Lucky Star – Episode 12

It’s New Year’s Eve and for every otaku, including Konata, that means going to winter Comiket. Konata takes Kagami and Tsukasa with her to help her buy new releases. People who’ve read or seen Genshiken should be familiar with Comiket. While Genshiken gives people, who haven’t ever been to Comiket, quite a solid image of what it’s about, the image Lucky Star gave felt quite vague, but that’s understandable as only about half of this episode was spent at Comiket. That manly sideburns guy from 10th episode appears again at Comiket. I still don’t get this reference, if it actually is one.

This is what we like to call QUALITY!

The latter half of the episode consists of Konata and her father visiting Kagami and Tsukasa’s family’s shrine and celebrating New Year’s Day. Besides getting to see Kagami and Tsukasa in shrine maiden outfits, the latter half was quite boring. The first half was alright, better than last episode.

But what about Akira’s debut in the main show? Well, since that’s probably the only funny part in this episode, I ain’t gonna say anything to spoil it so see for yourself.

Hiyori Tamura makes her “debut” in this episode. I didn’t notice her at first, but I noticed her while I was taking some screenshots. She’s visible for about ten frames so it’s no wonder if you missed her like I did.

More Gurren Lagann merchandise from Konami

Konami has announced that the Gurren Lagann universe will be expanded in form of a trading card game. It’s been years since the last time I’ve collected any trading cards and I’m not interested in playing with them anymore, but I like the artwork used for these cards. The cards have been illustrated by various artist such as Shunya Yamashita, Saru Shishi and JUNNY to name few.

You can find more information on the merchandise and more sample images of the cards at Konami’s website for Gurren Lagann TCG.

Devil May Cry – Episode 2 (spoilers)

Lady makes her anime debut. There’s a demon terrorizing the highways and Dante needs to kill it to pay back the debt he owns to Lady. Dante races some biker, whose brother was killed by that demon, and the demon appears before them. Dante and Lady kill it together and that’s all about it.

Wow! Practically nothing happened in this episode. There was only few action scenes and they were quite short and dull. Way too much boring talk. Save the talk for dramas and comedies. In action, guns do the talking!

I’m disappointed with the anime version of Lady. Much like the young Dante, Lady was lot cooler in Devil May Cry 3. Now she just shoots the demons dead with her pistols and that’s it. She did use her missile launcher once, but in the game she had other weapons as well and her fighting was more “go-with-the-flow”-ish. In the anime, her fighting lacks imagination and looks pretty boring, much like Dante.

And man, does she look old in the anime! Dante was in his teens in DMC3 and Lady was mayby a year or two younger, but now she looks and acts like all grown-up. She still wears the same clothes though.

The one positive thing I can say about this episode was the music. It reminds me of soundtracks of DMC and DMC2, which is good because I didn’t like DMC3’s nu-metal-ish soundtrack. Then again, nu-metal definitely fit Dante’s teen-like personality, but it’s not something I’d listen to on its own.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Episode 13 (spoilers)

Everyone has their job on Dai-Gurren. Nia is bothered because of this and wants to do something to help everyone. She decides to become the cook of Dai-Gurren. While she is preparing a feast for everyone, Dai-Gurren Dan is attacked by Dai-Ganten, an aerial Ganmen commanded by Cytomander, one of the Spiral Kings servants.

Rossiu is currently resting at the sick bay and someone else needs to pilot Gurren. Yoko decides to do it. Gurren-Lagann is launched to fight off the airborne enemies and soon adapts to aerial combat. Viral appears once again to get his revenge on Gurren-Lagann. He asks Simon where Kamina is and learns that Kamina is already dead. While Simon and Viral are fighting each other inside Dai-Ganten, Cytomander takes Yoko as a hostage and threatens to kill her if Gurren-Lagann doesn’t stop resisting. Viral is determined about getting his revenge and refuses Cytomander’s order to destroy Gurren-Lagann. Dai-Gurren attacks Dai-Ganten with a flying kick and this confusion allows Simon and Yoko to flee. Dai-Ganten is severely damaged and has lost one of it’s flight spheres, leaving no other choice but to retreat.

Yoko bumped herself a little and is now resting at the sick bay. Simon and Nia come to see her, but Simon’s stomach starts to growl and they decide to have the dinner Nia had prepared for everyone. Rossiu admits that he became sick because he ate food made by Nia. Simon however seems to be enjoying Nia’s dishes.

Cytomaner has returned to the Spiral King and wants to have Viral executed for his disobedience. Before his death Viral wants to know what humans are and why such inferior creatures are able to stand up to the beast men. The Spiral King accepts to tell him what humans are, but we won’t find out his answer until next episode. That is, if we are shown him giving Viral the answer.

Another episode filled with lots of cool action scenes. Lately, I’ve heard people complaining that Gurren Lagann is not as crazy as it used to be in the beginning. One reason I can see for this is the fact that Kamina is no longer around and he was definitely the craziest of all the characters in Gurren Lagann. Also it seems like Gurren Lagann is developing a serious plot, but I think that’s better than 26 episodes of random madness. I’m not saying that I don’t like “random madness”, but would it be such a bad thing, if Gurren Lagann turned out to have serious plot?

There’s still 13 more episodes left and anything can happen. A lot has happened in a little time. I think it’s still too early to say things like Gurren Lagann is going to become the next Neon Genesis Evangelion with confusing and incomplete end, though I haven’t seen NGE myself, so this is not my opinion. Whatever the future may hold, Gurren Lagann is one of the few animes I definitely want to see all the way to the end.

By the way, the sunset scene, where Yoko asks Simon if he knew that she loved Kamina, was really well done. The animators had paid a lot of attention on making their clothes and hair sway in the wind naturally. And Yoko’s eyes… So pretty!

Lucky Star – Episode 11

The girls discuss falling asleep in a train and missing the correct stop and prepare for the winter break. There was also a lot of short sketches like Yui analyzing detective dramas, Konata and Kagami discussing if children should be taught martial arts to defend themselves, preparing cup ramen and bunch of others. Some of them were quite fun and made this an average episode. In the Lucky Channel, Akira announces that she will appear in the main show in the next episode .

I don’t really have much to say about this episode. It was quite plain without anything particularly fun or interesting. I wonder when the other girls from the opening video start make their appearances. There hasn’t been any new characters introduced lately, though Konata mentions that Yui has a little sister and tells Kagami about her, but the little sister herself only appears as a silhouette. I hope Lucky Star is not going to turn out like Ninin Ga Shinobuden, where Shinobu has an epic battle with some “Dark Shinobu” in the opening video, but this “Dark Shinobu” never appears in the actual show…

Princess Resurrection – Vol. 1

In Yasunori Mitsunaga’s Princess Resurrection, we have a gothic lolita princess with the power to resurrect the dead, a cute little invulnerable android, a half human half werewolf tomboyish girl and an ordinaty, yet unfortunate, young boy who gets involved with them.

Hiro Hiyorimi is your every day school boy; he lacks special characteristics and seems to be perfectly normal. This all changes in one big crash, with a truck that is. Before drawing his last breath, he sees a pretty young lady looking down at his dying body. Suddenly Hiro wakes up at morgue and it seems like nothing at all happened. He heads out to the mansion where his sister is working as a maid. Hiro is surprised to see the girl, who he saw before his death, at the mansion fighting wolves lead by a werewolf. When the girl is about to be killed by the werewolf, Hiro rushes in, sacrificing himself to save her. The girl introduces herself as princess Hime, the daughter of the king who stands above all monster, and gives Hiro her blood which heals his wounds.

The story doesn’t seem like very original after reading the first volume. Seeing monsters from various classic horror novels and movies fight with Hime is a nice change to the usual cliched characters, but fighting is still fighting. Well, modern shonen manga rarely get much further than introducing the characters in first few books, so the story can still get more interesting in the future.

The art doesn’t have much impact either. It’s not really good, nor too bad. The art is quite plain and doesn’t have any unique traits that would distinguish it from everything else.

If both the story and the art are ordinary and plain, why would one choose to read Princess Resurrection instead of something else? It’s fairly simple: Shonen mangas are not about interesting stories or quality art; it’s the characters that matter the most. I’m guessing this manga is aimed at older male audiences because all the key characters are pretty girls and the “main character” is a bystander representing the reader. There’s been relatively few characters so far and I hope there’s not going to be dozens of characters since mangas with too many characters easily get out of hands.

Let’s talk about princess Hime: In a way you could say she’s the main character because Hiro is just a sidekick in her crazy battles with monsters that are after her life. The way she doesn’t focus on using just weapon is cool. Instead she just picks up whatever there’s avaible, be it swords, chainsaws, axes, crossbows, you name it. I particularly liked seeing her with chainsaw and she’s got one in the cover as well. I like guro-ish stuff and chopping people up with chainsaw is always fun! However she is not very powerful physically and needs others to help her out often.

And Hime is really pretty! I’m not particular fan of long-haired blondes, but as a fan of Rozen Maiden and especially Suigintou, there’s no denying that I like gothic lolita fashion. I also like her slender body with thin arms and legs and beautiful small but graceful chest… I’m getting sidetracked…

So, if seeing a pretty girl and her allies fight monsters sounds like fun, this might be the manga for you.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Episode 12 (spoilers)

It’s the sea! Swimsuits, beach volley, splitting melons and barbecue. The first half of 12th episode is pretty much hanging around at the beach and having fun. After that, Dai-Gurren is ready to cross the sea.

On their way to the other shore, Adiene and Viral appear to interrupt their journey. Adiene’s flagship, Dai-Gunkai, is a gigantic serpent-like submarine Ganmen. While Adiene fights Gurren-Lagann with her Byakou, Viral commands Dai-Gunkai to drag Dai-Gurren underwater. When Simon sees his comrades in distress, he unleashes his full power to push Dai-Gurren back to the surface. Adiene captures Nia and orders Dai-Gurren to shoot Gurren-Lagann or she will kill Nia. Yoko saves Nia with her great proficiency in rifles and Gurren-Lagann and Dai-Gurren finish Byakou and Dai-Gunkai off.

To be honest I was kind of disappointed to see how little fanservice there was in this episode. Yoko’s swimwear was less revealing than her ordinary clothes and Nia’s onepiece was kind of plain. Well, I guess I’m still fully satisfied with this episode ’cause they actually advanced the story instead of using entire episode for fanservice.

I don’t really like Nia’s new haircut. I wish she grows it back to the way it was soon.

Devil May Cry – Episode 1 (spoilers)

Devil May Cry, one of the coolest action games ever, has been turned into an anime. In the first episode, Dante has to escort Patty Royale, a young lady who’s the heiress of the Royale family, to her mansion to claim the inheritance. On their way there, they encounter various demons that are trying to kill Patty. It turns out that the Patty Dante was escorting was only a decoy and the real Patty has already made her way to the mansion. One of Patty’s uncles turns into a demon and Dante appears just in time to kill it. The real Patty promises to take care of fake Patty, but she wants to live with Dante instead.

Well, a lot happened in a single episode and I like this pace. In this episode alone, Dante killed three greater demons and bunch of small fries. However the visual designs of the monsters were quite dull and generic. All the monster were a lot more detailed and creepier in the games, but I guess they would’ve been too hard to animate, so something simpler was designed. The boss monster was a big disappointment, I thought they would come up with something cooler like the bosses in the games.

Putting the dull monster designs aside, the “human” characters were decent. Dante looked and acted like he does in the games and that’s good. I personally prefer the young, wild and crazy Dante from DMC3 over the older, calm and collected Dante of the other games. The young Dante is more interesting because the older Dante feels like a diluted copy of Alucard. He still does a decent job as the main character so I don’t mind.

Patty is quite uninteresting. She’s too ordinary and she hasn’t been made to look or act cute either. Not that I was expecting to see something cute in this anime. Unlike other women of Devil May Cry, she’s totally weak and helpless. The preview showed clips of Lady from DMC3 and I’d rather see her hang around with Dante instead of seeing Dante and Patty together.

The action scenes were bloody but dull. Like I already mentioned, the young Dante is way better than the older one. When young Dante kills demons, he does all kinds of crazy stuff like eating pizza while he fights. His way of killing demons is really cool, but the older Dante just shoots them up or cuts them to pieces. It’s simple and effective, but not very creative and creativity is what you need to keep things interesting.

Although I’ve said lots of negative stuff, the anime was better than I expected. With young Dante it would really kick ass. If the people making this show put more time on designing interesting action scenes and less dull monsters, this show would probably kick ass even without young Dante, but I’m sure fans of Devil May Cry will find this enjoyable even like this. Let’s hope things get more interesting in future episodes.

Nagasarete Airantou – Episode 10 (spoilers)

There’s a downpour, which means that there won’t be work today. Ikuto and Suzu stay inside and take their time relaxing in peace. However, Ikuto isn’t used to idle away doing nothing and wants to do something, so they decide to play shogi together. Suzu recalls the great storm before the day Ikuto drifted to Airantou. Ikuto ponders if there’s a connection between the storms and entering and leaving the island. For a while Suzu is speechless, but she acts like nothing happened although Ikuto clearly noticed it.

Everyone comes to meet Suzu and Ikuto. Before Ikuto came, Suzu was all alone and everyone would come to see her, when it rained, to ease her loneliness. After everyone’s left, the storm calms down and Ikuto and Suzu are sitting together on the veranda. Suzu is singing a song her mother would sing to her and tells Ikuto about her mother.

In last episode, Suzu wondered her feelings towards Ikuto. This time she became wordless when Ikuto thinks, if it would be possible to leave Airantou during a storm. When Suzu told Ikuto about her mother, who wished that Suzu would one day find the man of her dreams and wear her mother’s wedding dress, Ikuto visions him marrying Suzu. Since harem love comedies are usually quite predictable, this development doesn’t surprise me much. This was bound to happen sooner or later, but there’s still plenty of episodes left and anything can happen.

Lucky Star – Episode 10

Tsukasa gets a new cell phone. Because she couldn’t properly enjoy her last one, she is now sending loads of messages to Kagami. Miyuki has to go to hospital. She reads a book while waiting in the reception and misses her call. The same happens in the bus on her way home and she ends up going all the way to the last stop. Konata and Kagami visit a manga and anime store where all the clerks are trying to catch Konata’s attention with various products. This scene looked pretty damn cool and I think I’ve seen those characters somewhere before, but I can’t remember where. If someone can explain this scene to me, please do.

Kagami and Tsukasa are invited to have a sleepover at Konata’s place. They have a look at Konata’s collection of figures, mangas and other related stuff, have dinner together and look at Konata’s photo albums. They find a photo of Konata’s mother with Konata’s father and they mistake her for Konata because they look exactly alike. At school, they discuss about each other’s nicknames and wonder what they should call Kagami. Tsukasa comes up with Kyo-chan, but Kagami doesn’t like it and asks Konata to simply call her Kagami-sama. Of course Konata takes her joke seriously and calls her Kagami-sama in front of her class.

In Lucky Channel, Akira and Minoru introduce Kagami. Akira calls her tsundere, but Minoru doesn’t agree to this because she doesn’t have all the qualities being tsundere requires. It’s true that nowadays any character that has the “tsuntsun” side is called tsundere without second thought. However Kagami doesn’t really have any “deredere” in her and thus it might not be right to call her tsundere even though she is very “tsuntsun”. I use the word tsundere quite loosely as well, but like Akira says, the problem is that there is no word to describe characters that are almost but not quite tsundere and thus they’re called tsundere even though they’re not.

I liked this episode. It was lot better than last one and I had fun watching this episode. Hope this level of quality can be kept up for a while.