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ローゼンメイデン 
Since Garten is extremely overworked on his Japan leave and even has his second Kongetsu blog to take care of, he asked me to blog Tsubasa 02&03 for him. "Sure", I said, "no problem. After all, the first episode was really great!"
Unfortunately, the next two episodes were not. Not by a long shot. Episode 01 captured me with a good pace, likable characters (both Sakura's kawaiiness and Syaoran's levelheaded non-wimpiness appealed to me), a great score by Yuki Kajiura (I had the hymn of the last battle on repeat for over one hour) and great visuals. Most of these strong points have vanished. Sakura is out of commission due to the story, Kajiura seems to be on vacation, the animation quality has dropped a bit, but most importantly - the pacing is totally screwed. In these two episodes we had more pointless flashback-repetitions than good animes have in a full season. What the heck are they thinking?
I'm not going to drop the anime because of the strong start - otherwise I'd be outta here. And so, after a solid (+) in the beginning, the only fair verdict for the next two installments in my opinion would be "flawed and disappointing"
Episodes Rating: -
I always watch the 2nd episode of a new series with a bit of trepidation because normally the quality of the 2nd anime episode goes down a notch from the 1st episode. Thankfully, that does not seem to be the case here. The water-painting look remains consistent and as a result, gives a rather pleasant overall look, especially when compared to other anime on offer this season. It also helps that the series has some of the best music collection in each episode. The most impressive part of the series, however, is the fact that the anime story still flows smoothly even though some parts of it has been modified from the original manga. The writers have really done a good job in ensuring that some of the comedic storyline from the early volumes are combined together with the more serious plot of the later volumes. Anyway, check out Bluwacky's blog for more opinion about this episode.
If you're interested to see what the Yakitate!! Japan bread line up looks like in Japan, here is how the breads are usually displayed inside Lawson store. And here is Japan 58: Melon Pan. Unfortunately, I have to say that the bread itself doesn't taste good. The sweet crust is too soft and the 'Melon cream' that they use taste more like whipped cream. I've had better Melon Pan from normal bakery. The best Melon Pan I've had, however, was from a bakery inside Asakusa shopping mall. The Melon Pan was green in color and inside the bread, there's a rather thick orange cream. The bread was so good I almost wanted to go back to the store just to get another one. But thankfully sanity prevailed and I decided not to go back because the weather was really cold that night.
I'm sorry that this one comes out really late but doing recap while in Japan turns out to be harder than I thought. To begin with, the internet connection at the college is not that good. Bittorrent and other P2P programs run a bit slower and often drops out when I try to download something. Oh well, at least I can still download them. At the same time, the course I'm taking turns out to be harder than I thought. It's only the first week and I'm struggling to keep up. If it continues to be like this, I'll have to put all the titles that I cover to impression only to save me some time. If you're waiting for other titles like Monster and Yakitate!! Japan, I hope you'll be a bit more patient with me.
This is probably the episode receiving only a (o) rating from me which left me with the best feeling so far. Why? Because it's becoming more and more evident that Speed Grapher is about telling a story first and foremost, and not just a show counting on cheap shock thrills. Yes, those also have a prominent role, but I'm increasingly convinced by now that the series has some real meat and bones.
The episode tells the background story of the descending "goddess" from the first episode, Kagura Tennouzo, who is also the sole daughter of the current zaibatsu leader Shinsen Tennouzo. It's a tale devoid of any traces of warmth, happiness or comedic relief, therefore don't expect receive any enjoyment from episode 2 (hence the low rating) - other than the insight that any anime who is willing to take this risk so early in the series must be confident in its own values.
Episode Rating: o
As a side note, this title is also known as Hachimitsu to Clover. So if you're looking for that series, this is the same one. Anyway, this series probably has one of the most original opening title I've ever seen. I think the opening fits very well within the series, especially if one considers the fact that this is the story about a group of struggling and hungry art students. So having an opening full of food made out of plastic not only conveys the motivation of these students to be creative but also their desire to have a decent meal on a daily basis. The song itself is actually rather good but unfortunately, the singer somehow chose to deliver this in a squeaky mouse mode, making the song sounds a bit strange at times.
I'm sorry that it's been a while since I wrote anything but I had problem accessing this site ever since I arrived in Japan. Thankfully, the issue has been resolved for now so I hope I can continue doing this without too much of a hiccup. Anyway, onto the series itself, this turns out to be a rather good adaptation of the manga. The OP theme, Blaze is a fitting song for the series. On the other hand, I have to say that I'm one of the few people who don't really appreciate Maaya Sakamoto's Loop as the ED theme. The ED is not bad or anything like that but it definitely took a couple of 'loop', so to say, before I got used to the song. Thankfully the background music are very much spot-on thanks to Yuki Kajiura's arrangement. I have more to say about the entire series itself but let's just get to the episode for now.
Tokyo in a dark future with a film-noirish setup? Struggles between powerful corporations? Conspiracies and crime? Grown-up main character? Sign me up!
That was my first reaction. The background somehow reminded me of one of my favorite series: Bubblegum Crisis and all its spinoffs. However, it didn't take long to realize that Speed Grapher is very different to BGC. Darker, much more serious, much more violent and extreme in what it depicts. One of the first scenes was so disturbing to watch that I wondered if I'd drop the series very early. I still reserve the right to do so, but I hope that the show will deliver on its promise of a good plot without exceeding my personal threshold for cruelty. It certainly has potential.
Episode Rating: +?
Well, here I am at Changi airport on a changeover and all I can think about is how I haven't updated the blog for the last few days. Anyway, for those of you who are interested to follow my rambling while I'm in Japan, I've set up a seperate blog from Memento. It still looks basic and all because I haven't had the chance to work on the design but it'll do for now. I have to say I've had a great time so far. The plane that I took was awesome. I had a choice of 50-100 in-flight entertainment inluding an old Super Mario Brothers video game. I also saw this great Japanese film called Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu. It's retitled as Be With You. I have to say that it's one of the better romantic films I've seen in a while. The story is about this woman who got hit by a car and gets to experience her life 9 years later for one rainy season. Anime-wise, the 2nd season of Mai Hime has been confirmed confirmed. Here's hoping that red-haired character is not Shiho. :P
I'm sorry that it took me this long to come up with this recap. But I barely have the time to clean up my room, let alone find the time to watch and write something. Having said that, here's a quick entry for this week's episode. First thing first, this is a mediocre episode especially when you compare it with last week's episode. The episode also contains some unnecessary filler which I think should have not been included to begin with. With only 5 more episodes to go, I think the writers should have condensed next week's episode along with this week's episode. That way they'll have a lot more time to complete the series properly. The animation also takes a slight nosedive from last week's episode. But that's to be expected since the animators probably want to conserve the budget for the finale.
All things that begin eventually come to an end. Mai HiME is no different in this aspect, and here we have the final episode of one of the most exciting animes in quite a while.
The conclusion in the final episode is fairly controversial, so Garten had the idea to turn the review into dialogue-form to make sure that we get more than one side in. This is an experiment, so we'd like to get some feedback if this is a worthwhile format or not.
Garten's Episode Rating: +/-
Mentar's Episode Rating: +
RAW complexity: Fansubs are out
I wrote this for some of you who are waiting for Gakuen Alice recap as well as other series' recap. Please forgive me but starting from this week, the recap will be available a bit more late than usual. The reason is because I'm about to go to Japan for 2.5 months for holiday/study. The plan was already in motion right from last December but I didn't want to say anything yet in case it doesn't become a reality. But right now, baring any unforseen circumstances, everything is set in motion and I'll leave on 8th of April and won't return until 20th of June.
Okay, now that is out of the way, obviously this presents some kind of problem with the recaps. Right now, I'm busy trying to clean up my office, house, as well as arranging a few things before I leave next week. I'll try to churn out the review for Gakuen Alice 21 at least by Monday. However, I'm not sure when I'll be able to do the review for the next few episodes. I'll try to find a way to do it while I'm in Japan since I'm taking my laptop with me. But I hope you'll understand that it'll take me a couple of days to settle down and have a proper internet connection going on.
I also realised that it will be impossible to cover all of the series that I've been covering. With that in mind, I make a decision to drop Bleach. I'm way left behind anyway and I lost whatever interest I had for the series back in episode 20. Unfortunately, I also have to make entries for older series shorter, as in more-impression and less recap. Again, I'm sorry for doing this but I don't see any other way around it. Having said that, I'll try to do my best to continue blogging unless of course, I can't access the internet or anything like that. But I hope that won't be the case.
Anyway, once again I'm sorry for not writing about this sooner but I want to be sure before I announced anything. And oh, in case you're wondering, this is not April's Fool. I intentionally wait until the 2nd of April before writing this. ^_^
I supposed it's not surprising that this series gets so much exposure from various anime magazines given the CLAMP name and all. Having said that, I have to say that I'm still pretty skeptical about this particular anime adaptation. I'm probably one of the few who have not been impressed with the character design for this anime. I think the anime characters have this unusually thin frame. The picture that I posted above is probably one of the few pictures where the characters look closer to their manga counterpart. The other illustrations as well as the brief trailer that I've seen, however, suggests that the characters will look much thinner than the picture above.
Sunrise has announced a second season for My-Hime not long after the screening of episode 26. Titled "My-HiME: Kokoro no Yume, the new series is planned for a mere 13 episodes, half of the first series. The only character design they have at the moment is what looks like a Mikoto-wannabe. I have to say that I'm not too thrilled about the character design. However, I supposed I'll just have to wait and see before making further judgment. For more information, please click on the extended entry.
