Day 12: Lerxst’s Anime Secret Santa — Ichigo Mashimaro

First off, Merry Christmas  to all of you. And if you’re Jewish, I hope you had a Happy Hanukkah. I’m killing two birds with one post on this one, doing a 12 Days post and my Secret Santa all in one. I’m not breaking any rules here. In fact, this show was one of my favorite things I watched this year, so it’s totally acceptable to do. Yes, I participated in Secret Santa this year. It’s the first time I’ve ever done this so I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting myself into. But it didn’t turn out too bad. I ended up getting to watch this show. It was either this or Ikkitousen or Himitsu: Top Secret. The shoujo/psychological tags for Himitsu piqued my interest at first, but I think it was the first line of the MAL description that tipped the scale for me. It is, and I’m quoting here, “Cute girls doing cute things in cute ways”. Plus it’s one of kevo’s favorite anime shows ever. It just felt right to pick Ichigo Mashimaro over the other two.

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Here we are, folks. It’s Christmas Eve and that means this is my last post for Desu ex Machina’s 12 Days of Anime, so let’s get this show on the road.

Day 11: Tripping and falling into the Type-Moon Fandom

Fate/Zero

It all started in April of this year with Fate/Zero. I had known of Fate/stay night before, but only by its title and that Saber, Rin, and Archer existed as characters. After kevo recommended I watch F/Z, I was a little skeptical, especially since he would refer to the F/SN anime as “Fate/Stay Away”, but I figured I’d give Gen the benefit of the doubt, considering how much I liked Madoka. At the time, 16 episodes were out; not having to deal with the months of hiatus between the two seasons, I was able to marathon all 16 episodes over the course of two days. A battle royale of historical and mythological figures? Yes, please.

I was intrigued by the strategic aspect of the Holy Grail War as the Masters figured out who to ally with, who to avoid, who each Heroic Spirit was, etc. It was awesome, and at the center of my new obsession was Saber. I immediately liked her within the first three episodes because of the intense strength in the glares she gives her opponents. It sends shivers up my spine, and seeing an attractive female character be that bad-ass is a rare treat. Not only did she look slick as fuck in her black suit, but she could also slice Cthulhu in half with one strike. I had no choice. My heart had been won and there was nothing I could do about it.

So there I was, I had caught up the Fate/Zero and needed more Saber in my life. What was I to do? I didn’t want to watch the Fate/stay night anime, so instead, I took a deep breath and entered the frightening world of visual novels. (more…)

Day 10: Looking Forward to 2013

This time of the year is always one of my favorites. Not just because of Christmas, or the cold weather, or all the other things that the holiday season entails. One of the things I love most are the announcements of shows coming next year. There have been some really great reveals of what is going to air next year in Japan. There is nothing more exciting than hearing an announcement for a sequel to your favorite show, or your favorite manga/light novel getting an anime adaptation. These are the ones that I’m most excited for:

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Day 9: Episode 11 of PSYCHO-PASS

Being someone with a background in the harder sciences, I find it fun to knock psychology and sociology. True science involves math that takes weeks or months to understand. That being said, psychology has always been extremely interesting to me. The human psyche is incredibly complex in how it develops and manifests different behaviors given past experiences. Often, heuristics and biological drives that made sense back before the rise of civilization, have a cascading effect that results in some very odd thought processes and behaviors.

Psycho-Pass is full of discussion of the human psyche, portraying different aspects and quirks of our psychology is ways that are abstract, but not totally esoteric.One of the most intense and riveting scenes so far involves Akane finally coming face to face with the big bad of the series and getting brutally mind-fucked. Essentially, the purpose of the scene is to establish just how big of a douche Makishima is and to spur character development for Akane by making her feel powerless to save a friend.

– Warning: spoilers below –

The scene is so much more, though, thanks to Makishima’s monologue and his seemingly aberrant psycho-pass. He discusses how he considers people useless if they are to afraid to act according to their will instead of following societal norms like sheep. Then he gives Akane a test. He throws her a fire arm and tells her to make the choice of judging him through the Dominator (society’s will) or the firearm (Akane’s own will). The problem is that Makishima’s crime coefficient isn’t high enough to make the Dominator shoot. In fact, the closer he gets to killing Akane’s friend, the lower it drops, ultimately reaching zero. Of course, Akane was doomed to fail; the whole first 10 episodes establish her as a wide-eyed idealist, goody two-shoes that does what Sybil tells her to do. She refuses to abandon her Dominator and wastes the two shot of the hunting rifle, since there’s no way she can aim it properly with only one arm. Hell, I was surprised she could even lift it up.

Suddenly, upper body strength

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Day 8: Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Good ol’ Sunrise. Aeroblip can tell you how much shit I’ve said about Sunrise in the past. Outside of Cowboy Bebop, I can’t say there really has been a Sunrise show I have really liked. Although I never wrote off Sunrise because of that. I would always find one Sunrise show from each season and watch it, just to see if my opinions on the studio ever changed. And for a while, they didn’t. Just one mediocre show after another. Until Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou aired this year. This show had me rolling the entire twelve episodes. From the literary girl to looking up girls skirts to High School Girls are Funky, this show may be the best comedy we’ve seen in years. Daily Lives of High School Boys has renewed my faith in Sunrise. This may actually persuade me to watch Gintama. That is, if I can bring myself to watch a 200+ episode series. So that’s it. I just wanted to let you all know that Daily Lives of High School Boys is one of the best shows of the year. The reason this post is so short is thanks to the Steam Winter sale. Fuck you Gabe Newell and your amazing deals.  I’m actually writing this post off McDonald’s wifi because I have sold all my belongings to fund all the games I’ve been buying these past two days. I’ll do my best to think of something better in my next 12 Days post.

Day 7: Ooarai vs Pravda

Even 10 episodes later, I’m still surprised how much I love Girls und Panzer. Every time I recommend it to people and tell them that “it’s about high school girls driving tanks and playing war games as an intramural sport” they give me weird looks. I was also skeptical before I picked the show up, dismissing it as shallow fan service for military nerds, like Strike Witches and Upotte. And holy motherfuck, was I wrong. The show only gets better as it goes on, aside from the understandably slower episodes that take place between matches.

Which brings me to the match between the Ooarai Girls’ High School and Pravda High School. This was, by far, the best match in the show that we’ve seen. The episodes that span this match are absolutely full of amazing moments that remind me why I feel deeply in love with this beautiful anime. Much of the aniblogger sphere has already gushed about the use of Katyusha as an insert song, so I won’t say too much. I watched this episode together with kevo, Aeroblip, and another friend of ours and none of us could handle this insert song. The combination of the duet between Katyusha and Nonna and Commie’s glorious subtitles left us utterly defeated by Garupan‘s brilliance.

God bless Mother Russia

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Day 6: A Week of Anime Movies

Earlier this year during my Spring Break from college, I made some big plans for myself. No, I did not go to Mexico, or Florida, or wherever it is that party-hungry college kids like to spend their Spring Breaks. Instead I sat inside and watch anime movies the entire week, during what I called my Anime Movie Extravaganza. After watching the plethora of movies I had picked out, I was going to make a top 10 of the movies I watched that week. Sadly, I never got around to doing so. UNTIL NOW!!! So here is a run down of what I watched during probably one of the most fun weeks of anime this year.  SPOILER ALERT: A most of these movies were Ghibli movies because I hadn’t watched very many of them at the time. And I may spoil some of these movies along the way as well.

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Day 5: Bathroomonogatari

I almost didn’t believe it when I remembered that Nisemonogatari aired this year. It seems like so long ago that I got to see the Monogatari characters every week; something I sorely miss. Nisemonogatari generated a fair amount of controversy and polarized the audience with its wonky pacing, rampant fan service, and infamous tooth brushing scene. While Nisemonogatari didn’t quite live up to its monster of a predecessor, the art direction was still pornographically good and the writing is still top-notch. So what was so special about episode 4? For those of you that don’t remember, that was the episode where Shinobu and Koyomi have a conversation in the bathroom of the Araragi household.

This. Fucking. Bathroom.

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Day 4: Aquarion Evol and Fudo Zen

He needs you to dodge

So rip off your clothes

His logic’s hodgepodge

These donuts have holes

Fudo Zen is coming to town

He’s forbidding love

So no romantics

Just look at these ants and their antsy antics

Fudo Zen is coming to town

He gives you these bananas

For top secret missions

He hangs out with a loli girl

So is he a lolicon?

He needs you to dodge

So rip off your clothes

His logic’s hodgepodge

These donuts have holes

Fudo Zen is coming to town

Fudo Zen is coming to town

Any time Fudo Zen spoke, it was pure genius.

Day 3: Usny’s Top 5 Ending themes of 2012

Let me tell you all a story. A few weeks ago, it was discovered that a friend of mine had a paltry two gigabytes of music. I was taught that maintaining a healthy metabolism with such a small library of music is impossible past three years of age. Thus, and emergency music transfusion was arranged and several of us donated our libraries for the sake of our friend’s well being. Knowing that he would not care for some of my music, I pruned down the copy of my library I was giving him. That’s when I realized that I have a metric ass-ton of anime music.

I don’t consider this a bad thing, at least not until other people get into the elevator and I feel a compulsion to turn Super Affection down to near inaudible volumes. On the contrary, I love it when a series has a good opening and/or ending, as they make each episode all the more enjoyable. In these cases, I can’t wait for the singles to be released, even if the show’s OP or ED are the only enjoyable things about the show *cough*Moyashimon Returns*cough*. 2012 has definitely been a great year in terms of anime music and I’ve compiled my top five favorite ending themes after hours and hours of listening.

#5: DAYS of DASH - Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

Aside from being one of the most underrated shows of the fall season, Sakurasou also has a great ending theme. I love DAYS of DASH, even despite its embarrassingly Engrish name. The rock elements and vocals give is this inspirational feel that always puts a spring in my step when I listen to it. It fits the series as a whole too because it reflects Sorata’s perseverance as he continues to push to become a game designer and not be crushed under the talent of his fellow housemates. That maid/waitress outfit that Nanami appears in also works wonders.

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