Oppai no Ouja
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Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: 2005
Episode Length/Run-time: 31 Chapters
Summary:
This manga is about a high school boy, Kurosawa, who likes to imagine the girls in his class and “punish” them while he masterbates in the girl’s bathroom stall. He keeps up his “daily activities” until one day he is caught…
Review:
Kakeru Kurosawa is a boy that likes to masterbate in the girls bathroom. He calls this activity his “daily meal” or “daily activities”. He recalls things that occured during the day that irritated him during class he “punishes” the people involved in the bathroom and relieves his stress. Kurosawa learns that a girl in the class, Kitahara is horribly bullied by the girls in the class. He gets back at one of the girls by gizzing on her clothes. Later, one day Kitahara finds out that he is doing this and she decides to blackmail him into helping her repay the bullies that torment her. She forces him to gizz on peoples gym clothes, text books, or other stuff.
Some people have drawn connections between this manga and deathnote; the “outside in the society attitude” which stems from the fact that Kurosawa is kind of a loner, the kind of person you might think is a serial killer. In addition, he deals “justice” inside the fantasies in his head. He does this while jerking it instead of writing names in a notebook. Also, lots of inner monologues for Kurosawa. However, Kurosawa is a more believeable more mentally stable version of Kira from Death Note.
The plotline of the story takes several phases. There is phase one where Kurosawa is doing a lot of his secret “daily activities” . The story gets very dark after his secret is discovered as the things that the girl, Kitahara, wants him to do get progressively worse and worse. Kurosawa eventually confesses to his deeds and becomes a pariah in his class. Still, taking responsibility actually helps him find friendship and leads to him acting much more socially open. This actually making him a much more decent character. As you might suspect of a manga with so many inner monologues, the development is, believe it or not, actually done suprisingly well, because you do start to sympathize with Kurosawa and he eventually becomes a likeable character. At this point, he is also drawn much more wide-eyed and friendlier looking, which is a nice touch. Then there is the love story aspect to the show. Kurosawa recovers, finds love in an unexpected place and also becomes a hero figure.
This is a great manga. Do not be turned off by the seemingly perverted storyline. The story is much deeper than this and at only 31 chapters is an easy, quick read.
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Alternate Titles: ONE OUTS – Nobody wins, but I!
Original Japanese Release Date: October 7th, 2008
Episode Length/Run-time: 25
Summary:
A show that combines gambling with baseball. Hiromichi Kojima, a star player for the Lycaons, meets a pitcher who is known as the undisputed king of gambling. This man, Toua Tokuchi, is the owner if a very difficult to hit 83 mile per hour fastball. Kojima gets Toua to join to Lycaons but only under certain special conditions made with the owner of the team. Toua gets 5,000,000 yen for every out he pitches, but loses 50,000,000 yen for every run he gives up.
Review:
Here is an interesting show. A sports anime that really isn’t about the sports at all! There is the action aspect to the show, true, but unlike many other testosterone packed action sports shows like Major and Hajime no Ippo (not that theres anything wrong with it because those are two of the greatest sports anime out there), this show is a chess match between the owner of the Lycoans and the pitcher Toua. During the course of this show, the owner does all sorts of things to sabotage Toua’s RBI of 0. It’s truly a sight to see the efforts that the two go through to deceive each other.
Part of me feels like this anime is very cultural. There are several reasons for this but one of the primary reasons is the gambling itself. As you may or not know, gambling is illegal in Japan. As such, the show focuses on a taboo cultural aspect of Japan’s society. For this reason, some might consider this a social commentary.
Finally, the art and animation of the show is wonderful. There is even a bit of bishounen fan service in there for all of the ladies. The characters are brightly drawn and have very unique designs, something I find to be fairly routine for sports anime. The music I was a little less enthused about. As I write this, I cannot remember what the theme songs sounds like.
All in all, this is a show I recommend to many people. Certainly all men will enjoy this anime and even a select handful of women as well. I know Chiaki enjoyed this anime just as much as I did and so I would likely widely recommend it, especially for its unique delivery.
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Alternate Titles: Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, 魔術士オーフェン
Original Japanese Release Date: 24
Episode Length/Run-time: 1998
Summary:
The tower of fang is the most prestigious school of magic in all the land. Orphen wears the seal of the tower of fang and despite being one of the most promising scorers the school has ever seen he left the school to chase after a dragon known as the Bloody August. But what link does Orphen have with the dragon? And what link does the dragon have with a woman named “Azile?” Orphen sets out with the Sword of Balthanders, the only sword said to be able to break the curse, along with Cleao the sword’s owner and Majic his apprentice to put an end to the Bloody August.
Review:
Orphen is a hard one for me, because it’s so dear to my heart. It was one of the first anime I set out to buy and watch in full rather than just watching it on TV. That being said, I’ll try to remain unbiased as possible.
Orphen is one of your standard fairytale stories. Though that’s almost refreshing in this day in age of moe and high-school everything. It has most things which you find in your classic fantasy: dragons, wizards, magic swords, relics, masked men, a misunderstood evil, and more. The story is simple but that’s not always a bad thing. It only becomes bad because the anime ends up relying on filler to progress. It could likely be cut down to a 12 episode series and be perfect. Unfortunately it does seem to drag at times, and there’s a lot of mini arcs and excursions the characters go on that you end up asking “what was the point of that?”
The characters are lovable though. Majic is your standard innocent idiot kid. Orphen is a badass. And Cleao is the head-strong girl who ends up getting herself into trouble because she thinks she can take on the world. Two other characters are Volcan and Dorton, minor characters really there for comic relief but they’re pretty good at that. Definitely worth a few chuckles.
What really redeems this anime is that it takes an unexpected and dark twist toward the end. Which was very surprising as a viewer.
It’s about your average anime. The music and animation is dated now, and despite being painfully simple it does have a lot of charm to it, especially if you’re someone like me and are into fantasy.
I will say though, NEVER touch the second season. It’s a steaming pile…
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