bingerama

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6704

This site has been dormant for so long that even I almost thought it was done for. Luckily for all of us I have been drawn back by my love for colourful screenshots and babbling. You will be pleased to know that although it has been a constant struggle the last four months to get enough sleep, I have found time during my precious non-working weekends and dinner breaks to keep up with some anime.

I finished this series a while ago, which is why my reaction to it is muted by now. I still wanted to write about it because it was a pretty decent anime. For one, it was really exciting right up to the very last scene. Knowing that there’s a sequel kinda kills it by establishing certain expectations (and I probably just killed it for anyone who didn’t know there was a sequel lawl), but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

I was really impressed by the mecha fight scenes. Not that I’ve had a lot of exposure (swords + magic >>> robots!), but these were the first mecha fights that I thought actually looked good and unclunky. Since then I’ve seen a bunch of Eureka 7 and Gundam Seed fights, so I’m not so impressionable now, but credit’s still due, especially since this isn’t primarily a mecha type anime.

I thought the little plot twist was executed fairly well and elicited all the right emotions, but (pardon the crypticism but I’m too lazy to create a spoiler section) you gotta admit it was so convenient it ended up just being kinda cheesy. It was so stupid that I fumed over it for a long time. Granted, that’s probably the intended effect, but it’s still cheap. The one part I really liked was the bit about Shirley. I went back to that one scene last night just to take a screenshot, and I almost cried all over again! (By now you may have surmised that, as I told TJ the other day, there’s more anime I’ve cried at than there is that I haven’t =p)

One problem I have with this series is that the characters aren’t particularly likable. The whole Lelouch-Suzaku relationship is too much like Death Note, except with too many lofty principles involved and a lot less cleverness. Lelouch is too smug and Suzaku is just plain annoying after a while. It is hard to sympathise with a friendship in jeopardy when you care little for the parties involved. And the Zero costume is just retarded. He looks like a ten year old trying to play dress up, kinda like when Peter Parker shows up for his first wrestling match in the Spiderman movie. I don’t know how you’re supposed to take it seriously.

To end on a positive note, the first OP by Flow is great!

The torrent of work is not going to abate for a while, but hopefully it won’t be another four month hiatus before my next entry. Now that I’ve adopted the practice of keeping an eye out for good screenshot opportunities while I’m watching a series, it’ll probably cut my blogging time by 80%! Can’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned this, but taking these screenshots takes a seriously ludicrous amount of time. You have to find the right scenes with purposeful expressions on representative characters, AND WITH NO SUBS. You cannot imagine. If there’s a way to get rid of the subs (short of downloading the raws) please please please let me know.

Got around to finishing this last night. After the semi-boring evil corporation arc, it all went by pretty fast. I don’t think it ever got back to being as good as it was in the first 17/18 episodes, but the ending was pretty satisfactory, even if I wasn’t completely happy with it.

The bads - I think they may have overdone things a teensy bit, in terms of Light’s psychopathic tendencies, L’s weirdness, and the stunning accuracy with which they (almost) always predicted the enemy’s next move. Some parts were a little bit too convenient; I gave up trying to follow the whole notebook swapping who could see what business after a while. And some things about the ending didn’t sit quite right with me, even though I think there was very little else they could have done, except maybe end the story 10 episodes early similar to what the movie did. And I haaaaaaate the 2nd OP. Gawd. I hate swearing for the sake of swearing. I hate lyrics that don’t make sense. I hate death metal. Can’t say it didn’t go with the anime in general, but urghhhh.

Now that’s out of the way, there were a lot a lot of things I liked. For one, despite the nitpicking observed above, I thought the main characters were excellently done. The interaction between them was probably my favourite part of the series. The tension created by the story telling was arguably the best I’ve seen so far. I was actually pretty nervous at some points, thanks to the way the action sequences were put together. Unlike many other shows that attempt to have complex plotlines, it managed to tie things up coherently without losing its way. It succeeded in using a supernatural concept as a platform for intense drama and psychological warfare without over-relying on it as a crutch to escape explaining the finer points of the plot.

Most importantly, I like that the story was so intelligent without being pretentious. It didn’t try to explore moral issues or inspire any philosophical debates, it didn’t try to be deeply meaningful and profound. Which is good, because most anime that try suffer most ignominious failures. While there are occasional references to the fact that Kira’s world may not be such a bad idea, it is used more as a plot device rather than belaboured as some new and interesting concept. In the end it’s not even about inherent rights and wrongs anymore, it is about winning and losing, which I far prefer to having the characters hide behind some pompous sense of justice.

I quote Wiki, re: the author and artist who created the manga - ‘The two reiterated that the “deep philosophical themes” such as debates about whether Light is good or evil, “life and death,” and the “merits of our Internet society” differed from the intention to entertain’. Ding ding ding! Finally someone gets it right. Forget the ideological discussions - all they wanted to do was tell a good story, and they did a hell of a job with that.

Now for spoilers!

Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6764

Excuse the profusion of pictures, but this was just a screenshot taker’s paradise. So many freezing of scenes upon drawing out of cool weapons amidst lots of kaleidoscopic laser light. How could one resist?

This is my current Anime of the Moment. The story is straight forward enough and none too unique to be honest, but it is decently done. I didn’t really like some of the arcs, but the crappier ones were over in 2 episodes or so and the longer arcs were actually pretty good. The fillers were also ok, at least they weren’t absolutely excruciating to watch, which is all I ask for.

Since this is one of those currently-ongoing-no-end-in-sight shows, I can’t help but draw comparisons to Bleach, Naruto and One Piece. I’m well aware that each of those have their own merits and maybe I’m enjoying D.Gray-Man more out of novelty than anything, but seriously I don’t know why it is so much less popular than its counterparts. (And before I get hammered to death by One Piece fans I can only say that if after 46 episodes I still find it mediocre and only vaguely watchable, I don’t see why anyone should stick around to the parts where it actually gets good…Which I will eventually, just not while I have something better to do =p)

If nothing else, the characters are hands down a billion times more likeable than anything I’ve seen so far in the other 3 anime put together. For one, I’m a big fan of Allen Walker. Admittedly a large part is due to the fact that he reminds me a lot of Ed Elric, but he is a likeable character in his own right, and isn’t as painfully one dimensional as many other main characters. I like that Lenalee is a competent female lead - not too useless, not too cute, not too in your frickin face. And she has nice legs (you have to admit that it is aesthetically pleasing).

The OP is quite nice, albeit a bit emo. It’s done by Abingdon Boys School (pretentious name yes/no), who also did the Darker Than Black OP, which explains why the same emo-ness pervades.

I hear that it gets pretty boring in the 20s until you hit episode 40ish, so we’ll see if my opinion changes. Maybe I’m just not at the point yet where the anime catches up to the manga and everything goes to shit. But it’s ok, if I got through 155 episodes of Naruto and the entire bloody Usopp arc, I’m sure I can handle this.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=844

I actually don’t have much to say about this anime, but I finished it (and we all know how rare it is that I finish anything) and took screenshots so I figured I might as well.

I might get in trouble for saying this, but this was such a mediocre anime. I mean, the story was just not very interesting. The whole Sousuke in school situation has a lot of potential for hilarity of course, but that’s explored in Fumoffu (which, as an attempt at redemption, I shall state that I have found very enjoyable so far) rather than here. I still don’t get who the bad guy was working for, what he was trying to do, and WHY HIS ROBOT HAS HAIR. WHY?? I also don’t get why Sousuke and Kaname have lines on their cheeks. No one else has them. What are they supposed to signify?

I do like the opening theme though. And I definitely like that the main character is played by the ever endearing Seki Tomokazu. Aside from that, this is why I don’t watch mecha animes. Pfft.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6430

Finally got round to watching this after hearing about all the rave reviews. But first, please take an extra moment to appreciate the nice screenshots. It took me a whole hour to take and edit those thanks to the wordy narration (too many subs in the way) and because I had such a hard time choosing only 3 Yuki shots out of her plethora of cuteness.

Like everyone else, I thought the story telling was pretty well done. I liked the random insertion of nothingey episodes in absolutely no order. I even liked the heater episode where nothing happened at all. It was just so entertaining to watch, regardless of content. The only thing is that, like TJ commented, this anime had so much potential to be hilarious, and it didn’t quite get there. It was funny for sure, but not as funny as it could have been. And what was up with all the fan service? Was that supposed to be a parody? If it was, why was there so much of it? Or was it because it was meant to be a parody that there was so much? In any case, if it was meant to be a parody it clearly failed to present itself as so, and if it wasn’t meant to be a parody, that’s just outright failness.

Kyon was by far the best thing about this show. I’ve always thought Sugita Tomokazu was just so-so, but he did a singularly outstanding job here. I’ve never been as impressed with the portrayal of a character as much as I am with this. Haruhi didn’t strike me as particularly interesting, and she gets kinda grating sometimes. Mikuru just hellllllllla gets on my nerves. But this is all made up by Yuki’s incredible cuteness, which I am very partial to (as evidenced by aforementioned screenshots). So so so so so so so cute!

Also like everyone else, I really enjoyed the 2 insert songs Haruhi played, especially when I manage to ignore the parts with bad English (remind me again why they do that?). And I currently have Kyon’s version of Hare Hare Yukai stuck in my head. If you haven’t heard it you should check it out, I think it’s pretty cute in a lol-poor-dude kinda way.

I didn’t rate this very high, just cos (a) I only REALLY REALLY like a story when it provokes enough emotion to make me cry and (b) I didn’t really get the sense that there was an overarching message (although I know this is not necessarily what an anime like this one would seek to convey). But it was still hugely enjoyable. Definitely looking forward to season 2!

I made TJ watch this and we finished it over the weekend, with me re-watching 18 episodes in the process. Sadly, most of these episodes were not as moving the second time around. Plus TJ has a heart of stone so he was quite unimpressed with most of the tear-jerking moments in the anime, which kinda spoiled the mood for me. =/

This would have ranked as one of my all time favourites, except that the ending was quite a let down. It felt like nothing was really resolved in the greater scheme of things, and no ultimate enemy was finally triumphed over. I would have let the lack of an explanation pass, if they hadn’t slipped in that little bit about the ‘Masterminds’, which seemed to imply that we would be getting a bit more information about the whole affair. But nope, 30 hour long fight and zip, ending credits. And what was with the half hearted flashbacks in the last episode that seemed to accidentally leave out half the cast?

I was also disappointed by the weak stories that Jun and Kanji ended up with, especially since they’d managed to groom Kanji into such a likeable character without giving him a real focus. He almost made my list of favourite anime characters, but his story turned out to be entirely pointless. Pfft. Thankfully, all these faults can be conveniently blamed on the fact that the manga is still ongoing.

I still really liked the individual stories. I think the anime did an excellent job getting you attached to the characters (some of them anyway) when there were so many sharing limited screentime. The general premise of the story is sad to begin with, and the way the characters were presented made it downright heartbreaking in some cases. Even the ending was quite poignant, despite its insufficiencies. I probably would have cried if TJ hadn’t been around making snide remarks.

What I liked best about this anime was the fact that it didn’t try to be anything more than it was. It wasn’t pretentious, it didn’t try to be different or unique just for the sake of novelty, it didn’t try to get you to like the characters by applying all the usual techniques. It told its story without fillers or fanfare and still managed to be entertaining and, in my opinion anyway, genuinely touching.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7382

I’m not sure why the ‘BLACK’ in the title is capitalised, like it’s supposed to have any meaning aside from just the colour. Maybe it is a reference to the fact that the main character’s name is Hei (black in Mandarin) and he wears black when he’s in ass kicking mode, in which case the ‘Darker than’ doesn’t quite make sense. Perhaps this is something that will come to light later in the series and justify the ridiculously poser title?

The show is set in futuristic Japan, where some kind of mysterious field called Hell’s Gate has appeared and reduced the area around it to a toxic wasteland, which the government has built a wall around to contain. The appearance of this field has also created a race of beings called ‘Contractors’, who have assorted super powers, and who have to pay some form of obeisance after they used their powers (a little twist that I found quite interesting). These Contractors are also somehow linked to stars (maybe not real stars, but lights generated by Hell’s Gate that look like stars? no clue) and so can be studied and analyzed by the Astronomy department according to the way their stars move, which is another plot piece that I think is rather fascinating.

I’m currently totally hooked on this and I don’t know why. It’s one of those things that you can’t put down to any one concrete element of the show. It’s a combination of the soundtrack, the animation, the story, the script and just the general feeling you get that makes you want to keep watching. It’s weird cos this anime isn’t exactly the happy happy feel good kinda thing - in the first 5 minutes of the first episode you see this guy breaking his own fingers with his bare hands, which is pretty damn disturbing in my opinion. But I’m totally hooked. I really like Hei’s character, maybe because he’s so adorable when he’s acting like a normal human being that he’s extra hot when he’s playing the assassin dude.

The only thing that I’ve found unsatisfactory so far is that Miki Shinichiro is playing a character that is not incredibly charming. Boo.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6200

Last night I watched another episode of Saiunkoku Monogatari Season 2 after a long break (I’ve been saving them since I’m close to running out), and was reminded of how much I adore every bit of this anime.

Because my immense adoration of this anime cannot be easily contained within one entry (along with the immense number of screenshots I would like to put up), today I will content myself with talking about a small part of it - the audio.

The cast is pretty star-studded, or what I would consider to be pretty star-studded anyway, in that it features a lot of prominent characters from the 20+ anime I’m currently watching. =p The thing is, somehow every actor manages to sound better in this show than in any other role I’ve seen them in. Take for example Kouyuu and Ensei, who share the same voices as Ikkaku and Renji respectively. They sound almost exactly the same in both roles, except that they’re oh so endearing in SM, and are pretty much morons in Bleach. A lot of it probably has to do with the script. All the dialogue is very calm and intelligent sounding, with very little panicked or angry yelling (no, for example, BANKAIIIIIs). Which also has a lot to do with how the story is presented and what the characters are like, but I’ll have to get into those another day…

The soundtrack is another thing I really like. The pieces are pretty varied, and the Chinese orchestra ones fit the mood of the show really well, especially compared to some of the other pseudo-Chinese animes I’ve seen. My favourite tracks are Ryuuki, Nukumori and Namida no Pavane; coincidentally (or not) they’re played during my 3 favourite scenes in Season 1, which I still tear up when watching even though I’ve already re-watched them 91423555 times (free lunch if you guess what they are!) I’m a huge sucker for sad quiet piano pieces, and these hit just the spot.

I started on this anime a few months back, when I hadn’t really immersed myself in uberotaku-ness yet, so I thought I was impressionable and that there were plenty of other shows out there of similar quality. Having sampled a lot more anime now, it still feels like everything else I’ve seen so far seems to fall short somehow. I know a lot of people are wary of Saiunkoku cos it seems totally girlish, but it’s really not what it looks like. More convincing arguments will follow, but in the meantime, give it a shot if you haven’t! O.o-b

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6733

My eyes get really puffy after I cry, so it was a really bad idea to watch this movie the night before I had to conduct internship interviews. Thankfully these college kids will never guess that under my professional exterior lies a total sucker for sappy anime, hah.

I’m generally very wary of stories that deal with time travel, because it’s so easy to screw up. It’s practically impossible to come up with a completely logical plot, unless you make an assumption that some kind of theory (like parallel universes) holds. Plus these things always end up dealing with the same issues (see The Butterfly Effect). This one held up fairly well however, because it kept things simple, so it was pretty much acceptable if you didn’t try to be too anal about it.

I really enjoyed the characters. The relationships didn’t exactly pan out like I expected, and I liked that. The main character, Makoto, was pretty endearing at some points, and whenever her heart was in something I felt like mine was too. The sense of regret was very convincingly conveyed, there’s just something about the way her face looks when she’s sad that’s so heartbreaking. She does sound pretty weird when she cries; but then again, I was too busy crying myself to really care.

I did think the ending was a bit unrealistically optimistic. If you watch it you’ll know what I mean, it kinda defies logic just to be a bit happier. But that’s ok. After bawling my eyes out a little gratification is nice. The soundtrack is also really really pretty. I particularly liked the insert song (Kawaranai Mono by Oku Hanako), but then again they did play it at the best part of the movie so I might be a bit biased.

Man I just went through some scenes to take screenshots for this entry, and I totally cried all over again. Oh how easily my emotions are subject to animated manipulation. I love it!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6466

Honoka is a bandana sporting, sword wielding person-for-hire (I don’t know what else you’d call her) who travels around the desert with her AI-controlled tank, fighting giant insects and the occasional robot. One day she meets what appears to be an alien person, who goes by the appropriately alien name of Iks, and whose intentions are completely obscure, evidenced by the fact that he has done absolutely nothing since he appeared in the show 6 episodes ago, except get chased down by evil robots. Honoka develops an unexplainable crush on Iks so that girls will watch the show.

The story has been pretty shruggorific so far, but I have some hopes that it’ll improve. At least the main character is somewhat cute. The most annoying thing about this anime is the completely extraneous narrator they have that has to make a comment on every little event in the series. Any moments that might have been suitably poignant and touching are shattered by his need to over-explain. Byebye subtlety.

On the bright side, Koyasu Takehito reprises his role as the unemotional character with mysterious intents (a role which he alternates with that of the strangely feminine character with mysterious intents). I guess he just has that kinda voice. Not that I’m complaining /swoon!

This was another of Ian’s recommendations, so I had really high hopes for it. Pretty bleah so far but we’ll see. My favourite parts are when the characters try to say ‘The Third’ - ‘Za Sado’. … So fail. (See previous post about consonants.)