This post has its roots firmly planted (pun unintended) in this category; present-day incarnations include this recent article by The Anime Almanac, which pushed me to write this post as a result. It’s not like I’m singling the two of them out through my writing of this, — well, alright, maybe I do pick on lolikit a lot, but that’s just due to how far he’s gone — since their opinions are unfailingly pedestrian in their nature that you could pick an otaku, any otaku who thinks that they’re the most intelligent/unique/erudite critic on the internet since Yahtzee or Maddox, and get the same type of reasoned opinion out of them.

Before all of that, however, have a colour bar (click for larger version).

I’m quite amused to hear that suspension of disbelief still becomes an issue nowadays. What, you want realism in a medium where oversized eyes are a norm, saving the world is perfunctory, and girls develop mysterious terminal diseases that require a guy (who also conveniently pops out of nowhere)’s love to cure? Surely you jest. That’s really weak reasoning, especially when it’s used as grounds for why an anime fails.

Library Wars, for one, seems to be the target of things like these: It’s not believable enough, it doesn’t make sense that there are autonomous militias fighting over books, why aren’t they going for the publishers instead of the bookstores, and so on and so forth. My response? Wow, just shut up and enjoy the show, seriously. Trying to over-analyse the premise while suffocating the show through the paralysing grip of Reality isn’t going to make things any better, and who cares if it’s not believable? The same could be said of any other show.

omg the sunlight is conveniently blinding her from looking at his face even though there wasn’t any a minute ago in the fluorescent lighting this is so UNREALISTIC!!@`123

A long long time ago, in a place far far away, I made a deal with the devil bateszi to watch four episodes of Shigurui and write about it if he would do the same for True Tears. Or maybe it was the other way around, because like Faust, I’m wondering what I got myself into. It’s fortunate that I’ve got an absurdly high level of tolerance for gore and its ilk (to the extent of being able to read a work of Shintaro Kago’s and not be too disgusted), for while I’m not about to go retching into a bucket just yet, the visceral, primal nature of it has floored me.

About the title/post excerpt: I’m referring to how things can be put into perspective so easily, give or take an episode. The wandering samurai with an X-shaped scar on his face doesn’t seem all that glorious anymore, but such is the fate of romanticisation; while Nobuhiro Watsuki might have made the era of the samurai out to be something you’d want to leap headlong into given the chance, what Takayuki Yamaguchi has done here is priceless — for once, I was glad I was on this side of the screen, watching from the comfort of my living room.

It’s the antithesis of entertainment. Blatantly atmospheric, with an intent to make you squirm more than smile; all flinch and no fun. Yet why do I find myself wanting to watch more and more of a show copiously laced with brutality, sex, and the occasional bit of brutal sex? Shigurui shimmers with realism like a mirage in the desert, an almost-there apparition that isn’t at the same time, yet is. It’s too bad that being what it is, not everyone will be able to stomach it, for if there was one anime in the world right now that I wish everyone would have seen, it would be this one.

This episode proved to be an outstanding one, with exceptional expositional dialogue that made me grin triumphantly when I realised where everything was headed halfway through; it was one of those Eureka, feel-good moments that you can’t help but pat your back for. It’s a niche, to be sure — different people will value different things, but what I value the most above all is good writing. Show, not tell. Never spoonfeed the viewer. Don’t assume that your audience is mostly dense (even if they are), because there will always be those who will get what you’re trying to say, even if you’re not saying it through normal means.

character designs like this would have robbed the show of its seriousness

Naturally, I was one of those who got it.

Word is on the street that the non-moe faction is rejoicing this season, if only due to the fact that the number of shows with moe in them aren’t dominating for the first time in so long. I was thinking of a theme by which to group the anime in this post under while writing this, and it occurred to me that none of the characters in the shows featured here have eyes the size of tennis balls, or irises the size of ping-pong balls.

this automatically becomes non-moe because Duke Togo is in it

I know, lumping in Macross F together with Special A and Itazura na Kiss is indiscriminate. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to make a post with just Macross F or write a post about it with merely Code Geass as its sullen companion because it would be like comparing a Portobello Mushroom burger and a Wagyu steak — they’re both good in their own ways, but the latter is on an entirely different level, and they appeal to different people looking for different things.

yes, they retained this despite all the other cuts and changes

Fun. There’s a lot to be said about the word, and the anime that defines it; fun so pure and simple that all you’re experiencing during the 24-odd minutes that make up the episode is one huge grin, with a couple of smirks and chuckles served up alongside several bite-sized laughs.

Watching these shows made me go “Now that was great” after it was all done, with strains of the ED still ringing in my ears. I think this is exactly what the Spring season needs, if only because we’ve got a bevy of thought-provoking, deep, riveting, intricate shows lined up, and we need something to skew the balance in favour of light-heartedness, fluff, and entertainment for entertainment’s sake.

You know what they say — when life gives you loli, you make lollipops an anime.

what hardcore lolicons must look like to the rest of the world

Or so would appear to be the premise of a show like Kurenai. Despite how the man on the street might have misgivings about the loli aesthetic, I prefer to think that much of its criticism stems from the inability of a fan to differentiate. Do we call Aishiteruze Baby loli? No, we call it a respectable shoujo series that we wouldn’t be ashamed to read in front of our family and friends. Do we call Card Captor Sakura and the Nanoha franchise loli? Yes. Why the double standards, then?

Here we go again. The misrepresentation of an anime during the quarterly season preview will always be a point of contention for me, but you know what? If you don’t know Japanese, or happen to have a vocabulary so utterly worthless in nature that you can’t write at length and cite specific instances or scenes in an anime where the dialogue’s what makes or breaks it, you should give up all those “raw watching” pretensions and stick to watching subs. Pretending you know the language never did a show or your readers any good.

It goes to show how good the so-called Japanese experts among the anime bloggers are, that none of the posts dedicated to covering the first episode at the time of writing this post have so much as hinted at to what actually happens. Spare us the rewritten synopsis that’s been floating around for months, stop looking at the pictures, pay attention to the dialogue, and actually write about what happened, will you? That’s all I ask, really. Maybe the day will come when this will no longer be an issue, but before that ever happens I feel I simply have to speak up against misinformation like this.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what exactly Kaiba’s all about, from what I could gather from the first episode it was something akin to Planescape: Torment + The Matrix + GITS:SAC all wrapped up in an aesthetic equal parts Alice In Wonderland and The Little Prince. Not too shabby a mix, don’t you think? Who could’ve known that something that’s been praised mainly for its visual style could be so complex? Not those posers who weren’t paying attention to dialogue, that’s for sure. But I digress.

After the incredibly moving episode 22 and the subsequently adorable and hilarious episode 23, several things dawned on me, in a manner that those subject to particularly amazing anime are wont to do: That I take my parents for granted, and their sacrifices lightly. That more than anything else, they want my dreams to come true over theirs, if they ever had any. That they had set aside all the time and energy and money to mould me into what I am today.

That’s what the penultimate episode of Clannad was about, and I’m not too displeased to say, with a half-smile, a wrinkled brow, and a quivering lip, that I can see what magic this adaptation has worked in the hearts of many a fan four years ago. What amazes me more is how such a supposedly “light” show of a famously maligned genre can reach out with invisible arms from my monitor and, grasping my heart with both hands, squeeze firmly.

Clannad ranks a solid 9 out of 10 on my MyAnimeList now, sitting astride kimikiss and ef; a cut above Kanon’s grudging 8, and leagues above Air’s 4 and 5 score respectively. Which reminds me, do I want to see KyoAni adapting more Key works? I’m not all that sure myself. Given the arduous hike that Everyone’s Favourite Animation Studio™ has been taking, climbing higher and higher up the hill of Quality with each successive work, something in me wants to see planetarian or Little Busters. Before that, though, I’ve got to start at the beginning.

So my predictions in my previous post were wrong. I’m glad they were, for had I been right, it would’ve meant that kimikiss would have been unpredictably predictable, and we all know how well that would have went down. The masses need their closure, even if the more discerning among us can do without all that finality riff-raff, and I suppose it’s nice to have a good old-fashioned choice for once. You win some, you lose some.

I had a feeling the eyecatch would be that of the victorious girls

I know, I haven’t been posting about kimikiss as of late, but I’m sure I explained that in the past few posts or something. Reserving the best for the last when it comes to my viewing schedule always has that effect, and while I’m late to all the discussion and hubbub generated by what seems like an impending anime disaster, I hope to rectify that in a bit with my predictions about how things are going to be wrapped up.

So here’s what the experts have been saying: Jen thinks that love is over after reading spoilers (much like any chances that Kyou et al had of hooking up with Tomoya in Clannad circa episode 18). Michael thinks that he can see it just a little (like all good shounen protagonists do their antagonist’s impossibly quick movements, just before a surprise power-up takes place). CCY’s waffling between endless possibilities (not unlike Tonegawa’s gametheory that ultimately cost him).

What can I possibly add to all three trains of thought at this point? As my friend with benefits Caffeine has pointed out to me in a sleep-deprived haze during my viewing of Kimikiss ep 22 earlier today, there’s more to it than meets the eye. There’s a greater possibility out there that vindicates one opinion, puts paid to another one, and makes the last one seem ultra-conservative in comparison.

The number of posts don’t seem to be letting up any time soon. Ditto this. While I’m officially semi-tired of all the true tears discussion that’s been going on as of late, I still consider it to be awesome even if I’m kind burnt out from people talking about it — you know what they say about too much of a good thing. When was the last time something from this maligned genre provoked so much discussion and dissection, on such a rich level, too? I can understand the rationale behind Shinkai not making that leap from movies to a TV series, if only somewhat.

It happened previously to me with ef, and I don’t know why getting burnt out on discussion about a good anime happens, because it technically shouldn’t. Maybe everyone’s already repeating what I already know, and I can’t be arsed to comment, even if I’ve read their posts. Maybe I like talking about a series better when it’s indie, although that wouldn’t explain Clannad. Maybe I need to read less blogs, even if this goes against what I believe about reading more. But I digress.

This rather lengthy dialogue I had with Mike of AnimeDiet was conducted last Sunday, under the guise of dissecting what I felt was the core theme of both kimikiss and true tears, and what makes them such a powerful experience: character inconsistency, and the difference between what a character feels and what he or she subsequently demonstrates. That part’s still there, but it’s buried in a plethora of other stuff, all of which I came up on the fly. The second half of this dialogue is linked to at the end of this post.

It was an entertaining episode, I’ll grant you that. As a good blogger’s duty’s all about highlighting underrated shows that might have dropped off the radar as a result of underexposure or consistency (with Bamboo Blade coming to mind), when I take into consideration how episode 17 brought to light the series’ strengths very well, I feel duty-bound to write about it as a result. But what is this show about, anyway?

To my knowledge, the general idea that those who aren’t interested in it have is that it seems to be just another, milder, member of the fetish persuasion, nevermind how the example I linked to is already so far gone that I’m using it ironically here. For all the “I have no idea why, but FUCK YES I’M WATCHING A GIRLY SHOW!” fans there’s the intially-nonplussed ones to balance them out, and if you’re in the latter group and reading this, here’s the hard sell in a paragraph:

At its basics, Shugo Chara is about believing in yourself that believes in you. It’s all about doing the impossible, seeing the invisible, touching the untouchable, and breaking the unbreakable. Yes, I just compared it to Gurren Lagann. No, you’re not going to get much sense out of that statement until you read further, so hold your bile for the end.