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Saturday, April 11, 2009

First Impressions #3: Eden of the East

Jason Bourne is fond of dick waving

Seriously, this show is really the core of this season's line-up, well at least for me. We got something ripped out of a Jason Bourne film plus an unlikely duo and a missile attack at the end. That must be some serious plot-planting right from the outset. Seems serious to me, but this first episode is comical enough to be watched without a political mind (*shanrgri-la*Cough*) .

I liked the flow of the first ep. It had balanced character development, action and the producers even got English speaking dudes to voice American characters, though neglecting to explain why they can understand Japanese. Oh well, the characters are interesting enough, but Jason Bourne looks and acts too much like this lazy bum from Honey and Clover. The girl is innocent looking, but she "secretly" likes looking at his dick, though she just tries to hide it by making her eyes look like saucers and turning into SD mode. In short, we got this dick-waving amnesiac terrorist and his unwilling but now willing sidekick who considers him as her prince. Wow. The romance. How blatantly obvious, but mysteriously interesting as well.

The OP animation was great, english lyrics by a has-been band from the 90's. The words superimposed on the animation screen reminds me of a crossbreed between Ergo Proxy's OP and the first ED of Nana.. I tell you, those words enhance the expressiveness of the animation itself.

You can bet on me blogging this until it ends. Well, wasn't that the plan anyway?

Stay tuned.













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posted by Thingle at 4:39 AM | 6 Comments

Thursday, April 9, 2009

First Impressions #2: Ristorante Paradiso 1 & 2

Where characters look just as good frowning

Heh, this show reeks of old Italian men fetish. Whenever I think of Italy, I think really sexy cars, but this is all about an Italian cafe staffed by old "gentlemen" and patronized by MI(don't)LF's who get wet whenever they are served by the geezers (think maid cafes', but reverse the gender role). We got this young feisty heroine who essentially uses her mother's "little secret" to her own advantage while acclimatizing to Italian life and falls for one of the old farts in the process that she even tried to femrape him but to no avail.

I would say that this is close to what I expected before any episodes aired. I kinda expected an introspective slice of life heavy on dialouge, and good enough, I got a slice-of-life with heavy dialouge plus some odd fetishes and a really likable heroine. The story's interesting enough to follow through until the end, but the art is just decent. Passable, average, flat at times and the only thing that stood out was Nicoletta's face. Somehow, she looks better pouting than smiling. There's something in that face that makes it so.

One more thing, fuck crunchyroll. Fuck their region exclusivity. Fuck licensors in America trying to affect those who are not in places where their licenses take effect. Long live file sharing. Long live torrents. Long live fucking Megaupload, Rapidshare, Filefactory, Mediafire and every fucking free filehosting site on the planet. Leave Crunchyroll, that verdammt hell hole, to 10 year old narutards who ask their mommies for the latest headgear.

Stay tuned.























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posted by Thingle at 9:14 PM | 4 Comments

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

First Impression: Valkyria Chronicles - 01 and K-ON! -01

Disclaimer: If I blogged the first episode that doesn’t mean that I’ll stick to it. It’s just that I want to give shows a chance before saying that they sucked.

Valkyria Chronicles - 01

Impression:
It has a good opening episode and good production value. My only rant is how they did the shadowing but I’ve got to complement the way they made the CG tanks because I think it was nicely done. The characters seems likeable especially Alicia’s character because of her very expressive face. On the other hand Welkin is such an idiot and his sister, Isara, looks like the weak type but reliable. The OP and the ED song didn’t impress me yet but maybe I can learn to like it as the series progresses just like the songs of Toradora!. The ED song complements the cute ED sequence. I smell a possible love interest in Welkin and Alicia. Marina Inoue really did a good job in voicing Alicia because I can feel the emotions of the characters because of the effective voice acting. I think the show seems promising ‘cause I think A-1 Picture Inc. did a good job with the production. I know it’s still early to say that the production value is good but I’m really impressed. I think I’ll be sticking with this show till the end.

K-ON! - 01

Impression:
The animation in this series is different than the animation of the previous KyoAni titles. When the head moves a little the hair moves with exaggeration. Even the hands are very animated with much detail with the exchange of sacrificing the animation of the background, an unusual approach in terms of animation for KyoAni. I think it has a very decent debut episode and it gives us hints on what to expect for future episodes. The OP is decent but nothing special even the OP sequence. I liked the ED song better and the animation sequence that goes with it, it’s like a music video. I’m liking the character of Mio and also Ritsu because Mio makes cute faces while Ritsu is cool especially when playing drums. I think I’ll continue watching this but I don’t think I’ll blog it since I’m more interested blogging Valkyria Chronicles than this.

Until then..
~ja

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posted by Unknown at 2:21 PM | 3 Comments

Last Impressions #1: Phantom:Requiem for the phantom

Ein(s), Zwei? Wo ist nummer drei?

I'm having a nasty fever after a really nice weightlifting day, so I just sat all day in front of the computer, drinking gallon after gallon of water, ate a lot of protein and pissed and shit it off all day. I had nothing to do so I took a watch and boy, this anime is the definition of mediocre. We get this generic assassin A and B story, generic mobs and generic invincible adolescents. It's Noir all over again, this time, with crappy animation and shit like that plus that funny German code names. So, I've decided. I won't be blogging this anymore. I may watch the few succeeding episodes and may change my mind, I thought that doing 5 entries a week would be too tedious for me, as proven by last season's performance.

Therefore, I'll still do the other four and the next post will be about Ristorante Paradiso, Eden of the East or both.

Stay tuned.

posted by Thingle at 3:05 AM | 3 Comments

Monday, April 6, 2009

First Impressions #1 Natsu no Arashi and Shangri-la

Of Mary Sues', puberty and the female body

So the first episodes of the new season have arrived, and I am quite optimistic about the two series'.

Natsu no Arashi

This is a hodgepodge of magical girls, boys in raging puberty, boobs, uniforms and some comedy and sci-fi elements in it, but the way the first episode was executed was pretty tight. At first, I thought that this was just another failed experiment but the time travel stuff sewn the events together. Natsu no Arashi had one seriously funny episode, but I think that they must develop the story more, as this kind of humor is the one that grows old the fastest. If people aren't careful, it may turn into another Minami-ke. Basically, there are 2 things to avoid, 1) relying on comedy and 2) relying on boobs.

The character designs are messed up. The 13 year old looks like a kid while the girls look mature for their age. Yeah! boobs! but nevermind












Shangri-la

Ever wonder about this thing called global warming, and how those nations who fucked this planet up during the industrial revolution (and are continuing to do so today) are now washing their hands by singing the environmental song and demanding growing economies such as ours to back off the carbon use? Fuck 'em!, right? Well, the series is all about the politics of a global carbon tax (pegged on a who-knows-what currency irrespective of PPP), so let's watch.

Set in a country devastated by climate change. Shangri-la's hero is a cool Mary Sue in the mold of Rin Ogata minus her charisma. She's a carefree teenager like Rin, but lacks the charm to really attract the audience to her side. As of now, all I know is she's the presumed heir of some organization involved in the maipulation of the carbon market.

Anyway, the heroine herself is unimportant at this point, so let me elaborate more on the carbon issue. The series supposes a world where one's carbon emissions are paid for, and different factions profit from this. It must've sucked, eh? The very idea of paying for your emissions is bad enough, but for people to use it as a tool to profit, knowing well that only G7-esque nations are able to afford that cost is enraging (How about emerging economies?). Maybe Al Gore sheeple and Earth Hour nuthuggers like the idea, but I don't. This series might be opposed to it too, as indicated by the hero's actions. But one thing's for sure, ep2 will be covered!

Stay tuned.










posted by Thingle at 4:25 PM | 7 Comments