First Impressions / Hourou Musuko

Hourou Musuko – 09

「かっこいい彼女 ～Green eye～」 (Kakkoii Kanajo ~Green eye~)
“Cool Girlfriend ~Green eye~”

Gender identity disorder, cross-dressing, and reverse gender school plays I’m completely fine with, but boys who teased someone about wanting to be a girl suddenly turning a new leaf is downright creepy. The scariest part about Doi Shinpei (Yoshino Hiroyuki) is that I’m not entirely sure what he’s thinking after he was completely disillusioned from learning that Yuki (Honda Takako) is a transvestite.

Note: Prooof is away for spring break, so I’m covering Hourou Musuko on his behalf. He won’t be back until the weekend, so either me or Takaii will be covering episode 10 as well.

First Impressions / Tegami Bachi

Tegami Bachi REVERSE – 24

Maka vs. Cabernet. Godzilla-size action!

「決戦！ユウサリ中央（セントラル）」 (Kessen! Yuusari Chuuou (Sentoraru))
“Decisive Battle! Yuusari Central”

Tegami Bachi is generally know for its immersive world and emotion-filled stories, but this lead-up to the finale gave quite a different look with its action-filled city-wide destruction. Once the Bee Hive was completely destroyed by Cabernet, it honestly felt like the series had tread past a point of no return. Once Maka showed up to help and Yuusari Central was getting destroyed from the inside out, the scale of the battle was taken to a whole other level.

First Impressions / STAR DRIVER

STAR DRIVER: Kagayaki no Takuto – 23

「エンペラー」 (Enperaa)
“Emperor”

It’s been built up for some time now and the episode title was a dead giveaway, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the vacant First Division in Kiraboshi is finally filled by “King”. Sugata’s revealing outfit was probably the real shocker, given how low it plunges down in front.

First Impressions / Super Robot Wars OG

Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector – 23

「堕天使の心」 (Datenshi no Kokoro)
“Heart of a Fallen Angel”

With the Neo DC and School subplots coming to a close, the attention shifts to the Einst and Kyousuke/Excellen. It comes with a complete change of scenery as the war takes the Earth Federation to space, which is always a welcome development in the games so that your non-flying units aren’t hampered by terrain. Those ground units… always wasting valuable turns! (I always played SRW with minimum turns in mind.)

Season Preview / Series Introduction

Spring 2011 Preview!

In light of the earthquake and tsunami that Japan is still recovering from, most shows were postponed for a week. As a result, the premiere dates listed in this preview are likely to get pushed out by at least a week. Some series’ homepages have already reported new start dates, which I’ve highlighted below by writing the date in red. You can expect more dates to be updated in the upcoming weeks.

…

Please read: The start of the spring 2011 season marks the one-year anniversary of my tenure heading Random Curiosity. Looking back, it’s been a rather ambitious year that was never short of sleepless nights, so I’d like to believe that I’ve taken things in a positive direction after the site was about to shut down. It definitely hasn’t come without a cost though, as I haven’t taken a proper day off and have even used my vacation days to work on season previews and year-end posts. As such, I’m contemplating taking the entire season off to unwind and recharge. The idea is to take one season off and then ease my way back into things in summer.

Unfortunately, it comes at somewhat of a bad time given how busy this season is, but the other writers will still be covering a handful of shows on a regular basis while I’d be shifting to a more administrative role. I know some people are going to see this as an opportunity to help, so I want to make it clear that I’m not looking for any more writers since I’m happy with the reliable ones I currently have. I’d only make an exception if you’re an avid anime fan with a lot of dedication, good writing skills, insightful input, and fairly fluent Japanese so that you can cover raws on my behalf. If this sounds like you and you’d like to help contribute, please e-mail me.

At the moment, I’m just heavily considering taking a break or risking overworking myself, hence why nothing is marked as a guaranteed blog. If you feel opinionated about it either way, feel free to share your input in the comments. As always, I’ll be reading.

* This preview will be kept at the top for the next while, so be sure to scroll past it or check the Recent Entries on your right for new posts.

Miscellaneous / Random Musings

Quick Update on Broadcast Schedules

Japan clearly has much more pressing concerns in the wake of the horrific earthquake and tsunami that it suffered, but I just want to provide a quick overview on what’s happening with each of the shows broadcast-wise. As you can probably imagine, most shows are being postponed for a week, some of which go back to last Friday. For most stations, the tentative plan is to resume broadcasts the next week, but don’t be surprised if some are delayed longer. It’s very likely the April 1st start of the new season will get pushed out as a result (and understandably so).

* Information is care of syoboi and official websites.

…more after the break.

First Impressions / K-ON! / OVA/Movie

K-ON!! – 27 (Extra)

「番外編 計画！」 (Bangai-hen Keikaku!)
“Extra Chapter – Plans!”

Included with the ninth and final volume of the K-ON Blu-ray/DVD releases was a third bonus episode. Much like the two that aired during the televised broadcast, this latest one takes place prior to the girls’ graduate when they’re planning for an overseas trip. What that actually translates to is our lovable light music band being unable to agree on a destination and realizing they need to get passports first.

First Impressions / Gundam Unicorn / OVA/Movie

Gundam Unicorn – 03

「ラプラスの亡霊」 (Rapurasu no Bourei)
“The Ghost of Laplace”

I love Universal Century. As much as I enjoyed Gundam 00, Gundam Unicorn reminds me of everything that I loved in the older series and presents it in glorious high definition. The somewhat older yet more realistically proportioned character designs, the upgraded versions of the original mobile suits from the Jegans to the Delta Plus (i.e transformable Hyaku Shiki), and a storyline that expands on everything that’s happened before.