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.

There’s been more of that “balanced” talk around this season more than any other this year given how the harem/bishoujo shows have a strong showing, and for that reason alone I decided to dedicate a post to four shows in said genre, namely Myself;Yourself, Blue Drop, Kimikiss Pure Rouge, and ef.

My reasons for watching harem are twofold: Firstly, the networking aspect. I’ll never write off entire genres by virtue of common sense and not wanting to be like the other bloggers whom, despite not being entirely sound in their reasoning, I read to keep me grounded in terms of bias, and not wanting to preach to the converted. It also helps me keep in touch with other excellent bits of writing I wouldn’t be able to understand fully otherwise, like harem overlord CCYoshi or super siscon Stripey.

Secondly, it’s a motivation out of academic vested interest. Like how I won’t really be able to appreciate Nanoha for being a mix of the shounen and mahou shoujo genres if I haven’t had prior experience with both, so does harem and bishoujo help me appreciate Shana for being a mix of shounen and harem. While it’s convenient, I don’t think I have to settle for second-best while trying to go about being acquainted with what the genre has to offer, so here’s an initial assessment of what Autumn’s got to offer.

The title is a bad pun on how a lot of bloggers are dumb this time of the year (i.e. first impressions posts) by dissing a lot of stuff they watch, only to reluctantly say they love it at the end of the season, or something. As bj0rn has said, tsundere boners. See Lucky Star for more details. Also, after watching the first episode of Clannad I found out an interesting bit of trivia:

[03:47:15] <+Moogy> fun fact
[03:47:21] <+Moogy> sunohara has more lines than any other character in the game
[03:47:23] <+Moogy> by a wide margin
[03:47:26] <saturnine> …
[03:47:37] <saturnine> and you don’t get an ending with him
[03:47:38] <saturnine> ;[
[03:47:42] <+Moogy> lol you do
[03:47:44] <saturnine> rofl WTF
[03:47:44] <+Moogy> he has his own path
[03:47:47] <saturnine> YAOI END?
[03:47:50] <saturnine> HOMO END?
[03:47:53] <+Moogy> (romance is not involved)

They probably adopt a kid or something, since it’s about family, after all.

A graph first, before anything:

After much delay and procrastination, I finished sola since it was beginning to seem clear to me that Doremi wasn’t interested getting out a release any time soon. It was a rough journey, surely. While it wasn’t the type of anime I’d look back and cringe at for having wasted X hours of my life on (that dubious honour goes to Bokura ga Ita and the Death Note movies), it definitely belongs in the category of “could have been way better”.

I don’t claim to know what makes an anime good. I know what makes an anime good, and it’s definitely not about pandering to the salivating group of moe fanboys that, by some measure of coincidence, have substantial purchasing power. “Good”, of course, is defined as being in reference to my standards, (because I have them! a shocking concept, surely) and it’s just too sad to say that sola, with respects to those standards, weren’t really up to par.

The trainwreck that I thought was sola apparently isn’t. If it manages to keep up its pace there’s even the chance it might escape with a few medium-to-deep cuts and severe bruising, but it made me wait for nine episodes. Made me wait for 9 episodes. That’s as long as 216 minutes. And that’s terrible.

My worst fears about it were confirmed, though — this isn’t a rehash of Kanon alone. It’s like the writer decided to steal elements from both Air and Kanon in order to make what he thought was the grandest mashup ever, only it took the worst possible parts from both, which resulted in something shitty beyond belief. Until recently, that is.

I don’t know what’s worse, really — finding out that a show you thought sucked actually becomes quite decent a few episodes later on, or realizing that the promising premise that a show kicks off with was nothing but smoke and mirrors. After watching sola 02 & 03 I think it’s developing into one of the latter, and I might be wrong, as I was before, but this definitely looks like Harem For Dummies.

my eyes were doing a Limp Bizkit at this point. you know, ROLLING ROLLING ROLLING.

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.

This is sad — no subs for Hitohira that aren’t in worthless XviD/mkv form (i.e. all subbers doing double mkv releases need to learn XviD/avi, because it’s redundant and obtuse to have different codecs in the same containers). Neither is anyone doing Kaze no Shoujo Emily, which is sad considering the number of groups swarming over Claymore, Lucky Star, and Gurren-Lagann, all of which don’t really need more than one group subbing it. Especially Gurren-Lagann, because all the groups subbing them totally, utterly suck for not producing something in avi that doesn’t fail miserably.

Mini rant aside, I finally got around to seeing sola, Lovely Complex, and THE MEXICAN GUNS, I mean, El Cazador de la Bruja, which is an mouthful for something that really doesn’t live up to its name, whatever that means — but I’ll get around to that later. The other two were sort-of nice, which isn’t that much considering what they’re up against this season, although it’s pretty decent for wasting time in-between waiting.

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.