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.

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.

ef - a tale of memories could very well be- no, it is the Lucky Star of Autumn. It’s easy to bash for reasons like “random visual crap”, “distracting”, “confusing”, and equally as easy to hate for the very same reasons, which are, by some coincidental measure, only skin-deep. I feel that ef has its share of detractors due to how they’re not exactly comfortable with its method of presentation, which is unorthodox; or it could be due to how it’s supervised by Akiyuki Shinbo (note: supervise is not the same as direct), who apparently has a track record of psychedelic and random shows under his belt, thus enforcing a placebo effect like “this has to be bad”, which is, ironically, the direct opposite of the reason why we’re all watching kimikiss (”this has to be good, it has Honey & Clover’s director working on it!”).

I think it’s too convenient to not think at all, deriding the style and ignoring the substance in order to push away another show conveniently, declaring that it’s the work of the anime devil etc. Style is not substance. Once I got past the initial weirdness that the show’s now infamous for, I finally realised that there was a method to the madness — if you could call it that — that was displayed by ef. Word is on the street that SHAFT’s being as faithful as KyoAni and it’s not their style, because it’s what was part of the original CG in the game.

How many of you noticed that the visuals only decide to go kaleidoscope when it’s any one of the three couples having protracted conversations together? No, you couldn’t have, I mean, no one’s watching this show anymore right? I owe this post to Mike of Anime Diet for his keen and shrewd Lit Student observations; in particular, his post about ef 03 finally made me see the light, for I was still floundering about trying to figure out the meaning behind it all. No thanks to him pointing me in the right direction I can indeed see what ef’s trying to do, and it’s a thing of beauty.

kimikiss pure rouge is turning out to be surprisingly realistic, thoroughly enjoyable, and almost Shinkai-sque in terms of endearment. I’ve come to the conclusion that the multiple main character approach employed is working for rather than against it, contrary to what I’ve heard: those who’ve played the game have reportedly been upset about the decision to split it rather than have the one guy go through all the girls before settling down with one like every other harem anime out there.

You know there’s something inexcusably wrong when fans would rather settle for an approach that’s been done to death and worn to bits so many times. Do we really have to settle for second-best just for the sake of adhering rigidly to the source’s structure? Not if the director of kimikiss has his way about it.

What I liked about this episode was how it’s finally revealing its hand, showing the way it’s playing out the theme of distance — not the tragic romance, almost idealistic, explored-to-death by Shinkai distance, but a distance much closer to home that we can all relate to; whether it’s the hesitant attraction of a shy couple, aloof and distant partners, or even a dream being lived out through another, it’s not a far stretch of the imagination, and I’m liking it.

What I mean by “the point of adaptations” isn’t “the point where adaptations start sucking”, but more of like “what is the point of adaptations?” After all, regardless of how good or bad an adaptation will be, you’ll always have the grassroots insisting on the superiority of the original. The fanbase is fickle and insatiable, which means most, if not all of the discussions will result in a discordant clamour of “YOU NEVER SAW HOW BRILLIANT THE MANGA WAS”, or “YOU’RE BIASED BECAUSE YOU READ IT FIRST”.

Which brings me to two shows, both brilliant manga in their own domains: Bokurano and Claymore. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to review the anime for both seeing how they’re both based off a manga; furthermore, I’ve only read the manga for Claymore, and only saw the anime adaptation of Bokurano. So I have two questions:

What can be really constituted as perception bias? How should an adaptation from its source material, be it a visual novel, manga, or light novel, be truly judged? I find these questions to be of utmost relevance especially in this Autumn season for the top-tier, or at least what I perceive as the fandom perceiving as top-tier anime, i.e. Clannad and Shana II, happen to be adaptations too.

Nanatsuiro Drops has been an unexpected joy to watch, for as far as I can remember when I finally got it, which was probably around the second episode. Looking past the girly girl fa�ade and what seemed like clich� magical girl trappings, it�s been, like the proverbial child molester, something that�s touched me again and again. Or I could just be waxing lyrical about what�s been advertised, as per its tagline, �First love that encompasses you�.

So this is also an eroge adaptation that I actually like wholeheartedly and unabashedly. It�s really surprising, considering that my views on them haven�t been too favourable, or maybe it�s just the limited sample size I�ve gotten my hands on so far. ND has everything going for it by not harping on the �first love� thing, instead choosing to build on emotions and situations that we can all relate to, and boy, has it been a ride. This is without a doubt, realistic idealism at its best.

In my idealist world of adaptations, movies like the abomination that was the Death Note live action would never exist. It was good as a movie for movie’s sake, but not good enough for my higher standards. Neither was it a case of source material fan bias — for what it’s worth, the only thing an adaptation should do is contain the essence of the original, the brilliance that made people sit up and gape in wonder, and this is where the Death Note movie didn’t work for me.

If it isn’t obvious already, neither did the Honey and Clover movie. Sitting down to watch it with a small group of close friends, I viewed it again through the eyes of a newcomer to Chika Umino’s colourful little world. Yes, it’s very pretty, but what does it do? A convoluted, dizzying effort that tried to cram in the heartbreak of 36 episodes or 10 volumes, which just didn’t seem right to me. Maybe it’s the cynical bias, but I’ll leave that to you to decide.

The latest reply to sethjohnson is one of the longest yet.

“I musn’t run away! I musn’t run away!”

Also, if any of you are interested in more debate, expect late replies. Sorry bettynoire, I had quite a bit to say about what you did but sethjohnson’s comment piqued my interest more, and all the words have run away, and I’ve got a sore throat plus mild fever and need sleep. That is all.

I’ve always loved Honey & Clover for being emotionally honest. The concept of the term “emotional honesty”, if it doesn’t exist in some capacity out there already, would be defined as the ability of the viewer to connect with the range of emotions portrayed by the character(s) on-screen — due to how the emotions portrayed are genuine and indeed representative of real life in some capacity.

Choosing to justify a critique of eroge after watching two Key adaptations seems like a reasonable decision to me, and here’s why: Kanon and Air have been held in high regard as the basic of basics, something no self-respecting otaku should go without watching in their lifetime. They are arguably the most well-known and popular of eroges, having met with critical and commercial success; more importantly, the focus isn’t about the sex alone.

I finished Air. After watching two out of four key Key works I feel a take on the genre would be appropriate so watch out for a hopefully extensive critique on the visual novel as a genre in the next two, three, maybe five days — in addition to that, I should be reading Planetarian after my exams (I keep on thinking “Planetes” for some reason) and I can’t wait for Clannad to air next season, if everything goes as planned.

the summer specials obviously weren’t about fanservice.

While we’re on the topic, let’s not forget how comparing what was meant to be an hour-long (perhaps one and a half, two?) play to a television series adaptation spanning a likely 26 episodes, is ridiculous. I mean, ridiculous on a scale of comparing all twelve volumes of Death Note to the two 45+ minute movie adaptations and gnashing your teeth while going “THEY TOTALLY SHAFTED THE FANS, I WANT MY MELLO/NEAR/OBSCURE SIDE CHARACTER/ANIME-EXCLUSIVE YAOI FOOT WASHING SCENE”. So let’s not get into that.

Since we’re going for the jugular, why not stop too with the Gonzo bashing for a second to realise that, shock and horror: judging an anime based on its predecessors’ performance, and the animation studio responsible for said predecessors, is pretty dumb. No, maybe exceedingly blind is a better way of putting it. If you thought the KyoAni fans were bad enough, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a victim of shoddy plot, form over function, exceedingly short-sighted expectations, and jaded cynicism — the Gonzo hater.

I insist on coming clean about this: till a week ago I was one of those elitist bastards who wouldn’t touch eroge adaptations even if you paid me. Well, alright, maybe I would, but I always had a prejudice against them. Point being? The concept of eroges/visual novels/dating sims didn’t appeal to me at all. To put it crudely, they always seemed to me like a Japanese amalgam of Choose Your Own Adventure and Mills & Boon. It was that bad.

The logic behind the aversion? Pretty simple — it was how sex and a decent story were mutually exclusive. Or how the sex always came first and the story second. Oh, don’t tell me — they made the story first and then tried to cram in the sex later. I can imagine it already, some overweight, middle-aged salaryman looking over the shoulder of his Chinese sweatshop programmer, going “What do you MEAN they can’t have sex now?” Assuming then, that the eroge is in all respects created from the ground up with equal allowance to both sex and story doesn’t make it any better — just less pathetic, like comparing a home-made porno to a professional one.