Shameful Otaku Secret!

Apparently, lots

I’m keeping myself busy with blogging (as if I wasn’t busy without it) this season, but I never forget to enjoy. After all, it’s not a job. And there are a lot more interesting shows on this season than last. What else is good?

Kure-Nai.
So far I like the main character, I love the animation (although some facial character designs are just anatomically fucked), and the premise could be interesting, if possibly creepy. And what’s with his arm? Check this one out if you haven’t yet. OP and ED are weirdly inappropriate for the mood, but this show is shaping up to be a very unexpected mix of violent and cute, scary and sweet.

Golgo 13.
Golgo 13 is so old your dad probably read his mangas (assuming your dad is Japanese), and he’s so badass I won’t shit-talk him for fear he’ll jump out of my TV and kill my ass. Until it’s dead. Golgo 13 eats GAR and shits bullets. Also, he fucks the hell out of some prostitutes. Apparently, he’s voiced by a “real” actor, and it pays off. His dour voice matches his toughass appearance, which is something like a grown up version of Shin-Chan when he dresses like Lupin III. What impressed me the most was that the whole episode led up to a single sniper shot, and they managed to make that single moment suitably awesome instead of horribly anticlimactic. Watch this or Golgo 13 will come fuck and kill you.

Vampire Knight.
Check it out, it’s Jun Fukuyama. Along with the current other hotness, Mamoru Miyano (Setsuna F. Yagami), together at last. In another dumb vampire show. Apologies to the people who liked this from the get-go, or who liked the manga (vampires are not zombies, so… didn’t read). But I’m really not behind it. Will keep trying for a couple more episodes, but I really don’t like vampires.

I think vampire shows and movies (both Japanese and Western) try very hard to put a new spin on the whole bloodsucker thing every time, and rarely does it work, except for the goth kids.

Special A.
Oh guess what? Jun Fukuyama, who seems increasingly unable to sound anything other than egomaniacal. Along with Yuko Goto, who cannot sing (it was funny in The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, but precisely because she can’t sing). Actually, no one here can sing, and yet the cast is tapped for both the opening and closing songs. The style is fun, but everything else screams “meh” and I hate saying “meh.”

Kamen No Maid Guy.
Looks like Kabitzin is following this one, and I’m already regretting that I didn’t put it up against Kanokon in my Ecchi Deathmatch, To Love-RU may not be up to the challenge. Kanokon shocks me with its volume of questionable content, but Maid Guy disturbs with the questionability of its questionable content. And its intense focus on the protagonist’s rack.

Nabori No Ou.
Ninjas tend to be a warning sign for me. Warning: show you will hate coming! Danger! (The Tick aside, of course.) The wife liked it though, mostly for the style and the admittedly super cool action sequences, but hopefully not as much for the trap and the gay undertones. I’m impressed at JC Staff’s ability to give this such style, so I’ll give it a go.

Blassreiter
Still haven’t made it through episode 1. I can’t take the video game graphics.

The Tower of Druaga
I found episode 1 marginally fun, but I keep hearing they cut the fun. I dunno, I did that “download the mp4 version from YouTube” trick with episode 2 and put it on my iPhone, where higher-quality YouTube vids actually look OK, but I haven’t watched it.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
The “Kazoku” in question consists of a nerdy Fox Mulder wannabe dad, an over-loli-fied catgirl mother, and five kids: A human girl, a lion, a biological weapon, a jellyfish, and the living embodiment of Japan’s latent homophobia. To call this “throwaway” might be an understatement but they did bother to go a little crazy so I’ll give it three episodes to convince me I’m crazy.

Random Thought

Incidentally, Anime News Network has jumped on the Episodic Blogging bandwagon, so does that mean they endorse the questionable practice of fansubbing? I’m guessing mid-season licenses, if any, will consist of Soul Eater, Macross, and maybe Allison & Lillia, so you kids better stop watching when that happens, you hear? I mostly mention it because one of their writers had this to say about Kanokon:

I suspect that only the hardest of hardcore otaku will be much amused.

Snap! Boy do I feel worthless now, because trust me, I am amused. Horrified, sure, shocked and ashamed, yes, but also highly amused.

What Must Be Protected (Final Episode)

Boy am I behind! Already I’m watching first episodes, and I haven’t blogged the final Shana. It was a good one too. Except for the lines I can’t get out of my screenshots. What the hell?

Yes. Who knows, Kazumi may live.

Recap

Shana and Wilhelmina battle Hecate and Sydonay, while Yuji tries to get to the Silver, and thus the Reiji Maigo, before he uses all his life fighting.

Imagine you never watched any Japanese cartoons. Now look at this. Weird, right?

He’s tossing around the Blutsauger even as he gets weaker and weaker, but Shana finally breaks through the crazy clock tower to go after him desperately. It’s sad just how crappy the high school episodes are, because I know they serve to make moments like this more dramatic, as Shana’s feelings for Yuji come to a head and seem to fill the previously-uninterested Yuji with the power to go on.

Aw.

As the clock tower tomogara begins its march, Marjorie uses the last of her failing energy to cast a Fuzetsu around it to protect the city, then flies out to save Kazumi from certain doom.

More importantly, I can’t believe you’re saving Kazumi.

The Silver proves pretty tough to beat, but I called it (not that that’s any huge achievement) — Hecate was the wild card. The scene a while back with the birds was obviously a hint, and here it all comes back to blow up in her face.

Birdies...

The memories and emotions she collected as Konoe make the silver try to enjoy some birds himself, giving Shana and Yuji the chance to kill him and get the Reiji Maigo. Hecate is further baffled when she finds herself tearing up.

Salt water? From my FACE? Oh GOD!

Thoughts

I’m glad to see the series end so well. It almost had me giving up, but I’m actually glad that I didn’t. The last few episodes really brought everything home — fast paced action, creative fight scenes, touches of fanservice, and the tying of the half-baked drama back into things. I don’t think the Konoe thing was a deus ex machina, since it was obviously planned.

Then you’ll just have to KILL YOURSE — I know, I know. Didn’t happen. Probably won’t.

Most significantly, though: the Yuji Choice Maneuver from last week was restarted, and the end of the episode treats us to sad-face Kazumi and happy-face Shana, so… could it be?

Yay END THIS PART OF THE STORYLINE NOW

I’d like to think so, but this show manages to make backwards progress an integral part of its story, so I wouldn’t be that surprised if the Love Triangle With No Sharp Edges continues.

Also, bonus screenshot because it was funny-looking.

Christmas Eve

[and my xmas present to you, the Shana Info Page]

My foray into Extreme Work Travel as a contact sport threw me off a lot of shows; but there’s not much to say for Shana 21, basically the gang defeated Sabrac. However…

Puberty really sneaks up on you.

Recap

The beginning of episode 22 drops the bad news — Sabrac’s still around. However, Bel Peol seems to think that he accomplished what she hired him to do, so she’s releasing him from service for now.

Satou’s trying to work up the nerve to call his pappy, I guess to tell him he’s going to go do research for Outlaw, by the way pops, I’ve been working for a supernatural lush and she’s living in the house.

Poor Ike-kun (remember him?) is pining after Kazumi again, dear lord can’t he just have her so they can live anemically ever after?

The big news, though: Yuji’s dad is back again, and reveals that our favorite mystes is going to be a big brother! Not only that, apparently he’s already a younger brother — unfortunately the first boy that the old man and Chigusa had, before they were married, didn’t make it.

No, son. The capybaras don’t rest, so neither can a capybara wrangler. Seriously though, what the hell does he DO for a living?

All this talk about babies has got Shana interested. Unfortunately, out of all the real-world things she’s learned over two seasons, she somehow managed to get through a year of high school without figuring out how babies are made. Good thing she wasn’t dropped into School Days instead or someone would’ve been gutted by now. Kazumi has to explain to her in a roundabout way that it’s just not something you ask.

Like Pat Boone’s version of Holy Diver, Kazumi hears the words of her dreams from the wrong mouth.

Rather than explain to Shana how to make babies, Kazumi agrees to another lukewarm battle of love: this time it’s love letters, specifying a meeting place for each of them. Whichever meeting place Yuji chooses, that’s the girl he’s picked. Voiceovers give us the gist of each letter, and Shana’s is actually pretty amusing. “Yuji, Follow these orders as written.”

Also, while they didn’t suddenly put glasses on Kazumi, we do get giant pigtails on Shana. What a season this is shaping up to be.

Wilhelmina is initially furious about Shana’s desire to confess to Yuji, but she warms up after stabbing her toast and yelling for a while.

It is tough, I know. Maybe you should just KILL YOURSE– I’ll stop. I’m sorry.

The climactic convergence of Ike, Kazumi, Shana, and Yuji can only end with at least one person’s heart broken, but all of a sudden, terrible terrible perspective pays a visit in the form of Hecate, who promptly rips the Reiji Maigo right out of Yuji’s chest.

Uh oh.

What We’ve Learned

Sabrac apparently loosened that gewgaw inside Yuji during the fight, so Yuji now stands pretty much defenseless in the face of Bal Masque.

We’re probably going to get another season. I’ll continue watching. I’ve put far too much time into it now. And the whole tepid love-triangle (whose central figure seems to care very little about) is probably not going to be solved anytime soon.

Let’s see, Kazumi north, Shana south… which way for ‘pretend you’re gay to get out of this?’

Thoughts

This should be where it gets really good. I’ve been disappointed with this season’s pacing, although some people disagree with me. But the appearance of Bal Masque in person should be the harbinger of ass-kicking.