Oh my... what was that? I just watched the first episode of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) and just.. wow. Mind blown.
This is a fantasy anime about a human town surrounded by 50 meter walls to keep out the Titans who would kill them all if they had half a chance. Humans have lived peacefully within these walls for 100 years but Eren isn't so sure that is going to last.
First off, the art style is absolutely gorgeous. The backgrounds are beautifully drawn, the characters have so much depth and those thick lines? I love them. The entire thing plays like a piece of art and the music that plays throughout the episode fits so perfectly. This might be one of the first shounen animes I have seen that doesn't get particularly silly, bringing down the tone of an otherwise intense show.
And oh how intense! It contains deep themes, of containment that our main character, Eren, feels very strongly, and loss throughout. It's emotional and gripping.. It had me almost crying twice. Just in the first episode. And these characters are not all powerful. They are weak and helpless against the Titans, giants who feast on humans, and they know it.
Eren and his friend Armin long to join the Recon Corps. To go out there and fight, but they are ridiculed for it and told it's silly. But is it?
The opening theme sets the tone very firmly for the series. This is a serious shounen anime.
I highly recommend this one. We are looking at something wonderful here, guys. It is still ongoing too. And as it turns out? Directed by the same guy who did Death Note. Oh it all makes sense now.
Wow Tamako Market is a bit mental isn't it? Perhaps not by much of anime standards but when I tried to explain to my fiancé what the fuck I was watching I couldn't help but think, "Wow, Tamako Market is a bit mental."
See.. there's this girl who lives in her family's mochi shop, which as far as my British and unknowledgable brain can tell is a kinda of Japanese rice-cake dessert type thing, and she pops into the flower shop to talk to the woman with a man's voice and this talking bird falls out of the flowers onto her face at which point she sneezes and the bird thinks she's coming on to him. The bird talks. And seems to be a cockatiel. Called Dera Mochiyucky. So this bird rides on her head telling her, Tamako, about how he is on a journey to find a prince for his princess (or was it the other way around?) and pretty much constantly ends up dropped or choking, generally injured. Yet he finds himself wanting to stick around and gets fat on mochi. Oh and the boy across the street who lives in the enemy mochi shop seems to be in love with Tamako. Still with me?
When Dan asked the question: "So what was the catch of the episode? What was it about?" And I found myself unable to answer anything but, "Well.. I don't know. It was just fun." I knew I had to keep watching. Tamako Market isn't usually my kind of anime but the entire thing just made me smile so I'd call that a winner. If nothing else, watch it for the bird. He (at least I assume it's a he) is so funny.
I like to check out the currently airing anime from time to time despite having not watched many of the older titles and I've seen a lot of people talking about how they really enjoy Psycho-Pass so I decided to check it out. I'm only 4 episodes in at present so don't expect spoilers.
So far, I can tell you that Psycho-Pass is a cyberpunk anime set in the near future with the same kind of feel as Ghost in the Shell and perhaps a smidgen of Bebop (Kougami reminds me a lot of Spike). The main idea behind the world is that it is possible with the use of technology to instantly measure a person's personality and mental wellbeing, this shows their 'psycho pass' in hues, the cloudier their psycho pass is, the more likely they are to be labelled a latent criminal and the CID have the job of regulating people with high psycho passes to keep crime at an absolute minimum. Akane is a newcomer to the CID and has to battle with her conscience. On the one hand these people may not have committed a crime yet but on the other they are likely to and it is her job to bring them in for emergency therapy or worse if they are beyond help, meanwhile having to work alongside latent criminals whose job is to sniff out others like them and decide whether these enforcers are trustworthy, or should be treated like dogs as her superior tells her they are.
There's a lot of action, a fantastic OST and I adore the character interaction. Psycho-Pass definitely seems promising.
Opening Theme:
Ending Theme:
Hell it's rare that I like both opening and ending themes to an anime but as I said, Psycho-Pass has a fantastic OST. I'm definitely recommending this one, and that goes for those of you who think anime has become a bit crap in recent years as well.
Friday night (or we can call it early Saturday morning if you like) I finally finished watching Sword Art Online. I hadn't picked it back up after Christmas having chosen to watch a few Western series instead but I dived back in and watched those last 5 episodes.
The final verdict: 7/10.
Spoiler warning: Whilst I won't reveal the final plot points, I may talk about some major spoilers within the series. I'll do my best to keep it safe for new folk to the series but be warned that this is a series overview.
The SAO arc was amazing. I'm a big MMORPG gamer myself so the idea of these people getting into this amazing virtual reality fantasy MMO (VRMMORPG) and then becoming trapped in the world had me utterly gripped. My initial thoughts were how evil-slash-insane the creator of this game must be to trap so many people inside this game, and what's worse, make it possible for them to die in the real world if they die ingame or if their Nervegear (the virtual reality headset they use for the game) is removed. It's not perfect and Kirito our protagonist is most definitely a Gary Stu with all the girls falling for him and all the guys hating him for being a "beta-cheater", but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the opening theme, the will they/won't they between Kirito and Asuna, the different stories within the main story and most of all the epic fight scenes. the first 10 episodes were 10/10 for me.
However, the romance becomes a bit sickly sweet and when Kirito and Asuna take a break to get married and end up basically adopting Yui as their own child I had to balk at the ridiculousness of it all and how very 'fan-fiction' it was starting to feel. These are characters that are teenagers! I certainly didn't want to get married, settle down and have a kid at 16-17, and can't imagine many teenagers who would. It just didn't make sense. These particular couple of episodes were definitely a 5/10.
Then we have the ALO arc, in which a man named Sugou has claimed Asuna for himself and trapped her within his own game world, another VRMMORPG, in a birdcage at the top of the world tree which is next to impossible to reach the top of. The kick-ass heroine from the first arc becomes the weak, trapped girl, not to mention how terrifyingly rapey Sugou is. Then there is Kirito's little sister Sugu. Who is apparently.. I think she's actually his cousin? But they grew up as brother and sister. However.. considering he isn't technically her brother any more, of course she falls in love with him. And still calls him brother. And oh man dem tears. Seriously. But the Alfheim Online world is a gorgeous one and I loved this game almost as much as Sword Art Online, I just wasn't a big fan of Kirito's character design in this game but that is at least my personal preference. While there was much to cringe over and roll my eyes at in this arc, it still held a good story and the epic fight scenes were still there. This arc was a 6/10 for me, with this and those last couple of episodes of the SAO arc bringing the overall score down to a 7/10. And by this point, I'd changed my mind on the 'evilness' of Kayaba Akihiko (the creator of SAO). I still think he's insane but to a point I believe he thought he was doing something good.. unlike Sugou who literally is just a psychopath.
Would I recommend it? It really depends. If you can overlook plot holes, Gary Stu characters and some cringeworthy activity then definitely give it a watch. I found it a generally enjoyable series with a satisfying ending and will most likely get hold of the DvD when it comes to the UK. :)
So I keep wanting to talk about anime and I'm struggling terribly to find a forum community I feel comfortable on! Not to mention how I'm a big stop/starter when it comes to watching anime. I go months at a time without watching any but when I do I like to talk to other fans.. just not the nasty kind, or the kind who are into lolicon (no matter which way you look at it, lolicon fans are justifying sexualising minors *shudder*).
I considered then using one of my blogs to occasionally talk about my anime loves, I mean.. I have four! But it doesn't really fit on my gaming blog. Sure I can talk about JRPGs over there but anime? Nah. I think it'd turn the majority of my book blog readers off.. I know a few of them are into it but generally it's just plain offtopic. Manga could fit there, and Japanese-to-English translated fiction, but not anime. The personal blog is out of the question because that is first and foremost a place for me to talk about my life when I feel I need to rant. And it definitely doesn't fit on my writing blog. So here's my fifth blog. As it's due to fall to little time just like the personal and writing blogs, I picked a free blog and decided to try out Blogspot properly. I hear it has a lot more flexibility than Wordpress's free mode.
Then it just called for a name. I toyed with 'Hanime' for the 10 seconds it took me to decide that was just a novelty named, and Shinigami Only Eat Apples, which is of course a quote from Death Note, and I also played with the idea of El Psy Congroo which is a quote from Steins;Gate, however the latter's decent urls were taken so Shinigami is is.
All that's left now is to fiddle with the theme, layout and header image and find a few blogs and news sites I actually enjoy reading. Don't expect an overly active blog here but please do add me to your readers! I like to opine on anime and will likely come here to squee and share my opinions and so on.
