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ローゼンメイデン 
September 27, 2008 | 
6 Comments
Once again sorry for the late review but it's not until now that I can watch and review the episode. I guess all of those PSN demo downloads do take a lot of bandwidth. And then there's the constant streaming of Japanese TV to my PC. Anyway, I'm not really enthused about this episode for some reason. I thought the story was rather non-eventful. I'm just not sure about Asagi's real motivation in the story. It seems to me that she's quite content with letting Akagane deciding what she should do next. It can be argued that she can't do anything since she has no corporeal body but she doesn't seem to make an active attempt to either scold him if he do something without her permission. The music is pretty good as usual though and it's interesting to hear a Koto performance because prior to this series, I didn't even know what a Koto was.
September 7, 2008 | 6 Comments
In an entirely unrelated note, I think I just read some spoilers to the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. It sounds fantastic if it's true but sometimes I wonder I would have had a more mind-blowing experience with films/tv series if I'm not such a spoiler whore. Oh well, I can't help it. Plus, knowing Casino Royale ending (or other stories') certainly didn't ruin the film for me. Anyway, this episode is pretty good. I completely forget that this is the one where Natori Shuuichi makes his appearance. The guy is a rather major character in the series and has a recurring appearance time and time again. I know that other characters seem to have a lot of appearances in this series but the truth is, their roles are not as big as that of Shuuichi's. The anime has also elongated the appearances of several characters even though they have limited appearances in the manga. Overall, this is another good episode for the series and for some reason it makes me wish that I have a fat cat like Nyanko-sensei. I wonder why of all things Madara chooses this form as a disguise.
September 2, 2008 | 11 Comments
I'm sorry for the slow update. I've been trying to upgrade my PS3 HDD and finally get to do it yesterday. It was kind of easy but difficult at the same time. I hope I don't have to do it anytime soon since my HDD is now a 250GB one. Anyway, this episode was a good and emotional one. I certainly didn't expect a love story out of this one since the series has always been about friendship. At any rate, the episode reminds me of A Chinese Ghost Story for those who have seen that film. Although I think it's less tragic and depressing in comparison to that film. At its core, however, it's a love story between a spirit and a human. Because of this, the first thing that I could think of was "this won't end well". Well, it does end in a sad note but at the same time, it's not a completely painful experience either. At least one half of the pairing gets a happy ending while the other is quite happy to see the other moving on with life. The episode also provides a possible reason as to why Reiko wasn't able to fulfill her promise to meet the youkai/ayakashi.
Hmm, this turns out to be spirit-festive weekend for me because in addition to watching this, I'm also watching the US remake of The Grudge 1 and 2. In case you're wondering, yes, I've seen the original version. I just want to see how different the remake turns out to be. So far, they're not as scary as the original for some reason. Maybe it's because I've seen the original and already know what's going to happen. Anyway, when I first saw the preview for this episode, I really thought that the chibi Kitsune is actually a girl. I should have know better than that but it's not until 'she' said that one day she'll become a man, I didn't have a clue. I think it was the long hair and the voice that confused me. Moving along, the series continues to impress me with the soundtrack. They really good and I wish that they have been backed up with equally good animation. I can't help but thinking what this series would have been like if it actually has Mushishi's animation style and quality.
This episode reminds me of various Japanese horror films where a person finds out that a ghost has been latching onto their neck/back all of these times *shudder*. Come to think of it, it was extremely nice of Natsume to help the youkai despite what happened earlier. I think most people would rather flee than having to deal with youkai. Especially since the youkai in question looks like Sadako from ', The Ring.
The jazz music in this series is just beautiful. I was especially impressed by the track that was playing when Natsume agrees to accompany Santo. Come to think of it, the majority of the soundtrack in this series are the kind of music that I like to listen to so I think I'll get the OST once it comes out. Anyway, this is a really nice surprise for the series. When one thinks of original episode, one usually associate the idea with 'filler'. However, this is more than a typical filler. The storyline is actually interesting and offers some perspective on youkais behavior according to Japanese folklore. And although the youkai doesn't appear in the manga, Santo is actually looks cute and well-designed. In addition to this, it's nice to see Natsume finally making friends with the people that he encountered in the previous episodes, namely his two classmates, Tanuma, and Sasada. It's kind of funny because Natsume doesn't actually make that much of an effort to be friends with any of them but they come to him anyway. Also, is it just me or does everyone else thinks that Sasada has a crush on Natsume?
Let's just get the bad thing about this episode out of the way. I think the dialogues on this episode are too stilted and abrupt. One moment they're talking about one thing and in a matter of seconds, they're already talking about something else without any transition in between. It's really disorienting because there are times when one can be fooled into thinking that they'll go into one direction with the dialogue only to be abruptly shifted into another topic. I also think that the motivation of the spirit in question is not very clear this time around. On the one hand, he is annoyed with the girl for coming to the school over and over again but then he also doesn't want her to stop coming to school. On the positive side, the whole ghost story part was pretty fun. I also can't help but feeling nostalgic for Honey and Clover when Kamiya Hiroshi said "Chiisai koro kara...." in this episode. The way he delivers that line sounds just so similar to the way Takemoto said it back in Honey and Clover.
I think I'm getting slower these days. It took me forever just to finish this one post. There's always something that distracted me from completing it until now. Either I was too tired/sleepy to finish the post or there's an interesting series/movies that I wanted to watch. Anyway, this is another nice albeit slow-paced story although I feel that it's not as powerful as the first or even the second episode. Speaking of story, I wonder if the series will just end like any other one-off series, with no overarching arc whatsoever. I don't see the manga finishing off anytime soon and I really don't want the anime to come up with weird ending that conflicts with the manga storyline, especially if it has anything to do with Nyanko-sensei.
Man, I've been too busy trying to keep up with E3 news that I couldn't even write this without being distracted every 5 minutes, trying to see if there is interesting news I should read. Also, if you've been emailing me about the past series that I covered last season, I'll try to finish them one by one, starting with one episode of Osen and one episode of xxxHOLiC Kei. The only series I'll probably not bother is S.A - Special A since no one seems to be interested in that anymore. Anyway, this is a pretty good second episode although it's not as powerful as the first one. It's kind of nice to see Natsume getting some friends though so it's a bit sad to see him losing it so quickly in the end. Having said that, I think what he really needs are some real human friends not just the spirit types. Otherwise, he wouldn't be any different from Reiko.
OP Theme: 「一斉の声」 (Issei no Sei) by Kita Shuuhei - AVI version (12.1MB) | PSP version (11.2MB)
Of all the new anime that has been released thus far, I feel that this one has the best mix of story, humor, OP/ED, and voice acting. It's a pretty encouraging first episode in my opinion. To begin with, Kamiya Hiroshi (Takemoto in Honey and Clover) and Inoue Kazuhiko (Kakashi in Naruto) delivered their excellent voice acting as usual. I'm especially impressed with Inoue Kazuhiko here, who can change his voice from sounding silly and childish when Nyanko-sensei (the cat spirit) is in the form of Maneki-Neko, to sounding mature and dangerous when the spirit is in its original form. Upon seeing this episode, I finally realize why Kamiya Hiroshi was chosen to be Natsume and that's because just like Takemoto, Natsume is equally contemplative about his life. Anyway, the only thing that is missing here is a solid animation. The animation/style that they have here is not too bad but I think the series could benefit from a much stronger color palette and less soft filter. I really hope that the second episode will rectify this particular problem.