chikorita157

MyAnimeList Updater… Why no Mac OS X Client? and the Alternative.

October 15, 2009 by Chikorita157 6 Comments

I watch Anime that I forget to update MAL... Why? There is no MAL Updater for Mac OS X.

I watch anime on my free time and I am often too lazy to log in to MyAnimeList and go through the hoops just to update what episode I’m watching. Like with Twitter, I want to instantly update my stuff through a client without needing to open up the web browser and log into MAL just to do that. There is actually a program like this called “MAL Updater”, but only for Windows…. That means that users that uses Mac OS X or Linux are SOL, unless you run it in Virtual Machine, but why would you want to do that since it takes resources just to run Windows….

Sure there are command line clients for Mac OS X and Linux, but they are no means user friendly for inexperienced users nor they are easy to use or feature rich as the Windows version. I’m complaining because why should users be shut into a Microsoft monopoly when the purpose of using Mac OS X and Linux is to get away from the Microsoft monopoly… but there is a alternative to all this MAL Updater madness… Melative (a combination of media and Twitter)… I have been using it for a few months now thanks to one blogger that does the same purpose and I have been helping with the development of melativemicro, a client that works on Macs, Windows and Linux. Besides, I don’t even use the social aspect of MAL anyways…

If Melative can have a cross platform client, how come MAL Updater can’t have a crossplatform client that have the same features to work on Macs and Linux instead of being stuck with command line crap that is hard to use and control and the Windows version only be locked into Microsoft? There are cross platform tools like Qt4, Mono, Realbasic, etc out there, so there is absolutely no excuse to make a client with the same feature set for all the OS. Until they make a full featured MAL Updater for Mac, I’m sticking mostly to Melative until that happens.

Update: In response to no MAL Updater on Mac, I decided to take the blue pill and build my own MAL Client for Mac OS X. If you want to track my progress or help out, join the club.

Category: EditorialsTag: editorial, MyAnimeList, opinion, rant

Kannagi – Episode 8

October 14, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

Daitetsu have a very imaginative mind... that he pictured Nagi with cat ears =o

This episode is another fanservice filled due to Daitetsu coming up with wild conclusions regarding the relationship between Nagi and Jin…
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Category: KannagiTag: A1 Pictures, comedy, moe

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Second Season – Episode 1 and 2

October 13, 2009 by Chikorita157 2 Comments

As I recalled, I skipped the first episode because of prejudice, but after watching the first episode, the episode consist of 65% fanservice and 35% actual content… The first episode wasn’t bad, but with the fanservice going on, it was too much. As I thought about the first episode after it aired, isn’t the title “Purity” a oxymoron?

The second episode however…. You have to find out by clicking “read more”.
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Category: Nogizaka Haruka no HimitsuTag: comedy, Diomedea, drama, moe

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu – Episode 2

October 11, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

Meido Haruka makes the moe meter go sky high... :o — Meido Haruka makes the moe meter go sky high... 😮

This episode is pretty funny in a sense because Haruka shows more “Otaku” related stuff about her :o…. wait, isn’t this supposed to be a secret?
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Category: Nogizaka Haruka no HimitsuTag: comedy, Diomedea, moe

sola – Episode 1

October 10, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

Wait? Why this animation looks so familiar… The Sky? Didn’t I heard about that before…

Not realizing this, this show is made by the same studio that is made Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu… Although some themes are familiar to a very famous visual novel, it’s not the same…
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Category: solaTag: Diomedea, drama

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Second Season – Episode 1 Thoughts

October 5, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

When there is a hot spring, you have to expect EXCESSIVE FANSERVICE?!

Well, that what I can say about this episode… This episode is basically one those episodes like Episode One of Clannad After Story with the Baseball episode, it’s a filler to reintroduce you back into the series and the characters. However, when you see a hot spring, you have to expect excessive fanservice, which isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

If I compared this episode to the one I previously saw in the first season, there is actually a big difference. Sure, the first episode only shown a moderate amount of fan service, but the amount presented in this episode is a bit too excessive. What does this mean with the high amount of fanservice, you can expect the decrease in quality of the story… For instance, you can compare the amount of fan service vs the quality of the story line can be pictured like a demand vs supply graph. For instance, As the quality of the story is high, the amount of fanservice is low and the amount of fanservice is high, the quality of the story is low and the equilibrium point being the equal balance in the story quality and the amount of fanservice shots. For the most enjoyment while maintaining the quality of the story, I rather have it at the equilibrium so that people can still enjoy the fanservice that that series provides while providing a good story.

Overall, I cannot rate this episode or give a full thought about how the whole second season is going to go due to the high amount of fanservice in this episode… I’ll leave it up to the next 4 episodes and hope that the fanservice is not excessive in the next few episodes and hope for the best that it will get better than this.

Verdict

Unrated, –/10

Category: Nogizaka Haruka no HimitsuTag: comedy, Diomedea, first impressions, moe, opinion

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu – Episode 1

October 4, 2009 by Chikorita157 4 Comments

The very unlikely show I would watch, but after looking at the post about wifes and I seen her name on it and looked it up… Oh crap…

Anyways, I decided to watch it for myself and see what I thought of it… so here it goes.

Synposis

Ayase is a normal high school student who doesn’t seem to want to think about girls due to the fact of the two girls in his household. While returning the overdue magazine Nobunaga Asakura had, he sees Haruka acting strangely and after she checked out a magazine from the library, she bumps into him, which caused the magazine to drop onto the floor and him seeing it causing her to run away with tears. Days after, she started to avoid him and eventually, he said that he won’t tell anyone about her hobby, which made her happy… but one thing… the magazine was due on the same day, so they went back to school at night and finally returned it. This is when the relationship between them started.

Thoughts

Although it may be a generic moe show with moeblobs doing moe things in shows like Lucky Star and K-ON!, but this is a pretty enjoyable series from watching the first episode, although it’s light on the story aspect. As you suspect, Haruka’s qualities make you think that she is a Mary Sue, but no since her flaw seems to be her “Otaku” hobby, which in reality is looked down upon since Otakus stereotypically don’t seem to have much social skills in comparison of geeks and nerds and have a obsession of anime and video games. Haruka like you expect, is a moeblob like character and she is cute and clumsy, which is probably why some people seems to obsess over her alot…

Animation was decent, but with a few flaws.

Overall, I thought it was a enjoyable show, but I won’t expect much from the storyline… but I will keep watching unless it goes south after 4 episodes…

OP/ED

OP: Tomadoi Bitter Tune – Miran Himemiya and Chocolate Rockers
ED: Hitosashiyubi Quiet! – Kana Ueda, Mai Goto, Rina Satou, Kaori Shimizu, Mamiko Noto
Sounds decent enough…

Rating

8.3/10

Category: Nogizaka Haruka no HimitsuTag: comedy, Diomedea, fanservice, moe

Nagisa, why she is the ideal girl, which screams moé! – Part 2

October 3, 2009 by Chikorita157 3 Comments

Nagisa during the progression in Clannad have overcome her challenges of reviving the Drama club and also made new friends, but unfortunately, she got sick again, which caused her not to graduate with Tomoya. In After Story, we will touch more on the path with her eventually marrying Tomoya and deciding on giving birth to a child.

During the course of After Story, the relationship between Tomoya and Nagisa develops further. Towards the end of summer, Nagisa became sick, which resulted in being held back for another year. While Tomoya wanted to stay back a year, it would be foolish to do so anyways.

During the next school year, Tomoya moves into a apartment and start working while Nagisa finishes her school year. Although she couldn’t get the Drama club up again, she still seem to survive the whole school year with friends from the music club. Nagisa during that period help make food for Tomoya, which proves that she still seems to care about him alot, especially about her being concerned about his left shoulder.

Although Tomoya didn’t make it to Founder’s Day due to his mistake, she didn’t mind anyways…

Another instance with her caring about him alot is the night after asking about the swimsuit, Tomoya was avoiding the question about his father and insists on meeting him one day. When Tomoya was about to get a promotion, it was cut off by his father’s actions which made Tomoya deciding to move away from the city, which Nagisa doesn’t want since she seems to like the city and wants to make him happy living in the same city instead of running away from his problems. In meeting his father at the jail, Tomoya starts getting angry at him and walks away. With him angry, Nagisa chases after Tomoya before he punches right hand to a wall, but couldn’t stop it and injured his hand. Nagisa having seen what he done, gets him to stop. In this scene, Tomoya gets engaged with Nagisa so that they will become strong.

After marriage that happened after Nagisa graduated, she takes a job at a nearby restaurant that opened. After saving her, the manager reveals that she is a hard worker. In contrast with Shiori, although she is weak, she still managed to survive to have fun with Yuuichi and also attend a whole week of school.

Oh noes! I bet the moe levels are very high!

And yes, the famous scene and she did the impossible…

Sorry, no hentai scenes in Clannad.. It wouldn't matter anyways

In her decision of wanting to have the baby, she seems to want a home delivery, although it’s not safe due to her conditions. The decision to have it at home is not only because she wanted to see and hold the baby after it was born, but throughout the course of her relationship of Tomoya, she have grew stronger as a person… but the only problem is that the changes of the city causes her to become more ill since all things can’t stay the same forever. Even though she is strong, the illness caused by the city changing so rapidly caused her tragic death which caused everyone to be crushed with devastation the fact that Nagisa herself through the course of After Story to become stronger, but unable to because of the bad luck. This is why most people can sympathize with her (maybe more so with the visual novel than the anime). Although she have overcome the hardest challenges and become strong with the help of Tomoya and his friends, she was unable to survive, until Tomoya collects the light orbs to help save Nagisa and also Ushio from the horrible fate. In comparison with Shiori and Misuzu, there is a reason why we can also sympathize with both. Shiori in a sense that she is rejected by her sister and had her relationship with her sister and being strong until her birthday. Misuzu is that she is a sweet and innocent girl, which is unfortunately stuck with a curse and dies in her aunt’s lap on the beach which made many people’s hearts crushed with a bucket of tears and she was given no chance to live, unlike Shiori and Nagisa although she was offered a reincarnation along with Yukito.

Next Post, I will conclude why Nagisa is the ideal girl and sum up both parts with the full argument.
Attribution Information

Fanart used in this post is by 小倉　脩一 (ogura shuuichi) Source

Category: Clannad, Clannad ~After Story~, EditorialsTag: editorial, key, moe, opinion

Final Thoughts on Poll 9 and Air Movie

October 2, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

I have closed the poll yesterday and it seemed to even out, with 6 yes, 4 no, and 2 saying Toei Animation should keep doing what they are doing.

However, polls do not show the whole story since people did not leave comments after they voted, so I can’t tell why it’s not that good. From reading all the comments in the post, I decided I will just see it just to see how good or bad is it, but it won’t be a while since I need to obtain the actual DVD before I can watch it. Once the time comes and I finish watching it, I will post a full review on the Air movie without any Kyoto Animation bias I had in the last movie review.

Category: AIRTag: key, poll results, toei animation

Kannagi Volume 2/sola Unboxing and First Impressions

September 29, 2009 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

Well, while I was at college learning, the final two DVDs I have preordered have finally arrived in the mail and yes, sola seems to finally materialize instead of being delayed indefinitely…

Like with the first Kannagi volume, Kannagi second volume have the same format as the first, but now featuring Zange-chan/Hakua. The DVD features extras like a creditless Opening/Ending and also trailers. The DVD Menu is the same format with some background changes. The only problem right now is that Kannagi is only available at Rightstuf at the moment (talking about monopoly), but I hope it changes in the future.

Another surprise is that sola have finally came in after the many times raging about how many times they delayed it. Given how many times they delayed it, they seem to got it right this time. As you see, there is nothing special with the case, but the series came on 3 seperate discs and features a creditless Opening/Ending themes. There is nothing special with the DVD menu and looks plain, but the picture quality is good enough. sola should be available in other retailers today.

I’m expecting to start at least one episode of sola this week, but the exams that is going on, it’s going to take awhile… I can’t wait. (click Continue Reading to see the pics)
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Category: Kannagi, solaTag: first impressions, review, unboxing

Nagisa, why she is the ideal girl, which screams moé! – Part I

September 24, 2009 by Chikorita157 3 Comments

After seeing a post about wifes and anime girls and watching the CLANNAD movie, it made me think about something about Nagisa and CLANNAD. In the previous two posts made a few months back that I mentioned about moe although I never really talk about moe or the so called moe competitions out there, but it’s quite evident I really like, Misuzu and Shiori. There is one character I haven’t touch that have both personalities of these girls I mentioned… Nagisa Furukawa.

Nagisa is the combination of Shiori and Misuzu in my opinion. Misuzu because the fact she is a shy girl and doesn’t have any friends because in the case with Nagisa, her friends have long been graduated and she is innocent. Then, why Shiori have anything to do with Nagisa? Shiori in the sense that Nagisa have a similar sickness, but her determination and unwilling to give up. Also, they both have a interest in drama since Shiori mainly watches drama while she was at home and Nagisa have a interest in drama with her determination of wanting to revive the Drama Club. Another thing with Nagisa and Shiori is that they are ordinary and wear plain clothing. If you notice the clothing that Nagisa and Shiori wears, you know why.

Nagisa is like Shiori and Misuzu in a sense… We take them for granted until they are gone. (in Nagisa’s case, in Clannad After Story Episode 16 until she returns in Episode 22).

Nagisa starts out in the beginning of the show as a shy girl and unable to walked the hill since her friends have graduated and she no longer have the courage to walk up the hill. With the help of Tomoya, she was able to walk up the hill on the first day of school.

Like with Misuzu, Nagisa seems to be alone...

Sadly, her illness causes her to get held back in her last year of high school and caused her loneliness. In today society, we rarely see that, except with quiet and shy people.

Unfortunately, a year too late... poor Nagisa...

Nagisa seems to show her determination to try and revive the club although the club seems to shut down when she opens the door with shaky hands and being melancholic after seeing the packed boxes, but she doesn’t give up. Next day, she makes a poster:

Nagisa loves dango. The Toei version of the poster seems more colorful..

Like with Shiori with her obsession with ice cream and Misuzu with her “extra thick peach nectar,” Nagisa continues the tradition with Dango because they are cute although not as popular as it was used to. Big Dango Family resembles a cheerful and happy world where people and famlies get along and flourish. This is important later on since CLANNAD is about families after all… and Nagisa starts one with Tomoya later on, but at a expense (which will be talked about next part). Also, the poster seems to bring out Nagisa’s personality, as her being innocent.

As with Shiori, Nagisa still waits for Tomoya outside in the rain without a umbrella.

Nagisa wanting to see Tomoya to play basketball waits in the rain, which in contrast is sorta the same thing with Shiori, which disobeys the doctors order just to see Yuuichi after school. Nagisa realizing that Tomoya can’t shoot and apologizes since she know that she was wrong and faints because of her illness.

Later on, Nagisa makes friends with Fujibashi twins, Kotomi and Fuuko and starts to warm up instead of being shy and lonely.

Another trait that Nagisa seems to have is she is naive. For instance, Tomoya grabs Nagisa and runs away from Sunahora. She protects Tomoya from Sunahora since she thinks he is trying to make Tomoya gay and admits that she is Tomoya’s boyfriend, which caused Sunahora run like a nut job. Although she doesn’t mean it, she eventually start having a relationship with Tomoya since the two seems to have a lot in common and that they both care about each other.

No! You not letting your finger on my Nagisa!

Tomoya reacting to someone who wants to help Nagisa after she fell and hurt her leg in Episode 16 of Clannad… Now there evidence that Tomoya does love Nagisa romantically. In the visual novel, the relationship starts right after Tomoya embraces Nagisa after the Nagisa gives up on the Drama Club since she want the choir club to keep their advisor.

With the growing of Nagisa’s relationship with Tomoya, she seems to care for him a lot more before she met him, even after she performs her play, she still cares about Tomoya and doesn’t want him to do anything wrong. For instance, with the PA calling for Tomoya and him running away, she chases after him and drags him back by pulling his arm. This proves that Nagisa, although she is ill is caring and also very determined, which is not the case with Shiori and Misuzu (they do care, but not the same as with Nagisa and Tomoya.). The way how she try to revive the Drama Club with the help of Tomoya, Sunohara and friends and her performance on stage shows her determination of achieving her goal.

However, her dreams of performing stage drama came at a price since Sanae and Akio have to give up their dreams to take care of Nagisa, which caused herself to become melancholic and also caused her to suddenly cry on stage after the curtains were lifted up after being reminded of Akio’s dreams of performing theater after watching a video of him performing before her performance. With the encouragement from Akio and Sanae, she was able to break from her depression and able to achieve her dreams that her parents have sacrificed.

After sweeping away her tears, she starts to perform her play, which is flawless… both in the Anime and TV show:

Wait, the costume Nagisa is wearing looks vastly similar to the Uniforms in Kanon...

Toei seems to glorify Nagisa with her wedding dress... Moe Moe Kyun?

Like with both the TV series and the movie, Tomoya officially confesses his love for Nagisa, which have been evident across the whole season (and also the Nagisa arc in the Visual Novel). Tomoya and Nagisa seems to be the dream couple… most say… but I still prefer Tomoya and Kyou… *runs*

Next time, we will discuss why she is the ideal girl in the 2nd part of the story, After Story.

Attribution Information

Fanart used in this post is made by moonknives,

Category: Clannad, Clannad ~After Story~Tag: editorial, key, moe, moe moe kyun, opinion

Poll #9: Air Movie, should I watch it?

September 22, 2009 by Chikorita157 6 Comments

After watching the CLANNAD movie and being disappointed about it, I see why not watch the Air Movie to see if it’s any different. From what I heard about the movie, there are mixed opinions instead of most of the people saying the movie sucked or anything that Toei made with Key sucks and that Kyoto Animation is better! I’m not trying to get into a debate which studio is better, but I heard that the Air movie seems to go more in depth with Misuzu’s arc than it did in Air TV because they covered the other two girl’s arc and the amount of episodes alloted in the series (it would have been a little better if it’s 24 episodes, but it was still good for what I have seen so far). After seeing the big disappointment with the Clannad movie, should I push my luck and watch and review the Air Movie? The only difference with this is I haven’t played the visual novel for Air, since there is a lack of a translation so that would be to my advantage.

Note: Everything is back to normal… the poll should work

You decide… I will post my decision in two weeks (or earlier).

[poll id=”9″]

Attribution Infomation

The fanart used in this post is made by ゆきおう (yuki ou) Source

Category: AIRTag: key, poll, toei animation

Running Visual Novels on a Mac?

September 21, 2009 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

Got a copy of a visual novel and you got a Mac? The problem with many visual novel or the so called popular Bishoujo/Otome games is that they only work on Windows, so you are mostly out of luck if you want to play games like Kanon, Air, Higurashi, Clannad, Da Capo, etc since they only work on Windows. You aren’t out of luck since there is a way to install them and play on a Mac. The following will be discussed is Crossover Office, VMWare Fusion/Parallels/Virtual PC 7 (for PowerPC users) and Bootcamp.

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Category: UncategorizedTag: howto, macs, visual novels

Clannad – Motion Film Final Impressions – Grade: 6.8/10

September 20, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

Wait, there is a Clannad Movie? I decided to watch it this Sunday afternoon and after watching 30 minutes of it, it’s nothing that special, but still continue to watch it anyway. Unlike the Clannad TV series which I could say Kyoto Animation did a great job of being faithful to the original source for both seasons, I can’t say for the movie. The Clannad Movie which was made by Toei Animation, who worked on the Air Movie and the first season of Kanon (before it was remade in 2006) released a month before Kyoto Animation’s version was aired on television.

My impression it… Not great, as expected since I have already completed Kyoto Animation’s version and now the movie feels inferior to the television series… Most Key/Clannad fans would feel this way because Toei Animation in the past aren’t that faithful to the original source, meaning the visual novel.
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Category: ClannadTag: comedy, comparison, drama, final impressions, key, movie, review, toei animation

Hosting troubles and Internet Provider Switching – Updated!

September 18, 2009 by Chikorita157 3 Comments

The last past days, the Wordpress Blog have been loading slowly lately and I have been receiving Slow Mysql Queries spam messages in my mailbox and unable to fix it since the blog have become pretty popular according to Google Analytics with hits ranging from 1500 to over 3000 a month (peaking in July). With the popularity of my blog and my desire to update it frequently, it have taken a toll on the hosting since this is a free hosting provider and doesn’t quite work as well since there are several other websites.

The total amount of vistors we have this month and counting the other months is 10,000 and close to 20,000 pageviews. When the blog gets even more popular, I highly doubt that free hosting will help and I cannot afford paid hosting nor I’m willing to downgrade my blog to WordPress.net since it’s too limited for my needs since I’m using various plugins and a advanced, custom theme that is used in this blog which WP.net does not allow. Hosting the anime blog on my own server isn’t a option too since the server is too slow to handle the site load I’m currently getting. I’m asking anime blog hosting providers to help me so I can keep contributing to the Anime Blogosphere.

Another thing is in my concern is that I will be switching to a new ISP, Optimum Online from Verizon DSL since the phone line is getting too expensive since my family never uses it and gets hit with high bill since we don’t have long distance. This is because the whole family and myself have cell phones. Not being able to keep the DSL if I cancel the phone line, we have to switch to a alternative since there is no FIOS in my area (town have FIOS, but not coming to my neighborhood) and DSL is becoming slow in general since it takes forever to load a Youtube video or download anything big, which is why we are switching to Cable. For my experience of having used Optimum Online before, they don’t do any traffic shaping of any kind. Once I get cable internet, I will get 15/2 speeds and I can blog faster.

Update: The website is finally moved… and took nearly 2-3 hours to reimport the database and reupload the images, plugins and the theme. If there any problems, please use the contact form and tell me the problem ASAP so it can be fixed. Note that it will take a week until this new address shows up on Google.

Update #2: URLs listed on Google and Anime Nano will redirect to this website with the same page you are trying to load. Have updated some of the Wordpress plugins which wasn’t possible with the old host since of FTP file quota limit (6000 files). These include WP-touch and the blog is now using StatPress Reloaded instead of Google Analytics so I don’t need to log into Google just to get the site stats.

Update #3: Disabled the Captcha since there are problems with it which is causing the Captcha code not to show up, but updated the anti-spam plugin. Once Captcha gets fixed, it will be reenabled. Also, Twitconnect does not work at the moment.

Update #4: SI Captcha is replaced with re-captcha. Twitconnect is temporarily disabled.

Update #5: Everything works again… The problem was that the whole WP-Content folder was chmodded 777 instead of 755, causing the scripts to malfunction.

Category: UncategorizedTag: update

Suzumiya Haruhi Second Season Final Impressions – Grade: F (5.93/10)

September 17, 2009 by Chikorita157 3 Comments

Once upon a time in May, we were excited that Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody was going to be aired after we waited a whole 3 years for a second season. The first new episode was well received. When June came around, Endless Eight aired and we thought that episode was the only one… We were mistaken by despair as Endless Eight repeated for most of the summer, which made fans go on a frenzy outrage by raging at Kyoto Animation, Kadokawa or even both. Some fans go so far and smash Haruhi figures and rip apart the light novels. We have thought that the series have finally jumped the shark and the whole series was ruined forever, but fortunately, Kadokawa wasn’t insane enough to do that, so it ended in the 8th episode and the week after that Sighs aired, which is apparently the lowest part of the light novel series because primarily, Haruhi becomes the biggest b$%#& in the whole world that everyone wants to have and/or avoid, until Kyon straightens her up and finally conclude the recording of the film, which was miraculously edited. After the airing of the last part of Sighs, it seems that most fans are in despair since Disapparence have disappeared (no pun attended).

In the review, I will be reviewing some positives, but mostly negatives because Kadokawa could have done better in managing this so that it won’t become a complete disaster like it is. Some Haruhiists may disagree, but this is my take… it’s F%$%ing horrible!

Content

This is the weakest point in the whole season, honestly… mainly because of Endless Eight. Rhapsody and Sighs (although good, but not very good) was the only arcs that did fine in this season. The rest is a disaster, because Endless Eight repeated more than 8 times which is completely unnecessary. I would rather watch K-ON! than watch this piece of s$%^ Endless Eight and that is my feeling on Endless Eight. Endless Eight in my opinion is a middle finger from Kadokawa saying, “HA! Do you want Disappearance, but you aren’t getting it!” Every time Endless Eight repeated, It makes my blood boil and want me to rage about Kadokawa again.

I found that the repeating of Endless Eight 8 times was completely unnecessary, it should have been at most 3 episodes and one loop. The light novel does not repeat it more than 3 times, so why should it repeat 8 times in the Anime. Thats because, Kadokawa is the biggest trolls on the planet.

Sighs was okay, but it’s nothing that hits home because some of the content was already presented in “The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, Episode 00” in the first season. Sighs is just behind the scenes making of the movie, which some people may not find that interesting until towards the end of Sighs when Kyon finally blows up at Haruhi for smacking Mikuru around. Otherwise, Sighs is good and faithful to the original (hopefully) and also the same case with Rhapsody.

Characters

Theres not much to say, but the Sighs arc made me hate Haruhi forever… because she is a absolute b%$#& and why would anyone be around her if she is going to act that way… but she atleast shaped up…

The scene where Kyon flips out is probably a reason to admire the other character for taking Haruhi as being a jerk. Also, love the talking cat, which only talked briefly.

Animation

The animation was a disappointment just like Endless Eight. The animation and art style in Suzumiya Haruhi 2009 was mediocre/below average, mainly because, someone in Kadokawa decided… Hey, why not make it look like K-ON! The K-ON! art style works only with K-ON!, put it anywhere else and it surely won’t be well received… it would just be like using Lucky Star art style in something like Kanon… You sure get the fans raging…

The K-ONification of Haruhi was pretty much another debate that was happening throughout the whole season… Some may notice that the first episode had this treatment as well… If they going to use that art style, they should just rename the show, Haruhi-ON! and have the SOS-brigade eat cake and crumpets all day long and do moe stuff and of course, play music… oh wait… Thankfully it improved towards the end of the season, although there were faint elements from K-ON!

Music

The music was not great… Tomare was okay, but Super Driver is the WORST OP I ever heard (Yes, this tells you why it’s not good) and made my ears bleed. Personally, I’m not to fond with Hirano Aya’s singing, except the first season songs since most of her songs aren’t that great and she isn’t a great singer compared to other J-Pop artists.

Conclusion

Although Sighs and Rhapsody was good, Endless Eight, poor sounding OP, average to not good art style and the trolling of Kadokawa is what made the season downfall like a hubristic hero. Kadokawa’s arrogance with the amount of trolling they have done to the fans (for example, Second Season announcement in Newtype and showing the Nice Boat parody video) and hubris with the handling of the Haruhi Franchise after it became highly successful caused the franchise’s downfall as a whole with Endless Eight and Haruhi Franchise as a whole will never be at the height as it was three years ago ever again. It’s such a shame, really since I expected this season to be great, but it ended up to be a total disaster after Endless Eight repeated 8 times and I felt it was a waste of time repeating and reanimating Endless Eight because the resources can be used on adapting other interesting arcs, but Kadokawa had to blew it and give Kyoto Animation a bad rep because of it. If there is ever a third season, I will still watch it, but I won’t be expecting much after this disaster of a season.

This is why Haruhi 2009 got a big F, merely because it’s a big disappointment. If Endless Eight haven’t repeated so much and the art style was a bit better than what they shown, I would have give it a better or at-least a passing grade.

Overall Rating

5.93/10, F

Category: Reviews, Suzumiya HaruhiTag: comedy, failure, final impressions, Haruhi, Kadokawa, kyoani, strawberry sundaes

Suzumiya Haruhi Second Season Episode 14 – Sighs IV (END)

September 16, 2009 by Chikorita157 1 Comment

Finally, a episode where Haruhi doesn’t act like a complete jerk. The conclusion of Sighs is pretty good, but still there was a few things that bothered me about it.

As the SOS-Brigade wants to complete the movie, something happened the night while Kyon falls asleep while editing.
…

Category: Suzumiya HaruhiTag: comedy, final impressions, Haruhi, Kadokawa, kyoani, moe

Kannagi – Episode 7

September 16, 2009 by Chikorita157 2 Comments

Episode 7 is a filler, obviously, but unlike all fillers which are highly repetitive in nature, this one is actually good… and also have good comedy values as well.

In this episode, Nagi locks herself in the closet because of something Jin did that made her not to forgive him.
…

Category: KannagiTag: A1 Pictures, aniplex, comedy, It's a Sony!, moe

The Harsh Reality of College and Anime Blogging

September 14, 2009 by Chikorita157 11 Comments

We all wish that we are in a city where wishes come true and be part of a drama club with a girl drawing pictures of Dango or help a harem of sad girls in snow… The problem is… reality. The majority of us Anime bloggers attend high school or college and school isn’t as fun like in the Anime universe or visual novels.

I’m going onto the third week at attending Rutgers University (yes, I know theres a Anime club there, but I won’t bother since there will probably be a bunch of Weeaboos that will annoy me since I’m a actual Asian) and like with Spring semester at my old college I used to attend, I’m in a pile of homework, readings and papers to write. Unlike spring semester, I am practically going to school almost the whole week although three days I only have one class and I don’t really have that insanely difficult classes that require alot of time. Still, homework takes a lot of free time I could spend on watching anime and writing a blog post about it. With the Prelab for General Chemistry Lab, it took me nearly 6-7 hours just to complete it… Same with my accounting homework since I have problems to work out which takes a while since I need to learn how to solve it. With the other courses, mostly it’s reading and writing papers which won’t take as long, but I won’t be updating nearly as much I did in the summer since I need to complete my homework ahead of time so I can have time to update my blog later… Remember, work and study now and play later… and you will get good grades.

I do anime blogging and watching on my free time and I do my best to make updates since I’m not one of those people who does hiatus and never updates the blog again… If you excuse me, I have some homework to do.

But my feelings still wish it was still summer, but not a eternal summer of course… I hate that Endless Eight loops…

Category: EditorialsTag: editorial, updates

Air in Summer – Final Review

September 11, 2009 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

Air in Summer was essentially the extension of the Summer arc which covered parts in the Air Visual Novel that was abridged in the main TV series. The difference with Air in Summer that it is actually more lighthearted than the whole TV series.

This special mainly focuses on a more detailed escape from the temple at night, the relationship between Kanna and Ryuya more in depth (in the first part) and also the scene where Kanna lowers her Kimono to show her love towards him after hearing his story as Uraha instructed, but ended up as a failure (in the second part).

Content

Well, as you expect, Air in Summer looks out of place compared to the Air TV series since there isn’t really a whole lot of melodrama in the special. You might find that the two episodes to be rather enjoyable, to the fact that there is a lot of comedy, mainly in part of Kanna, who qualities almost resemble a tsundere.

As you expect, Air in Summer is a continuation of the Summer Arc with parts that were not covered in the TV series. Air in Summer pretty much clears up the ambiguity or the feeling that something is missing or rushed from the Summer Arc in the TV series. The special mainly put focus on the relationship between Kanna and Ryuya and Kanna learning about things in the outside world. Although, Kanna may be conceited and irritated easily (such as water being poured on her head and herself fighting with a chicken), she eventually warms up to Ryuya,

Characters

Like already presented, there are three characters in this arc:
Kanna, or Kannabi no Mikoto is a young girl which have wings on her back. She pretty much stays at the temple and believed to be the last winged being. She wanted to see her mother again so the three decided to escape the temple to go on a journey to find her mother. Kanna, being at the temple most of her life, have not experienced the outside world and learns from the other two.

Kanna, in my experiences of watching is a tsundere which vasty resembles Makoto Sawatari from Kanon since you know that Kanna seems to be naive and does not have enough knowledge of the outside world. She also irritated at Ryuya the most, although she eventually warms up to him, in contrast of Makoto warming up to Yuuichi after the 7th episode.

Then, you have Ryuya, which is a low-ranked, but skilled samurai which he protects Kanna. Like suggested, Ryuya resembles Yukito, obviously, but like with male leads, they sometimes are sarcastic which probably is why Kanna gets irritated with him most of the time.

Lastly, you have Uraha, which is a servent at the temple and also a friend of Kanna. The last thing you want to do is to get her upset by burning those ancient poems and say breakfast was tasty after burning the poems. Also, she tells embarrassing stories regarding Kanna.

Animation

Like with Air TV, Air in Summer Animation and Art style pretty much remained the same, since the special was aired several months after Air TV have finish airing.

Like with Kyoto Animation, the animation was great, considering it was 2005… but sure, the animation will surpass some of Kyoto Animation’s not so great art style to the likes of Lucky Star, K-ON! and Suzumiya Haruhi Second Season.

Music

Music sounded great, although, I don’t quite understand why they use the same exact OP and ED… although they change some of the OP animation for the special.

Conclusion

Air in Summer is a great way to ending Air’s bittersweet ending… since it’s just too lighthearted… The animation, story and the characters are great as expected with Key… The lightheartedness of Air in Summer may make some people prefer this over the main series. Overall, this is a recommended watch if you have finish watching Episode 8 of Air or already completed it.

Overall Rating

9.5/10, A

Category: AIRTag: drama, final impressions, key, kyoani, review, tsundere

Air in Summer – Episode 2

September 9, 2009 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

As the second episode shows, Kanna is offically a Tsundere… well because she seems to become modest after hearing Ryuya’s story.

After hearing Ryuya’s story about his past, Kanna shows her love by lowering her kimono and…
…

Category: AIRTag: comedy, drama, key, kyoani, moe, tsundere

Editorial: Haruhi and Moral Issues, Does Haruhi deserves to be punched?

September 8, 2009 by Chikorita157 3 Comments

It's serious business that we need Meganekko Tomoyo. — It's so serious that we need Meganekko Tomoyo.

Haruhi and her rather egoistic and her cruel personality have resonated through out the first episode of Sighs to the recently aired episode when Kyon finally flips out at Haruhi. The problem is that lead up with some people ending up hating Haruhi since she have become a complete b**ch. This was also the case with the light novel which actually showed more of her being a complete b**ch. If Haruhi acted like that in real life, most people would just ignore her as a complete ***hole.

The Sighs of Suzumiya Haruhi finally shows Haruhi’s true colors that she has no morals nor values her friendship. Maybe because she is a goddess, but in real life, if you were to act like a complete jerk to your friends most of the time, you would probably lose most of your friends. The reason Haruhi is not my favorite character although she is funny sometimes is that she always take advantage of her friends (especially Mikuru the most, although sometimes funny) and also doing despicable acts that in real life would have big moral issues (like throwing a person into a pond, forcing someone to change into a different clothing against his/her desire, spiking Mikuru’s drink with tequila and also Haruhi smacking Mikuru which is a big no-no because “contact lens is supposed to fly out when your head gets smacked which is stupid… If this was real life and Haruhi indeed did this, there would have been moral consequences that would involve with it (such as assault, slipping alcohol in someone’s drink, potential loss of friendship, injury, etc.). Although Haruhi thinks that Mikuru is a toy, there are also moral issues by using a human being as a toy because seriously, humans aren’t meant to be used as a toy you can fool around with since they have feelings, which apparently, Haruhi completely disregards which makes Kyon angry. Haruhi have no right to treat Mikuru as a toy and smack her around as much she wants because you know, hitting a innocent girl is a wrong thing to do.

Should Haruhi deserved to be punched for being an immoral, cruel ***hole by Kyon, even if hitting girls is wrong? I believe so because even if it causes dire consequences such as the world ending, it would have teach her a important lesson, threat others as you would threat you and also stop acting like a complete jerk and respect her friends. If Kyon just let Haruhi continuing being a jerk, she would eventually stay a complete ***hole as Kyon says it and eventually everyone would ultimately avoid her. Too bad Itsuki stopped him before Kyon was able to punch Haruhi in the face.

After watching the forth episode of Sighs, it made me appreciate Kyon and the other members of the SOS Brigade. Believe me, it took a lot of courage for Kyon to ultimately flip out since he knew the consequences of the world ending if he successfully hits Haruhi in the face. The Sighs arc, despite Haruhi having a energetic, non-***hole side of her personality made me hate her as a character completely because she have a lot of flaws of being a immoral, cruel, cold ***hole as presented in the actions she did in the forth episode of Sighs. While some people may disagree with me, Haruhi is a flawed character, although she is a unique one because of her mostly dominant cruel side of her that turns me off completely… Despite that, she is a enjoyable character when she is not acting as a complete ***hole that everyone wants to avoid and hate as demonstrated in Sighs of Suzumiya Haruhi, but I still have stronger preferences for other characters though.

Hopefully, Haruhi finally gets out of being a complete jerk when she finally recorded the whole movie… or maybe not…

Category: Editorials, Suzumiya HaruhiTag: editorial, Haruhi

Suzumiya Haruhi Second Season Episode 13 – Sighs Part IV

September 7, 2009 by Chikorita157 7 Comments

This episode pretty much made me hate Haruhi so much because of her despicable and outrageous actions, I should of rename this arc: “Everyone hates Suzumiya Haruhi” because she is being the biggest b-word in the world… but that would offend some fans…

During the filming of the film, Kyon starts to get annoyed and eventually flips out at Haruhi for mistreating Mikuru.
…

Category: Suzumiya HaruhiTag: comedy, Haruhi, Kadokawa, kyoani, moe

Bandai Entertainment does not care about the fans, delays Sola again

September 6, 2009 by Chikorita157 Leave a Comment

My reaction to the forth delay... Depressed...

After looking through the rightstuf orders again, Bandai Entertainment yet again delays sola again for another 23 days. Now it’s being released on September 29, 2009… That’s great since I have absolutely a lack of anime to watch in Fall 2009 since none of them interests me and there is no Key Adaptation… What am I supposed to do, bang my head on the wall several times and make sure it’s not a dream?

Evidence that sola is yet again delayed...

Unfortunately, it’s not a dream and I’m really angry on how Bandai Entertainment is handling the release, which is so ADV Films like… What R1 Licensors should learn from ADV Film’s shutdown is not to excessively delay the releases of the anime series or you may get loyally paying fans angry or even complain about it on the blog. I know Bandai Entertainment is far from becoming another ADV Films, but this continual mistake that ADV Films made so many time is just damaging their credibility. How simple is it to just translate, add the subtitles, press the DVDs and package them. The way they are handling it, they are having a hard time…

Until they ever release it, I’m never buying any more releases from Bandai Entertainment, except the ones I have already preorder anyways… If you actually read this, I want a formal apology once you release it to the fans for screwing with the fans so many times…

To people who want to buy these series: If Bandai Ent. never materialize these releases, I suggest complaining via written letter. The address is:
5551 Katella Ave
Cypress, CA, USA ,90630
By Email: support@bandai-ent.com
or mention them on Twitter with @bandaient

Okay, I’m done raging about them for now…

Category: Editorials, solaTag: editorial, rant, strawberry sundaes