Fall 2008 impressions, part 1

A few days ago, I was reading around the manga-related sector of the interweb, which appears to have expanded significantly. Reading longer-form pieces makes me want to produce some of my own, especially as my essay-writing skills need some honing. Through my years at college, I was only able to write one essay where I felt I had done a really good job. Part (most) of it was procrastination, and the rest lack of inspiration. With anime and manga I'd have ample inspiration, with the challenge of constructing a thesis and collecting supporting arguments. We are cursed to live in interesting times, and I am cursed to imagine that I have something substantive to say about them.

The task currently at hand, though, is to relate my first-episode impressions of the Fall 2008 anime season. My comments will probably not be as snarky as I had anticipated when I first started this blog; the all-corrupting moe has gone to work on me and lowered my standards. Anyway, in rough order of consumption:

Toradora!

Out, damned spot, out I say

So I read the novel translation over at Baka-Tsuki. I read the manga scanlations. For whatever reason I can't get tired of this franchise. For sure it's Yet Another Chibi Tsundere Series, but it does get to be more than that. Later I feel that it becomes "neurotic girls are neurotic", but I digress. The first episode of the anime is fairly well done. It's not particularly brilliant, but it's competent. I will probably end up watching it.

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka

Sure, Rozen Aso is the PM now, but a more lasting solution to Japan's leadership crisis is...

I expected this to be bad, but it's not as bad as I had expected. The voicework is pretty good; the animation is lazy. The only distinction seems to be a preoccupation with stocking-related camera angles. I didn't expect Katagiri to be so damn moe though. This will be this season's "trashy romance series" for me.

HYAKKO

Oshi-

This was pretty ambitious. Pretty insane, too. I approve. The most insane part was the next episode preview: seiyuu talking in their normal voices? Tripped out, man. Note to people thinking about more manga based on the four-girls-in-high-school setup: please, susser Tod, no. (Pontera, I'm talking to you.)

Kannagi

Do you eat taiyaki headfirst or tailfirst?

Not bad, not bad. Much is being made of the fact that "Yamakan", the original director of Lucky Star, is heading up this one; the OP is certainly lol-worthy. And it does seem KyoAni-like in that the animation is well done. Nagi's got the right amount of condescension in her voice too. I'm looking forward to the rest of this.

More to come.

Sigh

So I took the GRE yesterday. I could have done better, but I did well enough, I think.

Anyway, I went to Kinokuniya afterwards. I got more stuff than I had anticipated:



From left,
よつばとしろとくろのどうぶつ - Yotsuba & Monochrome Animals
この世界の片隅に（中） - In This Corner Of The World (middle volume)
ぱにぽに６ - Pani Poni 6
お茶にごす。１ - Ocha nigosu. 1
もっけ８ - Mokke 8
アリア７ - Aria 7
さよなら絶望先生１４ - Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei 14
へうげもの７ - Hyouge Mono 7

I got the Yotsuba book on a whim. It's pretty much a children's book, fairly minimalist.

In This Corner Of The World is by Fumiyo Kouno, the author of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. I really like Kouno-sensei's art...

I picked up Ocha Nigasu because I was intrigued. I was hoping for more tea ceremony stuff, but for most of volume one it seems like a gimmick. It's largely just delinquent stuff. The art's kinda cheap/minimalist, but there's some good puns.

Ordered more stuff from bk1 last week. I got sea shipping this time, so we'll see how long it takes to get here...

Progress

I just finished reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. It's not a book that I can claim to have understood totally, nor does it lend itself to easy explanations. In addition to that, it's quite a different book than what I expected, though in retrospect it's very Murakami. (The only others I've read are Kafka on the Shore and After Dark.) What I expected was some sort of validation of my jazz-listening, whiskey-drinking, resigned existence. That's exactly what I got, actually, but with a whole bunch of other madness tossed in that brought it to a completely different plane. I feel relieved, somehow, and strengthened in my resignation. As ironic as that sounds. In any case, I will have to ruminate further on this subject -- with Murakami novels, the rumination never ends.

On other fronts, I voted in Saimoe for the first time in my life. Thanks to a number of sources, some outdated, I cast votes for Ayano and Asou. Only Asou won, which is fine. Ayano isn't that great; Shinra is too much of a repackaged Haruhi; the darned StrikerS and Sky Girls crap needs to go away; and I haven't watched true tears yet, so I have nothing to say on that matter. I think I will stay away from Saimoe until there is someone truly worth voting for. Like, today has Kaga from Zetsubou, but she's never going to win against Shana. Plus I bet if I watch/read Shana, I'll be quite a willing Shana fanboy.

On the anime side of things, I am feeling rather fatigued. Geass R2 is the only thing I've really kept up with, and it's sapped my energy for following anything else. This is because R2 has been FAIL for quite some time now. Yes, 21 was mostly fail too. They may as well have brought on the LCL -- in stunning 3D. Geh. I'll forgive Sunrise if they crank out a whang-biz ending, but I'm not holding my breath. They've already thrown away so much promising material in the pursuit of empty expediency.

Manga's always great, though. I'm going through MangaScreener's back catalog.

DreamTech Kagami & Tsukasa Hatsumoude Set

So, this is what happens when you decide to get that Kagami miko figure. You look at the price, and think, hmm, why is it so expensive? So then you see the limited edition Kagami + Tsukasa with stand and think, might as well get the set for 8000 yen. Then, of course, you choose EMS when you meant to get SAL originally.



The Japanese blurb about Kagami says "tsundere kei" (ツンデレ系), and the English one translates this as "aloof-chummy type". I think we can agree that this characterization is fail.



The base includes a shrubbery, probably stolen from someone's railroad diorama. It sheds little bits.



Well, here it is. Ain't it nice. But here's the perverse part: I didn't realize this when I ordered, but the skirts are molded separately from the legs. Maybe that explains the price, but it sure makes me feel dirty. I guess these are fairly modest as far as most figures are concerned.



They're definitely gouging the Lucky Star fanbase (i.e. me) but I'm happy with my purchase. I gotta say, the Haruhi figure is a much better value.

These are my only figures so far, and to some extent I'd like to keep it that way. I can tell it's a slippery slope. The only other figure that calls out to me is that Tsuruya waitress one, but I can resist. Maybe.

Geass R2 15

Man, they sure blew everything wide open. CG has really spoiled animators into making stuff that looks stupid. C.C. moe dasu :3

I might as well

Seeing that I've managed to while away most of my late-evening reading AnimeSuki (and, uh, reading eroge blogs), I should probably spend some time getting stuff off my mind.

First of all, I saw a ghetto itasha today. In Berkeley. On Shattuck. It was the Fruits Basket triumvirate, painted on the hood of an old yellow car. I must've done a triple take for once. I thought about taking a picture, but I'd had enough embarrassment for one day. "Ita"-sha indeed.

Last week I watched Geass R2 7-12 in one sitting. What can I say? Apart from the school stuff, it was pretty good. As usual the sudden turnabouts were pretty amusing in their credulousness. Like WTF methane clathrates? A million Zeros? On the other hand, Zero showing up at the reception was pretty awesome, and we got a glimpse of the Gawain system. I'm also finding myself appreciating the fanservice more, to my chagrin. Like, the girl at the forward right command console :3.

Episode 13, though, was something of a letdown. Writers never seem to know what to do with characters like Shirley. What happened at the end of 12 should've been a catalyst for some real character development, but nooooo, they took the easy way out. And what's with Orange-kun? He was convinced so easily? Well, I'm hoping that the rest of the series takes the high road.

What else did I watch... 7-12 of Allison to Lillia. Not bad, but not that great either. This series is a bit too credulous as well.

Real Drive has been pretty good so far, though the female character designs are somewhat strange. It's like the guys are hyper-realistic while the girls are... hyper-realistic in a different way.

Kara no Kyoukai is pretty darn awesome. Part 1 wasn't all the way there, I felt, but part 2 was quite compelling. ufotable has really got the atmosphere going, and the quality is spectacular. And there's five more parts to look forward to!

Gosenzosama Banzai Banzai ep 1, via Ureshii, was rather peculiar. It felt extremely procedural, like it was a stage play, especially near the end. And the way the characters are drawn: bunraku? Pret-ty bizarre.

From this season, Telepathy Shoujo Ran is more interesting than I expected, although still standard fare. I like the OP... didn't know that it was possible to drawl in Japanese.

The first episode of Hidamari Sketch x 365 was fabulously outrageous. That Shinbo guy is really pushing the envelope. It's a testament to SHAFT's abilities that they can change gears from something like Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei to something as moe as Hidamari Sketch. (And it seems rather more moe than the first season...) The part with the arrows... waah WTF. Ume-tentei... I gets it now.

I've only watched a bit of the first Mahou Tsukai (etc) episode, but the simple animation versus the "real" backgrounds is stark and jarring. Will reserve judgement for the time being...

On the manga side of things, I must express my appreciation for Watashitachi no Tamura-kun. Dunno if there's an otaku term for "weird girl", but weird girls and tsunderes are at the top of my list. :3

Bleach was really good up to now. The past arc could've gone on for more chapters. Not that anxious to see what happens in the main chronology, but I did forget about the hollow-using people.

One Piece is in a really awesome place right now. Strong enemies, strong allies... it's always great when they draw the veil back a bit further.

Shin Angyo Onshi came to a finish. For now, repeat after me: Munsu is badass.

Un, that's all for now, as far as consumption is concerned. I have been transcribing things for future scanlation purposes: Discommunication Seireihen, Mokke, To Aru Kagaku no Railgun. Why did I choose seinen manga? It's more interesting. Unfortunately it's also waaay beyond my current level. If you come into my room late at night, you'll hear me muttering, "multi-RADICAL, dude" while searching WWWJDIC. Yeah, scary huh.

Summer

Summer is upon us. It certainly felt like summer last week, but here in the Bay Area we're back to fog, chilliness, and general strangeness.

I've been keeping lots of tabs open as I read about the impending summer season. Thankfully Firefox 3 seems to have halved the memory footprint of Firefox 2 (not that Firefox 2 taking up a gig of memory is particularly hard on my system). Here's THAT, moetron, Mistakes of Youth, and hashihime. At first glance, there wasn't too much to watch this summer. But after reading hashihime's seiyuu-oriented rundown, there are a few more that I might need to watch. I guess I'll categorize this time.

Definitely Gonna Watch

Hidamari Sketch x365: Hell yes. More Hidamari, more!

Lucky Star OVA: Moar.

Zero no Tsukaima - Princess Rondo: Fufufu. ZnT can be a little much sometimes, but I need to get my tsundere fix somewhere. Speaking of which, I still haven't gotten through season 2.

Seiyuu Compelling-ness

Telepathy Girl Ran: Katou Emiri. Might make this worth watching.

Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora: Hanazawa Kana. (Thanks to hashihime, Sora in Sketchbook.)

Ari Ari

Natsume Yuujin Chou: Good staff? Or something.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Otaku girl? Wish fulfillment.

Ponyo on a Cliff: Miyazaki? Watercolors?

The Sky Crawlers: Oshii Mamoru?

Detroit Metal City: Good staff?

The Manga Is Awesome But They'll Likely Screw This Up

Blade of the Immortal: Nuff said.