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…)

Admittedly, it’s gotten harder to write after taking nearly a week off. But luckily, the lack of posting doesn’t mean that we (and by we I mean me) at M3 have stopped trying to bring you the best and most interesting (and by ‘best and most interesting’ we mean ‘most related to Yuki Nagato Satsuki Yumizuka Shiori Misaka’) in anime-related happenings.

As you may recall I mentioned in my last filler post that I was heading down to Anime On Display (a.k.a Anime Overdose) in San Francisco, which was an entertaining if not a small and brief one - I imagine that would describe a lot of anime series I enjoy as well - and now I find myself exceedingly far away on the other side of California in Los Angeles, checking out with family the Happiest Place on Earth (and by that ‘happiest place on earth’ I mean ‘exploring all the Japanese bookstores around Disneyland that I love so much’).

You would be correct in imagining that this doesn’t really help in terms of making time for posting, and so it’s another filler post served up for today, but you know what they say; better something than nothing. As long as the medium in question doesn’t have a finite length of content, at least.

Luckily my extremely disturbingly large - but always worksafe - image folder is definitely not finite, as once again I’ve taken it upon myself to cull a ridiculous amount of images from AnimeSuki and Danbooru into a image pack, this time for Kanon in a 23 MB bundle of both old and new images. Posts will happen when it happens - I’m going to have to take KimiKiss 19 into account for my next harem ranting post now.

Sporadically-updating blogs still turn out well (was going to wank some blogs here but couldn’t find enough; so just smile and nod if you post on a semi-rare basis), so no worries, since the track will be gotten back on before you know it. Cheers until then.

-CCY

(Also in terms of anime happenings, finally starting Ever17, continuing to swear at KimiNozo, trying out the To-LOVE-Ru manga, still trying to get around to comment on all the Valentine’s Day stuff - especially Tokyo Marble Chocolate.

Final note - picked up a $4 Megami magazine, and one of the Code-E DVDs ranked in right next to Clannad - above Lucky Star - in terms of sales. Unless I’m reading random names with numbers next to them wrong, this means that it was a hell of a lot more popular over there than it was over here. I’m impressed - now just to wait for the airdate for season two…)

(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…)

(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?
(more…)

The “12 Days of Christmas” series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we’ve enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

One can write off the harem genre, upon hearing of it, as something that’s light, fluffy, and quite cliched.

While a lot of the time that is true, I’ve found that a specific subset of harem has proven time and time again to be the most interesting and surprising genre in anime - the visual novel adaptation.

Maybe my tastes are biased. But rather it seems that the visual novel anime can combine the best of the two worlds that quite a lot of males can enjoy.

One, there’s a lot of girls, ranging from the buxom for those who prefer physical appeal to the moe for those with a more emotional, personality-based taste.

And two, the plots in said stories quite often are quite gripping - with no evil villain overlord for everyone to join forces against, the main storylines are often character-based, whether it be pitting two people against each other or revealing the story of a mysterious character.

Some may condemn such stories for being overly dramatic and “forced emotion” if not a little repetitive at times, but as one who enjoys heartwarmingly cute characters and touching stories, there really is no better genre than the visual novel.

And there is no more show I can say more superlatives about than Kanon, no arc more than Mai’s.
(more…)

The wonders of being American and, as such, Japanese-illiterate, is that new content manages to come out for old, popular shows seemingly endlessly.

When in reality perhaps all the rampant merchandising of a show ended a few years ago - in this case, the last drama CD was released in 2003 - the slow trickle of the content through the fansub community (understandable, non-anime content is usually a bit slower to translate) allows for a steady supply of material on the English side of things

As such, the continuing translation of the Kanon drama CDs (supposedly 5 in all; or at least, the third ‘Akiko’ set) is something that really sends rabid fanboys like me over the moon.

The drama CDs are, admittedly, less than canon (insert pun) content, in that many characters’ personalities are different than what’s seen of them in the anime. This is mainly true for the side characters, who didn’t get much exposition anyway, though; as such, it’s entertaining enough to see a side to the secondary characters that time didn’t allow.

So Mishio - and, dare I say it, Kuze - fans will really find a lot to like with the drama CDs.

And pardon the fanwankery, but I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised with the animation of the drama CD as well.

OTL really went above and beyond the call of duty with their release of the drama CD. Presented in visual novel format, the backgrounds and characters on-screen change in true VN fashion; starting with the second CD, the mouths even move - in sync - with the voices!

Not to mention, some of the extra work in creating backgrounds - such as this manga Yuuichi was reading - or entire characters, in the case of Kuze, who had no sprite in the original VN! It really does a lot towards extending the entertainment value of the drama CD, and I have to hand it to OTL for all their extra work.

Not to say that the drama CD is any less subpar. Check out this previous post for the first ten stories of the first CD.
(more…)

got uguu~?

As is common, or so it seems, for most anime (and by most I’m using two or three popular anime as a benchmark) Kanon has a series of drama CDs out in Japan. Drama CDs, as you would expect, are audio-only stories, typically side stories (i.e. not relevant to the plot) which are more for light entertainment than anything else - I bring this up considering the often heavy plot matters of Kanon.

Recently, the Kanon audio CDs have been getting fansubbed by OTL, which I think is a first for this sort of stuff. They’ve done a good job of it as well, presenting it in the visual novel format, with character portraits and backgrounds to match up the text. It might be a simple task, but it really adds a lot to the experience.

But what of the stories themselves? The question one really has to ask when going into this is,

Can you get too much Kanon?

Do the drama CDs fall into the cash-in category or are they worth your time? There are 10 stories and they run about 40 minutes in total. The download size for all of them is roughly equivalent to that of a normal episode of anime (170 MB) and since, well, it’s Kanon, the seed speed shouldn’t be too bad.

And with that, I can give it a solid recommendation, although it does get a bit awkward at times. Hit the jump for full details.
(more…)

(Breaking Not more Haruhi News: The Haruhi game’s headed to PS2 as well, with a Wii version rumored as well. So if you don’t have a PSP, rejoice somewhat! Speaking as one who’s already import-ready with Melty Blood, yays!)

Well, get a load of this; the Kanon artbook thingy was released recently, and guess what they had as an extra: a CD full of uguu~

No, not like, music and uguu~, or like, nyuu~ and uguu~. Just 10 straight minutes of uguu~. Ten minutes! Incidentally, there are 86 variations of uguu~ on the CD.

Even if you can’t stand Ayu, it’s still worth a listen just because it’s so hilarious, to me, the thought of releasing a ’soundtrack’, as it is, of straight uguu~ness. Well done, well done. Here’s the link.

Loop it. I dare you.

-CCY
(thanks to Moe Moe Rabu for the links, and Random Curiosity for the below picture)

Also, while searching the web for suitable Ayuguu~ pictures, here’s an interesting comparo I dug up…

And you always wondered what Mikuru’s real identity was…

Luckily, before the downtime I was able to stock up a nice pile of anime to watch, a lot of them old and some of them new. Among the ancient we have Honey & Clover, Da Capo, To Heart 2, and ONE. Among the newer we’ve got Wangan Midnight and sola in the queue along with Lucky CHANNELUUUUUUUUUUUUU Star.

Although, I must say, with every series I’m getting more and more piled up in a jumble of names, hair colors, and relationships.

In this post I’ll cover briefly in text form Kanon Kazahana, the special OVA-ish thing that came after the TV run of Kanon 2002, as well as the first episode of sola, a series from 2007. Whoa.

Technically, I should warn for Kanon spoilers, as Kazahana comes after the canon Kanon (OK, I just like to say that word) storyline, not to mention me discussing the ending of Kanon for no reason than other to scare off people. Hit the jump.

(more…)

It’s epic. What else can I say? Kanon 15 is up there with Melancholy IV, Shuffle! 19/21, AIR 11, maybe. Perhaps I’m biased a bit as it’s my favorite character’s arc, but to put it in an ambiguous way, Mai hits fast and hits hard. Both plot, and as you can see with the whole “action pose” thing, physically as well.

That’s another interesting thing about this arc as Kanon takes a turn for the action-y side during Mai’s arc, showing that yes, KyoAni can do fast-paced motion in addition to snow, sunsets, and slow-motion taiyaki eating.

It’s really surprising how many good shots you can find when you pause the action, to be honest.

Anyways, it’s time to get this episode underway, as although there’s not a large amount of spoilers per se, there is a large amount of Very Important Stuff - in addition to the occasional moe meltdown - in this episode that needs to be covered. (spoiler-safe through Kanon 15)

So, for now, one more time: WAI FOR MAI~~~
(more…)