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This blog is a storage space for various thoughts, observations and musings centering on shōjo manga (少女漫画, Japanese comics for girls), josei-oriented manga (Japanese comics for women) and manga created by women (in the widest sense). Topics from other fields of relevance, such as music, art, literature and film may be discussed here as well.

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Viewing all posts in category: Anime



New anime ramblings, mostly for my own reference.

The month of April, as every year, marks the beginning of the spring season anime series. What I’ve seen so far mostly made me squeal. Not in delight but in terror >_< Major disappointments everywhere. And why does just about every new show this season feature big -no!- abnormally large-breasted girls? I'm okay with the usual otaku fanboy service in a lot of anime, but why does just about every show have exclusively busty girls now? There's simply no escape, argh! Kono minikuku mo utsukushii sekai, the new GAINAX show, features major fanservice. Major as in a barenaked girl, a girl dressing; the female main character clinging to the male main character’s back wearing a jacket ONLY.
The story? The first few seconds were awesome and I was hoping for something very deep. But no, they decided to turn this into some mediocre Mahoromantic-esque crap with just a few, minor bits that might save the show from being totally boring. So, otaku boys, keep watching this. I won’t though, thank you.

Boukyaku no Senritsu (Melody of Oblivion), also by GAINAX, features the worst backgrounds since about 1991. This is below TV-series standard. Even a six-year-old can draw more intricate background settings >_<
Apart from that, it was so-so. Apparently, there was a war between monsters and mankind in the 20th century, almost everything was destroyed. The surviving people slowly built up everything again and, through the years, forgot about the war, the monsters and the melody (? something religous I think?). But now new monsters are appearing, little boys are secretely sacrificed and our hero has the power to destroy the evil attackers. Nothing new here. Except for the monster in the shape of a bus transforming into a bull. Yeah right. And guess what: The protagonist’s love interest has big bouncing boobs. And the main evil guy is amazingly good-looking and has the ability of making big-breasted women faint.
Again, this is too stupid for me to keep watching.

What’s better than one big-breasted schoolgirl? Well, a bus with four scantily clad young ladies, of course! -_- Bakuretsu Tenshi is a GONZO show though, so no surprise here. The mechas fighting at the beginning of the first episode were kind of cool. Oh and the main male character is a young cook (or kokku, as the girls say o_O;;;). And that’s where the originality ends. Joe looks like Ayanami Rei (but is quite the opposite character-wise), Meg is an Asuka-lookalike. The plot and the BGM remind me of early 90’s action cyberpunk anime. It’s all been done before. The animation is really good though. I’ll probably watch one or two more episodes to see how this turns out.

Koikaze is the story of a 27-year-old salaryman falling in love with his 15-year-old sister. Only the Japanese can make a TV story like this one. I must admit I kind of liked it. It was very calm and had an almost ‘innocent’ atmosphere… I’m not sure if I want to see more of it, though -_-;; Even with the incest thing aside, it’s just another shounen romance title. And I don’t like those.

The only new shoujo show I’ve seen so far is Aishiteru ze Baby. The manga runs in Shueisha’s Ribon so this is a series for very young girls. It definitely has an appeal to an older audience too as the story is bitter-sweet and has its sad and mature moments.
Kippei, a high school student with a rather large female following, has to take care of his 5-year-old cousin Yuzuyu because her mother ran away. So far, the anime follows the manga quite closely and Yuzuyu is the cutest little thing ever ^^;
The show’s production seems to have been done very rushed. For example, the lip-synchronicity is non-existant most of the time, which happens very very rarely in Japanese animation. The chara design is very similar to the manga but nothing spectacular.
It’s funny and cute though and I’ll probably keep watching it.

Kenran Butoh Sai – The Mars Daybreak is a pretty average sci-fi series. Still good enough for me with so many bad shows this season -_-;;

My favourite new series so far is Madlax. It’s an anime by BEE TRAIN, famous for NOIR, .hack//SIGN and Avenger (which was really really bad). The story itself is exactly like a mixture of the aforementioned three shows. However, it has a lot of originality and I hope it’ll be at least as good as NOIR and maybe even as good as or better than .hack. The mystery, almost not having a clue what’s going on, the pretty chara designs, the cool BGM, it’s all there.

The series I like most ATM are those that have already been running for some time: Mujinwakusei Survive (Uninhabitated Planet Survive), Hagaren (Fullmetal Alchemist) and the genius Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent). And I’m sure there’ll be a few more good new shows this series that haven’t aired/been fansubbed yet. We’ll see.

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Categories: Anime, Various.
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Posted on Apr 15, 2004 (Thu, 8:46 pm). .

Ikite~ ikite~ ikite~ kudasai

I love the guys at We Suck. Their Mujin Wakusei Survive subs are pretty good. I’m glad they picked up the show (and strangely enough, a few groups also picked it up after them, when the show had already been running for a few weeks). I really like their small, yellow font. It actually reminds me of the good old VHS fansub days ^^;
Just a few more words on Muji Wakusei Survive itself:
It progresses very slowly in order to leave the characters enough time to develop. I really like that. It might be a kids show but it never treats the characters nor the audience like idiots. In fact, Luna & Co seem a lot more mature than the characters of anime series targeted at an older audience.
The show’s somewhat nostalgic charm is just amazing.

Mousou Dairinin (Paranoia Agent) didn’t fail to impress either! The first episode starts with a scene of mass paranoia and continues in a very… Satoshi Kon typical way of stylish mystery and weirdness. Really cool, can’t wait for more!

Live-eviL are subbing Marco (3000 Leagues in Search of Mother). Now, this makes me really nostalgic as this is one of the many many World Masterpiece Theater titles I enjoyed when I was younger. Rascal and A Dog of Flanders were my favourites of them all ♥

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Categories: Anime, Various.
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Posted on Feb 21, 2004 (Sat, 8:40 pm). .

The new anime season!

Anime review time! I won’t go too much into detail as far as story lines go, I guess you can learn much more about the respective titles from visiting the official sites than from what I can tell about them.

Avenger 1-4. I was hopeful this would be one of the better new anime series just from looking at the features in Newytpe. It just took me one episode to realize I was wrong.
As plain as the setting of the red planet and its cities is, as slowly and boring moves the story line. And even if you get hints on Layla Ashley’s (female protagonist) past, the way the cute little Dolls are treated, how evil Volk and those freaky Dolls are, you just don’t care!
None of the characters is really likeable. The Ali Project songs are aweful >_< The BGM is annoyingly loud at times, almost like the series is trying too hard to be as cool as .hack//SIGN but fails terribly.
The only good thing about Avenger is the character design which is really nice looking but won’t be enough to make want to see any more than those four episodes.

Gungrave 1. Another huge disappointment. I’d say it’s even worse than Avenger story-wise. One episode was enough to decide: no more of that!

Shingetsutan Tsukihime Prologue, 1-2. This was actually a pleasant surprise. The prologue which came out a few weeks ago didn’t impress me that much. The whole series, however, is far more interesting and darker than I thought. Definitely not the next Boogiepop but still nice enough Japanese teen mystery/horror and a solid video game adaptation with a good soundtrack. I need to see more of that!

Fullmetal Alchemist 1-4. Pleasant surprise number 2. I find the usual long shounen series like Naruto, Rave, Hikaru no Go, One piece etc. a bit boring but this is really really good!! The protagonists are extremely likeable. (Al!! Kawaiiii!!!) There are no annoying girl characters. The story is quite innovative and I’m more than willing to follow the 52+ episodes this is going to have! Highly recommended!

Mujin Wakusei Survive 1. This is probably one of the more unknown new titles. I almost skipped this after visiting the official site, thinking this was some sort of kiddies show. I’m so glad I started watching it, though! This is my favourite autumn season anime so far!
The world Luna and the other kids live in is described so detailed it makes everything seem very familiar even though it’s just sci-fi. Luna herself is such a sweet, tough girl, you have to like her! She’d be my hero if I was 9 ^^;
I only got to see the first episode where all the characters and the world were introduced so there’s not much story development yet. From what I can get (and pretty much like the Japanese title infers), Luna’s new class will strand on an uninhabited planet which sounds a bit like Robinson Crusoe for kids ^^;
There are some nice remarks on the environmental protection issue here and there, not as apparent as in Chikyuu Shoujo Arjuna (which I love) but still there. I guess they are also more subtle with them as the show is targeted at a younger audience and environmental protection is not a major theme in Mujin Wakusei Survive.
It’s an awesome show, though and I so cannot wait to see more. I hope there’ll be more subs of this even though it’s a bit more obscure than the other new titles. Everyone has to see this!!!

Now that I have more time, I also started last (i.e. spring) season’s Last Exile. I’m glad I can have little four-episode sessions now that the whole series is over and I don’t have to wait a week till a new episode is released.
At first, I wasn’t too happy with the CG; I’ve got used to it though… The whole show is just awesome, really innovative with a nice retro feeling (that’s not necessarily a contradiction!). I really like Ravey and Claus (I’m not that far into the series, so I can’t say much about the characters that are introduced later). The flight scenes are breathtaking and the music is so dreamy and majestic at the same time… I love the whole show *_*

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Categories: Anime, Various.
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Posted on Oct 31, 2003 (Fri, 11:50 pm). .




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