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 what happened?

I posted numerous times on the show, shoved it to the top of the viewing list over and over, gave it a nine - the highest ranking possible - on the ever-important Scale of Condensing A Complex Anime Into A Single Digit Number (aka MyAnimeList). And yet, it takes until a month later for it to finally push its way out of the review queue, where shows I don’t have much to talk about go to die.

It’s not like I was collecting my thoughts on the show.
It’s not like I was rewatching it.
It just simply passed out of mind for a very long time, and that’s something that worries me, because I really did think I enjoyed this show much more than the average show.

This is because, for the uninitiated, this is nowhere near your average show.

This is a show that goes beyond the forces of moe that some claim poison (or at least, run rampant in) today’s anime. There is no moe to speak of, hell, I could probably count on one hand - probably one finger - how many girls even appeared in the show total.

Rather, what Kaiji is, is a ruthless adrenaline rush, both physical and mental. A show all about a sometimes naive, sometimes genius, sometimes emotional delinquent (named Kaiji) who gets himself in all sorts of shady financial debt, and is forced into a series of increasingly implausible, incredible, and intriguing gambles in order to pay it off.

These gambles are great to watch because most of the time they are at least thrill rides which will leave you guessing as to the outcome - don’t take winning for granted in this show - with incredible moments of raw emotion along every twist and turn. On a good day, they are great introspectives as well, as Kaiji ponders the viciousness of human life while getting whipped in a human-vs-human battle of mind and body.

It’s very much a complete package, one that I think deserves a watch by anyone, just because you’re unlikely to see a show like this often amidst more common show archetypes. It drags a bit at times and the noses are awfully pointy, but Kaiji is an injection straight to the heart, which feeds blood to the brain and the masculine regions of the body.

(Manly spoilers ensue after the jump.)

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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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I’m about as late to the Five Centimeters Per Second party as its main character was to his destination in the first story, so we’ll spin this off into a fancy, deep, vaguely pretentious post.

Five Centimeters Per Second was one of those anime that personally had a hype level that surpassed nearly anything else I’ve heard of. Where as Haruhi was the god (and her anime too) of second-mainstream anime - all the shows a person would be likely to encounter after their initial shonen or CLAMP phase - 5cm was something praised as one of the most moving romantic works in a long time … or at least in as encapsulated a story as movies have to be.

I’m not inclined entirely to disagree, as I was definitely entranced by the story and the visuals (oh, the visuals), but it didn’t quite nail the perhaps implausibly high expectations I set for it.

It was a bit of a tear-jerker but not as much as I first believed, the characters bordered on that line between enrapturing and just plain cheesy, and, well, the ending.

The ending, and, to a lesser extent, the whole progression of 5cm was something that didn’t quite mesh. There were some ‘click’ moments, like when Takaki spoke of his search for a philosophy, but lacking a bit of one myself, his story overall was something that left me stirred, but not shaken. (James Bond would be dissapointed.)

At least during my viewing of it, anyway. After reconsidering and writing out this post, in final revisions I find myself to be quite tsundere, if I shall kick a dead horse, for shows in the vein of this and True Tears. There’s quite a disconnect between feelings from watching it, and feelings from analyzing it.

(Movie spoilers, and possible incoherence ahead.) (more…)

Of course, that is all pretentious-speak for “I finished True Tears and I can’t decide whether to be angry, satisfied, or moved to tears,” but carry on.

I’ve railed on True Tears a couple of times before for being decidedly normal and unchallenging. It was very good looking and did what it did very well, but it’s kind of like polishing and perfecting a text-only program when everyone had moved on to graphical ones.

Nevertheless I had forgotten that games like Nethack still have their charm, and as such True Tears provides all of the emotion and pendulum drama of a good visual novel conversion.

I could best sum up my conflicting emotions on the superiority of any one recent visual novel show - if you read the recent reviews you will find I waver more than Makoto Itou - by the fact that despite all being in the same rough genre (and a very rough genre at that) all four I’ve seen have quite a unique style to them.

Clannad is two things at once, the ‘crying’ visual novel and the ‘funny’ visual novel.
H2O is the ’shocking / mindscrew’ visual novel.
KimiKiss is the ‘relaxed / slice-of-life / realistic’ visual novel.
And True Tears, is what you could probably consider the ‘normal’ visual novel, everything you’ve seen done before, but done to a high degree of quality.

In the end I will rate True Tears as an excellent example of what to do if you have to do the same thing as everyone else. Would I watch another True Tears? Maybe, despite it all, I’m a sucker for these types of shows - but I’d prefer something with a slightly different flavor.

(Series spoilers, shockingly. Also, this review heavily influenced by the excellent and comphrensive analysis by LianYL over at Riuva.)
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In the end, Owen is probably right. After how many thousands of words over the last five or so episodes riding the tide of KimiKiss, from the highs and lows of both the show’s execution and of my own personal Yuumi fandom, I’ve finally beached out on this show.

I say tide for a reason. KimiKiss isn’t a rollercoaster, per se. It doesn’t always leave you hanging on the edge of your seat, threatening to buck you at every turn like most visual-novel type harem/romances go. Rather, it really does feel like a relaxing trip out to sea, a place disconnected from yet not totally out of touch with the real world, in that style in which KimiKiss lets every viewer live out their idea of the ideal high school romance.

Indeed, my thoughts regarding KimiKiss itself have fluctuated like that of a schoolboy first falling in love. At the beginning I was sure I was smitten with it, that it would be the greatest forever, and indeed, we spent many great times together. But as time moved on there was that little nagging doubt, that ‘is it me or is it you?’ feeling. I still liked it a lot but it didn’t seem like it could be The One. In the end, we had to separate and head our own separate ways, something that I still approach with a bit of sadness, which probably is a bit contrary to everything about the show I’ve said so far.

In the end I find myself regarding KimiKiss much like others have, a show that bends the box but doesn’t break it, and more of a entertaining watch than a truly didactic one. There’s a bit of me that wishes KimiKiss could be more, as it really could have, but I’m not sure how, or in what way, as as much as I try to put it down and say it wasn’t incredible, my gut feeling keeps saying it’s something more.

It’s a strange show. It’s ambitious, yet ordinary, complicated, yet simple, unpredictable, yet not.

The one thing that I think KimiKiss really excelled in, though, was being very interactive-friendly (for lack of a better word), encouraging viewers to get out there, pick a side, and get into the show, something that will instantly make anything - any show, any work of fiction, any event - more entertaining and more fulfilling.

This is the reason I liken to KimiKiss to politics, except fun.

(Obvious spoilers after the jump, etc etc.)
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If you take one line away from this review, it’s this:

They didn’t lie when they said “H2O will rock your soul.” Not in the slightest.

If you take two lines, the second would be to not believe everything you see in H2O - style-wise and certainly character-wise. I know that I was for sure completely turned off the show on the first episode, ambivalent for the next two, and wanted to scratch my eyes out with rusty spoons by the fourth. It was essentially fanservice and pandering central…plus a now-infamous trap.

But, lured with the promise of improvement, of insanity, and yes, of soul-rocking, I soldered on, and my God, did H2O take off like a rocket. It really showed how it is unlike nearly no other visual novel show in recent memory, for few reasons.

The two that I could closest compare to, though, would be Shuffle and sola. The former, simply because of the similarities in how the first half was utter rubbish and the second half was beyond parallel, and the latter due to the style and feel of the show. Both sola and H2O are very impressive visual-novel-types, and while sola didn’t touch on romance or on fanservice quite as much or at all, both shows managed to be great plot-twist tour-de-forces that really leave you thinking.

Unfortunately, if you think too much, you realize the show is shot full of holes, but as a dramatic work, it’s top-notch.

To call H2O the best show of recent memory would probably be a lie. There’s too much of a rough taste in my mouth from a painful start and a mindscrewing final arc to give it such accolades. But it’s easily good enough for me to want to retract my allegations from earlier regarding it’s quality, and give it a solid reccomendation, for being unmistakably different than what we’ve seen in the past from this genre.

(Spoilers after the jump.) (more…)

Do you have any memories you don’t want to forget?

ef rocked my soul. (Wait…)

As you may have surmised by the slightly-more-than-late review, it’s taken me a long time to collect my thoughts on this show, which has been acclaimed by the majority to be nothing short of stunning.

Originally when I first watched the show I had that feeling of “this could be something,” but was off-put by the dual storyline, the typically SHAFT (i.e. form over function) art style, and my overall sense of confusion with ef. I put it on the shelf after three episodes.

Later on, I awoke to the sounds of bloggers singing the praise of this show from the top of the highest hills, and decided to get back into watching the show. After seven episodes, I was, to put it one way, nonplussed. I had had it up to here with all the visual novel cliches and concepts, the romance was tacky (Chihiro) or annoying (Kei vs. Miyako) and they spent all of ten dollars animating one of the supposed ‘most powerful moments of 2007′.

Five episodes and one rewatch later, I think I’ve done about as great an about-face of opinion as Kanon did an about-face of animation from 2002 to 2006. Quite simply, ef is top tier.

If I wanted to wax poetic about things, I would say that on the scale of romance, I truly ‘loved’ this show.

Kanon is a show I would ‘worship’, that I would deny any flaws in.
Cardcaptor Sakura is a ‘first love’, blind admiration of something with a feeling that can never be matched.
School Days is a ‘handsome devil’, the kind of show that I know I hate and I know will kill me, but I can’t stay away from it anyway.

But ef really is the full package. It has the moments that charm you and it has the moments that repulse you. It’s handsome yet fashion-challenged, smart yet sappy, serious yet silly. It is a show that sweeps you off your feet, whether you like it or not. And you accept its flaws with its strengths, and really see it as real, instead of something idolized, which can never be touched.

Perhaps, with the extend I’m going on to rave about ef, it’s a bit of a lie that I’m not idolizing it. But the fact of the matter is, that, despite this nagging feeling in the back of my head that ef really should suck, that it really does mess up at times, I can’t help but be absolutely smitten with this show, the characters it has, the storyline it tells, and the messages it conveys. It’s very different from many of the moe-smitten visual novel adaptations out there, yet it still maintains a connection to its roots. Quite simply, it is a brilliant example of what this genre can do.

(Series spoilers ahead, so either be forewarned, or make plans to forget them within 13 hours…)

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