Gundam AGE - 04

Why are you all suddenly three feet tall?

Argh. This episode.  Just... ARGH.

Guilty Crown - 03

Sad to say, the third episode was quite a bit weaker than the first two.  Let's hope that the rest of the show isn't like this.

Wanted criminal/terrorist transferring in.

Friday AMV #9 - This is Halloween :)

Well, it will be in a few days, anyway.

Gundam AGE - 03

The show's getting a little better, moderately resolving some of the more egregious problems I've identified so far, but it's still far from great.

Battleship beamspam... with almost none of them pointed at the attacking unit

Last Exile Ginyoku no Fam - 01

And the last show to air (I think) finally makes its appearance.  I never got around to finishing the first Last Exile, so it's possible, maybe even likely that I'll be missing details from time to time.

The show opens with Fam sleepwalking her way out of an airship's exterior door, stopped only by a rope tied around one of her ankles.  Apparently, she does it often (though one wonders what happened the first time...).

Guilty Crown - 02

Back at GHQ base, medics are scrambling to pull the pilot of the unit that Shu wrecked last episode out of the pod that all the mech pilots remote-control their units from.  Back at the action, that pilot's squadmate charges his unit forward, furious over his partner being taken down, and fires a spread of missiles, which Shu manages to avoid by subconsciously tapping his newfound powers.

All fighting done by remote control.

Friday AMV #8 - Time to dance

Taking a break from the single-series AMVs I've been posting.  This week it's a couple multi-series AMVs based around those with dancing OP/ED or insert songs.

Gundam AGE - 02

Episode 2 continues right from where episode 1 left off, a UE missile attack on the Nora colony... and runs straight into the type of problems that the pilot had.

The missile is bigger than the MS...

Tamayura Hitotose - 02

After waiting a week for another look at this series I finally get the time to review the second episode of Tamayura Hitotose. Like i mentioned before this anime genre really sits well with me, i love its kawaii characters and their simple life creates this very realistic environment being represented throughout the animation.

Friday AMV #7 - Super Robot Wars

SRW is a long-running turn-based strategy game by Banpresto, which combines the characters and storylines from a multitude of mecha series, from real robot series like Gundam and Macross, to super robot series like Getter Robo, Dunbine, Nadesico, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Over the years (and games), they created and introduced a multitude of original characters and plotlines, then, eventually spun all of them off into the Original Generations series. The series was popular enough to warrant a three-episode OVA, then full two-season adaptions of both OG1 and OG2 (though the RX-78 Gundam Huckebein was left behind in all but the OVA).



Second video over the fold.

Guilty Crown - 01

As I wrote in the fall anime preview, this series feels a lot like Code Geass.  Ten years prior to the start of the show, a pandemic caused by the Apocalypse Virus caused so much damage to Japan that it was forced to take so much foreign aid that it became, in essence, owned by other countries via a governmental body called the GHQ. Inori Yuzuriha is an idol singer with the in-universe Egoist, and a member of the resistance group Undertaker, who manages to steal the void genome from a GHQ facility.  In her escape, she, the minibot Fyu-Neru, and the void genome go missing after being blown off a bridge in a clash with GHQ forces.

Gundam AGE - 01

One good point, the enemy mechs look pretty good.

Even not counting the main character designs (which no one really seems to like), there's so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin...

14 years prior to the start of the show, an unknown force called Unknown Enemy or UE attacked and destroyed the space colony Angel.  Seven years later the colony Asuno Flit is living in with his mother is similarly attacked, and she is killed moments after giving Flit the AGE device, a memory unit containing data on a certain mobile suit.  In the present day, Flit, now 14, and still in school, is working for the military as the head of the project building the mobile suit Gundam based off of the data in the AGE device.  On the day the unit is finished and ready for its trial runs, the UE attack the colony and are forced to retreat after the Flit sorties in the Gundam and destroys one of their units... the first ever human victory.  The episode ends as the UE launch a retaliatory missile attack against the colony.  My main issues with the show below the fold.

Friday AMV #6 - Haruhi Suzumiya

What if god was an eccentric high school girl, and you had to do everything in your power to keep her from realizing she has the power to remake the universe as she sees fit?  That's the plot of Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu (the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) in a nutshell.  Even if you've never watched it, the dance version of the first season's ending theme, Hare Hare Yukai, was a convention staple for years, until it was supplanted by Carameldansen and... come to think of it, has anything replaced that yet?

Anyway, on to this week's videos.



A second video over the fold

Tamayura Hitotose - 01

Tamayura Hitotose comes from "TYO Animatons" as a very generic but warm slice of life depicting the life of protagonist Fu Sawatari and her experiences the years after the passing of her dad who seems to had been a great inspiration for her, specially in the area of Photography.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - 01

It was fun, but...what on Earth did I just watch?

In a post-apocalyptic world, nearly the entire Earth has been rendered inhabitable to people.  However, humanity retains its advanced technology and, in an attempt to rebuild, rewrite and copy their history.  The world is currently entering a period where they are rewriting a 30-year-war era, and are seeking out conflicts.

Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai - 01

Looking at the first episode, Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai (Please Love Me Seriously, abbreviated Majikoi) reminds me of a combination of Real Bout High School, Bakatest and Dog Days.

Complete with maid army

C3 - 01

We'll be showing this one at the screening next week, so this will be a pretty basic episode review. (Click "read more" for the rest of the post)

Ro-Kyu-Bu

It's about basketball, I swear.

What do you do if you're the aunt of a star basketball player whose high school team was just disbanded because its leader got into a relationship with their advisor's elementary school-aged daughter?  You blackmail him into coaching the girls' basketball team at your elementary school, of course.  Hasegawa Subaru is put in that position, initially agreeing to only coach them for three days, to prep them for a match against the boys' team, but after "losing" a bet with his aunt and the team, he stays on and continues coaching.

Mayo Chiki

Maybe it's just a reflex.  If my nose bleeds,  they'll leave me alone...because the room would get dirty otherwise.

Due to years of constant use as a sandbag by his pro-wrestler mother and younger sister, Sakamachi Kinjirou (Jirou) now has a body that nosebleeds whenever he is touched by a female.  Konoe Subaru is the (female) butler of Suzutsuki Kanade, who is allowed the position only under the condition that no one figures out that she is a "she".  Needless to say, that doesn't even last five minutes into the first episode, as Jirou walks in on her in the restroom, and in the resulting chaos quickly finds out the truth.  Kanade then offers him a deal.  They will help him cure his phobia, and in exchange, he won't tell anyone the truth about Subaru (and if he refuses, he's a dead man walking).

GOOD MORNING NII-SAN!

Blood-C

"What do you think people are made of? I'm not talking about blood or flesh. We do care about what's on the exterior, but we want to focus more on what people even now still call the "inside." You can also call it "nature." I guess you are either born this way or raised to act this way. Are people born like this or do they become like this? The answer is..."

Kisaragi Saya is a second-year high school student and miko at her family's Shinto shrine.  During the day, she's a normal (if klutzy) student, while at night, she uses the shrine's sacred Goshintou katana to kill furukimono (translated as Old Ones or Elder Bairns), monstrous creatures which eat people.

Charlotte, is that you?