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Kobato – Episode 23 Thoughts and Impressions

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As they all say, all good things come to the end. Kobato uses her remaining time to make Fujimoto happy by taking him to the park and stuff. They even went on a boat ride and Kobato couldn’t even row the boat correctly, which is the funny part. However the second part gets a hell alot more serious She says farewell to the landlord, Chitose and Kobato and Ioryogi leaves to the place where she first arrived. Fujimoto comes home and finds out that Kobato left and he looked everywhere to find him. After Kobato failing to fill the bottle, Fujimoto came and finds out that Kobato is actually dead all along and needed to fill the bottle so that she would reborn or revived in the world. After Fujimoto shattered the wall, the last Konpieto came, but after it filled, the contract cannot be changed and Kobato disappears along with Ushagi.

I swear, Ushagi is one mean bunny… or rather, nightmare fuel. I bet after the viewer saw what Ushagi did, well, I guess viewers are going to gain an irrational fear of bunnies now because they will giggle that makes you disappear in your dream and gold a freaking flower and do bad stuff. As Ioryogi said, you cannot change her fate at all… and that you are stuck what you have… unless you have a Deus ex machina. I think it was too late for Fujimoto to show his true feelings towards the end… and well, we don’t know how it will turn out until the next Episode… so stay tuned…

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Sora no Woto – Final Review

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Unoriginal and Uninspiring”

If you have the sense or feeling that modern anime are heading this way, I don’t think not. Yes, anime adapted from source material can be viewed by some as that following quote I have used in a editorial against Miyazaki’s views* on modern anime, but a effort to change this tend comes in from of TV Tokyo, Aniplex and A-1 Pictures, called the Animeno Chikara project, or The Strength of Anime is a project where they produce completely original Anime and broadcast it. The first project they done with the project is Sora no Woto. People when they first saw the first shots of it accused it being a copy of K-ON! and that it’s going to be a moeblob show since the characters looks vastly similar. That wasn’t the case at all when I was blown away by the first few episodes of Sora no Woto and I liked the story and the setting. Hardly any moe at all, besides that Episode 8.

With original productions, you are left with a clean slate of expectations. With adaptations, the viewers expect that it will be close to the original source material and when they find out that they changed or left something out or that the series has too many fillers, they will start complaining and drive their expectations down. I had no expectations when I first watch this production and it leave me a very good impression, allowing one to have an open mind. Original productions, you don’t know what will happen next or expect how well it is going to be until the next episode, which makes people eager to want the next episode soon. Also, they allow the producers to become more creative and original as opposed to adaptions, where you have to stick to the source material and you are pretty much limited on what new characters or plot you can put into the series without making the viewers angry.

Anyways, since I finished the introduction, first I’m going to focus on the story. The story is pretty deep and takes place in a town called Seize in Helvetia after the war have finished. This is where Kanata gets sent to and she has a very optimistic view about the future. As time goes on, we learn more about legends, past stories from various people and also Princess Iliya!!! The episodes that I felt that had a very good impact is Episode 3, where Kanata gets ill and we first hear “Amazing Grace”, Episode 5, where Noel, Kanata, Kureha goes onto the field trip and we are first introduced to No Man’s Land, Episode 6 is Misho’s story, Episode 7 with Filicia, getting over her loss of her friends and the first time we see Princess Iliya, Episode 9 with Klaus not disappointing Kureha by saving her and her keeping her faith in him and finally the last two episodes. “Amazing Grace” and legends are the most important and underlining of the story, which is shown throughout the season and time after time. However, with the seriousness, the happy and cheery ending theme ever gets so inappropriate that it becomes a mood whiplash, pretty much seen in Clannad After Story and Elfen Lied for examples as they used happy ending themes after a serious episode at the end of the episode. The story even after 12 episode seems that they could of gone a bit more in depth, but due to length constraints, they unable to do so which is fine… but if it was a little longer, I think the story can hold up even stronger. (Keep in mind, we are also getting 2 bonus episodes, possibly tie up loose ends.)

Music was pretty much good overall. Despite Kanata’s absolutely horrible playing in the beginning, but ended up turning out good when Amazing Grace was played in Episode 12 and it just sounded great. The opening theme, Hikarino Senritsu is really good considering how well it fits to the overall setting and story. However, even though I liked the ending theme, Girls, Be Ambitious, it became inappropriate several times after a serious scene happens towards the end and BAM! we are hit with a happy and go lucky tune… I would rather for them to use the other track, but oh well. For the background music, I have no opinion yet since the OST isn’t out yet, but I’m sure down the line, someone will review it.

Now for Characters. Yes, they look very similar to the characters from K-ON!, but I feel that they are different. Why? Kanata is not much of a moeblob and in contrast to Yui, I can’t picture that kind of behavior from her. Noel is the only character that has absolutely no relation to K-ON! (yep, they cut out Ritzu) and more like Nagato, but towards the end, she seems to have more emotion than the latter. Also, the voice acting for these characters are great… The only problems is character development, well mainly because of time constraints… I can’t complain much, but it’s worth saying they didn’t copy everything from K-ON! at all or if we did, well… who knows… From all those characters, I see Rio, Filicia and perhaps Kanata to be the strongest in terms of character development.

Overall, I think Sora no Woto is a outstanding series and I would recommend for those with a open mind. This is not K-ON! and Strike Witches smashed together, but I think with it’s strong setting, great storytelling and the eyecandy, I can say that Sora no Woto is a very interesting series that pretty much kept me watching. Hopefully, this production will encourage some more studios to start pumping out good and original Anime that can catch the viewer’s attention and keep it interesting so that it keeps the viewer watching. This pretty much proves that studios can produce original and inspiring anime if they work at it. They should use Sora no Woto as a model (but don’t copy the story/setting) and try to use the tactics used to create an original story that viewers will probably like.

Don’t say that I’m finished with Original Animes, the next one up is Angel Beats, which I will cover when it starts next week…

Final Score

9.04/10

Notes

*I’m no way against Miyazaki’s works at all, I think he did a good job in producing movies that I did in fact enjoyed, but I just don’t agree with any of his politics and his views on Anime

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Kobato – Episode 22 Thoughts and Impressions

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Oh dear... you almost out of time.

Well, this is near the end of the journey of Kobato. In the beginning, we see Kobato as a child with dolls and someone looks vastly like Fujimoto. Well, this is obviously a happy dream that Kobato was having, but her chest hurts that indicate a feeling of love of some sort. As decided in Episode 21, we go more in depth on why Sayaka decides to close the nursery. She says it’s because Fujimoto seems to be too attached to that place, and now with the Nursery gone, Fujimoto still continues to work despite this because he is a perfectionist.

Fujimoto goes to the nursery for the last time and look at the organ and went back to work. Soon, all the belongings are hauled away and the former nursery children, Sayaka and Kobato watches the nursery being demolished. Meanwhile, Fujimoto was in a gaze and got into an accident while driving, making one of his arms unusable. Domoto was there with Kobato and while Fujimoto and Kobato walking, Fujimoto finally snaps and saying that all Kobato is doing is annoying her. This causes Kobato be upset. Ushagi-san then comes down from the sky giving a flower that indicates that Kobato only have until the next moon as Ioryogi said and if she fails to fill the bottle up, her fate will be sealed. He tries to beg for an extension, but Ushagi doesn’t allow it and leaves.

Overall, this episode was better than the last episode, although we know already the manga will definitely have a different ending compared to the Anime. Yes, some typical fetish fuel in a scene where Kobato and Ioryogi meets (and Kobato was, well… you know…). Also, the dream suggests something that Kobato desires (well, at least in the Anime), which is some type of relationship with Fujimoto. Anyways, we find out in the two part finale if Kobato succeeds or not… Stay tuned…
Verdict

8.7/10

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Pokemon Heart Gold First Impressions

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Well, yes, it’s another game that is terribly addictive. This is a remake of the Pokemon Gold and Silver games that came out nearly 10 years ago on the Gameboy Color. I remembered playing this on the Gameboy Color and well, nostalgia will hit again once I start playing this remake on my Nintendo DSi.

Alot have changed during the last 10 years with game mechanics and also the capabilities the Nintendo system had. Back in 2000 with the Gameboy Color, it could only show a certain amount of colors and there was no wireless features except the IR censor on the top of the system, but now with the Nintendo DS or the DSi, alot of change, thus more features were added.

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Inside the box reveals instructions for the PokeWalker, which allows you to send a Pokemon over for something and use it without needing a DS and well, the game that comes in a separate package from the box.

Inside the game package is obviously the game and instruction manuals. So that is pretty much it. Anyways, if you are interested in my progress, I will write entries over at my Sideblog, Shiori’s Diary with some screenshots. For now, I’m just going to get started with the game, so I will post a little later. :p

Anyways, what do you think about the remakes?

Also, I will still continue to blog about Anime despite playing this game…

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Fanservice and Nogizaka Haruka, What the hell happened?

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A while back in June 2009, I wrote a lengthy editorial on how fanservice can ruin the overall story of an anime. Well, this becomes a reality with Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.

I have watch both seasons and the first season was far better besides a few panty shots is that they focused on the over lining purpose of the story. Yuuto and Haruka sweet romance and also her Otaku interest. However, the second season lost it’s purpose completely. Like Kimagure said on Melative, “sweetness replaced by pointless fanservice.” The second season of Nogizaka Haruka just proved what I have said in my editorial I wrote in June of 2009 that adding lots of fanservice makes the over lining story alot worse than it would without the fanservice. All I got from this is more pantyshots, boob groping and other stuff that shouldn’t be in the anime. If I want to watch a fanservice-oriented anime, I would of watched titles like Ladies vs Butlers, Kampfer or even Chu-Bra! I bet one minute that 90% of the fanservice seen in the second season is not in the Nogizaka Haruka light novels (yes, the Anime is adapted from the light novel…)

The problem with the route they taken is that it’s completely unnecessary and the story can do better without it, besides the other flaws besides fanservice. I felt that Diomedea is trying to use fanservice to try to attract more audience to the show, at the same time, alienating its viewers who liked the first season and be constantly let down by every episode. If there is ever a third season, Diomedea better shape up and not add the fanservice and bring it back to what the story is intended to be in the first place because viewers aren’t going to take this excessive, overdone and redundant fanservice and panty shots anymore. There are already enough fanservice laden titles out there already, Nogizaka Haruka is a series that doesn’t need to go down that path too. We already have other anime that does that.

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Melative and Making Previews More Informative

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Even owls want in at this...

Preview posts always had problems for not giving enough information or resorting to “chartfag” charts that become outdated when a stream of new information comes in, giving the readers not enough info on when the series will start, how long, what genre and so on. This leads people writing preview posts without enough information and just making noise for the sake of it.

There is a solution. If you familiar with Melative as I discussed a while back. The advantage of Melative that Melative has open APIs and a open Wiki format where the info can be edited by editors (and users can create their own versions of their pages) and add up to date information. Lime is what the whole thing is based on, well at least for the open Wiki part. I have suggested a Wordpress plugin where a user just enters the URL to the title page on Melative (in a certain format) and it would be replaced with the up to date information that is currently in the database that includes the picture, any context information (date of when the series will start, how many episodes, genres, etc.), links to other resources and of course the description. This approach is a lot more informative and takes the guess work on researching information on that title. This is how I done my “Upcoming Anime” page.

The usage is really simple. Copy the link to the title and put it in this format. For example

It should look like this:

With it’s advantages, there are some disadvantages. One of them is that the “melative-item” plugin will not work on wordpress.com or any other blog software that isn’t a self hosted Wordpress. This is because Wordpress.com does not allow third party themes and plugins. Second, this Wordpress plugin is still in development and not complete yet. Although the chances of it malfunctioning is low, the plugin can malfunction or do funny stuff, but it will not affect anything in the Wordpress database.

If you interested, you can download the plugin here. To install, just unzip, upload the melative-item folder to your Wordpress Plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins) and use the format I demonstrated above to show the information from Melative in your posts or pages. If you have any issues, report them on IRC, #melative on freenode. Also, the plugin will be available on wordpress.org in the future, so keep a lookout.

And this plugin pretty much made chartfag charts obsolete… for most bloggers. Also note that a melative account isn’t necessarily required to use the plugin, although you should take part in it and ditch services like MyAnimeList.

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Editorial: The Harsh Reality of the Anime Industry

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With the last article, I decided to write a response to the author of “The Golden Waste” as he seems to be ranting about people not buying licensed anime for some reasons. Everyone should be buying licensed anime if they like the show and/or want to support the studio, there is no way around with that. However, the money that comes from both the Japanese and licensed Anime sales of DVDs is very small for the Animation Studios. We can argue or rant about dub versus sub-only releases, Crunchyroll and licensing companies as much we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that how much corporate greed comes from the Japanese Anime Industry causing the animation studios be left with peanuts in comparison with the American Music Industry.

…

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Sorry about that hiccup! Blog goes down 2 days!

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Because I was playing games… Not really, but.

Well, yesterday if you haven’t noticed, the blog went down suddenly and I was wondering what happened. Well, the host Notcliche is hosted on, midphase had decided to move the site to a more reliable server. Because of that, my comments that were made in the last two days were lost, but I was able to recover the posts and comments from the last three days. Hopefully, this won’t happen again, but it’s one lesson learn from this. Always make backups of your posts and that Murphy’s law is in full effect, which states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

We know, sh*t happens, but it’s not end of the world. :p

Now excuse me, I have to restore the snapshots on my Sora no Woto Episode 7 post and blog about Kobato Ep 18.

Attribution Information

Fanart used in this post is made by そら. (source)

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Editorial: US Anime Industry and Corporate Media, What is the Problem?

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After reading this particular rant, I believe that it haven’t covered the most important area. Sure, Anime have gotten cheaper, but they remain more expensive than a whole season box of a US series like Heroes or Lost which have alot more episodes and I end up spending 40-50 dollars for the whole season. Sure the days of 3 episodes on VHS for $30 or 4 episodes on a DVD is over, but this is not the main focus on this topic, The main focus is the US Anime Industry and Corporate Media.

And believe me, I buy licensed anime on shows I want to watch and my sister owns a pile of licensed DVD releases.

The editorial fails to mention about licensed anime outside the US.How about Europe? Some series will probably never get to be licensed in other countries, which leave people who want to watch the series having to import, which cost more and requires another DVD player due to region coding. DVD region coding is another problem caused by corporate media.

With corporate media, you think you own the media, but you don’t. The anime you have on your DVDs are licensed to you, not owned. This holds true with streaming media in one particular postkimaguresan posted:
Ownership: This is the elephant in the room. When you watch a streaming show, you see it, and then it’s gone.

There is no freedom with corporate media. Their interest is to license the show, distribute it and make a profit, and while you at it, restrict your fair use rights with crap like digital rights managements, region coding, streaming, and other things. There is no freedom in this model, ever. Another point with big media is that the content creator gets shafted and get a very small cut of the profits sold from these licensed DVDs. Big media companies like Funnimation and Sentai Filmworks take most of the cut from the sale of Anime DVDs which leaves the Animation studios like Shaft, Kyoto Animation and the rest with so little profits. This is the same with music labels where the music labels like EMI, Warner and others get a big cut from album and digital music sales guess what the artist or even the composer get? A very small cut from it. The problem here is corporate greed and less profits from the content creators. On top of that, the greed comes in form of high prices on price gouging on Blurays (on lesser extent, DVDs) and DRMed media. On top of that, removing DRM from your media such as DVD ripping is illegal according to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) because using such programs circumvent Digital Rights Management. Stuff like DMCA further take away our fair use rights away. What happens if our media gets scratched up and become unreadable, do we have to buy another copy of the media? I think this is wrong because anyone should be able to back up their DVDs because we own the media already, why can’t we since “fair use” allows us to make a personal backup copy. (Note, it’s technically illegal to rip DVDs in this Real Network ruling.)

The end of the day, no matter if we own the media, we are slaves to corporate media and with streaming, our freedoms are basically gone with this and the content creator don’t benefit from this at all. The only way you can surely support the series you like is buying related merchandise such as figurines, artbooks, albums, games, etc. The merchandise they sell usually generate more money than licensed DVD releases and remains a great way to support the series you like while still buying R1 releases.

Note: I do not advocate not buying the Licensed DVDs or resorting to illegal means to obtaining “licensed” DVD releases because of some of these reasons… You should still buy R1 Licensed DVDs despite this and expressing my opinion won’t change that, I will still buy anime that is licensed.
Further Reading
kimaguresan on Crunchy and Big MediaOne License to Rule Them All

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Chikorita157’s Anime Blog turns 1 year old and how it was started.

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Time flies when you are having fun and blogging. When February came, I went… Oh shoot! It have been a year since I have started blogging about Anime exclusively. The blogging started in February 17, 2009 when I decided that putting my Anime stuff with all the rest of the stuff on my old blog isn’t a good idea. I have split the anime section of the blog from the main blog, but the main blog ended up dying since I didn’t felt like maintaining two blogs and there is alot to talk about Anime and it’s related stuff like visual novels, related songs, etc. Of course, this blog won’t be possible if I haven’t rediscovered Anime when I started freshman year of college in September 2008 (more on that story in About chikorita157 page)!

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Although it uses the same theme, the banner was lacking in quality.

Well, when I first started this blog, I decided to use WicketPixie  as the theme for Chikorita157’s Anime Blog since it looks clean and stylish. I just removed the text logo and the Twitter stuff on the top since it wasn’t necessary. As time went on, the banners improved in quality, but the theme stayed pretty much the same. I could of use the same theme as everyone else, but that would look boring and not so unique.
As of Feb 17, I will probably make close to 260 posts, and thats good since I wanted to always update the blog. I’m dedicated and love blogging about Anime because this is what I enjoy doing. Watch Anime and blog about what I thought about it. So dedicated that I even blog when I’m on vacation, because there is nothing to do around the hotel room except sleep and watch TV. I am hoping that more people decide to look up at my model and start blogging more often than just leaving their blogs collect dust for more than a week.

2010 will be another great year and as always, I will keep blogging… until I get tired or lose interest on Anime, which isn’t happening anytime soon. So I give these two words as I go onto the second year of blogging.

2010, fighto~

Attribution Information

Fanart used in this post is by 透子 (Orig Source.)

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Chikorita157's Anime Blog gets a makeover

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It only took a few hours!

I have always wanted to update the blog style, but I haven’t got the time with my programming projects (MAL Client OS X and Melative Library), college work and spending time watching Anime and Audiosurfing that I neglected to update the theme for a long time. Now, it have been almost a year and I have decided to change the theme.

I didn’t want to ditch the current theme, Wicketpixie since it’s a very clean theme and I want it to stand out since bloggers use the same theme over and over again… I wanted to be different, so I just updated the banner, icons you see on the top and the color sceme. The image is obviously themed on Furukawa Nagisa, my second favorite character from the anime Clannad. I used my Wacom Bamboo Tablet (very useful and they are inexpensive now) to quick mask the whole thing to have a clean cut from the original image and paste it into the banner with some touch up. The graphics tablet made life alot easier to make the selection possible and I haven’t discovered the quick mask tool until I learned how to use it in Intro to Digital Photography, one of the electives I’m taking this semester. Also, threw in some snapshots with some effects and I was done.

The color scheme is now purple and it used to be bright yellow. I was getting sick of the yellow, so I replaced it with a darker color that is easier on the eyes… Well, it comes down to preferences.

However, if you compare this current theme to the one used since February 2009, it’s a big difference. It really shows how much effort I put into this blog because I really enjoy blogging on Anime and expressing my thoughts. Hopefully, this will be another great year…

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Kobato – Episode 17 – Thoughts and Impressions

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Can’t… resist… urge!

This is the second part of Mysterious Lifeform, in Ioryogi perspective. He goes to the “Sprit World” to obtain baumkuchen, his favorite food. On his way back, he gets hit by a soccer ball, on a sheet in midair, using his fire breath to avoid getting the box wet, be he fell into the pond, going into a dryer and also being a target of a shoot a object game. That is one rough and hilarious adventure he had.

After Kobato and Ioryogi met again, she returns to the bazaar and found out that her mysterious lifeform she stiched haven’t sold, but Domoto, the nice guy he is, buys one… and Ioryogi’s baumkuchen got sold, so he never got the chance to eat it and gave Kobato a -300 for her selling it.

Unlike the last few episodes, this one was really lighthearted. As you noticed, you saw cameos from XXXHolic and also Tsubasa Chronicle? Yes, there is a theme park named Mokona Land… it made me laugh because I instantly recognized it since I did watch a few episodes of Tsubasa with my sister a long time ago… It seems that Clamp sure love their cameos… or they are running out of ideas… One or the other… Anyways, it was good, but not as good as the last…

Verdict

8.6/10

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