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?)

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.)

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.

OK, maybe that is a bit of a stretch for the purpose of random innuendo but the fact of the matter does remain that the Tsukihime universe does contain a lot of seemingly-cliche characters that actually are pretty in-depth and have emotional storylines … which is why we’re having them fight to the death. Or something.

I’m sure there’s some sort of reason that could be understood if I could read Japanese but the point still remains that Melty Blood remains one of my favorite 2D fighter series if only because it’s one that leans more towards the pick-up-and-play end, with only 3 attack buttons and a shield to worry about.

As such 90% of the attacks can actually be pulled off by someone with little experience to the game; the movesets are relatively simple and as always the combo potential is still very complex, which is evidenced by the fact that I get completely wiped whenever I try to play someone over the age of 10.

Still, 2D fighters have always had sort of an appeal since they are one of the “cooler-looking” genres; if you’ve ever seen some of the special moves in Melty Blood, you know what I mean. (Sacchin’s Blood Heat Arc vs. Shiki, or Ciel’s Seventh Holy Scripture)

Or, maybe I like this game because it is with established characters, and it is always win to see and hear Hisui & Kohaku being Hisui & Kohaku.

And now, Hisui can actually moe people to death. Almost.

Rant aside, here’s what’s new in “Actress Again”, from what I’ve read:
- 2 new characters, Riesbyfe Stridberg (she shows up in one of Sion’s Arc Drives, the rest is Japanese to me) and Roa (Far Side version)
- New character select art
- Some new “Guard Crash/Crush” system (this is probably why I keep losing)
- More than one playing style per character
- “5 buttons;” whether this includes shield / heat activation buttons, I don’t know.
- More Nasu-tastic storylines

Sounds good so far, although a lot of it is lost on a casual player like me. Look forward to more news on this sequel coming to arcades in 2008 (and hopefully to a home release too.)

-CCY
(Thanks to Beast’s Lair for the news.)

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)

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)

Short story shorter, the Lucky Star bandwagon marches on as the manga and quite popular anime marches on to conquest it’s next media form…books. The Lucky Star light novel, “Lucky☆Star Satsujin Jiken” (Lucky Star Murder Case) is due to be released on September 1st.

Certainly it seems like odd material for the lighthearted slice-of-life show but this probably means we’ll either get a parody or another Remote Island Syndrome setup. It’s certainly an interesting and altogether different premise and I look forward to seeing how the Lucky Star characters fare in a more…drawn-out storyline.

And in case you haven’t put together the pieces from the title and the text, take a closer look at the snapshots in the cover art. Yeah. Might be Yutaka on the right too. Man, they kill off all the innocent naive characters? Those are the funniest.

Still, I look forward to seeing just how the false murder mystery plot is going to get pulled off – not to mention who’s behind it (Miyuki. You know it.). I say false perhaps out of knowledge of the tone for the series – and for the fact that if it’s not, I’ll be the first with a pitchfork.

-CCY

You want to be fooled.

But you wouldn’t clap yet.

Because making something dissapear isn’t enough…

you have to bring it back.
-Alfred Borden, The Prestige (2006)

Forgive me, it’s a good movie for quotes. And I had to stick in the old image of the now infamous “Haruhi Returns” to fit the theme of the quote.

But, with any luck, this time it should be for real. According to the Animesuki forums, Newtype’s advance copy of its August issue has that picture above that translates to something vaguely resembling ‘the second period/season of Haruhi Suzumiya’, or at least we hope.

The official word is supposed to be out July 7th (Tanabata, as I’ve heard), so, hold your breath for 48 hours or whatnot. But it seems reliable this time; you guys can trust Konata, right?

In any case, I know I want to be fooled.

-CCY
(Thanks to Heisei Democracy and Kurogane’s Anime Blog for pictures)

So, Haruhi’s got a video game now.

I could rant to fill up this section, but no one reads that, eh? I’m just sectioning off some vague spoilers for the two of you who have not watched Haruhi Suzumiya yet. If not, feel free to continue.

It’s for the PSP and looks to be a visual novel, with some “revolutionary elements” according to Bandai Namco, the publisher. Not sure how many different ways one can mix up a ren’ai game though: somehow I could imagine it turning out like some of Navel’s Really? Really! (a Shuffle series game), where the protagonist has to find and fix errors in the continuity of the universe, or something, i.e. Haruhi retcons the world and it’s up to Kyon to fix it. Another possibility is Type-Moon’s Kagetsu Tohya (Tsukihime series), where a single day is repeated over and over until the protagonist gets it right. This could be done, for example, with Haruhi’s Endless Eight story (book 5), or perhaps a different time period (pretty much everything could work, to be honest). It would take most players, hopefully, less than 15,498 times to get through the path, though.

Not much to say on the game yet but I imagine it’s about time for a Haruhi game, considering it’s meteoric popularity in Japan (didn’t the Hare Hare Yukai CD hit #2 or something on Amazon?) and rabid fanbase around the world. PSP seems like an odd choice, mainly because I don’t have one, but it makes sense as it has picked up well in Japan (although a far second from the DS) and many other visual novels have been released on it. Plus, I guess, it could always spur sales of it. But the main reason to long for, say, a PC release or something, would be the facilitation of an English translation as despite its popularity among anime fans, the Haruhi R1 isn’t exactly burning up Amazon at 4,140th in DVDs.

I’m hoping the main drawpoint, of course, is a possibility of a Yuki (OK, I’ll be honest, I typed Nayuki first) ending. Or Mikuru, perhaps Tsuruya or Itsuki, if you’re into those characters. It’d be interesting but also very difficult to make work within canon Haruhi storyline, i.e. Be with Haruhi or die.

Other than that it’s time for the world to hold their collective breath on this game, although I have a feeling that it’s going to be a ‘love it or hate it’ thing, in that fanboys will gush all over this game (and we’ll leave that as that), while realists will condemn it as a cash-in. Expectations might be a bit high coming into this, kind of like Lucky Star (the anime), which is good and amusing but not laugh-a-minute like everyone expected.

It will be interesting though how the storywriting and planning is handled; and how much the game will fit into the canon Haruhi storyline. It’s titled “Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu” (where have we heard that before?), so it might be based on either the anime or the first book. I doubt Bandai Namco would base it entirely off the first book, as as much as the special powers of the characters could make for decent plot twists, everybody and their brother (and their brother’s best friend’s cousin’s uncle’s daughter’s invisible friend) pretty much knows Haruhi – at least those that are going to buy the game. So “new” content might be on the way, after all – it remains to be seen whether it will be accepted into general continuity.

But in the end, there is plenty of time to pass judgment multiple times (I’ve only just gotten the news on this 3 hours ago), so the verdict still remains to be seen; but, so far, for noobs like me who speak English, English, and English with a mock British accent, I think I’ll have to give this a pass.

-CCY
P.S. Yay for AnimeNano!