Fall impressions the second

I consider myself a patient person, but Myself; Yourself 01 was terribly cloying and I had to stop halfway through. Some things (like the backgrounds, and the girl with the violin) are very nice, other things (Aoi's voice, corny music, saccharine-ness) are very bad.

Also in the potboiler department is Dragonaut, which is a very strange beast. Mix one part of everything and season well with cliché. Serve lukewarm.

ef is kind of uneven. There's sections that are well done, sections that are clunky, and sections of sudden jumps to the avant-garde. There must be a certain artistic desire to kick things up a notch stylistically, but fancy stuff doesn't automatically result in a work of great artistic merit. Uneven as it is, at least they're trying. There's yet to be a much of a plot, but there's enough hints to keep me interested.

I started skipping around to the end of Myself; Yourself 01. I actually have a friend who watches anime like this, skipping through just about everything. This method may help me keep my sanity while still enjoying Nanaka's miko tsundere osananajimi moe-ness. うふふふふううう～

Fall impressions the first

First off, Kimikiss pure rouge 01. I didn't expect a PS2 renai game to make for such a well-executed show. According to ANN, Kasai Kenichi storyboarded the first episode, and it really does feel almost like Honey & Clover. The art has the same softness, and the characters go comedic in exactly the same way. But given the setting, there's a distinct naiveté, or maybe a better term is seishun. So this show promises to be sentimental, though the way the characters are being introduced hints at a happy ending. I should add that Mao's seiyuu (Haruna Ikezawa) is impressive, very impressive. Nitpicks are not-so-great CG and clichéd flashbacks.

Blue Drop 01: Yes, the animation is superb. The direction is also superb. I don't have anything to complain about; I wish I did.

Minami-ke 01: They made it cheesy, sigh. Maybe the second installment will be better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Genshiken 2 01: Wow, it's really really good.

Rental Magica 01: This was also pretty good, though a tad shounen. Shinsen loevs noets too, which I appreciate.

It appears that the shows this season are of fairly high quality. The prospect of having too much to watch has left me in despair.

Not again

Aish, another season of anime already. The people who actually animeblog regularly say there are 42 fricking new series. There's a collage of shows image, as usual, but it's too unwieldy for my format. So I'll just use hashihime's ordering, skipping what I don't have anything to say about.

Mokke: Spirits plus slice of life. Sign me right up.

Rental Magica: The title is familiar, and the character range means it's not a harem series, but I still get a bad vibe from this one. I'll probably hate it.

Minami-ke: I hold the original manga in high esteem, so I'm a bit worried about this anime adaptation. After all, I was dissatisfied with how Today in Class 5-2 was adapted. To make things worse, the studio and director produced the infamous Cabbage Love of awhile back. [I just watched the OP and it's fairly cheesy. From screens, the quality looks fine; I'll watch the raw later. I predict disappointment, fueling a renewed drive to learn more Japanese and translate volume 2 of the manga.]

Sketchbook: Yet Another 4-koma Adaptation, for crying out loud. Somehow they turn out very well.

Kaiji: Watched the first half of episode 1. Aside from the art, it's done in a conventional approach. If it stays conventional, I'll drop this and read the manga when I get a chance.

Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro: Probably too shounen, but may be interesting enough.

Myself; Yourself: Watched the beginning of the first episode. I'm a sucker for certain types of romance, but this may be too saccharine.

Dragonaut: Dragons in space. Hahaha. Ah, why not give it a shot.

Ghost Hound: Highly anticipated acid-trip genre anime, I guess. Looking forward to this one.

Moyashimon: A guy who can talk to cute microorganisms, producing stuff like alcohol and yogurt. This looks and sounds totally awesome.

You're Under Arrest: Full Throttle: Repeat after me: furu surottoru.
I watched the OP and the first bit. I have to say, it seems sluggish. Not really in the mood for a long series; besides, I still have to watch the original.

Shana Second: I have yet to watch the first season beyond the first episode or so, but I am glad that my tsundere supply will not run dry anytime soon.

CLANNAD: Every AnimeSuki thread about KyoAni's Key adaptations would invariably turn into a "I hope they're doing CLANNAD next!" thread. And here we are. I watched ep 1 and I think I'm sold on this series. It probably has something to do Kyou and Tomoyo.

Genshiken 2: No real need to say more about this.

Gundam 00: From the previews, this seems like a hybrid of UC designs and AC over-the-top symbolism/characters. (Only recently did I notice just how gaudy the Gundam Wing designs are, compared to the stoic UC stuff.) Looks like fun.

ef: Yet another eroge adaptation. The preview is rather intriguing. Faces are animated in a way that brings to mind visual novel transitions. Music should be good. Looks to be the sola of this season, albeit with a potentially better story (cough).

Shion no Ou: Chess? Yes. Or rather, shougi.

Hidamari Sketch OVA: Woot.

Nasu OVA: Woot. More bicycles and eggplants. Reminds me to check up on Iou Kuroda's current work.

Counting up... we're approaching 20 shows?! Not a sustainable schedule. The blurbs at Random Curiosity have me considering a few more too: Blue Drop (bleh yuri, but superb animation?) and Kimikiss (Kasai Kenichi (Honey & Clover) directing).

20 is way too much, so let's take a step back. If I had to pick a handful at this point, I'd say Mokke, Ghost Hound, Moyashimon, CLANNAD, Genshiken 2, and Gundam 00. That seems manageable, and is a quantity keeping with historical trends. Now to finish watching stuff from Spring and Summer...

GTA:LS = Brilliant

Thx moetron.

Hmm

I've fallen into a rut lately. Put together a semi-new computer and my schedule went all to hell. And then I started re-reading Maison Ikkoku and Kimagure Orange Road -- though that's not really related to the schedule collapse. Anyway, normalcy should reassert itself in the coming days.

On to tonight's subject: figures. PVC, resin, kit, pre-painted. Those sort.

I only became aware of the vast figure ecosystem when I started getting deeper into the otaku subculture. The watershed event that precipitated this descent was the airing of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. All of a sudden I was obsessed with a anime like I never had been before. I had considered myself fairly into Modern Visual Culture; I read manga voraciously, developed a pile of moonspeak volumes for verisimilitude and pride's sake, and watched certain anime that piqued my interest. Genshiken had provided a sketch of the otaku lifestyle, but I was unprepared for the sudden desire to go and acquire ridiculous quantities of goods. In trolling forums for news, I would come across T-shirts, rare towels, and other miscellany. Character albums? A manga adaptation? I had been peripherally aware of the massive marketing machine which invariably accompanied a popular property, but my personal interest brought it into painful, glaring focus. Should I bid on that towel? Should I import those soundtracks? Where can I get the novels without disfiguring my pocketbook? Special edition R2 DVDs with lemons? (Answers to these pressing questions will appear in future posts.) And finally, what's with these figures?



(Moar.) I still think this is one of the better Haruhi figures. Some of the others have odd faces, and bunny girls just aren't my thing, I guess. For a while (and right at this moment, actually), I was seriously contemplating getting this figure -- it's only around $30, an expense I can easily justify to my inflamed mind. Just imagine Haruhi standing between my monitor and my lamp, pointing aggressively, "Do your work, you lazy bum!" I can't say if it would provide tangible results, but it's a nice picture nonetheless.



This Tsuruya-san was announced recently (coming to my attention by way of Heisei Democracy). Need I rationalize the desire to get this figure? Yakisoba meido? やきそばメイド!？ My fervor is tempered by the fact that I live at home for the time being, and I don't need any more reasons for my parents to think I'm getting too obsessed this stuff. Which, you know, isn't true at all.

Zetsubou OP

Episode 4 brings us a graphical OP sequence. To cut to the chase, it's absolutely brilliantly insane. Sparse, yet intensely fast-cutting, with a surprising dose of overt, yet repressed, sexuality (if that makes any sense). I was absolutely floored the first time through.

This is a good time to appreciate the use of textures in this show. There's this feeling of authenticity, of harmony, of just plain aesthetic coolness. I can't find the words at this hour to fully express my enthusiasm, but man, this show is hip.

Zetsubou 03

Well, we're not quite at the zillion-screenshots-plus-plot-parroting stage yet, but we're getting there.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode three was good, but not as brilliant as episode two. There are plenty of Shinbo moments, though. And the chalkboard scribbles -- I think I may have to end up watching each episode twice, once straight through and once frame-by-frame. Death Note parody, Jigoku Shoujou parody? I know there's a whole bunch more cultural references that are going over my head. But ah, this show is at turns deliciously morbid and deliriously chromatic.

I also ended up watching Hayate 18 last night. All I can say is: moar Hinagiku pls, kthxbye.