forchancookie: (Default)
It’s that time of year again! New Anime for spring! Here’s what I’ve watched so far and what I thought. I’ve also tossed in what I’ve carried through the previous season and older stuff I’ve watched. Under this cut you'll find my thoughts on Tiger and Bunny, Hana-Saku Iroha, X-Men, Dog Days, Steins;Gate, Star Driver, Kimi Ni Todoke, the Ore No Imouto Ga Konna Ni Kawaii Wake Ga Nai OVA eps, Initial D, Nyan Koi, Tokyo Majin, Devil May Cry, Damekko Doubutsu, Prince of Tennis, Inazuma Eleven, and Summer Wars! Phew!

Click me! )
forchancookie: (Hardcore Bubbles)
It’s Fall, time for new anime! I’ve already watched a bunch. I’m going to have to split this thing up. So here’s the titles coming at you in part one:
- Iron Man, the Anime
- Bakuman
- MM!
- Star Driver Kagayaki No Takuto
- Otome Youkai Zakuro
- Shinrei Tantei Yakumo
- Samurai Girls
- Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
- Yosuga No Sora
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt


There will be some spoilers, click if you dare! )
forchancookie: (Hikikomori)
I have a review of new anime coming up later, but I thought I'd follow up with the stuff I watched last season. There will be some spoilers, I'll keep them mild.

Kuroshituji 2, Occult Academy, Nurarihyon No Mago, Live Action Moyashimon, Ookamisan, Durarara, Baccano, and Initial D )

And now, a bit of a rant. A trend that’s bugging me lately is anime being made from light novels. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s that there are often very broad stories to tell in an abbreviated amount of time. If it’s a manga, someone has probably translated it and I can go read the full story later on. If it’s a light novel series, the chances of someone translating it are slim to none. Even if it does get translated, I’ve discovered that I hate most Japanese prose. It’s very simple. It’s been a while since I’ve read the few novels that I did read, but I didn’t enjoy them. At any rate, you’re left wanting more of those characters and you’re sort of adrift.

Durarara is based on a light novel. Somewhere down the road, one of my favorite characters, Mikado, stabs someone in the hand with a pen. That’s not something you’d see him do in the anime, even in some of his more intense moments, but somehow, he develops into someone that does. There are a few scattered translations of the novels, but only one volume has been completely translated and that’s the sixth one.

Ookamisan is also based on a light novel series. There seems to be a large plot at play and they poke at it but ultimately, the series ends far too soon for it to go anywhere because there were only 12 episodes.

Ghost Hunt is a series of light novels that was never finished. The anime just sort of ended and there were quite a few things that weren’t addressed such as the nice version of Naru that kept popping up in dreams. I guessed that he was the Naru’s dead twin brother and only by reading the wiki entry did I learn that I was right.

It’s just frustrating. The animes rarely dives into the stories properly. There's so much more to what you get but it's inaccessible. At least try to do it properly. There are so many loose ends that it's been bugging me a lot lately. I'm fine with making anime based off of light novels, but quit dropping the ball anime companies!

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll be posting about the new Fall anime soon.

Anime Times!

Sunday, July 25th, 2010 07:21 pm
forchancookie: (Interesting...)
A new season of anime is here. I sort of skipped last season, but I'm back on the boat. I'm gonna talk about what I've been watching under this cut because there will be some spoilers, mostly for Kuroshitsuji.

I'm a big spoiler cut! Click me! )
forchancookie: (Hikikomori)
So, a bunch of second episodes are up and I've watched them throughout the day. I also tossed a new anime in. Here's my thoughts!

Eden of The East
OMG! I think they got some actual native/fluent speakers for the English in this one! Not all of them, but there are a few that aren't speaking Engrish! YAY! Now if only other anime companies would take the hint.

Moving along, a girl is trying to throw a coin into the White House fountain, but it's way too far away from the front gates and the police come and stop her. Then some naked dude holding a cell phone and a hand gun comes and interrupts and they chase after him. But he fooled them and goes up to the girl, who hands over her coat so he's not running around completely naked. Only after he's gone does she realize that she left her passport and wallet in her coat pocket and she ditches her suitcase to run after him. He gets some clothes and finds out that he's a terrorist of some sort, but he has no memories and ends up heading back to Japan with the girl. Having him run around naked was pretty funny. I think it's a promising start.

FMA Ep 2
Better. It seemed longer than it should have been. There was a lot of info stuffed into that one episode. As always happens with FMA you have that sinking feeling when the boys get onto the human transmutation thing. I'm kind of annoyed with the Ed at the gate thing. His arm and leg dissolved and reappeared and dissolved again multiple times. Wat? And Riza continues to have a case of the stupid expressions. I know that they're trying to make the art look more like the manga this time around too, but I don't remember Riza looking this vapid in the manga. She's always been pretty severe. And she needs to be to keep Roy in line XD

Anyway, like I said, this episode is better. It does hold to the manga better. There's still some liberties here and there, but I'm not expecting a line for line panel for panel translation here.

07 Ghost Ep 2
Did I mention that I picked this one up for the pretty boys? Yeah, because there's a lot of pretty boys. I've not been disappointed! There's a few girls this time around and a robo-nun librarian. After fleeing from the military, Teito is miraculously not killed by a fall from his little plane thing and is instead rescued by some priests who bring him back to their sanctuary strong hold. In the meantime, his friend is being threatened by the evil military guy. This episode is really just another introduction to characters episode with a little info on the history of the countries, war, and the seven ghosts that protect the church and give the series its names. If you feel that you need some pretty boys in your life, this is your show. Start watching. I feel my fujoshi heart going into overdrive as I start to draw pairing lines between all the pretties.

Ristorante Paradiso Ep 2
And this one, I picked up for the older men. This episode really revolves around Nicoletta and her crush on Claudio, who she thinks is married. She's left wondering if it's real or if any of the restaurant staff will do as long as they're nice to her. And they're all nice to her, even the grumpy one. Anyway, she corners Claudio and paws at him and he does a really dramatic "I mustn't!" Then irresponsible mom pops in after ignoring her daughter all this time. I really don't like the mom. I get the feeling they're going to justify her behavior later on and they've been hinting that all the restaurant guys like her, but I just can't sympathize with her selfish behavior. Once she finds out that Nicoletta is crushing on Claudio, she even tries to send her away. What the hell woman?

While I've mentioned the art style already, I really have to say that the backgrounds in this episode bugged me a bit. In Nicoletta's apartment, you get this strange vertigo feeling because everything's crooked! It's annoying. I don't get that crooked feel from all the other backgrounds, but it's really obvious in her apartment, which is why I noticed and why it just bugged me. Don't throw in that wacky perspective at random. I understand that it probably fits in with the mangaka's messy art style, but no. Just no. That aside, it looks like we're finally going somewhere. Nicoletta's decided to apprentice at the restaurant and she might be spilling the beans about her mother being her mother.

Shangri-La Ep 2
I'm still not sure what's going on. Momoka is my favorite character though :D There's a lot of groups that are being introduced and used, but not really explained. They were all in the first episode and they reappear here but you still don't know what they're all about. You have some little computer chick that's manipulating carbon markets. Her scenes are long, incomprehensible and boring. There's some little miko kid who kills people with her mind or something. There's the military. There's some crazy bitchy lady who tortures bishounen and then there's the pink haired girl and her crew. This episode is less awesome than the first because there's less fighting and more apparent plot work happening with little info cluing you in as to waht's going on. They'd better give us some answers in the next episode or else!

Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ Ep 2
Training montage time! The male assassin, Zwei, must be trained, so it is time for a training montage as his humanity slowly dies. We actually get some info on the organization that pulls the strings. That's a nice change considering how many anime seem to be leaving us in the dark lately. There's really not much more to say. His humanity is wavering, not just going out all at once. I like that. I have to say though, Zwei in his training gear strongly resembles Heero Yuy. This guy has more emotions than Heero though, for now.

Pandora Hearts Ep 2
This episode is better than the first one. The first episode was a little incoherent. At this point, things at least have a flow and while you don't know what's going on, it's not as frustrating as it was in the first episode. This anime is definitely trying to fill the void of Kuroshitsuji and it has a dark sort of Alice in Wonderland vibe that I suspect will only get stronger from here on out. While the first episode had me iffy on this one, the second episode did a better job of drawing me in. Now we're getting somewhere. Now there's a story forming that has me curious about what happens next.

Sengoku Basara Ep 2
Horses running up a wall! Those are some badass horses! Anyway, this episode forges on. It tosses out a little plot (which is mostly this side versus that side) and throws in some awesome battles. While it's got lots of characters in it, the could easily call it the Date Masumune Vs. Sanada Yukimura show. Date is blue and Sanada is red and when they clash their energies go boom. Lots of UST there guys! And in their rumble this episode it seems that they've taken a page form Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's book of style for their epic head ot head. Mostly, this episode is all about the fighting. There's some talk about...something or other. I wasn't paying attention because Kenshin wears something stupid on his head and there's this big boobed ninja chick fawning over him and asking him a million questions. I totally zoned out. But really, if you're watching this show it's not for the plot. It's for the battles. It really is like watching Samurai Warriors animated. It's the same thing. The Basara games seem to have the same fighting style, just different character designs. So you still have one guy charging into a crowd of soldiers charged up with energy and just blowing them away. It's awesome XD

Valkyria Chronicles Ep 2
How can something with a bunch of tank battles be so damn boring? And the textures on the colors annoy the crap out of me. It's like when someone does an epic scene and they do crosshatching, but everything has the weird textured hatching like it's all so profound. Well it isn't. It's boring. And then the female main goes off to join the army and switches from a cute militia outfit to a cute mini skirted military uniform. *sighs* I don't know if I can watch this anymore. The opening shows that they're going to introduce an bunch more characters, but it's all so stupid and boring so far, I don't want to stick it out. Also, I think it's worth noting that they did an Kuroshitsuji-like chibiful ending with some flying pig mascot wandering across a slide show of the chibi characters going through their day. It's not as good as the Kuroshitsuji one and the ending song has this peppy electronic sounding voice singing their ending song. I don't really care for it. So again, I don't think I'll be sticking with this one.

In not new anime news, I have to say that for something that only kids should be able to see, Shugo Chara sure is fuuuuuuuullll of adults who can see/know about chara eggs and crap and are trying to take advantage of them. That's always bugged me. They're not a very well kept secret. Every other person seems to be able to see them. And there's an entire company devoted to stealing the hopes and dreams of children? Really? That's all they do? Those types of "evil organizations" are always the weirdest and obviously weakest ones since every other magical girl has to fight against one. I guess it's jut an old standard, a tired old standard. Can we get some new badguy juice please?
forchancookie: (Brainsplosion)
So I already talked about the New FMA and some other titles in Part One so here's the rest of the titles I was waiting for. Let's look at more new anime!

Guin Saga

Oh, this one was nice. A lot of great animation. I think they were going for epic. This one is based on some light novel series that has over a hundred novels. 123 volumes! I think they're off to a good start though. Very nice character designs. You don't feel like you're tossed too badly into the story. There's an invasion, people die, the heirs to the throne are sent off in some sort of magical transporty thing but oh noes! It goes haywire and lands them in a forest where the boy whines incessantly!

Then they're captured by soldiers, but hey, there's a man with a leopard's head that kicks ass and saves them. You get to know a little about the characters and enough happens to keep it from getting boring, but not so much that you're totally lost. If they play their cards right, I think they can get Epic out of this. But with only 13 episodes, who knows how much story we'll actually get, how condensed it will be. The ending theme is great though. It left me feeling positive. I hope it's good.

07 Ghost

I'll be honest, I picked this one cause the promo pics I saw of it were pretty. One of the characters reminded me of Tamaki from Ouran Host Club. And the description just sounded ripe for BL. I am happy to report that I was right on the mark! This has loads of pretty character designs. It has a very close friendship/love complete with cheesy vows and mention of "leaving the one he loves" in the preview for the next episode. Yay!

As far as the story goes, it starts out in a military academy just before their graduation tests. We meet two boys who are best friends. One has amnesia and can't remember his life from before, but he considers his friend to be family. They go on to survive their last round of testing but the military arrives and jogs the boy's memories. He tries to attack an important guy and gets thrown in the slammer. His friend won't stand for that and busts him out. It ends with him on the run.

It's going to be one of those shows with a gazillion characters, I can already tell. We've met most of the military, but apparently we have an entire church to meet next. There's magic and fighting and mystery. So, I started for the pretty boys. I'm staying for the pretty boys, but there's other things that make me want to keep watching.

Ristorante Paradiso

This is eye candy. The creator obviously has a thing for Italy and distinguished gentlemen. I've browsed some of her translated manga and that seems to be her staple. I have no idea how this is considered a seinen show. It definitely feels like it's catering to the older female population.

The story is of a girl who was pretty much abandoned by her mother. Mom wanted to marry a new man, but he didn't want a divorcee, so she lied about having been previously married and dumped her kid with her parents. Years later, the daughter is determined to inform the new husband what a lying liar her mom is. She goes to the restaurant he owns and it's full of handsome older men in glasses. She becomes quite charmed by one of them. Her mom finds her and lies to her hubby, saying her daughter is actually a friend's daughter.

It's all pretty slow, but that's ok because as I said, it's eye candy. If you like the art style that it. If you don't like the art style, then you won't stick around for the story. The anime art is a step up from the manga art though. It's a bit lanky and loose with a distinctive take on facial features. Definitely not for everyone, but I like it. It reminds me of Tarako Kotobuki's style, though I find hers cleaner than this. Either way, things look to step on the gas on the next episode and I'll be there for the ride.

Basquash!

This one had hype and I was curious. It's about basketball playing robots that wear Nike shoes. How can you not be curious about such weirdness? So I watched. The main character, Dan, hates Big Foots, which are mecha. He hates basketball playing Bigfoots the most, because they somehow crippled his basketball playing sister. He takes out some revenge by destroying television screens across the city and stealing their components, which he sells for cash. He uses the money to buy things for his sister to try and cheer her up.

Then a big boobed girl appears in his life and takes him in a ride on a Bigfoot and suddenly he doesn't hate them as much. There's a lot of heavy sexual innuendo in the scene, even though not a damn thing happens, it's just like "dude, that sounds wrong!" Then she gives him tickets to a live Bigfoot Basketball match. It turns out it's boring as hell. On tv they add all sorts of crazy special effects, but live, it's just a bunch of slow robots fumbling with a ball. Big boob girl turns out to be a childhood friend. She reappears and gives him the Bigfoot and tells him to show everyone what basketball is about. So he does and everyone gets excited. Yay! And then he goes to jail for a year. Boo. And when he gets out, thinking that he's destroyed Bigfoot Basketball, he is sorely mistaken. Turns out, he's a legend, a martyr! Uh oh. Then the episode ends.

It's a silly premise, but the art is bright and lively and the character designs are pretty colorful and interesting. I hadn't planned on watching it, but it is doing something that's fun, so I think I'll continue.

Phantom - The Animation

Since I found out that Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ is based on an OVA, I decided to watch it. The copy I got a hold of was dubbed, so that upped the cheese level for me. It wasn't bad, but the English just made it all seem sillier. Being a three episode OVA, you get a lot more info on what's going on. You meet Zwei before he gets caught up in the whole assassin mess. You see that Ein has some sort of past and that the doctor that made them killers is a real creep. Well, you already knew that. The love element of the OVA upped the cheese factor. I get that it makes cold blooded killers more human, but sometimes it's more humane to let them remain as cold and unfeeling as possible. Imagine how you'd feel if you went through life killing uncounted numbers of people without remorse and then suddenly, some boy comes along and gives you the "gift" of feelings and suddenly your whole life is the biggest crime against the universe and you feel regret and remorse and you hate yourself and want to die. I don't know why they insisted on making female assassins and then making them fall in love.

Anyway, there are hints of this love element in the beginning of the Requiem series, but both characters seem more calm, more distantly affectionate about it. I think it could work there as it didn't work here. This OVA wasn't bad, it just wasn't that great. It was predictable and silly. The end was pretty ambiguous and it left itself open for a series, but the series actually begins somewhere in the beginning to middle of the OVA. I'll be interested to see if they can steer the series clear of the silly trappings that gummed up the OVA.

Lastly, I was cleaning up stuff on my external harddrive and I came across the weirdest title in my anime folder. Delinquent in Drag. I went "What?" So I watched it. Oh man! It was sooooooooooooo ridiculously stupid! So stupid! A funny stupid, but dumb none the less. The story is about some crazy violent family that gets kicked out of town after being, well crazy and violent. The moronic father signs his son up for a new school, as a girl. Now, the son is a violent delinquent of a boy and he looks it. He's one of those saru-type characters, so how nobody notices is just retarded. Anyway, he goes to school and falls in love with a girl whose name means "Boy." Ouch. Then there's some fights and it has a very open ending.

It's based on a seven volume manga series and after watching it I found out that it's a Go Nagai creation. So then I couldn't be surprised by the supreme retarded eechi weirdness. That's the guy's trademark. I am in no way recommending this. It was pretty dumb and it went nowhere. At one point, the mom was running around in her see through underwear and grabbing her son's package while he's wearing his female school uniform. Then the dad busts in and proclaims that he knew all along mother and son were having an affair (which they aren't, mom's just insane) and then mom and dad rumble and destroy everything in the apartment. Then they make out. Did I mention it was retarded? This cannot be stressed enough. Don't watch it. Save your brains! If you want Go Nagai, I'm sure Daeva can recommend a much better one than this piece of crap.
forchancookie: (Genius at Work)
Anne Elise was mourning the fact that nobody is really talking about the new anime yet. I poked at Anime News Network and found it to be true....honestly, I'm too lazy to poke anywhere else. I decided to just poke at the new anime without the aid of anyone else's guides. So here's my thoughts on what I've watched so far. More will be added the more I watch.

Ride Back )

Akikan )

Fall Anime Time!

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 06:30 pm
forchancookie: (Fangirl Moment)
Oh boy! It's new anime time again! Anime News Network has put up their Fall 2008 Preview Guide and I went rooting around to see what might be worth watching. Here's what I went ahead and watched and what I thought. I even included screenshots this time!

Follow me to some anime goodness! )

I'll most likely update this post as more comes out that I watch...if I watch.

New Anime on my Plate

Saturday, April 26th, 2008 04:28 am
forchancookie: (Join Us...We have Cookie!)
I can't stop talking about anime. At this point, it's the only thing remotely interesting in my life. I've watched a few new things this week and here's my take on things.

Armed librarians, crazy sensation stealing monsters, creepy shadow guys in lipstick and more. )

More Spring Anime

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 02:51 am
forchancookie: (Sarara Froggie)
I've watched two new ones and a few second episodes of others.

Worth coming back for? )

New Anime

Monday, April 14th, 2008 04:49 am
forchancookie: (Pierce the Heavens)
Spring is here and a lot of new anime are coming out. So here's a list of what I've watched so far and what I think of them. ^_^

To Watch, or Not to Watch? )

Dragon Fighter

Friday, February 15th, 2008 05:20 am
forchancookie: (Beside Myself with WTF!)
Bwa ha ha hah! You know how sometimes, you see a few tidbits that just tell you you HAVE to watch a movie? Yeah, that's me right now. Dean Cain in a movie called Dragon Fighter. Sounds bad doesn't it? Oh trust me, it is!

Entirely too long BAD movie summary )

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