As we know, theme and amusement parks can give you the time of your life. But what if the enjoyment you have actually saves another person’s life? Thus is the idea behind “Amagi Brilliant Park”.
Seiya Kanie is a good looking, perfectionist boy (that guy dead center) who is forced by the mysterious Isuzu Sento (the red coat to his left) to visit an amusement park named Amagi Brilliant Park, which is in serious difficulties and about to be closed forever. Forced is right. Seldom do you start a romantic comedy anime with having a blunderbuss shoved in your face and ‘asked’ to come along on a date. Are things really that tough in schools in getting a guy?
The park is actually staffed by refugees from a magical realm called Maple Land, and the park is a facility for harvesting magical energy from visitors while they’re having fun. As such, the park is the only way the refugees can maintain their existence in the human realm. Yup, those characters that look like they are in costumes are not costumes, but real magical creatures. Even the Elementarios (those fairies to the left and back three rows) are, well, real fairies as we imagine them to be.
This is an entry in the ever-increasing popularity of the school-magic show. You have seen it with “The Familiar of Zero”, “Blade Dance”, Magic Craft Works” and “A Certain Magical Index”. So, what makes “The Irregular at Magic High School” that different? Well in one aspect, it isn’t that different, as we cannot decide on the title (Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei, “The Poor Performing Student of a Magic High School”), but ‘poor’ is a very poor choice of words, but this is revealed during the run of the show. Also, rather than being a magic show with a school setting, it is a school show with a magic background.
It is the future (almost the end of this century). Magic is an established fact, has been for about 100 years and many countries train those with magical ability to, eventually, become soldiers to defend the country. In Japan, there are nine Magic High Schools. I do not know if the numbers mean anything, but we focus on First High School. Ah, but we use magic differently, in that we don’t going around, proclaiming “Accio!” or “Deletrius” or “Hakuna Matata!” Rather than casting spells with chants or other traditional forms of spell casting, mages use a Casting Assistant Device, better known as a CAD. The bad thing is the device looks like an iPhone6. (more…)
Part of the problem with magic shows is that everything is eventually going to link back to ‘Harry Potter’, and “Witch Craft Works” does have some touch-and-go moments to Harry, but it can’t fully commit to what it wants to be.
Takamiya Honoka is a regular student at Tōgetsu High School. He is a standard, typical anime male, in the fact that not only is he clueless, he pines on endlessly for the Most Popular Girl in the School. He also lacks the spunk or the desire or the lead in his pencil to speak with her. The person in question is Kagari Ayaka, the school’s “Princess”. She is everything you want your girlfriend to be: she’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s adored, she’s tall and (although you can’t see it in this shot), build like a brick chicken house. They have never spoken to each other and any small interaction between them immediately results in her fan club beating him for his insolence.
One day he is attacked by a quintet of oddly-dressed girls called the Tower Witches, who had been covertly making attempts on him. However, the attack is thwarted by Ayaka, who turns out to be a Workshop Witch and has been protecting Honoka for quite some time. No longer having to hide her mission, Ayaka decides to become friendlier with him, though their relationship earns Honoka the ire of a lot of his class mates. She also decides that he needs to become her apprentice so he can at least learn how to defend himself from these almost daily assaults. (more…)
OK, give this show a chance. The problem with “Log Horizon” is that it starts out EXACTLY like “Sword Art Online”, in that you have these people with this Virtual Reality, totally immersive headgear, playing a game (in this case “Elder Tale”) and 30,000 are online when the newest upgrade patch is put in and now are trapped in the game. They refer to the incident as The Apocalypse and they are stuck, with at least no immediate way out.
After this blatant establishing shot, the show decides to take a differing approach to things. One of the ‘benefits’ explored (if you could call it that), is that when you die in the game, you are reborn, so you aren’t completely erased from existence (although even that creates problems). It’s just that you are in this game with absolutely nothing to do: quests are bland and there is a huge amount of Player-Killers, bored to tears as there is no goal and rather than sit on my GCI butt all day, I might as well make things hard for others.
Kai Shirogane (glasses in the middle), called Shiroe, had a reputation among other players, most notable the “villain with glasses”. He was a stunning tactician for the Tea Party Brigade (a non-guild guild where people just had themselves a ripping good time). With his friend Naotsugu Hasegawa, (hulking dude sitting down), Atasuki (far right ninja and assassin) and Nyanta (cat), they decided to do something with the game that the original approach would not allow: transform this into a living, breathing society. This turns out to be far harder but, ultimately, more rewarding, than merely searching for treasure. (more…)
This is half of what could be best called a brother-and-sister series. They are related in the fact they occur in the same town (Academy City) at about the same time and the characters do cross over and slightly interact, but that’s about it. They are independent of each other in what they wish to accomplish.
This one is “A Certain Magical Index”. Now, Academy City, a technologically advanced academic city located towards western Tokyo, which studies scientifically advanced superhuman students with powers, is also set in a world where magic is real. Our hero up there is Tōma Kamijō, a fairly average student but a flop when it comes to esper talents and abilities. In this town, your esper abilities determine much in your life and he is at the bottom, possessed with the worst luck ever.
The only thing he has going for him is his right hand, which he calls the Imagine Breaker, which has the amazing ability to negate magical and psychic powers. But since it is only considered an ability, he gets a Psychic Level of…..zero. He might as well be selling hot dogs from a street vendor wagon. (more…)
There are two kinds of space aliens out there. The first one will rip out your lungs, Jim, as they are mean, cruel, vicious, ugly, primal and oozy. The second are cute, cuddly and busty. Talk about the moons of Mars!
“UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie” follows the story of Kazuto Tokino (the guy in the brown outfit; I hope you can find him between all this femininity) and the alien Princess, Valkyrie (the blonde on both the left and the right). Yes, both of them are her. It seems that while trying to escape a forced marriage, Valkyrie accidentally crashed her spaceship into Kazuto’s family owned public bath house and killed him. In order to save him, she gave up half her soul. The splitting up of her soul turned her into a child, but whenever she kisses Kazuto, Valkyrie returns to her adult form for a limited time, and regains the use of her special powers.
OK, please note the key word up there: bath house. You are guaranteed a tremendous amount of fan service, and right from the get-go. I did not even know if I was a fan before acres of skin were presented to me, plus a stunning transformation sequence (more on that later).
Anyway, a rival of Valkyrie, Hydra (the blue-haired mop up there), followed her to Earth, because she knew that if Valkyrie ran away, she would have to take her place at the wedding, which was not something she wanted to do. However, since cute space aliens cannot pilot their ships, she crashed into a temple. The shrine maiden there, Akina Nanamura, (to Hydra’s left) placed a barrier on her and sealed away HER powers, so she is also eight as well. (more…)
I have an assumption that with a short-run show, since you are not really coming back to anything and you are going to crash and burn somewhere on the journey, you can go all out and leave only destruction in your wake. It’s just that the opportunity to see these kinds of shows are limited and if you do not know what to look for (or where to find it) a lot of stuff gets passed over. And since many channels are not going to take on a four- or six-segment show, it behooves you to find it. Oh, and this one is only two episodes, so you are really on your own to try and get to it.
“Puni Puni Poemy” is brought to you by the same maniacs that delivered “Excel Saga”. (In fact, in one Excel episode, they make reference to this show). It has all the hallmarks one sees in a short run: perversity, insanity, pointlessness, massive fan service and a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. In this show, it works, but you will be scratching your head a lot. And it is an intentional two episodes. Think of one of those inverted roller coaster, but with no safety equipment. It’s all up to you to hang on. (more…)
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…)
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?
