Kanashii Blog

Spring 2010 Anime Girl Tierlist

2010-07-07T01:51:00.007-04:00

Rough Draft

Characters

Working!!: Popura Taneshima, Mahiru Inami, Yachiyo Todoroki, Kyouko Shirafuji, Nazuna Takanashi, Kazue Takaashi, Aoi Yamada, Kozue Takanashi, Izumi Takanashi

Angel Beats!: Yuri Nakamura/Yurippe, Tenshi/Kanade Tachibana, Yui, Shiina

Koihime Musou ~Otome Tairan~: Too many to name, geez

Ichiban Ushiro Daimao: Kena Soga, Korone, Mitsuko Torii, Eiko Teruya, Lily Shirashi, Fujiko Etou, Junko Hattori

S Tier: God Tier, reserved for characters I literally watch a series for, no matter how bad the series.

Yui (Angel Beats) - Energenic, I usually hate fang girls, but she managed to make me like her, had stupid reoccurring gags, but was cute enough that I liked them, huge points for surprise wheelchair ending

Koimei/Shuri (Koihime Musou) - Koimei has the cutest character design in the whole series, gets bonus points for being a genius since almost all anime girls these days are stupid, secretly is a pervert, loli, cute when she tries hard to do something despite her size, always devises a plan and gets the group out of trouble

A Tier:

Korone (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao) - Green hair, secret plotting character, would be S-tier status but she's a robot, messes with main character a lot, has combat capabilities

Lily Shirashi (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao) - Cute character design, secretly plotting character, smart, wants to go against the system, always confident, school president, has cool sidekicks

Aoi Yamada (Working!!) - Says clever things, secretly plotting character, messes with other characters, goofs off, not too cute but personality traits boost her to A tier status

Popura Taneshima (Working!!) - Was at B-tier until I remembered how many cute SD faces she made throughout the series, cute, 'do your best' character

B Tier:

Kena Soga (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao) - Loses A tier status because she's dumb, cute, carefree, 'love and friendship over everything' character

Mahiru Inami (Working!!) - Cute when flustered

Tenshi/Kanade Tachibana (Angel Beats!) - Cute, combat capabilities, mapo tofu, loses S/A-tier status because of personality change in last episode/revelation/would be that awkward girl at school you would avoid if she weren't cute

C Tier:

Yurippe (Angel Beats!) - Smart, decisive, leader, combat capability, loses points for not being cute enough, secretly plotting,

Yachiyo Todoroki (Working!!) - Points for having =_= face all the time, oblivious to others feelings about her, only pays attention to Kyokou

Nazuna Takanashi (Working!!) - Cute Imouto that does everything in the house

D Tier:

Shiina (Angel Beats!) - Loves cute things, so I had sympathy boner for her when all she had were toy cats to play with in the shed. But she wasn't too cute and had too few appearances to give her a higher tier.

Iwasawa (Angel Beats!) - Disappeared too fast, pretty cool but not cute enough, I'm not really into the 'cool beauty' girls, pretty boring personality, sad past but not sympathy boner inducing

Junko Hattori (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao) - Typical tsundere, didn't break out of tsundere role to make her stand out from other tsunderes, fundoshi, fights with sword, ninja, not cute enough, got too 'dere' at the end

Fujiko Etou (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao) - Secretly plotting, not cute, was she S or M?, kind of annoying, saved the day a few times, weak compared to other characters

Eiko Teruya (Ichiban Ushiro Daimao)- Green hair, bad guy, showed a little badassedery, not cute at all

Kyouko Shirafuji (Working!) - 'older', laid back, eats a lot of desserts, has authority, not cute

F Tier:

Izumi is the Cutest

2010-06-11T10:25:00.002-04:00

Izumi and cat ears fit well together. Better than Hinagiku and donkey ears.

Wheelchair Beats

2010-06-05T01:33:00.002-04:00

This anime is officially the greatest anime ever.

Angel Beats Main Character Has Good Insight

2010-05-29T17:53:00.005-04:00

Angel Beats - A Loli Has Appeared

2010-04-24T17:41:00.002-04:00

She will be the only reason I'm going to watch this show now.

Too Much StarCraft 2

2010-04-17T00:40:00.002-04:00

I've been playing way too much StarCraft 2 beta lately, so I haven't been keeping up with posts. I think I've already logged over 250 games in a couple weeks; I've been playing exclusively as Protoss. Now I'm waaay behind on my anime.

StarCraft is pretty fun. I'm starting to understand the whole mindgame aspect of RTS and why's it's insanely popular in Korea.

Ninja Chop!!

2010-04-17T00:30:00.003-04:00

This is an xbox360 livemarket downloadable indy game. So basically in this game, you try to break 5 bottles by trying to make the back and forth bar stop at the red marker. You do the same thing over and over again, exactly as you see in the video. You get new costumes every 5 levels and it takes forever to get to the next level at higher levels, unless you chain combo red marker after red marker.

The fun comes from making fun of the game I guess, unless you're into ninja girls getting covered in milk.

Wakusei no Samidare Ch 46

2010-04-08T14:46:00.004-04:00

I always knew she was awesome.

Hayate no Gotoku Ch 267

2010-04-08T07:39:00.009-04:00

Hinagiku gets ears!

Oh Hayate, why do you always say the right and wrong things. Hinagiku certainly is cute this chapter. I like how Hinagiku is thinking the same way Hayate would. Clever role reversal.

Chapter 267 on Mangafox

Mayoi Neko Overrun! Episode 1 - A Tale of Two Chise's

2010-04-07T03:06:00.046-04:00

Impressions: When a series starts, the way a character is introduced into the series is very important. It completely dictates the way the audience will view that character for the rest of the series. As an example, let's take Mugi from K-On season 1, since K-On is also airing this season also. In K-On, Mugi more or less stays kind of a side character and doesn't get as much screen time as all the other characters. Mugi first showed up as a character in the first episode of season 1 originally looking to join the choir club. You found out she didn't really know about fast food, and likes eating delicious pastries and sweets. Her behaviors in this episode conveys to you as a reader that you expect her to continue acting this way with possible character development happening as she learns more about the world. If it wasn't already blatantly obvious, you found out she's a super rich ojou sama character that doesn't really like showing off her massive wealth. That's all and good, because you pretty much know how Mugi is going to act from the first episode alone.

Oh Mugi, everyone remembers you and your fries

In Mayoi Neko Overrun, you have a character named Chise, whose first appearance is showing up in a classroom with a school swimsuit on. We, as an audience, see her as a girl who likes cosplay because she barges into the room and wants Takumi, our main character, and Fumino, the main heroine, to dress up in cosplay. Fumino doesn't like this and argues with her. As the argument progresses, Chise eventually get overpowered by such insults as, "You spoiled little brat," "Idiots like you should go to middle school again," and "You little baby," and subsequently loses the argument. During the argument, she also for no other reason than for pure fanservice purposes only, was changing her clothes being surrounded by this drape-thing that was protecting her naked body from being seen. Needless to say, the drape-thing randomly falls down and she embarrasses herself in front of the whole class. After that scene, you see a teary eyed Chise who requests from our protagonist to hold out his hand to her to console her. The main character, being the nice guy he is, takes pity on her and holds out his hand to her's. We now, as an audience, ingrain in our mind that she is nothing but a cosplay loving weak joke character.

Chise shows up in a swimsuit for some reason. Probably to please the lolicons?

She argues with Fumino in this weird drape-like thing? What?

Of course it would fall

She's in tears from what happened in the classroom

With eyes like that, how can you refuse?

...

What the fuck? This is not the Chise I know!

I'm reading the manga and I love all the heroines, and Chise is by far my favorite character in the whole story, but she's completely different in the anime. In the manga, she is a domineering character that uses her power and wealth to get whatever it is she wants. She also hasn't shown any signs after three 60 page chapters for a love of fucking cosplay.

She's not afraid to flaunt her status

She doesn't get what she wants so she punches him the the fucking stomach

She crushes Takumi till he finally gives in and shows his servitude; She is pleased at her dominance

All these panels are from her first appearance in the manga. She doesn't lose arguments to Fumino and she literally makes Takumi her servant. Why they completely changed her is a mystery to me. Just the way she asks for Takumi's hand in the anime and manga illustrates how different she is. In the anime, she's in tears and reluctantly asks for it, in the manga, she fucking commands Takumi to give her his hand. I don't know. Maybe they just decided that having two tsundere characters was too much. Maybe Fumino stole all the tsun from Chise because she's certainly the tsundere of the series by the way she acts. Maybe the anime studio hates loli's. Maybe... nevermind..

In the manga, she doesn't take shit from Fumino either

Unfortunately, her anime otaku persona continues on. After the incident in the classroom, Chise is still lamenting the fact that she can't get people to cosplay. But on the drive home, she sees Nozomi randomly strolling about and ends up taking her home to her otaku filled room of anime pictures, figurines, and cosplay pictures and starts dressing her up like a doll.

What? Why are you still thinking about it?

That's a ton of figurines, she's quite the otaku

She's crazy about cosplay

The next time we see her, she's outside Takumi's house spying on Takumi for absolutely no reason. Well, the reason her maids give is that she's looking for friends to hang out with, but can't really barge in there uninvited. So she kind of just sits there and waits. After falling asleep for a length of time, she overhears that Takumi needs eggs so she runs right in, without any real plan. Takumi, confused about what the hell she is doing there, asks what the hell is she doing there. Her maids also barge in and explain that she was spying on them. Standing there embarrassed, Chise interrupts her maids and orders them to pull out a chicken to lay eggs, because that's what Takumi needs.

Sleeping right outside for no reason what-so-ever. Just ring the doorbell.

Wow, her maids are really helping the situation

She pulled out a chicken to lay eggs for Takumi; One of the dumbest things I've seen in an anime

The chicken lays a single egg, which ends up hatching on the spot into a baby chick. Takumi unimpressed walks past Chise and outside to go buy some eggs from the store. Chise ends up following him and they both walk down the street together. Takumi asks her why she really came to his house. She explains that she's looking for a cat and that her sister usually brings home stray cats. (She should've rang his doorbell and said that in the first place, instead of waiting outside). Takumi says that has nothing to do with him and walks ahead of her leaving her behind.

Wow, that's harsh Takumi

Leaving a girl behind means she's low on the romance tier list

Just then, Fumino runs past them because she's chasing the giant cat she's been looking for the whole episode. Chise joins her because she also looking for the same giant cat (Nozomi) to continue playing dress up with. The chick that hatched earlier and is on Chise's head ends up falling off her, and the most random ass truck is barrelling down the street to crush it. Fumino stops chasing Nozomi and saves the chick by diving out in front of the truck.

Chasing after the cat

I'm surprised the chick didn't die from the fall

Of course a big ass large truck would come from out of nowhere

After this, we get a shot is of Chise doing her best Louise impression and telling Fumino to give up looking for the cat (Nozomi) that she was searching for because Chise sent out all her servant to go look for it. After Fumino gives up, they end up all heading home, and that's the last scene in the ep that we see Chise.

She really does look like Louise in this picture

Conclusion: Sorry for the completely Chise centric post, but she is the biggest reason I'm watching this anime. I'm just so angry that she has a different personality than her manga counterpart. Fumino remains the same though. She was an amazing tsundere in the manga, and is a really good tsundere here as well. Chise however, went from domineering I-can-do-whatever-I-want-because-I'm-better-than-you personality to such a weak weak joke character. Sigh, so kanashii. I don't know how she's supposed to act in the original novels, but I love her manga character. Instead of telling Fumino to give up at the end, she would've ordered the a whole army of helicopters to go look for Nozomi. I wish the anime didn't adapt the whole super rich otaku ojou-sama angle either, because absolutely no one can beat Nagi from Hayate no Gotoku in that department. Well, I'll still watch the series though, because I'm curious how dumb they can make her.

If she were a Yandere, she'd instantly be my favorite character of all time.

Little Busters! - Baka To Baka To Bakakanjyu

2010-04-05T19:29:00.017-04:00

Introduction: I'm playing through this visual novel at the moment (non-h version because that's the one that has an english patch, so I don't have to go look up every single kanji.) Almost every character in this VN is an idiot, minus the main character. Someone suggested that I play more VN's/eroge. I told him that I couldn't read Japanese that well, which is why I don't really bother playing them. The same day, someone showed me a little busters remix video on youtube, then told me that someone was also telling her that she play the game. I was curious because I didn't know she could read Japanese, and looked up if there was an english translation online. I found out that there was. I knew that I was watching Angel Beats! this season, and that I enjoyed Key's anime versions of Kanon, Air, and Clannad. I also played through the English translation of Planetarian, and I've , for some reason, been playing a lot of Eternal Fighter Zero lately. Little Busters is the game that I really haven't paid attention to, because I never really had access to it. The only thing I knew about the game was that my Guild in the mmo Mabinogi was named Ritobasu, which I actually found out not too long ago was named after Little Busters, even though I'd been in that guild for a really long time. The tagline for joining the guild was 'We are a baseball team," which I thought was some weird quirky thing that our guild leader made up. Well, since there's a (partial) english translation for it and I have a lot of free time, I decided I'll give it a go.

Title Screen

Long Summary:

The story starts off his in with our main character, Riki, in the dorm room during the evening. He gets awoken by Masato, his large muscled bandana wearing roomate, who's heading out to the cafeteria. Masato headed over there to fight the Japanese-Gi-wearing Kengo. The fight between the two commences and a crowd of students gathers around. Riki wants someone to stop the fight because they might end up hurting each other. But the reason why they were fighting in the first place was because it was announced that Kyousuke had returned. The reason was that real fights were prohibited when Kyousuke wasn't around, because he wouldn't be able to mediate them. Kyousuke determines that Masato would be too strong if he used his bare-hands and that Kengo would likewise be too strong if he used his shinai, so he commands the crowd of onlookers to throw any type of weapon into the ring to lessen the danger, even useless ones. Masato and Kengo pick out their weapons from the pile thrown in. Kengo picks out a pellet gun, and Masato picks out a... cat.

These two are always fighting each other

During the fight, a girl yells out. Everyone recognizes the voice instantly, it's Natsume Rin, Kyousuke's younger sister. She tells the two to stop bullying the cat and using it as a weapon, and then kicks Masato in the head for it. She asks what the reason for the fight is. Masato explains that it's all because Kengo give Masato the wrong translation for a proverb and thinks that Kengo was messing with him. Masato tells Rin to give him back the cat so he can continue to attack Kengo, but of course Rin refuses and retaliates that people who toy around with cats must be punished. Masato and Rin confront each other, and Masato tells the crowd to throw them a new weapons for his fight with Rin. Rin ends up picking out a three-sectioned staff, and Masato picks out an... eel pie snack bar. Masato tells Rin that he doesn't have a real weapon, but Rin attacks him immediately. Masato tries to retaliate with the eel pie, but it breaks mid-battle. Rin takes advantage of this and finishes him off decisively. Everyone was dumbfounded at the spectacle that had just occurred.

No idea how you can use a cat like a weapon

Rin shows no mercy

After the battle, our main character, Riki, reminisces that every day was like this after he had met them. After his parents died, he was alone and depressed. However, one day four boys appeared. One of the boys came up to him and held out his hand, saying that they needed his help fighting a formidable enemy. The boy grabbed Riki's hand and starts running. Riki asks who they are, and the boy grins and responds, "We're the group who punishes evil and preserves justice, the Little Busters!" Riki recalls that the formidable enemy was a beehive and that their only weapons were a bamboo pole and insecticide. The group of bees knew the boys' intentions and attacked them. About to be defeated, Masato removes his jacket and poursed honey all over his body. Countless bees swarmed onto Masato. Kyousuke yells out, "Masato, we won't forget your sacrifice," and sprays the insecticide right at Masato with Kengo holding a lighter right below. Needless to say, Masato became a pillar of flames. Rin stepped in and kicks Masato and he fell unconsciously to the ground. She continuously kicked him to keep him rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames. That was the first time Riki had met them, and recalled that was the beginning of his new life. Because of them, he had so much fun and forgot about the pain he had before. He wished that this could last forever.

Lighting friends on fire will get on you in the newspaper

The next day, the whole group gets together to eat breakfast like nothing had happened the night before. When Kyousuke comes in to sit down Masato asks him where he's been before he came back the night before, Kyousuke explains that he was in Tokyo looking for a job. Rin comes in with a bunch of cats following her. The only way she could get them from following her was to hiss at them. She says that she found a new member and holds up a white cat. They end up giving it the name Lennon and start trying to feed it strange thing. Rin doesn't care what's being fed to it as long as it looks cute eating it.

Rin always has a cat with her

While they head off to school, Masato tells Kyousuke that once he gets a job, he'll have a lot of free time. Kyousuke says that it won't be that easy, because he has to think about the things he can do now. Riki says that everyone else will be busy with college exams and job hunting next year like Kyousuke. Masato says that one day they all might have to seperate. Everyone starts feeling down. Kyousuke lets out that he wishes for these days to last forever. Hearing Kyousuke's words, Riki suggests to everyone that they should all do something just like in the old days. Everyone, curious by what Riki said, asks what he wants to do. Kyousuke turns he back toward the group, and then bends down to pick something up off the ground. He turns back to the group and shows them what it is. He then suggests, "Let's play baseball." Everyone stands there dumbfounded by his words, "Baseball," he exclaims once again, "We're forming a baseball team. The team name will be... Little Busters!"

Oh hey, that's name of the title!

So that's how the story of Little Busters! begins. This post actually took a while, so I'll do a character introduction of all the girls separately.

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou Episode 1 - Girl in Fundoshi

2010-04-04T00:04:00.005-04:00

I was told this girl wears fundoshi, so I decided to check this show out. If you want a pointless show with lots of girls in it, I guess this one is pretty much on the spot. Apparently its about this dude that wants to help people or something, ends up going to a magic school, then is predicted to become a demon king.

This show does not look like it has any potential to be considered great, but not like I care. Like I said earlier, I am pretty much watching the show for fundoshi girl. I already forgot everyone's names.

Here is a peek of fundoshi girl's fundoshi

Fundoshi girl in action, giving off a better shot of her fundoshi

Pretty much this is all I care about from this show. The plot seems pretty simple. Main char goes to a future telling bird that's kinda like that sorting hat from Harry Potter and gets his future occupation predicted as demon king. Everyone panics and then runs in fear, but you see some girls that are planning on interacting with him in the future. They don't say what they are going to do at the moment, but they don't appear to be the types of characters to wear fundoshi, so I didn't care much about them.

Future telling, smoking underwear bird

The version I saw had some pretty bad censoring, hopefully a different station's broadcast won't be so poorly censored.

No peeking at fundoshi apparently

No idea what was so bad about this one scene that they had to blacken half of it out

It looks like they just took an eraser and erased her boobs off, but I'm more upset by the fact that her fundoshi doesn't dig into her buttcrack

I think this will be a pretty fun show to watch no matter how it turns out.

Dead or Alive Paradise

2010-04-03T21:42:00.005-04:00

Hitomi makes the cover because Kasumi sucks

Dead or Alive Paradise is a PSP port of the Xbox360 game, Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. For anyone that doesn't know, this is a game designed to waste your time in some of the most meaningless ways possible.

You start off by selecting a girl that you will play as so you can waste your time. The goal of this game is to look at their boobs in different swimsuits and accessories.

You may ask, how can I view their boobs bouncing in every which way? To answer this question, you can either play the games or just view the CG scenes by relaxing at a location. In the original 360 version, you started off with volleyball, wave racing, and pool hopping and could buy tickets to play other minigames. These games were: slide at 40-80 km/s on a water slide and not die when you fell off, mash a button to run to a flag as fast as possible, and press left and right to bump butts with another girl to knock them off a flotation device. In the PSP version, wave racing and slide is removed. You still start with volleyball and pool hopping, but to the button mash and butt bumping, you need to collect a certain amount of CG scenes before they are unlocked.

One of the other girls asks to partner up with you as soon as you start the game. Who you get is completely random. Just pray you do not get Kasumi because she sucks in this game.

There are three shops in the game. An accessory shop, where you buy extra stuff you can equip your girls with (sunglasses, hats, shoes), a sports shop to buy swimsuits, and an item shop to buy items used to get other girls to like you.

You can use these to slightly customize the girls during CG scenes.

Getting all the swimsuits costs a few million Zack dollars. Then you have to buy 9 more sets.

Obviously, the easiest way to get a girl to like you is to keep giving her stuff she likes right?

In addition to each character's own swimsuits and CG scenes, you have to collect every other girl's swimsuits and CG scenes. This is why the game is completely retarded. In order to give a suit as a gift, you have to be really close to the other character. Then you have the option of giving them the suit during the day, where you can immediately find out if they take it or not or wait till night time and send a gift at night.

You know they are going to take the suit during the day because of all these hearts swirling around them.

Then they take the suit and say something.

Imitating the other girl's CGs is similar a similar concept. Once they have max hearts for you, you just select the option 'imitate partner'. This is under the assumption that the other girl has already done her CG for that time and location.

Now an overview of the volleyball part of the game. The volleyball is ass, no exceptions. You have to win 50 times to get a special item. So for 10 characters that would be 500 games minimum. Too bad most of the times the AI of your partner sucks and you lose because they make the most retarded decisions. Volleyball in the PSP version seems slightly more difficult than in the 360 version because the screen is smaller, so its harder to see where the ball is going to go at times. It also doesn't help that because the controls are so automated, you get screwed over by being forced to do something that you don't want to. It seems like there are mechanics that make different characters be forced in stun longer from spikes or slightly different wakeup speeds from knockdowns (forced or from diving for the ball). If anyone really cares, I can probably make a tier list for the characters in volleyball in this game.

I hate this game so much

At the end of each day, you go back to the hotel and you get a gift from Zack. This item is mostly useless and just completes the task of wasting your time even more. After you get your gift, you have the options of storing your items, viewing your stored items, send a gift, sleep, or go to the casino. If you do not like your partner, you can choose the option to sleep in, which will waste one part of the day, but the partner will leave you and lose all affection that she built up for you (I don't know why this option is there because you can do the 1 player events even with a partner and you can just ask another girl to partner up). Part of the reason this game sucks so bad is that the only way to get large amounts of money in a reasonable time frame is to rely on the casino.

In DOAP, you can play 1 on 1 Blackjack with Rio

In the PSP version you can play Blackjack, Poker, or Slots. In the 360 version there was also roulette, which was the fastest method of making money. Blackjack and Slots gets you no money at very slow speeds. The most you can make in a game of blackjack is 100,000 Zack dollars, which is nowhere near enough to get anything. You end up losing so much in slots, whenever you do win, you will break even if lucky. Also, some slots machines can make you lose money if you get a certain combination, so with those you generally end up losing a lot more money than you win. The casino has standard video game probability, so you get screwed a lot. Thank god you can go back to PSP home menu and reload to try again.

Video game probability

You may think, oh this game isn't so bad, but then you have to remember that there is nothing else to do in this game. A final evaluation must be done for this game designed to waste your time. The PSP version has slightly less CG scenes, but an additional character. The PSP has less items than the 360 version. This would almost save time grinding money on each character and less frustration trying to get all the accessories from the shop, however it takes longer to make money. You do in fact save a lot of time trying to get each girl to accept all your swimsuits from another character. You waste just as much time playing volleyball to get the 3 Zack volleyballs. One of the nice things about this game is that you can actually listen to mp3s that are in the MUSIC folder of your PSP instead of the game's crappy soundtrack. One problem is that for some strange reason, you can't change what song is playing when you are at the hotel or in the casino, so if you restart over and over in the casino, be prepared to listen to the first 30 seconds of the same song over and over. As someone that has completed the 360 version and is working towards completion of DOAP, I believe two ratings should be given for this game. As a game designed to waste your time, I'd give it a 9.5/10, simply because an estimated completion time appears to be slightly shorter than the 360 version. A rating for this game from the standpoint of being a good game, I would have to say this game gets a rating of 0.01/10.

If you're like me and you hate to read long strings of text, then just skip to the end to pretend you read it. Here's a summary. This game sucks. If you are also like me and just can't stop playing shitty games, here is an excel spreadsheet to help you keep track of your progress:

http://www.mediafire.com/?tmtxzydzddm

Angel Beats! Episode 1 - Where's the Loli's?

2010-04-03T17:25:00.034-04:00

Impressions:

I didn't really set my expectations too high going into this show. I watched one trailer for it and thought it looked pretty good. I also heard it's by famed Key writer Jun Maeda, that's about it. I sat down with the raw because I wanted to check out it out early to get a preview of whether it might live up to the hype the internet has given it or not. The sub luckily came out pretty fast though, so I didn't have to strain my brain to decipher what little I knew in Japanese.

"I feel like I just woke up in an anime"

"You did wake up in an anime, accept it"

First thing that struck me immediately were the visuals, in particular the background visuals. They were absolutely gorgeous. I don't remember any anime having as detailed background visuals as that Angel Beats has. When our main character faced off against Angel girl, I thought, "Holy shit, stairs," "Holy shit clouds." The animators were definitely trying to show it off too, by having the characters scaled small on a huge backdrop in a lot of scenes; it worked well to show it off.

Holy shit, stairs

Holy shit, clouds

The second thing I noticed was the background music. I really do pay attention to music that plays in the background when watching anime and even download soundtracks to listen to when I'm sitting on my computer. The soundtrack of Angel Beats in the first half struck me as disjointed. It really did feel like it was a visual novel by Key where the soundtrack was just blunt and forced itself on you, instead of having the soundtrack blend in subtly in the background. When watching Air TV by Kyoto Animation, all the background music was taken from the game, but Kyoto did a really good job selecting and using right music at the right time. In Angel Beats, you just straight up feel the overbearingness of it, like when the axe guy barges in on our main character in the nurse's office or during the first group meeting after our main character wakes up. The second half, the background music was better. Maybe Jun Maeda was just eager to show off the soundtrack because if I'm not mistaken, he composed the music too. I can't tell if I like the ED song yet, but it doesn't seem like anything special. Having rotating OP's like Bakemonogatari sounds like a cool idea though.

"I'm going to barge in with crazy background music"

The soundtrack also shows how seriously this show takes itself. A lot of attempts at comedy were tossed in, and they almost really felt out of place. I take my attempts at comedy seriously because it's one of the main reasons why I watch anime. Angel Beats definitely needs to work on it. I'm all for slapstick comedy, but it feels like the characters are way too serious about it or it doesn't really blend in in the situation. Given the context of the show, you feel the should be more serious, but you have your main character getting cut up a bunch of times and guys flying out windows, it just didn't really blend in. I think the only type of comedy that would work well in this series is just character reaction comedy.

Comedy scenes are half a facepalm

As far as the plot goes, I thought it was fine for now. I really can't make a judgement on it until I see more. I mean, I can be all like 'why the hell would you go through all that trouble to get meal tickets,' or, 'where the hell did they get guns,' but I won't. As for our main character having amnesia, I'm ok with that. Though we just recently had a case of a character with amnesia in Dance in the Vampire Bund. What triggers our main character to remember stuff will be interesting.

Character personality-wise, our main charcter seems like the straight of the arrow generic anime male lead: he doesn't believe the situation he's in, he has overexaggerated reactions to situations, he's a pussy when in danger, all these are nothing that we really haven't seen in a main character before. Yurippe, while some semblance to Haruhi wasn't as overbearing as her, which I like. She's got the whole, "You're dead, accept it" angle going for her. Angel is generic robot character so far, maybe a little too generic. I was hoping she would unleash a fury of sonic booms instead of just the sonic-hand-sword-thing and just standing there under gunfire at the end. As far as the seiyuu go, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary or anyone that stood out that much, so I guess they work well for now.

"Being trapped in an anime is alright, you'll get used to it"

I guess the biggest criticism I have is just the boring as hell character designs. Most of the characters just don't stand out. Generic looking main character I guess is passable. Yurippe, they could've made her a lot cuter by giving her better hair or something or making that yellow ribbon on her head not her only distinctive charm point. I'm glad she ended up shortening her name to Yuri, because Yurripe just seems way out there. The other characters in the group- boring as hell. They carry nothing really distinctive. Glasses guy - meh, shadowy girl - meh, random english speaking dude with headband over his eyes - mehish? I don't doubt that most of the crew gets killed off because of their character designs, like generic big guy - he's just asking to die. Even the girls at the end were pretty boring looking, despite their bright hair color. The only seriously good looking character was Angel girl - yellow eyes, white hair, and an actual hair style makes her distinctive off the bat. It seems like she was the only character that it seemed they put effort into. She also ended up being the loli-est looking character.

I expect half the characters in this picture to disappear by the end

"Why do you have the best character design"

"Because I traded away my personality"

So all in all, I'm still going to watch it because I'm just curious where the plot is going to go. I really can't tell. It's obviously going to be a tragic story since this is Key. I'll take three stabs and predict that the main character is actually stuck in a hospital in a coma, or they both end up being the only characters 'alive' at the end, or that main character and Yurripe knew each other before they died and she was the one who killed him. Hopefully maybe a loli character shows up somewhere that I can root for.

I know there's a loli character in the crowd somewhere

Futagami Double - Manga About Doubles

2010-04-02T19:27:00.053-04:00

Short Summary: Futagami Sousuke, 14 years old, is a normal student, wishing to live a normal life. But everything changes the day he sees a doppelganger of himself in his house. Since then, the girl he has a crush on, Amane, will introduce him to another side of his world he had no idea about, and there won't be anymore of the dear peaceful days for Futagami.

Introduction: This is a one-shot manga, which I think is that they only release one chapter as a prototype for a possible release of an actual series; or is just a manga that is one chapter. So hopefully this turns out into an actual series because I read it and thought it was good. I stumbled upon this after looking of the what other works the illustrator of Mayoi Neko Overrun! did since the art style from that series is godlike. The author and illustrator for this series is Yubaki Kentaro who also did the art for To Love-Ru, which was both a manga and anime. I didn't read or watch To Love-Ru though because the main character is one of those I hated- random guy gets harem of girls for no good reason. Mayoi Neko Overrun! is getting an anime release this spring though, which I'm looking forward to. I looked at the trailer and thought that the detail of the characters was very subpar in the anime compared to the manga, but the Seiyuu cast is pretty top tier so that might make it worthwhile. I'd still watch it for Chise no matter how bad it is though. Anyway, because of Mayoi Neko Overrun!, people are complaining that Kentaro doesn't have the time to work and develop Futagami Double.

Long Summary (Spoilers):

So the manga starts off with our 14 year old male protagonist, Futagami, being emo about not getting the opportunity to get closer to and have a chance to talk with Amane, a girl he has a crush on and believes that his high school life will end up being completely boring.

Entering high school as a freshman and complaining about your life is pretty emo

He goes home one day and hears something strange thinking it's his mom. He walks toward his parent's bedroom and is stunned in silence at what he saw. At first I thought he just walked into his parents having sex and was intrigued by what would follow. But the next page, the author just cut the scene back at school with Futagami asking himself what the hell he just saw.

Mom, dad, are you ho-? omg i'm 14 and wat is this?

That day in the classroom, Futagami ends up being grilled by his classmates because they all think they saw him at the train station and were calling out to him but he didn't respond. The main character gets all worked up saying they mixed him up with someone else, but all his classmates insist it was him and joke about there being a doppelganger of him. During cleanup, our main character looks up what a doppelganger is and reads that if you see your doppelganger, you will end up dying, so he refuses to believe that that's what he saw. Amane, who overheard the accusations in the classroom earlier walks ups to him and asks what exactly it is that he saw. Futagami gets surprised and freaked out by Amane.

Caught looking at porn on his cellphone

Amane explains to him that what he saw was something called an ID, which is a collective being formed out of your thoughts you have. Normally thoughts dissipate immediately, but in rare cases they linger and form an ID.

He probably has some residual feelings in his pants right now

Our main character doesn't believe this at all, until Amane pulls out water from a nearby pail with telekinesis saying she can bend the laws of physics with willpower alone.

She could give handjobs without getting her hands dirty

Futagami asks who the heck Amane is, but Amane just randomly decides for them to both ditch school and go search for Futagami's ID. She's afraid the ID will 'fall into negative', which is when the ID will have so many emo depressing feelings that it ends up trying to kill the original. She explains to Futagami that that's how her brother died five years ago, and she doesn't want it to happen again.

So basically instead of committing suicide, you'd just make it a homocide with the killer being yourself

However, just then Futagami's ID shows up right behind him and tries to strangle him, but Amane sees it and shoots it with a water gun, I think. She attacks it with her powers, but another woman shows up and save's Futagami's ID. She happens to be an ID who has successfully killed the original. She then accuses Amane of being a slayer, a person who hunts IDs. Amane says IDs are the reason for the mass killings recently and that's because IDs feed off the human conscious to sustain themselves.

Women who tear off their face are scary

Both Amane and Futagami end up being pinned by the IDs and can't get loose. Futagami is about to get killed, but then realizes that the ID is formed from his thoughts. So in dramatic fashion, he consciously transfers to the thought of saving Amane his ID. He ends up transfering his whole consciousness to his ID and the ID ends up turning from black, to supersaiyanish with eyes and hair glowing and ends up saving Amane and defeating the other ID using powers that defy physics.

Usually it's the guy telling the girl to run in stories

I'd make that face too if I got a goodlook under her skirt

Clearly super-saiyin mode

I'd trust someone with glowing blond hair

Putting an arm through the girl you like, groping a little too far there

Obligatory breast touch to break up any developing feeling of romance

Amane delcares that Futagami should become a slayer and hunt IDs because he has the responsibility to protect other people. Futagami is all sweatdrops because his boring life is going to be changed and Amane just acts super cute and gives a giant smile.

What is this guy 'ehhhhhing' about? I'd totally want to fight alongside a cute girl if we both had superpowers

Is that a K-On Yui face in the second panel?

Conclusion:

So I thought it was really really good for a one shot with definite potential. I like how it mixes in slapstick comedy well with the story and action. I'm a sucker for comedy like that. I hope Yabuki Kentaro decides to continue this after he's done with Mayoi Neko Overrun! The main character seems pretty godlike already with the matrix-like powers, so it'd be interesting to see what type of route or situations they use to utilize or develop his powers further.

Koharu no Hibi - Manga About a Cute Stalker Girl

2010-04-01T20:12:00.029-04:00

Summary:

On his way to the school, Torii Akira helps a girl who was about to fall down. From that moment he keeps running into that girl, and she seems very happy to see Akira. It's all smiles for Akira all day, until he stumbles upon a uncertain scene. Will he still be smiling after this?

Thoughts:

Uncertain scene indeed! I was actually surprised that the chapter 2 scanlation of this story was released today considering that chapter 1 was released September of last year. Basically this is a story about an extreme stalker girl. At first when I was reading it, I was all 'Wow, she's pretty cute, this guy is pretty lucky to have a cute girl like her go after him'; which actually was what the main character of this story was thinking at first, but then he found out she was doing things that aren't normal for any girl to do when she likes a guy. I'm not going to spoil what happened in chapter 1 because it's pretty shocking and you should check it out. After encountering what she did, the main character is confused on what to think about her. I can see his point of view though, if a super cute girl was stalking me, I'd be both pretty happy about it, but also weirded out at the same time!

Seems pretty normal, since he helped her and all

Hmm, that's kinda weird

Weird

And it only gets weirder from there.

My only familiarity with stalker girls was Matoi from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and she was probably my favorite character from that series. But compared to Koharu, Matoi is very very tame. Stalker girls also have some yandere potential, which if Koharu ends up being one, that makes the story 100x better.

You can check out this series here:

Manga Fox

Baka-Updates Manga

Only 2 chapters scanlated so far and I saw as much as 5 raws released, but hopefully the scanlator picks up the series again so I can check out the stalker action.

Shin Koihime Musou ~Otome Tairan~ Episode 1

2010-04-01T03:12:00.015-04:00

Ok, so this will be the first anime I'll blog about since I'm just going to blog the new spring animes. Incidentally it's going to be on season 3 of Koihime Musou called Shin Koihime Musou ~Otome Tairan~; whatever Otome Tairan means, I have no idea. It's no secret that Koihime Musou is a show that I like despite me thinking that it's also a really bad series. I watch this show for the characters, and not so much the plot. The one character I watch this show for is the girl who goes by the name Shuri or Koumei. Don't ask me why each character in this series has two different names. Koumei's a little girl that's a pretty much a child genius, but has no fighting power, unlike the rest of the characters in the cast. She is a strategic genius and usually is the one who ends up getting the characters out of a bind. Oh, and she's a loli. The reason why I think this series is really bad is because it's an anime of all filler episodes of nonsensical plot.

This is Koumei. She's a loli, so I love her.

So let's get started.

The first scene starts off with the general of region being accused of treason as she exits some stronghold by this clearly evil looking dude. Of course, the punishment for treason in this country is to shove a some weird object down her throat.

Hi, I'm Evil.

Force feeding ladies isn't nice.

This is then followed by Koumei writing a letter to her old teacher talking more or less about what had happened in seasons 1 and 2. Ryuubi ends up getting a new sword that some villagers happened to find at the bottom of a river. She lost her old sword near the end of season 2 splitting open a giant boulder to save a village.

I'd take a sword from a Dragon God

Then bam, intro starts with all 500 billion characters of the series making an entrance.

Sousou and her yuri army

The Kingdom of Wu, who didn't appear in season 2 at all

Our main characters

Now the awesomeness of Koihime Musou begins. Ryuubi, Kanu, and Rinrin are hanging out under a tree. Rinrin says some remark about how Kanu's lap is soft and more relaxing to rest on compared to Ryuubi's lap. Now cut to Ryuubi talking to herself in her room about how fat she thinks she is. She thinks it's best to go on a diet all because of what Rinrin said.

Rinrin, always the source of trouble

Sitting around all day gets you fat

How much does she actually eat?

Of course that night they decide to have her favorite meal for dinner, so she ends up putting the diet off till the day after. Because of this, she ends up feeling fatter that night. Bacho comes in her room and Ryuubi is intent on feeling her stomach, they both fall to the floor and Koumei comes to the rescue.

I like how Koumei looks when she's rushing over there

Ryuubi hypothesizes that Bacho is thin because she exercises all the time. Ryuubi watches Bacho and her sister Tanpopo exercise and decides to join in. Bacho and Tanpopo do all these crazy exercises like doing sittings on a tree branch, rabbit jumping up a hill with wheels tied to their backs and of course Ryuubi can't keep up.

Ryuubi is pretty well developed

She died

After all that excercise, Ryuubi is hungry, and ends up eating a ton for lunch. During her bath she thinks she's getting even fatter. She just decides the best way to lose weight is to go cold turkey and ends up not showing up to dinner that night. Everyone misunderstands her not showing up to eat as her being pregnant because everyone saw that she's been conscious about her stomach all the time.

Rinrin thinks she's going to be a big sister, Koumei is confused

Ryuubi still gets hungry though, so she sneaks into the kitchen for some food. She finds Sei's old rotton bamboo shoot snacks and ends up getting food poisoning. The other characters find her writhing in pain. The anime writers decide that Ryuubi can't talk when she's writhing in pain, so all the other characters end up thinking she's pregnant and rush to prepare for a baby. They think she's pregnant with Bacho's child because of the scuffle Koumei saw the day before. If you watch the youtube vid I posted before, Koumei actually thought Bacho had a giant dong.

She can't talk for some reason

Rinrin runs out of town in search of a doctor and happens to run into Kada-san who happens to be traveling to meet Ryuubi and Co. He's also traveling with the general from the beginning of the episode. Kada performs some crazy acupuncture technique and Ryuubi is cured of her food poisoning. Sei, who had been absent from the middle of season 2 also just nonchalantly shows up.

Sei shows up out of nowhere

Everyone sits at the dinner table to have a discussion about how the general was accused of treason. She also shows that the pill she was fed slowly turns her into a cat, a creature she absolutely despises. Right now she has cat ears growing out of her head.

Crazy magic is no stranger to this anime series

Kada explains to our main characters that to reverse the cat transformation, they need to gather 3 ingredients located around the country. So our band of heroines split into 3 groups and go off to find those ingredients.

Off they go on a journey of filler episodes

Conclusion:

Decent first episode. I thought the whole I'm fat thing was pretty dumb, but Ryuubi is a cute character so it passes. Once again it's all Rinrin's fault for causing it. I loved all the faces Koumei made the whole episode and dug the nonchalant entrance by Sei. The characters all split up and the two loli's are traveling together. Their personalities are completely opposite, Rinrin's stupid and Koumei's smart, so you'll definitely get an episode of drama because of that. I also hate Rinrin so Koumei's presence being there hopefully counters anything stupid she does. Next episode shows Houtou, the loli that showed up in season 2 is going to join the group.

More loli's!

This is Sadblog

2010-03-31T22:48:00.007-04:00

Watching anime, reading manga, and playing games so you don't have to.

About the authors:

meta`: likes the loli's
King sad: likes everything