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.

When introspect made that observation about Darker than Black being the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop, he knew what he was talking about. Come on, I can hear the purists say, there’s no way you can match that. I clearly beg to differ. Tensai Okamura, original creator and director of DtB, had quite a hand in CB, being involved in both the TV series and movie. There’s the composer for both, Yoko Kanno. Most of all, DtB and CB share a potent sense of pathos.

DtB overtakes this by a mile, and then some. It’s never really quite clear why or how it makes me feel the way I do, but it’s something that can’t be described through mere words alone — a common understanding is all I can hope to achieve. Whether it’s the harsh green of the cityscape, lights gleaming coldly in the distance, or the sense of immeasurable pain that Hei’s holding back, or the little revelations that made me gasp in silence before biting my lip, it’s all there, and it’s been a gut-wrenching affair.

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.

If there was one fault I could attribute to the first season now that it’s all over, it would have to be the cliffhangers, assuming that while some cliffhangers are indeed faults, not all faults are cliffhangers. One day on IRC amidst the usual verbal diarrhoea TJ of Riuva fame wondered aloud if Code Geass was the pinnacle of mecha anime, and although his statement was buried in a deluge of anal statements shortly after it got me thinking.

the first rule of parody fanart is that Lucky Star makes anything funny

To begin with, it’s short-sighted to compare Code Geass to Evangelion when talking about the pinnacle of mecha, which would be like comparing the proverbial apples to oranges. This stems from the two subsets present within the mecha genre, of which I’ll name Symbiote and Vehicle respectively:

There’s been a smile on my face this morning ever since the last few minutes of StrikerS 12, and it lasted all the way till breakfast and two episodes of Gigantic Formula; think of it like Lelouch triumphant in his Gawain, or Light grinning in his helicopter, both wearing rictuses of victory. It’s immensely gratifying to know that your predictions were spot on all the while, this being a midway assessment of sorts for three series, namely Nanoha StrikerS, Gigantic Formula, and Darker than Black.

What Author says here regarding recommendations would be valid and applicable, surely, for those like him or Steven, especially the latter, who regards watching anime as a gamble, a potential investment in terms of time and money. The thing is that, having an abundance of the former and by no means requiring the latter, it’s not really applicable to me, which means I personally don’t ask around that much regarding a potential anime that I might want to watch.

But we’ve been there with regards to the subject of taste, haven’t we? Judging from initial appearances is something I’m deign to do, although there are exceptions to that rule, naturally. While Spring ‘07 brought along with it an excellent selection of anime, it’s a pity there wasn’t a whole lot of critical opinion accompanying it, for as far as these three go it’s sad to see how those who shun them have been doing so for the wrong reasons.

Going through a period of chronic exhaustion while forcing myself to write this post hasn’t exactly been pleasant thanks to my lack of knowledge about Claymore itself — but that all fell away when I finally decided to read all 12 volumes of the manga yesterday morning. Fun times.

I came away from the aftermath shaken, not stirred. The clock said 6:00AM. Do I have any regrets about “spoiling” the story now that I know what’s going to happen in the anime? Maybe just a little. As far as I’m concerned, though, it’s all for the best, as it was an enjoyable experience, to say nothing of how it won’t be as hard to write about it from now on. Largely spoiler-free.

not a coincidence, really (click for full size)

I read 19 volumes of it yesterday. It’s nice to revisit what I’ve been proclaiming (to anyone who’ll listen) as the “best shounen series ever”, and by “shounen series” I mean of the fighting type. I went off on a tangent on BATESZI’s poll in his blog about it until I realised he was talking about anime specifically, and I’ve only read the manga for that.

Also, some insight into Darker than Black 09 and 10 after the cut. Questions raised include “is sudo better than Shinsen in subbing?” (protip: the answer is No for quality, a half-hearted Yes for speed), and “what is Hei’s obeisance, anyway?” (the answer might be more obvious than previously thought).

hey guys, I think Lucky Star isn’t that great, yet I’m going to make deadpan posts week after week detailing how funny or unfunny this week’s episode was! and I’m cool that way! I’m also constantly sleep-deprived, and WUI- wait, wrong blog.

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?

About the title. This is to save some of you the effort of reading through this: there isn’t any, at least not with respects to Code Geass — if you’re one of those who think it is, excuse me while I pause to laugh and make fun of your crap anime that you think is superior to it, like Gravitation or Sister Princess, Loveless or Ichigo 100%. You can press Ctrl+W now.

To those of you who’re reading on, well, I loved it. What can I say? While my eyes were suffering towards the end (like yours would too if you’d watch 23 episodes over three days), my mind was revelling in the sheer quality of it all. As I mentioned previously I loved the unoriginal premise — an unsubtle blend of Gundam SEED and Death Note. Kira (Yamato) + Kira, anyone? It’s more likely than you think!

This has been a week of surprises. Claymore 03 was great, and I guess I shouldn’t have compared Clare to good ol’ Abel Nightroad back then, but hindsight is 20/20. So Abel was an all-or-nothing guy who wasn’t in any real danger throughout because he was only using 40% of his power whenever he got his ass kicked, and when he wasn’t kicking ass with 80% nanomachines he was getting killed.

I kinda wish every anime blogger out there did this, and not the usual “oh, the pilot sucked, that must mean the whole series must automatically suck, too! opinions! words! el oh el!” that accompanies the beginning of every season*. Snap judgements — I don’t know why we even bother with them, really. The whole point of first impressions would be to get a general feel of the show, not the next 12 or 25 episodes that are going to air, but that’s why lolikit’s contemplating doing a Shinji right now by running away on us. Bastard.

Claymore’s apparently scheduled for 50 episodes, and I’m torn on whether to follow something that doesn’t suck in theory, but doesn’t really do anything for me either, in practice. I’ve heard that it gets better as the manga goes on, but fifty? With a chance that it might get better because they didn’t want to get you into the plot at the very beginning? It’s a pity, but I guess it can’t be helped given the number of volumes they’ve got to adapt.

An issue I have with Claymore is that it reeks of a certain vampire anime some time ago, that had a major failure of an ending due to the writer of the light novels dying, God bless his soul — the medieval setting only makes it worse because while the amalgam of steampunk and post-apocalypse tech in Trinity Blood was at least made refreshing since there was a power balance, medieval just cries out SHOUNEN DYNAMICS due to the sole dependence on physical power, which means a lot of fighting, losing, training, and then winning before losing again to a new challenger. Rinse, repeat.

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.

…your latest gift to mankind, and we thank you. The episode’s moment came for me when Hei confronted Rui on the rooftop during the opening sequence — post-rock, in my anime soundtracks? You’ve come so far since your early days, and while Solid State Society was only last year, oh boy. Have we missed you.

I’ve always been a fanboy. Always, and almost all of it — The Vision of Escaflowne’s majestic classical compositions; Cowboy Bebop’s flightly jazz; GITS:SAC’s dystopian electronica; Wolf Rain’s melancholy acoustics. It was like the music drove the series to excellence, not merely supported it. Or maybe she’s been approached by more discerning studios who knows just what it is that their anime needs (definitely not Yuki “My-Compositions-All-Sound-Alike” Kajiura). I’d like to think she has a waiting list and that she can actually pick and choose, because I can’t picture her doing harem or slice of life.