Anime Spot

Summary:
Aika is struggling along in some complex currents, when her gondola is passed by a tensai Pair (lowbie apprentice), Carroll Alice of Orange Planet. Alice is rather cold towards Aika and Akari, but she is a gifted and hard-working Pair who practices on her way to school every day. Although Alice has good knowledge retention and sweet gondola skills, her interpersonal skills are a bit lacking.

Later that day, Akatsuki stops by to molest Akari some more, and Alice comes to her defense. They end up taking Akatsuki around to kill some time while he waits for his older brother to show up with loan money. Alice marvels at Akari’s ability to smile and be courteous while sharing a gondola with a jerk like Akatsuki, and she begins to fall in love with Akari. Once Akatsuki finally gets his money, he invites the girls up to his place for some hot exercise. It turns out Akatsuki makes it rain up in Ukijima, the floating island that controls the weather in Aqua.

Reaction:
At first I thought Alice was totally bitchy, but once she got ready to club Akatsuki I warmed up to her. Man, I can’t stand that guy; he is like one of those kindergarten boys tugging on the pigtails of the girl he likes. Only once you get older it isn’t cute anymore, it’s just creepy. I thought it was pretty funny how Alice got into Undine magazine and had been scouted from her gondola club. If only there was a smiling club or a cheesy lines club, Akari would have been a tensai star for sure!

A few things bothered me this episode. First off, why would a company called Orange Planet line its uniforms in yellow? That makes no sense. Secondly, why are journeymen counted in average earnings per member? Is Akari counted, or is Aika was implying that Alicia’s earnings have gone down ever since Akari arrived? Then there was the whole matter of Akatsuki inviting the jailbait up to his place and then having an extended moment of… moaning. Seriously, listen to this scene; who sounds like that while running? Stop judging me!!!

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Summary:
It’s Acqua Alta, the time before summer when the streets get completely flooded. While out buying President Aria some food, Akari runs into Aika and we learn a little more about Aika’s privileged life as the Himeya Company heir. Everyone is pretty deferential to Aika, except for Ferrari Akira, the Demon instructor. Akira is one of the Three Water Fairies, and she is very strict with Aika. Naturally, Aika has a tantrum, and runs off to go join the Aria Company.

We learn that Aika has been in love with Alicia ever since twin-tailed Lolicia fetched Aika’s shoe out of the water and cheered Aika up with some hair-play (4 years ago). Alicia has had quite an effect on everyone, and we learn that Akari is a childhood friend of Alicia. Unfortunately, tag-along Alicia ended up becoming a Prima (professional Undine) first, and Akira is still a bit bitter. Anyway, there is some nonsense about a race to see if Aika can stay at Aria Company, but Aika has already realized she was being a brat and so pacifies Akari with Akari’s beloved walnut bread.

Reaction:
Damn, Acqua Alta sucks! Has NV solved the problem of having sewage back up, because I would hate to be walking barefoot through the streets in someone else’s poo! On a related note, President Aria is totally gross and not a catch at all. He thought he could score with that hottie President Hime, but she was not at all impressed by a fathead who drooled in her food after barely managing to do one pull-up. At least we learned that cats with aquamarine eyes are taken as mascots because aquamarine has long been treasured by sailors. I also liked watching the evolution of Alicia’s hair from her Single (journeymen wear one glove) days to her current hairstyle.

Akari was a nice introduction, and she had great chemistry with Alicia. The Kinshi vs. Ara Ara battle has begun, and Aika will have to decide which side to take. I like how Aika was able to get over her crush on Alicia to return home to Akari, knowing that the strict instruction is keeping Aika from becoming a diva. The only problem I had with this episode was that Akari did not actually end up buying President Aria any food, and instead they just fed him some of Aika’s special fried rice.

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Current Progess:

• SDF Macross - Completed
• SDF Macross: Do You Remember Love? - Completed
• SDF Macross Flashback 2012 -Completed

(more…)

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

Summary:
Mizunashi Akari wakes up for another day working as an apprentice for the tiny Aria Company. It’s tough work dealing with stalkers like Izumo Akatski and having to practice rowing alone, but Florence Alicia is off being a legend and bringing home the bacon. One day, a loli named Ai calls up the company hoping to get a ride on Alicia’s gondola. However, since Akari is the only one at the shop, Ai has to settle for a crappy free ride (since Akari cannot take paying customers yet).

While out rowing, Akari runs into her friend Granzchesta Aika of the Himeya Company. Since the ride with Akari sucked, Ai wants to try Aika’s gondola next. They also stop off for some buttered potato, which is surprisingly delicious because they use tons of MSG on Aqua (aka Mars). Unfortunately, while the girls are loading up on fat and carbs, the cat President Aria falls off a pole into the water. Akari shows how she learned to row backwards on her college crew team, and it’s way faster but apparently still not fast enough to catch a cat sitting in a metal bowl. Fortunately, Alicia glides in to save President Aria, and Ai learns to stop hating on Aqua and Neo-Venzia (aka Venice).

Reaction:
Ender told me I would be bored with this slow slice-of-life show, but this first episode was kinda exciting. I’m glad Akari got Ai to stop sipping the hateorade, just because Ai’s sister kept bragging about how Aqua was so good that it was baby-making good. On the other hand, the special ougi rowing that Akari demonstrated was not really that impressive. Akari has to have someone else sitting in the boat to navigate, and the weight increase probably negates much of the speed increase (especially after eating buttered potatoes). The other thing that bothered me is how small Aria Company is. One Undine and one apprentice? Is this a Sith company or something?

Meanwhile, I don’t know who that Akatsuki guy thinks he’s fooling, but he is obviously calling constantly to hear the voice of his little “momiko” (pigtails). If he really just wanted to hear Alicia’s voice, he could have recorded the message. Plus, no one gets a crush on a side-character in the first episode. Anyway, I enjoyed the great characters (so far Aika has my early vote), and the mood and music were nice. I’m looking forward to some great Undine training montages and speeches about guts and miracles.

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Summary:
Rin takes Tamaki out on a movie date and SHINAIgirl’s death break’s SHINAIder’s Hollow mask, turning SHINAIder into Silver Braver. We find out that Kirino and Sayako technically resigned from the club over spring break, but will still be taking part in the next interhigh. Dan’s the new captain, and Yoshikawa-sensei has taken Toraji’s spot. Unfortunately, Kenzaboru knocked her up within like 3 months of meeting her and now she has to take maternity leave. In the most amazing of coincidences, however, Reimi’s mom moves out of the neighborhood, and with the support of Kenzaboru and Yoshikawa-sensei Toraji gets his old job back.

With the team intact, Muroe High’s kendo club is ready to welcome the newest members, Iwasa Makoto and Toyama Shinobu. Makoto is chill like his toadie brother, but Shinobu is quite bratty. However, one glimpse of Tamaki sparring is enough to convince the duo to join, and with that it’s montage time. We see that Reimi somehow still stalks Miyako and Mei has stuck with kendo. Konishi-san lopped off her hair and teaches her kohai not to cheat, while Iwasa and Toyama join the soccer club and continue to get into fights. Finally we get a quick scene of Rin talking to an unnamed girl with long hair who may or may not be Tamaki’s new rival.

Reaction:
The final montage was great, although I couldn’t believe it when Kenzaboru got into a car accident with Reimi’s mom. He better keep quiet about his job, or Nobu-san will be getting another part-timer. I also enjoyed the fight between Kawazoe-sensei and Tamaki, and she was going hard at him! While they didn’t show the result, it looks like Kawazoe-sensei might have slipped the tsuki and nailed Tamaki with a headstrike, but one day she will beat him like she beat her dead mom’s image.

If Muroe High ever got a ping pong team, can you imagine how strong it would be? I can’t believe how slick Kenzaboru is, and Yoshikawa-sensei got knocked up almost as quickly as the kendo cat. It’s kinda sad that the club is actually attracting fewer new members now than before, but I guess there is still time. I could definitely go for another season of Bamboo Blade, even if Kirino and Sayako get reduced screentime. Bamboo BladeS banzai!

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

After some persuasion, and superhuman patience on Ozma’s behalf, Ranka finally gets signed on for a production company. Things aren’t looking too good for the others though, as the bad news of Galaxy’s attack by the Vajra arrives on Frontier, made worse by the 5 day delay due fold faults. President Glass decides to make public of the Vajra threat, and decides to launch a search and rescue operation with the S.M.S doing the dirty work.

Sheryl is saddened to hear the news as well, but being the professional she is, she continues on with her concert. Simultaneously, the S.M.S prepares to depart for Galaxy as well. Alto, who has found Sheryl’s missing earrings, decides to return it to her personally before her concert, and before he leaves for Galaxy. Sheryl tells him the story behind the earrings, a keepsake and only memory of her mother and that they’re a good luck charm to her, revealing that she hates Galaxy as she was an orphan. Sheryl lends her earring to Alto, and makes him promise to return it, which Alto gladly accepts before her heads out under the S.M.S mothership.

Good episode, but didn’t really contribute much to the main plot. Quite a ton of homages though. Glass gets assigned to the S.M.S as the combat operations officer, completing the bridge crew requirement. The captain is rather more mischievous though, XD. The S.M.S mother ship bears a lot of resemblance to the original Macross as well. Luckily enough, no pineapple salads were served or mentioned… yet.

Quite some nice development on the Sheryl x Alto front though, with some really cute scenes between those two, sharing some of their private thoughts. Surprised to hear that Sheryl is an orphan though, I guess that explains her strong-willed personality. Dere-dere Alto was cute too and made a nice match for tsun-tsun Sheryl. I can almost see it as yuri. Almost. Especially since they can’t seem to help themselves from jabbing in the fact of Alto’s… androgyny.

The concert part near the end of the episode was really nicely done, with Diamond Crevasse masterfully used to accompany the launching of the S.M.S mothership and also after the development between Sheryl and Alto as well. Looks like the real action will be starting next week though.

Dere~ dere~ Alto-hime~~

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

From Ryan:

Many of the series which came to mind are setup in Tokyo, but not all of them “play in the environment.” How noticeable is the city? Does it feel good? Would I be sad if it wasn’t Tokyo? These are things I ask in order to gauge the level of activity, not that I think about this often. I think one of best examples is the FMP franchise. Really, I enjoy the way Kana and Sagara move about the city, and no I don’t recognize exact details of things, but knowing it’s Tokyo just gives it some sort of imaginable flavor. Yum!

99 Things For Anime Villains To Do In Tokyo:
…
16. Catch a free concert at Yoyogi Park
17. Assault Tokyo Tower
18. Recruit some eccentric Harajuku villains
19. Pretend you caused the destruction in the Kanto Earthquake Memorial Museum
…

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Spotted over at Canned Dogs, it seems that Lucky Star OVA will be made by KyoAni (thank god the naysayers saying that Toei was gonna do it are wrong) and it will be airing this summer.

As for Haruhi S2, June’s Newtype has a teaser for it, with further information forthcoming in the July issue next month. Gotta hate it when they do that.

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

Current Progress: 32 out of 36

• Oh man, Max is awesome, seriously awesome. Meet ? Fight ? Marriage. If that isn’t awesome, nothing is. I guess this is what you really call “love at first fight”, hahaha.
• Exedol’s peace mission is damn hillarious.

  *passes by bikini ad*
  Exedol: “What is that?! It gave me a real shock.”
  Random General dude: “Um.. that’s um… a military secret”.
  Exedol: “Ahhh… a military secret.”

• primeparadigm: “You have yet to see the best rendition of “My Boyfriend’s a Pilot”, Ranka and Minmay don’t hold a candle to it. I won’t say whose version it is, It’s later in the series, you’ll know it when you see it.”

  Okay, saw it, and I have to say, that was god damn fucking awesome. I laughed so hard, my head hurt.

• The final Zentraedi versus Earth battle is epic. But I sure didn’t expect it to last only 1 episode. Minmay Defense was… rather underwhelming.
• The time jump sure threw me off a bit. But it does show how arbitrarily the plot seems to have been hacked together.
• Dear god, Misa Hayase is such a tsundere~
• Dear god, Zentraedi or not, it’s not a good idea to throw babies around, Milia. That gave me a shock for sure. And Max! You really gotta berate her for it! Also I have to mention that Max is a fucking superman. He can even cook properly.
• Lynn Kaifun is such a self-centered egoistic retard. Not to mention he totally doesn’t appreciate the good things that the military has done, like oh say…RESCUING HIM FROM BEING CRUSHED BY KAMJIN. He’s just as bad, no worse than those retards who want to wage war just for the sake of waging war. I really, REALLY want to punch him. Hard.
• Kamjin: “Culture? We can make culture too!”
  *grabs Laplamiz and kisses her”
  Onlookers: O.O
  Lackey #1: “Boss, we got a emergency call.”
  Laplamiz: “Oh dear, just as the “culture” was getting good.”

  I lol’ed. It’s actually rather cute to see the Zentraedi getting used to Earth’s culture.

• As I reiterated in my last post, the Minmay-Hikaru-Misa love triangle is really a good demonstration of the saying “Passion is a downhill road, while love is an uphill one”. Still, Minmay’s indecisiveness is really irritating. Especially when she continues to stick with the jerk that is Lynn Kaifun.

Well, looks like the next post will be my last one.

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

Summary:
After some completely unnecessary recap, we learn the thugs are the Bakushuukai. Really they are just a bunch of dorks who wish they were in the MCF and use a fake bomb threat to get Iku and Kazuichi to go with them. The Bakushuukai call up the LTF demanding the LTF destroy the books in the crates and hand over a list of the crate contents. On the phone, Iku tries to be clever by asking Asako to cancel their reservations at Tranzar.

Naturally this is code to let the LTF know Kazuichi is in Tachikawa. While that’s helpful, it’s not nearly as helpful as the tracker that Kazuichi has in his prosthetic leg. Ryusuke tells the useless police to back off, and Atsushi leads the team to retrieve Kazuichi. The LTF completes the rescue without firing a shot, and Atsushi recognizes that Iku did great. Later that night, Iku rejects Hikaru, but he was just trying to date her to pump her for information. We also see Iku finally sitting down to write to her parents, but it turns out they already know she is in the LTF.

Reaction:
Those Bakushuukai were such amateurs! They didn’t even hood Iku and the chairman, although the tracker in Kazuichi’s leg would have trumped any preventive measures. Then there’s the scrubby police that believed Ryusuke’s bluff about buying the whole building (to designate it as a library and allow the LTF to fire at will). As if any government office could ever move that fast! But man, the LTF is extremely well-trained in being able to take out the whole Bakushuukai team without firing a single shot or using a single flashbang.

I am still bitter that no one uses flashbangs, but Iku was great in shielding Kazuichi and being able to somehow hear Atsushi switching the firing mode on his SMG. However, I was snickering every time they referred to Kazuichi’s fake leg, because there were so many ways that scene could have been so wrong. I also giggle about how Atsushi thinks of Iku as a young gender-bend of himself. On a different note, I have to mention that the OP and ED for this series are so awesome and I can’t wait for the singles to be released.

©2008 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.