I resisted this one for a while, as the title initially put me off. “The World God Only Knows” sounded like one of those megalomaniac shows, where some power-hungry fiend wants to take over the world. No, it is a delightful romantic comedy that isn’t really all that romantic, but is quite funny, and a rarity that the second season is better than the first.
It tells the story of Keima Katsuragi. He is a caliber of NEET, in that he shuns all human interaction. Oh, he goes to school and gets amazing grades, but his entire focus is on conquering the hearts of ladies. He has, in fact, conquered 10,000 of them……..too bad they are all VIDEO GAME girls. He is so good, that he has a title, The God of Conquest. Everyone comes to him to ask for help in how to beat the latest dating Sims games. He has played them all, on all platforms and has almost every copy of them. (His room could be a caliber of museum, as he has every gaming system. I am sure there is an Atari 2600 in there).
One day, while going through his e-mail, he gets an oddly worded challenge, daring him to take on the task on wooing girls who have a void in their hearts. He takes the challenge, not knowing what it all means. The letter has come from the Demon World. It seems, owing to some bureaucratic bungle, souls have escaped from Hell and they need his help to recapture them. Demons, however, are not the sharpest bowling balls on the rack and they somehow thought he has conquered 10,000 REAL GIRLS. Also, he has to take on an assistant, the rather ditzy and clueless Elucia de Lute Ima, better known as Elsie (who has spent at least the last 300 years as a maid). (more…)
Ah Yes! There’s nothing like the fresh scent of rivalry to catalyse ones relationship, and thats exactly what were having :). Unbeknown to Ichiko, Ogura Minami (Tetsurou’s older sister) was just that, popping in and using her acute ‘I can cause some trouble here’ senses, grabs hold of Kaito and takes off for an afternoon of frivolous activities. Now a few things must be taken into consideration, Ogura is really good looking (appearance-wise she’d be my personal fav XD) and from what I can tell its in her nature to use that to her advantage, you then mix that in with her slight promiscuous aura and as a result you have a really riled up Ichika.
Of course at first she tries to convince herself that she’s just so emotionally involved to that point of stalking them because its her duty to ‘take care’ of Kaito but pssh, I think after today we have an Ichiko who is very much aware of her feelings for our protagonist, after all its a given rule that if you come from a distant planet you can only kiss an earthling one so many times before falling hopelessly in love…. Cute right?
Short of vampire movies, it feels like “The Count of Monte Cristo” is one of those stories that has been made (and remade) a huge amount of times. I mean, it is a pretty resilient story of betrayal, revenge and redemption and this anime version is no different at the core than any other version. But how they approach it is very intriguing. Now, the official title is “Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo” and that part of the title is made clear as the series progresses. But what we have here is what I call Future Past. It feels like 19th Century France in architecture and dress and those phony airs of tact, but we have a lot of the conveniences of the modern age: space travel, computers and hover vehicles, to name a few. It does help that this takes place in the year 5053.
Although we keep a lot of the story, we also tinker a lot with the story and that is not a bad thing. We focus in on Viscount Albert de Morcerf. A rather naïve 15-year-old lad, he and his friend, Baron Franz d’Epinay, are attending some grand and glorious festival on Luna (yes, we are on the moon; remember, this is the 51st Century), where they are having a ripping good time. However, Albert falls afoul of some cutpurses and is kidnapped, only to be rescued by Le Compte-de Monte Cristo, a mysterious man of enormous wealth and magnificent charisma. (If you know the plot, this will not come as a great surprise as to the reason for the kidnapping, OK?)
Still, it is a good retelling of the story, in tandem with the surroundings, but the huge selling point is the look of the show. (more…)
I’ve always wondered why they give this show its name (Eng: ‘Waiting in the Summer”) but as it progresses I think i’m starting to get a general idea of why…. unfortunately that ‘general idea’ is nowhere near concrete enough for me to be able to put in into words and so ill be taking a raincheque on explaining that one :). Anyways in this episode we simply have the resolution of a misunderstanding and i suppose some slight progression in terms of the relationships between pretty much all the characters confirming what one could call a love tri… well.. pentagon… (Kitahara > Tetsuro > Kanna > Kaito > Ichika) of which all is one sided.
Now after Kaito’s very vague and uncompleted confession to Ichika during the last episode we had this result; Kaito believed that she knew he was going to confess but rejected him because he was not nearly good enough for her,whereas Ichika believed Kaito was going to tell her that he knew she was an alien and therefore she was afraid that he would be calling the ‘MIB’ (men in black) to arrest her.
Psssh, who said aliens weren't afraid of anything?
Hmmm so we continue off from episode 3, Louise is kidnapped and the Gallia army is heading towards Aqulieia with quite a bit of ships. Now I must admit, this episode was way too fast paced and regardless of the fact that there was quite a bit of action it left me feeling unfulfilled.
Heres everything in a nutshell, Saito rushes to save Louise with Tabitha, meanwhile on the Gallia’s army ship Joseph (Mister King of ignorance) uses the Founders Mirror to copy Louise’s power to himself, enabling him to use the explosion spell. Upon having the spell he begins using amplification ball-like objects to exponentially augment the explosive power. After setting off two, and destroying quite bit of his and the Aqulieia’s army in the process, he begins planning to send the final down to the heart of the city (i presume) to destroy it.
Why is he suddenly doing this? Here is where it got a bit ridiculous;
“I want to know how much damage I must inflict before i feel regret…… No matter how much land i gained or people i exceuted, I was never appeased….. This heart might finally be moved after seeing a city demolished” (more…)
Now, I know that this particular series veered over into a sub-genre I am tired of…vampires. It’s not that there aren’t good or interesting vampire animes out there, like “Black Blood Brothers” or “Hellsing”, but it is the sheer amount of them that gets overwhelming to the point where I run away. The other genre I am tired of is Giant Fighting Robots, so if they have a Giant Vampire Fighting Robot show, I can avoid it. (And if it is voiced by Chris Ayres, it’s everything I hate in one spot!)
The one under the microscope is “Rosario + Vampire”, which got a lot of positive spin in things I saw. Many girls liked it, as it was sooooooooooo romantic. Well, I was between shows and it came up, so I gave it a test run. I didn’t crash and burn, but it got really old really fast.
This is a shame, as it started out so good. Our hero, Tsukune Aono, is a ronin. This is a term used for a student who has left one school, but is not attached to another one. (It is a samurai term for a swordsman who has no master, but roams the countryside). He is a bit of a brick and is having a most difficult time getting accepted anywhere. His father magically finds an errant admission packet (dropped in an alley, after dark, by a strange hooded figure. Man, things have got to be rather weird and desperate if you are willing to grab an admission packet, dropped in an alley, after dark, by a strange hooded figure) and gloms it, scampering away. Hooray! Their son is not a total dweeb dork dingleberry dognice! Now, get to school! (more…)
Upon waking up this morning i decided to add a new series to my list of shows to review, after careful deliberation so I decided upon Ano Natsu de Matteru and took a look at episodes 1 and 2. As far as first impressions go i suppose i can give it an A, maybe its just because i had just woken up and the light comical nature of it suit my mood perfectly, or it really was that good, im really not sure, all I know is that I liked it. What else is that it didn’t take much out of me, there were no intricate plot twists that i had to wrap my mind over or super actiony scenes which got me pumped up, it left me with a sort of mushishi afterfeel.
Over the two episodes this is what i got from it, the story more or less revolves around Kaito Kirishima a first year at high school and Ichika Takatsuki an alien whose spaceship crash landed on earth injuring him in the process, As she is not used to life on earth she often seems to act weird and is continuously correcting herself. Due to her having nowhere to stay Kaito invites her to stay at his house and she meets his sister who agrees to let her to stay as long as she wishes.
Unfortunately, due to the injury caused by the crashlanding Kaito suffers from some sort of skin mutation (top image) which supposedly can only be cured/reversed by being embraced by Ichika (cant say we didn’t see that coming). (more…)
Clocking in at a mere four episodes and an OVA, “Magical Play” is another in a long line of Magic Girl shows (like “Sasami” and “The Familiar of Zero”), but we have dual stories going on (actually, we have several story lines, but they are all kept nicely apart), although, as with much in life, they cross and intersect.
The main story involves Padudu (that’s the one wearing the fish. It is not a fish costume, it is a fish, Uokichi, kind of like her familiar). She wants to become a real Magical Girl on Earth (she comes from the land Sea Heaven) and to this end, she needs to gather 20 Flower Stars. These are earned by doing tournament battles with other magical girls. When you get the 20 stars (and have filled up your card), you may then proceed to the next level.
Sadly, when you wear a fish, you are subject to all kind of problems, such as being grabbed by a large hungry eagle who wishes to dine on you, which is how the show opens. Padudu manages to break free, but then plummets to the town below.
In the town, a tournament is being held and Pipin (that is the one on the far left) has just defeated another magical girl. However, before she can claim her prize, Padudu crashes upon her, knocks her out and Padudu gets awarded the Flower Star. Pipin spends the rest of her time trying to wrest the star back from Padudu. (more…)
Okay so to be honest nothing much happened in this episode, i mean if it was skipped i don’t think anyone would even notice that a chunk of the series is missing. Lets see what were the highlights of this episode, ah yes, we got to see the priestess getup (image above) and we found out Saito has.. some very weird perversions. I mean comeon… lemon-chan?
Ah yes, another show i decided to see this season would be Amagami SS+ (Plus), now as far as first impressions go, the first 10 or so seconds got me thinking… AWESOME! I knew it was gonna be a continuation with each of the characters from the last season but i like how they are taking this XD. Sadly, soon enough that bubble is popped as he was only just dreaming (don’t you hate when that happens?).
Anyways the last season revolved around the founders festival or something like that right? so i was wondering if this one would be the same, outlining the possible developments with each possible pair in a set amount of time, hmmmm that format kinda leaves the possibility of Amagami SS++ and Amagami SS+++ until we have at the end the couples being old on a wheelchairs as Amagami SS(59+). Later on in episode 1 i realized i was right yup yup, i believe this one is going to revolve around the student council elections.
Okay, now is where this is starting to get really good, up for student council elections are (more…)
