bluemist – Page 30 – bluemist anime blog

ufotable and gainax

Futakoi Alternative animation studio ufotable seem to like spoofing, or paying homage, to Gainax’s works. Makes me wonder if some of the Gainax staff is actually doing behind-the-scenes work inside ufotable. Makes me wonder even more if those Gainax staff is getting frustrated with all the maid anime their own studio produces nowadays, and opted to work in ufotable for now. Nah, I’m just thinking too much. Homages are common in anime.

There may be more spoofs and references in Futakoi Alternative that I didn’t notice. Yup, it takes a keen eye to get more. I don’t have a keen eye.

Rentarou singing Yume no Naka e. (episode 7)

Is Yume no Naka e really just the Karekano ending song? Or is it a generic Japanese popular folk song of some sort? I’m not sure if it’s an anime original or just a revival of a popular classic Japanese song. S.O.S. (another song featured in Karekano) is a revival though.

Rentarou doing the FLCL thing (episode 7)

Someone has just gone FLCL crazy. I miss that show.

The three doing the Karekano OP flying sequence. (episode 9)

Can’t get any similar than this.

Anime On Location: Reverse

This is the reverse of my [Anime On Location->anime-on-location] feature.

So this time… how visible is anime in real life? How often would you see your favorite anime drawings in normal streets?

This post is a collective of links and images which feature some real pictures where animated art blends with our normal lives. Be it posters or anime-related places, I will try to see if anime is visible anywhere else aside from TV and movie screens.

This is gonna be an ongoing collective so if anyone wants to contribute other material related to this, just comment in this post. Please do also contact me if some of the links are already down. It’s kinda hard to find this kind of content though.

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Comic Market 68
http://www.galge.com/galge/nomember/sbp/topics/05/08/12/index.html
It’s one of Japan’s biggest and most popular comic conventions. Everything otaku-related can be seen, heard, felt, and ‘sold’ there. They definitely wouldn’t want to miss being there…

Sights of Akihabara
http://www.akiba-bound.net/?p=36
http://www.jefflawson.net/anime/archives/002411.html
http://www.tyth.net/wordpress/?p=115
Fellow bloggers visit Akihabara. Exponentially better than our local Chinatown, but a lot more expensive of course. This is the real stuff.

He is My Master Promotion Gig
http://www.livejournal.com/users/pedolicious/71859.html
http://blog.livedoor.jp/geek/archives/24932011.html
This is possibly one of the anime marketing gimmicks where I can never comment to negatively nor positively. A TON of girls wearing HiMM maid cosplay gives promotion cards for the anime’s recently released DVD volume. Sure, Akihabara otaku folk will be shouting with oohs and aahs while armed with their top-of-the-moe-line digital cameras. The rest of the regular Japanese walking public, however, may be disgusted.

Moe-bus
http://oki2.jp/bus/index.html
This link shows a lot of Japanese public transportation buses which were painted with anime and bishoujo game related pictures as advertisements. Sure it’s nice, but don’t dare take a picture with your favorite bishoujo, lest other commuters label you a weirdo.

Metal Gear Aya

Taken from Comic Party Revolution 9:

Aya-chan, you rock! The quiet and usually unnoticed doujinshi author becomes a tactical espionage specialist in this episode. Go figure.

Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru

Koi Kaze not enough? Enjoy the dangerous world of incest with Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru.

Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru is a one-shot OVA based on a shoujo manga of the same title. It tells the story of a taboo incestual relationship of brother Yori and sister Iku. Yori is the first to break down. He starts to keep secrets and ignore Iku, and yet sometimes he’s being too overprotective of her, even fighting someone in class who made her embarrased. Iku wonders why she’s being mistreated lately. One night, Yori confesses to Iku, and of course rejection is abound, because it is indeed weird. Yori even realizes it himself, that this is wrong, but he can’t stop his feelings towards his sister. He does a lot of things to make himself go the right path somehow, by planning to go to a faraway college to stay away from Iku, and even trying to have a normal relationship with another girlfriend. By this time, Iku herself is starting to waver her own feelings. She starts to become jealous of Yori and his girlfriend, and so she also developed feelings towards her brother.

Treading into dangerous territory eh? These are the kinds of stories that are very interesting to me because a person like me could barely understand the emotional pains of having this feeling. This is the kind of storytelling that makes the [onii-chan complex->w-wish] seem light-hearted. Deep inside, the pain of an impossible relationship exists within the lovers involved. Yup, Yori and Iku, despite their extreme intimacy, continually remind themselves that this is wrong. Towards the end, they still try to find ways to move on and forget their impossible love somehow (through separation), and yet we still see a tease, because somehow it’s very hard to let go.

There are scenes of intimacy in this anime, but nothing too graphic. The animation and color tone reminds me of Marimite, the atmosphere similar to fellow incest-themed anime Koi Kaze. This is well-animated and well-paced, staying true to many scenes in early volumes of the manga. Of course, other events are omitted. In the manga Yori and Iku are extremely intimate, they express it almost anywhere. I wonder when they’ll be caught…

Anyway, I recommend you watch this with an open mind. In the real world people may be guilty of this, but while society abhors this, do not be discriminative. Love is really more complicated than we think.

Update: It’s going to be a live-action movie! Boku wa Imouto Ni Koi Wo Suru the movie will be starred by Jun Matsumoto (of Gokusen/Hana Yori Dango fame) and one hawt babe Nana Eikura, a magazine model. Nice, I hope to catch it soon.

HCD Series: Fruits Basket Drama CD

I just can’t believe there is a new drama CD about Fruits Basket! Moreover, this features basically the same stellar cast… and much more!

Okay, so I didn’t understand some parts at all, so please bear with me on this.

About the drama
This drama CD is composed of 2 stories, the Cinderella play, and a story about the student council. While I understood the Cinderella play, the student council part really boggles me up to now (complex Japanese conversations), so I can’t describe it.

The Cinderella play is loosely based on a couple or more chapters in the manga. Garten over at Memento’s blog has a summary for those chapters (87 and 88), among others.

Cinderella play gone totally wrong
The school play Cinderella is composed of the following cast:
Cinderella = Hana-chan
Prince = Kyo-kun
Fairy Godmother = Yuki-kun
Evil stepmother = Minami Kinoshita (Prince Yuki fanclub member)
Evil stepsister = Tohru
Friend of Prince = Uo-chan

Notice something? Yup this play is up for disaster! The only remotely decent casting was that of Minami, because her attitude is like that. A denpa-Cinderella who loves tea parties and food, a prince who doesn’t even care about girls, a fairy godmother who cross-dresses (to the delight of Yuki’s fans), an evil stepsister who is definitely not evil at all, and a royal friend who is a Yankee. Because of this, the script radically changed, and it even has a narrator continually doing improvisations whenever the dialogue screws up. Kyou actually speaks Tohru’s name while in the play, then the narrator reminds him not to do that… that gave me a big laugh. Also funny is the part when Cinderella appears in the ball… with a black dress. Everyone in the audience

Seiyuu
Hearing the generic Yui Horie voice feels like a dream. The main three guys of the juunishi are the only Soumas that appear in the drama, because this is basically some school comedy stories. Momiji is mentioned but I didn’t hear him (too bad, he’s my favorite). The biggest surprise is that Tamura Yukari is actually in this drama, as new character named Kimi (who doesn’t appear in the anime). I love the rapport of the student council parts even though I didn’t understand it much, so I guess it’s time for me to follow the manga again.

All in all, this drama CD served me like a teaser… I want a second Fruits Basket anime season!

Shuffle!

Shuffle Preview

SHUFFLE!

Be whatever this July!

Before you say this is just another bishoujo game based anime… well… nothing… say it now, it’s really just another bishoujo game based anime. In this one, there seem to be three races, humans, gods and demons. These three races live somewhat in harmony for now. So when two new neighbors arrive, one god family and one demon family, and they have a respective cute bishoujo girl each with matching elf ears, a boring male’s life will never be the same again. Not only that, you still have your childhood friend, a spunky girl next door, and a mysterious quiet girl too. Better love those cliches…

Anyway, looking forward to this, but from the prologue video I’ve seen, the designs look… inconsistent. There were shots of greatness and other shots of mess. The animation seems to flow smoothly though, due to a lot of in-between frames, which make it look OVA-style. What’s better is that it’s in WOWOW, so not only will we get high-quality raws, I could even have a chance to watch it myself direct from WOWOW! (some cable TVs here have WOWOW)

Here are some shots of the girls, along with their respective CG from the original game.

This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

School Rumble Live!

I watched on video a certain School Rumble Live Concert, and it was quite good! Seiyuus, singers and some bands sang numerous songs featured in the anime series and also the drama cds as well. Too bad no sign of Yuko Ogura was found, maybe she’s too mainstream to be in such an ~~otaku-filled~~ event. Instead, we get all the girls singing her Otoko no Ko Onna no Ko ending theme.

One performance in particular, School Rumble 4 Ever, was so great! Four of the girls danced and sang that incredibly catchy female rap song.

I enjoyed this one better than the Love Hina live concerts, probably because there are more cute and young seiyuu here. The songs are great too. [Yui Horie->horie-yui] may have stuttered a bit during her Scramble performance, but the live rendition of that School Rumble OP is as catchy as ever. Maybe my only complaint is that there is too much unicorn table, while too less Mamiko Noto.

Anyway sorry that I can’t bring you the songs nor the concert video itself, so I have boring screenshots. Spicing it up a bit is the seiyuu’s respective character that they voiced in School Rumble, and a bit of other anime info.

Ami joined Yui also as the Ichijou twins in both Futakoi series.

Yui Horie, she’s appearing in so many series these days.

She currently plays Kanade-kaichou in Gokujou Seitokai.

You would probably know her as the legendary “Lain.”

Mamiko, another seiyuu with an unmistakable cliched voice working in many series these days.

Nao in My Hime. Different style, eh?

You guys would probably know her as Nono in Top wo Nerae 2 but I didn’t watch that.

I dunno how she belongs to School Rumble, maybe a minor seiyuu, featured in a drama cd/ost, or maybe a guest. Anyway she is also one of the singers in the Mahoraba OP.

They have a lot of songs scattered around the drama cds of School Rumble. Because of this, they had the most songs performed in the concert.

SEED Mode!

Taken from Comic Party Revolution 8:

Fumoffu also had one, but this really took the cake!

Fear the SEED Mode! A direct Gundam SEED parody! Comic Party Revolution rules!!!

Playing a Bishoujo Game is Futility Project: To Heart 2 edition

bluemist’s Ultimate “Playing a Bishoujo Game is Futility” Project

To Heart 2

Let’s just end this once and for all!

What are you trying to do here?
I will attempt the impossible by playing through a bishoujo game… in Japanese.

Are you suicidal?
This is just because of the extreme urge to somehow play a popular bishoujo game.

You won’t understand it at all!
Yes I know. For one, To Heart 2 is a Visual Novel. It has TONS of text which I won’t understand whe way I am now.

But because this is an attempt at futility, I have some tricks up my sleeve:
– I have a walkthrough.
– I have 5% knowledge of conversational Japanese.

Using the walkthrough, I’ll be able to get a proper ending with a specific girl… if I follow directions right.

And using my 5% Japanese words, vocabulary and sentence understanding, I may be able to understand the story.

This is ridiculous. You won’t understand the story without the text. Besides, the player is YOU. You are supposed to be talking, but the talk is only through the text. The girls and other people may be talking to you through voice-overs, but that means you are getting half the conversation only.
Yes I will get half the story that way.

Enough self-talk. Let’s see where this goes.

You will find my introduction and updates through the URL:
http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/toheart2/

Anime On Location

Of course, not all places in anime worlds are virtual. Some of them are artistic renditions of real places in Japan, others are completely based upon the place.

This post is a collective of links and images which feature some locations in Japan which have been rendered in animation through various anime productions.

This is gonna be an ongoing collective so if anyone wants to contribute other material related to this, just comment in this post. Please do also contact me if some of the links are already down.

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Locations of NANA
picture1
picture2
picture3
picture4
Nana Navigator Nana (arrgh ok, the Nana anime navigator who happens to be named Nana too) reports about Jackson Hole, the cafe that some characters of the [Nana->] series hang out in. This is actually a real cafe in Japan, with the same design. I capped some shots of it.

Locations of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
http://haruhi.sonnabakana.com/file.html
http://kanai.dw.land.to/location/haruhi.htm
Nice comparison shots from the Suzumiya Haruhi anime and the real deal.

Locations of Ichigo Mashimaro
http://www2.wbs.ne.jp/~misscast/location/ichigo_marsh/marshmallow.html
Interesting stuff. The manga settings were derived from these places, so hopefully they would be rendered in the new anime as well.

Locations of Kamichu!
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sgtpepper/20050711/p1
Pretty nice, a couple of comparison shots of the town of Kamichu.

Locations of Mahou Sensei Negima
http://forums.animeblogger.net/viewtopic.php?t=99
Maestro4k has some interesting shots over at the forums, real places where Negima’s Mahora Gakuen locations are seemingly inspired from. Look at the Library Island, it looks very similar.

Locations of Futakoi Alternative
http://www3.plala.or.jp/happyhobby/2koi/2koi.htm
This town seems to be called Nikotama. Looks… desolated. How did the guy take pictures of the streets without any people in sight? Probably early morning.

Locations of Uta~Kata
http://matthew.animeblogger.net/archives/2004/12/07/utakatas_setting.php
http://www22.ocn.ne.jp/~autumn/tabi_utakata.html
It is said that Uta~Kata takes place in Kamakura. Matthew has some pictures up, while the Japanese link shows more pictures of Kamakura, with matching Ichika and Manatsu figures showing up sometimes.

Locations of Initial D
http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~eg9/gallery.htm
The tracks on Initial D are amazingly based on real-life mountain passes in Japan. If you do get to Japan and drive these mountains, don’t even dare to try driving like Takumi. Just enjoy the view.

Locations of Onegai Teacher/Onegai Twins
http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~smith/article/log/20030825.htm
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~kazeyama/one2sato/one2sato.htm
These two sites compare real-life counterparts with the corresponding animated backgrounds. The resemblance is absolutely impressive.

Locations of Love Hina
http://www.geocities.com/myksvoll/photo1.htm
This is a nice page about real-life locations used in Love Hina, including an actual Hinata Sou.

Locations of Air
http://htc.moon.st/ota/05041601.html
http://tarax.flop.jp/alive/log/000660.html#more
I found this interesting site which features the real-life locations for the bishoujo game and anime Air. Those Misuzu and Minagi dolls will guide you through the places, with the corresponding screenshots for the animes. The site also seems to feature other locations for bishoujo games like Fate/Stay Night, so check them out as well. The second link goes to the same location, this time… a real-life Misuzu acts out scenes from Air?? Find out how they did it…

Shibuya
Shibuya is a popular shopping and entertainment district. It is where lots of gals hang out and shop around. It’s the perfect setting for the anime Super GALS! Kotobuki Ran.

Shibuya 109

A popular building for those fashionistas…

Hachiko Park

A park with a dog statue named Hachiko. Hachiko was regarded as Japan’s most faithful dog because it patiently waited outside Shibuya station for its owner every day, even years after its owner died.

Tokyo Big Sight

The Tokyo International Exhibition Center, more known as Tokyo Big Sight, is Japan’s largest exhibition and convention center. For otakus, this means a haven of comic and anime-related conventions being held there, the most popular being Comic Market.
Anime:
Comic Party
Comic Party Revolution
Genshiken

Kyoto
Kyoto, being one of the most popular tourist destinations, would obviously be used by countless other anime series. Whenever there is a field trip in an anime, Kyoto is a preferred tourist spot.

Kiyomizu temple

Kiyomizu is a popular temple in Kyoto because of its great height and view.
Anime:
Love Hina
Mahou Sensei Negima
Sensei no Ojikan