Sora no Woto

What? A new post? And so shortly after my last? And a series from the season that just started as well? The end must be near.

Well, to be honest. I figured I might try and at least post about a series that's currently running instead of trying to clear away my backlog ... which probably is a futile effort, but I'm going to try anyway. This season however might 'help' me get at least some of my backlog out of the way .... if my rl work at least stops overloading me .... as the number of anime that I plan to watch (or at least check out) this season is less then half from the previous and as a matter of fact it's very likely that 2 of the new series of this season will almost surely be headed for the trashcan on my PC. Not this one however.

Before however I go about the story / setup of this series I'll mention that I've seen Sora no Woto been dubbed as militairy K-on! Now I haven't watched K-on! .... it's on my backlist, what else? From a quick peek however I understand somewhat why. Not only is it an all female cast and has it do about music, but the character design for at least 3 charaters from Sora no Woto are lifted straight from that series, but there any comparison ends.

We start off with having our main female lead, Sorami Kanata, an aspiring bugle player, on board of a militairy freight train heading off to her assigned station: The Time Telling Fortress in Trois, Seize.



Okaaaaayyy ..... what's wrong with this picture above is that Kanata looks like a kid. The fact that her hair isn't exactly militairy style, her sloppy uniform (notice the belt) and her duffelbag (not shown here) is almost as big as herself even enhance this feeling. According to the story there was a war which has ended with a truce just 6 months ago so seeing a kid, a female at that (male chauvinism +1) leaves some odd impression on me.

Seeing she has to report at 15 oh hours and since she is early she decides to take a walk in the village as there happens to be a festival. During the festival she becomes caught up in a water-mixed-with-dye throwing 'fight' and becomes soaked (it actually reminded me somewhat at La Tomatina in Bunyol). She is 'rescued' by Kazuymiya Rio, a member of Kanata's platoon who takes her to her house to get herself cleaned up.



After a bath Rio and Kanata stand on the balcony and Kanata lets an owl steal a small bell that belonged to Rio's father. While Rio has business to attend to, Kanata is about to head off to the Time Telling Fortress as she hears the bell again (she IS a Klutz, but has very good tone hearing) and decides to go after the sound hoping to retrieve the bell.

I'd rather prefer you go watch the episode yourself and only read on if you don't mind spoiler or have watched the episode already.

Spoilers ahead (click here) It turns out that Rio is lead actor in the re-enactment of the story that is the ground for the festival. In fact, she got somewhat suckered into it as the captain of the platoon (Felecia) had everyone draw straws to determine who was to be leading actor, but orchastrated it so that Rio would be chosen (the drawing of the straws you saw during the opening).

While Rio is busy with her acting work, Kanata gets into all kinds of trouble scaling of a cliff in order to get the bell back in which she proves again not be soldier material as she is past the time she should have reported for duty. Also she lackes a serious dose of common sense scaling a cliff with her oversized duffelbag on her back. Unlucky also as jumping a gap between, what looks to be an ancient stone stair, the part she lands on gives way and she plummets into the water.

Lucky for her whatever in the duffelbag isn't heavy as she manages to reach dry land. Not however before seeing the bones of the headless winged dragon that she is told about and that was part of the story from the festival. Alone, cold and lost she uses her bugle to signal for help which also nicely fits into the story from the festival. From what I gather Kanata is also an orphan ... I assume that this is the reason for her being in the militairy.

The episode ends when later .... much later, Kanata awakes in the Time Telling Fortress and she finds out it's called that as, by the looks of it, the day begins with a serenade from her just before sunrise to signal the new day.

I wonder if they didn't spoil to much during this first episode and especially with what they showed during Rio's monologue about the ancient story of the fire maidens. One of the things was that you see a picture of what I suppose are the (5) girls from the ancient story and except for the hair they're the spitting image of the 5, now Kanata has arrived, girls of platoon 1211.

Also looking at the world you get a feeling of early 20 century europe .... except for the couple of glimpses you get from one of the platoon members busy with maintainance on a mecha which looks seriously out of it's own time. From another short glimpse during Rio's monologue we have to conclude that a major catastrophe happened a long time ago as there is evidence of a more highly advanced civilisation shown .... of which the mecha must be a remnant.



I do wonder if this tank couldn't have been used in the war that just finished? I'm sure that the side that had this at it's disposal would have had no trouble defeating everybody else. I also find the Mecha a little out of place grapics wise as it looks more crisp then especially the beautiful backgrounds ... but this could be intentional.

It stands to reason, at the moment at least, that the spider from the story is the mecha we got to see a little off. What I found odd though is that the dragon from the story seems to be a real dragon. A bit of a mismatch.

Let me first say that, sofar at least, I rather liked this even if it isn't all making sense to me as what looked to be initially a story about learning to play music, got darker undertones with the story about the fire maidens and the dragon that once caused much destruction.

We only really have met 2 of the 5 girls that make up platoon 1211, but I think this is shaping up to be a rerun, or better a rematch, of the original battle with the dragon (whatever it may turn out to be in the end). Wether or not Kanata playing music has much to do with this remains to be seen. Who knows, we might get not any mecha action at all (not a terrible loss imho).

Leaving character design for what it is I like both Rio and Kanata even though the latter is a real klutz. What really shines though are the background and details that went into it. It's been a while that I watched an episode twice ... first time for the characters and dialogue, a 2nd time for the background. It's not the only the outdoors scenes that are wonderfull, also inside houses there is a lot of eyecandy to be had.

The OP and ED as usual don't do much for me, but the music during the episode is quite good and I like the french song (starts at time-index 13:20 Nekomimi version) which sadly isn't translated.

All in all. Likeable characters, good music, GREAT backgrounds. Only the story can still go either way, but for the moment there is nothing wrong with that.

Temporarily verdict: 8 out of 10.

Kämpfer, never a fighting chance

I knew when I gave that 7,5 as a temporarily verdict that I was trying to use some esper power trying to make this a good series. Unfortunately though the producer had premeditated homicide in mind.

Now I know it's never fair to judge an anime against it's manga counterpart, because depending on what you read or saw first it will influence the opinion you will have of what you read / saw last and usually that influence is not positive. And anime often getting the short end of the stick so the speak as with a manga you often have had more background and the average graphic quality because of it's relative cheapness to produce is often better the the anime counterpart.

Still one would argue that as long as at least they honestly try and do as much justice to the original story as possible then both can basically be equally good ... in their own right. The keys words being "honestly try" as really, there is no way that's the case here. I higly suspect the producer getting all the current volumes of the manga in single sheets, threw them off a 12 story building and based the story on what landed directly before the front entrance ..... and that in the order he picked the sheets from the ground.

I just finished Kämpfer yesterday (last december I had a month in hell thanks to my job so I am even more behind then ever) and let me start by giving you a sincere warning. Make that 2 warnings.

One. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT for any reason watch episode 12. In fact, do not even download it.

Seriously. Don't. It has nothing to do with the story at all and can only be considered as a bad joke for a christmas special in which the entrail animals switch places with their respecitve owner. The producers must have eaten some ill prepared poisonous blowfish and had a collective delerium tremens to come up with this retarded excuse for an episode and that's all the time I'm willing to spend on this.

Two. Like I suspected in my first post about this series there is no conclusion whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Niente. In fact, with my knowledgde of the clusterf*** that is episode 12 everybody's reaction would be to wonder where the rest of the episodes are as you're being marooned in the middle of the story.

On with the final analysis. Oh man, where to begin.
Warning, spoilers, for both anime and manga are to follow

I do have to admit that I'm a little in the dark about how far the manga has gone. There are 15 chapters that have been translated making up 3 complete volumes. The thing is that quite a lot of what makes up the anime isn't in those chapters and I gather that the anime is based on the light novel that was based on the manga. In any case the anime and manga differ almost day and night from each other with the anime coming out on the losing side.

What the manga and anime both have in common is that early in the series Shizuku kidnaps Kaede in order to force the blue Kämpfer to fight her. Shizuku looses the battle though and while Akane is all business and wants to finish Shizuku off, Natsuru prevents it and makes a deal with Shizuku that she'll be spared if she leaves Kaede alone and he also doesn't like the idea of killing Shizuku. It's one of the few moments I actually approve of Natsuru (more on him later).

In the manga we still haven't got a clue as to why Kämpfer should fight however in episode 11 of the anime we learn from the first original entrail animal that Shizuku stole from Kaedes house that they fight as proxies for 2 parties somewhere in the universe that have become locked in eternal combat. The moderators managed to have both parties agree to pick representatives (the Kämpfers) to fight for them. Having learned that I couldn't help noticing a glaring plothole because Shizuku herself told that she defeated enemy Kämpfers so it seems that if a Kämpfer is defeated then another is picked .... in essence one could argue that the eternal struggle continues but on a smaller scale. So much for resolving the issue.

Another difference is that in the anime the childhood friend of Natsuru (Mikito) becomes the 2nd red Kampfer which being childhood friend and all is hardly surprising. What is surprising though is that in the manga a completely other girl becomes the 2nd red Kämpfer and that this one remains hostile and is in the end defeated. Well, Mikoto might end up as red Kämpfer after that, but at the moment in the manga we're back with Shiziku being the only red Kämpfer again. In the manga we also get an answer to what happens to defeated Kämpfer .... they are erased from existance.



Also in episode 11 of the anime we get confirmed that Kaede is either in league with the moderators (possible a moderator herself which is more likely) or is controlled by them. I honestly can't say which, but as I don't want to think to badly about Kaede I opt for the latter. From what I gather it seems she intended to make sure that either the red or the blue team would take the opposing team out after which her white Kämpfer would finish of the remaining team. As it would seem the moderators have their own agenda. However because of the red and blue team refusing to fight that plan went out the window and 'Kaede' now wanted to use the female Natsuru to reinforce her and her white Kämpfer because, hardly surprising, it seems like feelings of love enhance the Kämpfers combat abilities. With 'Kaede's' ability to control Natsuru and force him in his female form Kaede could use Natsuru to enhance her powers and of the white Kämpfer to defeat Shizuku, Akane and Mikoto who need the male Natsuru.

Speaking about Natsuru. Our male protaganist annoys me .... a lot, a whole heck of a lot up to the point that I'm actually to be ashamed to be a guy myself. For someone who suddenly has to fight for his life he is not taken things even remotely serious and only the fact that he is the male lead prevents him from being killed half a dozen times over. Also his, beyond stubborness, going after Kaede makes me want to scream. Hell, in episode 9 Kaede tells his female form in no uncertain terms that she has absolutely no feelings for the male Natsuru and that he basically is apperently to stupid to notice that she isn't interested at all. Any man with a shred of self dignitiy would call it quits after that, but not this guy.



Sigh. As icing on the cake, even after Natsuru learns from the entrail animal Shizuku stole from Kaede that Kaede is either not who she pretends to be or being controlled by the moderators, he still goes over Kaede's place, not being able to belief the broad as daylight evidence. He promptly gets possessed by 'Kaede' and is almost forced to kill off Shizuki, Akane and Mikoto. As usual it's a small thing (in this case a cell phone chain he gave Shizuku on their date) that makes him come to his senses and alltough he still loves Kaede (wtf?) he chooses for the other 3 girls instead as he loves them as well and doesn't want to hurt them.

As for the other lead characters in this anime and I'll skip Mikoto as she has hardly any screen time.

I can't get my head wrapped around Kaede. Is she being controlled by a moderator or not? I have a dual feeling about her that makes me think that some of her actions are outside her normal behaviour. Her freaky hobby of collecting stuff from the animal entrail series is not helping either and while in the beginning I was on her side as her being the cute childhood friend my cheers went quickly to another girl when Kaede became obsessed over the female Natsuru.

After Kaede I turned my attention to Akane, or to be more precise, her Kämpfer personality. While spewing vulgarities like a marine drill instructor in Kämpfer mode she is really, really cute. To bad that her normal looks aren't half as good and what after a while got kind of old was her somewhat odd personality. Mistaking almost anything for an ecchi remark, but never able to follow things through because of her shyness. And while shyness has some merit, sustaining it doesn't score points allthough in truth she finally manages to land a kiss at the end.

If anything, my viewing experience was saved by the chair lady of the school and the first red Kämpfer, Shizuku. God knows why, but after the initial fight between them Shizuku takes an interest in him. I suppose it's refreshing for her to meet a boy that's not returned to a puddle of drool in her company and who is not immediately head over heels with her.



She is devious, underhanded, a tad mean, as she quite regularly gets Natsuru into trouble (one teases the one you love, ne?) but also honest, sweet and caring and, which works in her favor, there is basically no difference between her personality as chairlady and her being a Kämpfer. She is the most honest about her feelings and also does ACT on them.

Alright, time for me to be wrapping this up.

If you have read the manga you can only wonder like I did how people can massacre a potential interesting story. It almost defies belief in how badly this was executed. Even if the manga perhaps wasn't fleshed out enough storywise it could have been so much better if they had actually done something with the basic setup instead of using it just for planting a guy between girls.

Also there a couple of scenes in the anime that are .... lame I guess is the word I'm looking for. Most memorable would be Kaede's stage performance during the beauty contest with her godawful entrail animal story. The other one would be in episode 11 with the red and blue Kämpfer entrail animals singing by way of supporting them during their fight against the white Kämpfer and Kaede. Seriously, I wish I could unsee and unhear those parts as even as I'm typing this now it still makes me want to bang my head on my desk.

As for the characters. Kaede is an engigma to me, Mikito gets way to little screentime and Akane is for almost the entire series stuck in her shy-mode. Natsuro is an indecisive blind idiot who really doesn't deserve to be even on the same planet as Shizuku who is awesome, but not even she can save this trainwreck of a series. Still, if it weren't for her I would have rated this 2 points lower that's how awesome I think she is.

Final verdict 1: 5 out of 10.

The best laid plans / Happy New Year

Sigh, just when I thought up I'd pick up bloging if not just for the sake of 'hearing' myself talk, my work piled up to such heights that I had to put it in overtime for a full month just to be able to finish .... most of it .... in the nick of time. The fact that one of my motto's is "Don't stand if you can sit down, don't sit down if you can lie down." should tell you something about how much I enjoyed that.

Also I honestly have to admit that this blogging is costing me WAAAAAAAaaaaayyyyy more time then I had figured it would. This further compounded by the fact that I'm a grade-A nitpicker so my posts, even as they are, take a considerable amount of time so I haven't nearly posted as much as I had intended. I wish I could say I'll improve on at least the number of postings, but the fact of the matter is that, again, it's going to be very busy at work for me, but at least I'll try and make more of an effort.

Furthermore I think that next to making an introductionary post of a series ..... and if all goes well a final grading post .... I might take a shot of following a series reporting on most, if not each, episode.

Well, enough of my whining and let me wish you a belated, but still meant, happy New Year and may only good things come your way. And just for my own amusement a cutesy xxx-mass ? picture.

Sora no Otoshimono

I was made aware of Sora no Otoshimono after a post on Cartoon Leap Anime Blog that had picked up on this shows rather unique ending. An ending that turns out to belong to the 2nd episode as so far they have a different ending for every episode. After getting some marginal info from Anidb I figured I might like it even though I was a bit dubious, but since it was about an angel 'descending' to earth I figured it had some Oh! My Goddess ring to it and seeing that's one of my favorites I thought I'd give it a shot. Alas, this isn't as good in MY humble opinion ... and that's pretty much the only thing that counts around here.

Our male lead, Sakurai Tomoki, has had a dream since early childhood in which he sees a girl he loves who loves him back but at the end heaven always takes her away leaving him behind, often in tears. The story begins with one of the stereotypical scenes of a childhood girlfriend (Sohara) trying to wake up our male lead and trying to get his attention by pulling away his sheets and finds that he is paying more attention then she bargained for. And for another stereotype we learn that Sohara comes equiped with a karate chop that would instill fear into the hearts of strong men.

The only thing Tomoki wants is peace and quiet, but little does he know that those days are all but over and gone. After a nap at school where he has his dream again, he is woken up, again, by Sohara who is worried as he is crying again. Sohara wants him to visit the hospital, and when he refuses that, go see the upperclassman Eishirou Sugata to which Tomoki objects even more vehemently. Not entirely without good reason as even Sugata's childhood friend (Mikako) describes him as knowledgable, but somewhat creepy, severely perverted, a weirdo and a freak with glasses.



Ofcourse in the end Tomo goes to Sugata and with reasons that come from thin air Sugata makes the assumption that the floating hole and Tomoki's dream are connected. As it just happens *cough* the floating hole will fly over their hometown at midnight so he suggests they all go to a somewhat famous local cherry blossom tree to watch it. Due to various reasons though Tomo ends up sitting alone under the cherry tree and he is about to go home when he receives a call from Sugata warning him something odd is going on. Naturally that warning is just to late and after a fairly good sized blast Tomo finds an unconscious girl in a crater. A girl with wings no less.

With a sharp instinct Tomo correctly assumes this stinks to high heavens (pardon the pun) of trouble and makes for a quick exit of the scene while seemingly some part of heaven is raining down around him. Good guy that he is, and giving us a story in the process, he decides he can't leave the girl lying there and darts back. 10 out of 10 for the gentleman perk, 1 out of 10 for common sense though. Luckily for him the girl regains consiousness and saves him instead before things turn out badly after which the girl bonds with him and introduces herself as being an Pet-class Angelroid, ready to fulfill his every desire.



I'll leave at this. Read on if you don't mind spoilers (or have seen this episode already).

[Spoiler]
Tomoki gets a little on my nerves which is not because of his standard role of somewhat perverted boy, but at times his laughing has all the charm of nails going over chalkboard (something which I find almost impossible to stomach) and because of the superdeformed way he often is portrait. Now SD has it's purposes, but here it seems either done at random or it is supposed to be funny and perhaps I don't get it, but I find it distracting, no annoying and that's not really the way to go. To be honest, others are put in SD-mode in seemingly random fashion as well, but Tomoki more and it grates on my nerves.

Kudos for Tomoki though for (ab)using his new found powers getting some revenge on Sohara for all her karate chops on him. My only question though is: "if you're invisible then why do you need the invisible making ninja blanket (Naruto fans should know what I mean)?"

I have wondered before about the sanity of japanese animators and one of the things Tomoki does when finds there is basically no limit to what he can do, makes me wonder again. Really, if you're basically omnipitent is one the things you do go naked onto the street? Sigh, invisible or not, I doubt very much many people would see the fun in that.

I also need to give credits for the last part of the first episode in which Tomomki is misunderstood by Icarus (the name of our Pet-class Angelroid) and he ends up erasing all of mankind. It reminded me a lot about an episode of the X-files in which Mulder finds a genuine Genie in the bottle (actually a carpet if I recall correctly) and he whishes for worldpeace and the genie, who has somewhat of an evil stride in her, also erases humanity entirely. Luckily for Tomoki things are reversed when Icarus takes the remark that he wishes it was all a dream as a request for a wish.

As for Icarus. She is cute and follows what she thinks are commands/wishes of Tomoki blindly. She seems to be naive, not stupid though, but naive which most likely is because she has very little to no prior experiences. She also does remind me a lot of Chobits with those thing on her head next to her ears. Her cuteness at times is a little diminished as another annoying trait of japanese animators pops up which would be that womens breast should be in size large, extra large and extra extra large. Thankfully they don't take it to extremes here, but I sure wish that the combination of a skimpy outfit and large breast would be given a rest ..... for a couple of decades.

I've read about the manga a little and it seems your general harem anime with more heaven visitor coming down .... not all friendly though and from what I can gather without having actually touched the manga (though I WILL be downloading them) there is some action, some rather serious action actually, to be had. I doubt very much though we'll see much of this in the anime with half of the series having aired already without any real progress in the story at all.

As last thought something that has been puzzling me. Tomoki has been dreaming about a girl, but this girl is NOT Icarus. In fact he has a dream later in episode 1 in which he sees this girl again and she tells him to treasure his angel and never leave her. I'm wondering if, in both the anime as well as the manga, we'll ever get to see her and what part she'll play.

So all in all what we have here is your basic romance harem anime (the harem part still to come sort of). Guy gets an angel(roid) to live with him, childhood girlfriend gets jealous and an male lead, that's oblivious to the the girls feelings. The art is pretty good, but I really don't like the overuse (at least in my eyes it's over use) of the superdeformed style. The male lead has it's good points, but also his bad which in particularly to me detract from the experience. So far, and I have seen up till episode 6, there is also not an inch movement in what you could call a plot which is a pity because the manga does seem to have one. In short, it watchable, but I've seen this done better.

Temporarily verdict: 6,5 out of 10.

Tatakau Shisho The Book of Bantorra

Ugh. If you have read a couple of my pieces you know I'm not that hard to please (my wife might take offense at this remark though).

I don't need great graphics, nor great voice actors. Hell, I can even forego a coherent story, if, and I repeat, IF only they manage to keep me entertained in one small way or another. Unfortunately, or perhaps, looking at the backlog and the number of series from this season alone I'm following already, I should say fortunately, Tatakau Shisho The Book of Bantorra fails in doing so.

I wondered if I would give a synopsis or keep it general and in fact, while I'm typing this I still am unsure which way to go so I'll just start things and see where it ends.

Apparently in this world people that die, have their souls turn into books. If you can call a stone tablet a book that is, but let's not go into semantics as there is plenty more seriously wrong with this anime. These 'books' are being stored in a library which is protected by the Armed Librarians of which Hamyuts Meseta is it's leader, or Acting Director as she is called in the series. Another faction in this world is the Shindeki Church, allthough evil Cult would be a much better description as you'll notice very soon.

Right of the bat this series gets in boatloads of trouble as the creator of this series, mistakenly so, assumes that people have read the light novels this anime is based on, and makes assumptions on how much the casual viewer actually knows already. In the first episode you are almost bombarded with terms as "True men", "Mock men", "Shindeki Church Clergymans book", "Dragon Pneumonia germs", "7 ancient warmachines" and apparently the audience is supposed to know what this all means.

The series begins with the Armed Librarians making an assault on a ship from the Shindeki church in order to investigate and find evidence. Again, no explanation at all what it is that the Armed Librarians are investigating nor what evidence they are supposed to find.

On board of the Shindeki Church vessel there are a great number of so called 'Meats'. Basically a human, but one that has been brainwashed making them believe they are not human, and in this case a lot of them have bombs surgically implanted in them and have been instructed to kill the leader of the Armed Librarians, Hamyuts Meseta.



One of these 'Meats', is basically the male lead and is Colio Tonies. When the attack of the Armed Librarians starts, the higher ups (the True Men) of the Shindeki Church, who were having a meeting, are teleported of the ship and the rest of them get slaughtered by the Armed Librarians.

While the librarians are busy finding the undisclosed evidence and rescueing the 'Meats' a cryptic message ("Vend Ruga is alive in the heart of Olivia Litlet") is found. And I'll be repeating myself here, but again you won't get a single clue as what this is supposed to mean.

Hidden bombs go off which sends the ship and the 'Meats', who aren't at all interested in saving themselves, to the bottom of the ocean. Colio Tonios is also busy with drowing when a fragment of a book lands on him which actives so he sees a part of what's in it. He sees a beautiful girl who gives him a cryptic message. The scene ends with seeing him sink deeper. Much to my surprise though Colio appears in a town somewhat later, apparantly having saved himself which is rather odd as his fellow 'meats' just gave up and let themselves drown. So far consistency I suppose.

We also learn that the Armed Librarians managed to save a piece of a book of one of the leaders of the Shindeki Church, Shiron Byacornise. We learn that 280 years ago a plague (Dragon Pneumonia) hit a dukedom and that Shiron Byacornise was the only one that knew how to make a cure for it. This she did, but not before letting the disease spread so she could make a huge profit by selling the cure. She also possessed a magical sword, Shlamuffen, that was always laughing which she used to kill all that dared to oppose her. And that basically wraps up the important stuff in episode 1 and basically left me with a "wtf did I just watch"-feeling.

To make matters worse at times the conversations are so utterly ridiclous that it almost makes my eyes bleed reading the translation. A perfect example would be that totally pompous and meaningless talk the higher ups of the Shindeki church have during their meeting aboard their ship. Lord almighty spare me. It's at times like this I remember a line from one of my favorite TV series Star Trek, "Others talk much, but say little". The leader of the Armed Librarians doesn't fare much better though with her 'comments' on overhearing the Shindeki meeting with her special ability.

The characters also aren't to be a redeeming feature as to put it bluntly they are for the most part still strangers (even after watching 6 episodes), some shallow, some obnoxious, some completely uninteresting and others plain annoying.

From the group of Armed Librarians we meet in the first episode 1 dies just after 6 minutes and another dies after 9 minutes in the second episode. Not that you really care as you know next to nothing about them. Probably a sentiment that is shared by the leader of the Armed Librarians as she also couldn't care less if one of her subordinates lives or dies, which is made especially clear in episode 2. Besides being very strong and having some kind of super spy ability she has also the power to transform as seen below.



The only interesting ones of the club are Volken and Mirepoc who are a couple even if they don't know (or want to know) it themselves. I think Volken had the best line in all the 6 episodes I watched, when he said that Hamyuts Meseta lacked a heart.



The villains are nothing better. We have a mystery guest who was on board of the ship of which we haven't seen a face. There is an old geezer who is in dire need for some dentist work and then there is Cigal Crekessa, the main villain for the first 4 episodes. Sigh, I doubt if they could have portrait him any more cliche then they did with his uber exalted mannerism.



For those that haven't had enough, or have but still are interested in what I learned watching some more of this series you can read on the spoiler tag as I will disclose some more stuff which I've learned watching up till episode 6.

[Spoiler]I really intended to make a coherent story out of the first 4 episodes, and in fact I had a full page written out already when I realised that the plot is so over the place and events are stringed together by such coincedance that it simply isn't worth my time and effort.

You'll get explained where the Dragon Pneumonia comes from, how the ever-laughing-witch and the Shindeki Church fit in all, well, most of this. At the end of episode 4 Cigal and Colio Tonios are dead with the first actually killed by the second. I have to admit that Colio killing Cigal is a case of poetic justice and I'm all for justice. Also the reason, as I understand it, why he could do what Hamyuts Mesata couldn't is that Schlamuffen wielded by Cigal obeyed, for a better word, the wish of it's former owner and lowered its defense allowing Conio to make the kill.

Episode 4 apparently ends the first 'arc' as now that the Shindeki Church has been dealt a blow with the defeat of Cigal and the loss of Schlamuffen, we suddenly have Volken take off in order to try and save people which he apparently failed to do in the past. This after getting a book from a mysterious person who also has a weapon of the Gods. This person also collects the book of Cigal which we, as far as I can tell, see ending up with the higher ups of the Shindeki Church.

Volken taking off without permission, with a plane and one of the weapons of the Gods are tantamount to treason although the director of the Armed Librarians doesn't seem to get worked up at all over this. In order to complicate things we have Meripoc erasing her memories and feelings for Volken through a magical procedure.

Also we have a new player, who by the looks of it, is equal of an Armed Librarian and one of the lesser characters is being attached by Hamyuts Meseta to that person so I'm kind of guessing we're going again on two seperate paths here.

It's not often that I can't find any redeeming qualities in a series, but this one manages to pull it off. A fair word of warning also that the pretty picture and the synopsis on Anidb are giving this trainwreck of a series way to much credit not to mention that it is partially wrong as Colio does not fall in love with Hamyuts Meseta.

From the getgo you're thrown into a series as if you're supposed to already know everything about it which is okay if you have read the novels, but for newcomers this is immensly annoying. Sure, (partial) explanations are given later on, but it makes for a very disturbed viewing experience if you get terms explained 3 episodes after you first heard them.

There is a fair number of characters, but even after 6 episodes you know hardly anything about them and the fact that 4 characters die in the first 4 episodes doesn't make it easy to develop any attachement to them. A fact that is emphasized by the fact that basically they come over as bland, cliché and downright annoying.

I've seen people lamenting about the CG that's used and do I admit that for the attack on the Shindeki vessel in the first episode the CG looks so terribly off that one almost could wonder if this wasn't orginally made for another series. I haven't seen anything that obvious (and bad) after that though.

I don't give much about openings and endings. Usually I watch them once and after that I skip them. I have to say though that the opening of this series must have been the most bland I've seen in ... forever. Godalmighty help me, but I could have done something better blindfolded.

Another thing that's irking me is that the story doesn't seem to go anywhere or is all over the place ... or both. Cigal has been defeated and the story of Shiron and Colio is finished, but already we're back at 2 tales again with the mystery newcomer and Volkens treason, but for some reason this feels more like sidestories then a continuing plot as the premise of the story, which in my eyes is the conflict between the Armed Librarians and the Shindeki Churchm, is suddenly (seemingly?) abonded.

The final nail in the coffin is that, while I am able to take a fair amount of coincedences and illogical stuff for granted, this series drives it to far. If you take into account the odds that Colio is hit by a fragment of a book while busy drowning, and especially knowing that this book is one of the most important ones the Shindeki church had in it's possession you would logically conclude that the "True Men" that were evacuated of the ship would have taken it along with them. The way Colio manages to 'read' other parts of Shirons book also are way to farfetched for my taste.

Perhaps I'll download the last episode just to see if they have any kind of ending and if there is any development in the situation / relation between Volken and Meripoc, but this series is dropped as of right now.

Final verdict: 3,5 out of 10.

Kobato

Wai-wai. It's magic time.

Honato Kobato has arrived in the human world together with her stuffed toy Ioryogi. Ioryogi isn't your regular stuffed toy ofcourse (after all, this IS a magic series) and he serves as her instructor. A stern instructor I might add who is impatient and prone to losing his temper. In his defense though it has to be said that Kobato, while sweet, lovable and cute, is also extremely naive and not to mention a first class klutz.



The reason that Kobato has come to the human world is because she has a wish she wants granted. In her case she has a place she wants to go to, but we aren't told what place exactly nor the reason she wants to go there. As nothing is for free, in order to get her wish granted she needs to collect broken hearts into a special flask. That special flask has also to be earned though and she can earn it by proving she can blend into the human world and seeing we're talking Kobato here this is not as easy as it sounds (well, if it wasn't we wouldn't be having any fun right ;-)

This first episode is about Kobato earning the flask she needs to collect the broken hearts. Needless to say that on various, no scratch that remark and make it, nearly all occassions Kobato ends, or even starts with screwing up. During one of her mishaps she has a short meet with the male lead in this anime, Kiyokazu Fujimoto. Short of the fact that he seems to be working several part-time jobs we don't learn much in this first episode.



It's obvious that if you make another version of Sakura and Toya that those two will have more interaction with eachother later on and having seen up till episode 3 I can confirm that this is the case. I'll pause a minute to let the reader recover from the shock of this totally unexpected development.

Having seen more then the first episode I also can see where the relation between Kobato and Fujimoto will be headed so the Anidb synopsis is probably right on allthough they give away to much imho so I think that someone read the manga already.

Okay, could somebody please arrange an non-fatal accident for the lead designer at Clamp so they stop doing crossovers for at least a little while? Sakura and Fujimoto are in fact not the only figures you'll find familiar. Having seen up till episode 3 I'll just say that unless I'm way off, I spotted more of Tsubasa Chronicles characters and definitely some Chobits look-a-likes. I know crossovers are popular in certain corners, but if you do it in nearly every show you produce it smells like laziness to me.

It's a bit early to tell for real, but it looks like basically a 'capture a new broken heart every week' kind of show. Short and sweet 1 episode stories with some humor and perhaps a touch of romance here and there. It's not terribly deep, but especially Ioryogi losing it makes me chuckle everytime and I have to say the choice for his voice actor is epic. Graphics wise it's ... generic for the latest clamp series I'd say.

Temporarily verdict: 7,5 out of 10.

Kimini no Todoke

Uwah, this is hard. I can't really give a synopsis without more or less rehashing the entire episode, because of the way they really let things fall into place. I'll leave it at a short introduction and will put the rest in the spoiler tag.

Kuronuma Sawako really wants to make friends. Unfortunately for her she is seen by all as extremely terrifying which has earned her the nickname Sadako (for those that don't know (and I had to google it as well), it's a character from The Ring in which if you watch a certain videotape you'll die 7 days later and Sawako is rumored to have similar powers, albeit less deadly). It's kinda hard to make friends if anyone you talk to goes deadwhite and takes off with a speed that would make an olympic athlete jealous.



Her rolemodel is Kazahaya, a guy who is cheerfull, lively and always the center of attention and one of the few, make that VERY few, people that actually isn't afraid of her. He has been her rolemodel since the day of the high school entrance ceremony when she gave him directions and he reacted normally and wasn't afraid of her and ever since that day she has tried and to be more like him. Obviously, seeing that the series starts at the end of that same schoolyear things haven't exactly (queue award for understatement of the year) improved.

Things are going to take a turn for the better though, but I'll be rehashing the episode if I were to tell you about that so read the spoilers only if you have watched already (or don't mind spoilers).

[Spoiler]I like the intricate setup, or the string of coincedences depending on how you look at it, of this series already. Because Kazehaya happens to overhear a remark from Sawako to Shino (a girl she knows from her previous school and therefore unafraid of Sawako allthough she still calls her Sadako oddly enough) Sawako and Kazehaya end up talking to eachother for real for the first time.

This talk in return leads to Sawako deciding to sign up for the courage event Kazehaya is organising later tonight, but having decided that, it's Sawaka's turn to overhear two classmates (Yano and Yoshida) saying that the courage event would be really good if Sawako would play ghost. Sawako, being bolstered by her earlier talk with Kazehaya, manages to talk to Yano and Yoshida and because of that these two now also start acting normal towards her.

Later that night Sawako is shaving off a couple of years of the life of her classmates with her performance and ends up with Kazehaya as he had to go alone as, because Sawako didn't show up even though she signed up, Kazehaya ended up with no partner. Again Sawako and Kazehaya have a good talk and we now learn that while Sawako may admire Kazehaya, Kazehaya actually likes Sawako. Yano and Yoshida who knew that Sawako was playing ghost also show up to thank Sawako for her job. Because they 'catch' Sawako and Kazehaya together, and being girls, the whole class knows the next day that they spend time together.



The next day Kazehaya is to be 'punished' as he didn't get to the finish of the courage event and his punishment is having to date Sawako for a week. Yano and Yoshida voice their disagreement with this 'punishment' and Kazehaya flatout refuses and calls it insulting towards to Sawako. Sawako afraid of him ruining his status in the class for her sake explains that her meeting with Kazehaya wasn't anything special and she does actually manage to make the entire class feel ashamed about this punishment (having seen episode 2 I can't say their behaviour towards Sawako in general unless Sawako's classmates suffer from early Alzheimer as they seem to have forgotten their lesson already).

Sawako did the right thing, but now she is afraid that her actions will have left her alone again. On her way to school in order to help out with summer classes though she finds Kazehaya waiting on her with an apology on behalf of her class. He also has come to the realisation that Sawako doesn't realise his feelings (even if she thinks she does). The episode ends the scene of the first meeting between Kazehaya and Sawako again, but this time seen through the eyes of Kazehaya and we learn why he has fallen for Sawako. Beautiful and that's all that I will say about this.



Sigh, like I said in my personal info: "I'm a sucker for romance". And for a nice change this romance doesn't need a mass of cute girls, no pantsu, no double E-cups, no childhood friend, no neighboring girl providing wake-up service and name whatever cliché you can think off which usually features in anime romance series. For that alone I'll be giving extra points.

What we have here is a genuine feel good, slice of life romance which is being also rather original if I dare say it. Basically we have a guy that has fallen for a girl, a girl that for once isn't the idol of the school (allthough if people saw her like Kazehaya has that might change) and which because of her social clumsiness really stands apart. A girl, who because of that clumsiness, also hasn't got a clue about how the boy feels and in fact isn't quite in tune with her own feelings as well. It's up to the boy to support her getting confident in herself and hopefully then accept his feelings.

If I had more thumbs I'd put them up, but I think that for this season in the romance department we have a winner.

Oh, forget crisp graphics. I've seen people compare it to Bokura ga Ita and not unjustly so, but the graphics here at a notch above that. The only thing I don't like that to often they go into SD mode for Sawako and I particularly dislike the balloon face they give her often. The OP and ED are not memorable, but I think the music during scenes itself is good enough and I think the voice acting is spot on.

Temporarily verdict: 8,5 out of 10

Nearly forgot. Subs taken from Eclipse Productions.