This is another Anime Blogging Collective� joint blogging effort brought to you by TheBigN, Roxas, CCYoshi, Moogy, Damien, and Martin. As ef is the Lucky Star of the season in that it’s a severely misunderstood anime that’s getting bad press due to badly written, snap judgement opinions that prefer to brand it the misunderstood problem child from a couple of episodes, we thought that a feature like this was severely overdue.

If you haven’t started on this gem of an anime, now would be a great time to do so. A note of interest would be that the seemingly random images only appear for 10% of the time in the first two episodes, before dipping to about 5% in episode 03 and further dropping to non-existent amounts on consecutive episodes. I’ve heard people comment on ef getting better, but it isn’t merely my opinion when I say that it was always good.

I say this on the strength of rewatching the entire series up till episode 06 so far; it’s evidently an anime that’s intended to be viewed more than once. You could say it’s a flaw in that the first two episodes are incoherent on a first viewing but make perfect sense when viewed later, but I’d rather look at it as a strength. It’s undeniably ambitious and artsy in its own idiosyncratic way, but powerfully executed, only underwhelming due to its extensive usage of what seem like red herrings in the beginning, and I hope that this series of posts will clear the air on that, enhancing your enjoyment of the show as a result.

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.

What is �deep�, for starters? Some of my other fellow bloggers, like Martin, Bateszi, TheBigN, Higevs, Hidoshi, and Impz might be able to tell you more about it. There�s a thousand and one ways with regards to how one might go about the issue if one were so inclined as to play the semantics card. Personally, though, what with my distaste for such time-wasting matters and my forte being in English and all, I think it�d be best to assume the dictionary definition.

However, even Dictionary.com has a plethora of definitions as to what exactly makes up the word �deep�. Without context in place, it could mean �grave or serious�, �heartfelt; sincere�, �absorbing; engrossing�, �great in measure; intense; extreme�, or even �profoundly cunning or artful�, were I to choose to apply �deep� with regards to Darker than Black�s literary and artistic value.

Unfortunately, for the sake of sanity (and discussion, I might add), the only definition available that fits would be �not superficial; profound�. Why do I choose to pick on this series of all things, you ask, when I could be extolling the virtues of anime in general or adopting a macro view? I believe that some, if not all of those doing this joint blogging exercise with me are more than up to the task, so I�ll leave it to them for that.

About this double-feature with Impz over at THAT Anime Blog: For those of you not in the know, there’s all manner of bloggers, about 20 give or take, that can be found over at #animeblogger @ irc.irchighway.net on a fairly regular basis. Now the average age in the channel is anywhere from late teens to early twenties, and naturally, when you put a group of people with that median age together in a space for prolonged periods, fun stuff happen — it’s like a younger, self-absorbed Survivor in action, but with more e/n and angst thrown into the mix.

The topic of elitism came about due to my being bored and wanting to spice things up a little bit. Much like Lelouch and his Order of the Black Knights, I wanted to see how easy it was to bring about revolution discussion, albeit in a very roundabout way, regarding the topic, and what better way to start then by applying the label to myself? Unfortunately, I rubbed all of two people the wrong way in the process, and this is where the fun began.