Blunt, as always; but it’s something that’s often true among all forms of entertainment, whether it be movies, video games, or anime. Somehow the second, or third, maybe twentieth installment in a franchise just doesn’t seem to match up to the previous in the series.

Today’s whining is specifically brought to you by the second season of Da Capo, which is found by a lot of the anime community (again, a lot meaning what two places I could dig up posts on such an ancient series, plus whatever comments) to be inferior to the original, for whatever reason, whether it be a predictable outcome, annoying characters, or repetition.

For the most part I find this verdict to be true, and I can think of a few other shows that fit the bill. Shuffle! Memories can barely even be considered a sequel, rather being more of a clip show. To Heart 2 is not a sequel per se, but still very much “more of the same”.

But are these sequels really as amazingly mediocre as many fans put them out to be? Not any specific show or game in general, but rather, as a whole, are sequels held up to a higher standard, and thus, rated lower? Or is it just the fact that the producers ran out of ideas?

Or, hey, are sequels a good thing? Asking the tough(ish) questions around here is the most fun…
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u see wat i did thar?

Actually this post did start out as a Lucky Star post catching up with all the episodes that have remained unblogged, but since the layout sort of devolved into a mental debate over whether the characters were A) realistic and B) funny, it’s time to reach into the meta-vault.

So in that regard 1000 words about how awesome Tsukasa and Miyuki are has now been condensed to about 10, and it’s time to move on with a head-hurting topic.

One of the criticisms that at least I have come up with for a lot of characters in a lot of shows is that said characters are rather flat and one-dimensional. You know the type. The energetic airhead who can’t seem to get it through their head that they are annoying as all hell, even after ten episodes. The flat-chest-obsessed character who will do anything in their power to put another centimeter on. The really shy character whose only action is to blush furiously, stammer, and pretend they haven’t been liking the guy for dozens of episodes on end now.

This isn’t to be confused with characters who are a mix of tropes; even if you mix it up just a bit, usually a character can remain fresh. But the fact is, there are characters that are just that flat.

Now, being a fan of believable, appealing characters I often lead at least a mental crusade against most characters I consider to be one-dimensional. As usual, however, it’s time to open it up to both sides of the argument, as just maybe there may be times where one-dimensional chracters just might be welcome after all.

Blasphemy! No, jump.
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Many times languages have borrowed words for another; if you’re familiar with Spanish a great deal of words in that language are common with English, and if you know Japanese the same situation is true. The word ‘taxi’ is exactly the same across quite a few languages, and even English, the seeming source for a lot of words (perhaps not, but being my first language I tend to make comparisons to it), has quite a few foriegn phrases put into rotation in everyday colloquial use.

These phrases are one of the ways a person can be in effect judged by their cover; by the uncommon terms that they insert in their speech one can learn a lot about their hobbies and tastes. Among anime fans this infiltration is quite common, if not so much in everyday speech than at least in electronic conversation.

Now of course there has been a bit of a backlash against the use of random Japanese words in a language which is decidely not Japanese from both sides. From the foreigner argument, it dilutes and sometimes perverts the meaning of the word. From the comprehension side, you sound ridiculous when you randomly devolve into foreign conversation. Observe anyone who routinely uses the word ‘kawaii’ and ^_^ faces.

But of course there is a very logical reason for using foriegn terms in conversation; oftentimes some words just don’t make the jump from one language to another cleanly – as in, without taking two sentences to explain something better summed in one word. Or maybe you just want to sound like you know what you’re talking about.

So this post will take a vaguely in-depth look at some of the more common terms used among the English anime community (or at least, the ones I’m familiar with), how they got started, and whether it’s a sane idea to continue using them.

Also, hopefully I’ll sound less like a dry term paper.
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In the evaluation of anime, or even any entertainment source in general (movies, games, so on), there are certain criteria that viewers use to create a sort of general idea of how good and/or bad something is.

You know the kind. The number crunchers that give games a 87.5 out of 100 in 10 different areas to come up with an overall grade of 394.32934 out of 150pi.

Even people who aren’t so stat-associated do perhaps even subconsciously put focus and ratings on various aspects of what they do. I think it’s a part of what we are to always rate and evaluate things, see if it’s worth our time. Even if you don’t think whether, say, a show’s animation is Really Good or Just OK, you compare it, see whether it Looks Better Than another show or not. Or maybe the other way around; I believe everyone does these things, if not maybe not intentionally.

The question for today is what aspect should be stressed the most in evaluating an anime. It’s a rule of thumb that some things are more important than others; generally in works of fiction the top rule is a good storyline. Voice acting is probably an integral part of this as well in conveying emotions in the story.

But, what about what’s left? The “less important”, yet still very crucial, aspects?

As you may have surmised, the two focuses of today are graphics and sound. Which of these is the more important one to making a show work? Or, alternatively, which one of these can break a show? Graphics and animation quality, how a show looks? Or sound and music (excluding voice acting), how a show sounds?
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