Mega Megane Moé
Hell and Heaven Moéltdown
Posts tagged Kanon
Hi, who likes Kanon and has 2 minutes to spare?
Feb 2nd
http://www.internationalsaimoe.com/voting/
At the rate things are going, I don’t think I can have pretenses any more.
Maybe you’ve read my previous post trying to hype Shiori Misaka of Kanon for ISML 2009. I’ve decided to do all I can to help her for one round, and anything I do, I want to do with my whole heart.
And my heart isn’t satisfied yet with the response I’ve gotten, so if you’re tired of my fanboy posts yet, please just bear with me for another 8 hours.
But yeah, if you’re here, you like Kanon. And if you like Kanon, you probably don’t hate Shiori. And if you don’t hate Shiori, you can probably click that link at the top of the page to the International Saimoe League voting arena to help give Shiori a little boost in her chances to meet up with all the other Key characters you probably know and love (if you’re here).
It’s a piece of cake, really. Click the button next to Shiori, pick three other characters, and then you can move on with your day. And you’ll have helped someone who’s gone a bit too crazy for the last 16 hours.
Here’s that imagedump from yesterday, in case you forgot: Read the rest of this entry »
Harem Personality Quiz: ask your blogger what harem anime is right for you!
May 17th
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…) Read the rest of this entry »
And a Kanon imagepost can make miracles happen
Feb 19th
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…)
Anime Diaries: In-character humor and romantic recommendations for Valentine’s Day
Feb 14th
(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.) Read the rest of this entry »
Moé Rising: The line between cute and characterization
Jan 21st
(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?
Read the rest of this entry »