Nogizaka Haruka - A sweet romance, otaku styled

Published
by
Stripey
on August 26, 2008
in Now watching
. 16 Comments

One of the sweetest romances I’ve encountered in animedom is Karin. I wouldn’t be lying if I recommended Karin as a ‘vampire show’ but surely that’d be misleading. A sweet romance with a vampiric touch would be closer to the truth. In the same vein, it would be incorrect to promote Nogizaka as “Genshiken with a touch of romance” since the converse is true. It’s not just a matter of semantics but emphasis.

Nogizaka is a sweet sweet romance dressed in otaku culture. It’s well executed not simply because it uses a theme that would obviously appeal to the target audience but more importantly it skillfully leverages on the premise to build the central relationship - Haruka X Yuuto. One of my key factors in assessing the worthiness of a romance lies in the basis of attraction and thanks to Haruka’s ‘terrible secret’, there’s now plenty of reasons to justify their feelings for each other. It was also heartening to see that the couple not only grow closer with each other but grow to become stronger individuals BECAUSE of one another. For that, I loved how, at the end of ep 3, Haruka finally stepped out of her closet to protect someone she cared for.

Continue reading ‘Nogizaka Haruka - A sweet romance, otaku styled’

Series composition - Going beyond studio pedigree

Published
by
Stripey
on August 10, 2008
in Random Rants
. 6 Comments

This blog needs more green haired lolis You know you are leveling up in anime-geekery when you stop referring to a series as ‘a Kyo-Ani production’ but “directed by Tatsuya Ishihara”. Someone has posed the question before - “Why do you even need to know the animation studio?” To which I had answered, “to anticipate the quality of the series.” There is just too many anime for us to sample and feedback from trusted anibloggers and studio pedigree thus become important factors in a series uptake. However, the latter is becoming less pertinent of late given my emphasis on story integrity and plot coherence which fall under that purview of series composer/script writers who may or may not be staff of the animating studio.

I may have been watching anime for years but am still clueless when it comes to the mechanics of anime production. Which was why the interview with Jukki Hanada (that came with my Rozen Maiden Traumend DVDs) was so educational. Hanada san was the series editor (composer) for Rozen Maiden and Traumend and the interview granted great insight on how the plot of an anime is put together. For those interested here’s a brief on the process.

Continue reading ‘Series composition - Going beyond studio pedigree’

Kiddie steps into anime fandom - My nephew the Naruto fan

Published
by
Stripey
on August 5, 2008
in Random Rants
. 19 Comments

My nephew has been watching me watch anime since he was born. 7 years he witnessed his uncle laugh, yell, cry and headbutt Japanese 2D images on his now-retired desktop LCD. Despite that, he never got into Japanese anime (or maybe PRECISELY because of that), preferring the fare that Cartoon Network spews. (Alright, it’s not that bad really. I actually enjoyed Spongebob Squarepants’ quirky humour.) That was until Naruto began to air on Central last week. 5 eps into the show, he was a fan.

It’s great to meet a fellow fan even if he was your nephew and more than 20 yrs younger. He started to call frequently to discuss about the show/characters and I prepped him for the Haku arc (which incidentally is my favourite of the Naruto anime). In fact, just talking about it got me so excited, I went out and bought the Naruto DVDs for him (Vol. 1) - 4 DVDs which he devoured immediately. Now he can’t wait for the start of the Chuunin exams and I can’t wait to get the DVDs from him to relive Haku goodness (who must be one of the finest traps even more the term was coined.)

I personally believe one’s reaction to Naruto fandom is one of the most telling things about his anime fandom. The anime elitist would deride it as a mass-market product designed for the inferior mainstream palette while the Narutard would try in spoil your anime experience by flaunting how much he knows. But honourable is a fan who seeks to enhance another’s anime experience via nurturing instead of neutering interest. (And neutering interest includes posting anime spoilers as entry titles, spoiling everyone and anyone visiting just the aniblog aggregators hosting these sites.)

Now I can’t wait till weekend to pass my nephew Vol. 2 of Naruto. Man is he in for a ride.

(Dropped) Kurenai - Naivety to the extreme

Published
by
Stripey
on July 25, 2008
in Dropped series
. 22 Comments

I’m come to the (probably erroneous) conclusion that Kurenai is harem for joseis. No, not reverse-harem. It’s still a male harem lead only that he appears to be specifically tailored to pander to the older female crowd (and by older I’m talking about late teens and early twenties.) I finally dropped the series ep 10 for 2 reasons - naivety of the cast (hence the unraveling of the credibility of the premise) and the lameness of Shinkuro as a man.

Let me first clarify that I did enjoy very much some parts of the series. The education that Yamie and Tamaki gave to Murasaki was priceless. Much of the dialogue between the ladies was food for thought (I thought the ’save file’ analogy was particularly intriguing and have confirmed traces of truth in that statement between my wife and me.) Murasaki and Shinkuro’s relationship was endearing to behold. I personally wouldn’t underestimate a child’s ability to love in a mature manner even though Murasaki isn’t quite there yet. Maybe in a couple more months with more daytime TV soap and Yamie/Tamaki indoctrination, Shinkuro/Murasaki may make a fine couple. Just a disclaimer here. Although I had found the ladies perspectives in love/life to be thoroughly interesting, I thought they were rather unhealthy, especially for a young child like Murasaki to acquire. Yamie/Tamaki clearly had issues and definitely ill-equipped to pass on ‘wisdom’ on love or even life.

Now for the gripes. One of my biggest lament of the series was how naive the cast generally was. From Benika to Shinkuro, they were constantly make poor choices on the ground when it came to protecting Murasaki. I especially palmed-faced when Shinkuro insisted on returning Murasaki to ’say farewell’ in ep 9. 2 issues - First Murasaki didn’t really say goodbye or gave any form of closure to her short friendship with the neighbours. I’m not sure what Shinkuro is trying to inculcate in Murasaki but that objective was certainly not achieved. 2nd. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING SPENDING THE NIGHT THERE?!?! ‘Say goodbye’ and leave for safer havens! I blame Benika. She was too idealistic to give so much space to an overly emotional/sensitive teenager. The credibility of the plot just came apart with those incredible motivations. My heart goes out to Yayoi (undoubtedly the most sane of the lot) who has to babysit this bunch of free-wheeling idealists.

The other deathblow of the series has to be Shinkuro. It’s irked me to no end that Shinkuro didn’t act decisively to rescue Murasaki and mucked around the whole of ep 10 even after knowing her unspeakable fate. Maybe the sensitive dialogue and introspective conversation cater to the target audience’s tastes but just doesn’t cut it with tanuki type. 2 eps only to go but I dropped it since I know I wouldn’t forgive Shinkuro (and actually much of the cast) for not flying to Murasaki.

And oh, Yuuno chan has to be the choicest haremette in the show even though she still couldn’t muster enough charm for me to complete the series.

Reliving the trainwreck SUNRISE experience - Mai HiME R1s

Published
by
Stripey
on July 14, 2008
in Mai HiME
. 17 Comments

Marathoning my freshly acquired Mai HiME DVDs over 2 weekends spawned several thoughts.

1) The Mai HiME franchise desperately needs a prequel. Animedom need to see Mashiro in that miko outfit and her imouto love that won the HiME star for the Obsidian Prince.

2) Was the Naze nani segment originally in the TV broadcasts? Why it is that I don’t remember any of it?

3) Tokiha Mai has to be Nakahara Mai’s best performance evar. Every one of her “Kagutsuchi!!” is unique. In the same 4 syllabus, she can convey resolve, desperation, rage, terror and more.

4) The character-centric add-ons after each ep is excellent. Not only are the stills gorgeously rendered, they managed to also flesh out a good deal of the characters with their monologues.

5) The 2nd FULL sitting of Mai HiME (although I have rewatched many of the scene countless times, this is only the 2nd time I’ve seen the series whole again) made me appreciate the series a lot more. The character development flowed progressively and the themes interact intimately with great coherence. Mai HiME got a 10 on myanimelist. I want to give it an 11 now.

6) I’m starting to see how jpmeyer see ep 20 of Mai HiME as the crown jewel of SUNRISE’s works. Ep 22 of Code Geass hold that title currently but probably not for long…

7) The Mai HiME soundtrack remains my favourite work of Kajiura sensei, far ahead of Noir and .Hack (though both are VERY good too.) Ensei has to be Kajiura sensei’s finest composition.

8) Nina (of Mai Otome) actually cameo-ed in ep 24 of Mai HiME (in Mai’s utopia).

9) I should have bought another 2 sets to make some converts for anime fandom.

10) Did I mention we need a Mashiro-centric MH prequel?