Posts Tagged ‘To Aru Majutsu no Index’

Anime Log

January 25th, 2011

All stuff I watched today. Yes I really watched that much.

To Aru Majutsu no Index uh latest 2 episodes
FRIGGIN. AWESOME. UGH. Awesomest anime ever.

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka Episode 01

OMG! Mahou shoujo with a chainsaw! BEST. IDEA. EVER.

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka Episode 02

“Yes, I’m a vampire ninja.”

This anime really has everything… lol.

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka Episode 03

Why is this anime so nice. The title sounded so stupid too.

I hope all Winter 2011 animes are as good as this.

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Episode 01

O. M. Effing. G. What everybody said about this anime was right.

Crap. Yuki Kajiura music is unbelievable. There’s nothing I can say against this anime. MUSIC IS AWESOME… ughhhh

I love the pencilly linework. It makes the artwork of this anime look really special and nice!

Ok time for my lame commentary.

From far away Madoka reminds me of Luna(r). Of course huge personality gap. Akemi’s personality reminds me of purple-hair whatshername from Bakemonogatari.

My headphones aren’t high-quality enough to enjoy Yuki Kajiura’s awesome BGM… you need like $500 headphones to give the BGM the quality it deserves XD;

Strange magical creature makes me miss Yuuno. But it’s so ugly.

Interesting anime that functions unlike any other as a masterpiece of art. However as for catering to the masses, I’m not sure this anime will enjoy popularity (but then again, look at series such as Haruhi etc).

SIDE NOTE: Browsing the recommendations and reviews on MAL really gives an indication of how deep and thought-provoking animes really are.

Also watched 3 episodes of Kurenai today. The impression I got from whatever anime reviews I read that made me start this is totally different from my judgement of the actual anime. I initially hated this, but it’s not so bad. No action or romance, or school life, or any generic themes at all. I guess that makes Kurenai kind of a strange anime… “genreless” if you will.

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December 13th, 2010

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sometimes

October 29th, 2010

The Organized Blog Post of Sunday, October 24/29th, 2010

Tagline: “Efficiency — a month of blogging in a single post!”

Blog

So Tim commented on this post from over a year ago, which sent me an email alert reminding me of the existence of my blog. From there I wandered into this post. Among all the other amazing posts from a year ago that stemmed from my illustrious genius (sarcasm).

I wish I could return to my prolific blogging habits from my sophomore year. It felt really good to bring out my thoughts, and at the end of the day, it gave me a feeling of having contributed to society — a feeling of general productivity, I suppose, which I can’t attain from games or anime or television.

As I return to this half-completed post, two days ago I got my computer infected with a virus (I knoww! ME, the total computer geek, with a virus?!), and life has generally been sucking. Well, that’s to be expected. Perspective, Ben, perspective. Your life rocks.

Anime Music

I have had no time for anime. And although this Fall 2010 season is a major exception, modern anime has been uninteresting for the most part. And of course the one interesting anime season would happen when I’m at the busiest point in my life. Tsk.

That was my short two-line spiel on anime. I won’t bother going into more detail (no time + no interest). However… anime music lately has been beyond awesome. Faylan’s last vision for last (if you remember, they did the remarkable OP for CANAAN a few seasons ago) is number one here. I was immediately obsessed with the TV-size version; however, upon hearing the full version it didn’t seem that great anymore. It is still a good song, nevertheless. My favorite part is when all the drums, guitars, etc all die out and leave just the piano and her singing. Maybe the animation that accompanied the song in Hyakka Ryouran was the reason for this.

Speaking of opening sequences, the opening of Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai / The World Only God Knows is the best this season. I usually hate english lyriced songs, but everything just fits together so perfectly in that intro sequence. I especially like the logo at the end, where the kanji “kami” (god) does that uhh weird thing (sry for dropping out of ap english o_O).

I also like irony by ClariS, from Ore no Imouto ga Konna Kawaii Wake ga Nai (the anime about Tim and Dorothy’s daily life). I can’t quite put my finger on what I like about the song. It’s cheerful, both in melody and in lyric, and somehow deep (even without trying to interpret the lyrics into native byte-code). I really love the name. It’s not very often that Japanese artists name their songs well (SERIOUSLY. UGH. one of my biggest gripes with asian music.) so it’s nice to see a short, sweet name for this just-as-sweet song. I feel like translating the lyrics for this song (but it’s probably already been done twice overby Words of Songs lol).

eufonius’s new song for Yosuga no Sora is nice, but it’s too similar to all of their previous works (Apocrypha, Mag Mell come to mind, along with the ef songs). They use the same instrumentation on all of their songs, and the same melodic phrases/chord progressions. The original conception was brilliant, but repeating the same formula over and over again wins them no points in my book.

New Fairy Tail songs are okay, but I’m saddened at the removal of Mikuni Shimokawa’s outro song. Sora no Otoshimono‘s opening isn’t as catchy as ring my bell, but I remember it was okay (can’t remember anything about the actual song).

I am very dissappointed in To Aru Majutsu no Index II ‘s music. I was looking forward to an outro song bu IKU more than I was looking forward to the actual anime. I’m saying that seriously. The OP by, whoever it’s by, was nothing special either. I guess I was impressed by the content of the actual anime, though. Since I read the novel, and know what will happen, I’m actually more excited after each cliffhanger/episode.

I know there are many brilliant animes this season, but I am already being crushed by what I have on my watchlist right now, so I will put most of this season off until last year. Yes, that includes Bakuman.

Life

fml.

Website

I’m thinking of moving the leafwood.net servers off of my home network. First of all, bandwidth and cpu/disk access from site visitors often hinders my normal computer usage. It’s annoying when suddenly the computer freezes up while I just had a good idea for my english paper, et cetera. Next, I would like to reduce the power consumption of my computer and increase its operating lifetime by not keeping it on overnight or while I am at school. Seriously, my computer is pretty new, and it already feels like it’s five years old. Things are breaking and crashing every other day. Finally, a dedicated server would provide faster access/ping times and high speed bandwidth, which would be nice to have in case we ever need to upload, say, large music files or video files (e.g. for songwriting or moviemaking).

I’m not quite sure how I’d pay for the server usage though. I would ideally want a package at less than ten dollars a year. I don’t need much bandwidth, and PHP and MySQL are pretty much the only server features I need. I wouldn’t even really need SSH access (although it would be nice). Any donation offers? :D

Other Music
so touhou

I can’t frick-ing (LOL Frick… sry inside joke) get enough of Touhou music. It started from a random post on an anime blog with a random link to a lame Touhou fan video (it was a parody stand-up comedy thing… very wtf weird). And then I heard the ending song at the end of the video, and it was all downhill from there~

One gripe is that not all Touhou music is equally good. In fact, most songs suck incredibly. But it’s very fun picking out the awesome ones and listening to them on repeat for five hours.

The Touhou characters and the setting of Gensokyo is also extremely compelling. I read one of the mangas, Silent Sinner in Blue in one night. Well, it was short. But I’m amazed at Touhou, and more amazed at Japan and its Touhou fans that have brought the game to such international fame.

I know this post was a bunch of meaningless crap. And I still posted it like four days late. Good thing all anime-containing posts are hidden from the front page o_O

The Anime Post

October 14th, 2009

11eyes Episode 02 – More characters! More confusing plot! More ugly enemies to slice up, more cool-looking animation~! Awesome anime. I don’t understand ANYTHING that’s happening, but the visuals make it appealing enough. I don’t know whether or not I should go into a more in-depth summary. Ah fine, I will. Slightly.

Okay, so… um… his sister is not dead? Or… she… came back to life? Or were they hallucinating? And… what’s with everybody else? The romance between Yuka and um… Kakeru-kun is cute, it feels like Shakugan no Shana as I’ve mentioned before. Who is the weird white-haired girl? Who is the girl trapped in the crystal? Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys!? Who the hell is everyone, and what the hell is going on!?!?

This anime is fun, because nothing makes sense. A+ or AA. [7/10]

こばと / Kobato Episode 02 – waiting for gg’s subtitles.

聖剣の刀鍛冶 / Seiken no Blacksmith (The Sacred Blacksmith) Episodes 01 ~ 02 – Me and Hanchan were laughing at and making fun of this anime back in the beginning of Summer 2009. Are they going to show us 30 minutes of video involving an old man hammering an anvil? Hahaha, what else could an anime about a “sacred” blacksmith be about? Ahahaha!

Well, we were wrong (lol). This is actually quite an interesting anime. The lead female is really cute. She sucks at fighting, but her personality and looks make up for it. The lead male is very cool, and his assistant is loli enough to make this a complete anime. The plot I cannot judge yet, however. I pray to Haruhi for a good plot. A or A+. Actually, maybe I’ll give it an AA for the cool OP/ED. [6.5/10]

Also, I watched today:

宙のまにまに / Sora no Manimani Episode 09 – This episode was so boring. Normally Sora no Manimani is a lot more hilarious than this, but this episode suddenly, randomly, quadrupled the cast, and it wasn’t really funny. It won’t make me discontinue Sora no Manimani, but I’ll want to finish it less.

とある魔術の禁書目録 / To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) Episode 07 (rewatch) – Wow. This anime is somehow better than I remembered it. Why is the rewatch twice as enjoyable than the original time around?

I remember the first time I watched Index, and I didn’t think it was that good. Well, maybe that’s because it was right after I watched a bunch of SS/SS+ ranked animes like Nanoha or Haruhi or Lucky Star or something, I don’t know. But wow, now that I’m rewatching in HD, I totally appreciate the visual effects. Index is so much more appealing too (originally I started hating her after maybe episode 04), although Misaka and Touma still go better together. I think I’ll watch an episode a week alongside Railgun. I found I forgot most of what happened in Index (well, it has been a couple years), so rewatching this is fun.

I need to rewatch some more animes that I really loved. For example, my very first anime, Cardcaptor Sakura must deserve a rewatch. Tsubasa isn’t quite over yet, but maybe I’ll rewatch some other CLAMP works. I’d also rewatch Nanoha, and KyoAni things like Haruhi, although for Haruhi I’m planning on watching everything together, on Blu-ray, once everything is done and over with and the Blu-rays come out.

Short anime update

October 9th, 2009

Again, I’ll make these as short as possible. (Some of them really deserve long/er, though.) As usual, click for high-resolution versions.

こばと – Kobato

Kobato

Kobato

CLAMP work (read: From the makers of Tsubasa, Cardcaptor Sakura, Code Geass, X, Chobits, etc etc etc.)

This is what Japanese humans do at parks in the spring. *nodnod*

This is what Japanese humans do at parks in the spring. *nodnod*

I’ve never looked into the manga for this, and I watched the first ep without really knowing what to expect. Well, I must say. I was totally amazed. Another dazzling CLAMP success.

Above all else, the excellent animation quality, voice acting, etc… the best part of this episode might have been Kobato’s singing. The intro and outro songs were also both spectacular (and I found the ED animation interesting, lol).

This anime is mostly humor, so there’s nothing to interpret or discuss here (that’s why the next post is so much longer than this one, lol). Highly recommended anime, although we’ll see how the next episode turns out.

This is what hell looks like.

This is what hell looks like.

Her singing is beautiful.

Her singing is beautiful.

空の落し物 – Sora no Otoshimono / Heaven’s Lost Property

Okay… all the characters are cute and well-rounded. The characters are probably the best part of this anime.

Sugita Eishirou

Sugita Eishirou

At least it won’t be the plot. The first half of episode 01 took place at school, and I found it an extremely hilarious school life comedy. I especially liked the (male) character of Sugita Eishirou (at right). He’s so weird and quirky, and he gives off that Mikhail (Macross F) feel, especially with the hair, speech mannerisms, and glasses.

The protagonist’s view towards life is fascinating. I believe it will be either a main part of the story’s theme, or it will be something that the protagonist will forget during the course of the story, and the in the end, he will remember his original perspectives and reflect on them.

(the translation makes this sound lame.)

(the translation makes this sound lame.)

His view towards life is compounded by the fact that he acts extremely childish. I suppose that’s a fun type of main character to have, but it does become annoying at times. His personality is so totally immature, it seems this anime will be a meaningful watch, if we get to follow the development of this guy’s life.

Smart.

Smart.

Also, I love Student Council President characters (and yes, it’s Hina’s fault), and this anime has an interesting President as well (at right). The opening wasn’t aired for the first episode, so I don’t know whether or not there will be any more characters, but this cast isn’t half bad. I’ve seen worse.

Tomoki (protagonist) as immature brat who suddenly found a girl and now can do anything he wants.

Tomoki (protagonist) as immature brat.

Also, some romance would be nice. Girl at left is really cute (childhood friend characters ftw). The weird girl who fell from the sky (she’s the “Lost Property” I’m guessing?) is cute too, I guess, but her chest is too big and she’s too blank and empty to be very fun. Normally, in these sorts of stories, I guess the robot/fairy/otherwise personality-less (I’m thinking Rei/Evangelion or Yuki/Haruhi, those kinds of characters) falls in love with the protagonist and eventually develops a personality. Or not necessarily. Seeing her grow a personality out of thin air might be interesting.

Ooops... what was that about not being able to cancel orders?

Ooops... what was that about not being able to cancel orders?

11eyes

This may be last, but don’t let that mislead you. This is totally going to be the next Shakugan no Shana. I swear, the first episode looked that appealing.

The main character’s coolness is pleasant. The eyepatch looks really weird, but I don’t mind it. Hopefully he gets rid of it soon, though. His childhood friend is extremely cute and sweet. She’s almost a copy of whatshername from Shana… um…

Anyways, I don’t quite get it (and I like it when I don’t quite get it, because that foreshadows an wide, epic plot). Did his sister… suicide… or… what happened… and she killed him? or something? or what? And who is this girl? And who’s that guy? So many characters that we see in the first episode, and it’s going to be an enjoyable journey learning the pasts of these many characters, as I’m sure we will.

I don’t feel like adding screenshots. Go watch this yourself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This week’s Kampfer: boring compared to first episode. I hope they don’t keep this up.

This week’s To Aru Kagaku no Railgun: guys, I don’t care about Kuroko. She can go to the corner of her room and die a horrible bloody death for all I care. Why dedicate the second episode of the series to her? C’mon, start off the plot already! Isn’t that what the To Aru series is all about?

Side note though, I found Touma’s cameo interesting, but did this scene occur in Index? Wasn’t Misaka and Touma’s first meeting originally on a bridge? Actually, in fact, I don’t quite get the timespan and timeperiod of Railgun compared to Index. Is this during, before, or after most of the events in the Index anime?

Fall 2009

October 6th, 2009

Normally, after watching a really good episode, I would log onto MSN, double-click on the icon of Lelouch that happens to say “Hanchan” next to it, and rant to the computer for a half hour, annoying the heck out of Hanchan as a minor side effect.

However, that not only wastes Hanchan’s important time, but is also rather pointless, because it’s not like I’ll ever see my own rants again. I am the one who, in the future, will probably want to read my own thoughts and emotions during October of 2009, so instead I’ll rant more to this blog/diary.

After everything has aired, I’ll probably write a big pretty pictureful post about everything. For now, though:

生徒会の一存Seitokai no Ichizon — see Screenshot Festival — this anime is more Lucky Star than Lucky Star. Seriously, it’s like Lucky Star times 50, plus a lead male character. But seriously… this is a GOOD anime. It’s hilarious in its stupidity, and SO MANY anime references. I’m ashamed at myself for recognizing more than half, but there must have been >20 references in a single minute…

Also, the opening animation is amazing. All four of the main characters are also amazing (and they also remind me of the Lucky Star characters) and dare I say, better designed than Konata and company. Of course, only time can tell us whether this series will really be better than Lucky Star, but the funny thing is, in one single episode of Seitokai no Ichizon, they made like 20 references to Lucky Star itself.

This semi-review does not do justice to the hilarity of this anime. There is a reason this was my most-wanted anime for Fall 2009. WATCH IT. Now.

I wonder what her hair smells like when she fertilizes those flowers.

I wonder what her hair smells like when she fertilizes those flowers.

とある科学の超電磁砲 / To Aru Kagaku no Railgun – Dedicated post to this anime here. YES, it’s THAT unexpectedly awesome; it deserves its own post.

Watching the first episode of Railgun even made me go back and spend five hours rewatching part of とある魔術の禁書目録 / To Aru Majutsu no Index. Yeah, seriously. >__<

Official poster.

Official poster.

Okay, about the first episode itself… it was exactly what would be expected, I guess. The two new characters were really really cute and awesome, and Misaka was cute as usual. I really don’t like Kuroko still (she is cute, but her voice and personality are extremely annoying), but the other three main characters make up for her. As for the railgun scene… I feel they could have made it even MORE cool and awesome. I mean, all it did was make maybe a 1m-deep groove in the street and flip a car into the air, right? Aren’t railguns supposed to way more powerful than that?

Nyan Koi! — um… I’m not sure what to say. It seems this series is from a semi-well-known manga, but it’s just… weird. Don’t get me wrong here, I love cats, but… um… this is just not my kind of anime. All the non-cat characters are pretty good (and Protagonist’s love interest is pretty cute too), but… wtf is with the cats…

Kämpfer — This was cute.

The lead male looks kind of lame-ish in his male form, but I admit, female version of lead male is pretty. At first, I liked the crazy red-haired girl, but the weird terminology and semi-stupid plot dictated that later in the episode, she was actually an ewwie weird shy glasses-girl who, through some weird plot device, randomly transforms. Same for lead male, he randomly transforms into a girl.

Other than “This is cute”, I guess I’ll refrain from any further comment. I doubt this will have any meaningful plot, and due to the presence of glasses-girl, I might not watch this just for the female characters anymore. This also doesn’t look like it will have a romantic resolution (typical for animes where one guy is surrounded by ten girls), so I might drop this too.

真 恋姫無双 / Shin Koihime Musou — Hmm… the first episode started off with an awesome rendition of the original season’s opening song, flower of bravery, by the voice actors of the two lead females from that season. That song was a really good song, and I enjoyed the seiyuu-sung version. The new OP was also up-to-par.

As for the episode itself… it felt too yuri. I don’t see why they focused on Bachou and Chouhi’s relationship for the first episode. Why didn’t they start off with introducing us to Ryuubi? Geez, Liu Bei is like the most important character in the original Three Kingdoms, so why must they keep us waiting for her? Tsk.

Well, standard Koihime humor. Standard Koihime episodic plot. Standard Koihime development. Standard resolution. It was so standard, it became boring, but I guess this episode was more to introduce the characters for those viewers who haven’t played the games or watched the original season.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu 2 — No good subs are out yet anyways, so I’ll finish up the first season before starting.

Sora no Otoshimono — watching this soon.

Okay, watched it. Here are my thoughts.

At first, the premise felt like ToLOVE-ru, and it does share similarities with that series. The characters are vibrant and colorful for the most part, although I do find the lead male to be somewhat too childish.

I’m not sure what to say about what happens in the second half of the first episode… the first half of the episode was superb, however. The characters were introduced in a pleasant manner, and our setting is also pleasantly described.

I now know what this series partially reminds me of. It reminds me of those Key animes, namely Air I think. The idea of the lead male searching “for a girl in the sky” is pretty much taken word-for-word from Air. The peaceful town and character designs are also in a typical Key style.

However, this isn’t a Key anime, and it possesses many characteristics that heavily set it apart from Key animes. For example, the humor is overdone, and it’s overdone rather nicely, I’d say.

The scifi-esque “angel” that can do anything… that’s just a lame plot device. This romance may turn out to be interesting, but personally, I’m don’t see the purpose of falling in love with what’s pretty much a robot. Maybe we’ll see some meaningful character development that will make me change my mind.

Inuyasha Final Act — might watch if I’m bored.

Instead of updating this post, I’ll just write another post 3 or 4 days later finishing up the rest of the animes I will watch, and then maybe a week later, write up a prettyful pictureful post.

超電磁砲 :: railgun

October 2nd, 2009

Railguns are cool. The light novels are the epicest little things ever; too bad I’m still not capable of reading a Japanese light novel yet.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun / とある科学の超電磁砲 : ANN / Wiki / JP Wiki

Railguns : Wiki / JP Wiki / JP Wiki: Railguns in Fiction

Official Websites: PROJECT-RAILGUN / PROJECT-INDEX

超電磁砲

chāo diàn cí pào :.:.: ちょうでんじぼう (choudenjibou)

超 	chāo		jump over, leap over; surpass
電 	diàn		electricity, electric; lightning
磁 	cí		magnetic; magnetism; porcelain
砲 	pào		gun, cannon
Intro and outro songs:

オープニングテーマ

「only my railgun」
作詞 – 八木沼悟志/yuki-ka、作曲・編曲 – 八木沼悟志、歌 – fripSide

エンディングテーマ

「Dear My Friend -まだ見ぬ未来へ-」
歌 – ELISA