Dagger

There should be a subbed version of the video posted on the site sooner or later. Check out [url=http://asosbrigade.com/auditions/a.php][u]this page[/u][/url] to listen to voice clips and vote on an English actress for Mikuru. To say the least, it sounds pretty... er, wild when taken out of context. :animeswea I voted for #2. Also, the source code messages keep changing a couple of times per day. ~Dagger~

[url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4241][u]ANN page[/u][/url] [which has a decent plot summary] This show is shaping up to be, by far, one of the best reincarnation stories I've seen. Its main problem is that it's very slow to get going. It took me months to work my way through the first seven to ten episodes, but by the time I reached the third disc, I couldn't stop watching. From the beginning, it's clearly a lovingly made series that promises to deliver a lot of character development. Despite that, it's hard to get wrapped up in. You have to wait a while for Fantastic Children to really sink its claws into you, but by the time you get there, it's absolutely worth it. It reminds me strongly of the adventure shows of yore, because of its writing and epic storyline as well as its retro character designs. One wouldn't think so at first, but this show can be a pretty intense experience. It's infused with a sense of tragedy--minus the viewer manipulation that pops up in a lot of other anime with depressing themes. Basically, I really recommend it. I wish they'd found a way to compress the beginning episodes somewhat, but if you're willing to sit through them, you'll be glad you did it. ~Dagger~

What is a closed thread?

[quote name='AzureWolf][COLOR=maroon']Isn't it a little late in the year to bother even calling it 2006?[/COLOR][/quote] It started airing in the fall, so it's easier than calling it Kanon 06/07. ;) ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=Convoy Butterfly][size=1] I have a question, though, how many episodes are out right now, and how many will there be?[/size][/QUOTE] Eleven episodes (plus a recap/special that doesn't really count) are out. Thirty-seven episodes have been scheduled. It's unknown whether that will be the show's entire run; some have speculated that it might take a break between arcs and end up being even longer. But it's also possible that they'll be able to cover the whole series in those episodes--most of that depends on how they pace the storyline in upcoming weeks. Basically, it'll be hard to tell until the anime writers get a little further along. If you want to know how many episodes are definitely being made, you can ignore all that blather. Thirty-seven's your number. Also, welcome to the party! :animesmil ~Dagger~

Kanon 2006 is based on a bishoujo game by Key, the makers of AIR. What's unusual about it (compared to other bishoujo game anime, of which there are many) is that it's a remake of sorts... in 2002, Toei produced a shorter anime based on the same game. Kanon 2K6 is vastly superior to the 2002 version, as it's being made by Kyoto Animation, the studio behind AIR, the second and third seasons of Full Metal Panic, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Needless to say, it's very strong in the visual department. The story: Yuuichi Aizawa moves in with his cousin Nayuki, who he often visited as a child. Gradually, his memory of those days starts to return, and it begins to seem as if every girl he meets has some kind of big secret. Or, to put it more concisely, Kanon = sad girls in snow. In many respects, I think Kanon is harder to buy into than AIR. Key--who are famous for their tearjerking scenarios--have a thing for heroines who act younger than their real ages or are otherwise eccentric. Of the three girls in AIR, only one of them is really childish, and there's a good reason for that. But Kanon has 5+ heroines to focus on, so the male-to-female ratio skewed in a more noticeable way, and the cute/weird/dumb behavior of the girls becomes overwhelming to the point of annoyance. The first girl to receive her own arc is Makoto--whose story, frankly, isn't all that great. But I think things are going to get much better from here on out, and I'd encourage anyone who enjoyed AIR to start paying attention to Kanon. Episode 12 was impressive and more engaging than anything else the series has given us so far. ~Dagger~

[url=http://www.code-geass.com/][u][url]http://www.code-geass.com/[/url][/u][/url] :animeswea My favorite part was when the source code (semi-subtly) referenced a big Haruhi fan by username. And when the Anime on DVD user groups changed to Haruhi-related stuff. Heck, the webmaster kept switching his name to Haruhi for a few seconds at a time. Brilliant marketing all around, really. :animesmil I assume the second season will follow the novels as usual... although it would be hilarious if they did some kind of Churuya + nyoro~n spinoff. ~Dagger~

ETA: [b]Best licensing announcement [i]ever[/i][/b]. [url=http://asosbrigade.com/][u]http://asosbrigade.com/[/u][/url] ------------------------------------ [SIZE=1][b]A big heads up:[/b] Haruhi Suzumiya seems to be licensed. That is to say, the bidding war is probably over, but we don't yet know who has grabbed it. Look at the front page of [url=http://www.animeondvd.com/][u]Anime on DVD[/u][/url] for a major hint. (The guy who runs the site has even changed to a Haruhi avatar, haha--darn him for knowing this kind of thing before the rest of us! :p) In any case, [url=http://asosbrigade.com/][u]this site[/u][/url] looks like the show's English front page... I guess we'll have to wait until the 22nd for more news.[/SIZE] ~Dagger~

Yeah, the first Kino book is out. I think the second one is coming out in... February. Or maybe March. Anyway, reading your post made me realize that I have to eat my words about not being interested in Seven Seas' new series--I totally forgot that they have Ballad of a Shinigami. :animeswea ~Dagger~

Tokyopop has released a couple of light novels (with [b]Kino no Tabi[/b] and [b]Scrapped Princess[/b] being the most notable of them). If you like Boogiepop, you'd probably like Kino as well. A couple of BL light novels have also been released over here, although they tend to have awful translations. Now, if someone brought over [b]Maria-sama ga Miteru[/b] or [b]The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya[/b], I'd be interested. I can't say I'm that excited about any of the upcoming Seven Seas titles, though. I just hope they keep putting out more Boogiepop. ~Dagger~

Episode 11 was lovely. Daddy Yagami managed to up his already high awesome quotient (when I looked at the 2ch screencaps, every picture of him was marked COOOOOL, haha). I also feel that in general, this episode was more exciting than its manga counterpart and created a stronger feeling of solidarity between the viewer and the police/investigation forces. [spoiler]My favorite part was when Daddy Yagami walked out of the Sakura TV station and saw the police arrayed there to block his face.[/spoiler] That's about as heartwarming as Death Note ever gets... L's mad [spoiler]phone-switching[/spoiler] skillz must be seen to be believed. I was also startled and impressed by how his seiyuu switched tones when he remarked that [spoiler]sending out those videos and so forth was very unlike the first Kira.[/spoiler] He perfectly conveyed an edge of childish petulance, as well as the sense that [spoiler]L would have been disappointed if his opponent had really turned out to be like that.[/spoiler] The strength of the voice acting in those few lines said volumes about L as a character. Anyway, the end of episode 11 brings us two major new characters: [spoiler]Rem and Misa.[/spoiler] (Just to warn you guys, I'm not going to go on tagging their names in future posts.) [spoiler]Rem's[/spoiler] seiyuu sounded appropriate, but I'm not sure about Aya Hirano as [spoiler]Misa.[/spoiler] She sounds too much like Haruhi... which is to say that her voice is too sharp. I always imagined [spoiler]Misa[/spoiler] with a cuter, softer voice (like Yui Horie, maybe). [spoiler]Misa[/spoiler] tends to be a big point of contention for fans, but I like her. Although she requires some getting used to, and it's easy to take her behavior at face value, I belong to the camp which says she's a lot more intelligent than she lets on. I also love the bizarre dynamic between [spoiler]her, Light and L[/spoiler] which comes later on in the series. At the very least, she's an entertaining character, and she's not just gothloli bishoujo eye candy. (Seriously!) ETA: Oh, and the next episode ("11.5") is going to be a recap. ~Dagger~

My feelings about the last disc can be summed up by the fact that I didn't even notice when [spoiler]Guenevere[/spoiler] died. Did that really happen on-screen? My mind must have been off in the clouds... oh well. And here's a pertinent question: why did Sue [spoiler]turn white[/spoiler] in episode 25? Totally bizarre. ~Dagger~

I went into the first volume of Ergo Proxy with lowered expectations, since I'd heard all kinds of things about the story going up and down and backwards and sideways and generally devolving into a mess. I still plan on judging it on its own terms, but it's hard not to let those kinds of things float around in the back of your head once you've read them over and over again. I saw the first episode back when it aired and understood maybe 5% of it. I was interested, but I figured I'd wait to watch the rest once it was released over here. I ended up listening to the dub, since the main performances all sound pretty strong, and Vincent is played by one of my favorite English VAs (Liam O'Brien

[QUOTE=bellpickle][SIZE=1] EDIT: Doublehex, to answer your question extremely late, I think Tybalt was the one who appeared right before the screen that says "Junichi Sato & Toyo Ikeda."[/SIZE][/QUOTE] That's the one. Very Sasuke-esque, no? I found a magazine scan that matched screencaps to the names of the characters; there's no Mercutio as of yet, unless they changed his name. Doublehex, the music is (as I learned on another forum) from the Romeo and Juliet ballet composed by Sergei Prokofiev. You can also hear it in Princess Tutu. :catgirl: ~Dagger~

Okay, still not on H&C II yet, but today I watched episodes 4-17 of the first season. It's odd--from the first episode, I recognized that it was excellent, but I didn't feel pressed to see more of it. Today I was bored out of my mind and had nothing else I felt like watching, so I gave episode 4 a whirl, and for whatever reason, it really grabbed me. I seem to remember it starting with something about the Rika and Mayama situation (yes, I forget things quickly), and that suddenly made the characters human for me. If this were a shoujo series, the viewer would be expected to sympathize with Ayu alone; its sophistication comes through in how it manages to hit so many different points of view. Either way, Mayama and Rika ended up being the first characters in Honey & Clover that made me feel something for them. Or maybe it's just that I couldn't fully get into the series until Takemoto started growing his hair out. :p Anyway, I'm going to be boring and say that Morita is a couple of levels above all the other characters. It took me a while to warm up to him as an actual character, as opposed to someone who just does funnily bizarre stuff all the time, but it seems as if that's how it's meant to happen. It's little surprise that he became my favorite after his insecure side started to come out: this sounds weird, but Miu, the best character in Strawberry Marshmallow (and the only reason I kept watching it), is practically his kindred spirit. As for supporting characters, I loooove Miwata, Nomiya and Morita's brother. And you were right, Panda--that was an epic game of Twister. :animesmil Since there's a second season, I'm assuming that the remaining episodes won't resolve the [spoiler]Takemoto-Morita-Shuu[/spoiler]-Hagu quadrangle. I actually wouldn't mind either a [spoiler]Takemoto or Morita ending, as long as Morita doesn't end up totally lonely and miserable, haha. Earlier on in the series, I thought he showed signs of liking Ayu as well as Hagu... might've been just me, though. But it'd really bother me if more happened on the Shuu front.[/spoiler] I don't hold anything in particular against him, but I still have trouble liking him. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Fasteriskhead]Although I could be proven wrong, right now it looks very much like Death Note is the winner. Code Geass finally broke down and did a comedy episode where [spoiler]the brooding teenage master schemer chases down a cat for ten minutes[/spoiler'] - clearly a fumble, the equivalent of an actor giggling during a play.[/quote] I think episode 8 of Code Geass brings them neck-and-neck again. The final shot--in which [spoiler]Lulu, accompanied by his masked minions, does his arm-flailing thing and declares himself the ultimate ally of justice[/spoiler]--is worth at least one Death Note [spoiler]tennis[/spoiler] scene. I would even go so far as to say that it verges on potato chip quality, if only because [spoiler]he names his crew the Order of the Black Knights.[/spoiler] [quote]Just out of curiosity, anyone know how much slash fiction and yaoi dojinshi has been produced by this series? Judging from the past two episodes I am willing to suspect: a whole goddamn lot.[/QUOTE] Hoo boy. Just wait till we get to the part when [spoiler]L insists on being handcuffed to Light 24/7.[/spoiler] (Which does sound pretty damning, but in the grand scheme of things, I stand by my position that Death Note has much less in the way of unintentional sexual tension than the average Shounen Jump series. Although the writer throws an exaggerated wink at the fangirls from time to time, there's nothing on the level of, say, Naruto/Sasuke. I'm pretty sure I'm not in denial about it, but you can be the judge of that...) Now, if I can con you into watching Kanon 2K6, I will consider my work complete. :devil: ~Dagger~

Do you have Siren? If you have her, get ST Med-RF (at least I think that's it, heh). I don't really know of any other way to get a Remedy+ except by refining regular Remedies... and it's such a simple process, at any rate, that it wouldn't be worth the effort to find them in any other way. ~Dagger~

Oh, yeah, about the trailer--the large version barely loaded for me, so I picked the smaller version and let it load & play while I puttered around somewhere else. If you use the rewind button and go back to the beginning once it's done, it'll play through smoothly. Which is definitely much better than watching it while it stops every half second. :p I forgot to mention this before, but Junichi Sato is credited as the sound director, which makes me wonder if they're paying particular attention to the acting or are planning on taking some kind of special approach with it. I was incredibly impressed by the ensemble acting in Red Garden (a current GONZO series); it would be wonderful if they could pull off something like that again. I think the lines in Red Garden were pre-recorded, which isn't the norm for anime. GONZO can pull out amazing animation when they feel like it, but consistency really isn't their thing. I suspect that they generate a lot of money by pumping out mediocre (and mediocre-looking shows), then spend some of that on higher-end shows that won't necessarily be big successes. You can usually tell when they're lavishing more attention on a series, though--in that sense, Romeo x Juliet would probably fall in the same category as stuff like Gankutsuou and Last Exile. It also shares several staff members with Kaleido Star, whatever that means. ~Dagger~

Well... not really. There was a lot that I personally enjoyed about them, but for other people, I would suggest a rental first. Although they're worth seeing just for the visuals, and I liked the characters, there's a lot of stuff in there that doesn't get the chance to even start developing. It's barely clear, for instance, why there's trouble brewing in the heavens to begin with. You'll spend a good portion of the story just trying to keep people's names straight, and I was almost finished with the second OVA before I finally noticed a key plot point. This is a case in which your mileage could vary significantly. ~Dagger~

No matter how you feel about Shakespeare (or, for that matter, GONZO), I defy you to watch the [url=http://www.romejuli.jp/g_move.html][u]trailer[/u][/url] for this show without drooling. Romeo x Juliet, like Studio GONZO's Gankutsuou, appears to be a futuristic and/or fantastical adaptation of its source material (set in Neo Verona, a city floating in the sky, and including what rather resembles a Pegasus of some sort). They've obviously taken some liberties with the story--for instance, Juliet now cross-dresses as a knight to fight against the ruling Montague family. (I'm not marking that as a spoiler, since it's in the trailer and other promotional material.) It seems as if they've got some great people on board for this project, and the trailer really is to die for. [strike]Also, Tybalt looks totally hot.[/strike] I don't think the series has a specific air date yet, but it should be coming to Japanese TV sometime in 2007. ~Dagger~

[spoiler]TENISU[/spoiler]!!!11!!1! Okay, so I still don't know where the budget went, but I really liked how the last few scenes of episode 10 played out. Daddy Yagami's comments about [spoiler]how the power to kill itself is what's truly at fault, and that any ordinary person who suddenly received that kind of power would be unfortunate[/spoiler] are more meaningful in the anime version because you hear him say all that while watching [spoiler]Light blatantly ignore him.[/spoiler] [spoiler]Light's inner callousness regarding his father's condition[/spoiler] is also more evident (or at least more distasteful to the viewer) than in the manga. As of this episode, they've started to speed things up a tiny bit (compared to the manga, I mean). I hope that's a sign of things to come. The [spoiler]Yotsuba[/spoiler] arc could afford to be trimmed down significantly. Anyway, I don't know if this is just me, but the ending of episode 10 gave me the sense that "this is the real beginning." Light and Ryuk's conversation, plus the music, built things up splendidly. I especially liked Ryuk's final remark about [spoiler]all past (human) users of the Death Note meeting with misfortune[/spoiler]--combined with [spoiler]Light's utterly blase and uncaring expression,[/spoiler] it was the perfect note to stop on. Episode 11 holds the promise of [spoiler][strike]Aya Hirano[/strike] MisaMisaMisa![/spoiler] I'm also anticipating the introduction of [spoiler]Rem.[/spoiler] ~Dagger~

[url=http://www.centralparkmedia.com/munto/][u]Munto[/u][/url] is a short (~50 minute) OVA about the crumbling of a world in the sky and its king's quest to recruit the help of a schoolgirl with psychic powers (what else?) to save it. The interesting thing about Munto, though, is that the schoolgirl in question [spoiler]never actually travels to the alternate world or whatever it is.[/spoiler] Instead, the emphasis is mainly on the contrast between her peaceful home life and the tumultuous wars in the sky. Given its length, Munto doesn't manage to have much of a story. Most of the characters and names are just trappings, and the conflicts taking place in the heavens are hinted at but not fleshed out. Thanks to good direction, though, it actually manages to feel pretty meaningful, even if the message is heavy-handed; there's a delicacy and honesty to it that impressed me very much. Munto 2 delivers more of the same, but it has rather more subtlety to it and does a good job in deepening the relationships between Yumemi and her friends. Where both of these OVAs really excel is in their visuals. Munto is nothing to sneeze at, but Munto 2 is basically a movie-quality piece. Kyoto Animation's work just makes you want to forget about the plot threads that go nowhere and revel in the battles and slice-of-life scenes (which are equally good as eye candy). Unfortunately, Munto 2 leaves things more open than its predecessor, so I hope that more gets made... although it would be weirdly fitting if that were the the real end, since [spoiler]it stops with Yumemi being carried away into the world in the sky; without the juxtaposition of the two worlds, Munto very well might not have a leg to stand on.[/spoiler] ~Dagger~

Woo, necromancy. :animesigh The thing about Argentosoma is that it would have been [i]so[/i] amazing as a twelve-episode series--heck, it could probably even have been cut down to a six or seven episode OVA without much damage to the basic story. The main storyline is strong and deals with some great themes, but as awesome as the twist in volume 5 is, it's not worth sitting through almost twenty episodes in which neither the characters nor the plot really go anywhere. I eagerly sat up straighter when I reached Ryu's [spoiler]breakdown[/spoiler] in episode 22--but it was way too late, if not too little. I'm almost tempted to say that Gasaraki compares favorably to Argentosoma, but this opinion could be colored by the fact that it's been a while since I saw Gasaraki, and also by the fact that I spent real money on Gasaraki (whereas I've just been renting Argentosoma). Both series have a certain dullness to their characters. In Gasaraki's case, though, this seems deliberate. In Argentosoma's case, there are many scenes in which they try valiantly to make the characters grab you and almost succeed, but somehow the connection never quite gets established. It has a lot of promising adult characters, and yet they end up falling flat. I do like Ryu and Hattie a lot... I hope the ending doesn't disappoint. ~Dagger~

Yeah, Labyrinth seems to be doing pretty well, although I don't really enjoy reading RPGs just for the heck of it. I do like how the posts use cards. I thought Mafia was a brilliant idea, but it faltered somewhat in execution. The thing about Mafia is that although it's a very well-known game for the most part, not everyone has heard of it. Plus, there are hundreds of variations on it floating around. None of this should have made it impossible to port it over into a successful online version, so to speak, but there should have been a clearer, "Idiot's Guide to~" type of explanation of the rules. I would also have suggested tweaking and streamlining the rules to maximize the amount of [i]visible[/i] discussion--private message conspiracies might be fun enough for participants, but for observers, it's not terribly interesting if it can't be seen. ~Dagger~

Yeah, Akira Toriyama hasn't done any long-running manga since Dragon Ball--he still puts out short stories once in a while, but I guess he mostly does game character designs and stuff now. I saw some clips from the Blue Dragon game when I went to a Play! performance this summer... it looked pretty different from this manga, but maybe that's because I only have the image of a little boy flying a plane or mecha or something stuck in my head. It seems like they're really pushing this franchise. There's going to be another Blue Dragon manga (Blue Dragon ST), drawn by Ami Shibata and serialized in Monthly Shounen Jump. I've seen stuff about there being an anime in the works, too, but I have no idea what people are basing that on. ~Dagger~