neko's thinkbox

Hei, omachi!

And here’s part two of my first impressions of the Spring ‘09 season. Juggling between TF2 and sleep deprivation, I’m still going relatively strong, and resisting the urge to watch the 2nd episodes of the good series from last post.

List of series in Part Two:

Hatsukoi Limited
Higashi no Eden / Eden of the East
K-On!
Konnichiwa Anne!
Natsu no Arashi

Hatsukoi Limited

Girls. Dozens of them. (The second from the left looks incredibly similar to... Akira E. Ferrari.)

Girls. Dozens of them. (The second from the left looks incredibly similar to… Akira E. FerrariSUWA!.)

Haha, and then I thought I wouldn’t be served pantsu, well in the end there was striped pantsuWhy not take them entirely off already, tough guy?. Leaving my personal gripe with fanserviceThere are quite a few suggestive angles throughout the episode. Also, I guess that it not a camel toe, or is it? aside, I… don’t know. This episode kinda triggered my interest, as it probably reflected one huge problem that many young boys and girls face: what if your first confession comes from a subjectively ugly person? Especially if you’re the one claiming that “I don’t care about looks, only the inner beauty counts“. I’ve had that in the past, too. And what then? You can’t just flatly reject them, because not only you would be an epic hypocrite, but also might deeply hurt that person’s feelings. And then it goes pretty much like in this episode – well, as far as the looks go. Now the whole delinquent/kidnapping charade is once again pretty much far-fetched, but the bottom line is, Ayumi was clearly overlooking Misao’s feelings for her. (Though, again, falling in love with someone who doesn’t know you at all is quite heh…)

I wouldn’t mind if the story would continue in such a fashion that Ayumi would start to accept Misao’s looks and reputation, or Misao trying to become more social, or something like that. Might even borrow elements of School Rumble. But no, that would be boring wouldn’t it. And that wouldn’t be normal, since when do cute girls go out with ugly bears the size of a closet? See. No, it’s most likely going about his younger brother, because he’s the bishie. And with a harem of high school girls, I’m sure the lecherous viewership won’t be bored to see a bitchfight erupt all around that guy in the next few episodes.

Well, as I said, I don’t know. Part of me wants to continue watching it, to see if I’m right, and if bulky Misao will simply be tossed aside to make room for the horde of young smooth six-packs, and part of me wants to get away from this genre which is always the same old story, one girl’s musings to find her true love, there is only one guy in the world, so possible rivalry with other girls, etc. The only thing that varies is the amount of comic elements within, and this episode was remotely funny indeed. Characters looked good too, cute girls all around. But yeah, not sure if I’m gonna watch this.

Higashi no Eden / Eden of the East

The ED is quality!

The ED is quality! I was massively impressed by it.

After lots of people recommending this to me, I was kind of curious to see what Higashi no Eden was all about. And it started on quite a weird note, this guy, Akira (or Makoto, Koji, Kazuya) walking up naked close to the White House with a gun in his hand. Umm? Well under normal circumstances, Saki would already have been arrested for throwing a coin into the garden, and eventually leaving her luggage behind. Anyway, the intrigue lies with Akira’s given purpose, and the organization that stands behind all of this. He must indeed have been a terrorist – erasing his memories, and letting him walk naked with a gun, they probably must’ve wanted to get rid of him. And yet they keep guiding him. Mixed with the prince thing, perhaps this was just to test his abilities, to see if he can graduate from become a Savior or something.

Yes, I’m already conjecturing. Because this episode was interesting as hell. It was over so quickly, I was almost disappointed to have to stop there. And I know I love this series already. The reasons are many: the fascinating story with its mysterious characters and dark plot, the hilarious situations,^[1] the amazing English that was used,^[2] and the stereotypes they tried to juggle with. I mean, the taxi driver at first was black, the man coming out of that run-down building was black, which is, bluntly said, “normal” (I think you get what I mean, and I won’t discuss semantics with you now). You wouldn’t, however, expect the policewoman to be black either. On the other hand, she is fat, so there’s the old image of donut- and burger-gobbling cop, but the ones in the beginning weren’t. It’s pretty interesting to see how they don’t play the prejudice card without exaggerating on the stereotypes either^[3]. I found this extremely nice, thumbs upAnd Saki is speechless. …me too, because I can’t think of anything witty to say in this caption. (Feels like a déjà-vu.)! Finally, Saki is pretty cute, and quite naive, thinking that the D.C. was the center of the world^[4] I wonder how she managed to remain so composed in front of such a random and potentially dangerous guyWhat a modern terrorist. “Make war, not love” was it?. Oh, I know! It must have been the original censoringOf course they wouldn’t want to show a completely shriveled up sausage on TV. Would be an offense to the eyes..

The ED impressed me. The only thing that came to mind was: quality!! Origami is nothing compared to it! I love it.
I absolutely can’t wait to watch the next episode. Why the hell is Japan being raided by airstrikes? Keh. Must get this season reviewing done with as fast as possible (I dearly hope K-On won’t hold me up on this one, or I’ll crush that series).

K-On!

The ED is quality! the second. Kinda felt like a PV, though.

The ED is… quality. Yes, even if it’s K-On. :/

I thought I would really need to try hard to fault K-On!, not only because of all the fanwhoring and heavenly laudations all across the blogosphere,^[5] but also because of the fact that all the series that Kyoto Animation has produced have apparently become big hits. As such, expectations are, as is the custom with such series, astronomically high.
But so far those KyoAni series never reached those at all – will K-On! be no exception?^[6]

So? The verdict?

Well, you need more than a metric fuckton of moe and PVs to impress me.

…is what I would have ended my review with.^[7] But I have to admit that I do like the story, albeit in a very remote fashion. Let’s say, I’m interested in how the band turns out. I myself have played the lead guitar in a band (a combo, more precisely), and I know how much the band relies on such a vital member. The fact that Yui doesn’t know how to play the guitar at all (and is not even interested in that kind of music) makes me want to know how much it will inspire her band in coping with that weakness. That’s all. Ijou. The moe, no matter how much they try to stuff the gaps in my interest with, doesn’t interest me a bit. And I like MioMINE. P.E.R.I.O.D, EXCLAMATION MARK!. I doEven though she seems to be exhaling music notes. Also, I want to get my 4:3 here. Show me the cut off parts, NAO.. Got it? Now, let’s move on.^[8]

Konnichiwa Anne!

Nyan~

Nyan~

Well, well. I am not really a fan of those Heidi-like anime with a target audience of preschool children, so I was almost about to zap before I changed my mind – why, I also gave K-On! a chance. And in the end, I don’t regret it. Sure, it’s another Cinderella-ish story, with the red-haired child trying to cope with her poor adoptive family’s circumstances and moods, and the story progresses in a rather predictable way, but it’s still good enough to trigger a smile on my face. There’s no unnecessary moe/SD to pep things up, no slapstick or fanservice, none of this.^[9] So simple, so innocent and naive, and yet so sweet. The target audience might still be of a younger age, but older chaps like you and I can very well follow such a light series as well, and be reminded of the simpler values in life we so often lose track of.

I might keep an eye out on this series as well. I’m not really convinced it is the right one for me, but that’s what I might find out in the next episodes.^[10]

Natsu no Arashi

Oiiiisu~ (She's also taller than him! No way!!)

Oiiisu~

Looking back at the nine reviews I made in this spring series, there haven’t been any pure comedy anime. But now I found at least one specimen: Natsu no Arashi. The theme of traveling through time is kind of recurrent (perhaps even overused) but it still does a great job in this anime. And, apparently we have multiple time travelers, which makes things double as interesting; and the fact that they remain in the same dimension even more.^[11]

Now, I am not sure if I get all the references and parodies in this anime.^[12] We did have a lot of the usual anime cliché repertoire: maids and/or kimonos, seifukus, feminine boys called Jun, tsunderes, yanderes, more of the usual; but this one is preposterously blatant and new: WTF is a YukkuriYukkureimu? Or just some kind of obscure Yukkuri. The wind blows it easy! doing in my animu????? Has it reached such notoriety in Japan already? Geez. I lol’d, though. Also, I don’t really know what kind of obsession they are hinting to with showing belly buttons all along either. I’d take a wild guess and say something about fanservice, but I’d probably be wrong. Ah well.
I don’t know if it was intentional, but HajimeThis has to be a Conan reference. I mean, look at the next pic. looks like Edogawa ConanDesho?? And by the way, if you don’t know that this is Detective Conan, you will be cursed for the next 28774 years. . And Yayoi^[13] looks surprisingly similarNote the maid outfit and the lifeless eyes. Colors don’t match, but still… to a certain maid“All resemblances are speculation and purely unintentional…?” I happen to love very much.
Speaking of maids, (Maid fetish urges…) there are quite a lot of them here. Yayoi has yet to prove her worth (following that comparison I mentioned just now), Kaya>O< ICHIGO SHOOTOKEEKI DOKO??? is, well, sweet^[14], Kanako, well, the wallflower, and Arashi, cute eyes. Besides, they all got quite some HUEG eyes.

Apart from that, I find myself liking this anime. There is honestly not much to look forward to, but I always love having a heartful laugh at something completely pointless. Much like Hyakko last season.^[15]

–

Phew, halfway through. For the first time I am doing this, I’m kind of enjoying this! Usually I’d just play the ignorant oaf and not watch anything, but now I realize that I would have been missing on quite a few things, good and bad ones. I honestly didn’t expect I would find myself liking half of the shows I’ve watched so far! And I’ve yet to go through 10 more series! And by the time I’m done with those, I can already do a half-season review of the series I like. Heh, kind of ambitious here.

In any case, look forward to part three! (And K-On boys, don’t be disappointed. I will find some flaws to this anime so I can have a go at badmouthing you. ¬_¬)

1. Show me your Johnny! LMAO! And she couldn’t recognize him because he was all shriveled up because of the cold, LOL!!! [↩]
2. They actually hired some native English speakers, that’s good! Because they often don’t in other series, like in BECK for instance. Regrettable. [↩]
3. I probably missed half of them anyway [↩]
4. Another stereotype, especially embraced by foreigners! Oh, hi Bin Laden. [↩]
5. even if I never read a single post about it [↩]
6. And I love how the people I aim to troll in this fashion call me biased when I say that. [↩]
7. I sound like a goddamn tsundere. [↩]
8. I’M NOT CONVERTED YET! YOU HEAR ME, KYOANI (FAN(whore)S)??? [↩]
9. Actually, I would have trashed this if they ever had tried to do it in the slightest way. [↩]
10. And I’m not just saying so because I like red-haired girls. :| [↩]
11. What I mean with that is that they are able to meet if they happen to be at the same time at the same place, even in the past. [↩]
12. Especially in the OP, which I do quite like, good change from all the srs female-sung epics [↩]
13. Yayowi to be precise, but that’s just for the few anal morons who type Tewi and not Tei… [↩]
14. I like how she goes all-out for a simple strawberry cake, heh [↩]
15. And I have yet to finish that one, btw. [↩]