PIC RELATED
For quiet some time I haven’t been able to Blog about anime series like I promised several entries ago. You might want to take a guest: Cosplay activities and my job. Since I have been preoccupied in the past months (with a minimum of 1 entry per month which was kinda awkward for a self proclaimed God of Blogging) I decided to gather all my thoughts regarding the anime series that I have seen recently even for almost a year, since I wasn’t been able to hang around with Jay because of the Rider Project (some asshole tend to call it “Rider System” though).
First off, I already have done a write up regarding the overly manly action series Sengoku Basara (still I’m not finished with it). The 100 degree-wall-ride standing on a horse and a horse with exhaust pipes and handle bars are overly epic, like any Flip could utter “anong klaseng kalokohan yan (what kind of folly was that)? I could remember well it was mention while pertaining some asshole to be immoral or such. Unfortunately we often mistook Samurai Warriors cosplayers as Sengoku Basara cosplayers, knowing the fact that both are based from Japan’s ancient history. There is also Shin Mazingkaiser for super robots buffs, that were indeed awesome as the title itself. I have already a blog about Akikan! with all the basic information intact with it. It should have been my permanent style of writing and criticizing anime series but I don’t have the time to furnish them all. So Maria†Holic and Chaos;Head anime blog won’t receive the same V.I.P. treatment (I supposed I mentioned blogging them individually at one of my entries). Instead I’m going to squeeze them up here along with some comments from several anime shows I have seen for the past months.
After Jay blogged about MariHo (that’s Maria†Holic, condensed), I decided to come up with my own version in my mind. But due to the youconsequences and the businesses I have, I lost the chance of doing it. Yet I can still summarize it under few sentences right? Maria†Holic was published by the artsy-fartsy studio SHAFT and the premise is all about a tall girl named Kanoko who was about to enter an all girls Catholic School (there were nuns, right?) and she hopes to find her love within it. She’s a lesbian, and her fantasies could match up any perverted guy’s wildest imagination. But here’s a thing: each time a boy touches her, she burst into rashes and when she sees something cute (especially a girl) or even cleavages, she explodes with nose bleeding. Then she meets this “Maria” girl with her cool looking maid Matsurika. For some couple of minutes her mind was filled with her until she finds out that this Maria girl was actually a crossdressing guy. In chan terms, she has been trapped!! What could have been a guy doing within the premises of an all girl’s Catholic School? He explains his purpose that he is the ex-director’s grandson. And thus the conflict of two perfect couple began. Kanoko cannot accept a guy inside their campus yet when Maria poses cute, she melts right away but when he turn his sadistic side, she retaliates and Maria will repeat the former to succumb her.
Just in case you were wondering why Maria was bullying Kanoko is because she’s a lesbo. We might be able to accept lesbians nowadays but within the all girl’s Catholic School she’s considered a threat and to make sure things going smooth, Maria must keep an eye on her tomfoolery. Maria†Holic is a fun show actually, not to mention Yuu Kobayashi’s erotic moaning on the series’ opening “Hanaji”. The ending theme sung by the three main protagonists’ voice actors “Kimi ni Mune Kyun” was a revival from an 80’s electronic pop group YMO.
Worst Case Scenario
Before Maria†Holic I have also seen a 12-episode series under the guise of Chaos;Head. Only a few months more then it will be a year since it were first aired in Japan. Chaos;Head is actually a visual novel made by Nitroplus and published by Madhouse Studios. It depicts the inner demons struggling within a hikkikomori named Takumi Nishijo. Practically this series is all about delusions and the main premise of the story is when a certain chain of events happen that greatly affected Takumi, his life as a high school student, his relationship with her sister Nanami, his friend Rimi and being an MMO addict.
To be honest at first glance you might want to consider Chaos;Head as one of the harem-type anime you have seen before (this was made a pun on the ending of the series). You were wrong. Chaos;Head is was more of a psycho-thriller with some detective work and a lot of unexpected twist and genjutsu. And also a lot of QUALITY, in spite of the fact it has been made by Madhouse (make a guess, low budgeted to give way for merchandise?). But there are good things that make this series worthy. First, the characters. They may look stereotypical but their characteristics made them different however. Takumi wasn’t exactly a hero-type material any other boy next door out there. In fact he’s a coward. You might have thought Yua as the resident gentle fujyoshi but behind those glasses she’s equally threatening especially when he investigates Takumi regarding the death of her twin. Then Rimi was this certain cheerful girl but actually she’s only taking orders from someone else. Next we have the D-Swords. Good cosplay material that I have to procrastinate how to do the mechanism on Rimi’s D-Sword. Imagine school girls with huge swords that they summon to destroy delusion-generating ports. And lastly the way the story was driven. In the series I just can’t wait for next episode because of just when things started to heat up, the show will prompt you for the next episode because the events happens so fast! So I advise you that if you’re going to watch the series, have it downloaded from the alpha to the omega to avoid suspension. The last three episodes are kinda fast-paced and dissatisfying that you might want to essentially download and play the game on PC or on X-Box 360 which was I’m opting to do. The opening was done by Itou Kanoko entitled the pessimistic “F.D.D (Filthy Defiler Disgrace)” and the cheerful and positive ending theme “Super Special” was done by Seira Kagami.
It has been also a year ago since I have bashed the Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk. Based on the old-school NAMCO arcade game, GONZO made a sequel of the same title, labeling it as The Sword of Uruk. It’s just a continuation as Jil tries to climb the next tower while other things starting to unfold. To be honest I haven’t seen the ending of the second season (unless I have the time for it) yet I heard comments that it was somewhat satisfying. And yeah! More tentacle raep… no I mean roper action on Fatina!! Speaking of GONZO, we also have Strike Witches. Yes, those mecha musume based on World War II fighter planes, flying loli and panties. Although full of cameltoes and fans service (that’s in the DVD), it is considered as one of GONZO’s masterpiece: Well researched characters, concepts and even the names of the main characters were based from World War II pilots. Another work of GONZO that looked so seemingly harmless was a Mah Jong based anime series called Saki.
LOL GONZO.
If you are a fan of Akagi or any Mah Jong anime, this is must watch. The main protagonist here is girl which bares the name of the said series who has been invited to join a Mah Jong club and surpasses them all. Even if she excels them, the members have a hard time pursuing her to join their club. Here we also have Nodoka, whose humongous breasts defy the laws of physics and the legendary Taco Loli or Yuki who was always seen munching tacos (she’s also voiced by The Rie). It seems like she’s willing to do everything for tacos.
I’ll give you tacos in exchange for… ASSES.Aside from Mah Jong, Saki is also known for panty-less characters, because much of the scenes that includes (low) angular shots involves ass cheeks. Pyong becomes hysterical when I told him that irrelevant fan service might pop up in Saki when I told him it will be produced by GONZO, which was gaining reputation regarding fan service anime. He said that ‘where pantyshots will appear while they were sitting and busy playing Mah Jong’? Fellow anime blogger Gabbie
points out when I asked her about is there any upskirts in Saki, she replied that there were none, because they removed their panties. That explains why there are a lot of ass scenes in it. I guess we’ve got our answers now. And Jay and I mouth-watered when we took a glimpse of the first episode, that we have to head out towards the nearest Taco Bell outlet. It seems like Saki will be synonymous with Taco Bell for quite some time.
The sad truth. Nodoka after challenging the invincible Akagi to a Strip Mah Jong.
I’m just surprised that it ran for 20 plus episodes leaving behind the moe-infested K-On! like Gabbie told me. And like the most of the anime series, I have only seen few episodes of them, and that includes K-On! which only ran for 12. I’m only at the episode where the four girls made their first performance and the whole crowd saw Mio’s striped panties similar to Luccini’s (there were no fan service albeit it is strongly implied). And I missed a lot of it, including Asuza, the newly recruited member of the band of retarded moeness. Since I only needed to see K-On! in a nut shell, I followed Just5Guy’s (now they are known as TheLoliBrigade on Youtube) K-On! The Abrdiged Series. Upon seeing that my YM avatar was still Mio, Gabbie advices me to see Bakemonogatari which until now I haven’t seen a single episode. See how delayed I am when it comes to anime.
I have also seen some episodes of Eden of the East then after that I lost track of it right after Jay’s Warhammer Project dismissed. And that includes the OAV of To Love Ru where Rito literally genderbent. Chrome Shelled Regios is also a good watch if you like anime with RPG elements in it, yet the only thing good there is Felli’s pakipot (tsundere) antics towards Leyfon. Done with Kannagi even though I missed some episodes. It was like a slice of life with a supernatural element in it (how about a chic comes out of a wood carving and calls herself a god?). And then some episodes of Witchblade anime that was very different from its western counterpart. Speaking of going western, Madhouse Studios also opt to create the anime remake of Ironman and the X-Men’s Wolverine. In the trailer, Ironman was equally awesome as Wolverine was equally off. Who would ever thought of making Logan a bishounen? And it doesn’t fit his rugged personality.
Due to my brother’s addiction to Naruto Shippuden, he even tried to see other anime subbed by Dattebayo Fansubs resulting to finishing the shonen ai series 07-Ghost. His yaoi-fangirl girlfriend was deeply amazed that she couldn’t believe it. I also tried Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Jason lends me his copy and I’m done with the first season with few more episodes to finish the very awesome A’s. I just don’t have the time to watch them all so finally I could give it back (plus my DVD-Rom was busted). And then we have the romance-comedy-drama Toradora.
Toradora is a slice-of-life themed anime about two people namely Taiga Aisaka and Ryuuji Takasu. The title is play on words Tora (tiger) and Dora (the first two syllables on the katakana of the English word dragon). Ryuuji is an ordinary high-school boy who have a frightening feature on his eye that made others call him as a delinquent even if he weren’t and Taiga was know for the alias Palm Top Tiger and just as violent. Hell breaks lose when they first met with Taiga giving Ryuuji an uppercut (ganyan ba kababa tingin niyo sa akin?!) when he accidentally bumps her. Then Taiga was having a hard time putting a letter on her crush’s bag just to find out it was Ryuuji’s. That night Taiga attacked Ryuuji forcing him to return the mail but it was revealed that inside the letter it was intended for Kitamura, Ryuuji’s buddy and Taiga also found out that Ryuuji has a crush on Minorin, Taiga’s cheery best friend. To compromise Ryuuji presented himself to help her ordeal to get close to her crush in exchange for helping him back for gaining Minorin heart. Yet in the end the whole class thought of they were actually dating. And thus the fun begins.
Other characters were Minorin, the cheerful one who brings references from other anime series (it faded though), Kitamura, the class-representative guy and the sultry Ami, a model who always teases Ryuuji. The story circulates to these five main casts, each showing their ordeal as a high school student and their circumstances on their surroundings. The fun factor drops at the middle of the series that somebody was able to associate Toradora with an 80’s film “The Breakfast Club”, but it seems pretty normal for me. I managed to follow Toradora until Minorin ruined Christmas and right after that I couldn’t follow. It seems like I forgot everything about it but Kamen Rider Decade. Still I’m eager to finish it off, because in the ending it is obscured that Taiga and Ryuuji have sex. The opening themes were Pre Parade (Rie Kugimiya, Yui Horie, Eri Kitamura) and Silky Heart (Yui Horie) and the ending themes were Vanilla Salt (Yui Horie) and Orange (Rie Kugimiya) Toradora became so popular in the internet that TV5 decided to buy it and air it locally.
I just couldn’t believe it. At first I saw Toradora pirated DVDs being sold at Ozine Fest 2009 and it was aired already few months after the series was finished. And several Taiga cosplays brought to life by Ayametsuruya and Mica (who has become Gamer Totoy’s object of affection). Anyways, how’s the dubbing? Honestly I have to rate it mediocre. I also heard that TV5 didn’t finished Toradora, or maybe I wasn’t paying attention to watching TV recently.
Once I asked myself when will Comic Alley will be able to provide Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya merchandise? It was answered few months later along with some news that TV5 will air the said series (there was a huge Animega tarpaulin at the Cubao LRT Station). I did brought my first Haruhi poster that can be bought in Divisoria for only ten bucks and I just wondered how the translations would be at some awkward scenes like when Haruhi threatens the Computer Society club if they didn’t do her bidding (the “gangrape” were censored when it was aired at Japan) and what will Mikuru tell Kyon after she was forced to dress up as a bunny girl while giving off fliers of the SOS Brigade. They were answered while I was confined in the hospital for eating an expired cracker (not this again!) yet one fucked-up thing made me flare up. Do they really have to censor with mosaic/pixels specifically when Haruhi made the Computer Society president touch/grope Mikuru’s breast? It kinda looked convincing like an actually pr0n though. As Mariatopia would put it, written on her door “Censorship promotes pornography”, she did a point here. There was no malice on that scene actually.
God is not amused.
Going more on Local, it seems like TV5 is having a ravaging rush on airing top-notching anime such as Shakugan no Shana. Just when I finished the second season of the said show, it was when TV5 aired the first season. Luckily I needed to backtrack some scenes. Nothing much but it was horribly dubbed. Unlike the next show during that time Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge or simply known as The Wallflower anime. The voice acting on this was expressive and superb that it gave more life to the characters and the show itself, compared to the original Japanese dub which a friend of mine coined. And we also have the overrated mecha anime Code: Geass. It was mispronounced as Code: Jizz as GMA-7 did Tenjou Te-nge. Shitstorm were inevitable when it was posted on the imageboard we all love, being aired at the Failippines. The dubbing sucks and I’m still having a hard time to appreciate the said series. They were a lot Code: Geass related cosplay locally, but mostly Lelouch and CC. Another localization made by TV5 was Azumanga Daioh. Japanese word-play jokes remains intact and the dubbing kinda reminded me during the time QTV aired Galaxy Angels. No wonder the dubbing on this one was good. And also Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, as if they were competing with Animax: Airing an on-going series. The dubbing is also good, the voices were familiar.
You might be aware that GMA-7 will air the anime adaptation of an award winning Korean drama series Jewel in the Palace (my parents almost got me killed because of this series) aptly called Jang Geum’s Dream. I don’t have any ideas regarding the said series but isn’t it a bit exaggerated when you need to do an acrobatic leap to catch a vegetable you tossed earlier?
Let’s go on to cable channels. Hero TV/Channel boasted that they are they are the Cable channel that airs anime translated into Tagala in an almost 24/7 basis. While spending a night on Maddaluther’s place, I decided to observe their midnight special which mostly contain fan service anime. There was Ursula’s Kiss, Hero’s rough translation of Revolutionary Girl Utena. I’m just wondering if that huge white flower that appears when Utena transforms was indeed a form of censorship. I need to confirm it and Youtube is my best friend when it comes to watching chipped scenes. Then right after that I couldn’t believe my eyes they did Najica Blitz Tactics done by Studio Fantasia who produces well-known fan service anime such as Agent Aika. I need not to say more about the series. Hero does a dirty job on censorship each cleavages and upskirts by utilizing Gaussian Blur. I think it would be best if they didn’t air it at all!
Then we have Animax. Although Gun X Sword, Le Chvalier D’eon and Darker Than Black were well rated series, I tried to watch them but due to my busy schedule I wasn’t able to do so. I don’t know exactly the premise of Gun X Sword, Le Chevalier D’eon has a crossdressing element in it (so I decided to cosplay it sometime next year) and Darker Than Black is kinda interesting. Unfortunately our tapped cable service got busted so I guess no more Animax for me. Heh.
Is it really going to happen or it’s just me? After acquiring Blue Dragon by Akira Toriyama, ABS-CBN is now going to air Soul Eater and Gintama? I saw one of their commercial promotions (Anime-zing bay un?). Anyways I’ll be hearing familiar voices if so, but I’m not in the mood to follow shounen type series right now. So these sums up my Anime Circus though I thought of I have missed some series that I have seen, forecasted and such. Now I haven’t been able to catch up if ever Little Kuriboh has uploaded his new Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, as TheLoliBrigade did their K-On! The Abridged series and now I am opt to take a peek on Kamen Rider W’s few episodes. I’m still looking forward to watch the Kamen Rider Decade movies, including the recent movie All Riders VS Dai Shocker and the next one where Kivara will be able to be utilized as a henshin device. And I have no updates on the anime series that will be aired at falls since I haven’t been able to hang around at Jay’s crib. Plus the guy’s studying (unfortunately I am not) and I’m busy preparing for the next cosplay events, making costumes and hunting for a new job. So time is crucial right now. And blogging might be difficult for a hectic guy like me to incorporate it in even if I am preparing for a huge religious attack next month.
Anyway still, Godspeed. Love.
~ 4 out of 5 ninjas say
Makiel Sapalicio is a pirate.
~o0o~
The words to live by:
Sino manlilibre ng paborito kong Cobra?! Waaaa (labas dila)
Di ako tulad mo!
May dos ka dyan [insert random name here]?
Text Grecco/Rubber space amount and send to [insert Krelian's number here].
Text Deport space Juni and send to Basilan.
Ibabala sa kanyon!!
A-MA-DE-YOH!! (Do Kamen Rider Amazon shout here)
Sige! Ikaw na may sundae at extra rice!
Ganito lang yun eh… (sabay wasiwas ng Blade Rouser)
‘Tol, wag ganun ‘tol.
Madali na lang yun…
I’m Dinnie for you boy!
I-bottomless ang saya!!
Bumobottomless…
Watdahel? Anong tunog yun?
Meh ganun?
Sasabayan kita sa loob ng sampung segundo. Kaya mo bang tapatan ang lakas na di umaayaw?
Diwata ng kagandahan!
Intro angas!!
Wala namang bakla sa tropa eh. Baklang bakla lang!
A-MA-ZON-NA!! (Do Kamen Rider Amazon shout here)
Wala nang spark?
Takasu! I will kill you!
Wrydel Wars!
Punit!!
I want your body, your body, not you! (clap clap)
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