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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 with tag: genre: mecha anime



A thank you note plus anime reviews!

First of all, thanks to everyone who’s emailed me in the past few days and weeks. I’m …touched… really, and it certainly feels nice and comforting to have people around who care. I’m sorry if it takes me ages to reply, I’m as lazy as anyone could possibly be. I just want you to know that I’m really really grateful and happy!

Okay, one more thing I’ve been meaning to do for so long but have been putting off all the time: anime reviews. October is one of those magical months because so many new anime series start in that month and now, with November having almost passed, I’ve finally managed to watch a few new titles.

One of the most anticipated new shows of this autumn was definitely the Ghost in the Shell TV series, Stand Alone Complex. Personally, my hopes of getting to watch something enjoyable weren’t too high as I’m not a big fan of neither the manga nor the movie. So I started watching the first episode and almost fell from my chair: Yohko Kanno wrote the soundtrack! Yes yes, for all you well-informed anime geeks this was no surprise at all and I, too, remembered reading something about her being involved in that project but I’d totally forgotten about it! What a pleasant surprise – which turned out to be the only positive thing about the series… The music is brilliant, but so far Kanno-sensei has never ever let me down. The anime itself is boring and, I’m almost afraid to say it, feels so American. Well, everything from the clothes to the hard-boiled action scenes to the story line feels like it comes right out of an American comic. Which is probably not bad, just not my taste really. So now I have more episodes on my HD and wonder what I should do with them… Be brave and watch them, hoping the show might get better? Extract the sound of each episode, ignore the dialogues and listen to Kanno’s wonderful music? We’ll see. So far I’ve simply ignored the files ^^;

I also saw the first episode of Gundam Seed. This is typical Gundam with a nice chara design (though my favourite is still Turn A Gundam, and that’s not just because Yohko Kanno wrote the soundtrack ^^; no, I also love the chara design, the story itself and the awesome retro feel of that series), the usual interstellar war, the conflicts and the coolest mechs. Will watch more episodes as soon as I’ve finished RahXephon. Btw, Rahxephon looks so much better than the Gundams! I want one to fly to school with, I think it’d look cool to have it parked on campus ^^; (I wonder if I’m the only girl having a bad bad case of mecha obsession ^^;)

The series I’ve enjoyed the most so far is Haibane Renmei. I had absolutely no clue what this show was about until I saw episode one. It’s based on the doujinshi series by lain and Nie_7 papa Yoshitoshi Abe so I don’t have to mention how gorgeous the characters look! The show has such a lovely atmosphere… I can’t really describe it, you have to see for yourselves to decide whether you like that type of anime or not. It’s light-hearted but also mysterious, has some serious undertones but can be funny and cute, too. I’ve seen the first three episodes so far and I think that everyone who enjoys the more quiet type of anime will like this one a lot, especially Miyazaki fans! Even though Haibane has absolutely nothing to do with Ghibli, their works and Haibane have a similar feel and atmosphere…

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Categories: Anime, Various.
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Posted on Nov 21, 2002 (Thu, 9:57 pm). .

Chobits & RahXephon

I finally finished watching CLAMP’s Chobits! Oh what a cute series it was. I’m really glad I decided to watch it. I’m not a big fan of Clamp’s other shounen titles, but this one was really good from episode 1 till the end. It was really nice to have a cozy, easy-going series to watch inbetween the heavier stuff like RahXephon.

Which reminds me, I still haven’t finished RahXephon -_- I always take my time with the anime I like. And RahXephon’s definitely one of them. I haven’t enjoyed a mecha anime series that much in quite a while! I still can’t watch more than 3 episodes of it in a row because it’s so exhausting to follow the storyline, but it’s so cool and brilliant and its atmosphere makes me all melancholic. Love it. Everyone into intelligent sci-fi anime should watch this show!

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Categories: Anime, Various.
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Posted on Nov 16, 2002 (Sat, 6:03 pm). .

New shoujo manga and anime discoveries

I’m growing more and more bored with Asuka: X is fine but I buy the tankoubon anyway, the same goes for Gouhou Drug; there are no other series I’m following in Asuka at the moment… there will be something new from Kazumi Yuana in Asuka 8 so I’ll wait for that and see if I like it. If I don’t I’ll have to find a new magazine I can read monthly. It’s kind of difficult though cause you either find mags with romance-only or fantasy-only stories in them… and even though I’m buying Asuka mainly for it’s fantasy stories, I’ve liked the debut yomikiri that were more comedy and romance oriented best (like the two stories by Ama Mianko — or is it Amami Anko? there’s only hiragana so I can’t say for sure). I’ve ordered a whole bunch of mags to see if I like the stories in them. I noticed I should’ve ordered Lala too (I didn’t think of Hakusensha mags >_<)... Oh well, I do that in a month or so.
I’ve had so much free time in the last three days and I’ve read a few manga tankoubon. Two of them were Akuma de sourou 4 and 5. I’m enjoying this series more and more. It’s probably one of the cheesiest stories I’ve read in a long time, but in a serious, touching way. Kayano is alright (her constant crying can be a bit annoying at times), so are all the other characters (all very well developed, all with their own background stories). I loooove the fashion in the manga. It’s awesome! I must say I adore Takanashi-sensei for her fashion taste^^ Well, it basically matches my own and that’s why I sometimes enjoy just looking at the character’s clothes as much as I enjoy flipping through Kera. It’s such a shame Akuma de is ending very soon. The last chapter started in Margaret 6. I hope Takanashi-sensei will start publishing a new series soon!

I’ve also been watching a few new anime series. Short impressions:
.hack//SIGN – the first episode wasn’t to thrilling, too RPG-ish. The music was too loud at times, I couldn’t make out the dialogue very well (oh well there were subtitles, but…). The series started to get me with episode 2 though… It has that certain bit of mystery that it needs to keep me interested. Can’t wait to see more of it! (It’s been licensed a few days ago, so fansubs are hard to get. I’ll wait for the commercial release then.)
Chobits – hmmmmm. The animation is well done, so is the voice-acting. The opening and ending are the usual anime j-pop. The story is a bit different than in the manga, I like it nevertheless. The whole magical maid-parody CLAMP style concept is cool, I’m just hoping it’ll get a bit darker (not like I want anything to happen to Chii, no no).
RahXephon – I love it! Wasn’t too thrilled when I saw the first episodes a few months ago but the more I watch of it the more I fall in love with it^^ Ah yes, I love mecha stories… I’m glad there’s neither a whiny Shinji-type character nor an in-your-face-sexy kind of girl character in there. I especially love the more quiet and serious parts (even though the action-packed fight scenes are awesome). I’ve also noticed that the ending theme sounds a bit like the ending theme of Please save my earth… I haven’t watched PSME for years but I think the styles of both songs are very very similar. Oh well, it’s one of Yohko Kanno’s typical styles I guess. I like RahXephon’s OP (Hemisphere by Sakamoto Maya) better though.

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Categories: Anime, Manga, Various.
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Posted on May 28, 2002 (Tue, 9:24 pm). .




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