2chan.us

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.

Well, now that spring break is over, I ought to get back into the routine of procrastinating as long as possible, even if it means blogging.

On that note, I got Tanpenshu volume 1 out of a small order from rightstuf a few days ago. As it’s one of the few things the only thing out of the order that AWO hasn’t reviewed, I figured I would start with it first. Please be warned that there are probably what you could consider major spoilers in the review, so you can scroll down to the bottom to see my final thoughts if you want.

The first volume of Tanpenshu, by Hiroki Endo of Eden fame (or so the ad copy tells me,) is a collection of three short stories that the back cover promises are “mature explorations on humanity’s constant, fumbling attempts to find hope and meaning in a confusing, violent world.” To be honest, the description really didn’t sell me on this, the cover art did. I was looking for something to bring my order up to $50 to get free shipping, and figured I’d take a chance. After all, how could pandas, swords, and naked teenagers that are drawn in a style, at least on first glance, a lot like Kei Toume’s go wrong? And of course, I was right. I’m always right! (Well, except for when I scraped a good foot of my car across a support pole in a really tight parking area this afternoon… er, review, Ko. review.) Of course, the front cover art, as well as the inside cover art of a naked man and woman lying on a bed with knives at each other’s throats, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the actual stories in the volume. Oh well.

The first story of the three, “The Crows, the Girl, and the Yakuza”, is the story that was most like what I expected the three stories to be like. In regular short story form, Endo drops us right into the spiral groove of the story after where long-winded character development might have been. We get introduced to the somewhat stock characters in what is honestly not the most original of stories as the camera cuts between the main players:

The wounded yakuza member, Aoki,in recovery and hiding from the men trying to kill him!

The nameless, homeless teenaged girl, who takes some time off of her regular caretaker of wounded crow duties to help Aoki recover. Ah, you see what he did here? Yes, I thought you would. She’s also missing her left eye. (one guess about what happened to it! Guessed that one too? Jeez, you’re almost as good as me!)

Aaand The old cop and the rookie, fresh on the beat. Thankfully, the older one is not gettin’ too old for this shit. They play the part of the more detached bystanders, and some of their short dialogues give us a little bit of the backstory while the others give us some top-notch philosophisin’. For example, “According to Freud, a pistol is actually a phallic symbol. So when you think about it, War… War’s kinda like men shooting loads of cum all over each other.” Well damn, now that you put it that way…

But you know, despite the fact that you can probably see the entire story coming once you’re about ten pages in, it still works pretty well, especially as the first story in the volume. By the inevitable end of the story, you have a good taste of Endo’s rough and honest but still attractive art, as well as a good look at his dialogue, which gives you a strong feeling of the characters while simultaneously establishing the big themes of the book, all while not feeling forced at all. Just like a good short story, right? (This is an honest question, please be warned that the only short stories I have read recently are by Murakami.) Oh yeah, we also get introduced to this kind of annoying, rough font that gets used for side-comments that looks like it’d be named “kidz talk” or something, but it only gets used a few times, thankfully.

Anyway, the themes– the themes that we get introduced to in “The Crows…” that seem to underlie the whole volumes are pretty simple themes: Figuring out how to make your life worth living, and the somewhat more Freudian (Freud again! Always Freud! ARRRGH!) theme of childhood trauma having an effect on figuring this whole life business out. Note that I said themes of the entire volume, because that’s a lot of what really made this one for me. He doesn’t seem to sit down, pick a theme, write a short story about it, then move on, but instead makes everything in the volume deal with all of it. So by the end of the volume, you can close the book, maybe not until the second read-through like me, and think “Huh. That was honestly very interesting” (Or at least that’s what I did. I’m not very well read, to be honest.), all while feeling a little warm inside about…things. For me, it was kind of a halfway point between finishing an episode of Aria and finishing a marathon of Narutaru.

The next story, “Because You’re Definitely a Cute Girl”, is a little toned down in a lot of aspects when you compare it to the first. Again, the story might seem like you’ve seen it somewhere before. Quiet, awkward girl tries for once to be less awkward and fit in, quiet, awkward girl thinks she’s doing well, quiet, awkward girl finds out that she actually wasn’t doing very well at all, then quiet, awkward girl kills someone. This is probably where I got the Narutaru vibe from. (Actually, this was originally published right as Narutaru started, in ’98. It really doesn’t feel its age at all, and seems very well-timed in terms of an American release.)

I was probably the least impressed by this story, and I’m not really sure why. Endo manages to switch the mood of the story in just one page turn just as excellently as he does in the other stories, and he also gives us just enough clues to see that the story is a subtle downward spiral, whereas “The Crows…” felt more like a flat spiral coming to a logical ending. The theme of childhood trauma takes center stage in this one, almost to the point where, once again, you feel like you’ve read this story somewhere else before.

So here I am, having read through two fairly standard but still solid, entertaining stories, thinking to myself that the $9.70 – potential shipping cost that I spent on Tanpenshu was worth it, but maybe not quite as worth it as preordering another volume of Golgo 13. At this point, I’ve also made my earlier observation about Endo sticking to his guns, in terms of overall themes, and I’m interested in what he’s doing, maybe even hoping a little that he’s honest-to-god minorly neurotic about this whole growing up business. Kind of like Anno with Eva, except done in a way that doesn’t make me hate it. (AM I RITE??) All the works just feel a little more personal that way, and that really endears an author and their works to me. Perhaps, you could say, it’s as if producing this art is the author’s form of therapy… (YES EXCELLENT SEGWAY, +3!!)

WHICH BRINGS ME TO the last story, the story that caused me to re-read the volume, write this review, and feel like my money was very well spent, For Those of Us Who Don’t Believe in God”. The reader is once again dropped into the middle of the action… in the form of a play. The story focuses on a variety of college students, actors and crew, putting on a play about a young woman confronting her brother’s killer, himself a victim of child abuse. Outside of the production, we see the relationships between the various characters, including the abusive relationship between the once-abused-themselves pair of the playwright/director and the girl on the lights. Woah. Meta. For reals.

What the story might lack in the SWORDS AND NAKED CHICKS department that the cover might suggest, it more than makes up for in being a top-notch “slice of life” (I’m not sure if that is a wholly appropriate label outside of the anime/manga world, kind of like how Kino gets called slice of life) short story while bringing the book to a really satisfying conclusion. You get a lot of negativity and almost a sense of despair from the first two stories, but the third is the hope that you find floating around at the bottom of the whole thing. Oh yeah, and you also find a joke about masturbating to Eva characters. So while the play might end with a message of forgiveness in what very well might be a meaningless world, the inhabitants of the story end up in a much more satifying place, where the freshman virgin male gets not one, but two first kisses, new relationships form, and the director admits “For the time being, all I want to do is know for sure where I stand. Anything else, well… kind of like figuring out which way I should start walking.” Progress is being made, and that “hope and meaning in a confusing, violent world”? Yeah, it’s there, somewhere.

So all in all, I really enjoyed Tanpenshu 1, and I’m planning on buying/preordering volume 2 once I make another order from internet retailer of my choice. I’m glad that Dark Horse is able to pick up titles like this, and I’m starting to understand why their titles are taking up more and more space on my shelf. (Actually, that’s a lie. Between Koike and Carl Horn, there’s never really been much confusion.) If you’re just looking for NAKED BITCHES GETTIN’ SLICED UP or something, I can’t exactly recommend this to you, but if you’re in the market for some really satisfying one-shots, this would be at the top of my list. In fact, I will probably try to push this on astrange and maybe he will write a counterpoint review to what seems to be my fanboyish point, since he’s generally more level-headed than I am.

And there you have it, it’s 2:50AM and I don’t have any work done and I need to get to sleep. Mission accomplished! I’ll try to do this again, and maybe it’ll be with something that lends itself to a shorter review. Hopefully.

Wow, it took me 13 days to do this again. Considering all I’m doing is reading Japanese blogs and re-posting their links here just like every other news update on American blogs, you’d think that I’d have more material to work with. I totally blame the American internet for posting things about that Geass/Kishimen crossover MAD 12 hours after I link it on IRC, thereby taking away any novelty that would come with it. Anyway, here are some silly links, because anything that is actually important is already covered on ANN or animenewsservice or blogs like that:

• So yeah, what would a “news” update by me be without sensory overload-style flashes that do things like combine IOSYS videos with even better videos? Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without gilcrows. Maybe make real updates. Keeping with the IOSYS theme, here is more nerdgasm fodder.
• As far as news concerning actual shows from next season that look interesting, Terra E… has a new trailer up on its site. The first OP and ED have also been announced, the OP by J-poprockers UVERWorld and the ED by Katou Milia, who only really sounds good when collaborating with m-flo.
• Finally, Akibablog has a nice article up on the release of the first volume of mii-tan, which looks to be about otaku culture and depravity, probably more on the NHK side of things than the Genshiken side of things. What makes it different from all the other series that have this same hook, you ask? (such as series in this wonderful linked article that lists a lot of series that ought to be scanslated or licensed) Well, this one is drawn by a doujin author who draws things like naked Tifa with huge tits! er, which means that he’ll have an even more insightful view on the bizzare rituals of otaku such as doujin events and ogling street maids in Akiba. Or something.
• Oh, and one more youtube video before I finish this review – Remember that Haruhi parody that the god-like Sikamako made 9ish months ago? Well it’s back! In 8-bit music backing form!

I also found out a few hours ago that my last rightstuf shipment came in. This is probably where I once again make empty promises concerning actually writing reviews and such of things that I got, so:

Hopefully some of it will inspire me to write a review! See you guys next time!

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?)

Alert Internet users will have noticed that Higurashi no Naku koro ni and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha are no longer available from places where you can get videos for free, as well as recent domain registrations related to them with the word “dvd” in them.

As big fans of Higurashi – and maybe Nanoha, if we get around to actually watching it – we’re very excited about this. We don’t really have any money, but we’re still very excited about it!

There’s a third title in this series, but by the looks of that contest running on ANN right now none of us are actually supposed to know this, so I don’t want to spoil it.

The Heisei Democracy set are going to love it, though.

Quite honestly, updates like this that don’t do much other than aggregate interesting things from the rest of the internet, oftentimes other aggregators like moonphase, are a terrible idea, because they are 1. inherently low-content and 2. time consuming, soul-crushing, and kind of force you into doing them often. Hopefully, the fact that I have fringier tastes than most will help filter my posts into something unique.

that said:

• A new episode of Marimite Web Radio has been posted, this time it’s a Hinamatsuri-themed special. Big news? Not really. Exciting? …probably not.
  

• Television’s Patrick Macias is going to be editor-in-chief of Otaku USA Magazine! Words cannot describe the excitement I feel.
  

• I’m already beginning to run out of substantial things to post about, so here’s some information about $60 cases of ef cocoa! Aren’t you glad you read this entry?
  

• Also, despite the differences in culture that Japan and America constantly face, I will always be able to take solace in the fact that the two countries will always be brought together by a healthy love of foxy boxing.
  

• On the topic of differences between Japan and America, why can’t American fans make things like Anpanman/Rozen Maiden crossovers, Doraemon/Fist of the North Star crossovers, and crazy ass Haruhi rap covers? (Thanks, Gilcrows!)
  

• Then again Japan, you promise me lolis, and you give me this. Seriously, this is almost male fan-parody CCS opening creepy.
  

• Finally, doujin circle Luv-Kraft have put up a demo and mail-order information for their first game, Re-udemonia -take a step backward- From what I could make out, they’re attempting to bring back the PC98-style adventure game, which seems to give a bit more freedom than the visual novels/kinetic novels we have today. Also, I’m a huge sucker for rough art styles that still manage to have cute girls, so there’s another big plus for me. I’ll probably download the demo tomorrow and report back, and hope that I might be able to somehow work out an overseas purchase, since I unfortunately couldn’t make it to c71.
  
  Oh yeah, and RIP danbooru. Don’t worry, we’ll always love you here at this blog, rq-chan~~