Asako's Blog

So here my list hits 700, with the completion of the xxxHolic OVAs.

Here is my score breakdown;



Not really a whole lot to say. Almost a year since I hit 650, to watch 50 more things... because I've been stuck rewatching old favourites, or just non-anime stuff. Pace has slowed significantly.

Which is part of why I can't be bothered with MAL anymore, so with this I shall take my leave. I've grown apart from the community and find no joy in this place any more, plus I have easier methods of keeping track of my collection now, so I don't need the list either.

Ja.

I made it, quite some time after my last milestone due to more rewatches and other media, not getting through my (now significant) anime backlog.



Not really a lot to say. The dramatic shift in 3s is due to merging most all H to it, otherwise it's business as usual, I think.

I don't know how long it will be to 700, but it should be quicker than the run from 600 to 650, because I'm actually trying to make a dent in my backlog now, and coming in to summer may result in another Janathon, particularly as I have new AC units that should work much better at keeping me nice and cool as I watch stuff in the comfort of either my bedroom or livingroom.

Yeah. No blogreviews from me in quite a while. I've finished a number of series I haven't blogged... but I kind of can't be bothered any more. The only people who read (or at least comment to prove readership) are generally people I'm in daily contact with anyway, so there's really no need for me to be blogging since I can just tell them how I feel about a series if they want to know.

It's just... blah, to put all the effort (yeah all five hundred words) in to my blog reviews when most get no comments, or at best one or two from friends I've already discussed my opinions with. So this may be the end of my blog reviews. I'll just stick to milestones, I think.

Anime Relations: Kimi ni Todoke

Another series I finished months ago but have neglected blogging. Kimi ni Todoke. A romance. “uh oh” I can imagine people who know me thinking. I'm really not a romance fan. I detest some of the most popular and famous romantic anime around with all of my being, however this one is clearly an exception. I'll state it in the opening paragraph. It's a truly exceptional series. Incredibly surprisingly so given how bad most of this kind of school romance shoujo usually is. But here's an exception.

The art was pretty average, I'd even go so far as to call it sub-par in some areas, but that's just me generally disliking certain shoujo styling (floral overlays and such dreamy scenes for example). However in some areas it was really good, so the good balances out the bad to leave it in the middle ground. Not great, not terrible. Just mediocre and average. The design and art isn't the strong point of this series.

Neither is the sound. The OP and ED didn't appeal to me at all, but that's not my distaste for shoujo, but my usual shunning of OP/ED stuff as a whole. The score also never caught my attention at all. Which means it wasn't bad, but it certainly had nothing good to jump out at me the way good OSTs do (for people who know my taste, you know what I mean, for those who don't know my taste, I generally favour “heavier” music such as Takanashi Yasuharu's work... Kawai Kenji, Omori Toshiyuki and the likes).

However... this is a big however, the voice work was splendid. Absolutely spot on perfect. Mamiko is one of my most beloved voices ever, and she plays the lead, which is a large part of what really made this show work. But it wasn't her alone; the cast was truly awesome. One of her best friends being voiced by the ever wonderful Sawashiro Miyuki and her main rival voiced by Hirano Aya, the casting fell in to place to be just brilliant. Aaya played the perfect bitchy “villain” and Miyuki is always awesome at everything she does so Ayane was a great sidekick. Really, a great cast which played out the story incredibly well.

Obviously, the story is really where this series won me over. As I've stated many times before, I'm not a fan of romance. I usually find it stupid and am always unable to relate to the characters, which limits my ability to enjoy such emotional roller-coasters. However in this case, I could actually relate to several characters, since the story was well told, from the initial set up, through the journey to the end. It's everything you could ever want out of a romance, and doesn't do things too stupidly, certainly doesn't string you along, and has hilarious interactions between many characters (Pin was bloody brilliant) so basically, it's romance without the usual drama bullshit, making it very enjoyable.

Well, there is some drama, but it's resolved well in every case, so you're never left hanging... and in fact all of the drama is executed quite well and fits in with the story as a whole, no random left field stuff going on, which is the sort of thing that infuriates me in most romance series.

It gets a nine, however it's probably deserving of a ten, but I dare not put a romance in my top tier lest people think I'm going soft or something. Well, not really... There's realistically no reason this shouldn't be a ten, but it's just not something that I think I can do in good faith. All of my other tens are serious mature stories or brilliant comedies, and this is neither, so it can just go in to the “very high nine” list.

Anime Relations: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

These entries will probably be out of order, since I haven't blogged for months, and my history has already cleared itself; I haven't updated it with all the new stuff I'm watching, either. I may do that after these blogs. Anyway. This one will be for Railgun aka; Toaru Kagaku no Railgun.

It's sort of a side story to To Aru Majutsu no Index however as that blog states, in my opinion, Index itself was quite a weak series. The story was too inconsistent and it let me down in the end.

Railgun, however, was bloody brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed every episode from start to finish. It was episodic for much of the run, but the actual story arcs were connected, which is where Index failed pretty heavily. The fluff episodes in Railgun were entertaining and served to bridge each arc really well, I think. It wasn't really disconcerting jumps from here to there and over elsewhere; it had a natural progressive flow, which sets it far above where Index fell.

The art and animation is on the same level, that is to say good high quality, HD animation; beautiful action scenes, solid character design not to mention worthwhile background work. It's one of few shows that actually take advantage of high definition technology. A lot of stuff is still failing at such a concept, but JCStaff seem to have adapted to it quite well. A number of beautiful HD series from them (Shana, Index, this, and a few things I've yet to see but are reportedly gorgeous too (eg Aoi Hana).

Sound was also great. The OP/ED were tolerable, the score was quite nice, and the voice work most befitting. Surprisingly so given none of them were what I'd call big names. The casting was spot on, I think. Satomi as Kuroko was brilliant; she really won my heart in this series. While her cameos in Index were rather mediocre and I paid no real attention to her existence, Railgun made her shine as a character, and helped show off Satomi's voice rather well.

As I already babbled about, the story in this was leagues ahead of Index, and I adored every minute of it, despite many complaining how Mikoto had been watered down too much and all the other complaints of not enough badarsery compared to what a bitch she was in Index. This with her as the main character fleshed her out really thoroughly, and made her a character worth something. Not quite to the extent of Kuroko since she was bduh in Index and awesome in this, Mikoto was awesome in both, just for different reasons. This laid the groundwork to make it much more enjoyable.

I give it a very solid nine. It's easily the best original series I've seen in a good while, particularly in the fact that its predecessor was so disappointing, and most other stuff in the past few years has ended up letting me down after a really strong start (Index is a prime example, Kurokami and TM8 are other random examples).

So, it's been quite a while since I blogged anything. I just happened to notice yesterday... almost three months, in fact. It's not that I haven't watched stuff, I have in fact been watching quite a lot as of late, though largely western cinema and television, not anime. However I have finished a number of series I do need to blog -- Railgun, Kimi ni Todoke, Ladies vs. Butlers... also rewatched Macross Frontier, Strike Witches and K-On! at the very least. Probably others I've already forgotten.

However, various things lead me not really feel like blogging. From the simple fact that I haven't really watched a lot of anime, to finding myself killing time in other ways than lurking online. I think a part of that may be MAL, in fact. Being a Moderator here is a tough job. Some may think it's all just fun and games of me locking/moving/deleting threads, or banning people, but there's actually a lot of work involved, and some of it can be very tedious. So some days I just don't bother hopping on MAL at all as I just don't really want to face the stupid.

This isn't a whine, and I'm not going to step down or anything; I'm just stating that I have to pace myself. MAL is a large forum and I can't handle daily moderation with the reports, PMs, and just what I notice browsing the forums myself. So I try to break it up and just do a little bit at a time. The problem is we're short staffed and MAL is a large community, so really there aren't enough of us to keep up with the workload. It's not helped by regular resurgences of Anivoid and “what image is this?” spambots, not to mention the regular dating ones and various scambots, too.

Anyway, enough of that, I wanted to rant about something a bit more specific, prompted in part by the above, in part by a thread on AS and also just something I've been thinking a bit of lately.

The anime fandom seems to be getting more and more retarded each year. There, I said it. A massive generalisation, I know. A big part of it is just the modern online attitudes, with all sorts of hybrid gamer trash talk and 4chan mentality. But I notice the idiocy more in anime communities than anywhere else (granted the other places I spend time are incredibly different, so it may not be a fair comparison) but it's just something that's been nagging at me for a while.

I'm pretty old. At least by MAL's teenage standards. I've been watching anime for a very long time. I've also been online for almost as long, participating in anime discussion on BBS', newsgroups, IRC and these days forums, spanning many years as the internet evolved. Obviously there have always been differences of opinion, but in the past it was more often said “I respect your opinion, but I disagree...” these days it's closer to “lolol ur a fag, y u lyke dat seris??”

People have, by large, lost the ability for rational debate and instead fall back to blatant flaming and trolling, often just to incite others, not because they really care about a series or not. It's far, far, far more common now than ever before. It's clear that the growth of the internet plays a part, as does the younger generations using it now with how easily accessible and cheap it is these days compared to what it once was. But why do people have to be so... disrespectful. I so rarely see civil debate about things. Maybe a handful of people can manage it, but that tends to be overshadowed by morons coming along and slinging crap at each other and disrupting the discussion.

It makes me lose hope for the future. I know it's not just an online thing either; I see news reports of kids using leet/textspeak on school reports and such... and some schools starting to accept it. This will lead to the death of written language. But if people all interact by insulting each other, it's also the death of communication as a whole. That makes me worry for our future. Of course there are countless other things to worry about on that front, so I won't get in to it.

But still. It's disconcerting. And certainly worrisome. I just wish some of the younger generation would take a stand and try to stop this downward spiral; break out and start acting intelligently, make attempts at civil debate of opinions on a series, instead of just insulting each other. Maybe it could spread. Of course that's me being too hopeful, but if enough lead by example, others are sure to follow. That's the main problem here on MAL: There are too many idiots already just spamming and trolling, so others think that's the way to be too. But it's not okay.

And yeah, I know this is more subdued than my previous rants, but I don't really feel like raging over this matter, It's not worth getting upset over. I know nothing will change, but it's still nice to have hopes and dreams, right?

Anime Relations: Kurokami The Animation

All caught up on my blog backlog with this. Here we go... Kurokami.

This is a series I thought sounded kinda neat. I saw the first couple episodes and decided it was one that had to be backlogged, and binged in full. So that's what I did. . . but ended up backlogging it too long and only recently finished it because I have tons to watch and not nearly enough time and/or will any more.

It is a very pretty series; beautiful HD animation, great character design, costume design, background work, everything. It's gorgeous, one of the best looking series to date. Excellent use of CG blended in with the regular animation (yes I know it's all animated on computer now, but there's still a marked difference between CGI and the cel style shading anime uses) but the power moves and stuff were done really well. Really top notch in the looks department.

Musically it also appeals... rarely, all-round. I liked the first OP, I love the ED (Yousei Teikoku ftfw) and the OST was also brilliant. The voice cast all lived up to the roles, and everything in this field was great. Nothing to fault; all pure praise all-round... sans maybe the second OP which kinda sucked, but it's par for the course that I dislike Ops/EDs, so instead I'll focus more on the fact I liked the first OP and ED. <3

As I said, I really looked forward to binging this, because the first few eps made it seem like it would be a very meaty story, and an excellent binge. And, well. I was right. It was an excellent story and great to binge... up til about half way through, where it all just sorta went weird. D: I hammered through the first twelve episodes, then was like... wut. Slowed down and trickled through the rest of the series after that because the story sorta... I dunno, did an Index or something. Jumped around too much without making enough sense. In hindsight it does, but going through it was kinda traumatic, I think.

So if you do watch this series, make sure to grit your teeth and just plough on through the series, don't falter like I did half way through, it'll probably be more enjoyable if you just give it a solid run. :D

Still, despite the gorgeous looks and superb music, I can't rate it very highly. In fact I gave it a six, because a) the protagonist annoyed me a great deal. Useless shitty male lead, the epitome of what I hate about them. One minute he's all KURO FIGHTO then he's all GTFO MY LIFE BITCH. Make up your mind, you stupid cunt. Irked me the whole time. Whiny little bitches piss me off. And he was verily one. Kuro was awesome, though.

But also, since the story went all weird half way through, it heavily impacted my enjoyment of the series, so combined with a completely worthless lead male, a six is what it deserves, I think. As unfair as I'm told that is. It's just how I feel about it. It's not right to give it a seven.

Anime Relations: Ookami to Koushinryou II

Aaand on to another blog while I'm in the mood.

Ookami to Koushinryou season two. Aka Spice and Wolf II. More Horo. <3 For a series I preach about, and Horo being my most favourite character to date, this is very delayed. A lot of people questioned why I didn't watch it while it aired, and... well, several reasons. Firstly, it's too epic a story to watch week to week. It'd drive me bonkers waiting for the next episode. Also, the first season was licensed, and there was all sorts of nonsense about her name among the community, not just here on MAL but everywhere, since anybody with a brain disagrees with the R->L romanisation. It caused a lot of drama all over the place, and I wanted to wait and confirm I was getting a good release by a group that subtitled her as Horo.

“But you don't even watch subs, why be so anal about it, Asa!” some have asked. And to that I answer: It's the principle of the thing. I get fansubs because I share anime with friends, who do not speak Japanese. I'm fussy about releases because I want the best available quality to share, so people aren't stuck with crap; seeing crap gives people poor opinions. Speedsubs and other crapsubs, and idiotic editors agreeing with the morons at Funimation about R->L can just go to hell. So here I waited for a good release confirmed with proper spelling, then all sorts of other stuff delayed me from watching it until recently.

So, yeah, I watched I finally, so on with the review;

The artwork I think actually improved with the new studio. A lot of people were concerned they'd ruin it, but I think it looks better, particularly in HD. They kept the same anime style the first season used, however it was a bit more polished; background work, character movement, everything. It's just better as a whole; and it is a difficult thing to improve on a series that was already pretty damn good looking. :D So yeah, very happy with all aspects of the artwork, character design and animation.

Unfortunately the OP and ED paled in comparison to the first season. I absolutely adored the first OP, and the ED was weird and catchy. This season is just... eh. Not interested in either. The scoring was solid, though. Very happy with the composition and use of all of it.

Of course, the voice work... this deserves its own paragraph because Horo is Ami's best ever role, and Jun as Lawrence is just awesome. Definitely one of his best roles, I think he does the character brilliantly. But, Horo... Ami's portrayal of her is just perfect. The best voicing to be heard in anime. The way she does it is most excellent, I can't even begin to put how I feel about it in to words. Nobody else could do Horo. Horo IS Ami, Ami is Horo. Simple as that. =p

So, yeah. The story. The first arc was really disappointing. I found it a bit of a chore to get through, which turns everything I just said upside down I suppose. Yeah, the art is better. And yes the voice work is perfection, and the music is well done and appealing... but the story for the first arc was just blah. Made me rage at a few points, even. I knew how it was going to end so I just felt it was rather unnecessary, I guess. However, the following stories were fine and I was content with the rest of the series, just the first bit was rather feh to me. =p

The series, like the first one, gets a very solid ten. Despite the weak start, all the other factors combined plus just the fun later story redeemed it from a lesser score. I still think it's one of the best anime ever, and look forward to further seasons.

Oh, and this was the 600th completed entry on my list. But I'm blogging late so read the 600 entry earlier on. ^^;

Anime Relations: Seitokai no Ichizon

Yet another late blog; I watched this weeks ago, but I haven't been blogging much lately. I feel inclined to tonight since I'm feeling rather well for a change and looking at copious amounts of text doesn't make me want to gouge out my eyes. So here we are, another blog review of Seitokai no Ichizon.

An otaku series. Made entirely of parodies and references, so it's a series that can easily overwhelm people who don't get a large portion of what they're referring to. However I did understand most of it, thus I found it incredibly entertaining; it was a hilarious show from start to finish, though I think it picked up as it went on and the characters developed. I suppose that's pretty natural, though. Lots of random references to be had in every episode and some of them really pushed the plot of the ep along, so if you missed it you may end up a little lost.

The artwork was fine, I wouldn't say great, but it wasn't bad. The usual. Character design was a bit on the odd side; while the girls were pretty, their uniforms were unappealing to me. The male ones were even worse. ;.; Terrible design in fact. The hair was also a little weird. Something about it didn't sit well with me, though it's not as bad as parrotheads.

Music was good. OP/ED the usual fare I don't care about, but I rather liked the scoring and do want the OST. Also the voicework was great; even a minor char voiced by my beloved Mami. <3 The main girls were all newbies, which says a lot; because their performance was good. They will be going places, I think. Will be disappointed if they don't, because they deserve to. >.>

So... the story, as I said, is parody focused. Lots of references and rips on other anime, manga, games, and game-like scenarios. It was a harem that... wasn't really a harem. The guy wanted it to be though. And I approve of that. He was quite adamant about wanting a harem, not any one girl. So to that effort, I salute him. I think more stories need harem focus, too many people are all amg amg Guy x Girl, need canon pairings, real romance, wah wah. But fuck that. Harems mean everyone gets to be happy, no one person is shunned for another. That's the way it should be. And Ken understood that. So that makes him one of the best male characters ever. Which says a lot, since I hate the vast majority of male characterisation in anime... and media as a whole.

Due to being so entertaining and tickling me in the right way with its stupid, I'm giving it an eight. It will probably be bumped down in the future, even though it was a good watch. I'm happy to score it well at the moment. Other people should, too. Watch this series if you feel confident about your Japanese media knowledge. A few hundred series under your belt and/or a long history with JRPGs will probably suffice, though there will almost certainly be stuff that eludes just about anybody... but that's part of the fun.

Anime Relations: Nyan Koi!

I love kitties. Everyone knows this by now, I'm sure. I have three cats. I run a club and a site dedicated to kemonomimi characters (many of whom are neko) and I'd probably have/do more if I had the time/money/capability. Thus when I heard about this series, I was all like, “Hell yes.” It sounded awesome. A romantic comedy with a curse about cats at the centre of it, what's not to like? And it turned out to please greatly. In fact it didn't really disappoint at all.

Artistically it was standard modern fare, I suppose. Pretty girls, clean art with smooth lines, fairly generic work in some areas while others had more effort put in to them, but as a whole I think it's a good looking show; not mind blowingly stunning art like Kara no Kyoukai, but still great all the same. As I said, higher end standard for the modern era of budding high definition.

The music didn't really catch my interest. OP/ED were the usual stuff I ignore, and the scoring was so-so. Voice-work was great, though. A few random roles such as Jun as one of the cats amused me a lot. I wouldn't really say it's all A-grade casting, but most of the mains were good, even if not prolific and well known, eg. Iguchi Yuka, who voiced the lead female Kaede. She's done a bit of stuff, most notably Index in Index, and Naeka in Maid Guy, both of which I have blogged as linked. She's not done a ton of work but is still good enough to respect, and made the character work well, as did all of the others. Excellent work all-round.

Obviously the story was the core of this show, though; the set up was amusing and enthralling, the pacing was perfect and the conclusion was solid. A well executed story, particularly so for a single cours series which tend to be very sub-par in the story department. Plentiful comedy to be had, a bunch of very funny girls of all sorts (semi-harem, I suppose) present, and an enjoyable ride from start to finish. It's rare series please me this much from the outset, continue to hold my interest and entertain me every episode, and finish without leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

So, yeah. I verily liked this series, and verily recommend it to everybody who can tolerate light hearted stuff; it has comedy, a bit of drama, romance, girls of all types for people who want their lolis or tsun or whatever else. Don't expect some amazing deep story, because this is a romantic comedy, not a Homer epic.

I give it a nine. It very thoroughly entertained, but the music was a bit weak even if the art was good for modern HD standards and the story did its job succinctly and properly. It's a very easy binge being a short run, you could watch it all in an evening and really make for a good night. Not many better ways I can think to spend time than with a story like this.