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Episode Highlights: High School DxD New #01 (NSFW)

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Oh gosh all dem fanservice its too much for me!!! (if you watched the AT-X broadcast) Nevertheless, I’ll have to soldier through the episode in order to give High School DxD New the review it deserves. but not the one it needs right now The new season of High School DxD New starts with the ...

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不穏な予感, 再びです! | Fuon na Yokan, Futatabi Desu! | A Bad Feeling, Once Again!

Oh gosh all dem fanservice its too much for me!!! (if you watched the AT-X broadcast) Nevertheless, I’ll have to soldier through the episode in order to give High School DxD New the review it deserves. but not the one it needs right now

The new season of High School DxD New starts with the word “oppai”. We haven’t even made it through the OP and yet (which I enjoyed btw) already with the boobs. With a show like this, its not that “hard” to see why its quite popular. Not that it only has fanservice going for it. Yes I am looking at you Hyakka Ryouran. If you’re not too busy getting distracted, the show has a pretty good shonen plot going for it.

This looks sooo wrong XD

The focus this season looks like it might emphasize on Kiba’s identity and events that happened in his past. It’s a pity that in the first season he didn’t really get as much screen time as I would’ve liked. Though, he was pretty awesome in the battle royale arc with his “UBW” styled Demonic Sword. On to the issue of Kiba, Issei of course tries to help Kiba, who has yet to explain his sudden awkwardness after the club meeting at Issei’s place. Issei is a pretty nice guy in his own right for doing that… if you’re able to look away from his perverted tendencies. Issei too seems to have a “past” of his own. Pretty sure its something cliche like a reunion with his long lost childhood friend. Nevertheless I’ll enjoy it either way.

Among the boobage and titilating scenes, we get an unexpected cliffhanger when Kiba encounters with AcceleratorFreed Zelzan in an alleyway. I’m sure that an epic sword-fight will ensue from that. I know it will! Besides that, we also got a brief look into what might be Issei’s childhood friend, doing something highly suspicious. My gut tells me that they may be working for the church and is tasked to search for a certain Holy Sword. To me, that just means more girls to Issei’s harem. I wonder if those two would stay human? Or alive for that matter…

A cute blue-haired girl!!!

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Episode Highlights: Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui #01

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I wasn’t initially going to watch/blog this show but due to a series of unforeseen incidences, I watched the first few minutes of the show and got instantly hooked! Kuroki Tomoko is a “super popular” high school girl, who has had over 50 years of dating experience, and 100 boyfriends… in the world of Otome ...

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モテないし, ちょっとイメチェンするわ | Mote Naishi, Chotto Imechensuru wa | I’m unpopular, so I’ll try and change my image a bit

I wasn’t initially going to watch/blog this show but due to a series of unforeseen incidences, I watched the first few minutes of the show and got instantly hooked!

Kuroki Tomoko is a “super popular” high school girl, who has had over 50 years of dating experience, and 100 boyfriends… in the world of Otome games… In reality though she’s quite an unpopular girl. However, she began to notice that fact after two months in on her first year in High School. Despite that, she tries her best to boost her popularity status in school by using the various information on the web for tricks to look cute and even resorts to asking her brother for help. She gradually gains some confidence in her communication skills, albeit from our point of view it wasn’t really that much of an improvement.

Of course she feels the need to test herself, from going to the local shopping district to ordering in fast food all by herself. Through pure coincidence, some classmates of hers decided to have dinner at the same place. Feeling awkward about it she decides to leave in the most idiotic way possible. It was funny for a while till she had another coincidental encounter. This time with her brother and his two other friends. Before Tomoko left the fast food joint, she overheard one of her brother’s friend commenting about how ugly she looks. A blow to her self confidence for sure.

Tomoko mopes around for a little bit when her brother decided to come along to pick her up so that they can return home for the day. She obliges. It was probably a way for Tomoko’s brother to cheer her up.

NICO! NICO! NNnniiiii…..

I feel kinda bad for Tomoko right at the end but it was an interesting show to say the least. The OP was pretty psychedelic with imagery of a ruined city and chains constricting Tomoko. An interesting choice for what I believe to be a non-action anime. The mood for the entire episode was pretty moody and depressing. Even during the comedic bits. I guess this show would fall under the “loner” category. Unlike most “loner” types in anime, it certainly does look like Kuroki Tomoko is a true blue loner. As real as it gets people!

Might look into the show more before I decide to give my honest opinion. So far I’m liking what I see and certainly hope that Tomoko gets her wish or atleast a few friends. From the previews, it looks like an old friend will be visiting soon. Stay tuned.

END CARD

*There were several references in there which the only ones I got were the Gantz ones.
*It doesn’t help that Yuuichi Nakamura is voicing Tomoko’s brother. Gives off a lot of Ore no Imoto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai vibes. Will the show swing that way? I hope not!
*Caps 01, 02
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Episode Review: Tamayura: ~More Aggressive~ Episode 1

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The third installment in the Tamayura franchise, after the original 2010 OVA version and 2011′s Tamayura: Hitotose, Tamayura: ~More Aggressive~ promises to be another wonderful little show. For those of you not familiar with the franchise, it centers around the character of Fuu Sawatari, also known as “Potte” thanks to her friend’s older sister. Fuu ...

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The third installment in the Tamayura franchise, after the original 2010 OVA version and 2011′s Tamayura: Hitotose, Tamayura: ~More Aggressive~ promises to be another wonderful little show. For those of you not familiar with the franchise, it centers around the character of Fuu Sawatari, also known as “Potte” thanks to her friend’s older sister. Fuu is a high school age girl who moved from the town she had grown up in to the picturesque town Takahara on the Seto Inland Sea, which is the town that her late father grew up in and loved dearly. When she was young, the family often visited Takahara on vacations, spending most of their summers there. Fuu became very close friends with Kaoru Hanawa and her older sister Sayomi during this time. She also learned to love photography, which was one of her father’s favorite hobbies. He taught her how to use his old Rollei 35S film camera, an old fashioned manual everything 35 millimeter model, and she showed an early aptitude for taking photos. However, five years before the start of Tamayura: Hitotose, Fuu’s father died suddenly. After his death, her father’s photo albums and camera became a source of pain for the young girl and she shut off that part of her life, including the town of Takahara, which she didn’t visit again until the beginning of the anime.

One day when she came home from middle school, Fuu found her brother flipping through the pages of one of their father’s photo albums. Much to her surprise, she no longer found it painful to look at the pictures and she realized that all of those pictures were full of happy memories of times spent with people she loves. That evening, she asked her mother if they still had her father’s old camera. Her mother had kept it for her, hoping the day would come when Fuu was ready to start taking pictures again. Over the next few weeks, Fuu made a huge decision: she wanted to go to high school in Takahara, the town her father loved. She wanted to take all of those happy memories of her father and make sure that they were never again tainted by the color of grief. After her brother, Kou, expressed a desire to go where Fuu went, her mother shocked her by deciding that the whole family would move. Mrs. Sawatari left her job and moved to Takahara with Fuu and Kou and became the manager of Fuu’s grandmother’s restaurant: Cafe Tamayura.

A quick word about the title of the franchise. Tamayura roughly means “Children of Light”. It is a phenomenon that happens in certain conditions where small “fluffy” bright spots appear in photos. As a professional photographer, I recognize this as something called “Lens Flare”, but for the purpose of the anime they are manifestations of the happy, “fluffy” feelings of the people in the picture and make people happy when they see them. For an example of these “Children of Light”, see the photo in the window at the left, and a better version at the top of this post, which is a picture Fuu took of her father when she was younger that sits in the window of the local camera shop, a testament to the raw talent that the young photographer possesses. It is also the very thing that brought Fuu together with two of her closest friends, Maon Sakurada and Norie Okazaki, who happened to be admiring the photo when Fuu was in the store.

The show is almost aggressively slice of life. There is little to no plot aside from a few short arcs of connected stories here and there, and the general themes of friendship, coming of age, memory, and healing. The main characters in the show are actually symbolic of the five senses:

Fuu “Potte” Sawatari(vision)– A shy, easily flustered girl who loves photography, Fuu, who is called Potte by her friends in Takahara, moved to the town, which her father had loved, to finally overcome her grief over her father’s untimely death. Though she is generally quiet, she is also the “strength” of her circle of friends. Many times her decision to do something spurs her friends on to do their own things better and “more aggressively”.

Kaoru Hanawa(smell)– Potte’s best friend from Takahara, they have known each other since early childhood. Kao-chan, or Kao-tan, as Norie prefers and Kaoru hates, has a “scent-fetish”. Her favorite hobby is mixing her own potpourri using dried flowers and such that she prepares herself. The most level headed of the group of friends, she is often the voice of reason for the others.

Norie Okazaki(taste) (right in screenshot) – An overly energetic girl, Norie is also an aspiring pastry chef. She loves to bake sweets and frequently spends time with Potte’s grandmother, who runs the Cafe Tamayura and bakes all of the desserts for the restaurant. The group of girls are frequently the “tasters” for new recipes, most of which Norie wants to get a copy of. She is also fixated on Potte’s younger brother, Kou, who is often thought to be a girl.

Maon Sakurada(hearing)– An almost painfully shy girl, Maon frequently communicates through whistling, which Norie can mysteriously understand. A lover of music, but also of stories, Maon is the daughter of inn keepers from a neighboring island and lives on her own in Takahara during the school year. She has the least direction in terms of her future goals, vacillating between wanting a career in music, as a manga artist, or as an actress of sorts, which is surprising given her shyness. In the end, she will probably end up inheriting her parents inn, but with her shyness, it would be hard for her to do. Her growth in terms of being able to speak to strangers is one of the hallmarks of the character.

Chihiro Miyoshi(touch)– Fuu’s childhood friend from her old home town. She was always concerned about Fuu, who she calls Fuu-nyan due to a nervous mispronunciation when they first met in school, especailly when things would remind her of her father. She also very shy and  is a crybaby. Chihiro would frequently break into tears when she realized that something was gong to make Fuu think of her father. Fuu told her that Chihiro’s crying helped Fuu to not have to cry and helped her come to terms with her father’s death. They initially want to go to high school together, but when Fuu decides to go to Takahara for high school, Chihiro is her strongest supporter. Chihiro makes small plush animals, which she gives character names and personalities. (This is the tenuous connection to “touch” … kinda weak, I know.) During her first year of high school, she meets another girl who has similar interests named Tomo-chan and after visiting Fuu in Takahara over summer break, finally works up the courage to become friends with Tomo-chan, who appears to be stepping into a supporting role in this season’s show.

(OK, the last one is a bit of a stretch, but the others I’m sure of… Chihiro is also really a supporting character…)

Together, the friends help each other make their way through the trials and tribulations of adolescence, with a lot of laughs, a few tears, and a whole bunch of pictures. As Potte would say: “Let’s Photo!”

Billed as a “Healing Anime” by the director, Junichi Satou, Tamayura is a wonderful, calm, relaxing, and extremely heartwarming series. If you haven’t seen the previous installments, I highly recommend that you check them out. However, you should be able to enjoy ~More Aggressive~ even without having seen the earlier seasons. If you are going to catch up, I would suggest watching in this order:

  • Tamayura: Hitotose episode 1 – The true beginning of the story.
  • Tamayura OVAs 1-4 (1-2 in the BluRay version) – The story of the OVAs takes place between episodes 1 and 2 of Hitotose
  • Tamayura: Hitotose episodes 3 – 5 – These introduce the other major characters.
  • Tamayura: Hitotose OVA episode, sometimes labeled as episode 13 – This is really episode 5.5, and features a “Summer Festival” story with lots of backstory about Fuu and her friend Chihiro.
  • Tamayura: Hitotose episodes 6-12 – The end of the first season.
  • Tamayura: ~More Aggressive~

When I first watched Tamayura: Hitotose, I had just done a mini-photography lesson with my own elementary school aged (at the time) daughter. The basic plot line was almost painfully devastating for me. Here I was, teaching my little girl to love photography and I found a story about a father that did that only to die and leave his daughter in pain every time she saw his pictures. That was just emotionally brutal. But to see Potte recover from her pain and learn to love photography again was, indeed, healing. The show is well written, beautifully drawn, and peaceful to the point of practically being a treatment for high blood pressure or stress. It is a wonderful show.

Now that you have the background, it’s time to think about this first episode of the season. Frankly, it is everything I wanted it to be. It is happy, optimistic, heartwarming, a bit melancholy at times, and ultimately radiantly beautiful. I just realized that I had failed to mention the fact that the background art of Takahara and the Seto Inland Sea are a joy to behold in the Tamayura franchise. Of course, anyone familiar with my tastes would have probably guessed that a show I am gushing about this much must be at least decent “scenery porn”. Tamayura certainly qualifies. Fuu/Potte and her friends are a wonderful way to spend 23 minutes of your week.

Episode Recap:

At the start of the episode, Kaoru, Norie, and Maon are worried about Potte, because she is spacing out a bit more than normal. As in staring at nothing, unmoving, for 10 minutes or so… Shrugging off the incident as nothing, the four friends head home from school, going to the places in town they usually do, and reminiscing about the past year, as it is about 1 year since Potte moved to Takahara. This serves as a wonderful recap of both the original OVA and the Tamayura: Hitototse season, catching any new viewers up to date on the story without being overly long winded or boring. It is masterfully done and has a strong sense of nostalgia instead of feeling like a recap clip show. Of course, it is not a clip show, because the story is progressing all the while.

Still concerned about her best friend, Kaoru calls the one person likely to know more about Potte than she does, Chihiro. She says that it reminds her of the way Fuu-nyan acted right before she made the decision to move to Takahara and relates it to a new character she has developed: Potte-nyan – a quiet but surprisingly aggressive character that will sometimes stare into space right before making a startling decision that will shock everyone around. (or something like that…) She suggests that Kaoru just give Potte time to make up her mind and she will find out what great thoughts are percolating in that petite, cute head.

This is one of the highlights of the show, in my opinion, showing how Chihiro has become integrated into the group of friends, such that Kaoru will call her to discuss her problems. Considering Chihiro’s character and how hard it is for her to make friends, it is a major symbol of growth for her.

When she decided to move to Takahara, Fuu and Chihiro pledged to become “More Aggressive”, as in more assertive and more proactive in seeking out one’s goals in life. Chihiro thought that Fuu’s choice to move showed that she was being aggressive and Fuu’s decision to send one of her pictures to a professional photographer she admires was even more so. (That character is a regular in the story now, and lives in Takahara as well.)

Potte/Fuu doesn’t see herself as having lived up to that pledge though. Sure, she made a small group of friends, learned more about photography, met her professional photographer idol, and was the driving force behind the “WE Exhibition”, which the girls put on at the end of the previous year, each displaying their own peculiar talents with Potte’s photographs, Kaoru’s potpourri, Norie’s sweets, and Maon’s stories that she presented aloud for both her home town and in Takahara. But Potte wants to go beyond her close knit group of friends and start to spread her wings. She has gotten beyond using photography as a way to overcome her grief and wants to move into the realm of sharing her photography with others in a way that can move them individually. She wants to expand her art, so to speak. Now in her second year of high school, she seeks to become ~More Aggressive~ by starting a photography club at their school in order to meet more people to share her love of photography with. A wonderful bit of character development that defies tropes is the reaction of her friends to this announcement. They, of course, say that they will help by joining the club, but Potte tells them that she wants to start the club and get people to join on her own, not have a ready-made club that consists of her best friends. This shows great character growth for Potte, and also avoids the trope of people being forced into a club just to get enough people to become official. We’ll see if that holds, but at least Potte wants to do it right.

The photography club will bring in the new cast member: Kanae Mitani, a fellow student who uses a Pentax Q camera and was hiding behind a telephone poll when Potte made her announcement. Perhaps she was wanting to get to know this fellow photographer already, but was too shy to take the first step? In any case, I expect that she will be a good addition to the cast and is listed as a “Main” character on most anime sites.

The other new character introduced in the first episode is Chihiro’s new friend, Tomo-chan, who is the spitting image of Minori from Toradora in both looks and personality, and the first of these “high school girls” who appears to actually have a figure like a high school girl!

Tamayura is a little slice of joy, in my opinion. I strongly suggest you check it out.

Slideshow of Screenshots from Episode 1:

JAST USA brings Steins;Gate game to US PCs!

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In an announcement at Anime Expo, JAST USA put to rest the long standing rumors that it would bring the hit game Steins;Gate to the US. It will be released in English for PCs and according to one source, will be employing the people who did the fan translation for the game as part of ...

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In an announcement at Anime Expo, JAST USA put to rest the long standing rumors that it would bring the hit game Steins;Gate to the US. It will be released in English for PCs and according to one source, will be employing the people who did the fan translation for the game as part of the production team. Will this herald a new age of localization for Visual Novels in the US? We can only hope. I’m putting this one on my MUST BUY list!

[Sources: ANN; Siliconera]

Anime Preview: Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live)

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When I looked over the Summer Anime List earlier this spring, one of the shows that caught my attention was Kimi no Iru Machi, or A Town Where You Live. For one thing, it is romantic comedy, my go-to genre, but also, the character designs just stood out from the rest. Checking it out, I ...

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When I looked over the Summer Anime List earlier this spring, one of the shows that caught my attention was Kimi no Iru Machi, or A Town Where You Live. For one thing, it is romantic comedy, my go-to genre, but also, the character designs just stood out from the rest. Checking it out, I found that it is based on a weekly manga with over 230 chapters! WOW! That’s a lot of material. I also found that it is in the same universe as mangaka Kouji Seo’s earlier manga Suzuka, and shares some characters in common. I had yet to watch or read Suzuka, but it looked interesting, so I thought I would check out these two mangas and maybe watch Suzuka to get ready for the season. I am really, really glad that I did. In the process of checking out Kimi no Iru Machi, I discovered what I consider to be the finest shounen romance manga I have ever read.

Let me start by saying that Suzuka, while a pretty good manga, was seriously flawed. The characters were mostly two dimensional and their motivations were poor and sometimes totally incomprehensible. However, practice makes perfect, they say, and Seo-sensei certainly practiced his craft well. Kimi no Iru Machi may not be perfect, but it is certainly a great story, with amazingly realistic and believable characters, and just enough romantic comedy zaniness to keep the drama from becoming oppressive.

The most recent chapters of the manga had some information about the upcoming anime that made me feel a need to do this preview post. It turns out that the anime won’t be starting from the beginning of the manga, but at the “Tokyo Arc”, which begins at approximately chapter 80! I decided that, in order to help more people get the most out of the anime, I would write a preview post letting people know some of the details that will be missed by skipping the “Hiroshima Arc”, or at least letting them know what they need to do in order to get up to speed so they can understand the story and the character motivations. I feel this is important because, at the point where the anime is starting, the protagonist, Haruto Kirishima, is doing something that seems to be a bit strange for reasons that, without having seen or read the earlier part of the story, may seem a bit thin and artificial. He moves from his rural Hiroshima prefecture home to Tokyo to live with his older sister, who is a college student, and finish his senior year of high school away from his friends and family, at a school where he knows no one, in a city that is totally different than his hometown. Why does he do this? Well, this is a romance story… It doesn’t take a whole lot to figure out that he is doing it for a girl. The twist is that the girl not only broke up with him, but told him that she wanted to forget about the time she spent with him and his friends in Hiroshima, that she has a new boyfriend, and that she doesn’t want to see him ever again.

Why would a relatively average young man leave everything he knows behind to chase after a girl that dumped him and dumped him hard? It seems far fetched. However, as I read the manga. I knew that is what he would choose to do. It made perfect sense. It is what Haruto would do in that situation. I fear that without the background knowledge, people won’t give the story a chance, since the character motivations will come off as fake and strange. Hence my motivation to write this preview: to give people the story in a nutshell, or maybe a few nutshells. OK, maybe a large sack of nutshells, since it will be a bit wordy… But anyway…

[Before I get started, I want to warn you in advance that this is FAR TO LONG! I tend to get carried away when I get going on this story, so if you feel you have read too much, just click on to the next post. Consider this therapy for a romantic who is mourning over the fact that the early part of the manga will never be animated as it deserves...]

Options for getting acquainted with the story

Before I get into specifics of the story, let me suggest a couple of alternate methods of familiarizing yourself with the story. The obvious suggestion is to read the manga. To give you a hint at how engrossing I found it, I picked up the manga on a Thursday when I came home early from work due to some problems with my back. On Monday afternoon, still laid up with my back problems and having been unable to sleep due to pain for the previous three nights, I read the 234th chapter, the most recent one available at the time. I could hardly put it down long enough to eat. I was entirely engrossed in the story. The characters were alive in my mind and their complex relationships seemed like the stories of people I went to school with or talked with in detail about their problems over drinks. It was fantastic.

The second option, for those that don’t want to risk sleepless nights, on the off chance that it was the manga and not my back that actually kept me awake, is the two part OVA series that came out in 2012. Now, this OVA series is seriously flawed. For one thing, the main story it covers takes place in the chapters in the mid-60s, but in order for that to make sense, it uses flashbacks, shown out of sequential order, to tell the back-story needed to minimally understand the part of the story being told. This works, at least for someone that has read the manga. How effective it is for someone who hasn’t read the manga, I can’t say. In addition, the character designs are absolutely a travesty. They totally don’t do justice to the wonderful art of the manga. I rate the OVAs as “Good” but not great. Despite their flaws, they still tell a poignant tale of long-distance love.

Why do I love this story so much?

So, why do I love this story so much? It isn’t that it is novel or fresh. It is a tale as old as time: Boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl (and vice versa); boy looses girl; boy pursues girl; etc… Most of the plot twists are telegraphed a mile away. (Though, on occasion, the story does twist on a dime and surprise even the most jaded of romance manga readers.) You can see where the story is headed. You know what mistakes the characters are making that will cost them dearly or the things that they are doing right that will help them win the heart of their love in the end. It is crystal clear who the official couple in the story is from the get-go, even if the character themselves seem a bit behind the curve. So why is it so much fun? Partly it is the art. Seo-sensei’s character designs and background art are second to none. In Suzuka, it seemed clear to me that he was heavily influenced by one of my favorite mangaka, Kōsuke Fujishima of Oh!/Ah! My Goddess fame. Seo bishoujo characters are amazingly gorgeous, with each girl having her own distinctive look that makes her stand out in some way. The men are equally distinctive and generally attractive. In Suzuka, which is a more ecchi title, he proves himself extremely adept at reproducing the female form very fine detail, with nudes that rival the work of Kaoru Mori. Kimi no Iru Machi is sometimes listed as ecchi, but it is light ecchi at best, and any nude scenes in the manga are drawn without detail (Barbie doll style, so to speak), however, it is a rather grown-up story, with the characters progressing on to college and adulthood. So if you are shy about such things or too young to be reading manga with nudity, please keep that in mind.

The background art is generally amazing. The city scenes range from impressive and majestic to quaint and picturesque. The rural scenes in Hiroshima are sublime, with some very fine scenes. It isn’t like the backgrounds are always fully detailed. They are frequently vague or merely suggestive of the basic scenery, but when he pulls out the stops, Seo is capable of some extremely beautiful, finely detailed art. It can be breathtaking.

But the main reason, if I had to pin it down, is the characters. So, with that in mind, I will start by tossing out some character bios for the main players, with a special emphasis on the ones that appear before the “Tokyo Arc” and may be less familiar when they return to the story, assuming that the anime is going to make it to the college age arcs.

SPOILER ALERT– From this point on there will be spoilers. If you don’t want to be spoiled, go read the manga or watch the OVAs, or just close this now and watch the show blind. If you feel like reading a far too long, but lovingly written ode to my favorite shounen romance manga, feel free to follow along with me. I am such a sap! Without further ado…

Characters:

Protagonists:

Haruto Kirishima: (Left to right: Manga, OVA, TV design, and close-up from TV design)

   

Haruto is a fairly typical romance manga protagonist. He is good looking, but fairly shy. Not particularly athletic, but very smart. Good at cooking, a bit of a neat freak, extraordinarily responsible, and kind to a fault. At the beginning of the story, he is actively annoyed with life. This city girl is moving into his house to go to high school in his town, she is not related, he doesn’t know her, and he is sure that everyone will get the wrong idea about their relationship. In particular, he worries that one girl will get the wrong idea: Nanami Kanzaki – the girl he has had a crush on for the past three years, but has never gotten the nerve to do anything about it. His best friends are Takashi Yura and Akari Kaga. They have been inseparable since the 2nd grade and are practically like family. Haruto has a bit of a sarcastic streak and tends to argue with Yuzuki, in particular. But he is hard pressed to turn down an earnest plea for help from any of his friends and it is soon very clear that he genuinely cares for Yuzuki, even considering her “family” of sorts. Eventually, the two become very good friends, or perhaps more…

Yuzuki Eba: (Left to right: Manga, OVA, TV design, and close-up from TV design)

   

Yuzuki is a girl from Tokyo who moves to rural Hiroshima at the beginning of high school. Her father grew up in the small town, but she has no relatives there. Instead, she lives with an acquaintance of her father, which happens to wind up being at Haruto’s house. She is bubbly and very sociable. The kind of girl that gets along with everyone. She is also a bit of a klutz, kind of flighty, and generally considered a bit weird by most of the people she meets. However, she is also devastatingly cute and readily liked by all of her classmates.  It is fairly clear even early on that Yuzuki has feelings for Haruto. However, she works actively to get Haruto together with Nanami, even going so far as staying in the bath at the local hot springs until she nearly passed out from the heat in order to give the two time alone together. Eventually we find out the real reason that Yuzuki moved to Hiroshima for high school. It seems that her mother died several years ago and her father recently remarried. She has a younger step sister, named Rin, and an older step brother. The step sister has a bit of a brother complex and sees Yuzuki as a rival for her brother’s affections. Because of this, she treats Yuzuki badly, bullying her, and making her life miserable. Her father works constantly and is hardly eve r home and her step mother doesn’t seem to notice what Rin is doing. To escape the situation, she decided to go to school in another town. But Why Hiroshima? Early on, Yuzuki mentioned that she had visited this town once when she was little and liked it a lot. The real reason is discovered, partly by Haruto’s sister.

Secondary Characters

Hiroshima Characters:

Akari Kaga: (middle in picture above)

Haruto’s friend since the 2nd grade, Akari seems to be a cheerful, energetic girl, but Haruto knows that she is usually rather guarded about her real feelings. Her father is Russian, which means that her blond hair and blue eyes come naturally. However, when she transferred into their class, Haruto and Takashi wondered if she was some kind of delinquent. A tomboy by nature, she had trouble getting along with people and she and the two boys argued and competed against each other in everything, with her winning every competition. When an three kids, including the older brother of a kid that she hurt during the school “sumo wrestling” competition beat her up, Haruto and Takashi foolishly attacked the three kids, getting thrashed themselves. When she asks why they did that, they respond by asking her why she didn’t jump in to help? How could she let her friends get beat up without giving them a hand? Her parents later commented that when she came home that day, it was the first time they had ever seen Akari cry, but they were tears of joy. She had never realized that the boys considered her a friend, something she had never had before. After that, the three became inseparable. She has a crush on the older brother of Nanami Kanzaki, and possibly a longer-standing crush on another person who is the male protagonist. Assuming that the anime makes it far enough, she will return as a major character when they go to college. (The story really has to get there or there isn’t a point to doing the anime…)

Takashi Yura: (far left in photo above)

Haruto’s best friend since childhood. Much of their relationship is defined in the description of Akari. Takashi is a fairly prototypical “perverted best friend” character. His family are rice farmers, he plans to go to Tokyo for college after he graduates high school, and he is clearly interested in Yuzuki early in the manga because she is so cute. However, it is also clear that he has a bit of a crush on Akari, though he never has the guts to do anything about it. (It is mentioned in the manga that Akari gave him homemade chocolate on Valentine’s Day when they were in junior high and he never ate it, but kept it in the back of the refrigerator for years. He “gets over” his crush sometime before graduating from high school, though. He will also be a major character again when the story moves on to college. (Most of the characters end up going to the same college, though not all.)

Nanami Kanzaki: (second from left in the picture above)

Nanami is the girl that Haruto has crushed on all through junior high. With high school coming, he hopes to be able to express his feelings to her and get closer. She has a reserved personality and is kind of the typical “Yamato Nadeshiko”. She loves cooking, is beautiful, and generally everything a proper young lady should be. If her hair was longer it would be the perfect fit. (Incidentally, her character design is almost identical to the title character of Suzuka, who is supposed to be one of the most beautiful girls in that manga, so this probably suggests something about the mangaka’s tastes in women… LOL) She has an older brother, who is the captain of the baseball team and the guy Akari is crushing on. Her family is one of the most wealthy and influential in the area. They also have an apple orchard, which figures prominently in the story in the early manga. She is clearly interested in Haruto as well. The disposition of their feelings for each other are a huge part of the early manga story.

Tokyo Characters

Aoi Kirishima: (far right in picture above)

Well, she is in Hiroshima too, but Haruto’s older sister, Aoi is a college student who lives in the same women’s dormitory and public bath house that the main characters in Suzuka live in. She is kind of immature for her age, with Haruto seeming more like the older brother than the younger brother when people watch them interacting, despite the obvious age difference. She returns home for a good portion of the early manga, first to do her student teaching at their high school, then for various breaks, etc…

Rin Eba: (second from right in picture above)

Yuzuki’s step sister, Rin comes across as a sweet, energetic girl to most people, but she lets her facade down when talking with Haruto, revealing the calculating and sometimes vicious girl who drove Yuzuki out of her family home to live in Hiroshima with Haruto. When her mother first marries Yuzuki’s father, she fails to connect with Yuzuki as a sister, seeing her more as a rival for the affections of her beloved older brother. This leads to her bullying and tormenting Yuzuki to the point that she can no longer stand to live in the same house with her. All of this is talked about, not shown in the manga, but there are several times when Rin displays her true colors to Haruto, especially after he comes to Tokyo with Yuzuki (which I will cover in the next section.)

There are a few other characters in the Tokyo arc that are important, but they have yet to be introduced in the manga at chapter 79, which is the point to which I am aiming this preview. It is when Haruto moves to Tokyo, blindly chasing after the woman he loves.

Plot summary of the early manga

As I mentioned earlier, the best way to prepare yourself to watch the Kimi no Iru Machi anime is to read the first 79 chapters of the manga. However, if you want to get a feel for the story second hand, I’ll write a brief (I hope) summary of the early manga to get you up to speed. [A Quick note: Most translations of the manga state at the beginning of chapter two that it is a prequel to the "love and sports manga Suzuka", but that is an error. It is a sequel, not a prequel. From the characters that overlap, including Suzuka herself and the person she has with her, it is clear that the manga starts approximately at the time that Suzuka ends.]

Part 1: From moving in, to “family”, to heartbreak and revelation…

At the start of the manga, Haruto is fuming over the fact that Yuzuki is moving into his house in order to attend his high school. This is a girl he doesn’t know who is going to move in and disrupt his life. But what he fears most is what the small town rumor mill will do to his prospects in love, since it is a foregone conclusion that people will speculate that the two of them are an item.

On the very day Yuzuki arrives, Haruto’s mother asks him to take her to school and show her around. He tries to avoid it by lending her the bike, but since she can’t ride one he has to take her. Each person that they see as the ride along, Yuzuki sitting cutely behind him, her long hair fluttering in the breeze, assumes that they are a couple. Haruto is mortified. To make matters worse, as they approach the local convenience store Nanami Kanzaki steps outside. The very last person Haruto wants to see him riding his bike with a girl in tow. Yuzuki quickly pounces, eager to meet another classmate. In the process of introductions, Yuzuki massively embarrasses Haruto by commenting on how beautiful Nanami is, commenting on how large her breasts are  and even going so far as to ask her what her bra size is! Haruto is mortified! After they leave her, it takes little time for Yuzuki to put two and two together and determine that Haruto likes Nanami.

Eventually, the topic of why Yuzuki came to Hiroshima comes up. Her reply is that she had visited the town once when she was younger and really loved the place, so she decided to come there for school, even having to live with a stranger, finishing with “Let’s leave it like that, OK?” For some reason, Haruto gets the feeling that there is something more behind her move. In retrospect, he wondered if that conversation and the feeling he got about her hiding something was “the beginning of everything.” A nice bit of foreshadowing to let the reader know that their relationship is bound for bigger things than just housemates.

Over the next few chapters, Yuzuki meets the rest of Haruto’s friends, humorous and embarrassing situations ensue, and the story moves along as a fairly standard romantic comedy. Time after time events conspire to put Haruto in situations where the people around him make the assumption that he is falling for Yuzuki.

Being new freshmen, the hot topic among the classmates (there is only one class of first year students in the school) is what club everyone will join. Haruto, wanting to be in the same club with Nanami, plans to join the cooking club, since that is the club she was in in middle school. However, it turns out that her brother, the captain of the baseball team, is forcing Nanami to be the team manager. So Haruto ends up in a club that only meets once a week and his reason for joining is not actually there. Feeling depressed, he decides just to skip the whole club thing, even though he is signed up. To make matters worse, he still has to wait around school for Yuzuki to finish with her club activities. Yuzuki then says something kind of odd to him:  “If you feel that depressed … why don’t you try to fall for me then?” She passes it off as a joke, then makes fun of him because she could tell by his blushing, flustered face that he was a bit exited by her sudden suggestion. They bicker as they usually do, but as she leaves, he ponders that, despite the frustration he feels, he also is starting to realize how cute Yuzuki really is…

Yuzuki then manufactures a way to push Nanami and Haruto closer together, inviting both of them to go to the local hot spring bathhouse with her. Initial jokes about using the mixed bath fall flat, but eventually her real intention becomes clear. Yuzuki stays in the bath longer than either of her companions, specifically so Haruto and Nanami can have some time together alone. It kind of backfires when, realizing she hasn’t come out yet, Nanami discovers that Yuzuki passed out in the bath. With the mixed messages he is getting from her, Haruto is having trouble determining whether Yuzuki is he ally or just a girl that likes to stir up trouble.

The next day, Haruto is running late and they argue all the way to school. When they get to school, everyone notices that they are out of sorts. Then, at lunch time, Haruto suddenly collapses. He is sick with a high fever. Even after getting home with his mother, he is worried about how Yuzuki will get home though. Much to his surprise, Yuzuki arrives at home safely, with Nanami, who gave her a ride. Yuzuki berates him pushing himself so hard that he collapsed, and proceeds to complain that the lunch he made tasted bad as well. Nanami defends him, suggesting that he has a strong sense of responsibility. Before long Nanami gets a call from her brother and excuses herself to take the call. While she is gone, Yuzuki steps up her complaints, specifically complaining that he put tomatoes in her lunch. (This is a recurring theme that is used to great effect later in the manga, after he moves to Tokyo.) When he has had enough, he yells at her and starts to say “I did that for you” but she cuts him off… with a kiss on the lips!, saying, “Sorry, I already know.”

When Nanami returns, Haruto is sitting at his desk, blushing furiously, pretending to work on homework. All the while wondering what exactly was going through Yuzuki’s mind, kissing him like that when the girl that she knows he likes was standing right outside the room. He is livid. After Nanami leaves, he confronts Yuzuki about it and she passes it off as a Tokyo folk remedy for curing colds, which he doesn’t buy at all. He accuses her of “toying with him” and of being the kind of girl that uses men. She denies it and in a fit of anger yells that from starting tomorrow she will leave him alone.

The next day, he still can’t go to school and Yuzuki tells his mother that Takashi is giving her a ride. Late in the day, he gets a call from Takashi asking what was up with Yuzuki today, she was late for school, in a bad mood, only had bread for lunch, and refused a ride home, saying that Haruto would be picking her up. Haruto figures out that she walked to school and was walking home as they spoke. He rushed out on his bike to get her. When he finds her, they exchange harsh words, he tells her he was very worried about her, and she breaks into tears, crying, “If Haruto-kun isn’t around I can’t do anything!!”

The quietly head home, Yuzuki sobbing on the back of his bike. Eventually she opens up to him and says that her legs hurt a lot and she was really scared because it was dark. Later, when he is getting ready for bed, she surprises him by calling him on the phone. He wonders why she didn’t just come to his room. She apologizes for making him come get her when he was sick. He says that he is feeling better now. She then tells him that when he came she was really happy. When she saw his face, she suddenly felt safe. He wonders why she didn’t have one of their friends help her and her reply is “I do not want to if it isn’t Haruto!” He changes the subject and asks why she was feeling down today. She says it is because they had a fight. He nervously says that it is all better now, because they have made up. Then she asks if is isn’t going to ask why she kissed him… He says no… he isn’t… He is afraid that if he does, he won’t be able to look at her smiling face the same way anymore. A relationship is forming that he doesn’t want to jeopardize.

Over the next few chapters, misunderstandings continue to pile up, including Nanami getting the mistaken impression that Haruto has one-sided feelings toward Yuzuki. Yuzuki starts doing things like trying to make lunches for them and taking more responsibility. Eventually, Haruto finds Yusuki, bruised and dirtied, trying to learn how to ride a bike. He helps her for a while, but then tells her that she doesn’t need to do this. She can just ride on the back of his bike. He thinks she is doing it to try to repair the wrong impressions that Nanami has about their relationship. She laughs at him and tells him he is wrong about her motivation. She tells him that the reason that she is trying to make lunches and learn to ride a bike is so he will look differently at her. She is doing it because she likes him, which, of course, was also the reason for the kiss. He reacts in shock and she says, “It can’t be helped, who I like is who I like, so I will definitely make Haruto-kun fall in love with me someday!” He isn’t sure if this was a confession or a declaration of war!

Keep in mind that this is only up to chapter 10! It is patently obvious who the OTP is from the beginning. The path to both of the characters realizing it at the same time is the joy of the story.

The story continues with another characters love life in the spotlight. Akari has a crush on Nanami’s older brother and asks for Haruto and Yuzuki to help her try to win him over. He agreed to go on a group date with her, but not one on one, so she needs Haruto and Yuzuki to “double-date” with her and Kanzaki-sempai. The result of the date, however, is Kanzaki-sempai informing Haruto that he plans to go after Yuzuki. Kanzaki-sempai puts pressure on Takashi to tell him who Haruto likes so he can arrange to have a reason to take Yuzuki home from school by hooking him up with his crush. Conveniently for him it is his own sister. Yuzuki shows no interest in the upperclassman though, and even waits until Haruto comes home, quite late, to eat dinner after he spent the afternoon with Nanami. Things are looking up for Haruto and his long time crush.

When Nanami, not knowing that Akari likes her brother, tells her that he like Yuzuki, she calls out Haruto to ask him advice about his childhood friend. He suggests that they let her deal with it in her own way, as he knows that Akari is a very resilient person and not likely to be majorly depressed by it. However, it also provides him with an opportunity to let Nanami know how he feels. He suddenly blurts out that he has liked her for a very long time and Nanami’s reaction is to run away. Not a very good sign…

While he talked with Nanami, Haruto ignored a call from Yuzuki, who was looking for him to go home. She wandered around the school to find him and happened to be within earshot and saw Nanami’s reaction to his confession. The next day, Haruto seems to be avoiding Nanami. Their class is taking a trip to a nearby island soon and are spiting into groups of five. The three old friends plus Yuzuki and Nanami seems a logical group, but Haruto seems to want to join another. Yuzuki gives him a nasty glare and tells him to stop running and that the way he is acting is definitely “not cool!” This shocks some sense into him, and he also wonders if she heard his confession.

While on the trip, he ends up spending quite a bit of time with Nanami and eventually she has the opportunity to talk with him alone and thoroughly “friend-zones” him. He is devastated. On the boat ride back, he talks about it with Yuzuki who, despite the fact that she has declared her love for him, encourages him on, saying that at least she still wants to be friends and as long as he doesn’t give up it isn’t over.

Haruto’s sister Aoi enters the story at this point. She is a stunningly gorgeous college student who is in town to do two weeks of student teaching. Aoi and Yuzuki hit it off right away, having fun complaining about Haruto’s tendency to include tomatoes in lunches for people who don’t like them and things like that. Watching him interact with his sister, Yuzuki notes that he seems more like the older brother than younger with her, as Aoi acts rather immature for her age. While showing Yuzuki an old photo album of pictures of Haruto as a little boy, Aoi finds something curious: a picture that appears to have Yuzuki in it.

Haruto’s friends decide to throw a party for her and everyone comes over to his house, including Nanami. Much to his surprise, Nanami asks him for “more time” to answer his confession. He really thought she had dumped him, but it appears that Yuzuki’s advice was good and there is still hope. His sister, overhearing their conversation, advises him to give up on her, then shows him the picture. Haruto’s mind reels at this revelation. He has no memory of it, but he knows where to look to confirm it: his childhood picture diaries. He goes out to the family storehouse to find them and finds what he is looking for one from seven years earlier when they were in third grade and the memories come flooding back.

Just as he finds it, Yuzuki comes to call him to breakfast and sees the entry. It seems that he found her crying at the summer festival. She says that she hates this town that her dad made her come to and that she doesn’t want to go home either. To cheer her up, Haruto told her he would take her someplace special. She follows him out to a local pond, where he gives her one of the best pickup lines ever delivered by a third grader. (What a waste!) “In this pond, there is a flower that blooms only once per year.” She is skeptical, but he assures her that it will bloom any minute now. Just as she is about to leave, the “flower” appears.

After watching the fireworks together, they head back to the festival. Akari and Takashi find him and the four of them get their picture taken together. Yuzuki says she needs to find her dad, since he must be worried about her. He asks her to play the next day, but she tells him that they will be leaving, then thanks him for the candied apple and showing her the “beautiful flower,” breaking out in a huge smile. He is happy that she finally smiled and says that he was worried that she really did hate the town when she didn’t even smile during the fireworks. She tells him that it was really something else that she hated (there is a suggestion later that it was right after her mother had died) but that she felt that everything will be all right now, thanks to him. They are both blushing quite a bit at this point and it looks like they both have a bit of puppy love going on. He tells her: “If anything happens again, come here,” implying that she should come see him if she ever has problems and he will make it better. As she leaves, she finally tells him her name.

Yuzuki teases him about how bad the drawings in his picture diary are, but Haruto is more interested in the fact that she remembered this all along. He asks why she kept it a secret and she says that, when she figured out that he didn’t remember her, she thought it would be too embarrassing for her to tell him. As they head off to breakfast, he wonders if the real reason she came to Hiroshima was because of what he said back then. In other words, did something bad happen? Did she come her specifically because he is here? Does she need him to help her make the problem better? Or is he just thinking too much… In any case, it is clear that there is no way he can leave her alone when he thinks she may be in trouble somehow. That is just the kind of guy Haruto is!

In a surprising development, for Haruto at least, Nanami asks him to help her with some shopping her brother asked her to do this coming Saturday in Hiroshima city. It seems like an actual date! He is really excited about it, but remembers that he was going to help Yuzuki practice riding a bike that day. He is sure that she’ll understand, but when he goes to her room to ask her, he finds her packing a bag to go to Tokyo. She won’t tell him why she has to go, but his sister tells him that her grandfather died and she has to go to the funeral. Even though she seems fine, Aoi thinks Yuzuki is suffering for some reason and asks Haruto to take her to Hiroshima station, since he has free time anyway. This messes up his plans with Nanami, but he sends her a message that something came up and he had to go to Hiroshima early and asks her to meet him in front of the station instead of riding the bus together.

On the way there, he asks Yuzuki about her grandfather’s funeral and she says that she hardly knew him and isn’t really upset about it. Haruto is thinking that his sister was imagining things. When they get to Hiroshima, Yuzuki acts like her normal flighty self, flitting around and wanting to do this or that. Haruto has to keep her moving to make sure she doesn’t miss her train. Once at the station, he is happy to be rid of her, as it is almost time to meet Nanami. When he looks back he sees that she is sitting with her head down and not boarding the train.

He yells at her, telling her that if she doesn’t board the train she can’t go home. She says she won’t board it, she wants to go home with Haruto. They argue, he insists that, even if she didn’t know him well, she still needs to go to her grandfather’s funeral. She says she doesn’t have a problem with the funeral, but if she goes back to Tokyo she’ll see… He asks who it is she doesn’t want to see. Then they announce that the train doors are closing and his “can’t leave her alone” streak kicks in and he grabs her wrist and boards says he’ll go with her.

From the train he sends a text message to Nanami, telling her an emergency came up and he wouldn’t be able to make it, but he doesn’t tell her he is going to Tokyo with Yuzuki. When they get to Tokyo he takes her to her house and meets her parents. They thank him for all his help, then he heads to his sister’s apartment. She asked him to clean it for her, since she “didn’t have time” before she left for Hiroshima. He gets there and it is a total disaster area. When he is done, there is a knock on the door. He answers, telling the girl outside that his sister isn’t home right now, but she asks if Yuzuki came to see him there. It is Yuzuki’s younger sister, Rin Eba.

Haruto didn’t know that she had a younger sister or an older brother. He compliments Rin on how “together” she is. She returns the compliment and they joke about having to take care of her “no good big sister”. It seems that Yuzuki left home after he left her there and isn’t answering her phone and Rin and her brother are both out looking for her. Haruto is worried and helps her look. While they are talking, he gets the idea that maybe Rin would know who it was that Yuzuki didn’t want to see, thinking it may be her big brother or something. When Rin says Yuzuki gets along with big bro fine, he wonders if it is an ex-boyfriend or something, but Rin drops a bomb on him. Rin says that Yuzuki was probably referring to her. “Because the one who drove sis out of the house was me.”

Suddenly Rin seems totally different. She tells Haruto that Yuzuki is always “seducing men… charming her way by giving off the feeling of not being able to do anything… She does have that kind of calculative point to her, right? I get really irritated when I see it. Haruto san, don’t you thinks so as well?” Haruto says that, while she is the type of person that you feel you need  to take care of, he doesn’t think she is a bad person. At which point Rin asks him if he is perhaps and enemy too? He is shocked and says “You two are sisters, aren’t you?” to which Rin responds, “I don’t think of her as anything like a sister!”

Just then Yuzuki’s mother calls and says that she just got home. He heads to the station to catch the “night bus” home, but he can’t get over the way Rin changed from a sweet girl to something much darker right before his eyes. Then Yuzuki calls to see if he caught his bus. He hears sounds in the background and asks her if she is outside and she says that she and her family went out for dinner, they left right after he left her and she hasn’t had any downtime since. At this point, Haruto realizes that Rin’s mother and Yuzuki are both lying to him. With the dark look in Rin’s eyes and all the lies, he kind of snaps. He tells Yuzuki “You can stop now…” and asks where she is. She tells him and he says to wait for him, and he goes off to find her.

When he finds her, she starts spinning a story about her parents already heading home and he stops her short and tells her that she doesn’t have to go back to that house tonight! When she is confused, he tells her that he met Rin. Yuzuki gets quiet then.

He takes her to Aoi’s room, tells the landlady that he missed his bus so he can get her key, and tells her she can stay there tonight and then go to the funeral in the morning. They get some convenience store food for dinner and proceed to watch an in-joke with one of the characters from Suzuka appearing on TV. It is kind of cute if you have read both manga.

Suddenly Yuzuki tells him that her dad remarried last year and Rin and her brother are from her mom’s previous marriage, so … “things have… been a little weird… at home.” She says she wasn’t planning on hiding it, but she didn’t want to worry people either. She then goes back into cutesy mode, talking rapidly about nothing, then sees how worried he looks she makes excuses and then apologizes for getting him mixed up in this even though he has nothing to do with it. However, he responds, “I do… aren’t we already family?” She looks surprised and he says, “What I’m saying is that I’m already part of your family!! If things are hard, then at least show it. That way I’ll come and save you.” At which point, she starts to cry.

They are interrupted by a knock on the door. It is Yuzuki’s older brother. Haruto tells him that he won’t let Yuzuki go back with him, but he says that’s fine. He came to talk to Haruto. He explains that when Rin was born, their father was already gone, and with their mother working, she got really attached to him. She has kind of a “brother complex”. Rin hates it when Yuzuki and he get along and accuses her of “tempting” him. Haruto says she isn’t that type of girl, which her brother agrees with. He says that Rin would pick a fight with Yuzuki whenever she saw her and because of that, Yuzuki started to not come home. Haruto asks what their parents did about it and is told that their dad works to much to do anything, though he is aware of it and that their mom, well, naturally favors her own daughter, so he thinks it is a good thing that Yuzuki went to Hiroshima.

He then goes on about how she emails him about all the fun she’s having and all the friends she made and how relieved he is to know that she is doing well. He then says, “Sorry, but please take care of Yuzuki from now on,’ at which point, Haruto punches him in the face. Haruto then screams at him, telling him that he has no clue. How does he thing Yuzuki felt about been thrown away by her own family? Does he know what kind of feelings she is feeling? He is about to hit him again and Yuzuki begs him to stop. Haruto starts to argue with her, but she says “Thanks… but it’s OK now.” Then she tells her brother, “Let’s go now.” Haruto asks where and she says, “Sorry Haruto-kun, I think I’ll go home now.” When he tries to stop her, she says that if she keeps running away nothing will change, then says, “Besides… Since I know that you’ll be there for me, I’m not scared any more.”

Haruto goes back to Aoi’s room for the night and sees that he missed a phone call from Nanami. Wondering what she was calling so late for, and if she found out that he went to Tokyo with Yuzuki, he calls her back. After another little inside joke about characters from Suzuka, he finds out that she was afraid that he didn’t want to go shopping with her because he was bothered by the invitation. He tells her he was really happy she invited him and they have a nice talk. He goes to sleep thinking about how much her really likes Nanami.

The next day he is waiting for Yuzuki at the train station, wondering if she was alright after that. He is then shocked by seeing Yuzuki and Rin walking together, smiling and laughing like people on good terms with each other. Yuzuki tells him that when she went home, she and Rin and their brother started talking and she told them about Hiroshima and Haruto and they talked most of the night. Yuzuki goes off to buy their tickets, since her father gave her money to pay for his ticket, and he and Rin have a little heart-to-heart. He wonders how she could be so friendly with Yuzuki when she hated her so much yesterday. She says that she finally understood her when she talked with her. “She isn’t calculative. She’s just an idiot! It is seriously ridiculous to fight her. Plus, big bro is happier when I’m nice to her. So please be assured, I won’t fight with her any more.” Then she goes on and notes that when her brother came home he had a huge bruise like someone had “hit him”? Haruto apologizes, says he should probably apologize to her brother, but she cuts him off and says he doesn’t have to do that, but…

Gotta love those yandere eyes! Yuzuki tells him later that Rin is going to come to Hiroshima for summer break and that she really wanted to “talk with Nanami-chan” … It seems that Haruto has a tiger by the tail here, and it may just bite him… hard.

When they return to Hiroshima, the end of the term is drawing near. On the last day of school, Yuzuki finally rides a bike to school on her own. After school, Haruto is invited out by Nanami. They seem to be getting along well, and Nanami even invites him to go to the beach the next day. It turns out that it is a group outing though, and Haruto doesn’t swim, so he doesn’t really seem to be having a good time. Eventually Nanami goes to talk to him and he admits that he was a bit disappointed, because he thought they would be going alone. At that point, she invites him to go to the summer festival with her, just the two of them.

Then, of course, is the second coming of Rin. She is visiting over break and is none to happy about it. Not that anyone other than Haruto would know about that. She is all happieness and light to others, but vinegar and spite to him. The two of them spar a bit, with each getting the better of the other here and there. It seems that Yuzuki’s birthday is coming up and Rin wants to go shopping for a present and asks none other than Nanami to go shopping with her. They also buy yukata for the festival, and on the way home, she asks Nanami is she will go to the festival with her. Nanami confides in her that she is going alone with Haruto. Rin then nonchalantly mentions that Haruto is just that type of guy who helps people all the time, he even went to Tokyo with Yuzuki a while back. Nanami is shocked that the reason that Haruto broke their date was because he was with Yuzuki in Tokyo and he hid it from her.

While the girls were shopping, Haruto asked Yuzuki what she would like for her birthday. After several unreasonable requests, she asks if she can watch the fireworks at the pond with him as a present. He tells her he cannot, because he is going to the festival with Nanami.

Come the day of the festival, Haruto is excited. He calls Nanami to find out where they are going to meet and she informs him that she can’t go. No explanation, just that she can’t go.

Everyone else goes to the festival, but Haruto goes and hangs out at the convenience store, hoping she will show up. Rin finds this out and informs him that she “let it slip” that he went to Tokyo with Yuzuki. Haruto understands now, and he doesn’t blame her for being mad. It is all his fault for lying to her. Rin gets mad because he isn’t mad at her for telling and he says he is actually thankful for it and that it is all for the best. Rin then storms off and goes to incite more problems by talking with Nanami again. After Nanami tells her about the confession and how she didn’t feel close enough to him to date back then, but was still very interested, she tells Nanami that Haruto is her “Saftey Net”. She didn’t want to date him, but she didn’t want somebody else to take him away. She accuses her of being a bit possessive. Then she spins the idea that his breaking their date to go to Tokyo with another woman must have really stung someone that possessive. Rin thinks she has totally broken their relationship, but Nanami says she is going to go meet Haruto after all.

Just as she is about to give her answer to his confession, the group of friends come running up looking for Yuzuki. It seem that she has wandered off and nobody can find her! Haruto figures she went to the pond alone and is worried that she may get lost or hurt in the dark so he runs off to find her. The look on Nanami’s face says volumes. He finds her at the pond. It seems she missed the firewoks because she got lost. After he lets the others know that he found her and they can go home, they get a surprise:

It seems there was one firework left, after all, so she got her birthday wish. Yuzuki holds Haruto’s hand and says that she is glad she got to see the fireworks with him one last time, since next year he will be dating Nanami. He says that is far from certain and they avoids telling her that they didn’t actually go to the festival together. When they get back to the convenience store, Nanami is waiting for him and Yuzuki hurries on home to leave the two alone. Nanami then lets the other shoe drop. She tells him that it looks like she really can’t date him. She says he is a good person and she has fun with him, and she was thinking that she may like him too, but it was a mistake.

When he gets home, everyone pounces and asks if they are dating. He tells them he was dumped and calmly goes to his room. Several people comment that they thought he would be more upset. The look on Yuzuki’s face is priceless. She appears to be quite upset.

After everyone else goes to bed, Yuzuki pokes her head in and asks Haruto if they can talk for a bit. They make some small talk, then Yuzuki asks if he is really OK about Nanami dumping him? She says that she really didn’t think he would be rejected. He admits that he was hopeful too, but he guesses that he just doesn’t understand a woman’s heart and suggests that it would have been better if he had been dumped with a slap. He tells her she doesn’t need to worry about it and that he is unexpectedly fine with it. He then starts making small talk about the festival and their friends. Yuzuki looks positively in pain watching him and then:

She buries his head between her breasts and tells him, “It’s OK… When times are hard, show it. Why are you being so stubborn? You always liked Nanami-chan, didn’t you?” Her words echo what he told her in Tokyo. Just like he was there for her, she is there for him. He thinks of Nanami and all he has been through trying to get her to date him, grasps Yuzuki’s arm in a tight grip, and cries in her arms, denying that he is crying the whole time. It is one of the most touching scenes I have ever read. The love Yuzuki has for him is so obvious. She loves him enough that she wishes he could be with another women so he would be happy.

The next morning, Rin informs him that Yuzuki was the reason he was dumped. She says it isn’t just about the trip to Tokyo, but even before that, people thought they might be dating. On top of that they live in the same house, and Nanami would feel uneasy with that situation if they were dating. It would drive her nuts. He understands, and seems a bit more down. Yuzuki comes home from her tennis practice and brings him some ice cream. He sits and ponders if this closeness he has with Yuzuki could really be the reason that Nanami won’t date him. Yuzuki wonders what is wrong and he passes it off as a “brain freeze”. She offers to make him some hot tea. As she threatens to destroy the kitchen in the process of making tea, Aoi comes out and comments that he seems to be worrying about what Rin said. He says he is and she says “Well, I guess so. Yuzuki-chan is a klutz. If you take your eyes off her for a moment, you won’t know what she’ll do. It would be pretty dangerous for her if you weren’t around. Just because you want to date Nanami-chan doesn’t mean you can leave Yuzuki all alone.” He responds, “It’s the opposite. The one who was always being saved was me. Every time I’m weak and pathetic, she is always there… Getting angry… Cheering me up…  I think it most likely isn’t because she is here that I can’t data Kanzaki, but because she was there that I was able to get close to Kanzaki. I absolutely can’t start treating her like some kind of problem because of that…” She asks if he is going to just give up and he says “Yeah, I guess so.” When she presses him, he says, “But if I were to get more distant from Eba… and force her out of this house as a way to go out with Kanzaki, then I don’t need to do it.” He realizes that, in reality, regardless of how he feels about Nanami, Yuzuki is more important to him. He hasn’t gotten to the point that he realizes what he feelings really are, but he knows that he cares enough for her that his life would be incomplete if he gave her the cold shoulder just to win the affections of a girl that can’t deal with how close he is with the person that has become his very best friend in the world. In the end, both siblings agree that it sounds just like something he would do… The chapter ends with Yuzuki almost burning him with the tea and Aoi thinking, “But I definitely think that you two make a much cuter couple…” I agree with Aoi!

Well, this has gotten far too long. I really get worked up when I get to thinking about the manga… I’m going to end this here, but may, if I have time, finish the preview in another post. Suffice it to say that I have only gotten about half way to the Tokyo arc at this point. There is still a whole lot left to go before he finally realizes who he really loves, has to deal with being separated from her, then has her cruelly ripped away from him, seemingly without explanation and chases off after her to Tokyo, totally unsure if she still loves him or not. Hopefully, if you have never read the manga, this will whet your appetite for the show and make you want to see what happens with our two star-crossed lovers. I personally can’t wait!

Anime Roundup: Summer 2013

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Looks like I need to write up another apology. The kombine moved over to a new server over the weekend so there are still a few kinks, though the site is mostly functional. Just a few missing bits here and there which I’m looking for and getting restored. But I can still post and, with [...]

Looks like I need to write up another apology. The kombine moved over to a new server over the weekend so there are still a few kinks, though the site is mostly functional. Just a few missing bits here and there which I’m looking for and getting restored. But I can still post and, with the new season just starting, it looks like a good a time as any for the usual roundup post! First up, a look at the shows just gone!

Best Show

Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince

If I had a larger readership, I’d probably get roasted for this choice but this show is solid! Shingeki no Kyojin would be an obvious choice but I had read the manga long before the show started so I knew exactly how things were going to turn out. Valvrave is another choice but the reason why ppl seem to love it is also the reason why I chose majestic prince over it! Valvrave is an absolute mess of a show. An entertaining mess, but a mess none the less. The creators of Valvrave seem content to just throw all kinds of twists and WTF moments and see what sticks. Majestic Prince is more of a workhorse. It knows what it is and what it needs to do and it simply gets on with it. I like that straightforwardness in the show.

Worst Show

Date-A-Live

HANDS DOWN the worst show of the season and one of the contenders for worst show of the year (tho it doesn;t come close to Natsuyuki Redezvous). Had I gone into the show blind, I would have probably just dismissed it as a sub-par harem show with combat elements in it. But, since I had read the first 3 volumes of the translated light novels, I know just how much of a travesty this adaptation was and the staff should be ashamed of their work! So much was wrong, from the pacing, to the removal of small elements which really help form the characters and make them more likeable…

God, this show was bad…

Biggest Disappointment

Man, the pacing of this show is all over the place. Guess that’s one of the problems of making a show whose storyline intersects with another which was aired a long time ago. The sisters arc seems so pointless when it’s stretched so long but we already know what the outcome is (was?).

Biggest Surprise

Mushibugyo

Not sure what I was expecting from this show but it was rather fun!

The rest

  • Oreimo 2 was exactly how everyone expected, right down to the troll ending!
  • Not sure if my expectations were simply too high, but I don’t think Red Data Girl was one of P.A works better shows.
  • Suisei no Gargantia was a very interesting show but, like Fractale, needed more time to expand things.
  • It’s way less interesting watching Shingeki no Kyojin when you know what’s going to happen.
  • Mix up a lot of random elements to a simple sentai Mecha show, throw in a few twists and several helpings of super stupid WTF moments and what do you get? Kakumeki Valvrave!
  • haiyore Nyarlko-san W was fun but markedly inferior to the first season, just like BakaTest!
  • Dansai Bunri no Crime edge is a poster child for “utterly forgettable anime”
  • Hayate no Gotoku Cuties is an entire series of filler!
  • I did enjoy Hataraku Maousama tho, although the adaptation felt off in places. Just not to the level of Date-A-Live
  • I’m 100% certain that Devil Survivor 2 was dumbed down a ridiculous amount from the source material (game is not available in the EU)!
  • After following behind shows like OreShura, Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko just felt really bland.
  • Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride focused way too much on the service this time around. Wish they spent more effort on the story like in the first season.
  • Photo Kano was just Amagami SS lite

That’s it for last season. Here’s what I’m picking up from the new shows!

Must Watch

Genshiken Nidaime

Damn Straight!!

High School DxD NEW

Believe it or not, this show has a really interesting plot! I’ve read further in the light novels and it’s pretty fun so I’m looking forward to how they adapt some of the later arcs, even if they shoehorn way more fanservice than the original material suggested.

Rozen Maiden

DESU!

Hyperdimension Neptunia

The show is going to be bad but as a player of the first 2 games (hell, I completed the first game! True ending and all!!), I find myself drawn to this title and my tolerance level is insanely high!

Interesting but Meh

Monogatari Season… 3?

I’ve lost track of how many seasons we’ve had of these adaptations now, it’s at least the 3rd now (with bakemonogatari and nisemonogatari, but we’ve also had nekomongatari…) but TBH, I’m getting monogataried out. It doesn’t help that the show is very heavy on the chatter and very VERY light on the actual animation. Literally nothing happens for entire episodes apart from 2 ppl talking. I’ll still watch it but I’m not putting it high in my list.

Danganropa

This show has an interesting premise but I don’t really know enough about the source material. Otherwise this may have made into the “Must watch” bracket

The world only God Knows: Goddess arc

Sequel so it gets in. Also, more Haqua is always a good thing!

Symphogear G

Its a sequel. Symphogear was also a surprisingly entertaining show!

Gin no Saji

I’ve been reading the manga for a while and I quite like it. I just don’t know if the adaptation will do a good job.

Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi

The premise of the show is enough to garner interest so I’m checking it out!

Why am I watching this?

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou

I’ve heard things about this title for some time, since I did a bit of digging after Satoshi Toda made a GK of the main girl. But after a few episodes, it’s turning into a bit of a slog. It’ll probably end up as one of those shows I keep cos I just put too much time into it already.

Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-Bu

This show gets in purely cos I do enjoy a little bit of gun stuff. Hell, I found Upotte! fun for the same reason!

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku

I’m not sure what to expect from this show but I’m hoping for something along the lines of GJ-Bu

GATCHAMAN Crowds

I must confess that I was never a fan of the original Gatchaman, tho I did watch some when I was younger. Just remains to be seen if this twist is going to be worth watching.

Shows I will NOT be watching

Normally, I don’t do this but just to nip the tip before someone asks, I’ll be saying this: I will NOT be watching FREE. The reason is simple, it doesn’t interest me. A show about a swimming club without some sort of hook beyond “it has an all male cast” has no interest to me. If the characters were all like Hosaka from Minami-ke, then we have something. Otherwise, I just don’t care about it and I’m not going to watch it simply to find myself pulled into the purile and downright stupid arguments on the internet about it being a show for Fujoshi or how it highlights sexism in the community.

I’m also not watching Kimi no Iru Machi. The reason for this will take longer but in short, Seo Kouji, the mangaka behind the title, cannot write a good female lead to save his life. In fact, every female lead character in his stories are all BITCHES!! And Eba Yuzuki is one of the worst! It was bad enough when we had to go through Suzuka, since the side characters were way better than the main girl (I, like many others, wished the manga was called Honoka…) but in Kimi no Iru Machi, we have a girl who is such a bitch, she screws over 2 guys at the same time!! The manga was pretty decent during the first arc and it got back to it’s more lighthearted and fun storytelling mode later on but the middle arc was just rage inducing. The stuff which happens and the characters reactions are ridiculous, even by fiction standards and I have no desire to be reminded about how fucking retarded the whole thing was… Nobody in their right mind would stick with Eba after what she did!

Anyway, that’s it for my pics this season. What is everyone else watching?

All images are copyright to their respective owners

 

 

Spring Season – How’s it going?

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TAAN: Well, it’s been a while. Half a year since the last post, maybe a whole year since the last time there was at least semi-regular activity. In any case, I’m not too sure about the others but there just might be an HSA revival in the works. Hahaha who am I kidding, Minnie’s extremely [...]

On Tourneys And Stuff

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Yes, this is a real post! I don’t believe it myself BUT IT IS! And as a compensation I’ll write about something predominate, that is, the TOURNEY! Actually, I just want to write about it… As I was strolling around the streets of twitter and the aniblogosphere I came across this thing called: “Aniblog Tourney” [...]

The Essence Of Quality

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In the cycle of anibloggers, it’s a very common event for people to suddenly lose interest in anime which is usually followed by their expected blogging burnout and finally, they disappear out of the aniblog’o'sphere. The reasons behind this happening vary. Apparently, everyone has their own reasons for not wanting, or not being able, to [...]

Secret Santa Review: Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy

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Rating: 7.5/10 This is my second year taking part in secret santa and this time I was given the choice of watching Giant Killing, Galaxy Angel, or the original Mobile Suite Gundam Movie Trilogy. I decided to go with the Gundam Trilogy, which turned out to be nearly seven hours of mecha action! My knowledge [...]

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Rating: 7.5/10

This is my second year taking part in secret santa and this time I was given the choice of watching Giant Killing, Galaxy Angel, or the original Mobile Suite Gundam Movie Trilogy. I decided to go with the Gundam Trilogy, which turned out to be nearly seven hours of mecha action!

My knowledge on the Gundam world is weak. I’ve only ever seen the first season of Gundam 00, and although I enjoyed it, most people seem to think it’s one of the weaker ones in the franchise. I’ve wanted to venture more into Gundam series, so this film trilogy which covers the original series was the perfect place to start! 

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The story takes place in a time known as 0079 where both the world and the space outside it where people live is in turmoil. A boy named Amuro ends up piloting a mobile suit only to get caught up in a war to fight a guerilla group from a society of people known as Zenos. As mentioned before, this trilogy is a condensed version of the original series which was 43 episodes long. With that said, even without having seen the series, you can tell the first film was rushed.

The next two have relatively good pacing throughout, but the first film really skims through a lot. In a lot of ways, it was probably for the better. Seeing those beginning scenes with a normal boy who by some weird fluke ends ups in a giant robot is something we can all agree that we’ve seen plenty of times (even if this may have been the original). After the first film, the only real problem you can find with some of the pacing is when they decide to just narrate through several events in the story.

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Each film is comprised of about five fight scenes with dialog thrown in between. This was one of the downfalls I felt this trilogy had. As boring as it sounds, I’m not too big fan of the action, and much prefer the scenes reserved for character development. It’s not like many of the fight scenes really stand up all that well to what we see today anyway, so except for in the cases where the battles were really emotionally involved or in the case of the final one, some of them were rather dull.

In my opinion, the battle scenes were not even all that well animated. Okay, being a 1981 production, I’ll give it a lot of credit. For the most part, nothing looked too lazy and it was just the style of the time. My problem had more to do with how often enough an important hit in battle was simply emphasized by zooming in and out of a still frame. I just feel they could have done better.

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The area where this film really shines in is its characters. It’s a fantastic cast who are all well fleshed out and have convincing development throughout the three films. To start with, the main character Amuro was really interesting to watch. I’m sure many will think he’s too angsty, but it works well with the content presented in the series. It’s a story about a war that must be fought by the young. One of the most presented themes that can be seen throughout the films is trying to justify murder. Amuro is constantly trying to convince himself that he’s not really killing anyone or it’s for the greater. When his mother first finds out he’s taking part in the war, she practically disowns him because she claims no son of her’s could be hurting anyone.

Not to mention, the progression of Amuro’s skills as a pilot were very well done. At the start of the series, they represent his inexperience by going so far as to have him open an instruction manual in battle! Of course some of his talent has to do with just luck, the rest of his improvement was shown through each battle, and him discovering his drive for piloting the mobile suit.

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As for the other characters, they all manage to have at least a bit of time dedicated to them throughout the three films. I ended up really loving this slimy jerk of a character named Kai. Having somehow ended up on the “good side”, he just turned out to be a really entertaining addition to the series. I also was surprised to see the amount of time they allot to flesh out the characters on the opposing sides, the Zeons. Char, the mask wearing “Red Comet” was no doubt one of the highlights in this trilogy. He was awesome, and pretty damn fabulous! Though, he sadly barely made an appearance at all in the second film. Anyway, a good measure to understand how endearing these characters were, is that even the annoying kids added in for comic relief had some charming qualities.

To conclude, I feel this is a trilogy that every anime fan needs to see at least once. It’s a classic to its genre! I may have been a bit disappointed by the battle scenes, which a large part of the film did consist of, but the character and even the political banter really had me intrigued. Watching this has definitely convinced me to further delve myself in the vast Gundam world!

Top 10 Anime of 2012

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This has been a terrible year for anime. Sure, I’m someone who likes to be entertained above all else, but at the end of the day I still like to find good quality series. With that said, this year has been seriously lacking of just that. Anyway, this is my attempt to come up with [...]

LSS Top 10 Anime of 2012

This has been a terrible year for anime. Sure, I’m someone who likes to be entertained above all else, but at the end of the day I still like to find good quality series. With that said, this year has been seriously lacking of just that.

Anyway, this is my attempt to come up with my favourite series from the past year. Although there are a good deal of series I still need to finish watching, I still managed to complete 40, and from those I present to you the few that I actually found to be good. I hope you enjoy the list!

PS: I only count anime that finished in 2012.

inuxboku Top 10 Anime of 2012

10. Inu x Boku SS

At a glance, this seems to be an anime that doesn’t offer much, but it actually manages to deliver a pretty solid series for only having thirteen episodes. It had some good comedy and the romance actually developed to something. The highlight was no doubt Watanuki and Karuta. If only they were the main characters of the show! Anyway, every year there has to be one series on my list that many will disagree with, but it’s there because it just really entertained me, and this year it’s this one!

Kuroko Top 10 Anime of 2012

9. Kuroko no Basket

Seeing as I know nothing about basketball, all the problems I read on how people dislike the lack of realism in this series means nothing to mean. This anime managed to make watching a sport I don’t really care for, totally entertaining. It’s strength lies in its ability to create dynamic characters that are interesting to watch both on and off the court.

Nichibros Top 10 Anime of 2012

8. The Daily Lives of Highschool Boys

I’ll give 2012 some credit for delivering some relatively good comedies that ranged from Acchi Kochhi to even Poyopoyo. Though, without a doubt, Nichibros turned out to be one of the best anime comedies I’ve ever seen! With hilarious characters (literature girl!) and some fantastic sketchs, this is a comedy you cannot pass up!

Jintai Top 10 Anime of 2012

7. Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita

In most cases, a series like Jintai just shouldn’t work. It’s weird and covers deep philosophical questions with bright colours and creepy fairies. It also spends two episodes just to make one terribly pun. But it somehow actually works! This is an anime that leaves me curious no matter how many half answers I’m giving. It’s weird in all the right ways!

fate zero Top 10 Anime of 2012

6. Fate/Zero 2nd Season

I never really had expectations for Fate/Zero, so from all I’ve seen, this series just manages to wow me. Although I feel season one was better (not enough Waver and Rider in this one), the sequel was still pretty awesome! There are several moments I can think of that really are very memorable, such as Kiritsugu’s backstory, Saber and Lancer’s battle, as well as Gilgamesh’s “parting”outfit!

nisemono Top 10 Anime of 2012

5. Nisemonogatari

This sequel actually lived up to my expectations. All I expect from this franchise is some amusing dialogue and unique animation. Ya, it’s safe to say I got both. I also really liked this season’s focus on Shiro, Karen, and Tsukihi. Also, episode eight was both one of the most messed up and best episodes of the year!

tsuri Top 10 Anime of 2012

4. Tsuritama

This is a series that from what I’ve noticed, some managed to enjoy much more than others. I think a lot of that has to do with whether the show really captured you or not. This was an anime that was unique and seemed to have so much love put into it. It was quirky and bursting with energy!

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 3. Hyouka

This series was exactly what KyoAni needed. It some ways, it seemed as though the studio was delivering much of the same generic things, but Hyouka managed to break that trend by delivering a series with compelling characters. It chose the mundane over the extravagant in the case of its mysteries, which turned out to proove that creating realistic storylines can sometimes be much better.

chihaya Top 10 Anime of 2012

2. Chihayafuru

Who would have guessed that an anime about a card game that is completely native to Japan could be so damn interesting?! Chihayafuru is fantastic for so many reasons, and I honestly loved watching the games as much as I enjoyed the drama that happened between them. It was a series that needed a sequel, and I’m so glad that the new winter season is going to deliver just that!

Natsume Yuujinchou Top 10 Anime of 2012

1. Natsume Yuujinshou Shi

Ever since it first aired, every season of this series has made it onto my top ten list. And you know why? This series is just that good. Every season of Natsume Yuujinchou somehow manages to top the next. The cast is incredible, and the way they still manage to be constantly developed is fantastic. There really wasn’t a weak episode in this season, and so without a doubt I knew it had to take the top spot as my favourite anime of 2012!

From the Worst to the Best: Winter 2013 Anime First Impressions

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I know I complain nearly every season about the lack of good anime, and this one isn’t really an exception, but instead of just being negative, I’ll give it credit for having a couple of series I totally approve of . The sequels are good and if you don’t count the dozens of short anime series [...]

Kann 1024x653 From the Worst to the Best: Winter 2013 Anime First Impressions

I know I complain nearly every season about the lack of good anime, and this one isn’t really an exception, but instead of just being negative, I’ll give it credit for having a couple of series I totally approve of . The sequels are good and if you don’t count the dozens of short anime series released, you get left with a few good things.

For the most part, I can at least say everything seems to be entertaining. Also, in a time in my life where I’m having trouble organizing everything, a smaller anime load is probably for the best. Anyway, before I start to rant, enjoy the list that can be found after the jump!

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11.Yama no Susume

Well, it’s not very good, but it at least offers a bit more than the rest of the three minute shorts from this season. Instead of just trying to condense a dozen terrible jokes in a short amount of time, it’s instead trying to genuinely just tell a short story about friends who get re-acquainted and try to enjoy the past time of climbing that they once bonded over. It’s nothing great, but it at least has some substance to it.

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10. Amnesia

These series based off an otome game, and this fact is as clear as day. The female lead is beyond dull! Sure, she has amnesia (thus the title! Genius), but it doesn’t mean she has to be emotionless about everything! Also, I don’t even care for the male characters, they’re all a little too over the top. The four represent each suit of cards and they have kaleidoscope eyes, and it’s just too stupid. I’ll watch it for now, but this was even worse than Arcana Famiglia’s first episode.

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9. Senyuu

Out of all the short anime series I’ve seen, this one has managed to provide more laughs than most. The animation is abysmal, but it adds to the comedy, and it’s not like I really care if it’s that good for such a short series. Anyway, for what it offers I’m pretty satisfied with watching it.

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8. Kotoura-san

The first half of episode one was a bit of a disaster. It went all over the place and created melodrama where it wasn’t necessary. At least it offered something different to what I originally expected to be a show about nothing, but it’s not like I was really asking for such an unnecessary long back story that from here on out doesn’t seem to deliver much to the story besides telling its audience that the lead can read minds and everybody hated her for it.

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7. Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru

I don’t know what to think about this one. The animation seems consistent and good, but it looks to be a harem that’s complete even with the childhood friend. I need to see a few more episodes to really form my opinion about it, but at the moment not much of it really interests me.

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6. Hakkenden: Touhou Hakken Ibou

This is an anime where you can’t really be sure what it’s actually about. Some kid has powers and can talk to animals while a priest turns into a dog, I don’t really understand it all, but it’s entertaining. The animation is great and the potential is there. I’m just hoping that it’ll flesh out better as it goes on.

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5. Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

As I expected, this is a copy of Spice and Wolf with a few differences. I don’t mind that too much though, the political aspects and the characters are actually pretty engaging. Of course there’s some fanservice, but from a studio that would normally abuse censorship laws in a plotless mess, this is definitely a step up. I’m impressed.

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4. Sasami-san@Ganbaranai

It’s definitely not Shaft’s best, but it’s definitely one of their most well animated series! This is much of the same stuff you see in their works, and as per usual the dialog at least amuses me, but this series has a lot it needs to do improve. The most important being to create characters that somebody in this world actually cares about!

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3. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT

Haganai is one of those series that really managed to surprise me in its first season by actually being good. The sequel looks to be delivering much of the same stuff from the first season, but I’m not bothered at all by that. This is a really entertaining anime. The characters should be annoying, but they actually work, well except for Yozora who is just jerk.

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2. Tamako Market

This just hits all the right notes with me. It’s adorable and such an enjoyable watch! This is a story that really shows the power of slice of life because it really brings the extraordinary to the ordinary. The characters are interesting and the plot has a good mix of the weird and the fun. The OP and the ED are fantastic!

vlcsnap 2013 01 13 08h42m16s174 From the Worst to the Best: Winter 2013 Anime First Impressions

1. Chihayafuru 2

Of course this had to take the top spot! I loved season one, but the only problem I had with it was that it needed a sequel, and here it is! Watching the first episode reminded me right away of all the reasons why I loved this series in the first place! I am beyond happy that I get to see more of this series!

Analysing Miyazaki – Part 1: Water

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I have never really been one to write segments on my blog, but I decided to try one out about a director who I seem to never have enough to say about. As the title suggests, I am referring to Miyazaki. As both a director and individual, Miyazaki is extremely interesting and expresses a lot [...]

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 14h43m32s212 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

I have never really been one to write segments on my blog, but I decided to try one out about a director who I seem to never have enough to say about. As the title suggests, I am referring to Miyazaki. As both a director and individual, Miyazaki is extremely interesting and expresses a lot of important ideas through his films.

In these posts which I have no set date to even be completed, I hope to explore some of the motifs and themes seen in a good deal of his films. And trust me, there are many! To start things off, I’m going to be talking about his repeated motif of water throughout his films.

The importance and use of water throughout Miyazaki’s films is something my sister had pointed out to me on account of her teacher some time ago. At first mention of this, I got instantly hit with the reality of this fact. The most instant explanation one could give to this motif would be Miyazaki’s environmental concerns, but I think it’s clearly much more than that.

nausicaa 1024x579 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

To start off with one of this earliest works with one of the most prominent uses of water, we begin by discussing Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. This is one case where environmental concerns clearly are present, but the water also seemed to be expressed as a life force. This idea of water being the source of all living things carries throughout his other films as well.

Most people appropriately view water as the thing that prevents us from dying, but rarely is it seen in the light as the reason life is created. In Nausicaa, areas of the jungle continue to thrive because of an untainted water source. Insects become giant in order to fight back against the humans, while humans continue to decline and head in the direction of their eventual extinction. Water is what should join both the world of humans and nature seeing as it creates life between them both, but it ends up being the cause of what separates the two.

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 15h40m38s161 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

The thought of an inability to coexist between nature and humans (I guess adding in spirits would be appropriate) is what leads us to Princess Mononoke. The story where humans once again try to fight nature. In this case, the water present throughout the film isn’t nearly as present as the last film, but the moment where it is presented, is clearly very significant. It is shown as a small sorta of mote where the spirit of the forest lies. It is a source of water that heals and brings life (or death) to humans and spirits, and also the whole forest. It is the one little area in the whole film that holds the most power to effect every other area presented in the world of Princess Mononoke.

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 14h13m36s167 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

To go back a few years from that film to back in 1988 with My Neighbor Totoro, water also has it’s own spotlight in it too. Of course the most significant use of water in this film is while it is raining at the bus and with a sleeping Mei, Satsuki meets Totoro for the first time. As pretty much all of Miyazaki films present, this scene is dedicated completely to the magic children possess. Satsuki’s only reaction to meeting Totoro, which at first is almost fearful with his big feet being all she sees passed her umbrella at first, turns into a new friend made.

In contrast to the inability for humans to coexist with nature, this is one of the few instances where the exact opposite happens. Satsuki offers an umbrella which Totoro turns out to love. The gift she gives turns out to give her access, along with her sister, to the spirit world with the catbus. This rainy encounter is what connects the two worlds.

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 14h27m32s76 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

The idea of a world connected by both spirits and humans, leads us to Spirited Away. The uses of water throughout are extremely varied, and it no doubt has some strong roots to Japanese cultures and religions, but I’ll try my best to interpret it as I see it personally.

The first scene with water is when Chihiro discovers what was once the path to go home is now just a river that she is unable to pass. In Japanese tradition, there is an equivalent to the River of Styx known as the Sanzu River, which ways out your deeds in life to determine how difficult it will be for you to be able to cross it. I won’t read too much into that since that’s just a guess, but clearly the idea presented in this theme was to show that Chihiro was not ready to cross and couldn’t until she experiences the growth seen throughout the whole film.

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 14h52m43s84 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

The story is one where she is presented with a series of trials that she grows from to reach her ultimate goal. One of them was the one with what was at first thought to be a “stink spirit”. Chihiro was given the task to take care of this customer because nobody wanted to accept such a smelly thing. Although Chihiro is at first repulsed herself, and her old self probably wouldn’t have been able to handle the situation, she soon sympathizes with the spirit and ends up helping him and is rewarded with the “key” that saves NoFace. The water is what engulfs her and allows her to be present with this spirit.

Another instance in the film was when it rained for so long that the world outside became similar to a sea. In the times where it was raining, was when NoFace had swallowed three people and tried to communicate in any way he could to Chihiro. He bought everything and offered everyone around him as much money as they wanted, still, when presented to Chihiro she rejected it. Eventually, he had literally puked all the bad in him and went to cross the river with Chihiro by the train.

In this scene, the area is seen to be vast and wide, and also empty. Greed and desire are gone, and instead it feels much more like a giant breath of fresh air than anything. This water came from rain against a dark side, but managed to become a cleansing ocean. This can be seen as the new rebirth for both Chihiro and NoFace, as well as Yubaba’s henchman and her child. Each of them has at this point reached a new understanding in their life where, and have become “new people”.

vlcsnap 2013 02 03 15h08m13s156 Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

The last important instance of water in this film is with Haku, the (spoiler) Kohaku river. He is the one who saved Chihiro back when she was young, The significance in this, I feel, is mostly to show the role reversal now seen between the two. In the other world Chihiro was a girl who was apparently selfish and spoiled. In this instance, much like he did a long time ago, Chihiro manages to save Haku from death. The reuniting between the two brings Chihiro to tears, and although she was once critiqued for being a crybaby, this is to show that not all tears are a sign of weakness, and in this case shows her strength. All this leads her to her final test which she passes and then allows her to cross what was once a river with ease.

Ponyo Analysing Miyazaki   Part 1: Water

Miyazaki often uses water as both a way to bridge two worlds or to create a way to show growth in characters. This was seen throughout his most recent film Ponyo. Also, much like with Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke, it is shown to be life, and not to mention beauty. This is directly implied with Ponyo’s mother, who is literally the mother of the sea. In contrast to the father, she is a giant godlike person which really brings home the message that water is the foundation of life and rebirth.

To conclude, I’m sure there is more that can be said, and if I were to brush up on East Asian Religions, I could probably rewrite this whole post. I’ve come to the end of my first analysis, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, as I have plenty more to say about other themes in Miyazaki’s films!

Why Do We Watch Anime?

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Kai of Deluscar has decided to ask the classic question to her readers about why we watch anime. I feel like I’ve wondered about this in the past and may have even given a simple answer before, but I figured this may finally be a good opportunity to really get to the route of as [...]

Nisemonogatari Why Do We Watch Anime?

Kai of Deluscar has decided to ask the classic question to her readers about why we watch anime. I feel like I’ve wondered about this in the past and may have even given a simple answer before, but I figured this may finally be a good opportunity to really get to the route of as to why.

Everyone has their reasons, and probably a good deal of you have a much more concrete explanation than myself. Although I love anime, I still probably watch live action TV series and films almost as much. In fact, at the time when I rediscovered anime back when I was about twelve, I had been obsessively watching films (I’m not kidding. I watched about five a week back then). All the different mediums of entertainment are constantly clashing in my mind, but for some reason anime managed to become the one that overtook all the others. The closest explanation I can come up with is that it may have to do with the imagination and endless possibilities that anime creates.

Well done world Why Do We Watch Anime?

Perhaps that may sound ignorant, but if you think of an imaginative film like Princess Bride or even Inception, they’re great in their own ways, but even they don’t get anywhere near as wacky as a single episode of Arakawa Under the Bridge or Shirokuma Cafe. Anime is a crazy world where magical girls and moe actually makes sense. How could I not want to be a part of that?!

To further that point, where else outside from anime could you find all the visual themes and creativity found in Mawaru Penguindrum? Heck, even something like One Piece or Naruto wouldn’t/shouldn’t be found outside the world of manga and anime. All this is to say, I watch anime because it offers something that can’t be found elsewhere.

acchi kocchi Why Do We Watch Anime?

Anime has genres like mecha and slice of life, these two are probably some of the most produced, and the experience of watching series that fall under these categories cannot be found anywhere else. I could name a few other genres that are also only found in anime, but the point here is just that idea that anime is a world like no other. It can create a romance as dramatic and heartwarming as Clannad, and even though it plays out realistically enough, it decides to throw in some fantasy elements near the end and we all just accept it. Characters can be cat hybrids, see ghosts, change on the spot into girly outfits to fight evil, travel back in time, share a cup of tea with their friends, or even pierce the heavens! That’s what anime is, and it something like nothing other!

Story aside, not too surprisingly, anime also offers something unique in the way it is animated. Studios like Shaft, Gainax, and Madhouse are all producing series that are constantly breaking the conventional mold of animation and trying things you don’t see elsewhere. The West is still constantly improving their own ways of creating animation, but often enough its more in a direction towards a realistic look to the backgrounds and movement in characters. That’s not bad of course, but from what I’ve seen in anime, often enough it’s more about being self-reflexive or being as grand as possible. The genius way in which a show like Bakemonogatari makes dialogue shine, is something that others outside of anime have yet to discover on such a level that it can have such a broad appeal.

pnguinnn Why Do We Watch Anime?

All this is to say, I watch anime because it offers me an experience that I can’t find elsewhere. As much as I continue to watch films and live action series, anime is going to be something I constantly return to get my fill of a world outside of what I’m used to. For that reason, I feel like as the years go by, anime will be something I have a hard time giving up!

This place needs more ignorance.

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I don’t even know how long it has been since I last posted. I mean, I literally don’t know. That’s stupid. This place got too intelligent for my puny little brain. This place shall behold incoherent thoughts once again! Sometimes things are too long for twitter. Sometimes things aren’t really up to Daifuuku quality. Sometimes I

I don’t even know how long it has been since I last posted. I mean, I literally don’t know.

That’s stupid.

This place got too intelligent for my puny little brain. This place shall behold incoherent thoughts once again!

Sometimes things are too long for twitter. Sometimes things aren’t really up to Daifuuku quality.

Sometimes I just want to go off on a tangent.

And sometimes I just need to make excuses for myself to hide what I am really feeling.

And sometimes there just isn’t anything better to do.

For better or for worse…

And for the silence that will inevitably follow after…

New posts incoming.


Too many games, too little time.

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Welp, Steam did finally release on linux – and along with it, a sale. During the sale I purchased some games, but now that I stop to think about it I don’t really have time to play these games anyway. Money is a strange thing. And the psychology behind it is rather terrifying. Sure you can get something

Welp, Steam did finally release on linux – and along with it, a sale.

During the sale I purchased some games, but now that I stop to think about it I don’t really have time to play these games anyway.

Money is a strange thing. And the psychology behind it is rather terrifying.

Sure you can get something cheaper if it is on sale, but did you really need it in the long run? Sometimes I think I am just a bit spoiled, but I’ll burn that bridge when I am done treading on it.

~~~~~

Also, I didn’t know that Beat Hazard was Linux native, I want to play this game!

Great. Now I want to buy it.

Winter 2013 – (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

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As the title suggests, I’m here to bring my opinion on the series of this season a bit later than usual. The list only includes the series that I’m pretty much caught up on, so on account of that you won’t be seeing my opinion on series such as: Zetsuen no Tempest, Sakarasou, Little Busters, [...]

animewinterr Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

As the title suggests, I’m here to bring my opinion on the series of this season a bit later than usual. The list only includes the series that I’m pretty much caught up on, so on account of that you won’t be seeing my opinion on series such as: Zetsuen no Tempest, Sakarasou, Little Busters, Jojo, and Hunter x Hunter. It’s safe to say I have my work cut out for me in playing catch-up.

Although there are some good series this season, there are still a lot that can simply be described as boring. On account of that, I’ve been spending more of my time trying to catch up with some old series I’ve been wanting to complete (rather successfully may I add). With that said, here’s my late thought on the anime I have seen from the spring season! 

vlcsnap 2013 02 05 10h52m19s130 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Amnesia

Oh, Amnesia… what to say? The main character is still as boring as ever, but the other characters are at least starting to flesh out. The way in which the story is being told is also a good way to keep the audience’s interest, and it seems things are soon going to finally be revealed. It’s not a terrible show, but some guys were so douchey to our lead girl that it pained me to watch.

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Boku Wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT 

This is my guilty pleasure It’s one of those series that manages to have a whole episode take place in a clubroom, and still manages to be interesting. There are only two things that have been bothering me in this season. The first one is that ever since last season they’ve been making a big deal that Yozora and Kodaka used to be friens, and now that it has been revealed to everyone, it just seems to be no big deal at all. It has really only served to make Yozora act even more rude and bratty. My second problem, is the show’s whole concept of “I don’t have many friends”. Having Kodaka say to Sena’s face that he has no friends is just sorta awkward and rude. Point is, when Haganai sticks to random nonsense, all is well.

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Chihayafuru 2

I’m so glad to see that this series has not changed! It’s still as fantastic as ever, and I can’t help but eagerly await it every week. I love the episodes all about the actual gameplay, ans we’ve been seeing a lot of that lately, with clearly more on the way. Also, the charcater development and romance seem to be going in good directions too. Each episode just seems to surpass the last! I cannot get enough of this anime!

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Kotoura-san

Ever since day one I’ve gotten the impression that this anime seems to have no idea what it wants to do. On some days it’s happy go lucky slice of life, and on others its a melodramatic. When this series decides to go that dramatic route, it just plain fails. It’s so over the top that it makes me wonder if they’re doing it on purpose, like it is actually a parody in disguise or something. They just always go that extra mile to make sure the drama is bad. It may not make all that much sense to me, but what I do know is that this series needs to stick with simplicity.

HorribleSubs Hakkenden Eight Dogs of the East 07 480p11 22 23 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Hakkenden: Touhou Hakken Ibun

I actually quite like this series. It doesn’t really stand out in any aspect, but it’s extremely entertaining. Sure, most of the characters fall under the cateory of bishie (nothing wrong with that, right?), and it becomes more and more apparent as it goes on that this was written by Miyuki Abe, but it works for me! This series just needs to keep up exactly what it’s doing considering that seems to be enough to keep me amused, which is all that really matters at times.

HorribleSubs Magi 18 720p20 22 26 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Magi

I just don’t understand why this series is so popular! It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t seem to have much going for it. The conflicts are all pretty much the same thing where people are fighting against slavery or the mistreatment of someone or another. Is that all they’ve got? I don’t hate it, I just expect a little more than what I’m getting. At least I can agree that the animation is fantastic?

HorribleSubs Maoyuu Maou Yuusha 09 480p00 01 36 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

In all, this anime is just boring. The only reason why we all gave it a chance at the beginning was because of its economic aspect, but not too surprsingly, a story about medieval economy could only hold the audience’s attention for so long. Luckily, they’ve since tried to work around that problem by making the romance a more prominent feature. It works at times, but I still don’t really have too strong an interest in this series anymore.

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Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru

 Bland. That is all that really needs to be said. The story has been done, and has been done better. The characters are…probably the worse part. None of them are interestin to watch at all. They’re as generic as every other aspect of this show is. The only good parts in this series is when they talk about Jojo.

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Psycho Pass

I’ve liked psycho pass from the beginning, but I never came to love it as much as others seem to have. The characters, and their backstories, always seem to disappoint me. Also, although the animation is at times fantastic, at other times it just looks stiff. I get they have an excuse for that, but it still needs to be said.  On the plus side, I’ve really loved where they’ve gone with the story. It’s reached a point where everything’s starting to unravel.Episode 16 and 17 were definitely some of the best!

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Robotic;Notes

In the first cours of this series, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It seemed as though this series was building up for its second half. Now that we’ve reached that point, it just feels lacking in its plot. I think a lot of the problem has to do with the fact that this series has terrible pacing. There’s only three episodes left, and I have no idea how this series will manage to wrap everything up and makes sense of it all. In the least, the story has no doubt picked up the pace and the character have definitely grown on me. I’m surprised by how much I actually like Kaito now, but the anime just has so many problems with its story.

DeadFish Sasami san@Ganbaranai 04 720pAAC23 40 50 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Sasami-san@Ganbararai

This anime feels uninspired to me. I know it has a bit of an outrageous story, but Ive already seen a format similar to this one in other Shaft series, mainly Denpa Onna. In both series, the structure is that the first three episodes tell a complete story, and then the rest just drags along. It still isn’t a complete bore, but its in a state where it has no idea what to do with its story. It has a lot of style, but all other apsects of it seem to fall flat.

HorribleSubs Senyuu 06 480p00430423 15 23 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Senyuu

Senyuu is stupid, but still surprisngly funny. It’s downfall is its inability to switch up the format in which it tells its joke. Nonetheless, it’s still pretty good and worth five minutes of my time.

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Shinsekai Yori

What an amazing series! There was a point where it seemed to have lost some steam, but it quickly proved me wrong by brining new twists and dark themes that I could have never seen coming. It’s incredible, and if you aren’t watching it, you are really missing out! It’s creepy, psychological, sad, and dark. Amazing.

DeadFish Tamako Market 06 720pAAC10 16 26 Winter 2013   (late) Anime Halftime Impressions!

Tamako Market

This is just a really wonderful anime. It’s filled with whismy and adorableness. It also knows how to keep the audience interested. The characters work well, and unlike with chuunibyou (a bit of an unfair comparision), these characters are consistent and true to themselves. As long as Tamako Market keeps up its energy and doesn’t decide to get melodramatic, I’ll be satisfied. At the moment, I’m really loving every minute of this series!!

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Yama to Sume

Yama to Sume is a series that definitely needs its episode to be a bit longer than three minutes. A full length may be too much, but if it was ten minutes long, I think we may have had a cute series on our hands that had some actual substance to it. There’s not enough development that can actually be accomplished in this short a series.

supercell – Gin-iro Hikousen | Lyrics Translation

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Song: Gin-iro Hikousen Artist: supercell Album: Gin-iro Hikousen Other: Opening Song for the anime movie Nerawareta Gakuen kono michi noborikireba anata ni ha itsumo akubi wo shinagara soko de matteta When I finish climbing this hill, you are always yawning there waiting for me. shiokaze niou machi de anata mo atashi mo otona ni nattekunda [...]

supercell_giniro-hikousen

Song: Gin-iro Hikousen
Artist: supercell
Album: Gin-iro Hikousen
Other: Opening Song for the anime movie Nerawareta Gakuen

kono michi noborikireba
anata ni ha itsumo
akubi wo shinagara
soko de matteta

When I finish climbing this hill,
you are always
yawning there
waiting for me.

shiokaze niou machi de
anata mo atashi mo
otona ni nattekunda tte
sou omotteita

I thought
you and I
would grow up to be adults
in this sea breeze filled town.

umodori ga naiteita
ano natsu anata to futari kaetta michi
oikakete oikakete

The sea birds sung.
That summer we always went home together.
I chased and chased after it…

gin-iro hikousen kagayaku
umi dake ga kawaranaide
anata ga waratta kono oka
mou ichido anata ni aitai

The silver airship shines.
The sea is the only thing that doesn’t change.
This is the hill you always smiled on,
I want to meet you here one more time.

jitensha kago ni kaban
futaribun nosete
monku wo iinagara
sakamichi oshita

We used to put our bags
in the bicycle’s basket,
and while complaining,
pushed ahead over the hill.

kono michi ha massugu de
machigau hazu nanka nai to omotteta
doko made mo ikeru tte

This path should be straight,
it shouldn’t be different… I thought.
It can go anywhere…

gin-iro hikousen tondeta
ano sora wo mitsuketakute
hoho wo naderu kaze kono oka
mou koko ni ha dare mo inai
dare mo inai

A silver airship flew.
I wanted to find that sky.
But with the wind blowing on my cheeks,
there’s no one else on this hill…
no one’s here…

hi ga ochite nobita kage boushi
atashi ha anta wo oikaketa
zutto anata no koto ga suki de
dakedo atashi ha ienakatta

As the sun went down, our shadows grew
and I chased after you.
I always loved you,
but I never said it…

gin-iro hikousen kagayaku
umi dake ga kawaranaide
anata ga waratta kono oka
mou ichido anata ni aitai

The silver airship shines.
The sea is the only thing that doesn’t change.
This is the hill you always smiled on,
I want to meet you here one more time.

gin-iro ikousen tondeta
te wo futte miokutta ano hi
ano michi nobotte kondo ha
kono oka de saki ni matteru

A silver airship flew.
That day… I waved good-bye to you.
But this time, I’ll climb that hill
and wait for you.

kono oka de saki ni matteru

I’ll wait for you on this hill…

Tia produced by ryo (supercell) – LOVE ME GIMME | Lyrics Translation

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Song: LOVE ME GIMME Artist: Tia produced by ryo (supercell) Album: LOVE ME GIMME Other: Ending Song for the anime Wooser no Sono Higurashi kimi wo hitorijime shitemitai no desu I want to have you all to myself! ima kore kara atashi ga kimi ni anji wo kakeru ii? ja ne karaku me wo tojitemite [...]

supercell_love-me-gimme

Song: LOVE ME GIMME
Artist: Tia produced by ryo (supercell)
Album: LOVE ME GIMME
Other: Ending Song for the anime Wooser no Sono Higurashi

kimi wo hitorijime shitemitai no desu

I want to have you all to myself!

ima kore kara atashi ga kimi ni anji wo kakeru
ii? ja ne karaku me wo tojitemite
atashi ga ii yo tte iu made sono mama da yo

I’m going to try and hypnotize you.
Ready? Okay, gently close your eyes
and don’t open them until I say so.

yokeina MONO ha mienakute ii
datte datte tsugou ga warui koto datte arushi
kuchi ni shicha ikenai koto kurai
atashi datte chanto mottetari surundesu

You don’t have to get distracted by unnecessary emotions.
Well… because there are thing I can’t deal well with!
Even I have things
I can’t say to anyone.

kimi wo hitorijime shitemo ii kana
chotto no aida dake yurushite hoshii
maji maji mitsumete shimatteiru nau
ana ga aichau kurai miteirundesu

Can I have you all to myself?
Just for a little while…
I’m looking at you so intently
that I might burn a hole through you…

to iu wake de ima kimi ha
atashi no me no mae ni imasu
… suki kakunin
shita nori kemuri nochi hare
neratte tsutaeru kara
kakugo shitoite

Anyway, right now
you’re in front of me.
… Love… I make sure…
but afterwards I feel dull… then bright.
I have my sights on you and I’m going to tell you…
so prepare yourself!

“ima ienai no ha makeoshimi?”
datte datte tsugou ga wari hi datte arushi
kyou ha akumade renshuu nandesu
kitto chanto umaku ieru youni narundesu

“Are you making excuses so you won’t have to say it?”
Well… because there are times when it’s just not my day!
I persistently practiced all day today,
so I’m sure I’ll be able to say it properly!

kimi wo hitorijime shitemo ii kana
joushiki no han’i de sumaseru kara
masu masu mitsumete shimatteiru nau
ana ga aichattara gomennasai

Can I have you all to myself?
It will all be in good sense.
I stare at you more and more,
if I burn a hole through you… I’m sorry.

mada me akecha DAME da yo
riyuu nante kikanaide
datte atashi etto umaku ienai…

Don’t open your eyes yet…
and don’t ask me why.
Because you see… I… umm… can’t properly say…

kimi wo hitorijime shitemo ii kana
chotto no aida dake yurushite hoshii
itsumo miteiru noni kidzukanai kara
ana ga aichau kurai miteyarundesu

Can I have you all to myself?
Just for a little while…
I’m always looking at you but you don’t even notice me…
I stare so much I might burn a hole through you!

kimi wo hitorijime shitemo ii kana
chotto no aida dake yurushite hoshii
maji maji mitsumeru no usume kinshi
ii desho ima kurai yumemisasete

Can I have you all to myself?
Just for a little while…
I’m looking at you with serious intent… no half baked glances allowed!
Got it? At least… let me dream right now!

If it has no buttons, it must be easy to use!

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I ran an update ($ yaourt -Syyu) the other day and a new version of Cinnamon came down. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the development team puts a lot of effort into their releases and gets them out fast – but I just want to tear out my hair every time it updates. The biggest

I ran an update ($ yaourt -Syyu) the other day and a new version of Cinnamon came down.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the development team puts a lot of effort into their releases and gets them out fast – but I just want to tear out my hair every time it updates.

The biggest reason is that I have to go through the javascript files and reapply all the quirky little changes I want to the code.

The other reason is simply that things move around.

Cinnamon allows for a hot-corner to be assigned to either bring up an expo mode or a scale mode. Expo is the default, and I wanted to change it to scale mode. When I opened up the system settings I was met with this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there are some things missing here! After a bit of google searching someone pointed out that there was a little tiny gear in the top right corner.

 

 

 

 

There it is!

Click on that, and then click on “Advanced Settings” and you finally find this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah! That’s where the hot corner settings went! It’s funny how none of these settings are not even particularly advanced (except for Login Screen, but that one warns you and then prompts you for a password.)

This idea that you should hide functionality behind extra windows in order to make something more user friendly irritates me to no end, but then again, I guess that’s what computers systems are designed for anyway. After all, would you use computers if you had to browse the web by entering machine code in a terminal or something?

Computers are simple and attractive interfaces built on top of a sea of powerful and intricate systems.

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