Its been some time since I’ve seen an anime that made me get up lazy self up and write a review. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (literally ‘Anohana: The flower we saw that day’ or ‘The Blooming flower of that summer’). Is one of those one in 1,000 anime where from the getgo it has you hooked right up to the end. For those who are familiar with Ano Natsu de Matteru, it was created by the same team and so has a similiar feel throughout.
Like Ano Natsu de Matteru, it revolves around 6 early adolescents and features a love pentagon. The main difference would be that in Anohana. It follows the issue of the death of one of their friends and the repercussions it had her family and everyone around her. It is truly a profound piece of work which (from what I saw in the little research I did) caused of quite a bit of ‘man-tears’ (ill be sure to write up a rant on man-tears later).
The story tells of six young children who drift apart after one (Menma) dies in an accident. Each growing up emotionally affected in one way or the other by the incident. The ghost of Menma appears to one of them (Jinta) who was the so called ‘leader’ of the group back then. Coming to the conclusion that she was unable to pass on and enter heaven because she had an unfulfilled wish here on earth, Jinta rallies the other members of his group to help Menma pass on. Throughout the ordeal, hidden feelings of resentment, envy and love are uncovered as they try to accomplish their goal of sending their lost friend up to heaven. (more…)
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Air, it’s the story of a homeless man, Yukito, and his journey as he stops in a quaint little town by the beach. He is searching for the Winged Maiden (sounds so pretty, doesn’t it?), a woman his mother would tell him about as a child who was cursed and bound to the sky. He meets a young girl named Misuzu when stopping in this town, and suddenly everything changes for him. So that’s the basic plot line. Now you don’t have to quickly google it before reading this article.
The Air Anime
Story: The anime first appealed to me because it was short at only 13 episodes and because the artwork is stunning. Where the story is concerned, it’s sloppy and all over the place. The Winged Goddess story line is choppy and poorly explained…well maybe it isn’t but I was just bored by the time they got down to specifics. A huge reason for this is the large and pointless cast of secondary characters who are tolerable at their best and horribly annoying at their worst.
Characters: Misuzu, Haruko (Misuzu’s foster mother), and Yukito are all fairly well-developed characters. The problem is the obnoxious bunch of secondary characters who are supposed to make this a more dramatic show but make it slow and all over the place. Misuzu goes beyond your typical cute girl. (more…)
"If you want to mess with her...I'll show you how badass I am"
A brilliant An ABSOLUTELY PERFECT end to what was possibly the best anime this season, notwithstanding the fact that they were delivering a very cliché story I have to say that they did an awesome job with it. Throughout the course of this episode I pretty much switched through 4 phases.
The first being the hype of Remon handling that robot bus like it was a toy car and the fact that she was indeed MIB (finally our suspicions have been confirmed). This also explains how she knew Manami (Tetsurou’s sister) seeing as her husband was also MIB. My only remaining question is… how old is remon? Also we got to see biker Rinon again (cen never get tired of seeing that)
The second was of intense anticipation and ‘awww-they-look-so-cute-together-ness’ from the point where they were on the train up till that crystal memory pod archive thing appeared from the lake and placed them both in the memory. Im my mind I thought YES! THEY MADE IT! AWESOME! I Have to give it to Ichika and Kaito they are an awesome couple, they don’t struggle to say what needs to be said or what is important (glares at Kimi ni Todoke, whole bleddy season and nothing significant happened). (more…)
What started out as a heart-wrenching parting of friends turned out to be a comical race against the clock to God knows were. The pace this episode was nowhere near the usual for this show, it was actually slightly rushed but was a pleasant change. At the end of this episode I’m sure everyone who has been following this show was on their toes anxiously anticipating the next moment.
One more episode to go, the grand finale. Will they find the place and promote Earth from level F allowing Ichika to stay? Or will they find something else entirely, something so profound that although Ichika has to leave they all come to a greater realization that it was for the best? While all points to option one Ano Natsu has proven itself to be very unpredictable time and time again (:O is that bus part Optimus Prime??)
Its good to finally have everyone aware of each others feelings and even better that we have things settled Tetsurou x Mio and Kaito x Ichika. Kanna, well unless Ichika leaves then she’ll just have to deal with being alone for now although I love how she screamed ‘You’ll regret it in 3 years’ (even though i’m pretty sure he won’t). Well as we say in le français comme si comme ça (one can interpret it here as.. ‘it is as it is’). (more…)
Episode 10 of the 12 to air this season and although things are starting to shape up to give us all the nice mellow ending that everyone would be content with, somewhere in my gut there’s a little man screaming out that we haven’t seen all there is to offer. That there is something hidden in the plot just waiting to pop. And while on one hand I really want things to settle so that the anime can end, I also want something BIG forcing there to be a second season (hey I really like that show ok).
As I mentioned today was relatively slow but not in any negative way whatsoever, we had quite a bit of personal growth where Kanna and Tetsurou is concerned and Mio is very gradually coming out of her shell. Although our main characters Kaito and Ichika were not the focus of this episode, the few moments where they had their screen time was nothing less than fastastic (especially at that point where Remon slides Kaito that *clears throat* item ). And for those who failed to notice >.< Kaito not only immediately knew what it was but stashed it into his pocket, and although it seemed as if he only took it so Ichika would not see it. When the need arrives *whispers* Kaito you’re good to go. (more…)
This week’s episode of Ano was nothing short of a masterpiece hitting a straight 12 on the Richter Scale. Flashing back to last week we ended with a cliffhanger where the rescue pod that was sent down to pick up Ichika got destroyed (compliments to our tag team of Rinon and Kaito) and with Kaito injured in the process she had to use her ‘skill’ to heal him.
Now of course the explosion of an alien pod is going to attract quite a bit of attention and Ichika’s friends had just enough time to arrive on scene to see Ichika in her vulnerable state. Now I will give it to Ichika, while she could’ve hid it or make up some sort of excuse she didn’t, she immediately decided to fess up and tell her friends what she really is
Over the last few days i’ve been thinking that the spring season is almost at an end. There’s more or less only a month left for every anime to either wrap up and come to an end or to get the viewers so riled up that the powers that be have to be off their rockers to not allow them a second season.
Now as you should already know I try to keep my anime list organised here http://myanimelist.net/, and one of the requirements that I have set for myself is that I rate each and every anime that I have had the pleasure of watching. This one is no different, currently it has an ongoing score of 7 but I’m strongly considering moving it up to a notch. It may not seem like much but to me it’s a big deal. The difference between a show rated 7 and one rated 8 is a hell of a jump. So now the question remains… How good is this show? Well, for one its good enough for me to be considering a 9.. And how good is that you might ask? Pretty damn good. The only thing that might make its score fall and remain as a 7 is if the producers decide to screw up the momentum as we approach the end.
This week’s episode for instance was a perfect example of why Ano Natsu de Matter deserves such a high score. We have Remon approaching Tetsurou’s older sister with a proposition, one that her busybody nature would not allow her to turn down To catalyst the ongoing struggle for love going on between each of our protagonists. To that effect we have the usual ‘test of courage’, now I believe I need not explain what that is nor what each protagonist hoped the outcome of this excursion would be (all can be inferred from image on top right). (more…)
I remember a few years back I was going to a friends house when I saw this little poodle in the opposing yard, being as small as it was it slid through the bars of the gate and came into the road barking at me. Being no stranger to dogs I calmly took a step in its direction and shouted BOO! It immediately ran back into the yard, and shot to the back of the house as fast as its tiny legs possibly could and while I stood there literally dying of laughter… I saw him/her coming back with Butch (the name implies all).
The fear and unexpectedness I felt at that moment reminded me of this episode, whereas episode 6 was like that little poodle, it needed to be there to have this grand, final explosion which we call episode 7. We confirmed that Kaori’s sudden feelings for Kaito was partly.. PARTLY! due to her recently having a breakup with her boyfriend and in fact she only made the trip to Okinawa to help her get over it. Of course after having been shot down last episode she decided to be very mature about it and move out of Kaito and Ichika’s way.
Even Arisawa (finally remembered her name) as forceful as she is had to back off when she saw what was going on with Tetsurou and Mio. With that said I feel I should give Mio some recognition, she not only confessed her secret (of being a nudist) to the person she loves and a (semi) stranger and rival, she confessed her love to Tetsurou even while knowing what his answer would be all in one go. I’d say that takes some guts so hats off to you my dear Mio and Good Job. (more…)
This week’s episode of Ano Natsu de Matteru was pretty interesting develomentwise but overall I found it to be a tad disappointing, as i’ve said before the thing I loved the most about Ano was its unexpectedness. I’m sure that you all can agree that each romantic comedy has a few cliché elements that well, gets a bit repetitive. As ‘The Droid’ Noted in his post Not a Big Fan of Fan Service
I can pretty much guarantee that every romantic comedy will have at least three opportunities for fan service: a day at the beach, an afternoon of clothes shopping and a night at the bathhouse. Three guaranteed sessions!
Well today was that guaranteed beach session, I do give though that they tried their best to mix it up somewhat by adding the even more cliché fateful encounter with a childhood friend (who just happens to love you unconditionally) but it just felt somewhat lacking. Maybe its just me for having such a high expectation for the show but hey, lets wait and see. (more…)
Pretty sure one can tell from when I finally got around to writing this that I’m really not interested in this arc. Since the previous season she was a bit too soft-spoken and shy for my liking and everything progressed so slowly. In fact there was no progression, the guy simply felt sorry for her and joined the tea club. On the bright side we see more definite proof that that Junichi is just as pervy as his guy friends but we still have to bear with Sakurai’s annoying self-consciousness about her weight.
So after grinding through those two episodes, you what happened? Absolutely nothing, was a dud up to the end. True, she confessed.. wait.. no she didn’t, he did, but it was so stretched out and annoying when it came it was like more of ‘good riddance’ than ‘awwwww’. Sigh, why on earth did i decide to pick up this show this season. Could have picked up Nisemonogatari, HighSchool DxD or even Poyopoyo Kansatu Nikki.
I really hope the last 4 arcs are better or at least half as good as the first arc was, and with that I’m ending this here.
