Sanya no Tsukaima (“Sanya’s Familiar”) is the latest Visual Novel from Nitro+, a company famous for their completely messed-up storylines (as in, morally wrong, mindshrew-y or just plain incomprehensible until the third playthrough), Bad Ends that are extremely bad and Good Ends that are often not much better than the bad ones or just plain incomprehensible (see: Mindshrew).

However, Sanya no Tsukaima is an exception from much of what is generally associated with Nitro+. It’s storyline is of a kind you generally expect of a Key novel, and is surprisingly light-hearted – at least until you hit one of the bad ends, which are very much Nitro+-style.

The game begins with the main character, known simply as JD, infiltrates an organization known as IRC, and for some strange reason ends up as the familiar of a girl named Sanya. Even though JD is the main character – it even says so in the manual, and is repeatedly pointed out by other characters -, he keeps insisting he’s just a side-character. This creates a wonderful constrast to the main heroine Sanya’s fiery personality and tendency to set things on fire for no real reason.

The game has 4 routes: Sanya, Phlebas, dango and Sir Apple. Playing through all these four routes unlocks the final route: “Sanya no Tsukaima: On Fire” where JD is not only the main character but also the main heroine. This may make no sense to you know, but once you start playing it starts making… even less sense. As expected of Nitro+.

I mentioned the Nitro+ style Bad Ends before. There are several of these scattered throughout the story, generally at completely random places. All of them don’t just make no sense, they make N+ sense which means they make even less than no sense. For instance, there is one bad end that involve several characters transforming into a mecha made out of faces for seemingly no reason, one where the main characters gets drunk on dialogue and falls off a roof which definitely wasn’t there before he fell off it, and the semi-canon end which involves at least ten JD at the same time which all may or may not be penguins.

The game has been released online by the makers, and there is of course an english translation patch from Team Fluffy available for those of you not fluent in Japanese.

“After School Tea Time will always be… After School!”
— Yui

(Note: This is about both the seasons, K-ON! and K-ON!!)

Moé Slice of Life-animes revolving around a bunch of cute girls doing cute things have started to become quite a trend lately. Some are really good, like Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star. But they tend to drown in a sea of mediocracy, much like what has happened to the Seinen genre. But K-ON actually stands out more than most others. Instead of being flat-out comedies, K-ON actually manages to make me happy just by… being there. It’s not as hilarious and hysterical as most other SoL Comedies are, instead being very cute and slow. While it essentially is about a bunch of cute girls doing cute things, it takes a different approach.

The entire story revolves around the K-ON, short for “Light Music Club” in Japanese, which is “revived” by Ritsu Tainaka, who also has her best friend Mio Akiyama join. After a short while they also manages to make Tsumugi Kotobuki join too, after she went to the wrong room, but they still need another member to officially restart the club. Problem is that almost all the other freshmen has already joined other clubs. This is where Yui Hirasawa, the so-called main character, comes in. She has never been in a club before, but decides that Light Music sounds fun, and decides to join. While this solves the problem with the lack of members, it presents another problem: Yui can’t play any instrument, so now she has to learn Guitar from scratch, and manage in time for the school festival.

This sounds like something serious about a band playing music doesn’t it? Well it’s not. It’s about a bunch of cute girls using the Light Music Club and their band “Hokago Tea Time” (Hokago = After School) as an excuse to hang around in the music room and having tea, quite frequently also joined by their Teacher/Advisor Sawa-chan. They actually do play some music sometimes, but most of the time they just fool around. When “Azunyan” is introduced a bit into the first season they briefly stop to have some actual practice, but a few episodes she is pulled into the other members’ pace and they all start fooling around again.

K-ON has only two major faults. The first one is that it’s not always chronological at all and tend to jump a bit, so one episode can be high summer, the next winter just to go back to summer again for the next one, though it handles this a lot better than Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu for example. The second one – that actually is mostly in the first season and fixed for most part in the second – is it’s predictability, I sometimes see jokes coming a while before they do. This is not necessarily something everyone will get annoyed at, but fans of the Slice of Life genre will most likely have seen most of the jokes performed better somewhere else. This doesn’t stop the jokes from being seriously funny though, but they lose the surprise.

The soundtrack is arguably the best part of the show, and I really wonder how this is supposed to work as a Manga. Aside from the standard-issue comedy soundtracks, there are a lot of well-made BGM themes, along with the songs performed by the girls’ band After School Tea Time. Complete with ridiculous lyrics. Their signature song is called “Fluffy Time”, and they also have songs with the titles “Curry”, “Rice is a Dish” (a pun on the Japanese word “Gohan” which means both “Food” and “Rice), and a – for obvious reasons – never performed song called “Raccoon’s Love Shower”. The first Opening Theme, “Cagayake! GIRLS”, is in my opinion the best one, with the second season’s two OPs, “GO! GO! MANIAC” and “Utauyo!! MIRACLE”, being a bit worse, but still great – upbeat Pop for the win. A strange thing about the first season’s OP and ED is that after Azunyan’s introduction a few episodes in, she seems to be hastily pushed into the OP, and forgotten entirely in the ED.

The voice actors are perfect for their characters, especially Yui’s, Azunyan’s and Mugi’s, and they really help bringing out the already good characters. All of them are also newbies, but after the huge success of the first season they quickly got other roles. None of them are individually on Kana Hanazawa (Kanade from Angel Beats!)’s or Hirano Aya (Konata from Lucky Star)’s level, but all of them together make up a cast far better than most. Not to mention they can actually sing; unlike a certain other Yui, the Yui in K-ON (or anyone else here for that matter) doesn’t have separate voice actor for singing.

Aside from the voices, the characters are fairly unoriginal, with a few exceptions. Note that they being unoriginal doesn’t mean that they are bad characters; they’re all some of the better variations of their character type.

The self-proclaimed main character, Yui Hirasawa, is a childish, clumsy girl who never really succeeds at anything, but somehow ends up as a guitarist genius. She’s mostly a blob of moé without much personality, but being a moéblob has never been a bad thing, has it? She also has really strange daydreams, like dreaming that Mugi’s eyebrows are pickled raddishes, and she treats her guitar (which she names “Geetah”) as a person.

Ritsu Tainaka, the club president of the Light Music Club and also their drummer, and is the reincarnation of Haruhi Suzumiya, with a sightly different hair color. Just like the original Haruhi, she’s loud, obnoxious and with a ridiculously short attention span. Unlike the original Haruhi though, she’s forgetful, has somewhat bad grades and never turns in paperwork for the club in time.

Mio Akiyama, Ritsu’s best friend and also the band’s bassist, is also a moéblob, but not to the same extent as Yui. She’s left-handed, has a secret fanclub, gets scared by essentially anything, plays the bass only because the bassist can stand around in a corner without anyone noticing, and joined the K-ON just because Ritsu did. Most of the time she is also seen hitting Ritsu when she does something especially stupid, when she’s not covering in fear of something equally stupid in a corner.

Tsumugi “Mugi-chan” Kotobuki is the airheaded ojou-sama of some wealthy family, who despite her obvious advantages she tries to live a normal life. I say “try” because she doesn’t really succeed. She also has really strange dreams, like wanting to be hit by Mio because she feels left out when she hits Ritsu all the time. Her main role is to bring tea and cakes, and is both the least interesting character of the cast and the one with the least screentime. This doesn’t mean she’s a bad character, it’s just that the others are better.

Asuza “Azu-nyan” Nanako joins the K-ON a bit into the first season, and is one year younger than the rest of the members. She looks a lot like a twintailed version of Mio, and plays guitar just like Yui, except Azunyan is actually good at it. She is also the only member of the cast who seriously wants to practice, though she tends to get distracted by something and forget about it.

When it comes to Art, K-ON! shines there too. The unique art style really suits the theme of the show, and the animation by Kyoto Animation (well-known makers of Moéblob shows with Clannad and Lucky Star among others on their merit list in case you didn’t know) makes it shine even more. Every part of the animation shines, from the motions to the camera angles. The latter actually deserves some extra mention. Instead of, like many other music-centered shows, focusing unnecessarily much on characters’ faces during concert scenes, K-ON! tend to focus evenly much on the instruments and the faces of all the characters, and also switch angles a lot. This makes it a lot more fun to watch than the concert scenes in for example Angel Beats, and makes them feel much more living. K-ON! is also one of the shows that can nicely handle ridiculous movements and facial expressions without accidentally performing more physically impossible movements than necessary.

K-ON is not everyone’s cup of tea. Or everyone’s piece of cake. Or pickled radishes. If you hate rocky pop songs, Slice of Life or Moé, stay away. If you’re looking for a serious music-centered show or a Slice of Life one, you’ll be annoyed at all the comedy, and if you’re looking for a flat-out comedy you’ll be disappointed at the (somewhat) serious parts. The thing with K-ON is that it mixes all of the genres, without really lacking anywhere, and not going to extreme degrees in any one of them. Instead it’s sitting in a cozy spot in the middle, being cute and relaxing rather than hysterical or serious. The entire thing is very unique, and anyone should at least watch an episode of it – you’ll either hate it or love it, and the only way to find out is to try. Which you can either do in your browser here (second season here) or put it on your iPhone/iPod/PSP with the files here (second season here). A quick search on a downloading site of your choice (like Nyaatorrents) should also give you higher quality downloads if you feel like watching it in HD.

Toaru Majutsu no Index II

Yess! It’s finally here! The long-awaited continuation of Toaru Majutsu no Index! As you may remember, Toaru Majutsu no Index – one of the few titles to ever get a perfect score on my list on MyAnimeList.net – aired last year and just randomly ended after Episode 24. It didn’t have an end, it just randomly stopped after the Kazakiri arc.

Once again we are thrown right into Academy City, the best Anime setting ever made so far, with Touma suffering the consequences of playing hero all summer: Zero homework made on the day before school starts. Then Index gets kidnapped by a strange guy (Terra of the Left) who wants to use one of the books stuffed into Index’ mind to cure someone from a curse, and Touma has to run around playing hero again. And all of the homework he had done so far got destroyed first by a waitress dropping a cup of coffee over the printouts, and then Terra turning into confetti with a magical crossbow. Nice.

The second episode instead has Touma get recruited by Stiyl to help protecting a book not in Index’ mind from a group of magicians who wants to use that book to aquire some sort of awesome powers. More fights coming up! But… where did Terra go? Did they just forget about him? Whatever. Index’ plot has never made perfect sense but it’s been enjoyable anyways.

Like all of J.C.Staff’s larger projects, the visuals are really amazing, something that will most likely show even more in the over-the-top fights up ahead. And did I mention it’s in full HD? The downside is that there are some mistakes in the animations (especially episodes 2 and 5) where peoples’ heads are out of proportions.
The soundtrack, made by I’ve Sound just like the first season and Railgun, is actually pretty good so far, and it also has an opening theme (“No Buts”) by Mami Kawada – just like the first season. The new OP is not really on PSI-Missing’s (the first season’s incredible first OP) level, but still really good. And it actually got rid of Index’ biggest fault, it’s slow pacing, without getting rid of the story. In the first season, a lot of the time was spent on people standing around talking. In the second season, there is a lot more action mixed in between, without the story or the technobabble suffering.

This is so far the best show of the season, and nothing else is particularily likely to surpass it either. The only reason why you wouldn’t want to follow this is if you haven’t seen the first season, in which case you should see it first.

Score so far: 10/10

Shinryaku! Ika Musume

Shinryaku! Ika Musume is Keroro Gunsou and Lucky Star using the Fusion Earrings from Dragonball, and it’s just as odd as that sounds. Ika Musume (“Squid Girl”) gets mad at all of humanity for polluting the sea, and single-handedly tries to take over the world. However, she is completely clueless about the surface world, and ends up working in a nearby beach house for making a hole in it’s wall. Nice progress! Just like a certain incompetent frog, she spends her time scheming to take over the world while working for free in a café. And just like said incompetent frog, she has a complete lack of focus. And she’s daft enough to actually forget that she can breathe underwater and act like she’s drowning, among other things. Seems this invasion won’t be finished any time soon, but the endless failed attempts are extremely enjoyable.

The cast so far consists of an airheaded squid (Ika Musume), a character that’s like a direct copy of Natsumi from Keroro, Chizuru from Seitokai no Ichizon with a new hairstyle (?), a Captain Qwark-esque lightsaber lifesaver, and a hysterical Ika-fangirl.

Ika Musume herself actually deserves some special credit. Despite apparently being an invader, she’s completely adorable, especially her way of ending her sentences with ~de deso, a kind of baby-talk suffix. And she’s more clueless about everything than Yotsuba from Yotsuba&!, and does stupid things like mistaking a crocodile floater for a real one.

The art style is a bit like a hybrid of Toaru Majutsu no Index and Lucky Star. And it’s actually really nice, they even do underwater light effects really nicely. And over-the-top effects like the one above appears pretty frequently as well. The only thing so far I’ve found to be annoying in the seriously bad opening theme. It reminds of Lucky Star’s Motteke! Sailor Fuku minus everything that’s good about that song. Ika Musume is actually one of the few shows that I actually fast-forward through the OPs every time. It should be noted that the opening video is pretty nice, so if you turn off your speakers you can at least enjoy that.

Score so far: 9/10

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai

“Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai”, or “There’s no way my little sister could be this cute!” in english – also dubbed “Ore no Imouto wa Lolicon desu” (“My little sister is a Lolicon!”) by me – is one of the most unique series’ I’ve watched in a long time. The story is about a boy named Kyosuke who discovers a cover from a Mahou Shoujo anime called “Stardust Witch Merule”, containing an 18+ Lolicon Visual Novel game, dropped in the hallway. By bringing up the topic of Mahou Shoujo animes at the dinner table, the only one who could own it seems to be his sister Kirino. But since Kirino is something of an uber-tsundere, she couldn’t possibly have something this cute. Right!? But when Kirino wakes him up in the middle of the night and tells him the truth about her huge collection of Mahou Shoujo animes and Lolicon VNs, Kyosuke agrees to help her keep it all a secret. Especially from their parents. Oh, and during just this scene, Kirino denies her own existence about 10 times.

The entire series oozes quality, and it’s pretty obvious that the producers knew exactly what they were doing when they made this – if you have seen Eden of the East (Higashi no Eden in Japanese), you may recognize this feeling from there. They manage to avoid both being unclear and over-explaining things, staying right in the middle. For example, Kirino’s introduction is about 10 seconds long, and since it’s in a dream she’s technically not even present herself, but still manages to explain her perfectly simply by showing a polar opposite-version of her. Same thing with “Kuroneko”, who is introduced with just a few phrases, but still gives a perfectly clear picture of her. Kyosuke has such a generic (lack of a) personality so he doesn’t even need an introduction.

I don’t usually notice voice actors particularily much, but OreImo has quite a cast. My favorite Seiyuu Kana Hanazawa, who voiced Futaba Aoi in Asobi ni Iku yo! last season, Kanade Tachibana in Angel Beats! the season before that, and Anri Sonohara in Durarara!! the season before that, and who also appears as Sharon in Pandora Hearts and as Haruue in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, returns as Ruri “Kuroneko” Gokou, one of Kirino’s new friends. Kyosuke is voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura, who voices Tomoya in Clannad, Kadota in Durarara!!, Gray in Fairy Tail, Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Arashiyama (the Lightsaber Lifesaver) in Shinryaku! Ika Musume (see above). Kirino is voiced by Ayana Taketatsu, who voices Miharu in Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, Mio in MM!, and Michie (one of the Student Council members, the one with the bats) in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. And Saori, another one of Kirino’s new friends who seems to change speech pattern all the time, is voiced by Hitomi Nabatame who voices Magery Daw in Shakugan no Shana and the dorm supervisor in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. This is one cast of star seiyuus that’s seriously hard to ignore. Sure there are better all-star casts (like Gintama), but this is definitely one of the better ones.

As you can see in the picture above, the art style is just as unique as the rest of OreImo. It’s clean, unique, and while it doesn’t handle epic faces as well as Lucky Star, it’s not far away. It also tends to use overlays with typical VN elements, such as different kind of Flag Selections, and also oozes of quality. Motions are fluid, and pictures always seems actually living. There are few completely static backgrounds, but instead most of them have some kind of movements on them, saving it from seeming dead. And no matter where you look, you won’t find many empty spots or places left out of the animation. Like the image above, where the walls are covered with unnecessary stuff and Kirino’s hand moves despite focus of the scene obviously being on her face.

Oh, and just a note: since the main theme revolves around a lolicon, and a huge amount of Eroge VNs, it’s not recommended for anyone under 14-15. Anyone 14-15+ will on the other side most likely enjoy this.

The World God Only Knows

The ending… I can see it!
— Keima

The World God Only Knows (or Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai) is a very classic Harem kind of series. There are better ones, sure, but there are a LOT worse too. Keima Katsuragi is known as the Capturing God because no Dating Simulator heroine can resist him. However, he is completely hopeless when it comes to real girls. When he receives an email he percieved as a challenge letter, he accepts what he thinks is some kind of Dating Simulator Contest. However, this turns out to be a contract with a demon called Elsie (who was apparently sent by Dokuro-chan?) who wants him to capture real girls to force evil souls out of them by filling their hearts with love. And they can’t cancel the contract after Elsie realizes that he can’t capture real girls without both losing their heads. The only way to complete the contract is to capture a certain number of evil souls, by using Keima’s enormous knowledge of game scenarios and Elsie’s magical garment to recreate those scenarios in reality.

While this is kind of cliché, it is enjoyable. It’s all played out very nicely, even though I dislike that someone apparently thought you can apply Game Scenarios in real life. The entire idea is stupid. But if you can see past that, you have an enjoyable series to watch. The main character, Keima Katsuragi, is voiced by Hiro Shimono, who also voices Aki in Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu. Elsie is voiced by Kanae Itou who voiced Akai Ringo in the last season’s Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi - a character who is very similar to Elsie, except with a manipulative side -, Eris in Asobi ni Iku yo (also last season), Fumino in Mayoi Neko Overrun, Junko in Shakugan no Shana S, Sanae in Shinryaku! Ika Musume and Saten in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. Some other voices that appears are Yuuki Aoi (Shinra in Durarara!!), Tomo Sakurai (Chigusa in Shakugan no Shana), Asumi Kana (Kazakiri in Toaru Majutsu no Index), and my favorite seiyuu of all time: Hanazawa Kana who voiced Kanade Tachibana in Angel Beats!, Aoi Futaba in Asobi ni Iku yo, Anri Sonohara in Durarara!!, etc. Look up 10 centimeters under Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai for the list.

The rest of this series isn’t particularily remarkable. There’s nothing really bad about it, but nothing that good either. The art is nice, and the sound gets a passing grade. Anyone who likes Harem series should check it out, but if you don’t you’re not missing out on too much. Except a lot of cute girls, and strange 2D cutscenes (like “Woniichan Moé” or the 2D Nazi)

Soredemo Machi wa Matteiru

Maid-lo!
— Arashiyama

The only word that can describe Soredemo Machi wa Matteiru is “HYSTERICAL”. With capital letters. We’ve seen Maid Cafés before, but where else do you find Maid-Jutsu?

The story follows a small Maid Café, with a total of one regular customer. The “head maid”, who doesn’t want to be called that, is over 70 years old, and the only other employee is Hotori Arashiyama, who works there because she owes the owner for 10 years of curry. Arashiyama also has no clue about how to be a maid, neither has the “head maid”, so the place just acts as a café where people are dressed as maids.

Arashiyama, the main character, is one of the most unique characters I’ve seen in a while. Her sleepy voice and heavy accent fits her character as an irrational airhead perfectly. She also looks like Fuka from Yotsuba&!, and acts quite a bit like her. While she is incredibly stupid, she reads a lot of mystery novels and is a good detective, and her completely irrational – but correct – “deductions” are driving her Math Teacher (who thinks everything must be 100% logical) insane; think the headmaster from Great Teacher Onizuka. The rest of the characters – save for said math teacher – are rather unimportant though. The jokes performed by Arashiyama herself is more than enough to make it worth checking out, like changing “Hello” to “Maid-lo” while making a V-Sign…

While this is by no means one of the best shows of the season, it’s interesting enough to be worth checking out.

The Termaidnator!

Smaidurais?

Maid-lo!

Maids

Maid-Jutsu!

Ouch...

MM!

What the heck?
— Mio (good summary of MM!)

MM! works based on a simple principe: If two wrongs don’t make a right, how about ten? Or fifteen?

We have the main character who has an extreme case of machosism, the heroine (Mio) who has a Superiority complex to the extent of thinking she’s god, an androphobic (afraid of the opposite gender) secondary heroine (Arashiko), a crossdressing friend who changes personality to some sort of queen when he’s dressed as a girl (Tatsukichi), a violent school nurse who likes to dress up her patients and photograph them, a loli inventor who wants to make the world perverted, the lesbian heir to the Mamiya style of massaging who wants to massage all cute girls, and Tarou’s mother with a huge son complex and his sister with an equally huge Brother complex. And I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten someone… Essentially every time you see someone who appears to be normal with a spoken dialogue longer than a few words, s/he is going to turn out to be some kind of weirdo. Most people actually turn out to be weirdoes within 2 minuter of being introduced.

The sheer weirdness of it all is enough to motivate anyone into watching it, provided they’re not under 15 – I strongly discourage anyone younger from watching this.
They even have parodies of a lot of different shows, like Toaru Majutsu no Index and Dragonball. In Episode 5, Tarou even turns Super Machosist, the MM! version of DB’s Super Saiyan.

—
Before anyone asks about that last pic’s description: No, I don’t watch Yuri. I despise it just as much as Yaoi.

The Crosdressing Queen

Mio

Chef Mio

I'm afraid of men!!!

Tarou goes Super Machosist!

This picture looks like taken from some kind of Yuri show...

Bakuman.

NOTICE! This is not to be confused with a kids show called Bakugan!

Bakuman. (yes, with the dot) is another one of those really unique shows, depicting something you usually don’t see in Anime and Manga: the lives of the Mangaka (Anime/Manga authors) themselves. Something that could have turned out boring also turned out great, as expected of the authors behind Death Note. It doesn’t really have a slow pace, but not too fast, instead just right in the middle. It’s slow development, and well-made.

Mashiro Moritaka is a 9th grade student whose only real talent lies in drawing. He hopes to get through university, and get a boring job as a salaryman somewhere. This plan changes when Takagi Akito, who is an aspiring writer, recognizes his drawing skill and invites him to together become the greatest Mangaka Japan has ever seen. At first Mashiro is skeptical to the idea, since his uncle was an unsuccessful mangaka who died from overworking, but after Azuki Miho – his secret crush – after a series of events tells him that she’ll marry him if they actually become Mangaka. But even with their combined skill, becoming successful Mangaka isn’t easy.

Just like Death Note, the writing is so incredibly well done it’s completely addicting. You want to see the next episode right away, and can hardly stand waiting an entire week for the next episode. While this certainly might not be everyone’s favorite, anyone should see at least a few episodes. If possible, more.

Mashiro "Saikou" Moritaka

Takagi "Shuujin" Akito

Saikou and Shuujin

Azuki

A Romantist's DNA

Hiro~ sore wa Densetsuu~

What you should NOT watch!

Yosuga no Sora - From the creators of Kiss x Sis comes another risqué catastrophe…

School Days is a short manga (12 chapters), that despite it’s length manages to deliver feelings in a way that is on par with Clannad ~After Story~. And it’s not happy feelings either. The title might suggest that it’s some happy love story of some sort. That is about the opposite of what it actually is. It’s a Love Triangle ending in a tragedy. Jealousy driving people to do horrible things out of desperation.

Simple plot: Makoto Ito falls in love with a girl (Kotonoha Katsura) who always rides the same train as him. His classmate Sekai Saionji helps the two of them get together, despite she herself being in love with Makoto. Everyone is happy, except Sekai. She seduces Makoto in front of Kotonoha, and that’s where everything goes wrong. Very wrong.

At first it’s happy, then it clouds and becomes a lot darker without you noticing. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! You thought the transition between Clannad and Clannad ~After Story~ was large? This is bigger. A lot.

If you can take tragedies, or maybe even like them, you should read this here. Especially if you like the Psychological genre. If not, look somewhere else.

This isn’t too long, but neither is the Manga. Apparently the Anime and the Visual Novel takes different turns, so there’s more to this than the manga too, though I haven’t seen/played either of them – yet.

“Epic Badasness” would be the most appropriate word to describe this chapter.

Fate is pissed off at Negi because he has a better idea than his idea of destroying the world. N0 one believes this, and I actually started doubting it even more when Negi mentioned that it involved the Class Rep… How exactly could an annoying blonde shoutacon help saving anything?

Anyways, Zazie’s Sister raises again from the rubble she was buried under and exclaims that she doesn’t believe it either, and goes Xenahort’s Heartless. Chisame’s comment: “Oh, God! She’s totally a Final Boss character! Just look at that design!“. Apparently, she’s one of the Demonfolk, and yes, she holds high enough status to be Final Boss Material.

Zazie’s Sister is seriously sceptical to how a 10 years old kid could possibly save the world (I am too!), and has her Guardian do a seriously overkill attack that’s parried by Mana, Kaede, Setsuna and Ku-Fei who awakens from Cosmo Entelecheia. Kaede apparently “spent an excessive length of time in the company of my late grandparents” in there, Mana looks silly, Harumi apparently dreamed of World Domination (anyone surprised?), Setsuna is ashamed of her dreams involving a lesbian relationship with Konoka, and Ku-Fei is also getting all embarassed despite her dream seems to have been to fight someone whom I can’t recognize.

Zazie’s Sister, whom Negi decices to rename to “Poyo Rainyday”-san (Chisame: “…we’re calling her Poyo now? Seriously?”), decides to go overkill again. Negi tells the others to go after Fate while he fights Poyo-san. However, he is stopped by Mana who triggers a bunch of Gravity Mines (made by Chao Lingshen) she had apparently put in there (Chisame: “Yep, she’s a monster”), which presses Poyo into the ground and creates a huge crater (just how thick is that floor!?) and jumps after her down into the crater. Poyo theorizes that Negi’s method will lead to the future which Chao Lingshen came from (the one where everyone dies, remember?), but Mana bets that Negi’s method works while loading some of the Time-Space Displacement Bullets used for disqualifications during the Mahora Festival Arc (I sure hope she modified them, having a Xenahort’s Heartless-ripoff appear out of nowhere outside school could scare anyone out of their minds), then transforms into a… Demon!? Mana is a Demonfolk!? Okay, it was pretty clear already that she wasn’t human, but a Demonfolk? Random but awesome!

Next week there will be yet another break (hopefully we won’t have to wait a month like last time)… But there will also be a special One-Shot of Love Hina included!! Woo-hoo!

I just got the Visual Novel game Little Busters! working on my Macbook through Wine. However, since the process was far from easy, I thought I’d share how I did in case someone else wants to play Visual Novels too. Note that this guide is made for Key/Visual Art’s Visual Novels, like Clannad, Kanon, Air, Little Busters, etc. and other game makers’ games may not work at all. You should check them up in this database before trying to run them, if they’re gold or platinum, they’re playable. Note that you also need an Intel mac, any mac with G3, G5 or G5 processors (pre-2005) runs on the PPC architecture which makes Wine impossible to run. The initial steps also requires you to be logged in as administrator. If the admin account is separate from your normal account, make sure to have the admin account’s credentials available, or ask your administrator to run the first step for you.

Note that this guide uses examples for installing the game Little Busters, other games may place the installed files in other locations, if that’s the case, you just need to change the paths.

Quick Guide to many of the special characters present in this guide:

• ~ = Refers to “/Users/<your username>”, and gives the exact same result as typing that instead. Typed by holding ALT and pressing [N] (American Keyboard) or [^/¨] (European Keyboard), and then pressing Spacebar.
• ; = Links several commands together to be performed in succession. e.g. typing “command1;command2″ is equal to first running command1, waiting until it’s done and then running command2.

General advice for interacting with the command line:

• There is a difference between “/path/to/file” and “path/to/file”. The first (begins with a “/”) will search from the root of your startup drive, while the second will start from the directory you are currently in
• There is also a difference between something between quotation marks and without. In the former case, the text is taken as a Literal, and shortcuts like ~ will not be expanded like intended. In the latter case, you need to prefix any spaces in the path with “\” without the quotation marks (space -> backslash space) or it won’t work (note that spaces separating Arguments to a command should NOT be escaped like this; in that case this is the intended behavior)

Step 1: Getting the necessary files

(this step only needs to be done once, and does not have to be repeated for every novel you install)

1.1: X11 and Wine
To install a Visual Novel, you need a number of things. For a start, you need Wine and X11 to run Windows .EXE-files. To install X11, you can either grab it from the OSX Installation disc or from here. Then, you need MacPorts to install Linux/UNIX-packages from the Command Line, grab that from here and follow the installation instructions (NOTE: it’s not just installing the package!). After you have installed Macports, open Application->Utilities->Terminal. Then type the following command (Copy it exactly! A typo will make the command fail!) and press Enter:

clear;sudo port selfupdate;sudo port install wine-devel winetricks cabextract +universal;sudo port upgrade all

Congratulations, you can now run windows applications! However, before we start doing that, we need to make said windows applications work. Type this command into the terminal (some parts are supposed to end with an “Installation Failed” message) WARNING! This step will fail (for real) if you’re not logged in as yourself!:

clear;winetricks corefonts;winetricks comctl32 comctl32.ocx d3dx9 d3dx9_28 d3dx9_36 dinput8 directmusic directplay dotnet20sp2 fontfix vb6run


The script will install much of the components required to use most Windows applications for you, just sit back and watch, however, do not leave the computer since it will occasionally ask you to accept a license agreement or ask for confirmation (Notice the gray ugly windows-style boxes? Those are actually Windows applications!). When this is done, you can theoretically run most Windows applications unless they are too complicated. However, to make it play anything in Japanese or with a japanese origin, you need to fix some more…

1.2: Japanese Fonts
(from now on, make sure you are logged into the account you are planning on playing on)

To run Japanese games, your computer need to be able to render Japanese text, of course. If you try without these installed, you will just get ASCII-gibberish and there’s a large chance of the application crashing or acting strange. To enable Japanese fonts, grab this file and type this command (don’t type the [[DROP HERE]] part, instead, drag the downloaded file from Finder to the terminal when you get to that part to make it paste the full path to the file in there):

cd ~/Desktop/;LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine [[DROP HERE]];mv -fv ./*.ttf ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/Fonts/

This will install the required fonts. However, we’re not ready to play just yet.

Step 2: Preparing the game itself

(if you want to install more novels, repeat from here)

Step 2.1: Installing the Game
This is just what it sounds like: Install the game. If you have the physical disc, insert it. If you have an ISO or DMG with the contents of it, double-click on it to mount it. Then type the following command into the Terminal to open up the installer:

cd "/Volumes/LB";clear;LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine ./Autorun*.EXE

If your Installation Disc is called something else than “LB”, you must replace it with the name of your disc. Note that it is case sentitive, so “LB” is not the same as “lb”, “Lb” or “lB” and so on. If the name is long, you can replace cd "/Volumes/LB" with cd /Volumes/[first few letters of the disc name]* where you insert enough letters in the disc name to make sure there’s no other devices (Hard drives, Web Servers, Discs, etc.) that are mounted (that is, appears on the desktop or the finder sidebar) that begins with the same letters. Make sure you replace any spaces with “\ ” (Backslash Space) without the quotation marks.

Step 2.2: Patching the Game Engine

(Little Busters! Exclusive; though if you have other patches you want to install, you will still want to follow this step, adapting it to use other filenames as appropriate.)

If you are installing Little Busters!, grab this patch for it. If you are installing a novel that requires a No-CD Patch, you can use the same steps there, but you have to get the Patch yourself. Note that a lot of Visual Novels doesn’t require you to patch anything, but Little Busters! and a few others can’t be played without the physical disc without a No-CD Patch. If you run the game in the final step and it doesn’t run and is saying something about a missing CD follow this step. Also note that this step assumes that your game uses REALLIVE, if your novel uses some other engine, you have to replace “REALLIVE.EXE” in the commands with the name of the executable you want to patch.

Place the downloaded EXE-file on your desktop and rename it to “Patch.exe” for the sake of simplicity (again, case sensitive). Then run this command:

cp ~/.wine/drive_c/KEY/*/REALLIVE.EXE ~/Desktop/;cd ~/Desktop/;LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine ./Patch.exe

And choose to patch the file “REALLIVE.EXE” that will be located on your desktop. When it’s finished, run this command:

mv -f ./REALLIVE.EXE ~/.wine/drive_c/KEY/*/;rm -f ./Patch.exe;rm -f ./REALLIVE*

This will update the game engine and make it possible to actually run the game, as well as removing the used patch (remove the “rm -f ./Patch.exe” part if you want to keep it).

Step 2.2: Language Patch

If you have a Language Patch (for translating the game to english), name it “LangPatch.exe” (or change the name in the command below to whatever it’s called; just make sure to replace any spaces in the filename with “\ ” (backslash-space) or it won’t work), place it on the desktop, and run this command:

clear;cd ~/Desktop/;LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine ./LangPatch.exe

Repeat this step for any additional patches.

Step 3: Running the Game
Step 3.1: Creating the Script
To actually run the game, there are several steps involved. To make this a easy as possible, we will be creating a script that does most of the work for you.

Open a text editor of choice (any editor works, like the built in one, which I’ll be using), and create a new file in your home folder (/Users/<yourname>) with a name along the lines of “littlebusters.sh”. The name can be anything, but it should end in “.sh”, and should only contain characters a-z and underscore( _ ).

WARNING: You should save this as PLAIN TEXT. If you’re using Text Edit, select Format -> Convert to Plain Text to remove formatting. Also, never EVER use Word, Pages or other word processors to save these files. Saving formatted text will cause the script to stop working, and instead throwing weird errors at you about commands not being found.

If you have a disc, type this into it:

if [ -e /Volumes/<< The full name of your CD >> ]
then
echo "The CD is inserted, starting game..."
LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine ~/.wine/drive_c/KEY/*/REALLIVE.EXE
else
echo "The CD is not inserted!"
fi

Replace << The full name of your CD >> with the name of your CD (Case-Insensitive). If you have an ISO or DMG, use this code instead:

if [ -e /Volumes/<< The full name of the disc image >> ]
then echo "The Disc Image is mounted, starting game..."
else echo "Attempting to mount the Disc Image..."
hdiutil attach << The full path to the disc image >>
fi

LANG=ja_JP.SJIS wine ~/.wine/drive_c/KEY/*/REALLIVE.EXE

Replace << The full name of the disc image >> with the full name of the disc image as it shows up in the Finder sidebar when it’s mounted, and replace << The full path to the disc image >> with the full path to the Disc Image file (Note that if you move it, you need to change this). You can get the path by dropping the file into the text editing area in most cases (like the Built-in Text Edit).

Then run this command:

chmod 755 ~/*.sh

Done!

Step 4: Play!
To play the game, open up X11. You should get a large white terminal. If you don’t, press Command+N. Type this into the terminal to launch the game:

~/<filename>.sh

Where you replace <filename> with whatever you named the script you created in the last step. So if you named the script littlebusters.sh, you type ~/littlebusters.sh. It should print a few (or a lot of) messages, and start the game.

Powered by Qumana

Lucky Star can be described with two words: Epic Randomness. It’s 8 hours of hilarious random, character-driven, top-class humor. There’s essentially no plot, zero character growth, a ton of references to other Animes and the entire show just oozes of quality. The so-called story centers around Konata Izumi, who is something as uncommon as a female otaku and too lazy to study despite she is pretty smart, and her life. That’s the entire story, did you expect something more from a show described as “epic randomness”?

Lucky Star’s main strength doesn’t lie in it’s nonexistent story, but in it’s characters. The main character, Konata Izumi, is 17 years old, but looks like 12. She’s too lazy to study, despite she is pretty smart, and doesn’t join any sports clubs despite being very athletic, because if she did she would miss her Anime shows. Konata is well-known as “the queen of comedy” for good reasons – she’s simply the funniest character ever made, and one of the most easily recognizable ones too. She makes completely epic faces, has one of the most unique voices ever (she’s voiced by Aya Hirano who has done Haruhi in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Misa Amane in Death Note and Lucy Heartfilia in Fairy Tail among others), that is, she always sounds like she’s talking through her nose while having a cold, which is a lot cuter and funnier than it seems. Konata’s best friends are the twins Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi, who are essentially Kyou and Ryou Fujibashi from Clannad. Kagami is is a typical Tsundere (acting tough while she’s actually soft on the inside), or a “Dere-Tsun” as Shiraishi classifies her as later. Kagami (aka “The Great Kagamin”) is constantly being made fun of by Konata, and while she isn’t made fun of she acts as the Straight Man. Her twin sister Tsukasa on the other hand is more like Konata in that she enjoys reading and playing games a lot more than studying, but unlike Konata she doesn’t study because she loses focus not because she’s lazy. She also tend to sleep in all day (she sleepwalks and turns her alarm clock off), is extremely unlucky and generally feels that the entire universe is dead set against her. Then there’s their overly smart classmate Miyuki Takara, who just like Hanekawa from Bakemonogatari “just happens to know” everything, and who according to Konata is “a wandering pillar of moé” with her unreal clumsy cuteness. Later in it also introduces Yukari Takara (or “Yu-chan” for short), who is a first year high school student who looks and acts like a grade schooler, who is the only person Konata can feel superior to and she is generally clueless about everything. Along with Yu-chan there is her best friend Minami Iwasaki who has the most obsessive flat-chest complex ever seen (if you’ve played Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, think Etna and Flonne together) and who is essentially Korone from Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou in all other aspects – except for the fact that Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou was 3 years later. Some other notable characters are Konata’s father who openly admits that he’s a pedo, a cop that drives like a car thief, the homeroom teacher who has formed a guild with Konata in an MMO, and an american transfer student who lapses into english or pretends not to understand what people are saying when it’s convenient, a Doijin author who writes perverted Doujins based on her friends because she can’t find anything else to write. Also, Soujirou (Konata’s dad) is the only male character in the entire show not counting Shiraishi Minoru and Daisuke Ono, the former who has a total of two lines in the actual show and mostly appears in Lucky Channel, and the latter who only appears in Lucky Channel.

In case you have problems keeping up with the show, they added the mentioned “Lucky Channel”, which is apparently supposed to be an explanatory corner. However, they left the role as “navigator” to Akira Kogami, who is a child idol who frequently falls out of character, to the point of it appearing like a split personality, whenever she gets annoyed the slightest. She also wants to appear in the real show, but after finally managing to get an appearance, she catches a cold that week. Along with Akira, there’s Minoru Shiraishi (a real voice-actor playing himself), who just ends up being ordered around by Akira or shouted at by her whenever she gets annoyed at something. They’re apparently there to introduce new characters and explain stuff, but Akira always either gets annoyed at some detail, gets jealous of the character they’re introducing or goes out of character for some other reason. Lucky Channel is also filled with 4th wall-jokes, starting with Akira’s wish to be in the real show up to when she sprouts water onto the camera lens and the cameraman wiping it off with a piece of cloth, or even the background falling apart.

The entire series is crammed full of references and parodies, like Konata doing her own MMO-version of the song Bokuen Desho Desho from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, “Solo-Hunting Desho Desho… (hm hm hm hm hm hm) Will make you strong… (hm hm hm hm)”, and suddently getting a backpack with wings and saying “Uguu~” (Ayu in Kanon), Kagami being Hatsune Miku(Vocaloid2) and Cinderella at the same time, or Konata spening an entire episode talking like an 18th century upperclass-lady because she’s reading Marimite (short for “Maria-sama ga Miteru”). Unlike a lot of other shows, like Hayate no Gokoku! or Seitokai no Ichizon, you don’t have to get the references to have fun, the only exception being the parody of Cinderella, and having seen Haruhi is recommended since there’s scenes that’ll make even less sense than usual otherwise, so you can watch this without having to watch a lot of other shows. Of couse, it gets funnier if you get at least a few of the references, but since there’s tons of them I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of Japan to get them all.

To say that the art style is unique would be an understatement. Everyone looks like a doll and everything is chibified and cute, and all facial expressions (especially Konata’s) are over-the-top and exaggerated to say the least. The backgrounds are generally abstract or one-colored, but never feels rushed or out-of-place. It also has a certain liking of bright colors, something which is evident from just about every character design. It all fits neatly into the overall unserious tone of the series. The soundtrack is not on par with masterpieces like Clannad or Pandora Hearts, but always creates the right atmosphere (that is, create an 8 hours long unserious atmosphere without equal) without ever being repetitive or annoying. The opening theme, Motteke! Sailor Fuku, is the most hyper song since Love Hina’s Sakura Saku, and is extremely upbeat, fast and fits perfectly into the series. The ending themes are different every time, and is always parodies on existing Anime songs. Actually, Lucky Star’s only fault is that it has an end. And after it ends, there’a 45 minutes long OVA too.

Watch it here, or grab the PSP/iPhone-files here. To put it on an iPhone, read here for instructions.

Powered by Qumana

Haruto and Yuzuki

Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live) first seems to be just an ordinary love story-manga. A well-made one, but still nothing out of the ordinary. However, just like Clannad, that’s just on the surface – give it a chance, and you won’t regret it.

The story centers around a guy named Haruto Kirishima, who is living a fairly ordinary life until a girl named Yuzuki Eba turns up who will live in his house because she is the daughter of one of his dad’s friends and she desperately wanted to transfer to the school in Haruto’s town. Haruto doesn’t have any interest in Yuzuki since he’s already in love with a girl named Nanami Kanzaki. Yuzuki on the other hand has a clear interest in Haruto.

The story isn’t very original, but neither was Clannad. However, it has just enough originality to avoid being unoriginal, and is executed beautifully. The setting is based on the author’s hometown, which means that it has the same realistic feeling as Love Hina has, and actually feels living. The art style is also beautiful, on par with D.N.Angel and just slightly below Ken Akamatsu(Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima!, Mao-chan)’s art. It has some issues with misplaced eyes and sometimes there’s an arm pointing in a slightly impossible direction, but the overall quality is really impressive. The character designs are quite good too. The main character, Haruto Kirishima is not the most original character ever, and initially appears to be just a stingy, skeptical and a bit shy guy, but similarly to Ryoshi from Ookami-san to Shichinin Nakama-tachi, he can go any lengths for his friends if the situation requires him to. He’s fairly smart, but a bit too realistic for his own good. He could be considered a male Tsundere, but that’s not as obvious as for example Himuro from Fairy Tail. Yuzuki Eba is a far better character. It’s a bit hard to decide if she’s really smart or an idiot, she’s really clumsy (in a moé-ish sort of way) and reminds a lot of Nagisa from Clannad. She can also appear to be completely helpless and lost, just to surprise you by actually knowing exactly what she’s doing – though she generally actually is helpless and lost. She loves Haruto, but isn’t possessive like a lot of other heroines (Shana, Naru, Louise, etc) and actually helps him get closer to his crush Nanami. She also has a mysterious past, but as of now not much is known about this. Nanami Kanzaki is one of those characters you know will just be there to create some tension, since she lacks the details that separates main characters from major characters – just like Yoshida Kazumi from Shakugan no Shana, Risa Harada from D.N.Angel or Siesta from Zero no Tsukaima. She’s not a bad character, just not unique enough to really stand out. She’s a typical cheerful girl who will sooner or later reject the main character who will give up on her and move on to the main heroine. Then there’s Yuzuki’s evil and manipulative little sister (if you’ve seen Durarara!!, think a less prominent version of Izaya and you get the idea) Rin who somewhat shares Ryuk’s viewpoint from Death Note in that she does things because the effects are interesting, and Haruto’s childhood friends Akari and Takahashi who seriously acts like two halves of a whole, acting as a bokke-tsukyomi Comedian pair and cheering for Haruto. Akari also likes smacking people in the back of their heads with Newspapers, textbooks and similar – she once also hit Haruto with a dictionary after Kanzaki’s idea. Takahashi is Haruto’s inseparable friend and they’ve been friends since forever, and he’s also the kind of Kida Masaomi-character who hit on just about every girl he sees but never has any luck with them (sadly he doesn’t have a long list of “Girls I’m gonna’ make my girlfriend” like Kida) and has been rejected by more girls than he can remember – including Yuzuki, Rin and Akari.

The story is a typical slice-of-life one, divide into shorter arcs. It’s really beautifully written and well executed – there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular mangas on OneManga – and it never really breaks the atmosphere like Fruits Basket among others does, and said atmosphere is on par with D.N.Angel’s. Haruto and Yuzuki also make a really cute couple, mostly by being each others’ polar opposite. The character growth may not be on par with Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima! or even D.N.Angel, but it is there – even though you may not notice it. Even though this is a typical love story, there’s thankfully not much Ecchi like most other love story-mangas tend to be. The first page of each chapter always has an illustration that has nothing to do with the chapter itself (up to a certain point, where it starts being an enlarged panel instead), and while some of them are annoyingly ecchi-ish, they don’t get as much on my nerves as for example Fairy Tail’s does, some of them are actually really cute. The Summary and Closing texts can also be skipped, since they make about as much sense as Angel Beats’ official plot summary (just what is a spilled memory!?). One thing that may cause you to lose track of things like the characters’ ages and such is it’s somewhat annoying way of fast-forwarding through up to half a year, but except for that the story has a good flow without being either overcomplicated or too simple.

Despite it’s faults, the overall quality of it all means that you should immediately start reading it here. It’s definitely one of the best series I’ve read in a long time. It’s position on the top list of the most popular mangas on OneManga is well-deserved.

—-
Note that this post was written before Yuzuki was redesigned to a hated bitch rather than a moé-ish cute girl…

Powered by Qumana

Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakama-tachi
Translates to “Ookami-san and Seven Companions”(Ookami means wolf), also known as just “Ookami” since the full title is so long. Or the parody variations “Ookami-chan” or “Ookami-tan” because this title just begs to be made fun of.

“Long, Long ago… Well, not that long ago actually, there was a place called Otogibana City. And in that city, there was a school called Otogi Academy. The director of this school was a dirty old geezer named Aragami Lamp. I mean old man. He also happens to be a big shot in the Aragami Syndicate that controls the city. And this is the club he formed, the Otogi Academy Student Mutual Assistance Association, also known as the Otogi Bank. In return for fulfilling requests, they have their clients return their obligations to them as necessary. And that is the setting of our story”
—Narrator, Episode 2

That quote from the Narrator summarizes the setting pretty well. The club called Otogi Bank, because it’s real name is too long, help clients with requests of all possible natures from love confessions to assassinations (yes, seriously!). The pay is simply to owe the Otogi Bank a favor. They then cash in this favor in ways that makes Loan Sharks go green out of jealously (another quote). The main characters of the story are Ryouko Ookami (“Ookami-san”), whose name means “Wolf”, and who handles most of the tasks involving beating someone up. Ryouko is a typical Tsundere (and a Dere-Tsun if we’re following Sebastian’s definition from Lucky Star), and she’s not particularly good at hiding either her softer side or her interest. Then we have her roommate and best friend Ringo Akai, whose name is a pun on Apple and Red Riding Hood. She is obviously based on the latter, and is about what you’d get if you’d combine Komoe from Toaru Majutsu no Index and Kitsune from Love Hina. And she’s just as fun as this sounds (thought less manipulative, fortunately). Then there’s Ryoushi Morino who is the only guy to ever have fallen for Ryouko, and who is more or less forced into the club by Ringo both because she, like Kitsune, thought it would be fun to get Ryouko and Ryoushi together, and because the Otogi Bank needed some male members (everyone except the president and Tarou Urashima are girls) – Ryoushi is a hunter and is a master at hiding his presence and shooting people with a Slingshot from the shadows. He also has Antrophobia (fear of being stared at) and Scopophobia (fear of being seen) and his way of ending his sentences with “~su” which just adds to his cuteness. The Narrator also deserves a special a mention. She’s voiced by the same person who did Kuroko Shirai in Toaru Majutsu no Index and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, and isn’t a passive narrator who just explains what happens but frequently comments on the situation (commonly it’s remarks about Ringo and Ryouko’s flatness), or gets overly engaged in what happens. Seems she kept a bit of Kuroko’s personality from doing her voice for two “seasons” (soon to be three).

Ookami also makes fun of a lot of classic folktales, for example Cinderella’s tennis shoes (and Cinderella’s running spinkick!?) and two of the members of the Otogi Bank are Tarou Urashima from the japanese Dragon King’s Palace legend, and Orihime from the Tanabata legend – Tarou flirts with everyone (“He’s not just a corny womanizer for show” is the Narrator’s comment), and Orihime has a crush on him and “deals with him” every time he flirts with someone else (and she acts a lot like Chizuru from Mahou Sensei Negima! minus the Mutsumi-part of her personality). And did I mention the Graphics are gorgeous?

If the plot starts going anywhere this could very well be a 9 or 10 out of 10 rating, right now it’s about 8/10.

Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
Also known as “Occult Academy” in english is both a serious horror/mystery story and a comedy. A bit like Ken Akamatsu’s stories, it keeps serious without taking itself overly seriously. If you’ve read Mahou Sensei Negima! or Love Hina you know what I mean.

The series begins with Maya Kumashiro travelling to the school where her father is the headmaster after he died. There, one of the teachers has found a casette which contains a parting message to his students, which she plays to everyone in the school. Due to the headmaster reciting a spell for reviving the dead since he confused it with another spell, he revives his own body from the coffin and the zombified version of him starts rampaging around the school until Maya, together with an “Occult Dowser”, the school mechanic and two friends stop him. While this could be a completely serious “arc” (can you call it that when it’s just a single episode?), OA turns it more towards being the ultimate clumsiness to accidentally revive himself. It’s more comedy than serious plot and Maya’s faces are completely epic. At the end of this episode, Maya announces that she hates the occult, when a naked guy falls from the sky without any explanation. Apparently he’s a time traveller who came from the future to prevent the world from being destroyed in 2012 (see The Nostradamus Prophecies). By destroying a certain object that could be located anywhere inside the school, they can prevent a dimensional rift from opening and letting out aliens that will destroy the world – and apparently that was also exactly what Maya’s father had been doing.

Occult Academy (“OA” for short) reminds a bit of Durarara!! in both the art style and the general atmosphere – and since Durarara!! was a complete masterpiece that’s more than welcome. As I mentioned, the story doesn’t take itself overly seriously while still keeping a serious plot going. It could be described as what you’d get if you’d combine Death Note and Durarara!! with a bit of comedy added in. So far the story hasn’t really started up, instead it keeps suggesting and foreshadowing like D.N.Angel (the Manga version, the Anime sucked and didn’t do either a single bit!) or Canaan. If it keeps the pace and story going, this could easily be one of the best shows of the season. 9/10

Nurarihyon no Mago
The pointless english title is “Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan” (that’s not even a translation!) is essentially the Manga version of D.N.Angel combined with Harry Potter and a bit of demons added in. Also, I tend to call it “Noriyasu no Mago” because I can’t pronounce the title.

Rikuo Nura is a boy who is 3/4 Human and 1/4 Demon (“Yokai” actually, but that’s essentially the same thing). He is also the heir to a clan of demons (again actually Yokai), which his Demon quarter fully approves but his human part has no interest in inheriting anything, and just wants to be normal. Said Demon Quarter is essentially Dark Mousy from D.N.Angel all over again, just as his human form is a cuter and less whiny version of the main character Daisuke Niwa, again from D.N.Angel.

That’s about all there is to the base plot, but the execution is so awesome it’s almost scary. It has the same kind of atmosphere as the Manga version of D.N.Angel, and more or less revives the whole Supernatural genre which has been lying untouched for a while. It has a lot of colorful characters, and switches between being really badass and really funny seamlessly. Yuki (means Snow in Japanese), the Ice demon who looks a lot like the Pokémon Frosslass, has a really good voice acting and a cute somewhat moé-ish personality, and is also pretty clumsy (Rikuo spills his coffee over his pants and screams “Aaaah! Hot!”, Yuki tries to cool him down by blowing an icy wind at him, but accidentally freezes him into a solid block of ice instead is one example of that). The only part of the sountrack that really caught my attention was a theme that plays in the background about 60-70% of the show and that sounds almost identical to the main theme of the Harry Potter films. Along with the great animation – the quality is certainly along the lines of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou or Toaru Majutsu no Index, which is really good, but not as good as for example Clannad and Clannad ~After Story~. Also, if you’ve read D.N.Angel, you’ll find similarities (or ripoffs) everywhere from character designs to plot to “split personalities” with their own bodies. If this keeps the quality up, it could easily reach 10/10 once the plot starts. Currently it’s 9/10.

Mitsudomoe
No! No! NO! You can’t do something like this! Perverted humor that passes “funny” and over to the “annoying” and “disgusting” side with a cast consisting of sixth-graders spells “EPIC FAILURE” with big letters. Don’t watch this. 0/10 – Unwatchable

Shukufuku no Campanella
I first tried to translate this title myself, but confused “Shukufuku” (blessing or blessed) with “Seppufuku” (a sort of compromise-solution to a love-triangle). Just in case you wanted to know. You may also want to know that this is incredibly boring. It’s not as much of an epic fail as Mitsudomoe is, but I was seriously about to fall asleep after the first episode. Think a show with several main characters who are essentially Mutsumi from Love Hina. Without Keitaro and Naru to balance her, that’s just annoying. People are also genuinely stupid (but not like in Angel Beats! where they are stupid in a funny way, this is the kind of stupid that’s just annoying), the “plot” (if you can even call it that) is slow and likes to over-explain things since they apparently takes the viewers for idiots. Don’t watch this, it’s just a waste of time. Watch something better, like Ookami-chan. But Kurogane thought it was funny, so if you give it a chance, I won’t blame you. 2/10 – Don’t bother

Gakuen Mokushiroku HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD
More epic failures. Sure, HOTD has pretty visuals, but there’s a bit too much zombies, indiscriminate slaughter and fanservice/ecchi for me. I didn’t even bother watching the first episode to the end which may be giving up to early on my part, but I really hate ecchi shows if it isn’t a really good series apart from it (Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou) or if it’s written by Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima, A.I. Love You). ?/10 – Didn’t give it a chance

Asobi ni Iku yo!
“Let’s go play” in english, is one of the ecchi shows I can actually stand.

A guy named Kio Kakazu one day finds an alien with cat ears and tail, and has her live at his place. At the same time, an FBI group and a cult of alien maniacs are after the alien.

Not the world’s best story, but it’s really well made. In the start of the first episode, there’s a girl who solo-raids a ship filled with soldiers without taking a single hit, then survives an explosion that blows said ship up without a scratch. This scene serves mostly to show of the graphics. The story makes no sense, but isn’t as bad as most other shows of this type is. The graphics are well-made, the body motions are exceptionally fluent. The soundtrack isn’t very noteworthy, but serves it’s purpose. If the story starts making sense, it could raise the score greatly. Right now it’s just 7/10
(EDIT: After watching the 2nd episode, the rating suddently raised to 8/10)

Screenshots by Random Curiosity. Used with permission.

Angel Beats! was definitely the best show of the Spring Season. Anyone surprised considering this s a Key series? Would the makers of Clannad, Clannad ~After Story~, Kanon and Air do something that isn’t the best show of any season? It hasn’t happened yet!

Yuzuru Otonashi wakes up lying on the ground, without any memories beside his last name. The only person beside himself is a girl who is pointing a Sniper Rifle at a defenseless girl on the schoolyard. According to the girl, Yuri, Otonashi is dead. Just like herself. Otonashi considers her to be completely nuts and walks over to the girl she was aiming at. The other girl, called Tenshi (“Angel” in Japanese), tells him the same thing Yuri did: that he is dead. Otonashi asks her to prove it, in reply Tenshi stabs him through the heart with a blade she summons out of her wrist. When he wakes up again (you can’t die if you’re already dead, you just collapse for an hour or so then wake up again, and any injuries or even teared-off body parts will have been restored), he is killed again, this time by a purple-haired lunatic called Noda. Third attempt results in him walking into a trap which makes a large hammer come down from the roof and knock him out of the window – from the 3rd level of the building. At the fourth attempt, he finds Yuri and a bunch of other people in the Principal’s office, where Yuri asks him to join their battlefront (which changes name about once every 5 minutes, some names include “The Afterlife Battlefront”, “Like-hell-I’m-dead Battlefront”, “Near-death Battlefront” and “Barnacle Battlefront”), and rebel against god since Yuri blames this world’s existence on him/her/it. Otonashi actually joins the battlefront, as they all try to “survive” in the world between life and death.

While this is original, the cast and the execution makes it even more so. If we start with the case, The Afterlife Battlefront (they use that name for most of the series) consists almost entirely of complete idiots, or undescribably weird people, with the exception of Otonashi and Yuri who are the only sane and somewhat intelligent. TK is constantly break-dancing, no matter if it’s appropriate or not, speaks only in short phrases, mostly in english catchlines from the 1990′s, for example “Trap”, “Whoa, dancing in the shadow!”, “Goodbye, wild heaven!”, “Knockin’ on heaven’s door…”, “Don’t stop dancing!”, “In the mountains.”, etc.; think Tiamat from Shakugan no Shana, but in english and without his phrases complementing anyone else’s. Shiina is a self-proclaimed Kunochi (female Ninja) who has terrible focus and is constantly balancing something on her fingers – even while doing something else, like balancing a broom on her fingers while playing baseball. Yui is the same kind of character as Rikku from Final Fantasy X, Kaolla Su from Love Hina, etc. who has too much energy and is constantly hyperactive. Yui is also not just a bit stupid, doing things (like accidentally strangling herself with a mic) about all the time,  she’s easily the funniest character in the entire series. She also has a demon tail for some reason, and may be based on Etna from the Disgaea series Kanade “Tenshi” Tachibana is initially pretty mysterious and an antagonist up to Episode 5, then becomes friends with Otonashi – and she’d also gets high on both my badassness and cuteness lists if I ever write them. Takeyama is a hacker and self-proclaimed genius (who is actually just as stupid as everyone else), who always wants everyone to call him “Christ” which no one does. Naoi is completely crazy and thinks he’s God, adores Otonashi and actually notices how stupid everyone else is, and he can also hypnitize people, which he demonstrates by for example making Hinata feel inferior to a clothesclip or making him think he’s a piece of toilet paper. And those are just the more notable ones.

Angel Beats also manages to make a big deal of the slightest of things, in completely ridiculous ways (think Yotsuba&!), such as “Operation Monster Stream”, which is also known as River Fishing to everyone else (I don’t want to explain that one in too much detail, since it’d spoil a lot), Lifting Food Tickets from NPC-students which means to literally lift them using a large fan to blow them away, or visiting their weapon manufacturer “Guild” past an Indiana Jones-style trap labyrinth

Towards the end, the entire series seems to have changed without you even noticing. About EP11, the plot starts actually reaching the climax, and EP12 is an epic Fantasy-Action episode. The last episode are vastly different, really dramatic and actually very sad. Still, they manage to put a Clannad ~After Story~ happy end to it, something I actually thought was impossible to do with a scene of 5 seconds. The last episode also uses what Divine at Random Curiosity calls “The Jun Maeda Emotional Sneak Attack”, first lowering the viewers emotional guard by putting a lot of light-hearted comedy first (Naoi and Hinata fighting over who was out of tune, Kanade writing a serious school anthem revolving around praising Mabu Doofu (a kind of very spicy dish), Hinata dressing up as Principal with a bald wig and hitler-mustache, etc.), then putting in an emotional scene where the viewers last expect it. The resulting ending is both very sad and happy at the same time. And actually very good, it fits this series more to have a more speculating ending than a complete Clannad ~After Story~style ending.

Visually, Angel Beats! is possibly the best series ever made. It’s sharp, has a really unique animation, extemely detailed both character designs, backgrounds and locations, and plenty of eye-candy. Just look at the animation, and tell me one series that could possibly even compare to this visual masterpiece! And since this is a Key series, it has all the music composed by the director and story writer Jun Maeda himself. And he’s a really good composer, something he has already demonstrated with Clannad’s masterful soundtrack, and now Angel Beats! isn’t that much after. It’s not better than Clannad, but certainly not far from it. About the only thing it lacks is a really emotional theme like Clannad’s “Nagisa ~Farewell at the foot of a hill~” (okay, unfair comparisation since that’s just about the saddest theme ever, but still… it doesn’t have anything like the themes Existence, Illusions, The Place where Wishes comes true or Roaring Tides either). The Opening Theme, “My Soul, Your Beats” by Lia (there’s also a remix by LiSA used in EP3, but it’s not as good) is simply a masterpiece despite it’s nonsensical lyrics – but it still doesn’t beat Clannad ~After Story~‘s “Toki wo Kizamu Uta“. The kind of hopeful sadness that Toki wo Kizamu Uta contains is completely impossible to replicate, even for it’s own composer apparently. The ending theme “Brave Song” is really good too (not as good as the Opening though), and the image shown during it is updated almost every episode to show new characters, or excluse “dead” characters – the image at the top is the one from the final episode.

Angel Beats! is a bit hard to classify in just one overbearing genre, since it has about even parts Slice of Life, Drama, Fantasy-Action and Comedy, and also touches the Psychological and Supernatural genres. It’s hilarious, yet keeps serious, a bit like Ken Akamatsu’s stories (Love Hina and Mahou Sensei Negima! are excellent examples of his stories that keeps serious yet on the side doesn’t take itself seriously at all – you have to read them to see how that’s even possible), a bit like what Fruits Basket tries to do, only Angel Beats! does it right.

You want to watch this now right here. You don’t want to see it because of the description? Yes you do! The description is completely pulled out of the air and has hardly anything with the actual series to do.

]]> http://macaronicode.se/blog/2010/06/28/review-of-angel-beats/feed/ 2