A short update for those of you who were wondering where my blog went, and why Sasa’s feed was flooding AnimeNano earlier: Ikimashou.net is currently in the hands of a squatter, no thanks to the registrar screwing Randall over by conveniently “forgetting” to e-mail him about the domain lapsing. As a result, everything broke, and he’s fighting to get the domain back now. In the meantime, don’t bother updating your links, unless you feel like changing them later on. If this Dasaku.net domain turns out to be permanent, I’ll be using a different subdomain name to go with it in good time.

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but Hirose looks a lot like Yuki Nagato

A reference-laden quote needs a little something to give it context, and considering how I’ve learned to not look at harem and its deriatives with derision anymore (I credit CCYoshi partially for that accomplishment, who, coincidentally, has an awesome new blog over at Mega Megane Moé — we’re hosting buddies now!), it seems all the more apt.

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

This is, of course, the premise by which I’m watching the more “dubious” picks this season. Considering how subs are going to be and have been frighteningly efficient due to the alliance of m.3.3.w + BakaWolf + Ayako, passing up on what could be the ef of Winter seems patently obtuse. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it, so it should be fine, right?

This was originally supposed to be one of those comments, the long type that almost deserve a blog post of their own, but not quite. I’ve found that those prone towards leaving long and elaborate comments eventually buckle under collective pressure and get a blog of their own, and while I was writing the fourth paragraph of this particular comment I realised the redundancy of it all, and saved it for a post instead. Author’s probably doing a victory dance right now.

speaking of frogs, the pseudo-yuri pair need to die, along with their puppets

Spice and Wolf has what is possibly one of the most vivid and breathtaking OPs, with gorgeous animation not seen since Byousoku 5cm, although for all purposes, this high-quality YouTube can only come so close to capturing the enrapturing experience on a full-screen.

I’ve always found honesty to be the best policy, which is why I’m going to state upfront that I found Dennou Coil to be horribly overrated. Not in the “this is bad, what were you thinking” sense, but the “this is good, but there were other infinitely superior shows this year” sense. It’s one of those anime that sound great on paper, at least from what I’ve seen of the other reviews already written out there. It hit all the right notes, or at least knew what notes to hit while looking incredibly hip and cool, a contemporary tour de force a decade in the making.

Unfortunately, DC felt like Noein to me; something that just didn’t cut it regardless of technical superiority. It had a stellar soundtrack, a more or less original premise, solid characterisation, avant-garde animation, and quantum physics jargon — a winning combination, by any standards. Yet for all its promise and potential I found myself watching an anime just like any other, even if it had everything going for it. I was, for a lack of better word, nonplussed, and couldn’t understand the praise heaped upon it.

Naturally, it gets my goat whenever I have to wonder if I just didn’t “get it”. This inevitably volatile issue of taste will of course differ across the blogosphere, but what exactly was it this time round that made me stay in my chair when everyone else was giving a standing ovation? I made the connection a few days ago, and it’s an answer that takes us all the way back to 2002: Haibane Renmei.

It’s official: three out of five blogs approve of Fuuko’s reappearance in episode 12. The other two were just grumpy old men who couldn’t stomach a little of KyoAni’s signature humour (it being an anime-original scene and all). Just kidding, and I’m not talking about the grumpy part either. I’ve already written about why Fuuko’s arc worked for me so we won’t go into the details about why Fuuko supposedly sucks since this works under the premise that, as shocking as it may seem, Fuuko as a character actually did some good throughout the seven episodes or so in which she appeared.

I have it from a very reliable source that Fuuko remains in character, even for the anime-original parts of Clannad like the crane-catching sequence and the classroom/wedding ones, where Nagisa isn’t present. She’s a source of humour throughout her entire arc right up till the end, and KyoAni’s decision to animate her first, essentially removing her from the cast early on, seems like a good decision on retrospect. Why so?

It’s going to be difficult to attempt and write about Gurren Lagann without inevitably degenerating into one of those awestruck rants about its sense of monumental scale, as everything screams BIG, from a given character’s aspirations (”All the stars in the sky are enemies”), to the galaxy-flinging antics of the final episode, to the music (”Do the impossible”), but I’m going to try anyway.

Since my moments are inevitably memorable because they made me shed tears in varying degrees, you’d think it wouldn’t be hard to guess what I’m going to write about here. No, it wasn’t Kamina’s death, although its impact was felt several episodes later and ranks among the best, if not most defining death of 2007. It wasn’t Kittan’s death, which was sad but not tragic. It wasn’t even Nia’s fading away, despite that being a grand send-off for a character I initially had the impression of as being exposition tool/Simon pick-me-up.

It was a sunset. Not just any sunset, mind you, but the sunset first seen in episode 01 as Kamina, Simon, and Yoko break through the surface of Jeeha Village. That sunset was reproduced to amazing effect later in episode 21, and it’s this very scene that made me weep as much as, say, Kanata’s backstory in Lucky Star, or Jun’s farewell to Kana in Bokurano. I’m still wondering what hit me then.

this was pretty indicative of my state the last two weeks, sans alcohol

Even if it was in poor taste, you can’t deny that School Days had many great moments in its final episode. While we were all sure of Makoto getting his just deserts, the way in which it was done with a triple combo ensures that whatever you thought about the value of it, their respective ends were tinted with a macabre irony that even Jigsaw of Saw fame would approve of.

This is achieved through the copious amounts of schadenfreude amassed during the course of the story. We go from rooting for the generic male protagonist to get together with the girl he has a crush on to wanting to put the whole bloody lot out of their misery, and SD complies with this deliberately-induced death wish. It seems to me like SD came about as the result of the rise of reality TV in the 90s, and why not?

In an age where we’ve been accustomed to laughing at real people doing stupid and embarrassing things in front of the camera for our amusement and their tentative financial compensation, the idea of fictional people doing depraved and criminal acts for the sake of a few laughs (and compensation on behalf of the production house) seem tame in comparison. The way in which SD escalates into a downward spiral of misery will always be remembered — a slippery slope made flesh. The absolute worst-case scenario in which everything that could go wrong did.

Whenever I write an ef post I usually loop 5cm’s OST over and over again in the background in lieu of a proper ef soundtrack. Like a heroin addict taking methadone, it’s a poor substitute for the wonder of the real thing, but that just goes to show how highly I regard Tenmon for the magic he did in 5cm. The tracks do strike a common chord in terms of the aesthetic he employs, an enchanting and magical lyric that contrasts with the marked realism of ef and 5cm.

Byousoku changed me. I wouldn’t say it was a dramatic change like one would after a profound or disturbing revelation of sorts, but it changed how I looked at relationships, especially those of the type you take for granted in their “could-be” Schrodinger state. I say this due to there being a girl in my life right now that’s taken on an Akari-sque bent lately. I don’t know her all that well, yet I want to; the prospect of my going overseas to a college in the States next year made me think of this — as I wondered today if I should make the effort to draw myself just that little bit closer, I thought of Akari, and Kanae. Of never letting go. A distant person with his sights always fixed somewhere higher. The long-distance heartbreak, of which I’ve known once and would rather do without.

The title is an approximate translation of Kotomi’s oddly-named theme. Etude pour les petites supercordes, anyone? I’m wondering if it’s Flench, which makes it a distant cousin of Engrish, in addition to falling under Japan’s ranguage category. Or maybe it makes perfect sense in the context of string instruments since “cordes” apparently denotes that, to say nothing of how “study” in this case is meant to be a short performance piece of some sort, but I can’t really figure out the “little super strings” part.

Unlike Fuuko’s arc which held its cards closely to its chest and didn’t really let on what it was all about until after the SURPRISE REVELATION (which turned out to be nothing more than Key recycling an old idea), Kotomi’s arc shows its hand right from the start, albeit quietly amidst all the manzai comedy and lighthearted moments. It wasn’t the focus, to be sure, but the understated manner in which it was revealed caught my attention.

It’s also occurred to me recently as to what the dream world really is — hint: it starts with “a”, and has eight letters. I was pleased to find out after confirming with reliable sources that I was right, for the most part at least. Non-spoiler spoiler thoughts (yes, I am aware of the contradiction, but there are spoilers, and there are spoilers) about it after the cut, although if you had even the slightest amount of imagination and watch the OP animation as often as I do — which is every single time there’s a new episode — you could have figured it out already.

Then it’s all tears and drama. Two series with real — and by real here I mean being born to the exact same set of parents and sharing substantial genetic make-up — incest that I know of have all manner of hysteria in their veins. While I haven’t read or seen Angel Sanctuary and are therefore unable to personally vouch for that one, reading Koi Kaze moved me beyond measure for its realistic and uncomfortable portrayal of that six letter word which also happens to be a popular fetish.

Now, before anyone accuses me of being pro-incest, I find my sister as attractive as I do other men (hint: I am straight) and sympathise greatly with those afflicted by it in real life. Neither will you find me separating my future children from each other as they grow up during their formative years due to how the Westermarck effect and genetic sexual attraction provide scientific explanations as to why it happens.

You could say that incest and to a lesser degree, twincest, are as much a part of harem anime as the moe girls and other stock archetypes are. The pseudo-oniichan has been around for ages; I choose to bring this up due to how M;Y has been handling the subject matter this time around, and its subversion of what is an often used and abused trope means that the episode, in addition to resolving two sub-plots, also shone as a result of its excellence.

never was there a question of depth and importance

Or, black holes and revelations, which is my take on how Myself; Yourself is going to resolve itself. Trust Muse to know better. I read three dissenting opinions on M;Y today, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s an inevitable by-product of blurring the boundaries of the genres, which also means it absolves itself of any blame if that’s the case.

This season holds a record for most renai/visual novel/dating sim adaptations not behaving like a typical adaptation of its make should. There’s the excellent and emotive Clannad. The maligned yet deep ef. The vanilla and pristine kimikiss. M;Y differs in that the game will be released soon, making any comparisons to the source impossible. Unlike the other three, M;Y has an advantage for being devoid of any expectations whatsoever; unfortunately, this works for and against it.

Personally, as things stand right now I don’t see it attaining an outright good/bad consensus. Not like that’s a bad thing given how a lot of the best shows out there lack unanimous acclaim, or how lowest common denominators are usually the only means by which an anime attracts the most praise, but it’s not a good thing either. You could call it schizophrenic, indecisive, or bad planning. I prefer to use what might seem to be a misogynistic analogy.