Ah, everyone, let’s sit down, it’s time for the weekly Theater Club meeting … ah … uh … everyone, we have to talk about the Clannad movie today … could you quiet …

Hold on Nagisa, let me handle this …

Kotomi, stop trying to burn today’s script!
Akio, stop running around screaming manly phrases!
Ryou, stop blushing so much, the visible steam is making too much noise!
Tomoyo, turn down the beatdown on Youhei for a bit!

I’m sorry, was I being too distracting? It’s his fault that he’s screaming in pain so much.

Mei, stop trying to use your loli charm on anything that moves!
…Uh…Sanae…I think those screams of the damned I keep hearing are coming from your cooking.

NO ONE EVEN USED MY IMAGE IN THE LAST TEAM CLANNAD POST! *runs out crying*

I LOVE YOU THEATER! Wait, no…I WILL ALWAYS STAND UPON SANAE! Damn it … hold on, I’ll be right back.

And Tomoya … Tomoya, Tomoya, Tomoya … I’ve got to deal with you personally, you naughty boy.

Hey, that’s not tsun or dere, that’s just being dirty!

S-stupid Tomoya, it’s not like I was trying to come on to you or anything!

FUUKO’S DETECTING AN OBVIOUS LIE!

Whoa, that’s cool, I didn’t know Fuuko had a lie detector built in.

…yes, I got a speaking role!

HERE, HAVE ONE OF FUUKO’S 37 SENSES!

Uh, guys? On topic? Clannad movie? Review? …OK, Nagisa, you’re with me, we’re on our own now.

Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Kotomi Ichinose, a senior in Class A. My hobby is warning people about spoilers (Huge spoilers, like spoiling After Story, i.e. the second season - I AM NOT KIDDING ABOUT THESE SPOILERS). I would be happy if you could continue to read this post.
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So you wanna watch a harem anime. Or maybe you’re just amused by my post title.

In any case, the harem genre is one that enjoys a negative reputation from anime viewers, mainly due to the core nature of it being one guy surrounded by many girls waiting to jump him - rather pandering, even I will admit.

Of course, such a stereotype is the same as assuming that all shonen action shows involve men in spiky hair screaming, or all shoujo romances feature blond-haired ambigously-gendered prettyboys surrounded by sparkles and flowers, or, more pertinently, that all anime is hentai. So it’s my job today to recommend some of the better harem-type shows out there with a fun little activity - and I don’t mean fun like your teacher’s definition of “fun”, trust me, so it’ll be OK.

The problem with the harem genre, and the reason it has gets a bad rap from so many people is that, admittedly, it does vary wildly in quality. There are piles of pandering shows which are nothing more than the stereotype I mentioned above. But not all of them belong in this pile.

Rather, many shows have a harem setup only in appearance, and belong to a greater genre I usually term the ‘visual novel’ shows, after works like Kanon or Tsukihime that were originally visual novels, that have a skewed male:female ratio for sure, but have a more refined (or at least more refined pandering to emotional fools like me) taste.

So here’s a little quiz I devised on a boring weekend to help you determine which visual-novel / harem-type anime might suit you. Amuse yourself, at least to see if you’ve seen what I’ve recommended and whether it suits you or not. It’s all about what personally appeals the best in such a diverse genre like this.

Enjoy! (Yeah, everything’s after the jump. Keep going…) (more…)

All right everyone, great play we put on their for the Theater Club, now let’s wrap this up with a final reflection on how it all went. Nagisa, you’re the lead character, you start … uh … where’s Nagisa?

Tomoya and her went to go take the trash out by the gym storage locker a long time ago … I wonder if they’re OK?

WHY THOSE~ Uh, Ryou, where did I put my chainsaw?

W-w-weren’t you stripped of your license to use one after the incident with the last thousand fanboys?

Mmm, stripped…

Ah, fine, I’ve got better weapons anyway. I’ll be back in a minute.

(THIS NOT OUT-OF-PLACE INTERJECTION AT ALL INDICATES KYOU IS WHERE NAGISA AND TOMOYA SHOULD BE)

Hmm…the door’s locked. That’s it, then! *clears throat*

S-s-stupid door, it’s not like I wanted to open you or anything!

(Door breaks cleanly in two. Kyou gets duct tape and patches it up cleanly before continuing.)
Ah, Kyou!

ALRIGHT YOU LITTLE HUSSY PUT YOUR PANTS BACK wait what? What’s this?

Look, look! We found this dango farm in the gym storage room and we’ve been entranced with it ever since! Isn’t it just adorable? Dango, dango, dango, dango…

Alright you guys, can we get serious here? We have to do a peer review and we have to get going now. We’re months behind.

Tomoyo? What are you doing here too? (Alright, I get a speaking line!)

Well … I figured … if Tomoya was going to be here so long with Kyou and Nagisa … that I …

FUUKO’S HERE!

No, Fuuko! Go away! You’re killing my deredere Tomoyo fantasies!

(Actual review-like content after the jump … sadly. Also, watch out for spoilers.)
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There seems to be cries every season about how the cropping of shows is worse than the last, and while this may or may not be true depending on your taste in shows, I’ve always found it hard to be lacking in stuff to put up on the screen every night. This is because while there may not be many standout, my-God-I-need-to-watch-this-now shows in every season there are always plentiful bounties of sleeper hits, things worth trying because someone said it was good, or just plain old shows, enough to ensure that I get continually buried deeper and deeper in a pile of anime I need to catch up on.

Perhaps a large part of it is due to the fact that I enjoy being very easily influenced and thanks to that I can pick up random shows if two or three people say it’s actually pretty good - doubly so if they can nail a weak spot of mine - combined with the fact that I really haven’t seen much, having only been in the anime-watching business for just over a year.

To prove that anime Is Out There - cue the X-Files theme - I’m going to spend a little time tonight going over the majority of my watchlist, instead of the huge specialty posts on a single anime which have been written recently. In case you haven’t figured it out, that’s mostly code for “I want to talk about True Tears, Clannad, and Shana II but am too lazy to unify it in an easy way” with some bonus laughing at other shows added in.

Since it’s March and all and I like to pretend to be hip and knowledgable about sports (Protip: Motorsports yes, sportssports no.), it’s a super special sweet sixteen - ow, my manliness - March Madness-type organization with, you guessed it, sixteen shows on the list. There are in reality a few more but the majority of the extra would consist of “I saw this once, and would kind of keep watching it if there were nothing else to watch,” which explains itself well enough.

To be fair it doesn’t have the mass-voting aspect or the actual sports-related references of the other March Madness anime posts, but, hey, 16 anime, that’s a lot. (more…)

(Part of a Anime Blogging Collective Valentine’s Day post rush; refer to IKnight’s handy article collection for links to all the others.)

Who is she? I don’t know, but she has glasses and a valentine. Instant kill, no saving throw.

With the rise of the Internet, it’s easier than ever for people to destroy their personal privacy and post up their biggest, darkest secrets all over the Web, where nobody - except everybody - can see it.

As such budding paparazzi such as myself consider the blogging scene a veritable goldmine for digging up the dirty, the dorky, and the dunce-headed on the most popular or intriguing idols of today, and this isn’t any exception when it comes to the anime community.

No, I’m not talking about the anime blogging community, as many iconic characters as it has. Rather, there’s a lot you didn’t know your favorite anime character was up to on everyone’s favorite romantic holiday, and I’ve taken it upon myself as a freelance reporter to peruse the masses of entries every day for the most exciting, interesting, and controversial stories of what “everyday” life shapes up to be for the biggest names in harem, magical girl, and straight-up romance anime. I think you’ll be very surprised at what dirt I’ve got on them.

(Disclaimer: As you may have guessed, this is a fictional entry based on fictional characters, and a lot of the preceding was patent nonsense. I’m not part of the paparazzi nor a reporter, and if you see any blogs by anime characters I think you need to pinch yourself a bit harder. This is just a fun little idea for a Valentine’s Day post, based off this similar Christmas idea by Stripey, in imagining the (likely much more exciting) happenings of some popular anime heroes and heroines. Please enjoy.

Oh, and yes, I’m trying to inject a little analysis into this as well; these shows all have ties to romance in some way - although most of them, as predicted from someone like me, are harem - and I’ll be commenting on why this show might be something interesting to watch for someone in the mood for a little lovin’ on a day like today.)

(Yeah, I kinda minorly spoil KimiKiss, ef, and Clannad, in a roundabout way.) (more…)

“Why the heck” I’m not in love with Kyou, maybe?

It must be “The Kyoto Touch” or something. It seems sometimes that everything Kyoto Animation lays their hands on turns to moe. Or gold.

Maybe both.

This magic seems to continue with Clannad, which has recieved pretty universal praise, more so than Kanon or maybe even Haruhi. Naturally, there are still naysayers both of the legitimate and the “it’s cool to hate” kind, but among fans of visual novel / harem anime, Clannad seems to be top-notch, and it’s even snared some of the lighter, slice-of-life fans with a surprising amount of humor for a show of this type.

It’s funny to see something like this happen, because to be honest, for all the praise about how Clannad is different, it’s surprisingly similar to the tried-and-true formula that we’ve seen from Key. I think what really ensnares people, and why I enjoy this show, is not how it really brings much incredibly new to the genre, but rather how it manages to mix together many solid concepts in a way that pushes the buttons of pretty much any viewer that comes within fifty miles of the target audience. It’s pretty much a jack of all trades to me - it’s not a masterpiece, but it spans enough character and plot archetypes that it’s an enjoyable and entertaining watch.

I should note two things here, one being that “pushing buttons” doesn’t always refer to physical turn-ons, and two, that I don’t mean to be saying anything wholly negative about Clannad. I think that the characters are incredibly entertaining and enjoyable, and the story is passable and not completely the “sad girl in stuff” fare that many dislike, but anyone who’s hailing this as the second coming of…the first thing you thought was incredibly godly, is overshooting the mark a bit. (more…)

Clannad is a visual-novel by the famous company Key, turned anime by the famous animators Kyoto Animation. It’s a mix of the same tear-jerking emotion typical of this company and genre, and a large amount of humor that rivals the best comedies, making Clannad a good combination of genres. In this story, we follow nice-guy delinquent Tomoya Okazaki as he becomes friends with Nagisa Furukawa, a soft-spoken but strong girl, and many other interesting characters in his school. These include Fuuko, a strange and small girl who always seems to be at school, Tomoyo, a strong fighter who just wants to be seen as a girl, Kotomi, a socially inept genius with a taste for the violin, and the ever-appealing twins Ryou and Kyou. What secrets do they all hide, starting with Tomoya himself…?

1/26/08: Episode 15
Show ▼

1/20/08: Episode 14
Show ▼

Click here for more information on Track Two.

-CCY

(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?
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Looking back…

And now for the Slowpoke news: we’re in the winter season.

I’m still stuck in the past, not because of any traumatic accidents which have permanently scarred me and/or my memory, but because the fall season is arguably a much more robust season than the winter ones, at least in terms of new shows.

Especially for a visual novel slash romance slash restricted rock-paper-scissors fan like me, there were a lot of shows that were very appealing; many of them, despite being in tried and tired genres, brought a lot of fresh concepts to the table.

And what’s interesting about this, is that unlike in the summer season, a lot of the most promising shows didn’t close out at twelve episodes. Those that did, were strong shows, no doubt, but many more than that have been promised at least 20-odd episodes, double the goodness if they can keep the pace up.

As such, the winter watchlist is turning out to be strangely familiar. There are plenty of carryover shows on the list, and those that are new shows to 2008 are mostly sequels in some way or form (Zoku SZS, Minami Okawari). Not to leave a bad impression of the winter season - but there aren’t any names of new shows that really stand out from it.

This doesn’t equate with ‘no good shows’, per se - some of my favorite fall shows have been ones that have been completely off the radar - but going off the blog reactions so far, there hasn’t been a standout show that absolutely blows people away, that came out of nowhere and delivered the awesome. Undoubtedly there probably will be, but for now I’m content with surviving off both fresh old shows, and some true classics that are burning a hole in my DVD collection. Today, I’ll take a look at what we have to expect from some of the shows coming into their second cour in 2008.
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Oh no! It’s the dreaded but ever-popular “here’s what I think about all the new shows in a season that I’ve barely seen an hour of” post!

Perhaps it’s one that can be considered overdone in the anime blogging world, but it certainly serves a purpose. A blogger’s watchlist can say a lot about their tastes and passions, something that can be helpful when getting a concept behind the words. Not to say to form massive stereotypes on bloggers, but at least once you know the general viewing pattern of a person you can know where to turn when you need your fix of genre-specific fandom.

The seasonal review posts that pop up around the first few weeks of a show are also helpful to those of us who actually don’t have the time to watch every first episode individually (major props to those who can; it’s some serious effort just handling half) and need to gauge popular opinion to see what are some of the unknown shows that went previously under the radar.

As such, it’s a little late but it’s time for one more take on what shows suck, what shows don’t, and why you should listen to me instead of everyone else. Most shows have gotten three episodes in by now (look at the title. Ooh, alliteration, exciting, I know) and that seems a fair enough time to get a reading of the series, especially with the projected 12-episode length of many of this season’s shows.

I don’t plan on directly ranking the shows against each other but rather putting them on an overall barometer of just how much hype a show can build in me; whether it’s more likely that I’ll crash the servers looking for the latest release or whether it’ll pop up months later to remind me that it still exists.

If you’re looking for a take on all 30+ shows I would reccomend one of the excellent summaries from somewhere else, but if you want overly biased harem / romance comparisons (plus one or two oddballs; 8 in total)…welcome home, master.

Yeah, I can’t stand that line at all.
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