The Final: Reimu vs Alice

Touhou Seimoe 2007 has progressed to the final. Yukari and Yuyuko did well in getting to the semifinals, but the main characters of Touhou series certainly have proved their popularity.

Choosing who to vote was pretty easy this time, because I didn’t give myself any time to think. I don’t really love either of the characters and I like the almost equally. I chose Reimu only because I like shrine maidens.

In a way both Reimu and Alice are moe, but neither of them stand alone very well. They need someone to draw the moe out of them. For example, Cirno is really moe and there’s plenty of doujinshis that focus solely on Cirno. She doesn’t need anyone else to be moe. Both Reimu and Alice need to be paired with other characters, which is usually Marisa for both of them, for more impact. On their own, they’re just a lazy shrine maiden and a girl who’s playing with her dolls. Such characters just don’t work on their own.

That gave me the idea for next Touhou related competition: A competition to decide the most popular pairing in Touhou. Ofcourse the same character could be paired with many other characters. I think competition like that would be pretty interesting.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 3

ComiFes is here and Genshiken will be selling their own doujinshi there. They got three tickets for vendors and decided to give them to Sasahara, Kousaka and Kuchiki. While Sasahara and Kousaka are selling the doujinshi, Kuchiki will be shopping for doujinshis by other circles. Once they’re done with shopping, the rest of Genshiken comes to help selling the doujinshi. To boost their sales, Ohno and Kousaka cosplay vice-president and Tokino Akiyama from Kujibiki Unbalance. By the end of the day, Genshiken has sold out their first doujinshi.

In the manga Kousaka cosplays Izumi Tachibana, but because she is no longer one of the main characters in the new Kujibiki Unbalance, they had Kousaka cosplay another character, which sounds reasonable. Since almost all the references related to Kujibiki Unbalance have been changed to refer to the new version, I saw something like this coming. There were some references to newer series such as Lucky Star which didn’t exist or weren’t that popular when the manga was drawn. Also, they had Yabusaki appear in this episode. At the moment, her role in Genshiken isn’t very important, but she’ll be more important in the latter parts of Genshiken.

The first “story-arc” of Genshiken 2 has been completed without any problems. Supposing the anime is going to follow the manga, next few episodes should be rather episodic with little or no connection to each other. In a way, it’s really good the second season began like this. Since they already introduced the new characters in OVAs, hadn’t they began with Genshiken participating in ComiFes, they would’ve been forced to begin the season with a random episode with no connection to the plot or anything. Certain slice-of-life anime began like that and the first episode was kind of bad.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – Episode 3

Celestial Being continues their mission to end all the wars. They attack a narcotic plantation in South America and a mineral mining site in South Africa region, thus they eliminate the causes of war. The civil war in Northern Ireland has also ended due to the influence of Celestial Being. The world is changing without doubt.

An Anti-Gundam Investigation Unit has been estabilished to study Gundams and develop ways to fight them. I like the way there’s lots politics and such as well.

Top 16 Results

Youmu won Sakuya with one vote! Oh yeah! Nitori who was hyped by some to win the entire tournament lost to Cirno. Besides that, no particular surprises or things to highlight.

Of the characters remining in Top 8, I’m rooting for Youmu, but I believe the winner will be either Reimu, Marisa or Cirno. At the moment I’m writing this, Cirno has 707 votes and Yuyuko 687, so either of them can still win. The tournament grows more exciting round after round and all these characters have almost equal chances to win the tournament.

What I’m looking forward to the most in this round will be Reimu vs Marisa. The main characters have been pitted against each other and the fans will be forced to choose their side. I like them both, so I have to choose carefully which I’m going to vote.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 2

The deadline for printing the doujinshi is drawing near, but Sasahara and Kugayama haven’t gotten anything done. The problem is that Sasahara would like a story about President and Chihiro, but Kugayama would rather draw something with Yamada. They end up passing the responsibility until they realize they’re running out of time. They’re having a meeting with other members of Genshiken to decide what to do. Sasahara and Kugayama are both ready to throw in the towel, when Ogiue suddenly starts crying and Saki decides to make Kugayama and Sasahara finish the doujinshi no matter what it takes. Having surpassed the deadline, they have to pay 5% fee, but at least they were able to finish their doujinshi. Next episode, they will be selling it at ComiFes.

The anime focused a lot more on the hardships of making the doujinshi. The manga just had some dialogue about how Sasahara and Kugayama couldn’t decide what to do and that was it. Also there were some hints about Sasahara being interested in Ogiue.

The OP is great as well. The song isn’t that special, but the video is fun.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – Episode 2

The whole world has become aware of the Celestial Being. Different goverments are discussing how they should react. Celestial Being begins their second mission, intervening in internal conflict in Ceylon.

So far it looks very good. The episode ended with a big cliffhanger, so the next episode, or at least the beginning, is going to be really interesting.

Kodomo no Jikan – Episode 1

Good news: Kojika’s story hasn’t been altered to omit all the questionable content.
Bad news: All the offensive images and dialogue has been censored.

Well, I was expecting something like this and it’s probably the best possible scenario. Instead of watered-down version of Kojika, we get a censored TV-version and (hopefully) uncensored DVD-version. Since the offesive content of Kojika is mostly rather important for the story, I suggest reading the manga before watching the anime or you won’t know what has been censored away and miss important parts of the story.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m even going to bother with the TV version. My time is limited and I’d rather see the uncensored version and not the censored one. The TV version is cute and funny, but Kojika has a serious side to it as well and unfortunately that side involves a lot of non-broadcastable content. I think I’ll wait for the DVDs to see the complete version of Kojika.

Genshiken 2 – Episode 1

Genshiken returns with a bang as Sasahara receives a letter telling Genshiken has been accepted to Comiket. Naturally, they will be publishing a KujiUn ero-book. The main artist will be Kugayama and there will be some illustrations by Ogiue. Behind their backs, Haraguchi has asked some famous artist to contribute their works for their book, but Sasahara decides they will be doing it on their own. Now all that’s left is to draw the book.

Damn! I’ve been waiting for the second season of Genshiken so long and it’s finally here! After the not-so-great OVA, I wasn’t expecting much from the second season. How wrong I was! This is exactly how Genshiken should be! The mood is right, the characters act just like in the manga and the humour is right on. Even though I know what’s going to happen all the time, watching Genshiken 2 is still a lot of fun because it’s done so well.

Some of you might remember Ramen Angel Pretty Menma, that was mentioned in the manga a couple of times. Well, some of you might also know that Menma is going to become a real anime like KujiUn. There were some pictures of Menma anime on a magazine at Manga clubs room. If I understood correctly, Menma anime is going to be a bonus in the Genshiken 2 DVDs. Looking forward to it!

Also, I want that President screen saver Sasahara has!

Bamboo Blade – Episode 1

Kendo has never been this moe before!

The story begins with Toraji Ishida, the advisor of the kendo club, making a bet that he can gather a team of five girls that would win his friend’s team in kendo. But he’s facing a big problem: there’s only one active member in the club, Kirino Chiba. What they need is four more girls skilled at kendo. Luckily they find Tamaki Kawazoe, a girl whose father runs a kendo dojo. If they’d get her to their side, other girls would definitely join the club as well. She isn’t interested because Kendo is just a chore for her. After she sees some juniors from the club bullying a freshman who just joined, she announces temporary membership and joins the club.

Bamboo Blade is another of those animes that focuses on members of some school club. Unlike Umisho, which got boring after several episodes, Bamboo Blade offers something different which is kendo. The characters are really cute and look amazing in kendo gear!

Kirino seems pretty silly in cute and funny way and Tamaki is quiet and reserved. I really love her type of characters! I’m looking forward to more characters getting introduced soon.

I’m not very familiar with kendo. I know a bit about the rules but that’s all about it. There wasn’t big fighting scenes in the first episode, but I’m hoping to see these cute girls kick ass. That would be wonderful!

Murder Princess vol. 2

Because Alita was destined to die when Doctor Akamashi tried a coup d’etat, the world has begun to change. The evil within people has begun to take over turning them into monsters. Prince Kite (Kaito in fan-translations) has also become corrupted and intends to use the power of Theoria to recreate the world.

The story isn’t actually that different from the anime. As some of you probably know, Dengeki Teioh, the magazine where Murder Princess was serialized in, was discontinued in last winter. While some series moved to other MediaWorks’s magazines, Murder Princess ended with Dengeki Teioh. For a while the manga looked really promising and it seemed like it could turn into something interesting, but the last chapter pretty much screwed everything up. I’m not blaming the artist, it must be really difficult to be suddenly told that you have to finish everything in one chapter. Well, the manga still has better ending than the anime.

One of the reasons why I’m not reading Rozen Maiden, though I loved the animes, is because I heard Peach-Pit and Birz Comics had some disagreement and Rozen Maiden was canceled. For mangas that are read for their story and are actually going to end, it’s important to have good ending or else everything before has no meaning. Spending lots of money to buy a pile of mangas and find out the ending is incomplete and hurried is really disappointing, which is the reason I rather not read such series at all.

Now, should I recommend the fans of the first volume, or action mangas in general, to read the second volume of Murder Princess or just avoid it and pretend it never existed? If anything, Murder Princess had a lot of potential, but what good is potential if it gets wasted like this? The art is good, the scenario is interesting and the action is pretty good. I definitely would’ve liked to read more Murder Princess and the sudden end was really disappointing. I wish Sekihiko Inui would continue drawing it or re-tell the ending. The anime tried that but failed horribly.

Murder Princess the manga has lots of qualities, but if you’re going to pick up both volumes, prepare to be very disappointed with the ending. If you can’t bear disappointing ending, you probably should just forget all about this manga.