(I like Hisui, but the ol’ line about “So moe I might die” comes to mind)

Moe: is it in your anime, killing your enjoyment?

Recently I’ve been in a bit of despair over Clannad, the third installment in Key’s sad-girls-in-noun series that has been animated by high-quality animation studio Kyoto Animation. By all means, I like to consider myself a Key fanboy (I believe the official term for this is “kagikko”) like the best of them; look up at my banner (might need a couple refreshes, admittedly) or down at my posts, and you’ll see a whole lot of raving, ranting, and allusions to vanilla ice cream, among other catchfoods.

But with the advent of decidedly more real, down-to-earth visual-novel type stories in anime, for example, the highly lauded KimiKiss, it seems that some of Key’s works could almost be growing stagnant. Even other shows with what could be considered mildly moe characters, take a more realistic, balanced view, as the infamous quote in ef - a tale of memories goes: “If the girl is thought to be cute, it means she isn’t being described properly.”

There are a lot of instances of concentrated moe in anime nowadays, but Key works are generally among the genre-leaders in this regard. Just look at Kanon, and Yuuichi’s four childhood friends. Clannad is a bit more even-keeled in terms of characters, but Kotomi’s recent arc is what really tipped the scale for me, and led me to this post.

It made me wonder - is there a sort of divide between moe characters and strong characters? Is a moe character, by definition, one that has to be shallow? Or is this just a false dichotomy?
(more…)

The “12 Days of Christmas” series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we’ve enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

One can write off the harem genre, upon hearing of it, as something that’s light, fluffy, and quite cliched.

While a lot of the time that is true, I’ve found that a specific subset of harem has proven time and time again to be the most interesting and surprising genre in anime - the visual novel adaptation.

Maybe my tastes are biased. But rather it seems that the visual novel anime can combine the best of the two worlds that quite a lot of males can enjoy.

One, there’s a lot of girls, ranging from the buxom for those who prefer physical appeal to the moe for those with a more emotional, personality-based taste.

And two, the plots in said stories quite often are quite gripping - with no evil villain overlord for everyone to join forces against, the main storylines are often character-based, whether it be pitting two people against each other or revealing the story of a mysterious character.

Some may condemn such stories for being overly dramatic and “forced emotion” if not a little repetitive at times, but as one who enjoys heartwarmingly cute characters and touching stories, there really is no better genre than the visual novel.

And there is no more show I can say more superlatives about than Kanon, no arc more than Mai’s.
(more…)

The wonders of being American and, as such, Japanese-illiterate, is that new content manages to come out for old, popular shows seemingly endlessly.

When in reality perhaps all the rampant merchandising of a show ended a few years ago - in this case, the last drama CD was released in 2003 - the slow trickle of the content through the fansub community (understandable, non-anime content is usually a bit slower to translate) allows for a steady supply of material on the English side of things

As such, the continuing translation of the Kanon drama CDs (supposedly 5 in all; or at least, the third ‘Akiko’ set) is something that really sends rabid fanboys like me over the moon.

The drama CDs are, admittedly, less than canon (insert pun) content, in that many characters’ personalities are different than what’s seen of them in the anime. This is mainly true for the side characters, who didn’t get much exposition anyway, though; as such, it’s entertaining enough to see a side to the secondary characters that time didn’t allow.

So Mishio - and, dare I say it, Kuze - fans will really find a lot to like with the drama CDs.

And pardon the fanwankery, but I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised with the animation of the drama CD as well.

OTL really went above and beyond the call of duty with their release of the drama CD. Presented in visual novel format, the backgrounds and characters on-screen change in true VN fashion; starting with the second CD, the mouths even move - in sync - with the voices!

Not to mention, some of the extra work in creating backgrounds - such as this manga Yuuichi was reading - or entire characters, in the case of Kuze, who had no sprite in the original VN! It really does a lot towards extending the entertainment value of the drama CD, and I have to hand it to OTL for all their extra work.

Not to say that the drama CD is any less subpar. Check out this previous post for the first ten stories of the first CD.
(more…)

got uguu~?

As is common, or so it seems, for most anime (and by most I’m using two or three popular anime as a benchmark) Kanon has a series of drama CDs out in Japan. Drama CDs, as you would expect, are audio-only stories, typically side stories (i.e. not relevant to the plot) which are more for light entertainment than anything else - I bring this up considering the often heavy plot matters of Kanon.

Recently, the Kanon audio CDs have been getting fansubbed by OTL, which I think is a first for this sort of stuff. They’ve done a good job of it as well, presenting it in the visual novel format, with character portraits and backgrounds to match up the text. It might be a simple task, but it really adds a lot to the experience.

But what of the stories themselves? The question one really has to ask when going into this is,

Can you get too much Kanon?

Do the drama CDs fall into the cash-in category or are they worth your time? There are 10 stories and they run about 40 minutes in total. The download size for all of them is roughly equivalent to that of a normal episode of anime (170 MB) and since, well, it’s Kanon, the seed speed shouldn’t be too bad.

And with that, I can give it a solid recommendation, although it does get a bit awkward at times. Hit the jump for full details.
(more…)

(Breaking Not more Haruhi News: The Haruhi game’s headed to PS2 as well, with a Wii version rumored as well. So if you don’t have a PSP, rejoice somewhat! Speaking as one who’s already import-ready with Melty Blood, yays!)

Well, get a load of this; the Kanon artbook thingy was released recently, and guess what they had as an extra: a CD full of uguu~

No, not like, music and uguu~, or like, nyuu~ and uguu~. Just 10 straight minutes of uguu~. Ten minutes! Incidentally, there are 86 variations of uguu~ on the CD.

Even if you can’t stand Ayu, it’s still worth a listen just because it’s so hilarious, to me, the thought of releasing a ’soundtrack’, as it is, of straight uguu~ness. Well done, well done. Here’s the link.

Loop it. I dare you.

-CCY
(thanks to Moe Moe Rabu for the links, and Random Curiosity for the below picture)

Also, while searching the web for suitable Ayuguu~ pictures, here’s an interesting comparo I dug up…

And you always wondered what Mikuru’s real identity was…