Demi-Otakuism.

So Far, at least. Just a [very short] hm… rant.

….Also, I need to learn to focus when I write |D I seriously don’t happen to have any talent for any kind of writing D: Ahwell that’s not the point of this.

There have been quite a few interesting titles which have come out for the 2008 Spring Anime Season, such as Soul Eater, Kure-nai, Wagaya no Oinari-sama, Kanokon, Tower of Druaga, Vampire Knight etc. Some look/sound even more interesting, but these are all of the series that I have been able to roughly have an idea/watched at least one episode, you could say…

For series like Code Geass R2, Kite Liberator, Toshokan Sensou/Library Wars are all very attractive but this whole year has been kinda busy and getting busier, plus for Geass I have yet to complete the first season, considering my bad habit of not properly completing things and on time. As for Special A, Junjou Romantica, To-Love-Ru, Da Capo II they all aren’t really my type (harem/reverse harem/yaoi?!). Out of all the titles I think about half of them have blatant fanservice for either the guys or girls and solely depend on that to get a fanbase/earn their moneys. bwbs and bishi season

My favourite was Tower of Druaga for its epic first-episode parody-comedy thing, even if it wasn’t real and the second episode quickly reverts back to almost-100%-complete GONZO crap. Neeba has Sasuke hair LOLXORZ Well it was good while it lasted, and they actually take the effort to change the girl’s outfit in the OP. That’s.. nice of them. Spices up whatever. Yeah.

My second-favourite for now is Soul Eater even though the story/direction is pretty much utter rubbish, since the animation by BONES is win - Think FMA and Ouran :D I’m waiting to see how Death the Kid is (voiced by Miyano Mamoru, I’m not even sure if this suits the character), how much longer it’ll take before I drop this for its story and voicing (and generally pointless fanservice), and how different the Late Show thing they planned would actually turn out. Personally I find it to be interesting, but it could also be said to be a waste of airtime since for now little/no significant change has been detected with some comparison to the episodes in the Day.

What I especially hate about this series/manga-adaptation, though, is the voicing. It so utterly reminds me of the FLCL style but more of forced onto it rather than flowing with the style. Inconsistent, maybe..? Most of the voicers from the first two episodes I haven’t experienced before besides Okawa Toru and Miyano Mamoru, but even so there is barely any good voicing done/the characters don’t have suitable voices (eg. Soul Eater himself has too deep and old a voice) if my ears still work the way they did before I’ve started aging. Sadly the OPs and EDs don’t make up for the weaknesses of this anime…

Moving on, Kure-nai has decent animation, interesting plot, but the voicing is not as well-done as I would like sometimes. This unpleasant feeling instilled is not as severe as that from Soul Eater, but animation is almost always what determines whether someone will keep up with the show despite any other ..discrepancies, is that the word? D: Humans are visual creatures after all, and is crucial in determining first impressions. Yet truly great series marry animation with plot. TTGL is one half-example (half the story and the reason behind why people watch it, appears to be illogical at times?), while One Piece is a counter-example (more of art style/design in this case though).

Not to digress too much, Kure-nai pairs an ojou-sama loli (who looks a lot like Lilo (c) Disney) and a 16-year-old mediator (who beats people up). There’s also the stalker Yayoi (I swear she follows people around randomly) and other quirky characters. Benika somewhat reminds me of someone else but I can’t really remember who. Either way the similarity is extremely tiny. Oh, and the animation studio is the same as that of Kamichu and Baccano! which is a good thing. I just don’t seem to like it as much, though. Maybe the OP had to do with it too |D I really loved Guns & Roses, it really set the mood for most of the whole series. Also with a quick peek at the manga, the art seems pretty well-done too. In quite a few ways, Kure-nai could be said to be superior to Soul Eater. But BONES makes it difficult…

Wagaya no Oinari-sama was decent with decent animation and a decent, but boring, plot (so far). Decent is average but not great. I still prefer the manga art scans though - much more appealing style, but I guess not practical as an animation.

Vampire Knight was.. slightly more interesting than I thought. Voicing is okay, but not entirely up to standard despite Horie Yui and Miyano Mamoru taking part. Animation is decent, I guess. Bishies are still recognisable as bishies and not deformed mutant androgynous characters (take Yamanade for example, maybe?) and though development is somewhat slow and the heroine is quite irritating in a sense It Is Bearable.

Kanokon is utter rubbish, I was skipping parts in between. The fanservice is blatant just as I’ve seen from the many scenes from To-Love-Ru and Rosario to Vampire, this time the girl is a slutty fox with huegass magical powers.

To demonstrate the amount of fanservice without pushing it too far, almost every image of kanokon you search for is something like this:

I should get to watching Geass soon. Really. And G00 too, or at least one of the freaking Gundam series. I feel underexposed in such genres of anime. And for Toshokan Sensou it was quite freaky, I had trouble deciding on whether the heroine was a girl or guy at first. It took the voice in the trailer to give it away.

As for Jdrama I hear Zettai Kareshi is out already but not subbed. Agwell. I’m surviving on Sapuri at the moment.. the storyline’s quite okay but some parts are a bit iffy..?

That’s all, if I have time maybe I’ll insert images. Sigh.

ps. While I’ve finished all the movies incl. SAC and Innocence, GitS is becoming a live-action movie (along with the likes of Dragonball and what-else-have-you), and the technology is going IRL too. Just take a look here. Sigh on another note, my philo is phail. In fact my life is phail but irrelevant to anything else, you could say.