Anime: Nostalgia Entertainment?

There was one scene in Angel Beats! that I didn't touch on much, even though some of the ideas conveyed by it were potentially powerfully poignant, and likely very telling. I didn't touch on it much because it was suggesting a general truism of sorts about anime today which transcends Angel Beats! itself, and hence I didn't want to spend much time on it in an actual Angel Beats! review. That truism is that modern anime intermittently intensely idealizes school life. 

Ga-rei Zero Review

Before I begin this review, two key heads-up:

1. This review will be highly spoilerrific. I don't think that I can do justice while delving into the key strengths of this anime, without spoiling a lot of it.

2. I came into this show in large part due to its moe appeal. In other words, I didn't come into it mainly for the action, which I think will give this blog a very different (if not contrary) flavor when compared to some of the other Ga-rei Zero blog reviews that I've read. This anime was recommended to me on Anime Suki by 0utf0xZer0 when I asked for suggestions for a "moe character designs with dramatic storyline" anime. After watching the Higurashi animes, the Nanoha animes, Clannad, and Mai HiME, I've come to feel that moe actually blends very well with serious sophisticated suspenseful drama, as I think that the two compliment one another nicely while providing crisp contrasts between look and feel that can give the final work an added 'oomph!'. However, notice that Clannad is on the list there, so fighting action scenes were not a prerequisite for what I was looking for here, but they certainly can help. And it helps a lot for why I enjoyed Ga-rei Zero a lot.

In the Shadows of Clannad

I recently watched Amagami SS Episode 9.

It had slick artwork and solid animation, it showcased mostly good character designs, and it was rather benign. Few people who are already very familiar with anime would find it disturbing in the least, and the only scene that would even possibly raise the eyebrows of even a total newcomer to anime is the flashback scene of one girl giddily gleefully rubbing another girl's breasts.

Junichi may be a bit of a pervert, in the very broadest sense of the term, but he's the most innocent type of one. He gets aroused by even the slightest of physical contact with an attractive girl, even through layers of clothing. There's nothing in Junichi's approaches and reactions to girls that even a shy choir boy at the age of twelve would find alarming, or hard to appreciate. There's also nothing even coming close to the degrees of slapstick violence found in Love Hina!, Negima!, or even your typical Jun Maeda produced comedy bit. So Amagami is incredibly inoffensively innocuous.

Number 1: Nanoha Takamachi!

A long time ago, I was in the process of doing write-ups for each character on my Top 10 Anime Characters of All-Time list. I had only one left to do, but sadly, I did not feel up to finishing off my Top 10 list.

Until now.

My last two entries in that list spoke a bit on fiction in general, and also on the role that conflict plays in fiction.

It spoke of the three types of conflict:

Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Himself

Man vs. Man


In a Man vs. Man conflict, we see two personable forces locked in a struggle, be it a purely physical confrontation or a battle of wits or a challenge of ideas or some combination thereof. This can truly draw in the viewer, and force him or her to view the conflict from multiple perspectives.

One such perspective is the perspective of the villain, and my most recent entry in my Top 10 list was an intelligent intensely ideal example of such a villain.

While the perspective of the villain is often important, it is usually not quite as important as the perspective of...

Fall 2010 Predictions

Looking ahead to the Fall 2010 Anime Season

I know that the main request I get from regular readers of this blog is to finally get around to doing the "Nanoha Takamachi is No. 1!" write-up. And, well, I will get to that eventually, hopefully this weekend. ^_^;;

But for now, I want to devote my time to something that will be more of a quick write-up for me.

And that is making some predictions pertaining to the upcoming Fall 2010 anime lineup.

Now, I won't be going into detail here on each and every one of those 30-plus anime shows, which in and of itself is a rather impressive and perhaps surprising number of new anime shows for a Fall season, even if many of them are sequels. For an entertainment industry often said to be in decline, they certainly seem to have no problem chucking out vast quantities of new content each and every season. While the quality of that content may very well prove to be debatable, nobody can question its sheer vastness.

Aside from that brief comment on the vastness of new anime coming this Fall, I will look at a few shows in particular, and make predictions pertaining to them and the coming anime season as a whole.


So, hold on to your Hetalia hats, and kiss your Imouto goodbye for now, because we're about to start a thrilling Star Driving ride! ;)

Evaluating Anime Trends by Sales Figures

With us now around the midpoint of 2010, and with significant sales data available for us to evaluate (thanks to you, Eggplant of Anime Suki) I felt that now might be a good time to once more take a 'big picture' look at the anime industry at a whole, but this time rooted in concrete domestic (i.e. within the Japanese market) sales figures.

This is something that I honestly don't see a lot of amongst online anime discussions, and perhaps with good reason, as the business side of anime is like the business side of many entertainment industries: lots of dry mathematical data, and the crunching of numbers. At first glance, it may seem boring, but yet, it's very relevant, and can help us understand present and future decisions by industry leaders (in the case of anime, companies like Kyoto Animation, SHAFT, Sunrise, Brains Base, AIC, and so on and so forth).

For example, you may wonder why one of your favorite Japanese light novels or visual novels has yet to be fully adapted into anime. Well, knowing that the writer thereof has had one or more of the anime adaptations of his work bomb, and bomb hard, may give you a good, albeit cold and hard, answer here.

Furthermore, you may wonder why certain anime character types, or character designs, are so very prevalent. Well, knowing that all of the big sellers have them could help to explain that as well.

In the business world, what sells is ultimate what gets continued, if there's anything left to continue with, and even then, more may be forced out even if the original author would rather not go along with that. Dragon Ball Z is a classic example of this.

Furthermore, what doesn't sell often doesn't get continued, no matter how passionate a vocal niche fanbase may be about it. Popularity at sheer discussion, hype, and interest levels is almost meaningless if its not accompanied by good, actual, concrete sales.

Amagami SS Review: Haruka Morishima Arc

Deciding to watch this anime may have been the most whimsical decision of my life.

I went on Anime Suki, and saw, to my amazement, that only five series, with their own subforums, were listed under "Current Series". That's the fewest I've ever seen there, which is perhaps a concerning sign for the anime industry as a whole. Four were obvious: The Shounen Big Three, and K-On! Just about every anime fan knows those. However, the other anime there with its own subforum I didn't even recognize at all, which piqued my interest.

That fifth was "Amagami SS". So, I decided to run that anime title through a Google image search. I decided that if its promotional artwork or screenshots looked good, I'd check out at least an episode of it. The image at the top of this blog entry is the very first one that I noticed. And yes, it certainly looked good to me. ;)