2chan.us

I’m not entirely sure why people would still be reading this, because anyone that wants to watch Mazinger Z probably already has, and anyone who read the first installment of this series is probably never reading this blog again anyway.

Episode 3:

Summary: Sayaka wrangles up the local bunch of no-goodniks who freely sling insults at each other “You this guy!” to challenge the new hotshot in town, Kouji Kabuto. But first, she has them clean up the house he’s going to move into. Once Kouji gets there and steps out of his van, (I don’t think he’s 20 years old but we’ll let that slide), he walks up to the troublemakers and says “Excuse me”. Because the directors are that awesome, this causes some dramatic music to suddenly start up, accompanied with close-ups of everyone’s faces looking really shocked, like he just set a box of stray kittens on fire. Coincidentally, this is much like what talking to natives in Japan as a foriegner is like, just without the dramatic music. They then engage in some fisticuffs until Sayaka shows up and gets them to stop. Men are such pigs.

The action then cuts to Baron Ashura, who finds Dr. Hell destroying his robot army, because he has to build a new robot army to defeat Mazinger Z. Destroying all that recyclable metal? What an asshole villain. We’re then treated to Kouji not being able to control the Hover Pilder/Mazinger Z some more while Sayaka yells at him. He gets really confident once he figures out how to walk, then manages to injure himself in a fairly violent way while trying to stop running. It’s no Ideon-style toddler decapitation, but it’ll do. Ashura/Hell figure that now is their chance to attack, and send out the fearsome GROMAZEN R9. The bad guys send out their faceless generic evil dudes to distract Kouji in his home (featuring posters such as MODERN JAZZ, I hope he goes to John Zorn concerts and grows a goatee on the weekends) while Gromazen goes off to destroy the research lab. Kouji gets warned about the attack, then takes off in the Hover Pilder, confounding the generic evil guys. Kouji gets into Mazinger Z. Some time during all of this, Sayaka decides to get in the completely unarmed Aphrodite A and stop Gromazen. Shockingly, Gromazen literally disarms her and almost steps on her until Mazinger Z wrecks his shit with his rocket punch. This will not become a common theme, I swear to god. While rescuing Sayaka, Kouji unintentionally dodges a heat laser or something, and Aphrodite A gets damaged even more. Kouji presses buttons until he hits the BREAST FIRE button and then he wins. It’s then decided that Kouji needs a battle suit that’s straight out of the 80s to keep him from hurting himself some more. The episode then ends with another threatening message from the bad guys. (“Those dare to turn against Dr. Hill won’t have good end!” Perhaps this means they will have a BAD END.) I think they get the point, but whatever.

Closing Thoughts: This seems to be the point in every long kids show where you’re right on the cusp of the monster of the week episodes. Kouji pretty much has everything down, he’s got his battle suit, and he’s starting to figure out which buttons to press to deal massive damage to the giant enemy robots. However, at this point, it’s still kind of fresh, so Watch.

Episode 4:

Summary:We start off the episode with the robot of the week, GAIA Q5. It has ultramagnetic power, and with it, they can control other robots. Neato! Then we find out that some people want to put missiles on Aphrodite A so that it can defend itself from attacks. (Massive spoilers: THEY NEVER DO SHIT) Where will the missiles go? Oh, in her breasts. Duh. Cut to Kouji being introduced to a new school as a mysterious transfer student. All the troublemakers he dealt with last episode, including the ringleader known only as BOSS, also go to this school. How will they settle their differences? It’s so easy, Kouji answers, by a BIKE RIDING COMPETITION! And when is a better time to have this competition then during school? So immediately after being introduced to the class, Kouji walks out on class, along with everyone else in it. Kouji wins the competition because he can do flips with his motorcycle while jumping over a dumpster, and he can also jump off of a moving bike and then back onto it. Sayaka eventually comes along in Aphrodite A. Apparently, she dropped out of school after middle school. Good, girls don’t need education anyway! While she’s visiting the school, she suddenly gets controlled by Gaia Q5. Then she gets beat up. Good thing Kouji is there to save the day! Unfortunately for Kouji, Gaia is immune to rocket punches, and then starts to control Mazinger. Good thing the scientists have some sort of anti-magnetism gun that they can get Kouji’s brother and Boss to shoot at Mazinger! Kouji starts his ultimate “randomly press buttons” attack until a missle comes out of Mazinger’s stomach and blows Gaia up. The episode ends with Kouji and Boss getting in trouble for skipping class. Glad to see they got what’s coming to them.

Closing Thoughts: I’m pretty sure that we’re firmly into Monster of the Week territory at this point. But, between the various missiles and Boss, we get a tiny bit of plot/character development, so I’ll say Watch.

Episode 5:

Summary: Dr Hell has a new weapon! It makes lots of illusionary copies of things. His “Ghost Plan” is so perfect, he’s sure Mazinger will be defeated. Defeated by what, you ask? By Kingdan X10, that’s who! Stuff happens, like Kouji getting attacked by faceless guys who manage to commit suicide by climbing up an electric tower and electrocuting themselves when they get caught by Kouji. We then learn what the “Ghost Plan” actually entails, as a mysterious copy of Mazinger Z appears, which Dr. Hell tells the good guys that he created. The town-folk see fake Mazinger destroying things on TV and then get mad at Kouji and co when Baron Ashura starts to rouse some rabble. Oh no, what will they do without the support of the normal citizens? Get in their robots and blow things up! It’s just like a Zambot 3 episode! Anyway, the bad guys use the illusions to get Mazinger to waste all his energy while they plant a bunch of landmines. While this is going on, the supporting cast of children try to see what’s going on with all this fake Mazinger nonsense, but then get captured by the bad guys and promptly are crucified. Why don’t we do that here in America? As it turns out, this is all part of the trap to lure Mazinger into the landmines. That weakens Mazinger some more. Then, Kingdan comes out and makes a bunch of copies of himself, then does what every Japanese villain does when he makes a lot of copies of himself: Circle around the good guy really fast! This uses up some more energy. Oh no, now Mazinger is out of energy! What will he do now? He must destroy X10! (you knew the joke was coming.) Fortunately, he’s not so out of energy that he can’t use breast fire and melt Kingdan X10. Kouji shakes hands with Boss and they settle their misunderstanding. Dr. Hell gets mad at Ashura. Episode over.

Closing Thoughts: This Monster of the Week episode is somewhat unlike most other monster of the week episodes, mostly because Sayaka doesn’t get in nearly as much trouble as she normally gets into. However, breast fire is still incredibly imba. Nothing particularly great about this one, I have to say. Here begins what may be a long series of Skims. Make sure to watch the kids get crucified, though! Too bad they don’t get set on fire while on the cross, though, then I could accuse them of ripping off Drifting Classroom.

This takes entirely too long. Maybe I’ll do the next round of filler episodes in haiku format.

From MOON PHASE, who, being Japanese anime writers, have real journalistic standards.

TV ANIMES

06/09 Wangan Midnight – Muscle cars and ugly people

06/11 Treasure Gaust – lame kids show

06/14 Devil May Cry – Haha, video game anime.

06/24 Tetsuko no Tabi – A railroad otaku does his thing and a comic author follows him, drawing this anime as she goes. Meta!

OVAS

5/30-
Murder Princess ep 3
Marimite ep 4

06/06 Sakura Taisen New York ep 2

06/08 Tales of Symphonia – Haha, video game anime.

06/22 Gundam SEED SUPERNOVA

06/22 The Prince of Tennis National Convention ep 2

06/27 To Heart 2 ep 2

None of these shows are as good as Otokojuku, so you should watch that instead.

In upcoming news, I save Mac users forever.

Because he is a robot. Because he is a machine.

Before I start this post, I’d like to take the time to mourn the passing of youtube user Koike68, mentioned in the previous post. I assume that he was cut down in his prime by an overzealous PPGZ fan.

Anyway, while the rest of the internet was busy being outraged that a very minor manga publisher made a last-second business move by cancelling a series that at worst could have cause their own financial ruin, and at best could have lost them a modest amount of money, I was busy doing far nobler things. Namely, translating Sakigake!! Otokojuku and watching Mazinger Z. Who needs to keep current with one of the best seasons in recent memory when I could be watching rocket punche– scratch that, breast fires? Certainly not me. I’m only about 14 episodes in, but I already wish that one of these newfangled web blog 2.0 things had episode summaries so that I could know when to just skim through an episode and when to actually try to pay attention. I’m planning on having these posts go Summary, closing thoughts, and then a rating of either Watch or Skim for those who can’t really afford to watch all 200,000 episodes of this show. Note that paying attention is somewhat of a feat, since I’m normally playing WoW while watching Mazinger. (oh no my summer)

I’ve already talked too much for a post that’s supposed to be episode summaries/thoughts on each episode so here goes:

Episode 1:

Summary: The episode/show starts by introducing Intersexed (I will be noting awesome HK bootleg terminology in these posts whenever possible) demivillain Baron Ashura (Asla) and major plotting villain Dr. Hell (Dr. Hill, the HK version of this show must have propane-powered robots). Dr. Hell is the fairly standard hunched over supervillain that builds a lot of robots because he’s crazy while Baron Ashura is freaky as hell and is pretty much Herm Twoface. It’s very interesting to note that whichever side of the Baron’s face is shown on camera is the side that talks. This seems very impractical in real life, and I’m sure that if I was a film major that there would be a very interesting term for this camera technique. Many Giant Evil Robots are introduced. With such powerful army is equal to have the whole world. But one man is stumbling block.

Dr. Kabuto, with his newly discovered Japanium (Japanese Aluminum), only found in Mount Fuji (groan) can do all sorts of crazy shit with this metal, like shoot lasers at it and nothing happens. This is No.1 invention in the world. However, he gives up his lab, probably because he knows that 75% of important old professors in giant robot shows die before the second episode. Right as he does this, Baron Ashura is on the way over in a submarine to kill him. We then get introduced to Kabuto Koji, who has awesome hair and an awesome bike and if you can’t tell that he’s going to pilot the giant robot then you’re pretty dumb. Dr. Kabuto’s lab gets bombed, which is an excellent lead-in to one of the excellent insert songs. Also, Koji swims his motorcycle through the sky around town some more. Koji finds his grandfather (Who cause grandpa like this? he asks) who gives him Mazinger Z, the awesome robot that wears black briefs. Grandpa then promptly dies.

We then get introduced to the Hover Pilder, essentially the cockpit of Mazinger Z. Koji’s not very good at piloting it, and tries to beat it up. (It’s useless for his insignificant skill, his brother deftly notes. Don’t verbiage! Koji admonishes him.) Naturally, Koji figures out how to dock within a few minutes. Of course, he then figures out that he has no idea how to actually pilot Mazinger, and it runs around in a forest a lot and recycles a lot of footage. Right before Koji crushes his helpless, annoying brother, another giant robot appears and holds him back! It’s Aphrodite A(Afrota S), piloted by the foxy Sayaka. Koji gets mad at her for stopping his lack of piloting, and kicks her away. (You this guy! Sayaka curses.) After a bit of coaxing from her dad, she stops being mad at him. However, Dr. Hell has begun to destroy the city, and Mazinger Z is the only one who can save them! Too bad Koji still can’t keep it from doing anything but running in a straight line! What will happen next time on Mazinger Z?? Seriously, these robots are evil, they’re shooting missiles at tanks labeled “MOON OIL”. He’s gotta do something.

Closing Thoughts: For an introductory episode to a giant robot show, this was paced surprisingly well, and seemed to diverge at least slightly enough to make it interesting. Between the freakiness of Ashura, the immense moetic appeal of Sayaka, and the pure burning passion of Koji’s hair and motorcycle, the characters hold your attention. I’ve seen a pathetically small number of old robot shows, but the first episode here seemed pretty great for what it is. The HK subs help too. Naturally, Watch, it’d be pretty dumb not to watch an episode that probably has 20% of the entire show’s plot.

Episode 2:

Summary:The city burns while Koji tries to learn how to pilot Mazinger Z. Sayaka tries to teach Koji, but he’s too manly to learn things from others, for the most part. He starts to get it, then walks robot hand in robot hand with Aphrodite A. A dash of recap here, a sprinkle of predictable guy blushing in front of girl there, and then we get some more plot background: Dr. Hell was researching an ancient civilization when he found a mythical giant! No, not the Ideon. Anyway, Dr. Hell goes kind of crazy and builds himself an Evil Robot Army and turns on the other researchers. Dr. Kabuto was the only survivor, and thus decided to spend the rest of his life trying to figure out how to fight said Evil Robot Army. Oh, wait! They’re still attacking the city! Koji doesn’t know how to pilot Mazinger, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting! Devil Z”is powerful, butKouji’s control is so poor.He may lose in the fighting.

The robots face off and knock him down, then injure Sayaka. Sayaka gets beat up a lot in this show, and Koji saves her a lot, too. It gets kind of annoying after a while. Oh well! With a little help from Sayaka, his armor that his opponents can’t damage, the spirit of his dead grandfather, eye beams, hurricanes and ROCKET PUNCH (all unleashed by the secret Japanese martial arts technique of “press buttons on this panel until things happen”), he absolutely demolishes the bad guys. Mazinger carries weak, unarmed Aphrodite back to the lab, where Sayaka sits in a bed to recover. Then, all of a sudden, Dr. Hell calls them up on videoconference and tells them that he’s totally going to wreck their shit so they best watch how they step! Thanks for the heads-up, Dr. Hell.

Closing Thoughts: The show already begins to slow down, but thankfully we haven’t already hit filler. We’ve got a first fight scene here, as well as some great scenes of Mazinger Z spinning in circles because Koji is incompetent. We also have a little more backstory in the form of Dr. Hell’s flashback. The theme of Sayaka/Aphrodite A being in danger, then Koji saving her begins here, too. It’s kind of 70s-pleasant the first time it happens, but around the 10th time or so, it gets kind of ridiculous. As it stands, the only thing Sayaka has over Koji is the fact that she actually can pilot a giant robot. That, and her slim, sexy figure that’ll drive any man mad. MAD… MAD! er, Watch.

Well, originally this was going to be summaries of the first ten episodes, but it has taken me a good hour to do the first two episodes, so I’ll quit here. Since the filler starts to ramp up in the next few episodes, things should go faster from there. Hopefully.

It is this.

http://stage6.divx.com/AlphaHack/video/1212894/Radical_LuckyStar_Burst

All the other ones can be found by subscribing to Koike68 on Youtube, but they seriously aren’t as good as that one.

(Although I sort of like the RED FRACTION cover…)

thx mrpeabody

It’s true.

c.f. [1] [2] [3] [4] and bonus.

Except for Gurren-Lagann*, the only original thing this season.

This cat is a homunculus of the Wired.

It’s too bad almost all characters are young girls, but since it’s running on NHK Educational, it might be innocent and not moé.

I eagerly anticipate more metaverse anime, as long as it isn’t anything like the real metaverse.

* and Touka Gettan

I promise, I’ll only do one more of these!

There are now four Really Good Shows in my list, possibly the first time this has ever happened.
I almost wish some of them fail, so I can keep up my laziness…

• Darker than Black (The Black Contractors)
  

  “sort of a Witch Hunter Robin that does not suck ass.”

  BONES’ new high-profile show. Unlike their last new show, Ayakashi Ayashi, it’s really good.
  It somewhat downplays itself in the first episode; there’s some minor adult situations (a man breaking his own fingers), and what looks like a regular “man saves woman and they run off” plot.

  However, since this show doesn’t suck, everything you think about it is totally wrong. There are two excellent scenes with real cinematic devices (unlike anime devices) that change it all around.
  I’m finding Shinsen subs hard to watch, since they’re full of egotism (After Effects karaoke, hardsub mkv), but it’s a minor complaint.

  Production quality: excellent
  Audience: normal people
  Score: A, for the second episode

• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
  Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha started off as an uninspired ripoff of Card Captor Sakura, but by knowing exactly who its audience was (nerds) and what they wanted (huge explosions) it ended well and grew into a monster franchise of moé.

  Now they’ve gone and aged all of the characters several years, bringing them safely out of pedo territory, and they’ve joined, um, the military.
  This first episode follows the two new recruits, the girl with the magical rollerblades and the girl with the magical gun (!?), as they blow a lot of stuff up and fail their magic qualification exam in style.

  Luckily, the government of time-space never punishes anyone, ever, so they’re specially granted a pass.
  The promise of more magical devices shouting “PANZER GEIST!” means this series can’t possibly fail.
  Production quality: Excellent animation, same old music, furthers the already-present magical girl deconstructivism.
  Audience: still hardcore fans only
  Score: A-, not quite reaching out as far as Darker than Black

• Touka Gettan

  What the hell is going on in Touka Gettan? Seriously.
  Not only are all the scenes out-of-order, but I’m told this is actually being broadcast backwards.
  The individual scenes are all pretty good, I suppose; there’s a girl with mind bullets, and lots of cherry blossoms, and Carnelian designs.

  Production quality: Pretty and totally ridiculous.
  Audience: Limited
  Score: B+, but only if you’re me

Unfortunately that’s the end of the good shows.
There’s a few inconclusive ones where I’ll give a full 3-episode test, but it’s time for failure:

• Shining Tears x Wind: All video game anime suck, including this one. Fight scenes where sharp objects touch clothes don’t cut them?
• Koutetsu Sangokushi: ancient Chinese man-love. Unwatched.
• Seto no Hanayome: Momoi Haruko star vehicle/”traditional” anime comedy, which means all the jokes involve screaming and aren’t funny.
• Nagasarete Airantou: an aggressively unoriginal harem show.
• Blue Dragon: For some reason, I kind of like Akira Toriyama art, but it can’t escape that this show is written for five-year-olds, and they have DBZ auras, and the little kid actually shouts “I WANT TO PROTECT EVERYONE!” before powering up.
• Sisters of Wellber: Starts off with an incompetent thief and little fairy breaking into a castle, where they eventually pick up a kung-fu princess and an Avatar The Last Airbender character and a talking tank, resulting in an RPG party entirely made of people I hate.
• Kono Aozora ni Yakusuku wo: Fast forwarded through it; a boring harem show with abysmal art.
• Emily of New Moon: another fast forward, another lame NHK book adaption with all the focus changed to the little girl.

I think that’s all for now.

In this post, I continue watching and instantly dismissing new series!

The Really Good Shows
Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann – so good we fansubbed it! More on that later.
Hayate the Combat Butler
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

The Probably Good Shows
Bokurano
Steel Jeeg
OverDrive
Lucky Star
To Terra
Touka Gettan
Seirei no Moribito
Gegege no Kitarou

Not Good Shows
Gigantic Formula
IDOLM@STER Xenoglossia
Blue Dragon
Nagasarete Airantou
Seto no Hanayome

Horrible Shows
Kamichama Karin
Polyphonica
Shining Tears X Wind

Now that I’m done offending everyone, actual reviews!

• GeGeGe no Kitarou (2007)
  Kids’ show about a boy named Kitarou and a bunch of his friends fighting other ghosts because they’re jerks (the other ghosts, that is). The characters all have excellent names like “Catgirl” and “Rat Guy”, and one of them is apparently anthropomorphic toilet paper.
  This makes it a total winner.

  The opening song is a nice remix of the same song they always use. Nekomusume is pretty moé.

  Production quality: not really relevant
  Audience: Japanese children

• Kamichama Karin
  Koge-Donbo‘s cute show about a retarded magical girl. I deleted the episode, but I clearly remember that it sucked. The scene arrangement is complete nonsense for the first half of the episode and nothing about the genre appeals. Maybe I’m not the person to go to on this sort of thing?

  Production quality: lame
  Audience: NegativeZero, people that like Koge Donbo

• Polyphonica
  There’s like, this red-haired girl, and this guy? They have stupid trivial small talk for most of the episode, then some disaster happens? The girl transforms into a fairy and saves someone?

  Who the hell cares. This show is awful in every way. Don’t watch it.
  If you liked the scene with the transforming bike and synthesizer concert, there’s a much better anime about transforming bikes and synthesizer concerts. You should watch it instead.

  Production quality: Awful
  Audience: Nobody

• Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula
  Realistic version of G Gundam, which removes the interesting part of G Gundam.
  However, I’m pretty sure the first episode killed too many of the characters for it to stick to its official plot, so it may be alright.

  The robots are done in 3D CG, as well as, for some reason, everyone’s faces. This results in occasional strange animation errors.

  Production quality: acceptable
  Audience: limited

• IDOLM@STER Xenoglossia

  Sunrise show; takes the famous pop idol raising game and makes them all giant robot pilots. First episode featured them eating corndogs and a good city-block-transforming-into-runway scene. Could be okay, but will probably take a while to get anywhere. High probability of moé detected.

  Production quality: Sunrise-class
  Audience: People who don’t mind moe in their giant robots.

• Steel Jeeg
  Remake of a very old and sort of bad giant robot show. This one looks kind of good.
  Fanservice and a JAM Project, uh, rap.

  Production quality: Good, sharp and bright colors.
  Audience: Giant robot fans only.

• To Terra
  I’m told that this is an excellent shoujo-styled science fiction manga back in the day. Therefore, I’m not really worried that the first episode was somewhat uninteresting, but it is somewhat of a problem.

  Keep an eye on it, but it didn’t quite pass the one episode test.

  Production quality: meh
  Audience: somewhat general

• Bokura no
  I liked this manga (from Mohiro Kitoh, the author of Narutaru and a guy who really hates kids), so I’ve somewhat been anticipating this.

  The promotion has been mostly chanting a long list of Ghibli-associated staff, without mentioning that this is the most feared of all kinds of modern anime. A GONZO show.

  First episode covers the first chapter of the manga, with the first robot fight, completely faithfully. This being Gonzo, they’ve used 3D CG everywhere they could. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly bad CG, and is quite jerky. This detracts noticably from the episode :(

  Production quality: good aside from the CG. This episode is mostly a night scene, which I’m not a big fan of.
  Audience: Hopefully everyone; Bokurano is very good.

This is getting far too long, so I’m going to cut it off here. I’ve got to be well rested before I write some kind of obsessive StrikerS review, after all.

The upcoming season looks much more promising than recent years have. I watched some of them!

• Hitohira

  A shoujo-esque schoolgirl drama about a girl who cries a lot and joins the theater group.
  Seems OK but not all that great. It may catch on due to “cuteness.”

  Very watchable-and-forgettable. I already forgot it…
  Audience: Moe fans only
  Production quality: meh

• Guardians of the Sacred Spirit (Seirei no Moribito)

  Production I.G.’s historical slightly-magical drama. A woman named Balsa with a large, possibly wooden spear fights people with it, is hired as a bodyguard for a prince after she saves him from falling into a river, and leaves the palace with him just as it inexplicably catches fire. Lucky break for them.

  This one is all about the realism. Also, she has big lips. Due to samurai accents I totally have no idea what went on for half of it.

  The staff are all fresh out of Ghost in the Shell, so America will presumably love it.
  Audience: everyone
  Production quality: beyond excellent, though not flashy

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

  GAINAX’s new super robot show, running at 8:30 AM on Sundays. A small group of people live underground in the grim future, where there is only war, etc.

  The main character (a little kid with goggles) finds a drill-shaped key while, uh, drilling; he subsequently finds a giant robot.
  After breaking his older brother out of jail — he was in for trying to escape to the surface, not something their chief is a fan of — a monster breaks through the cavern ceiling along with a woman carrying a big gun. The kid, naturally, instantly knows how to pilot his new super robot, and they easily defeat the monster. They use the robot to break out to the surface, which they’re very happy about even though the surface is clearly a nuclear wasteland.

  This show is AWESOME. It’s completely upbeat so far, and the older brother constantly screams out his burning courage while wearing the coolest sunglasses ever.
  

  

  Gainax still have a major FLCL complex; this really hurt Diebuster but it only helps here, in the form of massive amounts of fanservice:
  

  
  
  

  All of the giant robots and monsters shown so far are giant disembodied heads with legs but no torsos. Very odd.
  Audience: People who are AWESOME. Targeted towards kids, so no complexity here.
  Production quality: competent, though lots of shortcuts (close shots, etc.). Carries itself on shouting, which works.

• Hayate the Combat Butler (Hayate no Gotoku)
  I don’t really have much to say here. Completely faithful and well-done adaption, I guess.
  Hayate’s parents sell him off to solve their debts, he runs away from the collectors and saves a rich girl, she makes him her bodyguard.

  The rich girl is a little girl wearing thighhighs and a gothy dress. That’s pretty moe. Norio Wakamoto contributes frequent narration, which has the bonus effect of making it like a Sound Horizon album.
  Audience: casual anime fans and up. Slight presence of moe if you’re looking for it. Probably can be shown to anyone without objection.
  Production quality: very good. It’s too bad everything so far is “very good”, because in any other season I’d really be underrating this.

I’ve been watching Kanon lately. Despite what Anime World Order may tell you, it’s a beautifully rendered comedy anime, only held down by how it becomes an incredibly stupidly written drama anime when it’s forced to pay attention to its own plot.

The other good thing about it is the fansubs. As everyone who saw The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya knows, a.f.k totally has the best translations ever.

If you know your Japanese first-person pronouns, you might notice that this isn’t a literal translation at all, but it’s still perfect and carries the meaning very well. If you don’t know anything about the language, well, you wouldn’t gain anything from having it explained, except being distracted from the actual show.

Unfortunately, fansub groups tend to…. not do this. Here’s one of my favorite examples:

The wrong way to fansub, from Welcome to the NHK episode I forget.

I realized when writing this that we put a translation note in Gakuen Alice 20 the other day; I’ll have to try harder.

This completely ignores other problems, like the dreaded song karaoke, or how about four or five other groups all do different bad jobs at the same time on popular shows, but I’ll leave those for later.

As for no-karaoke and low-drama sources, I recommend a.f.k, Triad, our own S. ADTRW, and our good e-friends at iitran.

(Seriously, what is up with that anison image?)