Let’s get something straight- I hate Valentine’s Day.

I’ve decided to make this short little post a sort of “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” and, in celebration of a truly evil day, I’ve compiled a list of my top 5 anime couples. Because a) I like lists and b) what’s sweeter than when two anime characters fall hopelessly in love with each other? *Sigh* Of course if you’ve read my other posts you may know by now that I’m still pretty new to anime so I don’t have a lot of shows to choose from, but here are the 5 couples who have caught my eye thus far.

(Um, spoilers I guess. Sort of.)

Number 5: Taiga and Ryuuji from Toradora!
They say opposites attract and if any couple was proof of that, it’d be this one. Ryuuji meets Taiga, the takes-no-crap girl whose small stature but hotheaded personality earned her the nickname palmtop tiger. At the start of the anime the two of them, not even friends at this point, are struggling desperately to confess their feelings to their school crushes. When Taiga accidentally reveals to Ryuuji who she loves (she gives him the love letter she’d written), they agree to help each other. Of course they form a closer bond than either of them had thought possible. Taiga’s sharp, cruel remarks mixed with Ryuuji’s patience and compassion makes for a hysterical dynamic, and although Ryuuji may have feelings for another girl, even he can see that she may be just a little too vanilla and he needs a sprinkling of salt. (more…)

You have read my comments on short-run shows (series that have 11 or less episodes), but I am running into short pull episodes. Now, “Hetalia” is the King of this, with over 100 episodes, but not one of them gets to the six-minute mark.

As of late, I have seen a huge uptick in the amount of short-pull shows.

One is “Chitose Get You” (pictured above).  Chitose Sakuraba is the elementary school gal in the middle who has a terrible crush on Hiroshi Kashiwabara, who gets a bit paranoid about her coming around and hanging about. However, thwarting her plans is the evil, evil, evil homeroom teacher Asako Fuji, who ALSO has a crush on Hiroshi. Which of these two will marry him first? Rounding out this troupe is Misaki (the cheerful one to the left) and Hinako Hiiragi (far left; don’t let her poise fool you; she is one weird bird).

The episodes are usually one event or tale and they don’t last more than four minutes a pop.

Other short pull shows out there include:

“Gokicha! – Cockroach Girls”. An anthropomorphized cockroach girl who wishes to become friends with humans, but is often treated with the appropriate response. This one ran about 10 minutes and with another girl in the offing (Chaba), more is to be expected.

“Wooser No Sono Higurashi” (“Wooser’s Hand-To-Mouth Life”). Wooser is a yellow blob. Is he a rabbit? Not certain. He lives with twin sisters Rin and Ren, but don’t let that cutesy animation fool you. He is one mean character, and there is a caliber of cruelty akin to “Happy Tree Friends and Friends”, but without the pointless violence. Even with all that, the stories are really lacking. Again, nothing over four minutes. (more…)

I was looking for something festive for the new year. I’d hoped the banner said Happy New Year. It says Welcome to the Student Council

First off, Happy New Year fellow anime lovers! This message will be delivered late but shoot I’m writing this on the morning of January 1st. Hope you all managed to go out, party, and have a great time because I’ve been sick with mono all week. Besides really sucking this means that I’ve gotten to dig through a ton of Soul Eater episodes.

But this article isn’t about Soul Eater. It’s about a lesser known anime, Seitokai no Ichizon Lv. 2. I happened to stumble upon the original series, Seitokai no Ichizon, a while back. Keep in mind I’ve only seen 8 episodes of Lv. 2 thus far, but at 10 episodes to conclude the series I think I pretty much know where this is going.

The synopsis I’ve written goes for both shows since they are both pretty much plot-less: Four attractive girls are on the student council. There’s the president, Aka-chan. Despite being one of the older ones and in charge of the student council, she is the most childish: insecure about her extremely small stature and possessing a wild sweet tooth. She also happens to be my favorite ^__^ Then we have Chizuru. She is very womanly, somewhat seductive, and loves to baby Aka-chan, who she finds to be adorable. Minatsu is the bold tomboy with athletic skills. Her little sister, Mafuyu is the adorable one who loves BL and video games and often refers to herself in the first person. She’s also scared of boys.

The fifth spot is open to whichever student gets the highest grades in the class. Ken decides to work as hard as he can to become top student not because he wants a promising future (because really what sixteen year old actually cares about that?) but because he wants to spend his afternoons hanging out with all the girls. Ding! Ding! Ding! You got it. It’s a harem! (more…)

Happy Holidays!!

Have you ever found yourself  stuck between and rock and a hard place wondering…. ‘should I drop this show’? Well as you can see from my anime list, while I always try to stick with it to the end sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. There are many reasons why viewers decide to stop watching particular shows but I’ve compiled them all into 5 main areas.

1. Gotten too repetitive
2. Plot is dragging on and gets boring
3. It was never interesting to begin with
4. Not your cup of tea.
5. You woke up one morning to have found that you had grown old, your back hurts, you’ve spent all your cash on bingo, you’ve  grown a massive beard as well as a beer belly and suddenly the show seems too ‘kiddy’ for your mature taste.

While #5 is a bit of a stretch lets dive into the others and see the best course of action in any of those aforementioned situations.

Número uno, Gotten too repetitive. This is by far the most common factor in the downfall of what began as good shows, it’s extremely common in most multi-season series and to be honest it’s sort of comparable to being friendzoned… ‘The Pit of No Return’. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, InuYasha, Pokemon and Rosario + Vampire are some of the most popular culprits of this. But should you drop it? Definitely not. Its true that at the peak of its ‘repetitiveness’ you may find yourself bashing your head against your monitor but more often that not the producers catch themselves and rectify the problem. A rule of thumb is that ‘if the show is long, it can’t be that bad’. Why? Because bad shows don’t make money, therefore they get cancelled pretty quickly, so stick with it, don’t damage your forehead too badly and have some patience… it’ll get better. (unless its pokemon… but is that even anime?) (more…)

As usual, this was the summer of comic book films. We had The Avengers, which only increased my ever lasting love for Joss Whedon, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Amazing Spider-Man which blew the original films away with it’s darker tone and the absence of a certain redhead. I’ve been a longtime fan of comic book movies, but I’m new to anime/manga.

Being a die-hard reader I find manga extremely enjoyable. As a reader who usually reads thick fantasy books with small fonts, I can especially appreciate the fact that I can get through a fast paced manga volume within an hour. Another bonus, manga often fills me in with a lot of story that the anime series had carelessly glossed over. Comic book movies gloss over certain aspects of the original stories as well, but this is much more necessary since the comics go on for forever. More on that later.

Readers have heard this question before: Are comic books or manga more enjoyable? Personally, I like manga better and there’s really no contest here…And yes, manga, like anime, plural is just “manga” not “mangas”. Hey! I knew being an English major would come in handy. 😉

Back in the day when I saw the first two X-men movies, belonging to my all time favorite comic book film series, I decided to start trying to get into the comics. I had to get my fix somehow, right? X-men 3 was only just about to be released at the time so I was out of films until then. Let’s start with the original X-men series…you know what, I won’t even talk about it. Just have a look here. (more…)

More Than Meets The Eye

Like a lot of people Ninja Scroll was one of the first anime movies I had the luxury of watching.  After observing how unique it was compared to other ‘cartoons’ I had seen over the previous years I began to do research to find similar productions.  Of course, back in the 90’s I didn’t realize a lot of shows I was currently watching were actually imported from Japan.  After learning the difference I understood the first genuine anime show I actually watched was the Original Transformers.

Since then I’ve watched everything from Princess Mononoke, Gungrave, Black Blood Brothers, to more recent stuff such as Kingdom.  I may take a little bit more of an old school approach to stuff I see today in large part due to the fact I believe Xenogears is the best game of all time in my opinion.  I previously played games along with watching anime prior to Xenogears, but it helped facilitate the foundation for my enthusiasm in all things anime/game related when ID tossed the Yggdrasil on Bart. (The graphics are cheesy compared to today’s standards I know.) (more…)

Maturity... yea it matters

After my last post ‘Appearances can be Deceiving‘, I realized that what I called a ‘deceiving start’ was not the only thing that could make one drop a show. While it is the most common reason, one’s Level of Maturity also plays a pretty huge part in how much one is able to understand and appreciate an anime.

A lot of the time viewers find themselves more able to relate to certain shows (especially those with a ‘deeper’ sense to them) when they are older and have a better understanding of the world (usually brought about by both good and bad life experiences). A perfect example can be found on Canne’s Anime Review Blog when she expressed that ‘watching anime at the right time is as important as watching the right anime’.

The thing is. I wasn’t ready for Princess Mononoke when I first saw it. I was too young, too ignorant and inexperienced to truly appreciate it. I could feel that this was a great anime but I didn’t understand why. Now I do and I am grateful to myself for giving the anime another chance.

Shows such as Princess Mononoke, Akira and Grave of the Fireflies are examples of anime that while can be enjoyable by all, takes a certain level of Maturity to fully appreciate.

Like Canne I remember a few years back watching Akira for the first time and to be honest it didn’t hit me, it felt old, boring. I actually felt somewhat confused for the greater part of the show. After a re-watch a few months ago by the slightly more mature me, or at least the slightly older me. I found myself thinking that (more…)

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Why Shinji is as strong as Rei and Asuka and …What would Asuka do?

(Spoilers ahead)
I was reading the NGE manga and in volume six Toji discovers he’s the fourth child. His Eva unit is taken over by an Angel and Rei, Shinji, and Asuka are sent to destroy it. This happens in episode 18 of the anime. Shinji has no idea Toji is in the Eva/Angel in the anime, but still refuses to destroy it. In the manga he recognizes that it is Toji. Shinji refuses to shoot, Rei only follows orders and doesn’t think twice about shooting, and Asuka was already shot down and help was sent for her.

I don’t remember if Rei and Asuka are present during this scene in the anime, but to the best of my memory they aren’t. Anyway, in both versions Shinji is now faced with a choice and promptly refuses to follow orders. This to me is the most defining moment for his character and proof that he is far more than a coward.

Take that Shinji bashers.

Shinji gets far too much dislike. Is he a heroic, admirable, amazing hero? No. But hello, that’s the entire point of the series. My opinion, if someone hates Shinji, they hate NGE; which is fine everyone is entitled to an opinion. But if someone still loves NGE I can’t understand why they would love a show centered on a character they hate. Also, I think they failed to see the point of the show.

So now I have developed a list I like to call…
Reasons Why Shinji is as Good as Asuka and Rei

Reason 1: Shinji refuses to shoot because it goes against his moral reasoning
Simply, Shinji sticks to his guts. Whether or not you agree with Shinji’s choice is a whole different debate. That issue of whether it’s okay to sacrifice one person to benefit another can be analyzed for you in 50 very complicated episodes of the Code Geass series. The point is Shinji did what he thought was right. He didn’t shoot because he was terrified of getting in trouble or afraid to die, he simply said he was not going to shoot. It would have been very easy for Shinji to have just saved his own skin. In the manga, he knew it was his friend. That also shows loyalty. In the anime he has no idea it’s Toji. That shows that he thinks of others, of children his own age. (more…)

The power of deception.. blessing? or curse?

Do you remember in the first Transformers movie, when Sam Witwicky went out looking for his first car, and ended up with this average 1976 Camaro? If so then you surely remember when it self-pimped up to the 2009 model. Sometimes it feels to me that anime does the same thing. On numerous occassions I have found myself dropping an anime, only to find myself picking it up again after a certain period of time and only then realizing that hey… I LOVE this show!

While there can be numerous reasons for that, I believe that the main reason is simply because of a ‘Deceiving Start’. This is the case where you start watching a show and by episode 3 or 5 you feel you have just wasted way too much of your life on it, that it can not possibly get any better and so you simply move on to the next show that peaks your interest.

I call it ‘deceiving’ for lack of a better word, saying ‘A Slow Start’ or ‘A Boring Start’ would imply that the plot progression is slow (or boring) which is not always the case. In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for instance, although it is currently one of my personal favourites, it was once on my ‘dropped’ list due to its… somewhat unappealing start. (more…)

We all know Misa Amane from Death Note as one of the most hated characters in anime (Aw come on! But she’s so cute!). She is pretty much useless, obnoxious, and the yaoi fans damn her for eternity for getting in the way of their precious Light/L ship.

I totally understand where the Misa bashing comes from. When I first watched Death Note and she made her first appearance I was very excited. Finally, a female lead who doesn’t get herself killed an episode later! Then, I was disappointed. Why? Not because she’s so annoying, but because she actually could’ve been a fantastic character. I don’t proclaim to be better than the brilliant writers behind Death Note are, but let’s look at the facts.

What Misa was made to be:

– She is stupid
– She is annoying
– She is completely and utterly obsessed with Light Yagami (more…)