Book Review: Persona

Persona by Genevieve Valentine

Anime Review: Erased

Now it's time to really get going on the Winter 2016 anime season with noitaminA's third mystery show in as many seasons. For newcomers to the blog, I tried Ranpo Kitan (loosely based on the works of Edogawa Ranpo) but didn't like the first episode at all and watched The Perfect Insider (based on either a novel or a light novel from the 90s) until the end but got frustrated with both it's philosophy and it's "solution" to the murder mystery (I'm honestly surprised that more people weren't even harsher on that detail). Each of these shows has had greater credentials than the last and so we come to this show, based off of a manga with an excellent reputation and with a strong staff (I enjoyed the director's previous work on Silver Spoon quite a bit) and news that the anime would end concurrently with the manga and have the same ending. That's a promising start!

Erased (Boku Dake ga Inai Machi The Town Where Only I am Missing)

Anime Review: The Unlimited

I know I said last week that AKB0048 Next Stage was my last winter anime review but technically I didn't watch this one during the winter season so it doesn't count. So, back in mid-April I had a friend crash at my place for a few nights for a con and so we ended up watching a lot of random anime (and Doctor Who) and out of everything we tried this was the one I liked the best*. Like a lot of other people, even though it got pretty good first episode takes by a lot of people I was just too worried that I wouldn't get it since I never saw Zetta Karen Children/Psychic Squad, although I laughed pretty hard when screenshots surfaced that showed that the Nostalgia Critic and Angry Video Game Nerd (from That Guy With the Glasses) had cameo'd in an episode (wearing each others' pants and at a theme park, the same one from Natsuyuki Rendezvous I think which if you'll recall was aimed at couples and small children, seriously I think whoever at Manglobe snuck that in was a fan and a shipper). But after I saw the first episode I was pretty hooked, lots of great action and whenever my friend and I had a question about how something worked the main character asked it, finally exposition done right!


The Unlimited

Summary: Andy has never really fit in with normal people since he's an esper and never really fit in with espers since his ability is to nullify others. This makes him rather unpopular in the esper prison he's found himself in although he does manage to catch the eye of a new prisoner, Hyoubu Kyosuke, which, since Andy is an American spy sent to infiltrate Kyousuke's organization, was the plan all along and now he has to go along with their plans all the while sneaking around to try and find something special on their cruise ship.

The Good: Yes you can completely enjoy this show without having seen/read the original ZKC, all I knew of it was that there were three super-esper little girls (apparently there was a timeskip to this) who were the main leads and that this show had one of the villains as the main character (and looking at some stuff online it looks like they integrated other aspects from the original so well I didn't even notice it). The rest of it is explained well especially since, as I mentioned earlier, just about any time I had a question Andy was asking it which struck me as really solid writing. The pacing is also really great as well, the show doesn't drag out what the viewer knows is going to happen (certain conflicts happen much sooner than I expected, Kyousuke some backstory at exactly the right time, Andy's character changes right when it should) yet I wouldn't call it predictable, just well planned out. It was a really fun show to watch, got me interested in the original ZKC, and now I'm just the tiniest bit grumpy that there wasn't more because I would have easily watched another 12 episodes of it.

The Bad: One thing that might frustrate some people is that the endgame for the whole ZKC, a war between normals and espers, does not happen here. Yet the show never acts like this is where the story is going, all the characters mention it as if it's still a ways off, and taking into account that it's a spinoff this really shouldn't surprise people, so I think the fact that its climax is smaller shouldn't be a turn-off (the fact that the Americans are the bad guys all along though, well, I think I've mentioned it before but I'm just getting tired of that trope especially since they even show at one point that not all Americans, or at least New Yorkers, are crazy esper haters). There are one or two points where they showed characters from ZKC and didn't really introduce them but considering that I can put two and two together (and hopefully most other anime fans can as well) that wasn't a serious problem either, honestly this is such a solid show that it doesn't really have that many flaws to talk about.

The Audio/Visuals: This show looked pretty good, although I do wish they hadn't used Kyousuke's power-up filler footage every time (honestly it was starting to remind me of a magical girl transformation sequence the way they played it religiously every time). The fights looked good, didn't notice anyone going horribly off character, the voice acting seemed fine (as far as I know they brought back the seiyuu for all the reoccuring characters), not exactly sure why they changed the ED a few times and apparently I completely missed the fact that they used two different versions of the OP but all in all everything looked and sounded fine.


So I'm giving this a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars and I really hope Sentai licenses this soon since I would buy it. Honestly I'm confused why they licensed ZKC in the first place yet I feel like this is the kind of show that would have a larger audience, especially since you can easily spin the back of the box summary to make it less obvious that it's a spinoff and not drive people off that way. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that this show had relatively little input from the original manga author yet from the things I've read he loved it and has even hinted that he might bring back the anime original characters (Any and Yugiri) into the manga's finale which is one of the most positive reactions I've ever seen someone have in regards to their stories, or spinoffs of their stories being adapted. Now if only that had helped this sell better, poor Manglobe, have they ever had a really good selling series? 



*For those curious, I showed her K and Gargantia and we tried out an episode of Problem Children are Coming From Another World Aren't They? (which I had heard was better than it sounded and that was in fact true), Love Live (which we tried soley for the possibility of cosplay outfits, not going to lie there, and it was okay but not nearly as entertaining as AKB048), and The Severing Crime Edge (which we both found just too weird to be enjoyable).

Webcomic Review Month 2013: Penny Dreadful, Polterguys Prince of Cats, Princess Princess

Whew, got the biggest batch of reviews for the month here, even though I'm a little sad I don't find as many great webcomics every year I have to admit it's nice that I don't have to make as many huge posts as this. Oh and the ComicMix March Madness tournament is still going on so if that's your thing make sure to go out and vote, think they've reached the quarter-final round as of writing this so it's going to finish up pretty soon!


Penny Dreadful by Maggie G Vicknair

The 20th century is barely a decade old and Penny Hart has found herself lost and alone in it. Through a series of strange events she finds herself in the employ of the Harker Institute of Super-Natural Studies and while she finds herself starting to enjoy her new life of adventure it's still a bit much to simply take in a stride.

As a heads up, this is one the webcomics which has a fairly dramatic art shift early on, apparently Vicknair completely changed the way she drew it starting in chapter two, so if you don't like the art very much in chapter one be sure to look at a later chapter before writing off the comic for that reason (and of course the art style does change and become more sophisticated as the story progresses as it does in practically every comic out there). As for the characters and plot I'm really fond of this one since the characters are just a touch sarcastic (well, more than a touch at times) and being a sarcastic person myself I occasionally wonder why characters aren't commenting on how strange their lives are. Despite this little extra self-awareness the copious supernatural elements of the story manage to feel just right for the story without anything out of place (although a little more exposition about how magic works in this world would be nice, I'm assuming that's simply coming later) and the story seems to be slowly revealing that there is a greater plot lurking behind the events of the individual chapters, can't wait to see what's going to happen!


Penny Dreadful can be read online and does not have a print version as of writing.


Polterguys by Laurianne Uy and Nathan Go

Fans of shojo manga will undoubtedly find something familiar about Polterguys but in a fun, enjoyable way. Like many a heroine, Bree finds herself living with a bevy of cute guys under strange circumstances but her's are a bit stranger than normal. While she's simply moved out of the dorms for a bit of piece and quiet the five guys living in her old house are all dead, none of whom can remember how they got that way, and there are demons out there who will happily hunt down a lost soul and send it off to wherever those souls go. In a moment of impulse Bree puts her own life on the line to give the boys a chance to find peace before they move on but can she really do anything to help? 

Bree is a likeable heroine whose relatable, has spunk, and also has a rather realistic experience of having college turn out to be different than she expected (although most of us didn’t have demons and ghosts to make the shift even harder). This first book neatly wraps up one plot while leaving plenty more for future installments and introduces a new one which might prove even more interesting in the end. I'm not sure when the comic is going to start updating again (as far as I can tell, from twitter and tumblr, I think Uy and Go have started outlining it but haven't gotten much farther so it's likely to be a while) but even if it's only as consistent as this first installment then I think it'll be worth the wait.

Polterguys can be read for free online or purchased as a book.


Prince of Cats by Kori M. Handwerker

Lee might be able to talk to cats but frankly that isn't a really big problem or concern in his life currently, high school is. In a small, conservative town where you can be rich or poor but never anything but straight and that certainly doesn't help when his relationship with his best friend Frank starts to change and neither of them feels quite sure where they want, or even expect, it to end up.

Yep this is another story with queer characters in it and, while there hasn't been anything that would be considered graphic by anyone so far, the about page does indicate that there will be some non-graphic sex scenes later on, readers with delicate sensibilities or a habit of reading webcomics at work be warned. Funny enough this is also yet another comic done in watercolors which I'm seeing more and more of these days and I rather like it. Obviously this has no impact on the story but I still like the feeling it gives. Getting to the actual story, it's a little slow moving and awkward but honestly that sums up a lot of high school as well. I am happy to hear that there are going to be other gender/sexual identities present in the story as well (since it always seems odd to me whenever you have a large cast of characters and every single one of them is straight and Prince of Cats is developing a pretty large cast of background characters), although a bit sad that it sounds like there will be an asexual character but they won't even recognize what they are in story. I can certainly relate to that, and it sounds like they'll be a minor character in the story anyway, but I at least hope I can recognize who it is.

Prince of Cats can be read online and the first few chapters are also available in print form.

Princess Princess by StrangelyKatie

I know I said that I wasn't covering any finished comics this year but I completely missed that this one was in fact finished so I'll just slip it in here. Princess Princess is a rather quick tale about a princess locked up in a tower whose recused by, well, another princess. The story is based on that simple idea but fleshes out its two princesses quite well into distinctly different people with their own problems and lives, it doesn't just change one of them from a prince and call that a day. It's cute, quick, funny, yes the two girls do like each other as well, and smarter than you'd expect so I recommend everyone to check it out over here if you have some time. And while you're there I'd also recommend another of Katie's comic's, which I've seen around on tumblr before but hadn't realized it was hers, which is even shorter and nicely bittersweet.


2012 "P" comics

2011 "P" comic (which weirdly enough also finished up within hours of me writing about it, I'm amused by the similar timing anyway)

Webcomic Review Month 2013: Dumbing of Age

In another bit of business for Webcomic Review Month, in addition to not having a finished webcomics review I won't have one for Pokemon Nuzlockes either. Not because I don't enjoy them or because I didn't think anyone read it (quite the opposite there) but again, just didn't find any new ones to read this past year that I really enjoyed and I didn't want to pick up any more just for this. Ah well, that said if anyone knows of some really good nuzlocke comics, or regular old webcomics in general, please be sure to shoot me a comment or a tweet on twitter to tell me about it, one can never have too many recommendations after all!


Dumbing of Age by David Willis

It's the fall semester at a college in Indianan where you have both the upper classmen who are starting to become disillusioned with their college lives and the new freshman who are various amounts of excited and eager for this new part of their lives. And if there are two things guaranteed in life (death and taxes) then there are two more things guaranteed in college, drama (especially of the roommate variety) and just plain weird life events. 

While the names of Willis' other webcomics are familiar to me (Shortpacked! It's Walky! It's Joyce and Walky! Roomies ) I hadn't read any of them prior to looking up a bit of background information for this review and frankly after seeing how different the characters are I'm rather confused. So if you're a new reader heed Willis' recommendation on the comic's about page, it's totally fine and possibly better if you come in knowing nothing to this story, the changes in character dynamics will just confuse you. Regardless of all of that, I only started reading this webcomic very recently but the humor clicked with me immediately and I was struck by how a lot of the characters have arguments on more, let's call them morale, issues and neither side is a strawman, both sides just debate themselves into a corner much the way arguments of that kind tend to play out in real life. The story also manages to balance a good sized cast, see banner above, and give all except one or two enough time in the limelight for character development which again is pretty impressive. I do wonder if the story will ever progress timewise (they still seem to be in the first semester of their freshman year) but as regular readers should know I always prefer stories where the cast does grow up and the story eventually ends (think For Better or For Worse) versus stories where that never happens (80% of all other newspaper comic strips out there). And who knows, hopefully this will remain the rare comic where the characters might not age and change a ton yet still keeps my attention for years, Girls with Slingshots and Questionable Content have all managed to do that so it is possible! 


Dumbing of Age updates Monday through Friday on it's website and the first book is also avaliable for purchase at the series' store.


2012 "D" webcomics
2011 "D" webcomics

Anime Review: Rose of Versailles

When I first started hearing about this show I of course heard about how great it was, how much of an influence it had on later shows, about the Tarazuka performances but one other thing I heard was that even fansubs were apparently hard to find, hence why I never looked around for the show itself. So when Nozomi announced last year that they had licensed the show (a feat that took them literally ten years, holy hell how do you have the dedication to do that?!) and that they were streaming it I figured this was a pretty good sign that I should watch it. Started watching the streams a bit after they started but once I got a few episodes into the show I found that I was enjoying it quite a bit for a show that was over 10 years older than I was, making it by far the oldest bit of anime I've seen and also a rather unique one in some ways.


Rose of Versailles

Summary: When his fifth daughter is born General Jarjayes of France decides that if he and his wife can't seen to conceive a son then he'll just have to raise one of his daughters as one and christens his last child Oscar and raises her as his heir. Her gender is fairly well known, and she seems quite comfortable not having to deal with the petty squabbles of 1700s French court women, although with the French Revolution building that inane life might have been a safer one for you.

The Good: I was a bit worried when the story started with Oscar being just 14, no offense to 14 year olds but you guys just aren't the best main characters for epic stories, so I was pleased to see that this story takes place over years and years with a good sized cast coming in and out of the story. The show is also surprisingly faithful in regards to real history, you can look up just about any of the major events in a book (or wikipedia) and see just how similar it all was. The story takes bigger liberties with it's characters, certainly there was no one like Oscar around and several characters had their backstories changed or expanded upon, although ultimately none of these changes were enough to influence the history which is exactly what I hope for in good historical fiction, a very solid and well-researched setting with characters who are influenced by it but still have their own problems and goals.

The Bad: My biggest gripe here is how hard it is to figure out how much time has passed from episode to episode. As far as I can tell the show starts when Oscar is about 14 and ends sometime in her late 20s/early 30s, if I had really and throughly studied French history I could have picked up more clues in context and figured out her age but I haven't and the voice actors remain the same for all the characters, plus some of the characters look young/old for their age, so it was a bit frustrating to try and keep track of that.

The Audio: The show uses the same voice actors for each character regardless of age (which certainly didn't help me with keep track of Oscar's age but I can see why they did it) and the music didn't change much over the course of the show either. It kept it's opening and ending theme throughout and it's most distinctive themes should be quite familiar to the viewers by the end of the show. Everything sounded fine, the music was a bit overly dramatic at points but that's just a matter of taste and the acting was certainly fine, no problems here!

The Visuals: This is a show that's been around longer than I have so obviously it's not going to look as pretty as a show produced in the last two or three years and very stylistically different from a show produced in the last decade or two. The show uses a lot of still images for dramatic effect (usually with the camera moving out or in to dramatic music) yet at the same time it doesn't shy away from having quite a few sword fights between characters which are fully animated (I'm sure some people who know more about animation than me can say if they're as fluid as fights in more recently shows, they didn't seem quite a fluid to me but regardless my point is that even though the show cut corners in some places they went all out in others). There wasn't as much shaking as I expected (or maybe I just got used to it, in the past shows I've seen from the mid-90s earlier had so much shake it was like they decided to scan in the frames during an earthquake) and again the colors aren't quite as vibrant as something painted digitally but given the setting of the show that's perfectly fine. A lot of the characters look alike (to be perfectly frank, I'm still not 100% sure who a few of the characters in the above image are) and a lot of the, apparently, lavish outfits of the cast look plain to me, probably because the coloring is a bit flat so a peasant's outfit seems to be made out of the same fabric as Marie-Antoinette's (which might sound weird to some people yet after years of cosplaying I can figure out the texture of an outfit in a show from looking at it for just a few minutes, here I really couldn't do that). So yes, the art is dated and animation is limited from a modern viewers perspective but I could just as easily pull out a show from the past few years and show where RoV surpasses it in both departments, whether you can get used to the art or not is going to be a matter of how willing you are to give it a shot and try to overlook or understand it's shortcomings.


So I'm giving the show a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars and recommending it to anyone whose ever been even vaguely curious about it or who really enjoys modern day shojo, it never hurts to see how the genre has progressed over the years and all 40 episodes are streaming for free on Viki (Nozomi will be releasing it in two sets sometime this year). Heck, after seeing this I really want to pull out of my Revolutionary Girl Utena sets and rewatch that show now that I can see where Utena must have gotten a lot of it's influences (I'm told that both of them were influenced by Princess Knight and I'll probably watch that someday too, just with a bit of a ranty write-up based on what I know about it....). Also feel like rewatching Le Chevalier D'Eon for comparison's sake too, which now that I think about it must have been at least partially inspired by RoV. In any case, will I buy this? I don't know, I liked it quite a bit but I just don't know if I want to rewatch it and I only buy stuff that I want to rewatch. Hopefully Nozomi will have the sets for sale for a while so I'll be able to think more about it, I'm sure my wallet will be happier for that too.   

Anime Review: AKB0048

Okay, getting close to getting back on schedule, for the rest of this semester anime reviews are moving to Tuesdays instead of Mondays (since I ended up with more school work on Monday's than I initially expected, oops) and I'll try to stick to that schedule as closely as I can, sorry about all of this weirdness folks!
Speaking of weirdness, I had heard about this show when it was first airing and saw a lot of people talking about it and then again it popped up on people's end-of-year lists where people all seemed to be saying the same thing, this was way better than they ever expected. I had been put off by the premise (gurellia idol singers in a world where entertainment isn't allowed? Please....) but then I reminded myself that if I could sit through Shoji Kawamori's other recent work, Aquarion Evol, which requires a serious suspension of disbelife and weird sense of humor (or at least a strong tolerance for puns) then hell I think I could put up with this show.


AKB0048

Summary: Sometime in the near future humanity fled Earth and colonized other worlds and, sometime after that, many of the worlds banned all kinds of entertainment with harsh punishments for those found participating or supporting it. Not that this is going to stop some people and the mega idol group AKB0048 sees it as their job to go to these worlds and hold highly illegal (and dangerous) concerts to give the people there at least one chance to experience real entertainment. Nagisa and her friends saw an AKB concert when they were young and ever since it's been their dream to join the group themselves, something that proves to be much harder than they ever expected. 

The Good: Yep, this was much better than what you would expect from a crazy premise like that and I think it's partially because the show (/the staff) know how crazy it is and just how far they can push people's suspension of disbelief. The show actually spends a lot of time showing the girls training to become idols and connecting with one another (which I think helps since all of that seems quite believable) and apparently a lot of the little details about the girl's lives are based on their real life voice actresses, something I didn't know until I did some research but thought was really neat. The show has a pretty large cast and while it doesn't give everyone equal amounts of screen-time most of the characters have enough, although weirdly enough there wasn't as much character development as I would have expected out of this show (one or two individuals got a fair amount but by and large most of the characters were static, I guess this is what happens when the majority of your cast is supposed to be around 13?).

The Bad: There was one episode I really had a problem with, the one with the hater (one of the girls gets a message from a hater saying she should kill herself and will never be good enough to be the successor to the girl she wants, which understandably shakes her) and the show ends with "hater just make you do better and should be thanked for it!" No, cut the crap writers, there is a big difference between criticism and a vile-spewing hater, even with mean, unwarranted criticism there's still a rather large line separating the two. Honestly the "sex scandal" about AKB that just broke (in short, one of the real life idols, with no ties to the show, had a boyfriend which violated the rules and had to shave her head and post an apology video for it) reminds me a lot of this episode, the idea that the fans are so important that you have to please all of them, even the messed up ones (which in the real world case insist on everyone being "pure," as if romance and sex are somehow dirty things). So, oddly enough considering how different the show is from it's real-world counterpart, the worst part of the show mirrors the idol industry quite a bit and sadly it's not of one of it's better aspects.

The Audio: As far as I can tell, the nine trainees (the nine girls in the promo piece above) are all voiced by girls from the various groups within the real AKB48 and the actual successors in the show are voiced by regular voice actors which is a bit of an interesting choice. Honestly I can't tell whose singing any of the songs and since the group members do sound alright as voice actors (not as polished but they also sound a bit more "real" than your standard anime voices) and certainly never drew me out of the experience I think the casting was done well. I also liked how well both the opening and ending song worked with the show, as I was watching I thought the lyrics worked really well and then both of the songs made appearances within the show itself later on (told you I couldn't tell who was singing or this wouldn't have surprised me as much as it did). So, thankfully for a show that's based more than partially around a group of singers the audio holds up here, I'm curious if they'll even try to dub the show in the US though (that and I still don't know how they managed to license this show and presumably most or all of it's music rights as well).

The Visuals: Quite honestly what first caught my eye about this show was just how colorful it was, then again I don't think I've seen a show from Studio Satelight that wasn't crazy colorful (even Croisee made good use of color, although I've only seen about half of the shows they've produced). The art looks good throughout although some people will probably be frustrated with the CGI used for the big dance scenes. The way I see it is that with CGI we're able to have scenes which would be far too complex to be well-animated by hand (that is, it's cheaper to do it this way, plus with all the constantly changing angles I have to wonder how on-model all the characters could stay) plus the dances look like real, choreographed performances, I wouldn't be surprised if they were based off some of the actual shows. So just, well, deal with it and know that you're forewarned if this isn't your thing.


So I'm giving this show a solid 3.5 out of 5, going to watch the second season when I have a chance (since I am swaaaamped with stuff to watch right now, curse you school!) and since Sentai has licensed this I'll probably pick it up sometime. Crunchyroll finally announced earlier today that their going to start putting the first season up on Sundays as well as the new episodes so unlike me you can avoid fansubs and head over there this Sunday to give it a whirl yourself.

Movie Review: Argo

Back this past summer or so I stumbled across this article on Wired.com talking about how during the Iranian Hostage Crisis there had been some other Americans who had gotten out of the embassy and managed to escape well before the rest of the hostages (who were still alive) were released (according to wikipedia the screenplay was actually based on that article, need a source on that though). Shortly afterwords I saw an ad for a movie called Argo and thought what a funny coincidence and it took me an embarrassingly long time to make the connection (I should've at least noticed that the article dated from 2007). For those who don't understand how history classes in the US go (or at least classes in the Midwest and South), American history/American involve in history is king yet, while you would think that would mean that high schoolers would have learned about the crisis, really those classes focus on the American Revolutionary War and American Civil War ad nasuem so it had never come up in any of my (advanced even) history classes. So, armed with only the knowledge from that article and what had come up in my nonfiction reading (I remember the characters briefly commenting in Persepolis that with the embassy closed that there would be no more visas but the hostage crisis was never mentioned) I headed out to catch the film at school and see how well it worked on the silver screen.


Argo

Summary: The year is 1979 and tensions are high in Iran due to all of the political upheaval and unease over the past few years. As our story begins these tensions come to a point and citizens storm the American embassy and take all the workers hostage, all but six that is who manage to escape and hide out in Tehran, almost as trapped as their colleagues. The CIA gets word of these six and starts to devise plans to get them out and for once it seems like the flashiest plan, to claim that their part of a fake movie production crew, might be the one that saves them.

The Good: Normally I don't like thrillers since they remind me a bit too much of conspiracy theories, both of them rely on the idea that there are people out there who are so much smarter than the average person and perfectly control everything (well except for that one moment that starts the plot/leads a person to concoct an insane theory) and that stretches my suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Here however we have a realistic set-up (growing tensions lead to an embassy being attacked and people in one building are situated in a way that lets them escape and then hide out with allies) and it's this setting that makes the rest of the story work. I also liked a lot of the dialogue on the American side of things (although sadly I think all of the snappiest lines were made up since they were in situations that weren't based on real events), although that leads to my biggest problem with the film.

The Bad: While I am okay with some dramatization of the events for the sake of a movie (the confrontation with the guards at the airport? Okay especially since it wraps up a character arc) but some of them were just silly (the scene following it, that was just unnecessary). Wikipedia (both the Argo [2012 film] and the Canadian Caper pages) has a whole section on historical accuracy, with sources, and it sounds like quite a few little details were changed and I highly recommend anyone whose seen the film to at least glance through, a few things in the film didn't ring true with me and sure enough they weren't. I suspect the reason for at least a few of the changes was to make the movie longer (it clocks in at 2 hours exactly and I had been curious how they were going to make a full length film with what is essentially, as odd as it sounds, a straightforward story) and after looking at Wikipedia I think they could've cut some of the fake events and instead focuses more on the Americans in Tehran (really the film was about  Mendez, not the Americans) since they went through a lot more there which could've filled the time instead.

The Audio: No real comments here, the audio wasn't really important to the story (neither were the visuals actually, this is a story that also works just fine in print) but nothing stuck out to me for the wrong reasons so I suppose it was technically sound.

The Visuals: The film used some actual news reports from 1979 and I'm curious if some of the video of the protests in Tehran were also from 1979 since were were some shots there were letter-boxed (followed immediately afterwards by shots that were not). Regardless, the use of actual broadcast was a nice touch and was the only thing that really stood out to me visual wise (well, I have learned since that Mendez was part Hispanic so it's a bit frustrating that he was portrayed by a clearly all white guy).


So, while I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it (and was annoyed by some parts I knew to be dramatizations), after reading more about the history of the Canadian Caper I'm frustrated that they did dramatize some parts when they cut out other parts that could have helped fill the time and up the tension instead (and that there were a few lines in particular that paint some people/groups in completely the wrong light and could have been easily re-written so as to not do it). So I'm only going to give this movie a 3 out of 5 after all and probably won't rewatch it (then again I don't think it's the kind of story that benefits from rewatching anyway, regardless of historical accuracy).  

Anime Review: Kamisama Dolls

While this wasn't one of the hot new titles for the summer season I did see a number of people hyping the show so I tried out the original manga and just could not get into the series so I didn't try out the show when it first came out. About halfway through the series though I asked if it was worth trying out and was told yes so, especially since I needed something to watch while I was sewing, I caught up just in time for the best episode of the series (episode seven) and discovered that I enjoyed the anime a lot better than I enjoyed the manga.

Kamisama Dolls

Summary: Kyouhei used to be a seki, someone who controls the giant wooden puppets worshiped as gods (called kakashi), in his old village but he swore that he left that life behind when he moved to Tokyo for college. But it seems like you can never truly leave the village after an old foe tracks him down and his little sister Utauo has to come with his old kakashi to take care of it. 

The Good: For one reason or another I thought that the series flowed much better as an anime than as it did as a manga, possibly because the anime adapted the manga at a crazy pace (I believe it covered seven or nine manga volumes in 13 episodes) yet the pacing worked well. All of the major characters and most of the minor characters were at least partially fleshed out (my favorite was Kuuko who was probably the flattest character since she was crazy for crazy's sake) and that helped make the central conflicts all the more interesting.

The Bad: Some of the humor was a bit on the crass side (it's amazing how many people got tazed by the same tazer in this series) and at times I felt like I was laughing at things that weren't supposed to be funny (such as the aforementioned tazer). This isn't a problem per-say but it's not my favorite type of humor either. The ending of the series worked but didn't seem like the best place to end it and the stinger after the credits, as cool as it was, will be completely pointless and aggravating if the series doesn't get a second season (and right now it doesn't sound likely). In the end I would have liked it if the series has been farther along (or even finished) and then adapted everything into 26 episodes, there are still so many hanging plot threads that I had to go and look at manga spoilers or just feel annoyed at the ending.

The Audio: One very clever thing that anime does is that each kakashi has a distinct melody that plays when they're being moved around and the music changes if it's being controlled by a different person which actually confirms a few things the manga hinted at but never stated outright. The opening and ending themes are both rather catchy (don't know what either of them said since crunchyroll didn't have subtitles) but the music in this show worked very nicely.

The Visuals: I will be blunt, Hibino's (the love interest, the one in purple in the image) boobs are just plain strange. They're huge, stick out like bullets (I was actually reminded of the fourth comic here, bit NSFW, that's seriously how it looks like her boobs were drawn) and are just distracting and I'm plenty used to male oriented fanservice. Other than that the traditionally drawn parts of the show looked just fine. The CGI used to animate the kakashi was fairly good, better than I had been hoping, although it doesn't always mesh into the traditionally drawn backgrounds and props. The opening was the most stylish one of the season (mixing the screentones/colors used in the manga with the anime color schemes) and it was nice to see that both the OP and the ED hid the characters who hadn't appeared yet so they weren't huge spoilers.

It was a surprisingly fun show, one that I would buy if it came out cheaply on DVD (it seems like the kind of show I can see either Funimation or Section 23 going for) and my anime club would probably enjoy it. I've tried out the manga (it's unlicensed) again but I still can't seem to get into it though, a pity since that's probably the only way I'm going to be able to finish this series as it currently stands.

Anime Review: Rideback

Earlier in the summer I had caught up with all my simulcast shows but still had a little bit of free time to watch something so I randomly asked one of my friends what I should watch, my options were I think "K-ON but art school or politics with motorcycles", and my friend actually recognized that I was talking about Rideback and told me to go ahead and watch it. I had been meaning to get to the series a little earlier actually (Funimation just released it and I was wondering if I would like it enough to get the LE set, even though that's a bit pricey) and was happy to see that they were still streaming it on their youtube account. 

Rideback

Summary: Rin Ogata is a former ballerina who quit after a career ending injury and isn't quite sure what to do with herself as she enters college. But, one runaway motorcycle-mecha ride later, it becomes clear to everyone around her that she has a talent for riding ridebacks, a talent that could get her in trouble with the global military regime who are starting to tighten their grip on Japan.

The Good:  The show starts off with an interesting premise, both in terms of setting and in the ridebacks themselves, and it's quick to grab your interest. The series also neatly averts having a complete newbie be a great rideback rider from the start, Rin's dance background gives her the balance and reflexes needed to ride and there is some technobabble later on about ridebacks choosing their riders (which also works surprisingly well in context). The show has a nice sized cast that covers all the various factions (the rideback club at the college, the police, the reporters, the rebels, the government) and manages to flesh out all of the good guys. The reporter and police characters in particular become more and more interesting as the show goes on and the larger plot they're part of starts to eclipse Rin's part in the story.   

The Bad: While this story understands just how important the setting is to the shaping of a story, this setting makes no sense. The story takes place in the 2020s, before which the world had been taken over by a terrorist organization and, from what I gathered, they did it by taking over the American government which had already taken over the world. None of that seems particularly logical or doable and it's insane that there haven't been any large scale revolution attempts before this story*. Another big problem that happens later in the story is that Rin becomes less likable than she first was. She actually doesn't have much influence on all the events going on around her, the rebels would have started acting up against the government no matter what, yet she becomes very emo and spends several episodes not sure of what she can do or convinced it's all her fault. It's frustrating to watch one episode like this let alone several, thank goodness the anime focuses on the rest of the cast as well at this time or it would have been even harder to get through.

The Audio: For some odd reason Funimation has left the opening song untranslated even though it's only partially in English, I'm rather curious why they made that decision. The ending song is fully translated but the lyrics don't make much sense in relation to the rest of the story (it seems to be a love song of sorts but Rin is never interested in anyone romantically, unless the song was actually about the Fuego....). Other than that, nothing seemed out of place and the voice acting (the Japanese voices) went well, the visuals on the other hand were more hit or miss. 

The Visuals: This is a show from studio Madhouse who are well-known for doing good looking shows (including the recent movie Redline). Not surprisingly all of the ridebacks are done in CGI but the CGI works fairly well with all of the traditionally drawn items. The CGI is far from perfect but anime studios have made a lot of progress in just a few years at making it look better. The characters designs however didn't look as nice. Rin has permanent helmet hair, Shouko's hair simply looks awkward (and there is no way her hair ribbons would have stayed on like that) and none of the characters look attractive in the slightest. The art isn't exactly unattractive, although one or two designs are downright ugly, but aside from the racing or ballet scenes I didn't find this show to be ascetically pleasing which is a bad thing since this is a visual medium.


For me, the show started off really strong and interesting and slowly made me lose interest as it went on, I don't know how many times I ranted about the setting but it was a lot. What frustrates me about the show however is that it could have worked so much better if it was different. If the story was more about the rideback club pushing to make ridebacks street legal while dealing with an increasingly military government (of Japan) and having to win over the general public that these aren't just weapons of war. I saw someone comment on youtube that this show is about America's military occupation of Japan which would make a lot of sense, i just have no idea if that was the original manga-ka's intention or not. I am curious with how this holds up to the original manga, which was 10 volumes long compared to the show's 12 episodes, especially since it seems that the anime started right when the manga was ending. Sadly it appears that the manga has been neither licensed nor scanlated so I haven't been able to compare the two yet, if anyone knows of any detailed summaries for the manga (or scanlatiosn I overlooked) please comment and tell me!



*it doesn't seem like there have been any small-scale attempts either which is even stranger. There appear to be no restrictions on twitter/facebook/social media that is so great for organizing get t0gethers at all (although the original manga was published from 2003-2009 when this was less common) and it's simply a fact that humans in general really don't like being taken over. Heck, some don't like their legitimate governments so I'm supposed to go along with the idea that these people just went along with BOTH take overs? As of writing this, Libya is currently trying to overthrow it's dictator and since the year started there have been attempts in other countries as well (and possibly a successful one in Egypt, time will tell there) so I just could not take this part seriously at all. 

And now for something different, Furuba fan radio drama

I know that this is a bit different from what I normally cover but, since the tagline of the blog is "if it has a plot I have something to say about it!", this actually fits in with that better than some of the nonfiction I've reviewed in the past. Plus, I know I don't have that many readers but it's worth a shot to see if I can introduce anyone new to this rather interesting fan project.

So, most anime and manga fans have probably heard of Fruits Basket, a 23 volume manga series that did well in Japan and became one of the first shojo hits in America which also got a 26 episode anime series (recently re-released here by Funimation). Fans of the series will know that the anime wasn't very faithful to the manga at the end (plenty of important characters from later on never got introduced and it created it's own ending) and it's well-known on the animenewsnetwork forums that the manga-ka did not get along with some of the staff on the show (I believe it was the director) which is why a second season was never made. So what's a fan to do when they really love the show yet the anime just isn't cutting it? Clearly the answer is to do an adaptation of the manga as an online radio drama with the intent of producing the entire series and going much farther than the anime did. JesuOtaku of That Guy With The Glasses and the d2brigade is the director/scriptwriter/producer/crazy person who came up with this whole idea and new videos (audio only) of the show go up every Wednesday on TGWTG. 
Quick note, since the show is audio-only I won't include a separate audio section for this review, it would be a bit silly, and this review covers the first six episodes (ie the first manga volume which I also reread recently). 

Furuba Radio Drama (volume one)

Art by carrie-ko
Summary: Tohru Honda is an orphan living in a tent in the woods while her grandfather's house is being remodeled, as she would hate to impose on her friends for such a long time, and discovers one day that she is camping out on the property of the Sohma family where her classmate, the princely Yuki, lives. He and his relative Shigure convince Tohru to live at their house for the rest of the renovation (especially after her tent is destroyed in a mudslide) and when a third member of this dysfunctional family shows up, the fiery Kyo, Tohru discovers an ancient family secret that may or may not have to do with a curse, the Chinese Zodiac and close physical contact.

The Good: For a fan project that is being completely produced by amateurs, some of whom aren't even huge fans of Fruits Basket, this is really good. Some of the voice actors already sound a little similar to the English dub voices (although it sounds like they are trying to avoid that and not sound like they are simply imitating the dub) but within just a couple of episodes the four leads sound very natural and comfortable with their roles. The sound effects sound right and having animal noises when certain characters are talking is amusing yet works well. The script is based off of the original manga and therefore follows it pretty closely, adding in details when things aren't apparent from the dialogue alone or to pad out the episode an extra minute or two, so people who are new to the series won't be missing out on anything.

The Bad: While the main cast has already hit their stride, extras or side characters who haven't had much air time yet sound a bit flat and it's jarring to hear the difference between the two groups. Everyone's acting with certainly get smoother, that's what happens with experience after all, but this is one of the cases where the difference between a professional voice actor and an amateur are obvious.  There are also places in the story where it is a little hard to understand exactly what is going one but this is hardly surprising, going from a no audio, all visual medium to the exact opposite isn't easy but there are a few places where a quick line of description or establishing background noise would be nice. Finally, the narration at the beginning of each episode has begun to get a little dull and if manga readers haven't managed to figure out who's narrating this series, which was actually a rather clever idea, then they really need to reread the series pronto.


In short, this is a pretty amazing fanwork that can only get better as it goes along, people who haven't checked out the series before and those who have alike should really try this out. New episodes go up most Wednesdays on thatguywiththeglasses.com or on the radio drama's main website and most episodes are avaliable for download as well.  

Sorry this is up so late guys, I was messing around with tvtropes earlier today and that really does eat up all your time. But I would like to also say that I'm going to try and put up something different each Thursday until I go back to school just to add a little more variety to the blog. So next Thursday expect to see me ranting about common problems in science-fiction settings. I've been on a sci-fi kick lately so I've seen a lot of stuff I like and a ton that I haven't and, for a genre that is supposed to be about the new and cool there is an awful lot of similarities between the sub-genres.... 

Book Review: Anything But Typical

Like With the Light I was originally interested in this book because it had an autism spectrum character and, again like With the Light I just had a hard time pulling the trigger and reading this book (probably because I like to read for it's escapism qualities and therefore reading about real world issues defeats that purpose). I finally checked it out from the local library after I saw it staring at me as I browsed the YA section week after week and pointed out to myself that it was a short book so once I got going it wouldn't take that long to finish. And I was right, once I started the book it flowed well and I finished the book in just a couple of days, hopefully the shorter length will make some other people who were on the fence about this book try it as well.

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  I really like this design both for it's symbolism and for a few details you can't see in this picture. The design actually spills onto the back cover (and even incorporates the bar-code into the design while framing the text, very nice) and there is a similar design at the beginning of each chapter. Those extra details make the book feel extra put together and it's always nice to see that extra amount of care for the presentation of a book.

Summary: Jason, a young boy with a variety of acronyms that describe his mental disabilities, has autism and lives and lives a fairly ordinary life dealing with it and trying to understand the people around him (neurotypical or NT people as he calls them). When life gets too much for Jason his favorite escape is a website where he posts his stories, although sometimes trying to figure out what happens next in his stories is just as hard as trying to predict what will happen in real life. 

The Good: Jason manages to come across as someone who isn't quite "neurotypical" (a phrase I liked and have started to use myself) yet all of his actions are still completely understandable and sympathetic which is an amazing feat especially considering how mystifying someone with Autism's actions can be at times. Normally it will be another character, such as his dad, who points out when Jason is pulling out his hair or generally behaving in a way that isn't considered normal yet with the way Jason narrates, which includes why he freaks out so easily over so many things, his obsessive behaviors make sense and the audience can start to predict later on what will set him off. To make this feat even more amazing, as far as I know Baskin is a neurotypical lady who wasn't writing based on her own experiences but through research and empathy, that certainly puts the rest of us who are scared to even think about people who aren't quite normal to shame.

The Bad: Jason is an incredibly articulate and deep 12 year old and at many times comes off as mature as a young adult which is rather off-putting. Sometimes someone on the Autism Spectrum will be wise beyond their years, and Jason needed to be mature for his narration to work, but he doesn't feel like a real 12 year old which is a bit of a problem. The ending of the book was also a little too ambiguous for my taste, most things are explained and perhaps I missed the explantion of the one thing that bothered me, but the story felt a little abrupt and didn't have a very climatic climax which, while expected since this book is more slice of life than anythign else, made the ending feel a bit odder still. It's not a bad ending but something just felt a little off about it to me. 

Jason is one of the most sympathetic and understandable characters I've ever come across in fiction, even if he is atypical and reacts to the world in ways that I don't, and I think that his straightforwardness would let a lot of people also sympathize with him. So, while I'm not sure I would buy this book, I heartily recommend pretty much everyone to read it, unless you have major issues with the written word (in which case, why are you even reading this review in the first place?).  

Anime Review: Gosick

The one anime that carried over from the winter season for me and one where I was really curious about the setting, 1920s Europe with mysteries? Mmmm, sounds like fun, although I was rather annoyed when there wasn't a single bit of 1920s fashion or architecture in the entire show, and this show reminded me that there aren't that many mystery anime actually. Quite a few horror anime have a mystery element to them (such as Ghost Hunt) but normally this genre only shows up once every two or three seasons and normally it's mystery plus another genre. Gosick isn't just a mystery show itself, if anything I would call it a drama with a lot of mystery cases in it and an odd genre shift in the end. Also, I do mention events relating to the final arc of the story but I try to refrain from actual spoilers so any huge spoilerphobes might not want to check out the footnotes this time.

Gosick

Summary: Set in 1924, Saubure (a fictional country located next to France), Kujo is a student from Japan who is having a hard time making friends since the superstitious locals are convinced that he looks like "the reaper who comes in the spring" from legend. One day when browsing in the library he comes across Victorique, a doll-like girl who seems to live in the library and he slowly becomes friends with this young, genius detective who is seen as even more of an outsider than he is.

The Good: Towards the middle of the series the story finds it's feet, the mysteries become a little more complex, the characters begin to work really well with each other and the overall plot of the story is revealed. In short, once the series hit its stride it becomes a really interesting story that manages to balance a number of different subplots without becoming too confusing. Victorique, and to a lesser extent Kujo, goes through a huge amount of character development and their relationship, which is the real heart of the story, also goes through a tremendous amount of change which is a real joy to see.

The Bad: There appears to be just one reason why the story was set in the 1920s and that was to reference both of the World Wars and make WWII an important plot point. The viewers are well aware that WWII started in 1939 but the original author, well, might not have. If it's an alternate history it's dumb and if it's real history then it's doubly stupid and not just because of the historical inaccuracies* but because the characters never give any reason for why they're starting this war in the first place. There's nothing to be gained, no one to fight, it's hard to tell if the people even support the idea (some do but I honestly thought they were brain-washed at points) and considering that this war is sorta-kinda supposed to be the culmination of the entire show these are all really big problems. The beginning had problems too (such as mysteries that could be solved before the witness was even half-way done explaining the mystery and some pacing issues^) but that part of the story got better, the beginning of the final arc works very well but then logic, common sense and a basic knowledge of history fly out the window and leave a mess in a completely different genre than the story started in.

The Audio: The series has one opening song and two closing ones and the first closing song is the strongest out of the three of them. There is simply something about the beginning of the song (quiet vocals and instrumental and then the instruments rise up before falling back to the same level as the vocals again) that makes it such a dramatic song. An instrumental version of the song was used at one point during the show and, IMO, should have been used more often. The opening was alright but there was a rather amusing discovery that if you swap the opening with the opening of Gurren Laggan the images still match up with the pace of the song well. As for the voices, Cordelia had the same kind of slightly husky quality to her voice that Victorique has, a nice touch, and Victorique thankfully has a bit of a deep voice, not the ultra cute moe moe one you would expect from her size/appearance. In the books she is described as having the voice of an older woman and, while that isn't quite accurate here, her voice still seemed like a very good match.

The Visuals: As mentioned in the opening paragraph, there is very little in this series to visually suggest that it's even set in the 1920s instead of the Edwardian or Victorian eras (which makes me even more suspicious that this setting was chosen soley because it was situated between the two world wars). Someone at Bones however had the brilliant idea of doing all the visuals in the era-appropriate Art Deco style (which I adore) and it makes for one of the more distinctive openings of the year. Other than there, all of the visuals were consistently good but it simply doesn't have the kind of action and fluidity one normally expects out of a Bones work, which is odd since this was done by the same team that did Heroman a year earlier. It's true that the series doesn't have a lot of action but the show still feels like an odd choice for Bones.


Once the story really got going, and the mysteries got better, I really did like this series but the last two episodes just left a terrible taste in my mouth. It's strange, I like how that final arc started out but then it just went bonkers and, with the final light novel coming out soon, I hope someone posts spoilers to compare the two. At this point I honestly don't know if I want to buy it, this just feels like the kind of show that would get licensed over here, since I did like so much of it and I can pretend that the last two episodes don't exist but I just don't know. For the moment however it is streaming on crunchyroll if anyone wants to check it out, no harm in trying the series out at least!  

*now, if this is an alternate history, I've never been a big fan of the "oh a couple of things did go differently in history but when the story starts everything is the exact same as it is in our world. Once the main characters get involved however THEN stuff goes crazy" trope, it's just illogical (one of my bigger complaints about the Temaire series). But if Gosick IS set in our world, hooooo boy. In 1925, the start of World War II in this version, it was apparently one of the most stable interwar periods and a full 15 years before events culimated in the invasion of Poland. It's mentioned in the show that Saubure is allied with Germany, which certainly wouldn't have had the resources at the time (Hitler hadn't even written Mein Kampf yet, and they never explain who or what they're fighting, there's no explanation for how Japan apparently gets bombed or where the scenes involving Kujo were (I've seen people speculate Manchuria, which was my first thought, or somewhere in Russia which would match the weather better).

^the pacing issue seems to come from the anime combining the novels and the short stories and not doing them in the correct order. From what I've heard (so this could be wrong, anyone who knows more feel free to speak up), Kujo has already met Avril, Victorique and Grevil by the time the first volume starts and then the Queen Berry arc, the first anime arc, happens. Chronologically however the short story that introduces Avril came first and one major problem for Kujo hinges on whether or not he believes that Victorique is a real person (instead of being "the golden fairy in the library," another local supersition). In the anime this is the second arc and, after seeing Victorique run all around the ship with Kujo and the other characters (plus interacting with them) it's hard to believe even for a second that she's not real and the whole arc feels pointless. A shame since otherwise it would have been nice and, for people debating whether or not to continue the series, it doesn't make a good case for doing so.  

Summer Anime 2011 Reviews: Part one!

In half the world summer is well under way (I swear that where I live summer starts mid-May and then alternates between hot and unbearable through late September) and a new crop of anime is out as well! As with the spring anime, I'm trying out so many that I'm splitting this up into two parts and the second part will go up tomorrow. All of these reviews are based on the first episode (even though many of these shows already have a second episode out) and I was wondering, would you guys like to see me post reviews of the individual shows in the future (like how most anime blogs do the new seasons) or do these giant posts work just fine?

Baka to Test 2 (Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni or Idiots, Tests and Summoned Beasts! Fuimation doesn’t use that translation but that’s what it actually does mean):

Well, Funimation has SAID that they licensed the anime for simulcast (in addition to DVD/BR rights, which is strange since they still haven't released the first season yet) but they haven't said anything else yet so I haven't seen it. Although, it sounds like the first episode was a less-than-stellar beach episode which hasn't made me all that eager to start in on a new season....

  

Blood-C:

To start with, it sounds like people who are already fans of the Blood franchise (especially Blood+) don’t like this show very much but people who aren’t/are big CLAMP fans (like me) are enjoying it more, very interesting. I’ll admit that I’m not as enamored with the show as many other people are, I really want this show to be at least a bit darker (and there are some hints that it’ll do just that) but the high school parts aren’t bad right now (the twins actually remind me of the twins from Otome Yokai Zakuro). So I’m not sold on the show but, since it is streaming on NicoNico, I have absolutely no problem with giving it a few more episodes to see what happens.  

Bunny Drop (Usagi Drop): 

First off, NO DISCUSSING THE ENDING OF THE MANGA. If you don’t know it, DON’T LOOK IT UP, I'M VERY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. It’s not like the anime can cover 55 chapters in 11 episodes anyway, we’ll be lucky to get through the first four volumes if that much.

Ahem, sorry, the ANN forums have been freaking out enough over that, as for the show itself it’s sweet. The background visuals are gorgeous in a watercolor/crayon style (similar to Aoi Hana or Wandering Son) and it looks like the manga character designs translated well. Rin is an adorable child and it’s a nice choice to have a ten year old voice a child (again like Wandering Son, although there is a bigger age difference here since Rin is just 5). It’s streaming on crunchyroll and I’ll be continuing it for sure!

The Crossroads in a Foreign Labyrinth (Ikoku Meiro no Croisée or La croisée dans un labyrinthe étranger):

 Well that was cute, and hurray for a series set in a historical period that actually has period correct clothing and architecture! (Looking at you Gosick, and I have seen some people say that all the clothes are from the same decade, I’m not just assuming this). Set in Paris in the 1880s or so, blacksmith Claude is surprised to find that his grandfather has come back from Japan with not only souvenirs but with a little girl whose job is to act as the shop’s signboard. Yune is absolutely adorable (I really want to see someone cosplay her really fancy outfit now) and, after some misunderstandings, it looks like the show will turn into a charming and laid back slice-of-life show. I’ve seen some people worried that there isn’t a lot of manga material for it (two volumes when it was announced back in December so it’s probably got under 20 chapters now) but if it’s a one season show that shouldn’t be a problem (and, since I've seen a member of the French staff post and mention that all the work was done in the show now I imagine it is only one cour). I won’t be watching this since I try to only watch one fansub a season but if this does get picked up for streaming I’ll happily continue with it. 

God’s Notebook (Kamisama no Memo-Chou)

I’m trying out three different shows this season that remind me of Gosick: Ikoku (since they have the same manga artist+historical clothing), Dantalion (it’s the giant library+goth-loli with male sidekick) and this one (goth-loli detective+male sidekick). I had heard that the light novel series this one was based on is pretty well regarded among fans in Japan and the mystery here was better than some of the earlier mysteries in Gosick but the motivations for it basically amounted to person needs a therapist to deal with issues, doesn’t have one and then engages in self-destructive behavior which, well, had been done so many times before that it’s rather boring*. I found myself disliking all the characters (except the lady who ran the ramen shop but she had less than five minutes of screen time) although the episode was paced well (it was longer than a normal episode but I believe that’s only for the first episode). In the end, right now this just isn’t a show I’m interested in but, if the reviews for it are consistently good, I’ll give it another try someday (plus, no simulcast so I have to hunt down fansubs for it, not the show's fault but that is a minus in my book).

Five more reviews coming tomorrow, four of them are already written and I'm just waiting on Dantalion to finally show up. CR has it listed at 12:30 EST so hopefully that's the same time as on NicoNico and I'll be able to grab lunch, watch and get a review written and the next piece up mid-afternoon tomorrow. See ya'll then!

*in fiction anyway, in real life it’s just terrifying