Summer 2009 Anime Thoughts \\ Part 1

lolol i don't feckin' know.

Anyways, it's time for Owari's Whenever the Hell she Feels Like it Summer 2009 Anime Thoughts! I honestly doubt I'll be able to do anything about when I post whenever I post, because I'll post whatever I feel like posting when I feel like I should post some stuff. I'll probably be kinda busy with IRL things around Fall 2009, so even though I'll be keeping up with anime airing and such, I'm not sure if I'd have much to say. I could probably make ~2 posts a week if I really wanted to, I'm sure I could think of something to talk about. To be honest, though, I haven't had anyone inside my room besides my siblings, at least not for a long time, so I started to fill it up with anime-related stuff (posters, mini-figures, wallscrolls, and the like, even some Megami posters) and all of a sudden, one of my sister's friends is staying here for a week. Being as me and both of my sisters share a room, but one of them is away at college, she's staying in this room.

Not that there are any other rooms in the house, why the hell do you think three girls would share a room otherwise? I don't think I'll be able to experience the joy of having what's truly my own room until at least after I get out of college. If I had the money for it, I'd be sure to fill it with lots of my weeaboo/nerd stuff. I really am looking forward to living alone, and not having to be bothered about anything by anyone and just living peacefully with a job and maybe a pet or two or something like that. But, I digress.

In any case, yeah, I haven't seen every anime this season, so if there's a show you really like that you think I should be watching, then tell me, or something. These are just the ones I'm actively following.



Now first, and foremost, we have Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, directed by Studio DEEN. Now, I've read it, all four of the Question arcs, so you can't really...uh, spoiler me. I've seen the preview for the first answer arc, and I kinda have a few things to say about it, but for the fear of bringing several fantastical arguments into this, I'm not going to bother.

The reason I consider this 'first and foremost' is not because I thought it would be the best anime this season. It's great, but....in comparison to the visual novel, it's pretty damn weak. As of right now, I've seen two episodes' worth...and, while it does manage to instill some of the sympathy you had for all of the people involved in the shed incident, alive or dead....it only really gives you a little for George and Shannon, which is a pity. And even then, not really-people aren't gonna feel some sorrow for some guy who wasn't quite presented well enough for you to get to know all of his motives.

But the real thing I like about Umineko is the fact that it's both a mystery, and at the same time, it has fantastical elements. But, at the same time, they don't necessarily exist on the same plane, and you have to use the elements of fantasy and the few stated truths to try and put together a truth behind everything that happened on Rokkenjima. Honestly, if you really want my opinion, watching the anime's not that much of a big deal-if I could get the readers to do one thing, it'd be to read the visual novel over watching the anime.

But the anime does have its benefits. Hell, the reason I started watching the anime was because I just wanted to see how it would be animated. But, the thing is....I'm just worried the anime's gonna attract the kind of fans that Higurashi seemed to attract. I wouldn't call it quite the majority, but...there was a certain portion of Higurashi fans that watched it because it was "LoL bLoOdY nD sUsPenSeY oMg!!111" or something like that. I guess you'll find a certain amount of blood, but based off the scene of the first twilight, it's going to be just blackish blurs anyways.

But maybe it's just that it's kinda lampshaded in the VN, and there's more emphasis on "Who the hell would do this? This is terrible"...but, to be fair, the anime wasn't that far off.

I liked both the opening and ending for this show. The ending takes...some...getting used to, but once you're used to it, you'll love it. And both have some interesting visuals. But I don't think you should watch a show for the OP/ED for no reason, as I'll emphasize with my next review.



Okay. This show...I'll say it. It's pretty damn bad. It's so bad that I don't know whether to laugh at it or to start banging my head upon a keyboard repeatedly, until all of the keys have been reduced to a fine powder. Maybe I should have done both, and then proceeded to ingest dangerous amounts of caffeine. But it's so bad, that in a way, it's good. Who the hell produced this? ...Madhouse? Really? I guess they made Chaos;Head, so I suppose they're capable of making anime that's just plain bad, but...

By any reviewer standards, though, it is pretty darn bad. You've got the main character, who's this typical shonen hero. As in, a total idiot who has no idea what the hell he's doing with anything, and has APPARENTLY no inherent ability for whatever the hell it is, because I could hardly even pay attention to what was actually going on, and I just ended up laughing at how ridiculously sacreligious this show is. Seriously, there are a lot of ties-in to...Priests, fighting a mecha that's called a Testament? And the priest is this guy with a ridiculously overmuscled chest. And the animation is so QUAAAAAAALITY that I'm not even sure how they got away with it.

No, I can't even bother to remember any of the character names, but I have a feeling the guy's sister is gonna show up again and be a fucking evil bitch, for whatever reason that I can't seem to place my finger on, since she didn't have an on-screen death. And the priest guy is gay, or at least it seems kinda like it. As are some of the bad guys. EXCEPT SOME AREN'T. But, I really can't seem to think of anything remotely intelligent to say about this, because this is such a stupid show.

However, my main point of interest in this show is the ending theme. It probably has more yuri than the summer '09 season, and as far as this season goes, it seems like it has more yuri than most seasons I've seen, so this is really saying something. But...I haven't even seen these characters yet. And it's incredibly unsuiting to the show. The OP is just plain terrible, though, as far as song choice goes, so I guess it actually kinda suits it, in a way.

In any case, I'd only watch this if you're bored and you want something incredibly fucking dumb to laugh at. Otherwise, just don't even bother with it at all. I'll probably get bored at some point and just find it incredibly unfunny and dumb and drop it like a rock, but I thought I would do that with Akikan too, and I ended up liking that, in a way, despite finding it terrible as a show. So, hell, I don't know, and I don't think people'll gain anything from reading this, except knowledge that I can't take shows like this seriously.



Now, moving onto the next show, Kanamemo. I'd say this is a pretty likable show-it's certainly nothing near groundbreaking, but it's pretty damn cute. It's animated by Feel, and I'm just looking up what they've animated now, and I didn't really know what they produced bevofe that, but those are mostly things I've been meaning to watch, and then, on a totally different note, Da Capo, which I couldn't be less interested in. Even for a generic harem, it always looked kinda...mediocre for that.

As to the actual plot? It just seems to be more of a setup to show the crazy interactions of six girls living together, as is common in the slice-of-life genre. But, even for a slice-of-life, it has quite a bit of yuri fanservice, which can only be seen as a good thing, at least from my perspective, 'cause I'm a pretty hopeless fangirl. (Especially between Yume and Yuuki-hell, they even kiss each other! I just hope that they don't come up with some bullshitted reason and then try to feign heterosexuality, it's always so disappointing when that happens.)

But even so, I think my sort of opinion, or anyone's opinion, is somewhat useless when it comes to Kanamemo. Either you'll like it, or you'll find that it's another run-of-the-mill slice-of-life anime (that was a lot of hyphens.)

So, I went on the internet, to find other people's opinions of this series. And...I was surprised. A lot of people seem to take issue with Haruka's behavior. Granted, a lot of these people are the kind of people who weren't really sure what they were getting into when they were watching it, but I personally can't be bothered by it at all. Actually, I like Haruka, even though she's not really original, per se, being the classic drunken lolita complex 20-year-old, she's a fun character. Although, after seeing episode 2, I do have to wonder if she even delivers papers, or if she's supposed to just be looking after the other five young girls she's taking care of.

But that goes into my opinion on characters' behavior that would be fine in a show is fine in a show, and that you don't need to apply how these people act in real life. Like, yeah, if there was someone like Haruka going around my town, collecting preteen girls and groping them in various ways and being the only guardian for these five kids who already have a job, despite illegally, because you have to be at least 15 to work even with a permit, I'd be worried about these kids too. But this is anime. It's not real life, so I don't think these are the kinds of things that people need to be connecting in their head. I guess this is only my opinion, though, and I know that, despite this, there are going to be people who disagree with me, so really, you can go ahwad and think whatever you want.

So now, I'm going to move on to a show that was pretty much utterly mediocre. And, that is...



Yeah, this show. It's pretty much a relatively generic magical girl show, probably has some loli fanservice...only it's about re-writing code. From the first episode, it doesn't seem like it'll be anything special, but it was mildly amusing, so unless it becomes utterly terrible I probably won't bother dropping it. (It's what, how long, 12 episodes? For some reason I have much less of a problem watching episodes of shows that aren't as long even if they're not quite so good. Not that I mind watching longer shows, but I'm less willing to do so.)

But yeah, I'm kinda interested where the whole topic of writing 'codes' is gonna go...what, is this girl gonna know how to rewrite the C++ holding people together? That doesn't even really make sense, but if I could mess with stuff like that, it'd be awesome.

Still pretty generic and nothing special, though, so I'd say skip it unless you really like magical girl anime. And...as for the plot or characters, I don't have much else to say. They're okay, I guess...it's hard to hate characters from one episode of introductions, though.

But, anyways, since I don't have anything else to really say, I'll just go on ahead to the next thing I watched...in part two. olololol. No, seriously, Stringed just told me to break it up.