Baka to Test to Shoukanju

Introduction and Rating

Baka to Test to Shoukanju is a highschool semi-action rom-com centered on the events and actions of the students in class 2-F at Fumizuki Academy.

• Art: 9.25
• Animation: 9.5
• Music: 9.0
• Characters: 9.5
• Plot: 7.0
• Average: 8.8
• My Rating: 9.0

Comments: Himeji is scary when she’s angry… but I think her cooking is worse.

“If it wasn’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” -Lewis Black

Story

At Fumizuki Academy, rankings and standardized scores are everything. Students are divided into classes A to F according to the grades they receive on an initial standardized test—the best students being sent to class A and the worst to class F, as implied by the letters. The better the grade, the better the facilities and teachers. However, this school allows a peculiar opportunity for students to “trade up” by beating their fellow students in a battle of avatars. Who would be better to fight against the injustice of being labeled an idiot than the idiots themselves?!

Plot Summary

The only weakness this show has is that it suffers from unplanned second season syndrome. The original goal of the story was for the idiots of class F to show their worth by beating all of the other classes in ESB’s. ESB’s are battles in which the objective is for each class to take out the opposing class-representative’s avatar—which are summoned beasts. The winner of the ESB is allowed to do whatever they please with the loosing class’s assets. However, this plot point is quickly lost after the first two episodes and only reintroduced during the last few episodes. What happens in between is simply a series of comedic episodes introducing side plot elements related to the characters and their relationships with each other. Since a second season has already been planned, you can pretty much guess what happens. Assuming the second season is as good as the first and actually ties things up, and since the character side of the story was hilarious, I think I’ll let the sketchy ending slide in this instance—at least to the point where I won’t destroy the ratings completely.

Main Characters

1. Akahisa Yoshii – What fun is a rom-com without a love triangle focused on the main protagonist? In Baka to Test, Yoshii is that focal point and completely oblivious to the fact as well. He is also Fumizuki Academy’s #1 idiot. He even has a special punishment avatar because of this, which recoils on him and causes him the equivalent amount of pain that would be felt by him if he were in his avatar’s position. Nevertheless, his extreme stupidity makes him…useful
2. Mizuki Himegi – Another must in a love triangle is, of course, an innocent, busty pink hared genius, who is a complete ditz in home-economics. Himeji is completely infatuated with Yoshii but far too bashful to tell him directly. Furthermore, all of her indirect attempts to tell him fail miserably in a somewhat predictable, if not comedic, fashion—it’s the situational irony that makes it funny. Whether or not she will be able to confess is still to be seen
3. Minami Shimada – She’s flat. she’s dishonest. She’s a…pro-wrestler? Minami is the tsundere counterpart of the love triangle. She is also too embarrassed to admit her feelings to Yoshii directly, and often takes out her frustration on him when he is too dense to interpret her hints and subtle advances on him
4. Yuuji Sakamoto – Class representative, instigator of rebellion, and Yoshii’s best friend. Yuuji is actually quite smart, but feels that labeling people based on something as fickle as their grades is ridiculous. His plan is to improve his conditions—and subsequently the conditions of his friends in class F—by winning ESB’s through strategy
5. Shouka Kirishima – Childhood friend of Yuuji and the class representative of class A. Shouko has liked Yuuji since they were children, although her feelings are openly rejected by him. She frequently kidnaps him—conscious or not—in order to spend time with him and take him on dates. Despite this fact, Yuuji’s actions still seem to indicate that he may have feelings for her
6. Konta Tsuchiya – A voyeur armed with a camera. Konta uses his physical prowess, quick reflexes, and sharp eye to take snapshots of girls in their most embarrassing moments and at the most revealing angles possible. He especially likes to try to sneak a peek up Minami’s skirt when she has Yoshii locked in a finisher
7. Hideyoshi Kinoshita – It’s a boy. It’s a girl. It’s…no really, what is it? Hideyoshi is an effeminate male twin whom all the other male characters have an odd attraction to. His sister is in class A and occasionally makes an appearance to tell him not to embarrass her.

Remarks

Op/Ed

The opening for Baka to Test is great. The music is synthesized and upbeat and the animation synchs up with it perfectly. Even the credits appear and disappear with the music. Each of the main characters’ avatars appears on-screen quickly and then either run or bounce/fall off the screen. Each of the main characters gives a quick cameo on-beat to the song and then pose as if they are about to take a picture, while colorful boxes, matching their hair and eye color, spin in front of a blank and white background. White is the predominate color throughout the entire opening. Apparently the animators wanted to make 100% sure that all of the attention goes to whatever the focus of the screen is. Using the white background also allowed them to splash on various bright colors and graphics and make the whole intro bubbly and bright. What is meant by “Perfect Area Complete” I’m still not sure, but I have to admit, the opening is very catchy.

In complete contrast to the opening, the predominate color in the ending is black. Even the English words displayed in the background are mostly black on color print. The bubbly music from the opening is also replaced by a rebellious rock song. It may be a moot point to mention that the ending features only the boys, as if to play on the fact that males at high school age are rebellious. Altogether, the entire thing works. In fact, it’s one of the few endings that I’ve found myself listening to repetitively.

As a side note: the opening singer is a female, the ending singer is a male. Seriously, I think they were just trying to make the intro and ending as different as possible.

Art

The art in Baka to Test is very well done—to the point where it’s hard to find even a single line out of place. This may be due to the fact that most of the art is CG. This allows the animators a great amount of leeway. As opposed to a single standard, the art in Baka to Test often flips between the overly dramatic black and white shaded art, to a bubbly pink comic book look, to whatever else the current situation calls for. The animators especially liked to use conspicuous CG in order to focus attention on certain aspects of a character—especially the females—or of a scene. I wasn’t a big fan of this at the beginning, since I was originally of the belief that the best CG is seamless, but over time I’ve come to appreciate this innovative and unfamiliar style.

Music

Similar to the art, the music in Baka to Test is highly variable. From a mellow Hawaiian tone to a hectic or battle tone, the music is always appropriate to set the tone for the given situation. This is one of the few soundtracks I find myself wanting to download…speaking of which. That aside, the music isn’t the only thing you’ll find yourself hearing. Many of the scenes call for sound effects or a narrator, both of which really give the anime a unique feel.

Overview

Baka to Test is one of the most unique rom-coms that I have ever seen. The combinations of appropriate sound effects, music, and eye-catching CG, along with the solid art help to create a great and hilarious anime. It is one of the few where I have laughed so hard that I was forced to pause it in order not to miss anything. I would definitely recommend it to anyone in the mood for a good comedy.

P.S. I only found the two guys hugging in Angel Beats! awkward because it was the main character who was hugging the current big bad, and this happened immediately after the main character witnessed the aftermath of his friends’ massacre at the hands of that very person. Not that I disagree with Andrew’s point, but I don’t want anyone thinking I hate gay people or anything stupid like that. Anyway, I was seriously disappointed that Angel didn’t get to have at least one round with him before we were forced to listen to his pathetic sob story. Blah blah blah sad childhood…Seriously? And this excuses him for all the shit he pulled? Whatever…I’ll let it slide—mainly because the episode preceding this one was amazing—but they better not pull something like that again…

[Review] Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-Kun

Introduction

Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-Kun (GN) is a standard issue ecchi series, complete with moe-blobs, Japanese high school, and military combat. The series focuses on Shungo Ninomiya, a badass normal high school student who has to take care of a busty androphobic succubus, Mayu Tsukimura, who can’t control her powers of attraction, which results in some rather interesting situations.

Characters

• Shungo Ninomiya: Our hapless hero of the series; Shungo has the unfortunate task of taking care of Mayu—with his action-girl sister not helping—which has proven to be more than a handful. Shungo may play as an ordinary high school student, but he’s actually quite the action-hero. Through the work of his mischievous sister, Shungo has to go through hellish combat training on a regular basis, such as fighting bears in the arctic! His sister also comes up with sexually charged and fanservice-oriented theropy for Mayu, which results in awkward situations and hilarity. Fortunately, the series is focused on delivering as much fanservice as possible, so it faithfully places him in the role of butt-monkey, most of the time.

• Mayu Tsukimura: A young girl who happens to be a succubus that’s afraid of men. Her supernatural ability to attract men intensifies whenever she feels anxious and she has absolutely no control over her powers, which just adds to the humor—it’s a vicious cycle: she gets anxious when there are men around, which attracts more men, which makes her more anxious, and so on and so forth.

• Reika Hojo: The last side of the love triangle, Reika is a tsundere meido with a hidden evil side who’s a yandere. She’s the daughter of the owner of a mega-corporation and the high school’s student president, so, naturally, she gets involved with Mayu and Shungo through various circumstances that were masked as efforts to stabilize the school’s morals, when, really, they were just romantic advances towards Shungo. Her normal personality isn’t quite as interesting as her relentless alter-ego; one’s a bitch, the other is a ruthless sex-maniac.

Plot

The series is, for the most part, modular and can be viewed out of order, until the last 2 episodes. Each episode roughly follows the same formula, focusing on Mayu’s klutzy behavior and fear of men to drive the humor for 30 minutes—and occasionally throwing Reika into the mix.

While Shungo’s sister, Ryoko, is out fighting against unknown enemies, Mayu arrives at Shungo’s school and greets him via “crash into hello”—the kind that instantiates a 69. After their first meeting, Shungo is told by Ryoko that Mayu will be staying with them until she’s cured of her androphobia. Later on, Shungo learns that Mayu is a succubus and that her uncontrollable ability to attract men is further agitated by her anxiety.

Mayu immediately transfers to Shungo’s school and along the way they meet Reika, the school president. Soon afterwards, Reika gets involved with Mayu and Shungo’s business and challenges Mayu to a contest—of which she loses. As payment for her loss, Reika has to work as a meido for Shungo’s family.

Through a series of episodes featuring a visit to the beach, military kidnappings, sexually charged training (to get over the androphobia), lesbian action, a school fieldtrip, and laser-guided amnesia, Shungo discovers that he knew, both, Mayu and Reika when they were very young. Reika’s evil personality takes over her body, uses her financial pull to physically separate Mayu from Shungo, and attempt to rape him. Luckily, Shungo escapes the ordeal, with the help of his friends. Concurrently, Mayu goes looking for Shungo and they meet up not too far from Reika’s hideout. Reika becomes terribly upset and orders her butler to kill Shungo. After was appears to be a blow-out, Shungo is saved at the last moment, by Mayu, and manages to take out Reika’s butler in one blow. Unfortunately, this pits Mayu deadly close to the edge, but through a weird set of circumstances involving a lesbian kiss, Mayu survives and the status quo is reinstated.

Themes

Being an ecchi series requires some sacrifices, such as substance, themes, and a plot worth analyzing. As such, I think I’m just going to breeze over this section of the review, because, honestly, this series is about one thing, and one thing only, FANSERVICE. With that, I’m just gonna continue along to the final thoughts.

Final Thoughts | Conclusion

When I finally started writing the review for this series, I had forgotten everything about it—except the fanservice. So I went ahead and rewatched the whole series over again, and, in hindsight, the series was actually a lot better than I had first concluded. Compared to a few other ecchi comedies I’ve seen, I feel that this one had a little bit more effort put into it—albeit, not that much more effort. Still, even though I have seen other ecchi series, such as They Are My Noble Masters and Akane-iro Somaru Saka, I’d have to say that this series is one of the most entertaining and balanced ecchi series I’ve seen—let’s just say that whenever I try to think of an ecchi series, Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun is the one that comes to mine; although, now it’s starting to get some competition from the new cat-girl oriented Omamori Himari.

If you’re looking for a light-hearted, predictable, and surprisingly funny series, GN is what you’re probably looking for—a little fanservice never hurt, either.

Score | Charts

Ratings

Attributes	Values	Weight
Impression	8	5%
Hype	6
Plot	5	30%
Setting	6.5
POV	6
Characters	5	30%
Themes	1	35%
Symbols	1
Images	1

Ratings Summary

Rating Raw Score: 39.5
Weighted Score: 3.95 (39.50%)
Tilt (Raw): 7.5
Tilt Weight: 25% (Total Inflation: 125%)
Tilt Weighted Score: 1.875

Total: 5.83

Rating: 58.30%

Charts

Rating Chart

Attribute Chart

Gallery

[Topside | Thoughts] Hayate no Gotoku S1 Finished

Separating Seasons

So, I just finished watching the entire first season of Hayate no Gotoku, which is actually made up of 4 different seasons. I’ve begun to watch the second season of Hayate no Gotoku, but I didn’t realize that the second season ret conned the first season out; the second season begins one month after Hayate becomes a butler and the first season animates approximately one year of Hayate’s adventures, so it uses some parts of the first season. In light of this new information, I’ve decided to review the two seasons separately, as if they were two different works—and that’s how it should be because both works were done by different animation studios. What’s weird, yet favorable, is that the second studio to animate Hayate no Gotoku, J.C. Staff, decided to keep most of the original voice actors, but decided to reinterpret several plot elements and add in new characters—staying in-line with the original work; a similar situation has brewed with Studio Bones’ Fullmetal Alchemist franchise. I feel like this is becoming a trend among several different manga and light novel works; interpret an incomplete series, beef up the fan-base, and then re-interpret the series with something more faithful when it finally has enough material for you to work with to satisfy all those fans who would claim that the first interpretation sucked. Well, I don’t really mind at all, but that came as somewhat of a surprise to me.

Thoughts On Hayate no Gotoku

I read that the second season of Hayate no Gotoku had a larger animation budget than the first, but after watching two episodes of the second season, I don’t really see that much of a difference between the two series, other than the different styles of animation between SynergySP (S1) and J.C. Staff (S2). SynergySP tends to have stronger hues and brighter, more cartoonish colors with bolder borders on objects and characters, while J.C. Staff tends to lighten the character designs with more shades and less lines; either way, I think both seasons look fantastic. Of course, J.C. Staff loves to beef up the tsundere in all of their bitches female leads, but what else is new? They even got Rie Kugimiya voicing Nagi Sanzenin.

I felt that the first season was endearing, funny, and light-hearted. One thing that the first season did was leave very little room for the audience to get emotionally involved by not developing any type of misunderstanding between the characters during times of peril, which may or may not be favorable. I felt that the animators could’ve allowed the plot to develop a little bit more, before extinguishing the drama of the situation. Although, the direction that some of those situations were going would’ve upset me more than entertain me if the animators decided to let the situation develop for too long; better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.

Regardless, the series was a comedic roller-coaster that has several memorable moments—many of which involve cat girls/guys. I’ll be doing a review of this series as soon as I get all my other reviews finish…sigh.

Until next time.

-Ja-ne!

Basic Overview – Fall ’09 anime + Aria and Bleach

Fall ’09 Anime + Extras – A Quick Overview

Alright – Get ready, because this is one hell of a post!  Sorry if there are some errors in grammar/whatever – I’ll update it when I get some time…

Well well well.. finals are finally over and THANK GOD!  Seriously, if I spent one more minute cooped up in my room with books and papers all around me I would have probably quite literally gone insane.  Though some may argue I already am…

Setting that aside!  Sorry for getting so far behind on reviews, but I should be able to get up to date pretty fast (I’ve got nothing else to do…).  Anyway, as you may or may not remember, I put up a list of anime I was watching this season, and since they are ending soon, I thought I’d start out by giving my basic impression of the anime I’ve been watching – just like a sentence or two, nothing special – to get back into the swing of things.

• Asura Cryin’ 2 – If you haven’t seen the first season, read my previous review of it before deciding to watch it/not watch it.  Well, I need to catch up on this season (which I will readily do tomorrow).  I will go ahead that I was somewhat disappointed in the direction the anime took at the beginning by making the main character, Tomo, fall into the oh so common pattern of indecisiveness and petty idealistic weakness before finally wakening up and accepting reality, but that said, as of the last episode I saw, things had finally started to turn around.  I may or may not end up recommending this based on its ending/the chance of its continuation.

• Nyan Koi! – This is one of the best anime of this season bar none.  It’s about a highschool boy named Junpei who comes under the curse of a sacred cat statue after knocking it over on his way home from school.  What does the curse do?  Well, allow him to talk to cats of course.  Unless he helps out 100 cats within a certain amount of time, he himself will be turned into a cat – a fact that he is quickly informed of by no other than his own pet.  But there’s a catch:  he is not allowed to tell anyone about the curse lest they be cursed as well and his own curse be accelerated.  Furthermore, Junpei is allergic to cats.  What follows is a hilarious romantic comedy about Junpei’s daily life as he tries to free himself from his curse while dealing with a harem of highschool girls and deal with constant nagging requests from a plethora of needy cats.

• Sacred Blacksmith – This anime is about… well… I still don’t exactly know what it’s about.  The plot follows a female knight named Cecily Cambell of the prestigious Cambell household who come into possession of the demon sword Aria.  Some of you may ask, “well why give a sword a name?”; well, first off, because all special items in anime MUST have names, and secondly, this demon sword is special in that it can take the form of a human girl.  However, there are several people who wish to have Aria and would do anything to take her, not the least of which is a caped villain who seems to have a vague connection to an overlordy “dark god” sealed inside a mountain just outside of the city.  Joined by Luke Ainsworth and his cute little elf girl counterpart Lisa, Cecily strives to keep Aria out of their hands at all costs.  Unfortunately, the animators decided to give this anime a plot as of just a couple episodes ago and due to finals, I’m behind, so this is the best description I can give at the moment.  I’ll end up recommending it based on how it turns out from here on (ie. based on whether or not the plot is worth anything) but I will say that Lisa is the most moe little elf girl I’ve seen in a very long time.

• Sparky – or rather To Aru Kagaku no Railgun – If you haven’t seen To Aru Majutsu no Index this anime is not going to make ANY sense, so go watch it first (yes… I’m recommending it – if nothing else, see it so that you can watch this one).  Just to give you a very rough idea, the plot revolves around students in a city learning how to use special powers.  There are several different types of powers, the strength or level of which depends on how much the person has trained them and ranges from level 1 to level 5.  Railgun is about Misaka Mikoto – also known as “Tokiwadai’s Railgun” – who happens to be a level 5, her kohai (think opposite of sempai) and roommate Kuroko Shirai, a level 4 teleporter and part of the disciplinary commity “Judgment”, and her friends Kazari Uiharu, a level 1 with an unknown power – also a part of Judgment, and Ruiko Saten, a level 0 (no not satan ~ haha! your name/nickname/bitch-name didn’t get capitalized in my post loser).  At some point, someone figured out how to “cheat” and raise ability levels by using a mysterious method nicknamed the “level upper” and has been spreading the catalyst around.  Lower levels are tempted to use this in order to take their abilities to the next level – if you’ll forgive the expression – and after gaining powers often commit crimes.  Judgment is constantly badgered by happenings related to this level upper, and puts forth efforts to find the catalyst and the person responsible for it.  At the forefront of this investigation are the four girls (Saten and Misaka, of course, unofficially).  Now, I make the plot out to be very serious, but honestly, none of this develops until the latter half of the anime.  The first half revolves around the relationship between the four girls and establishing their bonds – often resulting from hilarious and heart-warming situations.  If you saw and liked the previous season of To Aru, I would highly recommend this to you.  Overall it is probably one of the best anime this season.

• 11 eyes – This anime is just… odd…  It is about several highschool students with special powers nicknamed “fragments” that are constantly pulled into the “Red Night”, another dimension that appears at random filled with demons and dark forces out to kill them for some (still) unexplained reason.  Over time, the fragments find each other through circumstance or what-have-you, and form an alliance, pitting themselves against the “Black Knights” – guardians of the Red Night and its imprisoned princess sealed within a red crystal – with one objective:  to survive.  Who is this princess?  Why are the fragments being targeted?  And what is the cause of this Red Night?  Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.  No really… it’s been like 10 episodes and the only thing that’s been revealed is that the main couple have connections to past lives in which the guy was killed.  Whatever… the art is solid and the anime is… interesting… but I don’t think I can give it a recommendation… at least not until it starts making some dam sense.

• Kampfer – Hot girls fighting hot girls.  A guy who turns into a hot girl and fights with said hot girls…  a harem of girls desperate to get the single guy’s attention (though he is too dense to realize it)… and a vaguely evil villain – who happens to be a hot girl.  Yeah, that’s a pretty good summary of this anime.  The actual plot revolves around aforementioned “guy who turns into a hot girl”, Senou Natsuru, and the road to perdition – females.  Okay, I’m just messing with you.  In this world, there are people chosen to become warriors named “Kampfers” who are given psychic powers from the bracelets they wear.  Kampfers are split into teams by color of their bracelet and told to battle each other to the death until only one team remains.  However, there are those who do not wish to battle each other without reason, namely Senou and the friends he makes in and outside of his team.  Brought together by the desire to end the senseless violence, Senou and his friends strive to find out who is the mastermind behind the Kampfers and stop them at all costs.  As for my outlook on the anime… well… if you like anime girls of all shapes and “sizes” (if you catch my drift), this anime is for you, but if you’re looking for a plot… well… let me explain.  Have you ever gotten into an anime and then, somewhere along the lines the animators realize “OH, THAT’S WHAT WE FORGOT!” referring to the plot – that would be this.  Even so, I think the real purpose of the anime is self explanatory…

• Kobato – “I’ll heal your broken heart…” – This is an anime about Kobato, a girl who has left heaven to make her dreams come true, and her fire-breathing guardian dog-doll, Loryuugi…san.  In order for Kobato to fulfill her wishes, she must first completely fill a bottle with “candies”, tiny gems created by healing a person’s broken heart.  Unfortunately, Kobato is somewhat clumsy and often inept, but through the purity of her own heart, she is able to help others in ways no one else can.  I really like this series and will go ahead and recommend it to anyone who is interested.  It’s definitely one of the best and most heartwarming anime of the season.

• Shin Koihime Musou – If you’re familiar with the first season of Koihime Musou, I don’t think I need to explain anything.  The second season picks up shortly after where the first season left off and is back to the same hijinks and obligatory (if not excessive) fan service.  Okay, there’s no such thing as excessive fanservice… let me correct myself.  This time, the team is escorting a pink haired girl named Ryuubi on her quest to regain her lost sword – ironically the same sword as the main villain from the previous season.  Along the way, they come across the tail of an evil magical tome from a passing doctor who has set out to seal it.  Keeping this in mind, the group continues on their journey meeting up with old friends and a plethora of new girls along the way (apparently I like using the word “plethora” a lot).  If you liked the previous season of Koihime, I can definitely recommend this to you, but otherwise, please read Andrew’s description before you decide.

• Sora no Otoshimono – Flying underwear anyone? – I would liken this anime to Koihime Musou in regards to the “plot”; it’s there, but no one really cares…  It’s basically about the boy, Tomoki Sakarai, and his encounter with Ikaros, a “pet-class angeloid” – human-like androids complete with the power to grant any wish and a pair of retractable wings.  Unfortunately, the programmers (whomever they happen to be…) seem to have forgotten something – something very basic:  common sense.  Having his peaceful daily life shattered by his new nonsensical magical pet, Tomo tries to adjust to his new lifestyle while his close group of friends attempt to figure out what this new entity is and where it came from.  Okay… that said, I have to give this anime some credit – it’s funny; borderline hilarious at times and it may, in fact, have a plot.  Still, I hesitate to recommend it because I’m not sure how the ending is going to work out.  I’ll be sure to put up a review of it sometime after its completion.

• Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu – If you’ve seen the first season, consider this an extension of it.  If you haven’t let me review:  this anime is about Nogizaka Haruka – a high school idol and secret anime fanatic – and the boy that finds out about her secret, Yuto Ayase.  Through cute and often funny twists and turns covered in the first season, the two develop bonds together that are neigh unbreakable.  In the second season, we continue to follow Haruka’s and Yuto’s developing relationship (or, perhaps, better stated “developed” relationship).  Unfortunately, I’ve only seen about five episodes of it (I’m way behind) which is through no great fault of the anime itself, but until I catch up, I can’t say much more about it than I already have.  I’ll update this portion of the post at some point in the near future (hopefully).

• Bleach – Yay side-arcs?  Seriously, these guys just need to get a life and quit screwing around with side stories… is what I’d like to say… From what I understand, the makers of the anime are stumped because they keep having to wait on the manga to be released.  If you’ve never seen Bleach, let me give you a vague idea of the plot.  There are evil spirits, the Hollow, who live in the dimension “Hueco Mundo” (basically hell) which sometimes break out and enter the real world or “the world of the living” to feed on wandering dead souls or living humans.  Soul reapers, spirits of the dead trained in their second life to fight and use limited magical abilities, live in the “Soul Society” (I’d like to say “heaven” but more like a second stage of the world of the living) and are sent to stop Hollow from running amuck.  The story revolves around a highschool student named Ichigo Kurosaki (really… they couldn’t have thought of a better name than “strawberry” for their main character?) and his (initially) involuntary involvement with the sould reapers.  I don’t want to get any deeper into the plot thatn that because it gets really convoluted.  Whatever the case, up until the Rukia arc was finished, it was arguably one of the best anime around, but since then, the animators have been forced to throw in so many side arcs it’s ridiculous.  I would recommend this on the basis that, when the plot picks up, it’s amazing, but would warn anyone intending to watch it… BE READY FOR SIDE ARCS!

• Fairy Tail – Yes yes… they spelled “Tale” wrong – I’ll go ahead and say that I’m partial to this particular breed of anime (I like idealism – sue me…).  This anime takes place in a world of magic and wizards.  Powerful wizards group together to form guilds – most of which are good, but some of which are bad or “dark” guilds which often cause trouble.  The focus of the story is the guild “Fairy Tale” and the exploits of its “most powerful team”:  Erza – an “ex-quip” mage (my personal favorite – seriously, the less clothes she wears the more badass she gets [that’s not exactly how the ability works but WHATEVER, I like it…]), Lucy – a summoner, Gray – an ice mage, and Natsu – a fire mage, and their little blue cat friend Happy.  There is no real centralized plot – this anime is more like a series chronologically ordered short arcs that build on each other.  If you’ve seen the anime “Rave Master” let me just summarize:  it has the same author, and follows the same idealistic point of view.  Just subtract out the centralized plot and trade it in for a more comedic and better animated (for obvious reasons) piece of work, and you have Fairy Tail.  I would definitely recommend this anime to anyone who has seen Rave Master and liked it.  As for everyone else, check it out and see if you like it.  I’ll have a full review for it up at some point after the series is complete.

• Aria the Animation – Sometime in the future, after man began to cultivate/colonize Mars, the planet was flooded with water earning it the new name “Aqua”.  Gondolas became a popular form of guided tours to learn about the planet and the great city of Neo-Venezia (“New Venice”).  The undines who guide them are taught to be skillful, graceful, knowledgeable, and above all courteous to their compatriots and their counterpart undines despite the fact that they hail from several different companies, perhaps the smallest of which is “Aria Company”.  Here, an undine in training named Akari, strives to become the best undine she can be under the guidance of her instructor Alicia, one of the three legendary “Water Fairies” – named so for their grace and skill hailed to be the greatest of any undine.  Together with her friends Aika from “Himeya Company” and Alice from “Orange Planet”, Akari learns that there is much more to being an undine than just skill or knowledge, and that the water covered planet may be a much more mystical place than it appears.  Well… that’s the best description I can give it.  There are so many things I would like to say about this anime but I think I can go ahead and say this:  it’s certainly one of the best anime around in my opinion.  The art is great and the girls are as sweet as can be (this is where the southerner in me takes over – darn it I’m tired).  What I’m TRYING to say is, I highly recommend this anime.  I know it’s an older one, but don’t let that keep you from watching it, and be sure to keep your eyes open to the scenery and your ears open to the music, you won’t want to miss it!

Oh, and about 5cm/s – I’m still working on that review, but it’s taken me a lot of effort to express some of the basic concepts (such as love) I think are important to understand in order to respect the work completely.  Any way around it, I hope you all look foreward to it and enjoy reading it.  Until then!

[Topside] In the Wake

Queen’s Blade Falls Short

After watching two episodes of Queen’s Blade, I couldn’t help but feel like the series continuously perpetuates its own hype through a series of illogical events. It’s a shame that the series turned out to be nothing more than cheap, unsatisfying hentai ecchi. The series takes itself way too seriously—albeit, not that seriously—for it to have such large, gaping holes in logic and plot. I’m all up for an ecchi series, especially one with all-star voice actors, but this one just falls flat on its face. The productions values are top-notch and the voice acting is incredible, but, at the end of the day, a pig with lipstick is still a pig. So, I’ve decided to drop the series from my list and suspend it indefinitely—at least until I’m in a more forgiving mood.

Hayate no Gotoku Breaks the Ice…and the Fourth Wall

Now, the series that has completely taken me surprise is Hayate no Gotoku. I was a bit shocked to see that Shana Rie Kugimiya was the voice of Nagi Sanzenin—the main-supporting character; fully loaded with Tsundere and Shana’s voice, albeit with a little bit more endearment and a little less bitch. Regardless, I’m liking the fact that this comedy series knows that its an anime and routinely breaks the fourth wall; it really eases the stress of the harem nature of this series—and it’s not for my sake, rather it’s for the sake of all those shippers out there.

Speaking of familiar voice actors, the person they have voicing the narrator, The Voice of the Heavens, is the same guy who did Emperor Charles in Code Geass, Norio Wakamoto. His sarcastic, snarky remarks are some of the most hilarious moments in the entire series. It’s great to see the characters poke fun at their own show.

Regardless, the series is over 70+ episodes long, so it’ll take me some time to burn through all of the episodes.

In the Mean Time

Other reviews are going to be put out, mainly the joint review between me and Josh on Valkyria Chronicles. Nyan Koi is rumored to have a second season, so I’m going to delay putting that on the review stack. And I’m working on my other anime shows that I plan on reviewing; I’m thinking of putting out, yet, another review template that would allow me to review anime even faster by skipping over most of the plot and character descriptions and give me the liberty to justify how I felt about the series—along with all the ratings and charts. We’ll see how this turns out; school is over so I don’t have to worry about finals or work for the next month and a half.

New Series Creeps Up: Monster

I just found a new anime, Monster (or if you prefer the other wiki), that scored incredibly high ratings and praise from the anime community while browsing around TV Tropes. I can’t believe that this one slipped underneath my radar. I plan on pushing this series all the way ahead of the queue into my watch list. You can expect news and feedback from this series sometime soon.

Well, that’s all the news I have. Until next time!

-Ja-ne!

[Topside] K – On! Cracks Ice

Breaking Through

So, I was suppose to start watching Valkyria Chronicles, but I decided to put everything on hold and watch K – On! after Josh told me that Valkyria Chronicles ends on a sour note. I honestly need a break from sad anime, so I figured that K – On! would be the perfect filler series between my-getting-my-reviews-out and starting up another serious series. And it looks like I wasn’t wrong.

The anime is totally ridiculous. It’s all sorts of moe and quirky. I absolutely love Moi-chan; shy, cute, afraid of scary images. She’s so moe that even her friends say so during the anime.

In any case, I’m loving the series. I can definitely see why it was so popular.

Until next time:
-Ja-ne!

[Topside | Thoughts] Melancholy S2 Finished | Neon Genesis Contemplate

Endless

OK, so back in May, I was excited to see that Kyoto Animation was animating another season of The Melancholy of Haruhi. Their plan was to re-air the episodes of the first season and interleave episodes from season 2 that were chronologically in between episodes from the first season. Well, no big deal – the fans can hang with that. Hell, the only reason why Kyoto is even on the map is because of the first season, so a quick refresher isn’t so bad.

And then there was Endless Eight…Dear God, could the animators have created a more brilliant way to split up their fans and incite some of the largest flame-wars ever? Now, I know that the writers of this series like to make a lot of meta-physical jokes, but to actually distort the views of several real-life fans to the point of just doing themselves a disservice is just not funny. Basically, the studio dumped dog-shit on itself to see if anyone would think it was a brilliant act that deserved a good laugh. The answer is, NO! There is absolutely nothing funny about animating the same episode 8 times. It seriously upset me. I suspended the series for months because of that stunt.

And why is it that Kyoto Animation refuses to animate any more of the story than it already has; furthermore, why animate one small segment of the series with 8 episodes? That’s just ridiculous. Grrr…OK, I’m done fuming, onto the real business.

Finished

Aside from the aforementioned headache-fuel, I came to appreciate the series’ meta-humor and cross-referencing material (the most obvious being the ending flashback). The most impressive parts of the season came in when fictional elements within the movie that the cast was filming actually affected reality; what can we expect from Haruhi Suzumiya? Even though these elements were to be expected, it’s still a bit jarring to see a cat speak out of no where. Kinda like:

“It’s gonna happen. I know it. Wait, will it happen? I don’t know…”

Regardless, I felt that the animators did a great job of finishing the series strong. I don’t plan on doing a review of this season, because I feel that wouldn’t really progress the discussion of the series as a whole anyways. Besides, I’m really stuck on Ga-rei: Zero at the moment.

Unfortunately, not much can be said about the series other than the fact that it delivers exactly what you would expect. The one thing that did throw me off was that episodes usually ended with an incomplete conversation, which would be immediately picked up in the next episode. For instance,

The end of Episode 13:

“Yuki, do you know where we can get some cats?”

The beginning of Episode 14:

“Yes”

Instances like this made me wonder if the audience, during its time of airing, ever got the bigger picture? It would be fairly difficult to remember the very last thing the characters actually said, not what they were talking about. I could understand the audience remembering what they were talking about before the show ended, but having to remember what the last words were is just a bit much; albeit, it’s brilliant if you downloaded all the episodes!

As the light novels continue to be published, I have no doubt in my mind that the studio will continue to animate the series – but what’s so curious is that the studio refuses to get its act together when it comes to this series. It’s like all the DC Comics based movies; it’s impossible to make a movie based on a DC Comics story because they simply refuse to negotiate. Regardless, I’m sure more seasons are bound to come out of this.

But so far, we’ll have to be content with what we have so far: one season out of order and another that’s filled with repetitive canned plot.

Contemplating Neon

OK, after reading about all of the incredible high octane nightmare fuel that is Neon Genesis, I am trying to decide whether or not to just speed through this series or outright outlaw it. From what I’ve heard, this series is just as nightmarish as Elfen Lied, which isn’t a good thing for me. I’ve already spoiled myself by reading several plot briefs and associated tropes. Neon Genesis definitely sounds like a series to be reckoned with. I feel like watching the series is just asking for trouble. I already know that after watching the series, I’ll end up contemplating several useless topics, ultimately producing nothing in the end; an unproductive use of my time. Now, the author was a severely depressed nihilist at the time of Neon Genesis’ creation, so it’s no wonder that he’d include material that would spin the audience in such as way as to make their time unproductive and futile – coinciding with the belief that all systems eventually come to an end; nihilism.

OK, so what’s this got to do with anything? Like, so what? Well, I’ve had the pleasure of going through several enjoyable anime and the idea of subjecting myself to mental anguish just doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. But that’s all I really have to say about Neon Genesis at the moment. I will continue to keep it on suspension, but I know that I’ll eventually get around to watching it. The movie is suppose to be a lighter and softer version of the original series – anything is lighter and softer than Neon Genesis Evangelion – so I might hold out until all four movies come out and watch them; that will be years later, mind you.

In any case, that’s all I got. I’ll be moving onto Valkyria Chronicles very soon and I’ve begun watching/reading Naruto (Shippuuden). I’ve become all caught up on the manga and I’m continuing to make headway through the anime series. It’s not looking good in either, but what did I expect from a silly action flick?

[Thoughts] Thoughts No Railgun | Nyan Koi | FMA Brotherhood

No Railgun, No Action

The whole reason why I started watching the To Aru Majutsu no Index series was because of the No Railgun’s OP. There was absolutely no other reason to push this series to the top of the queue other than the rueful bubbly hit song, Only My Railgun by fripside. Nonetheless, I actually enjoyed the No Index series – to an extent. So, what has come out of this literary sprint through one of JC Staff’s series to another? Mostly satisfaction. Watching No Index wasn’t entirely necessary to watch No Railgun, but it definitely helps understand who the characters are.

So OK. Yeah, No Index. No shit. What about No Railgun, Andrew? OK. No Railgun is mostly satisfying. And here’s why: Firstly, I feel that the series is extremely slow-paced, given the pace of the previous series (No Index). But it’s understandable because the main premise of No Railgun is, more or less, about the everyday life of Mikoto Misaka (Bi-bi, Sparky, Railgun, whatever) and her friends. Secondly, this spinoff series is not entirely canonical. The writers have shuffled up how Toma and Mikoto actually meet, and most of the events that occur in the spinoff don’t impact the main series. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – on the contrary, it’s nice to see a different side of Academy City and a level 5 esper blowing the shit out of stuff – oh wait…let me talk about that! OK, the only reason I wanted to watch No Railgun was to see Mikoto, Academy City’s third most powerful esper, blow shit up! But no! I don’t see Miss Sparky shooting lightning bolts at anyone. What the hell is that all about? Now, I know that this series is meant to be lighter and softer than No Index, but come on! The writers have hyped up the series to be about the story’s most favored, and most powerful, protagonist in the entire franchise, and yet they have failed to deliver the juice. THE JUICE! Where the hell are the fireworks?!

But, I’ll give the series the benefit of the doubt; I read that this series is based off a manga series that’s actually a spinoff of the original light novel series. Apparently, in the manga some serious shit goes down – so I’m holding off until the end of the year before judging the series.

Notwithstanding, the series gets a passing grade.

Nyan Koi Meow

Oh man, I think I have a favorite among the series that I’m currently watching. Nyan Koi is the surprise of the season – no, the year! The silly premise and the blobs of moe make for an incredible amount of satisfying humor. I love the main character, Junpei, isn’t completely out of his mind like many other protagonists I know. The harem humor is outstanding! I honestly can’t get enough of the slapstick and situational comedy. Also, the (anime) girls are hot, naturally. I think I’m a sucker for this entire series, because everything it has just makes me feel warm and giddy inside. Cats, cute girls, tsundere’s with huge boobs, twins, and tons of moe – I mean, how can you resist? This series is just the objectification of the word “cute.”

I can only imagine this series getting better and better as it continues. It’s animated by the same studio that did Seto No Hanayome, so I expect big things from this series. I know they won’t let me down.

FMA Brotherhood Explodes

Alright, so FMA: Brotherhood has turned out to be the biggest surprise of the year for me. After watching the first season, whose review is actually coming soon, I was so disappointed in the entire franchise that I had lost all hope in the second adaptation. So, when the story of Brotherhood diverged entirely from the first series, I was delighted to hear that this adaption would be following the manga more closely than it’s lighter, older brother. This second series is definitely darker and edgier, which puts a smile on my face because the first series was so wacky that I had to stop midway through some of the episodes and murder thousands of people in Prototype in order to darken my mood and stave off insanity.

I’m excited about where Bones Studio will take this! Don’t let me down, BONES!

[Topside] Gunslinger S1 Finished

Gunslinger

So, I managed to finish the first season of the surprisingly dark and edgy drama (Yeah, I know!), Gunslinger Girl. What a ride. It wasn’t emotional or sentimental though. So, it was sort of a weird mix of thematic melancholy, mixed in with a constant foreboding. In some odd sense, the series hyped itself up in a smooth and understated way. I always got the feeling that something bad was going to happen to the girls of the series, but it never actually came to pass – yet that somehow fit in with the expectations. A kind of contradiction that manifested itself in the mood of the series. In some sense, the worst has already come for the main characters, because they’re cyborgs. Their lives are already ruined by their medically induced amnesia and loyalty. They’ve had everything taken away from them by the government and these sweet innocent girls have been reduced to gutter water. In that sense, I suppose you could argue that the series was in this constant moody stream because the characters had already suffered the worst of it.

In any case, I plan on reviewing this series as soon as I can get through my other reviews. Speaking of which…

Progress

The 5 Cm/S review is close. I plan on releasing it over the weekend – probably close on the tail of Josh’s weekly post. In other news, I started the second season of Gunslinger Girl and I feel betrayed! A different studio picked up the rights to animate it and the change in voice actors and animation style have completely destroyed the mood of the first series. Argh! I also read terrible reviews of the second season, so I’m not totally hyped up for it anyways. Ehh, I guess I’ll try to get through a few episodes here and there – to be honest, I was dragging my feet through the first season due to the nature of the themes. But that wasn’t because the series was bad or anything; each episode felt so short even though all of them were a solid 25 minutes long. The anime seriously engrosses the audience in the devastation that is the girls of the series.

Another Seto

Oh! I forgot to tell everyone that I started to watch the series Nyan Koi! Oh man, what a hilarious series! The same animators who did Seto no Hanayome have taken up the task of animating Nyan Koi. I could tell right away! I had to look them up after I made the conclusion. It’s one of the most charming and hilarious anime I’ve had the pleasure of watching in the past 6 months. If you really liked Seto no Hanayome, then you’ll love Nyan. Also, KITTIES!

Well, until the review…
-Ja-ne!

[Review] Shakugan no Shana S1 + S2

Told Ya So

Ha! I actually finished this review in a decent about of time – just a couple of days. Man, makes me wonder how much more I could accomplish if I had the same resolve. Oh well! This knocks out a review that’s been in my to-do pile since Spring 2009. Anyways, here’s the review:

[Review] Shakugan no Shana S1 + S2

Charts

Attribute Chart

Rating Chart

Introduction

Josh introduced Shakugan no Shana to me, and he claimed that the series was one of the more impressive anime series he’s seen. He was adamant about his claims for Shakugan no Shana and I have a deep respect for his taste in anime, so I decided to watch the series. Now, I won’t say that I was disappointed, but I can’t say that I was really impressed with JC Staff’s work – especially after reading the light novels. For the most part, I felt that the animators were aiming to close the series and give it a definite end so that it would fit nicely into 25 episodes. Unfortunately, the light novels are still being produced and the prospect of closing off an entire storyline hasn’t really assuaged any of the fans. To be brutally honest, Shakugan no Shana was no more rewarding than an action movie with hackneyed plot devices and a big bitch as the main star.

Plot

The premise of the series is the existence of two parallel worlds that have regular humans on one side (Earth) and demon-like “Crimson Denizens” (Denizens) on the other (The Crimson Realm). All of the Denizens require “power-of-existence” to survive if they enter Earth and there are only a few ways to obtain it. The two most common ways are:

1. Devour the souls of humans on Earth
2. Find a human host to reside in and use their life as substance. In exchange, the host inherits powers associated with the Crimson Denizen; of course, the host pledges their freedom to the Crimson Denizen.

As you can tell, a conflict erupts between Denizens who want to enter Earth but refuse to reside in a host and those who believe that devouring human souls will upset the balance between the two worlds. Since residing inside of a host traps the Denizen inside of an entity that doesn’t necessarily have to bend to the Denizen’s will, the only reason why a Denizen would choose to reside in a host is to hunt other Denizens who are devouring souls on Earth; they are called “Flame Hazes.”

Flame Hazes fight Denizens who consume human souls, but in order to “soften the shock” due to the loss of human souls, Flame Hazes place a “Torches” in place of the missing souls. As the name implies, a Torch is only a placeholder for someone’s existence and will eventually “burn out.” When a Torch burns out, the person’s very existence burns out; no one will even remember they ever existed.

The series starts out with an ordinary high school freshman, Saki Yuji, stepping into the middle of feeding-frenzy when our bitch-heroine, Shana, flies in with her long, flaming red hair and big-ass sword; sweeping left and right against the life-draining bastards.

After the ordeal, Yuji learns that he’s a Torch and gets emo after being told that he’s not human and follows Shana around town, asking a barrage of questions. Shana reveals to Yuji that he is a vessel for an ancient artifact, but doesn’t know what the artifact is; tangible to a treasure chest. Shana decides to keep tabs on him just in case any Denizens want to steal what’s inside Yuji – and since she’s a Flame Haze, her daytime schedule is pretty lean, so she decides to become a student at Yuji’s school and bitch out all the teachers.

The rest of the story is fairly modular and only chronicles Yuji and Shana’s experiences together, both romantic (*HAHAHA*) and perilous. The reason why you see the rest of the plot summarized into one sentence is because it can be! Honestly, there’s nothing more you need to know about the plot or the characters because they stay reasonably flat and you’ll become rather blasé after seeing the first ten episodes or so. Hell, I nearly lost it after watching the first seven. Yuji and Shana nearly ruined the whole thing for me. LOL! In fact, let’s talk about that.

Characters

Luckily, the animators at JC Staff decided to throw in a couple of flashbacks that show some of the other, more interesting (*COUGH* Margery Daw *COUGH*) characters to mix up plot. Albeit, the temporary distortion in the flow of time doesn’t save it from being a miserable mess of half-assed emotions and plethora’s of:

“URUSAI! URUSAI! URUSAIIIII!”

Goddamn, that’s another thing, actually. Shana constantly bitches and says things like the aforementioned quote – yes, quite literally like that. It’s obnoxious. After reading the light novels, at least the ones they released in English, I felt that her character was way over-exaggerated. The animators at JC Staff stretched her character to the point where Shana is no longer Shana.

You know what? I’m just going to just list out the characters as I usually do:

• Shana: Yeah, like I said, she’s a complete bitch. She grew up in a completely different world where she does nothing but train her combat abilities, and it’s understandable that she’s feeling some things for the first time. Nevertheless, her reaction to some of these moments during the anime is completely nonsensical – this is especially true for her feelings towards Yuji. For instance, while Shana is training Yuji to fight against Denizens, Yuji begins to sulk because of the skill difference between Shana and him. Instead of realizing that Yuji is embarrassed that he isn’t on the level of Shana’s fighting skills, she goes and bitches him out. Another time, she begrudgingly refused Yuji’s help when Margery Daw defeated her – as if to say, “It’s your fault I lost.” It may seem small, but it’s instances like these that make the series’ heroine really un-relatable.
• Yuji: So, this guy is a little bitch. It seems that Shana and Yuji were just made for one another. I swear, this guy either, complains or complains louder. He’s a complete airhead when it comes to recognizing social cues, but it’s not all his fault. He has been tucked behind Shana in this little war with demons, so I can’t really blame him for being scared shitless. Still, I wish he would actually act normal – in fact, I wish all male protagonists in anime would act normal, but I suppose that’s a little too much to ask. In any case, have you ever seen a movie where shit goes down and someone is running around screaming? Yeah, that’s Yuji for the first half of season 1. In the second season, he’s a much calmer person with some fighting ability, but he’s pretty much the same guy throughout this series. I also feel that the animators didn’t thoroughly flush out the way Yuji develops. Throughout the series, it appears that Yuji suddenly comes up with strategies against these Denizens. Yuji has only known about Denizens and the Crimson Realm for a couple of months. How is it that Yuji can outsmart Flame Hazes who have fought against these Denizens all their life?

Themes

You know, I’ve thought long and hard – actually, I only thought for 5 seconds – about this topic and I’ve come to the conclusion that Shakugan no Shana has no themes. None. The author actually says that his intention for writing this book was to include a lot of “slashing, burning, and exploding.” Essentially, he wanted to write an action movie in the book – and he did a damn fine job in the light novels. The way the series handled the romantic triangle between Shana and Kazumi nearly ruined the series. Luckily, love doesn’t play as a theme in this series, so I’ll forgo discussing the topic.

Even after reviewing the work as a whole and concentrating on the little insignificant details, I can’t fathom any themes that the author, rather the anime studio, wants to convey to the audience. Some might argue that “understanding others” and “putting yourself in one another’s shoes” might be a theme of the series. I can see where others might pick that up, as Shana and Yuji emotionally wound each other frequently because of their misunderstanding of one another. Yet, I find myself dragging my heels in acknowledging this. I think it’s because of the fact that JC Staff threatens the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief by presenting the personalities of Shana and Yuji as drastic and polarized. Shana is way too tsundere and Yuji is way too…what’s the Japanese archetype term for “pussy?”

Anyways, my final thoughts

Final Thoughts | Conclusion

OK, I know that I’ve been really hard on this series. To the credit of JC Staff and with all due respect to Yashichiro Takahashi, the series was actually enjoyable. Yes, it was enjoyable to watch and ponder. In fact, I enjoyed the series so much that I went out and bought the English light novels because I was so interested in the story. I’ve taken ideas from this story and incorporated them into the novel I’m writing. With all the character flaws and lack of plot devices aside, this series is a lot better than several other anime series out there.

To my surprise, if you look at the polls you’ll see that Shana is incredibly popular. I think it’s the long hair. Could be that a lot of the fanboys like small chicks with big swords and long hair. To be honest, if Shana and Kazumi traded places, I would hate Shana – that is to say, that if Shana looked ordinary, I would hate her. However, I will admit that I have some affection for Shana, especially when she falls asleep with Yuji in bed.

Score

Rating: 4.24 = ~42.4%