun, but I doubt it'll last an episode.

Ed certainly has talent in Alchemy, but it never looks as awesome as this now does it?

However thankfully the animation was fantastic, something this series has managed to keep throughout since the start.

Mustang's flames always look fluid and never look awkward, and it's always a joy to watch. I'm wondering what heights of animation this series will reach when we reach the climatic battle, very exciting indeed.

Also I have to give praise to Bone's as they manage to make a normally calm looking Mustang into a very scary looking Mustang, just from the look on his face you could tell he was filled with rage. I also enjoyed the scene where Envy turned into Hugh's wife, despite it being a different face and body you could still see Envy's mannerism's coming through, impressive work indeed.

However I have to give credit to the voice actors as well. Although we hate Envy for everything he's done, you can't help but feel sorry for him as he runs away from Mustang, screaming from being continually tortured. Mustang isn't trying to kill him as fast as possible, he's inflicting as much pain as possible, to the point where Mustang appears to be a bad guy all of a sudden. This is something that is achieved even better through the brilliant work of the voice actors.

Don't piss off Mustang, he'll make sure you regret it!

I may be mistaken but I believe a new piece of music was played during the scene where Envy was in Hugh's wife's form. It sounded new to me, but even if it isn't, like all the soundtracks for this series it really helped add to the power of the scene and I hope they've got a few more soundtracks left to use to amaze us with.

When I first finished watching this episode I was left feeling somewhat disappointed, but after watching it a second time I see it wasn't bad at all, in fact it was a nice change of pace considering the previous episode was jumping all over the place, this one was mainly set on Mustang and co.

Also it's interesting to see such a calm character lose their cool, where they completely go all out and their anger seems limitless. Mustang proves to be a formidable alchemist when you've done him wrong. I just hope that before this series ends we see him click his fingers one last time.

That Volcano in Iceland doesn't know how to bring the heat like Mustang does.

Next weeks episode appears to conclude this feud between Envy and Mustang, as we also get to see how the Armstrong twins are handling Sloth, thankfully this show won't be dropping the excitement for a single episode, which only makes me want each weeks episode more and more.

A solid episode with some much needed vengeance indeed.

Katanagatari 04 - .....yep, we've been trolled.

2010-04-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

On a brighter note I think we've found the girl to kill Aizen.

Thoughts -

So I'm sure regular watchers of Katanagatari would've been disappointed and confused to see that the preview for this episode, has almost nothing to do with the episode it's self, in fact what we saw in the preview we didn't even see in this episode.

I'll make it clear that this wasn't a mistake on the broadcasters or animation company's fault, this was intended. I have no idea why they did this, it appears in the light novels we don't get to see (well read) about the fight either. I wouldn't mind this so much but the fact they gave us preview so bloody exciting and then gave us something not all that exciting was a massive dick move, I've lost some love for this series.

With that made clear I'll start to talk about the actual episode now. It mainly focused on Shichika's big sister Nanami, where 3 Ninja's from Maniwa Corps, intending to kidnap her. However we have as an audience and the Ninja's have clearly under-estimated her..

Where will Shichika's hands up? I know where mine would go.. >_>

Seriously, none of the Ninja's are able to over-power her, it appears despite the fact she was never trained she's madly powerful. All she has to do is see someone's technique in order to learn it, watching is basically training for her. We see her pick up technique's in seconds that took the Ninja's a good deal of their live's to learn.

She's actually quite scary and disturbing, we hear a childhood story from her about when Shichika kept on biting his nails and wouldn't stop, so she ripped his nails out as discipline, since then he never bit them again. It's effective but fucking scary..

She also had no problem with shoving some blades through one of the Ninja's mouth, she didn't appear to even flinch. She didn't appear to flinch when killing the others either. However this is a trait Shichika appears to share as well, in the last episode when he killed his opponent he did not seem to show any regret or guilt. Truly odd siblings indeed.

I don't care how cute she is, ripping out my nails would make me scared of her for life.

Despite her disturbing this episode was, I do appreciate getting to see what the big sister is up to since Shichika left the island. It was also awesome to see how she could easily over-power those ninja's, in a way I want to see in the future fight someone even stronger.

She did consider leaving the island to join Togame and Shichika and their journey, whether she decides to or not we do not know. I'm hoping she does, she's one character I'd love to see more of.

Oh look, there's the site of the battle we never got to watch.

So despite the fact we were heavily trolled I still did enjoy this episode, Katanagatari continue's to have short battles though, full of plenty of talking. I did have a problem with this at the start but I'm starting to grow use to it.

I'm trying not to get too excited about the next episode in case we get trolled again, either way I'll look forward to Katanagatari in general, and I can only hope that epic fight we hoped for will be released on one of the DVD's.

B Gata H Kei 03 - Uh oh.. is that...genericness I see..?

2010-04-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

A foreign good looking girl rivalling the main girls looks? I smell typical harem..

Thoughts -

Oh no.... BGHK I thought you were better than this...but it seems what I feared may become true...but I hope i'm proven wrong..

So far there's small rather alerting signs of the typical harem show propping up, with the childhood friend who fancys the guy, the of course beautiful main girl who ends up liking him and now with have this above foreign girl...well as long as she doesn't fall for him we'll be safe!

Now odd worry's aside onto my brain's thoughts. Over all it wasn't actually a bad episode, it mainly focused on Kosuda's boring interest in photography and Yamada's continued humorous efforts to seduce him. So far the same formula left un-changed.

I never noticed how hot the teacher is, who else hopes she gets more screen time?

However just because the formula for episode's hasn't changed doesn't mean the episode was any less interesting. Yamada appears to be getting more and more daring with efforts to seduce him. Going far enough to unbutton her shirt and unclasp her bra. However as we all know things don't go according to plan.

But Kosuda does end up feeling up her breasts when attempting to find his way around the pitch black room, he of course has no idea what he's touching, she's of course incredibly nervous and getting turned on.

Despite her frustrations that things didn't work out as she hoped the two of them still shared a nice scene together later on. However after the Tit grabbing experience they have been left very sensitive, where we almost have her masturbating (Not when Kosuda was around mind, she was in her bedroom.)

]

However whenever it seems some feelings may be cropping up she ends up laughing madly at the thought of her finally being ravaged by him. I suppose it'll take some more time for her feelings to become stronger for him.

KissXSis shows a lot more worse things than this and doesn't get censored, I suppose this is what makes us buy the DVD's though.

The rest of the episode focused on the Cultral festival, where Yamada waited in the haunted house to jump onto Kosuda, unfortunately for her, he didn't even show up. Frustrated by this she decides to join the Miss Takizawa High School contest, where people appear to vote for who they think is the best looking.

Yamada clearly over takes everyone with ease until the mysterious foreign girl starts to rival her, Yamada barely wins, she now hopes Kosuda see's how much she's truly worth, though this just makes him think he isn't worthy enough for her, and he has no chance with her. Man talk about frustrating character's huh?

After the festival ends everybody of course dances around the fire together, Yamada waits for Kosuda, but he doesn't show up. Eventually he decides he wants to dance with her, even if he isn't good enough. He ends up having to wait in the line of people wanting to dance with Yamada. and when it's finally his turn the music stops, but they decide to dance together anyway.

Another nice touching scene between the two, which i'm sure will help Yamada's tiny feelings for him to grow.

Crap photo if you ask me, Diane Arbus's work beats this any day (Look her up.)

Like I said before the episode wasn't bad, I just wish they'd shake things up a bit now, maybe add a more serious side now and then?

I'm not completely sure what this show needs right now, I just hope they can keep me interested enough to not drop it.

Kaichou wa Maid-Sama 03 - Tsundere Cuteness Overloooooaaddddd....~

2010-04-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

So cute I cried myself to sleep.

Thoughts -

So this was a pretty decent episode, we got to see some nice development between Misaki and Usui and we also got some more depth added to Misaki's character as we see the length's she will go to in order to perform well at work.

Basically it's the little sister day at the maid cafe (unfortunately not the little sister some may know from Bioshock.) and Misaki clearly has trouble pulling off the little sister act. Even when she manages to do a fairly good act by the end of the episode it isn't head over heels cute.

But those twin tails and her blushing is what makes her the cutest thing this season and since you ask yes this review is going to consist of me explaining why Misaki is so damn cute.

Her sister is pretty cute as well, but lacks the Tsundere quality i'm afraid, 8/10 though.

Also Usui had a considerable amount of screen time I was happy to see, as always it's fun to see how easily he can push her buttons and get under her skin. Especially at the end of the episode where he made her shout at him during her 'Little Sister' act, however she quickly pulled herself together.

The cute 30 year old manager Satsuki noticed Misaki is only able to go to such lengths thanks to Usui, lets just see how long it's going to take the Tsundere to realize that though?

However it seems by the end of this episode Usui has noticed and acknowledged that he likes Misaki, and he's ready to start chasing her, which I'm eagerly looking forward to as this mean's he's really going to start getting to her, and it's going to be even better when she drops her guard around him.

So cute I'm considering on changing this blog's banner.

Also the humour was a bit better in this episode as well, I do enjoy the perverted things he says to Misaki, such as the best colour for her tow ear would be transparent, and that if she was his little sister he'd be very turned on and would take pictures of her when she's sleeping. He sort of does it in a non-pervy way which adds to the hilarity.

My favourite scene without a doubt was when a girl confessed to him and he replied by saying he was a hardcore Otaku who's obsessed with maids and that it turns him on so much that he wears maid uniforms and jumps in joy. If a girl ever confesses's to me without a doubt I shall have a similar response to Usui's.

If I was in this anime I'd probably be joining the manager, or pushing Usui out of the way whilst making Misaki mine.

This was a very fun solid episode, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to and I continue to love Misaki and her Tsundere goodness, I just can't wait for Usui bring all her walls down so we're left with the flustered and very cute Misaki (trust me, there's more cuteness to come.)

Next week another cute girl appears, but we'll all be repeating Admiral Ackbar's famous line.

Angel Beats 03 - ...Oh dear...

2010-04-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

We see this same scene about 3 times, I'm surprised his bladder didn't explode at the end of the episode.

Thoughts -

So this episode was quite disappointing in comparison to the first two episodes, I was left feeling rather odd and unsatisfied.

Not a lot happened in this episode to be honest, we mainly got to find out what killed Iwasawa, the leader of the girl band from the first episode. It was a rather sad fate for her considering her early life was difficult for her, but as she grew up she got stronger and was heading towards a future she enjoyed, singing and playing her guitar. But due to being hit on the head with a bottle during one of her parents past fights, it left her with a Cerebral Infarction that caused her to collapse at work, leading to her being unable to speak, and her eventual death.

It was a rather cruel fate, not as cruel as Yuri's but still a sad one. But it didn't manage to make me tear up, unfortunately this episode was where we got to know Iwasawa for the first time properly, so it's hard to cry over a character we've only just been introduced to.

I'd probably have the same reaction, I suck at maths.

However I was liking Iwasawa, she's voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, one of my favourite voice actors. There was another concert in this episode, although I'm not sure if it's Miyuki who does the singing or not, either way I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately at the end of the episode Iwasawa simply just disappeared, Angel didn't get rid of her, from what we can assume she simply accepted what happened, and no longer wanted to fight against god. I was quite annoyed to be honest, we spent a whole episode getting to know a character only for her to be taken away from us, it felt like the episode was completely un-needed!

It was all very frustrating, I'm hoping that the other character's pasts aren't revealed too early any more as it's really softening the blow and it's no where near as emotional as it could be.

She's also pissed off that she left the show on it's 3rd episode.

However one thing I found interesting was the scene's involving Angel. It seems she's rather perplexed by the fact everyone consider's her as the bad guy. We also find out she gets her abilities the same way the group get their guns. It seems you can almost get anything from dirt these days. You'd think Angel would get them from God, so it makes me think she's actually the innocent one, I'm thinking Otonashi is going to be the one who gets to know her properly.

With Iwasawa gone does this mean the awesome concert scenes are as well? Even more reason to dislike this episode.

Like I said this episode was some what of a let down, perhaps my expectations for this series have been too high, but I'm still hoping to be impressed by it, perhaps the best is yet to come?

I suppose we'll find out in the coming weeks, lets hope the next episode isn't as disappointing.

Durarara 14 - Shingen, best character so far?

2010-04-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Shizuo doesn't ask for a ride, you just give him one regardless.

Thoughts -

This episode wasn't what I was expecting,I was expecting for Anri to be pretty shaken up by the whole experience of seeing people being brutally attacked, but we didn't really focus on her as much as I thought we would.

With that said this episode was not necessarily a bad one, in fact we did spend most of last episode focused on Anri so another one focused on her would be slightly out of place or perhaps boring.

Instead we continue to move the story along, where Shingen (Shinra's dad.) continue's to be a great source of amusement for us, but he seems to be slightly twisted underneath, as we find out he was the one who sold Celty's head.

The reveal of this was actually a rather funny scene, Shingen accidentally slipped it out, and pretended to use the elevator to escape in which Celty rides out of a window to chase him, only for him to come out of hiding from the stair way.

Not only is he funny but he also rocks at hide and seek.

However one thing I must bring up again is how much I hate Celty and Shinra loving each other, as we've seen in this episode Shinra has been keeping things from Celty, It makes me wonder if he's been hiding anything else.

One scene I appreciated though was Celty having a small talk with Mikado, it's nice to see they aren't strangers to each other, and I'm hoping they work together again soon, the boy who wants an extraordinary life will surely need another adventure with Celty.

Shingen appears to be working with Izaya and Namie, and the war Izaya is planning is coming together faster than he expected. My best bet is that he intends to get the the coloured gangs into another fight, Dollars vs The yellow Scarves. Unless more of the coloured groups return. Either way it's going to be exiciting to see how it comes together.

And the pervet teacher strikes again, perving on Anri again, he creeps me out as well. Although Kida came to the rescue again and mentioned the girl Niekawa, the girl who changed schools due to the perveted teacher. He seemed very nervous when her name was mentioned, it makes me wonder whether we'll be seeing her in a future episode or not. I'm sure this is an important plot point or they wouldn't continue to bring up the topic now and then.

He wears a mask and carry's toy guns around? How much cooler can Shingen get?

Also it's revealed that the Slasher may not be just one person, but it's a sword named Saika that possess's people. However I find it weird that during the moment's the Slasher is doing their work, a person named Saika appears in the dollars chat room spouting random sentences, I know it's a demon sword but how and why is it going on a chat room, that's a bit of an odd spirit surely.

Anyway it appears Shingen used this sword to take Celty's head, which I find sort of confusing, but I'm sure we'll get some more information on it later. Shinra had a pretty half-arsed excuse for not telling Celty this in the first place, and I'm sort of hoping Celty see's Shinra isn't someone you can put a lot of trust in.

Another thing that confused me is that we've seen the Slasher use a katana before in one of their attacks, which I assume is the demon sword Saika it's self. But we've also seen the Slasher using ordinary knives, seems a bit random and out of place to me.

So far this episode only brought up more questions than answers, this isn't a bad thing though since it's nice for a story to retain it's mystery this far ahead, it's the main reason why I eagerly look forward to this show each week.

I had a lot of mixed feelings with this episode, but I'm left looking forward to next weeks since it appears Celty and Shizuo shall be working together, perhaps they'll end up encountering the Slasher? Although it seems the Slasher is about to attack Anri, I can make out who the Slasher is from this though, the preview being the main hint, but as we know the Slasher doesn't appear to be the same person throughout the attacks.

Either way i'm hoping we get a bit more answers soon, I'm itching for some.

(sorry if this review was a bit off, i'm very tired and exhausted, so bear with me.)

House of Five Leaves 01 - An oddly relaxed show, but hard not to love

2010-04-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

This may end up being one of my favourite shows of the season.

Thoughts -

First thing I have to say is that the OP music is amazing, I love it more than Arakawa under the bridge's OP, I demand you enjoy it too. (If any of you want to get your hands on the song it's by Immi - Sign of Love, and it's being released this month on the 19th.)

Now this was one show I was really looking forward to, it has a unique style and appeared to also have a unique story-line. Although the style may feel weird or uncomfortable at first, you later begin to grow accustomed to it and even start to appreciate it.

So far not much of the story line has been given away, in fact i'm not sure whether this show even has a driving plot with it, it seems like we'll just be following the main character and his experiences with the House of Five Leaves group. This isn't really much of a problem, I don't expect every anime show to feed me an epic plot, in fact anime like this can be a welcome change of pace.

In fact the pace felt quite relaxed and slow, it never really got flashy or grippingly exciting (there was a fight scene if you would call it a fight scene that is.) But despite the quite relaxed tone and low action I found myself weirdly compelled by this show.

Searing hot magma like leaves were an issue in the olden days of Japan.

I'm honestly not too sure what I liked about this show, was it the awesome OP? The unique art style? The relaxed atmosphere? The Characters? I'm not sure what it was, but I do have a habit of being drawn to shows that can be quite un-usual (Bakemonogatari being a good example.)

Speaking of Bakemonogatari one of it's voice actors are in this anime and I have to say I do like his work a lot, he has a very diverse voice and he really does sound like the most relaxed guy in the world (Ironically he was quite energetic in Bakemonogatari.) Suppose that's credit to his skills huh? The other voice actors aren't all that bad either and they also retain quite the relaxed feel.

I'm not sure whether she's meant to be cute or not.. the art style doesn't make the characters attractive but more mutant-like.

The animation quality appears to be fairly solid, the tiny action scene didn't really show us how good the animation could be, but it never dis-pleased me. I have to mention the background scenery though, if you take your time to see the world around the characters at times you'll see how heavily detailed and well realized the backgrounds are, it's quite captivating.

The character designs are of course odd but have a certain charm to them, at least we can assure the show won't attempt to dish out any fan-service.

The two main characters we've been introduced to are certainly interesting though, our Ronin Bodyguard Akitsu, a very strong samurai although his personality would not suggest to, he appears to be very cowardly and does not like drawing attention to himself.

Our other main guy Yaichi is the leader of a group named 'Five leaves' who go around kidnapping peoples children, and in return get ransom money. However we see his group's intentions may not be as cold as we think, and he doesn't seem all that bad either, i'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

Who doesn't enjoy eating a nice twig now and then?

As much as I liked this starting episode I wouldn't say it impressed me, I feel as it progresses though it's going to really become something special, and I can't wait to see how this show evolves.

It seems Akitsu may be having sex in the next episode, although with his personality I'm sure he won't.

Bleach 400 - Aizen continue's to be extremely boring

2010-04-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

You would've thought they just flick bits of ink at the page.

Thoughts -

So Bleach continue's to be very boring to the point where vomit would probably be more appealing, at least it would have some fucking detailing to it. (seriously, whats with the constant white background?)

Again it wasn't an exciting chapter, however it seems Gin's bankai doesn't simple go really long, it can extend and retract at roughly the speed of sound, meaning Ichigo will have toruble avoiding it. But at this point I question how useful Gin's bankai still is. I thought the whole point of Ichigo's bankai was to compress his strenght in favour of higher speed, plus if he put on his mask i'm sure he'd no trouble avoiding Gin's sword.

Somehow this seems like an easy win for Ichigo, although I don't see there being a conclusion to their fight.

Umm that's great and all, but how long will it take for you become a decent character?

As you can probably tell I've got a bit a disliking for Aizen, no actually I hate him. Seriously it gets pretty boring having to seem him stand there with a smug look on his face all the time, and he just won't shut up. I'm hoping someone has a Bankai that renders Aizen mute.

He's become a boring villain that you really don't like, not because of his actions but just because he's not interesting at all, we've been given this smug ass character and he's barely changed. Gin's bankai may not all be that great but at least he's an interesting character, plus he retains quite a bit of mystery to himself.

Quite simply as always this was a very disappointing chapter, and for the 400th chapter we didn't really get anything special either. Maybe in the 500th chapter Kubo will learn how to draw backgrounds.

One Piece 581 - Times are certainly changing, here comes the New Era!

2010-04-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

For once he's not covered in bandages, no quick recovery for Luffy this time.

Thoughts -

So of course the action has died down now, which is a welcome change of pace, I enjoyed reading and seeing the immense number of fights going on, it really was quite hectic in a good way.

But now the war is over the story is moving along even more. I was surprised to see the super nova's were outside witnessing the war, i'm glad none of them (well except for Law.) turned up to par-take, I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of them soon though. Bonny seems quite pissed off with someone though, I'm thinking she may be angry at Luffy (no idea why she would be, but she doesn't seem to be that fond of the straw hats in the first place.)

Also we got some fortune telling from Hawkin's regarding Luffy's likely-hood of surviving, it appears his survival rate never becomes zero. Considering he's the main character and all this would appear obvious to the reader, but it seems Luffy has got a lot of treatment ahead of him.

I'm kind of glad to see he won't be up and about in just a few days, and I also suspected Hancock would have him taken to the Amazon Lily, I'm just wondering if Oda is going to add a twist to Luffy's recovery. But from the looks of things the focus will be taken off Luffy for a bit, which shall be interesting.

Law looks weirdly bad-ass there, but the size of Boa's breasts heavily distract us from his awesomeness.

Also I'm very glad to see Iva and Jinbei survived, I was scared their wounds were going to cost their lives. But i'm wondering whether Iva will go back to his kingdom or stay with Luffy during his recovery, considering his Dragon's son and all. Although if Iva goes back to his kingdom he'll end up meeting Sanji, or if Iva decides to see Dragon for all we know Robin may be there, seems Iva may help bring some of the Straw hats back to their captain, lets wait and see.

Also i'm surprised at what Blackbeard did in Level 6, he's a lot more cruel and evil than he seems to be. Although I wonder who will be the Marines main concern, Luffy the son of Dragon or Blackbeards crew? Well as long as the Marine's don't know that Luffy is slowly recovering he'll be safe for a bit.

However it seems the higher ups may be making an appearance soon, at least their presence is starting to feel clear, ordering that it must be kept quiet that dangerous pirates escaped from Level 6, Sengoku did not appear pleased.

It'd be a lot cooler for him if he didn't die at all really.

Also it seems Doflamingo is getting orders from the higher ups, to kill Moria it seems. Bit of an odd move, and why is someone like Doflamingo working with the higher ups? Although it's been made clear if he's taking orders from the Marines, it makes me think he may be working with our old friend Enel, I mean he's up on the moon right now, and Doflamingo did point up saying 'Try higher'.

A very interesting chapter, after a week without One Piece this was very enjoyable, and I'm just as eager for next week's!

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya - Do KyoAni manage to redeem their selves?

2010-04-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm with Kyon, I'm not a glasses man either. Although Nagato still never fails to be cute.

From the start I knew this was going to be difficult for me to review and talk about, for a lot of us Haruhi fans we were let down by Season 2, it was bare on new material, and the Endless Night Arc was what really disappointed us, having an unforgiving amount of episodes repeating basically the same events.

The Disappearance of Suzimaya Haruhi was a story we were all hoping to be adapted, we didn't get but the at the end of Season 2 we found out instead we'd be getting a film of it. Some of us were very excited, others weren't happy, left pessimistic due to Season 2.

So the question being, does this film make up for Season 2's short comings? Is it the experience we all wanted? I can happily say with certainty, this film was everything we wanted.

It was an experience the anime would not be able to deliver, the anime was indeed a good one, but this film is the first time we really have such powerful, wonderful and beautiful moments in the Haruhi story. The story gets deeper, more complex, more wonderful and some of the characters start to evolve and develop.

The story places during December 17th until the 24th, a month after North High's cultural festival. On the 17th everything is normal, the SOS Brigade plans to have a party for Christmas, However the next day Kyon arrives at school to find everything has changed, different, Suzumiya Haruhi is no where to be seen. And Ryoko Asakura is now an ordinary student. Unfortunately for Kyon he's the only one who is aware of the change. Nagato is now an ordinary human, Mikuru doesn't know who he is either, The only clue he has is a bookmark left by our Alien Nagato, leading Kyon on a journey back in time whilst trying to sort out the odd mystery and return to his old time line

So far this truly unlike any of the other story's we've been introduced to, and it remains as one of the strongest so far

As far as my knowledge goes, the film does not appear to use any of the anime's soundtracks, although the film does use the first Season's OP music, which was quite welcomed if I'm honest.

With that said I'm glad the film didn't use any of the anime's soundtrack, it came with it's own, and one that truly added to the atmosphere and power to many of the scenes, I feel it's something the original soundtrack would not be able to live up to. Kyon's VA Tomokazu Sugita continues to do impressive work, the emotion and effort he puts into this translates to the audience strongly and easily, and he continues to be a character we can so easily relate to and like.

Since this a completely different world to the one we're use to, we get to see one of the usually quiet characters in a different light. Nagato although still having the passion for reading, is now a bit more open, and we see a wide array of emotions from her which is a wonder to see. She's all kinds of cute as she blushes, smiles, grabs onto Kyon's coat so he won't leave. It almost feels like this is the Nagato hidden deep inside our Alien Nagato.

A world without Haruhi and the others is surprisingly stressful on Kyon, when he's reunited with her you can't help but want to cheer a little, and despite the fact she has no idea who he is and although she isn't our old world god Haruhi, it's still essentially the Haruhi we all know. However these two share a common memory, something that forever links them together, the man John Smith who inspired her as a child. Otherwise known as Kyon's time travelling alias.

We get to see everything come together, it doesn't happen too slowly or too fast either, the film keeps a fine pace throughout till the end. We eventually get to the New Worlds group re-united, they may not all know each other right now, but it's still a joy to see them all in the same room together again.
However with the group re-united the old world's Nagato has presented Kyon with a difficult choice, he's given a chance to return to his old world, the crazy world that gives him so much grief, or this new normal world, one he has longed for. Despite this it is no difficult choice for Kyon, he would choose his own original world any day.

However here's where the story will get really fun for a Haruhi fan, as it starts getting strongly related to the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody episode, where we find out there was a lot more going on than we first thought. Not everything is back to normal for Kyon yet, but he's getting there.

After the older Asahina meets him again they both go to Nagato, where Kyon learns who is behind this world changing event, the person he least expected it to be, Nagato! He's obviously bewildered by the fact she will be and was driven to such a point. He now goes back to the time before the world changed, to witness where and when Nagato changes the world, and where she and everyone else is essentially re-born. It's here he will be able to fix everything.

Again the film manages to pull out another incredible scene, it truly is amazing how emotional it can be. For most of the series we've seen Nagato so dormant, so quiet, one could not imagine how troubling things were actually getting for her. She was tired from running around for Haruhi, saving everyone, and most likely having to sort out other things as well. Her changing the world was not due to any ill intention, the Alien Nagato says it was due to an error, one she cannot counter due to her not understanding how the error was triggered. But Kyon understands and knows what it is, it's no error of hers, no bug of hers, it's emotions developing within her.

As Kyon says, she was designed to be emotionless, so for emotions to start developing within her, she has indeed a very strong reaction to it. She was being relied on heavily by the others and especially Kyon, just leaving her to deal with everything, the immense pressure lead to Nagato wanting to change the world, she yearned for a normal world.

However we find out the reason as to why Kyon was the only one who's memory remained unaffected, this was because Nagato wanted to let Kyon make the choice.
However this not only builds on Nagato's character, but ends up building on Kyon's as well. He begins reflecting on everything that he's been through, all the incidents he's gone through due to Haruhi, he asks himself.. 'Don't you find such an extraordinary school life fun?'. This was a question he needed to ask himself, after being presented with such a normal world that he dreamed of having, he ended up choosing the world he appeared to loathe so much. The high-speed talks from an alien, the classified information from the cute second year time traveller, the too close in your face Esper, the bossy Haruhi with unfair demands and the countless affairs he's pushed into.
He realizes, that world he wanted, wasn't interesting at all. Despite everything he's been through, the many complaints he made, but it didn't matter, because of course he obviously found that world 'fun'

This is not only a very important part of the film but an important development for Kyon, we've had him moan and complain a lot since the series started, this usually lead to some funny narration, but it was important that he realized without Haruhi and the others, that world of his, he would not be happy at all. He appeared to not enjoy Haruhi's antic's, but it's obvious to him now, he was enjoying himself and having fun.

However before Kyon can set everything right though he has to use the injection like gun Nagato gave him, he must inject the restoration program into her after she has altered the world. However the crazed Asakura stops him with a knife to the stomach, it seems this time she managed to get him huh? It's quite a frightening scene, as this is the first time we've seen Kyon properly and badly injured, however the one who ends up saving him is himself, a future variant it seems along with the younger Asahina, the Asahina we all know. The future Kyon tells himself just to sleep and next thing we see is Kyon waking up in hospital.

He's back in his world, the time is right, the place is relatively right. But he's not in the hospital due to being stabbed, apparently he fell down the stairs and his head got a rather strong blow leading to a 3 day coma. Of course everyone was in panic (well except for Nagato retaining her level-headedness, which was what saved him.) Although Koizumi was the one Kyon waked up to see, it turns out Haruhi was in a sleeping bag the entire time beside Kyon's bed, it was quite clear she was the most worried about him, refusing to leave his side. It's small things like this that we see how much Haruhi must truly care for Kyon.

Kyon eventually gets to talk with his Nagato again, it appears her superiors will be delivering her a punishment, and her days with Kyon and the others are nearing it's end. However Kyon simply will not allow it, if Nagato is taken from him, he's ready to plunge the universe into hell if it means getting Nagato back. He realizes he is just an ordinary human with no special powers, but he's the only person who can convince Haruhi, with the simply name of 'John Smith'.

It's a very touching and beautiful scene, Kyon grips her hands tightly to show he won't let her to be taken from him and the others, and tell her superiors that he would tell Haruhi everything if Nagato is taken. Nagato sends the messages, and then utters a sentence we rarely hear, in fact I believe it may be the first time we've ever heard it. She says 'Thank you' to Kyon, a simple thing it's self, but for the lonely quiet alien Nagato, it's a big step.

At the end of the film everything is back to how it should be for Kyon, the world he knows so well and has grown so comfortable with. He realizes that he needs to go back in time to restore the world as he saw, but right now he decides it can wait, right now he simply wants to try some of Haruhi's special hot pot first, enjoying the world he has returned to and loved.

The credits roll but there is one small scene left, we see Nagato sitting in the library reading a book, she looks up to see a small boy and girl, the boy is getting a library card for her, just as Kyon once did the first time him and Nagato went to the library together. It's clear it's a memory that she keeps close to her heart, and a wonderful end to the film.

I went into this film not sure of what to expect, after Season 2 I was anxious to expect anything too good, but surely they couldn't mess this up. I'm glad to see they didn't, by the end of the film I was left with my mind blown and mentally exhausted from such an exhilarating story and adventure I witnessed. The animation was of course decent, and at times came through really beautiful, they clearly had no need to hold back. The music as I said was perfect in this film, it seemed to match my excitement and also made my excitement build at the same time, meaning there was no point in the film where you started to get bored.

And of course the story was brilliant, a more serious side to the Haruhi world that was very welcome, it helped some of the characters grow and evolve, and has expanded the story greatly. However this film made me left with a thirst for more, to continue seeing the adventures Haruhi and Kyon go through together, where your left just as excited as Kyon is to see what fun he has ahead of him, lets just hope we get a Season 3, because this is one story that I don't think I will ever be able to tear myself away from till it's end.

Beelzebub 56 - Odd matches, but exciting chapters ahead

2010-04-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

When Oga hits someone, he sure does it with style and awesomeness.

Chapter Summary -

Everyone makes their move this chapter, and we see who shall be fighting who. Aoi recieves a damaging blow from Mikki but manages to counter him the second time, Tatsuya appears to be fighting the 'moe' man with the sword, an odd combination indeed. So how will Oga and his match up fair together..?

Thoughts -

This was quite the cool odd chapter indeed.

I call it odd since the matches up I did not expect, I thought Oga would be fighting Mikki but it seems he's fighting the guy who he gave a small quiz to last time. It appears the one who shall be fighting Mikki is Aoi, a match up i'm concerned about. So far it's been implied Mikki is extremly strong, and it appears he'd be almost too much for even Oga to handle, so i'm hoping Aoi won't receive too much of a beating.

Mikki you better not hurt my Aoi too much, or heads will roll!

It's nice to see Oga finally over-power one of these guys though, they've been under-estimating these guys a lot so Oga finally punching them so hard that they go flying back is an extremely satisfying thing to see.

I'm guessing this fight will be cut short though, I can see it being interrupted by teacher's or something, since I'm sure eventually, Oga will face Mikki and eventually somehow take him down.

Things are indeed getting more exciting as each chapter passes, lets hope Oga manages to over-whelm this guys and show them how strong he can truly be.

Arakawa under the Bridge OP

2010-04-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

I can't stop listening to it!

Arakawa under the Bridge 02 - Better than the first episode, and i'm in love with the OP

2010-04-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ok she's weird, but she's extremely cute even if she is about to eat a fish raw.

Episode Summary -

The episode focuses on Riku and him still adapting to his new lifestyle. He's managed to have get some nice furniture for his new home. It hits him that Nino is actually currently his Girlfriend, in his room with him. This makes him start to feel nervous and he attempts to strike up a conversation with her, but fails due to her plain weirdness.

Later on as Riku is sitting by the river he realizes how much he would love to have a Bath, at this moment he turns round to see Nino in a barrel bathing and chanting. After she's finished he climbs in and he then has his hair washed by her, due to his upbringing he says he'll pay her back for doing it, but she says there's no need to, since she did it because she wanted.

After this Riku is introduced to the rest of the people who live along with beside the river, he introduces himself wrongly causing the mayor to kick him, Riku then corrects himself and introduces himself as Nino's love, something some of the residents are un-happy with.

Later on a mass is held with a Sister who's actually a man with a gun, causing a lot of fright to Riku, but the Sister turns out to be kind but of course just like the residents, very weird.

Thoughts -

I've decided to start blogging this since although I didn't like the first episode, this second episode has made me like the anime a lot more than I initially did.

The first thing I have to mention though is the OP for this, I'm not usually all that into Japanese music, nor am I always bothered in the OP for anime series. But I really liked the music used for this OP, it wasn't the generic crap I usually hear in most anime OP's these days, I like the singers voice a lot, plus Nino was all kinds of cute in it!

Those two look oddly cute together, no matter how many fish surround them.

The episode was very funny though, it was fun to see Riku trying to find something to talk about to Nino, but realizes that no ordinary points of interest will apply to her. He ends up saying to her 'it must be spring on Venus right now?' (she claims to be from Venus.) It was funny to see how much effort it took him to do it, and how Nino looked rather bewildered by him.

Later on you could say we got some Nino fan service? To be honest when I saw Nino in that bath barrel I half-expected for us to get some naked Senjougahara treatment, turns out she was wearing a towel the entire time she was in the bath. But it was a strangely touching scene when she was washing his hair (despite the fact she was using cleanser that they use in sinks.) The last time someone had done that for him was his Father, and he was forced to do the same thing back to his Father in return.

It feels like Nino actually cares for Riku a bit, rather than just following what lovers do. Perhaps we'll actually see something blossom between the two?

Is it me or do girls look ten times hotter when they put their hair up? Nino pulls it off very well.

Although we were introduced to the other Resident's we haven't really gotten to know them much yet, I'm assuming they'll be touched upon in the upcoming episodes, but so far it seems very few of them like Riku, later on the Sister said a lot of them had confessed to him saying they wanted to hit Riku, a funny scene in it's self, but you can't help but feel sorry for Riku, lets hope he pulls through.

The five-second mass was pretty funny as well, where the Sister-man simply asked if anyone had done anything bad, that was it. If every church was like that I may of been more Religious as a child. But the Sister-man appears to be a kind man, if you ignore the fact he uses a gun to get peoples attention, but hey it can also fire Rose's to be put into Nino's hair!

Jesus approves of this anime man.

A very strong episode for me, the animation can feel a bit off at times but it wasn't enough to stop me from enjoying myself and I'm really looking forward to future episodes, I'm just hoping we do get some sort of development when it comes to Riku's and Nino's odd relationship, I'm not expecting drama, but at least something would be nice.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 52 - If only every other anime could stay as consistently good as this one does

2010-04-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their part to play on the promised day, even Yoki, hard to believe isn't it?

Episode Summary -

The episode starts out with Al fighting with Pride and Kimblee, despite him being out-numbered, the philosophers stone gains him a huge advantage in which he can use a vast amount of tricks. Eventually he manages to seal pride in darkness again.

However after Kimblee has a small talk with Al, he reveals he also has a philosopher's stone, making things even worse for Al.

Elsewhere, Alex and Olivia continue their fight with Sloth, who is starting to get annoyed by the amount of times he's getting killed, and decides to actually put some effort into the fight. It's here we see that Sloth isn't as slow as his name or personality suggests, he is in fact the fastest Homunculus, moving so fast that Alex and Olivia have a hard time following him. He may be fast, but he can't keep up with it himself though, causing him to smash all over the room. He then aims for Olivia, and appears to succeed.

Back to Al and his fight, Kimblee manages to find where Al is amongst the all the smoke, although Al when found continues to make another smoke-screen. However with Pride's now keen sense of smell he is able to pin point where Al is. But the smoke-screen wasn't just for hiding Al, it was able to let Heinkel take down Kimblee with a bit to the throat.

We then come back to Ed and the gang as they continue to fight the mindless dummy's, we also see that Sloth failed in fully injuring Olivia, as Alex stopped the blow, he then drops Sloth down to the below floor. However Sloth then crumbles the above floor causing Olivia and Alex to fall down with him.

It's later revealed the smoke-screen Al used was able to let him give the stone to Marcoh so Heinkel could be partly healed. Pride goes and advances onto Marcoh in order to get rid of him, but Yoki intervenes and manages to get everyone to escape safely. Afterwards with Kimblee slowly dieing and un-able to breathe, Pride eats Kimblee in order for replenishment, and also so Kimblee could live on in Pride and see what the world would turn into, something he wish to see.

As Olivia gains consciousness again she See's Alex has managed to stop Sloth in his tracks temporarily. It's during this moment the Dummy's also arrive in on the scene, attacking the various soldier's. Olivia then makes it clear the soldiers need to make a choice, either kill her and Alex on the spot, or team up with them so they can both live.

We eventually come back to Mai as we see her avoiding Envy's blows, and along with having to avoid the many dummies, however they continue to be an endless source of power for Envy. Again back to Ed and gang as they are still dealing with all the Dummies, they're all reaching there limit and slowly getting the clear disadvantage. It's at this moment that Mustang arrives and burns a good number of the Dummies, offering his help to Ed and the team.

Thoughts -

This was a very action packed episode, and the focus was switching all the time, but it wasn't so much that it made anything confusing, and it managed to keep the episode exciting through out it all till the end.

There was some nice animation from Al using the philisophers stone, sometimes bordering on movie animation levels. It was very cool to see Al over-power Kimblee and Pride. Usually the characters get out of wits and worknig together as a team, so it was nice to see Al kick some ass on his own.

My favorite bit and a part I've been looking to for a while was Heinkel take a bite into Kimblee's neck, it's a very cool and shocking scene.

There's such a thing as biting off more than you can chew, with Heinkel that's rarely a problem.

I enjoyed seeing Sloth vs Alex and Olivia, it's sort of delicous irony to see that Sloth is actually the fastest Homunculus. It almost gave Olivia her end if it wasn't for Alex, so it was a strong moment seeing despite Sloth's bigger build Alex managed to stop him.

I'm wondering if Sloth's own end will be next episode, suppose we'll find out next week.

One thing I have to mention though is that during the middle of the episode they used the OP music during some of the fight scenes, for me this felt very odd and out of place and felt entirely un-needed. It took away from the scenes if anything. I'm fine with the ED music mixing in with the show if it's about to transition into the ED sequence, same with the OP music. But having it in the middle just felt really weird.

Armstrong continues to prove how epic he is, nothing can stop those bulging muscles!

Mai's scene was quite short compared to the rest of the gangs air-time, but we'll be seeing more of Envy next episode, and guys this is an episode you are not going to want to miss!

The end of this episode surely proves that next weeks episode is going to be exciting, Mustang is back on the scene, and it won't just be small flicks of flames.

A very good episode that kept the excitement running constantly, and has gotten me really pumped up for next weeks episode, get ready guys for one hell of an episode!

He's literally going to burn your ass!

FullMetal Alchemist 106 - Each chapter continues to leave us eager and excited for more

2010-04-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

This chapter was indeed beyond awesome, quickly! Go read it!

Chapter Summary -

Scar explains what his brother realized and learned during the Ishbal war, and the measures he took to stop Father's plan.

With this Ed and the others now have access to the limitless energy of the Earth, in which they barely have to put any effort in their alchemy to attack Father, despite the fact none of their attacks are reaching him, Hohenheim tells them though that every attack helps, and the longer time goes on the closer Father will go to breaking point.

Father then proceeds to move upward in order to replenish his stone supply. Everyone begins to make their way upwards as well, all except for Ed, who has his showdown with Pride.

Pride explains how exactly he managed to force Mustang to open the gate, but it came at a price of his body now starting to break apart. However since Ed shares the same blood as Pride does, this makes him a strong candidate for a new container, in which proceeds to attempt and take over Ed's body.

During this moment Kimblee shows up in Pride's mind, Pride is initially confused as to how Kimblee has managed to keep his sense of self in the typhoon of souls, but Kimblee remarks that for him screams on anguish are like lullabies to him. Ed then manages to turn the tables, Pride assumes he is going to be killed, but Kimblee knows exactly that is not what Ed intends to do.

Ed turns himself into a philosopher's stone and invades pride, ridding him of the many souls that kept him together, reducing him to a form similar to that of Envy's. Ed lays the now Small pride in his jacket, he tills him to wait there, and once everyone is all over he is going to apologize to Mrs.Bradley.

Meanwhile Hohenheim manages to turn up in time to stop Father from replenishing his stone. Hohenheim then goes on to say to Father that his existence is dead end, it's here Father demonstrates the ability to create human body's for the people of Xerxes, the king being one of the people among them, causing distress to Hohenheim.

However Father then goes onto wipe out the re-born people, filling Hohenheim with rage, and with that the chapter ends.

Thoughts -

I'm sure anyone who's already read this chapter will agree that it was extremely exciting, it's cool to see how the homunculus weren't the only ones with a plan behind their sleeves, and that the humans were just as prepared.

Seeing everyone work together to attempt to get Father down was also nice to see, but I can't help but feel that if Mustang had his sight, they would have an instantly huge advantage. However I think he's going to have Hawkeye direct his attention to where Father is, so he can still have a few more flames in this series.

However the highlight of the chapter for me had to be Ed Vs Pride, it's been clear for a few chapters that there was something with Pride since he had his hand over his right eye all the time, and we finally see why and how he got Mustang to open the gate, I'm glad that wasn't left open in the air.

Arakawa's art continues to be pretty damn awesome, I'll miss it once FMA is finished.

I also enjoyed seeing Kimblee make a return, he wasn't one of my favorites but I really did love him making a comeback in this chapter. His small speech about Pride was pretty good to, since it showed that in Prides desperation, he had given up all sense of his own Pride. I think for Kimblee it was a better send off than we initially thought he had.

Also I'm wondering how Ed managed to reduce Pride to his true form? Maybe he learned how to from Marcoh? I'm a bit confused on that matter but it was still a very cool scene, and also interesting to see that Ed still retains his not killing ethic even with a Homunculus.

What a cool send off, goodbye Kimblee, we'll all miss your insanity and love for Anguish Lullabies.

Not too sure how I felt about Father having some of the Xerxes people being re-born, that was quite an awkward scene, maybe that was the intended effect. I'm hoping that in the next chapter though Mustang manages to help everyone at least in some way.

Although Ed and Al still need to retrieve their bodies, whether this will happen before or after they defeat Father, well I guess we'll have to wait and see. But I'm thinking that if they manage to get their bodies back they can surely get Mustangs eyes back no? Next months chapter can't come any sooner!

Durarara 13 - Things are taking a disturbing turn

2010-04-10T16:43:00.000-07:00

Seriously these two creep the fuck out of me, but they're not the disturbing turn I speak of.

Episode Summary-

The episode starts off with some news clips concerning Celty and the Slasher who's been slashing all kinds of people. We later move onto Ryūgamine and Sonohara has Kida teases them both a little.

Later on Celty is confronted by the police, her odd powers don't make them falter causing her to hastily make an escape as they chase her, along with one police-man who seems hell-bent on capturing her. After Celty manages to escape her pursuer's she seeks comfort in Shinra, but is later asked to pick up his father, someone she does not particularly like.

Here we see him wearing a gas mask being threatened by some thugs, in which Celty scares them away. Later on we see that the yellow scarfs gang are back about as well, and it appears Kida has had past relations with them.

Lastly as Sonohara is walking home she is confronted by the 3 bitches, pushing her about and mouthing abuse at her, it's here the Slasher appears and attacks them, leaving Sonohara witness to this.

It would be cool to see the Slasher and Shizuo fight, but I think it's safe to say that if he's killed fans would rage!

Thoughts -

So now the whole Celty's head arc is finished (well I assume her head will be re-united with her by the end.) we're now focusing on the other oddity of this story, the Slasher!

I'm not a big fan Seiji and Harima as you may of guessed, they seriously do creep me out and I'm hoping we don't see them again in the show (plus Seiji in particular annoys me.) I'm also not all that big on Mikado and his conversations with Sonohara, it's not much fun watching them barely being able to talk to each other, Kida is what helps bring some life into this scenes.

For me this show doesn't need to produce any romance between any characters, it just doesn't feel right or it's just plain weird and creepy for me. Shinra and Celty creep me out as well, I have noting wrong with Celty but Shinra seems like a weird slime ball to me.. the girls in this anime seem to like the wrong guy.

Well anyway those frustrations out of the way it wasn't a bad episode, it's nice to see we're getting a new focus on different characters, Shinra's dad I'm looking forward to seeing more of, I already like him more than his son.

I've heard Japan's air can be quite smoggy, this guy must really hate cigarettes though.

It was pretty funny to see him acting tough in front of those punks, but only due to the fact he thought Celty would rescue him. (which she eventually did.)

Along with new characters appears to be a man who isn't scared of any monsters, Kuzuhara Kinnosuke who has a reputation of going to crazy lengths when chasing his opponents. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about him, but I suppose it's interesting to see someone who Celty is afraid of.

If I was her I'd be pissing myself. Or smiling happily that the people who I hate are being stabbed to death.

Now we yet again get to see the Slasher in action, where/she kills the 3 girls who frequently bully Sonohara. Now I never liked these girls in the first place so it's nice to see them getting some punishment, but despite that it was an extremely uncomfortable scene for me, the music, the atmosphere, the way it was played out really was quite creepy, something that really made me like the episode at the end. I do like it when a show manages to creep the fuck out of me through violence.

However during this we got to see another chat room convo going on (consisting of Celty, Izaya and Mikado.) During their conversation about the Slasher, the Slasher her/himself showed up in the conversation, spouting all kind of weird things. Whoever it may be, it's clear they are not mentally stable.

The end of the episode really got me excited for Durarara all over again, and I'm looking forward to us seeing more of the Slasher and delving into some of the other characters past. Exciting and Disturbing times indeed!

Angel Beats 02 - Funniest and Saddest thing I've watched from this season

2010-04-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

You have no idea how glad I was to see the hammer making a return.

Episode Summary -

The episode starts out with the gang planning on stocking up on their weaponry resources, meaning a visit to the guild. The only way to get there is through an underground passage full of many traps set to stop Angel if she ever comes by. Unfortunately for the team, Angel is nearing the Guild meaning their journey on the way there will mean avoiding a lot of the traps. After many inspired traps Otonashi and Yuri sit down for a rest, where Yuri talks of her gruesome and chilling past. They eventually both reach the guild together, but Angel continues to draw close.

I don't usually mention the OP's or ED's for anime since I'm not all interested in the music they use, but Angel Beat's OP was visually stunning!

Thoughts -

As I mentioned in my Kaichou wa Maid-sama review this was a very funny episode. Since the previews don't really give much away I wasn't sure what to expect from this episode, so it was a pleasant surprise to see such great comedy. Although now that I think about it Jun Maeda's work does frequently have many laughs when it's not focusing on the drama side of things.

So the first half of the episode was heavily comedy based, we of course had the much loved Hammer, the indiana jones boulder, the laser beams, the crumbling floor with spikes at the bottom, the list goes on, all of which slowly took members of the team down. All of these set up for some hilarious moments though. My favorite had to be where Fujimaki was certain Otonashi was going to be the next to die, only for Fujimaki die himself due to not being able to swim, loved it!

Anyone else getting flashbacks to the awful Resident Evil movie?

We also saw a flustered embarrassed side to Yuri as Otonashi climbed up her body, this is usually what's set up me wanting the two character to get together (I like romance in anime!) But despite this being one Jun Maeda's work I'm not entirely sure if this anime will have any love blossom between any characters. I won't mind too much as long as we get some powerful drama, make me cry Jun!

I can't swim either, but I don't die so easily because of it thankfully.

However the last half of the episode is where the comedy starts to die down, and despite the hilarity the member killing traps ensued, Yuri felt defeated as a leader, causing her to tell Otonashi what happened to her siblings back when she was alive, and what made her want to fight God. It's safe to say if you saw the episode that what happened to Yuri was indeed very horrible, and yet it shows how strong she truly is.

However she reveals that she did not kill herself due to the traumatic events, and that people who come to the after-life are not ones who have killed themselves. This promises some even more traumatic events and deaths perhaps? I can only hope Yuri's fate was not as cruel as her siblings fate.

However despite how horrible what happened to Yuri was, it didn't make me shed a tear. This was mainly due to the comedy set at the first half of the show, softening the blow of what we later learned. Perhaps Jun did this on perhaps to have Yuri's death be the true shattering tear jerking blow? Either way I'm hoping he manages to impress me as much as Clannad did.

I could complain how it's an antique ruined, but the scene is too sad for that.

Eventually they both reach the Guild where Yuri ultimately decides it's time to evacuate their current Guild, destroy it and return to their old one. The two of them both go off to give the guild members sometime as they distract Angel. This again wasn't an amazing battle scene but did show some nice effects. Otonashi didn't manage to do much though, although he saved Yuri from a fatal blow (although she wouldn't of died anyway right? It's the thought that counts.)

After successfully destroying the guild along with Angel falling into the destruction of it, everyone moves onto the old guild. Here Otonashi reflects on the journey to Guild and we see how much he now admires Yuri.

I suppose I can see the Haruhi resemblance, but without Aya's voice it simply isn't Haruhi for me.

All in all this was a decent episode that I enjoyed a lot, as I said the comedy was very good, although it did make the otherwise traumatic experiences of Yuri's not as sad as it could've been. But considering this is only the second episode I'm sure they have lots more up their sleeves causing us to get the tissues out. And with Jun we tend to get less laughs and more drama once the anime is nearing the end.

I've heard people talking about how this episode had some notable animation failures. Personally I didn't spot a single one of them! So they must of been pretty minor. The only thing I found odd animation wise was that when Yuri and Otonashi were climbing down a ladder the animation looked crazily smooth, have a look if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Although this isn't so much a complaint but an observation.

But so far I'm really enjoying Angel Beats, and this episode has really made me look forward to Saturday's now! I hope the same applies to you guys as well.

Oh and one last thing..

TK shows us how truly awesome he really is!