First Impressions / Series Introduction / Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo – 01

「File 01: 開かずの間」 (File 01: Akazu no Ma)
“The Forbidden Room”

I never read the manga for an anime I’m going to watch, since it usually builds unwanted expectations. When I learned that Yakumo blew through over 120 pages of material in just one episode, I couldn’t help but take a gander at the manga. And now I really, really regret that I do. I mean, imagine having to cover 120 pages of manga material, over 40 pages per chapter, in just one 30 minute episode. Can it be done?

Bakuman. / First Impressions / Series Introduction

Bakuman. – 01

「夢と現実」 (Dreams and Reality)
From the writers of the Death Note manga, Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi, comes Bakuman, an anime about two students who try to hit it big as mangaka. Produced by J.C. Staff, Bakuman shines not in animation quality, but how the characters interact with each other and how the little things in life are emphasized.

Miscellaneous

Introduction – “I Get to Write for Random Curiosity? Really?”

Hi everyone. Nice to meet you. My name is Takaii and I’ll be hopping on board to write for Random Curiosity! I never thought that I would get the opportunity to write for RandomC, but sometimes amazing things happen, right? I’m here to post my thoughts on whatever series I may be blogging, and listening to what you have to say down in the comments. I love reading comments and can’t wait to see what you guys have to say.

The Name's Takaii.

I was exposed to anime back in 2000, when Rurouni Kenshin and Outlaw Star were still the newest thing out in America. Once subtitled anime got more popular, I began watching just about anything I could get my hands on. Anyone remember streaming videos through Winamp? I was able to watch my first Japanese animated movie, Appleseed, off of it. Some of my old favorites that will never leave me are Mahoromatic and Love Hina, with Love Hina being the first anime I watched with the original Japanese voice actors and Mahoromatic introducing me to Ayako Kawasumi (voicing Mahoro, Saber, and Alice among many others). For anyone that watched the English dub, Mitsune’s voice was so bad that I vowed to always watch shows in their original language. And thus, the door to anime had been opened.

For series that are a little bit more current, my favorites from the past few years range from Clannad, Gurren Lagann, Lucky Star, to Toradora and Ookami. While I’m not the most well versed on all the different types of anime out there, I do have a very open mind when it comes to things I will watch. My favorite genres though are romantic comedies, slice of life shows, and those really, really GARR type of shows that get your adrenaline pumping (Gurren Lagann anyone?).

I also enjoy listening to music from anime, especially the OSTs. For the past few months, the most notable songs in my mind are Angel Beat’s Brave Song (GlDeMo Ver!) and Bakemonogatari’s 君の知らない物語 (Kimi No Shiranai Monogatari by Supercell). I’m very open to different types of music, and I would love to hear some of your song recommendations. (Anything Japanese is fine, it doesn’t have to be from an anime necessarily.) From the OST viewpoint, Maeda Jun‘s work on Angel Beats is what’s been on repeat for me while I study. It makes for really, really good studying music. Completely off topic, but I managed to get Eri Kitamura’s signature on Yui’s picture on the Thousand Enemies album (Eri Kitamura voices Yui). I know that she doesn’t sing it, but it feels right having her sign it.

On the writing aspect side of things, I tend to focus on the important events during an anime, while trying to still bring out the gist of what’s going on during the entire show. I’m not going to focus too much on summarizing, and express my opinions on the important points instead. I value any feedback you may have, and I hope that in turn I can entertain you guys to the best of my ability. I’m very, very excited to start writing for Random Curiosity and never thought that I’d be here writing an intro post for myself. I hope that I will be able to provide entertaining posts for you in the near future.

On that note, I hope I didn’t bore you too much, and here’s my formal introduction;
タカイイです。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。 (Takaii desu. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu)
-Takaii

I’m still trying to get MyAnimeList setup, but I’m having trouble recalling everything I’ve ever watched. For what I’m blogging, I’m fairly sure I will be covering Bakuman and Yakumo.