With the release of episode 15, it’s finally complete. And once again, it ended on a wonderful note, just like the TV episodes did. Truly one of the most unique and memorable romance series I’ve seen, and definitely one of my favorite series from the past few years.
… condensed into one, because I can’t be assed to spend the effort in doing this over 30 days. Found via Sakagami’s Tumblr.
Doraemon
Watched this when I was a kid in China, dubbed in (what I can only imagine was) bad Chinese voice acting. Doesn’t matter though, because it remains one of the most charming and timeless series ever.
5 Centimeters Per Second
I had to think pretty long and hard about this, and I’m kind of surprised that this ended up being my choice. But I don’t think there’s any other that I could pick up and watch at any given moment and fall absolutely in love with all over again quite like it. Going to have to update my profile list!
Arcueid Brunestud
Not sure if this technically counts since it’s really based more on the VN than the anime adaptation, but out of all the fantastic characters from “Nasuverse”, she’s the one I find most fascinating. And charmingly cute too. ^_^
Shingetsutan Tsukihime
I’m not really “ashamed” to admit it, but I know many anime fans like to hate on it and say that it doesn’t exist. But while it’s probably the weakest version of the Tsukihime story, it was actually the first version I was exposed to, and I enjoyed it enough that it set me upon my path into becoming a full-on no hold barred Type-Moon/Nasu fanboy.
Takaki Touno
How much I identify with the way he holds onto feelings of time past is one of the biggest reasons I absolutely adore 5 Centimeters Per Second.
Takeuchi Itsuki
I pretty much hated the entire lot of characters of Initial D (even when discounting the fact that they may be the ugliest cast ever) except Bunta, and he was the worst of the bunch.
Yukino Miyazawa & Soichiro Arima
There’s not much to Kare Kano beyond their relationship, but it’s one of my favorite series ever. She’s a wonderfully complex character, and while he’s slightly boring, he’s also very likeable. And together they really make the show.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
I’m really not as big a fan of TTGL as many, but really, when the mecha grow to the size of universes and beyond… “epic” is really the only word to describe it.
Full Moon wo Sagashite
When Mitsuki finally makes it to America, only to discover that Eichi has died – I’m not ashamed to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I saw the scene unfold. Still probably the most emotional I’ve ever been from watching anime.
Kare Kano / His and Her Circumstances
As previously mentioned, the relationship between Miyazawa and Arima really makes this shine. The way the anime series ended wasn’t great, but overall I still loved it.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Close call between this and Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, but I think the fact that Eva is its own story instead of being part of a larger universe gives it the edge. And if the rest of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies are as good as the first 2, that will probably lock this category down.
N/A
Since this explicitly mentions series, I guess it’d have to be from .hack//SIGN. And though it’s been a while since I last re-watched (and so can be wrong), I can’t think of any ecchi scenes from it.
N/A
I refuse to answer this because searching for an image would probably make me want to stab my eyes out. So let’s just pretend there’s a great Arcueid (who else) cosplay image somewhere out there and I linked to it.
Messed around with the original wallpapers to make a multi-monitor wallpaper. Then later made a desaturated/spot-colored version, and decided to go with that.
Really not a big fan of catgirls, so just found one from the first series that came to mind which would have one (Nyan Koi).
Uh…this, I guess?
I really didn’t even know what this was, but I guess that’s fine. Oh, and obviously it’s Arcueid. Looks pretty weird/disturbing though. ¬_¬
Rin Tohsaka
Nobody else comes even close.
“Moe” is, of course, a very loosely defined term. So if I say this fits, it fits, dammit!
Uh… well, it’s Arcueid.
Full Moon wo Sagashite
Ouran High School Host Club would probably be the only other viable choice, but this remains one of the most stirring anime I’ve ever seen emotionally as previously mentioned.
Hitagi Senjougahara
The best character from Bakemonogatari, and one of the most fascinating character in quite some time. Plus, I really can’t think of many others who would qualify as yandere that I like at all… I guess Arcueid would kind of count, but she was never really completely crazy about killing Shiki.
Haruhi Fujioka & Tamaki Suoh
Yes, I realize this technically isn’t either, but Tamaki is an idiot and doesn’t (seem to) realize that Haruhi is a girl, so I’m going to count it. And I can’t think of anything else, so…
5 Centimeters Per Second
It’s pretty rare that I would tout visuals as a reason to enjoy a particular anime, but this is simply a visual tour de force. Beautiful beyond words, the detail that the world is rendered in is breathtaking.
Arcueid Brunestud
See Day 3. Since I don’t find her attractive just for the way she looks, everything applies here too.
Johan
For an anime (and manga that the anime follows almost exactly) as long as it is, Monster moves at a great pace. And one of the main reasons is how well Johan’s character is developed and presented. Diabolical, cunning, and morbidly fascinating at the same time.
Ah! My Goddess
One of my earliest anime, and one of the few harem anime where I actually like most, if not all, of the female characters. Keiichi is worthless though, but that’s par for the course for harem anime, right? =D
ステレオポニー – ツキアカリのミチシルベ (Stereopony -Tsukiakari no Michishirube)
Surprisingly easy choice, because most of the anime theme songs I love are ending themes or insert songs. Only other possible choice would be disillusion from Fate/stay night. Anyway, Darker Than BLACK S2 was kind of a disappointment, but this song was far and away the best thing in it.
Fate/stay night
This category was originally favorite Pokemon, but I decided that didn’t deserve a category here, so changed it to this (in keeping with the game-related spirit). And… well, there could really be no choice but this. The anime didn’t cover nearly all of the story, but the great cast of characters are mostly all accounted for, and I have no issues with the focus on the Fate route.
Code Geass
Who the hell actually remembers all the anime uniforms they’ve seen in anime? This is probably the only one I can identify somewhat easily, so let’s go with it.
Totoro
Not sure I really want to cosplay as anyone/anything, period, but if I could get a well-made full-size giant Totoro costume (and somehow be able to see out it), I’d totally wear it.
This has turned from a personal blog to a personal review page… which is fine, but not quite what I was intending. So I guess I need to try updating this more frequently. It’s not the first time I’ve said this, but maybe this time it’ll actually happen!
For now, some random musings:
The new iPhone got announced at WWDC today. Nothing all that interesting or overwhelming, though the new ultra-high DPI screen is nice. I think I would still rather have an HTC EVO plus an iPod Touch for music though. But it’s nice that iPod Touch owners will get to upgrade to iOS for free this time. Speaking of which, that’s now the 3rd OS with that name, after Cisco’s router/switch OS and Nintendo’s Wii quasi-OS. But hey, the i is lower-case and that makes all the difference, right?
The NBA Finals are under way, and tied 1-1 after the 2 games in Los Angeles. Pau Gasol has played very well so far, and Andrew Bynum put in a terrific performance in game 2 as well. Kobe hasn’t been amazing in the series so far though, and Ray Allen’s lights-out 3PT shooting in game 2 (an NBA-record 8 threes) combined with Rondo’s triple-double to get them the win. Officiating has been pretty universally terrible, unfortunately. But Paul Pierce hasn’t played too well either, and KG just looks absolutely brutal on the court (which is unfortunate, as I still like KG a lot despite hating Boston). Lakers will have to win at least 1 in Boston (hopefully game 3), and hope they can hold court at home in games 6/7. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but this definitely is shaping up to be a good series.
There’s been so much buzz about conference re-alignment and expansion in college sports, much of it centered on the Big 12, that at this point it’s almost impossible to dismiss. Now, as a Longhorns fan I’m pretty content in knowing that however it shakes out, Texas will almost certainly be in a good position – being the biggest revenue generating athletic program in the country makes it the most desirable school for any conference. But the idea of being in a Pac-16, or even more outlandishly, in the Big 10/11/14/16 (or whatever it’ll end up being called) still takes some getting used to. And I can’t imagine what fans of the “lesser” schools are feeling. But the fact that something like this, which seemed so ridiculous back when it was written in February, is now very possible or even possibly likely, is amazing.
Most new anime coming out seem to be uninteresting. I put Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on hold since it’s coming to an end and I figure I’ll just marathon through the 25 or so episodes from where I left off, so the only shows of this season that I care about are Kaichou wa Maid-sama, a decent silly romantic-comedy, and Angel Beats!, which has a few interesting characters. Also watching Arakawa Under The Bridge, but it’s actually gotten progressively less interesting as I watch more of it. The Maaya Sakamoto-voiced Nino-san is great, but doesn’t play as large a role in the story as I initially believed, and the rest of the cast are more just eccentric than interesting. Watched 1.11 and 2.22 of the Rebuild of Evangelion, and it’s great, but I’ll save that for a review post later.
Beat Super Mario Galaxy and one of the goals I set for myself in WipEout HD (will also talk about those in review post), and finding myself somewhat lacking in interest in playing anything else, despite a game of 3D Dot Game Heroes that I started and Super Mario Galaxy 2 waiting for me. Started playing Infinite Undiscovery, started regretting it almost immediately (even the intro FMV looks terrible – does anyone at Square know how to encode/compress video?), and lasted about 15 minutes before I quit – and will almost certainly never play again. Good use of $10! Then started Blue Dragon, and while it’s definitely a better game… Akira Toriyama character designs in 3D really doesn’t do it for me. Having a Japanese voice track is definitely nice, but the main character’s voice sounds anywhere between age 12 and 40, while the character looks about… 8. It’s just a weird experience. I might go back to it at some point later on, but I’m not counting on it. All this makes me wonder if the JRPG genre really is just dead to me. FFXIII is the first one I finished in ages, and none of the other current-generation JRPGs I’ve played (IU, BD, Eternal Sonata, etc.) I’ve gotten further than 5 hours in.
And finally, the lackluster support for ID3v2.4 is terribly annoying. Doesn’t get read properly by PS3 (boo), doesn’t get recognized by Windows Explorer (meh), and seems to often get corrupted when updated by iTunes (ugh). Mp3tag is a pretty nice piece of software that I’m using to clean up some tags, but it’s a very tedious process to use it to add lyrics. And all this because ID3v2.3 doesn’t support forward slashes in the artist field.
Yes, that time again. When I finally become not-lazy enough, or rather have enough that I’m in danger of forgetting about, that it’s finally time to write up some thoughts about stuff I’ve been watching or playing.
Bakemonogatari: I really wanted to wait until the web/DVD/BD-only episodes finish before reviewing, but I think I’ll just treat the initial TV-aired 12 episodes as its own entity. I really wasn’t all that familiar with the works of director Akiyuki Shinbou previously (only series of his I’ve seen was Maria†Holic), but BMG is definitely a showcase of his unique style. Animation is kind of uneven, and there are absolutely massive amounts of text that show up on screen for very short periods of time, making it a pretty hard watch at times (I often had to pause and go back to catch everything – heaven knows how someone watching it as a TV broadcast can possibly see it all). But the story and the characters more than make up for it. Araragi is a high school student who briefly turned into a vampire but has become (mostly) human again, and run into various girls who also have problems with the supernatural that he helps solve by bringing them to Oshino, and each subset/chapter of episodes deal with the ghost/apparition/spirit/what-have-you that’s plaguing a particular girl. What really elevates this series though, is one of those girls – the first heroine introduced, Hitagi Senjougahara. She is honestly one of the most fascinating anime characters in recent memory. From being a tsundere when she first meets Araragi to the cheerful girl who still mercilessly teases him at the end, she’s just a joy to watch anytime she’s on-screen. And the ending to the TV-aired episodes is probably the best of any romance series I’ve seen in the last few year, made all the better by the fantastic ending theme.
Verdict: 9/10.
Darker than BLACK: Waited until BD rips were out to watch this, and kicked myself for waiting so long. Set in a supernatural modern day world where some some people (Contractors) have gained superhuman powers albeit at the price of having to perform some rituals which are often painful or self-mutilating, it follows Hei, one such Contractor who’s working as an assassin known as “The Black Reaper”. There is actually a fairly wide cast of characters of importance, and they’re almost universally well done. Season 1 ends on a spectacular note, and while season 2 is also quite good, it does suffer a bit from it’s shorter length, where new characters (Contractors especially) seem to keep getting introduced for not much reason. Also, there is not nearly enough Yin in season 2. An OVA that bridges the two is still being released, hopefully that will shed more light. But overall, a good to great series. The opening theme to season 2 is also one of the best anime OPs I’ve ever heard.
Verdict: 8/10 for DTB: The Black Contractor, 7/10 for DTB: Gemini of the Meteor.
Kimi no Todoke: Nothing wrong with watching a little Shoujo now and then, is there? The main character is a girl for whom the description of “socially inept” would be generous, who of course is also the kindest girl you could ever meet. She then makes friends with some 2 other girls who are themselves somewhat outcasts, and meets, and captures the eye of, the most popular boy in class. They’re both way too dense to realize their feelings for each other in any reasonable timeframe, and too shy to even think about admitting it to each other, even after 25 episodes. So while it’s certainly got some questionable pacing, but characters and some of the situations that arise are indeed quite fun, and maybe the next season will offer more development (not counting on it though!).
Verdict: 7/10.
Summer Wars: From the director of Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo / The Girl Who Leapt Through Time comes this anime that’s kind of a cross between War Games and .hack. The animation is superb, the setting is quite imaginative, and the (main) characters are very likable. It won Animation of the Year at the Japan Academy Prize for 2010, and I can’t say it’s a bad choice. Very enjoyable.
Verdict: 9/10.
Final Fantasy XIII: From the start on PS2 to the shift to using the “next-gen” Crystal Tools to the shocking news of becoming multi-platform, this game has been years in the making, and this year it finally was unleashed upon the world (outside Japan). The PS3 version is still obviously the superior one, and technically, it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. The FMVs in 1080p look absolutely amazing, and the cut-scenes rendered in real-time using higher-quality models look so good that sometimes you may question if it’s not in fact pre-rendered CG. The music is excellent, especially the battle themes, even if the whole package isn’t quite up to the levels of the soundtracks of Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy VI (but then, what is?). The characters and story are about par for the JRPG course, though somehow a “token black guy” who has a baby Chocobo in his afro ends up being a well developed character – possibly the best of the protagonists, in fact. And the pacing is an issue that raises most people’s ire – slowly introducing game concepts is something I can get behind, but taking 25 hours to get to the point where you’re finally experiencing the entirety of game mechanics is admittedly pretty patience-wearing. But the battle system is really what makes the game for me. Limiting player control to only one character does feel restrictive at first, especially at the beginning when the deeper mechanics are not utilized, but once all the elements are in place, it’s fast-paced, strategic, and really limits the necessary of grinding… for experience at least. Unfortunately, obtaining gil (money) is pretty difficult, especially when trying to be a completionist in obtaining and upgrading all the weapons/accessories (which also has an associated trophy). And as I am nothing if not obsessive-compulsive when it comes to things like this, 100-some odd hours, 60+ of them after beating the game, passed before I was finally “finished”. Overall… I enjoyed it.
Verdict: 7/10. Definitely isn’t going to surpass FFVI, but I had fun, and when it comes down to it, that’s what matters. Now just to see if I can actually make myself finish any other JRPGs…
Heavy Rain: Touted as “interactive drama”, this has been on my radar for quite a while. Switching between 4 different characters, the story revolves around the search for the “Origami Killer” who targets young boys. At it’s core, the gameplay is movement with RE-style “tank” controls along with series of Quick Time Events. No, that doesn’t sound very promising at all, but surprisingly, it works pretty well. I still had some problems with the movement, especially when camera angle changes, but the QTEs are among the best I’ve ever seen in a game – the locations of the prompts work very well with the flow of game events, and the button actions required “fits” the action on screen. But the most important part of the game/experience is, of course the story and characters. Questionable voice-acting aside, the characters are pretty good, and the plot is gripping even if there are some holes. And in terms of emotional impact, this game features more grimace and shudder inducing scenes than almost any others I can think of, and that’s actually a positive. Those thoroughly uncomfortable events really brings the player/viewer into the story, and makes for some highly memorable moments. So as far as the drama aspects go, I would say it’s a success. Unfortunately, this is also probably the buggiest game I’ve played since the original The Witcher. Despite a 1.01 patch that was pushed out right at launch, freezes and crashes seemed to be quite common. I experienced several freezes, and the last one resulted in my progress being lost when the save file got deleted (which has even further increased my disdain for the most-hated feature of this console generation, locked save files). I was probably 70% through the game at that point, and it made me just put it down completely to play FFXIII instead. I eventually came back to finish HR, but even with the 1.02 patch, I still experienced a few freezes, though thankfully didn’t have the lost save problem again.
Verdict: 6/10. 6.5 is probably more accurate. If it wasn’t for the technical issues, this would probably be a 7, but despite the promise it shows, it’s still too rough in some areas to be considered great.
Mass Effect 2: Continuing on where Mass Effect 1 left off, Commander Shepard is back. New allies to gain (and some old ones), new enemies (and some old ones) to fight. Gone are planet-side missions with the terrible Mako driving segments and cookie-cutter buildings/enemies, along with an inventory management system so obtuse I had to use a spreadsheet to keep track of what I had, and the dialogue system gained more depth due to the new Paragon/Renegade interrupt actions, but not everything is a gain. The weapon and character upgrade system is simple to the point of being annoyingly restrictive, and whoever at BioWare came up with the planet scanning minigame for resources ought to be fired. But the story, characters (Tali and Garrus’ triumphant return are especially fantastic), and a whole lot more information on a wonderfully developed space opera setting makes up for all that. I’m not so sure I can still consider this game a RPG – a third-person cover-based shooter with some RPG-lite elements would probably be a lot more accurate. But either way, it’s still the best released-in-2010 game that I’ve played.
Verdict: 9/10. Absolutely cannot wait for the final installment of the trilogy, and will probably play through all the DLC available before then too.
