Another week of animé has passed. You can find some notable first impressions here. Anyway, for this week, this is the conclusion I’ve come to:
Shikabane Hime: Kuro has jumped the shark. Almost literally, as I’m sure there will eventually be a shark-like-looking corpse with an attachment to the world as a swimmer. And that’s a freakin’ hilarious observation if you knew anything about the show. Anyway, after the main character took over from the original contracted priest (his kinda-brother) to take care of school-girl uniformed corpse, things just haven’t been the same. Now that they’re diving deeper into some cult of super-corpses, I’ve lost interest. As you probably have with me writing this paragraph. Okay, I’m over it. Wait, one more — I should have known things were going downhill with the first episode of the second season which began with more fan-service than plot development. Dead give away. Dead like a corpse sent to kill other corpses. And dead like the creativity of this show.
White Album is brilliant! In fact, I was reading another blog which caught something I hadn’t noticed. There’s an emphasis on this book of poems by Brown. It feels like every episode it has a different symbolic meaning! So now, the attraction of the show is not the love triangle between childhood-friend vs rock star, it’s about this book! It’s actually really exciting!
Asu no Yoichi is starting to open up. The story about a samurai living in the city is pretty funny. It’s mindless entertainment, but entertaining nonetheless!
Zoku Natsume Yuujin-Chou – no change. Still awesome.
Kurokami. Heard of a Doppelganger? Well, they don’t exist. In this world there are Doppeliners. There are three people (including you) who look like you. One of them is the main one. The other two are just… placeholders almost. Anyway, fate is made up of luck. The main you has the majority of the luck. The other two split the difference of the remainder. Still with me? Well, if you meet yourself, the one with the most luck “wins” that luck and the other one… well… dies. Look, it might not make sense when I explain it — but the fights are pretty cool and you’ll get hooked if you watch it.
Rideback. Okay. First. I am not into Mechas. I think they’re dumb. There are always aliens or evils and someone from somewhere finds a mecha thingy and is suddenly the chosen one to save the world with said-mecha which is special in some way because it forms a bond or something. Look, they’re lame. Rideback is about a motorcycle with training wheels arms and a girl who rides said-motorcycle.
Prepare to be surprised, because I actually loved this show! It starts off with a small backstory recap of a world torn apart with rival factions/governments… whatever. Not important. Well, it will be — but hopefully not the main focus. The world rebuilds(ish) and now we enter main character girl. Rin (I think). She does ballet. And she’s awesome. But she hurts her ankle pretty bad. Like, career-ending bad. Rather than feel sorry for herself, she moves on with her life. While it’s raining she finds a Rideback mecha motorcycle thingy. It’s all gyroscopic or something because it is intune with the rider’s movements… and Rin having a background in ballet can make this thing move!
Honestly, I felt a lot of compassion toward the main character by the end of the first episode. I was all “oh, good! It’s like Ballet again! Good for you!” I’m excited to see what happens. If there’s more focus on character development than political commentary, this will be a great show!
The Daughter of Twenty Faces. No, this isn’t new. But the group subbing it finally released the second-to-last episode. The second-to-last episode that aired in September! geez! I know they do this on their free time and don’t get paid for doing it… but c’mon! Really?
Naruto: Shippuden. Okay, one more. This is an important one. It’s no surprise, I love Naruto. I know it’s very formulaic, but that’s not a bad thing. 24 is formulaic. So is CSI. Formulas work for shows. It doesn’t mean it’s not good. Having structure doesn’t make a show predictable.
Naruto has been subbed by Dattebayo for… oh… well over 200 episodes. However, they’re not doing it anymore. This is because Viz Media is showing subbed episodes of Naruto online the week after they’re released in Japan (or if you pay for it, the day they’re aired — no waiting). Dattebayo – in an effort to not get screwed over with a cease and desist order – decided to stop working on Naruto.
I guess I understand their reasons behind it… well… actually, I don’t. If they don’t sub it someone else will. Even if it’s available the week after on a website, people don’t want to wait. I can understand abandoning Naruto if it was going through another filler-arc — but this is the good stuff! Dattebayo introduced me to Naruto! Knowing they’re not part of the project anymore is just… weird.
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