Code-E was the sleeper show of the summer season last year, a slice-of-life romance which felt a lot like what ARIA would be if it had some semblance of plot. That is, it was a warm and relaxing show, with a very calm pace to it, but every now and again it would kick into action and move the story along a bit. The result was a show that, while perhaps not a seat-gripper, was quite enjoyable to watch after a long, hard day.There was just one problem to the show…it ended. Early. The relaxed pace worked great, except that when it came to the end of the show’s 12-episode run, more plot devices had been revealed than explained. What resulted was a mad dash to tie up as many ends as possible, and quite frankly, it didn’t work.

Luckily for those of us who wanted to see a bit smoother end to the show, it was later revealed that Code-E had a second season planned for it (instead of the original “go read the manga now” ending), and just recently the AnimeSuki forums have gotten the first details on it…

Ehhhhhhhhhh?

For some reason the show has taken on a wildly futuristic look from its first preview image. The first season was set a bit into the future, but didn’t have a lot to show for it; it was a future much like today’s, except with more things powered by electricity (to complicate the main heroine’s ability to generate electromagnetic pulses when she is flustered). And that setting, admittedly, worked with the laid-back style of the show.

This funny body armor stuff just feels like it was culled out of a random shonen action or mecha show, and honestly doesn’t fit with me at all. Here’s the rest of the preview image from the page in an online magazine…

According to serenade_beta in the AnimeSuki forums, the main character is Maori Kimizuka, a side character from the original season which I can’t even find at the moment. I think she’s the face on the left of the four character shots outside of the preview image: the second one is Chinami, the original main character, the third is probably Sonomi, the childhood friend love interest, and the fourth is wicked awesome Yuma, the other character with an ability like Chinami’s, and now sporting some awesome frames and hair.

Additionally, the series has undergone a five-year time jump, tame compared to some shows but still a sizeable amount of time.

The radical change that the series has undergone is something that I’m currently seriously questioning, from what looks like a style-shift, a character shift, and a time shift. The previous season worked well for me, and the one thing I wished had changed the most in it would not be the setting or the characters but simply how long the season was. If Mission-E could just be an extension of Code-E, kind of like Minami-ke and Minami-ke Okawari, I would be plenty satisfied.

Hopefully this is not what it seems, but I’m still happy that Chinami and friends are getting a time extension in some form, and now it’s time to wait until July - the airdate of the show - or until information is next released, to find out just how this will turn out…

-CCY

(Just in case you were wondering how under the radar Code-E was…Danbooru gives me exactly zero images on it. Isn’t it sad, Chinami?)

Matsuri, YOU’RE WINNER!

Yeah, it’s so shocking it’s worth stealing and reposting from Danny Choo’s barely five-minute-old post. I happen to get on the internet at just the right time, I suppose.

Anyways, according to Danny Choo the results from about 2 million Japanese ballots are in, and everyone’s favorite tomato-juice-drinking, sky-photographing show apparently grabbed the top spot by an overwhelming margin, with over 340,000 votes to runner-up Lucky Star’s 140,000. The full standings are as follows:

1) sola
2) Lucky Star
3) Katei Kyoshi Hitman Reborn
4) Ookiku Furi Kabutte
5) Higurashi
6) Gintama
7) Nanoha StrikerS
8) Nanatsuiro Drops
9) Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
10) Hidamari Sketch

Really curious, if you ask me. It makes me wonder (as I commented on over there) what the criteria were to be eligible, as many big-name shows that ended this year, like Kanon and Gurren Lagann among other things, are nowhere to be seen.

I’m pleasantly surprised to see sola up there at the top - it was one of the shows I enjoyed greatly this season, despite it having a few glaring flaws. Still, to have it top all with nary a moe show (or even very many manly shows) in sight is quite perplexing. Makes you curious what the polling audience was in Japan - random people off the street? 2ch visitors? Any certain demographic?

It makes me wonder again of the divides present in anime fandom; it’s apparent to many that anime that casual or inexperienced U.S. fans watch (typically shonen), and anime that hardcore English bloggers watch (all over the board, but a lot more moe, mecha, and dramatic) are worlds apart, but is there a second difference in taste between the anime fanatics on both sides of the Pacific? And is there a similar, ‘casual’ anime division in Japan that is looked down upon?

And which one was the most vocal in this vote? All food for thought, speaking as a relatively new member to the anime community.

Regarding that and the rest of the list, I guess this means I can’t tout sola and NanaDrops as ‘underrated anime that no one’s heard of’, as I’ve been out to do of recently. I do enjoy playing a show’s (advertising) knight in shining armor too much.

Lucky Star was popular, as expected from a slice-of-life on moe crack (lemme tell you, them’s good crack too), and I’m happy to see SZS up there on the list as well. This list also reinforces my idiocy as the only person left on Earth who hasn’t waxed poetic about Hidamari Sketch as well…time to put that back on the list.

Would like to see the rest of the list, but that’s probably not possible.

-CCY
(Obvious thanks to Danny Choo for the news.)
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For a while it was up in the air between the previous news (broken in the preview for the Novemeber issue of Japanese magazine Tougeki Damashii) of a possible sequel to the hit 2D fighter and the consequent removal of the title from the preview page, but now it’s confirmed:

Hot meido-on-unlucky-osananajimi action is back, baby.

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That’s right. Not version B2 (the PC version of Act Cadenza), but supposedly a full-fledged sequel.

According to the preview of Tougeki Damashii’s (a Japanese magazine devoted to fighting games) October 31 issue, there’s going to be some news on this mysterious sequel-sounding game in just a few weeks.

Commence hyperventilating until then.

If you’re not familiar with Melty Blood, it’s a 2D fighter based on the Tsukihime universe. So if you like Tsukihime, Melty Blood is high amount of win, and if you don’t, it’s still a pretty solid, relatively easy-to-pick-up 2D fighter (only 3 attack buttons and one shield, attack input is simple, most complex attack is a half-circle forward).

Look forward to more news come Halloween.

-CCY
(Thanks to the guys at Beast’s Lair for the news)
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Welcome your new Key (Tactics) visual novel overlords. Do it.

So yeah, the English patch for one of first (big?) visual novels released by the famous producers of AIR and Kanon was released earlier this month here.

ONE has always been one of those blank spots in many Key fans’ histories mainly because there was no anime or major translation previously produced for it outside of what I’ve been told is a very shoddy OVA (one hentai, one non-hentai) produced a few years ago. Now it’s time to figure out all those strange characters that you may only be acquainted with through doujin games like Eternal Fighter Zero (another excellent 2D fighter featuring Key characters).

So, uh, yeah, get to it if that’s your thing. Eternal gratitude to the producers of the patch, and looking forward to a good read.

-CCY

(Mio Kouzuki image stolen from this Japanese site)
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