...what are you watching...

Went out to half a dozen places this morning and was thankful that the traffic was light. There's still plenty of shopping time...I need a new car.


Togainu no chi 12! finally, the end. The funky chanting music in the beginning of the episode was amusing. Akira realized that Keisuke was his one true love or something equally deep. And escapes Toshima to brood and whine. This show was just terrible; awful production, story and characters. ~4/10 rating~ I think I watched the whole thing because of Akira's resemblance to Squall (FF8).

ETA: Music Japan's holiday show featured Laruku's comeback with winterfall and RSG and feathers! I also enjoyed Yui's song and Arashi's performance with the kids.

Tegami Bachi: REVERSE 12! Many things happen. Roda falls into an abyss, Lag lights up like a big, shiny star, he is able to shoot the letter bullet into Gauche, Gauche returns, but falls into a coma, and Niche & Steak return.

Kuragehime 9! hm...nothing of interest happens


Arakawa Under the Bridgex2 11! Amazoness falls for Hoshi. Very weird.

Togainu no chi 11! I didn't think this could get any more entertaining, but the mouth camera was VERY funny. *chomp* Keisuke's death was long and painfully dull. Poor guy.

Katanagatari 12! the end. After what happens to Togame, Shichika basically goes against all of her orders. All the swords get humorously broken; the tenth was cute. The blond princess somehow redeems herself though I'm not quite sure how I didn't end up annoyed with her. Because you get attached to Shichika's relationships with prior characters, namely Togame, the end was a little sad.



Despite the title of the series, this isn't your typical shounen series, the fight scenes mock actual shounen anime and were usually ridiculously short. I suppose the focus was the push-and-pull dialogue between the characters. I didn't really like the character design, but it grows on you. The overall production style of the show was fair. Even if the episodes were extra long and they cut corners, the flaws were not too obvious. There was a rich palette and the background scenes were all very screencap-able. I did find the 50 minute episode per month not a real benefit. 50 minutes is a long time to listen to Nisioisin's dialogue and from month to month, you forget what just happened. ~8/10 rating~ I'd still recommend the series.



Denyuuden 23! Ah, a small break from all the dense, gloomy events of the last few episodes. It's Sion's birthday celebration. And then ends with an expected twist. If not for the fact that this isn't a popular series, there'd be some hardcore doujinshi running rampant. One more episode to go, right? or maybe a 2nd season?



Tegami Bachi: REVERSE 11! Did I ever mention that the very purple palette gets tiring to watch. Maybe at the end after they get rid of the artificial sun, there will be a change in palette and the munchkins will come out to play. The nuns working for Reverse meet their end (or they could have just lost their hearts?) Lag finally conveys his heart to Gauche. I read a little further in the manga and I like the twist that will come. I'm glad that this season has more depth. Last season was 85% throwaway.

Togainu no chi 10! some planes bomb the blond pervert's home interrupting Rin x Il Re x Akira's battle. This show was scarily terrible, but finally improved just a smidge near the end of this episode. The flashback was funny; unintentionally, of course.

Denyuuden 22! is a confusing episode with Ryner's father and mother, Sion and his Fallen Black Hero personality, some human experiments, and the fact that Gastark knows everything about the main characters.

Otome Youkai Zakuro 9! A bland episode where everyone chases a pseudo-youkai who needs a love confession to disappear. Tsundere...zzz...

Kuragehime 7! Kuranosuke does some things...zzz...to build up the next episode.

Togainu no chi 9! Akira's blood cures Keisuke instead of killing him. Rin takes Akira's tag, so that he can challenge Il Re. zzz...

Arakawa Under the Bridgex2 8! Amazoness reappears and seduces Riku. Her crush on Riku is funny. I like the short introspective narratives in the beginning of each episode.



Denyuuden 21! Excellent episode. Sion shows more signs of cracking, but his loyalty toward Ryner tentatively holds against Flouade's wishes. Great cliffhanger, too. Wish all the episodes had been animated as nicely as this one; even though there's an important event in this episode, I swear they put more quality into episodes where they show the huge-breasted female characters...more bounce on screen. I reeeally shouldn't have started watching this since this series is only building up to a larger story (evidenced by the numerous novels written thus far) which may or may not get animated.


Tegami Bachi: REVERSE 9! Lag convinces Niche's sister that all humans aren't that bad. Niche is left with her sister for awhile. Maka calls Lag, 'hikari' as if it were some preordained thing; so other there's another puzzle for the series to solve. Niche and her sister were adorable little babies. I haven't seen 'Tangled' yet, but there were some nice hair attacks in this episode which reminded me of the Rapunzel reboot commercials.

Kuragehime 6! Kuranosuke takes the girls out for an enjoyable evening. His brother, Koibuchi, gets tricked into bed for political reasons. Pretty good episode.

Togainu no chi 8! Akira finally shows some emotion after finding out that someone who is hooked on the drug cannot be cured, but vows to help Keisuke anyway. The pacing of this show is tedious, and the animation is still laughably bad at times, too.

Here's an amusing clip of the HP cast learning to speak 'American'. Two.5 hours turned out to be not as long as expected.

Denyuuden 20! Luke, another pink-haired Gastark guy, Ryner, Ferris and other eye-guy fight in this episode resulting in Ryner being able to suppress his power on his own. Ferris also shows that she is not so tsundere as she once was. Ryner being the 'solver of all equations' is intriguing.

Kuragehime 5! The girls go to protest the renovation of their street; or the fact that they will be kicked out of their home. They run away from the meeting in fear of the people in suits. Kuranosuke gives them a makeover.

Togainu no chi 7! a bunch of nothings happened in this episode.

Arakawa Under the Bridge's opening theme is Etsuko Yakushimaru's 'Cosmos vs. Alien'. The PV features dying bunny cosplayers in slow motion. Nice!


Katanagatari 11! The last shot at Maniwa Pengin was a tad disturbing; in the mouth, poor kid. All the Maniwa people are killed off in this episode. I also didn't expect Shichika to not react to the gunfire at the end.

Togainu no chi 6! Drug use. Apparently, these guys haven't heard that drugs are bad for you.

Arakawa Under the Bridgex2 7! Health screening time.

Otome Youkai Zakuro 7! Agemaki visits his family with Zakuro in tow.

Macross Frontier ~Itsuwari no Utahime~ movie! is a retelling of most of the tv series with better animation and no fillers. Some of the roles are re-positioned, but all the characters retain their bland or mostly soap-opera personalities. There's another movie to follow-up on this one. This one focuses on Sheryl (sometimes on billboards as Shelley?)'s visit to Frontier, the invasion of Vajra, Ranka's desire to sing, and Alto's desire to fly. The title comes from the fact that everyone suspects Sheryl of being a spy from Galaxy (the sort of central government) sent with the Vajra to attack Frontier...or something like that; the plot has many holes. The movie ends with the characters believing that Sheryl is not a spy, and them also figuring out that Galaxy is not after them.
I don't think any of the characters are interesting without the slap-in-the-face fanservice; Sheryl's boobs and butt, Ranka's prepubescent-type appeal, Alto's crossdressing appeal. What is interesting is all the fighting-mecha eye-candy along with the constant background music. The concert sets are pretty nice, too. One new plot-point is that I think they used Sheryl's voice for Ranka's mother (instead of Maaya Sakamoto's)...which would be an interesting Desperate-Housewives-like twist on the love triangle. Hopefully, the 2nd movie will continue to have nice animation and more new songs.

Otome Youkai Zakuro 6! has chibi-youkai girls being sad.

Togainu no chi 5! Akira's heart goes dokidoki when he thinks of Shiki. He also gets into a lovers spat with Keisuke...who is quite the whiner.

Arakawa Under the Bridgex2 6! getting a little closer to Nino's background.

Otome Youkai Zakuro 4-5! Episode 4 focuses on Susukihotaru and Riken while bigger enemies lurk in the shadows waiting for Zakuro. Some of the enemies come out in episode 5 and suggest that Zakuro's mother is a alive. We get to see Bonbori and Hozuki's powers in action, too.

Denyuuden 17-18! Flouard kidnaps Milk, so that he can manipulate Luke into killing Ryner. Interestingly enough, Luke is actually a match for Flouard. Klom gets an arm destroyed by an evil Lelouch twin. Ryner runs away, is found by Ferris & Sion, but then runs away with the evil Lelouch twin. Episode 18 was animated oddly...remembering random episodes of Naruto with stylishly cheap animation. I hope they don't use that technique too often.

Togainu no chi 4! I keep falling asleep during this show. I think the 2 main characters fall in love at the end, but maaan, are they boring.

Spent some time sorting a couple thousand photos, here are a few if anyone wants to see. So fun being a tourist.

Kuragehime 1! Jellyfish Princess?

+ Lovely geek opening visuals (Star Wars, Mary Poppins, Singing in the Rain, etc)
+ Great production from Brains Base
+ Interesting slice-of-life story

Quick impression ~ A young nerd and illustrator-wannabe who has an obsession with jellyfish lives with other female nerds. All of them have nerd-like hobbies, and have no experience with boys. They get a new roommate who happens to be a drag queen. So far, this has been the most interesting new show this season.

Denyuuden 15.5! a recap by Ferris's iittle sister, Iris. Iris is the token annoying, frilly dress-wearing sister.

Tegami Bachi REVERSE 3! zzz...smells like a filler.

Togainu no chi 2! Akira and Keisuke meet Rin who shows them around. I know that fans of the BL game are excited, but I don't sense enough BL angst. Akira is a brick wall.

Soremachi 2! The opening is so happy. For characters that have no sex appeal, there were an awful lot of crotch shots. Some of the SD faces remind me of Yotsuba&. In this episode the maids try to think up ways to attract more customers.