Archive for October, 2006

Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru (traps part 2)

Published by
kimagure
at October 21, 2006 in Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru. Closed

Lifelike texture!

Welcome to the second post on traps in this fall’s anime selections. Otome wa Boku ni Koi Shiteru is a lovely story about a young man with a nutty grandfather. See, grandpa just died and in his will, along with the family estate, he willed that his grandson would have to go to a specific high school to finish up his schooling. Oh, by the way, your grandma went there, and it’s an all girls school. Whoops, you’re not a girl. I’m putting my money that ojii-san was either a sick sick man, or senile. Unfortunately for us, they haven’t said either way.

What ensues is something I really like. Traps aside, Mizuho makes a very convincing girl. Now, it’s anime, so it’s easy to make anyone look like a girl. Usually it’s just the standard character design with longer hair. What’s not convincing is her mannerisms and boyish obsessions with things like boobs, and other boyish charms like peeing standing up. It’s the little things, like staring at his teacher’s boobs, checking out the chicks in gym class, that make this interesting.

Things I noticed:

Mizuho is voiced by Horie Yui. This is cool, but kinda hard to swallow. I doubt our man would have a voice as feminine as that. It’s a little like all of the men in Simoun being voiced by female seiyuu.
Animation so far is decent.
It’s quite pretty.
Character designs are nice
The chibi modes of the characters are awesome. I love that design and get all giddy everytime they use it. I haven’t been this excited by chibi mode characters since ARIA.

I’m enjoying this after two episodes. Being my first foray into the all girls school world of elders and the kohai that dote on the senpai, I’m not sure what to expect. I’ll just have to wait and see.

So seeing that this is part two of traps. What do I really have to say on this subject. It’s odd. Jun in Happiness is likely gay, Mizuho is not. While Jun will be good comic relief from people that don’t know what he/she is, Mizuho is in an all girls school wrestling with the fact that he has to sit down to pee. I don’t really know what else to say on this, but I think I’m going to enjoy OtoBoku more. No offense Jun, but Mizuho is winning the battle of the traps at least in the arena that I find interesting. Jun, you will be surprising someone soon, I hope it’s good.

Happiness (traps part 1)

Published by
kimagure
at October 21, 2006 in Happiness. Closed

How many men are in this picture?

Last fall there seemed to be an overabundance of vampire shows that came out in the fall. This year, cross dressing seems to be the big theme. At least that’s what we think. Enter Happiness. This show looks pretty cliche from the beginning. Oh look the school burned down and now our elite school of magic using cuties will have to hang with the commoners. My memory of this is kinda thin, which is probably not a good sign.

Things I noticed:

Animation production by Artland. I feel I must quantify this one. What I expect to see, are the lack of eyes on all character by episode 3. In the first episode everyone had eyes so the budget is likely gone, or will be shortly.
Yet another show where a girl meets a guy that did something cool a long time ago, and neither party can remember the full details of what happened. I want to say that this is the fifth show I’ve seen this fall that has this concept in it. Maybe Pumpkin Scissors isn’t that bad.
The show features a trap. Jun is not what she seems to be, not really a surprise since they tell you as much in the first episode. Although he’s so convincing the elite magic using babes from the burned up building don’t know it yet. I hope some hilarity ensues when Mr. Winky gets revealed.

Yeah, I’m going to continue this. I’ve seen no reason not to at this point. The game this show is derived from seems highly regarded, so there may be something good to come out of this. With Artland’s famous production values this could suck a lot. Unlike Bokura Ga Ita, the home of the no-eyed talking heads, this one lacks the vocal talent that keeps that show watchable, even though the visuals suck.

Sumomomo Momomo

Published by
kimagure
at October 17, 2006 in Sumomomo Momomo. 1 Comment

What am I looking at?

Momomomo. When I talk to my wife about anime it’s usually a lot of fun. So the other night she asks what I was watching and I tell her Sumomomo Momomo. She said, “You have too much fun saying that title.” She’s right. This first episode was a hoot. Momoko is our loli in charge here. She’s on a quest to make babies with the strongest man on earth, in the quest to make the strongest offspring on earth. She’s very brash in her subject matter and has eyes of tunnel vision (anyone thinking that that’s a facial expression in the screencap is in for a surprise). I found this quite amusing, not necessarily laugh out loud amusing, but funny nonetheless.

Things I noticed:

The character design for Momoko is interesting to say the least.
She has a hairstyle that doesn’t make sense. She should call up Alice from Pumpkin Scissors.
The lawyer wannabe that she’s after is a tool.
There’s a penis in the first episode.
The OP’s lyrics (if translated accurately) are very amusing.

I know Hirano Aya is in this at some point, so I’m definitely gonna watch this to see what part she plays. What is it about seiyuu’s named Aya?

Asatte no Houko

Published by
kimagure
at October 10, 2006 in Asatte no Houko. Closed

Oh snap!

I had no idea what to expect going into this. Really, someone said they thought this would be cool, so I watched it. So far, a young woman comes to a small town in the country. Meets a little girl. They make a wish together. She finds out she’s her ex-boyfriends sister. And boom, they go to the sea! Way to get the swimsuit episode out of the way early. Oh yeah, later on the young woman and the little girl switch, like older lady is now the little girl, and the little girl is a young woman

Things I noticed:

Hiro (the older brother) has one heck of a soul patch.
The character designs are nice.
The animation is okay…nothing spectacular.
It looks like it might turn into a slice of life show, which is A-OK with me.
It’s animated by JC Staff

I was actually kinda happy that I found something cool about this show. I came in expecting nothing, and pleasantly have a show I can’t wait to see the next episode of.

More please!

YAKP - Yet Another Kanon Post

Published by
kimagure
at October 7, 2006 in Kanon. 3 Comments

Please win!

Yes, the world is blogging this show. Yes, I’m also writing about it. No, I won’t blog every episode, there’s plenty of people that will be doing that anyway.

I don’t know where to begin. There are so many posts regarding this one little show, in a season filled with everything else you wonder if anything else will get blogged this season. I was going to start with a little about the show, but I don’t think Kanon needs any introduction. So, in keeping with tradition of my last post, here’s my list.

Things I noticed:

It’s Kyoto Animation. Astute readers will know this is a good thing, in other words it’s not GONZO. Thank Haruhi-sama for that. Because it’s KyoAni we have an awesome looking show that warms my heart even though the setting is likely below 0 celsius. I mean it can’t be that cold, the girl’s uniforms sure don’t look warm.

The main character is voiced by Haruhi’s Kyon, Tomokazu Sugita. THIS DOES NOT MAKE HIM KYON IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Please stop referring to him as Kyon. Sounds like him, yes, and even has some of that same wit we’ve come to love, but it’s not even close.

The voice acting is excellent.

The animation is excellent.

The art direction is better than excellent.

Snow hasn’t looked this good….EVER. I’m sure when the snow starts flying here in sunny Cleveland (really, no kidding, it’s sunny today), it will look like crap. I think it’s my city’s lack of sad girls that make it look so bad.

Yuuichi got pwned by Akiko in their snow shoveling duel.

It was a beautiful setup episode. I watched Kanon 2002 some time ago, but like Yuuichi, I don’t remember anything about it. Now I have a perplexing feeling of familiarity while watching this but the dialogue and major plot is all a mystery. So many have been comparing and contrasting, but for me it’s fresh enough to stand away from what I remember being a disappointing watch that I trudged through to finish. Never played the game, so I can’t compare.

With that Kanon is out, what else is there, help a fellow blogger in need.

p.s.: Can ya tell I’m rooting for Mai? Nayuki, Ayu, pffft. Not even close :D

Pumpkin Scissors

Published by
kimagure
at October 5, 2006 in Pumpkin Scissors. 2 Comments

My shorts are no longer clean!!!

I’m just gonna dive right into fall. Here’s a first impression of Pumpkin Scissors.

Decent action show about a world where a war just ended. Now the aftermath and the cleanup just doesn’t seem to be going that well. It looks like a rather typical bandits will bother people and our small band of heroes with a past will be cleaning the floor with them. There’s not much else to say after the first episode.

Things I noticed:

It’s GONZO.
The main character reminds me of Satou from NHK ni yokuso, he just has scars and is reallllly tall.
I cannot get over the heroine’s hair. It’s just not natural.

This show looks like action fluff. I always hope that I’m proven wrong, but we’ll give this a few more episodes to see if it becomes awesome.