Monthly Archive for August, 2009

ORIGINAL STORY DO NOT STEAL

feng is most certainly proud of this story, as seen in the first episode (and on the OP sequence in general), does it deliver? What were my impressions, as someone who came with no expectations? I’ll try to avoid spoilers more to the end, while giving my general impressions. Looking at past twitter updates, akane.txt, and my collection of screenshots to recall what happened.

FIRST KISS kara hajimaru futari no koi no HISTORY

Cool kid saves a girl from punks just with his reputation, only to find out the girl transferred to his school. Not knowing what to do, he kisses her. (Naturally.) While she initially liked him, now she hates him for his rashness. Later that night, she moves into his house because she apparently is his arranged bride! Yay! (Doesn’t count as spoilers, it’s just the first episode.)

The classic I fell on you scene, love.

So there we have it, pretty interesting first episode (screw you I like clichés), zany hijinks are sure to ensue with a setup like that. A harem series going just as expected. (as I noted on my 2nd update about it)

Have I told you I love the character design? 'Cause I do!

They keep this pacing for the good part of the series, harem shenanigans, kid surrounded by awesome teasing girls (with awesome hair), there’s your usual Onsen, Cruise party, accidental date episodes, school festival, all good and entertaining stuff.

Bitches be cryin' for our bro. (fuck him ;_;)

We have the awkward and unsuccessful advances of Ayanokouji (she repeats her name so much I ended up memorizing it). She’ll do anything for our hero, while being filthy rich. Arguably the best girl? Parallel to CLANNAD’s Tomoyo. (Material for later this post, a comparison with CLANNAD? Oh god what)

Nothing like saving your hat, romantic.

We have out awkward but adorable advances between the Rie Kugimiya character, Yuuhi, and our main character, with out bro doing kind stuff as saving her from a dude dressed as an octopus, falling in a river to save her hat, sharing warmth in an abandoned school building (wat), classic Japanese romance. But…

Don't ask the impossible?

Dude’s eyes are just on his sister all along, staring at her, being thoughtful with her. All could be set just as playful sister complex, if not for our hero (like all male harem leads) being a faggot and dismissing every other good girl D:

Also there was a naked girls + bears scene for some reason.

It keeps going like this, until one of heroines (the childhood friend character) remembers she want to be a voice actress, she tried hard, but gets nervous and fails the audience. Our hero being the kool d00d he is, comforts her after finding her in her usual spot that only he knows about. With love and the power of friendship (!), they all convince her to keep on walking towards that dream!

And they all lived happily ever after!

GOOD END! …wait what. Right, there’s a plot to tie up. (Note: this is episode 8 of a 12 episode series, tying everything in just four eps? I’ve seen worse.) Read on for real plot spoilers!

Continue reading ‘Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka review/spoilers type post’

Keeping up with doing shorter, but more frequent updates, here’s today’s. Nothing new watched, but started a new Manga.

Medaka Box

"I'm the student council and I'll do stuff for y'all" = the basic premise.

So this hawt genki girl which is good at everything runs around doing wacky stuff while dragging her generally uninterested but indispensable friend. Sounds familiar? Aha, but there’s more to it.

Our main girl Medaka, as seen above, is just doing it for the greater good, she loves humanity and wants to use her m4d sk1llz to help everyone.  (in contrast to other usual reasons.) She (usually) is sensible too, so stuff goes just as planned, most of the times. And she can show her cute side to our main dude. (Also she has a huge cleavage, lol) (Also her lastname is awful; Kurokami using the black and god kanji, wtf)

Speaking of him, while our main dude is initially reluctant of joining the student council, he eventually admits he likes our main girl, and wants to protect her. (as he’s the only one who truly cares about her, as Medaka herself put). Plus he’s not as sarcastic and dry, making him wanting to do things by himself too.

Of course there's the childhood friend factor involved.

So while they might seem incompatible, she actually expresses she likes him, and he’s not a that much of dry character, fitting together well with each other. I liked this deviation from the usual loltsundere couple cliché that comes with those types of stories. Makes the characters much more likeable.

As this is a new-ish (Feb 2009) series, characters are still being introduced to join the student council team, so I won’t be able to introduce them all. There’s a character from our dude’s class, however, that I have to mention. A smaller girl that seeeeeems to be interested in our main hero, they’re friends and all, but acts as the informant character.

She's going to be the final boss I can tell

Her actions make it look like she’s the one planning it all, and she’s only involves herself when she thinks something will be funny or someone offers her food, she gives tips and timely commentary, sometimes even predicting what will happen in a chapter. And that’s awesome.

Besides those core three characters, there’s a girl trying to get our hero for herself, a dude trying to get our heroine for himself, and a character is taught about the true power of teamwork and friendship (or something!??!?!) as good manga needs to have at least some cliché situations.

So, even though the main premise sounds a liiiittle too generic shounen, I liked it a lot, and will keep up with it. The writing is pretty good too. (It’s by Bakemonogatari’s NisiOisiN, which quickly became my favorite d00d evar.)

Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu Manga

The much talked about spinoff series begins! Something I had forgotten to add on the last post, as I hadn’t added it to myanimelist. (I have terrible memory) The first line on the first page sums it up, it’s disappearance Nagato’s (ﾟ∀ﾟ) story, a what if Kyon had chose to stay in her alternative future. It has Asakura (ﾟ∀ﾟ) as part of the club, it’s drawn by Haruhi-chan’s Puyo (ﾟ∀ﾟ), it looks like Tsuruya + Mikuru will be the “villains” of sorts (ﾟ∀ﾟ).

No way I wouldn't keep up with this, just look at it!

Rosario+Vampire

Welp, I finished it. It had everything that caused me to drop To Love Ru, but I only realized it when it was too late. Villain of the week format, capture foes to your party, excessive pantyshots, and no real plot.

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka

Watched 3 episodes already, I keep my impressions from the last post, I can tell I’m going to love this. They’re all nakama (lol) already, and she’s learning about the common life, and they’re warming each other up (wat), and nobody is really taking the fiancee thing seriously.

Plus they're just too cute (awesome hair itt)

And the side characters are great too, the supernatural (?) talking girl, the student president with even awesomer hair, the blonde girl which feels threatened by Rie.

On the harem side of the series, right now I’m rooting for the Rie Kugimiya character, they both fell for each other on the first episode, it would be perfect if not for the zany hijinks that happened after that (lol japan).

Bonus line: Notice how the only character of the new stuff I picked that I mentioned by name was Medaka (’cause her name is on the manga’s title), that’s how bad I am with names.

Now Japan is just taking the piss, and I thought that Kanamemo episode was original (Rosario + Vampire ep 5)

endless recursion of Mayoi staring

a.k.a. The NEO ZEED Marine Stronghold version two dot oh. I’ve been meaning to refresh the look and functionality of the Stronghold for a while right now, yesterday I finally got to it, if you’ve been reading the site thru rss or haven’t noticed my twitter updates about it, now is the time to check it.

• New theme! Not completely new, I basically just modified this, added a Mayoi background and messed a little with the CSS/html to make it validate/look the way I want it to.
• Twitter widget on the sidebar promoted to top spot! Because if you come to the site, and there’s nothing new to read, most likely there’ll be something on my twitter account (follow me etc)
• What I’m watching/reading sidebar widgets! So I just found out myanimelist.net offers your updates in rss form, which allowed me to embed them there. Note that myanimelist profile (add me as a friend etc) is usually terribly outdated. (I had forgotten to add ef, even though I finished it a couple weeks ago, so that’s why it is on the top of my list. Also why there’s no mention of Domina no Do on the reading feed? Don’t hate on it MAL.)
• And at last, I added a dumb About page, just so the single Home button wouldn’t look bad with the new theme.

An acceptable upgrade from K2 + custom image header? You be the judge.

Oh, and on topic? I finished Kure-nai, was liking it but hated the ending. I’m still loving Bakemonogatari and watching Kanamemo. Also Princess Lover / Sora no Manimani subs where?

lol Kanamemo, that was the most ridiculous single episode I’ve seen (this season)