Desu ex Machina

The first streaming episode of Bakemonogatari, perhaps the strongest title of a marquee of solid shows the past two seasons, was released recently. It is really great to see that after the TV airing concluded, Bakemonogatari doesn’t miss a single beat and continues its sublime, distinctive storytelling style at and at the high quality of art and animation that we have come to expect for 12 episodes previous. Arararagi (sorry, I stuttered) is also one of the coolest male leads in anime. His subtle character change and outward attitude both keep him honest and make watching the show fun. If Araragi were different, Bakemonogatari’s dialogue driven structure could easily have collapsed. Oh and he also molests Mayoi-chan at the start of the episode, which is also plus points.

Now remember, this episode was a STREAM. so excuse the 360p or whatever. DVD will be out in like 2010

After a near perfect episode 12, we pick up where we left off with Tsubasa Cat part 3. Horie Yui is one of my favorite voice actors and Bakemonogatari is hocchan at her best. The way she renders Tsubasa is both distinctive and compelling; combined with the masterfully written dialogue, it is hard for this episode to be anything but amazing. After a load of dialogue, they go see Oshino and that’s basically the episode. It’s hard to summarize episodes of this show because the show is about the dialogue, not the plot. It’s not about what happened, it’s about the process by which it was presented to have happened. It’s about the the characters say, the way they say it, the reactions. This is why a good seiyuu corps is needed. If you want to find out what happened, go watch the episode yourself.

I particularly enjoyed the scene where Araragi encounters Hitagi in the bike-lot. Araragi’s relationship with Hitagi is unconventional in an anime sense because there is almost no romantic tension. Hitagi is smart and very rarely misunderstands her boyfriend, which is a fresh breath of air compared to many other anime with romance. Also present is some fourth wall breakage, which never goes over too badly if used in moderation.

Oh Saito Chiwa, Aika-chan would have taken offense to all those hazukashii serifu in episode 12

The end of the episode, however, left me most excited. Well, besides this…

if you got gg’s release of the stream, they left in the commercials for the singles of the OPs. They are taking painfully long to come out, especially since they are so fucking good, but after the end credits we get a sneak peek of Horie Yui’s OP for Tsubasa Cat! The little clip I’ve heard sounds fucking amazing and I can’t wait until we get to see the OP, and ultimately (in like January) get the single. It’s called sugar sweet nightmare and sounds great. Definitely check out the commercial after the credits of gg’s release if you haven’t already.

Slice of Life Sign - Border Between Funny and Trying Too Hard

Our fourth episode of Seitokai no Ichizon was finally released earlier today. I had a midterm in a few hours, so what better way to get in the mood than some anime? Sankaku Complex’s article spoiled it for me that there would be epic Strike Witches parody, so you can imagine how upset I was when Eclipse released a day after they usually do.

In my first post about this show, I said that I was impressed that there was decent pacing and room for this show to grow. As of episode 4, the latter has not really been taken advantage of. It seems that this show is just going to constantly just parody anime. If people are going to start complaining on episode 4, might want to sound some kind of alarm in the animation studio. Lucky Star worked because characters were constantly doing stuff like going to restaurants and the manga shop and stuff. Also the inane smalltalk in the show actually bore some surprising depth occasionally. Seitokai no Ichizon, while entertaining regardless, seems to pander to us, like some kind of ADD child who wants its mommy to pay attention to what they are doing. Parody this, parody that, talk fast this, talk fast there, hey look Kurimu is moe. While entertaining, I am starting to feel the occasional pangs of *groan* as I watch this show. The first half of each episode is always fun and enjoyable, but then I crave some kind of change in pace. I know I am not alone in this sentiment. I want this show to be good. You can’t have cake without sugar, but adding too much sugar makes it nasty. You can’t have fun slice of life without parody and jokes, and it works the same way. There needs to be some kind of reasoning behind the madness. The characters are overcooked and the dialogue is underdone. I’ve been making cooking metaphors for a while but note I still find the show rather enjoyable. I just think so much more can be done with Seitokai no Ichizon and DEEN is letting a potentially game-breaking show go to waste.

Oh by the way, I’ve started using my Twitter account again and I’m going to dedicate it to this blog instead of real life (I’ll have another account for that). So yeah links to it are abound if you feel like stalking your favorite anime blogger, me.

Image source: Fukanaga Kazuhiro (pixiv)

I had a discussion with a friend today about anime in Blu-ray. He argued that anime in Blu-ray is totally not worth it. I mean, it’s just color and lines right? There is only so much absolute detail in anime. No matter what, an animated image will never have the absolute detail of Matt Damon blowing things up. While this may be true, anime in Blu-ray provides quality in another field. TV stations compress and recode anime in various ways to put on air. As raws come out, fansubbing groups, what you guys usually watch, take the raws and encode them again. If the group is competent the loss is usually not noticeable, however Blu-ray discs offer anime in a quality and resolution that simply cannot be matched. (All images in this post can be clicked on for awesome 1920×1080 full size)

I recently checked out episode 7 from the new K-ON! Blu-ray release. Besides the quality and stuff, there is seiyuu commentary on the alternate audio track. I liked episode 7 (it’s the one where they have Christmas as Yui’s house) and to see it in eye candy 1080p was a great treat. From what I infer the seiyuu basically just say things like “awww…. Chibi Yui-chan is sew kawaiii” but I’m sure enthusiasts will find it really interesting. The rest is basically them having a conversation about random stuff.

Besides 1080p Blu-ray goodness, there is lossless sound, making the ED both eargasm and eyegasm. My laptop cost $1,000 and I bought it this autumn, but when I doubleclick to open this video the fan immediately goes off on max speed. Some parts of the ending theme, like when it zooms out from Mio and does that alpha motion blur effect, my video decoder just goes “nope, not today, kevo” and drops all those frames. Occasionally the video desyncs with the audio and subs because it’s just too much to handle. Technology evolving will make Blu-ray more accessible to everyone eventually. My old laptop (which would have been 2 years old) would not have been able to play this video correctly. For now it’s a luxury for most people to decode Blu-ray.

I pay attention to the soft glow and little tiny details about color and line quality. For people who are not enthusiasts like me, well maybe this is not worth your time. For me, however, this was a super fun watch. It’s just around 2,421,772,331.22 MB but I recommend checking out some Blu-ray releases if you have not already. It’s a fun, novel way to watch your anime.

Enjoy screencaps.

You guys know it’s true. The Pretty Girl Squad showing up was the only reason I kept watching this show. Episode 5 was awesome because of the cool fight scenes and the pretty girl squad being badass. It was followed up with episode six was one of the best fanservice episodes ever. Madhouse knows what its fans want.

All good things must come to the end so there is no Pretty Girl Squad in the new episode of Needless. Instead, we have an animated lecture on the Laws of Thermodynamics. We could all use a little physics in our action anime.

They didn’t do a good job concealing the plot twist that Cruz’s sister is alive and one of the four strongest. I totally already saw this from like 6 episodes back, but then again maybe they didn’t really want to. This episode was essentially intro, OP, physics lesson, Cruz crying, another physics lesson, ED. By the way, I want the old OP and ED back. modern strange cowboy and the OP animation is one of the most gar things in existence. I don’t even need to say why the old ED was good.

It took all of 30 seconds for me to start enjoying Seitokai no Ichizon. Studio DEEN, known for their previous works like the Higurashi franchise and Umineko, steps into new frontiers with a slice of life comedy parody anime. And it’s awesome.

Seitokai no Ichizon starts off with a broken fourth wall and immediately hurls torrents of anime references at its viewers. The first few minutes of the show have references, visual and explicit, one after another strung together with fast dialogue. While this kind of pacing is fine for a while, many a comedy die because they rely on it. Not Seitokai no Ichizon, as again and again, as they move on to another scene or discussion seemingly as soon as a joke starts to get old. In fact, the timing of the first episode was near perfect. They managed to get the maximum volume of pointless parody squeezed in without the gig going stale.

DEEN’s typical desaturated watercolor-esque color palate is quite visible, and the character designs clash slightly with the colors. I would imagine this anime would be a tad more pleasing to look at if they used some OxiClean to make the whites whiter and the brights brighter. Still, Sakurano Kurimu (cv. Honda Mariko) is cute and mine. Stay away.

The male and female leads are excellent. The rest of the cast needs a bit of developing, but that’s what the rest of the show is for. seitokai no Ichizon masterfully crafts Sugisaki Ken (cv. Kondo Takashi), an antithesis of generic male leads. Boisterous, assertive, and perverted, at the end of the episode we get to see another side of him. At the end of the first episode, Studio DEEN declares that it intends to cast caution into the wind and have touchy feeling romance into the series. The chemistry between Ken and Kurimu will hopefully be the crux of the show and keep its various structures together. I expect the emotional, romantic side of this show to augment the quality of the plot and humor, not become Jekyll and Hyde to it. Regardless, I have very high hopes for Seitokai no Ichizon. After a great pilot episode, the series has enormous potential. The structure of the the episodes have yet to be determined but with good pacing, disciplined writing, and smart production decisions, Seitokai no Ichizon will turn out very well. Plus, any show that makes fun off Kyoto Animation that much is bound to be good right?

When I first saw the announcement for Kampfer and what it was going to be like, I knew there was a precise 1.64% chance of it actually being good. Why is this show one of my most anticipated series? Well, besides the fact that fall season looks so much like total garbage that this is relatively decent, because of it’s loaded cast and its main character is a guy that transforms into a girl. Go ahead and judge me, but you know you want to watch this too.

Kampfer starts off with Senou Natsuru (cv. Inoue Marina) being chased around and shot by Mishima Akane (cv. Horie Yui). But in order to activiate magical powers, Senou has to turn into a girl! Wowzors!

But there’s more! It turns out that Akane also is a transformed magical Kampfer, too! Untransformed, she’s a cute timid moeblob who goes to Senou’s school. I never saw that coming. This is actually a clever trick so that Inoue Marina gets to use her boy and girl voice and Hocchan can use her agressive and timid voice, essentially casting each voice actor twice. This is super effective against seiyuu faggots like me, as we will flock to this anime just to hear the dialogue. Not that there is much else to it anyway.

Speaking of voice actors, I think the producers’ main strategy is to attract people who pay too much attention to seiyuu just like I do. Just like how Strike Witches gets people to watch because it’s little girls without pants, Kampfer gets people to watch for not only having a loaded cast, but making damn sure you know it.

Hey viewers, Yukarin is in this anime! Please watch it...

Wow! No way! Tamura Yukari (whose primary occupation is to be a voice actor) is a voice actor in this anime?

Yes! Here is a picture of her as proof!

Oh well, in that case, I have no choice but to watch this, buy all the CDs, and 17 copies of the DVD set! Thanks for letting me know, Nomad!

No problem, kevo! Don't forget to check out the various Kampfer OVAs we will make in the future!

Oh, and for people who don’t know, Yukarin’s role as “Seppuku Kuro Usagi” itself is a reference to her radio show Tamura Yukari no Kuro Usagi no Kobeya (田村ゆかりの黒うさぎの小部屋)

Also included are Nakajima Megumi (Ranka Lee for you Macross people), Noto Mamiko, and of course Mizuki Nana, the latter two have not yet made an appearance. A randomly nonsensical plot? Mellow fanservice? A ridiculous premise that involves magical fighting? Take away the cast, the sex changing lead character, and the fact that the animation is decent and we have Akikan!. Think about it. Really think about it.

However, Kampfer does manage to get deep and ask some pretty important questions.

I really don’t know. Any female readers want to offer some thoughts? I’ve never thought about this before; as I never had to pee while wearing a skirt. And being a girl.

And magic.

Hello, everyone. Before I begin I would like to address something that regular readers would probably have noticed by now. I have widened the blog! Yep, now I have 160 extra pixels to write. It feels good to be so liberated and know I have so much room to express myself before word wrap crushes my dreams. Man, I have so much room I just feel like stretching out a bit.

So after much anticipation, the tenth episode of Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was released today. This show continues to impress me greatly with solid episodes one after another. Long ago, people should have noticed that SHAFT has basically been following the manga to the letter this season. Each episode’s structure has basically been three parts each, the first two parts being exact adaptions from two chapters of manga and the third part being a continued story from the previous episode. This formula works, especially for people like me who has not read much of the manga, because the manga is plain awesome. I’m sure you can complain about how SHAFT is cutting corners and how Shinbou is not expressing his talents or putting them to use, but the end result for me is a great adaptation of a great manga. Nothing to complain about.

The first part of the episode explores the paradox of the chicken or the egg. Itoshiki and the gang go around posing their own paradoxes, which some which are quite insightful, other bizarre, and many both.

Kafuka-chan then shows up and the scale tip far in favor of bizarre. But she does pose the interesting question: what came first, hope or despair? I enjoyed the title card disclaiming the possibility of Hello, Hope Sensei (including kanji wordplay メ布望 -> 希望 and everything) quite a lot.

The second segment had me laughing so hard it was hard to breathe at times. Here, the characters blame daily inconveniences such as slow people in line and people in movie theaters who have large heads on spies deployed by the People’s Republic of China in order to destroy Japanese society.

After a slew of “examples”, Itoshiki-sensei notices Kaga struggling to write with a pen, causing her much trouble and obviously leading to the downfall of Japan. Taking the pen, he dramatically reveals the tiny label on it reading “Made in China”. I KNEW IT!

The third segment is the continuation of the closest I’ve ever seen of my dream of a golf anime. The segment casually resumes the cliffhanger of the last episode, where Rin asks Kiri how far she would go to buy Jump. As she leaves, the school collapses. A gag from one of the first chapters of the manga! I’m impressed.

After a new ED, the show goes into fourth wall mode (as if it hasn’t been for the past 20 minutes) and shows some fan mail of complains and complements some fans have written, I presume they are real. The hosts Jun and Chiri then casually disregards them with the straightest look on their faces you can imagine. Brilliant.

ASR finally released subs of the final episode of the Higurashi OVA earlier today. I grabbed it before they released a properly encoded release so my copy was 700+ MB big. If it’s not there already, an episode of a sane filesize will be out within 24 hours.

The English speaking Higurashi fanbase have been robbed, I tell you. robbed from watching this episode for almost a solid month. In simple words, this episode, probably the last episode of the Higurashi franchise, was absolutely incredible. With the Higurashi OVA, I was not a huge fan of the “serious” part. I just found the arc uninspiring and filled with talking. It was much removed from the dramatic action and suspense of the second season and even further from the psychological mystique of the first season. Now that the arc was done, we are awarded with a filler “fun” episode and fun it was. (Spoilers follow)

Basically the episode starts off in the Furude shrine when Hanyuu and Rika find out that a magical item has escaped. This magical item is a pair of stones that make the holders consumed by love. I am suddenly reminded of Lost Technology in Galaxy Angel, but I digress. The item falls from the sky into Rena’s mouth while she was hanging out with Keiichi in the junkyard. Rika and Hanyuu look for the other stone and can’t seem to find it. The next day, the find out that Rena has digested the stone. All right!

Predictably, some random person has the stone and it turns out to be Jirou-san. The gang teams up to fix Rena up and catch her hitting on Jirou, much to Miyo’s chagrin.

The gang then blows them up with fireworks (err, I think it would be more easy to understand if you’ve seen it), which leads to this awesome shot of Satoko.

Afterward, it seems that Miyo has picked up the other stone and now Rena goes chase after her. This sequence of the incredibly wrong Rena x Miyo pairing is hilarious and quite possibly the high point of the whole episode. I don’t think I’ve ever come as close to laughing tears at anime.

"Miyo: I don't swing that way... Rena: USO DA!" lmfao

Satoko asks Miyo to return the stone, but Mion unknowingly blurbs out that it’s a treasure of the shrine, causing Miyo to not want to return it. As the group tries to approach Miyo, Rena stops them and goes fucking Bruce Lee on the gang.

It seems that Miyo dropped the stone and it was picked up by Ooishi. So the group comes to Ooishi’s mahjong parlor only to find Rena… hitting on Ooishi. Did it ever come to Miyo, Jirou, or Ooishi that Rena is like 13 years old? Wait, this is anime. Of course not.

So finally, the group challenges Ooishi and Rena to mahjong. Keiichi and Akasaka are the opposing team. It seems the Saki fever has caught on and DEEN realized that throwing mahjong into any random episode makes it awesome. This is true to some extent. Though there were no lightning effects or epic fire, the game resulted in the most epic draw ever, giving Keiichi and Akasaka the point lead and winning the stone back, only for the stone to fly into Keiichi’s mouth and be swallowed. *sigh*

So Rika takes them both to the shrine to end the curse. Rena and Keiichi exchange really sappy words and all is solved. The curse is over and everyone can go back to their happy, cleaver cutting lives.
Oh wait, Jirou and Miyo seem to remember yesterday’s exchange with Rena, much to Rena’s trouble.

And this shot of Satoko’s reaction is priceless.

kevo’s ultra high quality episode synopsis

SPOILERS
So Canaan and the gang go into the factory. Canaan’s synesthesia seems to have come back thank goodness. Canaan being completely useless was starting to get on my nerves. After stumbling across a room full of people infected with the Ua virus who are essentially zombies, Hakko basically freaks out and runs away. Santana goes off to look for her but Hakko runs into an empty room and confronts Liang Qi in a teleconference. Liang Qi taunts her, and eventually Hakko is pissed off and wants to wreck Liang Qi’s zettai ryouikied shit. She tracks down the room she saw Liang Qi in the video conference and unleashes her secret weapon: talking. She discovers too late, however, that the person sitting in the chair was Santana, who is now about to die.

Ippen, shinde miru?

Afterward, we get a hilariously cheesy love scene in which Santana wishes for Hakko to basically “I love you” to death. Hakko then goes kinda insane and drags Santana’s corpse around the facility and shoots shit up while whispering “I love you” but Liang Qi activates this magic anti-sound thingy, but because of her synesthesia Canaan is still vulnerable to Hakko’s voice. Oh and Maria and YunYun do useless shit and get fucked over.

It’s good to see the plot moving right along. The slowdown after the last few episodes got kind of annoying. Liang Qi remains as the most interesting character in the show for me. Her character is consumed by passion and rage but she’s still able to pull off tricks and traps on her enemies. I found the scene of Minoru and Hakko’s interaction from Canaan’s synesthesia particularly riveting, because of how the writers use the synesthesia as a visual device to explore emotion. Again, I look forward to the next episode, hoping to see more Liang Qi, and maybe now we will find out more about Alphard.

Here’s some pics from the next episode preview

Sorry for the lack of updates the past week. As I have said, I moved back into college this week and I had to wait a bit for internet. A day after the internet came, when everything has just been set up, and just when this year of college was starting off perfectly smooth, my laptop rolled over and just died. 12 days after the warranty expired. It has been one year. So a trip to the computer store and $1000 later, I’m back here again. I got a nice new HP HDX but to be honest I’d rather have my old Acer and 1000 bucks back (no, I will not buy a cheap computer. I am the President of the Video Game Club and I am a techie. A graphics card is synonymous to food for me). Budget is going to be really tight this semester. Oh right, my two Saimoe blogs… yeah CCY’s gonna be kind of upset.

In the meantime, I rewatched both seasons of Rozen Maiden in the last week. And because I didn’t have a computer Thursday night, the re-watch of Rozen Maiden Traumend became the first 13 episode anime I have ever watched in one sitting (t’was a quite fortunate way find out that my roommate’s PS3 can read data discs and play avis). As my first anime (childhood anime on Cartoon Network don’t count), Rozen Maiden has a special place in my heart. I remember how much fun I had with the series and how excited I became. A few years later, that feeling is still there. Sure, I’ve watched tons of really great stuff and 100 more anime since then, but this show is still just so amazingly solid. I also returned with deep appreciation for how talented Rie Tanaka is. My love for Suigintou is like a truck.

That look on Gin's face is absolutely priceless.

To cheer me up, however, gg gave me Christmas in August and did a triple release yesterday. Episode 7 of CANAAN was really cool, and the last two episodes were kind of a slowdown. That’s ok, not every anime can be Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann. There’s lots of talking and only little bits of Maria being annoying but nothing too intense. The story in confusing and the way it’s explained feels rather forced and gets in the way of the flow of the show. Regardless, they are at least trying and the character development is decently solid. Liang Qi especially stands out for her lunatic antics, zettai ryouiki, and bb gun action. More Rie Tanaka faggotry on my blog right here. I gotta take care of my favorite voice actor of all time you know. She is at her best when her character is batshit insane.

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei continues to be freaking awesome. They animated one of my favorite chapters of the manga this week, about the Winter Shogun. Hopefully, they will animate my favorite chapter sometime. To continue the voice actor fagging, Horie Yui is in this week’s episode as chain sale schemer Maruuchi Shouko. I find it quite interesting that they are adding new people into the anime, and it hasn’t become overwhelming. I hope the infinite sales girls show up more in the future. The characters are extremely easy to figure out with minimal amounts of explanation needed. Characters are really what makes Zetsubou-Sensei gel and click together as a strong, enjoyable comedy anime.

If this was intentional, the seiyuu joke is clever.

Finally, Bakemonogatari 8. Bakemonogatari is so much storytelling and that storytelling is very masterful. We go into Suruga’s storyline and find out a little about her past. We learn of her nearly obsessive love for Hitagi and how multiple layers of her consciousness respond. This anime is captivating because it works on so many levels and there is meaning and thought in so many aspects of the plot.

I wasn’t really feeling it too much this episode, despite my praise for it. I guess after the first episode of this anime, I was expecting some action. Don’t get me wrong, however. Bakemonogatari as is is absolutely sublime. The drama is good and the show in itself is very thought provoking. I liked this episode’s OP, as Miyuki Sawashiro is a very talented singer and voice actor. I liked the final interaction in the opening animation where Hitagi cuts Suruga in half with scissors. The foreshadow was great symbolism and played into the episode well.

Oh right, Hayate no Gotoku also was released recently. This season has been hella good and HnG has not broken the trend. After three insanely hilarious episodes in a row, this show seems to want to reel back a little bit before it starts killing its fans. Still, this episode was pretty fun and full of lulz. Nagi gets a part time job and Ayumu is moe. There’s also a Haruhi dig, so there’s no reason not to watch it.