Monthly Archives: June 2009

End of season: These are not over yet

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Here, we have shows that are really big and will continue for an unknown amount of episodes.

160 km/h

So I dropped Cross Game. Yeah, I’m a terrible person. But you don’t have to be terrible. Cross Game is fantastic and is something almost everyone can enjoy. Really, you should be watching it. Why aren’t I watching it then? Because the subs are released pretty inconsistently and I already read the manga. Hah, it turns out I’m not horrible.

Yes, Cross Game is about baseball and even though the baseball plays a really large part of the story and there will be long games, the real draw is in the non-baseball part of the characters’ lives. Apparently, this is a setup (right down to the tragedy) that Adachi has mastered because he’s been writing 20 years of manga like this.

Ｈ！Ｉ！Ｎ！Ａ！

I really like the Hayate no Gotoku manga and I liked the first season the most when it was animating the manga arcs. Call me a purist, I guess, but I’ve found that more often than not that it’s really hard for people to come up with good stories for characters that they haven’t written. Even for a gag manga like Hayate, a lot of the filler, while pretty good as far as filler goes, just felt really off at times.

So I’m really happy that JC Staff is going back to animate the many manga arcs that were skipped over in the first season that I really looked forward to. Some people seem to think that this season doesn’t deliver in the crazy humour and constant references and I’ll counter this by mentioning that there is some plot this time and that there are still many, many references. If you’d ever taken a look inside he manga, you would be confident that we’re getting the same Hayate that we’ve come to expect.

My favourite part of the first episode? The ED. Hinagiku > all. The OP was less awesome. It was weird hearing Elisa not singing something TENMON composed. They probably should have gone with KOTOKO again.

Equivalent Exchange

Remaking something that only came out five years ago seemed really odd to me at first. Then I remembered that the same happened for Kanon. But then I realized that the first Kanon was pretty bad and that the first FMA, other the terrible WWI end and Hitler movie, was acually pretty good.

Even though I started reading the manga and even though it really was a lot better than the anime I wasn’t sure how I felt about BONES remaking the anime to follow the manga storyline. The biggest problem for me was that the manga still wasn’t finished. What would happen if they miscalculated and we were given another subpar ending?

But another part of me was watching Soul Eater. Soul Eater was, for me, the biggest example of why I should want a new FMA. Everything about Soul Eater’s production was phenomenal. I knew that no matter what I thought about the adaptation of the story, I wanted an FMA that looked as good as Soul Eater.

After the initial announcement, I forgot about it until the OP and ED was announced. Once I heard that YUI was returning with the FMA OP and hearing the song, my interest in the new anime was revived. I went into the first episode eagerly. 「again」 is a fantastic song. The ED, Uso, isn’t bad either, especially when watched with its animation.

Since then, I think my enthusiasm for FMA petered out a bit. It’s not the fault of the show, it’s just that there were more interesting things capturing my attention and the fact hat this was my third time going through the beginning of FMA. It’s not exactly compelling once you know what happens that well. That’s not to say I’ve lost interest in the show completely. I’m certain that once we hit manga material, my interest will be sufficiently piqued.

Haruhiism

Haruhi returns with an unknown episode order. The earliest speculation had Endless Eight at one episode, but now it’s looking like three. I suspect that means Snow Mountain Syndrome won’t get animated, since I would lump it with volume 7. This also pretty much means that Disappearance and Sighs are probably going to take longer than everyone thought.

The ED, 止マレ！, has no dancing, but it does have some shenanigans that you can only pick out if you watch each episode’s simultaneously. The OP, Super Driver, is more in keeping with the eccentric stuff, what with all the subatomic particles floating in the background and comic book onomatopoeias. The songs for both aren’t great, but the animations make them, which if you think about it, was exactly the case for the first season.

Finale: K-ON!

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When K-ON! first started, it was pretty entertaining until about halfway through the season. At that point, I began to get pretty bored of the whole thing. Usually, slice of life is my thing and music lines up with my interests. The most interesting parts to me were the OP and the ED. I really like Don’t say lazy, and not just because I can kind of play it. What went wrong? What’s different about the slice-of-life formula that K-ON! uses? It’s just cake and moe, right?

I’ve found that K-ON! is crtitcized for being too much cake and not enough music. I’ve come to realize that it does focus on music a lot. What’s surprising about this is that I find that this makes it uninteresting like other slice of life shows. See, the problem is that K-ON!’s music parts aren’t done very well. The most interesting thing about the music is watching them perform and that is rendered boring because of their attempts to avoid animating the playing of their instruments as much as possible. That leaves terrible and boring talks about music.

And since they focus on the music more than people realize and because it’s so boring, it renders the entire show boring. Outside of music, the girls are doing the same thing: eating cake instead of practicing, going on trips, and performing without it being animated. Unless they delve into more specific stuff about music, there’s really nowhere else they can go. I mean, when Azusa was introduced, it was just an excuse to repeat what they’d already done.

The difference between K-ON! and Hidamari or Lucky Star was that they didn’t just do the same stuff. Yeah, Hidamari was about art, but the stuff they did outside of that took up more time and was weirder, like the caterpillar or the box of seafood or Yuno’s acid trip when she had a fever. The same applies to Lucky Star, where Konata’s otakuism gives more room for interesting things to happen, like the cosplay cafe or Comiket.

I also remember someone mentioning Manabi Straight. They both share the band of friends trying to accomplish something against all odds, except Manabi Straight had real conflict as opposed to the manufactured crap that happened in episode 11. The characters had problems and they struggled through them and grew. And dear God, I can’t believe anyone would seriously compare Beck with this. Seriously, guys? Just because they both have gitahs?

I think K-ON! was best not only during the parts where they actually concentrated on performance (as opposed to aborted attempts at practicing), but during the parts where the manga was followed more faithfully. I found the 4-koma pretty fun, and I guess the reason is that it’s quick and doesn’t waste any time at all. The most boring parts were the parts that KyoAni filled in. I know it’s a 4-koma and that they need to interpolate some stuff, but I felt like they didn’t do that great of a job this time around.

I guess I’m more disappointed that I don’t feel like K-ON! has adequately enthralled me than that I think it’s bad. In retrospect, I really am just nitpicking on stuff. It did manage to get on my bass (which I have retroactively named Mio, since its original name has escaped me) a bit more. Maybe I was expecting rabid hilarity like from later episodes of Lucky Star and Hidamari Sketch. Or maybe I was expecting every episode to be Live Alive. I guess all I can say is that it was nice.

So what did it need more of? It needed more performances like in 12, less forced drama like in 11, less pointless training camp stuff, more character development like in 13, less dragging out stuff (Azusa’s introduction didn’t need two episodes). Basically, tightening up some stuff instead of dragging stuff out with cake. Maybe drag stuff out with more performance or better practices? I’m still waiting on their performance of Don’t say lazy.

End of season: Eden of the East

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Eden of the East had hype. Character designs by the mangaka of Honey and Clover. Directed and produced by the team that did Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. A pretty interesting premise that started out in the States. It was the show of the season before it had started.

The first episode was just as expected. We were all impressed with the English voices. We were all intrigued by the magical phone. We were still trying to dissect the setting. It really was a unique show. Not to mention the fantastic OP/ED, which I have tied for first this season on my own little scorecard. I’m not really a fan of the OP song, but it really fit the show and the animation that went along with it was excellent. I am in love with the ED song and the papercraft stuff was awesome. I am so glad that it introduced me to school food punishment.

Somewhere along the line though, it took a dive towards Code Geass. It started out in fairly serious business territory but stuff like Johnnies and the contrived game to save the country made it less so. The end of the series managed to give reason for some of the weirdness, though.

That’s not to say it was bad or even that it’s ironically good like Geass. There hasn’t been anything like R2 21 yet. Eden of the East is still entertaining and as far as I know, it’s remained internally consistent. Unless the two movies ruin it, it’s still a really interesting take on a post-9/11 world.

Macbook Pro: STAND BY READY

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So in my rash foolishness, I ordered a Macbook Pro just before WWDC and I received it the Friday just before. Luckily, while the new Macbook Pro upgrades were impressive, they weren’t what I was looking for. As it turns out, my primary motivation was to get a computer with a discrete video card, which the new low end 15″ MBP lacks. In the end, all is well.

The thing I was most pleased about was about Snow Leopard. Some people might say that tuning up an OS is a copout way to put out an upgrade, but these people don’t know anything about computers. The upgrades were impressive from a technical standpoint and at $30, a very good deal.

It turns out I don’t have much to say about the new computer, because it works exactly like my old one did. The migration manager is nice because I just told it to migrate, left my house for a few hours, and came back to my exact setup that I had. Nothing broke: documents, settings, apps, all of it.

I guess the other thing is how much I love my iPod touch. Even though it’s not an iPhone and thus, dependent on wifi, it’s a great device to have around. It’s nice to have so much more space for music, but more importantly, the platform is ridiculously useful. For my commutes, I’m able to grab light novel translations off Baka-Tsuki to read. I’ve already read through all of Haruhi and am making my way through Spice and Wolf, both of which are fantastic. I’m also able to write up drafts of blog posts (LIKE THIS ONE) and upload them to my server. All of a sudden, my one hour commute is suddenly productive.

So for the most important part of getting a new computer: naming. If you’ve been following my twitter posts, you’ll know I almost named my MBP Lightning-1, the callsign for Fate T. Harlaown. After I thought it through over the day, I decided to go with Bardiche, Fate’s magical device. My iPod is similarly named The happiest magical tome in the whole world, after Reinforce Zwei, Hayate Yagami’s unison device. Yeah, I guess I really like Nanoha.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

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I’ll say it in red: Umineko no Naku Koro ni is awesome.

So I haven’t watched or read anything in the past few weeks because I’ve been busy going through Umineko no Naku Koro ni episodes 1 to 4.

I really liked the Higurashi anime, so I was super excited to discover that Umineko was being made into an anime as well. Of course, I’d heard nothing but good about the Umineko sound novel, but I never thought to play them until pretty recently. The reason for this was because I played through act 1 of Katawa Shoujo, which made me want to try out other visual novels. The other reason was that I discovered that ONScripter can be run on a Mac.

To be honest, EP1 started off really slow, having to introduce and set up the massive initial cast and all. Even when things started to get rolling, by the end of EP1, I felt like it was alright, but it was nothing mind-blowing yet. Of course, that’s because EP1 really is a setup for everything that follows.

And the episodes that follow really deliver. As expected, they’re able to develop the characters that we were given from EP1, but each episode really does a lot expand the world and the story. I would liken some of the reveals to be like in Gurren Lagann, when we find out what we’ve seen so far is a small part of a much larger picture.

Working through each episode, you can see more and more of the influences from Higurashi. The brutality and the true nature of the story ramps up and goes far past Higurashi levels very quickly. And even though it’s not a sequel to Higurashi, there are a few familiar faces, although not in the way you’d expect.

I’m pretty glad that I decided to play through these instead of waiting for the anime. Even with the crappy drawings (yeah, they really are) and very little animation, the text and the music are able to deliver some really powerful moments. And because of the sheer amounts of text, it’s probably impossible to adapt without losing a lot.

If you can, you should definitely play it. The anime can work, but it’s a much shakier prospect than the games. And if you do, you’ll be treated to an epic horror/psychological murder-mystery, a grand battle between anti-mystery and anti-fantasy, that has no peer and is unlike anything else.

When the seagulls cry, there are no survivors.