Fairy Tail 12 – Anime characters are always cute when they’re young. And Erza, despite having so little screentime this week, was cool. OP and ED changed, and they make me realise that Fairy Tail production team probably love having at least a cute-ish song for either OP or ED.

Kimi ni Todoke 13 – I was quite surprised that Kazehaya wasn’t going to carry his misunderstanding over time a la most shoujo series, but resolved it rather quickly. The amount of sparkly bubbles was just insane, it leaves me with no doubt this is a shoujo story lol. Scene with Kurumi and Pin was hilarious, his inflated ego is just amusing.

Tatakau Shisho: Book of Bantorra 15 – Woah, major revelations this week. Perhaps even the Governor of Paradise is simply a human as well, just with some magical ability that allow/caused him to turn transparent at the top. And seeing Fhotona in a new light is… surprising. Does all acting directors have some sort of relation with the Governor? And why did the “Lascal Othello” give that book to Volken?

Gintama 190 – Start of catty arc. Maybe because I’ve already read it in the manga, but it didn’t feel that funny when Gintoki began a, uh, new life. But still, encountering the other characters in his new form was pretty funny. Zura, I mean Katsura, is his usual silly self. New ED as well, the song is not bad. I like the ED scenes, which showed the graduation of school version of Gintama. So Tsukuyo ended up as a teacher in this alternate reality version haha.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! 166 – Ah, I was looking forward to Squalo’s entrance but it didn’t feel amazing. So Tsuna tells Kyoko and Haru what happened in 160+ anime episodes, or 200+ manga chapters. Thus the plot progresses… *lack of things to say*

New Series
So Ra No Wo To / Sora no Woto 1 – So perhaps this is something like ARIA meets K-ON (except that I’ve only watched one episode of K-ON!, so I can’t judge). The OP scenes already remind me of Aria in that there isn’t a fixed OP animation. Maybe they might have a fixed animation next week, but I don’t mind if there isn’t. Anyway, it looks quite promising (Aria slice-of-life fangirl in me excited), whether it turns out like Aria or K-ON! or not doesn’t really matter. In addition, Aya Endo had her Lucky Star’s Miyuki voice which made it easy to identify her lol.

Durarara!! 1 – Setting up the premise, lots of names thrown and shown (colours? dollars?). Pretty interesting to say the least, the whole episode mainly follows what seems to be the main character and his friend, with the addition parts about the headless rider. After watching Umineko, I’m tempted to think that the whole scene with the immortal rider is an illusion.

Ookami Kakushi 1 – This is Higurashi-meets-Peach-pit. Peach-pit’s style is definitely seen here, though I find it hard to take the male lead as a… male. He looks like a girl, and a Nagato Yuki-ish (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya alien) girl. The town’s name 嫦娥 reminds me of the name of the woman in a Chinese legend who leaped to the moon; I wonder if the Japanese version is similar to the Chinese one or not. Anyway, story seems interesting.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu – 1 I wonder what made me watch this lol. I’ve already read the synopsis, and it didn’t interest me very much. Thus, the actual episode didn’t make a huge impression too. I might watch this as my weekly “light-hearted-comedy”.

It was good, her voice came out nicely. She’s a really good live singer Maybe it’s just me, but she seemed a bit nervous. Also, if I’m not wrong, she came out at the very beginning (all the singers are congregated on the stage) in a red dress. It certainly made it very easy to spot her when the camera is panning LOL.

Anyway, I watched a few of the performances at the beginning (no time for the rest *sigh*). Ayumi Hamasaki’s outfit was pretty cool. I was expecting AKB48 to have a lot of people on stage (well they did, but…), yet EXILE probably took the cake for having the most amount of people involved in a performance unless someone else in the later segments beat them to it (kind of unlikely). There were people on the stage, people on the upper level of the stage, people at the aisles, people everywhere… I heard something like “World Cup” mentioned in the interview, so perhaps that was the theme song for World Cup and supposed to have a “hey everybody let’s sing together!” spirit hence the humongous amount of people.

AKB48 started off with probably 10++ people, and later the rest of the group and SKE girls joined them. Although it was still a large amount of people (72 if I remember correctly), EXILE definitely beat them lol. Though I didn’t like the song(s?) they sang, the formation at the end was pretty cute. I kind of pitied the girls who had to dance on the steps.
flumpool, whom I’ve never heard of before since I’m not that into Jpop or Jrock, performed next and I quite liked their song. And the rest of the video is still loading (and has been stuck there for eternity…) so I can’t comment much on other performances, for now I’ll probably stop watching or just listen to the songs.

Another thing: The children MCs were extremely adorable! They were kind of awkward at times, but attempted not to be awkward.

uploaded by afz28

I loved Shin Ai, the opening song for the first season which is also sung by Nana Mizuki. Although Mugen, the opening for the second season, didn’t make a big impression on me at first, it’s slowly growing on me.
On a slightly related note, the cover art for the character singles and DVDs are really beautiful. I like the style used, it gives off such a peaceful feel.

Hell’s Screen made me appreciate the previous episode more. In Spider’s Thread, we’re given the idea that the king and his lackeys are on the good side (even though I thought he looked quite evil…), yet in Hell’s screen a broader picture is shown – king & co are as inhumane as the killer in Spider’s Thread. The characters don’t contradict what is shown in Spider’s Thread, but expands on it. At first, the lackeys are catching the criminal who random kills people making it seem as though they’re the good guys – yet they themselves also indiscriminately kill people. The king calls Kandata a monster, but he is a monster himself as well. Maybe I’m thinking too much, but I like the parallels shown.
This is what I would’ve liked Kokoro to do – though it wasn’t bad, somehow the brilliance didn’t really get through to me.

Aoi Bungaku is a really good series; the stories are varied, and I have a fondness for imaginative literature. It is also visually appealing as well.

What stands out most in Kuuchuu Buranko is its interesting visuals (after watching it, I have further developed a liking for crazy patterns lol). While it’s rather episodic, it’s still fun to watch Dr Irabu’s crazy antics and the numerous reference to other episodes. The patients themselves can be quite amusing, and even though Kuuchuu Buranko isn’t a deep show to muse over, it’s an enjoyable series.

Half way through, they put in some plot elements… and kind of left it hanging there. Until the last 2 episodes. The previous episode was quite a shocker, since something interesting actually popped out!

I just have a slight issue with Akari’s uniform. Why does it still look quite alright on her? I’m pretty sure that the things I wore when I was a child wouldn’t fit me anymore. And besides, she’s pretty young to be a businesswoman working in Roppongi.

I guess this episode did answer most of the questions regarding Akari and why she turned into a child (my brain is a little too tired to process it properly but it seems to make sense for now). Conductor turned out to be possibly the (only) partial antagonist in the series… it was a bit weird to hear him refer to Akari as a diagram (even though she’s human..!)

That beam.. was scary yet hilarious
And the conductor’s mask actually had a use lol.

And so… what happened in the end? Did Tokugawa save the day..? So who exactly was Tokugawa *sigh*

There are many questions left unanswered. It was explained that the passenger’s flow of time was stopped, but in one particular episode with a rich girl, I’m quite sure that time was operating as normal on the outside as her security force was searching for her to no avail. Also, who exactly is the conductor?! He was called ’12′, so he might possibly be a computer program of sorts. The ending was a bit fuzzy, since some “higher-up” (possibly the dog) stopped the conductor from erasing her memories and returned Akari back in time. And how exactly can a station have kids, how are the Shinjuku brothers related, what do the other non-Oedo stations do, what is the origin of Miracle Train etc etc. For this type of anime, I wouldn’t really have bothered with the origin or reason for the personifying stations but it was brought up in an episode… and they didn’t answer eventually -_- Oh well.

My list of questions can continue on and on, but I get the feeling that the production team aren’t really focused on answers. I will probably have to wait for a second season or bury it in my heart forever.

Things aren’t right unless the main lead says the charismatic parting line.

Since I like to occupy myself with other activities when I’m supposed to do my work, I compiled all the images at the end credits *whew* They show all the 10 sets of passengers [yes, sets] as well as other stations who make an appearance there.

Bonus screenshot.. though I was rather weirded out by the sight at first lol.

So far, Dotty and her internal issues is one of the main recurring themes in Amanchu, so this chapter is mainly about Dotty and her loneliness. Their nicknames are used so often that I can barely remember what are their real names… not that I mind. I think it’s pretty sweet, and wonderful that she’s adapting well in her new school (all thanks to Pikari). And everything ends well, with her being able to take more pictures and talking to her old friend.

I can understand Dotty’s feelings about her phone not having enough memory (sort of). But unlike her, I end up trying not to take pictures unless it’s really noteworthy.
There was another part about presents (receiver and giver), which I can relate to as well.

Honestly, I’m not feeling the goodness of Amanchu like I did with Aria. It may have something to do with the fact that I loved historical European architecture since ages ago, so I immediately took a liking to Aria whose setting is based on Venice. Still, the characters are pretty cute, quirky and still not very developed yet… and even if it’s not olden European style, I love looking at well drawn and detailed backgrounds. It’s still far too early for me to give up on the manga yet!