Soul Eater Episode 1 - Soul Resonance ~ Is Soul
Eater Becoming the Death Scythe ~

OP - resonance (T.M. Revolution) - oh holy moly, this is one amazingly animated OP. Done entirely by the director of Kurau, it’s an absolutely marvellous piece of animation. The song is usual TM Revolution stuff, but the show is worth watching just to see this OP (although for this season I still prefer the Macross F OP because of the song).

ED - I Wanna be (STANCEPUNKS) - generic RAGE! infuses this song, but the ED is better animated than most OPs so I’m not complaining.

The Grim Reaper has set up a school to train potential “Death Scythes”, humanoid weapons for him to use when reaping souls. “Technicians” are the humans who wield the weapons, and this first episode follows Maka, the daughter of the current Death Scythe, and her too-cool-for-school weapon Soul Eater. To qualify to become Death Scythe the weapon must consume 99 evil human/monster souls and 1 soul of a witch - witches are, however, extremely powerful. Maka and Soul Eater collect 99 evil souls and prepare to go after a witch named Blair, although her continued use of her considerable talents (in both the traditional and Sailor Moon sense) makes it very difficult for Soul to concentrate; however, the bond between Maka and Soul is strong enough to overcome even Blair’s feminine charms and eventually they manage to defeat her. However, it turns out Blair was just an extremely powerful magical cat, rather than a witch, and thus Maka and Soul Eater have to start again - leaving the Grim Reaper with Maka’s lecherous, disturbingly obsessive father as his weapon for the time being.

To be perfectly frank, I don’t think I’d have ever given this show the time of day if it hadn’t been for the absolutely incredible visuals. Not only is the animation fantastically consistent and high in quality, but the world is suitably macabre where the moon grins as blood drips from its teeth and the sun mocks the characters and the nighttime colours are like something out of Tim Burton. It’s really truly impressive (if a little bit too much visual overload) to watch.

Popular opinion is to despise Maka’s newbie nails-on-a-chalkboard voice actress, but I don’t have a problem with her at all; if anything it just sounds like she’s been recorded in lower quality than everyone else, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her line readings or anything like that; if anything, it adds to the off-kilter atmosphere of the show, like Soul Eater having an incredibly deep voice when he looks like a Kappei Yamaguchi character.

However… despite the total smorgasbord of animated delights contained within this episode, I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. It’s nothing to do with Bones - it’s the story and characters. Despite the bonkers world design, it IS just another shounen action show with the usual over-the-top characters being loud and obnoxious interspersed with a bit of fighting, and it was all a bit wearing despite how well directed the whole thing is. I will keep watching for now as matters may improve as the other main characters are introduced (maybe if we see less of Death Scythe things will improve) but for the moment I’m a little tentative about Soul Eater.

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Special A Episode 1 - Hikari and Kei

Hikari Hanazono has sworn that she will beat Kei Takishima at everything after he defeated her in a wrestling match when they were kids, but whatever she does she always comes in second place. As high achievers, she and Kei are part of the “Special A” group of seven sickeningly clever teenagers who get to lounge around in a beautiful greenhouse rather than attend school because they’re all so hideously brilliant they don’t need to attend lessons (lucky buggers). Hijinks ensue, obviously, especially as Kei has a crush on Hikari to which she’s oblivious - in this episode, after laying the very slightest of foundations of the premise, the plot involves three students desperate to get into the Special A group trying to cheat on an exam on Kei’s birthday.

I feel like a total grinch to say this, but Special A didn’t work for me at all. Obviously someone looked at the success of Ouran High School Host Club (and it WAS successful, only dwarfed by the concurrent Haruhi juggernaut in otaku popularity) and went “shoujo comedy with a budget obviously DOES work!” and so this show got greenlit, and I suppose I should be thankful to see shoujo which looks like money was spent on it - the background art is brilliant, the animation crisp and clean, the character designs boldly drawn… yet I found the show itself nowhere near as enjoyable as Itazurana Kiss.

A big problem for me is that the episode just whizzes through the character introductions and then fails to spend any time on any of them. We start in media res where everyone already knows each other, and before you know it the supporting cast gets shunted to the background while Hikari and Kei immediately dominate. As such I haven’t really got a handle on who the hell anyone else in the Special A group except that they’re all quite spazzy.

The biggest problem, however, is that the direction is so… ordinary. Think of the truly notable shoujo comedies in the past ten or fifteen years - KareKano, Fruits Basket, Ouran, Kodocha et al - and they’ve all got exciting direction, whether it’s Hideaki Anno’s sign-laden shots or Akitaroh Daichi’s signature hyperactivity. Special A just plays things safe and by the book - Yoshikazu Miyao is a long-time assistant/OP director and I don’t think he’s got the flair that a show like this requires, although perhaps this is down to a repetitive script. Take, for example, the “Ni-san” gag - Kei calls Hikari “Number 2″ constantly to tease her, and every time a giant brick “Ni-san” falls on Hikari’s head. It’s not the greatest of gags in the world ever, especially as it always results in a big, echoey “Don’t call me Number 2!” from Hikari, but I can’t help feel that a better director would have done something cleverer with this than just repeating exactly the same visual gag every time. There are some gags that work on repeat because they’re utterly ridiculous - Renge’s motorised oujo-sama entrances in Ouran spring to mind - but they’re spread across several episodes or done in various different ways, whereas most of this episode just felt like the same sort of thing over and over again.

So yes, I’m a bit disappointed in Special A. I will give at least the next episode a try (got to see the OP, after all) but I’m not confident that it’s a keeper, which is a bit of a shame really. Something just hasn’t quite clicked with me and this show.

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ABA Nominations

From Owen:Drama aside, I think there?s something to be said about the point of The ABA, and how a lot of clueless, misinformed, egoistic, or just plain stubborn people have missed it by a mile. My blog turns a year old tomorrow, and it?s been a great process of learning and sharing in the 122-odd [...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seaslugteam/~3/266574878/

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Comparison Study of Anime Male vs Real Male
Desirability Traits and Otaku Availability of Said Traits

Dick Masterson (lol) over at Menarebetterthanwomen.com has a hilarious website and was on some show flaming women. While obviously not for real (or is it?), his Maddox-style humour was really awesome. The best part about his site is, unlike Maddox who doesn’t allow comments, he has what is a global World War 3 all over [...]

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1045

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Another season of honey and clover.

Well, I’ve been reindulging myself in the sinful pleasure that is Honey and Clover. Truly, classics are the best. Gotta thank my part-time job of reviewing manga to get me back in to the mood to watch it (just had to review the first volume of Hachikuro by Viz Media). Coming back to it after [...]

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http://kurogane.animeblogger.net/2008/04/09/another-season-of-honey-and-clover/

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Predictions for This New Season: Watch This Space
at the End of It and See if Im Right!

As the title states, this is my own little crystal ball blogging… Let’s make a few predictions for this season. Remember how everyone thought Gundam 00 was shit? It wasn’t in the end, it was alright! Shows that most anime fans have lousy clairvoyance abilities, except me.GONZO will fold if their web streaming venture fails. [...]

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1044

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[Hynavian] Rosario+Vampire Episode 13 review,
thoughts, panty lessons

It’s a miracle that I’ve made it to the end of the first season. Being a proud fan of the R+V manga, I’ve been vividly promoting and recommending it to all of my friends since ages ago but I’ve recently kept a low profile and dare not even mention the word R+V in front of [...]

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1041

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Getting Schooled in Mana-Khemistry

Gust is going back to its roots with an alchemy school theme for the latest Atelier game. You play as Vayne, a young amateur alchemist who was handpicked to attend the Al-Revis academy due to his incredible potential. You’ll go to classes, participate in school events, pursue little sidestories, accept oddjobs for [...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seaslugteam/~3/266182473/

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[LianYL] BRStick - 89 >> Far Too Deep In

Had a little conversation with DarkMirage a few days ago, and his words inspired this strip.

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http://www.riuva.com/?p=1038

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