Tag: loli

Last Impressions

I’m in a pinch like never before.

After the previous season ended, 4 of the animes I was watching were finished. I was thinking along the lines of picking up 4 new ones to watch for this season. But seeing that the number of interesting animes exceeds that number, I guess I’m gonna put some of the titles in the backburner again (meaning “maybe” watch when I’m not busy later on). Hence, my last impressions.

This is a post about the animes where I watched the first episode, and decided not to continue with it for now (or for ever).

Amaenaideyo!!
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Oof, I accidentally deleted the raw episode. This screencap came from a preview vid which I still had. Since I won’t want to download this abomination once again, it’s bye bye for this anime. I simply didn’t like it.

Kidou Shinsengumi Moeyo Ken
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There is nothing wrong with this series. It’s just that I’m really trying to free up myself in getting too many anime and having brain damage later on. This having Rumiko Takahashi character designs would be a treat for those fans who miss Inuyasha. I think the story would be quite good too.

Okusama wa Joushikousei
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Okay, wife #1 is a high school student. Is it even legal? In any case, if someone else would know that this girl is married with her own teacher at school, they’ll be in big trouble. This girl wants “more” than the no-xxx relationship that her husband is treating her currently. This girl is hawt for some action. Unfortunately, this goes into the backburner simply because I’ve had enough of fanservice, and students hitting on teachers. Nothing new here.

Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo
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Wife #2 is a magical girl who loves her town. Her husband is nowhere in sight though. She does silly things like talking to a vacuum cleaner. Then that guy with glasses (not her husband) came to live with them. So I guess we will see him every episode tripping and stumbling over the magical girl. Sorry, she’s taken, and moreover, no kiss allowed. While the music reminded me a bit of that old TV show Bewitched at first, their “wild” magical transformation sequence instantly turned me off, and the fanservice seems oh too pointless. Ok fine the wife is hot, and the other magical girl is loli, I get the point. Sorry, this is a backburner.

Ultimate Blog Cleanup

After the layout change, I upgraded so many stuff into my blog to make it more “future proof”, but this move will require me to have a blog cleanup! Because of this, you may see the Recent Updated Posts section to be a bit volatile. Why?

I will edit almost ALL of my posts!

My goodness, am I crazy enough to do this? In any case, I really hope I won’t do this again. This won’t affect you guys too much, but if you’re keen enough, you will find little bits of changes happening to the site. I blame my [summer of bishoujo->] project for this, because it required me to install more and more WordPress plugins.

Current Issues:

Annoying Quotes
I am very annoyed about how WP changes my quotes and triple dots, but I found a way to change them, thanks to Momotato.

before: “Hello” World
after: “Hello” World

before: I’m here
after: I’m here

before: dots…
after: dots…

Isn’t it more natural looking this time? Thank goodness I did.

Cross-linking
I’m using a different plugin this time for making cross-links to posts within my blog. Using the new one will make it link directly to the permalink instead of having an ugly *index.php?name=postname* url. This also avoids my problem of self-trackbacks when linking to my own post.

before: http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/index.php?name=gothloli
after: http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/archives/gothloli/

This is the main culprit as to why I’m gonna edit a LOT of posts, but I think this will be a permanent matter this time, so no more cleanups next time (I’m crossing my fingers).

Stupid Layout
I’ll never ever learn. See how weird the spacings are in the Categories section of the sidebar? And look how Blogroll and Hosted by sections have a dot on the title while others don’t. I SUCK at every kind of web programming. Look at the Meta section… it tells you that this blog is INVALID XHTML! MWAHAHAHA!

I also wanted to stretch this blog sideways because that gray area seems virtually unused, but heck I don’t know about HTML and CSS.

Anyway, those were just some of the stuff that concerns me today. While some are simply annoying, hey, I’m somehow getting to like this web stuff. Ultimate Blog Cleanup starts today, and I hope I can finish in a week’s time. Adios for now.

UPDATE: Thanks to Kabitzin, I learned a bit more about how CSS works! Thanks! The Blogroll and Hosted By sections do not have the annoying dot anymore… YAY! One more problem… the weird category spacings. Go me!

UPDATE 2: Never would have thought that making the blog wider would solve my category spacings too. This is nice enough, I’ll stick to this layout for a while.

Futakoi Alternative

Futakoi Alternative

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[Futakoi->] was ok, but it seemed that the fans were not quite impressed with the first series. After all, Futakoi is a huge franchise of Dengeki G’s, composed of magazine features, albums, merchandise, and games. Having loved the CG illustrations of Futakoi, they seem to be disappointed with the bland look of the first series. Now, Futakoi Alternative, the second anime series based on the franchise, aims to make disappointed fans believe in the power of the anime medium again. Are they successful?

Futakoi Alternative started off EXPLOSIVE! True to the concept of Alternative, the 6 twins of Futakoi now hold a powerful arsenal of military apparel in the opening sequence. How about that? These are moe~ girls with guns and firepower! Episode 1 was equally powerful, as it pits now featured twins Souju and Sara with this guy named Rentarou in a whole lot of action-packed mess. Really, it was a fast-paced, kick-aaa episode, with high-class animation quality no less. For fans, it is a dream come true already. But the greatness never stops there. While not as action-packed as the first and last few episodes, the middle episodes feature yet another Alternative, dramedy.

The episodes fully describe these three characters, from the main viewpoint of Rentarou. The main theme of this series is “the three of us”, in which Rentarou, Sara and Souju face trials of everyday life as being the three of them, together. Sometimes funny, sometimes filled with sadness, they continually try to survive their everydays. The character development of these three are SO detailed, you might think Gainax helped ufotable in making this anime. Also, Futakoi Alternative seems to hit on anything anime culture had in store, including its [own->futagozuka] and some popular [anime->squid-no-jutsu]. Even Onsokumaru (some yellow ball character in ufotable’s 2×2 Shinobuden) is there in cameos. And as I mentioned, the numerous [Gainax->ufotable-and-gainax] references that seem too good to be true (even a Human Instrumentality Project parody was part of the plot).

This anime also has an incredibly interesting slew of new characters aside from our Futakoi girls. The whole town is filled with interesting people. The craziest policeman in an anime, as well as a generic fat sidekick, then a baker girl, a biker sidekick of Rentarou, a seemingly yakuza leader with a metal arm, and his gang of thugs really colorize this weird but peaceful town of Nikotama. Even a polar bear appears sometimes, and of course the main enemy which is the squid. Wait, are we missing the twins yet? [Kira/Yura->gothloli] and [Lulu/Lala->futagozuka] are the twins with secondary focus in this anime, while Kaoruko/Sumireko, Ai/Mai, and Ui/Koi were seen only in a few. While they have short appearances, theirs are quite meaningful in a variety of levels.

As episodes unfold, “the three of them” are starting to break up because something big is going to happen after Sara and Souju’s 16th birthday. This results in high levels of drama, where the three try to define what really is their relationship to each other. Rentarou, being the immature poor guy who only lived in the shadows of his legendary father, struggling through the everydays with the twins, is often in this monologue. This in effect develops him greatly as a character. This kind of character development is so detailed it’s rare, more so considering he is a male character. Normally we loathe all those dorky male leads in bishoujo animes right? Well well well, this time there’s something to like in this particular one at least.

Having action, comedy and drama in one package requires lots of creative styles, and Futakoi Alternative did not disappoint. From the consistent animation, each variety of [music->musical-surprise], and creative direction. Futakoi Alternative reeks of quality. Never thought something so “alternative” could be so good, and considering the cross-genre boundaries broken by this anime, I’ll be excited to think that anime shows may be getting more innovative these days. We need more anime like this.

imageThis is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Musical Surprise

There are some times when you feel awesomely about an anime character. Mostly, you feel awe when some shounen character makes some cool new action moves.

Me? I feel awe whenever I see an anime character play a musical instrument.

It’s just my own outlook, but whenever an anime character know some musical expertise, I feel like they put themselves out of character for a little while, and it’s cool. More especially, if I never saw that coming.

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 5:

This is Souju in an entirely different aura. This scene of her playing a guitar seems so unbelievably sentimental. You can imagine how Alternative this anime is. One day they run around, do spying, cooking, and cosplaying gothlolis. Then here is Souju, playing guitar. According to the episode, the song is Daisy Fitzgerald’s Unitable Dream. Although I swore I have heard that kind of guitar pattern before, I never knew whether it was a rendition or an original. All I would realize is that in our real world, a novelist named F. Scott Fitzgerald had written a novel called The Great Gatsby, in which one of the main characters was apparently named Daisy.

Taken from Mahoraba 20:

Now this is the surprise. Momono, yup that rowdy girl who drinks beer everyday… a pianist! And hear this… Sayoko, the incompetent and slow mother… a violinist! They played a classical music combo for a school festival… and they are nothing short of amazing! I could still understand Momono, having that sweet soft side at one point of the series, but heck Sayoko. She would have made a living with those l33t violin skillz! What a waste of talent.

It was pretty hard to get the name of their musical piece. Only by watching the scene n times did I realize that the announcer did state the name of the score. But it was pretty hard to make out because while the announcer was speaking, Mahiru’s genki maid was shouting! What did I get? Something that sounds like “Medilsohn”, “violin” and a number “64”. Thanks to [Bagle->]’s amazing search capabilities (hehe), I got directed to the real score… Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64!! Yay me!

Futago Hime dances

Sorry I’m not too good at making animated gifs. These images are quite big…

Anyway, Fain and Rein… dance! They dance a lot, but actually they’re not good at it. They even trip and fall in dance parties! Well, at least they have these. Weird, but still cute, dances that they know best. Now, start the dancing revolution!

More dances at [Futago Hime dances 2->]


The iya-iya dance!!! (Episode 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 13, 15)
iyaiyaiyaaaaan~~, iyaiyaaaan~~
Continue reading Futago Hime dances

Horie Yui

Well, she’s just one of the few seiyuu I find beautiful, on certain angles and levels of make-up though. It’s undeniable that she is one of the cutest and most popular faces in the industry, and she has that extremely distinct voice that is instantly recognizable. I have already seen a LOT of anime with her voice on it. I like her songs too.


These are some shots from a certain School Rumble Live Concert. She sang Scramble and Feel My Feeling in these two shots, along with other songs. Well, she’s cute here with the gothloli outfits and all, but she didn’t sing well in Scramble. Having her jump around and dancing made her voice a bit skippy at times, but I enjoyed the live rendition of Scramble. In Feel My Feeling, I feel like her voice is a bit off at some notes.


This is from the same School Rumble live, singing School Rumble 4Ever, along with 3 other female seiyuu. I enjoyed this performance! She has a nice outfit here too. The musical notes in her dress… liked it.

Apparently some groups are kind enough to share many anime/jpop promotion video goodies to the public, I’m thankful to them. Please support them as much as you can.

More PVs meant more Yui Horie for me, so here’s some more!


This is a music video called Sakura. Apparently it’s from her first solo album, which is virtually unknown to me surprisingly. Seeing that in that album there is another version of Yakusoku (my all-time favorite Love Hina song), I feel deprived of information. Sakura as a music video… isn’t too good by jpop standards, but oh well, it isn’t aimed at mainstream anyway.


Okiniiri no Jitensha looks like a very refined PV. On the flip side though, dunno why, but I didn’t like her in this one.


All My Life, the OP for Mao-chan, is a simple PV. If you ask me it’s trying to be jpop mainstream but as always anime-related stuff rarely succeed when they do that.


Do I have weird taste? Just tell me. This is Kirari Takaramono, the Love Hina Again OP. And… I liked it. I just like those scenes where she sings in an 80’s microphone and dances around (it’s much like the School Rumble PV). This kind of fun, hectic, and wicked energy is just what anime PVs should be.


Here’s a promotion video for Sister Princess, she sings Love Destiny here. Not bad a music video, not too good either.


She’s in a live concert here, singing again Love Destiny… wearing some sort of school uniform. Kinda in-fashion for that otaku crowd, they like her a lot apparently.


In the Fruits Basket DVDs, she has some sort of omake interview show, where she’s the host and she interviews the three main male seiyuu of Fruits Basket. These are kinda interesting segments.


This is an Ultra Maniac making-of interview. On the left is Kanda Akemi, a bit of a newcomer seiyuu back then.


Another PV, this time from the anime Da Capo. In the anime she plays Shirakawa Kotori, one of my favorite bishoujo game characters. It would have been interesting if she had a PV for Soyokaze no Harmony (a very beautiful song), but this (Pureness) is kinda a consolation.


And another PV, this time from School Rumble. The song is Scramble, a joint with a certain ska group named Unbalance. I have to admit that this is one of the best anime PVs I’ve seen so far because of its style, plus the catchiness of the song itself.

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

Pi pi ru pi ru pi ru pi pi ru pi….

Meet Dokuro-chan. She’s an angel… who carries a bat with spikes called Excaliborg (something like that). Therefore, she is Beat-to-death Angel Dokuro-chan (translation of the title). The main point of this anime? Beat this one guy to death.

The poor guy is named Sakura. Yup even boys can be named C kura. Dokuro-chan is actually an angel sent on a mission to kil, Sakura, but she always would fail to really kill him because she likes him. Dokuro-chan always beats him to death, and yet brings him back to life afterwards with her “pi pi ru pi ru pi ru pi pi ru pi”. Well then that it basically…  The reason why Heaven wants Sakura killed is because it is forseen that in the future he will discover how to be young forever. Sakura, apparently, is a lolikon, so he wants a world of loli. So heaven don’t like that ok?

Bah, who cares about the plot? What we have here is over-the-top, fast, and crazy anime comedy. What if you mix something like Jungle Guu and Elfen Lied? Or maybe mahou shoujo with bloodbath? Yup your dreams come true with this anime. Plus you have all the sexy loli you’ve been looking for (I’ve been looking for? hehe). The animation is really good, varied, and crazy. Some anime producers really have some kind of imagination in pulling this off. Of course, the beat-to-death part gets old as fast as the guy that’s always dying in South Park, but still the other stuff are funny.

Anyway this is some anime. As if still not pushing the boundaries, there are still stuff left censored, like the extreme bloody beat-to-death parts, which are replaced by an on-screen advertisement to buy the DVD. So, people would buy the DVD and see the real uncensored score in those scenes. Despite some of those censorship, this is still bloddier as… well… any other anime out there. The seiyuu starring in this are surprisingly recognizable, and the OP is very very “pi pi ru pi ru pi ru pi pi ru pi”-catchy. So what are you waiting for? Anime like this is rare.

Episode 1-2:
So some setting ups in these first episodes. How Dokuro-chan is introduced to Sakura-kun’s class. The funny thing is, the class weirdly accepts all those crazy stuff as normal! We got a classmate who suddenly disappeared from her seat, and a class president who turns into a monkey!

On the second episode, Sabato-chan is introduced. She is out to kill Sakura-kun because Dokuro-chan can’t do it. We also learn about Sakura’s lolikon drive here.

Episode 3-4
Episode 3 is not too much about the main characters because it is about this meganekko Chiyuri-chan who likes a fellow male classmate, and so Sakura and Shizuki work together to try to bring them close in a study session. Well, Dokuro-chan is also there to fool around, but after knowing of their plans, she also agreed to help… somehow.

The fourth episode deals with Sakura and Shizuki’s movie date! Yea! Until… Dokuro-chan came and mess things up again. And what’s worse… Sabato appeared in the movie! All the violent chaos ensues while Shizuki eventually left the cinemas… Sakura-kun… baka!

Episode 5-6
These episodes are about a certain class field trip in the woods. First part is the one with the school mizugi! Shizuki-chan and Dokuro-chan mizugi… school swimsuits banzai! Hehe ok, then Sakura-kun gets more punishment not only by Dokuro-chan, but by his double-crossing classmates. He was forced to eat some poisonous curry. Poor lolicon guy.

The second part includes the much required kimodameshi (test of courage). Dokuro-chan wants to pair with Sakura so she turns another classmate into a dog (it’s dog vs. monkey now). During the game, a classmate says Shizuki-chan is lost, so Sakura is off to find her. He finds her, then some sounds scared them off a bit, but it’s just the wandering Sabato-chan.

Episode 7-8
Last episodes, but they’re kinda weak. It’s all about Dokuro-chan’s little sister, Zakuro, and she’s come to take her sister back to the future. Very typical farewell episode, and since it’s typical, you might guess right what happens at the end. You know, being a bit dramatic doesn’t fit too much in this anime, although the usual comedic and bloddy parts were there. I watched the TV version though so there were a hell lot of censorship. Maybe this would be more enjoyable when uncensored.

Anyway all-in-all, it’s been a bit of a fun ride, after all the anime is only four regular episodes long. Towards the end it got kinda boring, but the energy remains the same. Funny, fast, moe-cute, and heck of a bloddy anime this is. Weird combination, but well it worked.

Uta∽Kata

Uta∽Kata

I would regard Uta Kata to belong to the bishoujo-mahou-shoujo genre, much like Nanoha. Unlike Nanoha though, despite the radically colorful hair and beautiful Kiddy Grade-like animation, this series is dark. It’s kinda fun for some 1/2 of the series but turns real dark the next. So much for mahou shoujo.

So, basically Ichika is your regular girl in the puberty stage. Not a girl, not yet a woman. Suddenly Manatsu comes out from a mirror and into her life. Ichika was also given some kind of amulet where she utilizes the power of the Djinn… gods of the elements of sun, moon, earth, water, flame, heaven, wind, flower, lightning, darkness, sea, and mirror. At the same time she is experiencing many changes in her life, as she is in between childhood and adulthood. Well, guess what? This is all a test.

At the same time, she is experiencing seven virtues, and the equivalent seven sins of humanity. As if it mirrored itself, the events that used to be good was now inverted to bad. This seems to be a misleading concept. If the mirror reflects the exact same thing, why in Ichika’s case it reflects the reverse? The existence of Manatsu in her life somewhat fills the void. Manatsu is the ‘other side’ of Ichika, and from the very start of this fated summer, she has been there to look over, or guide her, into this test.

So, the test is experiencing the world. But for what reason? The real test is yet to come, which I will not spoil (as if I’ve not spoilt enough). In any case, the answers may surprise you, especially me. My interest in human behavior and philosophy sparked my interest in this anime. While not strong enough a material, it conveyed the point of the matter through random situations and character development. It’s a short series, but it could have been more.

Again, the animation is great. The art is from that Gatekeepers/Kiddy Grade guy, but a whole bunch of popular anime/manga artist kinda pitched in for the costume designs of Ichika. There are 12 mahou-shoujo costumes from 12 artists, conveying the 12 powers of the Djinn. Kinda like Cardcaptor Sakura? Nah. Anyway the music here is fine, but forgettable.

There will be an OVA for Uta Kata, so I figure this is not the end of it yet. As it says on the last scene… the seasons rotate. This has been Ichika’s unforgettable summer. Come to think of it, the whole series is an entire flashback…

Uta Kata OVA
Finally watched the OVA. Basically, it just tied up the loose ends of our ever-endearing yuri and yaoi couples, and how they are able to move on. This brings the stories of Ichika and friends to a happy closure.

What’s next? The mirror remains, and the test will go on, maybe targeting another youth in the verge of being adult. Uta Kata 2? Hopefully.

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