Anime Spot

Some of Miyako’s pseudo-friends discuss how Miyako loves Dan because he resembles her deceased pangolin, Kotarou. This suspicion is confirmed on a shopping trip at the kendo gear store when Miyako gets in a fight with Carrie Nishikawa of California. Carrie is instantly attracted to Dan’s animal magnetism and calls him Anderson (after her armadillo). Miyako is not happy, and the two agree to a duel the next day.

Naturally Miyako loses, as Carrie is so good that she can even dual wield shinai. However, the loss inspires Miyako to stop bullying Satori long enough to ask for some kendo tutoring. This meshes nicely with the theme of everyone trying to tell Tamaki to try losing for once so she can learn some mysterious lesson about being a loser. Tamaki never wants to lose, which is good because the Kanto and Shouryuuki tournaments are coming up.

It’s amazing that Yuuji hasn’t throttled Dan out of jealousy. Dan’s got two girls lusting after him now, he’s achieved number 2 in academics, and in one month he’s gotten good enough to score a point off Yuuji. Meanwhile, Yuuji’s only made progress in the mind of Kawazoe-sensei. At least it was cute how Tamaki kept asking Yuuji for answers to puzzling questions.

Carrie’s english wasn’t very good, but Dan’s was downright horrible. I could barely understand what he was talking about, but his lovey dovey engrish really affected Satori (and even Tamaki slightly). I wonder if Tamaki will have a devastating loss soon, because they are really setting her up big time with all this talk about how you can learn a lot from losing. On a completely different note, those Dan balloons after the preview totally blew my mind.

Mad Nagisa is cute

Tomoya episode, surprisingly.

His homeroom teacher decides to pay a visit to his home, and we find out Tomoya’s father has been basically treating him as a stranger, etc. etc. Nagisa witnesses this and invites him to stay over her house, much to the displeasure of Akio-san. Over at the Furukawa’s, Tomoya experiences what it’s like to be a true family, which makes him feel weird. He also finds out that Nagisa Sanae used to be a school teacher and she quit her job to be a baker, and Nagisa later confides that she feels that she owes her parents something that happened in the past, but she can’t remember, sparking Tomoya’s curiosity.

Overall, nice character development episode, but nothing outstanding happens apart from a few moments of Sunohara hilarity. Tomoya still can’t be honest with/doesn’t realise his feelings for Nagisa yet, though.

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©2008 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Oh my god… I’m speechless. I know I have been whining against this series, but that doesn’t matter for this episode. All I know that these were 20 of the most disturbing minutes of anime I’ve seen. Let me warn you: do not watch this episode if you can’t stand gore. I still can’t call this series great, but damn… this episode was so worth it.

I’m going to keep this entry short, because even though it was an awesome episode, it’s also one that I’d like to forget as soon as possible. In this sense, the gore is even worse than in Shigurui because there, you can see it coming. I didn’t expect for Kaiji to be this screwed in the mind to just cut off his ENTIRE EAR.

Zarofee is so hard to detect because he is a wussy, sneaky Guze no Tomogara known as a Jaeger. As Yuuji learned from lurking on Outlaw, Jaegers hang out strong Wanderers to form teams. It takes Yuuji a while to figure out what Zarofee is planning, but because they are wandering around town, Yuuji can’t escape without putting innocent people in danger. In a fit of brilliance, Yuuji suddenly starts screaming, and like an episode of Lassie, Tanaka hears the incoherent screaming and realizes that Yuuji needs him to warn Marjorie about Zarofee.

Anyway, the plan is to lure in the Flame Hazes to a small area where Bifrons can make like Virtue and blast them, while the glass roof overhead obscures the vision of the Flame Hazes so that Zarofee can use his melding trick to whisk Yuuji away. However, Yuuji realizes he never really wanted to leave the city, and protects the entire city with a gigantic Fuzetsu. He then proceeds to defeat Zarofee while Wilhelmina makes a trampoline for Shana to give a pantsu shot and intercept/destroy Bifrons. Before anyone can celebrate, however, the area under Bifrons sprouts a ring of crimson fire.

I guess this episode was supposed to be Yuuji’s coming out party, but I didn’t think it was that cool. Zarofee is so freaking weak that you can actually just choke him to death… And why does everyone insist on throwing the Blutsauger? The Blutsauger is not junk! Anyway, next episode looks like a thrilling showdown between Wilhelmina and Sabrac (thanks spoilerific previews), and there’s no Pheles to save her this time.

Speaking of Wilhelmina, it was really cute how she mutters to herself while “cooking.” Almost everyone got to help this time, although it was funny watching Ogata bowing along with Tanaka even though she had no idea what was going on. Satou now gets to just stand around looking cool with Marjorie, and Kazumi was not even featured this time (how sad). I wonder when Yuuji will learn how to fly, because it was not very cool how he had to be dragged off like a defiant puppy leashed with Wilhelmina’s bandages.

From Shirukii:

Ai-chan didn’t ask him to go out with her on the spot, she simply asked him to look at her, not as a childhood friend, not as a sister figure, but as a girl, one that he may come to like one day. Yet Shin shuts her down, tells her that he could never think of her that way, and vows to forget the instance which took all of Ai’s courage to build up to. Not that I can really blame the guy, hell if I know what I’d do in that situation, but still… that was pretty bad of him.

I know what I would do.

Ai: Just look at me… I beg you! Kabitzin: I… I’m blind! My, er, soul has just been rocked. Sorryokbye.

Fortunately, I know from experience that while Ai is saying “Look at me as a girl you could come to like,” what she really means is, “Let’s get married, start a family, and move in with my parents right now.” Sure it starts as looking, but soon you’re getting jiggy in the storeroom with your ex-best friend’s ex-girlfriend. These things form a slippery slope!!!

It’s interesting how in so many shows the sister or childhood friend qualities can be very moe attributes that are used to lure the target in. But in Ai’s case, these attributes hinder her. This is because she never should have agreed to go out with Miyokichi. She should have said, “Sorry, but there is someone else I like.”

Also, I think Shinichiro handled it about as well as he could have. It sucks so bad to be put on the spot like that and then have to reject someone. Then there’s always that awkward aftermath when groups of friends have to choose sides like in a civil war. When Ai was crying and begging, my danger sense was instantly going into overdrive thinking “Oh damn, this is some emotional baggage I so do not need right now,” so I probably wouldn’t be a very good (or popular) character in a harem or romance series.

Gandamoo finally shifts in to high gear this week.

Let’s see, Saji gets more heartbreak upcoming with Kinue finally killed by Ali al-Sarshes, or whatever his real name is. Well, she did get warned already.

The main plot development in this episode is the world finally uniting as one, in order to repel the Gundams, especially now that they’ve each been given a fair share of GN Drive-equipped mobile suits. The Trinity are the first to taste this new power, which kinda makes me pity them since I can foresee them dying by the end of the season.

What really surprised me this episode though is Wan Liu-Min’s more sinister side, as she reveals herself to the Trinity, offering them assistance under the guise of her own desire to see the world change. I foresee her becoming at least a semi-final boss, even if it sounds a bit unlikely.

The other major thing to happen is Alexandro Corner being led to the main body of Veda by his green-haired sidekick, whose name is revealed to be Gibbons Almark, who is a Veda interfacer like Tieria and Nena and he seems to have plans of his own as well. Not surprising if he turns out to be the final boss. Either Aeolia Schenberg devised a pretty elaborate scheme or CB’s true ideals are going to be hijacked by someone else, judging from the plot so far.

Oh and Graham Aker is GAR, seriously. He’s offered captain position of the new GN Drive mechas but declines it to fight them with a Flag because of his vow earlier. I really can’t help but respect that. On the hand… his AEU “supposedly” counterpart, Patrick remains a huge running (literally and figuratively) joke.

©2008 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Her par animation kills me every time. Whenever she does that pose, the first thing I think of is “zukyun~”. Don’t ask me why.

So for those wondering where have I been, I managed to make an account on KR Pangya, and fully play-testing Season 4 on it now. Lost Seaway is Overdrive pimpage, imagine 4k rounds average WITHOUT chipins. Coupled with the fact that the kind KR GM’s gave it 2x pang for the next two weeks…. OVER9000 pangs. I think I managed to earn about 250k pang already in the past 40-something hours, just from that course.

Still, the client’s a bit buggy here and there, and Lucia desperately needs more pang clothes. I’d actually buy some cookies for the heck of it, but I don’t know how orz. If anyone wants to play there with me, add “Yurikago” as a buddy. I could do with some English-speaking people there heh.

©2008 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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This isn’t of too much interest to most people, but I’ve got updates about what is going on at 9rules, haha! Perhaps some of you remember the dorama that cropped up when 9rules stuck in a new clause in their member agreement requiring all members to participate on the Notes. Well, it seems like the whole thing was a big 4 month experiment in features to seed a new social site.

If you have been around 9rules since the beginning, then you remember when it was composed of Member sites and that was it. You came to 9rules to see what the good content writers were talking about and you probably found some new sites you never would have come across. To make a long story short that 9rules is coming back. Soon Notes, Clips and my.9r will be gone from 9rules.com and nothing will be left, but the great 9rules Member content that got us to where we are today.

Thank goodness, and now the leaf can go back to being the great badge of elitism that it was before =D. The anime section of 9rules is just sad, quite frankly, and there are like 4 of us left that actually post about anime. There was so little benefit to being a part of the anime section because:

1. The redesign greatly increased the number of clicks required to find entries from members in a specific category (e.g. anime).
2. No one gets any hits from 9rules for being a member, because so many members left and the site was so hard to use.
3. No one likes a forced community, and the quality/quantity of the discussions really reflected that. I think every single “clip” is from the same magazine that is spamming up the clip section.

Anyway, to make a long story short, all the “other stuff” is getting spun off, and the “new” 9rules will no longer have any socializing requirements.

Episode 6 seems to be sort of filler-like, but what it makes up in the filler is sort of hilarious. Chikorin, a Japanese idol, was suppose to come to town to give a pep talk against drunk driving as police chief for the day, but her flight delays have kept her from coming. Ryou initially decided to cancel her talk, but with the urgings of Narasaki, the department decides to go search for a Chikorin, and the task manages to find its way into the hands of Megumi and Morimoto. Since Chikorin will be police chief for the day, this lets Ryou off the hook in terms of police duties, but he later gets called up to investigate another Reverse incident. However, when Ryou goes out to investigate, the Reverse turns out to be a street drunk.

Ryou’s duties are not finished as he notices a person dressed in a bear character costume pass out nearby after handing out balloons, so he runs over to help the man up. After the man regains conscious, Ryou goes to get the man some food, but comes back to an empty bear costume. He was about to walk away when he hears the cries of a smaller child complaining to his brother that he wanted a balloon, so Ryou dons the bear costume to go make the child’s day all better. Unknowingly, Ryou had set himself up to save these children, who are the children of a Japanese official, from a kidnapping as some thugs started to approach the children and threaten Ryou to hand over the children while he was in the costume. It’s too bad this particular episode didn’t show it, but the kidnappers are later sent to the police where they confessed to being beat up by a bear.

In episode 7, the group takes a trip out to the beach where we learn a bit more about Megumi, who also has a persona, but due to an accident in her younger years where she couldn’t save her brother, she’s a bit angry and scared to see Shin and Takuro use their respective personas to protect themselves. Yumi comes along on the trip, but usually finds herself in some phased state staring out into the ocean on top of a lighthouse, and it almost costs her life as she reaches out with the “whale feather” that she has I guess to make some sort of wish, but Megumi manages to release her persona in time to catch Yumi on the way down. Shin also manages to see what looks to be his younger sister Yuki reaching out to Yumi before she falls.

Now that Megumi managed to release her persona in a positive effort, I’ll be expecting some triple-teaming (or maybe quadruple teaming with Morimoto) persona action later in the series as they take on the baddies.

POORU DAAA!!!!!

Pool episode! Wai!

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©2008 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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