In the midst of the working world and of real life another Rapidfire post rises from the ashes to inject a thousand-odd words of anime ranting and raving into the bloodstream of a starved anime fan.

Well, in all honesty I hope you’ve been reading elsewhere too, so you shouldn’t be starving, but in any case, I’m just starting to go off on random tangents, having already written all the content out of my head (yes, the pre-jump section comes last here) and now desperately typing random, fourth-wall referential content in an attempt to fill space.

In case you’re interested in what’s on board for today, there’s a news section announcing a new Shuffle!-like substance for the PC, a short metarant involving ads and websites, and a good long analytical-type thing about Howl’s Moving Castle – one of the popular Miyazaki films – and the power of emotional connection versus logical appeal.

Well … uh … how about that Nagato?

Shuffle! Essence+
The Shuffle! anime has always been sort of a dirty pleasure for me. As fanservice-filled and as unabashedly harem as it is, I maintain the belief that Shuffle! has a legitimately intriguing and dramatic plot behind it all; and certainly, its colorful character designs are among the best around, with nearly every character appealing on either a visual or a emotional level (or both).

Still, when I attempted to transfer my affection for the show to the visual novel it was adapted from, I was a bit underwhelmed. Each character’s story, individually, was perhaps less interesting than the way it was all wound together in the anime, and the blatant fanservice became more apparent.

Then again, I was playing using an automatic translator, which had no regard for the actual content of the lines being translated, so maybe the game lost a lot of its feel.

One thing that can’t be denied though is the surprising vastness of the Shuffle! universe, with three separate visual novels – the original, Tick! Tack!, and Really? Really!. As amusingly named as they are, I can at least vouch to the fact that YURIA sings some wicked OP songs (Remember Memories remains one of my favorite songs in both sound and lyrics) and that Navel has come up with some novel gameplay mechanics.

And apparently the universe is about to get a bit bigger with Navel’s announcement of Shuffle! Essence+ (keeping their “what the hell kind of naming is this” crown intact), a reverse port of Shuffle! On the Stage (PS2) to the PC with some extra content added.

In addition to the Mayumi and Kareha paths from the PS2 game, two all-new paths of girls named Daisy and Ruri are to be added, in addition to new dialogue and H-scenes for the previously-sanitized Mayumi / Kareha routes. More info can be found at the Animesuki thread here (thanks to them for the news).

I can only be so enthusastic for Essence given the fact that I can’t read Japanese, but if this gives any hope to the legendary Mayumi path actually getting some form of translation, I’m all for it. Mayumi and Itsuki are a great duo and they need all the attention they can get. I’m less interested in the new characters, because I think Shuffle!’s hitting a sort of a saturation point a la the Sonic series where new characters are superfluous, but this might just be because the current Shuffle! core cast is so strong.

Selling out?
With all the bluntness of Haruhi Suzumiya, I’ve been considering trying to actually wring some sort of profit out of the writing I do.

I say this expecting not to be bathing in solid gold coins anytime soon, but instead perhaps just a modest paycheck which could fuel an additional DVD (or other related merchandise) purchase every few months or so. It’s one of those things that you wake up one day and wonder, “Well, I spend on average one hour a day blogging anyway, might as well get paid for it.”

(Incidentally, that figure is quoted from when I manage to hit my every-other-day post quota, since I spend usually about 2 hours on the writing process.)

Well, to be honest, there’s actually a few things holding me back from stuffing ads into every free space of my site in the fashion some people get violated in disturbing hentai.

First off is the titular issue of this mini-post; I suppose I’ve already let some of my “fame” get to my head if I begin thinking about my readers instead of just focusing on what I’m writing, but a legitimate concern for me is whether if I put ads on my site, will I have enough readers left to make those ads worth it.

Quite simply “selling out” is a phrase that’s thrown about pretty much at anything artistically-related, whether it be music, art, or here, writing. Whether it’s a valid complaint about people losing their way to the greed for money, or just the whining of people mad that others have made their passion their life more than they ever could, I don’t know.

I should hope to someday be so lucky as to ever be able to legitimately sell out, since I don’t exactly have such a readership to be able to do so, but I do still wish to ask before I attempt anything silly: would you be offended by seeing ads on M3? I’m guessing it’ll be the usual fare I’ve seen on other anime blogs: Google Ads, and possibly banners from places like J-List or Amazon. I’m hoping what I’ll hear is “as long as they are integrated properly,” which is something I think I can achieve.

Or on the flip side, for bloggers who do actually put ads on their own sites, does it work? I’m not expecting riches here, but I’m hoping to at least cover server costs if I do use ads.

I say server costs because of a policy here at Dasaku (and a sensible one) that no ads be placed on blogs, logically given that Randall is wonderful enough (in a straight manner) to provide excellent, flexible, and most important, free hosting to everyone that asks. Although, I can’t decide whether pimping his service is a good thing (yay, positive feedback) or a bad thing (incoming begging-for-hosting rush).

But back on track, if I do decide to go ahead with Plan Get Mad Rich Get Paid (A Little) For What I Like To Do, I will probably be moving servers again to new hosting, with a few friends also looking to team up to split server fees.

Well, food for thought in any case. But how about we ramble about some anime instead?

Howl’s Moving Castle and the power of emotional connection
So this Miyazaki guy, he’s something, eh? Right up there with Evangelion and Gurren Lagann in the giant pile of “how have I managed to be a fan of anime this long without having seen this” is the enormously popular stack of films that Miyazaki has created, acclaimed enough to make their ways to American shores, and, if I recall correctly, theaters.

Perhaps it was the plain art style that never really spurred me to watch them; in a world where moe saturates anime like grease does pizza, Miyazaki’s works always look almost boring in comparison. Of course, this is more my fault than anyone else’s; but call me a shallow person, first impressions still count.

Another way to say ‘boring’ might be just ‘down-to-earth’, which is perhaps a better descriptor, but still since watching one of the Miyazaki films would involve either purchasing it or driving to the library to check it out, then shoving time out of my schedule to watch it, I was a bit tentative. At least until my friend came over one day, toting Howl’s Moving Castle and demanding to watch it.

It’s a curious work. I hesitate to give it a high score and hesitate to give it a low one, or, for that matter, a mediocre one.

This is because Howl’s Moving Castle is one of those anime with many facets, some of which shine really brightly and some of which are just plain ugly. I suppose the greatest parallel I could make is to a dramatic, roller-coaster, plot-hole-filled anime like sola or H2O. Like them, Howl’s Moving Castle is a powerful work … but perhaps not a great story.

I say this because as much as Howl’s Moving Castle was beautiful and touching, there was a point where it just sort of stopped making sense. Like my friends joked, maybe I wasn’t Japanese enough to understand it, or maybe it was meant to be open to interpreted.

But that doesn’t stop the fact that I honestly disliked how HMC confused me so much, almost seeming like the visual novel anime that many like to rag on for trying to coax tears out of viewers. For example, the ending parts, where Howl went from dead to alive and back and forth until he became a sort of Schroendinger’s Cat; the ending itself, where the two sides just give up on the war; or a lot of the backstory, which was never explained. Heck, even Sophie’s curse didn’t hold water half the time.

Perhaps I just feel cheated by a simple message; to me, Howl’s Moving Castle boiled down to “power of love saves the day”, and as warm and fuzzy and great as that message is, I’ve heard it a million times from every shoujo show ever. I frequently shouted at the TV, “That’s so, so awesome, yet so, so cheesy,” … because it was.

Whatever it is, despite Howl’s Moving Castle winning over my heart, driving me close to tears with a simple predicament, my brain remains unconvinced. I like to think rationally, but it’s times like these I wonder which organ is more important to listen to.

If you’re pondering the vague title, it’s because I’m going through a similar situation with Nodame Cantabile, with just one episode to go. Now make no mistake, Nodame is definitely a show I enjoy and hold dear to me; but I still can’t determine whether it is one of the true standout anime or not (more concretely, a 9 in my MAL book).

Logically, it’s merely very good. Nodame and Chiaki’s characters are both very empathetic, appealing to me through their mix of insanity and sanity. The comedy is frequently golden, and the show has good emotional moments too. There’s rarely a foot (or perhaps, a finger) placed wrong.

But, it’s missing some spark. It’s like the difference between a slow, prolonged burn at a low temperature, versus a high-temperature, fiery explosion. Both give off the same amount of heat in the end but one is definitely more noticeable than the other.

Nodame Cantabile is the former; a show that I’ve watched over many months, very slowly but surely. I’ve practically never failed to enjoy an episode, but neither am I ever really standing on my feet, holding my sides together, gripping my chair, or generally being far too enthusastic for 11 PM – as I have been with some of the other greats, such as Azumanga or Kaiji.

But the fact that it’s really a near-perfect show for me should be enough to, objectively, get it in the pantheon. I mean, it’s not like it is any worse than any of my ‘9′ anime. And the feeling in the stomach that grows when the end of an anime approaches, is large as ever; I definitely feel the upcoming void of Nodame Cantabile in my heart, mediated only by rejoicing at the upcoming second second.

The end result, still, is indecision, and probably a bit of complaining that there still aren’t enough tiers in the world to subjectively rank my anime, if only because I want to start tossing out numbers like 8.5, 7.7852, pi, and i.

Really, it just spurs more than anything to me, a thought about how time can affect anime so much – whether it be looking back overly fondly on old anime (alternatively, over-praising a recently concluded show), or the actual passage of time between episodes fading one’s enjoyment for a show.

-CCY

(Going back to Navel’s ‘what were they on?’ naming crown, I did see this poster at Fanime for the best-named eroge ever.)

A while back, I wrote an article about how true shoujo (girls’) romance shows, replete with shiny sparkly slow-motion pans of blond-haired pretty-boys, were lacking compared to the Marmalade Boys of years past. They seemed to be slowly fading out of favor; whether it was overcrowding due to more male-orientated “moe shows” (less of a genre and more of a giant classification) or simple dissapearance due to change of taste, I was unsure, but the fact was, they just don’t make romance stories truly aimed at just girls anymore.

With some coincidental genre-talk crossfire going on around other places, combined with my following of 2007 hit Nodame Cantabile, I began to think a bit again about the status of girls’ romance. Nodame Cantabile definitely had the feel of a show that could masquerade as being such a type of show, yet it also was decidedly different from the typical fare that occupies the genre. And what of KimiKiss? It’s a show that, despite being so much ’seen before’ material, defies classification by typical means, being neither guys’ harem nor girls’ romance.

These may be but two shows but to me they signify pretty clearly the direction that romance shows are heading. They may not be as popular as they used to be, passed up in favor of more pandering harem shows (not indicative of the harem genre as a whole, I must note) or the ever-strong action / mecha favorites, but what’s left in the romance corner is truly a distilled and refined version of what both guys and girls have come to love in love stories.

Maybe I’m biased. KimiKiss and, more recently, Nodame Cantabile have been two exceptionally strong and balanced anime, not straying too much toward any major cliche or fan-pleasing trap. What really intrigues me about these shows is that – at least in the case of the former – they’ve drawn a varied mix of audience, both male and female, which I thought was pretty rare. Visual novel type-romances like Clannad or Da Capo tend to turn off female viewers with heavy-handed harem or sad-girls-in-stuff elemetns, while magical girl-type romances like Shugo Chara and Nanatsuiro Drops lean too far towards the straightforward and sappy side for guys. Naturally, there are exceptions, especially in anime-blogger land where people aren’t afraid to think different, but KimiKiss surprised me with how much fervent discussion and praise it’s recieved from just about everybody.

Especially since, at first glance, the formula of KimiKiss seems like the kind of thing you could take out of a “school romance 101″ book. Take one girl, energetic and cheerful, who just transferred into her old high school. She lives with her childhood friend, who she jokes around with and teases a lot. And at school, she meets a stoic, but soft-hearted guy who slowly but surely falls in love with her. How exciting – but wait! She’s conflicted, as she suddenly experiences feeling of jealousy when the childhood friend – someone she thought was just that – goes out with another girl. Who to choose?

Or, take a guy, much the same build as the first, except perhaps more brash and outspoken. He mopes around wishing he had a girlfriend, until one day, a cool emotionless girl randomly kisses him. Score, but wait! He’s friends with a girl on the same sports team as him, and she just might sport feeling for him after all. Who to choose?

If you deconstruct it and take it as its lowest level in stereotypes, it definitely shows KimiKiss as something less than it truly is; the first situation is straight-up girls’ romance, and the second straight-up guys’. Nothing incredibly exciting. Yet, when you put these two situations together and add a little glue, it works great. How?

Likewise, analyze Nodame Cantabile. It’s a show about a serious and critical male music student with great conducting ambitions, the manic and strangely unique female pianist he meets, and all the cast members in between. So, who’s the audience here, or even the genre? It’s incredibly tough to tell, as both genders score major points here. The story revolves around the male character – score one for the XY chromosomes – but he’s a handsome bishonen-type idolized by all the women – leaning towards the XX. The strange cast, full of pseudo-traps, fangirls, and otherwise distinctive people, contains character types that, lacking in moe and, sometimes, sanity, seem to fall towards something seen in a girls’-orientated show. But the strangely dramatic past of the male lead, and the way in which girls just magically come on to him in a non-fangirl way as well, seems to tilt it back towards the male side.

And undoubtedly there’s more, as well as stuff falling squarely in the middle as well. Nodame Cantabile and its audience really can’t be classified as a single genre – it’s slice of life yet romance, romance yet comedy, comedy yet drama. It almost is like some of its characters in that it’s ambitious to be everything, to do it all, and in mixing two different styles and elements together it creates a concoction that just might be strangely pleasing to both.

Now this ‘you got your Reese’s in my peanut butter; you got your peanut butter in my Reese’s’ situation is quite strange to me, if only because logically, the mix of subtle tropes and styles of approach from two distinctly different romance anime types should spoil it all. I should hate all the ’squee’ moments of Nodame Cantabile, and female bloggers should hate the way in which Eriko comes on to Kazuki (or, alternatively, Mao to Kouichi, but everyone hates her for that now). Yet, for both, it ends up working, the styles reinforcing instead of destroying each other.

As Kyon says, “Why? Naze?”

Both of these shows share a tone that many shows – romances, as we’re on this topic – lack these days, something that can really pack a punch to any viewer, and that is the “down-to-earth” feeling of them. I enjoy my harems with astral projections, magical elf-eared girls, and sword-wielding flaming deities, but it’s much trickier for a ’suspension of disbelief’ show like this to connect with the viewer, the strongest weapon that any anime has.

Despite having slightly unrealistic premises or character archetypes, Nodame Cantabile and especially KimiKiss in practice actually have some of the most realistic characters and stories yet. Maybe this is because nothing really ‘happens’ in these kind of shows. I mean, there’s no evil threatening to take over the world, no impending crisis, no one’s dying of magical AIDS, nothing. Both are just stories of high school and university students living their normal lives together; their normal lives may contain some interesting events, but one gets very much that sense of ‘it could be you or me’.

The characters, much the same; Kouichi and Yuumi’s idealistic first-love relationship, Kai’s struggle to understand and communicate women, Mao’s conflict between the easy and hard ways out, Chiaki’s hard-nosed and uncompromising drive, they’re all realistic portrayals that reflect the ways of thought that actual people go through. They make mistakes and fall down; sometimes they get up, sometimes they get kicked on the ground, but in the end you get a sense of growth of the character as they fight through their tribulations, as opposed to many shows where the change is “OK, now I don’t love him as much as before because I had to let some other girl win”.

This emotional development is something that we see occasionally in the finer visual novel adaptations – ef had great insights, Myself;Yourself and Shuffle! might surprise you – and it’s pulled off brilliantly in these two examples of more straight romance as well.

In the days of past, many shoujo romances survived off of melodrama – the soap operas of shows like Marmalade Boy staggered the mind with love triangles in which everybody was connected to someone else, and possibly their non-blood-related sister. The ‘evolution’ that I stated of in the lead-in is the a somewhat lighter, more personal feel to these kinds of romances. There is more of a focus on the ’self’, a character development that goes beyond getting over relationships and romantic urges, the slice-of-life elements are played up a bit more, the show as a whole feels a bit like a candid video, where there doesn’t always have to be an impetus to be doing something out of the ordinary, but rather, simply making slow progress towards a goal, seen or unforeseen.

Quite simply, the slow-paced, down-to-earth girls’ romance has become something that can really be enjoyed by both genders, with not a heavy leaning towards any one form of pandering. And I commend it for that; just like the harem genre itself, there will always be extremes at any one end of the scale, but largely the content of the shows is drifting towards a more wider-appealing middle ground, the mystical jack of all trades that can create a heartfelt story that appeals to any budding romantic.

-CCY

(Yes, technically, KimiKiss is a visual novel adaptation as well, but it really doesn’t feel like it in the typical ‘harem’ connotation of the word. It’s about as much a harem show as NanaDrops was an ero-show.)

(At this point, Yuumi >> Mao, which…bodes poorly for me. Jury is still divided on Asuka vs. Eriko. The jury must also note that there is a disproportional amount of dirty Kimikiss artwork on Danbooru, which probably proves a large part of this editorial wrong.)

There’s been some muttering about the winter season being a bit slower than the previous fall, or even summer, with most of the big-name blockbusters being either continuations from seasons past or straight sequels (or sequel-like substances, etc) … or, y’know, licensed.

As such it’s been tricky trying to fill the ever-demanding viewing schedule with new and exciting things, especially for someone that is closed-minded in anime genre; in terms of visual novels, the winter 2008 season is kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, with H2O, which has been underwhelming so far, and True Tears, which, is, y’know, licensed.

There are many things that could and are being done to remedy this situation: for one, cracking open that stash of KimiNozo / Rumbling Hearts gaining dust somewhere, or two, rewatching an old classic like Cardcaptor Sakura, or simply just staring at the mailbox waiting for Ever17. But rather, I figured I’d do something interesting and likely painful, and give a shot a bunch of random shows from random genres that people have been praising over the months; the kind of shows that get demands to be, y’know, licensed.

As such the last three days have kind of been like a strange icebreaker, or walking around at a party, or something, as I’ve been stepping from one first episode to the next in rapid succession, shaking hands with musicians, genius delinquents, little girls, littler girls, and giant robots. It’s certainly been an interesting exploratory experience, and on the whole it’s been one that’s positive. None of the shows really turned me off, although I would only really actively watch one or two of them. (The obligatory gag is falling a bit dead here, but I feel I have to say…y’know, licensed.)

What follows after the jump is a bunch of twenty-five-minute impressions of five quite acclaimed (or, at the least, talked about) shows from the eyes of someone who has no idea who, why, or what is going on; let it be an exercise in snobbish snickering for the veterans, or perhaps, an eye-opener to a series some of you dismissed blindly.
(I’ve been dying for an excuse to use this ‘alternate universe’ pic)

There’s jumping in the deep end, jumping in the deep end, and then there’s Kodomo no Jikan. For the first show I decided to try on the whim, I had the feeling that I was trying a pretty daring one. After all, it had been bashed as all sorts of lolicon-pandering stuff, featuring a college-age (I’m spot-guessing on this one) teacher and his adventures with his quite disturbing third-grade class. Still, it recieved a lot of backing from people who sound like they enjoy stuff with substance, claiming that it plays off the youth aspect of the main heroines not just for fanservice but also for story as well. And so it was plug your ears, hold your nose, and anything goes, to see what would happen.

Actually, I started with the manga first, a decision that I’m not I’m not sure is a good one or not. I enjoy anime a lot more than I enjoy manga for the most part; this is probably because that, since I read quickly, I tend to skip over a lot of nuances of the series that an anime might make sure I notice. For example, I burned through the first volume (10-odd chapters) of Kojika in less than an hour. Maybe, I guess, manga for me is a bit of a hedging of bets; it’s not as much of a waste of time, but it’s not as flavorful.

I still thought the Kojika manga was decent, but that I should have watched the anime first, since I probably spoiled myself for a few episodes by going with the manga first. Some claim that the anime is inferior, though, and so far I’d have to disagree, for no particular reason than the one that was stated above, as it seemed a pretty faithful adaptation. This may boil down to me watching the DVD version, which had a distinct lack of the whirling censors that supposedly plagued the TV version; personally, I would like to see an episode with it, maybe when I get further into the series, just because I’m the kind of person that enjoys gag censors, which Kojika looks like it might have employed. In addition to, y’know, actual censors.

The material itself wasn’t too bad; there were some moments that got a questionable eyebrow-raise or an awkward cough, but on the whole it wasn’t worse than anything else you’d see in on the dirty end of the harem scale. No nudity, just dirty jokes, and I think the only reason people are being offended is because everyone’s in the single digits (When they flashed the teacher at the end, they were only wearing bloomers as part of a joke, after all). The jokes themselves were hit or miss, there were a few that made me chuckle but it wasn’t drop dead funny like any show devoted to humor.

Serious aspects are all over the board so far; glasses girl got kind of skimmed over in the first episode, and I think the next plot point after that that I’m really looking forward to is the revealing of Rin’s background, which really adds another dimension to the show. As a whole, my judgment on Kojika at the moment is mostly nonplussed; there were a few things that would keep my interest and a few things that would repel me, but neither in enough force to warrant a high-priority entry into the viewing rotation. I think anyone scared that it’s a pedofest should give it a shot to prove themselves wrong, though.

After watching something that appealed at least in part to the lolicons, I decided to swing to the opposite end of thing and watch something that would enthrall guys in a more manly way. It was a show called Akagi, and much like the previous show it was in a genre I was utterly clueless about: the mahjong / gambling genre. Akagi, much like its brethren Kaiji, is a show hailed for its intense, dramatic gambling action, and either loved or hated for its lack of moe, cute things, or probably girls for that matter.

One thing that worried me coming into this show was the fact that I hadn’t so much as touched a mahjong tile in my life, which seemed to prove a high barrier to prevent getting into the show, as opposed to the much more friendly games of Kaiji (rock-paper-scissors and walking in a straight line among them). Additionally, there was a lot of talk about Akagi being a highly different protagonist than Kaiji.

I can’t help but agree with both of these assertions after watching the first episode, which, while decent, I found much less enjoyable than Kaiji. Perhaps I like sympathizing with losers, or people down on their luck more, but I just found Akagi to be kind of cold in comparison. There is a bit of a thrill to watching ‘just as planned’ moments go off – why I like watching the James Bond movies and the like where everything falls into place in grandiose fashion – but the emotional connection found in Kaiji is just something that can’t be beat. Akagi, as a cheater, a cold-hearted delinquent, and probably a Japanese gangster as well, just doesn’t really click at the moment.

Plus, how the narrator makes him sound greater-than-life is just off-putting as well. I don’t want to believe that he is God, I want to believe that he is human, perhaps an above-average one, but a real person. Maybe Akagi will show another side, or part of it, later on in the show, but right now he’s colder and more inanimate than a block of ice.

Likewise, watching the mahjong terms get banded about in this episode didn’t help the flow of things, but I have a feeling that I could at least learn a bit about the game if I continued on, so I won’t fault the show for this.

Akagi, if it has the epic moments like Kaiji tends to have, certainly could turn out to be an enjoyable show, but without the emotional moments, I don’t know if it can be a great one. I might continue watching this show in hopes that things improve – both the track record and the show itself do have a high measure of potential – but it’s pretty uncertain at the moment.

Nodame Cantabile, a show I can’t pronounce, or much less spell, was the third one up to the plate and probably the show with the greatest degree of similarity to something I would normally watch. To be honest, I don’t hear of it much, but when I do hear about it I hear good things about this show which revolves around music. As someone who knows a lot of “band people” and as someone who feels a lot of guilt about being musically inept, I felt an urge to give this show a try.

I’m pleased I did, as it seems to be a good example of a relaxing slice-of-life show – it might be a good example of what some people call “healing anime”, a show that soothes the soul instead of setting it aflame with action, moe, or whatnot. Additionally, with the boy-meets-girl episode of the first element, it looks like it could have some romance undertones, or at the least, some interesting character-searching.

The story, despite being named after the eccentric girl Nodame, seems to revolve a lot about the main hero (yes, I’m horrible at names after one episode), and his ambitions to be more than a common piano player and become a conductor. In America Europe, not just Japan. Certainly there seems to be potential for growth within his character, and I can already see the contrasts being set up between him and Nodame. The former is a guy with great ambitions, and a touch of talent too; but he is easily disheartened (in an angry manner instead of a depressed one), and he could probably be called a quitter. The latter is a definitely talented musician, who seems to be more about having fun than being serious, yet still lives a life largely on her own terms. (As depicted by her astoundingly messy – by anyone’s definition – room.)

As Zetsubou Sensei would put it, it largely feels like a “meeting that was never meant to happen,” between two conflicting personalities who are meant to help each other grow (although, this of course, never happened in that other show). The male lead seems to be coming off the tail end of a botched relationship, and the Nodame, the female lead, seems to have something going on with a truly out-of-the-blue confession in the end. Whether she is just being silly again, or really is serious, the second episode will tell.

I’m probably the most entranced with this show out of the five, no doubt because of the characters; the male lead feels very real in a sense, like you or me could be him, and Nodame is a fun character who many people could see a bit in too. The show is pretty relaxed and slow-paced, but there’s a hint at enough of a driving force to keep the plot going. It’s kind of funny, kind of heartwarming, and a lot of musical fun as well; lthough, I can’t tell when they’re playing it right or wrong. Certainly it’s worth continuing.

And hey, Nodame makes a great Neko-Arc face.

Manabi Straight and Hidamari Sketch are two shows I continue to confuse over and over, maybe because of the similar-sounding names, or perhaps as their status as two of the more legendary recent slice-of-life anime. Unfortunately though, they both aired in the winter 2006/7 section, a blind spot for me due to that being the genesis of my newly-fansubbed fandom with the equally acclaimed (among most) Kanon.

As such I’ve made a few efforts here or there to try to catch up with these shows, but failed miserably, probably due to the very nature of slice-and-life, something that’s making it hard for me to watch these shows. Trying to marathon them, or even watch them in fast succession, just goes against the nature of the show as something that’s frequently slow-paced and relaxed.

This means, essentially, that a show like ARIA, Hidamari, or Manabi will never really top the charts of “Oh God I need to watch this now“, but I don’t find that a bad thing. They’re more of a fall-back, the show that’s always there, that you watch because you have nothing else to do, and you just want to chill.

Luckily, this whole five-episode-trial being a sort of “well, here goes” for me, I managed to approach Manabi Straight in the right mood, expecting not very much but a pleasant time, and that’s essentially what I got. Manabi Straight wasn’t exactly a show that left me rolling with its jokes, and the plot isn’t important enough to warrant watching on it alone, but still, I was left in an incredibly bright, cheerful mood once the show ended. Such is the power of the “healing anime” genre, of shows that just make you feel good, for no apparent reason.

This is probably due to Manabi/Manami’s famous line “Massugu GO!” (or “Go straight ahead!”), a determined statement of the attitude that permeates the very soul of this show. Her slightly exaggerated energetic personality works well, as it is built off a strong base of a fun-loving, enthusiastic character who isn’t afraid of what others think.

The one thing that is kind of strange about this show is how, apparently, in the future, birth rates have not only stumped the population’s size but also its height; you could have told me this show was about a bunch of elementary school girls instead of high school girls, and I would believe it.

But that’s merely aesthetic, and a lot of other elements of this show are good-looking, bright, and cheerful, so I don’t mind so much. There’s not much to say about this show, being a slice-of-life, but that’s always been what this genre has been about to me. It’s not something so much that you watch so much as something you immerse yourself in, like a warm, soothing bath. Manabi Straight, in that sense, is like a spa; something that both energizes and calms you.

The final anime in the five-show-frenzy is undoubtedly the biggest name on the list, and that I think is saying a lot; it’s something that I’ll probably get myself killing simply for not watching it up until know, and it’s Gurren Lagann. One of the biggest names of 2007 anime (yes, that’s just a link to an aggregator of posts, because there are too many), it seems, Gurren Lagann is touted as one of the best giant-robot-type shows in recent memory. Not that I would know, because really, I’ve never watched any giant robot anime.

And on that rationale, why not start with something truly epic, I figured? Gurren Lagann appealed from the start, even for I begun watching, on the sheer quotability of it all, that even made its way into other anime. (Incidentally, I finally get all this ‘giant drill’ stuff Konata was going on about) I’ve always been aversive of the other big name in giant-robot, Evangelion, because of all the talk of a weak, depressive protagonist, and the empowering, adrenaline-filled stance that Gurren Lagann appeared to take in comparison clicked instantly.

Gurren Lagann, from what it seems so far from 25 minutes of watching and endless months of hype, is an absolutely over-the-top show, and that’s probably what makes it so much fun to watch. The opening scene shows an impossibly giant robot destroying impossibly huge universe. Kamina’s impossibly awesome go-getter attitude and empowering speeches would raise life in the coldest of dead corpses. The Lagann, or the Gurren Lagann, or whatever, can crank its power to impossible levels (it has to be at least 12 – it’s two higher) and send the enemy flying into the heavens, as shown in the first battle. And, of course, Yoko has some impossibly huge ballistics ifyaknowwhatimean. The anime simply radiants energy and enthusiasm.

Simon seems a bit of the basic shonen hero – enthusiastic but naive, determined but cowardly – but overall he’s not a bad guy and combined with Kamina the two of them make a good pair. The show’s optomistic and empowering overtones make it more than your average show, I think; the enclosed environment in which everyone lives in has hints of the cave allegory in it with the whole “this is the world” deal, and really is quite dreary when compared to the stunning beauty of the real world.

There’s not a whole lot else I can say about this show, as I just realized I don’t know much of the direction of this show; but with the whole world standing before them, it’s more of what Simon and co. can’t do at this point than what they can. As such, it seems like the kind of adventure and exploration show that I could really enjoy, as opposed to the fading glory of the “I wanna be #1″ shows of my youth. I definitely have no complaints with Gurren Lagann; I don’t think it’s as much of a must-watch in a personal sense as Nodame Cantabile yet, but as a hot-blooded person I will definitely look forward to seeing more of this show (in the States, right, right!?) in the future. It’s every bit as energetic and good-mood-inducing as Manabi Straight, but in more of an adrenaline-packed manner. I believe in the me that believe in this show!

-CCY

(Hey, I think I finally get this picture too.)

(Although, about Gurren Lagann, the spoilers about Show ▼

really make me worry for the future of this show after episode eight. )