I will keep this simple so for once I won’t waste any more time.

After about eight months (more or less), Simplicity is leaving WordPress.com and moving to a proper host. I have also been sucked in by 7′s offer of free hosting.

So from now on, you can find me at Simplicity’s new home:

http://simplicity.kokidokom.net/

This Simplicity will stay up so that we can all avoid broken links and such, but please do follow me on Kokidokom from now on. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Once again, I’m making a safe bet before all the new shows I plan to watch for the season air and putting up the banner for my favorite series of the season. This time, to (hopefully) no one’s surprise, Maria+Holic is my pick (yeah, I’m only doing the real cross in posts people).

I kind of went out of what I normally like to do and stayed even more in my comfort zone than ever with this banner.

By the way, since some people are trying to figure out how to get the cross, I’ll just very simply tell everyone how I do it.

Copy & Paste (From MAL I think) Now that it’s pasted into my tags I can get it whenever I want. So I look like I’m just so cool with a cross in my post titles. It’s okay, you can be jealous of my super ingenuity. Or…not. Whatever.

*ahem* Moving on.

I fell in love with the series pretty easily (really just by watching the trailer) and once I fell for it, I fell hard. Anyone who doesn’t go, “OMFG! Maria+Holic is great!!!111″ seems bizarre to me. Except then I remember that not everyone can be in love with sadistic traps and I move on with life.

It’s really not that extraordinary of a series, but it just happens to be one of those things that hits me perfectly. Everything in it appeals to me (except some of the extra girls since they just seem so one-dimensional).

I still say that any guys who don’t like it are just bummed out that Mariya isn’t a girl though (aww, now I’m using the “y” too?). Or you know…they just don’t like Shaft or the story or something (wait that gives them legitimate reasons, right?).

But anyway, I really don’t need to talk about this anymore so…banner.

-

It took a while to decide what I’d use for an image. I only like to use official images now and there really weren’t many of those available to me. Just this one which I didn’t want to use for obvious reasons. So I had to go the dreaded screencap method.

Dun…dun…dun. *ominous music*

I think anyone that’s even tried can tell you that editing screencaps from a raw f$&%ing sucks. I mean occasionally you get a good file and you can just edit it a little to make it look good and then slap it somewhere, but it can’t be that easy for me. My banner height is too small for anything to really work for me. The only time I was able to do it was for my Clannad Banner.

Then there was the other time I went through this with my RimaHiko Banner. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t that hard because I didn’t have to worry about any scrolling or credits in the way. Though I did take the images from the ending, there were no credits in the way. Just a bunch of trees and f&%$ing annoying scenery that cut off Mariya’s legs so I had to guess at where they were sometimes (which is why they are not visible in the banner because I probably guessed wrong).

It really wasn’t that difficult this time, which is why I chose these screencaps to work with. Mariya has a pretty simple shape so cutting her out of her background wasn’t a big problem. Then I just had to desaturate to get rid of those annoying pixels where one color bleeds into the other and…it really only took me a half hour? I’m not sure, but it didn’t take long.

So yeah. Easy. I really liked those images, because even though Mariya doesn’t have a face and is basically a stick figure, to me he still seems moe~

And let’s see…the background. It’s kind of annoying. I actually grabbed that as a screencap from the anime too. I picked it because it was one of the only blue ones I saw and the shapes seemed to…I don’t know…be more random and thus less headache-inducing than anything with a pattern.

I blurred it out a little and stuff though because otherwise it took too much attention away from all the little Mariya’s.

And eventually I ended up with…well I’m sure you can see it. Once again it’s very blue, but hey. Blue theme got a blue banner. Trust me, I toned it down a lot from where it was before.

The tagline…is pretty basic. “The prettiest girls will always be boys~” is what I ended up with because I forgot what I wanted to use originally. Pretty standard, it’s the trap rule.

Lately I seem to be doing “anime rule” taglines with this and the last one being “The shoujo smile beats the sword.” Though I’d say this one more than the last one…or something.

Overall…this is an “okay” banner. I’ve definitely done better. But I feel satisfied with this since I didn’t have that much to work with.

I don’t know. I’ve rambled enough. As usual, you can find the old banner on the Banners page. It’s a shame that one didn’t stick around long, but with the Winter season airing, it couldn’t really be helped. At least it was around for a Sakura Hime Kaden post so anyone who would enjoy it got the cance to do  so.

As a little aside, I’ve been thinking of finally putting a stop to by stubbornness…but as for what that may mean, I will keep to myself for now. For now things carry on like usual.

(Normally I would have held off posting about a banner so soon after an episode post, but since it’s Shugo Chara and we’re already at 19 comments I figure it’s fine…)

Posted in Site ]]> http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/trap-banner-for-maria%e2%80%a0holic/feed/ 11 FuyuMaiden mariaholicbanner http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/shugo-chara-doki-episode-65/ http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/shugo-chara-doki-episode-65/#comments Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:48:27 +0000 FuyuMaiden http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/?p=6782 ]]>

OMG. I was actually excited about this episode before it aired. When was the last time that happened? Unfortunately my excitement immediately turned to despair upon seeing that new opening (I still want to cry when I see it). But I got picked back up pretty quickly.

Also, this is my first time watching it with the CR subtitles. So, lots of new things this week. A technically new arc, a new opening, and a new way to watch it. Let’s see how it all goes.

(Warning for overdone screencapping again, 54 caps this time)

First off, everyone should know that Shugo Chara showed up on CR like…five minutes after it finished airing. So I might start skipping keyhole and just watch it a half hour later. So, you know…I can understand everything (even if I don’t always need subtitles, the audio on keyhole is awful). I’ll miss doing angry and fangirling spams with everyone on twitter though.

This week we got a new opening (but no new ending for some reason), so I guess I have to do that section…but do I have to? I want to pretend that opening does not exist!

-

Opening
Shugo Chara Egg – Shugo Shugo!

Last time we had Amu dancing like she was on a show for five-year-old’s and this time…she’s walking like she’s on one. Ugh.

And if making Amu OOC in the opening wasn’t enough, now they’re spreading out to the other cool characters. Utau…Ikuto…what are they trying to do to my awesomely cool Tsukiyomi siblings? All of the coolest characters on this show now…before it was just Amu, but now…*despair*

I can’t even grab screencaps to show you how lame it is because it breaks my heart. So I only took caps of things that either looked good or at the very least didn’t break my heart.

It’s such a shame since I think the song was better than the last one. But oh well…what can you do? (You can skip that opening every single time you watch the episode…)

In some ways it’s good (I like when they showed off all of Amu’s outfits and lol cow Amu), but the lame parts are so lame that I really do want to go ahead and cry in my closet. I feel like I lost Shugo Chara again today. Until I got to see some stuff that’s actually from the manga (then I got it back).

Utau still has a pretty big role in the opening, which strikes me as more odd than comforting like last time. She’s really only as important as Kukai now and he’s not in the opening. I guess it’s because she’s always being put forth like one of the main characters. Usually she’s fourth after Amu, Ikuto, and Tadase (but third in popularity polls, hahahaha~).

We also got a little bit of Amuto (then Tadamu for those 20-25% of the fandom) and for the first time a shot of all three which makes sense for where the story might be going (finally focusing on Amu’s love life and such). But really, there’s not much here that would tell us about what’s going to be happening from now on. Lulu is obviously still there, but there’s really no signs of action or anything new in the opening.

Tch…I was at least hoping for one of those openings where the heroine goes about her daily routine so we could maybe see Ikuto in her room, but no. Oh well. I have higher hopes for Buono!’s co.no.mi.chi which is hopefully appearing next week.

-

Summary

Will add in later. And this time I mean it because that’s why I’m watching the sub. To give a full clear understanding now that Shugo Chara isn’t going to be properly available for everyone until next week. Of course, illegal versions of the crunchyroll subs out there which was totally expected. So I get the feeling that lots of Shugo Chara fans won’t even care about summaries anyway. The rest of you can be patient until tomorrow, right?

EDIT (1/11/09): Due to something suddenly coming up the summary is postponed again.

-

Thoughts

It’s here!!!!! Kinda. Ikuto is successfully in Amu’s room, but Ikuto’s arc still seems to be a little way’s off. Which is fine by me if Ikuto stays put in Amu’s room.

So picking up from where we were last time…

Like the start of all other great arcs in Shugo Chara, Amu has found something interesting in her bed, but instead of an egg this time it was…

…a teenage boy (with his own sound effects~).

And, of course, because she’s Amu she proceeds to freak out (though to be fair, anyone might…before totally taking advantage of the situation).

Amu, Amu~ I believe the face you meant to make was one like ‘dis: >////< Right?

But of course, Amu still being Amu decides to take everything out on Yoru. Awww.

Ikuto ;_; Poor Ikuto out in the snow. Makes me a sad fangirl.

And seeing Ikuto weak even when he’s in his chara-nari! Usually when Ikuto’s tranformed we get to see him being all badass and saving Amu and stuff, but…but! Ah…Ikuto ;_;

Aw. Look how proud Yoru is (as he should be). Just for today Yoru can be my favorite chara instead of Eru (because he brought Ikuto into Amu’s room and Eru’s technically anti-Amuto). But it’s just for today.

“Ikuto! GTFO of my bed!”

Aw. Come on now Amu~ You don’t mean that~

And so begins our wonderful romantic comedy arc where Amu tries to hide Ikuto in her room without her parents finding out and various comprising situations will occur. Situation number one…GO~!

Ah. I am quite fond of situation number one. How about you? (Kira~Kira~ magic shoujo bubbles and sparkles to make sure we only think of this as innocent)

Hehehehe. Amu what kind of things are you thinking now? You’re totally destroying the “this is completely innocent” vibe we’re supposed to be getting from the kira~kira~ atmosphere.

Hahaha~ That’s right Amu. So be a good girl, STFU and get back to bed.

Oi, oi Amu. What the heck are you thinking about doing now? (Meaning, “that’s more like it! Go for it Amu-chan!”)

Amu couldn’t get any sleep because she was too busy staring at Ikuto and thinking about how he looked so defenseless. Sneaky little poser. Thinking those kinds of things.

d’awww. They’re both sleeping like kitties~ How cute~

Ikuto hiding place #1: Make an Ikuto couch!

Ah. Ami’s right he doesn’t. I never even though about that before (how random though).

Oh? What’s wrong now Mr. Asshole Director? Can’t find Ikuto? Even though he’s your stepson and a puppet of Easter? Wow, you must really incompetent to let him get away then. Oh I have an idea. Why don’t you go searching in a dump truck. I promise I won’t pull that compressing lever on you while you’re in there.

Picture only included because I am in uber-shipping mode and they’re the only other pairing I have to be giggly over (Utau~ Where are you?).

Also, Rima’s hair is cute (I still want my twintails!)

Tch. I really want Utau around. It’s not fair.

Hehehe~ Amu~ Are you worrying about Ikuto? You are, aren’t you? How cute.

*gasp* Yoru stole the bunny’s “bum”! (I don’t know why I found this so funny while watching the subs, but I did.)

Oh what’s this Amu? Are you still worrying about Ikuto? Ehehehe~

Whoa. Big snowman. (Seriously how were they able to do that?) and lol at the bucket on its head. So tiny and cute.

Whoa. Rima is scary when angered. I feel bad for Yaya and Ami.

EDIT: lol…it’s Rimadusa~

Nagi~ Poor trap misses the chara that makes his most awesome trapness possible. I am glad that this scene was included finally (because it really shows how smart Nagihiko is~) but it makes me sad.

It also kind of makes me wonder again if we’ll get to see Nagihiko’s chara-nari sooner than we did in the manga. That is one re-ordering of the story that I think they can get away with pretty easily.

Best thing about watching with subtitles? Knowing what the heck this guy is saying. usually I understand or can guess at what the rest of the characters, but stupid Tsukasa is always talking like an adult and pissing me off. (but not anymore~)

Sleepy Ikuto is cute~

One of my remaining complaints with the first season was that they cut out all the cute little moments of Ikuto spacing out early on and that’s part of what made me choose him as a favorite pretty much immediately. But sleepy Ikuto kind of makes up for it~

Stupid glowy violin! Making Ikuto sick! Oh wait…this is misdirected rage. The violin’s just a victim. STUPID ASSHOLE DIRECTOR!

Soon…soon, I will have you thrown from someplace so high into some place so awful that…well…you know. I want you dead and gone asshole (killed by the light of Amuto raburabu!!!!!).

Tadase’s like the fourth person that gets to go into Amu’s room now. I’d feel bad for him if I weren’t so amused by Rima basically saying, “Take that. You’re not even in the running for Amu’s BFF and stuff. Me > You.”

Oh? What’s this Amu? Thinking about a cat-eared boy at home some more? Remembering what kind of things he likes? Showing how thoughtful you are by bringing some back for him? Huh, Amu-chan~?

See? I told you. Mr. Rabbit is missing his bum. (I still don’t know why, but I find that funny and adorable.)

Even though you only thought about him all day while you were out with your friends. Silly little tsundere Amu.

“zOMG a catboy just fell out of my closet?”

Sheesh. Where won’t Amu find Ikuto during these roommate adventures? Ahahaha~

But that’s what you get for being a little tsundere poser Amu. Now you have a teenage boy falling on top of you.

Tch. Even though she said he was heavy, she still managed to avoid him falling on top of her. It’s not fair I say!

“I wasn’t even worried about him. I’m relieved he’s finally gone.” Was that what it was before? Hmm, Amu?

But Amu’s real relief over Ikuto still being there can’t last when Ikuto catches on too easily after Amu accidentally lowers her guard. So a return to tsuntsun and silly little arguments it is.

“I don’t care about you at all, but here I thought of you while I was out and got you food anyway.”

Oh Amu-chan. You’re so great. Even when you try to be tsuntsun and Cool & Spicy around Ikuto you just fail at it in the cutest way.

Cute tsuntsun Amu screencap, simply because she looks oh-so-cute. “Hurry up and get out…(except not really, pls stay).”

But like I said, even when Amu does decide to go all tsuntsun on Ikuto, he sees through her so easily. Chibi jii— ftw! (omg this was so cute…)

And a return jii— so Amu can snicker about Ikuto eating taiyaki like a kitty would.

Ha! Even I find it amusing to hear Ikuto say that. “Says the cat-eared pervert” is right Amu-chan. Though to be fair Ikuto’s never gone into Amu’s room before, just her balcony (but considering what happened there…ahahaha~)

Okay. For once I will have to say it. I couldn’t be the only one thinking that Ikuto should have said, “Should I teach you?” next, right?

(Oh dear me~ This is what happens to me when I wait an extra week for Shugo Chara after having Ikuto appear on Amu’s bed with sound effects. The fangirling comes back and goes into overdrive.)

And this is where I ignore the subtitles so I can imagine all sorts of different things Ikuto can be whispering to Amu instead. These things I will keep to myself though because I like to pretend I’m less perverted (and have less of a rabid imagination) than the other people my age watching Shugo Chara.

Ohohohoho~ Ikuto’s really at his best today. “But you were staring?” Our sneaky, teasing cat boy really knows how to get Amu all flustered, doesn’t he?

But he decided to be merciful and dropped it quickly so he got rewarded with a cutely honest Amu-chan. “You’re not feeling well? I’m worried about you, so please don’t leave.” I believe is the general gist here.

Now then…

I.

love.

this.

scene.

It’s so cute when they’re both being stubborn little posers~ And this time it’s literal. Chibi lover’s quarrel ftw~

Hahaha. And Ikuto’s just way too great in this episode. Even when they’re both being stubborn in their own ways, Ikuto gets to win because Amu gets so worked up.

“Fine! Do whatever you want!”

“kthnx. I’ll just stay in your room until something interesting happens at some point in the future.”

Yup. Looks like Ikuto wins. I like to think that Amu wins too, but she’s just being stubborn because she’s our lovable Cool & Spicy tsundere heroine.

Ehehehe~ Please say that again Yoru. ^_^

Well, it looks like I really, really, really went overboard this time, but it couldn’t be helped. Having the screencaps with subtitles made it just too much fun sometimes. I haven’t enjoyed watching Shugo Chara this much since…well it’s been a really long time. Maybe not since episode 43.

I’m thinking that even if we’re in for fillers, I’m going to be enjoying it a lot more now. With Ikuto being Amu’s “roommate” *insert insane giggling here* I can expect a lot of anime-original Amuto, right? No matter how lame the filler storylines get, I will still be all smiles if I get to see Ikuto in Amu’s room every week *more giggling*

Well. Let’s just see how it goes. At any rate, I think I now have a new favorite episode. Lots of great stuff from the manga executed quite nicely in the anime, with some rather enjoyable add-ins. The only complains is the new opening which I can just skip over anyway. I think my life as a Shugo Chara fangirl is pretty good right now.

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Preview

The next episode looks kind of stupid. There’s some girl running around like a magical girl with cat ears it seems.

But no matter because…

Ikuto’s still there!

Tehe~ I wonder if I’m even going to be capable of making fun of Doki anymore if Ikuto’s going to be in Amu’s room this whole time. Satelight you sly dogs.

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Poll

Another easy poll today.

I’m on the “Hell yes!” side of things. Think of all the things that could happen if Ikuto is in Amu’s room for an extended amount of time.

…No not stuff like that. You guyz are pervs~

*sigh* Ara ara~ It’s the first time in my life I ever felt like saying that (or typing…whatever) but there it is. My, oh my, this series (and these characters) are trouble for me. We’re only in the second chapter, so my fellow Tanemura fans will have to forgive me for a little critique. Things that I can still notice before falling helplessly in love with a story and characters.

Also, because I haven’t gotten permission to really use scans from anyone scanning the series (I will be taking care of that before the next chapter), I’m going to keep it short this week and just discuss the one thing that really comes to mind for this chapter.

(Obligatory warning, because as usual, this post is meant to be read after the chapter is read. Scanlations are out at Aerandria.)

That one thing is, of course, the massive cliffhanger.

Of course it’s not really a big deal that Sakura got shot I think. We’re in the second chapter so she’s obviosuly going to make it out all right. My bet is that Byakuya or someone will save her. Or you know…something.

The thing to talk about is wo it is that shot her which was…Aoba (dun, dun, DUUUUN).

To be perfectly honest though I didn’t really have any special feelings one way or the other when I saw that. Maybe it’s because I saw rage directed at Aoba when other people saw the raws and sort of expected it. or maybe it’s because we’re only two chapters in so I’m not a huge fan of any of the characters.

I mean…Sakura is cute, but I don’t have any special attachment to her. That sort of thing takes more time to develop and right now Sakura isn’t striking me as too different from a pretty standard heroine. She’s cute and stuff, but right now to me she’s more on a Maron-level than a Haine-level to me. I can’t understand her situation and such so I kind of…don’t care.

Of course, everyone is entertaining to me, but like I said, I’m not too attached to anyone.

Except ironically, I was enjoying Aoba the most because his general attitude made me smile and laugh (though obviously not towards the end).

Also…the fact that I’m not having much feeling one way or the other has a lot to do with the fact that this is shoujo and and Arina Tanemura series. I mean, name one person that we were still supposed to think was bad at the end of the series. Even the devil in KKJ had his sympathetic moment.

So, I guess I’ve gotten to the point in shoujo where I’m a little cynical. Or perhaps not cynical, but…I don’t get caught in the moment quite so easily.

*gasp* My shoujo heart is turning to ice. You can all call me the ice queen now.

Anyway, I’m especially getting vibes from ShinKuro with how things are going. I mean, Taka-kun was a total douche for like…ten chapters. While reading those chapters I couldn’t come up with any possible reason why he would be that way and was actually grumpy thinking about how Arina-sensei might try to make him likable. But then we found out he was living his whole life in the shadows and yeah. That sucked. I forgave Taka-kun immediately.

I am not saying that will happen here though. I’m just saying I have a hard time even trying to hate Aoba when I know how easily I might come to like him later.

Ah…Arina-sensei. What are you doing to me? Knowing you, this will be the one time you decide not to redeem a character so I’ll be left in major shock.

As for other romantic interests for Sakura…I’d rather have no romance than whatever everyone might already be speculating about happening with the future emperor. He’s already striking me as similar to the guys in shoujo manga (Arina-sensei’s and others’) that I absolutelly will not like. I hate the guys that look and act like adults. They freak me out. Actual adults can sneek by sometimes because they don’t act like adults. At least not creepy adults.

Ah…it’s hard to explain. There’s just some things I will always be repulsed by and mature guys who are so nice and polite that they seem fake are definitely one of them. Princely characters that are so nice they seem fake are another…so just any guy that seems fake.

If Aoba isn’t redeemed and a mature fake guy are my only two options I will be the shipless fangirl for the first time while reading a manga.

Well…you can pretty much ignore my rambling and take my thoughts from this chapter as: Well, let’s just see where it goes.

And oh yeah…Sakura still looks like such a loli that I can’t enjoy any romantic scenes at all. (Though when she’s transformed it’s a lot better.)

EDIT: Also…I think it got kind of forgotten with the cliffhanger, but no one has any idea who our cute girl with Nanoha-twintails is on the splash page, right?

Posted in Sakura-Hime Kaden Tagged: ehhh..., zOMG ]]> http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/sakura-hime-kaden-chapter-02/feed/ 13 FuyuMaiden shkch02-00 http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/first-impressions-white-album/ http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/first-impressions-white-album/#comments Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:21:12 +0000 FuyuMaiden http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/?p=6652 ]]>

This post took a while to get out because quite honestly, I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. It’s kind of boring, but I still think I’ll get what I want from it. I’m watching it to (hopefully) laugh at (or just follow) a love triangle. Getting invested in it works sometimes too, but I wanted to laugh and look at it shallowly. I…probably get to do just that.

It was the anime I was looking forward to most, but because it’s kind of fun to laugh at am I disappointed? Hell no. All I wanted from the anime was Nana-sama and love triangle dorama that will lead to a bitchslap at some point in the future. I believe I will get that. I was actually kind of happy that everyone called it crap (because it means I get to blog it with less competition, hahaha). Of course, I tend to think everyone thinks it’s just crap because it’s boring, but whatever. Crap is still crap and I don’t blame anyone from labeling this as such. It is boring (I think the pacing right now is better for a drama).

I think that I’m happier that this anime is so disliked, because it’s so much easier to blog an anime when you don’t have to hold back any of your opinions because someone is going to be an ass about it. If you like an anime, all you can say, “Oh this part was good.” and use a lame little screencap. Then if the anime is the right type I can go, “Kyaaa~” and get all happy over it, but still. Nothing quite like giving myself a chance to use good old sarcasm and such.

This time I intended to blog White Album (and look forward to it) because of the fact that all I’m really promised is a love triangle. A love triangle, no matter what, will cause rage of some sort at some point in time. I enjoy being enraged for some reason. It somehow puts me in a better mood. However, even better in this case, if you’re not invested in either girl (or guy) you can just sit back and enjoy.

Like you’re sitting on your own throne and looking down at these three useless souls and going, “Muahahaha! Dance puppets dance!”

Oh, but no one else does that? Shut up you’re lying. You may not have evil laughs in your head, but you most certainly enjoy seeing other people suffer. Especially when there’s a man-stealing pretend-friend, a cheating or weak-willed guy, and a naive girl involved. At least that’s what I’m betting I get in this anime.

Of course in this case Nana-sama plays the “man-stealing pretend-friend” so even if I’m supposed to dislike her or something I’m still going to think she’s cute and charismatic. ^_^

Perhaps I should be upset that two girls who start out as friends are going to both want the same guy though? Well, no. Because I get one girl slapping the other. And that’s what is supposed to happen. If anyone remembers some of my rage at AkaSaka was directed at the, “oh we both like the same guy and you’ve been hiding it from me, but I’ll forgive you in the blink of an eye” stupidity.

NO! I don’t want that. That sucks. I want one girl smacking the other (or some other form of fighting).

…And that is why I’m watching this anime. This anime seems to be purposely taking itself seriously, therefore I am going to have to watch it so I can purposely not. To wrap up what I’m saying here, I suggest those who aren’t thinking like me about White Album should stay away from my coverage of this anime. Because I am totally going to enjoy it in the way I am not supposed to.

But I’ll take it seriously for now. There’s a few real problems in this anime I need to address.

-

Animation & Art

Everything is so detailed it kind of freaks me out sometimes. Feels like people move too much and that they have too many lines in the drawings. Basically, it seems like they’re trying to make it too pretty and well-animated and it’s backfiring. Hopefully around the third episode where animation usually starts to fade it will have some nice middle ground.

Now that I’ve seen a Shaft anime though, I can say that it really does feel like they’re trying to…um…follow some of those ideas (what I’m saying here is a nice, less accusatory version of “copy”).

That said…it does still look nice. I was wondering how they would adapt the style from the game and it seems they did a pretty good job. Rina was instantly recognizable from all of the CGs I’ve seen of her. Yuki…was too. But Yuki has such a plain character design that she’s easy to miss. She blends in too much.

I’ve only really seen fanart of Rina and now it’s so easy to see why. Yuki is too plain. Her personality too (but I’ll get to that later).

Rina on the other hand, is easily recognizable. Normally when you have characters in an anime, their appearance will almost always remind you of someone else. Heck, with nana Mizuki you can usually do it with another character she’s voiced. (Utau = Fate and vice-versa. Easy.)

But for some reason I can’t think of someone else who looks like Rina. Which is good, because a celebrity is supposed to stand out and Rina does. She looks cute and adult at the same time. She stands out.

But why do none of the characters have noses? They don’t really in Maria+Holic either sometimes, but at least that makes the characters all look pretty rather than deformed. It’s kind of like Hakushaku to Yousei where the characters look completely different from the side because of this too.

Also…since this takes place in 1986, I have to mention something. This:

lol. 80′s hair. I have to give them credit for doing such a good job of drawing it though. I really did flinch when I saw it. Just like real 80′s hair.

Oh and because I have nowhere else to mention it…apparently the thoughts of the main guy are all done on screen rather than, you know, by a voice. So I can’t understand a thing he thought this episode. It sucks because I wanted to just blog this anime after watching the raw every week, but now I can’t do that. How am I supposed to know if I can call him an asshat if I don’t know what he’s thinking?

Basically right now it’s just, “Yuki, blah, blah, blah, Yuki” so I don’t I’ll miss much.

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Music

Here! This is one place where I can praise the anime fully. Nana-sama is playing a singer!!! A singer~ Which means she sings!

I love the opening song, “Shin Ai” and can’t wait for the single coming out this month (it’s coming out on Nana-sama’s birthday!). That said, the opening animation is the most boring opening I’ve ever seen in my life (the screencaps have borings shots to prove a point…that’s pretty much all it is). The possibility of it just being for the first episode has come about which I hope is true.

Of course, I kind of think it’s…suitable. Rather than random characters flying across the scene or something stupid, a very calm and not at all distracting opening works fine for me. That way I can just enjoy the really beautiful song. The thing I like most about Nana Mizuki songs is just listening to her voice. I can’t do that when I’m distracted by something else. So…this kind of works just fine for me.

I also liked Nana-sama’s insert song (I hope that’s coming out on the single too) and…let’s see what else? Well, it was kind of a disappointment that Aya Hirano didn’t sing. I’m not really a fan, but I’m always curious to see what she’ll do. Especially since I think she has more rock-ish songs and judging by her usual outfit, that doesn’t fit here at all.

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Voice Acting

Nana-sama was perfect (bias,bias,bias). I’ll just say that and move on.

I didn’t really pay attention to anyone besides Aya Hirano’s (Yuki) and Nana Mizuki’s (Rina) acting so you’ll have to forgive me. Outside of saying, “I love Nana Mizuki!” I can’t say much about her and every one should know that already. I’m a fangirl blind to any flaws she might possibly have. So instead…sorry Aya-san, but I’m going to have to complain about some things that bothered me.

Ew. The Minato voice is back. In the first episode of AkaSaka I didn’t mind it, but as the anime went on it started bothering me. I don’t dislike Aya Hirano and I have absolutely no problems with her singing or voice acting. Except for when she plays “gentle” characters because then she uses that voice.

My problem with that voice is that it doesn’t sound natural at all. Even if it was supposedly natural, I’d still say it doesn’t sound natural. It sounds like she’s a cartoon character and it’s so distracting. It’s impossible to take seriously. It’s basically a nicer, less obvious version of the Konata voice and I don’t think it works at all. A fanboy can blast me for saying that, but it’s my opinion on the matter and I can’t hear a whole season of it again without mentioning it. It is better than before though.

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Characters

First off…Yuki ticks me off with how polite and plain she is. She’s so ordinary that it’s absolutely boring.  Then she just takes crap from those idols and does her own fix-it. Unless she stands up to them at some point, I’m going to dislike her this whole series. I have a hard time caring about someone who really doesn’t stand up for themselves at all. At least when they’re in show business or something.

Touya is boring and a pretty basic guy who is just there to fill the role of being a guy in between two girls I think. He seems pretty…boring. I don’t care about him at all and don’t see why any girl would be interested in him. Well, except maybe Yuki who is pretty boring.

Rina strikes me as a little annoying because she’s too perfect. Another lesson from AkaSaka would be that I hate perfect girls. That said, I like her the most for two reasons. One is the obvious “because she’s voiced by Nana-sama” the other would be that she’s the only one that seems to actually have a personality at all. At least a fitting one. A strong, confident girl that’s successful in show business makes sense to me.

I mean I love that she stopped in the middle of singing to “scold” someone. How professional and awesome of you Rina-san!

I guess I get a special joy out of hearing Nana-sama voice another confident idol because I was disappointed that Utau was the only role I liked from her last year. So, I’m…enjoying that. Rina’s confident to the point of being bitchy or “scary” as it’s been said by Touya and I like that. Nana-sama confident idol (bitch) ftw!

All the other characters just seem unnecessary. I started becoming weary of this anime back when I saw a rather big cast emerge in promo pictures. It’s a love triangle. All you need is three people. Part of the reason why I think this episode is so boring because there were all these other random characters in there with problems I couldn’t care less about. Whenever one of them popped up on screen my brain kind of shut down and I just stared at the screen until they disappeared again. They all either have stupid or incredibly tragic problems and I just find them bothersome.

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Overall, I think the problems with this anime is that it’s boring and that it’s trying too hard to seem “classy” so that you like every one. In those cases I end up liking no one. It’s the same problem with the character’s issues. “Boohoo I’m scared of my girlfriend leaving me to be famous.” I don’t care.

How is a regular person supposed to connect with something like that and care about it? It’s not something we can really identify with. They have to make us want to care about the characters in some other way and quite obviously they’re failing at it because I’m ready to be sitting on my pedestal and go, “Muahaha! Dance puppets! Dance!” like some sort of crazy person.

I don’t know what the VN was like, but I have to say this anime is boring right now and it’s trying too hard otherwise too with lots of random crap (wtf was that scene where they were all changing their dresses and stuff?). With the dramatic music in the scene with Yuki and Touya talking on the phone, this anime is really begging to get made fun of. I would have dropped the anime except with a slap coming at some point in the future I know it’s going to be at least a little more interesting. Besides, Nana-sama singing makes me happy.

Hm…if I’m rooting for the girl that is technically going to be the one “stealing” the guy, that’s definitely a bad sign for the anime, right? If I want things to get screwed up for two characters that are supposed to be likable.

Basically…I just want something interesting to happen. So I guess you can say this fails as a first episode because nothing interesting happens. I’ll just see where it goes from here.

I’m still not sure how I’ll be blogging this anime. If I have enough to say next week, it’ll be episodic like I planned originally. I’m trying to branch out and do more series now.

Well, I almost got everything I was supposed to this week. I’ll probably get through the rest of ToraDora! tomorrow or something. I kind of got distracted by the new season of anime. Starting a new season takes up a lot more time I think. Because you pretty much always have something to say.

Anime: CHAOS;HEAD (12 END),  ToraDora! (11), Plus Shakugan no Shana.

Hm. Looks like I’m going to get the chance to go through some older series like I’ve been wanting to this season. I’m caught up with the Fall anime and I’m…really not going to be picking up much in Winter after all. I’m almost certain now that MariaHolic is going to be in here. I don’t think I’m even going to blog SoraKake and I won’t get past more than a couple of episodes of Asu no Yoichi.

Winter is going to be pretty easy for me it looks like. Makes me happy.

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Shakugan no Shana (Episodes 01 – 08)

No organized blogging here whatsoever, I decided to just get my thoughts out while they’re in my head.

First off, the first episode was awesome. After watching the first episode I wanted to just sit down and watch the whole thing at once, but it’s like 24 episodes (or is it 26?) so that would be stupid. Plus I know from everyone else’s grumblings that it doesn’t stay this incredibly awesome. But ah~ What a great series opener. It starts off with action, then clears up all the details, and oh yeah, “you’re dead”. Hahaha~ I love first episodes like that.

See. That’s how you get people hooked. Hm…as far as I’m concerned all an anime really needs is a great first episode and great last episode to make it memorable. Everything in between just has to be satisfactory.

Also in the first episode, I was surprised by Shana, or more specifically Rie Kugimiya as Shana. From the way people talk about all of her loli-ish tsundere roles you’d think they were all alike, but they all have pretty obvious differences (at least they’re obvious to me out of the ones I’ve seen). Shana talks a lot more calmly, steadily, and seriously than any of the other roles (at least right now). From the way people talk about Rie Kugimiya you’d think that all of her roles sound the same, but it’s not any worse than pretty much any seiyuu (except Miyuki Sawashiro lolz). It overlaps sometimes when they’re angry or something, but it’s not bad or anything. I guess it’s because Rie-san has such a distinctive voice though. Kind of like Yukari Tamura. It’s impossible not to recognize her.

Aw…and Hirai-san. She was only around for two episodes, but it was kind of sad to see her go. Such a bright, cheerful girl. Sheesh. The idea of your “existence” disappearing is really depressing. After you die all that’s left of you are your accomplishments and the memories of others so just disappearing entirely is…awful. Can’t help but wonder what would happen if a person who invented some world-changing thing had their existence taken and all that…what would happen then? Would their invention disappear too and would the world change or is it just on a personal level? I’m guessing it’s something I just shouldn’t dwell on too much right now though.

That other girl in class though, the one that I assume is responsible for the love triangle dorama. I’m not fond of her. Normally I’d fall for her sort of character easily (and I did by her looks alone at first), but she’s just too boring. There has to be more to her than love trianlge drama, right?

And another small complaint is that I don’t like how quickly Shana changed. She started relying on and trusting Yuuji too quickly. or maybe not qoo ucikly, but too suddenly. I guess it’s not too surprising though because I have to say, smiling Shana in the opening felt like a spoiler.

Last thing on the opening (while it’s on my mind)…I love it. I watch the opening and ending almost every time. The animation is nothing really too special, but how it just fits perfectly with the song is awesome.

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CHAOS;HEAD – Episode 12 (END)

Aww. It’s over. You know, this anime had some sticky points where I turned my back on it, but overall I can say that…it turned out fine.

Fine is slightly less than the “awesome” I might have expected, but I guess that someday I’ll just have to turn to the VN to enjoy that awesomeness. Someday when I have more time and you know…the actual ability to.

It really feels like somewhere along the line the anime became more of a basic action anime than what I started out expecting it to be. So I know that the VN has to be at least a little different, because a VN running on action that you can’t really see seems like a dumb idea. Of course I might have ruined the experience by finishing the anime, but I’m kind of okay with that considering I can’t play through the game for a little while.

Now then as for the actual finale, I have to say some of the things Norose was saying was giving me flashbacks to Charles in Code Geass R2. That probably hurt the anime more than it helped it because of how ridiculous that all seemed back then.

The happy-love-harem delusion made me laugh quite a bit. As did Takumi “breaking up” with Seira (that’s right bitch. He chose someone he gave him a better name. Taku > Takki). Speaking of nicknames and such though, I don’t think I realized until this episode that every single girl in the series calls Takumi something different. I wonder if that was on purpose for that one scene (if it was in the VN that is).

I really don’t have a lot to say so I’ll keep it simple now. The anime somehow became rather typical, so I’d like to play the game because everyone thinks that was so…not typical. Seeing Takumi the hikkikomori loser rise up and be awesome was fun and of course…Rimi <3

It seems that even though I kept talking about the importance of the girls none of them ended up being completely unimportant because it meant more people who got to know Takumi and believe in him and all that corny stuff. Though I still think the most important is Rimi and then Nanami.

Also lol at the very ominous scene at the beginning of the anime actually meaning, “Happy ending!” A happy ending where Rimi and Takumi live together happily ever after. Really not what you’d expect from the start of the anime (lol, no main characters died at all). I think that sort of ending was surprising though and kind of refreshing (less predictable than the unhappy ending in this case) so…I liked it?

Yeah. I like this anime. It’s okay. Still want to play the game though.

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ToraDora!

Episode 11

Ohoho~ Now I’m starting to see what people are talking about calling this a character drama over a comedy now. Specifically Taiga’s frustration with her father and Ryuuji doing the, “but family is family” thing made me start thinking about Clannad. I don’t think that Taiga’s dad is a bad person though, or even really a bad father. He really just comes off as the lonely papa~ right now if you know what I mean. Sometimes parents just make mistakes and you have to forgive them. Because they’re your parents and they actually love you (even when they’re making mistakes).

Of course I’m not saying all parents love their children. Some parents are abnormal. But Taiga’s dad seems fine to me. Of course there still seems to be more to the story that I need to see so I’ll have to see what happens.

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This post is so lame. I watched almost nothing this week. Not bad, because I did actual things in the real world, but it sure makes this post look pretty…well bare (and lame).

Next week I’ll catch up properly with ToraDora. I hate being behind, especially when episode 13 is supposed to be so good. Then I’ll probably be adding Maria+Holic to Weekly Anime next week too. Or actually…maybe not since I’ll have to wait an extra week for an actual new episode to appear.

A post that perhaps should have been done yesterday, but if I have one resolution this year it’s going to be to stop stressing myself out over just about everything. All I really seem to accomplish when I go into rush mode is making myself sicker. Also, this post is kind of unnecessary, but I feel it’s a good way of trying to say that I’m not lazy (but I am)

All of my plans basically amount to things that I’ve been working on for a while, but think will finally get off the ground in 2009. I don’t really do resolutions. The only difference between 2008 and 2009 for me is one digit in the date. That said, I do hope to accomplish a lot more this year. Some of those goals relate to anime and such so here’s a post to let out some of the stuff that gathers in my head. Some of it’s even related to blogging!

Behold! For once I decided to break up the text with some images (relevant and not!). But that’s only because everything is in categories…

Banner

First thing’s first…new banner (and back to the regular theme~). Featuring Sakura from Sakura Hime Kaden. I made it kind of quickly because it will really only get to be a filler banner until I get a banner up for my favorite anime of the Winter Season. I do like it though. I found back with my Skip Beat! banner that purple fits in quite nicely with the colors of the pool theme (…blue) while still being able to stand out and be noticable.

I used the poster scanned by kelakagandy that you may have already seen in that filler post when I tried to clean it up a little bit. Then I used the smiling image of Sakura from the actual chapter and voila…banner. Oh and there was a blank space so I filled that in with an image I found of some cherry blossoms.

For something that came out so simple, it sure took a lot of effort. New images showed up, but I decided to use the same banner because otherwise it’s wasted effort. And the tagline…is something you should get if you’ve read the manga and are a fan of mahou shoujo (or just shoujo).

Now then my Winter banner. This time I’ll be good and wait until everything airs, but I’m probably going to end up making it a Maria+Holic banner. I already have a few choices for taglines, one that is my favorite and for once I’m going to try to build the banner around the tagline rather than the other way around.

It’s proving to be difficult because so far the only anime scan from Maria+Holic is too (almost) yuri for me to want or be able to use. I’m probably going to end up cleaning up some screencaps when I can download the highest quality raw I can find and see where it goes from there.

Blogging

The most obvious change is one that I’ve been talking about for a while. Moving my blog to some nice paid hosting so that I can have more options with…everything. My basic reason for wanting to do this is that I like web page design (to some extent, I like graphics anyway) and I hate the lack of options to make my blog look good. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy changing banners and themes oh-so-much.

Since my main reason is so basic, I’ve decided I’m not in any terrible rush. I’d like to develop my blog more and work on some real-life things first before I get too into it. I’ve grown too accustomed to wordpress.com (yes, even that new wide dashboard) and change greaks me out sometimes. Best not to get too involved in changes until I have the time to spare for it.

I’ve also been thinking about some sort of feature to have on my blog that will make it unique. So that people can say more than just, “ah, the serious business fangirl” while talking about me and my blog. Being known as a fangirl is wonderful since it makes me seem more outgoing and carefree than I am in real life, but I have so many thoughts in my head and I want to be more! It’s quite frustrating that with all of the buzzing in my head that I can’t really come up with much. My thoughts are all dedicated to something else (which I’ll get to next). Hopefully I’ll come up with something sometime this year. I’m rather without talent so we’ll see though. For now I’ll just focus on…what I’ve been focusing on.

In the meantime, fellow bloggers can always invite me in on any multi-blog projects. Maybe someone who is as lost as me can join up with me and while try to be less lame together!

Writing

It’s something that I’ve mentioned a few times. My biggest passion is writing (even before anime and manga and all of that) or rather my imagination which creates stories that I want to write. With my messed up head I’ve lost a little of my once great love for written text. I still try to keep my writing alive on this blog but it’s hard to read as much anymore. Sometimes I just can’t read through a post unless I know it’ll get me motivated to say something of my own if it has too much text. I miss out on a lot of good posts and bloggers that way I’m sure.

This year I think I’ll finally start posting chapters for a story I’ve been writing and then rewriting for quite some time now. If you count the time when it used to be two separate stories it’s been about four years. Of course I won’t be posting it here, but because I hate fictionpress right now I’ll probably be posting it in a WordPress blog.

The story isn’t a novel. It’s specifically written with the intention of being read chapter by chapter. I want to get the outline finished and get maybe a ten chapter head start on it before I start posting. I’m hoping to have both of those goals acheived by the end of June this year.

I don’t like saying a lot about a story before it gets set in stone (except with the person I am constantly asking advice from) because I’m so likely to change things when I have one of those moments that just click.

I will just say that I focus on my stories in the same way that I focus on anime. Characters and relationships (both romantic and not) are my focus with a plot that goes around to make it all work. So, the plot is really, really nothing special. It’s the characters I spend a lot of time on. And yeah. That’s all I want to say right now.

Personal

This year I will absolutely graduate from high school! And then I will proceed to go to Disney World (this is my real motivation).

The original plan didn’t work out ,so I’m going through night-school instead this year. It’s a regular high school degree, actually better than if I’d gotten it from my own school (because they’re about to lose their accreditation). But the fact that it’s “night school” makes me make a face, but it’s pretty much my last option so Iwill persevere!

I’m also making a lot more decisions about my future. After I finish high school I’m going to community college for a year to fix the mess being sick has made of my GPA. Then I’m actually thinking of applying for a college out of state because I finally sat down and thought about what I wanted to do for a career.

I ended up deciding I wanted to learn other languages and do something with that. The most fun I’ve ever had learning was when I first started Spanish (I grew to dislike it because I always got stuck in Spanish first thing in the morning). Unfortunately no colleges in this part of the country have a good focus on translating and languages. So I’m going to start looking into Colleges in California, Hawaii, Virgina, and Florida. All places where I have relatives. I’m especially fond of the Hawaii idea, as is my mom since it would give her a reason to come visit.

Because I want to go to college in another state though I need to get a job so I can start saving up money now. Less for tuition and more for travel expenses. Especially if I decide on Hawaii. Unfortunately it’s difficult to find a job in my area so I’ll have to rely on some friends helping me out with that. Likely I’ll go back to a place I’ve already worked. Either a grocery store or  a paper route (ewwww) that requires driving.

Anime

The plan is to follow less crap that I’m just going to drop when it comes to the end of the season and I don’t feel like catching up. That and watch more old anime.

I already downloaded two series onto my hard drive (Kure-Nai and Nanatsuiro Drops) and I hope to get through both some time this month. I have a long list of other anime I want to watch but there’s ones that pop right into my head.

Rozen Maiden, Genshiken, ef (both series), Toshokan Sensou, and many, many others are planned for viewing sometime this year.

I also plan on doing better with the anime I watch as they air. My mind too often wanders while I’m at the computer (it goes to writing stories) and hopefully I’ll be able to fix that.

As for anime I intend to watch that will be airing sometime this year, I actually have quite a few. Kobato, Pandora Hearts, Tears to Tiara, and Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou are all anime I’m looking forward to to some extent. Most of them in Spring it seems.

I also want to read more finished manga. I have a long “currently reading” list but almost all of them are still being published and it’s pissing me off. Anything that’s not being published I’m waiting for scanlations.

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To put thing simply, this year I plan on putting in more effort and putting a stop to easy posts…like this. These sorts of personal and easy posts always seem to pop up more around the holidays too. So hopefully it will be easier from now on.

Now I’m going to finally work on my Christmas “Swag” post and hopefully have it up by tomorrow.

…I’m going to have another “2009″/New Year post up before a post dealing with Christmas. This is another thing I should fix this year.

Posted in Personal, Site ]]> http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/plans-for-2009/feed/ 20 FuyuMaiden 2009plans 2009banner 2009blogging 2009writing 2009personal 2009anime http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/first-impressions-maria%e2%80%a0holic/ http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/first-impressions-maria%e2%80%a0holic/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:01:33 +0000 FuyuMaiden http://simplicityanime.wordpress.com/?p=6471 ]]>

This post feels so late because of the early stream…and since I watched the early stream too. None the less, here we go. (My First post of 2009!)

This anime is officially my favorite of the winter season (yes it’s that easy to decide). I absolutely love it when an anime surpasses expectations that are already…pretty darn high. But of course my sadistic trap anime does just that (is this the only anime in the new sadistic trap genre?).

I don’t think I can remember laughing so much and enjoying a completely new series in quite some time. It’s all owed to Maria, who is now the best trap evaaar in my opinion.

Ahaha~ This anime. I watched the early-streaming version and then had to go right ahead and read the manga. I swore I didn’t want to do that with this anime, but can’t really change that now, can I?

Besides, this one seems to be pretty well done so I can imagine laughing and enjoying the anime even after reading the manga. That doesn’t really matter too much though. I was only able to read four chapters and the last three are really short so it won’t be long before the anime passes what I’ve read. I’m betting it’s all covered in episode two.

But lol…this is anime is so awesome.

I believe that this is my first Shaft anime. Going into it I knew some people loved Shaft and some people hated them and now I know why. At least if lots of their anime are like what I’ve seen (just the first episode of Maria+Holic and the openings for Ef). They seem to be fond of shapes and backgrounds and stuff. Filters and whatever else.

At first it kind of bothered and distracted me. When the backgrounds changed so much I kind of started going, “Wait. Where are they again?” and I’d get distracted and not pay attention to what was being said. It was especially troublesome since I was watching it raw.

I got pretty used to it by the end. I don’t know if they toned it down (because I did notice a few parts that kind of jarred me out of the story), so I might have just gotten used to it. In which case it’s no problem at all.

Besides~ If Shaft does such good animation and art, I don’t care about them showing off a little extra. A lot of the fun…effects fit this anime too. Stainglass church windows and old-style drawings like you’d find in some old shoujo (and yuri) manga. Fitting since Maria+Holic is basically a parody of classic yuri series.

Of course, I wouldn’t just call it a parody. Parodies lack originality, but Maria+Holic seems to have more than what would just make it a parody. Some sort of storyline for starters.

That storyline as of right now is basically just Kanako being tortured by a sadistic trap. The real storyline will probably be them getting beyond the torture and such and developing a real relationship of some sort. I’m betting on romance since Kanako isn’t actually gay. She’s just afraid of men and likes women (wat. It’s totally different.). Well anyway that’s the obvious route that I think things will take. From what I’ve seen all of ther characters outside of the main three seem to be pretty one-dimensional. Basically just perfect girls for Kanako to worship.

Let’s see. I think that’s all the random thoughts I have right now. So I’ll attempt to gather everything else into categories (trying new things on my blog always ends up being a messy experiment).

Animation & Art

Well there’s all that stuff I mentioned about why some people like or hate Shaft. Outside of that stuff though the animation is really good. My goodness the comedic timing is amazing. I read both the manga and anime and this adaptation did its job. It used animation as an advantage to make jokes funnier.

Classic timing and dramatization to make everything funnier. Cute inner-thoughts chibi Kanako is a plus too…and necessary since Kanako has such crazy thoughts that cannot be shared with anyone.

One scene especially…the should-soon-be-famous (if it isn’t already) grope scene. In the manga that was just barely one frame and you didn’t see anything (Kanako’s hand went out of the frame). In the anime it was epic. Come on girl. You find out another girl is a boy and you can’t be around boys so you grab for that? lolz all around.

Also that first peek at Maria’s sadistic side around 6 minutes and 20 seconds in was awesome. Her His (dammit I’ll never get used to it!) polite and wonderful smile turned into a devious smirk from a different angle with a little refocusing (muahaha~ Sorry, but I can’t get enough of sadistic traps it seems).

One thing I would like to complain about is the backgrounds with trees. Those trees look very much…not really like trees if you know what I mean and it’s distracting.

But let’s see what else? Wind in the hair is used for a nice effect at least once. There’s the backgrounds (as mentioned) and a few other noticeable things. Basically we have very nice animation here (pretty much as expected) almost to the point of being distracting (also expected).

Music

Um…well the background music is all really nice and fitting. One moment stood out (as it was probably supposed to). The music during the scene where Maria kissed Kanako on the cheek was really something.

Outside of that it’s more stuff that’s fitting the all-girl’s catholic school setting. Plus a few piano pieces that I noticed (when I was looking for them) that just fit the mood nicely during their times. I really love all the organ music used for both the comedic drama and catholic school mood. Also I think I heard a choir in there somewhere at one point.

I really don’t have a lot to say though, so let’s move onto the ending.

Kimi ni, Mune Kyun by Yuu Kobayashi, Asami Sanada, and Marina Inoue

Which is…awesome. I only say that because I saw this video before I saw the three seiyuu’s cover of the song (yeah the three main seiyuu sing it). I love the video game spin given to the song which goes along with the very amusing animation. It’s such a fun ending song that I think I may have already discovered my favorite ending for 2009. I’ll have to go through and watch it again because every ten seconds or so I start watching something different. The background, Kanako in her video game world. It’s hard to see everything at once. It’s also something I have to see without the credits.

I’ll have to wait until next week for the opening, though you do get to hear it in the background of the trailers and I like it from what I hear. I’ll have to wait to talk about it in my Weekly Anime.

Voice Acting

We have three seiyuu all doing very well here I think.

Marina Inoue is a great careless and…well, rather emotionless, but still quiet wicked maid. I think Marina-san is wildly talented and she’s become one of my favorites recently. I’m glad to see that she doesn’t let me down here playing Matsurika.

Asami Sanada did very well with all of Kanako’s craziness (almost to the extent that one could say “multiple personalities”) and made her a lot more interesting to me in a shallow way. Like Matsurika basically says, Kanako isn’t very appealing physically. I think if her hair was long she’d look better, but I suppose she has to look plain to make all the other girls be so wonderful. But Asami-san makes at least Kanako’s voice positively cute with the way she’s always pouting and stuff. Such a cute little whine that girl has now~

And of course, the one who shines brighter than anyone is Yu Kobayashi voicing Maria. Both sides of Maria sound absolutely perfect to me. Never has a cute innocent girl sounded so polite and wonderful and never has a trap sounded so wonderfully evil (and sadistic). The fact that Maria’s two sides are so very opposite really makes you have to admire Yu-san. Girl/Boy, Polite/Rude, Modest/Arrogant, and so on, and so on.

I…still can’t believe that for a boy entering high school in Japan that he is able to do such a loud high-pitched scream like this though. That makes him admirable somehow.

Of course Miyuki Sawashiro gets a special mention for being the Dorm Leader. Such a cute cat girl voice. As expected of Miyuki-san! *thumbs up* She’s the most versatile seiyuu in anime!

Comedy

And our last category will be comedy because everything else falls here. The characters, the story, and in fact everything I mentioned above all lends itself to the most important thing thus far in this anime: Comedy.

It’s an anime that’s supposed to make you laugh and at least for me it’s doing one hell of a job.

As I believe I’ve stated many times before I’m a girl who mostly picks my anime (at least my favorites) based on characters rather than plot. Here we have three (plus at least one girl I saw in the manga) characters that are going to be interesting for our comedy. Also, you know, it would be kind of nice to know more about them I suppose. Maria and Matsurika especially.

The two…characters (almost said girls lol) that are going to be responsible for Kanako’s woes. Of course, Matsurika does it more when she’s just ordered to (because she’s a maid), but she doesn’t care one way or the other which seems to be its own wonderful form of torture.

But um yeah. Would really like to know why Maria has to dress like a girl. I got that her family owns the school or something so I assume it has something to do with that, but still. Would like clarification because something like that should really have someone curious.

What draws everyone to this anime is really just the one line summary though, I suppose: a girl that’s into yuri falls in love with a girl, finds out said girl is a guy who then proceeds to torture her mericlessly. The situation is awesome. The situations is very entertaining (especially when Maria moves into Kanako’s dorm room).

Wait…situation…then that would make this a sitcom! An anime sitcom involves sadistic traps!? Well hell. That’s ten times better than the same old tired crap they keep on recycling on American TV (divorced single parent, blah, blah, blah).

To wrap up what all of my rambling is trying to get at…I can’t explain why you should (or rather possibly would) like this anime. You just have to watch. Go. Now.

As for me, I love this anime. Mostly because of Maria.

Maria is just fucking awesome. I want to meet a sadistic trap that is so pretty someday. (Also why can’t we all just call her Maria instead of Mariya since you know…obvious. I mean we all know who we’re talking about but that stuff is still annoying.)

I still have a whole pile of screencaps of Maria that I didn’t get the chance to use. Like I said before…best trap evar.

Wow. Unorganized mess. First Impressions made me ramble all I wanted to. No one is going to read all of this. Nor should they (rambling). But it is quite useful for me. It helps me decide how easy an anime is to blog. It really is quite foolish for me to try to decide how to blog an anime before I start. This is going to make things easier.

Now I’m thinking I might want to do episodic blogging for Maria†Holic, because I just now that it’s easy to say stuff about it so far. I had to stop myself from talking. I ended up with a ton of screencaps too so my regular episodic blogging would be quite easy I think (basic screencap-comment way).

Hmm…well we’ll see after I watch the next episode. How much I have to say then will decide things. I haven’t really done regular blogging on a series besides Shugo Chara! since Nogizaka Haruka (i’m not blogging Skip Beat! regularly). Somehow…I think Maria and all the other girls could actually give me enough to say (but the overload in the blogosphere with Maria is definitely something on my mind too.) Like I said I’ll see how it goes.

However one thing is for sure, don’t expect this much effort being put into my other first impression posts. This was tiring (especially adding in all the screencaps afterwards. I had too many and it was a pain to decide what to use and such.).

This is late. I intended to have this up really early on December 30th. Now I think it might not even be 2008 somewhere (I don’t know. I don’t keep track). But anyway, now that the new year is upon is, it’s time for me to finally properly reflect on 2008. Like so many others before me, I do this with my favorite things in anime.

I wanted to keep mine until after Christmas when I’m pretty much guaranteed that nothing new will come to prove your list wrong. The 30th would have been safe, but yeah. I missed out.

I thought of calling this…yearly feature the “best of ’08″ but we all know that I am not capable of trying to hide my bias. So “favorites” works much better.

I have all the typical categories. Nothing really fancy. I suppose anything unique that comes from this is basically…um…my own point of view? Maybe over the next year I’ll think about making it more unique, but somehow I doubt much will come of it.

Anyway, for an anime to eligible for any of my “favorites” the anime or thing in question had to have a start in this year somehow. This rule does have a small exception on a few of the categories. Most of them depending on my own personal whims.

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Favorite Soundtrack (Instrumental) – Clannad & Clannad ~After Story~

*shockgaspwhat* It’s not Macross Frontier? Yeah I know what everyone else thinks. Shut up.

Background music is something I don’t really think about a part from a few series where music is supposed to be important. Mainly it’s just there to help the mood and you’re not really supposed to notice it too much. Of course, when it is so good at this you can’t help but notice it.

Clannad is my favorite soundtrack for background music, because the background music will so often make me cry (therefore being “so good” I can’t help but notice it). Yes, sad scenes are sad no matter what, but unless you start throwing that music in my face, I won’t shed a single tear. Of course, if you throw that music in my face, I’ll start having tears stream down my face. It’s really a shame that there’s no middleground there.

Of course, it’s not just about the crying. I only recently downloaded the Clannad soundtrack, even though I declared I would not (for fear of sitting at my computer crying randomly), but it’s made me appreciate it even more. Somehow, it makes me start thinking about things and inspiring thoughts that I wouldn’t really…think about. I tend to think of OST’s as stopping original thought because your mind connects them to one series, but somehow that didn’t happen here at all.

As for my favorite tracks…Well Nagisa’s theme is the best (not even basing that on Nagisa love, it just is). I also listen to “To the Same Heights” and “The Place Where Wishes Come True” a lot. “Shining in the Sky” is apparently the one that will get me to cry so easil, but it’s also the one that makes me thoughtful…somehow.

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Favorite Soundtrack (Vocal) - Macross Frontier

Thar it is. An obvious choice because no other anime has as many songs. Of course that’s not why I chose it.

First, to be honest, I’m not really that big on the instrumental tracks from Macross Frontier (well, I actually like the non-vocal versions of songs, but you know what I mean). I think it’s good for background music, but it doesn’t quite grab me. It’s just not my type of music, it’s the simple.

The songs that Ranka and Sheryl sing transcend normal tastes in music though. Perhaps you hate bouncy songs, but you will like Seikan Hikou. Perhaps you hate really powerful singing (those people exist), but you’ll still like all of Sheryl’s songs. You will especially like it when they sing together or else I will need to toss you out.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily true, but I’d say it’s the general rule with a few minor exceptions. Outside of the fact that “Macros Frontier is the best Evar” I really don’t know what else to say. It’s the soundtrack that wins battles in space. It wins everything else too.

Favorite tracks would be…everything? Yeah. Pretty much everything.

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Favorite Opening – Toki wo Kizamu Uta by Lia (Clannad ~After Story~)

YouTube

Is it surprising that Lion isn’t my favorite? Not really. As much as I love that sopening as well, it really can’t win against beautiful key girls with wind (especially when Nagisa shows up so much).

Toki wo Kizamu Uta might be my new favorite opening overall (for any anime ever…that I have seen). It’s got all of my favorite things. Beautiful scenery, beautiful girls, beautiful animation, a beautfiul song, lyrics that match the anime, and wind~ ah, glorious wind.

At this point I really don’t have much more to say. It pretty much comes down to, “it’s beautiful”.

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Favorite Ending – Vanilla Salt by Yui Horie (ToraDora!)

YouTube

At first I didn’t like this ending at all. The song bothered me since it felt like there was too much going on and the same went for the opening. Now they’ve both grown on me and I never skip past either during my ToraDora! viewings.

To put it simply for this one…it’s cute. The little tiger and the girls walking around with umbrellas. It’s cute. And it avoids the one thing that makes almost all endings disliked. It’s not boring. There’s always something cute happening on the screen! It’s impossible for it to be boring.

So, like Toki wo Kizamu Uta, I can sum up my reasons for this being a favorite pretty easily. It’s cute.

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Favorite Insert Song – What ’bout my star? @Formo by Megumi Nakajima and May’n (Macross Frontier)

YouTube

Macross Frontier can’t win any other categories because I pretty much remember all of their openings and endings more for being insert songs.

Anyway, this one is my favorite because…well I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched this scene. I love the song and the scene is just hilarious. Oh and how I love to see Ranka and Sheryl sing together. Those girls are really at their best when they work together. Or…sing together, because you can’t really say that they’re working together in this scene. Though it’s amazing how in sync they are when they’re competing.

Yeah. This is my favorite insert song. I like this version of the song better than Sheryl’s. It’s catchier and more fun and…calmer too somehow.

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Favorite Female Seiyuu – Megumi Nakajima (Macross Frontier) and Kanae Ito (Amu in Shugo Chara!)

Hahaha. Tie. I don’t think I can even decide between the two in ranking. Maybe I’d choose Kanae Ito because she’s more of a seiyuu while Megumi Nakajima seems to focus more on singing.

Now there may be those wondering if I have forsaken my love for Nana-sama, but no I have not. Though I can’t honestly say that I love Nana Mizuki more than I did in 2007. The love is pretty much constant. Kanae Ito has done a lot of new things (though really just Shugo Chara-related) and Megumi Nakajima is completely new to me in 2008. So my favorites go to them.

Also, I wanted to choose based off of a specific role. Nana-sama does great voice acting, but I’ve ended up disliking almost all of her roles at least a little bit from this year except for Utau. Lydia and Kotoko are really the ones I’m thinking of and…well yeah. Two main girls kind of beat out Utau also so…Megumi-san and Kanae-san!!!

And there is no male seiyuu this year. I like all the same ones as last year. (I follow men less than any other fangirl I know)

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Favorite Mascot Character – Eru~ (Shugo Chara!)

lol. Obvious.

I’d consider a mascot character any character that without being a “main character” gets shoved on merchandise like its no one’s business. They’re also easier to draw than other characters. And hey! Eru fits this quite nicely (all the charas do). Of course, anyone who reads Shugo Chara posts on this blog should already be aware of my vast Eru love. I have a figure and a keychain of Eru!

So yes. Eru is the obvious favorite.

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Favorite Female Character – Furukawa Nagisa (Clannad ~After Story~)

With the last few episodes of Clannad, I’d like to call Nagisa a kind of…”come from behind” winner. If it hadn’t been for these last few episodes in the After Story, I’d probably call Amu (Shugo Chara!) my favorite. And Amu is a very, very close second.

Quite simply, Nagisa is one of the strongest girls I think I’ve seen in anime. Perhaps it’s not a very obvious thing since Nagisa is in fact…weak. But the fact that she’s always willing to do her best despite so many things. I mean, her life is tough. Though I will say that perhaps I can only find Nagisa so strong because of our similar situations and because she can do the things I can’t manage to do myself.

There’s a lot I can say about Nagisa, but this isn’t the right time. For now, I’ll just leave it saying that I love Nagisa. She’s sweet, innocent, but still somehow strong. And she’s cute. Oh she’s very, very cute.

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Favorite Male Character – Tsukiyomi Ikuto (Shugo Chara!)

lol obvious. Again.

Of course, I could just leave it at my shallow fangirling and go, “look at my Shugo Chara posts fools!” with all of the crazy fangirling. Specifically there’s a recent moment where MyVampireEyes got me thinking too much about Ikuto in jeans…

*ahem* But anyway, 2008 is a year where Ikuto’s character has gotten a lot of development in the manga with the already famous (among fangirls) arc that’s pretty much dedicated to him (other characters get their spotlight too though). Every “bad boy”character has their own secretly nice side. Something we only got glimpses of when he was around Amu (the Amusement Park is still especially memorable) until quite recently.

Of course, I don’t want to spoil anything, but Ikuto’s past makes me see him as more than just “the right guy for Amu” because he’s also a wonderful older brother.

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Favorite Love Triangle – Ranka x Alto x Sheryl (Macross Frontier)

This one I can explain quite easily. A love triangle where all three participants get along? And so well too. Ranka and Sheryl both like the same guy, but I think it’s quite obvious that they either like each other as most or quite close to there.

These three also work best when they’re all together (as shown by the fantastic finale). To be honest, I was happy when Alto didn’t choose either girl by the end of the show. Breaking up the trio would be more disappointing than anything else I think.

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Favorite New Ship – Rima x Nagihiko (Shugo Chara!)

Ah yes. The stubborn girl with the trap. A classic combo (since when?). Both of them are smart and sly little guardians. Always figuring out something about the other one, much to the other’s dismay.  To say it simply, both of them are sneaky, but both of them figure out what the other one is being sneaky about. They both need each other to keep the other one in line!

To me that’s what makes the best of pairings. Two people that are able to keep each other under control in some way. Two people that need each other and et cetera.

It’s kind of sad that this is the only new ship I found in 2008 though. Everything else was from 2007 as well. So this needed a special mention somehow. Next year my shipping will probably be more focused in the year (hopefully). Though two of my favorites will be continuin into 2009.

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Favorite Ship – Amu x Ikuto (Shugo Chara!)

Hahaha. Obvious once again. (lol, I had to use a scan of a card because I’m saving all my other images)

A couple that still isn’t officially a “couple” even in the manga (but soon! SOON!) and the subject of my most crazy bouts of ranting fangirling. Quite honestly, it’s the pairing I will never get tired of shipping.

As much as I would like for them to become the official OTP (like…NAO), I enjoy their little stubborn interactions where they both pretend like they’re not interested in the other (although Ikuto somehow pretends while constantly hitting on Amu). They’re a pairing that suit each other and which most of the fandom viciously supports. A quite obvious pick for favorite ship.

And as fun as they are with their back-and-forth banter (oh so much teasing~), they also have nice “aww” moments which really makes them fulfill everything I could ever want in a couple. Hence, the rabid fangirling.

Now let’s watch me cheat so I can have my obvious choice in here along with another one.

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Favorite Pairing – Nagisa x Tomoya (Clannad ~After Story~)

Hahaha! The shipping fangirl cheats so that she can get three pairings into this post. (Oh and I have to say, I really love back to back images of my favorite pairings. They are the best.)

Favorite pairing would specifically be two people that officially have gotten together (they’re getting married~) since I no longer have to ship them. There’s no point! They’re already together!

I think there’s no real reason to explain why they’re a favorite. I always say that I base my shipping and such around two people that fit each other and quite honestly, there’s no couple that shows this quite as well as Nagisa and Tomoya. They always stand by each other and support each other. There’s not a lot that you have to say about them because they just…work. And it’s really that simple.

Also…they’re going to get married~

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Favorite Premiere – Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

A series that I fully expected to just watch for a few laughs with some romance on the side ended up surprising me quite a bit. It made me smile, it made me giggle, it made me “kyaa~”, and it made me go, “awww.” All in the first episode.

I got a pairing to support right away (and I supported them every week that I watched the show) and surprisingly I ended up liking Haruka right away as well. Even though I fully expected her to be an intolerable moe-blob. She’s still so moe that it’s rather frightening, but somehow…it worked rather than making me want to roll my eyes.

Basically, it was the most pleasant surprise I encountered this year.

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Favorite Finale – Macross Frontier

I don’t even need to explain why. Just watch it and anyone will be able to tell why.

An awesome fight with awesome music and just…awesomeness all around. It also has the benefit of being entertaining when all the shippers cried themselves to sleep when no girl won in the end. Granted, I enjoy shipping too, but I didn’t really care in this anime. I was in it because I just…enjoyed it. Strange that for once I had no specific reason (well, I specifically liked Ranka a lot, but I can’t really think of anything else specific).

And Grace was a bitch (and therefore an awesome villain) so seeing her defeated just make you want to shout, “HELL YEAH!” while watching the episode and that makes it an awesome finale all on its own.

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Favorite Episode – Shugo Chara! 43

Amu shines and Utau sings~ A really, really memorable episode for me (and zomg pretty much no romance whatsoever). Every time I start to lose faith in the Shugo Chara anime, I can go back to this episode and remember that it has its moments. It has its wonderful shining moments.

All of ther characters that got any real screentime all showed some of their best sides in this episode. Amu, the girl who helps people to stand up and is learning to believe in herself. Utau, a stubborn girl who finally lets her warm angelic side show through. And of course we have Ikuto who is a really great older brother (it’s just unfortunate that his sister is so weird, so he so often has to ignore her).

Seeing Utau and Amu work together after all of their fighting (and some rather extreme bitchiness on Utau’s side) was quite nice. Especially since Utau is pretty much the number one stubborn tsundere out of the three girls. Even her tsuntsun is no match for Amu’s mahou shoujo power! And I think that’s what really shows what a great Magical Girl series Shugo Chara is.

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Favorite Manga Chapter – Shugo Chara 32

Oddly enough the splash page of this chapter is more of a spoiler than the pages inside it. Strange.

In the thick of Ikuto’s arc we get to finally take some mystery away from that catboy as we get to finally find out some things about his past. His adorable, adorable past with Utau and Tadase.

Now I like to keep spoilers out, so I’ll just say that as cute as this chapter is, it also makes one want to do lots of crying emoticons. Ikuto’s occasional emo-ness really needs no excuses after this chapter. He’s been having a hard time since he was a child and he managed to take care of others. Making me want to declare him the best older brother in anime, but there’s really a surprising amount of competition there so I can’t.

I really want to say more, but I’ll save some of it for future episode posts where I don’t even have to worry about spoilers.

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Favorite Anime – Clannad

ZOMG surprise of the century? Even though I’m such a Shugo Chara fangirl? No not really. Doki’s beginning and its filler arc will spoil my mood quite nicely even when it’s just mentioned. So Clannad (specifically the After Story) takes it home. I can ignore its faults a little more easily, because at least every episode focuses on a character that you see more than once and I never found any episode completely unentertaining.

In this anime we have a great cast of girls with some really great stories (Nagisa is number one!) and it’s all quite well done. I’ve already rewatched the first season and since I’m enjoying the second season even more, this is obviously a series that I’m going to continue rewatching.

As with any anime it has its faults, but…I like it. And it’s sure to be a favorite for years to come.

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Favorite Manga – Shugo Chara!

I need to follow more manga because I didn’t even have to think about this for more than a few seconds.

We have Ikuto’s arc right now which is going to lead to the end of the series, so there’s been so many developments that fans have been waiting since at least near the beginning of the series for. A recent cliffhanger is making many fans cry out in agony for the delay in the next chapter (though they’re mostly being very polite about it and wishing the manga-ka well). Every chapter this year has had something memorable for me in it, so yeah. It’s an obvious choice and that’s all I can really say.

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And I think that’s it for my favorites. Now I’m just going to give out my one “best of” award. That award is the “fangirling” award. The series that generates the most excitement, shipping, kyaa-ing, and quite often stupidity among the female portion of the anime fandom.

Quite obviously by that description I say…

Shugo Chara! obviously.

I don’t even think I need to back this up because  the Shugo Chara fandom is very, very excitable. The amount of heart-attacks that ensue just when spoilers for the latest chapter comes out is quite amazing. And of course, when you have a large fandom, the easier it is to get excited because whenever you go, “OMG!!!” it’s quite easy to run into someone who will say, “OMG!!!” as well.

For me personally it’s probably the series that’s easiest to get excited over as well. Even if that excitement leads to rage, it’s always there. Because even if I start to fade, I’ll get tons of comments that will get me right back in it.

The merchandising and all of the fanworks are overflowing too. This series is popular. And it’s popular with fangirls (like me).

Right now I’m calmer about my enjoyment, but you can bet that with the recent episode, the excitement all over the fandom is going to start again like crazy. Every time you think it might finally be dead it will spring back to life. Though we’ll see what happens when the series fully ends.

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And that’s it. I planned a better post to celebrate the New Year (and this would have been posted yesterday), but  sadly there’s no time.

As an explanation, I hurt my ankle (badly) and wasn’t allowed to sit up or stand so no computer was available for me to use. Normally we would have the laptop and I could have finished up my posts on that, but my dad needed it for work.

Today my mom was nice enough to set up a little stool and some cushions so I can sit at my computer properly, but I will be very absent for the remainder of the day because it’s a pain to move from room to room and I want to spend time with my family. So Happy New Year everyone! I’ll hopefully be more present tomorow. Hopefully I’ll get to my post on what I got for Christmas too.

Craaap. The Fall season is ending and I’m still behind. Thank god I’m not picking up much in Winter so I can finally catch-up. I did a pretty good job this week though.

Also have my blogging plans for the Winter stuffed in here at the bottom.

Anime: Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka (11 & 12 END…rant), CHAOS;HEAD (09, 10, & 11), ToraDora! (09 & 10)

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I got the first season of Shana for Christmas (Yay?). I haven’t started watching it yet, because I specifically gave my parents the choice of buying me one of like…three or so boxsets because I wanted something new to watch when I’m too sick to even get on the computer.

So~ I’m wondering if I should start including the Shana episodes I watch in here as I go along or if I should just stuff all my thoughts in here at the end. If anyone has an opinion, feel free to let me know.

And “I don’t think you should watch it” is not the sort of opinion I’m looking for. I have the boxset now, so like Hell I’m not going to watch it.

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Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka (END)

I’m not going to bother separating my thoughts on each episode because there’s no real point. I got spoiled like hell about the ending (willingly because I didn’t care, unwillingly because I didn’t want to…not care). I watched the last episode on fastforward the whole way through…which actually made it more entertaining. I can only imagine watching it normally because the DORAMA still felt like it was stretched out.

So…I can pretty much just call this a fail ending and be done with it, right? Of course, not I am a rambler, so ramble I must.

It’s not like I have a big, “OMG INCEST DISGUSTING!” thing like a lot of people. It’s fiction and for me fiction is very easy to separate from reality. I’m not like girls who because they have a brother, automatically connect anime with their real life. If you ask me, there’s something a little odd about the person who connects fiction to their real life so easily. At least when it comes to vague situations like just having a brother. -_-;

No. My problem with AkaSaka’s incest is that it came out of nowhere. I mean, sure Junichi was staring at his sister like a perv a lot of the time, but outside of that she was just treated like his sister. Any development happened between Yuuhi and Junichi. So therefore…this ending is stupid. It’s a failure as an ending. Even if I’d been a Minato fan I’d hate this anime.

And it’s not really like we’ve been trolled either. Trolling is done on purpose. As far as I can see it, the anime was just trying to please everyone and shove out their crap with the least possible effort. Yuuhi fans get all the story and screentime, Minato fans get the ending. There! Everyone happy.

Except not quite. This anime sucked long before the ending anyway. Random filler in a series that’s only 12 episodes long? wtf. Trying to go from random un-funny filler to an attempt at siscon drama? SERIOUSLY! WTF!

Really though, if they did do it on purpose I can imagine why. It’s a commercial for the game! Most people watching get built up to like Yuuhi as the main girl (while the only people who like Minato just like siscon or stupidly perfect girls) and BAM! Yuuhi’s development gets derailed for a different end. Now would people want to play the game to see Yuuhi’s real end?

In that case, I could try to admire them for doing a good commercial, except I have no urge to play the game. Though there is that OAV (which I will only watch if I hear Yuuhi gets proper time in it).

I’m also bothered by the “we like the same guys but let’s be friendly rivals in love!” thing. The fact that Yuuhi forgave Minato in the blink of an eye, but got so pissed at Junichi seems stupid. Both of them were lying and hiding things from her, I mean yeah…get more pissed of at the guy, but the natural thing would be to get pissed at everyone.

Sheesh, I could have at least gotten some sort of girlfight out of this, but no. They keep the trash out at all the wrong times. Especially here where one girl is in love with her brother. I think that would cause a normal person (especially someone living with them) to freak out a little. It’s not even like it’s the blood-relation that’s so creepy (though if they go ahead and have deformed babies, it is), it’s the fact that they both treat each other like siblings which makes this sort of thing so…well actually stupid. Usually other attempts at siscon get at least that part right.

If you treat someone like a sibling, I have a hard time believing there’s any romance there at all. In fact, don’t girls turn guys down by saying they’re more like a brother to them?

Maybe this is why girls don’t get the siscon thing…

Meh. This still could have been a good ending if Yuuhi just said, “screw you” to the sibling-complex duo and took over her father’s company on her own like I wanted her to be able to do back in episode two. That’s what I’d call a good end. At least she did kind of stand up to her father in episode 11…but whatever.

Hrmph. I’ll admit for proper disclosure that I’m feeling grumpy over this anime because I like my romance. When a series tries to push a couple that I saw zero development for over the course of the anime on me, I feel rather insulted. I am not an idiot! I can accept many plotholes for the sake of love, but when it defies common sense completely and goes the shallow route I must object!

In the preview for the finale when they were showing all of the “moments” for each girl, I found it really pathetic comparing Minato’s to Yuuhi’s. Meh. Well whatever. It’s not like I didn’t expect this. But whatever. I guess this post can be entertaining for everyone? It’s part of the AkaSaka experience to make fun of (and just generally bash) this anime as much as possible. But now it’s over…and I want my time back. T_T

I guess something good you can say about this anime is that it’s an expected RAGE anime. In these cases, at some point you know it’s coming, you enjoy getting pissed off with everyone, and it kind of ends up being therapeutic instead of truly rageful. But that just makes it a predictable bad end. I don’t think that’s much better.

In fact, I think I started fearing a Minato end when I saw in the second episode that she got her chance at the “dame yo” part too which officially gave them both equal time in the opening. I’m programmed by Key and KyoAni to believe (rather logically) that whatever girl gets the most time in the opening, wins. Nagisa, Ayu, and Misuzu all got at least one more moment in the opening than the other girls did, therefore…Main girl.

So to wrap this up (because I’d like to avoid putting more effort into my post than they bothered to put into the show)…I want to see Rie Kugimiya play another cute Yuuhi-like role in an anime that doesn’t suck. Polite, adorable, and less (than usual) tsundere ojou-sama please! And this is the last time I watch an anime for a great cast of seiyuu. If a bunch of my absolute favorites with less roles are in an anime though, I’ll still watch it (Meaning SoraKake for Winter is totally on my watchlist).

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CHAOS;HEAD

lol. All Rimi Screencaps.

Episode 09

Rimi protected Takumi again so my only belief in this anime is right! Rimi is good. End of story. Moving on. Shogun is Takumi! ZOMG~! Actually, I got spoiled on Takumi “being a delusion” so I kind of figured that he would be shogun’s delusion. It’s a shame since that’s the sort of WTF!? cliffhanger I like from this show. Oh well. Anyway, all the girls do have their stories and they’re becoming relevant again (except Kozue…she still seems unimportant).

Episode 10

Felt bad for Takumi. Finding out you’re a delusion sucks. My sympathy only lasted so long because I got distracted by how loudly right I was about Rimi wanting to help Takumi, but there possibly being something holding her back. Totally right. Diswords also appeared like crazy in this episode. Also, young detective was bad (like the opening wasn’t a hint).

Most importantly though, Rimi got development. She has her own set of worries. It’s quite awful too, I feel so bad for the characters in this show. Tragedy and mind-messing all around. Rimi and Takumi are the ones I think I feel the worst for though (but that might be because they get the most screentime?). Rimi’s also awesome, going in to save Nanami (I assume they know each other through Takumi). Oh yeah and Rimi isn’t the killer. Yay~

btw…seeing Rimi actually show dislike for someone (and lots of it) made an impression on me. She’s usually smiling or just has a kind of blank expression. Norose must be an asshole!

Episode 11

How did my supernatural mystery turn into a love story? Of course, it’s not like I mind. I’m such a sucker for “fake” or created beings falling in love. I think it’s CLAMP’s fault. So fun that Takumi changed from being a hikikomori loser to SAVING THE WORLD because of Rimi. Hehe, because he likes Rimi so much, I really find it hard to dislike him (even though he’s been such a loser). Especially now. Why can’t I dislike people who like the girls I like? I can’t help but like Ayase too because she smacked Rimi for her own good.

Yup. Rimi is too kind. Trying to shoulder everything on her own. That finally explains my weakness for her though. I really like the sort of girls that help people (whether it’s intentional or not). Someone that’s so kind that they make other people around them feel better. I like that kind of girl. In Rimi’s case though, she has a little bit of coolness too because of the disword. I really like the design of hers the best.

Let’s see plot-related…The nurse that we hadn’t seen until so recently, it was kind of a letdown that she turned out to be the one behind all the murders. I mean, we didn’t see her until really just a little while ago. Anyway, she’s a really messed up person. Glad she’s gone. Crazy detective too. Now there’s only one “bad guy” left to really worry about. He’s an asshole so I hope he really gets what he deserves!

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ToraDora!

Damn. Didn’t get even close to episode 13. By next week for sure! (lol well hopefully next week I get to 14)

Episode 09

ROFL What the Hell was that dream in the beginning? XD That’s some messed up Ryuuji (lol and Taiga too). Ah~ What a fun plot device. Ah this episode made me laugh so much (hahaha that was great with Minori and Kitamura at the trainstation). The whole bunch of them are already acting like a big group of friends. Which should be expected since it’s the ninth episode, but I’m including Ami in it too. Oh how I can recall the number of times I have pretended not to know my friends and vice-versa. You’re embarassed by them, but you still hang out with them! Except Ami and Taiga still don’t really act like friends (not friends I know anyway).

I love the girls in this show now (though Kitamura and Ryuuji are entertaining as well). Minorin is awesome and hilarious, Taiga is…well tsuntsuntsun(dere), and Ami is such a sly little tease that now I can’t help but like her (I love how Ryuuji basically went crying to Taiga like she’s his mom or something after the shower scene). Well, to put it simply, this episode was awesome and had so many, “WTF!? ROFL XD” moments that I can’t even list them all (Minori taking pictures of almost-naked Kitamura stands out though).

Outside of the funniness, the scenes with Minori and Ryuuji outside was really memorable. Since she’s usually so weird, it’s nice to see her talk calmly and seriously about something. I think if I like any pairing in this anime it would be Minori and Ryuuji because of that scene. But it still feels like it might head for Ryuuji and Taiga and I’m not prepared to have another pairing I support not work out so shortly after AkaSaka (There’s still only like three total that haven’t gone the way I want).

Episode 10

‘kay~ It’s been kind of unofficial for a while now, but Minori is now officially my favorite character. She’s the one I enjoy watching the most and now she gets to be cute sometimes too (before she was just weird but when she went “yay” near the beginning of the episode I could help but smile). It also helps that she keeps getting development now too. But ah, why do they keep putting her and Ryuuji alone together!? It feels like if I let my guard down I’ll get my hope up. Luckily it’s not that hard to keep my shipping fangirl side at bay because I’m always distracted by some joke that comes up.

I’m also getting to like Ami more too. Of course I wouldn’t like her if she were a real person, but she’s really entertaining. I can’t help but think that eventually Taiga is going to suffer from being the most featured character and I’ll get bored with her. At the very least I don’t seem to have the same reaction to her being cute because she’s cute so often. And of course, now I think Ami ending up with Ryuuji wouldn’t be that bad either (except I can’t help but feel deep down in my heart that girls like her can’t win!), so I’m thinking I’m just for anyone ending up with Ryuuji but Taiga (really, why mess with such a great friendship?). But ah. This turned into a big ramble about stupid fangirl things (while trying not to do so). So basically, I think I like the episodes with all five characters together the most.

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Winter Blogging

I’m going to try to limit myself to four new shows this season. It’s kind of messed up. Winter isn’t that interesting, but it’s interesting enough for me to want to pick up pretty much the same amount of shows that are ending. Maybe more?

So as I’m predicting it…

White Album – Episodic Category Blogging (Love Triangles equal developments I can rant and rave about)

Maria+Holic – Weekly Anime (I watched the early online stream and this anime is great. Watch it!)

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo – Weekly Anime (I love mech and action, but I rarely have much to say)

Munto – Weekly Anime (Hm…kind of would like to check the OAV of this out first though)

Also quickly about SoraKake…my god. I heard Sayuri Yahagi is going to be in this too. With Yui Makino, that’s like two out four of my most-loved but need-more-roles seiyuu (the other two are Megumi Nakajima and Kanae Ito btw).

But that’s off-topic. As for the others from my preview…

KuroKami – I’m still interested in it, but since it’s getting dubbed so quickly, I figure I can wait for a DVD release. If it turns out to be good I’ll buy it. Seems like it might be a good anime for when I’m sick.

Asu no Yoichi – I figure I won’t get past a couple of episodes of this, since I have Yui Makino in a bigger role in another anime. If I do watch it I won’t blog it (maybe first impressions)

Akikan! - I think I actually want to watch this…what a surprise. But I don’t think I’ll blog it at all.

So that’s that.

I haven’t watched anything yet, even though Akikan! and Maria+Holic are available online. I need to catch up with my current anime before starting anything new. Which became easier (because I’m dropping two).

I have other new plans for Winter as well. Fall’s Weekly Anime struck me as too jumbled. It’s almost impossible for new visitors to go back and see what I said about another anime, especially since I want to delete the site tags once I’m done with them (they’re bumping some of my fun tags out of the cloud).

So! I plan on doing two “standalone” posts for every season from now on. The First Impressions and the Wrap-Up. In the Wrap-Up I’m going to include all the past Weekly Anime posts that the anime was in. Then the schedule page (probably) will link to past series by their Wrap-Up posts after I delete the tags. Of course this season’s tags just get deleted. Bye-bye~

I’m also going to continue blogging Shugo Chara!! Doki, Skip Beat!, Clannad ~After Story~, and ToraDora! in all their respective ways.

Yes, To Aru Majutsu no Index is not on that list. After I finish watching the episodes on my harddrive, I’m putting it on hold. I think it’s probably better to just marathon through (and without trying to say something about it). Hopefully I’ll be able to get to it when the series is over. My On-Hold list is getting too long.

lol. I think I’ve kind of dropped Hakushaku to Yousei for the meantime too because I haven’t thought about it in forever and everyone else is going on about what a big disappointment it is. I’m so unmotivated to catch-up with six episodes. Maybe someday, but that day is not today.

Huh. Out of all the anime I watched, who would have ever thought I’d drop HtY?

On a random note, CrunchyRoll has started filling in some of the anime that will be available legally in 2009. Not much of what will be airing though, outside of the Gonzo stuff.

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