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ローゼンメイデン 
February 26, 2005 | 
55 Comments
Oops. Sorry for showing the unfinished summary beforehand. I forgot to tell MT not to publish it just yet. But the whole thing is completed now so you can go ahead and read it. This is a fun and entertaining episode that offers a nice break after last week's dark episode. The focus here is on the Tokuryoku group's Aladdin and the Magic Lamp RPG. Because of this, the majority of the episode is spent showing what the game participants do in order to pass the goal. In addition to this, there is development in the Natsume/Mikan/Ruka triangle here. It is obvious by now that both Natsume and Ruka like Mikan a lot. The problem is, Mikan only see the two of them as friends. Well, in Natsume's case, she sees him as that annoying boy who tries to grope her. :)
February 26, 2005 | 7 Comments
No matter how many times I see this story in different formats, it never cease to make me wish that I can reach out through the pages/screen and wring Yukino's neck myself. She and Shiho (of Mai Hime) are two of the most despicable characters I've had the misfortune to endure this month. It's funny that I say this considering that some of my favourite characters include Suigintou from Rozen Maiden, Fuuma Monou from X, and Yagami Raito from Death Note. I think it's because in Yukino (and Shiho's) case, their actions and reasons are extremely tasteless and petty. While they do make good antagonist, I doubt I'll miss/feel sorry for them if they're gone at the end of the series. At any rate, this episode definitely rates as one of my favourites in the series. In fact, I think I've gone overboard with my screencaps because of it.
February 25, 2005 | 49 Comments
Major setup episode with several important developments. They continue to tear the lives of the main HiMEs to shreds - this time, Natsuki follows in the tragic footsteps of Mikoto and Mai from episodes 19 and 20. But there's also some silver lining on the horizon - Mashiro tells Midori that there is a faint chance to avoid the grisly HiME fate, and she is going to risk everything for it.
It's evident that the dozens of little hints and clues from the past are converging now. Yes, the show manages to continuously shock and mislead the audience, so that you can never feel "safe", but at the same time it also rewards the careful and acute viewer, because it confirms many deductions you could make in the past aswell. This episode convinced me completely that the story will not peter out in the final arc, because more and more unexplained "loose ends" from the past are now picked up and put into context, painting a bigger picture. In other words, the screenwriter knows exactly what he is doing, and he's doing a tremendous job. I can't wait for the next episodes!
A very good episode in all aspects and a welcome change after the angst- and drama-dripping last ones. However, since many many dialogues were kept intentionally vague, it will be difficult to follow raw.
Mai HiME Rating: +
Absolute Rating: +
RAW complexity: Difficult
February 24, 2005 | 12 Comments
After getting a brief look at the recent Japanese anime magazines, I have to say I'm rather disappointed with the selection of this year's Spring Anime. At first I thought it was a rather good line-up until I realised that half of the titles such as Full Metal Panic: The 2nd Raid are not even scheduled for April release. Not that it actually matters since I haven't even seen the first or the second series of Full Metal Panic. But the point is, April lineup seems to be rather dry so far. Unless I happen to stumble onto more titles, it seems there are only 3 series that interest me this April:
February 23, 2005 | 19 Comments
Unfortunately the recap will have to be shorter this time around since I don't have the episode in front of me and I barely remember the sequence of events. I also feel a bit annoyed with Ichigo's tendency to be over-confident here. I think it's one thing to be confident of one's ability, but it is quite another to brag about it before showing what one can do. It doesn't help that unlike Naruto, who has a naive personality, Ichigo is all serious. As a result, when his basic personality is combined with his over-confidence, the character ends up looking rather obnoxious. In the end, I can't help but think that Ichigo deserves the fear that Urahara dishes out on him in this episode. Unfortunately, even this doesn't seem to change him much. He's as impatient and over-confident at the end of the episode as he was at the start of the episode.
February 21, 2005 | 3 Comments
Gakuen Alice ED Theme
Performed by Kana Ueda and Rie Kugimiya
Kanji/Kana version
君が大っきな大っきな声で笑ったら
すぐに真似っ子 一緒に笑ったね
手を繋いで歩いた道
今日は2人で かけっこしょう
君といるとどんな世界も明るく輝くよ
そんな君の隣にいる
こんなちっちゃな幸せを
ひとつひとつ抱きしめながら 笑顔に変えるよ
自転車でくぐり抜けたあの虹のように
ハッピーな色でいよう いつまでも
うつむいて歩いた道
今日は2人でかけっこうしょう
上を向きましょ どんな世界も明るく輝くよ
そんな君の隣にいる
こんなちっちゃな幸せを
ひとつひとつ抱きしめながら 笑顔に変えるよ
自転車でくぐり抜けたあの虹のように
ハッピーな色いでいよう いつまでも
喧嘩した 心の距離は
物差しじゃ計れない
こらえきれず こばれた涙
2人で拭いあえば
自転車でくぐり抜けたあの虹のように
ハッピーな色でいよう いつまでも
君と大っきな大っきな声で笑ってく
ハッピーな色でいよう いつまでも
February 20, 2005 | 7 Comments
I was quite surprised when the licensing announcement came out one day after this episode was released. Now I kind of regret buying the first R2 boxset. But I really thought that this is one of those unusual shows that are not likely to be licensed by R1 companies. Oh well, at least the R2 box is very nice and sturdy and it comes with Kujian first episode. Anyway, this episode itself is a decent conclusion to the series. I sort of guessed that the series would use a 'life goes on' type of ending since there really is no major plot that holds all of the episodes together. Because of that, I'm not particularly upset or ecstatic with the show's conclusion.
February 19, 2005 | 16 Comments
This episode is an awesome conclusion to the Reo arc. It's good to see this one turned out to be as dark and tense as I thought it should be. Credit also goes to the writers for being able to insert one or two additional comedy scenes into what otherwise would have been a rather dark episode. While some of the comedy scenes feel slightly inappropriate, their inclusions are generally well thought of. In addition to this, the episode also presents some interesting background information that I hope will be developed in the remaining episodes. It's unfortunate that this is only a 26 episode series because I can really see the storyline going into a second season if they have the budget to produce it.
February 18, 2005 | 42 Comments
There's one problem with entries beginning with "Spoiler warning!" - usually it's well-intended, but at the very least it already indicates that surprising things are going to happen, and this in itself might sometimes be a bigger spoiler than whatever you're trying to preserve for the viewer's enjoyment. This time however, I feel confident that everybody watching this outstanding piece of anime art will be as flabbergasted as I was and not expect what's going to happen. Therefore:
"Spoiler warning!"
What we have here is simply the best Mai HiME episode so far, and one of the best anime episodes I've seen in a long long time. Anything less than (++) wouldn't do it justice. If you have been following the story, watch it RAW. Almost all contents are very easy to follow this time.
Mai HiME Rating: ++
Absolute Rating: ++
RAW complexity: Easy
February 18, 2005 | 1 Comments
There seems to be a lot of exciting episodes coming up this week. There's the continuation of the Reo arc in Gakuen Alice and the shocking new development in Mai Hime. Then there is this particular episode of Monster, which serves as a nice epilogue to all of the events that have happened in the last 10+ episodes of the series. While the majority of the mysteries are not solved yet at the moment, more and more people are now aware of Johan's existence. That in itself is progress in my opinion, especially since Johan has tried his best to ensure that not many people know about his existence. It makes me wonder how many of them will survive at the end of this series.
February 16, 2005 | 0 Comments
By now most of you are probably aware that David has decided to close down his blog. I wish he'll reconsider the decision but it seems he really is serious about this.
Well, David, I will miss your well-written an comprehensive comments on Naruto and other anime series. I wish you the best in your future endeavour and hope that you'll still involved with the fandom from time to time.
February 16, 2005 | 8 Comments
This seems to be a precursor episode that will explore the origin of Ichigo's Shinigami power. As a result, the episode contains more than enough mystery to keep everyone's attention glued to the story. In my opinion, however, the best part of the episode belongs to some of the comic moments involving Orihime and Chad. At this point in the story, I think I simply appreciate any kind of comic relief that I can get. I just realised not too long ago how much I missed Kon and his silly antics. It's unfortunate that he doesn't have a permanent body that he can use to accompany Ichigo and his friends. Although considering Ichigo's destination, Kon is probably happier to remain at Ichigo's house, away from Soul Society.
February 16, 2005 | 7 Comments
Well, here's the 8th Tsubasa hard cover manga scans. I'm sorry for taking this long to scan the image but I haven't had access to scanner for a while. As usual, CLAMP seems to maintain their high quality drawings. Kurogane and Fye are especially hillarious in this particular scene. I'm not even sure what those animals are since I haven't got the time to properly read the book but they sure look like a riot. Kurogane sure isn't happy about being glomped. :D The volume also featured an alternate universe version of X character, Karen. The cover this time features King Touya. The extras are pretty slim this time around with only one thin postcard featuring Shaoran included inside the book. This actually made me pause for a second or two when I first got the book. I actually wonder why I've been buying the hardcover since the extras usually are really not that great. I guess at this point in time I'm doing it simply to complete the collection.
February 14, 2005 | 2 Comments
Wow. The domain transfer went faster than I thought it'll be. I thought it'll take at least 2 days. But it seems it only took around 2 hours. So this blog is now running on a new server. I think it went pretty well except for some mangled comments here and there and one weird effect that happens everytime I create a new entry. So far things seem to be okay though. You can comment again if you wish to do so.
Major thanks goes to David for giving me a lot of help with the whole process. Without him, who knows what will happen with this attempt. I'll also recommend everyone else who is planning to move server to check out this site if you want bit by bit instructions.
February 12, 2005 | 30 Comments
It's kind of disappointing to know that the drawings for this particular episode are not as good as the other episodes. Once the setting moves out of the school area, it seems that the designer have no clear idea on how the outside world should look like and as a result, the surrounding background images look dull and uninspired. The city looks like a bunch of tall boxes lined up one after another without any interesting feature to distinguish one set of buildings from the rest. Thankfully what the episode lacks in style, it makes up a lot in the storyline. I think plot-wise, the series is definitely heading in the right direction. It's good to see how some of the minor words or conversation that seems meaningless in the previous episodes finally becomes clear in this episode.
February 12, 2005 | 4 Comments
Unfortunately there aren't that many food or bread reference in this episode. In fact, I have to say that I have never seen a bread that is sculptured to look like an animal before. Having said that, I have to admit that the idea of eating a Marmalade/Chocolate pastry that was made by Koala does sound tempting :D. The only other food item mentioned here is the Candy Apple, a sure way to get you to the dentist in no time. The lack of food references in this episode, however, is offset by references to popular cult films such as Enter the Dragon and Daikaiju Gamera. Enter the Dragon is of course the famous Bruce Lee film while Gamera is a film about a giant turtle that shares the same interest with Godzilla in destroying Tokyo.
February 11, 2005 | 19 Comments
Ouch. For fans who are rooting for the lead protagonists, this episode was the equivalent of a kick below the belt. In a nutshell, things are breaking apart rapidly, and almost all HiMEs are in a world of hurt, sniping against each other.
In this episode, Mai's life is reduced to rubble, and it happens in such a painfully logical way that it's actually pretty impressive. Yes, I expected Mai HiME to get darker, but I somehow didn't expect it to become like THIS. In a way, it's probably more disturbing than turning to simple carnage and character-killing, because the atmosphere is way more oppressive.
After watching the episode, I thought I had to rate it as "-" this time, because I really didn't enjoy it at all. However, I realized that the episode was a necessary evil, and my lack of enjoyment was due to the turns of the story, not the execution. That said, there were only very few gems to make me smile compared to other times when the drama kicked in, so more than a "o" would be incorrect either. Finally, RAW-wise there was lots of relevant talk, so if you don't have any japanese skills, you'll miss alot here without a review: Difficult rating on that.
Mai HiME Rating: o
Absolute Rating: o
RAW complexity: Difficult
February 9, 2005 | 69 Comments
Hardcore manga readers are most likely already aware of this Ohba Tsugumi/Obata Takeshi's famous series for a while now. Unfortunately, I was only vaguely aware of it until gprei, a regular poster on this blog told me about this a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit that I was rather surprised to see this kind of story appearing in the normally action-laden Shounen Jump. I think in a lot of ways Death Note (デスノート) is similar in style and tone to Seinen series such as Monster. This simply means that physical fight scenes or power-ups abilities are not the main features of the story. Instead the series focus more on a tense drama involving dangerous mind games between two very clever individuals. Having said that, while Monster is grounded in reality, this series uses supernatural theme as the basis for its story, thus the title of the manga.
February 9, 2005 | 11 Comments
With this episode, I have officially given up trying to hope for a better stylistic approach. It seems to me that the animators are hell-bent on maintaining that washed out look during the fight scenes. Thankfully, the entire Hollow/Shinigami sub-plot from this episode is interesting enough to hold my attention, or rather, it makes my brain works a little bit to the point that I managed to ignore the washed-out look. In fact, I personally think that this sub-plot is actually far more interesting and engaging than the main premise of saving Rukia from Soul Society. This main plot always bothers me a lot mostly because the story suddenly turns Rukia from a normally headstrong and resourceful character into a damsel in distress waiting to be saved by Ichigo.
February 6, 2005 | 64 Comments
I'll make it short and sweet this time (who snorted "Yeah right", huh?): Episode 18 was great. Due to the HiMElander prophecy things are slowly unraveling, so the expected downspin which the classical drama arc demands now is set into motion. But in what a wonderful and smart way. Maybe I've just had a very slow day, but the final twist caught me unprepared again.
Both Mai HiME and Absolute Rating get a (+) this time. We have goodies for everyone - the action, drama and character fans. The RAW wasn't easy, but not too difficult either, so you should be able to watch it and understand most of what happens.
Mai HiME Rating: +
Absolute Rating: +
RAW complexity: Medium
February 5, 2005 | 23 Comments
I've been waiting for this action-filled arc for a while and this one certainly didn't disappoint me. The ending turned out to be quite tense and exciting as well. As expected though, it made me wish that next week will come faster. For those of you who are into seiyuu, this one marks the appearance of Suzumura Kenichi, who's probably best known for his role as Kamui in X TV series. This casting seems to be intentional since Suzumura is also a singer and his role as Reo requires someone who can at least belt out a tune. Unfortunately, the song included in this episode seems to be the usual rock and roll variety which is not particularly special in any kind of way.
The highlight of this episode is probably the part where both Azuma and Koala demonstrate how sometimes bread-making can be a complex and intricate work of art. Animation-wise, it's good to see the anime finding a way to show Azuma's 'magic' in an effective way despite the fact that the scene was already in color to begin with. It's certainly not as surprising as the manga version, but there's not much that the animators can do about it since the difference of the two medium makes it impossible for the two version to be identical. This is interesting because color is actually one of the elements that makes anime stands out better in comparison to manga. But in this case, the easy access to color actually limits the effect that the story tries to demonstrate.
February 3, 2005 | 28 Comments
That was awesome. Okay, so there are many mysteries that the series never got to address but I'm quite happy with the resolution that the series offers in this episode. In fact, I think I've been really happy with the series overall. I don't think it strikes too many wrong notes except probably some weird moments in episode 10. I also think that the series has one of those rare Anime OST that I won't hesitate to purchase right away because I love the majority of the songs in it. I think the composer, Mitsumune Shinkichi, has came up with some of the best BGM I've ever had the pleasure to hear. I even like the OP song by the 'Wailing Siren' (TM Ender) :P.
With that in mind, here are some of my favourite song/BGM from this show (not necessarily in this order). I'm interested to know if some of you like some of these or other songs in the series:
Shukuteki - Awesome BGM that appears at the start of episode 12.
Battle of the Rose - This is Shinku's battle BGM. It appears when she comes out to fight one of the dolls, especially Suigintou.
Kinjirareta Asobi (full version) - Ha ha, yes, the wailing banshee's song. But I think the series won't be as good without this song.
Atatakana Kokoro - a soft BGM that usually appears when Shinku tries to give advice to Jun.
Awai Omoide - A rather sad BGM that accompanies many of the sad moments in the series.
Bara no Jubai - I think this is one of the Alice Game BGMs. It always appear whenever Alice Game is mentioned or when two dolls are engaged in fights because of the game.
And while we're at it, let me know how do you rank your favourite Rozen Maiden characters. My preference can be seen below. I'm actually quite surprised with this myself since I never expected number 1 and 3 to be filled by those characters until this episode.
Suiseiseki - Yes, the evil witch gets the Ichi-ban position. I think she's the best thing on this show, even eclipsing Shinku. *ducks from bricks thrown by Shinku's fans*
Shinku - Another awesome doll from this series. I like her upper-class act especially when she bosses Jun around.
Suigintou - She rocketed to my top three list after this episode for reason that is obvious to those who have seen the episode.
Jun - Yes, he was an annoying brat but he's got a reason for it. Plus he makes a progress every episode so that has to be commended.
Souseiseki - I don't actually like her that much but I like that humongous scissors weapon of hers.
Hinaichigo - Unfortunately, I find her to be rather annoying and useless until this episode so amongst other main characters, she is at the bottom of the list.
Anyway, the official site has something similar, voted by Japanese viewers. Here are the results
February 3, 2005 | 13 Comments
Blah. I guess I spoke too fast last week when I said that the animation is getting better. It looks like the good animation was limited to last week's episode. So now the blurriness is back again in its full glory. Anyway, storywise, this is an okay one. At least it's not predictable. But at the same time, it still feels boring that I feel like turning it off as soon as possible and watch that last episode of Rozen Maiden. I also dislike the fact that there is a sudden, unexplained power up scene given to one of the characters here. Anyway, I'd recommend getting alternative perspective about this episode from other bloggers such as David, Ten, Kungfucius, and Tensai once they released a review for this particular episode.
Well, as I suspected, the series definitely shows signs of wrapping up some parts of its storyline, particularly the ones that deal with Jun's problem. But at the same time, these two episodes actually creates additional mysteries that I don't think will be neatly wrapped up by the last episode in the series. I guess this is to be expected since the manga is still running inside Birz. But at the same time, I can't help but thinking that this series should not have been made until the manga was completed. I really like what I've seen so far but I'm dreading the possibility that the ending may not be as good as it could have been. Oh well, I guess I'll find out soon enough when I watch the last episode.
