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Itazurana Kiss Episode 1 - Mischievious Fate

post from Cinnamon Ass on 04 April 2008 06:20:00 PM. © Cinnamon Ass

OP - Kimi, Meguru, Boku (Motohiro Hata) - who was it that came up with the shot you see in loads of OPs where they want to showcase the supporting characters and they have them “circle” from the foreground to the background/off-screen? I’m sure it’s used in loads of high school shows (KareKano springs to mind when they’re flying through the sky at the end of the OP), and its use here reminded me it’s quite common. Anyway, the song is nice enough (male singer, you know it’s shoujo!) and there’s some nifty cardboard CG.

ED - Kataomoi Fighter (GO!GO!1788) - two minutes on from watching it and I can’t remember the song, plus static images of the heroine in various costumes; it’s the essence of “shit, we need to fill time with the credits”.

Kotoko Aihara hands her crush, Naoki Irie, her heartfelt confession of love at school. Ever since he gave a speech on the first day of school she’s loved him. She is, of course, quite upset when he turns her down flat - not to the extent of floods of tears, but a little downhearted, despite the encouragement of her friends Satomi and Jinko (and the rather overenthusiastic demonstrations of her male friend Kin (Kinnosuke)). Kinnosuke confronts Naoki as they leave school, and he rather haughtily tells Kotoko that he’s not interested in a “stupid” girl like her, again causing much indignation - however, Kotoko just gets on with things and heads home, where she lives in a shrine with her father.

However, that evening she has her friends round where Jinko notices that the house appears to be on a slant. Of course, as fate would have it, that evening there is an earthquake that completely destroys the house - Kotoko’s father is found safe inside clutching a photo of his deceased wife, bless. This turn of circumstances is bad enough, but then the Aiharas end up moving in with a friend of Kotoko’s fathers - who happens to be Naoki’s father. Naoki’s mother is so happy to have a girl in the house that she turfs Naoki’s younger brother, the brattish genius Yuuki, out of his bedroom for her, and Naoki is of course none to pleased to have Kotoko move in - with her crush and his evil sibling both conspiring to make her life a misery, fate truly is wreaking mischief on Kotoko.

I expected Itazurana Kiss to be absolutely terrible - I hold my hands up and admit it freely. It looked horribly low budget, and low budget shoujo NEVER works out - I just have to think of how sad, say, Peach Girl, or Bokura ga Ita, made me feel. Let’s face it - Itazurana Kiss is certainly no Ouran in opulence, and I have a feeling that Special A is going to completely dwarf it in popularity in the shoujo high school anime stakes this season. If you’ve got room in your heart for another show, though, I’m cautiously optimistic about this one. The cast is interesting (I love Jinko for no reason other than she has a voice that sounds like her larynx has been fed through a wrangler, which is totally awesome), the animation is serviceable, and the plot set up is amusingly contrived but perfectly workable. I can’t really say a lot more as this first episode is actually pretty thin on plot and mostly serves to lay the ground rules; it’ll be easier to comment on the long-term viability of the series once I’ve got more of a feel for how the characters really interact and whether the plot actually moves at a decent pace.

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http://www.ass-no-ryu.com/animeblog/?p=1086

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Amatsuki Episode 1 - This Rainy Night’s
Moon

post from Cinnamon Ass on 04 April 2008 05:31:00 PM. © Cinnamon Ass

OP - Casting Dice (Yuuki Kanno) - there are strings. There are spoilers (zomg special fox deity powers!). It’s an alright OP, I guess.

ED - Namae no Nae Michi (Kaori Hikita) - within four chords I could tell you that Yuki Kajiura wrote this song. Watch the spotlight move! Watch the parasol spin!

You can tell a show is fast paced when someone loses an eye before the first ten minutes are up…

Tokidoki Rikugo (or Toki to his friends, if he actually has any - Amatsuki does not dwell on setting the poor boy’s backstory up for long) is forced to go to a “virtual reality” Edo museum when he flunks a history test that he doesn’t really give a toss about. After bumping into another pupil from his school, Kon, Something Strange Happens - the VR glasses don’t seem necessary any more, as Toki finds himself in ACTUAL Edo-era Japan.

Well, if Edo-era Japan had giant chimerical monsters and freaky high-pitched voiced be-robed beings saying cryptic things to you, that is.

Said monster takes a swipe at Toki and damages his eye somehow, producing an awful lot of blood and little in the way of exploding eyeballs or lacerations. It turns red, it’s obviously important, I’m happy to roll with it for now. The most important thing is, of course, that Toki gets rescued by a sword-wielding lady and allowed to recuperate - and who does he wake up to find but Kon, who has apparently been in VR Edo Land for 2 years now and has learnt to grow his hair to bishounen lengths as a result. He, like Toki, was attacked by monsters on arriving - whilst Toki can no longer see out of his red eye, Kon has a wound to his right arm rendering it useless. After some exposition about the world they are in, monsters etc. Kon gets beaten up by the sword lady, Kuchiha, for causing a commotion blah blah blah padding padding padding, and we end up with Toki torn between being happy at being out of his old, boring life and tormented by the harsh realities of Edo.

The worst thing to say about Amatsuki is that it’s very, very derivative. Of course you can’t really use the person-in-another-world plot and make it especially original, but it’s not really the plot that’s the “problem” - it’s the look of the show. Despite using a different overall director, the art and animation directors have conspired together to make this show look as much like Shounen Onmyouji as possible, and it’s very offputting as the setting of the two shows is so similar. The use of Kaori Hikita singing a Kajiura ending song also suggests that Studio Deen are taking a lot of inspiration from
their previous show’s style - not that it’s necessarily a bad thing (the decent animation for the action sequences has carried through, for instance) but I find it a little disconcerting.

Otherwise… well, the show’s fine really based on one episode. There’s nothing particularly exciting about it but it was pleasantly surprising in that it wasn’t totally naff, the characters weren’t annoying (although perhaps a little thinly sketched given the breakneck pace of the introduction) and I will probably give the next episode a shot.

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http://www.ass-no-ryu.com/animeblog/?p=1085

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Tower of Druaga begins

post from Kurogane's Anime Blog on 04 April 2008 05:00:35 PM. © Kurogane's Anime Blog

Holy shit, that was a pretty unexpected start. They so blatantly made fun of so many RPG clichés, I keeled over laughing.Best parts has to be the “I’m going back to my hometown to get married” taboo, Druaga going “Jil… I am your father”, the “I don’t want to fight you, so you’ll have to [...]

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http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/2008/04/05/tower-of-druaga-begins/

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Episode of the Week - 04.04 - Shakugan no Shana
II - 24

post from Xebek's Blog on 04 April 2008 03:45:00 PM. © Xebek's Blog

Episode of the Week:

Shakugan no Shana II - 24

This was a hard decision and I don?t expect everyone to agree with me, but for me this is what deserved it. I can?t bring myself to give this week?s awarded to True Tears. Even though it may have gotten me or others the most riled up I hated the conclusion. He should have ended up with Noe and since I personally dislike the ending and truly do thing the show would have been better with a different ending; I can?t then go on to say that the episode was great.

I gave this week?s award to Shana because I thought it really deserved it. Although looking at the grand big picture, this season didn?t end up having much of an impact at all on overall standings, all enemies are still alive, no one is dead, in the end the characters are just more developed, there is a further progression of the romance, and the threat is more known. However even with the conclusion no wrapping anything up I thought the final episode was extremely fun to watch. First off because of the romance. I am ecstatic they actually did something with the romance finally. I?m trying to not spoil anything in the Episode of the Week posts, so you can go to this episode’s post but the romance conclusion was just great. That paired with some interesting action and just the overall end to the current plan Bal Masque was working on was great.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2008/04/04/episode-of-the-week-0404-shakugan-no-sha
na-ii-24/

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D. Gray-Man - 77

post from Xebek's Blog on 04 April 2008 03:00:00 PM. © Xebek's Blog

Allen and several of the other exorcists go though the portal after Lenalee and find themselves in the ark and must find a way out before its destruction kills them.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2008/04/04/d-gray-man-77/

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Hayate no Gotoku - 49

post from Xebek's Blog on 04 April 2008 02:18:00 PM. © Xebek's Blog

When Hina and Hayate both get letters they think are love letters and see each other where the letters say, they run into a misunderstanding.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2008/04/04/hayate-no-gotoku-49/

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Uniform Link

post from Sea Slugs! Anime Blog on 04 April 2008 10:51:08 AM. © Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

Some of you may be interested in this article about the history and popularity of the seifuku. They have some nice pics and links in the article, and they also mention the whole love button thing. The comments are worth reading as well.©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved..

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seaslugteam/~3/264026363/

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Shakugan no Shana II - 24 [Final]

Shana and the others try and stop Bal Masque’s plans before it?s too late and Yuji disappears.

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http://xebek.animeblogger.net/2008/04/04/shakugan-no-shana-ii-24-final/

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The Riuva Anime Blog Awards: By Otaku for Otaku

post from Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts on 04 April 2008 04:45:26 AM. © Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

WOW I HAVE THIS GREAT NEW IDEA ABOUT CREATING A SERIES OF AWARDS FOR ANIME BLOGGERS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT OURSELVES. VOTE NOW OK??Not in anyway related to the other (inferior and less-meticulously organised) Animeblog Awards, the Riuva Anime Blog Awards: By Otaku For Otaku (RABABOFO) is a great platform to reward the great personalities [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.riuva.com/?p=1032

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