sadly, a couple of token appearances just didn’t cut it

The following are a bunch of shows that wouldn’t really fit anywhere else, or stuff that I got lazy of thinking of categories to pigeonhole them in, and therefore making this quite the mixed bag. Some might say I already ruined the whole category thing by throwing in Blue Drop there with my previous post. I digress. With this are reviews of Shugo Chara, Bamboo Blade, Moyashimon, and Ghost Hound.

Shugo Chara! was an embarrassing affair, a show that I found a whole lot more engaging and entertaining than its intended audience, i.e. my little sister, found it to be. Maybe the magic didn’t really work, pun unintended, because she wasn’t as familiar with Japan’s school life, acting nonchalant for the most part, not laughing where I expected her to, or being as interested overall like I was.

For the record, my sister turns 12 mid-December. Yours truly turns 21 late November. What this all really means is that my liking for the show isn’t unlike the horde of male otaku during the recent Shugo Chara event. Although I’m pretty confident that my fondness for the show stems from more than just a fetish with creepy undertones, of which I don’t have, in case you were wondering.

This was inspired by the slew of StrikerS episodes (18-24) that yesy decided to release this whole month. Naturally, the idea for a dialogue came to mind due to the mind-blowing, epic quality of said episodes, so I got introspect of transientem and Roxas of a stone and a small ripple to talk about our favourite White Devil.

There should be two other dialogue threads by both Roxas and introspect after this one; part of why I wanted to do this dialogue thing was the lack of attention and/or bad publicity that StrikerS has been getting from the anime blogosphere as a whole. The only blogs talking about them are the episode summary ones, and not a lot of them at that.

I hope to get people thinking with this series of dialogues: are the reasons they’re disliking StrikerS reasonable or sound by any definition? What is the Nanoha series all about? Has the latest instalment in the series really been sucking, or is it just the obtuse English-speaking anime fanbase and their kneejerk reaction to something new? With regards to the last question, I’ve always regarded the latter as being the case, but I digress. On with the discussion.

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.

Numerous spoilers after the cut.

You knew this was coming. Come on. Come on. Only the weak chicken out after a few episodes of “boring” training. I don’t know, maybe the Time-Space Administration Bureau could have invented something called the Amplifying Rapid Growth Hormone during the 10 year timeskip, thus enabling the possibility of an epic battle like Nanoha A’s in the second episode?! The first episode, obviously, would have our four young ones being injected with said ARGH.

It would’ve been lame, though, to see battle after battle at the beginning without any reason to care for the characters’ beam spam and transformation scenes. As a result of the especially long and, according to some quarters, difficult episodes where NOTHING HAPPENS, people began to whine. The only other feasible option would have to be putting the training scenes in flashbacks during the battles, but who wants to see Teana thinking about the time she got her ass kicked by Nanoha for fudging up a battle session right in the middle of war when you can see it first-hand?

I know I wouldn’t. As a result of all that getting to know the new cast during the 10-odd episodes so far, the few battles so far have been gripping. It says something when you cheer silently or burst into loud exclamations at what’s happening on-screen, not because you’re being noisy, but because you care about the characters and what might or might not happen to them. This is also why the battles in Harry Potter 7 were the best ever — it wasn’t so much the writing as it was what was at stake. Anyone could die and faced a very real possibility of being snuffed out as you turned the page.

Been ages since my last StrikerS post, but that’s got nothing to do with how I found the Teana-emo arc immensely entertaining. Yeah, if it isn’t apparent already, I’m not one of those whiners who constantly rag on StrikerS for being “boring”, because it’s been gaining considerable momentum, and what better way to get things going than to remind the viewers of its roots with episodes 07 to 09? I still stick by my prediction of no proper action till the halfway mark.

Of course it isn’t a real arc per se, I’m just sayin’. I mentioned returning to its roots because the past three episodes were marked by a not-too-obvious return to the emotional side of things, which originally was all about Nanoha wanting to befriend the shit out of her enemies. Only that this time the cast has been doing mostly nothing but training and all that administrative crap since StrikerS began, interspersed with two short battles. How’s there a back to basics then?

Late Nanoha fan here. Think it was the beginning of this year or around November last, when I kept on seeing a recurring face among the posts of /a/. Some hushed whispers about it being QUALITY, and there was all manner of Photoshopped pictures on blogs everywhere. After awhile I couldn’t stand it and decided to get the two seasons to see what the fuss was all about. It reminded me of Cardcaptor Sakura, what with the magical staffs and all.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Nanoha is the type of series that comes along ever so often and reinvents the genre wheel. The tag “post-mahoushoujo” comes to mind, because, like Touhou, the stigma that once came along with adoration of little girls with magical powers — it’s all gone now. Well, maybe the little girl part still is stigmatized, but it’s generally okay nowadays for a young adolescent male to go about singing praises of an anime rooted in the series.