Hi guys, and to everyone who are reading this post. I must admit that I only have limited time to spend in the animeblogosphere, since I have to tend to school duties (my thesis project), which is why, this post will be the one to wrap up for this winter season of 09/10. Spring is now again coming, as well as the nearing 2nd anniversary of the site. It’s just sad that I might not be able to prepare anything for it since there would still be final exams for me. Meaning to say, I really don’t have the time to fool around, and so, to shorten and speed up the blogging process, I’ll do this lump sum entry for other anime(s) which I watched and finished airing this season, and from the previous.

Also, I might only be able to start doing first impression posts for this coming season during the last week of April.

Anime(s) that will be reviewed in this post would be Baka Test, Kimi ni Todoke, Sora no Woto, and Kobato, in order of appearance. Apologies for not writing in-depth individual entries for the four.

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image credits: pixiv user プロ猿ファー・ゴル

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

I actually made an entry saying how superficial and misleading the anime is, but I guess I wasn’t entirely correct. I was able to appreciate the entirety of the show, thanks to Akihisa’s sister, who always lecture Akihisa regarding effort simply being a means to an end. Of course, no one would be able to defend the anime with regards to its weak, and linear plot structure, which is why I sometimes just don’t care about it and just enjoy the anime which is by switching off your brain and pretend to be an idiot as well. The story and character developments of the show is very cluttered on every direction.

One thing I liked with Baka Test is the sudden shift of mood in the theme of the anime with regards to studying. I particularly liked Yuuji’s proclamation on why he is trying to beat Class A, and that is to prove that studying is not the only thing that matters.

Yep, undoubtedly most of the people believe that if they study hard, and graduate with flying colors, they’ll be successful in life and all that. The series somehow wants to say that this is not necessarily true, which I heavily agree! You can see how Class A struggled during the last minute when Class A used different tactical measures to beat them, such as focusing instead on physical prowess of the students.

Libera mentioned from one of her posts about Kubo’s(glasses guy) relative absence in the story and I agree that he would have been fun to tease as well if he appeared more regularly. I didn’t particularly liked any gender-directed jokes to the characters but– I’d say it was pretty much funny to watch them interact, as simple as that. I don’t have anything to say about the content of the series because there’s essentially nothing to discuss about.
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image credits: pixiv user 雪見@ばかてす

Kimi ni Todoke

I was expecting a one or two kisses and I was disappointed I didn’t witness any. Kimi ni Todoke, similarly to what others have said had this refreshing feeling when you watch it, but sadly, I’d say it fades and fades every after episode. It wasn’t very consistent on making me feel absorbed in the show. I don’t really know why half of the season were already directed towards Chizu, as if Kazehaya and Sawako was already forgotten. It’s not like I’m not shipping Ryuu and Chizu, but it’s just that viewers aren’t still satiated with the thigs concerning Kazehaya and Sawako, and yet the focus already shifted from their relationship. As the anime progressed, the development between the two also lessened, which is why I didn’t really feel satisfied on how it ended.

There were countless cheesy moments that I sometimes want to puke. I was expecting a lot from the Kazehaya/Sawako ship but there was a sudden turn of focus directed towards Ryuu and Chizu, which I didn’t really liked. I think I expected a lot from this show because it gave a different aura at first, but I think it waned because of lack of Kazehaya and Sawako moments.

Now I’m having second thoughts whether I should rate this anime high because it didn’t really became that awesome I thought it would be, probably driven by the myriad of positive insights the anime garnered during the first few weeks. I mean, it was just a new mane but it is actually an old swine. Things were cliche, especially on Kurumi’s case– considering she didn’t really reappeared again for a nice comeback. I don’t know how the show would be able to redeem itself for me if ever it will have a second season. It lost its touch to me already.

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image credits: pixiv user さくた

Sora no Woto

Sora no Woto would have done great, but there just seems to be a lot things left unexplained, and too many to speculate. It encouraged me a bit to expect something due to episode 7 being great and all, but it gave me false hope that it might do something spectacular at the end.

I’m also one of those who wasn’t really amused on how Rio’s actions were just shown late in the series. I think she should have left a little bit earlier in the series so as to make it appear more essential to the development of the events. Probably one thing I liked from the show is the idea of diversity, differences and misunderstanding of humans. This could be witnessed on how the legend was told differently on Helvetia and Rome.

Sound of the skies indeed. Language is a complicated thing because it may imply different meanings, but a harmonious sound — it is rather simple and could be understood by everyone, as long as you intently listen to it. I liked how Kanata’s sound remained to be the instrument for achieving the peace on Seize.

The concept of war also touches Sora no Woto due to its post apocalyptic setting. I firmly believe that it failed on showing us the true ways soldiers live their lives in camp sites they are situated, since we can see how carefree these teenage girls are most of the times. Even so, I think it was still great that we see on the last part on how much soldiers themselves don’t really want conflict as much as possible. Although, of course soldiers such as Hopkins really exists, then again it also shows how only few really are bipolar in the army.

The ending was rather happy though, considering it was said during the first episodes that the end is actually nearing its end. Contrary to that, it’s as if that the falling sakura petals signifies life. Then again, I don’t know if that end of the world was explicitly stated literally, because it might have just meant the end of the world due to the turmoil the world is currently facing due to conflict among countries.

I really didn’t expected Rio’s return. Considering the past conflicts between the countries, I don’t really think the Emperor was that kind enough to let her return to Seize. Then again, we could definitely see here again how misleading the legend was (refer to the Soro no Woto wiki). The negative notions to the Emperor can’t be helped, just as how different versions of the legend proliferated on the two countries. Misunderstanding and cultural diversity was the root cause of it all.

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image credits: pixiv user あーさら

Kobato

Kobato has lots of shallow episodes, not even related to the main plot of story oftentimes. Only few episodes could back up and support the main storyline which I what I didn’t liked because Kobato seems to me a very weak anime, in terms of development, in terms of events. Bulk of the anime were mainly focused on collecting konpeito and that’s it. I could only mention very few episodes which I liked, namely the fire flies, the tree, kohaku involved episodes, and the Ioryogi developments. Most of the happenings with regards to that of Yomogi Nursery is very flimsy. I thought the anime would give significance to Sayaka, and yet the anime deviated from her relationship with Okiura right after it was decided that the Nursery would be demolished. Not much was shown on her side whether the two reverted to their past relationship. You would just see them at the end starting up a new Nursery.

Much of the story wasn’t really disclosed, and much of the plot would just happen during the latter part of story, which is why I’d say Kobato is not that bad — it’s just that it didn’t really gave that dazzling aura at first sight.

I’d say Kobato is such a trying hard moeblob character that she is sometimes a pain to watch. I can’t exactly figure out if the studio/CLAMP is trying to project her as a moe character or not, but if they are trying to do so, I think they failed because her cutesy antics didn’t really captivated me that much, it actually sometimes annoys me a lot. Fujimoto’s extreme tsundereness is irritating as well which is why I can’t really feel the romance in the air when he’s with Kobato.

I’d say the last part didn’t really took me that much because… Is it just me or — I don’t feel Kobato and Fujimoto shared enough moments to be identified as a “couple” so I was just barely touched on the final moment Kobato bid farewell to Fujimoto. Oh, and one of the best moments for me was when I saw Ioryogi still continuing his quest to protect Kobato. And of course, The Ashita Kuru hi moment was my favorite. I didn’t get though the whole idea of the place Kobato was trying to reach. Does this place explicitly means a location or does it imply ambiguity when it simply means besides Fujimoto? That was the only idea I was able to deduce since Kobato was seemingly reincarnated in the end.

Now now. I was actually questioning how come all the konpeito have the same sizes? I mean if Kobato really helped a lot, should it be a lil bigger? It’s unfair that you only count simply in terms of how many you’ve helped. Shouldn’t it be on the degree of how you helped other people? Right? I mean CLAMP has this concept of equivalence in xxxHolic so I thought they should be applying that as well here. I lol’d a bit though when Fujimoto’s konpeito was large enough to fill up the bottle on the last minute, because I was somehow thinking of that as a plot device.

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image credits: CLAMP

This is Deneuve. I’m gonna be a “part time” blogger here. Please bear with my stream of consciousness / messy kind of writing. I tend to be disorganized when I write.

A little bg about my kind of anime:
-slice of life
-romance (any type of couple and yes that includes yuri and yaoi but worry not because I don’t plan on defiling this site. ;p )
-fantasy
-sci-fi scifi science fiction
-mystery
-supernatural / paranormal
-drama
-psychological
-feel good
-historical
-ANYTHING with a great plot / meaning / concept / idea

Hisashiburi. I’m confident to say now that I won’t go hiatus anymore for the whole month until last week of May!!!

Anyway, wow, it is already my 1st anniversary as an anime blogger and it is such a pleasure meeting all kinds of people here in the aniblogosphere. I’ve experienced a lot of shortcomings as a blogger and I’d really like to thank all people that kept on commenting, supporting and reading this blog of mine, or did anything to help me(in any form and shape). These people includes: blissmo, kanzeon & tsui, Gargron, 7, ron~, Nagato, Choux, Hoshi and Sakura, Minnie, Kitsune, usagijen, hazy, Kairu, Kriselle, manga, scheneider, animekritik, ghostlightning(via twitter), Baka-Raptor(just recently), ritchan, Ryan A, tflops, and of course the readers that came across my site. Oh, please don’t hate if I have forgot mentioning your name… Oh and of course my very first linker and top referrer Ü Omni-senpai. Also, thanks to my first aggregator which is Anime Nano care of Hung and Kabitzin.

It was such a fruitful whole year since I can tell that my I have partly achieved my main purpose on blogging and that is to practice my writing skills. Well, I didn’t master any but I can tell that my writing style improved compared to my very very very first posts and I’m indebted to all animebloggers that I have read so far.

There are more years to come and I’m certain of it. –> Oops did I just pledged something.

Oh well, I’ll be working hard to maintain this site of mine even though you’ll get to see entries every month, I’ll be ensuring everyone that helped me so far to keep up what I’m doing so their effort in helping me won’t be wasted.

And of course, my short-term goal for this spring break would be to reach 100 posts since I’ve got 87 so far! And, 300 comments.

For now, what I’m trying to improve would be motivation and inspiration sources since I hardly have. I’m also trying to improve my post frequency which could only be achieved if I achieved the first one.

I really hate my finals week because I failed to do a wrap-up post for Tales of Abyss and Toradora and I just can’t motivate myself to do it just nao since it’s already 3rd week of Spring, it’s too late

Also, the only project so far which is covering DC episodes is still on! Haha, I want to challenge myself so this is still operational. I might cover the first movie in commemoration of Conan’s birthday on May 4. Hahaha. Okay that’s it for now.

HAPPY NEW YEARS GUYS!

Auguri Buon Anno!

Thanks for all the visits so far!!! I hope this year would be a good year once again!

I’ve read a ton of posts regarding anime(s) of 2008 such as the best and top things like OP and ED sequences, characters, etc. Sadly, I’ve just started anime blogging this year during the mid-Spring season so I’m afraid that I just can’t give any assessment during the whole span of year. I’d be glad to give my top “something” for the whole year if only I was industrious enough to view flashbacks and sample of the anime aired during the late winter of 2007/8 but anyway, I’ll certainly do one for this year luckily enough if I’ll be able to stay alive in the anime blogosphere for around another one year ^^V.

As a start, I have FIXED (care of my brother) the div settings of the header and finally enabled my header rotator plugin. The headers are not yet finalized though and some of them are just to show off but I’ll certainly fix some texture anomalies later on XD. My favorite header so far is the one featuring the giraffe from School Rumble. And so, I’m here to have some blabber and final thoughts regarding the shows I have watched throughout the year.

I’m afraid that the shows that are still airing would still wait for their turn once they are already finished…

Thanks Giving will have to wait until New Year

Ciao everyone, I’m kind of busy and not in the mood for Christmas… I don’t know the reason… The hiatus is because I’m just not in the mood to write about something , nothing enters my mind. And by the way, I’m currently playing Persona 3 FES and I’m planning to play P4 after that so maybe I’m just lazy to do both playing and blogging at the same time. I’d be sure to come back with an afterthoughts review about Persona 3. Yet again, I don’t know when I’ll be resuming to my regular schedule. Life without school classes is somewhat also boring. T_T

Any passer by, please give a thought about the new theme. thanks.

The only thing I’m disappointed about the theme is the header since my header rotator plugin doesn’t work and it is so wide so I guess I’ll be making a new sets of headers again if I want to utilize the width… Anyway, I still need to modify the header settings because my brother said that it’s very gloomy compared to the previous one XD.

• Toradora!
• Clannad After Story
• Tales of the Abyss
• Jigoku Shoujo: Mitsuganae`
• Gundam 00 S2
• Nodame Cantabile: Paris-hen`
• Hyakko** (Still unsure if I’ll include it)
• Ga-Rei Zero** (I like the first; what about the next—)
• Kuroshitsuji** (doesn’t impress me ; Maybe I’ll watch till 3rd episode)
• Tytania** (I’ll peek an episode; might be interesting)
• To Aru Majutsu no Index** (I happen to watch it out of curiosity; still waiting for some eps.)

` – Waiting for fansubbers. (somebody please pick them up.)

** – Wait listed.

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By the way, I noticed that my most active post is about Code Geass’ Knightmares. I just want to inform the lost souls gathered on my site that I kind of lost my interest already on Knightmares because they are turning into Gundams(specifically Lancelot Albion and that Guren Hakkyokushiki). So maybe I won’t post about upgrades anymore from the show since Wikipedia offers wider information about them (they’ve got no pictures though). Here is the link to ravage upon if you really are into Knightmare frames.