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Hayate 2nd season is

post from Kurogane's Anime Blog on 03 April 2009 10:07:39 PM. © Kurogane's Anime Blog

…. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL MARATHON. Yeah. They immediately started it off with the Freestyle Marathon arc. And to top it off, they totally reset the series timeline to the original manga, ignoring the “one year or so” of the first season. They’ve gotten it pretty faithful to the manga too. So yes, there’s Hinagiku getting ‘bullied’ by [...]

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http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/2009/04/04/hayate-2nd-season-is/

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Asu no Yoichi - Final Impressions

post from Xebek?s Blog on 03 April 2009 07:00:00 PM. © Xebek?s Blog

I wasn?t expecting much from this series at all really. Right away it seemed obvious it was going to be full of random pointless ecchi moments. While that itself isn?t bad, in fact if you realize the show is nothing more than ecchi then you won?t expect much from the series. Still, as far as an ecchi series goes, I wasn?t too impressed with this one. The actual ecchi moments weren?t that great, so it?s almost as if it fell into this genre without utilizing some of that. There was a slight focus on some plot near the end that wasn?t at all interesting, and ultimately the first part of the series seemed like it was building up to something, developing these characters that they didn?t sue a lot. Overall, it just seemed to fall short.

I have to say one of the best parts of this whole series was Ayame. She was by far my favorite character and I am a bit disappointed the series didn?t have time to fully develop her. Throughout the whole series I pretty much cheered for her to end up with Yoichi, although I knew that the series would never actually come to a point where something like that would be concluded. She was actually interesting unlike some of the characters. She had a not unique but interesting complex over being overshadowed by her sister, seemed to have genuine feelings for Yoichi and was nice. A classic tsundere, it was very cute seeing her get flustered over things and I really cheered for her.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2009/04/03/asu-no-yoichi-final-impressions/

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Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ Episode 1 -
Awakening

post from Cinnamon Ass on 03 April 2009 06:17:00 PM. © Cinnamon Ass

I think for the audience that might read this I’m in a fairly safe position to assume that most people will know at least a little about Bee Train, whether they have any experience with Koichi Mashimo’s work at all or not. I’m going to avoid mentioning links to NitroPlus, who came up with the game that Phantom is based on, because:

i) I’ve disliked every other NitroPlus show I’ve seen
ii) It really won’t affect your opinion of this show as much as the Bee Train connection will

Phantom is ostensibly about a secret organisation called Inferno which appears to have grand designs for taking over the world in some format. Inferno has two assassins, the aptly named Ein and Zwei. Zwei is an amnesiac teenage boy who has to look in the mirror to realise he’s Japanese, and Ein is one of those eerily calm-yet-sweet assassin girls that anime seems to revel in so much. The first episode sets up Zwei’s amnesia, throws some cheesily pretentious dialogue at us to establish the connection between Ein and Zwei and a little bit of motivation, and bookends all this with an assassination job to up the action quotient significantly and some quick introductions to characters who will presumably appear later on.

What it’s really about, though, as with most Bee Train shows, is the atmosphere they’re trying to create. The music is intrusive and offbeat (instead of the sadly overused Yuki Kajiura, we get some slightly cheap-sounding choral effects from the otherwise talented Hikaru Nanase, but it’s much the same intention), there’s some rather heavy handed camera angles - I particularly liked the conversation conducted through a latticed floor, if that’s the right term for it - and some pleasantly bizarre visual ideas (Ein’s puppet-like movement, for instance), all with Bee Train’s customary efficient animation work. It’s quite a “cold” style of direction at times; it’s difficult to get truly invested in two such blank characters as Ein and Zwei, but due to the way the show looks I find myself thinking more about what we see on screen than what they’re actually doing or saying, although I think the cast give quite strong performances all round (Miyu Irino, who plays Ein, has really grown as an actor since Spirited Away eight (EIGHT!) years ago).

Anyway, it’s hard for me to divorce the show from its Bee Train-iness, as that’s what I like about it thus far. We’ve not really seen much of anything aside from a cryptic “flashback” and a couple of side characters to keep me interested apart from that.

So basically, if you don’t like Bee Train you’re almost certainly not going to like Phantom, because their style really defines it from the start. If you’re unfamiliar with them, hope on over to Tenka Seiha and watch the rather low quality rips of the OP and ED animations; although the show is slightly less trippy, it gives you a good idea of the kind of thing Bee Train like to do. Plus, any excuse to make people listen to KOKIA music is a good one.

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http://www.ass-no-ryu.com/animeblog/?p=1183

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Maria + Holic - 11

post from Xebek?s Blog on 03 April 2009 04:00:00 PM. © Xebek?s Blog

A male teacher at the school tries to help Kanako with her studies but gets manipulated by Mariya.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2009/04/03/maria-holic-11/

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best of 2008: #1

post from blog?? on 03 April 2009 03:00:00 PM. © blog??

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http://blogsuki.com/archives/2009/04/03/2283/

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[Ascaloth] Trial Run: K-ON!, Episode 1

post from Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts on 03 April 2009 02:44:51 PM. © Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

On this very day 3 years ago, the first episode of a seemingly unassuming school life comedy anime series aired, and it was about a high school group producing a hilariously badly-edited home movie about a combat waitress from the future. That was the precursor to what would soon become the massively popular Suzumiya Haruhi [...]

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1399

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[LianYL] K-On Ep 1 Made Me Do My Term Paper

post from Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts on 03 April 2009 02:38:28 PM. © Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

I’ll make my anime reviews short and sweet by commenting as I watch.[00:00] Ah, green frog uniforms from middle school? That’s like TKGS.[00:30] Here comes the boring alarm clock routine… I really thought they were going to start the pilot episode with a bang leading to a recap. Like maybe an uber rock piece or [...]

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1400

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Kurokami - 11

Keita learns from Sawamura how he came to join Reishin?s group.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2009/04/03/kurokami-11/

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Phantom is

… a Noir clone? It’s kinda obvious with the assasination scene at the end where they waited for like 2-3 mins after confronting the target before shooting him. jinyamato says its cool, but I digress. Feels rather generic to me. But then again, nitroplus is writing for the show so it might get better later [...]

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http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/2009/04/04/phantom-is/

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K-ON is

… the spiritual successor of Lucky Star. You can’t deny it, the similatiries are so obvious..Yui = TsukasaSachi and Mio = Konata and KagamiTsumugi = Miyuki. … in terms of their roles. The first episode is pretty much what I expected from KyoAni, the masters of producing endearing, funny and entertaining slice-of-life shows, and it’s [...]

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http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/2009/04/03/k-on-is/

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