Hitohira

For Hitohira being such an awesome show, the ending sure sucked a lot.

It should be noted that I really loved this show when it started. The general “shy girl learns to love herself and others through a certain mean!” story is one I can always get behind, but for whatever reason, the anime really seemed to lose its direction after the play had completed. All of a sudden, you take a show with a purpose: growing Mugi through stage acting, minimizing it entirely, and take away very little from the play itself, and send the show out into the great wide world.

Oh, but she got over her fears! Well…during the play anyway. She took nothing from the experience until the last three minutes of the entire show, when it hit her that alchemy was in fact a practice using the deaths from our world as a energy medium. The show could’ve still done a lot in the four or five episodes it had left, and I guess it’s noteworthy that it tried to do something, but virtually everything after the play seemed unnecessary.

I can buy into Kano leaving as a motivator for Mugi to change, so I have no issues with the plot itself, but it was just dealt with so weakly. It didn’t feel genuine and for the most part; it felt clunky. Whether the manga actually makes it all right in continuing on, I’ll have to find out myself, but the anime had a lot it simply didn’t do that it seemed it wanted to.

The early episodes really caught me off guard. This light hint of some shoujo-ai that never comes, the frank romantic tension between almost all of the characters was fun, and  I was certain it was going to be my next Kashimashi: the left field anime that I fall in love with even if it’s not all top notch material. And to an extent, it still holds true as that series, except that it ended up being very flawed despite the strong art style and color palette, which were wonderful.

While the later episodes weren’t much to go on, I didn’t think, most of my beef comes with the last episode entirely. We’re taking this ride that ends around episode 7 or 8, then are forced to spend a bit more time with the characters, complete some largely unnecessary story, and then go into the last episode with almost nothing needing resolution, nothing needed tied up. There are things that wouldn’t hurt to be tied up, but honestly, the show was over, it just needed to finish its run.

The last episode became a whirlwind in the last stretch. All of a sudden, you go from a quiet slice of life show that seemed to lose its glasses, and then you’re thrown some of the most drugged out and uncalled for epic camera tricks I’ve seen since the last episode of The Prince of Tennis anime. With the last handful of minutes, Hitohira, blind from losing its glasses, stumbles forth with its hands outreached, gets its foot stuck in a manhole, smashes its face against the concrete that was swimming in a two inch deep pool of LSD, and suddenly believes it can solve world hunger through slideshow recaps and epic camera sweeps.

It’s not that I mind the camera work in the last episode, it worked for Fullmetal Alchemist, but wow…Hitohira is not that kind of show. Hitohira is not a show of sweeping revelations, not a show of profound epiphanies, not a show that is so pretentious that it finds clever uses for classical music to share its grandest moments of “Oh my god, this IS the truth!” No, it’s a show of growth and friendship, and for whatever reason, it felt clouding it in strange concluding sequences would accentuate that, failing to notice that it did no such thing.

I still come out of Hitohira positively, but I certainly don’t have the same feelings for it as when I started. And for as much as I loved it when it started, it will always be disappointing to think back to how it concluded, but this is an anime where the journey makes up for its destination. I’m just glad I was able to be able to watch it regardless of how it turned out.

At least One Piece of good news…

Production on the One Piece dub has been halted indefinitely. Hey, awesome! It’s such good news! It’s the kind of good feeling you get when you finally quit the job you’ve hated so much, but like quitting the job you hated so much, there is still the lingering thought of, “I got what I wanted, but now what?”

Of course, another problem arises now: What will now become of the series in English speaking countries? It’s another three years before the 4Kids license expires. Provided the event that 4Kids sits on the license (because there’s a better chance of the license expiring before the anime gets a proper release from them), the anime will be ten years old (assuming of course it doesn’t get cancelled - which doesn’t seem terribly likely right now).

I honestly feel the series is pretty much done here. There seems to be a lot of talk about it getting a possible Dragon Ball Z resurrection, but seriously…I just cannot see it. I think it would be a cold day in hell if One Piece were to get a Dragon Ball Z resurrection, because the series just isn’t there. I feel that if Naruto is Dragon Ball Z, then One Piece is Dragon Ball, and we all know which is more popular in America.

There’s also the matter of the manga. Over the past year or so, Shonen Jump has run three chapters monthly, letting the graphic novels get a “somewhat decent given the situation” three month release pattern, but the January issue only includes two chapters. Two chapters could very well mean there’s not a three chapter focus on One Piece anymore, meaning that graphic novels could be pushed back again to four months. Let’s get one thing straight: The One Piece manga is now longer than the entire Dragon Ball manga. Nuff said.

So, in the event the license does expire, will the anime ever be picked up and given a proper American release? There’s a demand for the series, no doubt, but will there enough of a demand in three years for there to be any sort of release of a decade old anime series that will be about 400 episodes long (and most likely still going), especially after being out of the American anime consciousness for three years with a pokey manga release, that in the event of a return to four month release patterns, will only be on volume 21 by the end of 2009?

I also feel it’s really sad that One Piece had to be the sacrifice for series like Naruto and Bleach to get respected, careful, and faithful adaptations, but I guess it’s also good that One Piece can be the series that saved its brothers, though I doubt anyone will remember it like that. I’ll have to hope for the best but expect the worst, I guess.

Combat Butlers and the Trouble within

Terrible habits. Terrible…awful…despicable. I expect no remorse in my laziness.

Hayate the Combat Butler! To Love-Ru!

I hate to really consider this complete destitute of interest growth as anything founded, but when faced with the two latest obsessions in my manga interests, there’s really no denying it. Perhaps in a lesser consideration, this would be all right. The first, a hard working, truly goofball comedy of a boy with the weirdest parents ever stumbling upon a butler gig and a few misunderstandings. The other, a misunderstanding machine of shonen romance awesomeness with stellar artwork that makes you say, “Hmm…is this really all right?”

To be fair, I’ve been familiar with To Love-Ru for a while through the pages of Jump, but I didn’t really take a founded interest in the series until the first tankoban was released. Whether it was the founding knowledge of seeing things I wasn’t able to see in Jump, or the fact that Haruka-chan is ridiculously cute to the point of me actually being painfully overwhelmed, I cannot say (forgive any error on names). Regardless, this series may actually get me into a ring of scanlation world that I have visited only for One Piece and Kashimashi, a ring I don’t exactly take much pride in, but will likely find myself slowly sinking into. To Love-Ru…will it be worth the attempt?

On the opposite side of purchasing English language manga, Hayate the Combat Butler caught my eye through the “Hey, this crap is new” inside the cover advertisement in Yakitate!! Japan Vol. 2. It looked rather cute, so I went ahead and picked it up when I saw it. I don’t know if it’s my callus of anime and manga storylines actually expanding over my sympathy for goofball premises, but Hayate’s deadbeat parents who sell him off to the mafia isn’t something I take too much in, since I figure he’ll get out of it quickly, or something.

The reverse He is My Master premise executed in a less creepy and overwhelming perverted way and promise of combat butlers and naïve young maidens seemed to catch my eye. I haven’t been disappointed, since all the general traps of these stories seem to be brought to light early, perhaps making it a more interesting, slightly more enjoyable story.

When the gloves are thrown off, and a choice needs to be made, I’m torn. I think I’m giving the top brass of unhealthy obsessions to Hayate, since I was more or less overly obsessed with To Love-Ru last week and have pretty much settled into routine with it. Routine for Hayate? One day, I assume, but for now, it’s a new thing.

I trust I’m not alone in this feeling of freshness, though I do worry of the general necessity of these stories, but I think I should have abandoned that feeling long ago to take an interest in this hobby.

The Gintama Serialization

Gintama is on its way to the American Shonen Jump, which is great for me, since I can’t seem to get enough of it, probably because I’m limited to a subbed anime episode every few moons and an untranslated manga chapter every week or so.

I’m not sure if Jump is just testing the waters for this series or what, but since it seems the schedule for Gintama is a chapter a month, the question deserves that deserves to be asked is how behind the series Viz really is. It worries me, since the three Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo fans, myself included, were given a story arc in book form, and sent on our way, making me wonder if a similar fate could befall the Gintama manga.

I fully understand the market for a quirky off the wall Japanese style comedy here in North America. The Sgt. Frog manga isn’t lighting up the sales and clearly the response to the Bo-bobo one-shot volume wasn’t nearly positive enough to warrant releasing more of it.

I guess what concerns me is Gintama getting a chapter a month and not having anything else to go on, until the anime is likely picked up for a Cartoon Network airing. Clearly, the ideal situation for me would be a random chapter in Jump and the graphic novels being released in a timely fashion. Since it’s yet to be seen whether something like that will happen, I’ll have to continue taking what Gintama I can get, hoping for the best.

Getting Something Less

God…why is D.Gray-Man so boring? And why is Negima!? so needlessly pretentious?

I think I’m about ready to finish up with D.Gray-Man. I’ll be tuning out for a few weeks, since this story arc is painfully boring. I kind of want to see the action scenes, but we’ll see…maybe in fast-forward??

Anyway, I’m just really disappointed. Severely so. I do generally enjoy at least ONE thing about every Shonen Jump series I’m familiar with, whether it be anything and everything like One Piece or the Duelist Kingdom story arc from Yu-Gi-Oh!. That’s why I find it so disappointing that D.Gray-Man has NOTHING for me. Since Lilani is the focus of the next story arc, I’ll check it out to see if it does something semi-interesting, until I just cut all ties with it. It also upsets me that tons of groups go after a show like D.Gray-Man, while interesting Jump series like Gintama and Katekyo Hitman Reborn! get ignored.

Also, what the hell is up with Negima!?!? This is the most needlessly complicated adaptation of anything in the universe. I can’t imagine anyone not familiar with the Negima! manga (or the first Negima! anime at the very least) having any clue what the hell is happening. I’m kind of lost myself, and Negima! is one of my favorite manga series.

I had been somewhat interested in checking into Pani Poni Dash!, now that it’s on its way to R1 DVD, but if it’s *anything* remotely similar to what I’m experiencing with Negima!?, I’m definitely going to skip it. Since I heard Negima!? was going to be a new story, I really just wanted to see action scenes, which I’m somewhat getting, but at the cost of an extremely pretentious execution.

I’m simply don’t understand the purpose for this adaptation. There were definitely a lot of disappointments with the first series, but they didn’t exactly warrant such a flashy showcase of “because we can.”

I stacked my deck pretty high this season, so it’s no surprise I had to be bitten by a couple of them, though I was already on the edge with them both. I’m going to stick with Negima!? a while longer, and I’ll tune into D.Gray-Man in a few weeks, but I think things just got a little easier.

The Maidens are Falling in Love with Me!?

Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, huh…

This show is goofy.

There’s so much I’m concerned about, but I’m not really sure why I feel it’s so important to care. Oddly enough, I think this is somehow one of the shows I’m looking forward to the most.

Also, on a completely unrelated note:

Pumpkin Scissors is awesome, and shaping up to be the best series this season I wasn’t already aware of (so far, Kanon is the best this season as far as I’m concerned). Mercury is the best dog in anime history (helped out tremendously by Kana Ueda), and it has maids with guns! So long as every episode doesn’t revolve exclusively around Orlando blowing tanks up, I think it’s really going to rock.

Finishing Up in Time To Start Again

In true anime fashion, once you’re done with a show, it’s time to move on to the next one, which is nice in one sense, but there’s no room for downtime. Add in DVDs, Netflix anime queues, and breaks for The Boondocks, Mr. Show, and Scrubs, well…

Thankfully, I was able to lie to rest three more shows in addition to Strawberry Panic, while I go on and start seven news ones in the first week, all of which are good enough to continue! Woe is I?

First, what I finished up, a little late, and then what I’m thinking of these seven new shows, which is a mere fraction of what is to come! All right!

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - To be entirely honest, the ending was goofy. I didn’t like it. I was beginning to think, as the series started trying to wrap up, that I would have to watch it a few times to actually get it, but I think I got by the end, which is great, because I wasn’t going to watch it again anyway.

This show was very entertaining and gripping at times, but a lot of the time, I was kind of bored with it. Well, not a whole lot of the time, but some of the time, I guess. When this is licensed and released on DVD, I hope the first disc has four episodes, because that’s all I want from this series.

Honey and Clover II – This had a great ending, but it was a very heavy series. For some reason, I didn’t come off of this one on the same level I did the first season. I look forward to rewatching it with the first season someday, but for now, I don’t have the time or the energy.

Ouran High School Host Club - This one did it all right. I thoroughly enjoyed this show on every level, and it’s definitely my favorite show of the year so far. The ending was a lot of fun, and was able to put all the great things about this show in a nutshell. I’m just glad I’ve got more manga to enjoy!

As for new shows, I’ve started seven shows so far, and I’m looking at about 12 more to check out, which would bring me up to about 20, which is par for about what I started with last spring. In a similar note, not relating to DVDs, which are another thing entirely, I timed this one well and started watching Hunter x Hunter! I’ve got 10 episodes under my belt, and I think it’s a great show, but why did I decide to start it a week before all these new shows when I only had the energy to watch three new ones this summer!

D.Gray-Man - I’m not entirely sold on the series as a whole myself, so the first episode for me was more along the lines of seeing how it fell together. I’m pleased with how it all turned out, in capturing the feel, tone, and style of D.Gray-Man, but I didn’t exactly find it to be truly captivating or entertaining. To be honest, I want to watch this to see if gets better than the first two manga volumes have shown me, and because Lilani is awesome no matter how it is you look at it. I’m very excited about all the new Jump adaptations, but this one is definitely last on the anticipation list, but I figure…it shouldn’t be so bad in the end.

Death Note - I can’t think of anything bad to say about the first episode of Death Note, which was awesome, but I definitely under whelmed by it, probably because I’ve read this story countless times and this adaptation was exactly what I thought it would be. It’s still very awesome to see it in movement. I’m very much looking forward to this anime to growing into what it will.

Kanon - For me, the first Kanon anime was all right. I didn’t really feel it was anything spectacular, but the first episode of this remake completely blew me away. Characters I wasn’t aware I liked suddenly captivated me! I was thoroughly impressed by the showcase, the animation, and the mood. I look forward to more Shiori.

Negima!? - Negima!? is a great title for this, because it’s kind of Negima!, but it’s also kind of not Negima!. It’s Negima!? I’m going to ignore how it stacks up with the manga, or what it’s doing right, because I would have died three times already watching this episode. I do think you need some experience with the source material, because the show just drops you into the class, and most of the character relationships are already established at the beginning of the first episode. In fact, the Evangeline story is in full swing during the first episode! I’m just hoping for cool action, since the designs are very nice in motion. I’m not expecting anything from it, but I already like it more than the first series.

Pumpkin Scissors - Weird name. Pumpkin Scissors was something I became slightly interested in from the trailer I saw on it, and I figured it was going to be a pretty solid show. I’m not typically fond of historically based military dramas, but then again, I’m also not typically fond of boy’s love series, but I give them plenty of chances. Then I found it was a GONZO series, which shot a lot of my interest. However, things definitely look to be on the up for this series, and I’m very pleased with the mood the series is presenting itself in. It reminds me somewhat of Fullmetal Alchemist, at least in the lighthearted aspects, and I think this could be one of the sharpest new shows of the season. Hooray for Stekkin!

Tokimeki Memorial - Only Love - For some reason, I think I know stuff about Tokimeki Memorial, but I really don’t, but I swear I do. I expected something magical and subdued, but got a somewhat in-your-face comedy that will probably lead to romance. I’ll be watching a lot of dating sim adaptations this season, and I hope to see some of what makes Tokimeki Memorial an important series in the dating sim genre. Sayuri!!

Yoake Mae Yori Ruri Iro Na - Crescent Love - This title kills me. Watching…blah…blah - Crescent Love immediately following Kanon, I wasn’t really feeling too anticipated to have another dating sim show that could definitely come up as a miss. However, I came out of the first episode pleasantly surprised. The show could’ve done a lot of things, but it held its own in creating a lighthearted and fun comedy with plenty of predictable plot elements thrown together for one very enjoyable first episode. This Crescent Love dealy definitely has my attention, so let’s bring it on! Go Mia!

Well, this is where I start. These series all impressed me enough to keep watching, and I’ve got a lot of great female characters to root for. I’m looking at a couple of other shows to really knock my socks off, but I hope to find some duds just to not have to watch some of these shows! That’s bad wishing… I’ve probably just jinxed two of these new shows. Thanks.

Strawberry Panic

Strawberry Panic is over, and I must say, thank god! Though, to be fair, it’s probably not as bad a show as I’ve slammed it a few times, but ultimately, this was a hit or miss tragedy that just never reached what its full potential should’ve been, or least what I think it should’ve been. There was a lot I didn’t like about the show, but there were some things I did. I’ll let you know what went wrong, then what went right, just so I can leave Strawberry Panic on a better note than I’ve been treating it thus far:

The cons!

Too many episodes!

Hey, it’s only 26 episodes, right? Why does it seem like it would have worked better as 13? Even ignoring the fact I only really enjoyed about half the episodes, this series was not very good at covering up the fact it had a LOT of time to kill. There were at least three later episodes and one plot twist that advanced no story, carried no weight, and had no growth or advancement of any kind. It needlessly stalled the series, and that hurt it a lot in my mind.

Too many characters!

Like with the episodes, there were too many characters in the Strawberry Panic world to actually make full use out of. Aside from a few story characters, a lot of them were just there as extras, but got the screentime of supporting characters. Very rarely did any of these extra characters make any real impact on the show, and most of the time, the impact they made was in a time of stalling, so it’s kind of moot anyway! I can’t remember the names of anyone in this show, so I can’t really single anyone out.

Too many schools!

Three schools! A tri competition of school pride! Except…one school rarely, if at all, has any importance to the story. We all know St. Miatre is where our lead character, her surly love interest, and the whole mess of truly important characters come from. And then St. Spica is where the other two important characters come from, but what about St. Le Rim? It had that trio of weird girls that held no purpose except to annoy me, but nothing else. I guess the extra outfit was a nice visual addition…but really, we could’ve made due with two. When your main contribution to the final story is quite literally, “We got nothin’,” well, thanks for your time, I guess.

No Nagisa/Tamao makeout scene!

From day one…all right…day two, day one was any makeout scene, I was pulling for a Nagisa x Tamao ending, because Nagisa and Tamao are awesome together. I don’t know if I’m supposed to respect the integrity of Tamao’s character or something silly like that, but I didn’t even get so much as a surprise goodbye kiss or anything! The pervert within me may have started watching just to see chicks making out, but the guy who stuck around for the crap really just wanted to see Nagisa and Tamao at least kiss or something. Talk about a letdown…

When thinking about what Strawberry Panic could’ve been if it were compressed better, I’m immediately reminded of Midori Days. Here we have a 13 episode anime adaptation with enough source material and characters to be 26 episodes, but let’s face it: a 26 episode Midori Days anime would’ve been atrocious, boring, and entirely unwelcome. Compressed to a 13-episode blitz, Strawberry Panic could’ve been a FAR better show than it was in the end. Perhaps the animation flaws and bad use of music would’ve remained, but it would’ve been a tighter show, and that would’ve been better than what it was.

Pros!

On the bright side of things, Strawberry Panic did hold my interest for at least 20 episodes before I kind of dozed in and out of interest for the last six, so it wasn’t like it was the worst show of all time or anything!

Great set of middle episodes!

Wow! Thinking back to how exciting it was to finally have a blowout of awesome stories in the middle of the series that began with the summer swim with Nagisa and Shizuma and found a way to carry over all the way through the school play, I’m left with a warm feeling that I may never get back. These were truly the episodes that made the show, alluding that the early episodes were just character fluff, and the later episodes would be an exciting roller coaster ride of drama.

A promising story!

Underneath the myriad of wasted time, excessive characters, and poor use of time was a story that was actually worth telling, or so I’d like to believe. The show was centered around two almost completely separate stories that came together for a final “who do you like more?” blowout. Each side had a lot of great drama, great hurdles, and nice immediate supporting casts to really spice things up well for their conclusions, and with better execution, this would’ve been an exciting journey!

Nice ending!

I will say, 100%, I like the ending. I give the show credit for holding out any real answers on the Etoile election, since I do believe its outcome could’ve gone either way. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the final episode was handled, and did enjoy the way it all winded down, even if my preferred lovelove didn’t come to be.

Strawberry Panic is a show that I couldn’t be happier to have finished. I’m not particularly glad I finished it up, even though the final episode was a nice way to leave things. In the assumingly unlikely event that god allows more of this series to be animated, I know I won’t be a part of that group watching it. I didn’t finish this series so I could watch more of it. If I were trying to do that, I would’ve stopped at episode 20.

Farewell, Strawberry Panic! You’ll remain the most infamous series of 2006 in my eyes, at least.