Miscellaneous / Poll

Poll: Summer 2010 Anime Season

In the past, only the Reader’s Choice poll for the year-end Best of Anime post got an real sort of attention, but I’m leaning towards having something similar every season to see what our readers are looking forward. In any case, I hope the Summer 2010 Preview was helpful in sifting through all the new shows and finding the ones that interest you. I already have a really good idea of what I plan to watch (and of those which ones to blog), but here’s your chance to voice your picks and compare them with others. As always, comments are welcome if there’s anything you want to add about a particular show or the summer season in general.

Note: The same poll will also be available on the sidebar.

Angel Beats! / Random Musings

Angel Beats! OP – Complication (Durarara!! OP2 Parody)

[flv:Angel_Beats_Durarara_OP2_Parody.mp4 550 310]

What do you get when you combine one of the hottest shows of the season with one of the coolest themes and most distinct opening sequences? The best of both worlds in this exceptionally well-done MAD movie for Angel Beats inspired by Durarara‘s stylistic touches and featuring ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D’s “Complication”. With both of these awesome series coming to an end in the next couple of days, now seemed like the perfect time to post about this. If you haven’t seen this yet, you might be surprised how talented (i.e. hardcore) some Japanese fans are. As a bonus, this video even helps you get Angel Beats’ character names straight if you had any difficulty doing to. Of course, it’s even COOLER if you do a side by side comparison with the original and sync them up, for which I’ve provided the option to do so below. Now how badass is that?

Show Side by Side Comparison ▼

Final Impressions / First Impressions / Mayoi Neko Overrun!

Mayoi Neko Overrun! – 12 (END)

「迷い猫、決めた」 (Mayoi Neko, Kimeta)
“Stray Cat, Decided”

While I’ve enjoyed the randomness of this series, super robots and all, I admit I wasn’t expecting much more than an open-ended finale to this twelve episode adaptation. To my pleasant surprise, it focused on Nozomi again and had Fumino and Chise admitting they have feelings for Takumi, making it much better than that.

First Impressions / Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru – 11

「儚く強く尊いもの」 (Hakanaku Tsuyoku Tattoi Mono)
“An Ephemeral, Strong, and Precious Thing”

While the cliffhanger last week with the sudden arrival of Reiga was a good one, I couldn’t fathom the possibility that they’d kill off Tsukumo this early in the series if at all, so I wasn’t too surprised to see him saved with the help of Yuki’s God’s Light.

Durarara!! / Random Musings

Hanazawawawa!! (Durarara!! ED1 Parody)

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Nico Nico Douga users never fail to impress by creating amazing fan-made videos. There’s been a sort of a craze going on at Japan’s popular video sharing site in recent months over creating seiyuu-based parody videos of Durarara‘s first ending sequence, featuring “Trust Me” by Matsushita Yuuya. It’s likely due to how the sequence itself is fairly straightforward with a vertical scrolling of characters, but when you see it with an interesting assortment that are all played by one seiyuu of the Durarara series, it’s still pretty cool to see.

Some are particularly well done, but I find this “Hanazawawawa” one featuring Sonohara Anri‘s seiyuu — the always moe Hanazawa Kana — to be one of the nicer ones. It’s Hanazawa Kana all the time here and I love how this version lists credits for each of the characters to make it look like an ending sequence as well, all played by Kana of course. Some characters that most people will recognize in addition to Anri are Tenshi from Angel Beats, Nadeko from Bakemonogatari, Suou from Darker than BLACK, Zange-chan from Kannagi, and Kobato from Kobato. For a full-list of the characters in the order they appear, see below. Enjoy!

Show Full Cast List ▼