The Addicts discuss the characters that they hate! Also, discussion the new Spring 2010 anime lineup.
Reviews: Fushigi Yuugi, .hack//Legend of the Twilight
Impressions: Arakawa Under the Bridge, Kiss x Sis, Hetalia World Series, Ookiku Furikabutte, Heroman
In this episode we discuss the anime cliche’s we just cannot get over, from geeky guys with non-see through glasses to well endowed women with breasts that seem to be alive. We also discuss why we think these cliche’s keep coming back.
Reviews: Full Metal Alchemist, S-cry-ed, Darker than BLACK, and Initial D
Impressions: Kampfer, The Sacred Blacksmith, Nyan Koi!, and Inu Yasha: Final Act
Alternate Titles: もっとTo LOVEる -とらぶる
Original Japanese Release Date: September 17, 2010
Episode Length/Run-time: 12
Summary:
Because this anime is so horrible, it’s easier for me to just give detailed description of what accounts for about 90% of this show.
Review:
First of all, the story is broken down into a series of shorts. Much like Azumanga
The show is about a girl named LALA who comes from a planet called Devilluke(she has a devil tail) she runs away because she is a princess and doesnt’ want to take part in an arranged marriage. This is not the first series of this(I don’t know how there is a sequel) and so some of the stuff doesnt make too much sense to me. Lala lives at a boy named Rito’s house and he’s the male “protagonist” even though he doesnt do much to fit the role. Weak, nervous, indecisive. This show also has some side characters in it that are from the old series. There is a blonde girl who can use her hair as weapons and apparently, for whatever reason she is an assassin from another planet and she is supposed to kill Rita althought I’m not sure why because from what I’ve seen he doesnt do too much to be deemed killable. The rest of the show is bs antics and panty shots, blushing, and slapstick comedy that isn’t funny. And of course, every single character in the show has a crush on Rito. And I mean they’re literally throwing their bodies on him but this show never has any kind of physical interaction of that kind. No kissing, no sex despite all the nudity, nothing.
Some scenes that make me want to kill myself:
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Alternate Titles: None
Original Japanese Release Date: April 5th, 2006
Episode Length/Run-time: 26
Summary:
.hack//Roots is the prequel to the .hack//G.U. videogames. It follows the story of Haseo, a Multi-Weapon and member of the Twilight Brigade guild. In the year 2015, CC Corp. Building burnt down, and with it, most of its data for The World. By splicing data from what would have potentially been another game, CC Corp. created The World R:2 and released it in 2016.
Review:
Set six months before .hack//G.U., Haseo logs into The World R:2 for the first time and falls victim to the PKs that reside within The World R:2. Pking has apparently become a big problem. He is saved by Ovan and Shino, which prompts him to join the Twilight Brigade. The Twilight Brigade members are on a mission to find the Key of the Twilight, however, the TAN guild opposes this because they want Ovan’s character data due to the device in his left arm and will stop at nothing to keep the Twilight Brigade from their goal. The twist is when Tri-Edge shows up. Things briefly pick up in the series when he turns up, making for a short run of episodes that were actually fun to watch. Makes for some good drama and some action scenes.
If you plan to watch the series, without playing the game, don’t. You need to play the games to finish the story and let me tell you, the game suck. Badly. You may go insane playing them. But without playing the games:
This anime has extremely large periods of nothing happening. What the hell is the director thinking? Everything happens very slowly. Long periods of characters just starring off into space at the sky or at something in particular. Really weird. It’s a bit how you’ll notice in an anime how sometimes they will just be like a really long still image. Also it takes characters a long time to decide to do something and then an even longer time to execute. It makes things ever so boring.
The anime totally abandons the “MMO inside an anime” theme. .hack//Sign had scenes that would show the person using the computer or would have very video game like character traits for the in-game avatars. .hack//Roots totally dumps this trait. You never see the out of game players and the characters in the series are just way too emotion filled and “real” to be ingame avatars. As a result, it doesn’t really feel like you’re watching an MMO. Many of the characters are pretty unlikeable in the end as well. They don’t get background and they really don’t feel that vibrant. Even the main character Haseo is just a shitty emo character.
The visuals and music are very nice the animation and the overall art is very nice. The character designs for .hack are always very interesting, and the artwork in general is of an excellent standard. This is a good thing, because you are forced to stare at pretty visuals in which very little happens for a long, long time. The music is fantastic as well. The theme song and was played at the start of tonights podcast, “Silly Go Round” Is quite awesome and even the BGM features famous melodies such as the “Queen of the Knight” Aria from Mozart’s “Magic Flute”.
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Episode Reviewed In: Episode 73
Alternate Titles: Sukuran
Original Japanese Release Date: October 5th, 2004
Episode Length/Run-time: 26
Summary:
School rumble is an anime about love, romance and comedy. The basis of the show are the “crushes” that the characters have on each other. I say because its recurring theme in the series. Really, the show has no plotline beyond the light hearted high schoolers lives. But I gotta say that people must think that HS in Japan is random as hell because that’s what this series is.
Review:
In terms of the relationships there is a girl called Tsukamoto Tenma who is a cute girl that basically serves as the main characters. She has a crush on a boy called Karasuma Ooji, who is this really weird character that has a beatles haircut and is strange and emotionless. There is another character as well, Harima Kenji, who is a delinquent and he has a crush on Tenma. LOVE TRIANGLE! It’s announced that Ooji is getting ready to leave the school and so Tenma wants to confess to him. Of course, none of these characters are able to confess to each other and the show uses this as another basis for comedy.
In fact, since Harima is a delinquent, he has a bad rep and this makes it hard for him to confess as well because he comes off as a bit scary, but along the way you find out as do the schools students that hes not so bad.
The show is very random and there are some things in it that are used for comedy but make no sense to me at all. For example, Harima is able to talk to animals and later on he has like practically an entire zoo following him around…very random.
There are also some spoofs that really make the comedy in the show good. There is a scene in the beginning when the 3 students, Harima, Tenma, and Ooji are all chasing each other (kinda like the cat that was running from the dog whom was running from the pig, etc..) except in this instance its Ooji biking to school insanely fast and weirdly, being chases by Tenma who is trying to confess and then Harima chasing her. ENTER INITIAL D.
All in all, its a show without much plot but its just another light hearted comedy that is alright and does the comedy pretty well and doesnt get too series for its own good.
Alternate Titles: レベルE
Original Japanese Release Date: January 10, 2011
Episode Length/Run-time: 13
Summary:
There are millions of aliens on Earth, all sorts of aliens, but the Earthlings don’t know it. One such alien is the Prince of a planet known as Doguria. He is a very mischievous person who likes to make people do things for his own entertainment at their expense.
Review:
There are hundreds of alien species that co-exist with humans on Earth. They exist in all kinds; peaceful, aggressive, on the brink of extinction, etc… Everybody seems to be aware of this except for the humans. We don’t know about the aliens. This kid, Yakitaka, from Tokyo comes to a new school, Kisaragi high school, to play baseball (yay!). Hes kind of a touch guy. The kind of guy who was probably in a gang or at least somebody who wouldn’t take shit from people. When he arrives at his new dorm room there is a blonde guy in his room wearing his clothes. The man is named Prince. He claims to be an alien that crash landed recently nearby and that he lost his memories due to the crash. The presence of the space craft is confirmed by news reports since it was discovered. Some stuff happens, the alien runs off the check the space craft and gets hit by a car. He has blue blood. He rests after being hit and his body creates some kind of forcefield that causes all his wounds to heal and the cherry trees around him to bloom.
The next day, the alien goes and retrieves this device that displays the aliens pet. He is a fluidic organism from the planet Jacqueline Ess. Named Clive. It has a really amazin ability to mimic things. It’s really scary. I mean this thing looks like a giant, screaming, slug thing. In the second episode you learn that there are people from a laboratory associated with the government trying to find the alien. At the same time, people from Prince’s home planet land in Japan, searching for him as well. They stop by the home of another alien, a very violent race called Disclonian. They ask him for information before continuing on. The race of Disclonians have destroyed thousands of other races in the universe.
At the end of a very uneventful second episode, the aliens from Prince’s homeplanet find him and reveal that they were on the way to escorting him to a very important intergalactic conference when they lost him. The largest such conference in the universe. But there are biggest problems. At the end of the episode you learn that Prince almost killed somebody on the planet when trying to help a girl that they were harrassing and the victim was a Disclonian…this is likely certainly enough to start an intergalactic war. They thought they had killed him but the Disclonians go into an instinctual coma like state as a defense mechanism when they are about to be killed. Its called Thanatosis. the Disclonian wakes up and then escapes from Yakitakas dorm…
The character designs are very pleasing to me. They’re more mature looking and are reminiscent of older anime. Mature designs, normal colored hair.
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Alternate Titles: Electromagnetic Girlfriend
Original Japanese Release Date: May 1st, 2009
Episode Length/Run-time: 2 OVA
Summary:
Juuzawa Juu is a typical high school delinquent. One day he is approahed by a girl, Ochibana Ame who claims to be a “knight” of his from a past life. Soon afterwards, a rash of serial killings begin occuring in Tokyo and after one of their classmates is murdered the two team up to try to unravel the mystery and catch the murderer.
Review:
What an interesting anime this is. It exists essentially as a two hour movie and because it’s so engrossing, boy does it fly by quickly. The serial killings make an excellent backdrop for the anime and creates a tense atmosphere fitting of a horror thriller.
Speaking of the murders, this anime doesn’t mess around. Between the gruesome serial killing scenes and the violent and mature content between the sstudents and throughout society, Denpa Teki na Kanojo is definately an anime intended for more mature audiences. Most of the killers victims are either stabbed or beaten to death and then strangled with wire. Juu’s classmate actually gets strung up in a back alley like a puppet.
The character Juuzawa Juu is a very believable and likable high school boy. He is realistic and the actions and reactions of him and most other characters in the anime are generally realistic and give the anime as a whole the feel of having realistic setting.
In addition, because it’s an OVA, the shows art and animation are top notch. The background detail and the fluidity of the movement is quite impressive. It may remind you at times of a Miyazaki or Shinkai film. Also, the character designs are very likeable. I loved the way that the characters looked in this anime. Even the level of detail on the movement of the facial expressions are accurate and make the characters feel more human. I wish that more shows would follow it’s eample and use the same character design style.
If I could come up with just a couple complaints about the anime it would be that there was a lot of character interaction but not enough of the “thriller” genre in the content. By that I mean I wish a few more people had been murdered and I wanted the anime to simply be a little more gritty. I suppose this is a minor complaint though as I was never bored watching this anime. Also, there wasn’t much character background given. Certain things are mentioned but all in all the character development and background history is kept to a minimum. I don’t care if the anime is a 2 hour OVA or 100 episodes, character background should always be given attention, at least for important characters.
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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: None
Original Japanese Release Date: April 8th, 2002
Episode Length/Run-time: 26 Episodes
Summary:
Cooking is so fun…cooking is so fun…now it’s time to take a break and see what we have done.
Review:
The best way to breakdown this anime’s story is to explain the characters. You have the child genius, Chiyo-chan who is about half the age of everybody else (And half the height), but shes twice as smart and of course cute, then there is Tomo Takino, the tom boy, who is always full of energy and also a total dimwit. She often copies homework on her friends and her energic personality adds a lot of spice to the series. The other key characters of the series include, Sakaki, Osaka and Yomi. Sakaki is a tall, sporty, girl who loves cats. The only problem is that the cats always seem to bite her! It is hilarious! Osaka is the awkward, really dumb girl who comes from Osaka and as a results shes a little backwards, including her southern accent!
As Azumanga Daioh is based after a manga, the series is broken down into short 3-5 minute episodes that stitch together seemlessly to form a story, an often times random story. This anime is incredibly random, from a floating cat that is apparently Chiyo’s father to crazy occurances in the classroom, Azumanga is one of the most random and as a result one of the funniest animes out there. It is a total classic. In addition, the humor in Azumanga Daioh, continually hits the nail on the head, unlike some other anime which fall flat over and over again.
I truly recommend Azumanga Daioh to people of any gender, of any age. It is a classic comedy that is timeless and as a result, it shouldn’t be missed by anybody and deserves a place on everybody’s anime shelf. Display it proudly.
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