Yes I’m trying to keep this blog from completely being covered in cobwebs.

Well we all know the Winter season is usually a pretty dead one but there are a few shows I decided to pick up. Only show I’m still watching from the fall season is Sakurasou Pet na Kanojo since it’s slated for 24 episodes. Now for the new stuff:

Cuticle Detective Inaba

Hinano: An anime where the lead protagonist is named after a popular rock band singer, has cat ears (even though he’s a wolf?) and is voiced by Suwabe Junichi? I’m on this boat! The show kinda reminds me of Azazel-san but without all the scat jokes (which is btw a good thing.)

JP: This show is totally hit-or-miss, but I did feel that it attempts enough jokes from enough angles that at least a decent portion of them will stick. And I still don’t have the slightest idea what exactly a “cuticle detective” is supposed to be.

Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru!

Hinano: Well this was one of the shows that I had originally made fun of and then lol’ed when I found out it was being green lit for an anime. I saw 1 episode of no-pan queen and I guess it was kinda funny? If it can be more like Onizen and less like Who is Imouto, then I’ll keep watching.

JP: As expected my little novel can’t be this light and all the girls want to screw me but it’s okay that I don’t want to because I’m a light novel protagonist. We can abbreviate that as “AsSPro”. I am not at all high on this show and have zero expectations for it, and it’s honestly damning it with faint praise for saying “Well at least it wasn’t as horrid as OniAi or NakaImo or whatever”.

AMNESIA

Uguu cage of love

Hinano: I don’t know what people are complaining about the heroine not speaking much. She already speaks 90% more than she ever did in the game! I noticed in the credits one of the images for Kent was from Amnesia Later….are they gonna cover the story from that as well or only the original game? Hmm. Oh well for those who haven’t you can read the reviews of both games on my other blog.

JP: Help, I have a confession. I just realized that I have lots of ~feels~ for ~uguu cages of love~! But that’s bad because it’s ~problematic~ to like that! Help me, tumblr!

Also, as I joked on Twitter:

amnesia is the perfect role for nazuka kaori, since all of her dialogue consists entirely of "eh?", "huh?", and "hmmm"—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) January 08, 2013

Also,

Maouyuu

Hinano: The above GIF is exactly why I didn’t watch this ror.

JP: This show is not remotely as retarded as it looks from all the gifs, but not remotely as smart as it thinks that it is.  I was expecting I dunno, like High School DxD or something or a third rate Queen’s Blade.  Or perhaps a Record of Lodoss War, complete with thunder thighs.  Instead, I’d say that it’s best summed up by how it has a very dodgy understanding of how a Keynesian stimulus is supposed to work: I’ve gotta give it props for at least trying to make a joke about Japanese pacifism (and not one that is just about how we need to finish what we started with those fucking chinks and gooks), but seriously guys you’d be better off with an infrastructure program than a war if you want to help the economy.

Also seriously, with all the different character designs that exist for this franchise they picked those ones?

Da Capo III: Beyond Thunderdome

Hinano: The above GIF is exactly why I didn’t watch this ror.

JP: The above GIF is exactly why I did watch this.  Not because I wanted to watch a titshow, but because I saw plenty of gifs going around similar to this one and thought “Wait, how in the world is this in Da Capo?  That series is supposed to be about Twue Wuv Wif Mai Kawaii Desu Rori Imouto-chan Uguu, not nonstop gigantic tits everywhere.”  But welp, turns out it really was about nonstop gigantic tits everywhere!

Tamako Market

Hinano: I had no idea what to expect from this show because the promo just looked like someone outta K-On with a chicken and mochi everywhere. Turns out it’s like a less crazy Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai. The feeling is the same, you got 2 childhood friends but instead of them flying through different worlds, all the entertainment is done by a chicken parrot whose last name sounds like “Mochi is nasty” . Either way I really enjoyed the first episode and will definitely be watching it for the rest of the season.

JP: I really liked this show too.  I wish I could articulate this better, but the show is a good example of how to do the “cute girls doing cute things” genre without making the show creepy or infantilizing.  I also liked how the show is (uh oh, it’s that phrase!) slice of life while still making the show rooted in time and space in a way that made the events in the episode feel unique enough to be entertaining and interesting.

Kotoura-san

Hinano: Added this in last minute. I’m extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed this show. The character designs made me dismiss it as some pointless slice of life show but when I saw it myself it was a lot more serious than I actually expected. I enjoyed it quite a lot and now I’m curious to see what they will do with the premise. (That & the lead guy is a major イケメン.)

We’re pretty much skipping any other winter shows since they’re not really of interest to either of us (though I think JP watched MANGIRL which isn’t about men or crossdressers but about mangakas.) Hope everyone is enjoying the small offerings the winter season has brought us so far!

“Best” DUDE YOU HAVE TO CHECK OUT THIS AMAZING ‘JAPANIMATION’! IT’S NOT KID’S STUFF LIKE DISNEY CARTOONS!: Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine

Hey guys, do you like sex and killing and killing with sex? Then I’ve got the show for you!

(Stuff in pink is by Hinano).

Best/”best” Engrish: Humanity Has Declined

Kon’ya wa couch potato desu!

Most appropriate/inappropriate Norio Wakamoto role: Dog Days

Best sidekick wingman: Polar Bear

More like BROLAR Bear amirite?

Best/”best”/breast filler episode: That extra Haganai episode

Oh man, an episode about Sena being raped and humilated and forced to admit that she’s a slutty cumdumpster who has no value outside of being something that men can blow a load into! I’m so there!

(But hey, at least in this version she’s only gangraped by weird monsters rather than people. That counts for something, right?)

The Manos: The Hands of Fate Memorial Award for “excellence” in the field of titular redundancy and most unnecessary spinoff: Arcana Famiglia: La Storia della Arcana Famiglia

Guido Famiglia ~La Storia della Guido Famiglia~
GTL Famiglia ~La Storia della GTL Famiglia~
You know what? You’re excluded from dinner, then. You’re excluded from Surf-and-Turf Night. You’re excluded from Ravioli Night. You’re excluded from Chicken-Cutlet Night Famiglia ~La Storia della You know what? You’re excluded from dinner, then. You’re excluded from Surf-and-Turf Night. You’re excluded from Ravioli Night. You’re excluded from Chicken-Cutlet Night Famiglia~

The Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro Memorial Award for “excellence” in the field of cradle robbing: Dusk Maiden of Amnesia

Dude, the guy is like, 12 (and voiced by Tsubasa Yonaga), and she is like, 100 or something.

“Best” manservice: Kuroko’s Ballz

Normally I make fun of all those Gangan series like Pandora Hearts of Kuroshitsuji, but this time we finally get to go back to Shounen Jump. This was pretty much a shoo-in seeing how the manservice in this show was TOO HOT TO HANDLE.

Best/”best”/breast trap and/or reverse trap: Anelotte

No really, for some reason people think that she is a dude, and the line immediately after this screenshot is “Onii-chan has tits?!?!” after her titarmor falls off.

Best implied yaoi scene in a non-yaoi series: Kids on the Slope

It’s pretty obvious that Kaoru and Sentarou love each other far more than they love Ritsuko. I mean, they even run off with each other in the end!

Finest cats: The Pet Girl of Sakurasou

Honorable mention: Acchi Kocchi

Finest…dogs? Shiba Inuko-san

A…dog is fine too?

“Best” conflation of violence and sexuality, best semen eating motiff, and worst English translated Japanese title: Dakara Boku wa, Ecchi ga Dekinai

There is no way that I am calling this show “So, I Can’t Play H”.

(Or as we thought earlier “What was the name of that show from the summer about the guy that can’t use his powers unless he has a boner? ‘OreSex’ or something?”)

The Rosario + Vampire Memorial Award for the “best” anime to watch on Nico Nico: Zero no Tsukaima F

くぎゅうううううううううううううううううううううううううう

Trigger warning: Kugyuuuuuuuu

Most necessary tie-in: Strike Witches MREs

They look pretty nasty, but hey at least you can eat them without needing to wear pants!

Most unnecessary tie-in: Samgyetang

WTF IS THIS FUCKING NIDA TTONGSUL KIMSHIT DOING IN MY MOE ANIME GRRRRRRRRRRR

The Straight Cougar Memorial Award for most ridiculous Sunrise character name: Full Frontal

Sure is convenient having Gundam Unicorn air every year!

Most ridiculous non-Sunrise name: The cast of Zero no Tsukaima

I don’t think people realize just how ridiculous the names are in this show. You think oh, wait’s so absurd about names like “Saito” or “Siesta” without realizing that the characters have full names like “Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière” or “Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst”.

The Angel Cop Memorial Award for “excellence” in the field of being incredibly racist: Total Eclipse

I think my favorite part was when the rape-obsessed, childlike ethnic minorities that were completely incapable of functioning without the strong hand of whitey were eventually put in their place by a literally genetically superior white person (who they had previously tried to rape, natch).

Most controversial anime: Kokoro Connect

First there was the whole “let’s cure PTSD from sexual abuse through a kick to the crotch”. Then there was the disturbingly visceral violence. Then we topped off everything with the hazing and bullying by the cast and staff.

(Honorable mention: Kuroko’s Ballz)

Best seiyuu cameos by eldery grandmas: Kore wa Zombie desu ka

(This is of course only scratching the surface in the realm of elderly seiyuu grandma cameos here.)

FANSERVICE:

Most annoying fanservice trend: NO MOE ALLOWED GUYS

C’mon guys, no matter what you say you are still making a show with character designs by Akira Amano, a character voiced by Kana Hanazawa, and merch like that pictured above. You’re not fooling anyone.

Most surprisingly porny spinoff: that transformation scene in Dog Days

“Best” source material: Sword Art Online 16.5

My favorite thing about this is how fans of the show got so butthurt from people laughing at the existence of 16.5 that they petitioned Baka-Tsuki to remove it from the wiki so that people couldn’t keep citing it as a reason why that series is terrible.

The Strike Witches Memorial Award for the show that uh, “normal” people would have watched if not for the ridiculous fanservice: Mysterious Girlfriend X

I’m being a little generous with my definition of “fanservice” here, but still man that spit was gross enough to make the show completely unwatchable for me.

The Queen’s Blade Memorial Award for excellence in the field of ridiculous boobage, The Buichi Terasawa Memorial Award for “excellence” in the field of accentuated asscheeks, best/”best”/breast fanservice series, and well, every other conceivable award: Queen’s Blade

Oh hey now that Qwaser is gone Queen’s Blade can reclaim all of its titles!

BAD:

The Gundam Seed Destiny Memorial Award for the series that could’ve been best improved if I had written it and chuunibyou-est anime: Sword Art Online

After the first episode of this show, I thought “man, what an irresistible premise (trapped on the internet!)”. My thoughts were racing about everything from how the outside world would cope with this situation to the kinds of social organizations that would arise inside the game. Instead we got nothing more than terrible, dull wish fulfillment about how AW3S0M3 it would be if I were a 1337 h4x0r that can pwn any vidya game and had ~the perfect waifu~ (not one of those fake geek girls grrrrr fucking females) and best of all I get to gloop her and even though she is awesome at video games that never affects anything in a threatening way.

Also:

wife beater – wife beta tester—
eidrag (ヱイドラッグ) (@eidrag) July 27, 2012

Guiltiest pleasure, The IT’S OK IF I’M THE DEVIL Memorial Award for excellence in the field of AWESOMENESS and IT’S OVER 9000-est anime: Symphogear

Normally, I put those latter two awards in the “good” category, but with Symphogear I had to lump them in with the show being a guilty pleasure. The subtle difference here was that with Symphogear, I was frequently laughing at the show as it failed to recognize how un-awesome it was being at times. Stuff like having insert songs start up as characters draw upon their last well of reserve to defeat some bad guy should be awesome, until you notice that the character is designed by that Sergeant Frog guy and it ends up being Yuuki Aoi doing the singing. Or when a hero goes “I CAN AT LEAST DO THIS MUCH!” and sacrifices themselves to stop the bad guys and save everyone, except that the bad guys already killed everyone and the hero already stopped almost all of them the normal way.

Worst OP: Kill Me Baby

Worst ED: Daily Lives of High School Boys

The Ali Project Memorial Award for “excellence” in the field of playing the same fuckin’ song every fuckin’ time: Nana Mizuki

I swear, there are multiple times throughout Symphogear where for a second I thought “Why are they playing Brave Phoenix/Secret Ambition/Eternal Blaze?”

Most surprisingly bad series: Kids on the Slope

Welp, after waiting 6 years for the next Shinichiro Watanabe anime we ended up with a pedestrian adaption of a hackneyed melodrama.

Most surprisingly “bad” series: Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine

It might’ve been “cool” and “stylish”, but between the poor production values, meaningless “symbolism”, NOT KIDS STUFF, and uninteresting lead, we ended up with a mess that never even felt like a Lupin III anime.

Most overrated tl;dr piece of crap light novel adaptation: Hyouka

I AM SO CURIOUS ABOUT THIS MYSTERY ABOUT A DUDE WHO LOCKED HIMSELF IN THE CLASS ROOM CAUSE THE JANITOR DIDN’T REALIZE ALL THE KIDS HADN’T GONE HOME FOR THE DAY.

Biggest sequel dropoff: Moyashimon

While not a trainwreck by any means, somewhere along the line all of the endearing quirkiness went away and we were left with just a bunch of students going about their days at college.

This year’s “ZOMG ANIME IS DYING” award: Girls und Panzer

OMG THERE ARE GIRLS AND THERE ARE TANKS! THIS IS SO DUMB WHY IS THIS AIRING AND NOT COWBOY BEBOP?????

“Worst” shoujo (and worst ending): Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

This series was by no means horrible, and the reason that I put worst in quotes is because I’ve got to give this award to something. The decider here was that nonsense non-ending. I mean c’mon at least make one of those blatant anime-only endings!

Worst visual novel adaptation and QUALITY-est animation: Hiiro no Kakera

lolololololol Deen lolololololol

Worst shounen: Magi

Our favorite aspect of this show is how we realized during the first episode that every female character that showed up was a slave, prostitute, or concubine.

Worst “action”: Horizon

Sorry guys, but you can’t get any decent action going when you only have a few seconds at a time to devote to the scene.

Worst mecha: Total Eclipse

Is your idea of a great mecha show one that contains asinine harem hijinks, absurd racism/sexism, nonsensical political intrigue, horrific QUALITY, and barely any robot action? Then I’ve got the show for you!

Worst OVA and worst fanservice: Maken-ki

C’mon guys, Isshouni Training stopped being funny years ago.

Worst “comedy”: Joshiraku

Oh boy, a running narration of everything going on on-screen and maybe an “edgy” “political” “joke”! I love Japanese “satire”!

Worst anime: Who is “IMOUTO”?

…but seriously though who is IMOUTO?

 I think it’s this one:

GOOD:

Best OP: Shirokuma Cafe – Boku no Invitation

Best OP, blatant joke division: Rinne no Lagrange

Best OP, Tupac division: Suki tte ii na yo

Best ED: Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai – Inside Indentity

Best ED, KUGYUUUUUUUUUUU division: Zero no Tsukaima F

Best Soundtrack (and best English): Kids on the Slope

This was enhanced by how the native speaker in the same scene playing the racist dude was so gawdawful that The Swab’s English immediately afterwards sounded even better by comparison.

Most surprisingly good series (and “best” seiyuu pandering): Shirokuma Cafe

Full disclosure: we dropped this show after 26 episodes since we felt like that was more than enough talking animals for us, but the fact that we got 26 episodes into a show about talking animals in the first place was way more than we ever expected.

Most surprisingly “good” series: AKB0048

I still have no idea whether or not I liked this show (and whether this was for the right or wrong reasons), but if micsabers, cylume claws, and ita-mecha are wrong then I don’t want to be right.

Best Visual Novel Adaptation: Koi to Senkyou to Chocolate

Okay so KoiChoco wasn’t really THAT good but it did convince me to play the original game which was pretty decent (though heavily biased towards the childhood friend which is what the anime ended up following.)

(And besides, what other competition is there?  Amagami?  Arcana Famiglia?)

Best Light Novel Adaptation: Chuunibyou Demo Koi Ga Shitai!

Let’s face it, it makes fun of what being chu2 is like and then having the kiddies grow up and move on…unlike certain light novels *gloop gloop*.

(Shut up, mom! You can’t tell me what to do!)

Best “sequel”: Ano Natsu de Matteru

I will admit that I didn’t particularly care about Onegai Teacher (or as you call it because you are a weeaboo, “Onegai Sensei”) the first time around. Natsumachi (or as everyone knows is the real best abbreviation, “Anotits”) definitely beat my low expectations with it’s great third episode (a textbook romantic comedy!) and wholly satisfying ending.

Best shoujo: Kamisama Hajimemashita

Won’t lie, I was very pleased that I was even able to hand this award out in the first place this year, and got to give it to a series that’s tons of fun and avoids a lot of the negative shoujo concepts like girl on girl crime or abuse that I wish would die out.

Best shounen and best action: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

The instant that I knew that this series was going to be forever awesome was when it introduced a villain named freakin’ TARKUS.

Best mecha: Total Eclipse

Oh wait, I forgot that Gundam Unicorn had another episode this year, so now I can give it this award and Best OVA. That’s fortunate, because Total Eclipse was fuckin’ terrible.

Best josei: Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Most of the time I ended up giving “Best something, if I had a category that I could easily give it an award for” to a josei series anyway, so fuck it, let’s just make it the josei award. Or perhaps, the “sure is nice that there is an anime about adults and stuff for once” award.

Best anime, if the year was 1992 and not 2012: Bodacious Space Pirates

While I did enjoy this series, I mean seriously that name makes it sound like either a futuristic spinoff of California Crisis or a futuristic spinoff of Queen’s Blade.

(Also, I think they meant “Audacious Space Pirates”.)

Best comedy, best scene of chickens killing themselves to Ave Maria, and best anime: Humanity Has Declined

Oh shit, an actual Japanese satire that isn’t just racist jokes about Koreans and is actually you know, funny social commentary!

Fuck that best anime of the year: Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Natsuyuki had a great story about how a woman moves on from her feelings of her deceased husband and was one of the few (only?) anime this year where the female lead wasn’t some loli or big breasted oneesan.

And now, your favorite part of your favorite post of the year:

(This part is retarded and I have nothing to do with it)

Ballsackamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Scrote?)
Black Rock Cooter (Black Cock Shooter?)
Cock Ero Connect
Girls and Pantsu
Joshifakku
Kuso Shinki
Little Butts
Love, Erection, and Cockolate
Medaka Cocks
Moyashitmon
Natsume Poojinchou: Shit
Natsudookie Rendezpoos
Nymphogear (Sapphogear?)
Poopoo no Iu Koto o Kikinasai
Poop On the Third: The Woman Called Poojiko Mine
Psycho-Ass
Robuttics;Notes
Scat tte ii na yo (Skeet tte ii na yo?)
Sword Fart Online
To Love Poo Darkness
Tonari no Kaibutts-kun
Urethra 7

Also, that makes this blog anniversary #7.

It’s been a while since I actually enjoyed more than maybe 2 shows per season but here I am Fall 2012 and I find myself watching 5 series!

And no I’m not watching the 2nd season of this abomination.

Chuunibyou demo Koi Ga Shitai!

This anime is awesome because it makes fun of itself. Most shit recently has been so Garu-Stu (*coughSword Fart online) and this show pretty much says “lol grow up child.” The show is about a guy who acted like Lelouch in middle school but he matured and wants to put all that behind him. Unfortunately he runs into a girl with big thighs and tiny feet who’s brain is still stuck in her childish delusions. I normally ship the main guy with the main girl but I really can’t stand Rikka’s stupidity. I actually prefer that brown haired classmate girl but I know she’s gonna lose ( ；∀；).

Kamisama Hajimemashita

From the producer of Kodomo no Omocha and Fruits Basket this is the ultimate anime for old fags and shoujo fans yeaa! And you can totally feel all the Kodocha/Furuba vibes if you watch this show. The fox dude is also voiced by Tachibana Shinnosuke who is pretty damn good with that dummy head mic in Otome games (;´Д｀)ﾊｧﾊｧ. Romance Comedy & Shoujo at its best!

Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

NUKOS! NUKOS EVERYWHERE. Okay so it’s a bit deeper than say, Nyankoi. It’s about a protagonist who loves cats and to be able to live with his nuko Hikari, he moves into a dorm fulla extremely gifted wackos. On top of that more cats join in so until he finds homes for all of them, he can’t move back to the main dorm. On top of this, the dorm leader asks him to take care of a famous artist who’s a lazy bum that can’t even dress herself. Probably because she’s a famous artist and was rich enough to get butlers and the like to take care of her. Despite drawing beautiful paintings, she suddenly has the urge to draw BL manga so she came to Japan . The relationships between other dorm characters are really interesting too and I’m enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. If you brushed it off thinking it’s a dumb fanservice harem anime, I recommend watching the first 3 episodes.

Sukitte ii na yo

Another shoujo anime but it’s a little more dark than your usual fluffy romance. The guy’s a total douche in the past but he’s fallen for the lone wolf heroine because she kicked him in the face So now he’s become do-M hoihoi for her and he wants to make her his though due to the unstable nature of the heroine she falls for him immediately. Something seems rather fishy to me so I’m dying to see what happens. Seems like the hero, Yamato was a huge manwhore and now his past is catching up to him.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

Well this seems to have caused a brewhaha in the blogosphere because of the word “rape” being used lightly. Meh I’ve already said what I want to say and frankly I’ve seen worse so it doesn’t bother me. We got politicians saying that “rape baby is a gift from god” so I think honestly your anger should be taken that way instead. Otherwise I find the show endearing and it almost feels like the heroine’s trying to tame this rifraf while he grapples with his feelings of friendship vs love. In the meantime the gariben heroine is starting to see that there’s life beyond the textbook. Another shoujo anime I’m enjoying this season.

~~~~~~~~~~

I dropped Little Busters after 2 episodes because Komari’s voice, and the lead male’s voice grated my ears. Yes I know the lead male is Horie Yui but she’s not someone that can do decent male voices sorry Hocchan. K was pretty fucking gay (lawl) and Oniai was just terribad the moment 3 random girls started living in his house with no explanation. Magi was pretty ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ as well and episode 1 was too balls for me to continue (along with the fact that every woman in that show is a slave of some sort.)  I ended up dropping Shirokuma Cafe at ep 26 cause while it was fun at first I guess I just got bored of keeping up with more of the same. Hope everyone else is enjoying the fall season!

OBITO IS TOBI (aka Madara).

Yea so is Kishimoto just taking his plot out of fan theories? I had a funny feeling ever since they revealed that the 4th Hokage was  Naruto’s dad but this pretty much confirms it.

Now all we need is for TenTen to be the  last boss.

(Yes I’m still reading Naruto and rolling my eyes but this just takes the cake.)

nobody cares

Let’s compare Horizon to another backstory-filled franchise. When the first episode of Total Eclipse aired, I mentioned that it was more or less pointless to watch unless one was already well acquainted with the franchise combined with how it it’s not exactly reasonable to expect something as entrenched in its source material as a spinoff of an spinoff of a sequel to a spinoff to a porn game. But even for those without familiarity with the series, the questions that it caused were more regarding filling in background details, like “Why are they using mecha and not airplanes?” rather than “No seriously, what is going on here?” Even the n00biest of n00bs was able to figure out that it was a show about mankind being pushed to the brink of extinction in a war against evil aliens.

Now yes, I do recognize that I’m randomly watching an episode of Horizon without watching the previous 17 episodes. Despite that, I can still make the following critiques about episode 5:

1) Each scene for the first 15 minutes or so of the episode featured a completely different characters from the others, with no apparent connection between scenes. Over the entire episode, only I believe 3 sets of those characters appeared a second time. While I may not be familiar with the characters, their designs are at least striking enough that I can visually differentiate between them.
2) When I attempted to look up information about these characters in a wiki, I realized that many of them were never actually addressed by name at any point in the episode. I found this especially weird since one generally addresses people by name in Japanese rather than using pronouns so I expected to constantly hear people’s names.
3) Many of these scenes consisted purely of characters speaking in series-specific jargon that was arcane to the point where I couldn’t figure out any kind of context for any of it.
4) When not speaking in jargon, the purpose behind the dialogue still managed to be completely incomprehensibe
5) The other scenes were action scenes with at best no buildup whatsoever and at worst resumed in media res

I got even spergier with episode 6 and took notes on each scene.

1) There were 18 scenes in the episode (not counting the cold open, which was a 20 second montage from the previous week), coming in at just under 21 minutes
2) Almost every scene consisted of exactly two characters talking and/or fighting
3) The median scene was only 49 seconds long. 10 were under a minute. One was 6 seconds
4) The fight scenes resumed right in the middle of where we left off from episode 5 (which again, were not exactly ending at natural stopping points), lasted for roughly 30 seconds, the often ended again fairly arbitrarily

In the interest of fairness, I sat down and watched a random episode from season two of Game of Thrones. Now yes, I have read all of the books and watched every episode of the show, but I still felt that I could apply a similar set of critiques to that episode as well.

1) Nearly every character was identified in some way, and of the ones that weren’t they generally were not for a good reason (such as being in disguise)
2) There was next to no jargon
3) Scenes had varied setups
4) There were fewer characters in a 50 minute episode than in the 20 minutes of Horizon 05 (22 vs. 27 by my count)
5) There were 9 scenes in 50 minutes rather than 18 in 20. The 4th scene was just beginning when Game of Thrones was 20 minutes in and the 18th scene of Horizon episode 6 was ending.

That’s a lot of discussions of length (or shortness, depending on the perspective.) The sheer pagelength of the series (9,000 pages and growing) reminds me less of lengthy epics like Wheel of Time (11,000) or A Song of Ice and Fire (4,500) and more of terrible fanfiction like Fallout Equestria, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, or Trial by Tenderness. As long as WoT and ASoI&F are, remember that those having been going on for decades. Horizon has managed that many pages in less than 4 years. Want another size comparison? I found out that I watched the wrong episode when I saw ExecutiveOtaku’s post. One of commenters linked to an introductory guide to the franchise. It was 50,000 words long.

Two of these are terrible fanworks. One of these is a series of published novels:

We sat up that night and discuss ideas on how to develope [sic] a new one. What we came up with was grim. We theorized that when you send an object through time, it does not create a new timeline that overrides the current like we had originally thought.

When the object enters the timestream, time begins to correct itself. Let me use this example: Imagine four balls on the edge of a cliff. Say a direct copy of the ball nearest the cliff is sent to the back of the line of balls and takes the place of the first ball. The formerly first ball becomes the second, the second becomes the third, and the fourth falls off the cliff.

Time works the same way.

■ Flow of History
○ Former Earth Age:People abandoned the Earth, which had a deteriorating environment.
↓
○ People returned from space to the Divine States as Gods.
↓
○ The environment of Earth had over-recovered, becoming unforgiving, and many returns lead to the occurence of problems with the ground.
↓
○ The Harmonic World was created in Differed-Space, and each country decided to move there. However, only the people of the Divine states decided to remain in the Real World.

Why is there always an outcome of such historical events?

History is a series of events which have shaped the world over. Some events are good, while some are bad. While some may be either proud or shamed because of those events, what more people worry about is the outcome. The outcome of the series of events in relation to the group of people they affect is a way that shapes them, and the outcome cannot be explicitly written down in such history,l if not spoon-fed. It has to be analyzed and researched, constantly and constantly. And while some may like the outcome of the history, some just want to correct it. Or try to.

Some of these people who correct outcomes of past events, if they are capable, are called, time-travelers and analysts.

Because more equals better automatically, so go forth and fill up more pages with more completely random crap. I mean seriously, almost Wheel of Time Length in less than a quarter of the time!

PS: If you read this series or hell, any light novel series on Baka-Tsuki, for the love of god get off the internet and read a real book.

Small child exhibiting abject terror at guy on full kyuubey suit—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 28, 2012

So then what did I do? Well, I was more or less dragged along to Otakon so that I could hold spaces in line for the Tetsuya Kakihara events (moar liek Tetsukyaah Kyaahkihara amirite ladies?) I proved successful at this, but just barely. This segues into one of my biggest complaints with the con organization: the fundamental issues with dealing with lines and crowds. Otakon is a pretty big con at 30,000+ attendees. Out of 30,000 people, only 100 can get autographs from a given guest at a given signing. The 100 person limit isn’t the problem; after all it’d be overwhelming to have the guests signing for hours on end. The problem is that there’s really only so much time and space available but not really an optimal way to handle this bottleneck.

I first tried to get in line at 2:00 for a 4:30 signing. The staff told me to come back later since the line at the time was for Hidetaka Tenjin. So I came back at a little bit after 3:00 and was told that they weren’t going to start lining up until 3:30. At this point I just stood there where the line would form. The area started to fill up shortly thereafter and by about 3:20 there was a large cloud of people surrounding the entranceway to the queuing area for autographs. By my count once we lined up, there problem were already 100 people there. Essentially, there was no real way to “pay” for events. There’s no money option like at cons like NYCC, but there is also no real way to pay with time due to the caps on when you can line up.

A similar issue popped up, causing me to miss the The Worst Anime of All Time panel. I started to walk over to there half an hour before it was ready to begin (and when the panel already in that room was ending) when I saw a communique from the Twittersphere informing that it was already at capacity. I did at least get to salve my pain with some schadenfreude when I heard about the people that camped out in a panel that they didn’t care about in order to get into the Avatar panel that was supposed to follow it. I say “supposed” to because apparently the panelists no-showed. Whoopsies! Seriously though, I really hope that in the future they clear rooms when the panels end so that people that are just sitting there to have a place to sit don’t take up spots from people that actually want to see the panel.

But on the plus side organization-wise, the Guidebook app was a godsend. The usual delays and moves that plagued Otakons in the past were really easy to plan around this time when they’re pushed directly to your phone ahead of time.

Oh hey, I just said Avatar didn’t I?

Insane mob made it impossible to count but lets just say that there was a whole lot of oppression going on at the korra photoshoot—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 28, 2012

One of the most common questions that I was asked this weekend was “Why do you keep twittering every time you see a white person cosplaying as Korra?” Well, it’s complicated. The short answer is “lol social justice warriors lol”.

For anyone that doesn’t know, the production of the live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender got a lot of very much justified criticism for the fact that they cast white people in all the main roles. It’s dumb from a verisimilitude sense (why are these Chinese monks all white people?) and from a legit social justice angle (despite being this being perfect vessel to help with the underrepresentation of Asian actors in Hollywood movies, they still use white people.)

My general interpretation of things was that when this genuine activism reached Tumblr, it turned to shit when social justice sallies (not social justice activists!) really took to The Legend of Korra to the point where I’ve found at least three separate blogs on Tumblr dedicated solely to policing and bullying people over how they interact with the show. When I say “social justice sallies”, I mean people that have appropriated social justice concepts like feminism or anti-racism in order to use them in petty, bad faith, and generally harmful ways. In the context of Avatar/Korra, the weapon of choice was to claim that anything that you didn’t like was racist, with the worst offense being anything that made Korra “white”. I put “white” in quotes because that term is completely nebulous. Not in the “race as a social construct” way, but in the “constantly moving the goalposts so I can be right and you can be wrong and btw kill yourself.”

This causes sightings of not-sufficiently-dark Korras to get infinity reblogs in RAEG. So my counts of white versus non-white Korras was my way of chuckling at this inanity, with added jabs at the appropriation of things like trigger warnings or PTSD (and my lack of photos to prevent the cosplayers from potentially getting bullied). The most inane aspect of this is that in general, any non-Japanese person doing anime cosplay is going to be pretended to be someone of another race, and hell many Japanese cosplayers are also going to pretend to be someone of another race. All those white Sailor Moons or Japanese Marios! But for some reason Korra is this unforgivable offense.

Con goal: ask every rei ayanami cosplayer if they are cirno from touhou—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 27, 2012

Next, some non-inane thoughts on the non-inane cosplay that I observed there.

After waiting on lines, looking at cosplay, and vomitting, the final thing that I spent a decent portion of time at Otokon doing was perusing the dealer room.

I spent zero dollars. I really wanted to buy some Muv-Luv Senjutsuki models/figures, but I didn’t see any. Instead, it felt like almost every booth sold the same naked Holo wallscroll, same giant-sword-and-giant-tits High School of the Dead wallscroll (which I feel like I always see in any of those “my otaku room” pictures”), same Cat Planet Cuties wallscroll, same bootleg-looking Vocaloid t-shirts, same Oreimo hump pillow, and same assortment of trading figure packs. I keep wanting for something interesting to catch my eye, but every booth just sells the same stuff that I could’ve bought at any time from CD Japan or YesAsia or whatever if I actually liked those series.

That said, if I ever wanted to start collecting terrible VHS dubs of terrible anime (being totally non-sarcastic here!) I would sooooo raid those few vendors that had those shelves of full of 5 for $10 copies of Baoh and Harmageddon. (But sadly zero copies of the magical negro arc of Marmalade Boy.)

And with that, BARF. Still not over this con flu…

(PS: for the love of God, PLEASE get some new jokes/references/memes in your AMVs/parodies/panels. A lot of the audience wasn’t even born when Evangelion/DBZ/Sailor Moon/Tenchi Muyo/Detective Conan first aired, and soon there will be people that weren’t even born when Zero Wing was a meme.

Actually, scratch that. Please, no more memes in your videos, period.)

Also, don’t lie. You totally answered one of those craigslist personals. And as of this writing, there actually was one w4m missed connection!

(The rest of our pictures are here.)

otakon – m4w – 22

hey im lookigforsome fun doing otakon would love to hook up with a cute girl im young in shape black well groomed have 8 inch cock so let me kno if your interested

Or perhaps you’re in the mood for some degrading trans* fetishism?

Otakon nsa fun! – m4t – 27 (inner harbor)

Every year I see lots of very nice traps at the con and always fantasize about getting head pr being fucked by one.

I’m straight have a girlfriend but would love to do this during the weekend. Maybe meet at one of the restrooms at the con or our hotel?

I’m tall attractive, white, disease and drug free. Send pic and you will her mine!

Hope to hear from you!

Any lolis out there looking to become a statistic?

Otakon Weekend – m4w – 40 (Baltimore)

Going to be in town July 26th thru the 29th for Otakon in downtown Baltimore’s inner harbor. Looking for a hook up with a lady, either locally or someone attending the con. I don’t
hit on anyone at the con cause being 40, I tend to be a bit to old for most of those going. *shrugs* but I know being out of town for a week I’m going to be super horny!

Email for details and interest

Take a number and get in line, gentlemen!

otakon visitors who click this link . . – 48 (inner harbor)

are entitled to receive a free “Welcome to Otakon 2012″ blowjob!

Your blowjob will be delivered directly to your hotel room by a nice looking, dd-free white guy
who will drop to his knees for you.

Please reply to this ad with your stats and location, and delivery of your blowjob will be arranged.

…and if you hadn’t guessed, there are as of this posting exactly zero w4m requests.

Remember clicking on the image will possibly be spoilers so click at your own risk:

Mondo this is all your fault

Anyone not on this chart are perfectly normal characters with pretty standard family relations of their own or their family status is unknown.

I don’t have many friends.

 Terrible title intended. So remember how back in February I made this light novel post which recently made 4chan get their panties in a bunch. They said I’m fulla shit and that I’m just picking on a certain category of crappy light novels. Well ever since that post, MULTIPLE series that I have mentioned have actually been adapted or WILL be adapted into anime. Let’s forget Haganai, OreImo, & Onizen since they were airing/had aired  when I first wrote that post. Let’s take a look at what hadn’t aired when I wrote it shall we?

Who is “IMOUTO”!? (There is a little sister among us)

This is why I can’t have sex.

I love my older brother but as long as we have our love its ok right?

My youth romantic comedy is wrong as expected (no anime site yet)

Oops Omo informed me I missed one!

My girlfriend & childhood friend are too violent.

So anyway if my post wasn’t like some kind of Nostradamus prophecy of anime adaptation I don’t know what is. Personally, I can’t wait till THIS gets green lit for an anime. After all it has some pretty high Amazon reviews. In other news, I actually found BokuH rather entertaining and mostly because I get to hear Shimono Hiro scream out perverted things again instead of voice some angry shota in otome games.

highly amused by how the ANN summer animethread is one half people pretending to know about muv-luv and one half grognards.txt about muv-luv—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 02, 2012

@R042 @quattro_maeda it's kind of hard to go in cold to a show that's spin-off of a sequel of a sequel which is an AU spin-off of a spin-off—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 02, 2012

@quattro_maeda @R042 or, a large part of why i like it is because it's so sperg, which also makes me understand that it's an acquired taste—
parody image of che (@jpmeyer) July 02, 2012

The first episode of Muv-Luv Total Eclipse actually had far less text dumping than I had feared it would have. I was expecting something egregious on the level of the first episode of Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere which exposition going over the end credits in a vain attempt to scratch the surface of the world. Instead, we got a cold open and a short classroom scene which didn’t really tell us much beyond the fact that mankind has been fighting aliens named the BETA for the last thirty years.

You have to understand that Muv-Luv is a series that consists of endless segments like this:

You will be constantly bombarded with mission briefings, xenobiology lectures, armament loadouts, quantum mechanics theories, alternate history lectures, and so on in the game. Huge, huge portions of this stuff isn’t at all necessary in order to tell the story of mankind at the brink of extinction, but it adds tons of worldbuilding (or tons of minutiae, depending on your perspective) and jumping-off points for the enormous number spinoffs, prequels, and sequels set in the universe.

I’d been following the franchise since 2005 (my original blog’s title was after all “a tale of love and courage”), so I’d forgotten huge portions of my own initial response to the series. After reading people’s reactions to Total Eclipse I quickly remembered how important much of that exposition is.

Everything starts going fine for a few minutes until you think “why are they all girls?”. Then a few minutes later, “the capital is in Kyoto?” And the most important of all: “Why are they practically naked?”

At this point, it’s easy to get derailed from enjoying the show and instead end up fixating on all the weird stuff that appears “off”. Rather than focusing one’s attention on the giant robots and the giant breasts, it’s all “you know, why are they using mecha and not combined arms?” all the way down.

In other news, is it just me or is this show’s cast every anime’s cast circa 2005?