Big thank you to Maestro from AB.net for the free anime blog hosting so my new blog will be located at http://rin.animeblogger.net/ so to my fellow link exchangees and friends, please change the links Cheers. The new AB.net hosted blog is more or less u[ and running, but I’m still working on the layout and color schemes, so bear with it for the moment. I’ll keep you up to date at the new site and hopefully get some proper posts up, a few are in the draft stage, half written :p Ja-ne

So The moment avid LoveCom fans have been waiting for has arrived! The unrequited love is requited. And the kiss isn’t just once, but twice! Ohh I loved epi 17 and 18. In 17 they were so close at admitting their love for one another, but someone had to fall asleep. lol. But it was a great sort of cliffhanger for 17 as now in 18 we can see the two once and for all open with their growing affection

Lovely Complex has really grown into such a great outstanding Shoujo series of the season! But most of all I think the scenarios and situations are quite crazy yet not impossible. I love it how Ootani was buying Risa a present and made himself go into a female oreintated shop! Or to finally see Risa being the one that is clueless about Ootani’s feelings instead of the other way round. I just love Ootani and Risa, just make such a cute couple. Great choice by Ootani too, a cute bunny necklace ^^

I’m glad they didn’t just end the season at the point Ootani realises his feelings for Risa either. Cause after all that drama to get these two blockheads together, I’d love to see them actually as a couple for a few more episodes before they wrap up the series. So lets see what mischief this two comedic-turned-couple due get up for the last I predict 3 or 4 episodes!

Upcoming attractions: Risa and Ootani on their first date! And no doubt with several misfortunes and humorous events along the way!

The Dorama Hanazakari no Kimitachi e a.ka. Hana Kimi is the very popular Bishonen packed show airing in Japan as the moment. It’s based on Hisaya Nakajo’s popular manga and is basically about a girl Mizuki who transfers to a Japanese all boy’s school all the way from America. She dresses up and acts as a boy all to try and get Sano back into High Jumping after he quit about 1 year ago. Throughout her stay as the all boys dormitories, mischief and trouble arises as she tries to hide her identity.

Each episode sees to a new “challenge” where by the 3 dorms compete among each other to win the challenge and gain a prize such as LDC tv in each dorm! or not cleaning up for the rest of the year! The story like and sequence of events are quite ridiculous. The humour is quite Japanese (no wonder the Taiwanese couldn’t pull off the Taiwanese version of Hana Kimi) , heh so the bunch of pretty Japanese boys sure pulled it off well. THe story while being totally unrealistic, stupid and absurd, actually does quite well for itself. I find myself laughing a lot as all the unique characters. It’s like watching one of those Japanese talk shows.

Mizuki is acted but the girl who played as Nobuta in Nobuta wo Produce and Sano is played by none other than the one who played Rui in Hana Yori Dango I & II. So far they portrayed their characetrs fairly well I suppose. Mizuki’s pulled off pretty well, you can obviously tell its a girl, if you couldn’t then the actor would be pretty manly herself then. But then again, A lot of Jap boys look like girls :p

It’s pure Fangirl haven I say watching pretty boys being stupid and funny and stereotyped cute Japanese girls flock after them sure as hell funny. Like I say a unique sort of Japanese style Humour :p Anyway, yes pretty boys, lots of them, maybe you don’t like Sano or Mizuki or whever, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find a really hot/cute guy in there to like Personally I find Nakatsu (the one who THINKS he’s gay) hilarious! Brilliant character. Great friend. Sano personally pretty indifferent to him. He reminds me a LOT of Rui from Hana Yori Dango, uncaring and always acting cool ( I really find Hana Yori Dango and Hana Kimi quite similar in many respects, pretty boys and flocking girls are sure strong similarities :p) Mizuki herself is way better than Ella who acted in the Taiwanese version, so Propers to her. Horikita Maki I find is a pretty good actor, one of the new young ones, I’ve watched a couple of doramas with her in it as minor/major characters. Most of the time I find her character (if its a major one) quite similar.

As for more minor characters, the Dorm Leaders are all hilarious, the karate dude, the player previously with 15 girlfriends and the drama dude and super exaggerated yet great characters. My favourite minor character (whose name I can’t recall) is the one who introduced Mizuki to the dorm system and is also friends with Sano on the Field sports team. It was hilarious when he cosplayed as some Gundam character in epi4 to win the heart of a girl from sister school St. Blossoms.He’s just so adorable and cute! Sano’s High jump rival is the captain from the Prince of tennis movie! Anotehr good looking guy, but he’s not half bad interms of his character.

Anyway, just felt like a little rant of the series. I’ll be following it to the end (Epi 12) and see how things turn out. THe pace of the show is also good, it doesn’t feel show and drawn out like the Taiwanese version.

After about a week since the finale’s release in Japan, finally got around to watching the drama and battles of the season finale. In many ways, the last 2 episodes answer a couple of questions while leaving so many others unanswered or rather bringing up new questions! Nevertheless, it was an interesting finale. I was half expecting the series for finish one and for all, but alas, no there is a season 2 which I really can’t wait since it left that damn cliffhanger and the mystery of the Witches (C.C. and V.V.)

Before I get started, I just need to say this. How on earth did Lelouch get to use his Geass on all those people on Cornelia team (eg. Dalton)? Either I forgot some important stuff from previous episodes, or it was just one of those things to make the anime all the more dramatic. Anyway, if you want a detailed episode rundown RancomC always does a great job and with ample screencaps too.

As I didn’t re watch epi 23 prior to 24 and 25, I admit there were probably stuff about the series I forgotten about. However, it basically starts up with a 3-4minute recap of the season up to epi 23, which for people like me was a good rundown. From then on the battle to destroy the Parliamentary house in central Area 11 begins.Battles erupts everywhere with different factions fighting for their own cause. Toudou fights against Britanian forces holding up the imperial building. Ashford acedemy gets taken down by the Black Nights. Villetta regains her memory and shoots Ougi. But most of all is the Mystery of the Geass and where did C.C. and V.V. come from?

It’s interesting to note that the whole Black Knights crew are at complete lost on the disappearance of Zero, just shows how much they blindly followed his orders. Now that there are no orders they become a big mess of confusion, what with Ougi down as well.

It was say to see Cornelia die like that too! Despite her hardness as a ruler of Area 11, I’ve got to sympathize with her, who just lost her beloved sister to Zero (thought unintentional) and only wanted peace by repressing opposition, which is the way of Britania. What can you expect from someone(s) who were born under the emperor? I must say the Emperor’s family is one hell of a twisted family. Those who less twisted and more human certainly didn’t meet a good end (ie. Euphemia, Marianne). I was so sad with all their deaths. I guess as this anime is a mecha-war type show, its unsurprising that they’re be so many deaths of significant characters to spur drama and intensity. Giving characters new determination and coldness. What better and more realistic way to do character development other than death? And thebreadownw of so many trusts and friendships right to death? How much more intense can it get.

While some question (few as it were) were answer heaps of stuff where left hanging:

• Will Nina’s oldschool self made Nightmare blow itself up or will she too chase after Zero?
• There has to be more to C.C. and V.V.’s past and a bit more information on their existence as Witches! C.C.’s flashback told us little of it besides that people were prejudiced against them but nothing about the power of the Geass and what it’s for and why did C.C. give its power to Lelouch?
• What was that outcry from Shirley about “not you too Kallen”? Does Shirley think Kallen and Zero (ie. Lelouch) made her lose her memory?
• Why on earth did Lelouch’s mother not do something about the fact that she was being targeted back in Britania? And why did The Emperor askSchneizel to take away Marianne’s body?
• I want to know about Marianne’s death conspiricy! Afterall if it weren’t for her death/murder Lelouch wouldn’t have done what he did to date, killing so many innocents around the way, harming his friends, decieving his family and friends, those who cared for him most.
• What is at Kaminejima and how is it related to Code Geass? Obviously V.V. took Nunnaly there is to lure Zero to that particular location
• Is C.C. dead? C.C. x Lelouch?!
• Kallen’s breakdown and unrequited love at the end? That She and fellow Japanese rebels were all pawns in a little game of his, for his personal revenge?
• Schneizel is still a very mysterious person, what is his ulterior motive (other than tryign to take over as emperor of Britania.
• Will Ougi survive the shot in the stomach and what will happen to Villetta now that she regained her memory?
• What is Cecile, Lloyd and the other scientist’s pass?
• Who will die? Suzaku? Lelouch? or the whole island with everyone on it as a result of the sakuradite explosion?

But what I thought was nicely done was the little monologue by C.C. at the end about what it is to be human having a limited lifespan compared to a witch who never dies and continue living for eternity, seeing the ones they love die and disappear into a memory. Because humans have a limited life they try to seek happiness. Whether it be t he right or wrong way every human’s motives are the same, to find happiness in a world full of war, hatred, oppression. It’s because that it is such a world that Happiness is worth pursuing before the day you die, unlike witches who are forever young and living, being feared by humans through the ages. I think that sums the show up nicely, about life and the actions of humans, each fighting for happiness in their own way.

I’ve read some arguements about is anime deep? on a couple of blogs recently each blogger with their own opinions. While many anime are purely entertainment with not that much depth. I think Code Geass is moderately deep. It teaches kids about life, about a certain “moral of the story” and present them in a way acceptable to people. So yes, to some extent, Code Geass is deep, it tries to portray life’s deepest questions and moral arguments that could go on forever just like Deathnote’s story.

With an interest plot, dynamic characters (no one major/minor character is boring virtually) and great BGM, overall, an exciting finale and I look forward to next season!

So it’s finally here after months of waiting! The double episode finale of Code Geass season 1 (unless they can manage to explain everything in the last 2 episodes, including the origin of C.C. and the other double-letter character that appeared to want to “help” Suzaku… I’m hoping for a season 2)

They’re to be release in Japan today (28/7/07) and 30/7/07! So hopefully subs will be out sometime in the next week or so! The video gives some insights to the battle and what not, but obviously no conclusion. As I watched Code Geass up to episode 23 about a month or 2 ago, I can’t quire remember the details and names of the minor characters.

After having FMP: The 2nd raid on my HD for months and months. I finally started it during my Winter break, and trudged through the first 7 or so episodes before it finally got interesting! Well I have to say TSR wasn’t as good as the first season (which also had equal seriousness) and of course Fumoffu! Kicked ass being the comedy fan I am The beginning of TSR was slow going and lacked direction, we were shown battles and figths without knowing what’s going on. There wasn’t much Chidori-Sousuke development, their romance was lingering in teh air but not quite there (even towards the end it was still up in the air)

TSR follows on where it left off in season 1 (with I think Fumoffu somewhere in between) and introduced a new organisation and new characters. I really like Gate’s seiyuu, well done by Houchu Ohtsuka (who imfomously voices as Jiraya in Naruto)

Kyoto Animation certainly did a good job with animation quality. I love watching the widescreen resolution on my new plasma ^^ It was great for action. The coloring and backgrounds etc. were all really well done. High standard for a regular season anime. The seiyuu as usual did a brilliant job in their portrayal. Tessa, Sousuke, Chidori and Gate’s seiyuu’s all did a fantastic job. The action sequences and drama was well done. The BGM was also well adapted, the excitement, the humour and the drama.

I liked it how they delved into a bit more of the history of Mithril, but I’m still curious about quite a few characters in the show, for example the leader of Mithril (seems like a nice old man), Tessa’s brother, the female who was under a disguise but ended up helping Chidori to find Sousuke and giving him the motivation to properly use his Lamda Driver. So I’m guessing a 4th season will be out sometime (possibly the last season) to tie up the lose ends like what’s Tessa’s brother doing working for an anti-mithril organisation and what will happen to the Tessa-Sousuke-Chidori love triangle!

On a side note (found in wikipedia) Kyoto Animation inserted this little scene in TSR which gave people the impression that they instead of Madhosue was going to produce Deathnote.  

Rather than me going into a blow by blow rundown of the series wikipedia did a pretty good detailed summary of the show. I’d give the show an overall 7.5/10.

Another brilliant piece of animation from Makoto Shinkai. I loved his previous work Beyond the Clouds and Voices of the Distant Star and was instantly drawn to his detailed artwork in his almost sequel like Byousoku 5 Centimeter, which is actually a serious of 3 short stories revolving around Tono Takaki, going into the past, present and future. For further details, it can be found on ANN.

Plot of Ōkashō (Cherry Blossom Extract), the first of three short stories (each approximately 25mins long) revolves around Takaki and Shinohara Akari, who were best friends during Elementary school, but on starting Middle School, Akari’s family moved to Tochigi-ken and the pair drifted apart. The pair kept in touch by mail and feelings still lingered. Then one day, towards the end of their first year of Middle School, Takaki’s family decided they were moving to the south of Japan, even further away from Akari. As such, they decided to meet up one last time before they never see each other again. It was a long train journey from Tokyo to Tochigi and the snowy weather seem to want to keep the pair distance. But though time and fate, despite all the train delays, neither gave up hope. Akari continued to wait at the train station way pass meeting time and Takaki persisted on train after train despite know he’s late and Akari might not even be there anyway. But the wait was worth it and the two might find what it is they were looking for before each moving on with separate lives.

The animation quality is unbeatable. It’s no wonder I’m such a fangirl of Makoto Shinkai’s works. The detail is absolutely lovely, from the reflection in the train to the picture perfect background. The voice acting is also very good, the melodramatic atmosphere and the character’s longing to see each other are all accurately portrayed. Some has called him the new Miyazaki (refer here in this interview), I personally wouldn’t say so. While Miyazaki films display amazing artworks and fairytale like stories each giving a “moral of the story”, I see Miyazaki films largely targeting children while adults alike enjoy it at a different degree. Makoto Shinkai films however, I find target an older audience, teenagers and above I’d say, to understand the characters and the story. There’s a higher level of maturity and “darkness” to his films that Miyazaki films tend not to have.

I can’t wait for the remaining 2 short stories to be subbed. I’m interested to see what happens to Takaki as he grows up into an adult and perhaps meet his once romantic interest. The future two episodes are Cosmonaut and Byousoku 5cm. The special edition box set was recently released in Japan so I expects subs to be out sometime in the near future.

I’m glad my friend convinced me to watch Lovely Complex! It’s the most hilarious piece of work since Ouran. Lovely Complex is pure comedy bliss. I never laughed so hard through episode and episodes of anime :p Admittedly Densha Otoko JD made me do that, but that’s JD.

The Osaka-ben is really growing onto me and the XD and expressiveness of the characters crack me up. I’m up to episode 7 at the moment. It seems like the producers fast tracked through Ootani and Koizumi’s 1st year of High school pretty quickly and soon enough they’re in their 2nd year and continuing their comedic All Hanshin-Kyojin comedic act without purposely doing so.

Although LoveCom looks like your typical Shoujo slice of life anime, the main characters make the show so very entertaining. Its one of those shows that You can just sit down and not think about anything and just laugh. heh that’s what I love about anime so much, it has a storyline that’s progressive and interesting yet you don’t have to take it seriously. As I haven’t read the manga I’m not sure if the anime is following the manga entirely, but presumably. For every episode, there’s always a major event or situation that’s typical in the typical Japanese high schooler’s life (eg. spending Christmas with a lovely one, school festival and the haunted house, romantic triangles, Hanabi, School trips, beach trip). Despite the formula style show in terms of sequence of events essentially leading to the Ootani and Risa’s realization of feelings, its the journey that makes the story so interesting and entertaining.

I could not believe how DENSE Ootani was when Risa confessed her true feeling and his obliviousness continued in the subsequent episode. I’m at the point where we’re waiting on how Ootani will do now that he knows The person Risa has fallen for is him.

I think I’m a sucker for Shoujo slice of life animes. As a girl, I can totally relate to Risa’s frustration at the idiot of a guy she likes :p and also related to her general girl issues, eg. finding herself in this world, does it really matter if she’s tall and fall for someone that’s shorter than her, life isn’t perfect after all.

If the anime isn’t conclusive or if there is no second season, I might actually pick up the manga. Despite the low key animation (many stills) the character design is unique and cute. I love it how the characters are always given different and trendy outfits. It just adds to the feel of the slice-of-life show. After all, people in real life don’t have a closet full of exactly the same clothing (eg. in naruto)

It’s funny how often a friend’s recommendation tends to be my liking, I guess we have similar anime taste of some sort. The latest he introduced me to is Lovely Complex. A Slice-of-life anime set presumably in Osaka, Japan. It’s the first I’ve seen that uses full Osaka-ben (dialect). I didn’t really expect to like the anime immediately since when I read the plot, it seemed your average boy and girl hates each other, then ultimately falling for each other.

But I think what really caught me was the character design, it’s quite different from the usual stuff I’ve seen, the nice cell-shading, proper facial expressions etc. This anime is almost the complete opposite to what I like. The shading and animation quality isn’t flashy. On the contrary, most of the time it’s a single shade, which is rare these days in anime’s. It’s almost like watching a picture book unfold, the backgrounds are often stills. The facial expressions and actions of characters are entirely comical, I was cracking up laughing at the sometimes lame yet effective slap stick comedy Ootani and Risa was displaying. But I think, in fact it’s the simplicity of the character designs and might I say the nice outfits of the characters that are the attracting points in terms of animation.

Another catch of the show would be that Osaka-ben is used! For me, the dialect just added more humor to the show! I just found it’s much more funny when it was said in the Osaka-ben than the usual Tokyo-ben that most shows use, which is also the Japanese that foreigners learn and kids learn at school. The only other exposure I have to Osaka-ben is in Bleach, where the Vizards speak in Osaka-ben. So that certainly caught my attention as well.

The characters itself, funny, comical, definately the slice-of-life stuff. It’s good to watch a slice-of-life show once again. I’ve been watching too many alternate universe, supernatural, dark and deathly movies.shows recently (eg. Heroes, which I just finished tonight!) so it’s nice to watch a show about the every day battles of life in the normal world. The plot of Episode 1 I found unfolded very quickly, the whole “I’m in love with the new boy and I’m in love with the shy girl” thing only lasted for like 10-15mins of the first episode, and towards the end of the episode, the plot’s already going down the road of “Ootani and Risa falling for each other”. So in other words I just felt the show was fast tracking quite a bit, a bit surprised, but my first impressions would be a pass. I’ll be looking forward to some more comedy and laughs from the Duo. I might even consider picking up the Live action or manga of Lovely Complex. The mangaka of the shoujo Lovely Complex is by Aya Nakahara and the drawings and style reminded me a lot of Ichogo 100% manga.

Hung did a pretty good in depth first impression of Episode 1.

Life outside anime/manga has been keeping me busy recently, what with my 19th just yesterday. So I finally got around watching both Deathnote movie I and Deathnote: The last name. My overall impression, they were fairly good adaptations of the Manga (a pretty decent job for cramming a very complex story spanning 12 volumes of manga into two 2hr movies) even though the producers obviously changed much of the plot to make the story flow better, without compromising the overall message and story line too much.

More info about the plot can be found here but anyone who finds the movie interesting should definitely read the manga since it gives a more detailed story and it’s just so intelligent. I also previous wrote a rant/review of the manga. My expectations of the live action movie were mixed. I was really looking forward to see the manga adaptation (I’ve yet to watch the adaptation into anime, but I hear is good and my presumption is that the anime follows the manga, hence it’s good ) but at the same time expecting the live action to spoil the the show. So I’m pleased to say it didn’t, too much anyway.

Movie I was actually quite good I found. The story unfolded quite closely to the manga, but portraying Light as more human and directly showing why Light uses the Deathnote to “save the world”. In the manga, we follow Light’s life from High school through to Uni and then worklife as part of the detective squad working on Kira’s case. Where as in the movie, we enter Light’s life as a Uni student in one of the smartest Universities in Japan. He’s portrayed to have a normal student life, having fun, winning basketball against “bad guys”, has a girl friend who likes him very much and has a loving comfortable near perfect family. He’s studying law to one day work in the police force as a chief detective. His world is perfect, only for the criminals who destroy happy lives and are set free to destroy more. He finds life unfair, where criminals get away with crimes. This is what motivates his egotistical ideal of creating a world free of crime by ruling by fear.

There are so many moral issues that accompany this film (or 2 films for that matter) that can be argued for or against. Everyone has different views, but clearly ruling by fear to create the perfect world is not the way to go. While Light’s motives are good, as he got deeper into the deal, he was fighting for the survival or Kira more so than punishing criminals. There were a few differences between the movie and manga but overall, the same message and story line was carried out.

The first movie led into the second movie by introducing Amane Misa, the 2nd Kira who loves Light because he punished the criminal who the law and police could not protect her and her family against. One memorable quite from Light’s father which is think sums up the plot and moralissues fairly well is “law is imperfect, because humans and imperfect”. It’s a never ending battle, to protect society against criminals, that’s why people must work hard together to create a better world and not a world created by fear.

While the second film didn’t follow the manga as closely, since they really had to condense quite a bit of info into 2 hours. The way L and Light died are obviously different from the manga, which is this is WHY people might not like the movies as much. Personally, how L and how Light died in the manga was brilliant, that was what made the story so captivating, to find out how  they will eventually die. Not for one moment did I expect Light to live. If he did, does this mean it is OK to rule by fear and individually judge the guilt of a person without fair trial?

It felt like the only reason the directors made L write his name in the deathnote (hence dying in 23days) is that L had to die somehow, which was a very dissapointing way of killing off L. However, Light’s kill was satisfying, essentially he was killed by Ryuk anyway, its just the situation under which he was kill is different. But I think ultimately Light was killed by Ryuk not in teh literal sense but because Ryuk felt it was “fun” to see what a human would do had he the power to kill anyone he wants. That is probably more evil that anything else. In a way it was Ryuk that made Light evil. So I guess it’s fitting that it is Ryuk who kills his “evil creation” that is the human nature.

The ending of the second movie I found painted a nicer picture of Light, which perhaps what it should be. As I don’t belive he was evil. If someone else and not him was Kira, he would be like L trying to find the killer, being a normal smart guy with a great family supporting him. But hey, it’s not longer an interesting story if life is so perfect right? One thing I’m please is the ending, In the end, Light was killed by Kira. At least Light’s family didn’t lose both a son and a father all in one case.

But maybe life is just about fighting to live. In the manga’s final chapter, one of the detective say, “I didn’t say it was alright [for Light to die], but because he did, we are alive”.