Onegai Twins

Onegai Sensei was amongst the first anime I watched when I ‘graduated’ from the dubs of the time (Dragonball Z, Escaflowne, Gundam Wing) It’s in a list with Air and Love Hina. Though I remember when Bleach first aired over in Area Eleven so that pegs it somewhere around 2004 or earlier. I don’t recall if Onegai Twins had started yet so since Onegai Sensei was 2002. Anyway with that show being amongst my first you’d think when Onegai Twins started airing sometime in 2003 and I was already a fan of the first one I’d have watched it then. Well I didn’t… why I’m not exactly sure, but I didn’t watch it until I fired it up earlier this morning. I have to say I should have done it earlier the shows actually really good. And there’s several characters recurring from the first ’season’ so it actually feels pretty much like a continuation.

Instead of Kusanagi Kei our fairly wimpy bespectacled main character from Onegai Sensei we have Kamishiro Maiku… who’s a half, which is to say he’s only half Japanese, which leads me to believe his name is actually Mike and the subbers just left it as Maiku. Apparently he saw, whatever town the shows take place in on the news in a thing about UFO sightings and spotted a house near the lake that’s in a picture that contains him and some other person, naked, in an inflatable pool. Now if I recall correctly at the beginning of the series he mentions that he saw that a year ago so I draw the conclusion that this is one year after the events in Onegai sensei. Anyway, he’s wandering around and is on the scene for a car careening off the road and an annoyed girl jumping out of it. (Trying to level up my Vagueness skillset) Before they go their separate ways she notes they have the same colour eyes, as does the female passenger of a train that just so happened to be passing by.

Lo and behold she shows up on his doorway, the one from the car, and she’s claiming to be related to him, and you can guess who shows up later. The girl that was on the train… same story for her but with cute sound effects and a fainting spell. Apparently there’s three copies of that picture of two people and one of those girls, is his twin sister. So yes, all three of them have the same coloured eyes… which in Japan isn’t so much a feat, except that all three of them have blue eyes.

Some of it was predictable, some of it wasn’t. Both of his potential siblings are cute but from the start I was rooting for Karen because I personally find her cuter than Miina. Which is the opposite of how things usually work in my brain since Miina is the sporty, tomboyish one… I’d go into more details but I can’t do that without causing some spoilage and I really, really don’t like doing that. Some people prefer this to the original, I’m not really sure. The story in this one is more simple, not a bad thing though as Onegai Sensei was somewhat complex . (I made a funny) Twins though is shorter and the only real plot twist is the last couple episodes when we actually find out which girl is what, and possibly another one either just after or just before the credits. It was only ten or fifteen minutes ago and I forgot already. -_-; It’s also shorter iirc being only 12 episodes, plus one OVA that I haven’t been able to track down. just found and so have yet to watch.

Next on the list to watch: Either I’m finally finishing off Saikano or I’m going to check out Sketchbook Full ColourS, which looks promising as it has, amongst other things, schoolgirl uniforms with skirts that are a realistic length.

Chocotto Sister 1-12

Well when I picked this up I somehow had the crazy notion I had it all when in fact I only have the first half. Don’t ask me why as I’m not sure myself. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d be getting into when I started watching this because I did very little research aside from an obligatory ‘make sure it’s not porn’ search I started doing ever since I had a run in with Elven Bride back when I first got into anime. The reason I’m watching well it sounds cute… and Kugimiya Rie’s one of the supporting characters later on. Yeah figures there’s something like that.

When Harumu was a kid he asked his mom for a little sister… she tried and well miscarriage mom can’t have kids anymore so he asked God to fix his mom and Santa for a sister. Santa comes through, around the time Harumu’s attending university… and apparently Santa is a woman and rides a flying motorcycle. So he get’s the little sister he always wanted and after a few moments of him being utterly confused he starts getting used to it. Except when she asks for a cute name he calls her Choco… and well if you’ve ever heard ‘chocolate’ in anime they typically just say choco… yeah… so imagine what happens when she hears you’re supposed to give the person you like choco on Valentines day. So we have to add into the mix the person Harumu has a crush on, an apartment manager who has a crush on Harumu, a neighbor woman who likes her booze… and the guy next door to Harumu’s room who we hardly ever see. While each episode is for all intents and purposes it’s own storyline there is in fact an overlying story on top of it. I mean if Harumu gets movie tickets in one episode, he’ll probably use them later on, maybe not in that episode, but eventually.

There’s nudity in the show, almost a requirement for an episode actually. But the copy I have has these big ‘Danger Do Not Cross’ in the way of even things that aren’t typically censored over there in Area Eleven. But hey at least it’s not over done like what they did with Kodomo no Jikan. Having been floating around the anime/visual novel world for a while I keep halfway expecting one of the two to realize ‘hey shes not actually my sister’ and… yeah… because well it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. *gestures at Kana – Little Sister* Anyways, from the halfway point I have to say it is a good show. It’s funny it’s cute but it can also be serious when it wants to be and well Choco’s not knowing much more than what’s written in her little notebook that got delivered with her back when She-Santa dropped her off. I mean when you start seriously getting advice on how to help your brothers love life you… well, in the words of a fat German military officer ‘know nussing’

The OP is okay but I like the ED more, song is cuter, a lot cuter.

The OP Theme:

And The ED Theme:

Int. Saimoe

International Saimoe

(Link will try to open in a new window)

Make sure you vote in this character brawl. There’s actually only one Arena that gave me trouble, that being when I had to choose between Vita-chan and Nagi from Hayate no Gotoku. Aside from that I either like one character more than the other or didn’t know their competitor was from, either that or I knew neither of them. There’s 32 arenas total and you MUST VOTE IN AT LEAST 4 ARENAS! Yes Bold *and* Italics… I dare to tread there because it’s important. It’s on that page (as is a suggestion to bookmark it in case the main site goes down) but it bears repeating as most people don’t read the rules.

Bakuretsu Tenshi

Not entirely finished this yet, I’ve got a whole five or six episodes left yet but I figured I’d start yammering on about it already. First this is one oft hose shows that was pretty obviously aimed at males. If the crow landing on some sort of tombstone only to be eaten by some sort of undead skeleton thing doesn’t tip you off perhaps the four or five minutes of gunfighting between a fairly standard mecha dual wielding enormous pistols and a giant almost Akira like thing made of random pieces of metal, and piloted by aforementioned skeleton… All this before the credits mind you, if that doesn’t tip you off your first few glimpses of Sei and Meg are going to.

Because apparently even way back in 2003 barely contained and impossibly large bosoms were popular to the majority of the male gender… myself not included in that stereotyping. You’d think, if you’d read a few of my other posts that I’d immediately start ranting about how cute Amy is… and while she is… I’m more a Jo type than anything. Definitely my favourite character she’s basically a female version of Dante. Dual wielding pistols, she hasn’t done anything with a sword though… yet. She has however blocked a sword attack with a spoon. Yes, a spoon… she’s also introduced herself as Jo Kurei Raisu… which was the meal sitting in front of her. Actually that’s what prompted the sword strike…

The main storyline follows Tachibana Kyohei, Yes this implies I actually remember every-ones name, a chef in training with dreams of becoming a pâtissier… which is just a fancy word for pastry chef. Apparently though he can cook a lot of other stuff of French, Italian, “Western”, Chinese  and finally Japanese varieties. He responds to some job flier after having a run in with Jo going Dante on some random psycho gangster guy during witch Kyohei’s scooter is made en flambé and then… exploded due to excessive bullets. though impressively he doesn’t run away screaming like most male characters in a show like this. I can’t help but compare him to Black Lagoon’s Rock, they’re very similar looking, and attitude wise but as I mentioned Kyohei has yet to try hiding under a loaded torpedo launcher because of an assault chopper shooting at him. The wimp… ;p

So anyway he responds to this job offer and is picked up by Sei with her upside down cleavage and awesome car, the thing has freaking gull wing doors. Looks vaguely Ferrari but the doors make me think of a De Lorean… can’t help it. He gets to their mobile… armoured… vehicle thing and then gets himself kidnapped by thugs and held for ransom. Not really more like ‘back off or I shoot him’ then Meg gets kidnapped… which she tends to make a habit of doing. And Jo gets very very mad. But Jo… well if women could be GAR then  Jo would be. Why go into battle wearing body armour when you can wear a skin tight backless, sleeveless shirt (without cleavage as Jo is DFC) a bikini bottom and a couple gun holsters, boots of a non cowboy variety and a jacket and really long scarf. I like the scarf… and her holsters. They do this little Robocop thing where they angle themselves to hold onto the guns instead of one of those button on things like cops have. She likes red too apparently… as does Dante… they have the same hair colour too… like I said she reminds me of Dante. If she had a sword, wore a longer coat and you know… pants… I suppose though her holsters are long enough to pass as shorts… she does a lot of unintentional panty shots though.

They did get her into a skirt once, full schoolgirl outfit to be precise but… I like the battle outfit better. Not for obvious reasons (the scarf is hot…) the schoolgirl outfit just doesn’t suit her. She does however look decent in her usual lounging clothes which consist of a (large) t-shirt… and that’s it. Yes, lots of stuff about Jo… can’t help it.

Storyline seems to involve Jo as some sort of enhanced combat thing as there’s been at least two other people with the same eye and hair colour and taste in clothing (by this I mean skintight stuff). There’s also been a crap load of people turning into monsters which reminded me a lot of Gungrave but this seems to involve crazy glowing brains that can detach and do other things on their own. Lots and lots of gratuitous violence, a good deal of blood. Some moments that made me laughed followed by a ‘I mean… that’s not funny’ (How can you not laugh at goons who shoot down a helicopter and get hit with the shrapnel?) Oddly enough there’s been no nudity of which I can remember, might have been a shower thing or two I really don’t remember, of course if Jo did it I probably would. And Amy has behaved herself aside from manipulating Kyohei and a security guard… mostly by pretending to cry… but she’s done nothing that usually happens to a loli type character, yet anyway. Well I suppose she made a few comments that aren’t age appropriate, usually, but then again she’s a computer whiz, computer = internet = knowing things you probably shouldn’t/didn’t want to.

Jo is cool… her mech is pretty plain looking though. It’s your typical Gundam type thing, no wings though it does get a detachable backpack thing that lets it fly. Only weaponry it has is a pair of guns, big big guns, she might be compensating for something large… she’s got a grappling thing on the wrist of one arm and the other has a retractable knife in it for when she runs out of bullets. Oh… yeah it’s called Django… and… Jo is cool.

Shiku shiku shiku

First of all let me express my annoyance with the new layout. Particularly the Category selection. It now defaults to a ‘most used’ thing instead of just displaying all of them. Or maybe I could just stop giving each show it’s own category. :p But if I stop that I’d probably switch to a genre style category thing and I’d have to reassign them to all the previous posts and I am way too lazy to do that.

Anyway; I watched the end to Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge in the presence of my soon to be departed room mate. Which is fine enough in it’s own right since He also sat down to watch Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran and a little bit of Tsukuyomi -Moon Phase- and the episode of Rocket Girls I watched after I finished this series off. May be twice my age but the guy can get into anime, so it kind of sucks he’s moving out in the next week or two. … Anyway; again… I’m easy to sidetrack. The ending was good, funny, and heck I’d say even a bit surprising. Certainly not what I was expecting anyway. Although Sunako gets an almost confession out of Kyouhei… I say almost because he only says something to the effect of ‘I don’t think you’re ugly, haven’t you noticed yet?’. Which is so not the same but it’s probably as close as he’s ever going to get. I rated the show 7 out of 10 on my MAL list… yes I know my My Anime List, get over it. The series wasn’t exceptional or anything but it was still good and better than decent, in my opinion anyway. Show was hilarious and if it wasn’t for the freaking bishounen being shirtless/nekkid every ten minutes I’d have enjoyed it more. But hey, I could tolerate them for the awesomeness that is Sunako. Especially in her burial kimono with the sword in the school fair episode. :Q

Not the strangest thing I’ve ever watched.

Well I’ve heard the name for Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge translated as Perfect Girl Evolution: The Seven Evolutions of Yamato Nadeshiko… Then there’s the ‘official’ english name, The Wallflower. Now when I first heard the name I was exceedingly annoyed since it has practically nothing to do with the show. It still doesn’t, but I understand the idea behind it.

wall·flow·er

–noun

1.	a person who, because of shyness, unpopularity, or lack of a partner, remains at the side at a party or dance.

2.	any person, organization, etc., that remains on or has been forced to the sidelines of any activity: The firm was a wallflower in this year’s bidding for government contracts.

3.	a European plant, Cheiranthus cheiri, of the mustard family, that, when growing wild on walls, cliffs, etc., has sweet-scented, usually yellow or orange flowers, but when cultivated has flowers varying in color from pale yellow to brown-red or purple.

4.	any of several related plants of the genera Cheiranthus and Erysimum.

Obviously we don’t really care about the last three options but okay. Now Sunako in a sense fits the term because she never does anything since she’s convinced she’s hideous. See, it’s possibly to reach the conclusion of ‘wallflower’ despite it being 98% wrong. COurse the reasont hey called it that is because they couldn’t translate the title because it “didn’t have an english equivalent” … A lot of things sound stupid when translated literally from moonspeak into english. Subtitlers take a lot of liberties to make things coherent.

Anyway, like I was saying; This isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever watched. Though I have to admit I think it’s probably further up the unmanly charts than Ouran was. But I watch freaking magical girl shows, so like I really care. ;p The premise for the show is you have four guys living together in some mansion. Each of them a pretty boy of one flavour or another. Ranmaru’s you’re womanizer, Kyohei your violent type, Takenaga (I’m aware he’s the only one I’ve sued the surname for) is the serious type and then you have Toyonama the… androgynous one. I mean amidst a troop of people with girly faces and pouty lips he still looks girly. As a result it’s probably why he always seems to wind up in womens clothing, and I mean that ina  totally different way than if it were applied to say, Ranmaru.

So you take this mixture, and then you throw in one Nakahara Sunako. She’s convinced she’s hideous, does nothing to “take care of herself” and is one heck of a horror movie junkie. Not to mention her room decor consists of a couple anatomy statues, a skeleton, some skulls, an awesome T.V. Oh, they have names… The one with legs is Hiroshi, The skeleton is Josephine, the Skull is John and I forget the name of the statue with no arms or legs. The landlady of the house where these guys have been staying is owned by her aunt. The reason for Sunako being there? If those four pretty boys can turn her into a lady they get to live rent free. They accept the deal without knowing anything about Sunako, at all, she’s gloomy enough to give off a depressing aura that convinces people she’s a ghost… Although around town she seems to be known as ’scary girl’ Anyway;

The art in this is… well it’s okay. They do that whole stick figures or that other thing where they draw these little bodies… no I don’t mean Chibi, although Sunako does get turned that way when she’s being normal, for her anyway. Sometimes they’ll paste a characters head onto their little… easy to draw dude and well that’s actually funny. the show is pretty hilarious if you look past the pretty boys. I’m aware not everyone of my gender is as tolerant as I am but Sunako makes it worth it. I mean sure she gets called ugly all the time but she’s exceedingly hawt, and I do mean that, and I mean to a degree that makes you assume the guy who called her ugly back in the day must have been freaking blind. Then again she gets called that still by a lot of people… which makes no sense but whatever. Sure she’s got an abrasive attitude sometimes, poor people skills, a twisted sense of humour, an aversion to bright lights… sounds almost like I’m describing myself. :s I suppose she’s given up on being liked and can no longer comprehend all the preening “normal girls” do just so someone will call them pretty. what’s sad about that is given the choice between:

Noi: Sunako:

Well… I’d pick Sunako before Noi, every bloody time. But then as mentioned numerous times, I have strange taste. I know those pictures are horrible I just ran off and pulled them off of MAL. I’ve not quite finished the series yet, only on episode 18 of 25 at the moment so, I’ll probably be back again with my thoughts on the show. But I might just get through the next few episodes of The Third before I do that. I have no idea.

Clannad: The ending half.

Well I suppose it’s not all the way to the end since I’m not going to cover Clannad – After Story. At least not yet.

The anime keeps flowing exactly like it did before. With equal portions of drama and epic comedy. Even the little flashback sequence thing gets explained and was what I’d thought it was ever since Nagisa was introduced as a character. It’s her play, just done in a ‘real’ way and not like her little theater performance.

I’d had a few ideas about where the play came from. I thought it was related to that ‘thing from her past’ they talk about a whole bunch and my sister thought sort of the same thing but she was thinking Nagisa was adopted. In the end we were both wrong, which isn’t a surprise because I’m wrong about things all the time.

Looking forward to After Story but I have no idea when I’ll be sitting down to watch it.

Clannad – The first half, give or take an episode.

On the off chance that someone reading this has been here moe than once you’ve odds are noticed I prefer to have watched a few episodes of something before I go and start saying what I think about it. so it should be no surprise that I’m around episode ten of Clannad at the moment. It just recently finsihed airing, at least I think it did, maybe that was Kanon, either way both done by KEY so close enough. >.> (Yeah I know, heresy)

I tried playing the game a while back but it didn’t quite work out as the copy I have uses an english translation that is either screwed up or incomplete. I get to… the morning after Sunohara tries to convince the main character to help him carry a VCR and TV back to his room, then my game freezes. Music keeps going and everything but no text, no advancement options, no menus, I have to either alt-tab or alt f4 my way out. Sad, but hey, what can you do besides wait for a complete translation? I’ll admit though I was kind of ignoring him so I must have missed the part with his constant challenging of Tomoyo. I actually I was pretty much ignoring everyone but Nagisa, I can’t help it, it’s training from older ‘visual novels’ you wouldn’t get 100% if you did it any other way.

The anime solves this issue by giving us chunks from pretty much every path int he game so good job. I have only a couple complaints and they’re all ‘that shouldn’t have happened yet.’ Such as that fortune telling scene with Ryou which in the anime is right away but technically doesn’t happen for a while in the game. Just little things like that. The story seems to enjoy straddling this fine line between comedy and drama, and I think it does a very good job. Several parts have had me laughing outright, which is a rare occurrence. I’ll snicker a bit usually, but I mean actual factual laughter here. Between that and the Fu-chan arc, the ending of which had me tearing up all by itself we’ve kind of hit two opposite extremes on the emotion scale. Don’t look at me like that.

And it’s cute too, really cute. Fu-chan and Nagisa’s argument about the superiority of Dango Daikazoku and starfish, Kotomi’s absurd shyness, added into her obliviousness and her violin skills. And Tomoyo, in all her badass glory is cute, at least to someone with my taste. I don’t much care for Ryou and Kyou, but that’s half personal taste and half the fact they bear an uncanny resemblance to Sakura Matou from Fate Stay Night, whom I also disliked to a certain degree. Not that I hate them they’re just not up my alley. And I’ll clarify Nagisa too I just think she’s cute, in the same way puppies and kittens are cute. I don’t mean the other kind of cute like I do with say, Tomoyo. Weird I know taking a non-loli over Fu-chan… but I can’t help it she’s got more elemental alignments that I’m weak against, if you know what I mean. ;p

The Third – Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo 1-6

There you go screen shots, one from each episode so far. I was even nice enough not to spoil Honoka’s spandex PSP suit. Which is… well, I’ll let you find out on your own. Only problem with it is I actually like her regular outfit better. But then my taste is somewhat screwed up, which isn’t really news. Her mech is called a PSP which I have no idea what the letters are supposed to stand for because they haven’t told us. She doesn’t use it horribly muc, at least not yet. Honoka, aka Hono-chan is well, she’s a chick, a very nicely proportioned one, as long as you’re into (mostly) flat chests and the tomboy look… which I am. :p Anyway, she’s voice acted by Toyoguchi, Megumi, who, amongst other people, voice acted Revy in Black Lagoon. The two characters sound very little alike except for when Hono-chan get’s pissed off then she gets a vaguely Revy sound to her. Something I find very impressive, and lacking in english dubs, but lets leave the lid on that can of worms for now.

The worlds a desert in this show… I’m not sure if I’d say post apocalyptic, but there was mention of a war sometime in their past… which leaves the option. Anyway, now there’s mutant critters ripping around, you know, ants the size of semis and other fun things. Among the mutations is a human one and they turn into something called The Third, They all appear, so far anyway, to have pointed ears, white hair and a third eye horizontally on their forehead, the eyes red and allows them to control and interface with computers and stuff. (There’s one exception so far but I’m going to leave that untouched because I’m spoiler friendly)

Technology is still kicking around and is fairly close to what we have now in most cases. Aside from the mecha and a few of the things The Third use, not to mention the cybernetic limb, and eye, a mercenary was sporting. Well and I suppose the absurdly advanced AI that seems to be floating around, a lot of The Third’s mecha appear to pilot themselves and Bogie (Honoka’s sand tank) actually has a personality. Anyway, Hona-chan’s pretty good with a sword, as in the opening minutes she does away with some huge (They make those ants I mentioned look small and the queen spider thing is even bigger than the others) spiders she also carries a handgun which she displayed skill with. The world is a desert as I mentioned so as you’d expect most of the critters don’t come out till night, so imagine Honoka’s surprise when Bogie detects some dude out walking around.

Enter Iks, or Ikus depending on which version you have. But he’s a bishounen and not interesting in my opinion. So, let’s not talk about the guy with the weird healing powers and laid back pacifist attitude. That description enough? Good. Honoka appears to be a bit of a gun nut, just a little. She’s absurdly happy when her PSP is fixed up and she makes a habit of disassembling her guns and cleaning them. Then again, giant desert, that kind of maintenance is needed all the time I’d think. What’s funny is despite her tomboyish attitude and tendency to cut mecha in half she’s not violent, per say. Then again so far about all she’s fought were machines, not counting the ridiculously large insects… and even them she wasn’t too happy about hacking to bits. And let us not forget how she shows mercy to the AI controlled Blue Breaker mech.

Blue Breakers, there’s a topic. They’re sort of the super police. The Third don’t want regular little humans having technology [ast a certain advancement point. Pretty much they let them have guns and whatnot just nothing close to the level The Third uses. Violating that law can have one of probably three outcomes. 1) You get arrested by the ‘nice guys’ who’ll “cuff” you and haul you off. 2) Blue Breaker comes into the picture and does a meaner version of what the other guys do. 3) Blue Breaker shows up in full cloak and shoots you all dead, and then busts the hell out whatever piece of technology you were playing with. Here’s where I blab about the mech design. I like it, it’s sort of like a smaller version of the Ingram (Patlabor) but still very Gundam looking. I suppose these things aren’t so much mecha as they are mobile armour. Which in most mecha circles means a mostly human sized suit of mechanical armour. No kidding eh? That’s as opposed to mecha, for example; Gundams which average somewhere around the shy side of 20 meters high. The PSP is maybe four or five, much smaller less firepower etc but typically faster and more maneuverable… If you still need it toned down try comparing a car to a tank. You’re outclassed against a tank but it’s better than being on foot. Odds are you’ll outrun the tank before it can explode you into tiny pieces. Now Honoka can drop the regular mecha, even the newest versions with just her sword. She can’t however take down a Blue Breaker without the PSP and even then she’s not exactly good at it.

That’s all for now. (Thank Zodd eh?)

Neko mimi modo!

Well I have to say the last half or so of Tsukuyomi -Moon Phase- has left me with… a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. The endings left open, because there’s an episode 26 in the form of an OVA. I already knew that and it’s not my problem. The last episode is fine, and a nice change from the thirty second endings, they give us a whole episode to wrap things up. I really like that, it’s a nice touch really. My problem occurs in a few earlier episodes and rather noticeably in the one just before the end episode. I don’t know if the crew working on the show had to rush or if they were low on money sometimes and needed to make things a little less expensive, but either way. You’ll note a few panels of still animation that are just panned or zoomed. Other times we get to look at a [sarcasm]wonderful[/sarcasm] still shot of a wall while something else is supposed to be happening…

Like I said I’ve got no idea if there were circumstances behind it, but I know it happened in a couple of episodes aside from that one. I think of the Kinkel fight, but a part of my brain suggests that stuff could have been intentional as a way to show that Kinkels skills were confusing everyone. And may have been because partway through one episode everything stops… (No I’m not whining about the colour thing, just the stupid angles and whatnot). Either way the one episode doesn’t really wreck anything, aside from the flow of events in the last episode but oh well. Everything moves on and like I said it stops at the next episode. I haven’t seen episode 26 yet but I have it I just need to watch it, but I’ll save that for some other day when I know for sure I have time to watch it. For now I think I’ll move onto something I found recently called The Third – Aoi Hitomi no Shoujo.