Anime in Focus: ninja Nonsense Episode 4

<-Previous Episode

Why yes, we DO wear these masks ALL of the time

The first half of this episode is the all important beach episode.

This anime decides to differentiate itself from every other beach episode by making everybody keep on wearing their ninja masks during the beach episode.

This episode decides to lather on more fanservice than usual, not only by putting lots of focus on the girl’s swimsuits, but giving us the most gratuitous yuri scene in the anime so far. I won’t be so mean as to ruin it with context, and just leave this screencap right here…

After gratuitous scenes of both hilarity and boobies, we get to the second half of the episode, titled “Miyabi in Love” In this segment, we get to see another side of Miyabi, where she does other things besides psychotically stab Onsokumaru. Onsokumaru then sets on a journey to either help or c***block Miyabi, which is never made explicitly clear.

Unfortunately, going into detail removes a lot of the impact these episodes have, which is a really important punch for this series. Meanwhile, the series has been keeping up a consistent standard of providing both humor and boobies. Hopefully it manages to keep it up. Although the fanservice managees to be a bit over the top, it doesn't bother me in the least, unlike SOME series where it distracts from the plot. In this one it adds to it.

Coming soon: next episode…

Anime in Focus: Rozen Maiden Episode 2

Because the talking doll was DEFINITELY referring to physics

<-Previous Episode

I dare say, my updates have become sporadic. I did, however notice that this copy of Rozen Maiden has been sitting on the desk in that pile of things I plan to watch. I WAS planning on watching Lord of The Rings to catch up with normal society a bit, but then I realized I already read the books...

Having already seen this episode at an anime convention, I sort of already knew what happened, vaguely. It starts by demonstrating a bit of Shinku's powers, by showing her repairing the damage caused in the previous episode. The real plot gets going when one of Jun's classmates shows up and attempts to drop off his homework. Unfortunately for Jun's master plan of avoiding contact with people entirely, they run into each other, demonstrating to her that Jun has been doing nothing but sitting in his room and ordering things online, if his sweatpants and posture are any indication. (hey, if he was older, he'd have stubble too. We can only assume he's reached the level cap in WoW by now) Shinku walks in on this, and notices this girl is wearing a ring.... signifying her as being a servant.

We get to see the relationship between this girl and her doll Hina, who seems rather possessive. So possessive, in fact that Hina winds up sucking the girl into a pocket dimension where doll-person relations get entirely reversed. Such a drastic action winds up drawing Shinku's attention, leading to Shinku hunting her down to investigate, leading to... PLOT REVALATIONS

In the confrontation between Hina and Shinku, we learn that the dolls compete in these things called “Alice Games” where they battle to the death in order to eat each other's souls, or something. This leads to a battle in what looks like a demonic toy box, making this show feel like a bizarre Highlander/Toy Story cross over.

Anyway, after a delightfully bizarre fight involving exploding piggy banks, we get to the conclusion, where rather than Shinku eating Hina's soul, she demands her servitude. While some questions are answered, even more are created. The important thing is that this show show promise, and I hope to see more innocent looking toys used as weapons of mass murder. They can't POSSIBLY screw that concept up.

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Coming when I feel like it:

Next Episode!

Anime in focus: FLCL episode 6

There comes a time in every boy's life where he must become a super powered energy beam and use a pair of guitairs as a weapon.

Alright, now for the thrilling conclusion to a borderline incoherent series. It ends in the fashion that it started, crazy, fast and interesting.

At the start of this episode, the entire town has been covered by fog, much in the same fashion Inaba was covered in fog at the end of Persona 4. (FLCL came out first) This creates an aura of things not moving forward. Furthermore, Haruko and the TV headed guy vanish, as implied in the beginning of the episode. According to Naota, things have gone back to normal. This realization causes that guy with the huge eyebrows to congratulate Naota and give him a pair of gigantic eyebrows. He then explains to Naota about the great space pirate Atomos and what he was planning to do with Haruko.

This goes on until Haruko comes back, and they do that weird animated manga thing, and ask Naota if he’s figured out what fooly cooly means. I suppose they were going for the “ending in the same fashion it begins” approach. After this, Naota goes on this weird trip thing were he meets Atomos, and winds up in a lot of fights.

As an ending episode, this one wraps up things quite nicely. While I am not entirely convinced that weird stuff will quit happening to Naota, it does give a nice climax to this chain of events. Granted, while I cannot quite express what happened into words, due to the nature of the show, it emits a sense of completeness. To put it bluntly, watching this show is akin to listening to music without lyrics, while you may be getting meaning from it, the meaning is quite difficult to fully express. I’d say the only way to truly understand this series is to go out and watch it yourself.

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Anime in Focus: FLCL episode 5

I just felt the need to point this scene out. Look at the size of that.... cell phone.

<- Previous Episode 

This episode’s theme appears to be hyper violence with a dash of Looney Toons.

This all starts out when Naota’s dad realizes that Haruko is paying more attention to Naota than himself (isn’t this familiar) and demands a gun battle with Naota. This garners the attention of the guy with the gigantic eyebrows, who winds up sending out his henchperson, whose shirt gets ripped in wonderful places. Still got no idea what these people are actually doing besides spying on Haruko. Anyway, these guys get into a rather large fight with Haruko, which winds up with nobody with a name getting killed. Clearly, everybody in this show has the aim of a stormtrooper. This suggests that every bit of violence was metaphorical and representing the characters internal struggles, or something.

Anyways, some giant thing that gets pulled out Naota’s head winds up attacking the medical building, but thankfully Naota has accepted his fate and fused with that TV headed robot in order to fight it. Haruko joins in, wearing a bunny girl outfit for some reason. While this is weird, it isn’t really enough to make me bat an eyebrow at this point.

Anyway, I’m not really sure if all of this is leading up to a finale, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

NEXT WEEK: FINAL EPISODE!

Anime in Focus: Ninja Nonsense Episode 3

<-No context could help this image make more sense.

<-Previous Episode

I’m moving right along with watching all of that anime sitting on my bookshelf. Good news is that I think I’m winning.

Here we have Ninja Nonsense episode three, where more hilarity ensues. Humiliated by his defeat by Shinobu’s little sister in the previous episode, Onsokumaru decides it’s time to consult the faceless army of ninjas to see if they can come up with a plot to get even. After a long time getting nowhere, Onsokumaru decides to join forces with the newest member of the ninja clan, the crocodile that tried to eat him in the first part of the previous episode.

This episode picks up when Onsokumaru winds up in a battle with a doppelganger of himself that he created, who fights using incredibly dirty tactics, such as the duct-tape diaper (shown above)

The second half of the episode revolves around Shinobu overhearing a secret ninja meeting, where she is lead to believe that she is about to be kicked out of the ninja mansion. This leads to her moving in with Kaede for a while, having some wonderfully yuri-tastic moments. Turns out it was all a misunderstanding, but we still get to see more wonderful yuri anyway. Everybody wins!

Overall, a pretty good episode, demonstrating the show’s ability to maintain a good sense of humor. Only time will tell if it’s capable of keeping this up.

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Anime in Focus: Rozen Maiden Episode 1

On my continuing journey to watch all of the unwatched anime sitting on my bookshelf, I decided to start watching this series, which grabs my attention with all of the pretty dresses.

Anyway, this anime takes us into the wonderful world of underground doll battling. This goes to show that if done correctly, anything can be made to be badass.

We start off by meeting our main character Jun, who lives in his room as a shut-in who doesn’t like doing things that involve leaving his room, such as ordering voodoo dolls online and answering chain letters. While normally staying in your room causes you to wither away and die, he has the help of his doormat sister to make sure he eats and that his weird packages get signed off, while taking his verbal abuse and not standing up for herself.

As luck would have it, one of Jun’s chain letters happens to actually work, and he winds up with a weird box containing an even weirder doll inside of it. After screwing around with it for a bit, he learns that the doll is in fact, alive, and believes herself to be the boss of the area.

Suddenly, Jun gets himself attacked by a killer clown doll. Normally, killer clown dolls are not very scary, since you can usually punt them out a window, but we have to realize that Jun has been sitting in his room making purchases off of websites instead of getting any form of exercise. This unfortunately means he has to make a pact with the creepy doll that was in the box in order to prevent himself from being stabbed to death by a killer clown doll.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to showing Jun’s relationship with his sister, and how he copes with owing his life to a weird doll that appeared in his room. Unfortunately, we don’t actually find out what being a servant to a creepy doll actually means, leaving stuff for the next episode.

This show doesn’t show many symptoms of first episode syndrome. It doesn’t spend much time on exposition, and instead gives the viewer an idea of what to expect in the rest of the series. I’m actually quite anticipating the next episode.

Coming soon! Next Episode

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Anime in Focus: Comic Party episode 1

 Hm, today I’m going to attempt to start watching some of those anime DVDs I haven’t watched that I acquired while running an anime shoppe.

Here we have “Comic Party, an anime about the wonderful world of Doujinshi. You would think that doujinshi is a rather mundane topic, but if you’ve ever attempted to put a group together to get something done, it’s a rather Herculean task.

Anyway, our vanilla lead Kazuki gets dragged to a doujinshi convention by his friend Taishi, along with his childhood friend Mizuki. During this he learns that these conventions are crowded, smelly, and have bad cell phone reception. While I have confirmed the first two in reality, I believe the bad cell phone reception is a Japan thing. Also, Mizuki gets kidnapped by a crowd, and Taishi loses Kazuki, presumably so he can buy porn without his friend looking.

While it is obvious that Mizuki is probably having the most entertaining adventure while being kidnapped by a crowd, we instead decide to focus on Kazuki. Kazuki gets crowd shuffled into the front of the line for a mysterious comic artist’s booth, and winds up being held hostage while she makes a getaway while kidnapping him.

While being kidnapped by this mysterious comic book artist, Kazuki learns the true meaning of the convention (I thought it was money, but apparently it isn't), and winds up working at her booth for the rest of the day.

This episode has a major case of first episode syndrome, and the next episode is going to have to do much better to keep me coming back. I personally think the show didn't take enough risks, which made things a bit boring. 

Coming soon: next episode

Anime in Focus: FLCL episode 4

<- As it stands, this man puffing up his eyebrows is on the level of a teenage girl stuffing her bra

<-PREVIOUS EPISODE

After the almost comprehensible third episode, I am given the proper head trip I was hoping for in the fourth episode. I’m not really sure if I had more questions answered or if more new ones were spawned. Frankly, I’m not even quite sure what was a delusion or what was really happening in this episode.

Anyway, this happens to be FLCL’s baseball episode. This one seems to use swinging the bat as its theme, where Naota can’t seem to find it within himself to swing a baseball bat like his brother did. Meanwhile, he’s feeling jealousy issues as Haruko is paying much more attention to his dad than to him.

Furthermore, Naota is being watched by some guy with pieces of seaweed for eyebrows that seems to want him to stay away from Haruko. During the episode, we see Naota hitting things with a baseball bat, presumably in order to vent his frustration about Haruko paying less attention to him. Throughout this ep, I’m not sure if his father is dead, alive, or what. I’m sure most of it’s metaphorical. Furthermore, while watching this episode, I’ve come to the conclusion everybody has super-advanced teleportation abilities, based on the places they wind up at throughout the episode. This is especially likely, since in a previous episode it was established that the medical building has no doors.

While this episode is filled with weirdness and hitting things with guitairs, I’m not sure whether to treat this as an actual anime about growing up and stuff, or a big music video by the Pillows. While it is thoroughly confusing (well, it manages to make more sense if you don’t look at everything at face value) it manages to tell a story, in a very abstract manner. This it to say this show reminds me of the weird sculptures outside the college art building.

Well, I’m more than halfway through the show now, there’s no turning back at this point!

PLACEHOLDER FOR NEXT EP LINK!

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Anime in focus: School days episode 12

 <- The only thing being exaggerated is the character's expressions

<-Previous Episode 

AHHHHH!

Ugh!

AHHHHH!

*shuddering* I heard about this on the internet. But seeing it is totally different. After watching these characters for 11 episodes, and seeing an ending like this is a totally different experience. I mean AHHH.

*sitting on coach at therapists office*

Oh right, of course doctor, what happened. Uhm well, it was Christmas time, and Saionji had made Itou a nice dinner to celebrate with him. She appears stressed out, but moderately exited to be carrying Itou’s baby.

Unfortunately, he cancels on their dinner. After an intense grilling, she finds out that he’s with Katsura, his first love, once again. Yes, apparently Itou has “feelings” for Katsura, and he wants to come back to her. This is, of course, after he slept with almost every girl in the school, and even got one pregnant.

He comes back home to find the dinner Saionji prepared, smashed on the floor. He seems mostly indifferent to this, seeing the complete monster he’s become. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to get back with Katsura because he wanted her, or just because she was the only one left that hasn’t slept with him (Saionji wasn’t registering on his radar apparently.)

After declaring his undying love for Katsura (BLECH) he texts Saionji telling her about an abortion clinic Katsura knew of. The next day, Saionji asks to see him at his house.

What ensued? I believe it was the most delightful melodramatic mess that I’ve ever seen in an anime. It stuck with me for a couple days, and afterwards I just sat staring at the screen with my jaw ajar. I felt like vomiting immediately after viewing. AWESOME ending, really, beats the crap out of the usual climax in this type of anime.

I seriously doubt I could recreate that here though, hehehe. Nice Boat indeed.

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Anime in Focus: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2 episode 14

<- The last episode of a season is always a great time to introduce a talking cat

<-Previous Episode

Well, we end this season of Haruhi by having the characters discuss philosophy and the finishing touches on that movie plot that’s been going for the last few episodes.

This episode starts with Haruhi picking up a cat to be Yuki’s familiar in the movie project the SOS brigade is working on. Unfortunately, Haruhi’s powers cause the cat to talk, leading the cat to engage in conversations about philosophy, kind of like Brian from Family Guy. It’s rather interesting as we attempt to see Kyon try to convince the cat that it’s special that he can talk, and that he isn’t just creating an illusion of language.

Like a lot of philosophical lectures, neither side is really convinced, so they just wander off and buy cat food. Kyon explains to the cat that cats say “meow” and wonders home. We then learn that Mikuru’s and Nagato’s factions both hold theories that oppose Itsuki’s, creating a aura of tension among the SOS brigade members. Furthermore, Itsuki explains that the movie is creating issues with the space time continuum, causing reality and fiction to meld. This leads to Itsuki suggesting that they do something to ensure that Haruhi KNOWS that this is a movie, and prevent her from subconsciously causing the movie’s reality to meld with the real world.

Then there’s a montage of the character’s finishing off the movie, which is the least exiting part of the episode. The interesting part about this ep. is that if you pay attention to Kyon’s mannerisms you’ll notice he doesn’t really seem to care about the reality warping as much as everybody else. While everybody else is panicking, he seems to just take everything as it happens, not seeming to care, as long as Haruhi lays off of Mikuru. This is really interesting, as the mindset is what leads into the movie’s plot, where we see some actual growth in Kyon’s character.

Although a good episode, this is a very weak climax to a weak season. If more episodes are produced, I certainly hope their better than this seasons. If I hear anything about it, I’ll report it here as soon as possible.

Although this is the end of the show as of now, there's still The movie

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Anime in focus: School days episode 11

<-Previous episode 

Almost to the conclusion of this series. This episode shows some flashbacks giving us a general idea of just how far the series has gone since it’s first few episodes, and how it went from a cutesy high school love triangle to the most depraved drama I’ve ever seen.

Ah, well, Itou hasn’t slept with everybody yet. There’s still Katusara and that girl on the basketball team. There were a few other gilrs, but he sleeps with all of them at once in this episode, just to show us that he’s going to grow up to act like Glen Quagmire.

Meanwhile, Itou’s actions start coming around full circle in this episode. To start Saionji reveals that she missed her period…

DUN DUN DUN

On the other side, Katsura’s been talking into a dead cell phone while in a rather creepy trance.

And while it is implied that Itou had a filthy foursome in this episode, his various flings start ignoring the bastard after word about Saionji gets around. Poetic justice really. Itou’d grown cold and heartless over the episodes, and no longer cares for the women he sleeps with (still don’t see what they see in him.) At the end, we’re given a flashback of the beginning, back when he cared. It’s kind of sad really. Not sad enough to make me emphasize with somebody who gets that much sex, but you know, sad. I’d punch him in reality of course. He has turned into a major dick after all. Like Light Yagami from Death Note, but instead of becoming numb to killing people, he’s become numb to sleeping with them.

Now then, I’m going to watch the last episode. Can’t wait to see the climax to all of this, because there is no way this will end well.

FINAL EPISODE ->

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Anime in Focus: FLCL (Fooly Cooly or Furi Kuri) Episode 3

 <- In this episode we get a bit more focus on outside characters, like this chick in the front.


<-PREVIOUS EPISODE

Well, this episode wasn’t quite as good as the last two, which were pretty solid. Unfortunately, this one keeps up the same pace, which is bad, since I’m used to the pacing of the show by this point. Furthermore, there are fewer surprises throughout the episode, which makes it much less interesting.

In this episode Naota has started growing cat ears for some reason. While they do not appear nearly as phallic as the horns that have been growing out of his head in the last couple of episodes, he is aroused when people touch them, ensuring that they remain just as prone to double meanings as the gigantic horns do. While he has these silly cat ears, he is required to play Puss in boots in the school play, while being bossed around by the class president who appears to have a crush on him. Or maybe it’s all symbolic of something. I can’t really tell.

The characterizations in this episode manage to be relatively easy to understand, making this one the oddball of the episodes I’ve watched in this series. While it has not turned me off from the series, it does not get me as exited for the next episode. However, I would like to believe the next episode will pick up the pace that was left behind in this episode in order to allow in more craziness.

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Anime in Focus: FLCL (Fooly Cooly or Furi Kuri) Episode 2

 <-Previous Episode

Well, this episode manages to cram in just as much weirdness in as the previous episode. I believe this makes sense in a six episode series, as time to sit around and stare off into the distance is quite short.

It should be noted that the pillows soundtrack is played quite prominently in this episode. Their borderline incomprehensible music manages to compliment the series quite well, since its insanity manages to fuse with the utter lack of grounding in the show.

 Anyway, in this episode, Naota has another gigantic phallic bump sticking out of his head. Also, the 8-foot tall robot with a TV for a head that crawled out of his head in the previous episode has been living with him and Haruko in his house. Furthermore, Mamimi has picked up some weird game about arson. Like Jack Thompson predicted, this game has been causing her to go out and commit arson for some reason. Also, a bit about Naota’s brother is thrown into the mix, just to force you to comprehend more.

Episode ends with that robot thing that came out of Naota’s head duking it out with another robot that crawled out of his head, with the help of Haruko. While I have no idea why anything is happening, I’m just going to assume that all will be explained later.

I wound up at the end of this episode with a headache, my eyeballs spinning, and having the pillows (the band) stuck in my head. I would say watching this show is akin to having your head sawed open, your brains removed and put into a blender, then put back into your head. Thankfully, it manages to evoke this emotion in a good way, if that were at all possible.

I believe this show has managed to prove itself interesting enough for me to commit to, and maybe by the end I’ll come out understanding a thing or two about what’s going on.

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NEXT EPISODE->

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Anime in Focus: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2 episode 13

 <- This picture isn't NEARLY as exiting in context

<-Previous Episode

Hey, this episode managed to recapture a bit of the former season’s glory! If only I didn’t have to drudge through about 10 of the series worst episodes to get to it, I might have had a bit more faith in the series at this point.

This episode continues the arc about making the movie from the first episode of the first season, but rather than focus on the actual filming, (which is kinda boring, like episodes 10 and 11) it instead focuses on the behind the scenes drama, developing the cast a bit.

In this episode, we start by seeing the filming of the scene where Yuki sends a bunch of side characters to attack Mikuru. This is going well until Mikuru starts shooting lasers out of her eyes again, and we get a lovely image of Yuki taking measures to stop it. See above picture for details…. You done? Got that as ingrained in your memory as I do? Ahh yeah. ANYWAY, things get a bit awkward as Haruhi demands that the evil zombie whatever henchmen need to throw Mikuru in the lake. This looks fine on film, but the cast then realizes that this lake is probably polluted as hell. Nobody seems to mention the damage it could do to the battle waitress outfit, but nobody seems to care about that sort of thing.

The second part of the episode takes place at Tsuruya’s house, where they finish filming for the day. This is the part where Koizumi’s character takes Mikuru’s character to his house for some reason. While they are at the house, Haruhi has Tsuruya lace Mikuru’s drink with liquor, in order to enhance Mikuru’s acting skills. Unfortunately, Mikuru can’t hold her alcohol very good at all, which leads to her almost passing out. Haruhi gets pissed about this, and starts yelling at Mikuru.

Then finally, we see the moment I’ve been waiting for since about 3 episodes into the first season. Kyon gets fed up with Haruhi treating Mikuru like her plaything, gets his fist ready, tells Haruhi she’s an annoying jerk, and gets ready to whack her… But then Koizumi intervenes, and stops Kyon from smacking Haruhi. If this was back in my days of Kyon x Mikuru shipping, I’d be so exited about this. However, the movie converted me to Kyon x Yuki. Still, I was quite exited to see Kyon finally stick up for Mikuru.

Oh yeah, for the rest of the episode, things are a bit awkward between the brigade members, for obvious reasons. Koizumi gives out a speech about the nature of the universe to Kyon, and discusses his opinions on opposing Haruhi with Kyon, and we get a bit on the plot.

Episode manages to be very solid. I wish more of the second season was like this. While I thought the music felt a bit off in some scenes (Do they only have one dramatic track?) for in some parts, the music didn’t seem to suit the gravity of the situation, particularly in a segment at the lake. Thankfully, the fleshing out of the characters made up for this flaw. Believe it or not, I’m actually EXITED about the next episode, which hasn’t happened since the first episode of this season.

Coming soon! Episode 14

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Anime in Focus: Retro edition- Captain Harlock (1978)

This show is available for free legally on funimation’s website HERE

Well, after seeing the most badass trailer ever at AX, I decided I should do some research on this show from the 70’s.

The first episode is actually kinda bland unfortunately. I was pretty disappointed. The show starts out with an exposition about how humanity has dried up the oceans on earth and turned to the stars for hope now. Then we zoom on over to our protagonist on his space ship, combining the medieval wooden pirate ships with a Star Destroyer. Clearly the ship belonging to a man of good taste. We then see our lead, a man with both an eyepatch and a huge scar running across his face. Clearly, the potential for massive amounts of manliness is here. Sadly, this does not appear in this episode. In this ep, we see the ship fire off a bunch of space harpoons at the evil empire’s ships, freezing everybody on board. They then take their food, and dump out the loot. This is all done effortlessly and with almost no confrontation.

The second part revolves around Harlock keeping a promise he made to a little girl. However, in order to fulfill this promise, he has to appear publicly, and infamous space pirates are usually not popular in public places. Harlock’s sense of honor, however, seems to compel him to see this little girl, on what we are shown is the anniversary of somebody’s death.

Unfortunately, the issue with the military is solved in the most boring fashion possible, with almost no suspense about what is going to happen.

Hm, with this first episode, I’m quite weary about watching a second one.

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Anime in Focus: Gankutsuou (The Count of Monte Cristo) episode 1

Well, I was feeling pretty random, and decided it was time that I watch that show about the Counto of Monte Cristo… IN SPACE! This is part of a relatively small genre of shows that revolve around taking those books you were forced to read in English class, and making them awesome.

This show starts out in a rave ON THE MOON on the same day as a holiday in Rome. We then see our main character, Monsieur de Morcerf entering an Opera featuring a singer wearing a bloody dress.  Out on one of the expensive balconies, a strange man with blue skin and fangs goes and throws her a bouquet of roses in the middle of the play. We learn that this man is none other than the count of Monte Cristo, the new self appointed noble that has all of the aristocracy talking.

Strangely, Morcerf notices that the count accidentally drops an incredibly fancy gold watch, and tries to give it back to him, unsuccessfully. Even weirder, Morcerf and his friend Franz have been invited to dinner with this mysterious count. During this they learn a bit about the count’s philosophies, and are invited to his private balcony to watch an execution. While Franz objects to this sort of thing, it inspires the rebel within Morcerf in order to go check it out, as he seems to greatly admire the count. Unfortunately, this admiration causes Morcerf to learn a bit about the Count’s sick sense of humor that he really wishes he hadn’t taken part of.

This show gets off to a pretty solid start, introducing a few characters and showing some of the more interesting facets of their personalities. The art in this show likes to take liberties at almost any chance it can get, as shown by the character’s clothes, which manage to appear borderline holographic. Furthermore, these clothes seem to react to light in ways that most modern fabrics would never react. Thankfully, it is quite obvious that the artist’s intended to use this style in order to spice up the visuals in the show, in order to give it its own highly recognizable style.

I will most certainly be watching more of this show sometime later.

Coming soon! Episode 2

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Anime in Focus: K-On episode 3

<-Previous episode

Well, I had a relatively large hiatus on this series, but I managed to get back to it.

This episode revolves around everybody’s ADD and Yui screwing up on a midterm. Thanks to this, Yui has to take a midterm, and this causes a major problem, seeing that she needs to pass the midterm before she’s allowed to pursue club activities. This is a problem, because the lite music club needs four members to operate, and Yui getting canned would cause them to get booted.

Unfortunately for the group, Yui has no attention span, and studying leads her to study her guitar when she should be studying algebra. While this is good for the club, in the short term, nobody is amused at how helpful it is in the long term.

Towards the final act, the group decides to get together and help her study, which according to Yui is akin to being stuck in a snowstorm. This leads to an interesting scene, but I never really got any feeling of suspense from the episode.

This episode was a bit boring towards the beginning, but got much more exiting towards the end. I certainly hope that the show gets more exiting as it goes along, because not much has actually been happening. I was promised cute girls with guitars, and they haven’t been spending nearly enough time with guitars in their hands Also, I hope to see more of the rest of the band, because we've spent plenty of time with Yui

Coming sometime: episode 4

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Anime in Focus: School Days episode 10

 <- Well, she may look like she's in middle school, but she's in the same grade as Itou. Since Itou has slept with almost every other girl with a name, guess who's next?

<-Previous Episode

Ah, our little train wreck is about to happen. Itou finally breaks up with Katsura. Brutally I might add. He then kisses Setsuna in front of her. It should be noted that during the episode, Katsura mentioned something about a nice boat.

After this, Itou goes about sleeping around with most the other female characters with names. Katsura isn’t taking this all very well, as seen in the scene where she’ standing in the kitchen, looking depressed, and her eyes start going towards the set of knives sitting on the counter (Why yes, I am serious)

I like where this is going.

Meanwhile, Itou hasn’t been having as much filthy sex with Saionji anymore. In fact he seems to be paying more attention to Otome, the girl he want to middle school with, and slept with in the last episode. This is because Itou sleeps with women in the same fashion I eat Cheez-its… he can’t just stop at one.  

Meanwhile, the basketball team is having a farewell party. Saionji is invited. Unfortunately, this party turns out to be a setup for a  tape showing everybody who had sex in the backroom during the school festival. This causes some screaming, especially from Saionji, who sees Itou sleeping with Otome.

Meanwhile, Katsura’s been wandering around like a zombie for some reason. It’s kind of creepy, really.

This has me exited for the next episode, since everything looks like it’s on the verge of exploding in the most horrible ways possible.

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Anime in Focus: FLCL (Fooly Cooly or Furi Kuri) Episode 1

While this show has been out for a while, some people are now forcing me to watch it at gunpoint (people haven’t been so mad at me since they found out I hadn’t seen EVA) Strangely, the first thing that comes to mind is “Why can’t anybody make up their mind on what to call this show?”

Anyway, the first episode starts out with our main, Naota, sitting under a bridge giving a speech about the normality of his life, and the normality of the town he lives in. He’s seen sitting in his usual spot under the bridge, hanging with the usual girl, until he gets run over by some lady driving a yellow vespa. This causes him to get a heavy dose of TV CPR, and then develop a large bump on his head.

The rest of the episode deals with Naota trying to hide this rather large bump on his head, which appears to be growing in a very phallic fashion. While he insists everything is normal, this is clearly not the case. Oh yeah, and that crazy Vespa chick, Haruko winds up moving in with Naota for some reason. This is apparently in order to investigate that gigantic bump on his head. Oh yeah, and there’s a scene where they almost give an explanation to the term “Furi Kuri” in slightly animated manga panels that fly by really quickly. Since I was watching it in subtitles, that scene almost caused my head to explode. I’m just going to assume “Furi Kuri” is a silly teen innuendo.

Well, this episode concludes in a way that leaves me wanting more. I believe some guy on GameFaqs said it best: “Watching FLCL is like having sex in the dark. You’re not entirely sure what just happened, but you’re pretty sure you liked it.” While I have not fully comprehended what just went on this episode, I am in the hopes that it will make sense in the greater context of things. I would also like to congratulate this show on avoiding first episode syndrome, where the first episode is just boring exposition. Since I am being held at gunpoint, I will definitely continue with the series (and hey, it’s only six episodes)


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Anime in Focus: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2 Episode 12

 <-In this episode, we get a behind the scenes look at the making of the Mikuru beam. Also, a mind boggling look at the type of contact lenses Anime characters wear

 <-Previous episode

Well, after a bit of a hiatus on this series, I’ve decided to come back and finish what I’ve started. This leads us to episode 12 of the second season, which continues right where the previous episode left us. While I do enjoy nice structured series with a clear start and end point, I did not get into Haruhi because of it. Instead, I got into it because of the chaotic pacing. However, this episode manages to be much better than the previous two, revealing more about the universe the characters live in, and the very weak principals that hold reality together.

This episode contains several highlights, such as the part where Kyon almost falcon punches Haruhi, just like we’ve always wanted to see him do. This was brought up because Haruhi was pushing Mikuru a bit too hard, with her expecting her to shoot laser beams out of her eyes and all. Unfortunately, due to Haruhi’s control over the nature of reality, Mikuru does start firing laser beams out of her eyes, nearly killing everybody.

This leads to a scene where Yuki winds up tackling Mikuru and stealing her contact lens, which Haruhi believed was giving her the power to shoot lazers. This didn’t seem eventful, until they actually SHOWED the contact lens, (see right) and anybody could tell you that thing would NOT fit in Mikuru’s eye. (see above for comparison of Mikuru’s finger to Mikuru’s eye? Now then, if this lens is smaller than Yuki’s finger, there’s no way that would work) Anyway, the rest of the episode is spent explaining that fiasco, leading Itsuki to comment on Yuki being much less social than all of the other units like her. Unfortunately, he doesn’t elaborate on these other units, or what his organization believes they do.

Overall, this episode manages to be pretty good, especially since stuff happens, unlike a lot of the other episodes in this season. It should be noted that there are a lot of scenes where Mikuru looks absolutely adorable, and deliciously moe packed. It makes me a little bit more exited about watching the rest of this season.

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