Quick thoughts on some Anime

I was gonna write a few reviews on  a bunch of anime I watched, but since I’ve been watching quite a few, here are some thoughts on the ones I have watched this term:

Baka to Test to Shokanjuu: High school comedy in which testing is administered much like an RPG. Every student has their own “character” and their stats are determined by how well they do in school. Students are grouped into classes A through F, where A has the highest grades and the nicest classroom, while F has  the lowest grades and the shabbiest classroom. Very light-hearted, generally likeable characters. Not a masterpiece by any means, but good entertainment value.

Kore wa Zombie desu ka: Ecchi Harem which mixes together some of the wackiest characters in science fiction/fantasy (zombie/magical girl, anyone?) into one show.  The story follows a zombie who was brought back to life by a necromancer and his daily adventures as he meets a magical girl (whose powers get absorbed by the zombie) and a vampire ninja who hates his guts. Tons of laughs to be had during this show; although most moments that are almost serious (such as the ending) get bulldozed by a gag, which can be funny or unfortunate.

Hourou Musuko:  a serious slice of life story about a boy who wishes to be a girl and a girl who wishes to be a boy. Refreshing story on cross-dressing, a concept normally used for comedy has now been looked at as a serious issue in regards to gender identity.  Characters seem to act old for their age (they’re in middle school, but don’t really act it), but still an interesting (but melancholy) tale.

Shiryaku! Ika Musume: A squid girl who comes from the ocean to invade earth and rule humanity because they are polluting the oceans. Unfortunately, she puts a hole through a beach cafe’s wall, and ends up having to work there instead. Episodic form anime with some hilarious moments and some very touching stories as well (Mini-Ika Musume chapter). One of the better moe animes out there.

Yumekui Merry: A story about a girl from the “Dream world” who finds herself in reality. Meets up with a boy named Yumeji and together they try and get her back to the Dream world. However, the appearance of dreams in the real world living inside human hosts and the many cases of people who have completely given up their hopes and dreams originate from a more sinister character. Had a great concept, but was pretty disappointing by the end. Many plot points and characters they introduced that I would have liked to have seen explored further weren’t, the story became pretty typical shounen after around the halfway point.

First Impressions: Yumekui Merry

On the suggestion of a friend, I decided to take a look at a relatively new anime called Yumekui Merry. The only thing I had heard in regards to it was on its animation, and after watching the first episode, I definitely liked the animation for it. The concept seems pretty interesting and worth pursuing. The theme song is definitely to my liking as well ^_^ .

Here’s a bit of a walk through the first episode:

Slight revamp

*brushes off dust* . It’s been a while. I haven’t had time to do much with this blog these days, which is unfortunate. I’ve been busy with work, school and other such things, so a lot of the things I wanted to do with this such as redoing some reviews and all that other junk just got pushed to the wayside.

Also, I figured that I wanted to talk about more than just manga, so I changed the name and decided to include anime, light novels and general Japanese pop culture that I’ve recently gotten into.

There really isn’t any reason why I chose the particular new title. Yay for festivals? I don’t know. I’ll try and get some content up soon.

FullMetal Alchemist 108: The Commentary

Not because anyone asked, but because I felt like it. This is the random spatter of messages I sent to my friend through instant messages while reading the last chapter of FullMetal Alchemist. Don’t expect it to be cohesive or make any logical sense. There will be spoilers.

Update!

Hello everyone!

So I am working on writing some more stuff… I have like 4 drafts on stuff I want to write about and are barely started, and I want to finish FullMetal Alchemist today since it’s my all-time favourite manga… expect a review for it soon.

I may or may not go through some of my old reviews and reread the manga and re-write the review since some of them really kind of suck. But hey, I started this blog when I was in 9th grade, give a break on those older reviews XD .

Now that life is officially meaningless since FMA is over, I will be taking a look at some series I’ve meant to read for a while now such as Nodame Cantabile (I bought the first volume!) and getting back to some of the more mediocre WSJ series I started and abandoned so that the tiny chapters could accumulate for some bulk reading. Of course, this means I’ll have to recap on parts of the series I’ve already read, since it’s been a while.

So much manga, so little time!

First Impressions: Tokyo Babylon

So, it’s been a while. If you’ve read my most recent post up on the Ochibichan blog, you’ll know that I have recently purchased some FIVE DOLLAR MANGA. Yep, I got a pretty good deal.

Anyway, I’m going to do some little posts about the first impressions of the manga I’ve bought, and the first one I’m gonna do is Tokyo Babylon, an early 90s manga by the female manga-ka group known as CLAMP.

Personally, I love the 90s artwork of CLAMP, but there’s one thing that always seemed a bit off to me: male characters always have these huge shoulders  and then a skinny waist and spaghetti legs… it’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s okay.

So. Sumeragi Subaru is a onmyoji, a person with the power to tame, manipulate and vanquish spirits. To be more specific, he is the 13th descendant of the Sumeragi clan, whose purpose is to defend Tokyo from hostile spirits. He lives with his sister, Sumeragi Hokuto and their supposed rival Seishiro from the Sakurazukamori (wow, what a long name O_O) family, who are also onmyoji, but prefer to hide their identity. Seishiro is actually a veterinarian. So basically, we follow Subaru’s life as an onmyoji, who is tasked with various supernatural phenomenon he has to deal with.

Oh, and there’s a couple of twists: Seishiro is in love with Subaru, and they are both male. This seems to be a relationship they’re not supposed to be in, as no one in the Subaru clan outside of Hokuto knows that they associate with each other… although the forbidden part of their relationship seems to stem more from the fact that their families are rivals, rather than the fact that they are of the same sex.

Anyway, for those who aren’t comfortable with reading shounen ai (there doesn’t seem to be anything to explicit, so I don’t think it’s anything more than that), you probably won’t enjoy this, as Hokuto finds great joy in emphasizing their relationship and babbling on about how they would be such a great couple and is constantly trying to set the two up: even when Subaru has a job to do on the Tokyo Tower, Hokuto is adamant about the two spending time with each other since Tokyo Tower is apparently considered a place you *have* to go with your loved one to… yeaaaah.

Something weird: One case that Subaru deals with is a girl who has been asleep for months who also happens to be a childhood “friend”.  Basically, no one has been able to wake her up, and thus, they’ve come to the conclusion that she must be afflicted with some sort of supernatural sickness. Personally, I thought that the medical staff (she was in the hospital when he meets her) would first assume that she was in a coma or something… not just immediately jump to the conclusion that she has had a ghostly run-in or something. But what do I know. XD

So far, it’s been okay though. A little weird and very 90s, but as someone who spent most of their childhood in the nineties, that’s okay with me ^_^ . If you’ve read Tokyo Babylon before, let me know what you think of it! Talk to you soon!

Anime North?

So, if you read my other blog, you will know that I finally have a coop job in Toronto, and will be in the city during an anime convention called Anime North.

I was a little on the fence about going to this con, since I didn’t really know anyone else going, except for one person and we have very different tastes in manga/anime.

Then I went back to look at the Anime North guest list… and lo and behold, the name Vic Mignogna (or Vic Migderpaderp, for those who’ve watched way too many LK vids) popped up.

So yes. I think I’ll be going to Anime North this year ^_^

Updates!

So it’s been a month… so let’s see, what happened?

I have a copy of the omnibus edition of Clover in my room, which I haven’t been able to read because of midterms.

I’m caught up on FullMetal Alchemist, and am extremely excited for the next chapter.

In scanlation, I have finished proofreading Kanojo na Tonda hi chapter 3, and I’ve finished typesetting Esprit 8 (which should be released soon)… will start working on Esprit 9 and the 4th chapter of Kanojo soon-ish. Can’t say how long it’ll take.

I will post a review or something after my final exams are done.

That’s all!

Clover!!

Happy Valentine’s day everyone! Or if you’re single like me, Happy SAD (single awareness day)!! And for those of the asian variety, Happy Chinese/Korean/[insert nationality here] New Year!!

As some of you may know, I’m a pretty big fan of the manga-ka team known as CLAMP, the creators of well-known series such as Chobits and Card Captor Sakura and the spaghetti people that are the main characters of works such as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and xxxHOLiC.

Well, I was at Chapters yesterday, and lo and behold, there was an omnibus edition of Clover on the shelves! Which means that all four volumes were combined into one large book and they are selling them for around fifteen bucks. This is pretty exciting because Clover has been out of print and while it was scanlated by Be With You Scans, they have ceased distributions of their scanlations and while I could probably find a copy somewhere on the internet, I’d rather respect their wishes of not having them distributed.

Unfortunately, I was devoid of money when I saw this wonderful book… and when I asked my dad, who I was with at the time if I could get it… he said no O_O. I know, it’s sad when a university student to ask their parents to get something for them… but that’s an issue I’d rather not discuss here XD . So you can probably imagine what I’m going to do the next time I go to Chapters in Waterloo, or if I’m with friends at the mall anytime this reading week…

Anyway, I will be getting to some seinen reviews hopefully when university calms down a bit, and if I manage to get my hands on a copy of Clover, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll review it ^_^ . Stay tuned!

Manga Review: Paradise Kiss

The Cast of Paradise Kiss

So, the josei love has finally arrived on my blog, and it comes in the form of “Paradise Kiss”, a manga about a girl who gets caught up with a group of students who attend an arts school. The manga-ka of this story is Ai Yazawa, which most of you may or may not recognize as the manga-ka of “Nana”, her more popular series which is on hiatus yet again at the time of writing this review. This is also the sequel to a lesser-known unlicensed manga called Gojinko Monogatari or Neighbourhood Story, which follows the sister of the character Miwako.

This story is licensed by Tokyopop, but the first two volumes are not available new. If you’re worried about missing anything by reading this before Gojinko Monogatari, don’t. At the most, there will be references to the characters in Gojinko Monogatari, but their back story isn’t integral to understanding Paradise Kiss.

So, let’s dig into Paradise Kiss, then, shall we?