Tag: moe

D.C. ~Da Capo~

D.C. ~Da Capo~

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Back in its time, Da Capo was one of those animes that probably instigated the new wave, a sudden outburst of the popularity of bishoujo games being converted into anime. The game was made by a company named [Circus->], and I can only imagine how big the Da Capo franchise is to them. With already 7 games (maybe more) composed of rehashes, fandisks, after stories and console versions, Da Capo is huge on the games front. Not to mention all those singles, drama cds, and manga serializations. Da Capo is as big as any [Dengeki G’s->] series such as [Futakoi->].

The anime is equally big. This is the very first bishoujo game based anime series that ever had a full season run of 26 episodes. And with 26 more on the way on its second season this summer 2005, it will very well be the biggest bishoujo game based anime franchise in history. Well that’s saying much, but how does it fair really?

Da Capo is not too bad, but it had its share of little faults here and there. For the first 7 episodes, the main episode is actually short in length, in favor of having a music video of a girl’s seiyuu after each episode. Those music videos were average, some horrible, but nonetheless a part of the Da Capo fandom. I have no complaints here, some seiyuu were [popular->horie-yui] and cute anyway. Many other episodes have a side story part focusing on a character or number of characters, which eats up the main episode’s time as well. While some of those side stories are interesting, others are just annoying. The recurrent figure in these side stories is a certain mysterious cat guy, but it never adds any coherence to the side stories nor does it add up to the main Da Capo story at all. Furthermore, there are two recap episodes in this anime. So much for 26 episodes you think?

Well, the latter half is where this series shines. The tone slowly changes from filler-comedy to pure classic drama involving the magic of the sakura tree. The characters in Da Capo actually live in a town where a mysterious power exists within the cherry blossoms. Because of this, our characters actually have some sort of magical affinity as a result. For example, one of the girls can actually read people’s minds, while another girl is actually a cat transformed in human form. These unique but weird traits haunt them somehow throughout this series, and is where the dramatic parts explode into. I tell you, the drama here is powerful, and that is definitely a treat.

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And my favorite girl? Mako! She rocks!

Of course, getting the good stuff like this requires you to go through 15 or so episodes of comedic and mindless filler, but the result will not leave you disappointed. Try out Da Capo. You may be disappointed with some parts, but in general I hope you will like it eventually. Besides, the second season is up for you to anticipate as well.

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This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

July Anime Season (Summer 2005)

This month, many of the series I’m watching will end. That gives me the right to add more new anime series to watch this July right? Wrong.

I’m lessening my load on watching anime, due to this thing called board exams, my road to go professional on my college diploma thingie. Hopefully, the fun should never stop in this blog (well at least for the summer season), because I’m gonna watch some anime this summer season.

Though I’m trying to lessen my watching load, the list looks so great, I’m having a hard time choosing what to watch.

It’s summer over there in Japan but actually it’s rainy season over here, so to avoid confusion (just my own confusion) I’ll call this the July Anime Season. Here are some of the series that interest me so far:

Da Capo Second Season – One of my favorite bishoujo game series has yet another anime! This time, I think it will be based on a manga serialization. A new character will be introduced, along with Nemu, Sakura and Kotori. I’m wanting another 26-episoder, but I think this will run for only 13.

Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid – Well, I watched both FMP series but I’m still thinking if I’ll follow it immediately. For one, this should be another great FMP because Kyoto Animation is gonna do it, so expect eye candy. On the other hand, this looks like your regular mecha action rather than the extreme Fumoffu comedy which I liked very much.

GUN x SWORD – I always skip action. I prefer to watch them in batches and marathons.

Ichigo Mashimaro – Been hearing good things about this from blogs and forums, so I’ll give this one a try. The girls are cute, in a unique way.

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Just watched a prologue video. Looks like a slice-of-life comedy about the girls’ normal and weird personalities, kinda like Azumanga Daioh. This is exciting. Plus, it has a stellar seiyuu cast for the 5 girls. I’m hyped now! Better read the manga!

Kamichu! ~Kamisama wa Chuugakusei~ – Looks nice.

Kidou Shinsengumi Moeyo Ken – This looks like harem and samurais.

Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo – Okay, so your wife is a magical girl. Big deal. Many anime guys have magical girls as wives or lovers. I wonder what will make me want to watch this.

Petopeto-san – Wow! The artwork looks extremely moe~! Some kind of welcome surprise this is, coz I’ve never heard of it.

SHUFFLE! – Oh, it’s this bishoujo game based series I was talking about a [while back->shuffle]. See my reactions over there.

Suzuka – Never heard of this before but some are saying that Suzuka is an excellent manga series.

DELIBERATION

Absolute Watch
Da Capo Second Season

Watch
Petopeto-san
Ichigo Mashimaro
SHUFFLE!

Watch Later
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid
GUN x SWORD
Suzuka

Watch Maybe
Kamichu! ~Kamisama wa Chuugakusei~
Kidou Shinsengumi Moeyo Ken
Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo

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.

Yogurting

Yogurting
Yogurting (Japan)

Who says Koreans can’t do moe~?

This looks like a nice Korean MMORPG that is about to come out. It has a very nice promotion video! The girls and the dancing is so cute, and the video itself is very stylish (felt like I wanna dance along!) If you want, try to find a video download here.

It’s a Korean MMORPG though, so I won’t expect myself to play this one (as if I even play MMORPGs). Looks like a magical schoolgirl setting too.


Update: Yogurting is being ported into Japanese! Hope of an English version is getting closer. These caps were taken from another promo video, over here.

Here in our country, lots of MMORPGs come from Korea, including the ever-popular Ragnarok Online. This game, and MMORPGs in general become so popular here, internet cafes just continue to pop around every corner, and they’re always packed full of online players. Thank goodness I ain’t bitten by the bug yet, or else money would disintegrate faster with all the subscription bills to the online games. I think if Yogurting would come here it would be a hit also, it’s kinda cute and all that. Don’t expect me to play it still though.

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This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Cardmaster Peach

Taken from Comic Party Revolution 9:

Surrender to my moe~ness, or die.

Taken from Comic Party Revolution 8:

mada mada dane

Taken from Comic Party Revolution 5:

Watch out [Sakura-hime->sakura-cosplays-again], there’s another girl referencing your original hoe~moe~ character this season!

Kinda nice, I’ve been waiting for this for years since the original [Comic Party->] anime never featured Mizuki in a cosplay. It even has a henshin (transformation) sequence!

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.

Popotan

Popotan

My…

On the surface it may be just a very boring bishoujo game-based anime full of nekkid bodies of the megane-ko onee-chan, a spunky girl-next-door, and a Komugi-chan-type cute little girl. Oh, also add in a cool/quiet Maid-san and a white pet-creature. Yup, Popotan addresses the needs of almost any type of moe~ complexed boys. On the surface you might find nothing but skin skin skin. It’s the most fanservice-ful anime around, but with very little ecchi to complement that. But despite all the ‘naked truths’ in the surface, I am impressed with the story structure.

The three sisters, a maid, and a pet travel across time and space… along with their house. They go to stay on that specific area for a few days, then ‘magically’ disappear again to another time and/or place. The main dilemma? They meet people, make friends with them, but because they are always ‘travelling’, they leave their newfound friends behind too quickly. Aside from that dilemma, they are trying to search for ‘someone’ as they travel, and they ask the ‘popotan’ (popotan~=tanpopo=dandelions) if the person is in that particular area. Yup, they can talk to flowers, and they also have some magical powers but they were never used too much in the anime. Anyway, the plot thickens when they start returning to the places they’ve already been to, but in a future time. The friends who were left behind, what would be their reaction to their abysmal return? And when they find that ‘person’, can they find the answers they were looking for? All of these combine to provide a very coherent plot full of drama. Yup, behind all the comedy lies beautiful drama. If Kokoro Library were ecchi it would be Popotan. That’s saying how nice the execution of this anime is.

The screencaps show only one of the sisters, Mai (the sisters together are ridiculously named Ai, Mai, and Mii, ring a bell?), because she’s the only one worth mentioning. She has the best personality in this anime, and she has the best stories (not to mention multiple episode counts dedicated to her). I like spunky girl-next-door types in anime (Mako from Da Capo also comes into mind), because they feature a more realistic female character viewpoint. Many other anime girls are very stereotyped and cliche.

So in summary, you would be in for a pleasant surprise when you watch Popotan. It is not as shallow an anime as you may think in the surface.

ANIMEME ALERT!
The opening video of this anime included a rather cute dance by Mai and Mii, which spawned the [Caramelldansen->http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/archives/animeme-caramelldansen/] meme.

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This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Kujibiki Unbalance

Kujibiki Unbalance

Nothing much to say. It has a weird premise (or maybe I just don’t get it).

Episode 1
A school which is basically organizing a bunch of challenge plays, group vs. group, probably to decide who gets to be the student council leaders. And so, our main guy Chihiro has been assigned by lottery (kujibiki) to be in the cooking room, having three girls as allies/groupmates of sort. One of them (Tokino) likes mushrooms too much. And so as preliminary they get into a cooking match with another group. The Chairman (yellow long hair) is personally there to see the match. And by luck, it’s a cooking match using… mushrooms! Well sadly, the group screwed up something. But in the very end, using a somewhat dangerous mushroom, they capture the Chairman’s taste buds and wins the match. Also, apparently the main guy and the Chairman know each other a while back, in the simple anime cliche of ‘promise girl’.

Episode 21
Shedding new light to the term recap episode, this is… a recap episode wherein we have never even seen the episodes it recaps. Considering how people tend to hate these kinds of stuff, but actually it isn’t quite bad when you think about it. This episode resulted into a fast-paced slew of comedy acts relating to all the lottery challenges that the team has faced. A soccer match, a net popularity challenge, hot and cold survival challenge, jungle shooting match, karaoke singing, swimming relay, mahjong, and dungeon RPG. We also see some sort of plot advancement, in which the Chairman met some evil-looking guy. That’s supposed to be next episode right? Too bad we have no next episode…

Episode 25
Some internal conflict I’m not quite sure of broke the team apart. It seems that they don’t wanna participate in the lottery matches anymore, so the four parted ways. It was already the finals, just when they are already close, they decided to call it quits. Chihiro (our main guy) went off to visit a grave, and saw Chairman/Ritsuko there. Again we see some kind of childhood promise scenes. Anyway, Rit-chan convinced Chihiro into not quitting the lottery, in which he agrees somewhat. But the other team members still seem not interested. Chihiro tried and convinced the three of them to reform their team, but they’re not interested anymore. Komaki is busy taking care of her siblings. Izumi is busy gambling again, and Tokino is simply not interested. But after a while of thought, they got convinced and the four are back to join in the finals!

Well that’s about it. There are 3 OVA’s of Kujibiki Unbalance, apparently listed as 3 key episodes out of 26. Let me remind everyone that, yes, this is the Kujibiki Unbalance that the [Genshiken->] crew has been watching throughout that anime series. Kujian used to be the anime within that anime, but now we get to see some episodes of it. I wish that we would see an actual TV series of this though. For now, it’s fun to look back at Genshiken and see how they discuss Kujian. Maybe I’ll be doing a rewatch anytime soon.

Now for the technicals… the OP is the same OP that was inserted into Genshiken. Featuring of course the song of the same name as the anime, probably the only UNDER17 song I heard that doesn’t seem overly cute. The seiyuu cast is surprisingly recognizable, and the animation is quite good in its own unique way. This looks like a fun anime, too bad we don’t see the entire series… yet.

New Kujibiki Unbalance
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Admittedly, I don’t know too much about the new Kujibiki Unbalance, a 13-episode series featuring a completely new story and art style, but almost the same set of characters. People have been telling me to steer clear of this title since it may not be as good as the first, which I currently am. Eventually I may give it a try, but since I am currently busy I should focus on some better anime.

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