[miso]

I’m hon­estly sur­prised by how many promis­ing series we have for a win­ter sea­son— three was a lot more than I’d nor­mally expect, and both Madoka and Hourou Musuko are likely to rev­o­lu­tion­ize their respec­tive gen­res. Any­how, this came late as I’ve been hav­ing home inter­net con­nec­tiv­ity issues, but I’ll be giv­ing my win­ter sea­son thoughts with my friend Honya [Lyri­cal Spark] as per usual~ Read the rest of this entry »

If I lived in this world, I’ll at least make sure to get an avatar dop­pel that doesn’t look like mod­ern art—

Frac­tale takes place in a world where you can live any­where and project your exis­tence where you wish, a world where you get paid with­out hav­ing to work. All you have to do is be part of the ever-present grid-computing sys­tem and upload your daily data. Frac­tale is meant to be the per­fect Utopia, the man-made god— but if so, then…

Why does every­thing feel so wrong? Read the rest of this entry »

It took but a few min­utes before I fell in love with this series all over again~

Just what genre would you call Hourou Musuko (Wan­der­ing Son)? Girl­ish boy meets boy­ish girl— it might sound like a gen­der­ben­der finally made its way into the famous Noit­a­m­ina times­lot, but this series has none of the genre’s traits. Unlike the wacky humor, absurd sit­u­a­tions, and unspo­ken accep­tance one typ­i­cally sees, Hourou Musuko approaches gen­der iden­tity issues with all the down-to-earth real­ism and emo­tional long­ing one could ask for. This is no romance com­edy or slice-of-life fluff, this is the jour­ney of kids who felt mis­un­der­stood by the world as they grew up; a del­i­cate, com­ing of age story told in the truest sense~ Read the rest of this entry »

In just a sin­gle episode, Kurage­hime has topped expec­ta­tions and was applauded for the most non-idealized depic­tion of female otaku to date. I’m no expert on otaku in anime, and my inter­est in Gen­shiken is merely pass­ing, but even I can’t help be amazed by Kurage­hime’s char­ac­ter designs— it’s been sim­ply too long since we’ve had a main cast (espe­cially girls) truly defined by their per­sona and unaf­fected by some styl­ized form of ‘ideal physique’. Read the rest of this entry »

[Mikou]

We haven’t had an anime sea­son this packed with bril­liant poten­tial since fall 2008 (although I doubt this could actu­ally match 2008’s record); darn it Japan, how dare you give us so many good anime to watch at once xD. Either way, con­tin­u­ing our joint activ­i­ties (Aorii [Major Arcana] and Honya [Lyri­cal Spark]), here is our fall 2010 impressions.

Sorted by my per­sonal rank­ing:
Ore no Imouto > Kurage­hime > Otome Youkai Zakuro = Baku­man = Yumeiro Patis­erre > Shin­ryaku! Ika Musume = Star Dri­ver = Arakawa > Index 2 > MM! > For­tune Arte­r­ial > Kaminomi > Yosuga no Sora > Soremachi.  Only series I’m still await­ing subs on is Haku­ouki 2 ;-;
Read the rest of this entry »

Otome Youkai Zakuro may be this season’s “shoujo” anime, but beneath the sparkly flow­ery bishies, the Ouran–esque cast of shoujo arche­types, and the fast track to fluffy romance, there also lies a com­par­a­tive tale of cul­tural encroach­ment and admix­ture. After all, we may be set in an alter­nate Meiji-era Japan, but it still par­al­lels the West­ern­iza­tion prac­tices of the period, and the ensu­ing clashes of tra­di­tions between West­ern and Japan­ese cus­toms. Read the rest of this entry »

Otaku are con­sid­ered by soci­ety to be those who “replace nor­mal social inter­ac­tions with hours spent fan­ta­siz­ing about a world that doesn’t actu­ally exist” (Giz­modo). Eroge/visual novel otakus have it espe­cially bad given the occa­sional fan’s ten­dency to pub­li­cize their ongo­ing rela­tion­ship with a daki­makura or marry a 2D girl… well, guess what this series is about? An eroge otaku try­ing to find her place. Read the rest of this entry »

No, it actu­ally feels more like some shounen­fied ver­sion of Honey & Clover… expected given the direc­tor.

Most of us had our ‘unre­al­is­tic’ child­hood dreams at one point: to become sports stars, artists, arche­ol­o­gists, astro­nauts, etc etc. Then at some point in life we’re all faced with the same truths: those ide­al­is­tic careers were often either so com­pet­i­tive it took only the truest (or luck­i­est) of geniuses to accom­plish, or were such under­paid, thank­less jobs — like every­thing from police­men to ani­ma­tors. Many ado­les­cents gave up on their dreams upon learn­ing this ‘real­ism’ and set­tled for some­thing more accom­mo­dat­ing, while oth­ers wither amidst their ini­tial attempts. After all, life isn’t shounen manga right?

But that’s pre­cisely why Baku­man really hit the spot with the burn­ing pas­sion of a revived child­hood dream in an almost real­is­tic manga indus­try~ Read the rest of this entry »