Hopefully everyone enjoyed last night’s 2nd presidential debate for those who watched it. Since that is over, I decided to watch Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai Lite, which is basically shorts streamed online covering Rikka’s and Yuuta’s past when they started having the middle school disease. Since they are short, I’ll will only give a few sentences and cover them every three weeks. (Image Source)
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Little Busters – Episode 2 – Shyness and Clumsiness
PeTA, Team Plasma and Pokémon – Misconceptions and Concerns about Pokémon Welfare
As everyone should know, Pokémon Black and White 2 have just come out in America. I didn’t get the English release since I already own a Japanese copy of the game when it got several months ago, but that is beside the point. Just this week, PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have released a parody game called “Pokémon Black and Blue” to promote their agenda by using everything that made Pokémon great and take it out of context. When I watched a person play the game with commentary, I felt disgusted. However, it brings up some ethical issues that were present in Pokémon Black and White that released last year. (Image Source)
Warning: If you haven’t played the game, there are some spoilers.
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Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai – Episode 10 – Sora’s Difficulties and Raika’s Encouragement
Little Busters – Episode 1 – Baseball, Recruitment and School Food Fights
Dog Days 2 – Final Review
When I first watched Dog Days on my Macbook Pro while heading to Minnesota back in 2011, it was a fun show. However, the story was average and the injection of drama did not fit well with the lighthearted feeling of the show. A year later, we now have Dog Day’s Dash, which is the sequel where Shinku returns with his childhood friend, Rebecca to the fantasy world of Flonyard. Also, his older cousin, Nanami joins in the fun. With Seven Arc’s track record on second seasons being better than the first, I wonder if the same can be said for Dog Days. Let’s find out! (Image Source)
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Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai – Episode 1 – The Dark and Embarrassing Secrets of Togashi Yuuta
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Since summer is finally over, it’s time to focus on the first show I’m watching this fall. Just like Hyouka, it seems that Kyoto Animation was busy working on another project that got announced last year. This show is Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai (中二病でも恋がしたい, lit: I have Middle School Second Year Disease, but I Want to Love!). It has a male lead and this weird girl with an eye-patch. Seems interesting enough until I actually watched the first episode. After that, my mind simply got blown away.
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Dog Days 2 – Episode 13 (END) – Farewell for Now
A Year of Self-Studying Japanese – Some Experiences
It’s almost a year since I started teaching myself Japanese and I think it would be best to share some of my experiences in certain aspects. Obviously, learning a second language takes a lot of commitment and it’s not easy like buying Rosetta Stone (which is a big waste of money) and expecting instant gratification. It took a lot of effort since it’s learning by doing.
On the surface, Asian languages tend to be difficult since most of them use logograms, also known as Chinese Characters along with different grammar rules. With practice and constant studying, it’s just like learning any other language, except it takes a bit more time to have a basic understanding
Aside from that, here are some observations I had after one year of studying.
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Kokoro Connect – Episode 13 – It Ends Abruptly…
Nogizaka Haruka’s Secret ~Finale~ – Episode 1 – Time for More Disappointment
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I’m dreading every moment of this considering how bad the second season was. Still, I’m obligated to finish it, which is why we have four original video animations to finish it. As a matter in fact, the original source material concluded several months ago, which can explain why they wanted to finish the Anime. Believe me, there will be a lot of fireworks going once this is done and it took only three years in the making to get here.
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Tari Tari – Final Review
For a while now, PA Works have earned a reputation for it’s excellent production values, probably to the point where it can rival Kyoto Animation. They have done mostly original stories, which is one of the reasons why their shows tend to start on a good note. However, they also have a tendency to go sour at the middle and it was especially apparent with Hanasaku Iroha where it looses track of what it originally set out for and goes to the uncharted territory of uneasiness like unnecessary crossdressing and senseless love triangles. With Mari Okada completely out of the equation, will Tari Tari address the issues that the studio’s other works had? We’ll just have to find out. (Image Source)
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Tari Tari – Episode 13 (END) – The Musical to Remember Forever
Dog Days 2 – Episode 11 – End of the Festivities and Unexpected Body Swapping
Hyouka – Final Review
For this year’s project, Kyoto Animation decided to adapt Hyouka (氷菓, lit: Ice Cream), a set of teenage light novels involving a Classic Literature Club. While the show is slightly different from what they usually do, it is rather unique on how it uses Mystery to develop the characters. In turn, it creates an enjoyable experience for various reasons. (Image Source)
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Tari Tari – Episode 12 – Despair and Hope
Hyouka – Episode 22 (END) – End of the Energy-Saving Lifestyle and the Future
Kokoro Connect – Episode 11 – Inaba can’t be this cute!
Anime Adaptations and Why Good Ones are “Difficult” to Produce
When we review Anime, one of the common factors is how well a studio adapts the source material. This can range from Manga, Light Novels, Visual Novels, and Video Games since the whole industry rides on it to sell related merchandise. Since production committees have different approaches to achieve this, expectations will never be the same since printed media doesn’t have any voice actors to begin with. This is why I wanted to share my thoughts about adaptations since it has always been a hot topic. (Image Source)
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