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.
I don’t really do Saimoe analysis on Desu ex Machina, since I write for two different blogs to cover the Anime Saimoe Tournament this year. Regardless, most people who pay attention to Saimoe know by now that K-ON’s lovable starlet Akiyama Mio was wrecked with the upset of the century when she lost her first match to heavily outpowered Minami Kana. People immediately pointed to a heavy case of counter voting, to culprits from /a/ to 2ch. Even Ron Paul has been blamed to this surprising result. The fact that Akiyama Mio, a favorite to win this year’s tournament, was out after one vote was simply unbelievable.
I, however, point to a completely different reason. Sports fans are very knowledgeable of something called the “Sports Illustrated curse”, which is a jinx that affects athletes who appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Right after appearing on the cover, many athletes’ performance drop significantly. Well…
So there ends the most hyped show in the preseason.
Nothing special. K-ON! really seemed to limp into the finishing gate. From how great K-ON started, it really seemed to run everything that made it enjoyable into the ground. The series literally ran out of gas and stuttered. The ending was pretty uneventful, if not anticlimactic. Regardless, this “bonus episode” was pretty decent. K-ON would have been more successful if more episodes were just paced like this instead of trying to moe overload us to death. It’s not like a peerless distinguished figure, but it’s an improvement from the end of the show. Overall, K-ON! needed some more… music and less stupid crap.
Michael Jackson died today, unfortunately. However, this tragedy has retroactively unintentionally made this video the most awesome Michael Jackson tribute ever.
Before this overview of the latest episode of K-ON!, I would like to share some research I came up across earlier in the show.
Electric Guitar: ¥378,000 ($3,765.19)
Electric Bass: ¥262,500 ($2,614.71)
Drumset: ¥237,000 ($2,360.87)
Keyboard: ¥246,750 ($2,458.00)
Grand total: ¥1,124,250 ($11,200.72)
Cool light music club.
Episode 11 thankfully returns to being funny. I think overall, the major flaw with K-ON! is that it’s trying to be something else than a fun, moe comedy show with music. Quite honestly, I expected more music from this show. So in this episode we find out that Yui has neglected to maintain her $3,700 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst and the gang goes to a music store to get it cleaned up, restrung, and whatever else they do to guitars that you can buy a used car with.
An interesting thought popped up in my head when Mio mentioned her left-handedness and how she feels uncomfortable around myriad right-handed instruments. Yeah, they’re still exploiting Mio’s several weaknesses for the sake of moe. No, jokes never get old because Kyoto Animation is exempt from all rules of anime. Anyway, Mio should totally play a right-handed guitar upside down with the strings flipped, just like Jimi Hendrix. I mean, lets be honest: Jimi Hendrix is the one person you were instantly reminded of when you first saw Mio, right? Jimi’s unique string placement is what made his music sound so unique. That and wagonloads of LSD.
Guess what? Mio shows up in this episode. Who woulda thunk it.
So yeah then drama happens and we explore the friendship between Ritsu and Mio. Except… we don’t really that much. K-ON! probably would have been better off just showing us more pantyshots of Mio, but I commend them for trying to explore thier characters. I’m looking foward to the conclusion and maybe an OVA or another season in the future or something.
Next time on kevo’s blog, I’ll do a last second preview of the upcoming season.
So the highly anticipated weekly episode of K-ON! aired, and now I finally can somewhat sympathise with the haters. I loved K-ON when the first few episodes came out. It was funny and light hearted and had great music. The moe levels were through the roof and thus the show was fun to watch. However, as episodes kept coming, it was becoming more apparent that Kyoto Animation were not actaully… writing anything for the show and just giving Mio tons of screentime to satisfy the right hand of the army of watchers (though might I suggest trying the left hand once in a while, too). K-ON! was essentially becoming the pop idol who can’t sing but becomes really popular because she constantly shows off her body on stage.
Azusa coming into the show thus seemed like a godsend, but she’s not really adding anything new to the show. She is supposed to be the factor controlling the girls and pushing them to work harder and quit fooling around. Guess what? Mio does that already. Speaking of duplicates, we get another training camp beach episode. Enough with the tl;dr, let’s take a look.
K-ON! 10 was the first episode of K-ON! to actually bore me. K-ON! was funny and moe overload at first, then it became less funny and more generically moe overload, and here in episode 10 it is neither.
The first training camp episode was much better. Suwa-chan shows up at the end but doesn’t do anything. Mio isn’t moe, Ritsu isn’t moe, Azusa isn’t moe, no one is moe in this episode.
We get a slice of character development, as Azusa and Yui develop some mUtUaL rEsPeCt, but that’s not very much for 22 episodes. K-ON! is winding down towards the end and seems to be hobbling into the homestrech this season. It would be awfully upsetting to me if the most anticipated show before this season began ends up ultimately… sucking. Come on, Kyoto Animation, you can do better.
Now that I finally have a blog to write down what I have to say about anime, I was very excited to get my hands dirty and give this thing a whirl. It was only then that I realized how not caught up I am with this season’s anime, which is a shame, because this season rules. I guess that now that I actaully am compelled to talk about anime, I have to watch anime. kevo’ has been a very bad boy and has missed some pretty important shows this spring, and I’m behind on some others. I can’t just have an anime blog and just goof off all day instead? Shit, in that case, I’d rather just have one of those cool cell phones.
Of course, I’m talking about Eden of the East, which I picked up midseason and have absolutely devoured since. Eden is a unique, eyecatching action anime with an intresting premise and really neat deeper meanings and symbolism. The anime centers around a girl named Morimi Saki, who has an unexpected meeting with a mysterious boy named Takizawa Akira.
The opening theme has a great song accompanied by creatively abstract, eyecatching animation.
Akira quickly learns that he had his own memory erased, remembering nothing about his former life. The only thing he possesses on him was a strange cell phone, which he discovers is credited with an insane amount of money and Juiz, who seems to be the world’s best conceriege service. The anime is well paced and more details and characters are in abundance, keeping the story fresh and intresting. More importantly, the characters act natural and the relationship between Akira and Saki seems incredibly real, an impressive accomplishment considering that Akira has a phone that can basically grant him any wish in the world. I got to about the middle of the OP of the first episode before I was absolutely hooked. If you haven’t already, this anime is a definite watch for this season.
The show that has drones of people on the internet absolutely livid about over the past week is the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Mikuru is moe. Ok, I’ve talked enough about that show. Moving on…
I have been a very good boy when it comes to Saki and K-ON!, both of which I have had my eye on since March. If you haven’t heard of the latter, I suggest you raise your arms above your head and push. Note that what you are pushing against will give way. That is the rock that you have been living under for the past two months. K-ON has basically been just tons of fun. It’s funny and the girls are all very cute. In my opinion, recent episodes have started to show some rust, but K-ON, regardless of how it will conclude in a few weeks, is undoubtedly another addition to Kyoto Animation’s solid portfolio.
Saki was a wonderful surprise to me, since I really did expect it to be bad. Gonzo has a penchant for ruining anime that sound like they could be good. CG shonen-style mahjong with schoolgirls? That sounds like a worse idea than another season of Strike Witches. Of course, I’m just kidding. I haven’t seen Strike Witches, though I plan to this summer. Kugumiya Rie, of Shana/Taiga/Louise tsundere loli bitch fame is casted as something other than a tsundere loli bitch, and it works. She’s joined by a great group of voice actors including Jun Fukuyama, Ueda Kana, and Koshimizu Ami, among others. Character design in Saki is wonderful. Even if you don’t like or understand mahjong, Saki is a great watch, providing some laughs and a carnival in the pants.
That being said, I have neglected some other shows, such as Asura Cryin’ and Tayutama -Kiss my Deity-. Both of which I watch the first few episodes and ended up very unimpressed. I have been promised by various people that the two shows do get better, so my trust in society and humankind now hinges on anime. I’ve also made the decision, since it apparently does not matter, to watch the second season of Hayate no Gotoku without finishing the first. People constantly talk about how the new season is better, so I thought I would check it out myself. I like the Hayate no Gotoku franchise from what I have seen so far — it’s much in the style of Nabeshin’s earlier work, Excel Saga, but much cleaner. I’m sure I’ll end up finishing season 1 before season 2 finishes airing anyway.
Only when I keep a blog do I realize how far behind I am on this season. I’ll get caught up in due time, as it is summer vacation. With this much anime to catch up to, I might have to use both my monitors and watch two episodes at a time. Sounds like a joke, but go ahead and try it sometime. It’s awesome.
Oh, and in conclusion, I have decided just now to watch Basquach!. Why? Because it has mecha and basketball, that’s why.
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Episode 11 thankfully returns to being funny. I think overall, the major flaw with K-ON! is that it’s trying to be something else than a fun, moe comedy show with music. Quite honestly, I expected more music from this show. So in this episode we find out that Yui has neglected to maintain her $3,700 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst and the gang goes to a music store to get it cleaned up, restrung, and whatever else they do to guitars that you can buy a used car with.
Jimi’s unique string placement is what made his music sound so unique. That and wagonloads of LSD.
