Random Musings – Another One Of Those Days…
You ever have one of those days that’s completely filled with only highs and lows? That’s what I went through today, and it’s quite exhausting. Anyway, Nodame and Darker than Black will be up soon.
FreezeForward: Spring 2007 Preview?
So Euphie finally proved to everyone she’s no Lacus clone, Light-o got his evil eye back, Chiaki got every woman in the audience fantasizing about his baton, and psychokaede hit her limit break and came one “USO DA” short of psychorena status. Not to mention Mayumi went full-blown Haruhi on a school…of fish. Sure, a lot of stuff happened these past two weeks, but it’s not doing it for me anymore. You know when you’re at a theme park on one of the less popular rollercoaster rides with no line, after the ride is over you ask the operator if you can just sit there and go again, rather than getting off, walking all the way around through the banisters, just to get back in the same seat? It’s kinda like that with the current season…it had its high points and low points, but now that it’s coming to an end, I don’t want to get back out and wait for it to start again – the next ride needs to start already!
So, thanks to Omni once again, we have an extensive list of the wannabes, the gonnabes, and the otherwise uninspired anime of the new season. So, which one is which? In yet another pointless and drunkenly conceived FreezeFrame, here’s my extremely biased and borderline prejudiced preview of the Spring shows that will surely dominate my life for the next several months.
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Hitohira http://www.hitohira.tv/ Premieres March 28th, 2007 A girl with self-confidence issues and chronic stage fright…in the drama club. Fans of the perpetual blush need look no further. At first glance, this show looks like crap, but that’s what I thought La Corda would be, and that actually turned out to be quite effective at igniting the shoujo flames that burn strong within me. She even looks like she could be Hino’s younger sister…moeee |
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sola http://www.sola-project.com/ Premieres April 6th, 2007 Well, it definitely looks promising, but so did a certain other show that seemed mainly focused on animating the wind blowing through long wavy blonde hair. Lucky that the characters in sola have rather small chins. As long as this doesn’t turn into some girl showcasing shampoo commercial and sticks to a solid storyline with good pacing, I think this show may turn out to be a dark horse for one of the best anime of the season. Odds of me flaming this (multiple times): Good |
Random Musings – The Calm Before The Storm
I realize that most of my random musings entries these days aren’t really random musings, but rather news posts or quick thoughts on stuff. Regardless, I wrote this entry in one sitting off the top of my head, so consider this the first true “Random Musings” in a long time, and please forgive me if I ramble a little.
Here’s a question that’s been on my mind recently: Have CODE GEASS and Kanon set the bar too high? GEASS’s biggest strength is that it has fantastic writing with plot twists and turns one after another that keep you guessing on what’s going to happen. Kanon’s visuals and emotional impact meanwhile are what I consider a new standard for that type of show, or even for all anime. Between those two, Thursdays for the past half year have been pretty incredible. I’m sad really that they’ve ended, at least for now.
CLANNAD – Announcement Commercial
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On the heels of today’s Kanon finale came the news that Kyoto Animation is going to be animating the Key game CLANNAD. Rumors had been circulating about this, but the website just went live and they aired an commercial for it. Given that I think KyoAni has done a fantastic job with both AIR and Kanon, I can’t wait to see this. Heck, this commercial already got the opening song Megumeru stuck in my head.
The director is going to be Ishihara Tatsuya (who has done AIR, Kanon, and Suzumiya Haruhi) and the announced cast are Nakahara Mai as Nagisa Furukawa, Hirohashi Ryou as Fujibayashi Kyou, Kanda Akemi as Fujibayashi Ryou, Kuwashima Houko as Sakagami Tomoyo, Nonaka Ai as Ikubi Fuuko, and Noto Mamiko as Ichinose Kotomi.
You can watch the commercial Stage6.
Random Musings – CODE GEASS News Overload Edition
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FreezeFrame: All-Star Memorability
If you’re like me, you waited the whole year for the NBA All Star Weekend to come around – and while Friday and Saturday’s festivities were quite entertaining, were left a bit disappointed at the actual All Star game. There were moments – just a few brief moments – of excitement, but otherwise, the pace and excitement fell back as quickly as it had picked up. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, no problem, you didn’t miss anything besides LeBron embarrass himself with a failed off-the-backboard dunk attempt.
Anyways, I was bored to the point where I started thinking about the all stars in the current anime season. Yeah, the game was that bad.
Byousoku 5 Centimeter – 01
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Summary:
During one spring in elementary school, Shinohara Akari had told her friend Toono Takaki that sakura petals fall at a speed of five centimeters per second.
FreezeFrame: Rationalizing Lunar Bunnies
Four years ago, I was into stuff like the South Park, Futurama, maybe some Friends and Seinfeld once in a while. Sure, I knew about anime – I grew up watching Ranma and Kimagure Orange Road – but if you told me that four years later I’d be speaking Japanese and saying stuff like “fight-o! da yo” or “sonna koto iu hito kirai desu!” I’d probably think you’re crazy and go back to watching Yu-Gi-Oh reruns on the WB.
Ara ara, how people change.
BENNIE K – 1001 Nights PV
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While I usually don’t talk about music that’s not from an anime or a drama, BENNIE K is one of those groups I really enjoy to listening to – I would even call them one of my favorites. That being said, I actually wouldn’t have even realized BENNIE K was releasing another song if it wasn’t for the MTV PV schedule that listed the video multiple times starting yesterday. In any case, 1001 Nights is the pair’s latest song, and as the name suggests, it has an Arabian flair. The PV gave me a very bad feeling at the start because of the cheesy introduction narration in English (“In a time long ago, when magical carpets and powerful genies existed, an ordinary girl tries to enchant her king for 1001 nights…”), however the song then proceeded to impress me a lot, including all of YUKI‘s vocal parts and how CICO ended it. Both of them look stunning in this video, and it was helped out by some good CG and beautiful land and sky-scapes.