What The Hell Happened With The Fall Season And How To Survive The Rest of 2009 (With A Curious Leadoff)

Ugh those tracks you just can’t stop repeating but you don’t care because they are so damn good you might as well let them stay playing for a week.  It’s that Senju Akira again and his dastardly slow building music that just keeps on building:

I could listen to that all day and perhaps maybe I’d rather listen to that all day then watch any one of the new anime series we have coming out this season.  And that’s what I’m really here to talk to you, but by all means let the song be a mood setter.  ghostlightning states “FFFFF We Hate the New Season” and calls it fail fall 09, but he doesn’t necessarily ask the question.  What is the question? Is there a question?  Well I certainly have one and it’s a certain “what the hell happened?!” as far as the last couple of seasons we dealt with actually.  Last season gave us a certain gem in Bakemonogatari and I’m sure people found something to suit their interests as well, but for mecha fans like the ghost and I it’s been pretty slimpickings.  There don’t seem to be any particular heavy hitters for the remainder of 2009, and in fact it’s arguable that the entirety of 2009 slipped by without any of the heavy hitters we’ve had almost every season from 2006-2008.  Have we been spoiled, or is the boom over so to speak?  Finally is it just me or have the bigshot companies just suddenly decided to collectively say, “2009 isn’t looking so good, let’s wait until 2010 before we spring the big stuff on them” and if so could the crash at the end of 2008 had something to do with the anime industry playing so conservatively this year?  I don’t pretend to have all the answers and hate to leave people hanging, but if indeed this is already it as far as the big 2009 titles go I wouldn’t mind sharing my survival strategy with everyone instead.  It’s a fairly simple one that should be adaptable to most people’s standards:

NEEDLESS episode 15 ~ Saten the unbeatable?

No pantsu <3

Once again, apologies for the lateness of this entry (as well as skipping episode 14) but nonetheless NEEDLESS is still the best series even when accounting for this new season that had just started

Time To Barrel Roll Into The Most Hyped Show Of The Season (I Finally Check Out Bakemonogatari)

This Is Your Brain On Drugs….Any Questions?

Honestly I went ahead and gave this show a chance and so far it’s giving me a headache….well at least at first….and yet I still want to see more of it just the same.  I’m perfectly sure there’s something interesting being developed here with regard to Hitagi’s plight and how Oshino is going to try and help her, but I’ll also say that the first episode with that looping music track over the opening conversation in the classroom (annoying and repetitive beyond description) as well as the randomly flashing text and rapidly shifting camera angles for no discernible reason or effect was just dizzying and disorienting beyond belief.  Especially since the parts of the episode that aren’t like that are quite drawn out but also really intense and creepy at the same time with the psycho bitch and well….just the show in general. I know somebody is going to probably tell me that that’s just Shinbo, but I’ll just reply by asking how this necessary and by answering myself with, “probably drugs”.  Other than that bit of “guh-huh” it was a more intriguing and eye-catching start than what I’ve seen most series feature these days, but not by much.

Now what I really did like and found most intriguing about this opener was how the one girl with the glasses (sorry her name eludes me and I’ll probably catch shit for this) sold Hitagi as something completely different then what she is portrayed as upon her first introduction, which helped to greatly enhance the atmosphere of her turning out to have a stationery fetish. Here I am expecting a total stereotype of a Mary Sue and then she just turns out to be a nutcase that doesn’t fit any of the traits she was described as having.  I cant’ even begin to describe how this struck me as an incredibly good thing.  Also Oshino didn’t come across the way I thought he was going to either and ends up being more like a second season Tieria Erde as opposed to the Saji Crossroad I was expecting.  Already we are seeing that the characters seem to have more than one side to them, and that’s pretty good stuff that I would definitely call promising for somebody like me who hasn’t watched much of this highly hyped and praised series yet.

Now to get a little more wishy-washy again though, because let’s face it this is just what I do when it comes to raw first impressions.  I’m really not sure if I like Hitagi’s voice acting yet though, mostly because I’m more used to Chiwa Saito voicing squeaky, peppy, loud and just generally extroverted characters like first season Louise Halevy, Natsumi Hinata, Lavie Head and Rebecca Miyamoto and I think maybe she is too. Also I can’t say Bakemonogatari is likely to be winning any awards on the BGM front either.  I’m probably not going to make many friends for saying this judging by how insanely popular this show is at the moment, but Bakemonogatari probably has some of the most unpleasant BGM I have heard so far this year.  The visual style though……..as much as I may have seemed like I was put off by it before, I am more befuddled, and honestly I like being surprised and then just learning to go along with the ride…..if it doesn’t turn out to be totally insulting that is.  I think I will probably be getting high when I watch episode 2 just to enhance the experience.  It’s the kind of show that seems to warrant it and probably the piece of the puzzle missing in understanding why the points of view and text are so messed up.  I figure Shinbo is probably toking up while he’s directing all of this stuff, might as well indulge him.  It’s just like….whatever it’s a surface right….might as well through some text in there…..attaboy Shinbo!

NEEDLESS episode 13 ~ Too damn bloody epic for TV.

You may kill him now ^^

OMFG! This episode was just the bomb of all NEEDLESS episodes seen so far. Not only was the quality of the episode top notch, drop dead gorgeous with all the glowing blood, pantsu shots and epic faces, but the story once again continues to surprise me with the way it turns the table over and over again. Once again I have to give this episode a rating of “I CAME!” for its sheer awesomeness XD

NEEDLESS episode 12 ~ Yamada strikes back; so does Mio with scissors

Mine is bigger than yours :p

Now if there is definite proof that Yamada isn’t a spineless/useless waste of space then it is shown in this episode in all his deserved glory. Yamada, you are DA MAN!

Gundam Antagonists And Sexual Deviancy (Do They Go Hand In Hand?)

The top right corner features the image in question that has sparked some pretty interesting discussion

A lot of people have expressed surprise and even shock at this picture of Alejandro and Ribbons hugging that has been inserted into the special edition volumes of Gundam 00 and with it a new layer on top of an implied gay relationship between the two main series villains.  It sort of doesn’t come as a surprise given how they talked to each other, but then while discussing this idea with a friend I started to think more about it and realized that maybe, just maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise in general.  As I looked back on the history of Gundam Villains I’ve started to notice in them what appeared to be at least one or more tendency’s towards a sexually deviant fetish or impulse, along with a tendency towards the sociopathy that most Gundam villains have been known to suffer from to a degree.  Consider the following that I came up with and maybe have a thought about it yourself and whether it is just sheer coincidence, me thinking to hard about it, or a clear and consistant pattern in building the personality of a Gundam Villains:

Note that this article will be posted on both Animehistory and We Remember Love

NEEDLESS episode 11 ~ Frantic turn tables and then some…

Poor Kuchinashi being bullied by bullies ;_;

Oh I just love how this series always give promises of epicness and epicness plus some is exactly what we got this week. Sweet, sweet GAR mode :3

NEEDLESS episode 10 ~ Flashback fun with Seto and Solva-tan

This is an accurate representation of my current expression from exhaustion

No joke, Blade will add the -tan honorific to any loli he encounters

NEEDLESS episode 9 ~ Loli cannon YOROSHIKU!

Burning with moeeee!

It wasn’t the first time I had cardiac arrest watching NEEDLESS and it certainly won’t be the last, but this was the first time I had an orgasm watching this and the words; “I CAME!” quite accurately reflects what I feel about this episode.

Princess Lover: episode 7

The horrors that lurk in the dungeons of Arima scientists.

One of the things i never really expected the show to expand on much was the assassination subplot of Teppei’s parents, beyond using it as a setup for the current plot. Political backstabbing on a national scale certainly didn’t seem to be up on the menu either. So you can color me surprised when this episode put both of those in a fairly prominent role. Even if the political dealings didn’t make as much sense as it should have if they are going to present it as a major plot point, it was still interesting to see the show undergo quite the mood change in one episode, trying to be much more serious than it usually is. Unexpected developments, but i am very much looking towards to see where it allows them to take the story in the long run, plot wise.