Monthly Archives: September 2011

Mmmm…yeah

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So my whole site got hacked few days ago, and therefore was given a fresh account with nothing retained from the previous website, therefore the site was down for the past few days as I try to build WordPress back up to the current level. I have reposted some of my former posts (anything from Twelve Days of Anime forward) and made some haphazard changes so that the links would be still intact (ie manually changing the post ID of the posts).

I haven’t really update the site for quite a while, and there is quite a backlog of what I want to post (more like they got dropped over time), but since there is a backlog even in my anime list (stopped watching Steins;Gate since ep7, please don’t spoil, and is behind on all of the current season’s anime that I watch). So blah…

And since it seem that the reason that I got hacked was because my wordpress build was outdated and therefore someone used a known vulnerability to get in to my site. While I am at blame for not updating, this incident made me trust wordpress less. Therefore, I will see if there is a better platform (Drupal, Joomla) that I can take advantage of. For now, I will still continue to use this wordpress site for blogging.

PS: This is also a test to see if I have messed up the post ID allocation

Sora No Woto

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While still far from being one of my favorite anime, I was surprised on how good Sora No Woto was. When it was first aired in the beginning of 2010, hearing people write that Sora No Woto would be like K-ON 1.5 (because of the similar personality of the main character [Kanata and Yui] and the fact that the anime surrounds around music [surround sound har har]) made me hesitant to watch it, since I still had a bad impression of K-ON then (found K-ON! boring after 4 episodes). Yet one day (early 2011) as I was searching for songs by Kalafina I came by the OP of Sora No Woto, Hikari no Senritsu, and finally decided to watch it. It was a good decision.

Music



While you the anime is similar to K-ON that the plot closely relates to music, you will not find any cute poppy(?) songs that is found in K-ON. Instead two songs that really stuck out was the opening song by Kalafina, and the well known Amazing Grace. The song, along with the opening sequence, accurately portrayed the tone (one that is totally different from K-ON’s tone) of the anime and the main characters’ acts by the end of the series. As for Amazing Grace, it stuck out not because of the music itself, but the impact and/or the implications that it had to the plot when it was played. Instead of using music as a method to bond the band members together (K-ON), it was used as a communication channel that bonded the players and listeners, people of different nationality, people of upbringing, and most of all, gave people hope (the main theme of the anime).

O, and the ending was forgettable.

Regression

One of the most shocking imagery that the anime showed was how much the society had regressed because of the constant war between the two countries. In the current time of the anime, they were using technology resembling the early 20th century. Yet, from the flashbacks and the ‘advanced technology’ from the ‘previous era’ showed that the society at one point closely resembles, if not supersedes our current age, early 21st century. It is also ironic where the 1121st Platoon was situated, a former (boarding?) school, since if it wasn’t for the war, as Kanata have imagined, that the whole Platoon would actually be attending school and be in a light music band (aka K-ON).

This is why it was truly ironic when Hopkins said the line of war will improve society (rephrase).

Hope

When you look at the members of the 1121st Platoon, with the exception of Kanata, they were anything but innocent or naïve, since each of them either had experienced the loss of their close ones or the horror of the war. Yet, it was first Iliya, Kanata and Rio, all a bugler/trumpeter, first leading the members to the same Platoon (lliya) and going against the commander to temporarily pause the two sides from fighting, and finally signing a ceasefire between the two sides (Rio).

Not only does the bugler notify others about daily events, but with its sounds, help leads people to how senseless the fighting is. (NOW LISTEN TO THEIR TRUMPET CALLS!) [I started watching Macross 7].

Issues

While as a whole, I really did liked Sora no Woto, it was not without its issues.

  1. Sadly with the anime catering to the people who like moe stuff, there were still some episodes less necessary than others. For example, I would almost categorize episode 8 as a filler episode if not for the few minutes at the end. Considering that this series was only 12 episodes long, wasting even one episode was kinda too much.
  2. I really liked the last two episodes, when the tension level was suddenly turned to 11, but hoped could be longer, of further developed.
  3. Why are they eating Japanese meals when everything around them screams of western society?
  4. Don’t get me started on the OVA’s.

In short, I expected Sora No Woto to be another moeblob anime, and was pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be something better.

Toaru Level 0 – Saten Ruiko

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Saten Ruiko by gofu

I never was and most likely, never will be a fan of the Toaru series. Toaru Majutsu no Index was too boring so I dropped it midway, don’t plan to watch the second season, but because of my support of Misaka Mikoto (because she is way less annoying than Index) so I decided to take a shot at Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. Well, while I was nothing really amazing, I guess I enjoyed…not because of Mikoto’s presence, but because of Saten Ruiko’s involvement.

This, obviously, is one of my many examples of me supporting the minor character instead of the main characters. (Another prominent example: Yagami Hayate). The reason of this is two fold: 1) since by definition, minor characters do get a lot less spotlight, or airtime, compared to the major characters, I wouldn’t weird for me to pity and support them because they are shafted. Yet, this does not mean that I will start liking every minor girl in Yui’s class (in K-ON!) since I would need to at least know the characteristics before I can feel sorry at the idea of the minor character as the main character instead (ie Yumizuka Satsuki). This lead me to 2), since by definition the minor character has less airtime, it means that less of his or her life is exposed by the official anime. This makes that character more mysterious since that are still so many unknown aspects. (ie Akiko Minase?) That aspects alone would also attract some fans (though not as much as the first point) ….and that since there is less canon about that character, people might think it is easier to …’fill in the holes with their own imagination’ (STOP)

But really, if those were the reason that I support Saten Ruiko, I would not have made a post about it. Instead, on top of that is a much more humane reason that Saten Ruiko is so supported (at least in Japan Saimoe, where she was the only Railgun character to get to top eight): that she was the only normal character. Compared with her friends: the ultra popular and ultra powerful Misaka, the Misaka-loving and still powerful Kuroko (voiced by Arai Satomi), the Level 1 Uiharu and the Academy City where almost everyone has a bit of power, Saten Ruiko was the one of the few characters that did not have any special abilities. Not only is she in a city full of weirdo with superpowers, but she is able to keep her cool and be cheerful and friends, how easy is that?!

Her friends aside, I think the part made me support her was the struggle that she had during the Level Upper incident. For the people who didn’t watch Railgun and wouldn’t mind being spoiled, Level Upper was a music file, when played, would boost the esper ability of the listener. Saten-san, unlike most other Level Upper users, decided to use it since she didn’t have the power to help the power to protect the weak. The struggle that she faced as she sits at the sidelines, powerless, as her friends work and tries to protect the city reflects the same feelings that we have as we are powerless against life’s struggles at time, the feelings that we have when we know that no matter how much effort we put into something, it won’t be as good as others because of our lack of talents. That struggle that Ruiko was real, viewers can easily relate them to her, which in turn causes them (me included) to support her.

As I have mentioned before, Saten-san has a really positive personality. She would, even knowing that she might be powerless, be able to risk her life to help other. In two incidences, she basically faced the advisory to help recuse a weaker person (a kid being kidnapped and someone being bullied). Obviously, since she is a Level 0, she ends up hurt in both cases. This basically shows the courage that she had (maybe even more than Misaka since Misaka has her powers supporting her actions..and that Misaka is kinda tsun tsun at times…). O and her resolution after the Level Upper incident? Another great example of her positive thinking, as not only was she able to get over the whole incident, but is willing to spend time to get her power eventually. Ya, people might just call her a fool, but I think it is a very good way to say “Don’t give up!”

And the fact that she has long dark hair and that she is voiced by Kanae Itou also helps in me putting her above of Misaka Mikoto.

And her skirt flipping hobby? Well, it is just a way to show how close she is to Uiharu (similar to Hayate’s display of friendliness to Fate and Nanoha), not that I support that part of her…

I support Saten Ruiko not just because she is a minor character in Railgun, but because she is the most courageous, cheerful and real character in Railgun.

My Childhood – Nanaka 6/17

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While Nanaka 6/17 was not really an anime that I watched when I was I kid, but I did watch this anime before I became really interested in anime, a time where I would still get my anime through the local channel in Hong Kong, TVB, listening to the Cantonese dubs. Since Nanaka 6/17 initally ran in Japan early 2003, so I guess I might have seen this around 2003-4, which is still 7-8 years ago….so nostalgic

While eating lunch last Sunday, the local Chinese network was airing an episode of Nanaka 6/17. I decided to rewatch the whole thing again and see if it is good to recommend to others, since I did like it when I was small. Well, I guess I was naïve back then.

Plot

Nanaka 6/17 center around the title character, Nanaka Kirisato, who was originally as a 17 year old self-centered academic elitist, where she spend all her time to study, not only neglecting others but looking down on the people that are not prepared for post-secondary school life. Yet, after an accident, her memory and personality turned back when she was a 6 year old, when she was still cheerful and really likes this show called Magical Domiko. Hilarity and drama happens when the six year old acting Nanaka tries to continue her high school life while the others wait for the possibility of her turning back to normal.

Also along with Nanaka, there is Nenji Nagihara, a delinquent and Nanaka’s childhood friend and the one she is closest to (other than her dad), Yuriko Amemiya (voiced by Hocchan =P), who has a crush on Nenji the only other classmate that know Nanaka’s condition, Nanaka’s dad and other random people.

Midori no Hibi

As I watch this anime, I constantly see how closely related this anime is to Midori no Hibi. Similar to Midori no Hibi, the main male character is a delinquent, where several females starts to be attracted to him because of a change in his personality. There is also the main female character had something unnatural happened to her, making that event the basis of the whole series (one changed to someone’s right hand, one changed to the mentality of a 6 year old). There is also the third character, which started liking the male character seriously after the male character’s attitude change (though Amemiya takes a more center role compared to Ayase). And also there is the random loli that ‘likes’ the male character, but most of the time is used for jokes. Therefore, Midori no Hibi and Nanaka 6/17 is closely related in terms of the plot setup, but sadly, Midori no Hibi’s execution was better than Nanaka 6/17.

Thoughts

There were plenty amounts of comedy in this show, usually involving with how she is basically ignorant or just too young to understand the situation she is in or the problem that was thrown at her. Sadly, this was also true for some of the minor characters, where they were introduced and was quickly reduced to a useless role where their sole purpose was to repeat the same old joke. So there was a bit of laugh here and there, but it was nothing really wacky enough for me to laugh hysterically at.

In terms of the drama, it was not handled as nicely as Midori no Hibi had. The idea that Nenji was a delinquent was really not convincing after the first few episodes. While it is true that he did have a character change right after the incident, but from past anime experience, it wouldn’t be that easy to cut all ties with other delinquents, especially of how famous he was within the anime (and the fact that his main rival became nothing more than a laughing stock afterwards doesn’t help it either).

While the dynamic between the characteristics of the 6 year old and the 17 year old Nanaka was interesting, some potential time was wasted in the earlier episodes where the useless characters are introduced. I really wished that more time was spend in dealing in how the two would reconcile with each other before integrating back to one. Sadly, bad comedy and minor plots made the interaction between the two less satisfactory.

On to the ending, to be honest, it was a bit confusing and less than satisfying. The anime tried to integrate the ending to the ending of Magical Domiko, signifying the end of the ‘magic’ that made the 6 year old Nanaka to be in the 17 year old body. The final message was…a bit too plain. O and the ending was just one of those…and everyone lived happily every after one. Kinda blah since there was still stuff left hanging….

Last Comments

Reading the spoilers from TVTropes, it seems that the manga differs quite a bit from the anime (different ending), so reading the manga might be more worthwhile than watching the anime. Yet, since the anime failed me, I doubt that I will read the manga…(but I’m a bit interested now that I have read the spoilers). In another note, I should read Midori no Hibi, I don’t think I read that yet.

And there is this otaku that is voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama (Viral from TTGL). ONE OF THE MANLIEST SOUNDING OTAKU EVER.

I would rather recommend Midori no Hibi than this anime.

Twelve Days of Anime – Day 12: Manga -> Anime

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After much procrastination, I have finally got around to writing the last post for the Twelve Days of Anime (2010). Its been pretty fun and tiring writing the past 11 posts, since I’m not that used to writing so much per day. While I did have a blueprint of what to write for everyday before I stared writing my first day, I didn’t really plan the details for each until I start writing, so the result might not be the best, my apologies for them first. Since this is the last post for 12 Days, it means that I can only talk one thing in detail, but since I still have several possible things that I wanted to talk about, so I was kinda stuck on what to write for the past ~4 days. First I planned to just talk about Negima, but as time passed with me watching/reading other manga and anime for the past month, there were more things that I wanted to talk about but didn’t know where to put it. In the end, rejected ideas like “Magic” (Umineko, Negima etc…It was too broad, and had too much to cover for just one post), the redundant “Twelve Tweets of Anime” (Similar to the post that I did for 2009, but I felt it won’t be focused enough)……..

I tend to focus most of my attention to anime, neglecting manga and light novels, despite the fact that more and more anime are just adaptions from them. While I did read manga, most of the time it is because I watched the anime adaption and liked it before reading the manga (this is true for series like Great Teacher Onizuka, Hikaru no Go and Kimi ni Todoke) or it directly related to an anime series that I likes (ie Nanoha mangas). I would rarely pick up an manga series without much affected by an anime medium (my decision to read Yotsuba&!, which I have been following for a long time and does not have any anime adaptations of it yet, was still directly affected the anime series Azumanga Daioh). Hence Anime -> Manga. However for 2010, I decided to read and follow two or more manga series out of the blue, something that was not directly related to an anime. Two of them are Mahou Sensei Negima! and Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai (aka The World God Only Know). It was not after that I have read up on those two manga that I decided to watch the anime adaptations of them (watched the OVA’s for Mahou Sensei Negima! and the anime adaption of Kaminomi did not arrive until months after I started reading Kaminomi). Hence, Manga -> Anime.

Mahou Sensei Negima!

To be fair, I did start Negima more than 1 or 2 years ago, but I recall that I stopped at around chapter 75 and haven’t read it since my pause. Therefore, when I went back to Negima, I had to start from the very beginning since I (thought I) had forgotten everything. The result of following the manga till the most recent chapters was a rewarding one, since even though the manga started of with a light hearted fan-servicey manga that lightly touches on magic to a deep, action manga that puts magic in center stage. While there would still be some (less than the start) fan-services, most of the attention is focused on the battle scenes and the interactions between the characters. To say that I’m reading the recent chapters of Negima for fan-service is similar to say that I watched Nanoha MOVIE 1st for Nanoha’s transformation sequence ALONE (to neglect the high amount of power unleashed in the battles and the relationships between the main characters).

So how does the anime fair against the manga? To be honest, I would still have preferred the manga, since basically since the parts of the anime that I watched would not be complete without the manga. Both the Haru and Natsu was based on the earlier chapters of the manga, so it was still more carefree, and so it ended being quite fan-servicey and blah, was if it was just a treat for the manga fans. Still, it was good to see Yue (don’t like her voice) and Nodoka (voiced by same VN as Kotomi from Clannad, not bad) being animated with voice (since I places them higher than most other characters). Then we have Shiroki Tsubasa Ala Alba and Mō Hitotsu no Sekai, both of which follow the recent chapters, where the OAV show the preparation and the beginning of the battle invasive parts of the manga. While there was nothing new on the table, it was still good to see some really intense parts of the manga being animated.

Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai

I don’t remember why I actually started reading this manga. Maybe I found this manga after I finished Onani Master Kurosawa (which I really liked) and found this because it was similar, or maybe I read about this manga somewhere about it being it heavily related to dating sims. Whatever the reason was, I decided to stay a while and listen to what this manga had to show. And boy, while the earlier episodes were ok, the recent ones were pretty funny and good. While in the earlier episodes, you can still easily remember that the main character is an otaku who is forced to capture the girls because if he doesn’t he would be dead, yet because of the more active and thoughtful actions that he took recently, it is hard to see him as an otaku anymore. Maybe it is the growth that he had gone through during the manga series, but it might also be he never need to show his ‘zenryoku zenkai’ (full power) before. Either way, it made the manga more interesting to read because of the more serious situations that he is in in the latter chapters.

The anime, while only showing the capture of the first 4 girls, adapting to only around 16 chapters of the manga, was able to not anime those chapter correctly, but was able to provide a lot more across the table. In the first two captures, Ayumu and Mio, the anime was closely related to the manga, so there wasn’t much there. Yet, when it was Kanon’s arc, a lot was inserted, consisting of scenes of Kanon’s daily activities, usually ones where she not interact with Keima (the main protagonist). The animators also gave more chance for Kanon to sing, giving the voice actress more chance to sing. This made Kanon’s arc more memorable, since she had more time and more impact (with SONGS) in the anime than in the manga, and is a welcome change. Lastly, we have Shiori, the quiet library girl that rarely talks. While the anime went closely with the manga, they had Kana Hanazawa, best known for her Renai Circulation song, to voice Shiori. The result was that whenever Shiori was talking, including ones where she spoke within her mind, Shiori sounded REALLY CUTE. That alone made me really like Shiori, an arc with in itself was a good one nonetheless. Talking about voice actress, they also had Itou Kanae (VA of Saten Ruiko) to voice Elsee. So I guess while the animation was nice, it was the voice actresses that made the anime adaption of Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai.

I still really enjoy reading both series (Kaminomi > Negima), but does this mean that I will read more manga’s, and maybe go into light novels (going against Konata’s ideology) later? I doubt it.

Thank you for arranging Twelve Days of Anime, Canon-chan, and I’m so tired from all these blogging. ＿|￣|○