I almost had Hyakko poached from me, but we’ve come to an agreement, Kaze and I.

In my long absence from Yukan in terms of episodic blogging I suppose I have neglected Machiavelli’s rule of taking over the world by building settlements, and so far my settlements at Yukan seem rather dusty since I haven’t posted a review of some actual Anime in a while. Here are some short reviews of Anime series I’ve been watching since I’ve been expanding into other media such as radio spots and winning blogging competitions for the Sydney Morning Herald:

Welcome to the NHK! isn’t the newest Anime on the block, and it certainly isn’t the most wholesome I could be watching, but it is certainly entertaining and gives me hope that there are far more perverse individuals on this Earth than me, but as Sweeney Todd says, “We all deserve to die… even you Mrs. Lovett even I”. Rather than judging the characters of NHK too harshly, they serve as a reminder of what can happen if a man is pushed over the edge into madness, particularly when some of the madness is his own fault. Saki the nice girl is a sort of reverse Marla Singer from Fight Club, and really Welcome to the NHK! bears the resemblance of Fight Club for Japanese otaku people.

I have not read the NHK novel so the plot remains unspoiled and as of yet I am still wincing as I draw closer and closer to the ending, wondering when in a halfway series lull in the depravity the awful stuff starts to happen again. Please don’t spoil the ending of this series for me as I’ve never seen it before, besides, it’s more fun seeing me revolted at things I didn’t expect than for me to see it coming and lessen its effect.

Moving on there’s another series I’ve been following which I’ve been enjoying, called Strawberry Panic.

Baka-Raptor informed me of this one, and I hope the pacing picks up after the first two episodes. I haven’t watched an episode in a while so I forget the character’s names, but as far as I know from experience, when it comes to me interpreting Anime for the first time, unless the characters are already familiar, there’s a fair bit of “Ooh Blue Haired Girlie did this” (Lucky Star initially caused me some character identification problems with Tsusaka and Kagami, being a twin myself I finally felt the frustration of others trying to tell me and my brother apart). Basically Reddish/Brownish haired girl on the right of this picture (at least in the first two episodes) is being stalked by the senior white haired girl on the left, but the problem for her is that the Reddish/Brownish haired girl on the right is straight. Is it love? We don’t know yet, I’ve only watched two episodes, one of which involves a library chase scene.

One of the reasons I’ve been away from actual Anime episodic blogging is that I’ve been producing some “popular art” of my own for the first time in three months and so far I have a page of an illustrated short story. Maybe one day it will be collected into a graphic novel or something, but it’s not something I can really talk about in an Anime post. Even though it is Anime related, such pimping would be unprofessional.

Hopefully once I catch up with Hyakko Kaze and I will be able to settle our differences and blog the series together as nature intended, since with my lulzy sense of humor and Kaze’s skill of actually getting the character names right, who knows what we could bring to the Hyakko discussion table? As far as I know us two are the only ones who cared about Hyakko from the beginning, Issa-sa certainly didn’t give Torako and her friends a chance.

That looks painful, but funny.

Bored at school? Well, what better way to have a bit of fun than join a bunch of clubs while ignoring and maiming your friend (Taksuki) in the pursuit of this fun? Well that is what happen in this episode.

With Torako taking the lead, the girls try to find some club activiy that they would be interested in, but no such luck. Even against Taksuki’s wishes, she gets ignored by Torako and that starts the countdown.

The first club is baseball they try out for, and boom, Tatsuki is down for the count and ignored. The second tennis. And would luck have it, ignored and in pain again. Basketball, you guessed, more pain and ignoraned pleas from Tatsuki.

From sports, there is finally some relief for poor Tatsuki, but still has some slapstick comedy. As the day ends, a friendly game of soccer, yes, leads to pain for Tatsuki. Well, at least Suzu gets curry. Everybody wins. XD

Thoughts

Just more fun and comedy here. The episodes are what you expect from the slice-of-life section, but Hyakko manages to stand part from the rest of the shows I seen so far in this genre. I mean come, who doesn’t like female protagonist making us laugh, even though at someone else expense?

On a more personal note, sorry if my formatting is a little off. I tried my best, but I will just try harder, since this is my first time working with word press so extensively. Next, I will have the post more neat and clean for the readers. Any tips will be acceptable as well to help me out. See ya, next time.

…and remember, Suzu is full of win.

]]> http://yukan.dasaku.net/anime/hyakko/hyakko-episode-2-fun-with-clubs/feed/ 6 http://yukan.dasaku.net/anime/hyakko-first-looksies/ http://yukan.dasaku.net/anime/hyakko-first-looksies/#comments Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:33:28 +0000 newgeekphilosopher http://yukan.dasaku.net/?p=1960

Turns out it doesn’t suck!

This is my first ever current Anime season post. So you can imagine I’m a little excited about it. Well, I’m a little excited about a few other things happening in my life right now, namely the otaku girl returning my phone call and my internet returning to working state, so let’s have a looksie at Hyakko.

So basically the episode opens with a girl jumping out the window, and this blonde girlie here is obviously surprised. We find out more about this later in the episode. Having the condition (They don’t call me the Asperger’s Anime Blogger for nothin’) that I have, I find it difficult to attach names to faces upon first meeting them. So I apologise if I forget the names of the characters immediately after watching the Anime.

Basically the plot of the episode goes like this. Blonde girlie (again I apologise, as the series progresses it’s much easier for me to learn character names) gets lost because the school she goes to is friggin’ huge. She has just gotten into high school, and she’s despairing that the changes she thought would result in her maturity from going to high school haven’t happened yet. And this goes on for five whole minutes without a panty shot. In fact, the director showed enough restraint not to have pantsu in the entire episode. This is clearly the Azumanga Daioh school of High School Comedies.

As you can see in this shot, there’s a unique balance between comedic Anime faces which are chibi in a way to more serious faces for the less comedic aspects of the series, in this case Blonde Girlie is contemplating her seemingly immature character as percieved by her friends when she is late. I like this contrast a lot and it’s something you rarely see in Anime these days, but the cutscene crossed with what’s actually happening is an underused artform cornocopia of character development. A lot of people have compared this to Lucky Star based on its adaptation from a four panel manga, but really it’s closer to a mix of Azumanga Daioh and ARIA.

The animators really try hard to keep a balance between the sadness of a character and not overemphasising the moe-ness of the lead female character’s plight. Instead of going “MOE!” immediately, you actually feel sorry for this poor young lady.

My “L337 screenshot skillz” not only capture the motto of the school this series is set in, but really shows the magnificent scenery that the Anime has. Top marks on that front.

This comes from one of my favorite parts of the episode, where one of the other characters, who Blonde Girlie meets along the way, tricks Blonde Girlie into believing in all sorts of crazy Urban Legends about the school. The way this is done sets the tone of the series. There are no crazy Urban Legend plots or other supernatural silliness here, just no-nonsense school comedy.

Remember when I told you about the girl who jumps out the window? This is the girl who jumped out the window, in agony. However, as we learn, she’s not suicidal, just a bit crazy as a troublemaker.

The one with pigtails is the one I haven’t shown you a picture of yet. She seems to be competing with Blue Haired Girlie for Official Tsundere status, but at this stage in the series I’ve had my mind changed before, so she might just be giving off Kagami vibes from when I finished watching Lucky Star.

And yes, they try and find their way to class using the Global Positioning System, because the school is too friggin’ huge. Here is Pigtails Girlie I was talking about, next to Troublemaker Girlie.

Troublemaker Girlie and Blue Haired Girlie fight over a brick which Troublemaker Girlie is going to use to break a window, which accidentally happens. One of the teachers notices this and the girls get in trouble, moreso because Troublemaker Girlie beats up the teacher…

Which gets them into even more trouble of course. But they meet each other and they bond, and they start to make friends amongst themselves. Isn’t that nice?