...what are you watching...

HXH will start at the beginning, which is pretty surprising since the first series followed the manga fairly closely, and had a great production. I guess the reboot takes on the tactic that Hagaren did, and reintroduces the series to a new audience. :) I hope they keep Junko Takeuchi as Gon. <3

Ao no Exorcist 16! Mephistos, Shura & the current Paladin (Angel-something) bring Rin to the council of something where they debate whether to execute the son of Satan. The rest of the students and Yukio go to Kyoto to fix Rin's sword. I went and skimmed the 2 volumes of manga after this point and it looks like the anime will start diverging. Maybe they'll come back in another 5-10 years and remake this, too.

Natsume Yuujinchou San 5! Natsume and Tanuma help Taki clean her grandfather's storeroom. The little youkai were nice. Looking forward to Matoba next week.

Isn't it funny when your past comes back to entertain...like when you see the Transformers movies or see that Thundercats has a new cartoon. Or in the case of anime, Kenshin is coming back with a new live-action drama and new anime...And now, Hunter x Hunter is coming back with a new anime. :)

Tiger and Bunny 17! Uplifting father/daughter episode.

Ao no Exorcist 15! Time for Rin's secret to be revealed to his friends.

Sacred Seven 4! School festival episode..zzz..looks like a beach episode is up next week...zzz.

Actually watched some soccer, and it was exciting. Congrats to both teams.

Catch-up time...


Ikemen desu ne 1! jdrama. The Japanese version of the Korean drama, You're Beautiful, has started with a ~2 hour episode. A young nun, Miko, takes the place of her twin brother, Miho, in a boy band. The Japanese A.N.JELL band members are a few years younger than the Korean one. So far, the story hasn't strayed too far from the original. They did add a concert scene for little school kids in the first episode, but most of the other scenes are very familliar. I'm not really inclined to watch this version of the drama since the actors aren't really 'ikemen' in my book. Jang Geun-seok, Jung Yong-hwa and Lee Hong-ki are hard to top in terms of attractiveness and musicality. The boys in this version are iffy in terms of physical hotness. Maybe some time in the army and braces would help? On the other hand, the actress playing Miko is quite good in her role. She's quite likable, and cute. It's a shame the boys aren't up there in talent.

Kis My Ft2's Everybody Go is the theme song. 2 members of A.N.JELL are part of that boy band. Japanese versions of the Korean songs are featured in the drama, but it's not that great. Lack of pretty vocals might be a problem.

Tiger and Bunny 16! The second half of this series is taking an interesting turn. There's a good twist to Lunatic's backstory. And I like that Barnaby thinks that Kotetsu's actions are for his benefit. Oh, the fanfic fuel.

Ao no Exorcist 14! Training camp for the kids. Bon's competence is refreshing.

Kiss Kiss by Kim Hyun-joong is really adorable, or maybe it's the constant smile he has on; sounds like a Justin Bieber song.

Ao no Exorcist 13! new opening/ending...fairly indifferent towards them both. Looks like the busty girl will teach Rin how to use his sword or something like that. The childhood flashbacks are really sweet.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee 1! I wasn't going to watch this because of the loli-vibes the promo images gave out, but initial reviews were positive.

+ Lovely attention to the setting
- Zzz...

Quick impression~ 19th century 'Santa Claus' brings a young Japanese girl to France to work as a maid at a ironwork shop. I'm glad his cranky grandson also suspects he is a pervert. Ok, the preview for the next episode where Yune makes a face while tasting cheese for the first time is very cute. Unfortunately, the other 99% of the show doesn't appeal to me.


Kami-sama no Memochou 1! It's the only NEET thing to do...

- Zzz....
+ Decent JC Staff animation production

Quick impression~ The opening animation made the show look a whole lot more interesting than it turned out to be. A transfer student takes a part-time job with a NEET detective agency run by a bossy, know-it-all, loli-bait character, Alice. She reminds me of the Sherlock girl from GOSICK with more loli. There's a hodgepodge of other characters who declare themselves to be NEETs.




Sacred Seven 1! Sunrise's other shounen show, now with a slice of angst.

+ Entertaining opening & ending
+ Fast-paced quality action and production

Quick impression~ A young, anti-social boy gets something in his eye and develops powers which a rich girl and her company of maids and butler want to use. Gems or rocks are the source of the good and evil powers. Evil statues attack. Everyone joins the school geology? club at the end? Because of the slick animation and character design, this reminded me of Code Geass, but it actually leans a little more toward Star Driver with the whole magical boy transformation. All the qualities and characteristics of a successful anime are in this show which made episode 1 pretty darn likable. And while it didn't feel unique like Tiger and Bunny did right off the bat, it has potential.

Ao no Exorcist 12! Shiemi gets put into a regular schoolgirl's uniform which shows off her big chest 'cause apparently this show needed to compete with all the new moe-filled shows coming out this summer. And also because of that reason, the mysterious hooded student turns out to be a bikini-top wearing girl sent from the Vatican. (a tad disappointed that this won't be a show focused on the brothers...a la Hagaren).

Tiger and Bunny 13! For someone who can read minds, Jake turned out to be a fairly lame bad guy. The arc was unexpectedly all sunshine and daisies like a Disney movie. Oh well, more fuel for the Tiger x Bunny camp in this episode. This show kinda slid downward in the entertainment factor after the first episode. Hopefully, the second half picks up.

Ao no Exorcist 11! a very anti-climactic beach episode. There wasn't even that much cute or comedy to make it worth watching.

Ao no Exorcist 10! Each new episode keeps upping the cute factor. In this episode Fujimoto's cat familiar learns of his death and goes mad with grief. Rin and Yukio, mostly Rin, help calm him down. Gotta love adorable cat mascot characters.


Karigurashi no Arrietty jmovie! This felt more like a Hayao Miyazaki movie than the one directed by his son. The director, Hiromasa Yanebayashi, did an elegant job creating a film based on the novel by Mary Norton. Arriety and her parents are little people who borrow items from human beings whose home they live in. One day a sickly human boy moves in, and sees Arriety. The setting is brilliant and lush. The anime takes place in Japan, but the atmosphere and background music has an old-world European feel. The highs and lows in the plot are very small bumps compared to other stories. I think this mostly resembles My Neighbor Totoro in that aspect. I hope it gets a good reception here in the US. ~8/10 rating~ There's a big, fat, ugly/cute, disgruntled cat in the movie, too. While glad the Japanese Blu-ray has English subtitles, I can't really jump at the price, $60. I'll wait for Disney's release...unless they decide to remix the song with Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus.

Enjoyed NPH's performance at the Tony Awards.


Ao no Exorcist 9! Predictable, but I still think the show is adorable. I'm waiting for Yukio's jealousy to cause him to go apesh*t or something on his twin. In episode 9, a teacher who reaaaally hates Satan attacks Yukio to get to Rin. Yay for action. All the students pass the previous episode's exam. Next episode features the cute to-be mascot character. And it looks like the principal's brother is also a demon?


Tiger and Bunny 11! The terrorists take control of the city and get their wish fulfilled. The Heroes wait around until they can make a move. High drama. Kenji Fujiwara uses his Ladd Russo (Baccano) voice for the terrorist, Jake.

Tiger and Bunny 10! Bunny remembers his parent's murderer's face in time for Ouroboros to make their move. I was wrong about the judge being a part of the main group of bad guys. It was a good plot-moving episode. I like the fanservicey princess-carry. Did they add more company-sponsored logos to the heroes' outfits? or have I just not been paying attention.

Ao no Exorcist 8! The eye-patch teacher sends more demons to attack Rin and his classmates. The classmates learn to get along with each other. I am amused that the punk student has to recite 21 lines of scripture to defeat the demon. I'm guess that they'll learn more effective and/or faster ways of defeating demons later on.

Ao no Exorcist 7! In a smooth effort to get rid of a filler character, and tie the other two female characters together, the girls encounter friendship trouble plus a random demon. Pretty cute episode.

Sekaiichi Hatsukoi 8-9! Kisa and Yukina's story. Kisa is another shoujo manga editor while Yukina is a shoujo manga sales clerk at a nearby bookstore. It's L.O.V.E. I enjoy Yukina's shoujo eyelashes and sparkles. Oh, just saw that the bunny fairy's name is Tinkle.

Tiger and Bunny 9! features Dragon Kid who babysits the mayor's baby with Tiger and Bunny. There's a yaoi fanfic writing itself in this episode. There's a weird nekid man's butt at the end.

X-Men 8! I have no real idea why this is so boring. Maybe because Hisako is a whiny brat and the other characters don't have much of a personality? It could be the one-liner dialogue. Anyway, dropped.

Anohana 8! Mema finally reveals herself to the other characters by writing a new entry in her diary.