Protoculture: Anime Adventures pt.2

rdaniels — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:14:00 GMT

Since my previous blog seemed to go over pretty well, I thought I'd make a continuation of sorts. Lest it be a rehash of what has already been done, I figure I can expand it a bit as well.

Topic #1: Anime

Since I liked Lucky Star so much, I decided to check out some of the shows referenced in it, as well as anything similar I could find. This led me to 'The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi', 'To Heart', and 'Genshiken'. I've already posted my thoughts on them in the forums, so I just linked to the threads rather than repeat myself here. Short version: worth watching. Next priority along this vein is 'Kujibiki Unbalance', something of a spinoff from Genshiken, the anime all the club members watch during the course of the show. Seems to be about students at a school where everything is decided by drawing lots. An interesting premise, if nothing else. I remember seeing the first DVD at Best Buy, I need to remember to pick that up sometime.

Next up, we have 'Ah My Goddess!: Tatakau Tsubasa' (or Fighting Wings, if you prefer). I didn't know they made this, I just found it while browsing around. Pretty much more of the same as the TV series, this time animating the Angel Eater story. I thought it was really well done. I rather wonder if the rest of this arc is going to be animated. The won vs. the Angel Eater, but that's not where the manga story ends. I want to see Welsper introduced!

Moving on, let's go to 'My Otome', a spinoff/sequel of 'My HiME'. I really like My HiME when I saw it a while back, and rewatched again recently before Otome. I was hoping that the second series would be as good as the first, but unfortunately it wasn't. Not to say it was bad, far from it. Just a let-down after the first series. No complaints with the art or animation; those are all really good. The story is also good, although IMO not as good as the first. It's also quite interesting to see how the old characters react in a new environment. The battles are not nearly as interesting as the first show. Instead of giant summoned monsters, we get magical girls who double as maids, occasionally materializing weapons. Just lacks the excitement of the previous show. Probably my biggest problem with the new show is the new lead character Arika. She's so annoying, as soon as she starts talking, I just feel the urge to strangle. Probably the only character type I dislike more than the uselessly energetic type (Arika) is the girl with the brother complex (Shiho from HiME, for instance). Anyways, Otome is good, just not as good as I'd hoped.

Last show to talk about as Kanon. Not the 2006 version from those who did Air and Clannad, but the old 2002 version. Although I'm only about 1/2 way through it, I think I can pretty confidently say don't bother. Go for the later version, its much better. It (quite naturally) follows the same story, but is not as well fleshed out, being just 13 episodes, rather than the 24 episodes of the later version. Also, the visuals are not as detailed and pretty, which I suppose may be expected, being 4 years older. I think this would be well worth watching if the newer version wasn't available, but placed beside Kanon 2006, it doesn't stack up so well.

Topic #2: Manga

Reading manga is good. I seem to do it in cycles. I'll buy 15 or so volumes of various series and read them all over the next day or so. Then I'll be fine for a while, until I get the urge to buy some more. Repeat. I'd like to get into some different series, but I'm already trying to keep up with a couple too many. What I'm reading now hasn't changed much from a couple months ago, except for the addition of Rosario+Vampire, and the removal of My HiME, because it ended. I did pick up the first couple volumes of Immortal Rain and Rebirth. Although I like what I see thus far, I haven't yet gotten any further into them yet.

While I may have my complaints about the Bleach anime, I have none about the manga. It has stayed consistently good since it started, and it seems like it won't show any signs of suckage until it ends. I've fallen about 3 volumes behind in Enchanter, and probably Buso Renkin as well. I'd like to catch up on Enchanter quickly, but I'm not too concerned about Buso Renkin. While Kenshin was great, this newer effort from the same artist leaves something to be desired.

Topic #3: Games

In all actuality, I don't have much to say about gaming. I used to game all the time, but not much anymore. I still buy new games out of habit, but it takes forever until I play them most of the time.

Actually, there is one thing I have to talk about: Visual Novels. I wish they were officially translated and sold in the USA. I suppose that's just wishful thinking. I doubt there's really a market for them here, I'm actually surprised they sell well in Japan. But really, I like them. I played Kanon and Clannad, and those are great. While the anime versions have the definite advantage of being animated (nah, really? ;) ), the games allow you to play out the story the way you want. I especially like this, as I never really care much for the main heroine chosen for the anime. With the games, I can play Kanon and have Mai or Nayuki be the 'winner', or in Clannad choose from Tomoyo, Kotomi, or Kyou. I always liked that pairing, Tomoya and Tomoyo. It's Tomo-Tomo!

Topic #4: Music

I'm curious, how many of you listen to OSTs and/or JMusic? Myself, I listen to rather a lot of both.

I have an almost embarassingly large amount of music from video games, and a few TV shows. Most of it is from RPGs (of which most are, of course, from Square-Enix), but there's also technoey rock stuff from Megaman and Devil May Cry, lots of stuff from .Hack (games & TV), as well Bleach and RahXephon. Most of my favorite stuff comes from the video games, tho. It'd be hard to identify all my favorite composers, but off the top of my head, I like Sakimoto Hitoshi (Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile) for the large orchestral arrangements, Uematsu Nobuo (Final Fantasy) mostly for his piano pieces, Mitsuda Yasunori (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears), Kaijura Yuki (.Hack//SIGN, Xenosage 2 & 3), and Satou Tenpei (Nippon Ichi games). I'm thinking about looking for the soundtracks to Key's games as well.

My first exposure to Japanese popular music was, unsurprisingly, anime. This is also still my main way to discover new artists. Mostly I listen to pop and some rock music, because that's the easiest to find. I'd like to expand a bit beyond this, but that can wait until I check out all the pop and rock artists that I want. I listen to quite a number of artists, but currently my favorites would be: 1: Dir en grey, 2: Gackt, and 3: Jyukai. I also quite like Utada Hikaru, Yui, High and Mighty Color, and Kawada Mami. BoA as well, tho she's Korean. I'd really like to discover some more JRock artists, as that's my favorite style of music. Dir en grey's Marrow of a Bone is by far my favorite album ATM.

Ja ne

rdaniels

My Recent Anime Adventures

rdaniels — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:03:00 GMT

Before I actually start this post, a couple warnings:

1) This is going to devolve into ranting at points. Sorry.
2) I tend to watch a lot of fansubs, then buy dvds later. There may be some spoilers in here, but especially if you just keep up with dvd releases. Sorry about that too, I'll try to keep it to a minimum

Now that's out of the way, I'll get into my main rant. The new Bleach filler. I realize filler is unavoidable, and also that some filler episodes can be pretty good. Bleach itself has proven this. Even this new stuff could wind up pretty good watched on its own. I have two main problems with it now though. First, the timing is completely inappropriate. The older filler in Bleach came at good breaking points, and were worked into the overall story without being intrusive. Not so with the newer stuff. I mean, its right in the middle of a major story arc, but they just dropped it to go into something totally different. On top of that, the two filler episodes so far seem completely unrelated, and not much happens. I mean, first there's a new captain. And he seems suspicious. OK, no problem, could be an interesting story. Then the next one is in the real world, where all of sudden everyone's back in school. Huh? When did that happen? And we're introduced to three new suspicious characters, but nobody's done anything yet. Just aggravating. This is not the way to go into any story arc, but inserting something like this right in the middle of another story makes no sense at all, and to me is inexcusable.

On to more positive experiences, Clannad and the second season of Shakugan no Shana ended recently. Both of these are, IMO, excellent examples of how anime should be. Both tell a good story, have clear start and end points, yet leave enough open to continue on.

In Clannad's case, you can really see the evolution in Kyoto Animation's animation of Key games. First there was Air, which was beautiful but incomprehensible. I mean, a lot of regular life type stuff happens, then one person dies and the other turns into a crow. There might be some time travel involved too, I'm not sure. It made no sense to me at all. Then Kanon, which was just as well animated, but it made far more sense. At least it felt like the parts I didn't understand were just something I missed. Last, we have Clannad. The art and animation is some of the best I've seen, the story is complete, understandable, and touching. Very well done.

Then there's Lucky Star. While the art and animation may not be top-notch, they aren't meant to be, nor do they need to be. The dialogue and comedic timing of the main show is nothing short of genius. Konata is a wonderful character that I can definitely relate to. I may not be the hopeless otaku that Konata is, but as an anime and manga junkie, former videogame junkie that still plays casually, and a former MTG player and collecter, I understand the mentality.

Last show that I will talk about is Rosario+Vampire. Reading elsewhere online, I think this show gets hated on more than it deserves. Anime fans hate it because of its highly episodal, monster-of-the-week format, and fans of the original manga say the anime ruins the source material with added fanservice and by wimpifying the male lead. I can't completely disagree, but I do have some comments on these topics. About the episodal nature, the manga is the exact same way over the chapters the anime covers. After that point, there is a longer, very good story arc that I expect will be done in the second season. I think it should be something to look forward to. The fanservice is not excessive, especially compared to other modern shows. And though it has been increased from the original source chapters, later chapters of the manga go the same route with more fanservice, so there's not really anything to complain about with the anime. However, I do have to agree that the male lead was changed for no good reason, to the detriment of the show. I'm sure we're all a bit tired of the standard spineless, clueless harem male.

Now I need to go find some other shows to watch. Or maybe get a life... Nah, don't need one.

rdaniels : Anime

Protoculture: Anime Adventures pt.2

My Recent Anime Adventures