Bishoujo – Page 5 – bluemist anime blog

To Heart 2: Episode 12

Note: There was actually another episode that aired between this one and episode 11. It was a special recap episode though, so I didn’t count it in the numbering, for continuity sake.

It’s Konomi’s turn to complicate things! They’re clearly emphasizing the love angle now, and between the two main To Heart 2 girls, Konomi’s took a whole episode to develop it, while [Tamaki’s->toheart2-11] was merely a shocker. This is the best animated To Heart 2 episode so far, and features a lot of cute close-ups of Konomi in all her emotions. She blushes, does her eheee~, stares, and even cries in this entire episode. I’m very impressed.

Continue reading To Heart 2: Episode 12

To Heart 2: Episode 11

This is supposed to be the main plot of the entire series, but I only have few things to write about, really.

[Game->toheart2-tamaki-kousaka] – Tamaki events
This episode is an anomaly. It completely put To Heart 2 into a different direction. It should be as expected, but one may wish it wouldn’t go this way. The success of the original [To Heart->] and failure of [To Heart ~Remember my Memories~->] is how they treat this… the game called “love”.

Continue reading To Heart 2: Episode 11

XBOX XRATED

Since I saw some preview videos on MTV featuring Xbox 360, my mouth watered on how much graphics technology has improved in games. One particular game of note was this racing game which totally blew me away, it was the most realistic-looking racer I have ever seen! I thought, man, X360 is gonna rock.

While I absolutely won’t buy that console, I would be delighted to play it once in a while. Here we have shops which have console gaming rentals at cheap rates per hour, so it’s possible that I can see and play a X360 soon. Seems that Microsoft has the edge because it has an early lead with the other next-gen consoles PS3 and Revolution.

Not quite in Japan.

News sources seem to tell that the Xbox 360 launch isn’t as big… as expected? Or at all? Hmm… how many thousands did they sell so far? Quite incomparable to any recent console launch. I recall PS2 selling a million in Japan on just one day, if I’m not mistaken. That one is l33t.

Now check this out… X360 launches in Japan at almost the same time as [To Heart 2: XRATED->] right? Wanna guess which sold better? Which lines are for X360 and which are for TH2X?

Ok fine, my current favorite game is absolutely no match for a giant game console in the long run, but isn’t it great to feel that somehow ~~TH2X outsold X360 on launch day?~~ a bishoujo game seemed more successful than an entire game console? Whahahaha! Microsoft just got a beating from some bishoujo girls! W00t!

Worship Ruu~!! Raise our hands to the sky! Ruu~!

Sorry for this mindless post, it really just seems funny (to me only). Not to mention both have X’s on their names… er but that was lame too.

Oh, and someone got a perfect idea to boost Xbox 360 sales!

Image sources: 1 2

To Heart 2: Episode 4

Fourth episode!

kore de kata to omou nai yo! (don’t think you have won!)

[Game->toheart2-yuma-tonami] – Yuma events
This episode took a lot of liberties over the actual events in the game. Come to think of it, Manaka’s [episode->To Heart 2: Episode 3] was also quite different from the [game->toheart2-manaka-komaki]. If this goes on to be just a 13-episode anime, you most likely won’t see Ikuno (Manaka’s sister) and Yuma the meganekko version. Also, the way their scenarios are converted into anime, it feels more lighthearted rather than melodramatic. No confusing nor lonely stories.

Continue reading To Heart 2: Episode 4

To Heart 2: Episode 2

Second episode!

Geh, more animation quirks. Some good shots, but some inconsistent character animation. Nevertheless, the [Tamaki->toheart2-tamaki-kousaka] episode is a healthy mix of Tamaki goodness. While I don’t share the enthusiasm of the legions of Tamaki fans, they may agree that the average animation took out some of the brilliance of an otherwise great episode. Now I get it… they want us to buy the DVD! It’ll be expected that the animation will be a lot more refined on the DVD. What a clever marketing move… although nothing may be more clever than them doing a [To Heart 2: XRATED->toheart2-xrated] (evil grin)…

Continue reading To Heart 2: Episode 2

To Heart 2 Promo

To Heart 2

Here we go! First look at the animation in action, and…

It’s not an impressive preview! [Konomi->konomi-cameo] in [Comic Party Revolution->] looked a bit more refined. Nevertheless, I don’t want to [remember my bad memories->to-heart-remember-my-memories], and neither would [Aquaplus->leaf-aquaplus], so I’m still hopeful that this will turn out nice overall.

Okay, so we won’t get the original [game->toheart2] opening sequence and song. Instead, this song called Hello by Haruna Ikeda (also the one who sang the To Heart RMM ED) will be the OP theme. Konomi is mostly the one talking in the preview, while Tamaki spoke a line or two in the background. The preview also looks like it will cover Konomi’s [introduction->To Heart 2 Review (Part 1)] and her story of dealing with graduation from [junior high->To Heart 2 Review (Part 2)].

So that’s it for now. To Heart 2 premiers this October. Hope you’ll watch it.

This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Air Movie

Air

It’s kinda hard to make an opinion when there are two versions of the same anime. Air, originally from a bishoujo game by [Key->], was to be made into two separate anime. One is a [TV series->air-tv], and the other is a movie. They have the same storyline to render, which is from the game. The TV version did a very straightforward approach, following the events of the game rather faithfully. This movie version took a different step, and in my opinion, it is a step that may have alienated the fans of the game.

Since a movie can only have extremely limited playtime as opposed to a television series, I guess the producers of the movie have some big problems to contend with. First and foremost, how can you compress an entire visual novel game into less than two hours of movie playtime? A daunting task. As a result, many stories were not told. Characters were also not used. Another problem, cutting corners will make the whole thing less cohesive, meaning that the material may not be as strong as it were before. So I think many themes were changed as well.

Specifically, secondary characters like Kano, Minagi and Michiru were not used, and were only seen in cameos. The story deviated a bit from their original source material, in terms of focusing more on the relationship of Yukito and Misuzu, rather than the mother-child theme of Misuzu and Haruko. This love relationship is mirrored by the ancient tale of Ryuuya and Kanna. The result is a movie that delivers a parallelism of the present events to past events. On that note, I think it did well overall.

However, the little things did annoy me a lot in this movie. First of all, it tries to be funny when it’s not supposed to be. I’m quite surprised everytime SD (superdeformed) style animation appears out of the blue. This takes away the general feel of the movie. It is supposed to be a mix of drama and comedy, but I didn’t think they did mix it well. Even near the climax, where it was supposed to be serious, they showed a short comedic scene… why?

Another gripe is the random animation styles. They tried to make this similar to an art film. Radical cinematography, watercolor painted scenes, random fading, multiple camera angles, and a whole lot of other effects which I may have missed. Frankly, they are there to annoy rather than to complement the contents of the movie.

Despite my annoyances, the movie is rather good overall. Animation is excellent in average. The backgrounds are drawn with artistic value. The music are remixed versions of the great Air soundtrack. And the voice actors delivered nice performances. The flow of the story, taking away the comedic parts that don’t fit, is endearing, mostly because the parallelism of the present and past stories blend well.

Maybe I’m disappointed with this movie because of the excellence that the TV series has brought to us. So I think we have to give credit to the producers of the movie who tried their best despite having the odds against them. I don’t know about making anime, but to make it basic, how do you fit a novel into a movie anyway? Even movie critics and fans complain when some novel is being made into a movie.

This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Not just about a bunch of drawings: The Live Project

Hello again!

I’m proposing a new project of mine, aptly called the Live project. This way, I will feature anime or related stuff that doesn’t necessarily need to be just animated or drawn. I had a few of those featured already, so I was thinking that I could make a collective again, much like the [bishoujo project->summer-of-bishoujo] I have.

Most of the time, I would feature stuff from jdorama, since aside from those I don’t get too much live action videos. Maybe movies too. So do watch out for content! Bye for now.

You can catch the Live project at this URL:
[http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/live/->http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/live/]

October Anime Season (Fall 2005)

Okay, I promised myself that I will have a minimum of anime come October, because my board exams are coming up. But resistance is futile, and so yet another huge number of anime series interest me this fall. But then again, I will keep my watching to an absolute minimum. I’ll just download… and watch later when I’m free. Call this my ‘eventual anime backlog’.

This site lists all the anime that will premiere this season, and the possible fansubbers or licensors.

I seem to have a perfect theme for the anime I’ll watch this season… it’s my bishoujo sequel season.

Bishoujo Sequel Season
Canvas 2 – The first one was a semi-H OAV. I don’t watch H so I didn’t watch it. This is based on a game from F&C, which also made the Pia Carrot multitude of games.

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s – [Nanoha->] is a character from a Triangle Heart game. She had her own spinoff anime series last year. This seems like a direct sequel. Considering that the first was quite enjoyable, I’ll definitely catch this one.

Mai Otome – Mai-HiME was one of my favorites from last year. This time it’s an alternative world with new characters and some rehashes. If the first was “bishoujo gakuen action romance”, I think this one is “henshin bishoujo otome action”… whoa, magical girls? Looks like another hit.

To Heart 2 – It has never been more obvious. This will be my anime of the season, and considering all the effort I put into [playing the game->toheart2], I will blog this one episode-by-episode! Yes, something rare from me for a change. Watch out for that.

So that’s it. No more [deliberations->july-anime-season] this time, because I won’t care about all the other animes until my exams end come halfway through November. I’m sure that fellow bloggers will pick up the other good stuff. So have a nice watch, and continue to enjoy anime.

Densha Otoko and Daicon IV

Densha Otoko is a jdorama that actually has an animated opening sequence. While this OP looks kinda pointless (read: a bunny girl riding on a flying train greening the world and then out into the depths of space), it does have its roots.

As many already know, the Densha Otoko OP is paying homage to Daicon IV, a sleek opening animation that was featured in the 22nd Japan Science Fiction Conventions, way, way back in 1983. Some concepts are similar, and the exact same song was used (Twilight by Electric Light Orchestra). Despite its age, I think it stands the test of time. I really felt compelled to write this up because… Daicon IV was AMAZING! I really wondered why it’s just now that I watched this short animation video.

Densha Otoko’s Mina character is a bunny girl similar to the Daicon bunny girl, but notice that Mina has some orange carrots in her costume. Daicon is a word play on “daikon”, a white radish. Well, bunnies like carrots and radishes.

The mix-up of stuff in Daicon IV was amazingly crazy. You see the bunny girl not only kick robots and sci-fi monsters, but also have a lightsaber battle with Darth Vader! Even references to superhero comics like Batman and Robin are there, as well as transforming mechas and sentai stuff. It all mixes together to create imaginative chaos. No less from the masters… the animators of the Daicon videos were actually from Gainax! Gainax was officially founded because of these videos, so thank Daicon for it. Okay, fine, I will watch He is My Master someday… promise.

The part I really liked was the nuclear explosion. My jaw dropped in that, I can’t believe this is 1983 stuff! I guess despite technology animation still needs creative minds to visualize an awesome scene.

Daicon videos here