Mega Megane Moé
Hell and Heaven Moéltdown
Posts tagged Previews
Gaze Into the Crystal Ball… (no, not the one with the stars on it)
Nov 13th
It’s a bit late to sum up all the anime currently airing for the fall 2007 season, especially considering the fact that I’ve already written a post evaluating a large amount of them.
So instead it’s time for more fluff as I share some biased opinions, some crackpot theories, and maybe even a few valid comments, about what we should expect from some of these shows as they pass their halfway (or quarter) mark. Feel free to share your own as well.
Inspired by the recently released Myself;Yourself (PS2) OP, which in typical fashion dropped plenty of almost-hints about how the teacher is actually important, and that angry Nanaka is angry (and jealous), among other things. Also, that whoever this KAORI singer is (that did the anime OP as well), that she is very awesome.
Place your bets after the jump.
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Harem Wars: Fall 2007
Oct 7th
I just want an excuse to use the word “threesome” in the ‘wrong’ way again.
In all seriousness though this season’s crop of anime is looking very promising for any harem/visual novel show lovers, with at least four shows out there that look to impress.
In the four corners we’ve got:
Clannad, the 500 Pound Moe Gorilla,
Da Capo II, the Never-Dying,
Myself;Youself, the Newcomer,
and ef, a.k.a. Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film (because it hasn’t been subbed yet).
Luckily the subs for the shows have been very speedy as well so I can offer first impressions on the first three of this batch, and if there’s one thing I can say about them it’s that, despite all technically being visual novel anime, they all feel like they have a different approach to the genre.
It’s not the world-upside-down approach to the harem genre like School Days, by any regards, but certainly each show has a different feel and creates different expectations. It looks like the next 3 months or so will have a lot of tense spamming-refresh-waiting-for-subs moments…
(No spoilers for anything past the first episodes ahead but I might hint vaguely at past anime of the same genre)
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Shards of Summer: Nanatsuiro Drops
Sep 16th
Nanatsuiro Drops has always been somewhat of a paradox to me.
It’s background is an eroge, which usually means that the anime adaptation will have a generally male target audience. Not necessarily fanservice up the behind like Shuffle or to a lesser note Da Capo, but sometimes just a moe flood of cute characters in shows like Kanon. While the latter show arguably worked just as well for both genders, the fact of the matter is that both types of shows are ones guys don’t mind being caught dead watching.
Now, Nanatsuiro Drops is pretty much straight-up magical girl stuff. Think about it. Eroge + magical girl = confused audience.
Sometimes magical girl shows can work for a male audience, in the case of raw loli-fests (I’m tempted to say Moetan, but I have no actual experience with that show), but NanaDrops pretty much plays the magical girl card straight, at least in the anime.
It seems that the anime has pretty much renounced any tendencies for fanservice or whatnot in favor of attracting a target audience of an age probably not old enough to buy the PC game NanaDrops was based on.
It’s not to say that Nanatsuiro Drops is expressly one of those Not For Guys shows, since magical girl shows have worked for a larger audience in the past; not sure what is the draw of Nanoha, not having watched that, but it has a simply ridiculously huge fanbase, and even old-school, straight magical girl shows like Cardcaptor Sakura (it’s by Clamp, shouldn’t that be enough of a warning to straight guys?) are generally acknowledged to be one of those Top Tier shows. CCS was simply one of those shows that got people into anime.
NanaDrops, though, coming ten years after Sakura’s adventures, may be what some consider “behind the times”. While it may have worked long ago, now tastes seem to have changed away from the sugary, fluffy, heartwarming stuff towards, well, whatever it is you like today. Loli shows, fanservice shows, slice-of-life, moe, dramatic shows…none of these can really fit NanaDrops, which in an era of anime where there are No Girls On The Internet, really just doesn’t click with at least a lot of people in the English anime crowd.
Nevertheless, NanaDrops does have it’s devout supporters, both on AnimeSuki and on local anime blogs. Supposedly it’s not as Magical Girly as it looks, rather turning some typical tropes on its head and generally poking fun at the cliches of the genre. Supposedly the relationship and character development is handled quite well and creatively, unlike the usual “rivals who fall in love” or the “boy meets girl in awkward situation; hijinks and crushing ensue” found in this genre.
But there are always going to be the rabid fans of any series that will stand up for it to the bitter end. Show me a moe harem show and I’ll show you unhealthy levels of adoration. Show a lolicon Moetan and they’ll show you the “merits” of a show like that. So perhaps it’s possible that the fans behind NanaDrops are overhyping it.
As usual, the only way to find out is to watch a show, and thus embarked an second adventure into the cavity-filled sugarland of magical girl shows. Full opinion and perhaps some discussion of the actual show and the first 3 episodes after the jump.
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Da Capo: The Second Raid
Aug 23rd
Fumoffu, etc. as the D.C. train chugs along. It may be a bit dated but there are more of me out there who look for information and recommendation on series from times past, so, uh, this post is for that horde then, as it is.
Now that I’ve got the memes and random in-jokes out of the way (it’s what having Marisa Stole the Precious Thing looping does), Da Capo Second Season is actually a pretty timely watch, as with the anime of the visual novel sequel, Da Capo II (set forever in the future, technically), hitting this fall, it’s a good time to be watching a lot and a lot of D.C.
Unless of course Second Season turns out to be a pile of junk. With second-season-eroge rivals such as Shuffle! Memories however there’s always going to be something worse out there.
But still I find a 2-years-late sequel to a rather concluded anime to be strange – I would like to think that the main character Jyunichi would remain, well, attached to his love of the last season, but it doesn’t seem quite so at the moment.
There’s obviously some plot-related reasons why the centerpiece of last show dissapeared but it just seems like an excuse to open up the field again; D.C.S.S. is fairly newbie-safe and requires very little knowledge of the past season.
Overall D.C.S.S. appears to be a lot of the same from D.C., in that the first few episodes are going to be delightfully slow, bordering on ridiculous. In typical fashion I wrote the preview based solely on the first episode so expect it to be wildly inaccurate, but I do it just to see how opinions change over the course of a show. It’s a strange changwe that happens to all of us; but it’s completely normal…
Spoilers, whining, preview, etc, jump.
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Behind the Curve: Shakugan no Shana (Manga 1 / Novel 1)
Jul 31st
There are many reasons to adopt a new series. Perhaps it’s a widely popular one, and you’re curious to see what all the fuss is about. Maybe a favorite voice actor, artist, director, writer worked on this series as well. Maybe you read the manga, or played the visual novel, or just read about the series in a press blurb or something and was intrigued. A figurative dart thrown at a wall?
Sometimes, it’s like that, where you walk into a bookstore, and the first thing that catches your eye is that one thing Mikoto keeps raving about.
And so I sat down with the English release of manga and light novel for an hour.
Yeah, English light novel. Is that a first? Not too familiar with even the Japanese scene for that, but I follow the Haruhi light novels religiously and are kind of jealous that another series gets their novels translated. Oh well, there’s always Baka-Tsuki!
Impressions on Shana after the jump.
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