Thursday March 31, 2005

Oh wow, 1000 hits!



Yesterday morning at 1:08 AM, I recieved my 1000th hit for this blog. Admittedly around 200 of those hits are probably from me checking to make sure the updates worked properly, but still this is cause for celebration. So whoever you were who visited using Comcast Communications from the USA, you're the lucky winner of the AnimeSlice 1000th hit trophy (Note: Trophy may not actually exist)! Thanks for visiting everyone, and keep coming back for more anime fun!

Mai-HiME (My Hime) - Episode 25

Natsuki, why're you so sad?	So after 24 episodes they finally decide to put some real fan service in episode 25
I was thinking yesterday how much Mai reminds me of...	Luna from Uninhabited Planet Survive

Episode 25 of Mai-HiME didn't exactly turn out the way I thought it would. Without giving away any of the plot, I just thought that the 'final battle' (in shows like this there always has to be final battles) would be just a bit different, but I guess not. Judging from the previews for episode 26 and what happened at the end of 25 though, I'm keeping my hopes up for a spectacular ending. The last few episodes have been non-stop action and episode 25 finally gave a bit of time for reflection. But with just one episode left, everything is falling into place and I'm looking forward to the last episode of this surprizingly awesome anime.

Ah! My Goddess TV - Episode 12

Sayako dancing away	Belldandy with a really lame dance
Marller up to no good again!	Sayako, why're you so sad?

Episode 12 of Ah! My Goddess was pretty entertaining. Marller is up to no good again, this time recruiting the help of Sayako to try and get rid of Belldandy once and for all. She creates a magic spell that makes Keiichi fall for Sayako and thus forget about Belldandy, and then gets Sayako to meet up with the couple as they are enjoying a walk on the town. Mysteriously they decide to go to a dance club FULL OF PEOPLE at around FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON. I knew that Japan was wacky, but this is just a bit too wacky for me! Either way the plan fails as true love wins out again.

Today's link of the day: It's a website dedicated to Mai-HiME and it's in English!

Tuesday March 29, 2005

Before I start I'd like to extend an extra thanks to Jeff Lawson's nowhere - anime blog for linking this site. His was the first anime blog that I ever read and started me on this path to blogging my anime thoughts.


Gundam SEED: Destiny - Phase 23

Cagalli's Strike Rogue... how pink it is	Her 'Orb' crest is visible on the left shoulder
Kira owning Shinn	Shinn's Impuse minus an arm
Kira owning Abyss (Auel)	Kira owning Stellar (Gaia)

Click to see spoiler for Heine Westenfluss:

Heine gets owned by Kira	And then he gets cut in half by Stellar
Bye Heine... we hardly knew you. Athrun stares in disbelief as his new friend blows up and his ghost is projected onscreen just in case you didn't believe he was dead.

This week's Gundam SEED: Destiny was quite a wild ride indeed. It was an all-out battle for most of the episode as Cagalli's efforts to make Orb stand down go unheeded thanks to Yuna. What proceeded can only be described as a slaughter... Kira single-handedly manages to own just about every major character flying around except for Athurn and Sting (who were fighting eachother). Meanwhile you can click on the pictures above to see what happened to our friend Heine.

Starship Operators - Episode 7

I still can't get over how great the mechanical design is in this show	The design is way out of proportion to the sub-par animation (actual moving parts)
If I ever made a sci-fi movie I'd hire the crew of Starship Operators to design it	I mean it!

Episode 7 of Starship Operators brings us an exciting space battle... or at least the setup for an exciting space battle. The actual battle happens in the next episode, but I guess that can't be too bad because it likely means the battle will be longer. This time around the Kingdom isn't playing around and our heroes on the Amaretsu are going to go 4on2 with their new Xiu allies vs. the Kingdom. Since we know our heroes will live, I just wonder if the Xiu guys will live or not. The episode was actually quite exciting, and it seems this show has picked up a new realism and vitality ever since episode 4. I hope it continues to be this good.

Today's link of the day: I can't read Japanese, but if you do this page has Japanese TV ratings including ratings for anime.

Sunday March 27, 2005

Gokusen

Yamaguchi Kumiko... Gokusen's lead character
I like how even in J-Doramas they walk down a path of blooming sakura trees, just like in about every anime... then again this is based on a manga...	What an unruly class!

Last night I watched the first episode of a Japanese drama (J-Dorama) called Gokusen. It's based on a manga by the same name, which was made into an anime by the same name last year. The second season of this series is apperently the highest rated show in Japan right now with an over 20% audience share!

The plot is quite simple. Our main character Yamaguchi Kumiko is the granddaughter of a powerful Yakuza family. Instead of taking up the family business though, her dream is to become a teacher. On her first assignment as a teacher, she's been given the most unruly class at a high school filled with not-so-good teachers. The class is the classic 'deliquent' class, and it's up to her to keep the students in line. During the course of the first episode, she slowly tries to build up trust with the students and tries to turn them around in the face of intimidation by both the students and the teachers.

Sound familiar? Well a good way to think of this show is GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) but with a female lead... It certainly seems like GTO in almost every way so far, and the similarities are astounding. In fact even now I'm thinking it would be fun to have a crossover special episode, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The show looks good so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing it all.

Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu Final

Apperently Guu can 'SEED'	And so can Lavenna...
I wonder if they're trying to spoof the Elves going back to the east from the Lord of the Rings here...

Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu is such a great series. The 'Final' OAV is actually the 2nd OAV to be released for this wonderful series. Personally I like to think of this as a wacky and animated version of Calvin and Hobbes but set in the Jungle. Well I mean the plot bears no resemblance, but just the interesting ways in which the world views Guu, and the wacky adventures that Guu and Hare keep having that no one else keeps realizing... Okay it isn't really like Calvin & Hobbes at all, but for some reason I keep thinking of it. Anyway, the Final OVA manages to keep the zanyness of the original series going strong.

Note: in the pictures, I thought it was funny how in some scenes in their eyes, it looks as if the characters are going 'SEED' (from Gundam SEED).

Initial D: 4th Stage

In other news, I saw the first episode of Initial D: 4th Stage for fun. I've never seen any Initial D series before so this was my first (and it seems like I was cheering for the wrong people in the race, or at least I wasn't cheering for the main characters who've been around for 4 seasons now... d'oh!). The races are suprizingly exciting to watch and the animation is quite slick actually. I was scared it would be like watching an episode of someone playing Gran Turismo, but somehow they make it more exciting. Still I don't care much for the character design, so I wonder if I'll actually start watching this show some day.

Gallery Fake

Finally, I saw the first episode of a new series called Gallery Fake. Staring Kawasumi Ayako (yet another of her infinite shows in the past year or so) and Satsuki Yukino, it has two of my favorite Seiyuu. Apperently this is about a guy who works at an art gallery and about the world of art (Ayako plays his assistant, Satsuki the competitor). The first episode featured bidding for a Monet painting at a Sotheby's auction in New York City... Honestly it didn't really seem so great. The plot seemed a bit contrived (especially the 'twist' at the end if it could even be called a 'twist'). Since there doesn't seem to be any subs past the first episode out, it guess it doesn't matter I don't keep watching it.

Today's link of the day: Some weird new anime set in London at the end of the 19th century about an aristocrat falling in love with his maid... and it has nothing to do with 'Emma' by Jane Austin either.

Friday March 25, 2005

Coolest fight scene... ever

Oh yeah!

Alright I just have to say this once... but episode 21 of Samurai Champloo has quite possibly the best sword fighting scene ever in an animated television show. And it did it three times. That's right, three amazing fights in one episode. Makes the sword fight in episode 5 of Jinki: EXTEND look like *I* animated it. I think this series is only 26 episodes long, and this show is still pulling the 1-2 episode story arcs (or standalone episodes more like it). Still there's been some more hints for the overall plot in the last few episodes, so I'm hoping for a satisfying ending to a really awesome anime so far.

Ganbatte Renna-chan!

Shinon in a 'Chinese' dress and goofy hair to boot!

ANBU decided to pick up on subbing Starship Operators, so after many weeks I finally got to see episodes five and six. The plot is slowly advancing now, and we got to know a bit more about the crew and their personalities and hidden intentions. The more I watch this series, the more I wish that they actually had a real budget for it. It seems like the design elements of the show (character designs, mechanic designs, background designs, spaceship display screens) are absolutely top notch, but the animation itself is absolutely horrible. In some scenes you see people running that just look very strange. Even a car moving in one scene in episode 5 just looks horribly weird. Hopefully the people who worked on Starship Operators will be able to get on shows with bigger budgets in the future, because I want to see more of these fabulous design elements.

As for the story so far, I'm not sure if it's the translation from the subs that I saw, but I think the plot is trying to be too complicated for it's own good. There's endless political discussions that just don't really make much sense unless you really try and think about it. I could think of easier ways for them to say what they are trying to convey so that the plot makes more sense for the viewer, but they choose the most complicated route to advance the story. I don't know if it's just because that's the way Japanese is or if the translations just aren't good enough or not though.

Tuesday March 22, 2005

Marller, Demon first class, unlimited!

Ah! My Goddess introduces us to yet another villain of the show in episode 11, the demon Marller. Apperently it's the demon's job to make unhappyness on Earth and oppose the goddesses who try and bring happyness to Earth. Marller does such evil things as making kids cry by making their ice cream fall over (oh Ah! My Goddess, what a light-hearted show). Still it was a fun episode, and exactly on pace with what I've begun to expect from this series. Nothing too heavy, pretty silly, happy and fun PG entertainment.

Worst fight scene... ever. But really you have to actually see it moving to appreciate how truly bad it is.

Meanwhile episode 5 of Jinki: EXTEND shows such great things as quite possibly the worst animated fight scene I've ever seen in modern anime. It was just horrible. I take back everything I've said about this show having great animation, because that scene was just so bad, it was almost as if you had really bad actors trying to 'act-fight'. That's actually what it looked like... it was THAT BAD. And then there's the plot... wasn't the old man supposed to have an arm that wasn't going to move anymore? And now he's sword fighting? Just what the heck is going on with this show?

Monday March 21, 2005

Miriallia has a speaking line in this episode! Yay, rejoyce!

Silly Yuuna!

Gundam SEED: Destiny episode 22 was pretty exciting. It ended on a bang, and now it looks like Kira and Freedom are actually going to do something. I was never a huge fan of Kira, but hey it'll switch things up a little right? Meanwhile TM Revolution's character Heine is quite the personable guy. Finally the highlight of the episode was Miriallia (Milly!) having a pretty large cameo and finally having a spoken line in GSD! She's probably my favorite character from GS next to Muu so I'm glad she's back in some capacity even if just to make people like me happy.

Today's link of the day: Cool Gundam arcade machine. I would like to play this but I bet it's only in Japan and probably costs quite a bit.

Sunday March 20, 2005

I finished Kannazuki no Miko. It was an alright show, although nothing groundbreaking. The love story was charming, and it was fun trying to guess with who Himeko would end up with at the end... Souma or Chikane. Still I couldn't help but feel that the ending was more or less exactly what I thought would be the truth once I saw the end of episode 7. Actually anyone who's watched enough shows would probably guess how the ending would turn out to some extent. I still can't get over how they used 70's giant robot action for the fight scenes. I mean Souma actually has to call out the name of the attack to do it (kind of like in Jinki EXTEND). Still it was a satisfying ending to a somewhat entertaining anime. I'll write up a full review when I have time.

Mikoto being scary!

Hehe so silly!

Mai-HiME (My HiME) episodes 22, 23 and 24 were quite intense. These episodes are both amazingly plot filled and action packed. With multiple story lines weaving in and out and multiple major battles, it makes the earlier episodes look boring in comparison. The story is heading towards a spectacular ending it appears. It seems like they keep taking twists and turns in the plotline. Everytime you think something is going to happen, the opposite happens. Everytime you think 'well anime convention means that character shouldn't die'... well they do. It's a non-stop roller coaster ride!

Mai looking very scary. From a silly picture I found on animesuki forums... the original is from episode 21.

Today's link of the day: Did someone say Haro computer?

Friday March 18, 2005

Himeko looking as cute as ever

Okay, I need to take back what I said about the animation in Kannazuki no Miko. Yesterday I remarked that it wasn't so good, but in fact the animation is very good when it comes to the characters. Sure the mecha look like they were taken from some 70s anime, and sure the backgrounds are nothing to be excited about, but the individual character animation is amazing. The most amazing are the various super cute poses that Himeko seems to do. Whoever did the animation for her did a great job as it really stands out from the rest of the show.

As for the story, episode 8 was very strange indeed. The anime was going one direction, and then all of a sudden it goes in another. Still I think this is the first time I've seen this situation happen in an anime (SPOILER, highlight to read: seeing Chikane rape Himeko and then having Himeko still crying out for Chikane who's missing in the next episode was too weird to understand). I still can't fully except what happened in this episode, but I guess I will have to watch more to understand it more.

Today's link of the day: Mai-HiME (My HiME) PC game! There's a trailer in there somewhere on this Japanese only website.

Thursday March 17, 2005

Kurusegawa Himeko	Chikane & Himeko kissing in episode 1!
Himemiya Chikane	Himeko and best friend Makoto
Oogami Souma	Souma's badass 70's style giant robo

I've been watching a newer series recently called Kannaduki no Miko. This was a show released last season (Winter 2004) and was yet another one of the million or so shows that Kawasumi Ayako voiced last year. With my favorite Seiyuu at the helm of one of the lead characters, how could I lose?

Kannaduki no Miko is the story of a clumsy and quiet girl named Kurusegawa Himeko. On the day before her birthday, she's invited to attend a private birthday party with the most popular girl in school, a girl who's good at everything, beautiful, comes from a good lineage and is referred to all as 'Miya-sama', Himemiya Chikane. Coincidentally the two girls have the same birthday, but even still it is a surprize for Himeko to be so highly regarded by the great Chikane to be invited to a private birthday party. While on the way to get Chikane a present, Himeko runs into her childhood friend Souma, who just happens to be the most popular guy in school and is regarded by everyone at the school to be the perfect suitor for Chikane. He gives her a ride to the store, and eventually it's nighttime.

That night as Himeko is thinking about the following day, a giant explosion rocks her town. Suddenly a giant robot appears and heads straight for Himeko. Chikane rushes towards Himeko on her horse to try and save her. The pilot of the robot is none other than Souma, who's consumed by a magical power which directs him to kill Himeko, but at the last moment he realizes what he's doing. Before the episode is up Souma defeats yet another giant mecha which has appeared and has resolved to protect Himeko at all costs. Meanwhile Chikane is tending to the fainted Himeko, and looks upon her lovingly and gives her a kiss on the mouth as the episode ends.

I'm currently on episode 7 of the series and it's progressing quite well. The lesbian overtones are quite apperent, but so is the traditional boy/girl 'I'll protect you' relationship between Souma and Himeko. The girls it is revealed are priestesses who must protect the earth from apocalypse. Meanwhile Souma is revealed to be one of seven baddies working for the chief baddie who's going to destroy Earth, but Souma uses all his will to continue being on Himeko's side. The other six baddies are a strange mix of characters, from manga artist, to perverted guy to weird cat-girl. I'm still not quite sure what to make of this show yet.

The acting though is awesome. I really love Himeko's voice, and of course Chikane played by Kawasumi Ayako is good as well. The animation so far is pretty crappy although the special effects are alright. The strongest part of this show has to be the characterization. Even if this whole show didn't have the giant mecha and was just a schoolkids love triangle it would have been great, add in mecha it's ... well different. Meanwhile the music is quite good and adds considerably to the show. I'm looking forward to seeing how this show turns out.

So the sempais of the motor club are just wacky... and someone should tell the animators that Nekomi Institute of Technology is NIT not MIT!

So they go on this rally race in Japan... and there's sand dunes. And look at that at car which Aoshima is using to cheat... it looks familar!	Is it a Volkswagon Touareg?
But then it certinaly looks like a Porsche Cayanne, espeically the lights	You know, I bet it's a Honda Pilot!

Episode 10 of the Ah! My Goddess TV show was as fun as ever. This rehashes a bit of plot from either episode 2 or 3 of the original OAV (I forget which, it's been a while) but in more detail. Overall it's a fun episode, and it showed Belldandy's tough side, or at least the side of her which makes you finally realize why she's one of the best goddesses around and not just some crazy girl who can't stop thinking about Keichii.

Today's link of the day: Some crazy otaku photo exhibit in Japan. If you search around there's a virtual tour of the show somewhere in the site.

Sunday March 13, 2005

On the left is FAITH pilot Heine Westenfluss voiced by none other than T.M. Revolution... wouldn't it be funny if him and Mia sang a song together?	Wow I never expected this level of fanservice in Gundam... espeically because it airs at 5:30pm in Japan!

Episode 21 of Gundam SEED: Destiny was a wild ride. It was a 'plot episode' but a really good one as our main characters were fleshed out just a bit more. The relationships between Athrun, Mia and Lunamaria are quite funny. Luna's really getting all worked up over Mia being around Athrun so much... but really wouldn't a dedicated Athrun fangirl like Luna already know that Athrun was engaged and what that would imply?

Meanwhile T.M. Revolution's new character, the redshirt FAITH pilot Heine Westenfluss finally has some lines. It also seems like he's going to be joining the Minerva crew as well. Almost makes you think they're just setting him up to get killed (the good old 'red shirted ensign' syndrome of Star Trek). Finally Shinn and Stellar had quite a Athrun and Cagalli moment in episode 21. Except this time around Stellar goes completely topless, acts like a really messed up person (as we expected), and Gundam is introduced to a level of ecchi that I never thought would be possible for a show that airs at 5:30 targetted at all audiences. The next episode looks to be one with some awesome battles, including the return of Freedom (and thus Kira) to the battlefield!

S.H.Hokou, Azuma's opponent in the bake-off bears a striking resemblance to Kurtz Weber from Full Metal Panic!	Tsukino continues her wave of wearing something different every episode, and actually clothes that normal non-anime people actually wear these days too!

Yakitate! Japan is just awesome. The off-the-wall antics of this show still haven't gotten old yet suprizingly. I wonder if this show will just end after 24 episodes or something because the way it is, it really could just go on forever. And man... I wish it did. Meanwhile Tsukino continues her unprecedented changing outfits every other episode. I've never seen an anime character have so many different outfits, and thus I can't stop being fully impressed at this show.

Today's link of the day: Time for a new Gundam SEED: Destiny flash movie!

March 11, 2005

Urd ruins Sayako's chances at the NIT beauty pagent	Sayako is mad!
Dack Daniels? Mmmm liquor

Episode 9 of Ah! My Goddess was pretty fun. It featured Urd ruining the Miss NIT beauty pagent, and then Sayako losing big time to Belldandy. On the day Belldandy mistakenly shows her powers, and Sayako begins scheming to see if she can discover who Belldandy 'really is'. Meanwhile Urd's weakness of falling asleep to Enka music (whatever that is!) and Belldandy's penchant for talking to animals is also revealed in this episode.

March 9, 2005

For some reason Naru's sweater becomes incredibly tight in episode 23...

And so I've finally finished Love Hina for the third time. I won't bother writing a review until I finish the OAVs and so on because I really do see it as one complete show. It seems like everytime I see this show it gets a little bit worse each time. The first time I saw it, it was absolutely awesome and I kept thinking about it for weeks. The second time it was okayish, and this time I just got really annoyed at all the filler episodes (although the first 6 episodes are still amazing). Maybe it's just the stage that I'm at in my life. When I saw it for the first time I could completely relate it to Keitaro. Then again it could be the stage I'm at in anime, when I first saw it I hadn't seen many animes. Or maybe Love Hina just isn't good enough to see more than twice without significantly hurting the show. Oh well.

The big news of the past few days is that Gundam SEED: Destiny has now officially been licensed. This comes as no surprize to anyone as it was without a doubt going to be licenced, but it still leaves us with a problem. Will groups continue to fansub GSD now that it's been licensed? The A-Kingdom/AonE subs which I have been watching will surely stop, but how about the group 'SEED-Fansubs'? Hopefully they will continue, or else I may have to rely on some 'speed subbers' who might not do a good a job as these two groups have so far. Time will tell...

Today's link of the day: Interview telling us all that GSD has been licensed.

March 7, 2005

I managed to finish Uta~Kata last Friday. Overall it wasn't such a spectacular series, but it was entertaining while it lasted. I'm looking forward to the OAV when it comes out. Here's my full review:

Review of Uta Kata

Azuma, the boy with the 'solar hands'	Tsukino and the manager (Matsushiro)... and yes he's actually Japanese!
Kawachi	Masked guy from Gunda... wait... that's actually Meister Kirisaki... the super bread making... guy, and head of the Pantasia main store!
I really love how they keep putting Tsukino in different outfits	Espeically when in most anime, people tend to wear the same clothes over and over
Tsukino is my favorite character	She also has an awesome voice too from an unknown voice actor (Seiyuu)

In other news I've finally caught up to the most recently released episode (episode 14) of 'Yakitate!! Japan'. This show is endlessly hilarious. I would have thought that a show about baking bread would have been quite stale by now (har har), but it's actually really impressed me. The reaction to the eating of the bread in episode 13 by Koruyanagi was absolutely off the wall. The new ED is pretty cool too with the manager in 3d doing his disco dance.

Episode 20 of Gundam SEED: Destiny was a bit of a letdown. It only contained about two and a half minutes of actual new footage, the rest was all recycled material and most of it was from the original Gundam SEED itself! Still we get a bit more backstory about Shinn and we learn that he really isn't that bad a guy after all. Of course that still won't stop most people from hating him still. The preview for the next episode is the most interesting part of the episode though. It seems like Shinn and Stellar will finally have their own 'Athrun & Cagalli meet on a deserted island'-type episode.

Yes that's right...	Seta is actually Jabba the Hut

And finally Love Hina. I've caught up to episode 17 on this. Between episodes 7 to 13 we're treated with endless filler episodes, but the story picks up again with episode 14.

Today's link of the day: Yakitate!! Japan official website

March 2, 2005

Motoko, the princess warrior	And another view...
Naru the idol!

Love Hina is just a damn good series. The direction, acting, and characters are spot on. The songs are catchy and fun, and the animation is in one of my favorite styles of animation (bright, happy, and clearly delineated). Unfortunately there's a LOT of filler episodes in Love Hina. Almost too many. Episodes 1-6 were all plot, and then episodes 7-11 were all filler. Sure there were SOME advancements in the overall plot, but really you didn't need 5 episodes to do that. I know there's a lot more filler to come too, I just forget which episodes exactly. Still the comedic genious of this series is such that I'm still laughing my ass off even though it's my third time watching this show.

Uta~Kata episodes 8-9 have really changed my opinion of the series. My opinion has of course been slowly changing with each episode, but now I can only characterize this show as superficially bright and cheery but with a hidden dark side. And that dark side is even more scary because it's not as much 'blood and violence' dark as it is showing the worse of what our normal society has and bringing it out in full force in a superficially cutely packaged anime. What a great show.

I also can't get over how great the seiyuu (voice actress) is who plays Ichika. Ichika has got to be one of my all time favorite anime voices now.

Meanwhile I saw the 2nd episode of Elfen Lied. I'm watching very excellent DVD rips which just brings this show alive with it's top notch animation and sound. Of course episode 2 did not dissapoint and brought in a ton of violence although not as much as the first.

Today's link of the day: Anime Reactor community awards 2004! See if you agree!

For Pre-March 2005

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