Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Highschool DxD: Crude and Blunt


Currently finished: Episode 8

When it comes to animes that crosses boundary into the hentai land, my friends tell me that I have quite strange tastes regarding to what I think is good and what I think is bad. For example, I was not very fond of Highschool of the Dead due to its pointless fan service insertion but liked Sekirei; I couldn't stand Rosario Vampire but enjoyed Seikon no Qwaser and Queen's Blade. I think it mostly has to do with the expectations--the latter ones, I went in knowing what I'm going to get, but instead, there are far more than what I was expecting. On the other hand, the former ones, when they tried to sell you the series, they make them to be something different, but when it actually comes out, it turned out to be far less than I was expecting because everything was overly drenched with fan services. So it's all about whether the series is oversold or undersold.

That brings up the main point, which category does Highschool DxD fall into? You probably have guessed by now, it belongs to the undersold category, meaning it has turned out to be a better series than I was expecting. Honestly, I totally didn't expecting it to be anything other than some boobs bouncing harem series with some stupid fart jokes very much like what Rosario Vampire was. I know many would disagree, but the rather crude and blunt approach in both character building and humor is actually much more interesting than I was expecting. Since it's already crossed the hentai line, much like Seikon no Qwaser, it actually freed itself from trying to push the limit on the tease factors of the near hentai animes and simply use them as an element to build the story with. When you get used to it, it's actually quite fun to watch.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Shakugan no Shana III: The Final Showdown


Currently finished: Episode 20

Unlike previous series, this final season of Shakugan no Shana has no slow point in the middle of the series. Ever since episode 6, the excitement  has been nonstop. On top of that, it has been escalating, in a rather rapid pace nevertheless. While it's nice to have a rapidly progressing series like this, I find the lack of explanation on some of the key characters is a bit bothersome. I can kind of see how it would be unpractical to have all those people introduced. But, in my opinion, the story would be much more interesting to watch if they could have just extended the series for another short season or so to add in some of the background information about some of the key characters.

With the wrap up of the final showdown right around the corner, this one for sure is a hot one to watch for series ending in March.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

[New January 2012] Black Rock Shooter



Japanese title: ブラック★ロックシューター
Info: http://myanimelist.net/anime/11285/Black%E2%98%85Rock_Shooter_%28TV%29
Download: available through http://www.nyaa.eu/
Genres: Action / Drama?
I've watched: 3 episode

Summary: A girl is trying to become a friend with this other girl who has this strange relationship with another girl that is preventing her to make friends...(confusing, right? yeah, took me a bit to figure out too...)

First impression score: 85 - Kind of Weird...



Personal comments: The first episode is just as strange as the OVA series which didn't make much sense at all. However, episode 2 cleared it up quite a bit, and start to looking like somewhat complicated version of what happened in Bungaku Shoujo. Stories of this kind always interest me, even though I wasn't fond of the OVA series at all, I think I'm going to see to the end of this.

What Matters in Life

I don't know how many of you guys are out there actually read my blog (I'd like to think there are, but the likelihood is that I'm just grossly overestimating myself), but I have been getting a couple of messages lately noting the lack of posts in this blog. So I'd like to just go ahead address that.

Life has been on the rough side lately. While for the most part I'm still keeping up with viewing, I haven't really been able to find time that I could put down my thoughts on this blog. Normally it's done while I'm watching a different series, but now even that is being occupied by many matters in my real life.

There has been times I felt I should just throw in the towel, but this has always been a portal for me to express the feelings or emotions I felt watching animes. While I do have friends in real life to talk about these "anime matters", it's never the same when you were able to capture it and express it at the peak of your emotions. And that, is the purpose of my blog--giving an opinion to the prospective audience on what an anime series could bring to them, without spoiling it for them.

So basically I'll be probably on and off with my blogging business until life settles down--real life matters take priority.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

[Dropped] Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!: Not very Impressive

Last Episode Seen: Episode 6

Sometimes it just pains me to drop a series half-way through the season, because I've already invested so much time into it yet I just couldn't find a good enough reason for me to keep watching it.

The reason I'm dropping isn't really because what it has, for the most part, is because what it doesn't have. What it's lacking is something keeps progress through the plot so people would stay interested: ever since episode 3, the series has been turning circles at the same place without any real progress in the plot is being made. Since it's already half way through, unless something very significant happens or the pace become extremely fast in the second half of the series, I don't see it getting anywhere by the end of the season. So I'm going to just cut my loss and call it good now.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Another: Who Is the Dead


Currently finished: Episode 5

It's hard to believe that it's only been 5 episodes--it has been quite a routine for me on Tuesday night to grab the newest episode of Another, wait till sometime late at night when all noises are settled, turn off all my lights and start watching it in the darkness.

While I'm actually quite easily spooked, still, I think setting up the environment to match the darkness is the only right way to watch any horror series, especially for mystery horror like Another.

So far, Another has been more or less the best horror series I've seen for a while. The last semi-decent horror series I recall seeing was Kaidan Restaurant which came out in 2009 and was somewhat oriented towards kids.

Episode 5 of Another reveals some pretty big thing we've been puzzling since like episode 1. However, doing so didn't quite make things clearer, in fact, it made it bit more complicated because now a new puzzle is revealed in front of us and waiting to be solved. But I do like where this series is heading.