Top picks for Fall 2007 season! October 7, 2007

Bamboo Blade (Mondays)
I like this one. Funny, has potential; just hoping they stick to the funny lighthearted stuff and don’t concentrate too hard on the sports aspect, and spend like 5 minutes doing the “omg I can’t figure out his secret” crap. Oh, and the ED theme BLACK BEANS IN PASTA RICE (the link is some Idolmaster video until someone uploads it to Youtube) has the best malleable/maulable lyrics, ever.

Clannad (Thursdays)
Almost out of principle, I want to see how KyoAni’s gonna pull this one off. Air translated really well because only the first half or so had to felt semi-contrived, but I hope it’s the same deal with Clannad. I mean, I like the other characters as much as anyone else, but they’re not important to the After Story, which is, you know, the point.

KimiKiss (Thursdays)
Somehow I forgot to stick this here. Also watching out of principle because of my worship of the cast. (I guess Thursday is the “out of principle day?”) The first episode was also kinda interesting in the way they seem to be breaking the stereotypical eroge mold (I know, I know, it’s not a eroge, but see Clannad for what I mean) and made up a bunch of guys that didn’t exist before. I really hate the standard mold because it takes a lot of effort – and you can sense it a lot of the time – to make sure it’s not utterly contrived. Also, because there aren’t enough boys for the girls (did I really say “more realistic” earlier?) now we have to know which girls get the shaft and don’t get KimiKiss’d. GET IT?

Shana II (Fridays)
Urusai urusai urusai!

Gundam 00 (Saturdays)
Whatever, I’ll watch it as long as they can keep the quality up. All there is to say.

Minamike (Sundays)
By far the funniest series out right now, as I started to think as one of the sisters said as part of the pre-OP sequence that this show was about her family’s day to day life and not to have any real expectations, and to watch the anime from three meters away. Then her little sister makes her think this love letter she got was a letter of challenge. Utterly hilarious. I think this series is going to be the one that everyone keeps talking about nonstop, and it doesn’t have the KyoAni stigma too.

I might have to watch this too October 6, 2007

Apparently there’s a bunch of nerds writing ef.

This one doesn’t need explanation:

There was a bunch of warnings about what was coming up next too

Then there was a random Touhou reference (people were still laughing about Nice Boat and were saying “it’s gonna be Nico Nico on that computer,” lol).

They’re saying stuff like “Konata vs Akira!” and “It’s Stage 4 of Imperishable Nights!”

Anyway, it’s just fun to see this self-referencing. Also, I think this is the first time Touhou has been animated.

GANDAMU00 October 6, 2007

The OP animation got uploaded, and frankly, although I’m a bit put off by the lavender (not pink this time) space explosions, it looks like it’ll be a good Gundam for at least a couple episodes. No exchangeable parts as far as I can see, and the “main” Gundam’s fighting style seems to have taken an acrobatic sort of feel – always extremely cool animated.

The main character pilot is apparently a Sousuke character (child soldier in his own country) and the rest of the pilots actually might be like, somewhere between 20-30. (OMGWTF! GANDAMU pilots over 20?!) Oh and there’s the obligatory princess-type which the main character is gonna get together with. I guess we can’t get away.

Oh and no stupid “GANDAMU IN ACTION, EROGE CHARACTER POSE WITH NAME” sequences. Such a plus. I’m so put off by those, even with KyoAni does it I facepalm.

But crap, there’s the retarded pose

Sunrise is actually capable of pushing out what I want in terms of aesthetic level and consistency, because I saw it happen with Planetes. Maybe now that the series has a new art direction and is surrounded by KyoAni fanboys that looked at Seed and were like “meh,” they’ll pick up the slack.

For my final laugh:

GANDAMUUUU!!!!

In-game, with the polygons doing their work, it actually looks very Gundam-ish. So when I first changed jobs to Dragoon, I was very excited. FF3 GANDAMUUUUU!!!!

Edit:

I got up in the morning and watched it. So far people have said it’s rather Gundam W-ish with similar elements, but in my opinion the only real similarity is the fact that there’s a Releena with black hair. It’s easier to describe it as FMP-ish, but with Mithril as a publicly announced anti-war organization or something. The main character uses melee attacks in a very agile Gundam, and there’s even a Gundam sniper voiced by the same VA as Kurtz. I’m very optimistic right now though, because the military operation in the first episode actually made sense to a certain degree. Attention to detail is rather high for a Gundam series, as well. Maybe this is the start of a new trend? I sure hope they can keep it up.

Nico Nico Douga is so win October 5, 2007

This site cracks me up so hard, lol.

(〇v◎)

The site is kinda cool for learning a bunch of Japanese internet jargon. It’s basically Youtube, but you write your comments on top of the video (comments can be turned off, but why?) so there’s both an abundance of writing and general silliness.

ANKO IRI PASTA RICE
ちょっっっっｗｗｗｗ

There’s generally a lot of pun-making, like they turn some lines from the ED into something really silly… or perverse, and commenting on sometimes stupid things the characters say. (Bamboo Blade has been the target of the best of this so far, see above.) My other favorites are references to other series, like when in that Suteki Tantei Labyrinth anime they keep saying that one of the characters looks like Taniguchi.

KimiKiss’s first episode ended like this

Dan’s preliminary impeccable picks for Fall 2007 October 1, 2007

So apparently, Fall is starting in Japan now, since all the shows worth mentioning have ended and the ones that still haven’t, well, they’re trash, ahNarutoBleachchoo. Behold, a list that my impeccable taste has selected for my viewing pleasure. You can watch them too, if you’d like.

Clannad

KyoAni’s aesthetic talent + Key’s incredible storytelling = obvious win.

I’ve only played the game through twice (it’s epic reading for me), but I can guarantee you that Clannad will probably tower over the meager offerings of every other series this Fall. In fact, if you don’t like KyoAni animating Clannad, and think you want a new Haruhi or some other shallow light novel crap, you should stop watching anime and go drown yourself in turpentine before your have a chance to spread your stupidity further. Now.

Genshiken 2

I always get the feeling I should be watching this, yet I don’t. I think it’s because I already know of a series that is trying to make me think that someone is stalking me for inspiration.

Gundam 00

I’m hopeful, but I’m gonna assign a point system for this show. We’re gonna start at 10 points, and if the show drops below 5 before episode 5 I’m going to toss it. Take off one point…:

1. If the main character is getting in a Gundam for the very first time at the very end of episode one
2. If a city gets completely blown up in episode 2-3 while main character watches in shock
3. If main character is not a ruthless military killing machine, or if not, if he ever says “I don’t want to kill anyone” or “I don’t want to die” more than once (I’ll be nice) per episode
4. If there is anything important about dead or sick little sisters
5. If the new GUNDAM acronym is retarded
6. If the good guys only have one Gundam for the first 10 episodes
7. If like a dozen Gundams are ever stolen from a top-secret military base with an massive garrison by like three guys (or girls).
8. If the main Gundam has an exchangeable part for every damn thing it fights (gunpla sales APPU!! www)
9. If the freaking opening has the damn robot in some sort of ridiculous pose, or if it has those incredibly annoying *character pose!* *robot fighting!* clips
10. If “Gundam Meisters” is not going to be the dumbest phrase we’ll be hearing over and over again

I was gonna say “If some girl has a stupid robot pet” but that seems to be the case already, and that’s a bit unfair, don’t you think?

Kimikiss

Despite, or because of my hate for crappy harem shows, I’m going to give this one a run. I read the first volume plus change of the manga, and not only are they beautifully drawn by some high-tier ero-doujin artist (lol) and the designs mind-numbingly cute, they’re pretty tasteful and thoughtful in exhibiting an admittedly very flowery and positive depiction of high-school love stories. If the anime can keep all that, though, I think we’ve got a honorable mention for Fall 2007 at least. That and the director did Honey and Clover, as well as Nodame – two series in which I thought the direction was about as close to flawless as it gets – so it can’t possibly be bad. Well, probably.

Maple Story

Remember how terrible the RO anime was? If you don’t, don’t find out; I couldn’t make it past 2 episodes in fast forward, and I did all of Gundam Seed that way. And Gundam Seed is pretty damn terrible. Anyway, I’m not watching it. I’m not even gonna link it. The only reason I’m mentioning this is to quote my hero jpmeyer here:

Maple Story is the poster child for MMO games that are infested with annoying, foul-mouthed, bug-exploiting, over-caffeinated 12 year olds. If this game satirized that, rather than trying to turn to give the game a narrative, that would be the hottest thing ever.

Don’t deny, you’d watch it too.

Moyashimon wait what the heck is this

Oh my god. Japan. Japan! Japan!!! What the FUCK, Japan?!

(I’m also not watching this one either unless it starts getting huge buzz for a reason other than “Japan is weird.”)

Shakugan no Shana II

I actually liked the first one a decent bit; despite it being shounen drivel, it didn’t decide to stoop to that level most of the time and kept it interesting through various devices. Plus, the tsundere Shana and shoujiki Yuuji interaction is pretty cute and funny without dropping into ridiculous most of the time. Plus, she has a huge katana. And kicks ass with it. And she’s on fire.

Other things that look at least superficially interesting are Bamboo Blade (about kendo girls, moe~), Ghost Hound (for no particular reason besides it’s Production I.G.), and Mokke (looks slice of life/Aria-ish).