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「いくらで買います？／なるほど！関係ないな俺たち！／ベネズエラ」 (Ikura de Kaimasu? / Naruhodo! Kankeinai na Ore-tachi! / Venezuela)
“How Much Will You Pay? / I See! It Doesn’t Concern Us! / Venezuela”
More so than swimsuit and beach episodes, I always enjoy watching sports festival ones. They’ll never measure up in terms of fan-service, but do provide a complete change of scenery with the same characters.
It felt like a milestone of sorts, so I just want to stop and take a moment to thank all our readers for checking back regularly and making this site what it is today. Founded by Omni back in November 2004, Random Curiosity has grown tremendously over the years and now has over 4,140 posts, 173,000 comments, 60 million visits, and 120 million page views since its inception. Timely posts, regular updates, and fairly objective views make up the direction that took site to where it is now, but none of that would have mattered if you the readers didn’t keep coming back to hear what we have to say about the latest anime.
It wasn’t too long ago that Omni announced his retirement from blogging and I decided to pick things up where he left off under the new domain, randomc.net; however, our readership has grown significantly since then (~25%) so I’d like to thank all the new people who have either stumbled across the site or heard about it from a friend and made it one of their regular stops on the Internet. It might be a bit intimidating at first, but I encourage you all to join in on the discussions and share your own thoughts and impressions on anything and everything anime related. I promise I’ll do whatever is in my power to keep the trolls at bay. 🙂 It’s my hope that this will become a more inviting place for anime fans old and new, where anyone can easily relate to the impressions written here. If you have friends who are into anime but haven’t heard of the site, please do tell them, because just like you and all our other readers, we’re fans of anime first and foremost and just want to talk about it with people who have similar interests.
Once again, thank you all for reading and getting accustomed to things under my wing. Hopefully the changeover from dedicated summaries to more in-depth impressions wasn’t too alienating at first. I’ve enjoyed blogging a lot more ever since I started focusing on talking about anime and their plot lines rather than simply summing it up, so that’s a change in writing style that I’d like to continue improving on in an attempt to make episodic blogging a more interesting and worthwhile read. I’ll still have lots of high definition screen captures of course, for those who just can’t get enough of them. I probably won’t have another milestone post until 70 million visitors, but we may just see that before the end of the year at this rate — just in time for the site’s sixth anniversary.
* Yuri and Otonashi are snacking on some Pizza Hut pizza for those wondering. The full-size image can be seen here.
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「林間学校オニごっこ」 (Rinkan Gakkou Oni Gokko)
“Outdoor School Game of Tag”
The bitter tradition of lying about how glamorous the five-day, four-night, Seika outdoor school trip may have crushed many of the guys’ expectations, but its true purpose seemed to be starving them and taking away their manhood in order to create law-abiding and docile citizens. All in accordance to the Japanese education system?
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「中多紗江編 第一章 コウハイ」 (Nakata Sae-hen Dai Isshou – Kouhai)
“Nakata Sae Chapter 1 – Junior”
Well this was unexpected. Our romantic drama suddenly became a romantic comedy with the introduction of our sarcastic narrator (Nakata Jouji). It’s verging on Hayate no Gotoku and Ookami-san levels too, with the way Junichi will break the fourth wall to save himself some face.
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「おおかみさんと毒りんごが効かない白雪姫」 (Ookami-san to Doku Ringo ga Kikanai Shirayuki Hime)
“The Wolf and Snow White whom The Poison Apple Doesn’t Work On”
It’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in the form of the Miss Otogi Gakuin champion Shirayuki Himeno (Fukui Yukari) and her seven younger siblings.
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「翼をください」 (Tsubasa wo Kudasai)
“Please Give Me Wings”
We’re only at episode eight and AIC Spirits has already opted to cut out the opening in favor of a more movie-like introduction to the long-awaited new Striker Unit. Yoshika’s magical abilities have outgrown her A6M Zero, forcing her to upgrade to the J7W1 Shinden, a.k.a. “Magnificent Lightning”.
This post has been sitting in my drafts for some time now, so I figured it’s about time to get it out. Not to mention, the PV for May’n’s latest single has been out for almost two months now on Victor Entertainment’s flying DOG YouTube channel, prior to the actual premiere of Ookami-san. In addition, the single itself came out on July 28th, so everyone who’s wanted to hear the full version of “Ready Go” probably has by now. What hasn’t been so readily available though is her live performance of the song on Music Japan’s anime song special back on August 1st. I say live performance, but in reality this looks like a prerecorded lip-synced one where May’n gets part of the lyrics and dance messed up at the 2:24 mark and recovers with the help of a quick camera change. Regardless, I love watching live performances of songs prerecorded or otherwise, so this Music Japan special was pretty cool to see. There were several other artists performing as well, some of which I may post performances of later on. For now, enjoy the latest from May’n if you haven’t seen it already. The PV in particular looks like it could be used for an iPod advertisement.
* Music Japan live performance video after the jump.
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「Blinded」
Out of all the guys, Baremoto is unquestionably the one I have the most gripes with. I would’ve thought that the fire incident back in Shonan was enough to turn his character around, but someone still has to teach him “bros before hoes” it seems. Literally.
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「卒業アルバム！」 (Sotsugyou Arubamu!)
“Graduation Yearbook!”
Guys or girls, bangs are a part of your hair you never want to mess up, especially the day before high school graduation photos.
