BTW, Code Geass still pwns
Episodes 24 & 25 finally released, finishing the First Season. If the delay was to put time into making them, well, it was worth it?
I’d forgotten how great Code Geass is.
This show hardcore has everything. It’s like an amalgamation of all the good parts of shows Sunrise has done. ORIGINAL STORY, action, sex, facial distortion, “ZEROOOOOOOOOOOOOO”, ANTI-HERO, no good guys only different guys and some bad guys, explosions, giant fucking robots, scientists who make even better giant fucking robots, aliens, psychopaths, secret history of the world, “HEIL BRITTANIA”, strategerie, CLAMP chara designs, HOMO HOMO INNUENDO, explosions, revenge, AWESOME, forced cosplay, product placement, harem (and huge shipping opportunities), good pacing, secret identities, lots of episodes with almost no filler, good animation, floating fortresses, epic story scale, a student council, highschool romance, explosions, people going crazy, a protagonist who wears a mask, lots of plot-secrets to puzzle out, enormous cast, continuity, minor characters turning out to actually matter, international politics, intrigue, TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, explosions, fighting FOR JUSTICE, references to Arthurian legends, racism, nothing ever going right, super powers, chess, epic fan-service DVD extras, an insane lesbian, good music, fights that are conscious of the environment, fights that don’t always use the same gimmick weapon to win, lots of fights, characters with dramatic flaws other than intense stupidity or chivalry, hubris, epic cliffhangers, PWNING, and the ability to weave a complex plot without just making it confusing.
Code Geass is sort of like concentrated essence of anime, and if you haven’t already watched it, you probably should be.
Here is a Bunch of Anime I Want to Watch
Not including stuff from this year, here’s the shortlist of what I’m thinking about watching (or finishing) in my ever-dwindling spare time. Feel free to argue vehemently about priorities or question the genuineness of my fan-nature given that some of these are on the to-watch list rather than the watched-fifty-times-and-written-my-own-doujinshi-about list.
KaleidoStar, Eureka 7, Figure 17, 5 cm/s, Koi Kaze, Memories, Five Star Stories, Angel’s Egg, Pale Cocoon, Princess Tutu, Fantastic Children, Gatekeepers, CCS, GITS – SAC (I got like a third of the way through the first season; had trouble getting into it for some reason), Kino no Tabi, Full Moon wo Sagashite (because I hate myself?), Ping-Pong Club, Ebichu, the original Cutie Honey, Urotsukidoji, Boku no Sekuhara.
In a tabletop RPG I’m playing in right now, my PC had a dream involving every former U.S. President in history (yes I know Ben Franklin was not a president) simultaneously reciting famous speeches. Later I learned that this was actually part of a government conspiracy to spy on me. Like Men In Black style.
How to Attract Bees (in 10 easy steps)
Inspired by this flurry of posts.
1. Go to the grocery store. If you are hikikomori, try an online grocery store.
2. Buy four large canisters of Kool-Aid, four large packs of sugar, a big spoon, and a pitcher.
3. Locate your kitchen sink.
4. Move the enormous mound of dirty dishes that you store in your kitchen sink elsewhere. The floor is an option, if you can’t think of anything else.
5. Get the water steaming, then stopper the sink and fill it with water.
6. Pour the Kool-Aid and sugar into the sink full of water, then stir for about five minutes.
7. Wait for the liquid to cool.
8. Remove all of your clothes
9. Use the pitcher to drench yourself in the Kool-Aid solution.
10. Walk outside and run around shouting “HEY BEES CHECK ME OUT!!!!!”
Enjoy your new bee-enriched life.
There is no hope in this world, ONLY ZUUL
Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei is very very strange. It wins the biggest WTF prize of the year. Though I did not know what the crap was going on in at least half of the first episode, even with a nice a.f.k. translation, I still laughed like I meant it (hint: I did).
The director, Akiyuki Shinbo, has done a lot of really popular anime that didn’t do very much for me, like Pani Poni Dash and Negima!? (well, okay, I didn’t watch Negima!?, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it). This is another school gag anime replete with references scribbled on the chalk board, but the style is all funkified (GOOD!) and it’s much more dark and pretentious. It feels like he got high together with Shinichiro Watanabe and Edward Gorey, and they marathoned Haruhi and Eva and were like WE CAN DO THIS!! and wrote an anime script, and then went home and passed out, and then Shinbo found the script when cleaning out his desk a few years later and said “this is…BRILLIANT”.
I am glad there is a good subber on this show, because even Andrew Cunningham calls the source manga “possibly the least translatable manga ever done” (link stolen from wildarmsheero).
Hi, I’m Franz Kafka, and welcome to anime!
I will watch this show, if nothing else, because it will probably give me something to talk about. Also it seems to be a very solid production in general, is funny, and uses inventive direction. Even though the complicated Japanese writing system jokes make my head hurt (thankfully there were some explanatory frames from a.f.k. at the end).
The world turned upside-down
Perhaps you are familiar with this cycle: H visual novel becomes popular -> all-ages version released for console (i.e. PS2) -> anime created -> parody 4koma.
Well, Lucky Star started as a parody 4koma. The anime is airing now. I’ve just read there is going to be an all-ages visual novel adaptation for PS2. The end of this path is clear…
Pantsu kakumei
I saw this Doujin Work animu and it didn’t suck. It has anthropomorphic bloomers as a mascot. And characters named Osana Najimi and “Justice”. Also jokes where the punchline is one character thinks the other one is talking about sex, when in fact, THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. Those jokes are great. Also, it’s short like my attention span.
KGNE – Hump Away The Tears
I watched Kimi ga Nozomu Eien a few weeks ago, and it kept seeming like I could come up with something insightful to write about it, but…maybe not. So I’m just posting my incredibly incoherent notes, which will very likely not make any sense since I wrote them down as I watching and they provide very little context.
I tend to notice two major problems (now that low-production values aren’t a running theme anymore) with eroge adaptations. One is that they have fucked up plot structures due to coming from branching-story visual novels. That wasn’t a problem with KGNE. The other is that, since they’re pr0n, they tend to be very very pandery, which is less of a problem, but can get irritating, depending on if you are the target audience for the pandering or not. It was sort of 50% an issue for me with KGNE.
I liked that they kept some sex scenes in; they felt properly placed and contributed to the tone of the show, IMO.
I liked the emo, because I am a sucker for certain kinds of melodrama.
I didn’t really like the characters.
I really like the English titles for this, and the OVA, because they sound so retarded. I almost titled this post Rambling Hearts, but the pun just felt too overblown, even for me.
Anyway, my per-episode while-watching notes are below the cut [SPOILER WARNING: DUMBLEDORE DIES], with screen-shots added. You can think of it as stream-of-consciousness blogging?
