Pocket Monsters - Diamond and Pearl 1-3

Sigh, they surely managed to get annoying voice actors to Team Rocket. Maybe I get used to it later, but now they are far from the level of English dub. There is one new main character to create an illusion that this's something new, Hikari who got her first pokemon. She isn't anything special, your mandatory cute girl in the story.

The pokemon battles were great as always, though I have wonder why Ash (yes, he is Ash to me) is such a idiot to use Pikachu's thunder against other electric pokemon. Even noob trainer knows that's not going to work... Considering what I expect to see during next few weeks this's probably good enough to follow, I still want to see that Charizard!

Olivia - Wish PV (2nd OP from Nana)

Little more mindless Nana raves for you since I'm on that mood right now... First OP Rose was one of best songs from spring season and I have to say it got worthwhile, possibly even better follower. Olivia singed the first ED Little Pain and I like her voice a lot, it fits to show's mood perfectly. She also has nice outfit there, overall very nice PV.

Nana The Game!

This is probably old news since I don't follow gaming scene at all, but just had to say few words about the game because everything related to Nana is awesome. I didn't find much information what kind of things player can do, but based on some screenshots and description here you are a girl and get to do some girly stuff like buying clothes, choosing what to wear and that kind of awesome stuff.



Apparently there is also chance to pick your favourite guy, this's actually first time I noticed the high amount of males in the cast compared to females. I wonder if it's possible to choose a girl, I would definitely take Hachi and Reira... Now I just have to hope they release this in Europe too...

Ah! My Goddess - From the amazing OVA to bad fillers

I have planned to write about the whole franchise some time now, but just haven't got inspiration to do it before. Partly due to disappointing second season. I took most pictures from Wikipedia, few links to original articles.

I'm sure most of you know the story here, but just in case short summary: Keiichi calls accidentally to the Goddess Hotline and gets one wish, he wish that Belldandy stay with him forever. After that they start living together.

Oh! My Goddess



The movie may have better plot, but emotional side in the OVA reach higher level if possible. First three episodes are mere introductions to characters, but last two are the reason why I rate this so highly. The animation may seem ugly (old) to some, for me that's beside the point when content is this good. I don't think there is any particular factor for that, everything just fit together perfectly. Goddess Family Club singed both OP and ED, I wish they would have done more songs later, but unfortunately not.

I like all kind of love stories and drama so this one hit the right spot, if you think same way OMG OVA is a must watch.

Rating: 9-

Adventures of the Mini Goddesses



This chibi comedy has a setting that's just the win. As you know chibis are awesome and combined with goddesses from AMG it's double win. The pacing is rather unusual, but 5 minutes per episode is perfect for this kind of show.

I have rewatched some episodes and the amusing content is still there, mini goddess certainly is timeless series that's enjoyable to watch once in a while. Gan is also great character. In some episodes with Urd's help he try to find love, but not with good luck. Sometimes a kettle he loves decide to abandon everything for sake of another household item or pink girl rat eat him while kissing. =) Poor rat.

Rating: 8,5

Ah! My Goddess - The Movie



When it comes to plot and action scenes this's one of best anime movies I have seen. The beginning is slow as always, but things just keep getting more awesome closer the end is. The last battle is magnificent, females with spells and other that kind of stuff have always been an exception for me in otherwise quite boring action genre and this one follow the rule. Magical women FTW!

Also the main focus here recalls myself why I liked AMG begin with, it wasn't because of storyline that keeps getting worse every time they add new girl to harem. Instead of that I want to see development between Belldandy and Keiichi, it's ironic that one movie does it better than countless fillers. Overall AMG Movie is perfect combination of romance, drama and action, watch it now in case you haven't already.

Rating: 9-

Ah! My Goddess TV

Still watchable, but already starting to show signs to worse, Belldandy felt almost like fighting robot maid. It's not like having a personality hurts, you know?

Rating: 7

Ah! My Goddess: Everyone Has Wings

Here things start to fall apart, most likely Inoue Kikuko was only reason why I bothered to continue. I don't remember exact episode, but after the beginning I lost my main interest to watch more. Nothing really happens, but more importantly it's not interesting anymore.

Rating: 6

Manga



My experience with manga is rather random. I have volumes 21, 22 and Adventures of the Mini Goddesses in the bookshelf. From scanlations I have read first volume and some random chapters, not much though. It felt bit too fanservice-ish at times and I don't have motivation to read such a long story, Fujishima probably don't finish the manga anytime soon.

Characters

Belldandy



As I said before Inoue Kikuko has done enormous job with her character, perfect voice actress for Belldandy. And the look of course, I would be lying saying that doesn't affect to my liking at all. Her personality on other hand is mixed bag. While I like to see certain naivety in anime characters in this case it's bit overdone. It's okay to be angry or jealous sometimes, not just keep saying that everything is fine. It's too monotonous in long run.

Skuld



Same way as with Belldandy the voice actress is also excellent here, Hisakawa Aya has done other roles as Misuzu's mother in Air for example. For her character type, tsundere, she's surprisingly likeable. In addition to voice I like her obsession to build various machines, Banpei-kun would be useful robot to have.

Urd



Compared to Belldandy and Skuld I don't like Urd as much, she doesn't have interesting enough personality for that. Not to say she is boring, just decent. Her lighting strike is quite impressive. =)

In conclusion the way things are now unless they make another movie or more chibis I'm not going to watch new Ah! My Goddess episodes anymore. Yet another series ruined with too big episode count.

Strawberry panic 25 - No!

THIS is what should have happened instead of things in the episode. Only thing Yaya can do now to revenge is steal Amane's mecha.

Well, I hope they at least keep ShizumaxNagisa together in the last episode. Tamao's value pretty much limits to comedic moments, Shizuma is only good choice here.


(Even with bad animation it demonstrates my wish perfectly)

Patalliro Saiyuki 13 - the bishounen contest

I wonder why I don't see anyone blogging this. =) Patalliro Saiyuki is parody version from Patalliro that aired 1982. Since I haven't seen the original I don't know much about the story, but nevertheless this's fairly funny. Making fun of bishounen cliches is frequent, one bishi even use rake as a weapon. How can you not to laugh when seeing that? =)

In this episode our two heroes participate in bishounen contest, but neither has enough look to get in. After few failures they decide to use their master's form and looks like that works. These are pretty short episodes including not so much character development due to it's parody nature, but it's always amusing to watch Patalliro Saiyuki so I don't care.

Bokura ga Ita 10

When anime manage to spin around my feelings I think that's sign of good series. At the beginning I felt sorry for Yamamoto because Nanami took her picture and that's pretty low, even if she is cute female lead in shoujo. I was surprised how calm Yamamoto was there. Then little after that Yano decided to ignore Nanami and she came to Takeuchi's place even if Yano didn't want that. I loved how much jealousy she managed to cause by acting same way as the other side of relationship. =) Some romantic promises in the moonlight and episode end with cliffhanger.

Overall excellent episode. I have warmed up for Bokura ga Ita slowly, but surely. It's not anything amazing yet, but sometimes things take a while to get better. Completely possible that this ends with lot of melodrama.

Utawarerumono - Animal ears and ruined plots

(I have no idea what that text says, but who cares.)

This is my final post about Utawarerumono, more I watch more I hate it so I think it's better to stop while my overall impression is still decent. I don't remember last time when series has changed from good to bad at this late stage, because of the mecha disaster few episodes ago it's impossible for me to take the story seriously anymore. It's sad to see how much potential disappeared so quickly since Hakuoro was very interesting character, his past didn't really need any crazy scifi aspects. When I start watching fantasy show filled with Indian-like characters I assume that mecha is out of question there, but apparently not.

And few other issues. Please, I don't want to hear how jailbait calls a lot older guy daddy. I'm going to hurt someone if I have to watch scenes like that again, yet another example why I have avoided dating sims. I hope Mukuru eats her in the last episode. Also, the "comedy" here was failure. I wonder if there was anything funny.

Music will be probably the biggest good thing that I remember later on from all of this, both OP and ED are great and particularly the ED. One more series I watched sake of music.

Rating: 7,5

Fall 2006 preview

This season doesn't look too good, lot of mecha, shounen and dating sim crap. If this is the best there is fall season sucks, I really hope I missed something. Seriously, I listed Pokemon as a third one...

Will watch:

Death Note - I have read manga and loved it from the beginning, that's very rare considering it's shounen. But I'm bit skeptical how the adaption succeeds, there are pretty much three options for it. A) they do faithful page to page translation and it's boring as hell because I already know at least half of the story, B) they change the story and I hate them to the end of the world because they dared to touch Light or C) they add unnecessary action scenes which sucks even more so yeah...

Hataraki-man - Could be promising, story about single woman in working life sounds interesting. Still, depends what kind of aspects and how they cover.

Pocket Monsters-Diamond and Pearl - New Pokemon series! Okay, maybe it's not that exciting, but I do want to see if this's as good as the movie I watched while ago.

Maybe:

Ghost Hunt - I thought this could be interesting, but after reading preview it doesn't look good.(found the link from here). Still, it's shoujo so... (I'm really getting desperate here).

Kanon - I'm giving kind of special treatment to Kanon because KyoAni is going to do it and same company behind Air is also here. There are chances that in the end I drop this, but one can only hope the best.

Master of Epic - Gonzo. When they make new anime it's good to assume it sucks, otherwise I actually expect something. But still, more shows based on RPG game are always good thing.

Probably not:

Kujibiki Unbalance - 12 episodes about the OVA that already stretched it's content? I don't actually think that this's good, but we will see.

Negima - Harem series with too many girls to count. And the good part was?

Strawberry panic 23 - Finally, the angst mode

Does someone know why I still watch this? Because I don't. But hey, at least there was angst even if I skipped almost whole episode. If you meet Shizuma beware or this might happen in your room:



And lastly some dramatic screenshots. I wish my life would be that eventful. (That scene was quite funny)

Binbou Shimai Monogatari sucks

I'm not going to waste another hour to finish this, BSM is very good example how to overdo moe and fail. Sisters's IQ is lower than average lesbian's in Strawberry Panic, they seem to blush 24/7 and really need some common sense. I didn't care those in the beginning, but slowly it was more and more annoying. I think sixth episode was the breaking point for me, it's impossible to watch slice of life show when I don't like any characters. And considering the content there are way too much episodes, same format that Binchou-tan used would have been perfect for this (only 12 minutes instead of full 24). Dropped.

Angel`s Feather 1 - The 8th wonder of the modern world: watchable shounen ai show

Wow, I didn't fall asleep during the first episode, that must be good sign. Previous good shounen ai was Loveless, since then I haven't found single one anime from that genre worth to watch. Meine Liebe was incredibly boring and I don't even remember others so in that contrast this episode was great achievement. Apparently source for Angel's Feather is Yaoi-RPG and most likely it's RPG elements that made it interesting. There was some angels, demons and (probably) bad guys, those two dudes with blue hair in the preview looked kind of cool. I probably end up dropping this after first episode as always, but I guess it doesn't hurt to try.

Aria The Natural 14 - blinded by Alicia's beautifulness

If you don't think Alicia is hot you are either Hard Gay, blind or just own bad taste in women. (I accept first two as a proper reason, but last one is unforgivable). Or like Impz almost said, any idiot who can hate Alicia, is clearly an idiot. Though Akari is gorgeous girl too... Anyway, there isn't really anything else than an Aria episode that gives so relaxed feeling after a workday, very little actually happen, but the effect is enormous. No need for recap since you can probably watch it as a slide show from below, but few words about the scene at the end of episode. They discussed what happens when Alicia retire and Akari takes her place. Generations change, but the history stay because among other things the palina she painted recall memories from the past. Quite touching and funny at same time too.